Ever Onward Podcast

Empowering Women, Changing Lives: Cherie Hoeger’s Mission with Saalt | Ever Onward - Ep. 56

• Ahlquist. • Season 1 • Episode 56

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Join us for an inspiring conversation with Cherie Hoeger, the visionary Co-Founder and CEO of Saalt, a women-owned B Corp redefining period care with reusable, sustainable products like menstrual cups and period underwear. From her life-changing experience in Venezuela to leading Saalt’s social impact mission, Cherie shares the remarkable journey of building a brand that combines profitability with purpose.


Since its launch in 2018, Saalt has donated over 100,000 reusable period products to underprivileged women and girls in over 50 countries, helping to break the cycle of period poverty. Cherie’s innovative leadership has also placed Saalt in major retailers like Target, proving that ethical, high-performing products can thrive in the mainstream market.


In this episode, we explore:

•The challenges and triumphs of creating a new product category in a competitive industry.

•Saalt’s commitment to donating 1% of revenue toward menstrual health and education initiatives.

•Transformational stories from Nepal and beyond, where Saalt’s products empower women and dismantle taboos around menstruation.

•Cherie’s reflections on balancing entrepreneurship with raising six children, highlighting her belief that they are her greatest success.


We’ll also delve into Cherie’s philanthropic approach to business, the importance of faith and resilience, and the untapped potential for social enterprise to drive systemic change. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, a champion for women’s empowerment, or simply someone looking for inspiration, this episode offers a wealth of insights into the power of combining innovation, compassion, and purpose to create a lasting impact.

Get ready to be moved by Cherie’s journey and motivated to think bigger about the role of business in creating a better world.

Go listen or watch now!

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Speaker 1:

Our guest today on the Everyone Word podcast is Sherry Hoger. Sherry is the co-founder and CEO of Salt, a women-owned B Corp that creates reusable and sustainable period care products that replaces disposable pads and tampons. She is an entrepreneur and philanthropist has been growing and building her company right here in Boise. We have wanted her on for a while to hear this incredible story about her, about entrepreneurship and about how she's changing the world Today. We welcome Sherry Hoger. Sherry, thank you so much for coming on today Of course, happy to be here.

Speaker 1:

This is going to be fun. I've followed you from afar and we've never actually met, so this is fun. We've got a lot of friends in common, but I can't wait to hear your story. We have a lot of business folks that follow this. What an incredible journey. Can you believe it?

Speaker 2:

It's been a wild journey. It's been probably the thing that's stretched me most in my life outside of motherhood. I have six children, and both combined it's a lot of strength.

Speaker 1:

I saw that Five girls and one boy yes and one little son at the caboose. He's two years old and he's really the prince of the family we love it Well with five girls one.

Speaker 1:

Bless your heart. I have three Amazing and one son and so expert in the field. Well, I'd love to hear if you're. I know you tell people all the time and I've looked up a bunch of stuff, but I would love to kind of hear the origin story, if that's okay, and just a little bit more about you. Can we start there?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would love to love to share. So my family comes from Latin heritage, so my mom's from Argentina and my husband was born in Venezuela. So I was speaking to you know his aunt there and she was describing the situation and of course it's a dire political situation there and it's difficult to get anything, any products, on shelves. You know diapers for babies, you know personal care items and so forth, even food. And I asked her what are you doing for your feminine care? And she said I haven't seen a pad or tampon in like five years. Wow, and I was blown away. I had five daughters and I thought what would I do in that situation?

Speaker 1:

So when? When was this? What year was this?

Speaker 2:

Oh goodness, this was like back in 2013 or so.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so did you have a background in health? Tell us, where did you grow up, and tell us about your background in healthcare or whatever.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't, and that's it's. It's actually, I think it's a a pro for young entrepreneurs to realize that they can be in a business like this and they don't have to have certain credentials or backgrounds Right.

Speaker 2:

I don't have an MBA, I don't have a background in health. I just really wanted to jump in and do something. Good, yeah, that's right, I care, right, that's that's really what it is. So I grew up in Utah, I went to BYU and I got an uh, I got a major in English with an editing emphasis and all in technical writing, and really it is so pertinent to this business because technical writing is about taking something that's ambiguous and difficult, like reusable period care, for instance. It's you know, it's behavior change. It requires behavior change, and technical writing is all about taking something like that and making it more accessible to layman audiences, right. And so I really just took those principles and applied it to this business.

Speaker 1:

So it really fit. So you're down there in 2013,.

