Alison Wood - Lilypads

Alison Wood is the founder of Lilypads, a start-up which works to make sure no one is disadvantaged by their period. As well as designing a sustainable and reusable pad (now available to pre-order), Lilypads works in Kenya and the UK teaching young people about puberty and menstrual health.

We spoke to Alison about what inspired her to start Lilypads, her journey so far, and what advice she would give to young people wishing to enter the world of start-ups.

By Rosanna Harvey-Crawford

Rosanna: Can you tell us about your journey into your current work? 

Alison: How long a story do you want! My school supported a charity out in Kenya, that I knew by name, and that they were an orphan support trust and I was used to fundraising for them, however, I didn’t know much more than that – that was my fault, but it was sixth form so I had other things on my mind! I went to study Geography at Edinburgh, because I'd always loved geography, right from like the age of 12 and I had a phenomenal geography teacher who made me fall in love with the subject. However, once I was at university I realised the course was much more ideological and I wanted something practical -  I wanted to know what we could do about problems rather than looking at the theories of what happened or playing a blame game. And so after a wee bit soul searching, I swapped to a degree in Economics, which is so much more like here is the theory of why the world is this way, and gives you a way to  play with it and work out what could happen tomorrow. I wasn’t the happiest at university, I felt weird about swapping degrees and I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing, and I was doing a course where everyone wants to be a banker, which I did not. And so I contacted the charity and said, I loved what you did at school, can I come out and spend a month and learn how you did it? They said yes, and I loved it from the second I arrived – it was in rural Kenya which was unsettling at first, like I had no idea where I was. It reminded me that my degree subject didn't matter, I just needed to finish the degree. I loved their ethos: everything was practical and about supporting people. One thing I sat through was their sexual health lesson, and as someone who’s had their fair share of rubbish sexual health lessons, this was really bad. It was the US government's recommended stuff from the ‘60s which is still sadly used all around the world. We know now that telling people that HIV is dangerous and deadly and that it shows you’re a promiscuous person is terrible at changing behaviour. People are often also taught that the disease makes you look really ill, which isn’t the case if you’re on medication – you really shouldn’t teach people you can see it. But it’s being taught to everyone from 12 to 18. But they are a small charity with limited resources, and they are doing the best they can. They couldn’t do complex, they needed something that was practical and deliverable, in segments that worked for the context they're in, which isn't obvious and easily available. And so that began my research into my dissertation, when I realised I had 10,000 words to write about whatever the hell I liked. I really wanted to write about how you teach sexual health and how you teach it so that it changes behaviour, and how you do it when you only have a couple of hours and you have to cope with a lot of stigma and different beliefs rather than just what is the bog standard nature of it. They let me come out again and do my dissertation research and teach lots of different classes. And it was fascinating seeing the tiny changes that get people really het up, like single sex classes or splitting kids by age. That makes such a difference, because actually, by the time a lot of people get to 17, if they believe that everyone else is sexually active, they want to tell the world they are too, regardless of whether or it’s true, and funnily enough, your knowledge changes quite a lot from before you've done something to afterwards. And being able to mitigate and manage that in a classroom is really important. And so knowing how to do that, and therefore being able to control who is in a classroom, so that you can guess that their experiences are similar is really important. I loved it, it reminded me that I love teaching, I love helping people. I find it fascinating seeing the wild and wonderful things that teenagers do with information. But, it also taught me that the problem the area had of very high teenage pregnancy rates and escalating HIV rates, is not because the kids did not understand and they were sexually active and promiscuous and not taking the right precautions, it was because the girls couldn't afford menstrual products, and the only way to get hold of such products was to exchange them for sex. And a part of me died as I realised I’m going to write 10,000 words that comes to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter - if we teach them what they're doing is life threatening, we're telling them to drop out of school. I don't believe in saying that, we have to have a better option. This took me to running my own company, trying to find affordable menstrual products. At first, we raised money and donated them, but, the more awareness work we did we realised it affected all women, not just school girls, it wasn’t just Kenya, but Malaysia and South America, you name it, problems of affordability exist everywhere – and in the UK.

At some point, we have to find a solution that’s affordable, so we started the very long but quite exciting journey of producing products with a low manufacturing cost – we have got it down to 50 cents per pad. Today, we're setting up communities in different countries to sell the product, and we've just launched our UK version of the pad to help fundraise but also to provide a comfortable product in the UK. As we researched we found a lot of women have issues with their menstrual products in the UK, so we thought, if we're developing a product halfway across the world to make it affordable, why don't we develop ones in the UK that actually fit when we have all the textile research to do that. And that is the long version of how I ended up where I am today.

