Diana Fryc:
Here’s a quick disclaimer. The views, statements, and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers. The statements are not intended to be product claims or medical advice. Hi. Diana Frike here, and I am the host of the Gooder podcast, where I get to talk with the powerhouse women in the food, beverage, and wellness categories about the business of consumer packaged goods, branding, and leadership. This episode is brought to you by Retail Voodoo. Retail Voodoo is a brand development firm providing strategic brand and design services for brands in the food, wellness, and beverage industries. Our clients include Starbucks, Kind, PepsiCo, Hikey, and many other market leaders. So if you’re in the market to crush the competition by driving growth and disrupting the marketplace with new and innovative ideas, give us a call and let’s talk. Or you can visit us@retailvoodoo.com. Okay, this is new for me.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Today.
Diana Fryc:
I’ll be chatting with two guests at one time, and hopefully I don’t lose track of time because you all know I like to chat. So before we introduce or before I introduce him, let me tell you a little bit about who we get to meet today. First off, we have Alex Taylor who is co founder and co CEO of Perelel and has always been top our wellness has always been top of mind for her, as she has Hashimoto’s disease. For those of you that don’t know, it’s an autoimmune disorder that affects about % of women in the US. She first grew intimately aware of the lack of transparency and education available in the prenatal vitamin market when she was pregnant with her first child and begun customizing a prenatal regimen for herself before co founding Perelel in . Previously, she served as president and executive editor in chief in Click Media, maintained roles at Vogue, rogers and Cowan. Did I get that right?
Tori Thain Gioia:
Yeah, you don’t need to mention Rogers and Count so long ago.
All right, Google.
Diana Fryc:
Free, people. And let’s just throw in that she’s been recognized under the Forbes at the Forbes under . That is something that needs to be shared. And then with her is her co founder co CEO partner, Victoria, or as we’ll be calling her, Tori Vain Gioia. Tori was moved to launch Perelel alongside Alex and their doctor partner, which I’m going to let them go ahead and tell that story here in a moment. While pregnant, she learned that her daughter would be born with a cleft lip. Eager to find answers, Tori covered an array of additional issues that can arise from relying on generic prenatal vitamins and took matters into her own hands with Perelel. Prior to launching Perelel, Tori held roles in finance, bless you strategy, even more blessings, and investing at a number of places, including Olive and June, Honest, Carbon, , Crestview, and more. And I say that because I’m in an MBA program right now and have traditionally been a sales and marketing girl and finance just about put me to death. That’s why I’m saying bless you, because I don’t know how you do it. You are one of the special ones.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Truly.
Diana Fryc:
Welcome to you both. Tori and Alex, how are you?
Alex Taylor:
We’re good, thank you for having us.
Diana Fryc:
Of course. And you are located on the West Coast, is that right?
Tori Thain Gioia:
Yes, we’re in La.
Diana Fryc:
Okay. Is that where your business in manufacturing is as well?
Alex Taylor:
Yes, we actually do have all our manufacturing here in California as well.
Diana Fryc:
Oh, that’s awesome. Okay, so very nice to meet you. Excited to learn more about Perelel. I think there’s a lot of us out here who have not heard about you and excited to start our little journey here. Now, first off, I always love it when our guests tell us about their brand. So tell us a little bit about Perelel and what the brand stands for.
Alex Taylor:
Sure.
Tori Thain Gioia:
So Perelel, really? The name comes from the idea that we hope to be Perelel to wherever our woman is in her reproductive or hormonal journey. And we are the first and only OBGYN founded prenatal and vitamin brand for women, offering targeted stage specific nutrition for every step of the way.
Diana Fryc:
Nice. Well, as I read your BIOS, we heard that you guys come from different backgrounds, not just the two of you separately, but you don’t have manufacturing backgrounds. You don’t come from wellness traditionally. Why not do what the rest of us did and try product after product after product after product, settle for something that works, like, what inspired you to create this brand?
