Almost all of the early venture capital pitch meetings Joanna Griffiths did to raise money for her intimate apparel startup Knix went down the same embarrassing way.
Griffiths spoke to the Star about underwear, body positivity, and why Knix removed gendered language from its website.I did an MBA about 10 years ago, and that gave me the opportunity to step away from the treadmill that was my career and have some time to reflect on what it was that I wanted, and what was important to me. During that time, I worked on Knix.
Eighty per cent of people who get their period experience leaks on a regular basis. That is people as young as eight or nine years old all the way through to menopause. Even when it comes to bladder leaks and stress incontinence, there is this perception that our customers for leak-proof underwear are all older people, but, actually, when you hit pregnancy age, it’s about one in four. It can start really young among elite athletes or gymnasts.
A lot of intimates are designed for the male gaze. Did that factor into your thought process around design? One of the things that we did at the request of our team was to remove all gendered language from our website — being really intentional and creating an inclusive space. I think that we still have a long way to go as far as product design .
Going to Silicon Valley at a time when there wasn’t a lot of representation at the decision-making table from women was super tricky. I think the meetings were quite awkward. Oftentimes, investors would interrupt me or pause the meeting to go and grab whatever woman in the office they could find to ask them if they could relate to what it is I was talking about.
But I knew it was a once-in-a-lifetime moment. I was excited about what it could mean. And I was very fortunate to have other investors and other board members who were supportive of me and the choices I wanted to make for Knix, and the vision that I have for the company in the long-term.
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