Bio

Svetlana Kazantseva is a US-based entrepreneur and the founder of Strawberry Health, a women’s health startup empowering women to make proactive and data-driven health decisions.

A mother of 2 and the founder of 2 FemTech companies, she lived and worked in diverse locations such as Siberia, New Delhi, London, and California, and brings a unique global perspective to her work.

Svetlana is passionate about supporting women, she has established a thriving community of FemTech leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area. Additionally, she supports immigrant women facing language barriers through community initiatives.

Summary

In this conversation, Svetlana shares her remarkable journey from a small town in Siberia to becoming a founder and CEO in Silicon Valley. She discusses her passion for women's health, the transition from her first startup focused on environmental sustainability to her current venture, Strawberry Health, which aims to educate and support women regarding health conditions. Svetlana emphasizes the importance of community building in the FemTech industry and shares insights on balancing family life with entrepreneurship, highlighting how her diverse experiences have shaped her grit and determination.

Takeaways

• Svetlana's journey from Siberia to Silicon Valley showcases her diverse background.
• Her first startup focused on reducing plastic waste in feminine hygiene products.
• Strawberry Health was born from a need for education in women's health.
• Community building is crucial in the FemTech industry.
• Svetlana emphasizes the importance of in-person connections.
• Her experiences in different countries shaped her entrepreneurial approach.
• Balancing family life and work requires structure and discipline.
• Svetlana's grit comes from her international moves and challenges faced.
• The revenue model for Strawberry Health targets corporate partnerships.
• Svetlana believes that having children has made her more organized. 

Sound Bites

"You're really adding to the diversity that I have going on."

"I moved to India. I moved to a city close to New Delhi."

"I started with the period products because it was a very personal problem for me."

Links

Strawberry Health: https://thestrawberry.app/

Please leave us a review: https://podchaser.com/DesigningSuccessfulStartups

Tech Startup Toolkit (book): https://www.amazon.com/Tech-Startup-Toolkit-launch-strong/dp/1633438422/

https://www.manning.com/books/tech-startup-toolkit

Site with all podcasts: https://jothyrosenberg.com

Jothy’s non-profit :  https://whosaysicant.org

Jothy’s TEDx talk :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNtOawXAx5A

Chapters

00:00 Journey from Siberia to Silicon Valley

10:03 From Environmental Concerns to Women's Health

20:09 Building a Community in FemTech

30:07 Balancing Family Life and Entrepreneurship

36:53 The Grit Behind the Journey

Well, hello. I'll edit that out. Well, hello Svetlana. It's good to see you.

Hi, Jothi. Hi, it's good to see you too.

You're really adding to the diversity that I have going on with the podcast because of not being from the United States, which I really like. In fact, that's sort of where I like to start, which is where are you originally from and where do you live now?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah. I'm originally from a small town in Siberia, which is quite far from the United States. I would say on the opposite side of the earth. This is where I grew up. I saw a lot of snow as I was growing up. My best memories are like me lying down with the snow, playing with the snow with my little brother, with my grandparents. Yeah, and

I graduated from the university in Siberia as well. And then I moved to my first, it was my first move abroad. I moved to India. I moved to a city close to New Delhi called Gurgaon. I've heard that it has changed name since then. It was over 10 years ago that they moved there. I had an internship there.

It was my first real job after the university. I was working in a very nice hotel on the front desk. And it was an interesting adventure at that time.

And where do you live now?

Yeah, so after India I moved to the UK. I spent eight years in the UK and my last four years have been in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States.

What an amazing journey. You know, I've never talked to anyone, never met anyone who's actually from Siberia. So what we know of Siberia is generally what's in the history books and then novels about, you know, gulags. But, you know, obviously real people live there. You said,

Really?

Yeah.

A small town in Siberia. Are there any big towns in Siberia?

There are bigger ones, there are smaller ones. Smaller ones are mostly like villages. I'm from a city. I'm from a city, not from a village. So it's very much like a city in a Western world. There are big buildings, there are schools, universities. In fact, one of the best universities in Russia is in Siberia. And this is where I graduated from. So it's very familiar to...

all of us living in the cities.

