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Women don't understand their own physiology - not by accident, but by design. It won't make money to educate them about simple changes that could improve their health. So the system keeps them suffering in silence. Pri Aggarwal is breaking that cycle.

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After leaving a stellar corporate career at top multinational corporations across Asia-Pacific, the Wharton scholar founded Aura Fem Health, a holistic women's wellness platform, challenging 2,000 years of systemic negligence in healthcare. With 84% of women feeling unheard by healthcare professionals, Pri is building a safe space where ancient holistic practices meet modern science breakthroughs to serve the 9 out of 10 women silently suffering.

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In this episode, Pri shares her deeply personal journey from experiencing shrinking menstrual cycles and severe PMS while climbing the corporate ladder, to discovering that simple lifestyle shifts (not birth control pills or being told to "Shut up!”) could transform her health.

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We discuss the unexpected parallels between startup life and motherhood , the crucial need for balance over burnout, and the practical marketing and commercial rigour her corporate background provided in these early days.

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Discover why Pri argues that women's health isn't a medical problem but an education gap, how she's turning her own health transformation into a movement for high-achieving women, and why reclaiming control starts with asking better questions instead of accepting dismissive answers.

Transcript

Priyanka Aggarwal (00:00)
Women don't understand about their physiology, fundamentals of their physiology, because of the consumeristic system we have created around it, right? It won't make money to educate women about their physiology so that they can make some small lifestyle shifts. We interviewed thousands of women online and offline and we found that nine out of every ten women are silently suffering. And the kind of stories which came back were, this is the first time someone's told me that it's not my mistake the way I'm feeling.

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Jess (00:37)
Welcome back to another episode of the Unsensible Podcast where we speak to founders in Asia who have made the unconventional, irrational, generally unsensible decision to start a startup. My name is Jess Ogilvie and today I have the pleasure of speaking to Pri Agarwal. Pri is the founder of Aura Fem Health, a femtech startup focused on providing personalized solutions to women at all stages of their lives. Pri talks about how she decided to leave a stellar corporate career and go on mission around female health and empowerment. She talks about the challenges that she's facing navigating the femtech industry. And she also shares very candidly about her perspective on being a mom, a parent, while also being a founder. Pri, thank you so much for joining us.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (01:22)
How are you? Really happy to be here, Jess. I love the name, Unsensible. You can totally call me that.

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Jess (01:29)
Good. Yes. Well, we'll get into that. I have lots of questions. This is actually my first time recording the podcast, something I usually leave up to my dear colleagues. But today I'm actually going to follow the instructions. And the first step is to get you to pitch in 30 seconds. What is Aura Fem Health?

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Priyanka Aggarwal (01:46)
Sure. So, Aura Fem Health is a personalized women holistic wellbeing platform. Nine out of every 10 women are silently suffering and we are here to offer them personalized plans, access to practitioners, community support, and basically whatever they want from a non-synthetic approach in one place.

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Jess (02:05)
How did you come up with the idea? Where did it start? think we always ask founders that they set out to solve a problem. What was the problem that you wanted to

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Priyanka Aggarwal (02:13)
Yeah, so this is a super personal journey. I'm someone who is highly sensitive of people around me and deeply feel if they are going through emotional or physical pain. And in my early years, I observed that my mom was like quietly suffering, be it fluctuations during the month or be it her hot flashes during her 40s, but she never, ever spoke about it. And then I had my whole host of issues right from a really tough BMS.

Like, I feel a day before my period, I could literally kill my husband. He's the nicest guy in the world. And he was like, what's going on? You know, I am very achievement oriented. That's how I'm fired. And so was doing really well from a career perspective, being the youngest to be promoted, etc. But what I didn't realize is the toll it was taking. So I hit a point where my periods were shrinking and shrinking in length. My mood was so poor and hyper fluctuating.

And I thought I'm the only one going through all this, right? Like my skin wasn't my friend. But the reality is that when I started talking about it, every woman I spoke to said, that's me. I feel so tired. feel like sometimes my period pain just kills me. But these women would then go to the doctor and the doctor would basically either give them birth control pills, depending on where you're in your life stage or a hormonal therapy even.