Speaker 2:

this comes up and and I'm just on this phone call with her, you know, and she's describing this, and I thought what would I do in that situation for my daughters? So I started looking into reusable products and you know, I was a woman in my thirties at the time and had never seen something like a menstrual cup before, or period underwear that absorbed. I didn't know that these existed, and so what? What I really wanted to do was bring these to a mainstream audience. I tried them out myself and I thought these are a cleaner, better experience. They're better for bodies, better for the environment and just simply more comfortable and convenient, which most people don't realize. It's lost on them that it's just a better experience overall. They're more modern products and so I wanted to bring that to that mainstream consumer, and that's when we started designing our first products.

Speaker 1:

That went pretty fast. I'm not letting you get away with this. So you go from idea, which is amazing, and then I know that the part of your motivation and I think I don't know what the latest number is but how many young women have you helped? How many of you shipped off? I mean, like the number I heard on the thing I was watching was like 40,000.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's 100,000. 100,000. Yeah, and actually this year we've actually donated another 30,000. So we're going to be hitting $130,000.

Speaker 1:

So $130,000 have been donated to places that desperately need this. So you go from this great idea, now you've got to design, now you've got to get it out there. That is a quick jump. It can't be that easy. You've got to walk us through this because there's a lot of people that have great ideas and they stop at hey, that would be a great idea. You didn't stop, you went forward and talked through it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean I have to shout out to my husband because he's really a visionary and he, you know, supported the idea, you know, full-fledged. But I first introduced it to him and said, hey, what if we made a menstrual cup? We'd actually done real estate beforehand. So we flipped homes here in the Valley, we'd flip like 150 homes in the Valley during the downturn and things you know started shifting. We said, okay, what else is out there?

Speaker 1:

Because entrepreneurs do that Super entrepreneurial.

Speaker 2:

Very entrepreneurial. My husband and I have been our whole lives, so we've done e-commerce together and we did real estate together. I had my license and then we're kind of looking for the next thing and I said there's this menstrual product that I love. Um, I think that there's a real opportunity here. And he's like oh what, what a menstrual cup. What are we doing here?

Speaker 1:

Um, but I told you when you got here today that, um, having a medical background, I am as comfortable about talking about anything as any, especially an ER doc. I like the ER is kind of where it's just raw. I mean, we see it all, we talk about it all. But for some people I can just imagine the first time you bring up a menstrual cup to him. He's like what'd you say?

Speaker 2:

Exactly Now. Every time I pitch or I share my story with you know, rooms full of attorneys and doctors and so forth, I see the same thing in the body language. I say, well, we sell sustainable, reusable menstrual care products. And you know they physically shift backwards. And then I talk about how meaningful it is because everybody has, you know, women and girls in their lives, right Daughters, you know, spouses, mothers and so forth. It affects so much and really solving women's issues and helping to influence and progress women in general across the world adds to the GDP of nations, right, if you're able to keep them educated and progressing in their economic stability. And so, as I start talking about that, they start to lean in and you see the body language change and they realize, oh, this has an area with so much stigma and really we should be talking about it. It's a very natural thing for 50% of the population. You know, why don't we talk about it more, right?

Speaker 1:

As you're talking about it. That's exactly what I was thinking. It's like this is not a rare occurrence, right? This is 50% of the population. It's, it's and um, anyway, talk about so then. Then you're like idea, okay, this is a great idea. Yeah, you, he's like okay, let me go Google menstrual cup.

Speaker 2:

And he probably did.

Speaker 1:

And then, and then, and then. What's next step for you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's really. It's creating the product. So I should say I had that conversation, you know, early on with my aunt, but it wasn't until several years later, after using the product, that we really started having these discussions. So we launched in 2018, took about two years of work, you know, putting the product together, writing 13 pages of website copy, instruction manuals I mean all those things that go along with designing. But we hired someone to freelance a 3D CAD model of this menstrual cup and what we wanted. It took 14 different design iterations.

Speaker 2:

And then you know, as an entrepreneur, you're taking financial risk for the first time. So just have our 401ks, right, retirement savings we say, okay, to build a model for this liquid silicone, you know, injection product you have to have a mold and each mold costs $25,000. So $50,000, you know, just to be able to have two molds for two different sizes, you know, and it takes that. Then you have your branding fees, all of those those things right. So you take those risks. But we just really felt that this product was somewhat revolutionary and it was the right time for disruption in a kind of tired market that has just been saturated for literally 100 years with just disposable pads and tampons.

Speaker 1:

No pun intended.