So you're a founder CEO of a, I think it's your second women's health startup. This one is called Strawberry Health. What got you so interested? mean, obviously you're a woman, but besides that, what got you so interested in women's health?

right?

That's a great question. So my story with my first startup started from my interest in reducing the plastic waste, the environmental waste. The first company in women's health that I started four years ago in December 2020 was called Plum Time. And it was the company producing reusable period products.

It's like an alternative to the disposable products that we see in the stores that have been popular for the last, how many, like six decades. Even more. Okay. So I started like working on this problem. I was seeing that we as a society create so much waste and I have two young children growing up and I don't want them to live in a planet that is full of plastic waste.

that does not really biodegrade, is polluting our oceans, polluting our environment. And that was the desire.

And I started with the period products because it was a very personal problem for me. I'm a woman, I'm using these products and I thought that I can help myself and other women like myself to switch to a safe and convenient eco -friendly alternative.

So is the plastic waste from feminine hygiene products, when you add it all up, is it a really big fraction of the plastic waste?

It's a pretty big fraction. Each woman or a person who has menstrual cycles would end up using around 11 ,000 products in their lifetime. That's a lot considering that our disposable menstrual products are made up to 90 % out of plastic. The menstrual pads have these plastic backings. The tampons have the applicators and the wrappers. And oftentimes, these products are wrapped in plastic.

and sold in the stores like this. So it's a lot of waste.

OK, so you're not doing that one anymore. You've switched to something else. What caused that transition? Well, maybe also, how far along did you get that company?

Yes.

Yes.

That's a good question. So my second company, Strawberry Health, that I'm working on right now is focusing on supporting and educating women about women's health conditions. And it started as a part of the previous company. So while we were working on the plastic waste issue, we also started an educational initiative.

to educate our customers, our social media followers, email subscribers about certain women's health conditions. And interestingly, this has become one of their biggest topics of interest among our customers. So we've been working a lot on our social media content and we were getting a lot of response with questions. Customers and audience was asking questions, could you please cover?

this condition? What if I'm this issue? So saw there is a big need among women and we decided that we can do more.

by starting it as a second company. And all of the team was very excited to educate others like ourselves.

And then when you made that transition, what happened to the first company?

Good question. So we were at the point with Plumtime where we were sold in retail stores. We had 83 retail stores, 80 in the United States, one in Canada and two in Europe. And these stores were mostly smaller eco -friendly retailers, like small businesses. Some of them were little chains of

natural grocery stores, like two or three stores in the same geographical region.

And we were looking into expanding into bigger retail space. That was the big goal at that time to get our products into CVS, into Whole Foods, bigger stores that we all shop in.

We were learning about this. We were trying to send the samples, talking to the buyers. short answer, it works very different when you're working with small retail and when you are looking to work with big retail. The supply chains are very different. When you work with a store like Whole Foods, you no longer send them your products directly from your fulfillment center.

you need to work with the fulfillment provider that they use. And first, you need to establish that connection. They require certain volumes. They require certain timelines. So Whole Foods buyer can go to them at any times that they want and replenish the products on the shelves. So it was very different from what we were doing. We were shipping from

smaller storage space, we were shipping ourselves. And also the profit margins are different. I'm not from the retail industry and I was thinking that when you enter big retail, your profits become larger compared to the cost that you spend on manufacturing. In fact, it's the other way around. Big retail takes a lot of your

profit to market your products, they negotiated. So it was a decision, I consciously made decision that we won't be spending all of our efforts as a team into expanding into big retail because we wanted to pursue the second company we already started working on.

and sort of related to the fact that you've had this, you know, this journey, from all these different countries and, now two, two startups, how, what, what has been the effect on you of, of, having experiences in, well, of course, Siberia and the United States, but also, India and

the UK along the way. How has that informed your decisions as a CEO?

I would say all of these locations I lived in and the experiences I've had have shaped me as an entrepreneur. How I work, how I interact with people, how I make the decisions.

