The Truth About Menopause Sleep Problems Nobody Talks About w/ Lara Smith (Lusomé CEO)

[SPEAKER_01]: We've been service of a menopausal woman for 12 years. [SPEAKER_01]: We want to improve women's lives through better sleep, but it's luxury pajamas and luxury sheet experience to round that out. [SPEAKER_01]: I discovered a fabric infused with collagen at the natto level. [SPEAKER_00]: You're a transition moving from the fashion industry to sleep science. [SPEAKER_00]: Why? [SPEAKER_00]: My sister got diagnosed with breast cancer. [SPEAKER_01]: She couldn't sleep because the side effects of chemo at the drugs that she was on cause night sweats. [SPEAKER_00]: How did you take that mission from your sister's illness to provide evidence-based tools for women's health? [SPEAKER_01]: Start at the fiber level up with a fabric that would eradicate moisture from

the surface of the skin faster and more effectively than anything else. [SPEAKER_01]: We went to Harvard Medical School's Sleep Sciences Division with clinical trial of using our sheets. [SPEAKER_01]: The performance of our sheet improved sleep quantity by 26 minutes every night. [SPEAKER_00]: You also saw another outcome with a reduction in night sweats. [SPEAKER_01]: A third of the participants had their night sweats eliminated completely because we're dealing with the heat before sweaties start. [SPEAKER_01]: So we are preventing the sweating. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about the community you have built. [SPEAKER_00]: Tell me why you think that's so important. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a one-stop shop for women to talk to each other, get resources that can give them support.

[SPEAKER_00]: The content of the disruptor podcast is for informational purposes only, and does not constitute medical advice, please consult your healthcare provider for personalized guidance regarding hormone therapy and all your medical decisions. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, welcome back to the show! [SPEAKER_00]: Today we are talking about a menopause symptom that gets minimized way too often, but it can wreck your sleep, your mood, and your whole next day, night sweats. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm joined by Lara Smith CEO of Lucime and founder of the Sweaty Pillow and she's not just building a brand, she's building solutions women actually need. [SPEAKER_00]: Lara is a 26 good housekeeping bedding award winner, a menopause awards honoree and a former EY entrepreneur of the

year finalist. [SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, we're getting real about what's happening in the body, why just dealing with it isn't an answer and the practical changes that can help you sleep cooler and make you feel more like yourself again. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about your transition from moving from the fashion industry, so some of the biggest names like Gucci to sleep science. [SPEAKER_00]: Why? [SPEAKER_00]: What happened? [SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting how you can look back in your career and thread these moments together that and make you end up really supposed to be because I started right out of university at Ralph Lauren and then Gucci. [SPEAKER_01]: So I spent these four hundred years at these global luxury

brands, these power brands that know how to build quality and emotional connection and command these huge price points. [SPEAKER_01]: people would come in and consume at the rate that they did for these for these brands. [SPEAKER_01]: And I was just overwhelmed. [SPEAKER_01]: Then I had a corporate job that was running a buying office for the largest Canadian specialty retailer that was all about innovation and learning how to solve problems in a peril footwear and outerwear. [SPEAKER_01]: There's so much fashion out there so I really wanted to position this company in doing [SPEAKER_01]: innovative things. [SPEAKER_01]: And when I was in this corporate job, that's when my sister got diagnosed with breast cancer, and she was

in her 30s, and she couldn't sleep because the side effects of chemo at the drugs that she was on caused night sweats, as you know. [SPEAKER_00]: So, did it put her to a temporary, um, menopause, or parents? [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, okay. [SPEAKER_01]: And then she was going to [SPEAKER_01]: chemo hormone treatment, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So she's trying to save her life. [SPEAKER_00]: She's got young children and she would just complain that she couldn't sleep So I'm just so crucial anyways, and then when you are facing an illness and you're not sleeping That just drains you even more and you're mental health too, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Your physical body can't heal and then it's just you dread going abad

