Ep. 117 - The Essential Nutrients and Vitamins You Need for Every Stage of Womanhood Plus Giving Birth While Launching a Company with Victoria Thain Gioia, Co-Founder of Perelel Health
Victoria Thain Gioia is the co-founder of Perelel Health, the first and only OB/GYN-founded vitamin brand offering clean, targeted nutrition for each distinct stage of a woman’s reproductive life cycle.
Tori holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and has a background in Finance and Strategy working for many eCommerce companies like Olive & June, Carbon 38 and the Honest Company.
But on top of it all, Tori is the mom to 3 littles ones ages 4 and under.
In this episode, Victoria and I chatted about
How she launched a company mid-pandemic with 3 kids ages 3 and under (including giving birth a week before launch)
How she and her co-founder, Alex started with a mission (not a product) to create a company that helped millennial moms where they’re at and then figured out which idea to pursue.
Victoria’s journey through motherhood and how her child’s cleft inspired the launch of Perelel Health
How to create a product and brand that you can trust
Why they launched with 5 vitamin products vs. 1 and why the brand, story and customer’s journey played a huge role in their overall launch strategy
The important nutrients and vitamins you need during each stage of pregnancy and postpartum
Perelel's targeted vitamins support a woman's health through all stages of motherhood from conception to each trimester of pregnancy to postpartum and beyond. They even just released a new formula targeting PCOS!
To learn more and if you're interested in trying out Perelel, go to https://perelelhealth.com and use the code ONACALL20 for 20% off your first month.
Follow Victoria at
Website: perelelhealth.com
IG: @perelelhealth // @vat26
Listen & Follow
Come join me in my sandbox of life and in this podcast to explore, play and discover something new every single week.
🎧 LISTEN: https://link.chtbl.com/MOAC
⭐️ SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW: Tune in weekly because I know you've yelled "Mommy's on a Call" at least once in the last week!!!
☕️ JOIN THE FACEBOOK COMMUNITY: The Modern Mama Society - Health & Wellness for Modern Moms
✨ FOLLOW ON IG: @MommysonaCall & @StephanieUchima
🔥 BOOK A RECHARGE MAMA SESSION: http://rechargemama.com
Ep. 117 - Victoria Thain Gioia Transcript
[00:00:00] Stephanie: Welcome back to mommy's on a call today. I'm excited to bring to you Victoria Gioia. She's the co-founder of Perelel health. The first and only OB GYN founded vitamin brand offering clean, targeted nutrition for each distinct stage of a woman's reproductive life cycle. Victoria holds an MBA from HBS and has a background in finance and strategy.
Working for many e-commerce companies, like all of in June, carbon 38 and the honest company, but on top of it all, Tori's the mom to three little ones, ages four, three, and 18 months. Welcome.
[00:01:27] Tori: Hi thank you for having me
[00:01:29] Stephanie: happy to have you. So to start off I wanted to ask what's your biggest mom win of the week.
[00:01:34] Tori: Ooh, my biggest mom win of the week.
It's been a week. I, uh, my son, my oldest somehow seems to be up in the middle of the night, every night,
[00:01:44] Stephanie: ooh and four year old, that's like a hard age. Do you just like walk him back to his room or
[00:01:49] Tori: no, he wants me in his room. We've tried to break the monitor from him. But he still thinks it's there. So he talks to the camera and then when we're not there, he starts losing it.
I mean, maybe my mom win is that, I actually did get him to go back to sleep at 2:30 last night. So it was much better than the previous two nights.
[00:02:07] Stephanie: Oh, how are your other ones sleeping? Do they sleep together? Do they have their own rooms.
[00:02:12] Tori: They have their own rooms right now, but they're very close and small.
So I would want to let my four year old cry it out, but then he'll wake up the other two. So I sprint in there to keep the other one's asleep. And the other two are girls and they're angels. They sleep well. They've always slept well. So they've been fine.
[00:02:31] Stephanie: It's always one. It's always just one of them. Well, to give the audience a little bit of context, I know we did the ages of your kids, but what are the roles you and your partner play in the family, the relationship, and also, you know, what's kind of the breakdown of your children.
[00:02:47] Tori: Okay. So I, well, my husband might kill me for saying this, but I do all the things and. He's plays with the kids. I organize their classes in schools and paperwork and doctors and all of that.
