How to take a billion dollar idea and turn it into a reality with Cora founder Molly Hayward

Imagine not being able to go to school or work because you don’t have the products you need during your period.

Imagine having to use dirty rags instead of tampons or pads and being forced to drop out of school in elementary - all because of your period. For millions of women and girls around the world - this is a reality. Enter Cora.

Cora is a purpose driven fem-care brand that’s on a mission to build a better future for all women, all around the world, founded by Molly Hayward. Molly is one of those sparkly women I felt like I could chat to for hours about her mission over the last decade and what she’s managed to build with Cora. An elevated period brand for the modern woman, with a major social 1 for 1 give back scheme to girls in need.

Since 2016, Cora has donated well over 10 million pads and has helped provide reproductive health education to roughly 15,000 girls in Kenya and India. This is one of the most inspiring women I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing and I hope you love the episode.

Please note, this transcript has been copy pasted without the lovely touch of a human editor. Please expect some typos!

Cora started for me out of a place of real confusion and personal, sort of,

I think.

Crisis, almost, so I was actually coming out of the first company that I had co-founded, so I started a sustainable clothing company way

Back for about

10 years ago, and I was really interested in ethical fashion and sustainable fashion and actually lived in London for a time that was really the hub of ethical fashion at that time. And I really was so interested in the opportunity to contribute to that industry being more environmentally sustainable, more ethically sort of aligned, I think.

And you

Dove right into that and after a couple of years really realized it was going to take me so long in that particular industry to make the impact that I really wanted to

Make.

And I think as a I was so young, I think as a twenty two year old, I was like super impatient and I just couldn't really see the forest for the trees. And so I kind of made the choice

To

Sell my share back to my business partner and just move on because I was like, I need something that I can really sink my teeth into and start to feel some really real results. But I didn't know what that was. And prior to that, I had been involved in a couple of other startups. And really I loved the idea of the the way that business could be used for social good. And so that was my

Whole sort of driving

Level of interest for a driving force in my interest in business was not necessarily business persay, but being able to use that as a vehicle for doing doing good in the world, creating some sort of change. And so I was really at this crossroads. Like I moved back from London.

I was back in the US.

I had no idea what I was going to do or what my next project or venture was going to be. And a friend sort of called me out of the blue and was like, hey, I know you have always had a really specific interest in women and girls and economic development. That's what I studied in college and said, I'm going on this volunteer trip with this organization to Kenya. They're focused on women's health and girls education, and they have one seat left on their plane, like, do you want to go? And it was like a month or something. And I was like, yes, sign me up. And so I went thinking just like I wanted

To kind of

Have a new experience, get back to a place of service and kind of honestly get out of my own head. And I got there and saw

All of

This amazing investment being made into girls education and women's health. So they were building schools and clinics, providing girls with uniforms and school supplies. And then as I got to know a lot of the girls in the community,

I was sitting with

One of them one day and she basically told me that she was home from school that day because she had her period but couldn't afford

To buy iPads.

And then and that was basically what she and all of the other girls in the village would do.

And I was sort

Of stunned,

Like my

Immediate reaction was like, OK, I'm here with this non-profit organization. Let me write a check to them. Like, I can make a contribution every month. They can earmark those funds for PAD's. The girls here in this village will have what they need each month.

And then,

Like the entrepreneurial lightbulb sort of kicked on. And I was like, hang on a minute. There are probably millions of girls all over the world like this girl and these girls.

And there are

Probably millions of women like me who would have that same sort of visceral, empathetic reaction to hearing that and feel like, you know

What, I can give

A small amount each

Month, like the

Cost of a cup of coffee or a latte every month to make sure that a girl has much needs during her period. I think, number one, because we've all just had that experience of like not having a tampon or pad when we needed it. And it's like you can't you can't continue with your day until you have addressed this issue. So we all know how essential those products are to our ability to just function out in the world.

But equally, it really

Struck me that there I think there is this growing consciousness that it is

The education

And empowerment of women and girls all over the world that is really going to ultimately begin to solve some of our greatest world problems. So taking kind of that feeling and that understanding and that instinct about the desire to connect

Women in need

With women in my own society, it more for me into this idea of creating a brand that really showcased and highlighted this issue and gave consumers a way of engaging with it. So. Product. Their products in the US, as they normally would, but we would use our profits to be helping to provide pads to girls in in places like Kenya and we now we have partner in India as well, and we also give here in the US. So it really evolved from there. So I came back to the US from Kenya and really started to build that brand and knew that I wanted to not just kind of have that social mission, but also create a line of products that with natural or organic, the brand. I wanted it to feel modern and design led. I wanted to kind of change the experience from one that felt kind of like neutral or negative that I think most experiences historically have made you just feel like you're a 13 year old girl over and over and over again. LABRA Totally. And I really wanted to elevate the experience and just create what I felt like was a brand that represented all the different values of the modern woman.

