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About Colette Courtion

Named one of Inc. Magazines Top 100 Female Founders of 2020, Colette Courtion is a distinguished and award-winning consumer marketer, inventor (24 issued patents), and business leader steeped in brand building, marketing, strategic planning, and finance with leading consumer product, retail, and medical device companies. She is the founder of Joylux, the leading menopausal intimate health company with Halle Berry, the acclaimed actress and menopause advocate, as an investor, brand ambassador and co-developer of products.

Prior to founding Joylux, she founded and lead two other VC-backed aesthetic companies. She was also a marketing executive with Starbucks responsible for launching and growing the Starbucks Card and Customer loyalty program into a multi-billion-dollar business.

Courtion has earned numerous accolades including Best New Gear of the Year (2023) by USA Today for her NeoHeat product, Most Innovative Company (2019) for Joylux by the Angel Capital Association, Best Product of the Year, for Starbucks Duetto Card from Business Week (2003), Top 15 Women of Influence in Seattle (2009) and Top 40 Under 40 leaders in Seattle (2006) from Puget Sound Business Journal.

Episode Highlights

The origin story of a pathbreaking startup
How to validate the market opportunity when it’s never existed before
How to break old barriers and blaze new trails – the founder’s way
The quick primer on FDA approvals, and the role of luck and ingenuity
When life hands you a pandemic, turn it into profits
How to think strategically about your IP strategy
How to sell your startup to investors when they don’t want to hear about the problem, and still win!
How to keep investors happy without losing your mind
How to hitch your wagon to a star

Links and resources

Joylux: The women’s health company that Colette founded

Interview Transcript

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Hello, Colette. We’re so happy to have you on Invisible Ink. today. Thank you so much for being here.

Colette Courtion: I am delighted to be here.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: So we’ve got a lot to talk about and I’ve really enjoyed reading about your journey and all the challenges you’ve been through. Congratulations on the recent partnership with Halle Berry. I think that’s amazing.

Colette Courtion: Thank you.

Joylux’s Mission

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: So, I want to start off, you’ve had a bunch of experiences in retail, in women’s health. You’ve already shared on your website what prompted you to start JoyLux.

I want to understand it kind of high level Instagram reel style. What factors did you consider when you were thinking about JoyLux and what was that one thing that pushed you into saying, “Oh, yeah, I’m going to do this.”

Colette Courtion: Well, I saw a tremendous need. This was a problem that so many women were suffering from. So for those of you that don’t know the story about JoyLux, we are a women’s health company, but very specifically, we’re focused on vaginal health. So anything that kind of happens to that intimate area.

Women suffer from incontinence, which is bladder leakage. They suffer from vaginal atrophy, dryness. So there’s all these issues that women face and they get worse as you age and go through menopause. And quite honestly, no one was talking about it and there were no solutions about it.

So when I saw this, I thought that’s a huge opportunity is massive market that was untouched. That’s when I said, I, as a woman who also have experienced these issues, I’ve got to help other women.

I’ve got to do something about it. I, by nature, am a problem solver. I always look at the world as what is the problem and how can we best solve it to help as many people as possible.

Challenges and Overcoming Taboos

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Was there something that held you back? I mean, this is not something we talk about every day. It’s a legitimate medical problem. Did anything deter you? How did you overcome any reservations?

Colette Courtion: It was interesting because when I started doing this, my point of validation that did not make me scared was the actual, adult industry, the toys that are currently sold today for pleasure products. And I don’t know what the current number is, but when I started this, gosh, 10 years ago, that was a 15 billion industry.

And I was like, well, clearly people are okay with sex. It’s a huge market. There’s lots of products out there that people buy. In fact, this is a fun fact – back in the day when Amazon, first kind of got started, one out of three boxes sold that went through the Amazon warehouse had an adult toy in it.

So a lot of consumers were buying these products on Amazon because it was discreet. This number was shared with me because of someone that worked at Amazon that was very familiar with it. And so I said, okay, well, that’s a validation. If people are buying adult toys, clearly they’re ready to talk about women’s health and all the things that go wrong there.

So I went in it with total optimism. Now, having been in it for 10 years, I wish I had known how difficult it would be because it has absolutely been a very difficult, challenging journey, I mean, it’s incredible that the lives that, we are impacting and the changes that we are making, but it has been a challenge

It’s been unbelievably difficult to educate women to educate platforms like Meta, Amazon to talk about women’s health without it being sexual. I guess adult toys. sexuality, all that’s okay. But the minute you start talking about problems, it becomes really taboo.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: That’s a bit counterintuitive to me.

Colette Courtion: Right.

Validating the Idea and Early Development

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: So, what have been your top three, just from that business model and kind of getting it out into the market perspective – what has been the single biggest learning now looking back, knowing that you’re addressing this market?

Colette Courtion: When I sit down with a woman and I talk to her about these issues, nine times out of ten, the woman is very receptive to hearing about the problem, excited to learn that there’s solution.

Often she’s like, “Oh my gosh, I thought that was just me that was experiencing it. It’s so wonderful to hear that I’m not alone, that this is a problem that impacts the majority of women.”

So when I’m talking to women, one on one, It’s easy. They get it. They’re excited that a company like JoyLux exist. They’re excited to learn about the solutions. So that is good.