I feel like this is a thing for most working moms these days, where you're still carrying the burden of kind of taking care of all the kids even though you also have a full-time job just like your partner. So I don't know.
I definitely not navigated, dividing and conquering well, but then I also think I'm a little bit of a control freak, so I don't let him take the kids to the doctor's appointments because I was like, well, you won't ask the right questions. I need to be there. So I'd probably bring it on myself of doing all of the things.
And then the kids. Our older two are 15 months apart. So we, there were four and three now, yet they're very close. That was not as intentional, but third kid.
[00:03:49] Stephanie: Oh no. And then you had a third, so that was a little bit later, but yeah.
[00:03:52] Tori: They're close, but it's actually great right now because they're four and three and it's a boy and then a girl. And so she is his size. She talks the same like they keep up with each other. And so we treat them as twins. We bring them everywhere. They do everything together and it's actually quite easy to have the two of them together and they play their best friends.
It escalates sometimes, but they, they act like twins, so it's nice. And then they're at, they're starting to get to easier ages.
[00:04:20] Stephanie: So you decided to. Three under three and launch a company.
[00:04:25] Tori: Yes. I mean, decisions might be loose there, although I don't know. I'm I wanted, I came from I'm one of four and I always wanted to have a lot of kids and my siblings and I are close in age.
And so we wanted to have the kids close in age. And I think with our first we got pregnant. Our oldest was six months old. And I feel like it's a little bit more, you know, like,
[00:04:49] Stephanie: oh, wow. I didn't even think about that. Oh my goodness.
[00:04:53] Tori: Like, you don't know what now. So it probably was for the best, because I feel like if I hadn't gotten been pregnant when he was like 12 months old, I'd be like, oh no, we got to wait four or five years
[00:05:04] Stephanie: that's why ours are three years apart. And then 19 months, that was definitely not planned.
[00:05:10] Tori: Yeah. And then the two girls are 19 months apart where I think we thought we'd spread it out a little more. Fast forward.
[00:05:18] Stephanie: You were pretty much still like postpartum completely. And almost just out of your fourth trimester. How was that going? Like how being pregnant and having a little, I mean three under three but that's like, I major props to you because I know that's really hard. And you were a full-time working mom?
[00:05:35] Tori: Yes. I would say it was a crate. So we had our third. A week before parallel launched. And it was definitely a crazy time. To, I don't even know how old was Amy. She wasn't even two yet. So yeah, we had a 19 month old and then not even a three-year-old and it was the pandemic and we were creating a pod and they weren't going to school and.
We were scared of getting covid. It was, it was really crazy looking back at it, but I feel like you just kind of keep going. And I think every mom and working mom and non-working mom has gone this it's just been the craziest two years. In some ways it probably was easier because I was home and the baby was home and like, we didn't have anywhere to go.
So we didn't have any pressure of trying to get three kids out of the house. So a little different.
[00:06:26] Stephanie: I feel you. Cause I had my third in February of 2020. So when I hit that like six week checkup, it was literally like the day we were like locked down and I like, didn't even know if I could go to the doctor, but I was like, this was my third C-section can you please check me out?
Because something doesn't feel right. But I get it, we got to be home and I had, you know, they were 19 months apart, so it was kind of nice.
[00:06:48] Tori: Yeah. I obviously it's been very hard in a crazy two years and there's so much going on, but I truly think, you know, there was no, it, there were easy parts for it.
And I think we benefited from being in COVID having the third, because we did all our activities here. We couldn't go anywhere. There was no pressure to go anywhere and it made it easier with the baby and I was home. I was home with her even when I was working, like everyone was home, everyone was on zoom, everyone was on calls and everyone was dealing with it.
So it wasn't even just like me in the postpartum period. And I've also been very grateful that, you know, my co-founder was actually also six months pregnant when we launched. And, you know, we've been very supportive and understanding of each other and like very, you know, you need to take a break and pushing each other and my husband is very supportive and, you know, trying to step up and my parents were here and, you know, you have to lean on your support system and you're truly lean on your village because that's the only way to get through it.
[00:07:54] Stephanie: And I was going to actually ask you about your village. So pre pandemic. I still had the two kids and you didn't have Perelel yet.
So you were actually working for a company. How did that look like behind the scenes? You know, what sort of support system did you have? Do you have hired childcare? Like how did you make that work? When, I mean, it's, it's hard. You had two kids, you were like a millennial mom, and then you're working at these, you know, they're not necessarily startups, but they're, you know, Like e-comm companies.
