Womansplain

Lulu Ge came to this country at four and a half not speaking a word of English, internalized the immigrant instinct to shed everything different about her, and spent her 20s in fashion corporate strategy running a $300M budget at Saks. Hormonal acne, hair falling out, periods so unpredictable she bled through her white French lace wedding dress during cocktail hour at her Tuscan wedding. Park Avenue gynecologists offered the same three things on rotation: pill, patch, ring; antidepressants for the mood swings; opioids for the pain. It was her mom who finally said: you need to give Chinese medicine a try. One blend of herbs from a doctor who read her tongue, three months of boiling them down at home, and her next period arrived without warning. No cramps, no signal, just a body that finally felt like her own. She is now the founder and CEO of Elix, the first modern east-meets-west wellness platform integrating 5,000 years of Traditional Chinese Medicine with clinical research. She launched March 8, 2020, the same weekend Cuomo declared a state of emergency, and grew 2,000% in the first 18 months running the company from her childhood bedroom.

In this episode, Lulu breaks down why 60% of birth control is prescribed off-label as a band-aid for symptoms it was never invented to treat, and the East/West split she's spent six years bridging. She teaches a real-time tongue read you can do right now: red tip means heart-organ stress and overthinking (most high-powered women have it), scalloped edges mean dampness and bloating, red dots mean blood stagnation and likely period cramps or headaches. Plus the warming-vs-cooling food framework (red inflamed acne = internal heat, eat cucumber and watermelon; whitehead acne with fatigue = internal cold, skip the salads and ice drinks). She walks through the science behind the formulas: Daily Harmony, based on a 1,000-year-old cortisol-regulating formula that's the #1 selling formula in Asia; and the new mental clarity formula featuring reishi, lion's mane, and cordyceps. She also gets honest about telling her immigrant parents she was quitting her dream Saks job ("my mom looked me in the eye and burst into tears"), and the Wharton EMBA professor Ethan Mollick who pulled her aside after Entrepreneurship 101 and said "if you decide to do this full time, I'll fund you" (six months later he followed through). Plus her advice for young founders: know your why before you raise a dollar.

Whether you're a woman who came off birth control and watched everything go haywire, a founder weighing whether to leave a corporate job for an idea your parents are scared of, or someone who has never once thought to look at her own tongue in the mirror on a Friday night, this one's for you.

🎁 A gift from us + Elix: Use code WOMANSPLAIN15 at checkout on elixhealing.com for 15% off your first purchase.

Find Elix:🔗 elixhealing.com📲 @elixhealing📲 Lulu: @lulug and @luluth​eherbalist on TikTok

Find Womansplain:📲 @womansplainpod✉️ ⁠[email protected]⁠

Samantha Diamond was diagnosed with PCOS in her mid-20s by her then-boyfriend, a Toronto OBGYN resident who happened to be living with her. Most women wait years for that diagnosis. 70% never get it at all. That asymmetry, the unfair advantage of having a doctor at home, became the founding insight for Bird&Be: what if everyone could walk into a fertility appointment already armed with the information, the testing, and the lifestyle prep? Now she's the founder and CEO of Bird&Be, a modern fertility brand selling supplements, at-home tests, and male fertility kits to a 1,000-store Ulta Beauty footprint, an eight-figure subscription business growing 100% YoY, and a clinical network of fertility doctors actively prescribing the products to their patients. She built it after a decade running her own beauty PR agency in Canada, a miscarriage between her second and third child, and a long fertility journey of her own.

In this episode, Samantha breaks down why birth control masks PCOS for years (and the exact symptoms to watch for when you come off it), the difference between cycle-tracking apps and ovulation strips ("apps are amazing for remembering things, but you need to add the biometrics"), and why she insists women ask their doctors for blood work and an ultrasound, and find a new doctor if they're refused. She walks through the science behind every product: the FSH ovarian reserve test that nearly annihilated her to manufacture (started in COVID, when no lab in the world wanted to make non-COVID rapid tests), the at-home sperm test that sends you a video of your moving sperm in 15 minutes, and the CoQ10 dose in their preconception supplement, the highest on the prenatal market. She also gets honest about the resounding nos in her first fundraise ("I left every meeting wondering, am I a fool?"), the COVID pivot when her original team walked, and the early investor who called her months later and said "I can't stop thinking about you and this idea." Plus: meeting her co-founder through her own husband, why she pays for a communication coach for the founding team ("a co-founder relationship is like a marriage"), and her two-part advice for young founders that has nothing to do with business and everything to do with sleep, heavy weights, and being "dressed to be ready."

Whether you're a founder navigating your first round of investor nos, a woman who came off birth control and noticed something is off, a CPG operator studying how to win clinical credibility and beauty-aisle distribution at the same time, or someone who just wants to understand her own cycle for the first time, this one's for you.

🎁 A gift from us + Bird&Be: Use code WOMANSPLAIN15 at checkout on birdandbe.com for 15% off sitewide (one-time orders or your first subscription order). Valid through end of September.