I underestimated is the system. I had to change the ability to connect with women to talk to women to use the platforms where women want to learn, which is Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, all of these platforms, these social platforms.

That’s what I’m referring to as the system. I had to change the system, how the system worked, because when I started, I couldn’t say the word vagina without it being deemed pornographic, even though the word vagina is a medical term that represents a human body, no different from saying, I have a hand, I have an arm, I have a head. I have a vagina, but just me saying that automatically puts us into a category that’s deemed pornographic, meant that it is bad. It is, we can’t talk about it because if I’m saying the word vagina, it must be in the context of something sexual versus this is part of a woman’s body and it has, issues and it works just like a heart works, like there’s things that medically speaking that happened to it that, so I had to educate the system.

I had to have numerous conversations with Meta, with, Amazon with these organizations to allow us to talk about it in a way that is not bad, that it is purely biological, it’s about the human body. And so that’s the part that I underestimated. I realized how challenging it, it is because I am, one person in one small startup organization. I’m not a lobbyist.

I don’t have millions of dollars for attorneys and people that can get in. So I had to do this by using my network to find people within the organization that one would even listen to us. Then I found enough female entrepreneurs like myself that also face these same issues because they couldn’t talk about menopause or these vaginal health issues.

And so we joined forces and together we had a much louder voice than just Colette Courtion from JoyLux. So, it was my individual efforts. It was our collective voice together as a group representing other companies like JoyLux, which was about women’s health, menopausal health and slowly we’ve gotten to a place now where we can talk about these issues on these platforms without being flagged as adult or inappropriate.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Awesome. And thanks to your and your compatriots’ efforts, it’s going to be easier for other entrepreneurs, whatever flavor, to come through and make better products in these areas, these problems.

Colette Courtion: It will, it absolutely will. And the number of female companies or femtech companies, as we call them now that are dealing with female specific issues has, you know, I don’t know what the statistic is, but I mean, it’s quite, it’s huge. It’s massive now compared to when I started and was an early pioneer in the space and there was just me and, a handful of other companies. talking about these taboo topics.

Now there’s lots of companies out there and it’s exciting. And because of our efforts, I also am pleased that women today are embracing the topic and are openly discussing it and not feeling ashamed or feeling like they have to suffer in silence or be ashamed of what’s happened to their body.

They’re out there on these platforms talking about these issues with other women

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Awesome. So you talked about getting started. I want to start there. How did you progress the idea? Like, what was the first idea and how did you validate, outside of the Amazon factoid, which I find fascinating. Outside of that, how did you validate the idea? What was your first product idea?

Can you just walk us through high level what those early days and weeks look like?

Colette Courtion: Yeah. So, as I mentioned earlier, I’m a problem solver. I’m not an engineer. I’m not a doctor, but I am a problem solver. And I look at things that need to be fixed. and I say, who can help me in my ecosystem help fix these problems? I did not know how the female body worked. I didn’t know how all this technology worked, but I knew enough to know that we could solve these problems by using technology.

And so let me just quickly go back to where I spent the last 20 years of my life prior to going into women’s health. I was in what we call advanced aesthetics or medical aesthetics where we’re using technologies to have rejuvenating effects on the skin for anti-aging purposes.

So whether you have wrinkles on your face or sun damage, we were using these technologies and I’m specifically talking about – they’re called energy based technologies. So lasers, lights, ultrasound, radio frequency. Those are all about depositing energy into the tissue to help rejuvenate the tissue. And so fundamentally, I knew that what happens to our body in our intimate areas is the same that happens up here.

We lose collagen, we lose elastin, we lose blood flow. And so if I can help rejuvenate this part of our body and our skin and make it look younger or turn back that aging clock, why couldn’t we do the same down there? I didn’t know that was a problem until I personally started to experiencing it.

Starting with having a child and going through the whole childbirth process, and that can be very damaging to your pelvic floor. It’s tearing, it’s, a lot of pressure and strain on your pelvic floor, which impacts your muscles just the structure of how everything’s supported.

Then going into menopause, when your body starts to lose estrogen, you start to lose collagen, elastin, and then your tissue becomes lax. So again, when I started experiencing these things, and then knowing what I knew about what we could do up here in the face, I literally put two and two together. I went, Oh, why don’t we take the same energy based technologies here, but apply them down there?

And that’s when I had to then partner with people that were experts in that field. So I found an ob-gyn who really understood the body and understood what happens to women as they go through menopause. And then I found a technologist, someone that really understands energy based technologies.

And then the three of us said, “Okay, here’s the problem. What is the best technology to solve this problem that’s safe and effective?” And that’s when, long story short, we came up with red light therapy or red light technology because it’s an energy based technology, but it’s incredibly safe, and we’re asking women to put something into their vagina that’s you know, it’s big, red, shiny lights.

So it’s going to be intimidating. So we want to make sure it’s safe, but also effective. So. That’s how we ended up getting to where we are today.