So it's like, you play many roles there too, and it's busy. So how did you kind of manage that all?
[00:08:29] Tori: Yeah, so we had au pairs with my son and we had, I mean, we still text with the two that we had almost every day. We had really good luck with that. We haven't recently because every au pair, like, wait, I'm not signing on for three kids, but they signed on for one kid and then we trick them with another.
So it was easier, but we had wonderful au pairs that were super supportive. They were truly a part of our family and they helped take care of the kids. They were always there. I took. A little bit of a break. I did like consulting work for maybe six months after our second child, Emmy was born, um, when she was having surgery and I was just a little, I needed a more time at home and with her and her care was like a little more involved than I think we expected was she had stents and so I like took a beat and we still had old pairs, which really helped. And I was doing consulting and I was doing like 20 to 30 hours a week. Made a big difference. And then when she was like eight, nine months old, I went back to work full time. And so it helped kind of bridge that. And then I also helped me really want to go back to work full time.
I don't know how to be idle. And I feel like we don't have a huge network in LA. So I was like, I better just go back to work. I don't know what to do with my time.
[00:09:47] Stephanie: So then I guess flash forward, I know that your daughter was a big inspiration to starting Perelel. How did that come about? I mean, you already had two kids, you don't have a medical background per se, your finance and strategy, but you launch a company in vitamins and it's basically in the medical field.
Talk about your story and how that all came about.
[00:10:08] Tori: Yeah. So my, so I have two co-founders. So one is Alex who's my co-founder and co CEO, and we're going to meet her. So we were introduced by a mutual friend who was in DC and sort of said that we both had been complaining about the same thing. And so we needed to get together on the same concept.
And so she and I run the business day to day and we came together. We literally started dating. We, I mean, this was right after my daughter right around when my daughter was born and we would meet like once a week for coffee or at Erewhon and would chat through different, not really ideas, but concepts and like what we wanted to do.
The original thesis was just that, you know, the new millennial mom was under-supported by brands today. And wasn't really seen by brands today where there was one part of it was that so many brands treated this woman as like, as soon as you become pregnant, you're a mama now and everything is pink and very baby centric.
And we felt like maybe that resonated with like the mom of 30 years ago, who, you know, very well. You know, much more, less the working world and their identity became being a mom. And they drove the mom car and got the mom haircut. And that was their entire identity, but we felt like today's woman being a mom was one facet of that, their identity, but they.
Especially because women are having babies later in life, but they've been focused on themselves or in their careers and their identity and their life and their wellness and brands. Weren't really treating them as treating us as women, but more as kind of the baby making machine and kind of then forgetting about you once you have the baby or the cow.
You're the oven. So we really wanted a brand that better supported her and what she was going through from both a health perspective and a mental perspective and a support perspective. And so that was kind of the initial concept of sort of supporting this new millennial mom and millennial woman.
[00:12:18] Stephanie: What were some of the ideas you came up with that you tossed?
[00:12:22] Tori: And my co-founder had an idea on like a space, like an actual space. And obviously given that we launched in September of 2020, thank God we can move forward with that. And it was very high level, but you know, kind of thinking about there had been all these pop-ups of spaces for like the wing, but it felt like it was much younger and it was harder.
And so like, could you navigate a space for this woman that made sense where you could have childcare that you felt good about, but you also had a space for yourself and whether that was fitness and this was very high level. And then, you know, I was obviously going through some stuff with my daughter and her surgery and her care.
And when I found out that her cleft was most likely full, folic acid related, that was really what got me spinning in the supplement space. And then as soon as I really shared it with my co-founder and all that I learned, and like, why was this not a better offering? She. And she is LA born and bred kind of the, well she's doing all of the things.
She's done all the cleanses and taken all the things. And she was like, oh my gosh, like my husband used to make fun of me. Cause I had like 10 different bottles and I was pill sorting every day and managing this routine and it just clicked that there should be a better way. And. A better way to support women for exactly where they are.
And like we were thinking about how, you know, women take a two pill prenatal for the 10 to 12 years that they're childbearing and these formulas haven't been rethought and they're not using high quality ingredients. And the new brands on the market that you know, were clean and. We're all these sort of like minimalist formulations.