That's the bottom line [SPEAKER_01]: Um, so I just tried to find your pajamas. [SPEAKER_01]: I went out to stores and online to try and find or something that didn't look like granny jams that wasn't made of polyester and then I said this is ridiculous. [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't find anything. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's when I went out. [SPEAKER_01]: I had these relationships with these huge fabric mills overseas, these testing facilities. [SPEAKER_01]: I started to poke them and said, you know, are you working on anything, a very innovative that was also luxurious and soft and they said, no, we don't have anything in the pipeline. [SPEAKER_01]: So it felt like a massive opportunity to help a very extreme

health issue before you even talk about the menopause conversations. [SPEAKER_01]: So that was really [SPEAKER_01]: the route from fashion and high-end luxury to a very purposeful problem-solving brand like Lucime that was the journey. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so basically solving for what you call a night sweat crisis that was being ignored by major retailers, correct? [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_01]: It was criminal. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And what I love about it is, you know, I went into women's health care because my mother nearly died at the age of 45 from cardiovascular disease. [SPEAKER_00]: Her doctors told her her left arm pain shortness of breath and chest pain was too much caffeine or her children. [SPEAKER_00]: And we all know

that there is, you know, lack of science and data so they couldn't understand. [SPEAKER_00]: Why a thin, non-smoking woman would ever present with four vessel disease, but had they asked the family history questions, they would have had an aha moment that we had lost women under the age of 50 to a certain cardiac death. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think when we are given these [SPEAKER_00]: barriers in our life for things that you went through with your sister, we as women go into problem-solving mode, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, well, how can I fix this? [SPEAKER_00]: And so I love meeting other mission-driven founders, because that's basically what you did. [SPEAKER_00]: So tell me how you took

this mission and you found this kind of void out there in the [SPEAKER_00]: the ecosystem and how then you use that to provide evidence-based tools because that's what's so important right when you put something out there and you claim it does something you actually want to fix the problem. [SPEAKER_00]: So how did you then take that mission from your sisters illness to provide evidence-based tools for women's health? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I had background in textiles through sourcing, but what I started to do is there were brands out there making claims of [SPEAKER_01]: Nice wet relief pajamas, cooling pajamas, wicking pajamas. [SPEAKER_01]: So I bought all of them, bought all of them, and then sent the fabrics

to labs to find out objectively. [SPEAKER_01]: You can measure moisture transport. [SPEAKER_01]: You can measure all the properties that would ultimately give a human relief, and none of them performed. [SPEAKER_01]: So that was like, they're out there making claims. [SPEAKER_01]: They're charging a lot of money. [SPEAKER_01]: So I was pissed. [SPEAKER_01]: I was just like, okay, so let's deconstruct this, let's start at the fiber level up with PhD level textile engineers who are in relationships with and start from scratch and build a fabric that would eradicate moisture from the surface of the skin faster and more effectively than anything else. [SPEAKER_01]: we're going to blow all these brands out of the water, we're going to

set standards in the industry for moisture management that we will become the new kind of benchmark of how all things will be measured and so I went really far and I had investors and partners said you're overbuilding it like why are you doing this? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, because I knew what was out there didn't work. [SPEAKER_01]: So it was two years, 70 rounds of fabric and a second mortgage to build this Ferrari of moisture wicking that was also not polyester based and that was also soft and luxurious. [SPEAKER_01]: We want to give women comfort. [SPEAKER_01]: and performance when they're struggling all night with nice sweat. [SPEAKER_01]: So that was how we could do. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't

want to solve for one problem, the temperature, and then have itching problem or an irritation problem. [SPEAKER_00]: So was this then tell me how this then led to, because this is my biggest issue. [SPEAKER_00]: I love, [SPEAKER_00]: surgery. [SPEAKER_00]: I love procedures. [SPEAKER_00]: I love prescriptions, but I also love meeting people where they are and there are some great products out there. [SPEAKER_00]: There are some horrible products out there to know this because they are not subject to the same regulatory compliance that a direct tumor product is and so that's what made you pissed, that's what makes me pissed and that's why I work with brands that actually [SPEAKER_00]: do the data and do the

research. [SPEAKER_00]: So tell me, I mean, you studied with what Harvard? [SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to walk me down that journey and what that was about? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we were several years into our pajamas business. [SPEAKER_01]: And we did a small study with a PhD out of a university in Canada, just to study the data of competitive brands. [SPEAKER_01]: But that many years later, there's now a lot of cooling sheet brands. [SPEAKER_01]: And they're big brands. [SPEAKER_01]: And there's various fabrications of bamboo or polyester. [SPEAKER_01]: And so here I am again going, those aren't going to work. [SPEAKER_01]: But what we wanted to do was something very different in the industry. [SPEAKER_01]: What we wanted