Speaker 2:

No pun intended, I know I like to tease. We put a man on the moon before we got the pad with wings in the 1980s, you know. So, really, when there's an area, as an entrepreneur you look at an area that's just primed for disruption, and this is one of them. Right, you have high stigmas in the category and high stigmas around reusable products. You know people would say, oh, aren't those just for hippies, isn't that kind of gross? And you're like, oh, aren't those just for hippies, isn't that kind of gross?

Speaker 1:

And you're like, no, this is actually a cleaner product, and so you see an opportunity to tell a better story. Huge, addressable market, though right? Yes, exactly, the market's huge Because it was medical. Were there early barriers to approvals? Or I don't even know the answer to this question, but is it considered a medical device for use or not?

Speaker 2:

It is. Yeah, so it's FDA regulated. So we had to make sure that we were FDA compliant so we didn't have to go through all the approval process because a model existed already in the market. It was actually invented in the 1930s by an American actress the initial menstrual cup and the tampon was invented in 1931, but just, you know that made so much more headway as a disposable product. So that says something about consumerism and we're all team reusable over here. We're very sustainably minded and so we believe that's the way of the future.

Speaker 2:

But, yeah, so we had to make sure and, you know, cross all of our T's and not our I's and make sure that it was high quality. Was that process pretty easy? No, I mean, we were finding a facility that was ISO certified, you know that was able to, you know, fit the FDA requirements. We have a full quality system that we have. So that does provide a barrier to entry for people who are looking to enter this market. And our period underwear is actually regulated as well because it's a pad replacement. So that GUSA technology is something that we have to report onto the FDA, and all of this happened in Boise.

Speaker 2:

Yes, all in Boise. I love Boise, isn't it such a great place to do business?

Speaker 1:

It's an amazing place to do business and so many great just business-minded entrepreneurs here and there's so many just doing what I do, doing this podcast. Like you hear these stories and you're like this is so cool and it happened right from here. So you start up kind of family business, doing it yourself, grinding, you know candle at both ends.

Speaker 2:

I mean especially as a mom right my husband, we both are in the business. He's also co-founder president. He's more behind the scenes, right, but he deserves just as much credit. But we really do it together and it's been phenomenal. It's been great for our marriage, for our growth.

Speaker 1:

Not everybody can work together with their spouses. I've learned, but for us it's been wonderful. I've always worked with him. That's great. And then what about your kids? Are they involved? What do they think of this idea and kind of the startup, and how's the experience been for them?

Speaker 2:

I think it's been phenomenal. I think that there's a lot of mom guilt out there for, you know, for the females who are listening to this, you know, and those that may have children. Oftentimes, if you're working or you're career oriented, then there's a lot of guilt Okay, am I providing enough for my children? But you really need to be able to model what being a successful and contributing member of society can look like while also being a mom and I was mostly an at-home mom for a long time and worked freelance, and now I'm more public-facing and work a lot more in office and so forth. And it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive is the message that I want to say you can be a phenomenal mother and also raise family and you're really setting that example. Especially for my daughters. I want them to also be able to advance their careers while enjoying motherhood. So I'm providing that example for them and it requires some creative solutions right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, super powerful, though. I love, I love that answer. Um, how how long did you go before you started hiring employees, and was it pretty early on, or was it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we started. Our first employee, I think, was a year year in and she was also a mother and she was bringing her children with her to the office, and so was I, and so when I talked about Creative Solutions, we instilled an in-office preschool that was free for our employees right off the bat, and we did so to really provide solutions for what we needed, but then also those mothers on our team, and so we continue that to this day and we have like 10 children there at all times. We have about 40 people on our team and it's been so great for our team member retention and for also providing opportunities, because that burden of childcare can disproportionately affect women who want to work in the workplace, and it's often kind of a wash as far as how much they can earn versus how much they pay in childcare. So it's been phenomenal.

Speaker 1:

From a recruitment and retention. It's got to be key, right. I mean that's awesome it has. Okay, so let's, this is good. This is awesome to hear this story Go back to. So you're up and running. Talk a little bit about the technology and the reception and how hard it was to get. I know you've got these products everywhere now. I mean, I think what I was watching Target was kind of the first one you wanted to go after.

Speaker 2:

That's right. Yeah, that's really what catapulted us as a business is we were able to launch in all Target stores nationwide in 2019. So just a year after our launch, which is it sounds lucky. It was very deliberate and it was luck as well, right, but we developed a brand. So, going to the technology and brand and so forth, we knew that this product existed in the marketplace. So there were unique things that we did in the technology to make it high performing and the best in the market. So subtle design differences.