Alex Taylor:
I mean, it was our personal experience, and we were failed by product after product after product, both in major ways, but also in the minor ways that we were trying to figure it out on our own. And there wasn’t one product that actually covered all of our needs during this journey. So Alex and I were introduced quite a few years ago now, which is kind of crazy, but we’ve both become moms, and we both had sort of diverse backgrounds, but all in startups and sort of circling category. And we really wanted to better support the new millennial mom. And so we were kind of noodling on what was missing and why she was so under supported. And at the same time, I had just given birth to my middle child, our daughter, who, as you mentioned, was born with a clef. And as we were dealing with surgery and care, I was digging in to understand the why because I had again been that type A millennial mom who ate all organic and used clean beauty products and nontoxic chemicals in our household and checks. And I found out that she had a nutrition related class.
Diana Fryc:
I didn’t even know that was a thing.
Alex Taylor:
Yeah. So class are highly linked. There’s two different ways that they can occur, genetic and non genetic. And on the non genetic side, they can be linked to nutrition deficiencies, more specifically, a folic acid deficiency.
Diana Fryc:
Oh, I had no idea.
Alex Taylor:
I didn’t either. It was a learning process that sort of broke my heart along the way, but caused us to really learn about what were these beans going on. And it was poor quality ingredients in terms of the formats, whether it was folic acid versus full weight, which is the more bioavailable format. Also, the dosages and the levels that were actually in the products didn’t actually cover your needs. How important timing was, where these birth defects form within the first nine weeks of a pregnancy, which don’t know that they’re even pregnant.
Diana Fryc:
So should we cover right.
Alex Taylor:
And just an overall lack of information given we’re both sort of feeling. And so I was learning all this and sharing all this with Alex, who completely resonated with her as well, from her experience. Yeah.
Tori Thain Gioia:
And I was coming from it from a very different place. But obviously hearing about Tory’s experience and talking about nutrition and how we support each other during these stages and support our bodies, I thought back to my own experience, which was that I was very privileged to have an incredible team of care around me. I saw my OB, I had an acupuncturist and a herbalist and after a passive doctor. And between this team, I pieced together my own vitamin routine, which involved oh, my goodness, hunting down DHA from here and a prenatal from there and supplementing with omega or extra coq ten. And I would adjust for my stage. So I was the girl walking around with a large pill sorting container. You hear me kind of jiggling as I come around the corner pills, but that was me. And as we started to piece this all together, we both saw that timing, quality and nutrition and also the fact that the onus was put on us as consumers together. And there really wasn’t a source of truth or a place that we could really look to oftentimes, even as just five years ago, you would Google some of these really important questions and you typically end up on some. User generated forum where anyone from anywhere was telling you how much bullet you should be taking in trimester or looking for in your prenatal. And we wanted to solve that too, through education. So together we realized there was this opportunity to create targeted vitamin routines that are put together for all these different stages, but they need to be done by the doctors who know best.
Alex Taylor:
Yeah. So we knew we had the background to sorry, that was the bypass call from the nanny and I hope everything’s fine. Do you want to take a look? No, it’s fine. Sorry about that. When we went through this, we had the backgrounds where we knew we could get this done. But then we were kind of recreating the problem because at the end of the day, there were all these brands out there, but we didn’t trust any of them because where they were coming from or who was making the products and who was actually informing the ingredients. And so who do you turn to during this stage? It’s your OB. And so we validated the concept with one of the top OB and maternal fetal medicine experts in the country, the head of Obstetrics at Columbia Presbyterian from our very early days, kind of with this idea on a path that we wanted to build. And it so wholeheartedly resonated with her. And she confirmed it was needed and it didn’t exist. And so she sort of gave us her blessing and then helped us think about who else we should bring on to create this and put together what we now refer to as our Perelel panel. So, obviously, starting with our medical co-founder, who is a practicing OBGYN, who sees this woman day in and day out, who tests her and sort of sees all of those gaps and what she’s doing today. So she runs point on all of our formulations, new product development and all of our content, as well as medical community relations. And then we have two of the country’s top reproductive endocrinologists that joined us.
Diana Fryc:
My goodness.