But then I said, okay, clearly someone has thought of this, right? Because here I am a gal from Seattle, Washington with no engineering background. I mean, clearly someone much smarter than me has thought of this. So then we went out into the world and realized no one had done this. No one had done this.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Just to clarify, is this the infrared light therapy that I have read a lot about? Because it’s funny what you mentioned, I’ve read so many, or at least I’ve read of so many research papers, and I’ve read a few research papers myself about the therapeutic effects of red light, and what you’re telling me is shocking me as well, so I just wanted to clarify it’s the same thing,

Colette Courtion: I didn’t invent red light and infrared light. That’s been around for literally since the 1960s. All I did was take it and put it in a body part that could benefit from its mechanism of action, which is a healing, repairing technology, it’s rebuilding, up-regulating the cellular function of your body, your cells.

So I just said, let’s put it down there to help women tighten the pelvic floor, which then has a positive impact on these conditions like stress incontinence and vaginal dryness and pain, all of these things that women suffer. But so we went out into the world, discovered we are the only people to do it.

And so today we have 24 global patents on what has now become JoyLux, and the devices that we have under our brand. And we have several because based on where you are in the world, we have V-Sculpt, we have V-Fit here in the United States, we have ISVIVA in the UK. So we have all these different devices around the world.

But that’s, to me it just seemed so logical, but we were the first to create it.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Which is awesome.

Navigating Regulatory Hurdles

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: I know you’ve talked about international presence in different countries and jurisdictions, have different regulations, but what were the FDA implications in the United States and how did you address those?

Colette Courtion: Oh, man, I got to tell you that was probably another thing I absolutely underestimated before we became an actual commercial product. So I found the problem, found the team. We ideated came up with a solution. But before we did anything next, we looked at the regulatory landscape because if I had created something that we were unable to take to market easily, like, if we’re talking, this is going to be a 20 year journey, then I wasn’t going to do it because I’m too old to spend 20 years of my life taking a product through the FDA into market.

So we brought in a regulatory expert who put together a strategy on how we could take this to market. And the good news is that it did take longer than we anticipated. we were probably, I think, what, how many years? It was about four years, four years before we got it to market in the United States and in other parts of the world.

But that was about two years behind schedule. I thought it was a two year journey and ended up being four. And if it was any longer, I think I would have given up.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: So, and I know there are multiple pathways under the FDA umbrella, which pathway did you have to go through?

Colette Courtion: So we started off as a de novo. And so for those people out there that aren’t familiar with the FDA, let me try and explain it very quickly at a very high level. 90 percent of medical devices that go to market, under a class 510 K, which means they are just like something else that the FDA has already cleared.

So think about that for a second. If 90 percent of the devices go through a 510K, there’s not a lot of innovation because that means you’re just like something else that was already cleared. So it kind of defeats that definition of innovation, right? You can’t be innovative if you’re saying you’re just like something else.

So for those products that are truly innovative, they go through what’s called a PMA or a de novo, which is, the other 10%, or maybe it’s maybe it’s 80%, 10%, and then the, the rest are class ones that are, don’t require 510k, but let’s say whatever the statistic is, it’s 10% go through a process called a de novo or a PMA.

A PMA is for class three medical devices, which means it’s like a heart valve. So it’s really invasive. It’s often life threatening or life saving. So it’s a pretty big deal. A de novo is generally reclassified as a class two, but means that there’s nothing like it on the market. So in order to go through a de novo process, you have to do a ton of clinical work.

You have to demonstrate its safety and effectiveness. and you aren’t like something else, but then you get to define what the claims are. You’re going to say my device solves for X, Y, and Z. So there’s a lot of cool things about a de novo, but it is incredibly expensive and despite what you read, it isn’t a two year journey.

It isn’t even a four year journey. In fact, I have a colleague of mine who started about the same time I did – the same kind of concept, she’s still in it 10 years later and doesn’t have approval. So de novo’s can be incredibly challenging, can be incredibly expensive and take a long time. So we were two years into our de novo and just hitting every wall possible, fighting the FDA on what we thought was an appropriate clinical study versus what they thought.

Oh my gosh, you’re a startup company. You’re trying to raise money for women’s health. So that’s a whole other issue that I hope we’ll get into.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Yes, we will.

Colette Courtion: Pre seed money or a capital for women’s health. the FDA threw us a Hail Mary. They said, we’re going to let you take this to market as a low risk general health and wellness device. And so we had formally gone through the process.

It was reviewed. We got it signed off by the FDA. Our claims that we make today are around improving health as opposed to curing a disease. And that’s really the difference.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Got it. And I think that is a fantastic overview of the whole FDA process for many of us. So thank you for that.

Impact of the Pandemic and Business Pivot

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: So, I know you started in 2014. So now, comes the pandemic, right? 2020, obviously,I imagine it had a pretty big impact on your business. Do you want to talk briefly about what impact it had and how you navigated through that challenge?

Colette Courtion: Yes. Again, another challenge where it was a make or break moment for our company. So we had survived the regulatory hurdles and the two year delay in getting a product to market, which of course meant more capital and management of your investors and in keeping them happy. But then we hit the pandemic.

And so our business model leading up to the pandemic was selling our product to doctors. We were selling to ob-gyn’s, to women’s health experts, to people that were in the field of dealing with vaginal health. Because again, we thought we’re asking women to do something that is completely foreign to them.

There’s no better person to educate them on the condition and the solution than a doctor. So our business model was selling to doctors. But if you all remember when the pandemic hit, what happened to doctors? They shut down. Everything was emergency treatments only or COVID related or things that were medically necessary.