to do with the heat before the body wouldn't emit moisture vapor or sweat. [SPEAKER_01]: So that was also very different. [SPEAKER_01]: So to position ourselves in a very noisy space with something very different, the consumer in the market wasn't used to seeing this type of technology, [SPEAKER_01]: That's when we went to a doctor out of Harvard Medical School Sleep Sciences Division and just approached her with this project and because I kind of brought to her the issue with the market having all of these sheets that wouldn't actually perform for humans and it was a crime which she take on this clinical trial of using our sheets. [SPEAKER_01]: and recruit sleepers that slept hot. [SPEAKER_01]: So

she was keen on looking at this and kind of exposing the market again on just the criminal nature. [SPEAKER_01]: And she calls it sleep science as she was doing her own research on, sorry, science theater, she calls it. [SPEAKER_01]: So people, brands that just make up nonsense with fancy words, but it doesn't actually do anything. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, that was the journey to approach Harvard and they wanted to do this good work and expose kind of the market a little bit by highlighting a brand that was doing different, doing it differently. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's a huge expense, these clinical trials. [SPEAKER_00]: But it's brave and it's smart. [SPEAKER_00]: And I feel as though women have

been so dismissed or ignored or been offered, like you said, pseudoscience or science theater, [SPEAKER_00]: that we owe it to them if we are going to do it ethically to produce the data. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so tired of people saying, well, there's no data. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, then I'm like you. [SPEAKER_00]: I also have published posters in data. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, okay, so then let's get to the data. [SPEAKER_00]: But then I learned very painfully. [SPEAKER_00]: how expensive it is to produce that data. [SPEAKER_00]: So you were able to publish the data, right, in sleep in December of or in frontiers in sleep in December of 2025. [SPEAKER_00]: And so what were some of the highlights or

the outcomes that you published? [SPEAKER_01]: Right, and you would know even better than me in this world of published research to get it peer reviewed at that level [SPEAKER_01]: December 2024, so it was almost a full year before it was peer reviewed and published, but the headlines are that all measures of sleep health were improved for hot sleepers, and this is 2700 nights of data. [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, one thing that the lead researcher said when we were meeting with them on the results, in the world of, um, [SPEAKER_01]: sleep and people that can't sleep in somniacs. [SPEAKER_01]: If there's an intervention that makes an impact of 20 minutes, that's statistically significant. [SPEAKER_01]: So the performance of

our sheets improved sleep quantity by 26 minutes every night. [SPEAKER_01]: That's they were just blown away at that result that a textile could have that impact. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's 158 hours more sleep a year. [SPEAKER_01]: if we could build up that extra sleep every day. [SPEAKER_01]: So that was the head. [SPEAKER_01]: There's lots more. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the restorative sleep, just the time to fall asleep. [SPEAKER_01]: All of these measures were improved with our sheets in the study. [SPEAKER_01]: So it was really powerful. [SPEAKER_00]: As a chronic insomniac myself, like this was way before medical school and perimenopause and my journey into menopause, I've never slept well and I've always been looking for adjuncts other

than, you know, cause sleep medications, this is what I tell my patients, are not meant long-term. [SPEAKER_00]: And so, [SPEAKER_00]: making your environment and promote and doing things that are natural to help promote sleep are absolutely critical for what I call sleep hygiene. [SPEAKER_00]: And so it's fascinating to me. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm learning something. [SPEAKER_00]: I say I'm a teacher, but I'm a forever student. [SPEAKER_00]: that just in extra 20 minutes and you guys outperform that and showed an extra 26 minutes of sleep, but it helps with cognitive performance and cortisol levels for women. [SPEAKER_00]: And obviously we know sleep is when all of our repair mechanisms happen. [SPEAKER_00]: We have improved digestion because [SPEAKER_00]: Women

who aren't sleeping enough show more weight gain than their counterparts that are sleeping well. [SPEAKER_00]: And so very, very interesting to me that you guys were able to show that data. [SPEAKER_00]: You also saw another outcome with some of your participants. [SPEAKER_00]: with a reduction in in night sweats. [SPEAKER_00]: Is that correct? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: This was something that we've battled as a business all the way along with marketing agencies because marketing agencies are not going to say it loud. [SPEAKER_01]: Prevent night sweats and like what we can prevent them if but if they start we can [SPEAKER_01]: make consumers more comfortable and pull the sweat away, dynamically, etc. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, this study proved with