Speaker 2:

But really, when you're talking about a product that's going in such an intimate area, you have to have really high brand quality, right? Right? So we're a certified B Corp. We do everything ethical, you know everything's sustainably made. We have very good CSR practices and we make sure and put that at the forefront and we, you know, are measured by B Lab. So you have to have at least 80 points. We scored 93. So you have to have at least 80 points. We scored 93. We've since improved that by 17 points, right? So all of those things help with our brand efficacy and so when people, for instance, we're the best-selling cup on Amazon and Target Storage and we have been since our launches there and that really proves out there the brand. So we made it beautiful, we made it something that was good for your body and environment.

Speaker 1:

Do you like the branding side of it?

Speaker 2:

I do. I'm mostly in marketing, so we have people who touch different areas. My husband actually works a lot more with engineering and product development. I provide a lot of feedback and wear testing, but he's really in the details and I'm always in the marketing side.

Speaker 1:

Talk about the name.

Speaker 2:

So SALT, the reason we called it that. You know, people always ask us oh, is that an acronym? It doesn't stand for anything. We just wanted a word that would invoke this return to the natural. So SALT is an essential element in the landscape and in our bodies, just as the menstrual cycle is to human life. Right, and I always tell journalists I say the menstrual cycle perpetuates the human race. This deserves some kudos, not censorship, right? Why are there so many stigmas around that? So we really wanted to elevate menstrual care and put it on the same shelves, as you know, clean personal care products and clean cleaning care and beauty care products, because it just needed to hit feminine care as well, and so elevate it to the same level and make it look beautiful.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, this is more than a product. This is like changing people's approach and mind and stigmas for long, long times and it's a big lift, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is a big lift and we you know but it's worth it and it's something that we love to do. I love branding, we love our impact mission, which we haven't spoken too much, so maybe we can touch on that some.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

But we're really trying to solve period poverty worldwide. We're a very small company, so we're just putting a dent in there. But just to kind of paint that picture, when I first had that phone call with my aunt in Venezuela, she described not being able to access menstrual care products. This is actually 62% of the world, so there's 800 people with a period in the world. 500 million, 800 million to 500 million live in period poverty.

Speaker 2:

And so what do they do, right, if they have this fear of leaking out? Well, you know, for the females who are listening to this podcast right now, if you started your period and had no period care, nothing to manage it, would you go to school, would you go to work? You know, would I feel comfortable doing this podcast right now if I didn't have anything right? And so what happens is that girls start to drop out of school. You start to see dropout rates skyrocket. Women start missing work and they fall behind and this happens so often and they start using rudimentary methods like banana leaves or bits of mattress, pads or paper torn from school books to manage their periods because they don't have access to the disposable products that we have right. And so you know, you see statistics where, in Uganda, you've got 91% of girls who are enrolled in primary school and then, by secondary school, it drops to 21%. And you have to ask yourself, okay, what happened during that time, right? Well, it's periods. That's what happened. Puberty happened, right, and so when we saw a product that was this big, we said something. You know, this big can literally keep girls in school, keep women working and break cycles of poverty for generations. Like this is something we have to get out there and stand behind. So it's really core to who we are. We work with impact partners around the world to donate our products and, to you know, solve other menstruation barriers as much as we can.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's one powerful statistics. And then I'm sitting here thinking you know, you're starting in 18, 19,. We're only 24. And early on this mission side goes. But you also got to be profitable and you got to make money. The best part of making money is giving back and doing things like this. How has that been to balance the humanitarian side versus just the business side?

Speaker 2:

It is always difficult to balance, but it's something that's really core to who we are and something we push forward. So I remember when we were first trying to get our SBA loan, they said what is this impact commitment that you have? Right, we give 1% of our annual revenue back to three major pillars, which is donating our products, keeping girls in school through educational scholarships, and then environmental sustainability efforts. And they said, well, do we have to have that? We said this is who we are. This is what we're coming forward with to our consumers. And really I look at the Gen Z consumers and they're looking for this from all their businesses that they support.