So anything that was more preventative or certainly in our case, vaginal, health issues, while they impact a woman’s overall well being, they’re not life threatening. You’re going to still live a normal life, whether or not you pee your pants or not.

So our category of health was non essential. Our salespeople could no longer go into a doctor’s office and sell product. And they could no longer have their patients coming in for non essential treatments, so it literally killed our business model.

The good news for us is that our product is an OTC product. It is something that you can do at home. It doesn’t require a prescription. It does not require a doctor to be involved in the process.

So we did a quick pivot and became an online brand. So we started selling direct to consumer. The good news is because we had spent the first four years selling to doctors, we had over a thousand medical professionals that were selling our product, that were endorsing our product.

So that’s how we went to market. We leaned into that. We said, “Hey, consumers out there on the internet for women’s health solutions, trust us. Buy our products because we’re trusted by over a thousand medical practitioners”. And so because of that, and women were at home on their computer, we completely took off.

It ended up being the best thing that ever happened to us because we went from literally almost killing the company, going from, revenues growing to like zero revenue overnight, like that was frightening to now building a new business, a new distribution channel, but having it hit it out of the park from day one and ourselves just kept on growing.

And now today we are 80 percent a DTC brand.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: That is awesome. So, March 20th or March 23rd or whatever that date was, when that, I still remember the date when the lockdown announcement happened. Everything grinds to a halt, right?

And now you have to take your entire on the ground, feet on the street sales force and pivot to a completely different model with a different set of investments, completely different capabilities. How long did that take you? And what did it involve in terms of, money and time on your part?

Colette Courtion: Yeah, I should mention that we had just started a capital campaign to raise money right before the pandemic. So I was starting pitching our story to investors. So what happened? All investors are like, no, we’re not making any new investments in companies we know nothing about. We’re going to save all of our capital from our existing portfolio to help them survive during this time.

One of the things as a CEO I’m most proud of is, I call it my superpower – is my ability to move quickly and just problem solve again back to what I keep reiterating early on. I’m a problem solver. So, to me, this was just a problem that needed to be solved and it need to be solved quickly. So, the first thing I did is I brought my entire company together.

All the employees. And I said, “Guys, we are in a historical moment. This is a game changing moment for our company. We have to look out for the best for the company. Unfortunately, that means we are going to have to pivot. And unfortunately, that means we’re going to have to lay off a set of employees that are no longer are going to work in this environment”.

Our sales force, our people selling into the doctors, unfortunately, we had to terminate them and it was incredibly sad. The good news is that the government had stepped up and was taking care of people that lost their jobs. So. thankfully, everybody had a soft landing. So I felt good about that.

But then the people that we did keep on, we said, okay, we have to reorg. We have to structure it in such a way that these are the rules. These are the responsibilities. These are the goals and everybody was adaptive. Being in a startup with a small company, you have to wear multiple hats.

And so you have to be adaptive. So thankfully, everybody was. Then I reached out to our investors and I said, look, guys, these are all the immediate steps I’ve taken to reduce our cash burn. The other thing I did, was I went to all the employees and I said, guys, we just had to terminate 30 percent of our workforce.

I think we owe it all to ourselves. To also take a pay cut during this time because we don’t know how long this is going to last. We don’t know if our new business model is going to work and if we don’t reduce our burn immediately, we will be out of business in two months. So, our chances of survival will be greater if we’re all in this together.

So, I want you all to go back and think about what you could live on. I’m not going to tell you I’m going to cut your salary by 20 percent and yours by 30 percent or yours by 10 percent because I don’t know what your personal situation is: what you need to survive.

But we’re a team. So I want you to go home and think about what you could do, what you can live on to get us through this period. I will make everybody whole again. So if you take a 20 percent cut, it’s just a deferment until we raise our next round of capital, and I will pay you back.

And I did. So everybody came to me, and I was shocked that rather than I was going to propose, people came back to me with that 20 percent or that 30 percent cut and it was remarkable because we were all in this together.

We were all solving this problem together. So that’s when I went to our investors. And I said, I’ve reduced our cash burn by half, but we’re going to need money to get us through this next year, because we don’t know what’s going to happen. And I was so proud and blessed and excited that almost all of our investors stepped up and put more money into the company within the matter of weeks, enough to buy us another year of runway until we could figure out if this business model was going to work.

And then the government came in and gave us some PPP loans. So that helped, but we survived and now we’re thriving.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: That is awesome. And I just want to ask you one question on that, which is, I’ve been in a corporate America, And we get a bit jaded with this talk about we’re all in it together. And I mean, frankly, some of it sounds disingenuous, right?

So you’re going in facing that challenge. How did you pull through that? How did you tackle it and how did you get employees to really believe that you meant what you said?

Colette Courtion: Well, I walked the walk. I walked the talk, I should say. I walked the talk. So it starts with me. I say this is what I’m personally doing. I have created a culture from day one where it is a flat organization. While I’m the CEO and ultimately the buck stops with me and I’m held accountable for everything that happens in this company, we have a very flat organization.

I trust people to do their jobs, so I don’t micromanage. The employees I have with me in some cases have been with me for 20 years. Throughout all of my journeys, throughout my startups, this is my third startup. I have an employee that has been with me from my very first startup. She’s here with me 20 years.

