What if the key to building your midlife business isn't having all the answers but knowing how to ask the right questions? In this episode, we meet Gita Vellanki, founder of Neeshi, who left a successful career in high tech to create functional foods for women navigating menstruation, perimenopause, and menopause. After watching her daughter struggle with debilitating periods and experiencing her own perimenopausal chaos, Gita drew on her grandmother's wisdom about food as medicine and created a line of chocolate spreads designed to help women feel better without sacrificing pleasure.

But Gita's journey from corporate executive to midlife founder wasn't about having the perfect credentials. With zero background in CPG or marketing, she had to learn how to leverage the resources she did have, get specific about her gaps, and become her own loudest advocate. This is a masterclass in starting over at 40, asking for help without apologizing, and building courage capital one brave choice at a time.

Whether you're considering a perimenopause career change, wondering about starting a business during menopause, or simply trying to figure out how to take the leap when you don't feel ready, Gita's story offers practical wisdom for women over 40 starting businesses and reclaiming their power in the midlife transition women experience.

What You'll Learn:

1. How to start a business after 40 without feeling ready - Gita shares how she began Neeshi with zero CPG experience, learning to leverage what she had rather than waiting for perfect credentials
2. Perimenopause business strategies for women entrepreneurs - How to identify and fill skill gaps like marketing while building a mission-driven company
3. Starting over at 40 with limited resources - Practical advice on using your existing network, even when it feels irrelevant to your new venture
4. Women over 40 overcoming self-doubt as founders - Why following up doesn't mean being pushy, and how to stop interpreting silence as rejection
5. Midlife career change through purpose-driven work - How personal pain can become the foundation for meaningful business that helps others
6. Building confidence after 40 as a female founder - The courage practice of asking for help without apology, and trading stress for realistic timelines
7. Menopause wellness business success stories - From frozen products to hero spreads: how to pivot without judgment when your first idea doesn't work

Key Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction

2:15 - How Neeshi was born from watching her daughter suffer

6:30 - Gita's own perimenopause journey and discovering the power of functional food

10:00 - The pivot from frozen products to chocolate spreads

13:15 - Leveraging your existing resources even when they feel irrelevant

16:45 - The marketing challenge and learning new skills at 40+

20:00 - Why asking for help became her superpower

23:00 - Trading stress for timeline: letting go of artificial urgency

26:45 - Supporting Neeshi and connecting with Gita

Key Takeaways:

1. For midlife career changers: You don't need to wait until you have all the credentials. Start with what you have and get specific about the gaps you need to fill.
2. For women over 40 seeking purpose: Your accumulated experience, even from unrelated fields, is more valuable than you think. Network, work ethic, and systems-building all transfer.
3. For perimenopause entrepreneurs: Passion alone won't build a business, but passion plus resourcefulness, asking for help, and strategic pivots will get you there.

Featured Quote:

"Don't assume something's a no because you haven't heard back. People are just busy. Reaching out again isn't being pushy. It's being persistent about a mission that matters." - Gita Vellanki

Resources & Links:

1. Neeshi Website
2. Discount Code: UPLIFTERS (20% off)
3. Neeshi on Amazon
4. Related Uplifters Episodes:
5. Konika Ray Wong on Girl Power Science
6. Kerry Brodie on Emma's Torch
7. Taylor Scott on RVA Community Fridges

About Gita Vellanki:

Gita Vellanki is the founder of Neeshi, a company creating functional foods designed to support women through menstruation, perimenopause, and menopause. Before launching Neeshi, Gita spent years in high tech working in M&A and global sales operations. Drawing on her grandmother's wisdom about food as medicine and her own experiences navigating perimenopause while helping her daughter manage painful periods, Gita created a line of products that combines pleasure with purpose, proving that taking care of our hormonal health doesn't have to feel like punishment. As a midlife entrepreneur, she's passionate about helping women understand that it's never too late to build something meaningful, even when you're learning an entirely new industry from scratch.

About Your Host:

Aransas Savas is a wellbeing and leadership coach specializing in helping women over 40 navigate midlife transitions, career changes, and second-act reinvention. With 20+ years of behavioral research experience partnering with companies like Disney, Weight Watchers, and Best Buy, she hosts The Uplifters Podcast, featuring women doing transformative work in the second half of their lives. Aransas brings both research rigor and personal experience to conversations about courage capital, midlife transformation, and building meaningful second acts.