Alex Taylor:
Day. One a maternal fetal medicine specialist, but also the other practitioners like Alex mentioned your naturopath, and you’re a reproductive psychiatrist and nutritionist. And everyone you turn to along the way is seeing this woman and seeing her needs that can contribute to the products that we create, the products we developed, and the content that would give those answers to this woman.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Yeah, it was really important to us to create a product that was formulated by a truly holistic team. Today’s woman is certainly seeing her OB, but she also is seeing alternative practitioners to build her health and wellness routine. And that was important for us to reflect. And obviously, throughout the whole process, everything there’s a tremendous amount of rigor applied. Every single ingredient is meticulously backed by a whole body of research and trials that really qualify the dose or what additional ingredients need to be put in so that the main ingredient can do its job. So it’s been so fascinating to watch all these experts come together and truly create a routine for today’s woman and what she needs.
Diana Fryc:
And you guys were really feeling inspired that this was something you needed to do, right? It wasn’t give this idea to somebody else. It was very much something you wanted to own. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Alex Taylor:
I think obviously we have a very deep personal connection to self, for sure. We learned that one in babies in the US. Are born with a birth defect, and many of those are nutrition related. And so we wanted to create this mission driven brand because we felt so passionate about it. And as I’m sure you’ve heard from many founders, it’s not actually as glamorous as some people make it seem like.
Tori Thain Gioia:
This is pretty brutal.
Alex Taylor:
And so you have to feel pretty passionate and driven. And we knew we had that, but also we were very much this woman and so we knew what was missing. We knew what we wanted, knew how we wanted to be seen and heard.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Uniquely positioned to do it because of not only the deeply personal and emotional connection to the mission of the business which we’ll have to talk about, but additionally we have the skill set. Tori has this incredible background in business strategy, finance operations. I’m a marketer, a brand builder, and a storyteller. And we had these doctors that really plugged in to run the product and we realized we had these kinds of three pieces that perfectly interlocked to bring Perelel to life. And then also there’s these moments in technology that also allow us to bring Perelel to life exactly the format of our products and innovation in terms of formulation. So it was all of these things coming together that made it really clear we had to do it. And it really is that mission of creating a world with more healthy, supported women, more happy, healthy moms and babies that gets us out of bed every day and shared a stat earlier. And we really took that to heart. We could have easily built this business and tacked on some random gift back later, but that wasn’t how we rolled.
Alex Taylor:
We donate a supply of our vitamins for every new subscription, which is not the most cost effective way to do that. And it was a conversation when we were looking for investors and to this day it’s not cheap, but we were not willing to say, oh, for the people who are paying for it, we’re going to give them this high quality formulation, everything they need. And then for what we donate, we’re going to cut corners and give cheaper ingredients like full. That’s not what we were going to do and that’s not why we created this.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Yeah. So our hope is really to expand excess. We’ve donated over a million dollars worth of product to date to underserved women, specifically in the United States. I think we’ve helped women. We’re just getting started and it’s truly what gets us through those tough times.
Diana Fryc:
Yeah, well, it’s no joke, I mean, we’ve had entrepreneurs on this show and we’ve had people that are C suite at multinationals and everything in between. And I really do think that the entrepreneurs have the biggest. I wouldn’t say you have the hardest work to do because you have to wear so many hats, but in particular, supplements are such a strange set of rules that you have to work around. It’s not as cut and dry as food and beverage. Food and Beverage is far more your checklist looks like this. And in the supplements category there’s a lot of as I learned about in finance, it depends who you talk to where the ingredient comes from so many variables. So I can completely respect how challenging getting the business up and running, first of all, is, and then not wanting to compromise on the quality of your product and the dosage. The amount that you’re putting in each dosage is also a big thing because so many vitamins and supplements on the market have fillers. You’re looking at a horse pill and you think it’s just packed and it’s not.
Tori Thain Gioia:
It really showed how little regulation there is with what you put not only on your body, but in your body. Starting Perelel, too.
Alex Taylor:
Yeah. Supply chain management has been a very interesting three year journey, I bet, and learning a lot. And also how do we navigate a world where there aren’t as many rules? So how do we internal rules and regulations? Because we took the products we had the first two Perelel babies we did as children. So not only would we never serve something that was a bad quality, but we were also testing it and taking it, making sure that our suppliers are following all of our requests, like where things can be sourced, what attitudes go in there and we have to push back. We have ongoing conversations where, no, that ingredient is not acceptable and we will not accept it.