Each of these times I lived in a different country has gave me different perspectives of the world. For example, in India, you see so much going on around. As I was driving to work every morning, I saw a lot of people on the streets living in poverty. But I also saw people, like a driver of this little like tuk -tuk.

machine, I don't know how it's properly called, it has no doors, it's like a motorcycle with a little thing where the people sit. And the driver of this machine was giving out some bread, some food to the people on the street. So I saw these little actions of kindness from the people that don't have much themselves, but are willing to share with others.

I think I'm thinking about this every time, unconsciously, obviously. Every time I'm interacting with people on my team, with the people around me. This is probably where my desire to be supportive of others comes from. It really influenced me.

Yeah, another time where I lived in the UK.

It's also a very different environment from what we see here in the US and specifically in the Bay Area. People are so well organized. People are working from very early hours. are very demanding jobs, managing children at the same time, families, trying to get on this property ladder. it's like a lot of...

A lot of very well organization is going to every day that people in London and in the UK live.

I learned to be very well structured in my time as an entrepreneur and as a professional during my years there.

Are you implying that they're more structured and disciplined than what you see in the United States?

It's hard to compare my structure and my discipline to the other people's, but I see that it definitely teaches me that using this approach I can accomplish things. I also have young children, so it's very important for me that I'm structuring my day very well, otherwise I won't be...

Hmm

able to accomplish my tasks.

That's right. That's right. I think that everybody who's trying to do these startups and has a family is forced to become very structured, disciplined. And what I found is that people in this startup who have to be that way and have to leave at a certain time, no one else begrudges them because they know, OK,

you know, so and so has to leave because she's got to pick somebody up at daycare or, you know, or, you know, he's got to get home because there's a soccer game. everybody still gets their work done. That's for sure. so you, you, I get from the story so far that you, you might not, enjoy doing

Yes.

a retail startup again in the future. I'm just guessing.

Yeah, yeah. It's been a learning curve to get myself into the space of the physical product manufacturing. And it's an interesting journey. And I definitely need a break from working with physical products for a little while.

Well, the other side of this is that the physical product stuff and you must have learned a lot about manufacturing. That'll probably stand you in good stead. I mean, you may not decide to do another physical product, but you've got a knowledge base now about that, that not a lot of people have. Not a lot of people build physical products.

That's good. That's good. So now what you've got going on is you're creating a community around women's health. So how does that work and what is the revenue model for that?

That's right.

Yeah, yeah. So the community that we are doing for Strawberry Health, we are doing it together with my co -founder, who by the way, started to work with me at my previous company. She initially joined me as a business development person to help us grow into big retail. And we started to work on the Strawberry Health together with her. She's been a great support to me. And...

We did not really have many contacts in the industry at that time. So we were mostly working on expanding into retail and we did not do any networking. We did not connect to the women's health professionals until we started Strawberry Health. And we were brainstorming. How can we get ourselves into this field? How can we build this contact base and network?

in women's health.

And one of the ideas that came up is that we can host events for people from FemTech industry in the Bay Area. We did not hear about any community for FemTech in the Bay Area before that. Local startup environment is mostly like deep tech, AI these days, very focused on technologies.

And we decided that we can try and build a community for women's health. So the very first event that we did, I believe it was last year, end of last year, we organized a very small brunch at the local coffee shop for just 12 people. And we had this like dream guest list, the people we did not know, but who would be perfect guests for this event.

And we just sent them the LinkedIn messages, inviting them to a women's health branch hosted by us. And to our surprise, most of them responded and most of them accepted the invitation.

So we hosted this very first event and it started, it had a ripple effect on everything that we did in the networking afterwards. Some of their contacts that were invited to this branch introduced us to the doctors in their network, to fellow startup founders, told us about the events that they are going to.

That's good. That's good.

So it really helped us to get into the field and expand our network.

Are you gonna do all of your events in person or are you gonna do online events too?

Yeah, that's a good question. We see a lot of online events gaining popularity these days. We are focusing on in -person. We believe that there is a great value in bringing people together in a physical space, into connecting in -person, having a conversation over, I don't know, coffee and croissant.

It's a nice experience, it gets you out of the house. It's not like another Zoom meeting with 10 people on your screen. So we personally love in -person meetups, so I think we are going to focus on them.

Does that mean that you'll do them only in the Bay Area, or would you consider flying across country and doing them in, like, I don't know, Boston, where I am?