And so like that didn't make sense either. And it also wasn't really thinking through timing cause we were, I was learning so much and you know, Alex was bringing so much that she had learned and like in my later stages of pregnancy. My doctor had been like, you should take magnesium to help you sleep, but with leg cramps.
And I had,
[00:14:29] Stephanie: I used to, like, I only learned about that from a chiropractor because I went because my baby was breached and she gave me magnesium. I was like, what's this for? And she's like, oh, here's some cream, rub it on your leg for cramps and then take some of it to help sleep and all of that, it was like, oh, okay.
But like I never would have done that normal.
[00:14:45] Tori: Yeah. And there are so many better ways to support you through your pregnancy and whether it was on the fertility side and the early days of pregnancy and all the way through. And we had like pieces of this, but no one was kind of helping this woman. And we were also thinking of like how much that this woman was going through at that time and what she's trying to figure out and what she's doing in her life.
I had a conversation with a girlfriend of mine when I was coming up with the concept. And she was like, this is just what you need. Like when you want things to be spoonfed to you, you want someone to tell you what you should take. And so we knew we were onto something. It really resonated with us. We were super excited about it, but then going back to your comments, but then
[00:15:22] Stephanie: how do you do it? It's like your finance she's brand, which is great, but you need a quality product.
[00:15:28] Tori: We do this. And like, if we did this, it would just be another brand on the market that was making something because they liked it. But not really. Super thoughtful and credible. And that was what we struggled with from, you know, where we'd worked and brands that we saw on brands that we tried, like, why did you trust this brand?
And so we knew, you know, who do you trust the most? And we did this big survey. It was your doctor. Everyone turns to their doctor. And so we knew that's where we want it to anchor and who needed to be creating these formulations. And so we brought on our medical co-founder, you know, from the very beginning and you brought her the concept and brought her like the deck that we'd put together in PowerPoint that was like, looking back now.
So janky and asked her to come aboard and help us recreate these formulations from the ground up, you know?
[00:16:24] Stephanie: It's , how did you even go about finding someone to force? I mean, like, she can come up with ideas, but like who formulated it? Like how did you even like find that? I know there's a lot of people out there who are like, I have these great ideas, , but now what, how did you even start to find something like that?
[00:16:38] Tori: So the doctor, our medical co-founder and then our panel doctor. Came up with the formulations. And so they create all the formulas, whether it's from their clinical expertise, what they see in their practice, what they've seen on the market, what they feel is missing on the market. And so our medical co-founder is a practicing OB GYN.
She's west side of LA. She has a holistic mean. She has leaned into supplements and it's all the research. And then. Obviously did, so much research. And she does so much research. Every time we do a product, she digs into all like the NIH database and research reports and you know, what is the best format and the dosages and what has been clinically tested and you know, what has shown efficacy and what is on the market and what does she see in her patients?
And what's always lacking. And then the rest of our panel. Takes a review of it and puts their input, especially if it's related to one of their specialties, like our reproductive endocronologists have a heavy hand in the conception packs and our men support pack, but they, we really need them to be creating the formulas from the ground up of what they've seen, the latest reachers that they keep up on.
We had a maternal fetal medicine specialist on our panel who is one of the she's very well published. And so she's doing it herself and, you know, keeping up to date and so really leaning on their expertise and all of their insights from. Every aspect. And that was really important to us that we weren't saying like, here's our formulation and let's put this to market.
[00:18:13] Stephanie: Yeah. So putting on my like entrepreneur hat, I know like a lot of times they're like, okay, niche down, which you did, but then. Create like your first product, but you kind of have a ton of different products because you obviously have to follow each of the trimesters. And then I know for me, like I literally bought anything that just said postpartum and I didn't really do my research because there wasn't much out there.
And half the time for my first two kids, I took my prenatals just after the fact, like, I didn't know anything. And then I think another brand came out with a postnatal one and I literally bought it without looking at ingredients just because it said postnatal. And I was like, I need something. Don't I. No knowledge whatsoever.
So I'm curious, like how did you go about making so many different products? Like I, as an entrepreneur and making the numbers work, figuring all of that in your, like, I'm asking you, I guess, to put on your strategy hat and walk me through your strategy here, because just like cost of production and like things like that.
[00:19:09] Tori: So we launched with five products, which was the conception support pack the first semester or second semester, third semester on the mom multipack. And we had the same issue because obviously you have MOQ along the way, and you had a minimum for each pack and then, you know, your costs go down if you can buy more.