Diana Fryc:
Yeah. And this accessibility component is very close to my heart as well. A lot of what I’ve learned over the past three years of podcasts is particularly in the better for you and wellness categories and how much the products that are the best quality tend to be positioned and priced out of reach for a number of people that actually need it the most. And so I just am so thrilled to hear that you’re working with brands. We’re talking about what we know where the disparity is by race and by caste and by income. It’s a very real, very systemic set of issues that you guys are taking up and I feel like you sort of synthesize it very well. But I’ll ask a little bit more about this. On your website, you have the statement that said women deserve better. And I know that we’ve addressed that a little bit, but what specifically are you trying to say with that statement?
Tori Thain Gioia:
Well, it’s really root there’s so many layers here. But I think the first is that women’s health is eons behind men’s. Starting in the late s, women of childbearing age were omitted from clinical trials. What for?
Alex Taylor:
Yeah, for about years, because their lives were too complicated because of hormones.
Diana Fryc:
Oh, okay.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Yeah.
Alex Taylor:
A normal woman’s body is not too complicated.
Tori Thain Gioia:
It’s just how our bodies work. But there’s a gap in our knowledge about how our bodies work. And much of what we know is based on men’s bodies and clinical trials that were done with men and we are behind and what it takes a woman much longer to get a proper diagnosis when dealing with various health issues.
Alex Taylor:
Up to seven years to get.
Diana Fryc:
Yes, I’ve seen it happen with friends and family. Yeah, absolutely.
Tori Thain Gioia:
And so there’s that layer. And then on top of it all, we are living in a time where women’s peak career and productivity years are intersecting with their peak reproductive years. And there’s obviously a physical strain and complexity that comes into the picture there. And is there a way that we can support these women wherever they are in their journey to ensure that they’re getting the best and they don’t have to worry about it or do the endless research or take all the time to figure out what vitamin to take. So there’s a lot of things that we’re trying to solve when we say women deserve better. Women deserve better health research and more health advocacy. Women deserve better products that are truly effective and doctor backed, not some random product off of some manufacturer shelf that looks pretty in a bottle. There’s so much that we have to do here to create products that not only change women’s health and inform their outcomes, but also to start a conversation about the importance of investing in women’s health.
Alex Taylor:
Yeah.
Diana Fryc:
From the very beginning, even probably at day one. Yeah. I look at my kids and just for some validation, I’ve seen women’s health evolve. I’m a little bit older than you guys, probably more than I’d want to say publicly, but what I can say is I’ve seen since I had my daughter and she’s now in her teens, what I gave her for supplementation as child gummies right now as a teenager has evolved quite a bit. I have a lot of hope that as the industry continues to evolve now, she’ll have some better health outcomes than I did. By the time she’s in her twenties and thirties is when things started to go a little bit wacky as it does. Women are complicated. We can’t take that component out, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have our bodies taken seriously. Right?
Alex Taylor:
Women’s bodies are complicated. We have one. And so you can’t just say then, oh, we’re not going to include that because that’s just what a woman is.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Absolutely understanding, that it’s not just woman, not woman, it’s where is this woman in her life cycle?
Diana Fryc:
Because of her exactly.
Tori Thain Gioia:
So different. What I need versus my mother versus my teen cousin is so different. We want to solve that too. And it’s a lot of work, but we’re committed.
Diana Fryc:
Totally.
Tori Thain Gioia:
And it’s wonderful also to see other brands that are really keying in on how to support women based on these different life stages, starting to really see.
Alex Taylor:
That journey and actually acknowledge that. And I do think that that goes back to where we talk about women deserve better. It’s some of the content, it’s the community, it’s seeing their journey. And I feel like what we, whether we launched a recovery support pack to specifically support a woman going through a miscarriage where when I went through years ago, no one really talked about it and felt so alone and so wanting to have those conversations that this is what’s happening to women. % of women are likely to have a loss and then we don’t talk about that. You forget about it and move on.
