Founder Feature: Building a Women's Health Beverage Brand and Landing Nationwide Sprouts Distribution in Months with Anastasia Sartan of The Cycle

0:02Did you hear that? That's opportunity knocking. We've been building something big. Opportunity Knocks, a new campaign giving startup CPG brands exclusive direct access to submit to leading retailers, distributors, investors, media, and more. Here's how it works. Every Friday, a new submission window opens exclusively for active startup CPG email subscribers. Each campaign features a custom form tailored to that partner. Share your brand's email. story, products, distribution, and traction. Startup CPG delivers your applications directly to the partner's team. Some campaigns even include a live fireside chat so you can meet the partner and ask questions directly.

0:43To get every drop, subscribe at startupcpg.com slash OK. That's just the letters O and K. Our newest drop is live and it's with Kroger. Ready? Go. Go subscribe. Go submit. Good luck.

1:16We've received the Sprouts order in the month three of our existence. And it mainly happened because of our ingredients. Because their vitamin department bars who I truly love, they're so knowledgeable. especially she really loved what we put in this can she was like this formula just makes perfect sense the way how it tastes the way how it works and everything so it was mainly like kudos to our ingredients but then they also believed and so noticed that our branding is absolutely ready to be launched nationwide etc so now when we hit our shelves it was May 1st so it was just pretty much months ago and that's when we've created such a strong buzz by just like organically women all around us is just like posting tagging us like showing how they're like buying like 10 cans in their cart because finally they found something that helps them that finally they found something that made them feel seen that finally this product exists so our instagram still has maybe like 30 tags a week?

2:32Hey everybody, this is Caitlin Bricker, Managing Editor at Startup CPG. We are back with another founder feature. Today I'm sitting down with Anastasia Sartan, founder of The Cycle, a beverage designed to support women through their pre-period, period, perimenopause, and menopause stages. Anastasia spent two decades in tech leading product at Snapchat, where she realized she had developed serious PMDD symptoms. That's premenstrual dysphoric disorder for anybody listening and isn't familiar. Hopefully you never will have to be. Leveraging her data science background, she took to PubMed, read up on Seabuckthorn, started brewing drinks in her kitchen, and the rest, as they like to say, is history.

3:16You are actually witnessing history in the making right now. It seemed like the floodgates for period-focused CPG have totally opened in the past few months, and Anastasia is at the epicenter with the cycle. She's doing something no one else in the space is doing right now. And people are taking notice, including Sprouts, who rolled the cycle out nationally only after just a few months after the brand's launch. Wow. Just wow. We hear from founders on this podcast every week. If you're a brand and want to get new opportunities right in your inbox, text CPG to 833-605-7002. That's 833-605-7002. And we'll get you hooked up.

4:01As always, enjoy.

4:07Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Startup CPG podcast. This is Caitlin, and today I'm here with Anastasia Sartan, founder of The Cycle. Anastasia, welcome to the show. Hey, so excited. I am so excited to have you here. It has been a long time coming. I love that you're wearing orange because it's part of your brand colors. I feel like you're always on brand. Your brand stuck out to me in the Slack channel. You introduced yourself and you talked about how you were using Seabuckthorn in your products. I'm a huge Seabuckthorn fan. It was great for my skin and I just love the flavor of it. But that stuck out to me and it stuck out to me because you really, in my mind, were starting a movement in women's health and hormonal health in the CPG space that I feel like I was not seeing until you hit the scene.

4:56So mover, shaker, I don't know what you're doing. You'll have some kind of magic touch, but it's very cool to have you here. Thank you so much, Caitlin. You are definitely one of our first supporters. So I really, really appreciate it. And we've achieved so much with you and with the startup CPG. Hopefully there's more coming down the pipeline. So before we dive into all things Anastasia and the cycle, can you tell us what the cycle is? Absolutely. So the cycle is the food and beverage platform. We've started this beverage that supports women through their pre-period days. And now we've also launched the perimenopause and menopause.

5:36and all of this support comes from real ingredients. It provides real comfort during our worst days and it's also delicious. I love the sound of all of that and I can tell you that they work. You and I have had many conversations about why you've created the cycle, how it's worked for you personally, how it's working for other people. Can you tell us why you decided to create the cycle? Yeah, well, I worked in tech for my entire career for about two decades and I was leading product at Snapchat. And I believe that was the most stressful time of my life because that was my first corporate experience and there were like tons of politics involved and it was hard and challenging emotionally.

