Women Disrupting Tech

Caregiver burnout starts building when the care a hospital team shares falls to one family member at home.

In this episode, Dr. Ashley Blackington, an occupational therapist and the founder of Dovetail, describes what happens after discharge, how that can lead to caregiver burnout and how she is building Dovetail to make it easy for people who need help and caregivers to ask for help and spread the caregiving workload.

We talk about:

• How Dovetail allows the primary caregiver to build a flock of helpers around the person receiving care,
• How layers of access give helpers exactly the information they need, not more.
• Why Dovetail includes AI summaries that give caregivers a clinical voice in doctor appointments.

The conversation also covers why people avoid asking for help, the case for prevention, the caregiver foundation, and her advice on starting the funding conversation two steps earlier.

If you’re a founder or investor who wants to see how a clinician turned a pattern she watched for years into a product, from permission design to AI quality checks to distribution, this episode is for you.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

02:05 Dr. Ashley Blackington’s path into occupational therapy

04:21 What occupational therapists actually do

07:52 Canadian and U.S. healthcare perspectives

09:29 Why family caregiving is reaching a breaking point

15:33 Moving from crisis care to sustainable support

18:11 The growing care gap and caregiver shortage

22:03 What happens when someone comes home from the hospital

25:11 Caregiver burnout and the “single point person” problem

30:19 How Dovetail helps families coordinate care

41:17 AI summaries for caregivers and clinicians

48:40 How Dovetail is available today and where it’s headed

52:03 Prevention, parenting, and the future of caregiving

55:58 Why occupational therapy should be more proactive

58:46 The caregiver foundation and making support accessible

1:02:35 Home Field Advantage and the And Both podcast

1:06:30 Getting more men involved in caregiving

1:08:58 Dr. Blackington’s advice for building prevention and community

1:11:41 Where to learn more about Dr. Ashley Blackington and Dovetail

Show notes

Blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/10/22/episode-173/

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/p/episode-173

Connect with Dr. Ashley Blackington and Dovetail

Website: https://ashleyblackington.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyblackington/

Substack: https://ashleyblackington.substack.com/

Website Dovetail: https://dovetail.care/

Dovetail LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dovetailapp/

Dovetail Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dovetail.care

Connect with Dirkjan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/

FundingCoach: https://fundingcoach.ai/

About Women Disrupting Tech
Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

🎧 Listen to Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

👉 Subscribe for more conversations with women building the future of health tech.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Veroniek Vermeulen, founder of Silatha, about why women's health is still expected to be left at the office door. Veroniek trained as an engineer in a field where 80 percent of her peers were men, and spent years trying to fit into a workplace that wasn’t suited for women. She founded Silatha to replace that silence with psychological safety, backed by real numbers on engagement and retention.

This episode is for female founders and health tech leaders building company culture, women in leadership deciding what to share about their own health at work, and anyone curious what changes once women's health is on the agenda.

What you'll learn in this episode

• Why fitting in at work can mean adapting so well you lose track of what you would build differently
• How psychological safety becomes measurable: Silatha's programs report 93 percent higher engagement and 92 percent better psychological safety among participants
• Why cycle-related symptoms only seem unpredictable, and what changes once people track them
• What staying silent about women's health costs at work: stress, isolation, absenteeism, and disengagement
• Why policy should follow the 80 to 99 percent of people acting in good faith
• Her three-part advice for founders in perimenopause: learn your own patterns, find a qualified specialist, and be intentional about what you share with your team

Chapters:

00:00 — Introduction: Women’s Health, Psychological Safety & Silatha

02:11 — Meet Veroniek Vermeulen and Silatha

02:42 — From Corporate Engineer to Founder

05:03 — Fitting In vs. Adapting at Work

06:41 — Burnout, Belonging & Being Valued

07:53 — Purpose, Viktor Frankl & Letting Go of Control

13:38 — How Silatha Evolved from Wellbeing to Women’s Health

17:41 — Why Psychological Safety Matters for Health at Work

19:59 — Breaking the Taboo Around Women’s Health

25:59 — How Organizations Build Lasting Support

27:02 — Nura: Private, Always-On Health Support

32:15 — Privacy, Trust & Responsible Health AI

38:10 — Men’s Mental Health and Inclusive Health Conversations

41:00 — The Cultural and Business Impact of Support

43:50 — Women’s Health at Work: Regional Perspectives

46:14 — How Founders Can Build Psychologically Safe Startups

55:15 — Advice for Founders Navigating Perimenopause

56:47 — Priorities, Pressure & Getting Important Work Done

1:01:26 — Finding Purpose Through the Work

1:01:58 — Designing Safer Founder Communities

1:04:06 — Where to Connect with Veroniek Vermeulen and Silatha

1:04:40 — Closing and Episode Outro

Show notes:Blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/10/08/episode-172/

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/p/episode-172?r=2v0lts&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Books discussed in the episode

Man’s Search for Meaning: https://amzn.eu/d/07Dj5X9M

Four Thousand Weeks: https://amzn.eu/d/0fyR6E7E

Connect with Veroniek Vermeulen and Silatha

Veroniek on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/veroniek/

Silatha on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/silatha/

Silatha on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SilathaJourney/

Silatha Middle East website: https://silathajourney.com/

Silatha Europe website: https://silatha.com/

Silatha on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMEvuobvsmkMqGlv8ndZucQ

Connect with host Dirkjan Hupkes

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/

FundingCoach: https://fundingcoach.ai/

About Women Disrupting Tech

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

🎧 Listen to Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

👉 Subscribe for more conversations with founders building healthier, more honest workplaces.

Every day, women make safety calculations - which route to take, where to sit - that never show up in the data.

What happens once that invisible data gets collected?

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Anniek van Veldhuizen, CCO and co-founder of MyHives, about turning daily, unmeasured safety experiences into objective, actionable data. Anniek and her co-founder Nelson built MyHives, and its AI guardian Beekon, to capture safety concerns before they escalate, using privacy-first technology that keeps all processing on the user’s own device.

If you’re a founder navigating fundraising bias as a woman, a leader responsible for workplace safety, or simply curious how privacy-first AI can turn subjective feelings of unsafety into evidence that actually gets acted on, this conversation has something for you.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why daily safety calculations, from choosing a route to picking a seat, never show up in official data, and what that costs system design
• How MyHives captures both physical and social safety signals without cameras or continuous listening, keeping all processing on-device
• Why traditional panic buttons fail the moment someone freezes, and how Beekon is built to act autonomously instead
• How unsafe environments cost the Dutch economy an estimated €8.3 billion a year, with roughly €5 billion linked to psychological and safety-related incidents
• What it took to bring MyHives into pilots onboarding around 33,000 home care workers and station cleaners
• Why translating lived experience into numbers moves corporate decision-makers more than personal stories alone
• What it’s like fundraising as a woman founder alongside a Black co-founder, and how being underestimated became an advantage

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

04:00 Anniek van Veldhuizen on building MyHives from lived experience

05:49 The daily calculations people make to stay safe

08:08 Why unsafe experiences go unreported

10:04 The gender data gap and how missing data shapes safety

14:50 Safety, participation, and learned helplessness

17:15 Building trust into a tool people can actually use

19:52 How MyHives works: app, BEEKON, and BEEKON+

24:00 Triggering help discreetly when someone cannot act

28:08 How escalation works across languages and locations

30:57 Why privacy is central to the product

34:58 Preventing false positives and training the system

40:32 Trials, pilots, and the workplace safety use case

48:09 The business and societal case for better safety data

53:16 Pricing, monetization, and the impact model

1:00:01 Working with security partners without being absorbed

1:04:20 Fundraising as a woman founder and a Black co-founder

1:07:36 Designing Fundicoach to feel safe and inclusive

Show notes :

Blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/09/24/episode-171

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/p/episode-171

Connect with Anniek van Veldhuizen and MyHives:

LinkedIn (Anniek): https://www.linkedin.com/in/anniek-van-veldhuizen-27731514a/

Website: https://www.myhives.nl/en-GB

LinkedIn (MyHives): https://www.linkedin.com/company/myhives-nl/

Download the Hyves app

Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.myhives

Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/myhives/id6751838174

Connect with Dirkjan Hupkes:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/

FundingCoach: https://fundingcoach.ai/

About Women Disrupting Tech

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

🎧 Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Amazon Music.

