Monica Williams is a doctor. But as she says: “I was born an entrepreneur. In my opinion, this is the only way to truly live.”
Williams has long been on the lookout for business opportunities and has even developed several product prototypes – reminiscent of a pacifier called Pacimals and a hair product called Dr. Fill In But her real breakthrough idea got here from family friend Dana Roberts.
Roberts, a fifth-grade teacher, noticed that the girls in her class needed more support as they dealt with bodily changes. She created kits for them containing menstrual products and information and told Williams about her idea of turning it into a business. When Williams’ daughter became a teenager, she saw firsthand how real such a need was. So each women took off Red drop in 2021 with “period kits”, which include sanitary pads for teenagers, period underwear, wipes and scented hygiene bags.
As CEO, Williams used a fundraising strategy through competitions and grants. Thanks to this, she won’t need a network of wealthy men. “It really depends on the strength of the company and my ability to talk about it,” he says. In April, it paid off when she appeared on Fielda podcast where guests do exactly that with a roundtable of potential investors. She walked away with $100,000, and RedDrop has since secured one other $50,000 thanks to their approval Muse Accelerator by Ulta Beauty Williams hopes to provide them with precious feedback about their brand and bring them one step closer to their goal of being on the shelves of a major retailer. (Their products are currently available via their website Or Amazon.) Despite minimal outside funding, RedDrop grossed $7 million. All of this earned Williams a finalist spot on our 2024 Entrepreneur of the Year 20 Innovative Leaders list.
You successfully launched your product, but then it failed. What happened?
Getting to the point of conception wasn’t difficult. It was really hard to get the product approved and take first place with the brand and packaging. At this point we wanted about $23,000 for more products, but we just didn’t have it.
So what did you do?
We won this online bidding competition and were offered a form of progressive loan. We were gaining momentum and people were asking about the product, so we were desperate to get our hands on the material and see if we could sell it. So we took out this loan, but truthfully, it was very bad for the business. We reconciled and maintained COGS (cost of products sold) every month, but anything beyond that had to be split 50/50 with the one who gave us the loan. We definitely weren’t making any money and couldn’t really save up to get more product. It was like a cycle of doom.
How did you break out of this cycle? Fortunately, one of Dana’s friends invested in us enough to help us repay the loan and gave us some capital. This really helped us get started.
You have since achieved $5 million in revenue and your VC fundraising is gaining momentum. To what do you attribute this success?
Many people talk about this topic. The reality is that 6,000 girls experience their first period every day. By calmly touching on the issue, we were able to start conversations and community around the normalization and desexualization of periods. I truthfully attribute our growth to the indisputable fact that over the generations, we as women have come up with poor quality products and even great products that just didn’t fit well for young girls.
What are the challenges of selling this product?
She communicates in a way that raises the issue without shaming mothers and in a way that enables her to reach a number of audiences. Mom often buys it, but it could possibly be dad or grandma. Or we could really connect with teenagers, who would then tell their caregivers about it. On social media, we express the voice of understanding and knowledge without being preachy.
How do you see the business developing further in this case?
Consumer packaged goods and e-commerce have booms and busts that are highly cash-dependent. We really lean towards our B side to B. We sell to schools. Most of them have a certain quantity of cash that the government has allocated to them to purchase these specific products. We also started working with Scouts across the country to make sure they’d products in every camp bathroom in addition to camp stores. If you occur to be starting your camp period, we sell branded kit. It’s a nice moment for scouts and there’s a little patch associated with it.
Why is now the time for this product and this company?
In 2024, young girls will have much more purchasing power and influence than before. There’s loads of it. If we were teenagers and had a blood stain on our shorts, we’d feel embarrassed. Maybe people would tease us. But now it could possibly be even worse, because someone can take a photo and it finally ends up on the Internet and stays there without end. I think our youngsters are more fragile and much more vulnerable. And I think, especially after the #MeToo movement, people are taking women more seriously. Many things have come together to create a market for this product.