6:22And that was the time when I started to have a really, really serious PMS symptoms. So when my period was about to come like a week sometimes two weeks before that during my luteal phase I was really tired angry having like mostly like some emotional like really challenging thoughts on how everything is not working how I'm not doing enough everything is not enough and yeah having some discomfort with digestion as well and I was looking for some solutions and what I figured is that there are tons of pills out there like supplements and pretty much every single one is saying like oh just try us out for half a year and I was like okay so I need to spend like 10 years on trying to find something that works anyways I've tried one certain supplement and it took me three months the I think like it was recommended by my OBGYN and she was saying like wait for three months On a month three, I was like, I'm not actually sure whether it works or not.

7:29So I started, I'm a data scientist. So I've started to search for some publications and like papers on what actually works. And I stumbled on PubMed on several articles about sea buckthorn, how it is pretty much the only natural source of omega-7. And omega-7 naturally reduces inflammation and a lot of discomfort that we are having during our worst women days are coming because of inflammation. So I found like a small supplier on Amazon that was sending me seabuckthorn shots. I started drinking that every morning and it really helped. While being also delicious, it's on the tart side. So I was mixing it with something.

8:12And then I live a walking distance from Erwan. So I always love just researching their beverage aisle. Of course. Yeah, and I was surprised to see that there is nothing there for periods. The most common, like monthly recurring use case for 51 % of population, while they have for allergies, drinks for allergies, for libido, hand drinks for energy, etc., etc. And at the same time, my girlfriend started to ask me, can you please brew this drink that you're drinking for me? And I was like, okay, I have to do that just to support us women. We should have something delicious that actually helps us as well.

8:54So we produced our first production run, which was tiny, 4 ,000 cans per skew. We had only two skews back then in September 2025. And that was my hobby because I was still working in tech, in an AI company. But then when we received a Sprouts PO, Sprouts purchase order like several months after that and sold out the entire first run that became pretty clear that it cannot be just a hobby. So in January, I left my tech career and switched entirely to CPG and continue growing the cycle. And I always share that it is, of course, it's business. So business is always for money. That's what helps business grow.

9:38But this business is entirely for a mission. and the way how we designed all the ingredients and what we do with it. It's mission first. Talk to me about the ingredients. Obviously, sea buckthorn is a star ingredient in these beverages. How did you choose the other ingredients that you're using in there? And can you kind of run us through what you're using? Yeah, absolutely. So, yes, sea buckthorn is our star ingredient. And we are proud that we are the only U.S. brand that has an access to organic sea buckthorn because there are no U.S. suppliers of it. We always have to ship it overseas. Actually, if you are going to Google trend Seabuckthorn, you'll see that the interest in Seabuckthorn grew 4x in between 2025 and 2026.

10:29Hmm, I wonder why that is. Wow. Wow. But still, right? I love that this like really magical berry is becoming more popular in the U.S. while it's already popular in Asia and Central Asia and Eastern Europe. So for other ingredients, we are using liquid herbal extracts, also organic. And I had a lot of conversations with my early stage advisors who were saying, no, it's too expensive. You can just use powders. and I hated this idea because I know that powders they don't absorb well and we want to make sure that our brand stands for its efficacy. So even though it does impact our unit economics, but we continue proudly using an organic liquid herbal extract.

11:25Now we add herbal extracts depending on where you are in your cycle. So for example, for pre-period days we also add dandelion root because we're usually bloated and have some digestive issues and we add the chesterberry which is especially great for our pre-period days and we add the shatavari root which helps us emotionally so again all of this coming in the liquid form and in functional dosage for periods we're adding just as an example raspberry leaf that's what if you will go to like your OBGYN or like an herbalist that what most likely they will recommend for like a healthier flow overall and lemon balm again because like during period we need a different type of like energy it needs to be a calm energy and lemon balm is the best herbs for that for perimenopause we add black cohosh which we're especially proud of because black cohosh is so amazing for our peri days but it's very bitter it's really hard to take if you don't want to swallow powders again right so but now in this plant it's actually very delicious.