👉 Subscribe for more conversations with women building the future of tech.

More than half of Dutch citizens live with a chronic disease, and over 70% of supermarket products are ultra-processed.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Anke Kuik, co-founder and CEO of FLTRD, about turning a personal interest in nutrition into a tool that helps people navigate the supermarket. Anke walks me through the science behind PureScore, why popular nutrition labels can be misleading, and the founder decisions that took FLTRD from an outsourced prototype to more than 30,000 downloads.

This episode is for female founders and women in tech building health tech products, women entrepreneurs curious about the science behind nutrition apps, and any startup leader deciding when to bring technical development in-house.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why more than half of Dutch citizens live with a chronic disease, largely driven by lifestyle.
• How the "food matrix" explains why isolated vitamins or fiber don't work like whole food does.
• Why FLTRD built its own PureScore instead of relying on nutrition scores that can be gamed.
• Why outsourcing app development early on slowed FLTRD down and cost more than expected.
• Why bringing a technical co-founder in-house was Anke's best decision for FLTRD.
• How FLTRD keeps its scanning tool free while building a B2B model with supermarkets.
• What Anke looks for in investors beyond capital: retail, FMCG, and dietary network expertise.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Anke Kuik and FLTRD

06:55 Developing the concept and building the first app

12:01 Why healthy supermarket choices are so difficult

14:21 What "ultra-processed" food really means

18:09 PureScore vs. Nutriscore

22:56 Personal responsibility, pricing, and the food system

25:10 How the PureScore works

29:03 Scanning products and choosing better alternatives

31:19 Keeping the app free and building a business model

34:40 Working with supermarkets and the B2B opportunity

37:35 Fundraising, traction, and growth plans

39:52 Health impact and scientific validation

43:18 Publicity, media attention, and founder visibility

46:40 How bringing a CTO in-house changed the company

49:00 Finding investors with strategic value

50:10 Advice for an AI-powered founder funding platform

54:06 Where to find FLTRD & closing

Show notes:

Blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/09/17/episode-170/

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/p/episode-170

Connect with Anke Kuik and FLTRD:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankekuik/

Website: https://www.fltrd.nl/App:

Download the FLTRD app in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fltrd.nl/

Connect with Dirkjan Hupkes:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

Funding Coach tool: https://fundingcoach.ai

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/

About Women Disrupting Tech

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

🎧 Listen to Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

👉 Subscribe for more conversations with women building the future of health tech.

Juliette is the creator of the AI Flower Framework and founder of the AI Flower Foundation. She spent a year mapping how AI could impact her job as an engineering manager, and discovered why so many AI pilots don’t scale.

She turned what she found into an open-source AI framework that maps 152 IT activities against 25 levels of AI capability to show what evolves, fossilizes, or stays human work.

Whether you’re a founder, engineering leader, or a woman in tech looking for a concrete way to find out whether AI is actually the right solution to your problem, this episode will give you the three questions you need to ask before you start.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why most AI pilots stall before they ever scale
• Why "ten percent wrong" becomes "one hundred percent wrong" once AI touches it
• The three questions to ask before reaching for AI: AI, automation, or a system fix
• How 152 IT activities map against 25 levels of AI capability
• Why she kept the framework open source instead of charging for it
• What her own redundancy taught her about staying in control of her career
• Her one safeguard for any AI tool that recommends or matches people

Chapters:

00:00 Introducing Juliette van der Laarse and the AI Flower framework

05:19 From childhood programming to AI research and corporate engineering leadership

08:17 Why Juliette started the framework: clarity, career impact, and AI transformation

