Diem Co-Founder Emma Bates on Human-Centered Technology and The Power of Female Communication
ABOUT THE EPISODE
In today's episode of WorkParty, Jaclyn is joined by Emma Bates, founder & CEO of Diem. If you attended Create & Cultivate's Austin Pop-Up event earlier this year, you might've already heard from Emma on one of our panels where she spoke about women paving the way with blockchain technology.
If you're not familiar with Diem, it's a community-powered search engine designed for women. Diem is a Techstars NYC portfolio brand backed by leading investors like Flybridge, Acrew, & Sellation. By trade, Emma is a marketer and a community builder. Her entry into marketing was somewhat untraditional–in that she started out by growing her personal blog to 100K+ readers at age 19, and later transitioned into corporate marketing roles at some of the fastest-growing consumer brands in NYC and the UK. Prior to founding Diem, she worked as the Head of Global Marketing at the direct-to-consumer luggage brand, Away, where she found her passion for connecting with consumers through brand partnerships.
When she's not sidestepping her way into another entrepreneurial endeavor, she works to create social change as a lifelong advocate for gender equality. Emma has also been featured in Forbes, HuffPost, Entrepreneur, and The Cut for her unique approach to marketing, community building, and partnerships.
In this episode, she shares the importance of adding a human element to technology and product design, the power of female communication, and how she's working to bring inclusive, reliable information to people all over the world.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE
RESOURCES
To connect with Emma Bates click here
To connect with Jaclyn Johnson click here
To sign up for the Diem newsletter click here
To follow along with Create & Cultivate click here
To submit your questions call the WorkParty Hotline: 1-(833)-57-PARTY (577-2789)
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Outdoor Voices & Try Your Best Founder Ty Haney Shares How to Leverage Web3 to Build Powerful Communities
ABOUT THE EPISODE
Live from our 2022 Small Business Summit event, Ty Haney joins Jaclyn Johnson for a keynote conversation about building community in Web3. If you're listening to this episode it's because you believe in doing things. Big things. And Ty Haney is on the same page. Haney founded Outdoor Voices–a vibrant, fun-first athleticwear brand back in 2014.
During Haney's time with Outdoor Voices, the brand became synonymous with IRL events that brought shoppers together to celebrate movement. And today, she's here to talk about how to bring that same IRL magic online with the next wave of community-driven technology.
Haney's new brand TYB, which stands for Try Your Best, makes Web3 community-powered growth tools that allow brands and fans to directly link, come together, build, and win together. And if you don't know what that means, it's okay! By the end of this episode, you'll be a pro.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE
RESOURCES
To connect with Jaclyn Johnson click here
To follow along with Outdoor Voices click here
To follow along with Try Your Best click here
To follow along with Create & Cultivate click here
To submit your questions call the WorkParty Hotline: 1-(833)-57-PARTY (577-2789)
SHOW OUR SPONSORS SOME LOVE
Printfresh | Head to printfresh.com/WORKPARTY or use code PARTY at checkout for 15% off your first order.
OTHER EPISODES YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .
How One Woman Used TikTok To Land a Job Promotion
This Black-Owned Company’s CEO Is Disrupting The Beauty Industry
Pietra COO, Tala Akhavan on Balancing Work, Motherhood, and Access to Female Entrepreneurship
Using Technology to Drive Social Impact with AllVoices Founder, Claire Schmidt
How This Physicist Is Challenging the Birth Control Industry
“One should always consider: ‘What is the worst that could happen, and how likely is that?’”
Elina Berglund isn’t your typical company cofounder. Originally a particle physicist, Elina was unimpressed with the birth control options offered to women, so she went about creating her own. Today, she is the CTO and cofounder of Natural Cycles, the only FDA approved digital birth control.
Below, Elina shares how she created Natural Cycles, how she transitioned from physics to business, and the best advice she’s ever been given.
What whitespace did you see in the birth control industry, and how did you go about filling it?
Natural Cycles came out of a personal need of an effective, easy-to-use, hormone free birth control method. When I did not find such a product on the market, I started reading up on the scientific literature on how the basal body temperature can indicate when you ovulate and hence when you are fertile and not. Using my knowledge from particle physics (I was currently working at CERN on what would lead to the Higgs discovery in 2012), I started crafting an algorithm that gives a green day if there is no risk of fertility that day and a red day if one needs to use protection in order to prevent pregnancy.
Not long after I realized what a huge unmet need this is among women worldwide for such a hormone free birth control option and that many women don’t use any birth control at all, or very non-effective methods such as the rhythm method, since they haven’t found a method that suits them.
How does Natural Cycles work? What sets it apart from other birth control options?
Natural Cycles comes in the form of an app and a basal thermometer. The user measures her temperature in her mouth when she wakes up in the morning and enters it into the app. Then, the algorithm is run in the background and returns a red day if she needs to use protection that day or a green day if she definitely is not fertile that day.
Natural Cycles is the only FDA cleared, digital birth control method. The method has been shown repeatedly in several studies published in peer reviewed journals to be 93% effective under typical use and 98% effective under perfect use (which is when the user does use protection when the app gives red days).
Natural Cycles fills the void in the family of birth control methods for women who are looking for an effective and non-invasive hormone free method. It also has the additional benefit of being able to be used for planning a pregnancy. As our average user is 30 years old, we often see women first use the app to prevent pregnancy for a few years, until they are ready for the next step and then they on average get pregnant quite quickly as they’ve by now really learned how their unique cycle and body works.
Why was it important for you to create Natural Cycles?
