The Two Percent

On this episode of The Two Percent, host Anu Duggal sits down with Monique Rodriguez, Founder and CEO of Mielle Organics, to talk about building a community-first haircare brand from zero and selling to Procter & Gamble in a 9-figure exit.

Monique shares how she walked away from an eight-year nursing career, spotted a gap in the textured hair and natural haircare market by studying shelves at Target and Sally Beauty, and built a loyal customer base on social media before launching a single product.

She breaks down how co-developing with her community drove demand so high that Mielle sold out 95 Sally Beauty stores on day one and went chainwide in under six months. The conversation also gets into the financial mistakes that put the company $2M in debt, what she learned about raising capital the hard way, and how she structured a P&G acquisition deal that kept the brand's DNA, formulas, and founding team intact.

Episode Resources

Check out Mielle Organics: https://www.instagram.com/mielleorganics/

Follow Monique: https://www.instagram.com/exquisitemo/

Follow Anu: https://www.instagram.com/anuduggal/

Follow Female Founders Fund: https://www.instagram.com/femalefoundersfund/

Season 7 of The Two Percent is presented by J.P. Morgan.J.P. Morgan supports businesses at every stage of growth, from startups to mature companies, by providing access to dedicated banking teams with deep expertise across industries. J.P. Morgan helps startups navigate complexity with confidence and scale with purpose. Learn about how J.P. Morgan Partners with Startups: jpmorgan.com/growwithoutlimits

Disclosure: The Two Percent is hosted by Anu Duggal, Founding Partner of Female Founders Fund. Some guests featured on the podcast may be founders or leaders of companies that Female Founders Fund has invested in, or may have other professional relationships with the fund. Any views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Female Founders Fund or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.

Executive Producer: Anu Duggal

Series Producer / Editorial Producer: Julie Cerick

Production Manager: Rachel Braun

Post-Production & Editing: Rachel Braun, Don't Buzz, Melrose Podcasts Studios

On this episode of The Two Percent, host Anu Duggal sits down with Judy Thelen to talk about how a shared Google Map of restaurants turned into one of the fastest-growing dining apps in the country.

Judy reflects on co-founding Beli with her husband Elliot during business school, graduating into the pandemic, and the early gamification experiments that sparked organic growth. She explains why the team refused to spend on paid acquisition, how they built a platform with more ratings than Yelp with just four people, and what it took to earn restaurant trust by deliberately not talking to restaurants.

The conversation also covers the dynamics of building with your spouse, why they look to Strava and Letterboxd instead of other food apps for product inspiration, and what's next as Beli approaches a hundred million ratings.

Episode Resources

Check out Beli: https://www.instagram.com/beli_eats/

Follow Judy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judiththelen/

Follow Anu: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/anuduggal/⁠

Follow Female Founders Fund: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/femalefoundersfund/

Season 7 of The Two Percent is presented by J.P. Morgan.

J.P. Morgan supports businesses at every stage of growth, from startups to mature companies, by providing access to dedicated banking teams with deep expertise across industries. J.P. Morgan helps startups navigate complexity with confidence and scale with purpose. Learn about How J.P. Morgan partners with Startups: jpmorgan.com/growwithoutlimits

Disclosure: The Two Percent is hosted by Anu Duggal, Founding Partner of Female Founders Fund. Some guests featured on the podcast may be founders or leaders of companies that Female Founders Fund has invested in, or may have other professional relationships with the fund. Any views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Female Founders Fund or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.

Executive Producer: Anu Duggal

Series Producer / Editorial Producer: Julie Cerick

Production Manager: Rachel Braun

Post-Production & Editing: Rachel Braun, Don't Buzz, Melrose Podcasts Studios

In this episode of The Two Percent, Kristie D’Ambrosio Correll talks about her second act as a founder after scaling product and hardware at Mirror and through its Lululemon acquisition. She shares how growing up working with her dad in the garage inspired a lifelong goal to build an American ultra‑luxury car, why Dacora centers tactile, craft‑led interiors (no plastic touchscreens) inspired by Art Deco and Pininfarina, and how the signature wood hood and embodied intelligence approach came to be.

Kristie also reflects on the CTO to CEO transition, lessons from manufacturing, supply chain and public‑company rigor at Lululemon, the surprising customer appetite for simplicity and American‑made design, and why transparency, high standards, and hands‑on engineering guide how she leads.

Episode Resources:

Check out Dacora: https://www.instagram.com/dacoramotors/

Follow Anu: https://www.instagram.com/anuduggal/

Follow Female Founders Fund: https://www.instagram.com/femalefoundersfund/

Season 7 of The Two Percent is presented by J.P. Morgan.