So people have a level of trust with me becauseI do what I say I’m going to do. And sure enough, I made everybody whole I didn’t say this is what you have to do. I said, come to me and tell me what you’re capable of doing. And if it’s nothing, I get it right. And I’ll find it somewhere else.

But I helped, I made everybody part of solving the problem, not me telling them how we’re going to solve the problem. And it’s amazing when you empower your team to help how creative everybody can be – and it wasn’t just with salaries. It was other areas of the business. Like, well, let’s do it this way, Colette. Let’s change the way we do this and it will save us money. So it’s about empowering your team to be part of the solution and everybody then buys into it.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Kudos to you. It sounds like it’s a matter of trust built over decades and you can, I mean, I come from a little bit from the skeptical side, if you’ll pardon me. But to me, it means a lot more that you have somebody who’s willing to trust you enough because they’ve been through the fire with you before, so to speak, and you brought them through whole.

So that was fantastic to hear. I have one more question on your business model, and then I want to dive into fundraising. You mentioned you have all these patents, right? So, just at a high level, how did you decide on your IP strategy and what were kind of like the top two or three things you considered?

If you can just highlight that’d be fantastic.

Colette Courtion: So, clearly it was to prevent people from stealing our idea and being number two and sometimes being number two is better than being number one because you don’t have to fight all the fights that number one has to do. So it was clearly to protect us from number two coming in. But also, I’ve already been down this path before as an entrepreneur.

I’ve already had other companies that had technology and have, I’ve sold companies. So I know what’s important from a acquisition perspective. So I looked at my global strategy and I said, okay, I don’t need a patent in every country, but I need a patent in the big countries where the markets are big enough that if I don’t own that country, number two can go in.

So for instance,Japan is a really big market for devices. And so, to me, that felt like that was a country I needed. But do I need a patent in Australia? Probably not, because people going or a number 2 just going into Australia. It’s probably not a big enough market for them to justify all the upfront capital expense to do what I do.

So probably not going to go into Australia if I can’t go into Japan or China. So, I really focused on the big market opportunities and that’s how I built my strategy. And I also looked at is, from an acquisition perspective is if a company is going to acquire us, what is important to them.

And so I had that lens on when I looked at my IP strategy.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: I love it. It’s the best explanation I’ve heard so far.

Overcoming Fundraising Challenges

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: So now I want to jump all over fundraising. So it’s hard enough as a woman founder to raise funds even for what I call a “normal” startup. And here you are, with a double challenge as a woman raising for a women’s health startup.

What were your biggest challenges as a woman founder in the fundraising process?

Colette Courtion: Well, think about this. So we all know from reading the statistics out there that women’s founders get only 2 percent of VC money.

So already out of the gate, I’m at a disadvantage. I’ve got 98 percent more money is going to go to someone else besides me. So that’s number one challenge.

Number two challenge. I’m talking about women’s health. That is very intimate and personal. And most men shy away from this topic. So going into a meeting with a VC where I’m like, hi, I’m a female entrepreneur and I’m here to talk about vaginas. Oh my gosh, the look on their face, they would, get white. They didn’t know what to do.

So my initial fundraising efforts were very challenging. I was thankful enough to find that one or two, people that really believe in what I’m doing that could write big checks. But the majority of the time I would just get a no out of the gate.

Then about four years into our startup, I went and pitched a guy who was an angel investor.

And, he loved what I was doing, but he’s like, “Colette, you’re never going to succeed pitching men because you’re going about this all the wrong way. You’re focused on talking about the vagina and the problem and how you’re solving it and changing women’s lives. That’s making men uncomfortable. You need to focus on the numbers and how big this market is and how much money they can make.”

So I quickly changed my approach after listening to him and I started almost like talking about vaginas was almost like a sidebar like it was an asterisk. It was like, “here is a 600 billion market or more specifically a 17 billion market”.

The average woman spends $2, 000. The average company that is exiting in this space is getting anywhere between a 6 and 14 X on their revenues. That means this company has the potential to be a, multi billion dollar company, which means that you as an investor coming in can make a, whatever, 20 X return on your investment, so I just changed the narrative.

I stopped focusing on “We’re changing women’s lives. They’re going to have, healthier pelvic floors. They’re not going to pee their pants” like men didn’t care. What they wanted to know is how much money are they going to make? And that’s when it changed for me.

And I was able to raise capital and I’ve raised now, close to 24 million.

I will say, though, the still to this day, the majority of our investors are women because they we just now have more female investors, but they also know the problems that I’m dealing with. And maybe that should have been it from day one. Shame on me for not seeing that.

I just thought people wanted to change the world, but really what they want to do is make money. And so that’s what I made it about.

The Importance of Financial Storytelling

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: I love, I just absolutely love that story because, if you think about it, what you’re saying to me makes sense. Obviously, I have a biased view. I care about financial storytelling. And it’s also, economically, you’re going to an investor asking for capital. So what you need to give them is return.

So I get that. What I find interesting and I’d like to hear your thoughts on is anytime you go into any kind of startup programs, like, tell me what the problem is, tell me what the problem is, tell me why it’s a big problem. And it seems like you were doing that and not getting the returns.