10:05 Why pilot-first AI strategies often stall at the business case stage

13:35 Why pilots are useful but not enough for enterprise-wide change

16:35 How the framework addresses fear, trust, and job stability

19:11 Juliette's redundancy experience and what it taught her about career resilience

27:33 Will AI take all jobs, and what has to happen before that becomes realistic

29:51 System readiness, regulation, and why some work may stay human

32:06 AI overhype versus useful automation

33:50 Why shallow IT training can lead teams to overuse AI

36:57 How mentoring and senior coaching could scale knowledge better

41:10 The structure of the AI Flower: activities, standards, and excellence

48:02 AI capability as 25 levels of maturity and scope

51:49 Mapping AI capability to IT activities and fossilization of tasks

54:57 How the model shows role evolution across DevOps, test, and infrastructure work

59:27 Capturing undocumented knowledge and local context in companies

1:03:06 Building internal knowledge gathering and documentation workflows with AI

1:09:21 Peer review, critique, and building a board of naysayers

1:15:46 How the framework changes over time while keeping a stable structure

1:18:41 Why the framework is open source instead of monetized

1:25:40 Using the model to map AI risk and suggest controls

1:30:06 Where companies should start, and the biggest mistake to avoid

1:35:23 Why Juliette is setting up a foundation around the framework

1:37:35 Safeguards for an AI funding coach and avoiding self-reinforcing bias

1:41:15 Where to follow Juliette as the foundation and framework grow

Show notes:

Blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/09/10/episode-169/

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/p/episode-169?r=2v0lts&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Connect with Juliette van der Laarse and the AI Flower Foundation

Juliette: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliettevanderlaarse/

AI Flower Foundation: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ai-flower-foundation/

Connect with host Dirkjan Hupkes

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

FundingCoach website: https://fundingcoach.ai

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/

About Women Disrupting Tech

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

🎧 Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Music.

👉 Subscribe for more conversations with women building the future of tech.

Karianne Kraaijestein spent years building resilience through sport, from gymnastics to indoor climbing to yoga, before starting triathlons at 47.

Now she's the founder of Adaptive, a coaching platform for female endurance athletes navigating a different kind of endurance test: the hormonal transition.

In this episode, we talk about her own journey in endurance sports, why she is focusing on women who are in a hormonal transition, and what data is needed to enable peak performance for women at this stage of their lives.

If you're an endurance athlete in perimenopause or postmenopause, or you coach one, and training has stopped working for reasons nobody can quite explain, this episode has pointers on where to look for strategies that improve performance.

For female founders and women in tech building trust-dependent products in spaces where the data doesn't exist yet, Karianne provides insights that can help you navigate the early stages.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why standard training plans, built for a generic body, fail women in the hormonal transition
• Why tracking sleep, heat regulation, and training load matters more than tracking hormones directly
• How Karianne finished part of the S’GRAIL in Girona on a torn ACL, and what that taught her about risk
• Why "too much heart and not enough mind" bankrupted her previous yoga studio, and what she's doing differently with Adaptive
• Why she considers a scientific advisory board the biggest de-risking factor for investors in a trust-dependent product
• How letting the community "almost be part of the building" shapes Adaptive's product development