our sheets that a third of the participants had their night sweats eliminated completely because we're dealing with the heat energy before sweating starts. [SPEAKER_01]: So we are preventing the sweating. [SPEAKER_01]: with the balance of the participants showing improvement on reduction of night sweats. [SPEAKER_01]: So really at the source before the sweating starts, we were eliminating that and that was a powerful learning as well. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's so crucial because what women don't understand is that as our estrogen levels, they don't understand because they've never been explained and no one's ever told them that our thermoregulatory centers are altered when we have lower estrogen levels. [SPEAKER_00]: So we are more susceptible to the temperatures

around us. [SPEAKER_00]: and therefore our body then tries to regulate our temperature via hot flashes and you're right if you can kind of prevent those triggers or kind of sense when the hot flash is going to occur not only will you prevent the hot flash but then you will also help stop the sleep disruption. [SPEAKER_00]: So the two top reasons my patients tell me they're not sleeping is the night sweats or the hot flashes and then obviously having to get up to go to the bathroom. [SPEAKER_00]: Always working on things that they can do aside from an addition to hormones or aside from hormones in their life, and I'm always recommending sleep products, so I'm

excited about this. [SPEAKER_00]: We as women in business know that we have to make pivots and I had to make astronomical pivots at her empty during COVID. [SPEAKER_00]: And so do you want to tell me what you had to do or what you did during COVID with reengineering a fabric for sleep masks? [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes, okay. [SPEAKER_01]: So [SPEAKER_01]: One of the things, we want to build a sleep system. [SPEAKER_01]: We want to improve women's lives through better sleep, and that's the whole experience. [SPEAKER_01]: So that is luxury pajamas. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a hotel luxury level sheet experience. [SPEAKER_01]: But then also to round that out, I discovered a fabric that was infused with collagen at

the nano level. [SPEAKER_01]: In this textile, and it was being used for [SPEAKER_01]: tank tops, leggings, but I thought, hold on, where do women care the most about hydration and anti-aging and collagen was starting to pop up at the time as being all the rage? [SPEAKER_01]: Either we're drinking it or we're slapping it on our skin, whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: So this fabric in testing show that trends at the dermal testing, you can measure hydration and skin. [SPEAKER_01]: And when you have this, [SPEAKER_01]: on top of your skin for six plus hours. [SPEAKER_01]: Your skin is 13 times more hydrated. [SPEAKER_01]: As a result, so we engineered a black-out sleep mask, which is also great. [SPEAKER_01]: It's

important to have the darkest environment you can. [SPEAKER_01]: Not everyone can get that with blinds or whatever, so that we recommend a black-ozy by-mask through travel for sleep, but we have this fabric, this collagen and fused fabric, a really comfort nose wire so we can push it to our nose so it makes sure that no light is coming through a satin adjustable elastic, but [SPEAKER_01]: It helps hydrate the skin around your eyes as you're sleeping, and even further, if you've got products, you're layering on products. [SPEAKER_01]: It just helps them keep them in place overnight. [SPEAKER_01]: So we call it wearable, anti-aging, as just a great additional item in our sleep system. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's

turned into our single best-selling skews at company, because it's really, it's all women and men of all ages, really love this mask. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I love that because it just shows us the power of the pivot and where some of the best ideas are born out of when we have to think outside the box, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Um, yes, nothing taught me that like, COVID. [SPEAKER_00]: I do not have my MBA, but I am an entrepreneur and founder. [SPEAKER_00]: and kept our clinics profitable during COVID. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think my husband is like, you learned and you earned an MBA by proxy. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, did I? [SPEAKER_00]: Because that just felt like pure survival. [SPEAKER_00]:

Oh, no. [SPEAKER_00]: You can teach the classes so many. [SPEAKER_00]: especially in healthcare. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, it was insane. [SPEAKER_00]: So speaking of that resilience, let's talk about the community that you have built and you have the sweaty pillow, which is a top 10 rated menopause podcast in community. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, correct, that's right, you go ahead. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so why do you think a product company now has to also provide community and evidence based content to succeed? [SPEAKER_00]: What do you think? [SPEAKER_00]: You said you've started in fashion and you've kind of made this switch to technology and health care. [SPEAKER_00]: So you've come full circle. [SPEAKER_00]: Tell me why you think that's so