They didn’t care about the problem. They were like, “I don’t want to know about that problem. Just show me the money.”

Colette Courtion: Yes, They were uncomfortable knowing that their wives were experiencing this and a couple of times I tried to other things like I brought up erectile dysfunction a lot. I was like, that’s something you men can relate to.

Well, this is the equivalent for women. So I did try to make it more relatable to them, but they didn’t care. They didn’t want to know their wife pees her pants or that she has vaginal dryness. They didn’t want to know that.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: So would you recommend that as a leading approach for any femtech or just any startup overall? Like, what’s your thought on that?

Colette Courtion: Well, as from any entrepreneur, it’s how big is this problem, how you’re going to solve it and how they’re going to make money because investors are not altruistic except for in impact funds, right? Most people are putting their money into these companies with the expectation that they’re going to see a really awesome return.

It’s very high risk, right? The majority of startups fail. So it needs to be high reward. And so, yes, in your storytelling, you need to make sure you focus on that. I just had to downplay the problem because of how personal and intimate was versus other startups like if I’m talking about, and again, clearly they’re interested in learning more about that problem. This problem they just didn’t want to know about.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Discretion is kind of what I’m hearing as the main theme in terms of how you highlight the specific aspect of whatever you’re bringing to the table. I talked to quite a few founders who are focused on an impact, I call yours impact, right, who find it very difficult emotionally or personally to say, but I care about this problem.

It’s such a big problem. And to kind of flip that switch. And say, you know what, I’ll do whatever needs to get done because at the end of the day, I want to see this coming to fruition. How hard, was that a hard transition? How did you wrap your head around it?

Colette Courtion: So here’s the difference. The big picture strategy for the company, like, is ultimately to build a successful company and have a successful exit that then makes our investors and our employees and the key stakeholders happy. But every day when I show up to work and I’m faced with a new challenge, whether it’s little things like the logistics company didn’t pick up the product and now I’m out of inventory and I have to, solve this, 2 weeks of without being able to… like, that kind of stuff happens every day. What keeps me motivated during those moments is knowing that I am changing women’s lives.

When we get a phone call, when we get a review, when I get a letter, I have women writing me thank you cards telling me how I’ve changed their lives. That’s what keeps me engaged on a day to day basis. And willing to solve these problems that sometimes I literally want to hit my head, against the wall, because I’m like, Oh, God, why is everything so hard, right?

So what motivates me day to day is the impact we are having on women’s lives and the positive results that we are delivering big picture, though, what keeps me, focused on the end game is knowing that we are creating a successful company that will someday result in a successful exit and make all of the stakeholders happy.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Awesome. And you’ve talked about the fact that you raised 24 million. Congratulations. That’s amazing for any woman founder, leave alone one in your field, right? So kudos on that.

How has life as a founder changed, sort of, pre raise to post raise? Can you talk a little bit about what that means in real life for a founder who’s looking to raise?

Life Before and After Fundraising

Colette Courtion: Well, the other challenge of being in this company is I’ve always been in fundraise mode. No one has handed me a check for 20 million. I got here one small check at a time over the course of 10 years. a $100,000 check, a $15,000 check, a $50,000 check. So I’m always in fundraising mode.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: What does that mean though, on that point? Like, what does it mean to be always in fundraising mode?

Colette Courtion: You just have to always be in that mindset and networking and meeting people and talking about it as like, a new fund just opened up that’s focused on women’s health. I got to go, meet the people or learn more about that fund. So you’re just kind of always in it.

I will say that when I’m not in fundraising mode. Life is a lot calmer, right? Like fundraising is very stressful because if you don’t succeed in that, then your company will fail. If you can’t bring in enough capital to get you to the point where your cashflow break even or have an exit, then that’s, and in fact, again, I don’t know what the exact statistic is, but the majority of companies that fail startups that fail it’s because they can’t raise The capital needed to take them through till an exit.

so that’s really, really stressful. And that’s I’m in turn very, very stressful when I’m not running when I’m not raising capital. Oh, gosh, life is calm. Things are real happy. I’m able to interact with the team more help them strategize on the departments and what they’re doing get much more involved in the execution of the business.

When I’m fundraising, sometimes all I’m doing is fundraising, raising capital, which takes me off growing the company, which is difficult, right? Because, I have an incredible team. I love being with them. That team helping them grow and doing those things that are going to make a difference in the long term success of the company.

But if I’m fundraising followed, I’m raising,

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: So, pre and post raise, is there anything about managing the investors that has been kind of noteworthy? post raise for the rounds you’ve already raised versus when you didn’t have investor funds.

Maintaining Investor Relations

Colette Courtion: Oh, yeah, maintaining investor relations is a huge part of my job. I have an amazing CFO who also works with investor relations. The key is, talk to them, share information, share the successes and the failures. Don’t hide the failures. We’re all human. Every company is going to have failures. What they want to know is that you have a plan for those failures.

You’re going to fix it, right? So I write very lengthy quarterly updates. I used to do monthly updates. It became excessive. People said, “Stop. I’m not reading them and I know it takes you a lot of time to collect,” but I used to do monthly updates. Now I do quarterly updates, but they’re very thorough.