12:38I really like how thoughtful you were with these formulations and especially coming out with the perimenopausal drink I mean I feel like that is where a lot of women my age are heading towards if they're not there yet late 30s we're getting there i do also have to say before i get it sidetracked at all if anybody is listening right now and their name is melissa melissa aficionalis is the scientific name for lemon bomb so yeah lucky you that's true it is yes i had to tell my friend melissa that too i was like did you know lemon bomb has your name or you have lemon bomb's name whoever came first most likely the lemon That's a unique name for Melissa's.

13:24So good. I have to ask, and this is going to get a little personal, but we've talked about this in person before. How did you land on creating the pre-period drink for pre-period support? You mentioned that you were going through some stressful times, emotional times with your job in tech. But you and I have had this conversation that you deal with PMDD. which I feel like is this mysterious diagnosis in the land of social media that women are like, that sounds like me as you were describing it. I'm like, check, check. But even doctors are very hesitant to diagnose this in women, but it's not, this is not an anomaly.

14:10There are plenty of women dealing with these symptoms and there's just no one to really say, yes, this is what you're going through and here's how you can deal with it. So walk us through your experience with PMDD and creating the pre-period drink. Sure. Yep. So like PMDD, from what I understand, and again, I'm not a doctor, I'm a tech data scientist, is a severe form of PMS, right? When girls are like experiencing PMS and they're like, oh, my husband irritates me a bit more. Like PMDD is like you You cannot stand anyone pretty much like anything can like seriously trigger you for one or two weeks, months.

14:52So even though there are a lot of jokes on TikTok about that, living through that is not a fun experience. Because I even had like my best team members leaving my team and resigning because of how I acted out during that time. So it is serious. It leads to all sorts of like now that was the workplace example. And we also had a very, very serious situations with my husband and with my kids when you cannot pretty much like control for half a month on how angry and dissatisfied you are with things that when your period hits, like the next day, you're just like, what was all of that? is actually everything is good and normal and great.

15:42So it's kind of like, I'm sure actually that's my personal note is that a lot of women are probably misdiagnosed for bipolar because it has a lot of similarities. And even my therapist tried to like run me through this test and I was like, no, no, no. I know that it has connections with my period. So it's a different thing. So now saying all of that and doubling your words that there is no proper research, no proper solution for that, my goal is to grow the cycle in a way that we will be able to fund the research specifically for PMTD. So now my approach was to go through PubMed, through articles again, because I could afford this luxury of understanding papers because of my background and be privileged in this sense.

16:38And that's how I discovered C. Buckthorn that I believe can support during these days as well. I have to say, I have experienced something very similar to you. I'm convinced that I have PMDD and I don't want to say this has been a quick fix because I feel like it's something that I will always have with me but your beverages truly have helped in that premenstrual phase the luteal phase is no joke it's like a personal hell when you're in it because you know that how you're feeling is not right but there's nothing you can do about it. Like everything sets you off. Everything irritates you. And it's like, I don't feel like myself when I am about to get my period.

17:26I don't feel like myself in my physical body and also in my mind. And when I drink your drinks, I do feel this sense of calm over my body. And I also don't feel like I'm 100 pounds heavier like I typically feel before I get my period. Oh, my God. So true. and I can totally resonate with what you're saying. As soon as I get my period and my cycle starts, it's like, oh, okay, the demons are allowed to exit my body now. I can have my body back. Great. Thank you very much. Oh my God, so true. And thank you for sharing that it works for you. We keep hearing it because of my PMDD story. I think a lot of PMDD girls are also feel some support and I heavily rely on these drinks personally because I developed them on my kitchen for myself.

18:17And I think they've got me so far. And this so far for me is that I can at least be that calm. So I realized that these like intrusive thoughts are not my thoughts. So, you know, that's already a big achievement. So it's not the magic pill, but it gets you to sound stability. It certainly helps. It absolutely helps. And it's interesting to me too. I mean, C. Buckler is the star here. But I had never seen C. buckthorn in an RTD before, not in any ready to drink beverages, only in supplement form, only in skin care. And what you're saying about C. buckthorn helping with inflammation makes a ton of sense.

18:58I used to deal with cystic acne like in my cheeks and on my chin. I always used to just think it was purely hormonal, which, you know, maybe it had to do with hormones, my diet, a whole slew of things. I started oil cleansing with sea buckthorn infused oil. It completely changed my skin, completely changed it. And then I started drinking it, of course, in a supplement form. It is very tart, like you were saying. I love that flavor profile personally. I got to look into what that means about my personal constitution. But I think it's really cool to see it in an RTD form. And it's something I am not seeing anywhere right now.

