It began with an ungainly run-in with a boss. In 2017, Farah Kabir was working as an funding banker at Goldman Sachs when she popped right into a retailer on her lunch break to select up just a few gadgets: meals, deodorant, face wipes and a pack of condoms. Whereas ready in line, she ran into her boss—and shortly realized the brightly coloured condom field was seen in her procuring basket.
“I used to be actually embarrassed,” Kabir recalled. “However my embarrassment quickly turned to frustration. Once you take a look at the sexual well being market, all of the merchandise are garishly packaged, they’re all about males’s conquest, and girls are annoyed by the alternatives accessible.”
From that embarrassing second, Kabir and her buddy Dr. Sarah Welsh have been impressed to tackle the condom trade themselves. Their startup Hanx—which sells condoms, lubricant, contraceptive drugs and different intimate care merchandise within the U.S. and U.Ok.—is a “sexual wellness model designed with ladies in thoughts,” stated Kabir.
Hanx goals to fill a niche in a market that has, like many different sectors, traditionally missed ladies. It prioritizes feminine pleasure, sustainability and shame-free intercourse schooling, as evident in its newest marketing campaign that breaks the stigma round a typical well being situation.
Nonetheless, as they’ve constructed the model, Hanx’s founders have additionally encountered persistent advertising challenges and biases going through companies by and for ladies.
“I labored in a male-dominated trade [finance], however by no means confronted any actual gender disparity till now,” Kabir stated. “What we’re doing continues to be taboo.”
Talking to ladies
When Kabir and Welsh arrange Hanx in 2017, they scanned retailer cabinets of condoms and located the standard dominant names—Durex, Trojan—with packaging and slogans that blurred collectively. No model appeared to cater to the ladies they knew or their very own experiences.
In her profession as a gynecologist, Welsh had additionally handled many ladies for STIs who reported frequent hang-ups round condom use: The merchandise might trigger irritation, they assumed their male companions would carry them, or they have been embarrassed to purchase them in shops.
“The merchandise usually converse to males,” Kabir stated. “No model has considered feminine pleasure in relation to condoms.”
Hanx is making an attempt to alter this in a few methods. The primary is within the improvement of its merchandise, that are medically endorsed, sustainable and pure. Its condoms are made out of latex that has been responsibly sourced and traded, and don’t comprise chemical substances like glycerin and spermicide, which Welsh and different gynecologists have linked to a better danger of growing a UTI.
With its impartial tones, the packaging additionally stands aside on the condom shelf as a result of it extra intently resembles the aesthetic of a magnificence or way of life product, Kabir stated.
“If a condom that’s garish and in-your-face fell out of your bag, you may really feel a bit extra embarrassed—however much less so if it matches in with magnificence merchandise,” she defined.
Hanx merchandise are at the moment bought on-line and in main U.Ok. retail chains together with Boots, Superdrug, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Ocado. It additionally gives a subscription service for individuals who would favor some on-line anonymity.
However it’s not simply ladies who’re gravitating towards Hanx’s aesthetic, in keeping with Kabir, with 40% of on-line purchases being made by males. “Additionally they really feel the same disgrace and embarrassment,” she added.
Countering disgrace
As regards to disgrace, Hanx’s advertising tries to eradicate it with a “actual and relatable tone of voice” and by breaking taboos surrounding intercourse.
Its newest marketing campaign, which launched on Valentine’s Day, is about vaginismus, a situation by which the involuntary contraction of vaginal muscle tissue could cause penetrative intercourse or tampon use to be painful or not possible. Although docs consider as many as one in two folks with vaginas will expertise vaginismus sooner or later of their lives, the situation is shrouded in stigma, and lots of lack the data or assets to entry assist.
Created by Scottish company Leith and titled “Let’s Open Up,” the marketing campaign consists of U.Ok. out of doors and social adverts, a few of which resemble Valentine’s Day playing cards, directing folks to a web site with data on the situation. It would culminate with an occasion on Worldwide Girls’s Day (March 8) in London, the place attendees can speak truthfully about vaginismus and pleasure.
That underlying mission of encouraging intercourse positivity and openness additionally led to the creation of Hanx’s on-line group, Hanx Life Discussion board, which hosts content material and a chatroom to debate matters starting from libido to scorching flashes to intervals. The group has grown organically, in keeping with Kabir, reflecting folks’s need for shame-free intercourse schooling and reliable data.
“I grew up not speaking about intercourse, and intercourse schooling in class was not nice both. We have been advised to not have intercourse since you’d get an STI or pregnant, however there was nothing about relationships or pleasure,” she stated. “It’s tremendous vital for manufacturers to take a stand to teach ladies on proudly owning their sexual well being.”
Dealing with bias
However this objective comes with a number of challenges. In its advertising efforts, Hanx has confronted advert bans on platforms together with Meta and Google, the place content material about ladies’s our bodies is commonly flagged as express. This difficulty has been reported by different femtech manufacturers similar to Elvie.
It additionally implies that, like these different manufacturers coping with ladies’s well being, Hanx should generally depend on guerrilla advertising techniques and different inventive methods to get its message out.
For instance, in September, it constructed a flower backyard within the Shoreditch neighborhood of London the place folks might scan fake flowers that held condoms and find out about sustainability and Hanx’s merchandise. The activation drew greater than 1,000 guests in someday.
“We’re a sexual wellness model, however that doesn’t imply we now have to look seedy and sordid,” Kabir stated.
Hanx’s founders have additionally encountered gender bias within the tech and enterprise worlds. Many different feminine founders in tech have reported struggling to draw investor curiosity; for example, femtech obtained solely 3% of all well being tech funding in 2020.
The truth that Hanx offers with intercourse provides one other problem attributable to vice clauses that limit the place a enterprise capitalist (VC) fund can make investments its cash. These restrictions often cowl areas similar to tobacco, weapons and intercourse.
Hanx has thus far raised about $2.1 million (1.8 million kilos), however Kabir has been shocked by the misogyny she has seen as a feminine founder. “We’ve been advised, ‘We’re two younger ladies, what can we find out about a male-dominated trade?’ And, ‘Are ladies actually going to purchase condoms?’ We’ve had all of it beneath the solar.”
Nonetheless, Hanx launched within the U.S. final 12 months and is looking for additional funding to scale the enterprise internationally. It has additionally widened its ambition to handle all elements of ladies’s well being journeys, from pleasure to fertility to menopause, in its content material and merchandise.
“Sarah and I regarded on the ladies’s well being house and located it’s not simply sexual well being that’s archaic. There’s no model that connects the milestones [of a woman’s life],” Kabir stated. “Girls want this greater than ever.”
