Twenty years ago, Joanna Strober invested in a company called Baby Center. 25 years later, the company still serves women, “many women,” says Strober. She was a pregnant venture investor at the time when she made the Baby Center investment, and it helped to trigger a bigger idea: she says too long, she says, was the action for women who were facing challenges.
“It's a strange thing … and that's just really unhealthy, and we have to change that,” said Strober at the latest CNBC Changemakers summit in Los Angeles.
For Chelsea Hirschhorn, her first child led it to become “completely disillusioned” with the gap between the image of the new parenthood, which was marketed, and the reality she experienced. “The picture-perfect picture of parenthood was overwhelming for a new parent,” she said. “There was a great dichotomy between the content I consumed and the frontline experience at 3 a.m.
Hirschhorn says that no data was available at this time to prove what she felt because the topic was subduded and underfunded, and she “took over” the category of child health and wellness. “For some reason,” says Hirschhorn, “she had the conviction to believe that I could fix it”.
While there is a difference between the health challenges that concentrate on the two female CEOs and the founders – not every woman gets pregnant, but everyone will go through the menopause – a big idea binds the two executives of women: products, treatments and services that can meet critical needs in an under -sufficient and undervalued market.
“We have the idea that perimenopause is at a certain time and people believe that they have to suffer for a very long time before they get the right care, but we say that they don't have to suffer at all,” said Strober on the summit of the Changemaker. “As soon as you are in your 30s and feel something wrong, you should get help. The idea of suffering is really outdated,” she said. “Women were trained for far too long.”
Strober and Hirschhorn were both appointed to the list of CNBC Changemakers 2025. (The actress and entrepreneur Naomi Watts, who, as founder and Chief Creative Officer at Stripes Beauty, became a leading advocate of the menopause after having struggled with the early menopause at the height of her early Hollywood Ruhm, was also one of the 2025 Changemakers.)
At the Changemakers Summit on April 8, the two CEOs of the female women shared advice and lessons from their successes that bring new business ideas to health care. Here are some of the most important topics that you addressed in a discussion with Kate Rooney from CNBC.
Women have to work for themselves
In addition to the “lack of information”, which is preparing for the preparation of women for the reality of parenthood, educational content for women was censored for women in connection with reproductive health. That was something that Hirschhorn found out when she started Frida, a time when it was “almost impossible” to find authentic storytelling on the subject, and caused her to create Frida uncensored.
“Sixty percent of the content for health ads or content of women in general goods in any way, shape or form, rejected or filtered,” she said. This is not only online, but also on linear television, part of what Hirschhorn calls “very gender-specific dichotomy”, and in the fact that male health and sexual wellness content is approved with a significantly higher rate. This leaves her “incredulously,” she said, and it is a call to act to shift a topic of provocation on a topic of public health from the health of women.
“Women have to work for themselves,” she said. “Women cannot be complacent, and this goes beyond health care. This can drive real changes in retail … in every facet of life,” she added.
Strober noted that when building MIDI Health it became clear that a major challenge would work with codes that were created by the insurance industry for the menopause a different form of institutional censorship. Midi Health has decided to position himself as a basic supplier in the network that had a specialty in menopause and turned out to be a “really effective” opportunity to take part in the past, and it now has nationwide insurance coverage with all major insurance companies in the USA.
“You won't necessarily cover sexual health problems, but you will cover the basic care, so you simply subsume it,” she said. By considering the menopause as part of the health of women, the company is able to create a reimbursement mechanism that corresponds to insurance standards.
Menopause can have an enormous impact on career success
This insurance cover is a very big deal because research shows that a lack of treatment with menopause can have high costs in terms of women's career. In a study that Stober pointed out during the discussion of the Changemakers, found that in the middle of the career in which women were supposed to win their greatest successes at work, the relocation can hold back to menopause.
Strober said that the growing number of research describes how menopause can lead to discrimination at work, whereby women leave jobs or have no increases or promotions due to symptoms, and also because they do not believe that they can get the treatment they need.
“If you believe that you have something that cannot be repaired, it is very embarrassing, and that means that people resign from what they are doing,” said Strober. “You are afraid,” she added.
This can be the experience called brain fog, and also the hot flashes.
“They lose electricity during the hot flashes,” said Strober. “People are not so confident. But if they are treated for it, it is only a hot flash and they can regain the power,” she added.
The health of women is above all a “really good business”
Hirschhorn says that there is still great potential on the women's health on the women's health market.
It is estimated that by 2027 to $ 60 billion, according to data she quoted at the event, and despite the fact that less than 4% of the healthcare spending on healthcare and investments go to the category-a “Seismian gap,” she said.
It is a well -known fact in consumer research that women dominate budget expenses, but Hirschhorn said on the Frida's market that there is a “viral” chance that is underestimated.
“The creation of products for women that are based on real need creates a virality that is difficult to reproduce with other demographic characteristics,” she said. “These women not only buy their products, they sell them to their communities and friends. We call the word of the mother,” said Hirschhorn. “It's a really great opportunity,” she added.
As a former venture investor, Strober said that it was important to accept that “people do not necessarily want to invest in the health of women”, but she added that they cannot slow down the growth like Midi Health. “We are the fastest growing digital health, probably at all, honestly,” she said. “We grow incredibly quickly because women really need access to this care and they cannot get elsewhere,” she added.
Similar to Frida's “virality”, Strober says that the business model is based on itself. “As soon as you take care of a thing for women, you will come back to you to get something else. If you develop this trustworthy platform for you where you will become your long -term patient, it is a good business,” she said.
“We don't say that it is a women's business, we say it's really good business,” she added.
The 'bros' have dominated the longevity health for too long
This opportunity and the encrypted realities of parenthood have now grown to more than 150 products that cover everything from the conception to postpartum and breastfeeding care and beyond. “My four children are a breeding ground of inspiration and my days of 'snots eyes' are almost over,” said Hirschhorn. But she added: “There are the same problems, they only need another toolkit.”
At Midi Health, Strober says that the next great opportunity to unlock is to establish connections between the health of menopause and durability. “If you take care of yourself in your forties, you can really prevent many diseases in your 80s, and that's why we thought a lot about this durability market,” said Strober. “It is all brothers, all the broses that are out there and talk about wanting to live up to 150. We just want to take care of ourselves. We don't take care of 150 years old. We only want to be healthy grandmothers,” she said.
“What do we do, how do we take care of our brain, bones and hearts to age in a healthy way?” Asks Strober.
She says that there are many treatments, products and services that still need to be developed by healthcare companies that help women in the 40s, 50 and 60s better answer this question.
Take a look at the complete video below from the Changemakers Summit to learn more about critical health gaps with which women are confronted with all lives.