J.P. Morgan supports businesses at every stage of growth, from startups to mature companies, by providing access to dedicated banking teams with deep expertise across industries. J.P. Morgan helps startups navigate complexity with confidence and scale with purpose. Learn about How J.P. Morgan partners with startups: jpmorgan.com/growwithoutlimits

Disclosure: The Two Percent is hosted by Anu Duggal, Founding Partner of Female Founders Fund. Some guests featured on the podcast may be founders or leaders of companies that Female Founders Fund has invested in, or may have other professional relationships with the fund. Any views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Female Founders Fund or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.

Executive Producer: Anu Duggal

Series Producer / Editorial Producer: Julie Cerick

Production Manager: Rachel Braun

Post-Production & Editing: Rachel Braun, Don't Buzz, Melrose Podcasts Studios

In this episode of The Two Percent, Arianna Huffington talks about her second act as a founder after building one of the most influential digital media brands of all time. She explains how collapsing from burnout after founding the Huffington Post inspired her to launch Thrive Global, focused on five evidence‑based daily behaviors—sleep, food, movement, stress management, and connection—and on B2B behavior‑change technology. Arianna discusses Thrive’s early break with Accenture, the new Thrive AI Health partnership with the OpenAI Startup Fund for hyper‑personalized coaching, and leadership lessons like prioritizing recovery, “thrive time,” delegation, entry interviews, and micro steps.

Episode Resources:

Check out Thrive Global: https://www.instagram.com/thrive/

Follow Arianna Huffington: https://www.instagram.com/ariannahuff/

Follow Anu: https://www.instagram.com/anuduggal/

Follow Female Founders Fund: https://www.instagram.com/femalefoundersfund/

Season 7 of The Two Percent is presented by J.P. Morgan.

J.P. Morgan supports businesses at every stage of growth, from startups to mature companies, by providing access to dedicated banking teams with deep expertise across industries. J.P. Morgan helps startups navigate complexity with confidence and scale with purpose. Learn about How J.P. Morgan partners with startups: jpmorgan.com/growwithoutlimits

Disclosure: The Two Percent is hosted by Anu Duggal, Founding Partner of Female Founders Fund. Some guests featured on the podcast may be founders or leaders of companies that Female Founders Fund has invested in, or may have other professional relationships with the fund. Any views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Female Founders Fund or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.

Executive Producer: Anu Duggal

Series Producer / Editorial Producer: Julie Cerick

Production Manager: Rachel Braun

Post-Production & Editing: Rachel Braun, Don't Buzz, Melrose Podcasts Studios

In this episode of The Two Percent, Jennifer Fisher dives into her second act as a founder after building a globally recognized jewelry label. She shares how styling led her to make customizable fine jewelry for her son, how seeding pieces with celebrity stylists and earned editorial coverage scaled the business, and what she learned running DTC, especially the tradeoffs of domestic production versus when to move manufacturing overseas.

Then Jennifer opens up about Maedyn, the lifestyle brand she built on the same instincts that made her jewelry iconic. From cult seasoning salts to a cookbook to a recipe platform, she breaks down what it really takes to build across categories: guerrilla marketing, a fiercely female-led team, and a hard-won belief that showing up consistently and investing in relationships will always outlast the overnight win.

Episode Resources:

Check out Maedyn: https://www.instagram.com/maedyn/

Follow Jennifer Fisher: https://www.instagram.com/jenniferfisher/

Follow Anu: https://www.instagram.com/anuduggal/

Follow Female Founders Fund: https://www.instagram.com/femalefoundersfund/

Season 7 of The Two Percent is presented by J.P. Morgan.

J.P. Morgan supports businesses at every stage of growth, from startups to mature companies, by providing access to dedicated banking teams with deep expertise across industries. J.P. Morgan helps startups navigate complexity with confidence and scale with purpose. Learn about how J.P. Morgan partners with startups: jpmorgan.com/growwithoutlimits

Disclosure: The Two Percent is hosted by Anu Duggal, Founding Partner of Female Founders Fund. Some guests featured on the podcast may be founders or leaders of companies that Female Founders Fund has invested in, or may have other professional relationships with the fund. Any views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Female Founders Fund or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.