important. [SPEAKER_01]: One of the things I've always done in business is making sure that the consumer is intricately involved in our process. [SPEAKER_01]: So whether that be involved at the prototype stage of developing new styles or fabrics, just understanding what they need. [SPEAKER_01]: And so over the course of time at Lucime, we would send out surveys to our customers. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's definitely around product, but we want to know the psychological insights about what's driving them to purchase. [SPEAKER_01]: What makes them the most miserable in their life? [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we always think beyond just building a thing. [SPEAKER_01]: It has to resonate way deeper than that. [SPEAKER_01]: So over the course of time, and

we've been waking up in service of a menopausal woman for 12 years. [SPEAKER_01]: And this pattern kept emerging in our surveys and how she expressed to us, how she was feeling. [SPEAKER_01]: I can't get a primary health care physician to pay attention to me. [SPEAKER_01]: And they're telling me to do more yoga and blaming it on coffee. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going insane. [SPEAKER_01]: I have rage. [SPEAKER_01]: I can't sleep. [SPEAKER_01]: I can't. [SPEAKER_01]: There's so much noise out there on menopause. [SPEAKER_01]: Where do I look to get support? [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going crazy because I can't get my doctor to listen to me. [SPEAKER_01]: So that was just the catalyst to hold on. [SPEAKER_01]: What if

we could round up? [SPEAKER_01]: the best minds in this space and do short form podcasts, not three hour podcasts on just give us the cool notes of what are we feeling, what should we go do about it? [SPEAKER_01]: What are the websites that are doing it best? [SPEAKER_01]: So we started talking to the Mary Claire Habers of the World and Dr. Steinbaum out of New York or Board Certified Cardiologist because we've talked about how at risk women are with a cardiac event in menopause. [SPEAKER_01]: So, it became a podcast that has gone viral and we've won this award up beyond that. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a community of content of articles, of associations, of brands that are

doing it really well. [SPEAKER_01]: That we've vetted, that doctors have vetted, so that it's a one-stop shop for women to talk to each other in the community to get resources. [SPEAKER_01]: science-informed content that can give them support in their journey through menopause. [SPEAKER_01]: So not all brands need to do a community, but because of this woman we wake up in service for, she was desperate for it. [SPEAKER_01]: So again, we had to do something about it. [SPEAKER_00]: And seeing that was my market research, I learned later, was 20 years of listening to women, because if you give them the opportunity to tell, to [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, for them to tell you what they want and the

space and in a comfortable non stigma, you know, non taboo free environment, they will tell you 100 folds, what they need, what they're struggling with and they want community and they actually do want the data. [SPEAKER_00]: Today's consumer slash patient is very, very savvy. [SPEAKER_00]: Me and the last two decades. [SPEAKER_00]: have seen a complete turnaround, and the new generation is completely different. [SPEAKER_00]: My mother's generation almost blindly followed, well, it's the doctor. [SPEAKER_00]: Surely they know best, and would not challenge, would not advocate for themselves, would not ask questions. [SPEAKER_00]: I have women come in and don't know what parts of their body were removed for a historic to me, because they didn't want

to challenge or offend their doctor. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, or their doctor didn't take the time to explain things to them. [SPEAKER_00]: So I love the fact that you are meeting your consumer i e patient right where they want to be and providing those curated products, the educational materials because unfortunately. [SPEAKER_00]: we have not done right by women, I think, in the press, and in the medical community at all, and that's because a lot of doctors themselves aren't trained in these areas. [SPEAKER_00]: So, I love the fact that you're providing that for women, and I think it really then helps the consumer gain trust of the brand, because they know you're not just trying to sell them

something you're trying to help them navigate whatever struggles they're going through. [SPEAKER_01]: primary care physicians, family doctors get eight hours of training in medical school around menopause. [SPEAKER_01]: That's 50% of the population that will struggle really intently for many years and I think they get more training for cold source. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm being dramatic to make a point, but I mean, come on. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I am a board certified at U2A and with 12 years of training and should know about hormones you would think right and I got about a month four weeks of training run right now the scary statistic is one trained provider for every 32,000 patients out there, which is why I built

the built and sold an educational platform that we used internally for a decade at her MD and now. [SPEAKER_00]: It is getting out there in the ecosystem because we're catching up in medical schools and residences, but those doctors and providers aren't going to be out for a minute. [SPEAKER_00]: So what are we going to do about the current doctors and how are we going to get them trained? [SPEAKER_00]: Because a lot of them don't have time to go to a course or going to a course is not enough, right? [SPEAKER_00]: For 20 years, they've been doing it one way. [SPEAKER_00]: So you've got to have that continual place where they can go, that online learning.