Connect with Aransas:

1. Instagram: @aransas_savas
2. Podcast Instagram: @the_uplifters_podcast
3. TikTok: @theuplifterspodcast
4. Facebook: Aransas Savas
5. Website: theuplifterspodcast.com
6. YouTube: @theuplifterspodcast
7. LinkedIn: Aransas Savas

Keywords:

perimenopause career change, women over 40 entrepreneurship, menopause second act business, starting over at 40 women, midlife founder journey, women changing careers 40s, perimenopause fresh start, building business during menopause, midlife transition women entrepreneurs, second half of life business, courage capital midlife, women entrepreneurs over 40, female founders midlife challenges, perimenopause motivation business, starting business menopause symptoms, midlife purpose women, second act career women founders, women 40s new business, building confidence after 40 entrepreneurs, midlife wellness business, perimenopause hormonal health

As someone who's built my career around [00:00:30] rigorous science, I super love that Nutriful was the first brand to clinically study hair thinning on menopausal women, which is why I am so proud to have them as a sponsor. Nutriful takes a whole body approach to [00:00:45] hair health supporting you throughout your life stages.

Nomination: uplifters. Her name is Gita Valinsky and she is the founder of Nishi, which are these delicious chocolate spreads [00:01:15] protein powders, muffins for.

Aransas Savas: Welcome to the Uplifters Podcast, where every week I get to talk to a midlife woman [00:01:45] who's doing big, brave things in the world.

Thank you so much for taking time to hang out with us today.

Gita Vellanki: Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

Aransas Savas: So to kick things off, tell us a little about Nishi and how it came to be.

And we're talking eight days or more. [00:03:00] Face just full of hormonal acne. Couldn't get outta bed because her cramps were so bad. Periods were so heavy, iron levels were low, and she was struggling every month, and she was a basketball and tennis player, so it was hard enough to go to school. But imagine, [00:03:15] you know, you're getting up at six in the morning for an eight o'clock game, and I just, I saw how hard it was for her and it brought flashbacks to me as a 16-year-old.

My periods were the exact same way, and I knew I had to help.

Gita Vellanki: My background was high tech. You know, I used to do m and a global sales ops for businesses around the world, and I always grew up with functional food as part of my [00:03:45] life. You know, we would go visit my grandmother who lived in the village in India, and nine times out of 10, something was wrong with us.

Wow. My mom, she put me on birth control because that's what she was told to [00:04:15] do. Yeah. And I had terrible side effects for years, but the doctor kept saying, take it. It'll make you feel better. I don't think it ever made me feel better. It just gave me headaches and stomach aches. Digestive issues and you know, all these things that I just didn't want for her.[00:04:30]

Oh no. I'm like, I haven't had [00:05:00] cramps in a month and a half, and I'm like, oh, this is terrible. I wish I had your beautiful products today because I feel like they'd perfect for this moment.

Every fourth Wednesday at 9:00 AM I would get my period, like it was like block work and suddenly I started getting my period every 14 days and I was bleeding for 10 days. [00:05:30] I was miserable. I was tired 'cause I was losing so much blood. My hair was falling out. It was horrible. And then at the same time, my hot flashes, my night sweats, like all these crazy perimenopause symptoms kicked in.

And my periods had slowed down. And for the first time in my life, my period was easier than when it was on birth control. It was [00:06:15] amazing. But you know, I just kept thinking, it's me. I'm getting oral, older, my hormones are changing, you know, whatever. And then Anjali, you know, in true teenager fashion from the top of the steps is yelling down.

And then I was like, you know what? I've always wanted to go and do something the next phase of my career that's helping women. And to me it was a nonprofit and I was like, why do I have to do [00:07:00] a nonprofit? I have this amazing product right here in front of me. So we decided to do a trial with, you know, just women in our network, kind of all ages, all ethnicities, because I needed to know that it worked for not just my DNA.

Feedback from so many different people. They're like, if I never thought I could feel this great, what you've created here is amazing. So I was like, okay, I gotta do something about this that help other [00:07:45] women. And so that's when we officially decided to launch Nishi. And it's been three and a half years now.

Gita Vellanki: Crazy journeys. We started with frozen products. They were little mini gluten-free, fudgy, delicious cakes. That would just, no matter what you did, couldn't stake hold, right?

She sent it to me and I didn't sleep for three days. I was like, oh my God, why does it look like that? They're completely beaten up. It looked like the postman would just like kick the box down the block and you take all of this [00:08:45] care and then this is what your customers are getting. So I reached out to everyone.

