757 Samantha Diamond: Founder & CEO of Bird&Be

0:00Kara Goldin:I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Let's go. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to The Kara Golden Show.

0:44Kara Goldin:Today, I'm joined by Samantha Diamond, who also goes by the nickname Sam, so you'll hear me calling her Sam, but founder and CEO of Bird and Bee, the modern fertility brand making evidence-backed, inclusive care accessible to both women and men. After navigating her own experiences with PCOS and pregnancy loss, Samantha set out to disrupt a dated, gendered industry, and she's done just that. Drawing on her background as the founder of a very successful PR agency. She's built Burden Bee into an eight-figure subscription-first business in just three years. So the brand has shipped over 40 ,000 orders nationwide, many to fertility deserts.

1:36Kara Goldin:And this fall, Burden Bee, as we speak, I should say, is launching in 300-plus Ulta Beauty stores. So excited for Sam and everybody to get their hands on this incredible product. So becoming the first fertility brand to bring male-focused products into the beauty aisle. So it's very exciting. I can't wait to dive into the whole story and how taking a personal experience to building one of the most innovative and inclusive brands out there, redefining reproductive health, is how does she do it? So Samantha, Sam, welcome to the show. Super excited you're here. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

2:20Kara Goldin:Very, very excited. So let's start with the brand. What is Bird & Bee and how is it different from everything else in the fertility and reproductive health space? Well, Bird & Bee is a brand that powers your fertility journey through tools and products that have been created by fertility doctors, the doctors whose sole job it is to get people pregnant. I love it. It's nice and condensed. I love the messaging. So you've been very open about your personal experiences with PCOS, pregnancy loss and infertility. Many people have heard it, but some of us that are listening have not. So I'd love it if you could share a little bit more about how your own personal experience shaped your decision to launch Bird and Bee.

3:12Yeah, absolutely. I was running my PR agency back in the mid-2010s. And I was growing my family. And I was struggling. I experienced pregnancy loss. And I had been diagnosed with PCOS. And I was kind of navigating my fertility journey while growing this business. and the work I was doing every day was in the beauty space. It was in marketing communications, in CPG and beauty. And it struck me that the products that I was working with and the brands that I was working with, it was so clear to women how to use them and what they needed for their skincare and what they needed for their hair care and their makeup.

4:03But reproductive health, something that we all are navigating, was completely unclear. And I felt that it should be a subject that was as clear as the beauty products that we were using every day. And so I set off on a journey to make it easier for people to navigate their reproductive health journey, fertility journey. And my goal was for no one to arrive at the fertility clinic and say, I wish I would have known sooner.

4:37Kara Goldin:I love that story. I mean, it's being able to really look at really challenging times and figure out, like, how do I actually make this better for myself? And once you see it working, you want to bring it to other people. It's sort of a common story amongst great founders. So I I love hearing that. When you think back on, well, first of all, what is PCOS for those who might not be familiar with that? So PCOS is polycystic ovarian syndrome. It's kind of a misleading name because it implies that you would have polycystic ovaries, meaning lots of little cysts on your ovaries. And that's not always the case.

5:22It is a metabolic condition. it impacts somewhere between 10 to 20 % of women. Most women are actually, they go undiagnosed either permanently or for a very extended period of time. And it's actually contributes to issues with ovulation as one of the symptoms, meaning it is one of the top, if not the top reason that people struggle with trying to conceive and with pregnancy. um it also can manifest with other symptoms um some people struggle with high androgen levels meaning they get hair growth on their face hair loss on their head of course we get all of the most wonderful symptoms um they struggle with insulin resistance and weight gain um they can also struggle with other things like mood and so it's it's a very complex syndrome it is not something that is curable, but it is able to be managed.

6:27Kara Goldin:So when you were going through this, this time, you know, how, how challenging it is to try and, you know, figure out how do you actually make yourself better? What were like the first steps that you went through when you also we're realizing that it's not easy, right? It's not easy for people to figure out exactly what they do need. No. And I was very, very lucky because at the time I had started going through this process and then ended up moving into fertility treatment, my partner, my husband, was a fertility doctor. And I had this resource living with me in my home, and I still felt like I wasn't getting the full picture of integrative care.

7:18And that's when my clinic had referred me to see a fertility-focused naturopath. So I was getting the reproductive endocrinology, the Western medicine, and they said, it might be time for you to also see a fertility-focused naturopath who can help you manage some of the other symptoms very specifically around the PCOS. And that's where I actually met one of our co-founders who was the naturopath who was treating me at the time. And I've learned that certain supplements, and in the case of PCOS, it's a supplement called inositol. These are very potent nutrients and agents. And they are not benign.