Find Bird&Be:🔗 birdandbe.com📲 @birdandbe

Find Womansplain:📲 @womansplainpod✉️ [email protected]

Alissa Miky moved to LA at 21 with two suitcases, no English fluency, no U.S. degree, no family or friends, and built a seaweed empire anyway. Her first U.S. company, Misaki Tokyo, turned luxury seaweed candy into a 1.4M-follower TikTok phenomenon with Kim Kardashian collabs and Oscars and Emmys pre-event placements. Now she's the founder and CEO of OoMee, the first marine plant beverage brand in the U.S. and the inventor of an entirely new category: Seabiotics. Made from red seaweed, OoMee curbs your appetite the way a GLP-1 might, only it costs $3.50 a can, has 20 calories, and tastes like strawberry hibiscus. Alissa lost 40 pounds drinking it. She's also a Forbes Japan 100 honoree, a Japanese TV anchor with 15 million viewers, a cancer fighter in remission, and openly ADHD.

In this episode, Alissa breaks down why the pre-biotic trend is already over (and how the hype cycle dictates everything she builds), why she dogeza-bowed her way into exclusive U.S. distribution rights with Japan's largest seaweed company, and why she built OoMee in the Bay Area instead of LA: "find the place where you can bloom." She also gets into the four-year, 4,000-trial product development process, why she refused to spend on CapEx and partnered with a co-man instead, and how she landed in 700+ locations on launch (most beverage brands start with 200). Plus: the Misaki Tokyo to OoMee playbook, building in a category that doesn't exist yet, and why approachable beats authentic when your goal is to heal as many people as possible.

Whether you're an Asian American founder navigating a market that's only 8% of the population, a CPG operator obsessed with white space, or just someone who wants a wellness drink that doesn't taste like the ocean, this one's for you.

🎁 A gift from us + OoMee: Use code WMSPLN15 at checkout on oomee.life for 15% off your order. Valid through end of June. Consider it your sign to finally try them.

Find OoMee: 🔗 oomee.life 📲 @oomee.life

Find Womansplain: 📲 @womansplainpod ✉️ [email protected]

Charlotte Cruze went from producing Willard Scott's 100-year-old birthday segment at NBC, to running branded content for luxury men's publishers, to an NYU Master's in Food Studies, all before co-founding Alice Mushrooms, the functional mushroom chocolate brand now sold in Target, Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Erewhon. Named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies of 2025, Alice has made functional mushrooms feel less "kombucha mother in the basement" and more "cute tin on your nightstand."

In this episode, Charlotte breaks down the science of functional mushrooms (no, they're not psychedelic, and no, microdosing isn't legal at Erewhon), why dark chocolate is the most bioavailable supplement vehicle on the market, and how she and co-founder Lindsay met over the phone during COVID and spent two years sourcing before they'd put anything in a wrapper. She also gets into the brand's "indulge, don't endure" philosophy, the delusion required to build in an emerging category, and why she takes all five chocolates (Nightcap, Brainstorm, Happy Ending, Party Trick, and Zen X) daily.

Whether you're building in a category that doesn't exist yet, curious about the mushroom-chocolate-industrial complex, or just looking for something to take the edge off without a glass of wine, this one's for you.

🎁 A gift from us + Alice Mushrooms: Use code WOMANSPLAIN20 at checkout on alicemushrooms.com for 20% off your order. Consider it your sign to finally try them.

Find Alice Mushrooms:🔗 alicemushrooms.com📲 @alice.mushrooms

Find Womansplain:📲 @womansplainpod✉️ ⁠[email protected]⁠

Hailey Yaffa spent years doing what looked right on paper: investment banking, finance at a luxury fashion house, the whole thing. But underneath the polished resume was a woman quietly battling disordered eating and wondering if this was really it.

So she quit. And then she built DateWorthy, a frozen dessert brand made from dates and real ingredients that's rewriting what "treating yourself" actually means. No guilt. No gimmicks. Just food that makes you feel good, built by a founder who had to learn what that felt like first.

In this episode, Hailey gets honest about hitting a wall in corporate, the deeply personal reason she started a food company, what it's like to build a CPG brand from scratch with no industry experience, and why she believes the standards you set for your snack shelf say a lot about the standards you set for your life. If you've ever felt like you were performing success instead of living it, this one will hit.

Find DateWorthy: 🔗 eatdateworthy.com 📲 @eatdateworthy 📍 Find DateWorthy near you: eatdateworthy.com/find-us

Find Womansplain: 📲 @womansplainpod ✉️ [email protected]

Mallory Jones Oniki studied finance, graduated into a pandemic, and started posting cookie videos on an app she barely understood. Five years and over 6,000 test cookies later, she's ⁠ @thepalatablelife ⁠ ; a recipe developer and content creator with over a million followers on TikTok, and now a debut cookbook author. Cookie Club is 80 recipes, nine custom paintings, and two years of baking from her home kitchen with her four-year-old cracking eggs beside her.In this episode, Mallory gets into how her viral Cookies Inspired by TV Shows series put her on the map, why she refused to niche down even when the algorithm rewarded it, what it actually takes to go from a $500 brand deal to a full-time creator career, the wild two-year process of landing a publisher and testing thousands of cookies, and the one recipe she tried over and over again before finally cutting her losses (RIP mochi cookie). Whether you're thinking about betting on a creative side hustle, curious what goes into writing a cookbook from scratch, or just need someone to tell you that trying is worth more than timing it perfectly, this one's for you.