My doctor is so happy with the changes to my cycle ever since I've been on niche. I need [00:09:15] to reduce the sugar as I'm going through IVF. And I was like, you know what? I've always had this idea in the back of my mind, of this lower sugar spread. And also we were doing a lot of in-person popups at the time, and I would get feedback from women [00:09:30] of, this is amazing.

And so when I finalized this spread for this customer, she super happy. And then women just started latching on because [00:10:00] that guilt factor went away. And it was so interesting to see because we always had, so we had cakes, we had muffins, we had protein powders. But I think most of us just tolerate a protein powder.

And so it just completely changed our business. So I really feel like. This year, and I think I've said this every year, but this year is kind of start over, right? Because now [00:10:45] all of these doors have opened up that didn't exist before, and it's just been so interesting to see. It's almost like a darker chocolate version of a Nutella.

But it's just, it's become so easy for women because if you're in a [00:11:15] hurry, eat it off the spoon and go about your day and it's good afternoon, little pick me up, because niche's like a vitamin and you need to eat it every day to keep your body nourished. It's just an easier way for people to do that.

Nomination: Yes.

Yes. Is exciting. I think.

Gita Vellanki: Exactly. That was the ultimate goal, right? Feel good while you're helping yourself.

Absolutely. So for you as a founder, it sounds like good, some business experience. You probably had a nice [00:12:15] network of folks who had experience. Valuable and useful that they were willing to connect you to. Probably had a little bit of financial capital, I'd guess, that you could invest in this. And so you started out with lots of great [00:12:30] advantages.

So how did you think about using and leveraging what you had available to you to counteract what you didn't have, which I'd also love to hear about?

It was something I, to this day feel like don't understand. And so that was actually, I felt like I was starting over this network of mine. Very supportive, very much cheerleading me on. But other than that. They're like, we [00:13:15] don't know how to help you. We've never done this either. And so a lot of it was just reaching out and finding a community, whether that was a community of other small businesses or dealing with the same challenges, just so you had somebody to talk to [00:13:30] or just slowly making that path to finding mentors.

I was like, you know what? This is so different. I [00:14:00] don't know what I'm doing. Let me figure this out. So I took a class and they partnered us up and I met this woman who within. Three days, we had to turn around a pitch, and at the end of the whole session, everybody had to pitch and she gave the most [00:14:15] beautiful pitch.

They have that vision and that artistic nature and that just like they're just good at marketing, which I'm not. And so [00:14:45] between this woman that I met and my daughter, they launched this beautiful website. My daughter had taken the photos with her childhood friend. This woman took everything I had to say and put it together so nicely.

It seems easy from the outside, but definitely not from the inside.

And be really honest about the value of those resources [00:15:45] and how you can maximize the value of the resources, because otherwise, if we sit starting from zero, it feels nearly impossible to build up. I think that's the other thing we can take from your story here is that when [00:16:00] we look big picture at what's in front of us, oftentimes it is too daunting to even begin.

Gita Vellanki: Yes. And the more we ask for help, I think as women, [00:16:30] as moms, right, a lot of us just, we juggle so much.

People are just busy. And early on that would stop the [00:17:00] progress, right? 'cause I would reach out to somebody and they wouldn't respond. I was like, oh, they're not interested. Well, they probably just haven't seen your email. Right? Or they haven't gotten your message. And so I think just getting behind that own hurdle we've put out for ourselves, change [00:17:15] things, but also.

What changed [00:17:45] that actually was the kids and how free they were, which was so amazing to me. I had told my girls one day, I'm like, when we were kids, we were so shy about our period. We would stuff our pad quietly up our sleeve or in our pocket and we'd [00:18:00] run to the bathroom. Hope nobody hurt us, right? And I was like, I hope one day you guys can hold your pad or your tampon, just hold it in your hand and walk down the hallway.

That's they're sending us on this right direction of let's talk about it. Let's not have this negative stigma and, and it was so great to see.

As I listen to your story too, I don't think this fear and shame is limited only to this theme, [00:19:00] right? Right. For so many of our midlife entrepreneurs, that becomes part of the challenge. We're afraid to talk about. Our mission and our message, and then we wonder why no one else is listening. Right? [00:19:15] And I think one of the big things I take again and again from founders is this, this charge to be your own best champion and cheerleader and at the success of your business [00:19:30] or your endeavor, whether it's for-profit or nonprofit, relies entirely.

Gita Vellanki: [00:20:00] What's the worst thing that can happen is they say, no, and that's okay. And you move on. Right. And it's funny you ask that because I just saw a friend, she's growing her business, I'm growing my business, and she's like, you seem so different. You don't seem as [00:20:15] stressed out anymore. I was like, because I don't care anymore.