R: When did you start your career? What were your first jobs like and how did your career take shape? 

A: Well, I did a couple of part time jobs. When I got into university, I worked in Pizza Hut for a year as a chef – I’m quite proud of that. It was insanely hard work, it taught me different things, like managing time and learning how to communicate. A kitchen is a really stressful environment where things go wrong really fast, I had to learn how to communicate when there was a problem. I wish I had factored in at the time how much work is to do a part time job that involves late hours and do a degree, because it's easy to think you can do both. It’s hard when other people have fun part time jobs, and you're scrubbing a floor at midnight, and you go home and your friends are all drunk and off for a night out. You need to prepare for that and prepare for asking ‘why am I doing this’? Because I need the money for University, and to go to Kenya and therefore I'm really glad that I'm here, but I also need to accept that this is brutally tough. Afterwards, you go and have a hot shower and a hot chocolate and take a moment to appreciate that I've done it.

I also did a year in the OTC – Officer Training Corps -  which I loved and found difficult in equal doses. The recurring theme throughout my life is learning when to stop, and at that point, I was caring for somebody else, I wanted to do everything and I didn't possibly think I could say to the army that I had too much on. I couldn't do a degree, work in the army and care for someone else, but I did them all to the detriment of my own sanity. But when I told the army, they were incredible, they were the best support I had, they asked how they could help, what support I needed. It gave me a very high baseline for what I expect other people to do when you say, I can't do this. It also taught me to be a good employer, to ask what does someone need as a human, not an employee. The army also taught me a lot of lad jokes, and it was the second or third time I was in a place that was very male dominated, where people interact very differently. Was that comment a joke, or sexual harassment? This is still something I’m learning to navigate.

R: Your still in a sector that is very male dominated - 

A: Yes, and when I started working for myself, and I had to write employee contracts, think about if we needed a sexual harassment policy. I've been on the receiving side of contracts, , thinking, well, that's great, but it's a whole lot of words. Who do I go to if I have a problem? When I was writing the contracts and policies I wanted to give people the freedom to make their own decisions and know they would be supported if they decided to report something. It’s a weird and wonderful part of being a woman in business, to be honest.

R: How do you find being a woman in the start-up sector? What advice would you give a young person contemplating that career choice?

A: Find some women or people to be your support network, that you can phone and talk through problems with. When I realised that that was an option, it became a lot easier, and to realise what my personal boundaries are, to try to be able to stand by them, which can sometimes be really hard. I was with a support organisation and I was given a mentor and everyone said they were the best, and I was so lucky to have them. It turned out, they weren’t the best person ever if you're a woman, and I knew I didn't want to escalate that, I didn't know what damage it would do to me as a young business, I didn't know what damage it would do to me to report the person. I had to tread carefully and ask for someone else, and say I didn’t want to talk about it. Then I met someone who is now a really close friend, and I said that to them, I feel bad, I feel like I should have reported it. She said, this is normal, let it out.  So, I wish I didn't have to say prepare yourself. But, I don't think it's just the start-up sector, I think it's many sectors. Get someone you can talk to and if you're reading this, feel free to contact me and have that chat with me because I wish I had someone when I needed them at difficult times.

There are things that people will understand and things that people won’t. For example, people telling me we’re in a niche market. I have learned to choose whether I want to engage in this or not.  If I want to, then I will give you all the stats of why it's not a niche market, and I will talk you through it. But, I'm also allowed to say you know what, we've gone out for drinks as friends and I don't want to have this argument with you. I'll give you some fabulous resources to go and explain to you why this is not a niche market. So, learning where your boundaries are and when you're going to say I'm exhausted, and I don’t want to debate.  

It is also a great environment – I don’t want to put people off. There are amazing people and incredible allies. Some of the people I've met on cohorts when I'm the only female have been amazing, supportive and open minded.  

R: What are the key lessons you've learned? 

A: I think the biggest lesson was being okay to talk about mistakes or bad judgement calls. One of the central pillars for my company was having someone to phone if things had gone wrong – you need the comfort space as well as the pushing.  Having your own business can be very lonely – it can look great on paper or social media. But, behind the scenes, everyone is working super, super hard. So you need to remember that, which is easier said than done, but also have a space for when you've lost a supplier or a customer or you can't get insurance because you're a very risky industry. You need someone to talk to. I also want people to be able to feel like you can talk about your mistakes, and be vulnerable, and therefore we're going to recruit with that in mind.