[SPEAKER_00]: that data set a library, you know, articles, and just really bring it to them, so they understand the opportunity they have to truly make a difference for their patients. [SPEAKER_00]: And when I'm talking to providers and like if you really don't have the time, then at least know who you can send your patients to, but don't dismiss them or shame them, you know, so that they don't get treatment and they suffer. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, so speaking of resilience with patients and consumers, I hear you have one of your own, where you had to navigate fighting off a hostile corporate takeover. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and as women, there's not a lot of us in the in the

sea suite. [SPEAKER_00]: We're definitely outnumbered. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm amazed when I meet other fellow female founders and leaders. [SPEAKER_00]: How much this does happen to us behind the scenes? [SPEAKER_00]: So do you want to share your story? [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, it's just wild to me and it's changed. [SPEAKER_01]: My whole physiology of the human on how trusting I am or not now, but I had a business partner, a trusted business partner, or so I thought, and this is a lesson to women, especially everywhere. [SPEAKER_01]: Alloyers are best friend and don't discount having at least one lawyer look through agreements and make sure that they're protecting you because my partner had a type of shotgun

clause buried [SPEAKER_01]: Page 96 of this agreement and through COVID, our business took off and we were getting calls from QBC and Nordstroms and prior to that, we were more kind of independent, specialty boutique, mountain pop, so it really was, it was big time, we just got Oprah's favorite things and then [SPEAKER_01]: He triggered a shotgun clause to try and take the company for me. [SPEAKER_01]: And I had 30 days to raise X amount of money to buy him out. [SPEAKER_01]: Or I didn't realize that he could take the company. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, hold on. [SPEAKER_01]: I built this thing from fiber up for two years. [SPEAKER_01]: I built this brand. [SPEAKER_01]: He came

in much later. [SPEAKER_01]: So it was like, hell no. [SPEAKER_01]: Hell no, you're not taking my company. [SPEAKER_01]: found pretty quickly some very passionate, very passionate, angel investor who heard my story knew what we're trying to build an amazing man and said, no, here, whatever you need, Lera, to make sure that you can come out of this with your company intact and get this behind you and then here's a palm where money to do anything you want to make women's lives better and [SPEAKER_01]: Launch your sheets and launch your college in mask and build out a team. [SPEAKER_01]: So I believe and had that not at all happen. [SPEAKER_01]: I could have still been with

this partner and we've been struggling along. [SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't have been able to afford Harvard clinical trial and this amazing team. [SPEAKER_01]: We have so really things happened for a reason and it was to meet this visionary angel investor who helped believe. [SPEAKER_01]: And everything we were trying to do, but that was that shook me because I'm a handshake girl and never again. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not going to worry about offending people and I'm getting the agreements and I'm going to know inside out what they mean. [SPEAKER_00]: There are so many, you know, I tell people along the way because a lot of times on social media, you know, or in the headlines, people just

see the wins and they don't see the losses and the betrayals and as a doctor for me and train the business world was so eye-opening, because traditionally in medicine, think about it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a team effort for the outcome of the patient. [SPEAKER_00]: So I wasn't used to malevolence or people being manipulative at all and also very trusting, a passionate leader, where am I hard on my sleeve? [SPEAKER_00]: So the things that also made me the empath and me also made me an easy target for people who wanted to take advantage. [SPEAKER_00]: But I learned very quickly and got savvy and learned to protect everything that I had built as well. [SPEAKER_00]: So I was

protecting my providers and my patients and my data and my work and all the IPI worked on because it's amazing to me what people are willing to do in business and the business of health care. [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's what you had at this point set out to do. [SPEAKER_00]: You had started this. [SPEAKER_00]: movement, right? [SPEAKER_00]: The sleep or brand that became this movement that was a sanctuary for women. [SPEAKER_00]: And so can you talk about that a little bit about how the cooling sleep industry are getting something's wrong? [SPEAKER_00]: And what you are doing, I don't want to say right, because I don't like putting me down, but what they're doing wrong and what