Speaker 2:

They no longer want to support big conglomerates that are just in it for profits. They want to align with brands that stand with their values and are doing more. And we hear it every time from employees who come to work for us. They said I went to the B Corp website. I was looking for a B Corp deliberately. I want to do something meaningful. I don't want to just, you know, make profits. And so, yes, it was harder to balance, but, you know, eventually people are bought into that mission, they see the meaning behind it, and so we've kept it strong, so I'm proud of that.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. You mentioned it, so I want to go there. Talk about just generationally, because you've now become the expert on this. How have generations changed? And you've mentioned Gen Z and you've talked a little bit about it. But talk about, just as you've interacted with women from different generations, what you've learned and what you can share.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'll say that our products take behavior change all around right. There's something new for reusable products. But once people try them, life-changing is the number one phrase that we hear, and usually that's followed by I wish I would have found this product sooner. So I found the products as a woman in my thirties. I'm now in my forties, but absolutely love them. My girls, my teenage girls, have used them from the start. I'll have to say one big win cause you asked about.

Speaker 2:

You know how it's worked with my family, but they've all taken part into developing our teen products, like our beautiful teen underwear. We have a teen cup. So we're really trying to provide solutions for girls right from the start to be able to use reusable, sustainable solutions. And I remember one experience with my daughter where she said you know, mom, I just started my period. I'm going to try a tampon first. I know that you own a menstrual cup company, but I to at least try it. And I said that's okay, go ahead. And she didn't tell me her experience until afterwards. But she tried the tampon and then tried a cup afterwards the same week and she came to me. She said I don't know why anybody uses tampons. Cups are so much more comfortable and I just thought okay, I've made it my own daughter, you know, said that that our products work, so that that's a huge win.

Speaker 2:

So I have seen a lot more openness to this behavior change and to trying something new from Gen Zers. You know the millennials are also our core consumer, because really there's kind of a three-in-one consumer in my age. I'm using them for myself, I'm buying them for my teenage daughters and then my aging parents, and this is an area that's another stigmatized area people don't talk about. But it's bladder leaks, right, especially for the elderly, you know, for those that postmenopausal you have weaker pelvic floors and so a lot of women experience bladder leaks, and men too, and that's something that people always tell us. They said do you make underwear for men as well? They also need this for later in life often. But it's kind of the boomer generation that's just kind of turned off. They're like no, I don't know if this will work. My own mom told me that she's from Argentina. She's like I don't know if anyone's going to use these products and I'm like well, thousands of customer reviews say otherwise.

Speaker 1:

That is funny. It's funny. I told you when you came in medical school we're sitting in his house and you know, when you're in medical school, you're talking about menstrual periods, right, it's like it's just something to talk about. And he got up and ran out of the room and I looked at my wife and I'm like, what is that about? He's like, oh, he doesn't talk about that. We never, ever, bring this up. And uh, it's. It's been an ongoing joke for years with him because he's so like he just we don't talk about that.

Speaker 1:

I'm like oh, buddy you had a couple daughters and it's part of everything that happens here. You ought to get comfortable talking about it, but it is our generational thing, right?

Speaker 2:

It is. We still see it sometimes, and I still see it with women as well. It's not just men, you know. They're like, they'll come to me and they'll be like, hey, I need to buy some of those products for my daughter. You know what I'm saying. You don't have to whisper period to me, but you know, it's a little bit of that.

Speaker 2:

We're taught to be ashamed of the period and we're really trying to change that and elevate the conversations by having straightforward conversations. So we don't do it in a brash way like some brands do. We really try to take the approach that. You know. The menstrual cycles are beautifully powerful, like I said, perpetuate the human race right and it is so core to who we are as women and our hormonal cycles and how we function and so forth.

Speaker 2:

It's, it's a sign of vitality and health to have a period right and so we really we try to instigate that and encourage people to have conversations and open conversations, because really it's the people who are menstruating are the ones who are setting the tone for the conversation. So if I go to you or if I go to a colleague and I'm, you know, hush-hush about it, then they're going to react the same way. But if I'm straightforward, that's giving an invitation right to the person I'm talking to to be able to just speak to openly, patient, right to the person I'm talking to, to be able to just speak to openly. So I've met so many people so I can I can attest that there's a lot of progress that's been made because men will come and talk to me very excitedly about our business all the time, and so I love that, because we really need to bring the men along in the conversation for the progress to happen.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I think what you said I'm thinking here about you know the new generation and, like with your daughters, being open to it and starting there and realizing how much more comfortable and how everything else I mean, that's probably where it starts. Let me ask you a couple of questions. Have you been able to so 130,000, have you been able to visit some of these places and tell us a little bit about the impact you're seeing worldwide?