R: Do you think things have changed since you started the business two years ago?

There are ups and downs, for example, business support programmes often are very based on big climate solutions. I believe it's down to the consumer, I know it's an ideological thing, everyone can argue their own ways. I'm fine with wherever you stand on it. But, I think it's us as humans, we have to make decisions and our behaviour has to change, and lots of little actions are better than one big one, because one big one might take 15 years and 12 governments. I found that even though attitudes to sustainability have really changed, a lot of people say we are “small impact”, and they would rather go with “big impact”. Or that I’m talking about people's behaviour, and people's behaviour is fickle, so it would be better if there wasn’t a choice – it should be a legal change, or a structural, institutional one. That’s really the main change, and it’s not always useful – whereas, on the consumer side of things, people have become much more aware.  But we say, we want people to make changes that work for them, so if you love your disposable pad, don't feel bad. Don't feel like I'm telling you, you have to change. It’s the same as me being vegetarian for the planet, but not vegan because I like chocolate. We're all flawed humans, this is why behaviour change is hard work, so you have to find that balance and not make people feel they have to be excellent at everything because that's really hard, and making a couple of small changes makes a huge difference. There has been a sway in public opinion, and now I want to keep it on the track of little things that really work, well done if you do one thing, you don’t have to do everything. 

R: During lockdown, there has been a real reckoning concerning systemic racism and intersectional feminism around the world, and I was wondering your reflections have been on gender, climate change and intersectional feminism, given that you already work with women who face a very different set of challenges than the ones you or I do. 

A: I love that question, especially as it puts people on the spot. I think when you have gone round and round, telling people how to live, what would work in your environment, you eventually learn that you need to be quiet, and ask questions, and listen. I have to listen and ask, here is the expertise we have, but what does it look like in your context. That’s what we’re trying to do as an organisation: we have a product, we have a lot of research on menstrual health, how to talk about and teach it. But that will completely change, wherever you are in the world, even from one part of Edinburgh to another. The organisation that’s already there will know better than we do – how to change the language, make it work, make it yours. You have to consider your own privilege and life experience, how they affect your beliefs. You have to consider the cultural beliefs of another place – for example in Kenya it’s a strong cultural belief that period pain is a sign of infertility. When they ask how do I know that it’s not, it’s only a mark of my privilege, my access to free healthcare, to information, that I do know that. 

So, climate change in different contexts drives me mad, because people often have preconceived expectations of what will work, and what won’t, and so the community on the ground won’t get what they may actually need. For example, a reusable pad would never work in some communities – they don’t have clean water, culturally it’s not acceptable. In the same way, in other cultures a menstrual cup wouldn’t work, also for cultural reasons, but some people would still say, well that’s better for the planet so they should use it. But, you know, I’m not sure, with my plastic water bottle, I can make a claim about someone else’s life and what they should do to make it better. If someone is restricted by cultural, or social, or personal beliefs, then the planet shouldn’t overweigh that. A lot of the time, environmentalists can forget that we all have other things that matter, and for me, that’s where the feminist side comes in, because we can forget we are all so different. Your race, your income, where you were brought up, who your parents are, can make a real difference, and it’s easy to overlook that. But you have to learn to listen, to say, you tell me, I will try my best to listen. I’m getting better at that, and then I can see if we can help, or if I need to go back to the drawing board, and say we really want to support this community, and therefore we have to do some more research and more listening and more learning because our current resources won’t help.

You also have to recognise there are problems you don’t see – when I get frustrated with men for not seeing sexism, I see these problems because that’s the world I live and breathe. But, when I was reading different books on race and talking with friends, similarly I don’t experience racism. I try to think about what drives me mental when I talk about personal experiences – it’s someone else saying, well I’ve never been sexist in my life. Great, I wish a problem didn’t exist just because you’ve never done it. You have to listen in a way that doesn’t make it about you, and not be defensive. I think a growth mindset helps keep me sane, to remind myself we’re all on a learning curve, which is sometimes very steep.

Alison’s recommended reading:

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez (Everyone should learn about the world around them!)

Dare to Lead by Brené Brown (Must read)

The Founder’s Dilemma by Noam Wasserman (Start-up)

Mindset: how you can fulfil your potential by Dr Carol S Dweck (Personal development)

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg (Female in business)

A Jack Reacher novel (we all need some down time!)

You can find out more about Lilypads here.