Or just ask them to shut up and say it's normal. And, you know, it kind of flattered up to a point where I created kind of a panel for myself. So I had a life coach who was a behavior scientist because I was doing a postgraduate diploma in positive psychology. I got a naturopath and a gynecologist. So these three women actually worked to fix me. And I realized, wow, like I come from a place of privilege, but I had to really understand my physiology and psychology and to know that they are deeply connected and not make choices between, this is mental or emotional or physical, but it's like 360 view. And I realized, yeah, this is the kind of access every woman deserves because only then they can feel their best. So that's how it started. I started while I was in my last job, kind of just doing it as a side project, helping out friends, helping out other women.

But then eventually what we started is we converted this into a form, like a super manual. But then we got so many people that it became really tough to handle. So we said, OK, we need an app. And that's kind of the process we are in, which is really listening to women and then building aura. Because our single-minded mission is to make sure that we can make those small tweaks in your daily life so that you can feel better.

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Jess (04:59)
Wow, that's a pretty big mission. I like that a lot. And it completely resonates.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (05:06)
Does it? Does resonate here?

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Jess (05:07)
Yeah, I think as in, I know when I've gone on to ask questions of whether it's forums or things like that, and especially becoming a parent and you type in kind of, I don't know whether it's like at 2am or 3am, how reassuring it is to realize that you're not alone and that in your head, it's not just you and it's completely normal and that there's actually reasons that you feel like that and a massive part of that is very specific to being.

So you've got a stellar career in corporate, you start doing this on the side, when did you actually make the leap and kind of what was the trigger point for you to say, I'm going to dive in full time?

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Priyanka Aggarwal (05:50)
I couldn't do anything else. So I remember waking up at 3am, 4am before my normal work so that those three hours before work and before my son used to get up so that I can, you know, I have to do the morning loving to him and preparing his breakfast, etc. So I used to work those early morning hours. And then anytime I used to get, I was like, my Saturday and Sunday, anytime I started studying on the side, I did specializations and I also conducted a really large research to actually say that this can't be like what I am seeing just can't be. And, you know, we interviewed thousands of them in online and offline. And we found that nine out of every 10 women and the kind of stories which came back where this is the first time someone's told me that it's not my mistake. The way I'm feeling, this is first time I'm able to say that.

My body dysmorphia is not my doing, it's my hormones. And that's not the first thing I need to fix. I need to fix my mood. And the kind of response I started getting, I felt this is my calling and I was so clear. And then somehow it's as if the universe was sending me signals from all directions at work. I have been always a big proponent of women leadership and was mentoring a lot of women, but I saw what was happening. Like I felt that they were...coming into the washroom and these older women were talking about, oh, I'm sweating, I'm so hard, I couldn't sleep last night. And they had to walk out in their stilettos to lead as if there are no issues 100 % okay. Just pretending it's okay. Because we have fought for this, right? And I was like, no, we don't have to suffer through. And also, I think the other tipping point was when I started feeling like I'd never felt before, I was energetic. My period started cycling together. My kids started saying from initially his idea was I'm like the most angriest mom. And now he was inviting his friends back home saying you have to meet the sweetest person because she's a...

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Jess (07:55)
So this was after you had spoken to your panel basically.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (07:59)
Yeah, exactly. So I made a bunch of gradual, like, I am not about macros or HIIT training. I'm all about balance and simple shifts. And just some small shifts had such massive impact. That's like, why don't women understand their own physiology? Like, I know when my cortisol spikes and now I know the breathing practice, which will get it down so that if I have a meeting coming up, how can I be calmer?

This is so simple, but I've suffered from anxiety all my life. And no one just told me that, yeah, it's not your fault. And it's not just in your head. You have the ability to take control. This is what like also made it super clear that I have always been a big proponent of making sure that there is knowledge for action. And women don't understand about their physiology, fundamentals of their physiology, because of the consumeristic system we have created around it, right? Like, it won't make money to educate women about their physiology so that they can make some small lifestyle shifts. But that's the biggest change we can drive.