19:38Yeah, no, thank you. Absolutely. I come from Russia originally and we drink sea buckthorn tea, which is actually just like sea buckthorn berries smashed with hot water and then with like some added honey in it as a delicacy. So we drink it when we feel like bad, when we feel like cold. It's always cold in Russia. So that's why this delicacy is actually available in majority of high-end restaurants, which is another proof that Sea Puckstorn has a very nice taste profile. And what I've just learned that in Scandinavia, in Michelin star restaurants, they have it on the menu as like part of mocktails or some desserts even.

20:22Sign me up. Yeah. So that's why it's great to know that such a magical in terms of the how many omega-7 it has, how many vitamin C it has. It also tastes delicious, but it is tart. That's why we add some apple juice and some monk fruit to our cans. So although our drinks are not very sweet and they keep hearing it, I run a lot of demos myself and I keep hearing from women when they try it for the first time. They're like, hmm, it's not very sweet. I actually love it all the time. I mean, we run demos in a natural food store. So it's like a skew taste preference, most likely. But at the same time, it made me think like if pretty much every woman is sharing with me that she doesn't like sweet drinks.

21:11Why do we keep developing all this like impossible to drink sweet drinks? It's so true. I was just talking to another female founder today and I had said to her, I prefer to eat my sweets rather than drink them. A thousand percent. I prefer a bitter or tart profile when it comes to beverages or just straight up water. Very interesting. All right. You talked about this very briefly before, but we need to hone in on this. I need to hear more. You launched nationwide with Sprouts and you are less than a year out from launch right now. Is that correct? Yes. That is pretty incredible. So congratulations, first of all.

21:54And you also, I'm going to talk about the ingredients again. You are hitting on something that Brody Burke from Sprouts was talking about over on his LinkedIn and is very buzzy right now. Natural flavors. something you don't include on your beverages, not on your ingredient list, and you'll probably never see them there. So A, you're hitting on that audience that's not looking for natural flavors in their products. You're using real ingredients. And B, you're obviously speaking to the Sprouts crowd, that audience, that consumer base. Tell us what it was like launching in Sprouts nationwide. Yep.

22:31So, well, we received the Sprouts order in the month three of our existence. And it mainly happened because of our ingredients. Because their vitamin department bars, who I truly love, they're so knowledgeable. Especially, she really loved what we put in this can. she was like this formula just makes perfect sense the way how it is the way how it works and everything so it was mainly like cuteness to our ingredients but then they also believed and so noticed that our branding is absolutely ready to be launched nationwide etc so now when we hit our shelves it was may 1st so it was just pretty much months ago and that's when we've created such a strong buzz by just like organically women all around us is just like posting tagging us like showing how they're like buying like 10 cans in their cart because finally they found something that helps them that finally they found something that make them feel seen that finally this product exists so our instagram still has maybe like 30 tags a week wow just women discovering us and posting us on instagram which is so like hard to believe because it's not that you just discovered it you took a picture of it you found us on instagram you tag us so i think it's just another example on how this like hormonal health wellness ritual period wellness is lacking in the rtd form and it should be more of that.

24:11We're hitting like a really strong number since Sprouts, even though we're the premium price point, which we're very excited about. Because again, like that was a risky move for us to launch nationwide at such young age of the brand. We knew over velocity numbers in the smaller accounts, we knew that they're very strong. So we had some belief system that is going to work. And startup CPG is a huge part of it because the way how we ended up in Sprouts is that we applied to a startup CPG form for Sprouts buyers. And I believe there were like thousands of brands probably that applied. We get a lot.

24:52Sprouts is a big one for us. Very, very highly sought after. They selected just you and we had a head office presentation together with your team there. And that's how it all started. So again, I believe that us discovering Startup CPG, a huge part of our success as a brand overall. That is so great to hear. I mean, I just said it, but Sprouts is super sought after. And I joke around and call Brody from Sprouts America's most wanted because that man, at any event, there is a line, not a joke, out the door to get your product in front of him and to pitch to him. So huge congratulations to you. This is a major feat.