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction

04:45 About Karianne and Adaptive

07:33 The Journey into Endurance Sports

10:28 Mental Challenges in Endurance Sports

13:29 The Importance of Goal Setting

16:22 Navigating Individuality in Triathlons

19:14 Overcoming Physical Setbacks

22:20 The Recovery Process and Age Factors

25:01 Building Adaptive for Women

28:13 Understanding Hormonal Transitions

31:05 Energy Management and Training Adjustments

34:11 The Role of Data in Training

36:43 Adaptive's Unique Approach

39:49 Integrating Research into Adaptive

41:33 The Power of Athlete Data

42:47 Research Collaborations and Insights

44:17 Understanding Amateur vs. Professional Athletes

45:30 Adaptive vs. Competitors in Women's Fitness

46:38 Building a Community for Endurance Athletes

47:55 Coaching Integration with Adaptive

49:23 Business Model and Pricing Strategy

52:56 Proving the Business Case for Adaptive

55:41 Data Privacy and Trust Issues

1:00:10 The Role of Community in Data Sharing

1:01:34 Building Trust with Scientific Validation

1:03:20 Future Expansion and Market Opportunities

1:04:46 Navigating Burnout and Performance

1:09:22 Lessons from Past Experiences

1:12:50 Design Principles for Personalized Solutions

1:15:01 Connecting with Karianne, Adaptive and Future Plans

Show notes

Blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/09/03/episode-168/

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/p/episode-168

Connect with Karianne Kraaijestein and Adaptive

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kariannekraaijestein/

Connect with host Dirkjan Hupkes

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

FundingCoach.ai: https://fundingcoach.ai

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/

About Women Disrupting Tech

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

🎧 Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Music.

👉 Subscribe for more conversations with women building the future of health tech.

Only 3% of people who show up to an event went looking for it. The other 97% came because someone they trust was already going.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Elise Mol, co-founder of Bash, a platform that helps event organizers turn ticket buyers into a community-driven marketing engine. We explore why exclusive early access beats public discounts, why the events industry is under more financial pressure than most people assume, and what it takes to build trust-based growth instead of relying on paid ads.

What you’ll learn in this episode

Why public “early bird” discounts fail to reward loyal community members, and what exclusive access does instead

Why your first ticket buyers act as an organic marketing channel in the months before an event

How the “plus-one” system turns a single ticket into a referral loop through WhatsApp and other personal channels

Why the post-COVID events industry is under more financial pressure than headlines suggest

Why BASH chose to work with organizers who already understood their model, rather than trying to convince skeptics

Why proving one local market matters more than international expansion early on

A simple practice for turning routine tasks like washing the dishes into space for solving hard problems

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

04:50 BASH and Its Origins

07:04 The Impact of COVID-19 on Event Planning

10:05 Transitioning from User to Organizer Focus

12:53 Challenges Faced by Event Organizers Post-COVID

16:08 The Importance of Early Ticket Sales

18:51 Building Community and FOMO in Event Marketing

21:46 BASH’s Role in Supporting Event Organizers

26:43 The Art of Event Organization

32:46 Building Community Through Events

38:39 Scaling and Cultural Considerations

42:38 Goal Setting and Company Growth

46:09 Design Principles for Trust and Belonging

More about the episode

Blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/08/27/episode-167/

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/p/episode-167

Connect with Elise Mol and BASH

Elise Mol on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/elisemol

BASH: https://bash.social

Connect with host Dirkjan Hupkes

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

FundingCoach: https://fundingcoach.ai

About Women Disrupting Tech
Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

🎧 Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Music.
👉 Subscribe for more conversations with women building the future of tech.

A third of a GP’s working week goes to admin, and 42% of UK GPs say they want to leave the profession within five years. Dr. Hannah Allen left clinical practice to fix that, and now leads clinical strategy at Heidi, an AI scribe used by clinicians in over 110 countries.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Dr. Hannah Allen, Chief Medical Officer at Heidi, about what happens when you take the keyboard out of the exam room.

Hannah trained as a doctor focused on women’s health before moving into health tech. She’s still a practicing GP, running a women’s health clinic while leading the clinical function at Heidi. She explains why she believes technology’s real job in medicine isn’t replacing clinical judgment; it’s giving doctors their attention back.

This episode is for founders building in health tech or other regulated industries, for clinicians curious about how AI actually fits into their day, and for anyone who wants to understand where women’s health data is still missing from medicine.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

* Why a third of a GP’s week goes to admin, and how that connects to the 42% of UK GPs who say they want to leave the profession within five years

* Why over 90% of patients feel more listened to when their doctor uses an AI scribe like Heidi

* Why building healthcare AI requires regional, linguistic, and cultural adaptation from day one, not as an afterthought

* Why up to 75 to 80% of clinicians already use some form of AI, even as most say they’re skeptical of it

* Why how a woman’s body behaves during pregnancy can predict her health decades later, and why that data mostly goes uncaptured