That's a good idea. I think we will focus locally for now. We are impressed with how many great people working in women's health are based here in the Bay Area or in nearby regions. So there is still a big potential to connect all these people together.

Because we see great connections and great partnerships being made at our events. Even if we don't start working with some of the people after the events, they start working with each other. And that's also the benefit for the entire industry. And we really enjoy this.

Okay, so, but I have to go back to my original question, is, so how will Strawberry Health, your company, make money?

That's a great question. That's what we are figuring out right now, working with our advisors and speaking to potential partners. We are in a good position because of the interest to women's health that has been picking up lately, both from the government and from the corporations. Ten years ago,

there weren't really any corporate benefits targeting specifically female employees. And even these days, it's mostly centered around reproductive health, like pregnancy, IVF, egg freezing. And there is a big gap in supporting the female employees.

who are not trying to get pregnant, but they still have the issues with their health. So we are targeting this area. So our revenue model is going to be for the B2B partnerships with the corporations.

OK, so the corporations would see a benefit to having you involved for the benefit of their female employees. And therefore, they will pay you a fee for the right to have you include the women there in your community, have seminars, have

connections to the medical professionals. Am I getting that right?

It's one of the ways so we can directly partner with the employer and they can pre -purchase our product for their female employees or we can be in their benefit system, like larger benefit system and their female employees can expense the money spent on our products through the benefit system. And it's a less of a...

It's an easier way for corporations to offer the product.

But what is the product?

Yeah, so we are working on our exact product offering at the moment, testing two different product offerings with the real people, with our potential customers. And the most promising that we see at the moment is the support for women in their 30s and 40s by creating their hormonal profile. So women's health.

is largely related on hormonal health. If the hormones are balanced, it influences how we feel and how healthy we are. And there is a change starting to happen in usually in the 40s when certain hormone levels start to drop. For example, estrogen, women,

As they age, they start losing it. And there are ways to get the hormones back to the levels that they used to be, like with hormone replacement therapy. But the issue with that is that we need to know what were the baselines for each particular woman.

And in our current medical system, we mostly react on the problems that are already there. So when a person comes to the doctor, there is already a problem that needs to be solved. And it's not that easy when we are talking about hormones because it's very individual and personalized issue. So.

During our customer interviews, we figured out that women who already went through this period of having these perimenopause symptoms in their 30s or 40s, they wish they had the information about their hormones for the time being that was before their levels started to change.

And that's what we are working on right now to help women to establish these baselines so they are well informed and are able to make the data -backed decisions on their health as they start experiencing hormonal changes.

That makes sense. That makes good sense.

I hope I explained it in a way that it's easy to understand.

Well, I guess I think I understand. I've witnessed the hormonal changes in the women that I'm close to in my life. I think most men probably have. So no, that's understandable. So you've mentioned a couple of times that you've got young children.

That's right.

And you've also mentioned that you've had to structure things. How are you, maybe from the standpoint of the people who are listening, who have young children and are or want to do a startup, what would you say about what's worked for you?

I find having children beneficial sometimes. So the obvious issue is having less time available to work on my startup because I need to do the school drop -offs, that I need to do the school pickups, and the weekends are not available for me to work.

But there is an upside as well. So I'm well organized. I know that my workday starts at 8 .45 when I'm done with my drop -offs. And it runs until 2 .45 when I need to leave for my pickup. And within these hours, I managed to do a lot because I know that I won't be able to sit on my laptop in the evening. My kids will be home.

I want to spend quality time with them. I want to ask them how their day was at school. This is very important to me. Like family is one of my number one values. So it structures my day really well.

Yeah, I think that's most beneficial part.

It's my, I remember my dad used to say to me that the busier I was, the more, the more I got done, the busier with other things like when I was on a sports team in high school or college that I was, that it forced me to be more organized, just like you're saying. And, and

Exactly, exactly.

It's almost like I don't remember this happening, but I'm sure it did that when I wasn't so busy, I frittered away some hours, you know, just not being as efficient. and I imagine that, you probably have a, a calendar that you, that drives your day from nine 45 till two 45 that, that you, yeah, that you follow.

Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah, I even put my lunch and workouts on my calendar, otherwise I won't be able to do everything that I have to.

So you get a workout and lunch in that period of time too? Yes, it is.

Yes, that's important. So eat healthy and to take care of your physical health. That's also one of the priorities.

Yeah. I did find that when we had little kids that some of my workout routines didn't quite keep going at the level they had before or after. But you're right. You gotta try that. And by the way, how old are your kids?

So, I'll see you later.

My kids are, one is seven and the other is four and a half.

perfect ages, perfect.

I know, very fun age.

Do you have two boys two girls one of each?

The older is a boy and the youngest is a daughter is a girl.

Wow. You just hit all the right buttons to get that. So just in having this and a previous conversation with you, it's pretty obvious in your somewhat calm, quiet way, it's pretty obvious that you've got a lot of grit.

Probably.

I've ever met who's involved with a startup has a lot of grit. You're probably going to say, well, that's what happens when you live in Siberia. But I'm just curious, where do you think your grit has come from?

Yeah, I think going through three international moves.

This experience has influenced me because every time I moved to a totally different part of the Earth, we were different culture, we were different medical system. It's like starting life from scratch three times in a row. Yeah.

I believe you develop grit as you go through this experience. There's so much new and you're a grown -up person, you're used to some particular way of going to a doctor, getting your phone bills and electricity bills set up, and then you have to face completely blank page and learn everything from scratch once again.

It's similar to startups, actually. International moves are similar to starting a new company.

When you went to India and then of course to the UK after that, did you already speak English from your schooling in Siberia?

I learned English in Siberia. I did not have a lot of practice. So I knew all the rules, like how do you use like past tense, present and future. But I did not get to speak to real people. I did not get to hear real people speaking English. So it was difficult for me in the beginning to...

to understand what people are saying. And actually Indian people were easy for me to understand. They have the accent similar to what people in Russia have. So I think that was a great transition to like hear Indian people speak English first. I understood them really well. And then moving to the UK where they have a totally different accent. It's almost like I...

I learned to understand people for the second time in the UK because they sound so different.

I practiced a lot as I was living in India and then in the UK. The US move was the easiest because I already have been immersed in the English speaking environment for about nine years.

I learned.

I would imagine that these three moves would have been, I mean, they were already, as you say, like starting life again. But there's a double challenge when you're not a native speaker of that language in that country. And that makes everything so much harder. I mean, I find

that I literally just am more tired at the end of the day when I'm in a country where I don't speak the language very well or at all. And I'm struggling constantly. So your brain is just really working extra hard to try to understand people, to try to understand what you're reading. Everything's harder when you don't speak the language. At least you had some schooling in it. And as you say, you knew the rules. You could probably read it.

and understand it pretty well.

That's true. That's true. Yeah. I would say that when I started my first business Plumtime, I did not even have confidence when I was speaking English. So we did some social media content to promote the company. And every time I had to film myself saying something in English, it was a big challenge that I went through.

And then I saw that, okay, I have an accent, but people understand what I'm saying. So probably it's not too bad. It was also practice to develop this confidence and get to the point that I'm speaking to you right now and we are recording this podcast. I cannot imagine doing this four years ago.

it's people are going to have no trouble understanding you. Absolutely. No, it's great. I think, it's been wonderful, talking to you. I really appreciate you taking the time. as I, as I said, it's so, it's so nice that you can do your work and a podcast and whatnot, outside in your backyard.

Yes, yes, I love this spot. It's very beautiful. There are lots of squirrels running around.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I don't hear the squirrels, but there's a few planes I've heard.

Yeah, yeah, there is an airport, local airport pretty close to our place.

Which airport?

Palau Airport. Yeah, a lot of private, little private jets are going from there.

Palo Alto Airport. okay. Well.

Right, right. Okay, well, thank you again Svetlana. I really appreciate your being on this podcast. I think you've said a lot of things that are going to be helpful to listeners.

Thank you so much, Doty, for having me. I really appreciate this opportunity to share my journey with your listeners. what you doing is so important and so helpful to other entrepreneurs. So thank you for doing that.

Well, great.