Executive Producer: Anu Duggal

Series Producer / Editorial Producer: Julie Cerick

Production Manager: Rachel Braun

Post-Production & Editing: Rachel Braun, Don't Buzz, Melrose Podcasts Studios

On this episode of The Two Percent, host Anu Duggal sits down with Mariah Chase to talk about her path from consumer retail leadership to building an AI-native enterprise company. Mariah reflects on scaling ELOQUII, selling the business to Walmart, and leading large, complex apparel initiatives inside a global organization. She explains how advising a former CTO pulled her into AI, the early demos that convinced her to build again, and why she co-founded Ekyam.AI to help retailers reconcile messy data, modernize legacy systems faster, and operate from a single source of truth. The conversation also explores the shift from fast consumer cycles to long enterprise sales, the transparency-first culture she’s building, and how the same founder instincts show up across very different kinds of companies.

Episode Resources

Check out Ekyam.AI: https://ekyam.ai/

Follow Mariah: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariah-chase-ba08b525

Follow Anu: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/anuduggal/⁠

Follow Female Founders Fund: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/femalefoundersfund/

Season 7 of The Two Percent is presented by J.P. Morgan.

J.P. Morgan supports businesses at every stage of growth, from startups to mature companies, by providing access to dedicated banking teams with deep expertise across industries. J.P. Morgan helps startups navigate complexity with confidence and scale with purpose. Learn about how J.P. Morgan partners with startups: jpmorgan.com/growwithoutlimits

Disclosure: The Two Percent is hosted by Anu Duggal, Founding Partner of Female Founders Fund. Some guests featured on the podcast may be founders or leaders of companies that Female Founders Fund has invested in, or may have other professional relationships with the fund. Any views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Female Founders Fund or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.

Executive Producer: Anu Duggal

Series Producer / Editorial Producer: Julie Cerick

Production Manager: Rachel Braun

Post-Production & Editing: Rachel Braun, Don't Buzz, Melrose Podcasts Studios

In this episode of The Two Percent, Tiffany Lopinsky, co‑founder and CEO of ShopMy, explains how she went from launching a college Instagram (Boston Foodies) and meeting her co‑founders at a prior startup to building a creator‑first platform that modernizes affiliate commerce and brand gifting. She walks through the early, iterative product development that found traction during the pandemic, how ShopMy balances creator needs and brand ROI, and surprising lessons: apparel drives far more volume than beauty and follower counts often don’t predict sales. Tiffany also discusses the company’s data‑moat and AI work for recommendations, fundraising lessons from a recent Series B extension, leadership lessons as the team scales, and practical advice for founders and creators: make things frictionless, provide white‑glove help early, and let customer metrics guide decisions. Today ShopMy supports roughly 200K creators, partners with thousands of brands, and moves hundreds of millions in product sales each month.

Episode Resources

Check out ShopMy: https://www.instagram.com/shopmy/

Follow Tiffany Lopinsky: https://www.instagram.com/tifflopinsky/

Follow Anu: https://www.instagram.com/anuduggal/

Follow Female Founders Fund: https://www.instagram.com/femalefoundersfund/

Season 7 of The Two Percent is presented by J.P. Morgan.

J.P. Morgan supports businesses at every stage of growth, from startups to mature companies, by providing access to dedicated banking teams with deep expertise across industries. J.P. Morgan helps startups navigate complexity with confidence and scale with purpose. Learn about How J.P. Morgan partners with startups: jpmorgan.com/growwithoutlimits

Disclosure: The Two Percent is hosted by Anu Duggal, Founding Partner of Female Founders Fund. Some guests featured on the podcast may be founders or leaders of companies that Female Founders Fund has invested in, or may have other professional relationships with the fund. Any views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Female Founders Fund or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.

Executive Producer: Anu Duggal

Series Producer / Editorial Producer: Julie Cerick

Production Manager: Rachel Braun

Post-Production & Editing: Rachel Braun, Don't Buzz, Melrose Podcasts Studios

In this episode of The Two Percent, Founders of 831 Stories Erica Cerulo and Claire Mazur discuss their second act as builders, and how they’re turning a breakout novel into a scalable intellectual property platform with 831 Stories. Rather than treating the book as a singular product, they share how they’re designing a story-driven universe built for long-term expansion across community, commerce, and culture.

They unpack the strategic decision to prioritize direct audience relationships over traditional publishing pathways, why they view community as core infrastructure rather than a marketing channel, and how depth — not virality — drives durable growth. The conversation also explores their co-founder operating system, how they divide creative and business responsibilities, and the discipline behind building deliberately in an industry that often rewards speed.

This episode is a case study in building IP in public, co-founder dynamics, and what it looks like to create something designed to last.

Check out 831: https://www.instagram.com/831storieshq/

Follow Erica: https://www.instagram.com/ericacerulo/

Follow Claire: https://www.instagram.com/clairemazur/

Follow Anu: https://www.instagram.com/anuduggal/

Follow Female Founders Fund: https://www.instagram.com/femalefoundersfund/

Season 7 of The Two Percent is presented by J.P. Morgan.