I think it is really important to provide women with different types of birth control options as there is no one size fits all when it comes to birth control, as different women have different needs and which also often changes throughout the reproductive lifetime.
Then, I also feel that women’s health is an under-researched and under-developed area in general, and I’m happy to make a contribution by developing the first FDA cleared birth control app, but hope to contribute even more in the future.
Your background is in physics, and you even worked on a project that received a Nobel Prize. How did you make the shift from physics into business and the tech industry?
Yes, in some sense it is very different but in another sense very similar. I still work with data and research and use programming and advanced statistics as the main tools, just with a different purpose. Then on the other hand, the business and the tech world is quite different from the world of physics and academia, so I do think I’ve learned quite a lot in the last years by changing paths.
You cofounded Natural Cycles with your husband. What has it been like being married to your business partner?
Yes, I did! I think it has mainly been a source of strength as we are almost always very aligned, and it is amazing to be able to share such a passion, which Natural Cycles is to both us. There are of course a few down sides as well, for instance it is really hard to stop talking about work in the late evening when it would probably be better for us to think about something more relaxing.
“One should always consider: ‘What is the worst that could happen, and how likely is that?’”
What is the best advice you’ve ever been given? What’s the best piece of advice you have to share?
My dad often said that “People too often let fear control their lives.” I think he is right in the sense that we often take decisions based on a too risk-averse profile, especially women.
One should always consider: “What is the worst that could happen, and how likely is that?” This is what I thought about when giving up my career in physics and not having a salary for a while when creating Natural Cycles. I thought that I had enough savings to get by for a while and hence the worst case that can happen is that Natural Cycles does not take off, but I’ve then still learned about how to develop an app, and I might end up getting a job at Google instead.
How do you hope female contraception will evolve in the future? Where do you see the industry going?
Well, I hope there will also be more options for male contraception, although I think it’s unfortunately unlikely in the nearer future.
I hope female contraception will also keep evolving, of course, but I think there is an increased need for more solutions driven by the tech industry to compensate for that the pharmaceutical industry unfortunately has cut back funding in this area.
Here in the United States, female sexuality is still pretty taboo. How do you see your company combating that stigma?
We do try to spread knowledge more generally about birth control, female sexuality, and how the women’s reproductive system works. We’ve seen that unfortunately there is a big education gap when it comes to these topics. We are trying to address that, and we do see a huge interest from our users’ side in understanding their bodies better and everything around it, which is exciting.
You have a daughter, what are the biggest lessons you hope to teach her?
Oh, so many things of course! Just like I was at her age (she is 4), she is already curious about so many things about how nature and the universe works. I am trying to spark more of that interest by answering all her questions and discussing with her.
What’s next for you? What’s next for Natural Cycles?
We’ve moved to NYC last fall, following the FDA clearance to build up a team here as we believe that the US market is and will be very important to us going forward. It’s very exciting to be here and learn about what kind of user is ideal for us here and how to best reach her.
We are also expecting a little baby brother next week, so that’s of course quite a big thing for us :)
MORE ON THE BLOG
Pro Tip: Jaclyn's Top Apps for the Modern #Girlboss
The millennial proverb “there’s an app for that” is both terrifying and amazing. We truly are living in an on-demand society—pretty much anything you want delivered to in an hour or less. While I don’t plan on exploring the larger implications of this phenomenon, I will say that as a busy entrepreneurial female, there are a few apps that have made my life easier. Way easier.
The millennial proverb “there’s an app for that” is both terrifying and amazing. We truly are living in an on-demand society—pretty much anything you want delivered to in an hour or less. While I don’t plan on exploring the larger implications of this phenomenon, I will say that as a busy entrepreneurial female, there are a few apps that have made my life easier. Way easier. So get ready to boot up your iPhone and download these life savers.
SHYP
Hate the post office? Who doesn’t. Finding a box, locating packing tape, drive, wait in line, get into a casual altercation in the parking lot... No, thank you. Shyp takes all of that away. You just snap a photo of an item (any item!), and they will send you back shipping options, take your pick and someone will show up at your door to take your item, pack it, ship it, and sending you tracking information. Plus you can Shyp your first item free so #whynot. We use it for everything in our office. (Editor’s Note: Next week, read about a blogger/author who self-published and used Shyp to mail out all his book orders!)
BLOOMTHAT
Flowers on-demand. No longer are you a slave to the antiquated 1-800-flowers nightmare of 6-day delivery for $100. In 45 minutes, your special someone (or clients!) can have a fresh, adorable bouquet in their hands.
STYLISTED
The magic that is a fresh blow-out and makeup on-demand is one that I cannot get enough of. Within in hours, you can have your own personal Glam Squad at your house, office, car (ok, not your car, but wouldn’t that be great?). Try it ASAP. It’s fun to play Kardashian for a day (or a special night out)! Stylisted will also be on-site all day at #createcultivateCHI doing braids & lips, so if you haven’t gotten your ticket: you’re doing it wrong.
VENMO
Splitting the bill at lunch has never been easier with venmo! All the girls in our office are constantly Venmo-ing each other for coffee-runs, after work drinks, etc. It’s easy and fun—plus if you have freelancers, it’s an easy way to pay them out vs having to write checks!
LUXE
Luxe promises to make you "fall in love with parking" which, I know, seems impossible. Have you ever arrived to a meeting 15 minutes early, only to find out there is absolutely no parking, only cash lots in sight, you’re fresh out of cash, and then suddenly—you’re 15 minutes late, sweating from the walk, and fumbling over your words to apologize. No? Just me? Well, consider Luxe your own personal valet.