And so trying to be really strategic there. And so. At first, we were like, okay, well maybe we'll just launch with the trimester packs, but then we couldn't do that because we were like, well, the conception, like you lose the story and you lose the concept. And then we were like, well, we can't launch without the mom back.
And both my co-founder and I were pregnant at the time. We were like, well, no, like that's the most important one. It was supporting the new mom and like, life is blowing up right now. Like we both needed that stress supports. We're like, no, no, no. That one is definitely on the roadmap. And so. Tried to cut it down for that very reason, but we kept coming back to like, it would do us a disservice as a brand and how we can explain to our woman.
What we're doing and how, you know, we are really creating these targeted packs for exactly where you are and like following your journey.
[00:20:17] Stephanie: Plus if you keep them along the journey, you keep them as a customer, customer retention. It's like one of the most important things it's expensive to acquire customers.
[00:20:25] Tori: Exactly. So we're going to acquire that customer and we can't lose her at month nine. Like we have to keep her going. And so when we launched, we worked with a supplier that was more of a turnkey supplier and you know, it was the right decision at the time. Also, obviously we're launching in 2020. And so a lot of the suppliers that we'd been talking to and really excited about stop taking new customers in, you know, March, April of 2020 and everything shifted.
And there was some hiccups along the way, given that we also entered a global pandemic, right. As we were going forward with this. And so we did find one supplier who was a great partner and they did kind of a turnkey, you know, we got the finished good from then. And so we didn't have to manage the supply chain, but obviously that's.
Costs a lot more. It was the right decision again, at the time what was going on and to get the product to market. When we wanted to, we felt like this put pressure to bring this to market as soon as possible. Once we had this formulation and we had this incredible team, some of the competitive advantage is being that first mover and coming to market.
And then, you know, immediately from day one of launch, we spent the next six months breaking apart, our supply chain, you know, so that we could manage it ourselves and bring costs down. Like literally cut the cost in half because we also wanted our price point to be reasonable and make sense in the market, the under $50.
And so our first batch. Did not give us very good margins. And so we worked really hard, so that we'd have a better business going forward.
[00:22:01] Stephanie: Did you take the vitamins during your pregnancy?
[00:22:03] Tori: Yes. So I, I guess I did have the first official Perelel baby. Okay. My daughter was born three weeks early, so it wasn't exactly time that she was going to come a week before launch.
And she was the first official Perelel baby, which is kind of exciting. And then my co-founder had her second, like three and a half months later.
[00:22:23] Stephanie: Wow. And so now I'm putting on my, supplement wellness hat. I'm curious, what are the most important, I guess, supplements or vitamins or nutrients we need postpartum, because again, I didn't read the labels, but I figured there they'd have to be different than when you're building the baby.
Like, you know, after the fact. So I'm curious, , what are the biggest things that like shifted, from taking a prenatal to postnatal? What are those ingredients that we should be looking for and , what are they good for?
[00:22:48] Tori: Well, so in our like mom multi-support pack, we formulate for immediately postpartum and then for the next two to three years.
And so a lot of it's focused on the woman. And so, you know, you still need high levels of iron and I think what's interesting with like some of the postnatal. Drop down your iron levels, but immediately postpartum you lost. I mean, we've all had babies, you've lost a lot of blood like, and you continue to lose blood for the month after.
It's a really fun period. Oh period. Oh God. It didn't really mean to make a huge pun there, but
[00:23:23] Stephanie: it is a huge period of time. Sometimes no. When I got my period back, I felt like I was a teenager again. And my husband was like, what's wrong with you? Haven't you done this before? I'm like, I don't understand.
It's just different. It's like, and I was actually iron deficient through my pregnancy and I like, couldn't keep it up. And then afterwards I did a really cool like breast milk testing thing. And my breast milk was low in iron too, because I was iron deficient.
[00:23:49] Tori: Exactly. And so you are depleted after giving birth and your body.
You're going to provide every, all the nutrients you need for your baby. It's just going to suck it out of you.
[00:24:00] Stephanie: Literally
you're on a roll today.
[00:24:06] Tori: Lack of sleep is really hitting me. Yeah. So iron and like keeping those levels at, and then if you are breastfeeding, you really need that. Omega your DHA. We have an omega that has both DHA and EPA. They actually work together for absorption. And so a lot of brands just use DHA because that's what it says you need, but EPA helps for DHA metabolism.