* Why female founders get “preventer” questions from VCs while male founders get “promoter” questions, and what Hannah does to counter that

* Why Hannah tells founders to obsess over the problem, not the product

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

04:35 Introduction to Dr. Hannah Allen

07:32 Transitioning from Medicine to Tech

10:31 The Role of Technology in Healthcare

13:43 Global Healthcare Challenges

17:15 Predicting Women’s Health Issues

21:20 AI in Healthcare: Opportunities and Concerns

25:18 Heidi: Revolutionizing Clinical Workflows

27:14 The Rise of Heidi: Word of Mouth Success

28:50 Measuring Impact: Time Savings and Burnout Reduction

30:01 Expanding Horizons: Beyond Documentation

32:03 The Role of AI in Clinical Practice

35:18 Transforming Patient Interactions with AI

39:01 Patient Feedback and Trust in AI

43:50 The Human Element in Healthcare

45:04 Future Vision: A Seamless Healthcare Experience

47:18 Advice for Founders: Building for Real Problems

50:44 Closing Thoughts and Resources

More about the episode

Show Notes: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/08/20/episode-166/

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/08/20/episode-166/

Connect with Dr. Hannah Allen and Heidi

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-hannah-a-a27ba650/

Heidi website: https://www.heidihealth.com/en-ie

Heidi LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/heidi/

More about the TEDx Coolhaven Women event on 9 October in Rotterdam

More about the event: https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/68333

Buy your tickets at: https://www.eventbrite.nl/e/tedx-coolhaven-women-the-new-builders-tickets-1992166654090?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true

Use code WDT25 for an exclusive 25% discount.

Connect with host Dirkjan Hupkes

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

FundingCoach.ai: https://fundingcoach.ai

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/

About Women Disrupting Tech

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

🎧 Listen to Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

👉 Subscribe for more conversations with women building tech from the ground up.

One in eight women in the Netherlands must choose between food and tampons. Sophie Haccou bootstrapped CupHub to close that gap, and is about to launch the crowdfunding campaign that could take her full time.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Sophie Haccou, co-founder of CupHub, about building a hardware startup from a university design project to a live crowdfunding campaign. Sophie and her co-founder Aart are developing Casey, a portable rinsing device that makes menstrual cups practical to use outside the home, and bootstrapped the company by waitressing at night while building it during the day.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

- Why one in eight women in the Netherlands have to choose between food and tampons, and how that defines period poverty

- Why menstrual cups cost more upfront but save money over time, and why that upfront cost is the real barrier

- Why almost no public toilet stall has a sink, and how that drives the design of Casey

- Why VCs told Sophie and Aart it was too early for them, and how that pushed them toward crowdfunding instead

- What Sophie’s 100,000 euro crowdfunding goal will fund, and what changes at the 200,000 euro stretch goal

- How bootstrapping meant working nights as a waitress while building CupHub during the day

- Why Sophie’s dream is to tackle period poverty beyond the Netherlands, including an early conversation about testing Casey in Kenya

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

04:50 Introduction to Sophie Haccou and CupHub

08:47 Development of Casey, the portable menstrual cup rinser

12:51 Designing user-friendly and sustainable menstrual products

16:51 Business model: crowdfunding and social impact partnerships

18:50 Material safety and standards for menstrual cups

20:42 Future prospects: diagnostics and FemTech innovations

22:41 Global expansion and impact in developing countries

24:49 The role of community in breaking taboos

26:51 Crowdfunding strategy and investor engagement

28:50 Partnerships with food banks and NGOs

30:58 Access to clean water and sterilization in different regions

32:50 The importance of education in schools about menstruation

34:56 The social and health impact of menstrual products

36:57 The future of FemTech and diagnostics

38:43 Advice for female founders and entrepreneurs

40:49 Building a community and sharing experiences

42:43 Expanding internationally and future goals

44:52 Funding strategies and business sustainability

46:43 The role of men in menstrual health awareness

48:52 Closing thoughts and how to support CupHub

More about this episode:

Blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/08/13/episode-165/

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/p/episode-165

Connect with Sophie Haccou and CupHub:

Crowdfunding campaign: crowdaboutnow.nl/campaign/CupHub

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cuphub/

Instagram: @CupHubOfficial

Website: CupHub.net

More about the TEDx Coolhaven Women event on 9 October in Rotterdam

More about the event: https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/68333

Buy your tickets at: https://www.eventbrite.nl/e/tedx-coolhaven-women-the-new-builders-tickets-1992166654090?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true

Use code WDT25 for an exclusive 25% discount.