If it's gonna take me three, four months to get ahold of somebody, that's okay. Let it [00:20:45] take its time. Because if you're putting pressure, you're not gonna move the needle. You're just stressing out about it for no reason, and it's making your own life difficult. And so I think a lot of it was just. Those different realizations coming together and just keep trying and you'll [00:21:00] be amazed at who you're able to reach out to or get your products in the hands of.

It makes a difference.

And so to hear [00:21:30] that articulated so powerfully and what you're saying there, it's like, yeah, it's scary. Yeah, it's uncomfortable, and yet it's absolutely required. So what do you think is your greatest strength or your superpower as a [00:21:45] founder?

Gita Vellanki: That's a tough one. So I'll default to what other people have told me.

Aransas Savas: I love it

Gita Vellanki: and it's, you love

Aransas Savas: feedback,

Right. And early on I had reached out to some people that are very prominent on social media who always talk about like, women have to support [00:22:30] women and you know, this girl power. They are the most vocal, but at the same time seem to be the least supportive. And that was actually very disappointing to see because I'm not somebody to gate keep.

And I think that's one that's rare to see.

Gita Vellanki: A hundred percent. Anything in the world of marketing that is such a [00:23:30] challenge for me and.

So far I've gone through four different firms and it's been so [00:24:00] frustrating. The other day I was talking to somebody and they were like, oh, you know, I'm so excited to talk to you. 'cause I literally, I'm probably gonna take my jacket off mid call 'cause I'm struggling with hot flashes. And she's like, and I checked out [00:24:15] your social and your website and it's so nice.

Aransas Savas: but what a great story for all of us.

And if we can cultivate those two things within us. And sustain those two passion and willingness to learn, then [00:25:15] everything else can be bought or borrowed or learned.

Nomination: Yeah, a hundred

Gita Vellanki: I would say there's two things, right? Own your story, which we've talked about, but [00:25:45] also understand what you want out of it and be realistic. We often see everybody's a midnight, you know, overnight success, but that overnight took them 7, 10, 15 years. But we just see that tiny bit of data and we [00:26:00] tend to hold onto that.

So I think it's be realistic and understand how much you actually have to give to what you're building, and then you'll get there.

Aransas Savas: So setting a timeline based on the reality of your context,

Aransas Savas: I love that. Yeah. So it's really about [00:26:30] creating the strategy based on the resources available.

Gita Vellanki: Right.

Gita Vellanki: Supporting me and NHI is going to come by supporting yourself. So try the products, give it a month.

Aransas Savas: Oh my [00:27:15] gosh, I'm so excited. Yeah, so if we order, I think you have a special discount for Uplifters.

It all helps and leave a review. That is the best way. I can say to support a small business is leave for review. [00:27:45]

That's amazing. I was, that took me 10 seconds. Right. And people, and I get to feel like I really contributed to Karen's amazing work now.

Aransas Savas: I absolutely will. It, it feels so good. And it's like we wanna share the things that we love and believe in.

Gita Vellanki: So I would love to nominate my friend Trippy Raia, and her brand is Mod. She makes these beautiful thought out [00:28:45] Apple watch bands and jewelry that I think are perfectly for a woman in her midlife who wants to look good with her jewelry and feel good with Nishi.

Aransas Savas: I love that. And I can't wait to go check that out. I'm like waiting for somebody to make a really cute solution for my readers.

Gita Vellanki: Maybe she'll do that. Ask her.

Um, Claire VI think did like a little, but I'm like also not gonna spend hundred on a piece of [00:29:45] leather. So I've got, I, I've got needs. And I'm gonna go look at our website, have needs, and they're very important. I mean, that really is stuff that impacts our quality of life. It's, it's time I spend looking for my [00:30:00] glasses is time.

Thank you for listening to the Uplifters podcast. If you're getting a [00:30:30] boost from these episodes, please share them with the Uplifters in your life and then join us in conversation over@theuplifterspodcast.com. Head over to Spotify, apple Podcast, or. Wherever [00:30:45] you get your podcast and like follow and rate our show, it'll really help us connect with more uplifters and it'll ensure you never miss one of these beautiful stories.

Music: [00:31:30] Lift you up, ball. Lift you up.

Lift you up.

Lift you up,

lift,

Um, beautiful. I cried. It's that little thing you did with your voice, right? In the pre-course, right? Uh, Uhhuh. I was like, [00:32:15]

Nomination: mommy,

Music: stop crying. Mommy.

Nomination: Stop crying. You're disturbing the peace.