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Jess (09:06)
I think that's really, kind of, when I think about it, it's when I first realize or ask the question, and I think a lot of it comes when you become more aware of it when, you do have kids, because you are much more kind of monitored and you're closely monitoring kind of levels and cycles and things like that. And it's kind of dawned on me, why don't we, why don't they teach this at school? Like, why is this not like a fundamental part of learning of like,

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Priyanka Aggarwal (09:31)
Yeah.

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Jess (09:36)
I don't know, health and physical education and all of that. Like I probably could have benefited a little bit more of that.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (09:41)
Remember my biology class where they spoke about puberty? was like a 10 minute, 20 minute single chapter and it was so cringing and it was grade eight, probably too late. And that's it. Like I didn't know about the fundamentals of my hormones, how to balance them, what is the impact they have on my life to the extent that I was given birth control pills because I used to have this eczema. You know, no.

I was looking for a solution because of, you know, we were, and then I was just prescribed birth control pills without anything, like without any knowledge of what it does to me long-term, the side effects. And today at Aura, we have so many women coming off, you know, their birth control pills after 20 or 30 years, realizing they have such fundamental issues with their fertility or just with their hormonal system, which had been subdued because of

So it's about informed choice. So coming back to it, I feel that there is a massive need of knowledge, accessibility of solutions and affordable care, which is not siloed like the modern specialties are, but very integrated.

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Jess (10:55)
I think that is so important, right? Just to have the integration that you're not having to, it's not on you to go in and find all of these specialists. If you think of like in 10 to 15 years time and you've hit it out of the park or FemHealth is like as much as you wanted it to do and achieved everything, what does it look like for you?

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Priyanka Aggarwal (11:17)
It's a mission where I want to dedicate my life to it because I feel that there is so much work to be done. We are coming out of 2000 years of systemic negligence towards women health. So not only Aura, but there are a lot of fellow women founders who are doing great work. So I imagine us having this really integrated where women start really early and understand about their physiology.

Second is there is a sense of agency that, if I'm feeling this way, I'm not resigned to it, or I am not a victim. I actually can take control of my life and make those shifts. And in terms of us, the role of Aura, it's exactly that. To enable these women with knowledge, to enable these women with solutions, and also access to practitioners who will listen to them. And ... I'm very careful because I can get very KPI or outcome oriented because again of my corporate background and achievement mindset. But I realized that this is a different game. This is not about valuation or IPOs or any of that. It's about maximizing our reach. And, know, in terms of market penetration, something like a 2 to 5 % will be massive. So. What I'm envisioning is a platform where any women can find the support she's looking for and integrate that in her daily flow.

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Jess (12:47)
Such a worthy cause. Makes me want to go and do something really meaningful. But in the meantime, I will just try and get spread the message more from all the good stuff that you're doing. Your background is marketing, innovation. You've worked with some of the biggest brands and names, management consultant. You've had this big corporate background. What has helped you from your corporate background?

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Priyanka Aggarwal (13:10)
I think the first one is that it is figure out a bill in the sense that what we are dealing with is a really challenging problem. It's kind of a category creation. If you think about it, right, no one has really looked at only now fellow startups are looking at women help in the way we are looking at it. So at time.

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Jess (13:29)
Which is crazy when you think about like, women are like half population. How has it taken this long to kind of create that category? Good, I'm glad we're finally...

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Priyanka Aggarwal (13:40)
Even if you look at like period poverty, right? Like half of the world's still doesn't have access to sanitary pads. and yeah. So I feel that I feel that through my corporate career, you know, be it in sales strategy or marketing or innovation, I felt that I always was dealing with the toughest problem. And I was given the toughest problem to handle, to set up a new team, to set up a new division or two...

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Jess (13:49)
It's mind blowing.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (14:10)
And initially, the thrill, the energy is from the thrill, right, of how to figure it out, the newness, but slowly the complexity of it dawns on you. But ultimately, if you break it into its parts and, you know, slowly progress and you have to kind of at times be a challenger and say that, yeah, just because things are done in a certain way doesn't mean that they have to be continued to be done in that way.