Connect with host Dirkjan Hupkes

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

FundingCoach.ai: https://fundingcoach.ai

Substack: https://womendisruptingtech.substack.com/

About Women Disrupting Tech
Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

🎧 Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music or YouTube.
👉 Subscribe for more conversations with women building hardware companies from the ground up.

50% of women over 40 will experience some degree of pelvic organ prolapse. Most still manage it with a device that has barely changed in decades.

In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I talk with Mirjam Weemhoff, urogynecologist and co-founder, and Bart van Diepenbeek, CEO, of Saturn Pelvic Health.

Together they built FlexSupp, an adaptable pessary built to replace the one-size-fits-all devices women rely on for prolapse. We get into the clinical problem, the research behind it, and how they built the company.

If you're a founder building medtech or health tech products, a woman in tech curious how founding teams get structured, or just someone who is interested in women’s health innovation, this episode is for you.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

* Why traditional pessaries fail so often, and what actually causes prolapse

* How FlexSupp’s adaptable design replaces the one-size-fits-all approach

* Why the team deliberately chose a male CEO to normalize investor conversations

* Why established pessary producers have little incentive to innovate

* What the last ten percent of medical device development looks like, and how a diverse team handles setbacks

* Why they chose Europe before the US, against the more common playbook

* The prevalence numbers behind prolapse, and why it stays hidden

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

04:30 Introduction to Saturn Pelvic Health and the team

04:54 Mirjam Weemhoff shares her background and motivation

06:30 The clinical problem of pelvic organ prolapse

07:39 The founding story and team formation

09:31 Bart van Diepenbeek joins the team and his motivation

12:33 The importance of team diversity and gender balance

14:11 Prevalence and impact of pelvic prolapse

16:22 How prolapse affects organ function and daily life

18:37 Limitations of current pessaries and surgeries

21:40 Advantages of the new adaptable pessary design

26:26 The development process of FlexSupp and research insights

39:48 Research and MRI studies informing product design

41:52 Current stage and remaining risks in product development

45:18 Lessons learned and unexpected challenges

48:56 Market entry strategy and regulatory considerations

53:57 Convincing stakeholders and overcoming barriers

58:34 Addressing gender and cultural aspects in healthcare

1:03:28 Why start in Europe before expanding globally

1:04:33 Closing thoughts and contact information

Connect with Mirjam Weemhoff, Bart van Diepenbeek, and Saturn Pelvic Health

Mirjam Weemhoff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mirjam-weemhoff-she-her-b343581b9/

Bart van Diepenbeek: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bart-van-diepenbeek-b771734/

Saturn Pelvic Health: https://www.saturnpelvichealth.com/

FlexSupp product details: https://www.saturnpelvichealth.com/about-our-product/

More about the episode

Read more on the blog: https://womendisruptingtech.blog/2026/08/06/episode-164/

More reflections on Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/womendisruptingtech/p/episode-164

Connect with the host: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirkjan-hupkes/

More about the TEDx Coolhaven Women event on 9 October in Rotterdam

Event website: https://www.ted.com/tedx/events/68333

Buy your tickets at Eventbrite

Use code WDT25 for an exclusive 25% discount.

About Women Disrupting Tech

Every week, Women Disrupting Tech covers the decisions, patterns, and structural realities that female founders and investors rarely discuss in public but run into every time they meet. Follow to get it in your feed.

🎧 Listen to Women Disrupting Tech on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.

👉 Subscribe for more conversations with founders building the future of health tech.