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, that's my favorite thing. So early on. We went to Nepal, so I'll tell you about that trip. But we have some of our most excited users and most prolific users are in this rural town. It's called Dong, in Nepal, and it's like going back 100 years. They all have a water buffalo. They live in mud huts, there's no refrigeration, there's no running water and you know, menstrual care is a big problem there if they're working out on the fields and they have nothing to care for themselves. And there's also a lot of rituals where women are actually assigned to these huts called chapati huts, where they have to spend their whole period week in these little mud huts, oftentimes like holding their children and still caring for their children there, and sometimes they die of exposure and snake bites. So it's a major problem.

Speaker 2:

So when we came in and were able to teach about cups, we taught the staff members first. So there's no white saviorism there. So we make sure to teach the on-the-ground staff and they're doing the primary educating. But this time I was there to educate as well. I had my oldest daughters with me and you get the same experience most people have, where at first they're just like what is this what does this American tell us about this cup? And so I actually sent my 8-year-old daughter and she went and just started showing them some cup bowls like this is how it's used, and so forth, and that immediately brought their barriers down and since then we have a 95% adoption rate of our cups there and they use our underwear as well and just absolutely love some products and they're able to work throughout the day, they're able to ride their bicycle without any problems and the stories that we hear are just heartwarming.

Speaker 2:

so, and we do a lot of work in africa, we do in asian nations, we do micronesia, so we really try to hit the areas with the most need. But, surprisingly, we also do a lot of work in the us and and donate a lot of products. So two in five people who menstruate in the US, and even here in Idaho, struggle to afford period products, and so we try to solve that need as much as we can. I'll also add, because it is you know, as governor, you understand all the policies that are brought up, but in 2023, there was a bill that was introduced to try to provide free period care to schools, and I think that you know I'm supportive of that. I do think that, just like toilet paper, that period care products could be provided for free so that people have more access. But really, I think that the real solve is in reusable products. If there was investment reusable products these last 10 years right, if you're able to think about these.

Speaker 1:

I was going to ask you a financial impact because you probably have done those studies. I was going to ask you a financial impact because you probably have done those studies. What are like the easy stats that roll off your tongue on, like money saved per person, per whatever? You probably have all that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so a cup costs only $30, so $29 for a cup, and so that saves thousands of dollars over its 10-year use. And then 3,000 pads and tampons from landfills. And you know the average menstrual cycle is 40 years and we've actually stress tested our cups and they can last up to 40. We say 10 in our marketing because that's already long enough, but really it's such a viable product, being 100% medical grade silicone, it's biocompatible and so forth, but it lasts basically that whole reproductive lifespan for those you donate to overseas, and that saves about 11,000 period care products. So huge financial savings, you know, huge environmental savings. It's just incredible. And then the underwear also lasts several years, depending on how much you. We can't give a definite number because it really depends on what you use it for and how often. Some of our users wear it every day because really women live with wetness every day, and so they try it for their periods and say, oh, this is kind of my go-to for daily use.

Speaker 1:

Now I use it for sweat, for workouts, for everything. So, wow, I'm just, I'm just. If you go back to the first idea you had, did you have any idea of the impact you could be making in people's? I mean, it's, I'm trying to, it's significant, like the day-to-day activity, the financial impact, the wellness impact of individuals around the world. It's going to blow you away a little bit.

Speaker 2:

It does. We have an internal Slack channel called our Great Reviews channel, and every week we just have these life-changing stories from women who say I couldn't even leave because I bled so heavily and I would just bleed through my pads, my tampons, and now I can wear a cup because these hold three times more three to four times more than tampons or discs, hold four to six times more. You know, we have underwear that holds up to six pads worth of flow, so it can, you know, handle the heavy flows and all the light flows. And they'll say I'm able to leave now, I'm able to leave my house and I'm able to function in daily life. So I like to say that I'm really selling freedom for women.

Speaker 2:

And, just like you said, when I look back and you say, sometimes it's unbelievable I'm sure you've experienced this as an entrepreneur too is you create an idea but then it kind of starts to morph with the team members that you bring in, with the outside influences, and sometimes you do have this experience where you look back and you say, wow, I know I created this, that this is my product, but it lives outside of me now. Now it's this beautiful thing that's created, that's a part of the entire community. So I see that with the Boise community, I see all the support that we've gotten from just supporters, investors and so forth, and I love saying that we're a Boise company. People expect us to be on the coast California or New York. We do have, you know, designers in New York but they think, oh, boise is food. You know real estate, and so it's amazing to have an apparel product and something like this that's on national shelves here in Boise.