25:35And I have to know, like, what did you do to prepare for a nationwide launch? Like, what did that look like? I'm sure this could be an episode in itself. But can you just give us a little snapshot of what you did as such a young brand to get ready for this rollout? Yeah, I actually had another beverage brand that is about to heat Sprouts Innovation. They called me yesterday to ask all these questions. and I couldn't stop telling them everything because they're like so many things about this set I think we should like just I was like okay we need to write like the overall you know how to because I was chatting with about five other startup founders who were in this set just understand how it all works because as you rightly mentioned Brody and their entire team I cannot even imagine their mailbox, right?

26:27It's not that you can ask them all the questions because they're like literally swamped. So it had to do with introducing two news cues, figuring out our displays, unboxing with Kehi, figuring out all things Kehi, which we're still figuring out. I believe it's a never-ending story. Then like being on time with all the supply, with all the production run, being in the right like setup is pricing having the right marketing support set up having the right like my strong belief was and i want to share it with everyone is that there should be the healthy split in between your paid channels for marketing like instacart demos like coupons etc and what you just anticipate your natural velocities to be and it's very hard money-wise to be able to invest anything more than like 20 % out of your expected velocity from paid channels.

27:28So you need to be sure that your brand can have the implied organic purchases in Sprouts at least like 75 % better, 80 % velocity because you won't be able to invest all of that. When I put this like economics together, I was like, okay, it just should work and then we need to support it because otherwise it's not going to work. And it is a proof that it's not going to work. So, and we are hitting like 80 % of our purchases are just like light organic purchases at least. And then for the rest, we have our support with like PR. We cannot understand whether like PR, like influencer, et cetera, how many purchases it gets, but like with Instacart and demos, you can.

28:13So, and we work like really hard, like at least three months before launch on putting together our marketing strategy and how we support this launch from all the possible channels. You are also extremely active on social media as a brand and as an individual. I love following you and seeing your posts. I think it's a really great way to get your brand out there because you have in many ways become your brand even though sometimes you can separate the founder from the brand you are embodying your brand daily on your social media and I love how you're able to connect your own personal life and who you are to your brand and it makes it even more fun to follow along.

28:58Thank you thank you I've heard this like feedback that oh oh my god Target will love you guys because they love this like cool social media cpg brands and i was like is that even a thing nowadays i think like any brand that is targeting gen z which is most likely any cpg brand should be a cool social media brand one way or another right because especially in beverage we have this amazing two interns as part of our team right now from stanford from berkeley and things that they share They share like one of them was like, yeah, usually when I'm wearing a cool outfit and choosing like what can am I drinking?

29:40So it matches my outfit, you know, which is like so it is an accessory for them. It's not just a drink anymore. It's more that there's something that they want to feel relevant with, right, that they want their outfit to match with, like all of that. So it should be a social media brand for sure. For sure. And not just Gen Z, because you're covering the whole spectrum when it comes to stages of life for women. So it's pretty cool. Yeah, our main consumer is 35 plus. So for sure. Very cool. All right. So before we go, I need everybody to be able to go and follow you on social media. So can you drop your handles and your website for us?

30:24Absolutely. So it's onthecycle.com and it's drinkthecycle on Instagram. And since I know that a lot of industry people are listening to us now, we're also hiring for head of marketing. And this one, we're already having some amazing people candidates, but we just opened up a search for head of sales. wow these are opportunities that you need to jump on if you're interested in getting in with a really cool brand i feel like this is going to be a brand that's gonna have a really successful exit in the future if i do say so myself you're doing something nobody else is doing right now it's really really cool to witness yes thank you and we are really really looking forward for someone who is going to be doing cycle specific yogurts or we also vouch for sundra from beach bars who are doing bars for cycles so we need more brands like that on the market oh i want to see more collabs that would be so cool yeah we should talk after this because i'm sure i would have some cool brands for you to link up with oh yeah we would love that for sure oh anastasia it's been great talking to you.

31:38You've been such a great support of the community. And I feel like an exemplary member of the community. You're showing up to events. You're using the resources. You're making it work for you. You're taking notes. And look, I mean, you launched nationwide just months into having your brand hit the market. So it's absolutely incredible to witness. So thank you. Thank you. And Startups has the best, the best team ever. So Oh, thank you. Our team is pretty cool. These are definitely people that I would hang out with outside of work, which makes it a lot of fun. Well, thank you for everything. Thanks for changing my life.