Tori Thain Gioia:
And sometimes it’s also about seeing a product on a shelf that makes this experience feel less weird or fringe or abnormal. And something that we hope to do through Perelel is to make every woman feel seen and normalized. The wild, twisting, up and down wackadoo journey of having these bodies and it’s all normal.
Diana Fryc:
It is, yeah. And to further complicate it right. So I entered menopause way longer ago than you would think and apparently it’s not uncommon for women to enter menopause in their thirties. And oh, by the way, if you have cancer and your uterus is removed, you go into menopause immediately and that could be at . So you layer those complications like you’re in menopause and you’re having a baby because that’s what the s are all about. Now what do you do? Right. So it’s clear that having a sophisticated approach to supplementation can really start to balance all of those things out and they’re not going to alleviate it, of course, but it can take care of some of those gaps that right now are missing.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Yeah, or smooth over some of those symptoms.
Diana Fryc:
Absolutely. Now I kind of like to jump over to how you guys have been interacting or sharing the world of Perelel. You two are definitely building a buzz for your brand through partnerships. Super hot right now. You’re hitting all the angles with influencers and investors, even a little retailer action with Airwon, if I remember correctly. People are pretty excited about that. It’s keeping you busy. Now of course, this is everybody’s dream, every brand’s dream is particularly fast growth where you are, what are you learning? The question is less about the marketing component and more about what you’re learning about your brand and what consumers or mothers are sharing with you through this approach.
Tori Thain Gioia:
It’s interesting. Tory and I had a really fascinating conversation last week about how typically brands have really looked to outside sources to validate and build trust and credibility and what’s become very unique about our brand. We believe, based on what we see through the data and just the way this brand is continuing to bloom is that we have inherently built trust into the brand nature of our co founders process by which we bring product to market. And that’s been very unique for us. We really look at partnerships less than of course they have to reinforce our kind of trust, but more about do they align with our values and principles and are we going to be able to reach a woman who will be very qualified for our brand. But it was interesting to learn that our brand is different. It has this trust built into the fabric and soul since day one. So I thought that was quite interesting.
Alex Taylor:
Yeah. And we see that in what customers write in and what they ask us because it’s so personal, where I’m always blown away where, like, I cannot believe someone is asking a brand that. But it’s because they don’t see us as a brand asking the most intimate details. They’re sharing things. They’re sharing what’s going on in their personal life. Send them for advice.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Their baby shower announcement or their baby announcement.
Diana Fryc:
Oh, my gosh, that’s so cool. Amazing.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Yeah. But they are asking us very specific questions about their health and personal situation.
Alex Taylor:
And what we would recommend and how we would go through this. And they see us as both sort of a very trusted health advocate, but also as sort of a trusted community and that they can write in and ask their personal questions. During this journey you often feel like you don’t have somewhere to turn to.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Very deep emotional connection we’re finding that our community has with us. And I think it is because of the way that not only what the box says that really validates what they’re going through, but the way that we program across our channels and the content that we bring forth. It’s very much a blend of a lot of medically rooted information, but through the lens of our woman in a way that only we can intimately understand and think. That’s part of the beauty also of Perelelism is that it comes from a really genuine place. It comes from a place where we understand what she’s going through, how she wants to be treated at every touch point, and how we can super serve her along the way.
Diana Fryc:
Super server. I like that. Yeah. It’s really great that you’re building this community. And I find it interesting that you’re having this connection because sometimes when you’re working with these influencers, particularly when they might be the larger influencers or even a celebrity one, you can, as a brand, at the stage that you’re in, can get lost in the environment of these influencers. And how are you making sure that Perelel remains Perelel and partners with your influencers and not kind of get sucked into that world? Can you talk about that a little bit?
Tori Thain Gioia:
We’ll never be the brand that has some celebrities faced on the billboard telling you to take Perelel. We love it if they’re an evangelizer and they’re a fan of the brand. But there is a very, very fine and important line that we draw. We love having this world of highly influential people, people who really consider what they put in their body out there, talking about Perelelism in a very positive way. But ultimately, the trust comes from the brand and from doctors and experts who know best we were to be a brand that’s built on celebrity, it might hinder our trust. Not that celebrities aren’t trustworthy, but specifically a doctor, a practitioner knows what you should be putting in your body and that always needs to come from that place.