So your body can actually use it and process it and pass it along to your baby. But also EPA is really helpful for emotional balance. And so I would actually say I took, so we had EPA, which helps it's DHA. So you're giving that to baby. For you and for emotional balance postpartum and helping with that.
And then we have a stress support blend in there because again, it's like the emotional balance. And then there's a beauty blend, which is really, , college and base for skin elasticity. So again, like going back to our original concept, it was kind of support this woman and what she's going through and like her body's pulling itself back together.
And so the nutrients to support her through that. And I honestly felt the best I've ever felt postpartum for that like six, 12 week period, emotionally, despite launching a business, despite living in a global pandemic, taking all of this every day. And I don't know, I'm maybe Hocking my price too much, but I swear like with my second eye and there was a lot going on, but like, I really struggled postpartum emotionally with anxiety and a lot of postpartum anxiety, but I.
I felt more centered taking all of this. And I think it's just crazy that you don't support the woman of what she's gone through. And it's not just about breastfeeding. Like it's, it is obviously you want the DHA and you know, it's healthy, baby. You know, that's
[00:26:00] Stephanie: really the only, like I felt like that's what they focused on, at least with my first cause I had my first, almost seven years ago.
And so when you have your baby, it's all about like, oh, either nursing or producing, you know, the correct whatever. And if you can't. Then it's like, okay, well mom, just make sure that you can take care of your baby. It was never like take care of yourself. Like, I didn't learn that until like I hit rock bottom and felt depleted.
So I'm curious besides supplements, is there anything since Alex is super into wellness and everything, are there any like wellness routines or things that you do for yourself, like outside? Not just self care, but like what are things that you do for yourself to help with your own wellness, like daily, especially managing a business.
Three kids, like all the things like, what do you do for yourself?
[00:26:44] Tori: I work out daily. I throw, I try, I try to have the time, but like, it's really important for me to carve out the time. It's like my de-stressor. I try to not have my phone for those 45 minutes or 20 minutes if it has to be. But it's like my.
It's the only way I can breathe and it's really important to me. And so I try my best to carve out the time and cause that's what really, and whether that's, you know, I take power walk or I jump on the Peloton or I, I have my virtual trainer who we work out over zoom and that's probably my favorite favorite because we basically just chat and she makes me do jump squats, but we're chatting.
Books we're reading, but that is like my non-negotiable thing I need to be doing, because it's the only thing that I think keeps me sane and it feels like I'm doing it for myself and like, it's my de-stressor. And it's really important to my mental health.
[00:27:44] Stephanie: Yes. What are you a morning person or evening person?
[00:27:48] Tori: Well, you want to say I'm a morning person and I swear I am, but I, yeah, so I get
[00:27:54] Stephanie: it. Like, what is your morning look like? What time do you usually wake up? , how do you fit things in?
[00:27:59] Tori: So a couple of days a week, I try to wake up at 5 45 so I can work out in the morning before the kids get up and before work.
And I always feel better if I do it then. And. It always works better in my day if I do it then. So like, I always want to be doing that, but whether it's been daylight savings or my setup in the middle of the night, it's been very tough this week. So it has not happened, but that's like my ideal morning, just because then it's, I've gotten it in.
I'd like, feel good about starting the day. It doesn't feel as stressed that I'm rushing to fit it in. And then the kids get. And we're getting them breakfast and making coffee. We let our kids watch cartoons in the morning, honestly, so that I can make breakfast and the nanny can arrive and we can like transition.
It's a selfish screen time so that no need to
[00:28:49] Stephanie: apologize for anything. No, I always say it's like survival. So like, you need to do what you need to do to survive. Trust me. I have a meeting and my husband has to pick up my son at soccer practice. And he's like, put them in front of a movie for like 20 minutes and go on your zoom call.
Like, okay. ,
[00:29:05] Tori: I mean, no matter Scott, it do what you gotta do to get it. And then I feel like you're like a better on a Sunday afternoon too. I'm like, they need to watch a little bit of cartoons. Like I need to respond to a few emails or I want to make dinner. And then like, we can enjoy the time after, but like I need a break.
[00:29:23] Stephanie: And so do you like leave the house to work? Like is, do you have an office for parallel or do you work at home?