8:00They have a very clear clinical impact. And for me, being on the correct dose of inositol and other supplements actually regulated my cycle without medication. And so to this day, I'm finished and completed my beautiful family. I still have PCOS, but I do not need to be on medication because I'm able to take the Inositol that we created at Bird and Bee now. And I have a completely regular cycle.

8:31Kara Goldin:That's awesome. So what do you recommend for people? Like, How do they know that they need your products? I guess is like, what is that first step? And is it only for people who are going through fertility as well? Great question. So alongside the supplements, we also developed a suite of at-home tests. And these tests are often a first step. We call them our red flag screeners. These tests are opportunities for folks, male and female, to be able to test certain markers at home, flag if there is an issue, and then they'll know they're not waiting a year of trying to conceive because that's a public health messaging.

9:16Try to conceive for a year and go see your doctor. In many cases, you should not be waiting a year. And these tests can show you some of the markers that would indicate it's time to go quicker. So one of the tests that we've developed is called an ovarian reserve screening test. It measures a marker called FSH, the follicle stimulating hormone. The very beginning of your menstrual cycle, this is the hormone that peaks. It goes pretty high. So you're going to measure that on a P-test, similar to a pregnancy test. Measure it on a P-test at home. And it's going to show you a range of how high your FSH is.

9:56So for us, we mark that indicator at a 10. So you'll see on the test, you match your color with the number. If you're over 10, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to struggle to get pregnant, but it means it's time to see your doctor because that doctor is going to do a full fertility workup and help counsel you to figure out what your next steps might be. Similar story with an at-home sperm test. We have the coolest at-home sperm test. I like to say for women, often getting tests is, you know, it's complicated and can be stressful. For males, this is a pleasurable test. It is easy and pleasurable to test your sperm.

10:33We do it in a way where they can do it at home so you're not under the pressure of going to a clinic and sitting in one of those collection rooms and having to kind of perform on the spot. This is something you can do at home. It will give you your results at home in 15 minutes on your phone, and you'll know immediately if it's time to see a doctor. So those are two examples. We also have ovulation tests, which is one of the indicators of PCOS. If you are not ovulating, if you're having irregular cycles, if your tests aren't showing the ovulation peak, do not wait. It's time to see a doctor. That's awesome.

11:40Kara Goldin:also a business, but to something that I would imagine, not only do you have products, but it's healthcare, it's a service, you need customers. I mean, this is a big deal. This is a big undertaking. I guess you're lucky that you're married to somebody who sort of understood the topic a bit, but still, it's scary. How did you get the courage to actually say, you know what, I need to go do this? Well, I always like to say that ready is not a feeling, it's a decision. So you decide to go. And that's what I did. I made the decision that I was so passionate about helping other people to avoid the journey that I had been on and helping to educate earlier and making sure that folks had access to some of the products that I had to navigate my way through to get access to that I couldn't not do this.

12:42And I think another benefit perhaps was that I was a little bit naive when I started a physical product business. I went from a service business thinking, I know how to sell a product. I can do this. And selling a physical product is a very different story, as you mentioned. Selling a regulated physical product is a whole other beast. And I'm not sure if your listeners know, but to sell a supplement in Canada is very different from selling a supplement in the US. And so we are a Canadian-based company. We sell our products across Canada and the US and some international markets as well. But to sell and create a supplement in Canada, you actually need a license from Health Canada, which is our FDA equivalent.

13:33So you cannot go to market without a license that has pre-approved your product, pre-approved the formula, and the claims that you're making around your product. So it is a very, very involved process. And it also regulates the way you make it, the factory in which you're making it, the testing that's required, and the long-term data that you must collect on the product. So this is a very, very intensive area when it comes to regulatory. And I had to surround myself with the people who knew what they were doing.

14:10Kara Goldin:So did you launch it in the US at the same time as Canada? Or did you launch it first in Canada and wait a bit? No, we launched everything at the same time. And in those early days, like talk about early founder struggle days, we were actually making everything in one spot here locally in Canada. And we were shipping every single day across the border to customers in the US package by package by package. Our DHL and FedEx bills were astronomical. We did figure out how to scale up manufacturing. and we have since started warehousing in the U.S. But those early days, we were sometimes driving carloads of orders to FedEx to make sure that they got there on time because we knew how important it was for our customers to receive their products.