Alex Taylor:
Yeah. And that goes back to our founding story where there were a ton of brands out there, but we didn’t trust any of them. We didn’t feel great about that. The proof is in the pudding. Sometimes if you look at the ingredient list and what’s in there, it’s pretty loose. And so at the end of the day, it needs to be a doctor founded brand and a doctor backed brand at the end of the day. And we don’t want to be distracted by putting a celebrity on something and becoming that brand. But that’s not to say we don’t love having great fans of the brand.
Diana Fryc:
Oh, for sure.
Tori Thain Gioia:
We want to support all these women.
Diana Fryc:
We want it all. Come on.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Yeah. But for us also, it’s very much about how do we continue to build our network and inroads into the medical community through our founding doctors and advisors. And that’s truly been the Trojan horse for us. Brand awareness and feeding the big old flywheel that is our awareness engine.
Diana Fryc:
I love that. Well, and you guys are really having a lot of success here in your first few years of growth. Just really entrepreneurs dream of what you guys have going on here. I am curious about what you see. What’s the vision? When do you know that you will have achieved what you had hoped for this brand? What’s the future hold?
Tori Thain Gioia:
I mean, I want every woman to know about Perelel and that Perelel has something to support her.
Alex Taylor:
Yeah, I think it’s that, as we said earlier, we called ourselves Perelel. That we are Perelel to wherever this woman is in her reproductive journey, having something that supports her from her first period through menopause and beyond and that she feels supported every step of the way.
Diana Fryc:
I love it. Alex and Tori, I could probably hop on a plane with a bottle of good vodka and sit with you for a little while, but I’m enjoying our time together and we’re kind of wrapping up with our time. But there’s a question that I like to ask everybody because of course my show is all about elevating women leadership and that’s this one. Are there any other women leaders or rising stars out there? It could be in our industry or not that you’d like to elevate for the work that they’re doing right now.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Yeah, it’s a great question. God, I think of so many incredible women that are just rewriting the script on what success looks like. Some of them we’ve been fortunate to bring on as investors, someone like RiceA Jerona, who’s the chief brand officer at Revolve. And I’ve just deeply admired her because she’s a leader that leads with kindness. And intention. And there’s other folks out there, like Ariel K, who’s the founder of Parachute, who has built a brand primarily through a DDC channel to great success and scale that really thoughtfully while not losing sight of what the brand is.
Alex Taylor:
Yeah, I agree. And I love Rysa, and I think all she does in a mission driven of supporting women and I think I think about Laura Modi from Bobby and all she’s doing on advocacy, I think it’s these like minded, mission driven brands. I think, like Amy Liu and what she does in supporting different brands, and it’s just everyone’s out there supporting women and supporting women internally, in their organizations externally and advocating from them. And I think those are the leaders that I really look up to. Agree.
Diana Fryc:
Oh, thank you so much. I believe I may be interviewing the founder of Parachute in a week or so.
Tori Thain Gioia:
Have a great conversation.
Diana Fryc:
Oh, good. Okay. Well, that just makes it even more exciting. Thank you. Well. Hey, we’ve been talking with Alex Taylor and Tori Than Gioiaco founders and co CEOs of Perelel. Where can we learn more about your company and what the two of you are up to?
Tori Thain Gioia:
Sure. You can find us @perelelhealth.com that’s Perelel health.com or follow us. Same spot on Instagram? Yeah.
Diana Fryc:
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time today. I am so happy to have met you, and I look forward to watching you grow and see what you do. The work that you’re doing is really important. Thank you for that.
Alex Taylor:
Thank you for having us.
Tori Thain Gioia:
This has been such a delight.
Diana Fryc:
Yeah. And thank you to the listeners. Well, to you listeners, I should say, for your time today. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. And I know that there’s plenty of us that should be sharing this particular episode, so make sure that happens. Otherwise, have a great rest of your day, and we’ll catch you next time on The Gooder podcast