[00:29:28] Tori: So right now, our office is in my back house and which is like, I'm very grateful. I have no commute. It's very convenient. There are times where I would like to leave the house and separate myself. For the most part, my kids respect that I'm in my office for the most part, but you can still kind of hear them, but our team comes here.
So I'm, it's a double-edged sword. It's very nice. I don't have a commute. Like I don't hit the traffic that my co-founder hits and I don't have to deal with any of that. But then there are times where I'm like, I would like to leave. So we are.
[00:30:01] Stephanie: And does your husband leave the house or does he also work from home?
[00:30:05] Tori: He is starting to, but he's been from home since, you know, marsh of the last, literally two years now looking at the date. So it's been a little crazy having us here, but I think we're starting to trend, like we are looking for office space. My husband's going to start going into his office. All the time and are not full time, it's going to be all that split, which is kind of, oh
[00:30:30] Stephanie: yeah.
The hybrid stuff, which I'm curious are you, once you do create an office, you know, now that you're building out a team and you both are moms, I'm finding that like mom, founders are treating kind of the company culture a little differently than you know, the traditional workforce. Are you doing anything for employees or setting up any sort of parental programs or, you know, what's kind of your policies.
[00:30:54] Tori: Yeah. So we worked really hard on a paid leave policy for earlier this year, which has four months of paid leave for maternity leave also as paternal leave. And it also. lost leave or, you know, fertility leave and just pay days to do what you have to do during this process.
And that you don't have to worry about missing work. And, you know, if you have a miscarriage that you take some time off of work, and I feel like that was like, I feel like tied into our founding story is I had a miscarriage when I was at one of my last jobs and I actually told people and. I had to do it, like through like the pills at home and like wait for it.
And it was just, oh, I'm sorry. Awful. And were you, was
[00:31:41] Stephanie: this your first second?
[00:31:42] Tori: Like where is after. Oh, yes, it was after my second base that, so I, it was after my second. Oh my gosh. And I had to like take pills and, you know, like just it's uncomfortable. And I asked and emotionally too, and I asked to like work from home for three days, I think.
And on like day two, I was getting like harassed of like, are you not coming into the office today? I told you, and like, it was a woman and she was like, well, I've had friends go through this. And I think they were fine the next day, like,
[00:32:19] Stephanie: oh my goodness. Wow.
[00:32:23] Tori: Like just kind of craziness. And so like, that was a big part of our like, paid leave that like, you got, you needed to take time to recover and like take the beat, you know?
And so that's been really important to us as we like set up our culture and then also making sure. For the other members of the team, you know, someone has a dog and like she's been saying like that we trust everyone to get their work done. And, but, you know, everyone has a work life and work life balance and other things.
And that if like we allow people to feel like they have the space to take care of, what's important to them. And then come back, they're always going to do better work. Part of the team and feel supported and know if we are creating a brand to support women outside, like we need to support them internally.
And so that's been really important to us and, you know, we even have someone who's doing school at night and like one day it starts earlier. So she worked from home that day and she kind of takes a break in the middle of the day to do her school on then comes back on and just allowing people the flexibility to take care of what is important.
[00:33:33] Stephanie: I think that's also the blessing of the pandemic. Is it showed that people can do work at home and how that all works. I mean, I quit my, basically my corporate life, because after I had my kid, like one year into it, we got a new boss and she was just like, if I don't see you in your desk from like eight to six, how do I know you're working?
And it's like, wait, can I have flexible hours? Like I would have to leave because what nanny works more than 10 hours in a day. So like, if I'm working eight to six, Uh, nanny or childcare, like where's the childcare, like, would I drop my kid off at 7:00 AM and pick them up at 7:00 PM? Like, what life is that?
And so I'm like, no, that's not going to work. Like I can do work at home. Like I can bring my kid home and then work after bed. Like, it was just so interesting, but again, it comes from it. Generation of person. And so I love what you guys are doing. And I love that you're supporting the mom and the woman, because I feel like every time, you know, you're pregnant, it's always just about the baby.
You're having your first kid. It's never like, oh mommy, it's about the baby. Like, is it, you know, boy or girl, is it blah, blah, blah. Like everything is always about the babies. So I love what you guys are doing.
So what's the future parallel right now? What are you guys working on?
[00:34:42] Tori: We're working a lot on new products to support women.