Find Cookie Club: Available wherever books are sold (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Williams Sonoma)🔗 sites.prh.com/cookie-club

Find The Palatable Life:📲 @thepalatablelife (Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube)🔗 thepalatablelife.com

Find Womansplain:📲 @womansplainpod✉️ [email protected]

Erin Barrett was a systems engineering major who pivoted into consulting for the free Starbucks, landed at McKinsey during the 2020 food tech boom, and then got so sick from COVID that it completely rewired her relationship with food and health. By the time she got to Stanford GSB, she was serving experimental cocktails out of mason jars through her dorm room window, and Goldilocks was born.

In this episode, Erin gets into why the canned cocktail market is more broken than most people realize (hint: your favorite Aperol Spritz has as much sugar as a soda), how she cold-called 40+ food scientists and got told "don't bother" by most of them, the sneaker drop-inspired launch strategy that had liquor store owners in Chelsea asking "what is going on," and why LinkedIn, not Instagram, not TikTok, became her most powerful growth channel with zero dollars spent on marketing. If you're building something the industry says won't work, or you just need a reminder that scrappy and imperfect beats waiting for perfect, this one's for you.

🍸 Find Goldilocks:

🔗 drinkgoldilocks.com

📲 @drinkgoldilocks

Find Womansplain:

📲 @womansplainpod

✉️ [email protected]

Dr. Mia Wiston is a licensed clinical psychologist, solo practice owner, and the creator behind @dishingdaily, a food and lifestyle account with 147K followers that she built while seeing patients from her Lower East Side apartment. This is her first podcast ever.

In this episode, Mia gets real about what it's actually like to run two businesses from your living room, why she rebranded from her beloved "Lower East Side" handle to Dishing Daily, how she uses Instagram Q&As to break down the stigma around therapy, and the ethical tightrope of having patients follow your food account. She also talks about why she'll never do couples therapy, how CBT works for the type-A NYC woman, and what it felt like when her boss let her take her patients with her, something almost unheard of in the psychology world. Whether you're building a side hustle alongside your career, navigating how much of yourself to share online, or just need restaurant recs from someone who was #2 on Beli, this one's for you.

Find Dishing Daily:📲 @dishingdaily

Find Mia Wiston, Psychology:🔗 drmiawiston.com

Find Womansplain:📲 @womansplainpod✉️ ⁠[email protected]⁠

Emily Steele went from running neighborhood revitalization projects in Des Moines, Iowa to building pop-up yoga brands, leading FemCity Des Moines into the most successful chapter in the U.S., and launching her own marketing agency, Love Local. Somewhere along the way, she realized the most powerful marketing tool wasn't a billboard — it was a neighbor telling a neighbor. Now she's the CEO and co-founder of Hummingbirds, a creator economy platform that's turned 40,000+ everyday people into brand ambassadors for companies like Olipop, Goodles, and MUSH — across 40+ cities and counting. Oh, and she raised $13M in venture capital. From Iowa. And never left.

In this episode, Emily gets into why she started building communities long before she ever called herself an entrepreneur, what it's really like to raise venture capital as two women in the Midwest (hint: 100 conversations for 3 term sheets), why nano creators will outlast AI in the marketing world, how she found co-founder Charise Flynn and why that changed everything, and what it actually looks like to run a 40-person company while raising two young kids. If you've ever felt like you're not in the "right" city or don't have the "right" background to build something big, this one will change your mind.

Find Hummingbirds:🔗 hummingbirds.com📲 @hummingbirdshq

Find Emily:📲 @emily.steele

Find Womansplain:📲 @womansplainpod✉️ ⁠[email protected]⁠

Kendall Kransdorf left her strategy career at Boston Consulting Group, detoured through the startup world, and bet everything on a hunch that cottage cheese deserved a glow-up. Now she's the founder and CEO of Cotto, a high-protein whipped cottage cheese dip brand she's building from the ground up in New York City — and we mean from the ground up. She's making every batch, hand-stickering every container, and meeting customers in parks after dark.

In this episode, Kendall gets into why she always had the "end in mind" but still wasn't fully prepared for the reality of solo founding, how her disordered eating journey led her to create food that's joyful again, the strategy behind launching with nostalgic flavors instead of trendy ones, and what building in public actually feels like when you don't have a product to sell yet. If you've ever dreamed of turning your kitchen experiments into a real brand — or just need a reminder that you don't have it all figured out to start — this one's for you.

🎁 A gift from us + Cotto: Use code WOMANSPLAIN at checkout on getcotto.com for a special treat from the Womansplain community.

Find Cotto:🔗 getcotto.com📲 @getcotto

Find Womansplain:📲 @womansplainpod✉️ ⁠[email protected]⁠