And I also

Feel like at that time there wouldn't have been many people doing that. Like I know now there are lots of brands in the period space and fem

Care that back

Then, like it really was like a disruptive, forward thinking new way that, you know, they were brands doing the social impact moment, like Toms did the shoes and they were people doing that

But was doing glasses.

Yep, exactly. But no one doing it in this space.

Totally. Yeah. We were definitely one of the first and that was both a really exciting opportunity and also really daunting. And it was challenging raising money because there was like this sort of lack of proof that

This industry was

Ripe for change from a customer perspective. And so, like a lot of the work that I had to do was convincing people that, like, no women are absolutely, like, hungry for this type of a

Shift in

Their own experience

In this

At this very personal and intimate aspect of their bodies that's really just been

Ignored

And kind of dominated by like these huge corporations that kind of promote these outdated notions of womanhood like. And, yeah, that was kind of like the struggle at that time.

And I think also women were ready for like the subscription model, like we buy the same exact product every month, like why not get the convenience message? Like, why not get it delivered?

Silverleaf And so

You get back to the US, you have to think about like money. Obviously, it's a big start up capital sort of thing that you need. You have to potentially find your co-founder. What was that process in the early days? Yeah, I

Mean, I bootstrapped Corra for the first 18 months and really I was like using my savings. I was doing a bit of moonlighting, like I would find kind of like odd jobs in business that people needed

Help with and

Really kind of like strung it all together. But like, to your point, like, I didn't have enough capital to buy like a container load of my own product yet. And I was really to your point, it was such early days in this category

That I didn't even

Know if women actually wanted a subscription. There weren't subscriptions out there yet for this product. And so I ended up finding a wholesaler who didn't have any minimums. And so I would just order cases of like an existing product like seven or eight or get a product a generation

And basically

Reached out to like ten of my friends and was like, hey, I have this idea. If I let you customize a box of organic products

And I ship them to

You every month. And I also give a month's supply of PAD's to a girl in Kenya or India for every monthly box that I said you

Like, is

That something you would pay me for? And. Oh, really? Oh, my God, yes.

And so, like, literally

Just started

Up in my

Bedroom, like

Packing boxes

For these ten women.

And funny enough,

Like, I got to sit on stage with the CEO of Seventh Generation, like a couple of years ago and got to tell him, like, I totally, you

Know,

Sort of like ripped off your products, sold your soul, resold your product. And that's how Corre got started. But yeah. And then it just grew from there, like they told their friends and like the sort of initial customer base which I still considered such a test group started to

Grow and

I was making just enough money to kind of cover my costs like that. Really, I was still losing money every month, but it was this like validation. And I just had this feeling of, like,

You have to

Keep going. There were so many moments where, like, I was out of

Money, out of energy and

But I just had this feeling like, no, this is an important idea. This is this has legs. And like, you just have

To keep building on it.

And so, yeah, that was like the first year and a half was just like me pretty much by myself,

Kind of starting

To do everything and. Yeah, like ultimately ended up kind of doing like a Kickstarter campaign and got a bunch of new customers there and raised a bit of money from that. Not a ton, but in the early days, like I think I raised a little over thirty thousand dollars and that felt like a ton of money at the time. And and then funny enough, my co-founder and I

Met

Because I was invited onto like a TV show that was sort of like Shark Tank, but it was a little bit more like you would be mentored by these investors. And so I was on that show. And at one point one of the investors kind of pulled me aside and was like, hey, you know, I probably shouldn't be talking to you off camera, but I actually have a friend

Who is

Working on a really similar idea. And I feel like you two could totally team up and work together instead of potentially competing

And ended up connecting

With Morgan. And like, we just totally hit it off. And we were so aligned in terms of our values and our vision for the opportunity and the way we wanted to build the the brand and the company.

And and so that was kind

Of it like we that was summer of

Twenty fifteen. And yeah, we

Kind of like work together to take what I the customer base that I had and the brand that I had started to build. And we were able to actually go out and start raising real money at that point. And that was what allowed us

To start buying our

Own products and create all of our own packaging

And build a website

And build a subscription platform that actually sort

Of

Worked well. And and. Yeah, kind of. Kicked it off from there, we launched the brand officially in February of twenty sixteen

As a dicey business. Yeah.