Both in the motherhood journey, but also outside of that, that's been a big push for us. We launched our first product. That's our women's daily vitamin trio in January, too. I'm going to have to try that. It's really great. I like my co-founder and I are obsessed with it. Um, it doesn't have iron. Much, you know, iron can be hard to take and you know, you can't take it on an empty stomach and it's such an easy one to take.
I threw it in my bag. I could like take it throughout the day. We had someone took her with her coffee the other day on an empty stomach. And I was like, and then she was like, what is actually, it's a really great one. So we really love it, but it's just been exciting that we can kind of start to start
Any woman of reproductive age. And so it's, we're starting to serve a broader group of women. And so we've been really excited to be able to kind of broaden our reach and support a larger community. And with that comes, you know, so we do a one for one. Donation on our pregnancy suite with our prenatals that we bottled.
So that, cause it just felt so disingenuous to then donate like some cheap formulation that we weren't ever going to use, which is usually the model that a lot of brands turn to. So we use our prenatals. And so to date, we've donated over 16,000 bottles of prenatal vitamins and. On with the trio, we're donating a percentage of sales.
So we're working with other organizations, which has been really exciting as well, so we can continue to be mission-driven but do more and work with a broader set of organizations.
[00:36:19] Stephanie: That's incredible. And I know you said you were one of four, so is a fourth on the horizon or are you guys done it? Three?
[00:36:27] Tori: I think I always wanted four, but now having three.
It's literally nuts.
[00:36:32] Stephanie: And I was going to say you're and now that like your youngest she's 18 months, that's going to be the biggest age gap
[00:36:38] Tori: you would have. So that is also kind of crazy. I think my husband would lose his mind. I mean, it he's told me that he's like, you could have a fourth, but you're going to have to find a new husband.
[00:36:50] Stephanie: Oh my gosh. My husband says the exact same thing. Literally he's like, you can have a fourth kid if you want. You're just going to have to find a new husband.
[00:36:58] Tori: His latest negotiation with, you can have a fourth, but I'm not going to deal with it until it's over two.
[00:37:06] Stephanie: I actually liked the younger ages. I miss having a newborn.
I missed that. Like she just turned two and she's like a full on like person now. And I'm like, what is going on? I missed the baby. Yeah.
[00:37:16] Tori: I think that's, what's going on with me where ours is just she's 18 months now. And like, she's not a baby anymore. And then I'm like, oh, I missed it.
[00:37:26] Stephanie: Oh, well, that's so exciting.
It's awesome to hear everything you've done in such a short amount of time too. I mean, launching in September 20, 20, that's crazy. It's been like, not even a year and a half or like basically year and a half. So congratulations on all of that.
So to wrap things up, I would to ask, what do you think is your mom's superpower that you gained once you became a mom that makes you better at either business or life?
[00:37:49] Tori: It's multitasking or being able to, I feel like pre prior to, to being a mom, I always felt like busy or overwhelmed. And now I feel like you just, you don't, you're just like, you're just doing it. You just get things done. Moms just know how to get, I always want to hire a mom. Like they get things done in a short amount of time.
They figure it out and they just handle things.
[00:38:15] Stephanie: That's why the whole like motherhood on the resume thing was awesome because of course it's like, you don't have to have worked at a job. You could have been a mom for the last five years and trust me, you probably got more accomplished. You're better at multitasking.
You're better at organization and just getting stuff done, like, all right. Give it to my mom. I love that. So where can we find you online?
[00:38:34] Tori: So I'm on Instagram and my handle, I think is vat two six. That's my maiden name initials. V A T two six, and at Perelel health is our Perelel handle. And you can follow us along to see what we're doing and see our community.
And our content is all driven by a doctor. So it's always supposed to be very supportive and helpful to whatever a woman's going through.
[00:39:01] Stephanie: Well, thank you so much, Victoria, for joining today. I really appreciate you sharing your story and all of that.
[00:39:07] Tori: Thank you so much for having me. This is a great conversation.
[00:39:10] Stephanie: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of mommy's on a call. Your support means the absolute world. To me. You can find the show notes for this episode and other goodies over at mommy's on a call dot. And if you enjoyed this episode or have gotten value from the podcast, I would be so grateful if you could head on over to apple podcasts and leave a rating and review so that we can reach and empower more moms all over the world together.
Thank you so much again, mommy pod, and I will see you here next time.