you are doing so differently. [SPEAKER_00]: Great question. [SPEAKER_00]: I thought about this. [SPEAKER_01]: In general consumer brands, not all of them, but some of them. [SPEAKER_01]: It is... [SPEAKER_01]: transactional and it's marketing and I learned this in my sourcing career with huge brands because I'm in factories 68 weeks a year every year for 25 years. [SPEAKER_01]: So I see the best brands in the world that have unbelievable packaging and marketing but they use the cheapest possible cotton interlock for the t-shirt like the cheapest but they're selling t-shirts for $189 because the brand experience [SPEAKER_01]: but it's still a transaction, and they're selling consumers on this badge value or brand, but I know what they put

into their product. [SPEAKER_01]: So in the research in cooling pajamas, way back 14 years ago, then the research of cooling sheets, studying at the textile level, what brands are putting into these products was not high quality. [SPEAKER_01]: And they do it for margin, and they do it because they have to pay, I'm making it up, [SPEAKER_01]: a famous call for it or where there's stuff and that deal is 8 million a year. [SPEAKER_01]: Where does that come from? [SPEAKER_01]: It comes from the product and the margin. [SPEAKER_01]: So I wanted to position us very differently. [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to hone in on an emotional connection at a psychological level on what brings down a woman

and that there's nothing more psychologically [SPEAKER_01]: not demeaning but torturous than going through that transition in life where you're no longer valued as a human you can't have children anymore so there's so much psychological insights of the struggle of a woman going through menopause it's like we are going to build for our ease we are going to have the most expensive fabric. [SPEAKER_01]: We are not going to spend money on advertising in people and marketing and endorsement deals and affiliates and influencers because we are going to stand on product and it's going to be the most expensive fabric in the most expensive factories with buttons that cost $2 not $22 and we will get judged

on the value of that over time and I think we are getting paid back and the reviews and whatever and people really appreciate that. [SPEAKER_01]: But then it goes beyond that because we didn't want to be a transaction. [SPEAKER_01]: So we have someone to admire pajamas. [SPEAKER_01]: They'd have a great experience. [SPEAKER_01]: And I love what you said about a movement that turns into this whole sanctuary. [SPEAKER_01]: Those are so powerful. [SPEAKER_01]: And that encapsulates what we're trying to do because it's power of product innovation. [SPEAKER_01]: and quality and luxury, supported by a sisterhood of women that just want to make each other better and feel better. [SPEAKER_01]: So the whole commercial way back in

the day of a woman will tell two friends, they'll tell two friends and that's really what we're trying to build out, because some of the other cooling brands [SPEAKER_01]: They just don't care in the same way we do. [SPEAKER_01]: I saw my sisters almost die, and that's not happening to anyone else. [SPEAKER_01]: And we get letters from family members whose moms only wanted to wear our Donna set in the final weeks of their life because they felt beautiful and they felt comforted. [SPEAKER_01]: And they felt like a brand really cared about them. [SPEAKER_01]: So, [SPEAKER_01]: Will we be the biggest company in the world with the highest earnings? [SPEAKER_01]: No, don't care, but women will

and their families will really appreciate what we put into our product and that makes me sleep at night. [SPEAKER_00]: But don't use, and I love that. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I always say. [SPEAKER_00]: The way I have led her MD, it was the same thing. [SPEAKER_00]: People were shocked at how little we had spent on marketing. [SPEAKER_00]: And we were hanging out before we had even raised our first 10 million with brands that had over 100 million. [SPEAKER_00]: It was all grassroots. [SPEAKER_00]: It was patients telling other people. [SPEAKER_00]: It was local marketing, you know, working with our communities. [SPEAKER_00]: It was giving back. [SPEAKER_00]: But her MD across five states had 4.9 aggregate reviews,

which you do not get in health care. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, we try every day just like you do to do our best, but even the best people make mistakes. [SPEAKER_00]: And in health care to have 4.9 aggregate reviews and women in these phases of life when they're... [SPEAKER_00]: coming to you at their most vulnerable and they're hurting that that was pretty amazing because we also did the same thing. [SPEAKER_00]: It was patients and providers over a profitability. [SPEAKER_00]: Like yes, we had to be profitable, but we made decisions based on outcomes. [SPEAKER_00]: and experience for both providers and for patients. [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's, we knew that. [SPEAKER_00]: We called it the hermd magic, and that

was our differentiator. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it comes from people like you and I, founders who kind of instilled that culture, but also we came from mission. [SPEAKER_00]: You weren't like, I'm gonna set out to be, the number one sleep company, but then it becomes a sanctuary. [SPEAKER_00]: So I love that. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, you and I have both been through it. [SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like it's leaders. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, so now, you know, with my executive coach, I worked on Mustabs and Never Against, you know, before I'm deciding how to project or the next thing that I'm going to do, what's your one non-negotiable routine for staying sharp as a CEO? [SPEAKER_01]: A physical outlet. [SPEAKER_01]:

If I can't punch a boxing bag, hit a tennis ball, [SPEAKER_01]: escape into the hardest yoga that I have no business being in that class because it's too hard for me. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm the oldest fattest person there, but you can like get out of your head. [SPEAKER_01]: If I don't have a physical outlet, I can't show up mentally strong for decisions and being there for my team. [SPEAKER_01]: In the same way I did in my 30s, you just need to have that physical outlet somehow. [SPEAKER_00]: I love that. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm also, I have to move every day and usually it's, I live in Ohio, it's stuff for, but outside every day for, for at least

something. [SPEAKER_00]: So you've disrupted the sleep industry for garments, it sounds like, and I was disrupting healthcare for women in sexual health care and menopause a decade before this revolution started. [SPEAKER_00]: What do you think for the next generation, coming behind us, of founders, what is disrupting women's health going to mean for the next generation? [SPEAKER_01]: Oh gosh, it's night and day. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you and I look back at what our mothers dealt with, what we get exposed to and then our daughter's generation, they're going to have access to doctors that are not going to gaslight them when they're symptoms. [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to be way ahead of it. [SPEAKER_01]: So they're going

to get informed on the right choices for them in their late 30s and they're going to be aware. [SPEAKER_01]: not five years too late. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, what was HRT? [SPEAKER_01]: I wish I had started that 10 years ago or at least knew about it. [SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be, there's women in groups that I made at conferences that are working on the most innovative devices and interventions and products that our daughter's generation are going to be exposed to. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's a cohesive system from their doctors to the resources to the innovation and products that women are creating for women. [SPEAKER_01]: That's going to set them up to have a much different experience and be

way healthier and live way longer than our mother's generation. [SPEAKER_01]: It's so exciting. [SPEAKER_00]: It's so exciting. [SPEAKER_00]: I agree with you. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's going to be that curation of no longer being afraid of hormones, non-hormonal prescriptions, procedures, at-home devices, direct to consumer products, education, community, all of it is what is finally going to move the needle. [SPEAKER_00]: But I do believe the next generation is going to have so much of their own data. [SPEAKER_00]: Like they're going to have to log in. [SPEAKER_00]: to a health care information system because they're going to have so much data on their own. [SPEAKER_00]: And hopefully with the proper AI, know what to do with

that data, that I think there's going to be a lot less suffering and delays in care. [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot more bodily autonomy, and so many women say to me, God if I had only known Dr. Shivade, it wouldn't have been so bad. [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think we're going to hear that going forward with, like you said, with the femme tech and innovation. [SPEAKER_00]: So where can, well, I want to thank you first of all for being a disruptor. [SPEAKER_00]: Love hearing your stories, especially [SPEAKER_00]: that of overcoming an attempted hostile takeover as a female leader. [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you for that. [SPEAKER_00]: But where can the listeners find you in your products? [SPEAKER_01]:

Thank you for asking and loosenmate.com. [SPEAKER_01]: Amazon but also on loosenmate you can find a list of specialty stores throughout New North America that they can find us. [SPEAKER_01]: So those are the easy places to go. [SPEAKER_01]: advance of this conversation and what you're bringing to women in a meaningful way, a life-changing health care way. [SPEAKER_01]: We need to get you out there to weigh more women. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to hopefully ask for you to show up on our podcast at some point because you are a powerful voice in this space and thank God for you. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, thank you so much for that. [SPEAKER_00]: You just gave me goosebumps. [SPEAKER_00]: Lara, thank you

so much for joining me today. [SPEAKER_00]: This was great. [SPEAKER_00]: This is more than a conversation. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a call, a call to build something better. [SPEAKER_00]: Subscribe, share, and bring more disruptors into this room. [SPEAKER_00]: For unfiltered insights and bold ideas, go to DrSomee.com to sign up for the monthly disruptor newsletter and follow us on social at DrSomee. [SPEAKER_00]: We're not waiting for a seat at the table. [SPEAKER_00]: We're building our own table.