Speaker 1:

How has the manufacturing been that side of the world? Just learning how and where and how to, how to, how to source it and make it happen.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, that's. That's a big can of worms. Well, we manufacture here in the U? S for our cups. Um, it's all us sourced.

Speaker 2:

We manufacture our underwear in Sri Lanka, so we've gone to visit a few times and taught about our products. They're amazing factory that you know manufacturers for a Lululemon and Nike and area Victoria secret, like all the big brands, and so we're very small for them, but just highly ethical practices, really good sustainable practices. I think they're the first LEED-certified manufacturer there. So really trying to find manufacturers that meet our standards. So we like to pair that and meet them and have a great relationship with them. But they're also two very different products. So some of the companies in our industry do either underwear or they'll do these hard goods products, and we decided to do both because really a period regimen requires both a tampon and pad replacement. People use them in tandem. So we really wanted to have both of those products, but totally different with apparel and these hard goods. So, yeah, so there's always those manufacturing challenges, but you just plow through as an entrepreneur, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Figure it out, Yep Packaging presentation, manufacturing challenges, but you just plow through as an entrepreneur, right? Yeah, Figure it out, Yep Um packaging presentation. You hit a little bit on it, but but I think that was that's really important, right? Um is to perception of people that are going to purchase the product. And, and is that all in-house too? You said you like it. Has that been you and your team?

Speaker 2:

We we have a great um designer that we've partnered with since the very beginning. They're out of Glasgow, scotland and they're just phenomenal.

Speaker 2:

We love them. But we do do a lot of the design in-house and a lot of the updates and so forth. But really the vision from the get-go was okay, we want to take a stigmatized product and elevate it. We have to do that through branding, through voice, through imagery and through how we present ourselves, and so it needs to look the same way and we want it to be target worthy. We want it to be target worthy. We want it to be worthy of target shelves. That was our initial dream retailer, so it was amazing to be able to get that early on and since then that opened the doors for us to get into Walgreens and to CVS and to Whole Foods and to REI, and we have two more retailers I'm so excited about in 25 that hopefully we'll be able to announce soon. But really we're trying to get that footprint into all the mainstream mass retail shelves where people are looking for their period care right now all the mainstream mass retail shelves where people are looking for their period care right now.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome. That's awesome. What?

Speaker 2:

what uh?

Speaker 1:

what would have been the lessons learned?

Speaker 2:

personally, gosh, so many lessons learned. I'll say there's a great um quote by Mark Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, and he says you know, entrepreneurs really only experience two emotions extreme euphoria or utter terror. And I find that a lack of sleep enhances them both. I'm sure you've experienced that too, right. Sometimes you're like, oh man, we're just going to shoot for the moon. This is amazing. And then you have your down days.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes it's in the same day.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my gosh, Exactly right. So there's a big roller coaster. So you really do have to learn to kind of manage those ups and downs and look at things, you know, from a third party view and manage that stress level. Like, entrepreneurship is not for everyone, it can be high stress and it's a lot of hustle and work. So I mean there's late nights and I'll just be honest, right, it's a tough road but it's also extremely rewarding to be able to create something and to create a movement. So that's one of my lessons learned. And then, you know, just finding balance in life to be able to, you know, manage six kids and a business, you have to cut off anything that's unnecessary. And I'm also, you know, highly highly religion or religious. I'm a Christian and so I I have a very grounded perspective, you know, with my connection to the divine, and I rely on that a lot to be able to just get through day to day.

Speaker 1:

It's amazing how old are your kids, how, what's your range as a kids?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, my oldest is 16 and then my youngest is two. Oh my gosh, I'm in the thick of it, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you are in the thick of it and, uh, that's six kids. So my daughter has three now and we live right by her and I just think, oh my goodness, how on earth does anyone ever do this? She just had her third, so it's a big deal being a mom and figuring this out. We've had, we've had a few great women entrepreneurs on this, and every time I hear the stories I'm just like it's just something that you deal with.

Speaker 1:

That, unfortunately, it's a very unequal um that's not, I'm just going to say burden. It's not, I'm just gonna say burden. It's not a burden for kids yes, exactly but, but it's a, it's a problem that needs to be solved, because you're you're the, you're the mother and you're figuring it out. What do you?

Speaker 2:

what a what a great thing and you kind of have to just like a business, right? They're your babies, you can't abandon them you you have to give them your all their.