J.P. Morgan supports businesses at every stage of growth, from startups to mature companies, by providing access to dedicated banking teams with deep expertise across industries. J.P. Morgan helps startups navigate complexity with confidence and scale with purpose. Learn about How J.P. Morgan partners with startups:  http://jpmorgan.com/growwithoutlimits

Disclosure: The Two Percent is hosted by Anu Duggal, Founding Partner of Female Founders Fund. Some guests featured on the podcast may be founders or leaders of companies that Female Founders Fund has invested in, or may have other professional relationships with the fund. Any views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Female Founders Fund or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.

Executive Producer: Anu Duggal

Series Producer / Editorial Producer: Julie Cerick

Production Manager: Rachel Braun

Post-Production & Editing: Rachel Braun, Don't Buzz, Melrose Podcasts Studios

In this episode of The Two Percent, Bobbi Brown talks about her second act as a founder after building one of the most iconic beauty brands of all time. She shares how she got started as a makeup artist, why she created her first products before she even knew what a “founder” or “brand” was, and how an early break at Bergdorf Goodman helped launch her career. Bobbi explains what it was like leaving Estée Lauder Companies with years left on a non-compete, what she learned from trying other businesses in the interim, and how that journey ultimately led her to launch Jones Road, a modern, family-run DTC company built around product obsession and real-time customer feedback. The conversation also covers how social media changes product education and iteration, what’s surprised her about Jones Road’s breakout hits, how she thinks about retail expansion, and why patience, resilience, and actually building a profitable business matter more than hype or fundraising milestones.

Check out Jones Road: https://www.instagram.com/jonesroadbeauty

Follow Bobbi: https://www.instagram.com/justbobbidotcom

Follow Anu: https://www.instagram.com/anuduggal/

Follow Female Founders Fund: https://www.instagram.com/femalefoundersfund/

Season 7 of The Two Percent is presented by J.P. Morgan.

J.P. Morgan supports businesses at every stage of growth, from startups to mature companies, by providing access to dedicated banking teams with deep expertise across industries. J.P. Morgan helps startups navigate complexity with confidence and scale with purpose. Learn about How J.P. Morgan partners with startups: jpmorgan.com/growwithoutlimits

J.P. Morgan is the Bank of the Innovation Economy.

Disclosure: The Two Percent is hosted by Anu Duggal, Founding Partner of Female Founders Fund. Some guests featured on the podcast may be founders or leaders of companies that Female Founders Fund has invested in, or may have other professional relationships with the fund. Any views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Female Founders Fund or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.

Executive Producer: Anu Duggal

Series Producer / Editorial Producer: Julie Cerick

Production Manager: Rachel Braun

Post-Production & Editing: Rachel Braun, Don't Buzz, Melrose Podcasts Studios

In this episode of The Two Percent, Audrey Gelman talks about her second act as a founder and creative builder. She shares how her career started in politics, what led her to create The Wing, and how she’s now building The Six Bells and the fictional town of Barrows Green, a hospitality concept where storytelling, design, and nostalgia are central to the experience. Audrey explains why she’s drawn to creating immersive, transportive spaces as a counterbalance to an always-online world, how film and cinema shape her creative process, and what surprised her about who the brand resonates with. The conversation also covers reinvention, the reality of starting over, and why building something you truly believe in matters more than following a traditional playbook.

Follow Audrey Gelman on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/audreygelman/

Learn more about The Six Bells: https://www.thesixbells.com/

Learn more about Barrows Green: https://www.thesixbells.com/pages/the-story

Follow Anu: https://www.instagram.com/anuduggal/

Follow Female Founders Fund: https://www.instagram.com/femalefoundersfund/

Season 7 of The Two Percent is presented by J.P. Morgan.

J.P. Morgan supports businesses at every stage of growth, from startups to mature companies, by providing access to dedicated banking teams with deep expertise across industries. J.P. Morgan helps startups navigate complexity with confidence and scale with purpose. Learn about How JP Morgan partners with startups: jpmorgan.com/growwithoutlimits

J.P. Morgan is the Bank of the Innovation Economy.

Disclosure: The Two Percent is hosted by Anu Duggal, Founding Partner of Female Founders Fund. Some guests featured on the podcast may be founders or leaders of companies that Female Founders Fund has invested in, or may have other professional relationships with the fund. Any views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Female Founders Fund or its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.

Executive Producer: Anu Duggal

Series Producer / Editorial Producer: Julie Cerick

Production Manager: Rachel Braun

Post-Production & Editing: Rachel Braun, Don't Buzz, Melrose Podcasts Studios