Oh so cool. I just love what you've been doing. When you were on that TV show, had you thought about getting a co-founder, were you even interested? We like I want to do this myself.

No, totally. I was definitely looking for it. It was really hard to find a person who was willing to quit their job and like who also had a passion for

Like curious

Like those two things are like the kind of specific. And so, yeah, I really struggled to find someone that fit the bill. And thankfully, the stars aligned and found that person. But it was definitely challenging for a while.

Yeah, I

Can imagine finding someone that you can, like, basically enter in this new weird relationship with that's going to last a really long time.

Totally. And that you have really complementary skill sets with like you don't want like two people who only know about marketing. You need you need like finance and operations and supply chain and like all of these other pieces. And so.

Yeah, yeah.

I want to talk more about the money stuff. When you went through your investment rounds, I think I read that you guys have raised like more than 60 million dollars or something. That's just amazing.

I think I think closer to

30 at this point.

Thirty crunch base is out of date,

Probably out of date. We don't like to publicize our fundraising feel like we've sort of.

Yeah, we're we're

A little more

Low key, humble,

Very humble. I want to talk about what the journey was like for you as a woman raising money and what it was like sitting in rooms with v.C going through that process as. Yeah, as a young woman.

Yeah.

You know,

I

Can't say that I ever felt sort of like. Directly. I don't know, I don't have a horror story like a lot of women do, and I'm pretty grateful for that. But but I definitely think that the category itself made those conversations a lot harder because the majority of people sitting in those rooms were men. And as a man, if you

Can't, menstruation

Isn't an experience you've had. And so it's really difficult to put yourself in the shoes

Of the

Woman and the consumer who wants and needs this product. When we would go into meetings and there was at least one woman, if not more, or the lead you see was a woman, like the conversations were so much easier because I didn't have to explain, like, why this was important or what the problem was or why there was a need, like women. Absolutely. It got to me they were like, oh my God, I hate going to. The brands are such that the experience is outdated, the ingredients are unhealthy. Like it just the conversations

Were a lot easier

When there was a woman in the room. And I think like in the early days, it just.

That first

Round

Feels like a

Million years ago, but we ended up.

With one or two

Institutional investors, but then a lot of them were like ended up being

Entrepreneurs,

People we knew who were early stage investors, wealthy individuals who were like

Who were

Sort of overanalyzing the situation, frankly, I think who were just looking at it being

Like, yeah,

This makes total sense. Like six billion dollar category. It hasn't seen any innovation in 40 years, consumer consciousness shifting towards healthier products, new brands kind of being taken up by consumers. I think that sort of higher level of thinking allowed them to get more comfortable with all of the uncertainty

That

Inevitably exists.

But, yeah, I think

That piece of it, like I just I found myself having to tell a lot more stories and really illustrate the problem for a lot of investors, again, who were men and just couldn't really wrap their heads completely around why this was so

Important.

Yeah. And do you think throughout that experience, do you have things, lessons that you like? I would do this again and I wouldn't do this again that you can share.

Yeah.

I think one of the things that

We did

That really helped take a lot of the pressure off the process and that I

Think I see a lot of entrepreneurs,

Male and female,

Kind of not do this is we never once went into an

Investors office and stood up at a projector and pitched. We would always somehow do it really informally. We would do everything we could to kind of get an introduction to someone from someone else in our network. Like there was never a cold email. So we always did it that way. And then we would oftentimes send our information up front and let them sort of go through the presentation. And that way we got on the phone and we could walk through stuff together. But it wasn't like, oh, let us have this really rehearsed kind of presentation. And it just made it more of a conversation. And I think it took a lot of the traditional pressure off and it changed the situation psychologically such that we didn't feel like we were going in there and we were like having to kind of perform and put on a show, which I think really like creates this weird power dynamic where it's this person is the one with the money and this is the person who needs the money. And even though that's like. True, in a sense, it sort of leveled the playing

Field, and I think that

Was a huge lesson and that's definitely a lesson that I would share and encourage others to kind of potentially heed is

Like going

In with a feeling like I have something truly valuable here and I'm offering you the opportunity to get involved and to potentially own a small piece of it. And here's what we've got going on. We're on equal terms here. Like you can say yes or no. You can decide if it's the right fit for you. But that, I think, really helped

To not

Make it feel like such a stressful process and ultimately

Ended

Up working, working out for us.

And probably they also got a really good sense of just who you are as a calm person and not having to be stressed being like, oh, my gosh, I've got to get this point right. And I'm nervous about standing up here in front of you.

Yeah, yeah. It's sort of. I mean. It definitely felt like it. Lent some credibility,