Speaker 2:

Their survival is dependent on you, and that's the same for a business. So I think that I think that in the traditional structure you know, where you know men were more providers. They always experience that with, with business and so forth. So I think we experience it in different ways and you know that's why the companionship makes makes a lot of sense. But it's been great also to be able to kind of blur those lines with my husband and to be able to have more equalized responsibilities in business and family, because then he's also able to participate more in the family. So it's it's been nice to explore those solutions and it takes time, but it's worked for us.

Speaker 1:

Wow. So what's next? What's next for the business and um, I mean when you lay, when you lay in bed at night and think about where you're headed.

Speaker 2:

My goodness, so much, um, really. So we have a lot of new products that we're always coming out with, you know, new styles and so forth. We want to do swimwear eventually and then we always want to expand our footprint. So different retailers, which we're excited about. I love pitching. I've been able to fly to Bentonville to Walmart headquarters in Seattle to go, you know, speak to Costco, and I've been to, you know, speak to CVS in Texas. It's been really amazing to be able to go, develop relationships with different buyers and so forth and see them aligning with goals for women's progress and women's health and trying to provide better products. So that's part of it, I think. Really, where my head is at is just my philanthropic mission. I really want to solve the problems that women experience most and, aside from menstrual health, a lot of it is tied to water access.

Speaker 2:

Access to water Because women are often the ones who are caring for the children, you know, cooking, retrieving water. So they just touch that need for water every day and if they don't have access, they're walking many, many kilometers to be able to go get them or be able to go retrieve water that they need for their daily uses. So, for instance, along with our product donations and also educational scholarships. One thing we've dabbled in and want to continue on forward is Washington Initiative. So that's water, sanitation and hygiene. And so we've built four latrines in rural Uganda because we learned that the girls that we donated cups to there were out in the tall grass to change their cups because they had no access to a private bathroom, and so, you know, we used our funds to be able to build those. So now they have private access. It has an adjacent water source.

Speaker 2:

And then another thing we did recently, last year, was we built a borehole in Nigeria, and I mean as a business person $2,500, that is all that it costs to provide 6,000 gallons of water a day for this community when there's 29 million children out of, you know, access to water in Nigeria every day. And so to be able to do something and it's just beautiful to see the pictures. It has our SALT logo on it and it has this big water tank and then people can go access it at the Spigots. It services at least 150 people a day and we have a volunteer there and he says people, people just come by and the first thing they say just god bless you, god bless salt for bringing us this water, because they were literally having to walk five communities away and pay for water every single day to just have what we, you know, have as a modern convenience. So really I just think, what else can we do? As we grow, we can scale our impact and do more isn't this country great?

Speaker 2:

it yes.

Speaker 1:

Isn't it awesome that you can like, come up with an idea, put your blood, sweat and tears into it, develop a company, make enough money to make a difference around the world? I mean, that's right here from home in Boise, Idaho. It's a great story, Shuri. It's amazing.

Speaker 2:

Well, and I feel so lucky, like the opportunities we have in this country, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I like to say that immigrants are the biggest patriots. You know, I saw my mom, who got her citizenship, and John's dad, my husband's dad, who came from Venezuela, and there's a lot of people who can maybe speak to a lot of the negative and problems that we have to solve in the country, and they're always there. But immigrants will say you know, we won't go anywhere else. They want to come to America for a reason it's a great country, so much opportunity we're so grateful to be here there's. There's nowhere else we'd want to go. And, yeah, like you said, creating the opportunities, I feel lucky every day. I get to do a for-profit business with a philanthropic arm as a B Corp and be able to do what I do best in marketing and also be able to channel what I love to do most, which is impact, and do it all, you know, cohesively, which is amazing.

Speaker 1:

Unbelievable. It's really inspiring. It's really inspiring it's for people listening out there. It's just inspiring on a lot of levels. One, that you can just like come up with an idea and vision and and then put the work and effort and plan behind it and execute and and have it happen. And then two to immediately and it comes across so clearly when I'm talking to you today that it's just about others. It's about like you have this mission, that is like I I want to go do this because I'm an entrepreneur but I'm changing people's lives is just amazing that you've connected the two. It's just awesome.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I. I really feel like the next step for business is this social enterprise concept, where you can do that and a lot of businesses do give back and they can do it, and they can also do it in a very in a more structured way. So that's something we're exploring a lot more with our 1% give back. So that's something we're exploring a lot more with our 1% give back. So that's my biggest encouragement for all business owners is, you know, find out how you can use your influence to support these incredible nonprofits who are doing so much good.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you so much for coming on. This has been an absolute treat and I can't wait to follow along and watch where you take this rocket ship. It's awesome.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate it, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thanks everybody.