I talk about all the financials, the numbers. But when I have a problem, I say, “Okay. Here’s my solution. This is what we’re working on to correct this problem.” Sometimes,I need their help. So I say, “We need help. Do you know someone?” Like for example, during COVID, there was a shortage on microprocessors.

You could not buy a microprocessor. There was a shortage. We have a microprocessor in our device. I had to turn to the investors and say, “Help, we are short. We don’t have microprocessors. It’s a six month delay. Does anybody have any contacts in an off market?” And sure enough, someone said to me, “Yes, I can get my hands on… “, I don’t know what it was 20,000 or something. So, that’s really important that you share in your successes, but you share in your failures and your challenges and ask for help when you need it.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: And did you also, do you also find it helpful, I know the quarterly updates take time and effort, but are you also in touch with them on an informal basis outside of that cycle? And if so, how often does that happen? And what’s kind of like the tone or theme of those conversations?

Colette Courtion: So unfortunately, or fortunately, however, you want to see it, I have 300 investors.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Never mind.

Colette Courtion: It would literally be a full time job if I reached out to all 300 investors. there are clearly a handful of investors that I spend more time with. Maybe they wrote bigger checks. Maybe they are more connected in the world and can help.

So when I travel, if I go to New York city, I always make an effort to try and reach out to the investors that are in New York, and say, “Hey, I’m in town. Do you want to meet for a cup of coffee or a drink and I’ll get you up to date with what’s going on with the company.” But yeah, it’s really hard when you have, 300 investors, but I try to reach out informally to, certain ones that I think need that extra love.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: And I imagine, obviously you have a board. So clearly, the board is there to be the representative of shareholders and stuff. Was there like one thing that was a big surprise for you? Kind of like with the raise that you wouldn’t have expected going in that changed your life in some way that you didn’t think it would?

Colette Courtion: Well, this is my third startup. So I’ve had a lot of experience raising capital. The one thing that I will say is a surprise to me and really, truly a disappointment is. I know what the KPIs are. I know what investors want to see. I know what’s important to them. And so when I say, look, here’s how my company is killing it, how these KPIs are off the chart and not have that be enough to get them excited.

Like, when you say to, or when a VC says,” Oh, well, it’s all about the people”. Okay, I’ve built an amazing team. “Oh, it’s all about the KPIs”. Okay, we’re delivering the best KPIs. Oh, it’s like they go through all the things that they want to see. And then when you deliver that and then they’re like, “No, thank you.”

What I have found in this world, and this will be a very unpopular statement, but I’m at the point now in my career, I’m going to say it. VCs have a herd mentality. They just want to go where the rest go. There’s not a lot of risk-taking on their part. They, if a top VC, a Kleiner Perkins or Andreessen is investing in, that’s what they want to invest in.

Like, they just, they’re a herd. It’s same business model. Oh, okay. Well, let’s do tele-health. So, I’m only investing in tele-health because that’s what everybody else is investing in. They’re missing an entire opportunity of companies over here because they follow each other. It’s just a herd mentality and they want to be in the deal that the top few sees in because then that will make them cool.

It’s kind of very clique-y and very high, like, high school-y. So I guess that to me has been the most disappointment as an entrepreneur that has truly a company that is changing the world and is delivering on best of class KPIs and has a kick ass team.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Is that something that you’ve seen, different before? I mean, different now than it was before, the point that you just mentioned. Has that been a change?

Colette Courtion: No, no. That’s what I’m saying. Like, like, I was in femtech before investors got in femtech before it was cool to be in femtech. And it was really challenging to raise money. Now femtech is hot, right? So now everybody’s going to invest in femtech. But I’m old hat because I’ve been in it too long.

So it’s just this herd mentality that is just really disappointing.

Partnership with Halle Berry

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: So, I’m gonna ask you now about, you just announced the partnership with Halle Berry. Congratulations – what prompted that, how it came about, and what you hope it’ll do for JoyLux.

Colette Courtion: Yeah. So, the biggest challenge I’ve had is first of all, getting women to talk about the problem. And I should say, this is the biggest challenge in the consumer facing side of it. The consumer facing side is getting women to feel comfortable talking about these issues and then searching for solutions.

So education is a big component of what I do. So here I am Colette Courtion and I’m not big on social media. I think I have, like, 90 followers on social media. Like I hate going on LinkedIn. I hate sharing my life on these platforms. I’m just, that’s not important to me. I’d rather connect with humans in the offline world, but I get how important that is in growing brands and in and communicating to consumers.

So we’re out here, I’m telling the world all about JoyLux and there’s just the, challenge of my voice is only going to go so far. Halle Berry has a huge platform. She has over 9 million followers. She’s an icon. People know her name. I mean, in our age group, right? My son, who’s, 10, doesn’t know who Halle Berry is.

He does now, but, he didn’t know who she was. Any woman over 30 knows who Halle Berry is. And that’s who our demographic is. So a couple years ago, she started talking openly about her menopause journey and her challenges that she was facing in perimenopause. Then I get a phone call from Halle Berry’s team.

It wasn’t her, but it was her team of people. And they said, Colette Courtion, we’ve come across your company. Halle’s very interested in meeting you. She’s been using your products and she loves them.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Oh, it’s a day to live for.