15:10Kara Goldin:So you launched with how many SKUs from the start? We launched with four. Or actually, we launched with six core of the supplement SKUs. We actually launched with tests about four months later. We intended to launch with tests at the same time, but we launched during COVID. And every manufacturer in the world at the time that made at-home tests were making COVID tests. So we just couldn't get them made in time. So we ended up launching with the supplements first. And we launched with male and female fertility product. We launched with a male and female daily product, which our female version was the pregnancy product and the male was just a base male daily.

15:58And we launched with our gentle products as well for women who are really, really struggling with nausea in early pregnancy and just can't keep anything down. They needed something super, super light and easy to digest.

16:13Kara Goldin:So many companies that have launched and focused on fertility are really focusing on the woman, but you intentionally are inclusive of men as well. Why was this so important to you, especially from the get-go? Or somebody might launch a brand just focused on one gender. But I love that you just went all in and said, let's do this. Well, I think the answer is twofold. We went into this space wanting to actually change the conversation around fertility. When I was going through my own journey, and this is very similar for a lot of the team members who now work with us, there was still an element of stigma, shame, and isolation around it.

17:05And in order to change the conversation, we need to bring in everyone involved. So the stats that we shared with our first investors back in 2020 are still the same stats today. Up to 50 % of infertility cases involve a male factor. Male factor infertility was the number one reason the past two years that people in Canada sought IVF. And it's the number two reason in the US behind egg and embryo freezing. So it is a very, very important topic to tackle. And the positive side of this is that male factor infertility is often impacted by lifestyle and can be corrected a lot easier than you can correct some of the issues that relate to female infertility.

18:00And you can do them quickly. And so we wanted to change the conversation in order to do that. We need to involve the male partner and we need to actually have an impact on outcomes. And that has to involve the male partner. An embryo is half sperm, half egg. It doesn't matter what the family itself looks like. There is always going to be a sperm involved in creating that embryo and the health of the embryo. And now there's a lot more data. Every year, fertility is very exciting because every year there's more and more and more studies and data because it's such a new space. But the data is showing that the health of the embryo at the time of conception actually has an impact on the health of the offspring.

18:41So it's very important that both sides of the equation are at absolute optimal peak health during that period of time.

18:50Kara Goldin:So Bird & Bee, it's grown into an eight-figure subscription-first business in just over three years. What have been the biggest drivers of that growth? I mean, it's incredible what you've done and the success that you've seen. So can you talk a little bit about what do you think is the key to being able to have a successful subscription business these days? I think there's a variety of keys. One of them is science. It's great to have a lot more companies in this space because it's helpful to the conversation. It's helpful to destigmatizing it. The next layer is actually showing that the product has an impact, and therefore the customer continues to come back because there is an actual impact.

19:44So we have done two studies as of today on our male products. We were able to publish that data to show that the male products actually do have a clinical impact on sperm health. And because of that, we are also now being sold in hundreds of fertility clinics and both on the REI, the reproductive endocrinology side, as well as the natural health side. And that's a testament to the data. It's a testament to how patients actually are performing in clinic. They can track their improvement. It's a testament to outcomes and how people who are subscribed to our vitamins are sharing with their own communities that they have successful outcomes.

20:29but I think we talk about clinical impact in a way that perhaps for the everyday consumer is maybe unclear. So we have companies in our space who are making great strides in testing. They're testing their customers on a before and after basis for the level of vitamins in their bloodstream And that's great. You want to see that, you know, you started with nothing, you added something, you have more of that vitamin in your bloodstream. We've taken it that step further. It's not only more in the bloodstream, but we've shown that you have an impact on your health outcomes. And so that's why one of the reasons why I think we've grown so quickly is we've been able to expand through clinics and people are seeing real results.

21:18I think another element is how we've built. We've built this company with empathy as a key growth strategy for us. Down to the way our product is designed, to the product names, we've tried to make this something that is accessible and modernized. We don't show pictures of baby bumps because we know a lot of people are struggling. That was one of the key things when we first started. I walked up and down the drugstore aisles and saw, you know, ovulation test kits and prenatal vitamins. And all of them had like a woman with a baby on her hip or a big bump. And for me as somebody who was struggling with pregnancy loss, that was just an unnecessary trigger.

22:03My counter was already full of all of the products. I didn't need to see multiple boxes showing me that I was not yet there. That's just additional pressure.

22:13Kara Goldin:Yeah, that's a really, really good point. So I think it's, you know, the packaging, I think, in so many products is just, it seems so off. And you guys just, I think, really, really nailed it. So you guys have done such a great job. So Burden B is now entering 300 plus Ulta beauty stores. Such a huge milestone. Very excited for you. How did that partnership come together? I mean, it's so unique. Can you talk about it? Yes. So the long story, which I will not make a long story. I'm going to, I mean, a long story short. On our very first investor pitch deck, we had this big picture of the current drugstore aisle.

23:03And then we had pictures of what we envisioned a drugstore aisle to look like that had none of these triggering images and had very clear education with male and female products together. and we were asked in those very early discussions, would you go into retail? What are your thoughts? And I always said, I will go into retail when it's a partner who is slightly disruptive. So not a typical pharmacy to start, a slightly disruptive partner who is willing to educate alongside us and who is willing to prioritize male fertility alongside the female fertility. It has to be merchandised together and we have to have the opportunity to educate around this.

23:50And so Alta actually had reached out to us earlier this year to start that conversation. And from the very beginning, they were on board with us rolling out education programs to their own store associates. They were on board with merchandising the male products. They're even going to start selling our sperm tests at some locations in the next few weeks. So they were very much on board with, you know, providing products for their guests who are already shopping for their skincare and for their beauty routines, the opportunity to also learn more about their reproductive health and be proactive about it.

24:32Kara Goldin:That's so interesting. Do you have any idea, like, what percentage of the time is a female consumer buying for both the woman and the man? That is a great question. So what we do know is that around 30 % of our products sold are male products. We do have a lot of customers that are male. But I believe the majority in the data that we can pull shows us that the majority of the people purchasing are the females. And it's interesting because we're in the process of rolling out a campaign right now that's called Share the Load. And it is about involving the male partner in the conversation as well as in the preparation and optimization for family building.

25:27Because again, it's super important. We need both parties involved in heterosexual relationships. um but from a statistical perspective if 50 of the time it is a male factor that is involved in an infertility diagnosis if you're talking about ibf a hundred percent of the time it's the female who's the one treated so if it's a male factor issue it is actually his partner that is the one going through the bulk of the treatment, hormones, injections, medications, literal surgical procedures to do retrieval and transfer, and then carrying the pregnancy. And so we feel that this conversation is just so incredibly important to really, really reach out.

26:16And again, the opportunity to change the conversation by involving the male partner as well.

26:23Kara Goldin:Yeah, and it's not just the hassle, the pain, all of those pieces that go along with somebody going through IVF, but also bringing that conversation early on. It's the expense too, right? So I think so often people are, I've talked to many people who have been through this and men who have, you know, not gotten tested and yet they've, the woman is actually going through so many things. And, and again, like, I think just bringing this forward in their own privacy, um, to be able to have that conversation is something that Burden B, um, is, is really, uh, you know, doing an excellent job of really being at the forefront of that.

27:15Kara Goldin:So that's, that's a, That's a really, really great thing. So expanding into other areas of reproductive or preventative health, I know is something that is top of mind for Burden B. Can you talk a little bit about some of the initiatives that you've been working on that you are in the process of launching as well? Yes. So we have a brand new product launching this month called Triple Power Collagen Plus Probiotic and NAD. This is a really special and unique product. It's a labor of love because it was a product that I think I started out making partly for myself. It was three different things that I was already taking myself under the guidance of the naturopathic doctors that we work with.

28:12And as we kind of talked about product development and some of the other ways that we could help our customers support pre-fertility, early, early days, foundational reproductive health, we call it, into fertility, we also kind of realized that There's a suite of products that are not only wonderful for fertility, but also are just as wonderful for the postpartum into perimenopause and beyond communities too. Because when you think about cellular health and improving cellular health and supporting cellular health, egg is the largest cell in your body. Sperm is the smallest cell in your body. When you're talking about cellular energy, you need a lot of energy from egg and sperm to come together as an embryo, divide, divide, divide.

28:58But cellular health and cellular aging extends to the entire rest of your body too. And anything that is good for eggs and sperm is also good for cellular health well into 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond. So we thought about the opportunity again with our thesis that we want to make things easier for people. We want to combine things into as little packaging as possible, the most out of a one daily dose. We thought about the opportunity of combining that daily collagen dose that a lot of folks are already taking with other elements to support cellular health and inflammation. So we added in NAD. It's in a higher dose than most singular NAD products as well.