Colette Courtion: Oh my god, I died. I died. Again. I had 90 followers. I was like “How does Halle Berry know about JoyLux and our products??” I absolutely died. So, fast forward, me and my doctor, my ob-gyn, Dr. Sarah De La Torre, who’s our chief medical officer, we fly down, we meet her at her home. So now I’m like double dying, right?

She couldn’t have been more gracious, more humble, down to earth. She greeted us with a hug. The first 15 minutes, I, I literally could barely speak. Think. Thankfully,Dr. Sarah is very cool around celebrities and she took over the meeting because I was dying. I could not talk.

Long story short, she’s like, “I love your company. I love your products. I want to help reach more women. I want to help elevate your brand. I want to collaborate on products around vaginal health. This is the biggest concern that I’ve faced in my menopause journey.”

So here we are a year and a half after meeting her and we finally get to announce our partnership.

We get to announce the products that we’re collaborating on. And I’m just really excited about the awareness she will bring to JoyLux. But. More importantly to menopausal health, to women’s health, to help women understand – you are not alone. If Halle Berry, who is so incredibly beautiful, if she has the problem, it’s okay for you to admit that you have the problem too.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: That’s awesome. And we’re rooting for your success and for the success of this partnership as well.

The Evolution of Femtech and Women’s Health

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: So, kind of to wrap up our conversation, I have a couple of questions that I want to hear your thoughts on this whole field of women’s health and how femtech has evolved. What is the biggest change in addition to the investor openness that we talked about earlier?

Have you seen other big changes in the whole women’s health sector today relative to where it was?

Colette Courtion: Yes, everybody is talking about it from the news media. There’s articles and not just I’m not talking about health. I’m just talking women’s health broadly. I think the younger generation is looking at all these issues that the millennials and my mother’s generation that they’re facing and they’re like, “Well, we’re not going to want to deal with that when we get your age.”

So they’re being proactive in their health. There’s a lot more startups in this space. It is exciting. I think by the time Gen Z becomes menopausal, they’re not going to have the problems because they will have worked on the solutions or taken care of their bodies earlier on to avoid the problems that we face now.

So I’m super optimistic about the trends I’m seeing in women’s health and how, from investors to consumers, how the whole ecosystem is evolving and, getting bigger and better.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: And that’s wonderful to hear and I think we need more of that. How about women founders, though, in this field? Do you think it has gotten easier for them? Or what’s your thought on that?

Colette Courtion: Yeah. I mean, yes, yes, yes, yes. There are more people investing in women’s health today. There are more female entrepreneurs. I’m kind of a dinosaur, I’ve been doing this for more years than I want to admit. The younger generation, these millennials, they’re smart.

They’re aggressive. They’re starting these companies. They’re saying like, I’m not adopting these traditional roles of women, getting married, raising families, and that’s it. They’re leaning in. Here’s another thing. I just had this conversation with my CFO earlier today.

I think women are smarter than men, generally speaking. They work harder, they’re smarter, they get more shit done. So they’re finally acknowledging it. They’re embracing these powers that they have. And so we’re seeing this whole sea shift and so I’m super excited. I think raising capital is easier for them today than it was for me ten years ago.

So I’m super optimistic and super excited about the women that will come after me.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Awesome. I have a question for you, this is personal curiosity. We’ve heard a lot about femtech. I know it’s on your LinkedIn profile as well. What are your thoughts on the use of the term? Because there’s things and issues and problems in women’s health beyond tech, right?

Colette Courtion: The buzzword that investors remember that herd mentality, like someone is like, oh, I’m investing in a femtech company. And so then they’re everybody’s like, oh, let me look at femtech. Great. Whatever it’s going to take. It’s the buzzword. I agree with you. The theme of women’s health is much bigger.

If it’s the buzzword that gets people’s attention and they’re googling it, and it’s the media’s writing about it, awesome. Today, I’m a femtech leader. Tomorrow, who knows what I’ll be as something else. But it’s all about just getting as much buzz and excitement around what we do as possible.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Spoken like a true DTC leader. I love it. Awesome.

Advice for Aspiring Founders

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: So what advice would you give to other founders like you, who want to follow in your footsteps, solve these kinds of problems?

Colette Courtion: Don’t give up. You will be told no more times than you will be told yes. You will be told it’s a dumb idea. You will be told it can’t be done. You’ll be given all this. I mean, like you have to have a very thick skin because all the people who will criticize you, tell you’re doing it wrong, tell you it can’t be done.

Don’t believe them. Believe in yourself and fight, fight, fight, and just do it. Just do it. Like the Nike slogan, just do it.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: And when you’re at rock bottom and you don’t have what it takes, what has helped you still go do it?

Colette Courtion: Oh yeah, and there have been moments where I’m like, ooh, this could be the end. I’m reminded of why I’m doing it because inherently I am someone that wants to change the world. I was put on this planet to do good, and this is what, the path that God has given me, and I know I can change women’s lives, and that’s what keeps me up at night.

That’s what gives me the courage to keep going, is knowing that I am making a difference in women’s lives.

Shubha K. Chakravarthy: Awesome. This has been an amazing conversation. I’ve enjoyed it. I know that. Our listeners will as well.

Colette Courtion: Well, I’ve enjoyed sharing my story. So thank you for giving me this platform. You’ve been an amazing interviewer. I certainly will remember this hour fondly. So thank you.