And being able to do that in a corporate environment and trust me, which is really, really difficult because it like, and it might really thicken my skin. So if anyone said that, Oh, this can't be done. Like that's a great trigger for me saying, you know, okay, this is so this is really complex and challenge problem, a challenging problem. Let's figure it out. What can be done? You know, maybe we can't solve it all the way, but can we make progress for sure? But...

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Jess (14:42)
Going to say that.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (15:05)
If we give up even without trying, how does progress happen otherwise? So I think that it really helped me. I feel the second thing what really helped me was it's just the diversity of the experience. So, you know, I got a chance to work in India, in the U.S., almost multiple countries in Asia Pacific, in Europe. And what surprised me most is the homogeneity. Like, women everywhere are fundamentally the same. Like I feel there is this aspect of sisterhood where we are fighting, we are turning up for work, we are taking care of family, but we are also suffering everywhere. So I feel that indirectly looking back, I feel my corporate career really set me up. But also just from a technical skill point of view, it's helpful to know how to run your marketing funnel. You don't have to spend time. Yeah.

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Jess (15:57)
You've got those things.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (15:58)
Yeah, you know, your distribution channels, you know, how to think about go to market, you know, the typical corporate self sales marketing strategy, how to think about your brand building efforts, the tone of voice, how to get to the right insight, how to articulate and insight. Now, these things are not top of mind for me because they almost are, you know, I've been trained to do them. Like the rigor is there. So that really helps to have like just the commercial rigor, even in an early stage startup, so that you're highly capital efficient. Because one thing which I don't want to do is get to a PNL for a VC or get to a PNL which is not sustainable. I'm building this as a really long-term surviving entity versus just to get investment quickly. So I think just the fundamentals of financial prowess, getting your commercials right, ⁓ I don't think of them very often, but I can imagine that that also is very important for any startup founder, either themselves or through hired hands.

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Jess (17:02)
Actually, well, you tell me if you think this is the case, but having that grounding in the commercials is a benefit over other founders that wouldn't have that necessarily that commercial or marketing specific background necessarily, you know, that is new to them. And I know, you know, when we speak to founders, that marketing hire in those first early days, it's a challenging one, because you don't have, if it's not your background as the founder, having to look at the team is, it's a really big role, critical role, even at the early stage. Have you found that in your conversations with other founders where they don't necessarily...

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Priyanka Aggarwal (17:41)
Absolutely. I feel any higher in an Oli stage is a challenging one. feel, yeah, I feel that being a people leader in a corporate role is probably a tad bit easier than in a startup. So anyone who knows me and works with me directly knows that I'm kind of a really nice person. You know, I'm highly empathetic. I will struggle to have.

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Jess (17:47)
Just hiring in general is hard.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (18:07)
You know, hard conversations, but those hard conversations have had to be had. And in those hard conversations, I'll probably listen more than speak, but it's really difficult because you really care about this really small team you have. And I've made an effort to stay really lean, but you also are so driven about the mission. You are their employer, not their manager. Like it's just so difficult to... I think this aspect is underestimated. Like I underestimated how much time I'll end up spending thinking and caring for the people who are working with Aura, but how intricately they'll shape my thinking and hence, you know, what, what the startup means. So yeah, I feel that all this training I've had through hiring over years has been like super helpful of all those MIT models to use. But specifically on marketing, I feel that I challenge if anyone needs to hire a marketing person, if they are in early stage, or can they partner with someone who knows what they are doing? Because you probably don't need a full time marketing person. You need content developers, you need continuous content, but you also need to decide what your marketing person is doing. Are they running the entire funnel, which is fantastic, but really tough to find. Are they doing only social media or are they only doing ⁓ content or are they optimizing your conversion? So what is your marketing strategy, depending on the stage you are in, whom are you working with? What's the ROI of that? And hence what type of resources you want. Yeah, but typically at this stage, everyone's double-hatting, triple-hatting in an organization in the first one to three years.

I would highly recommend looking at fractional resources or partnering with companies who know how to do it or support early stage companies.

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Jess (20:02)
Yes, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there. That's something that I know when we've spoken to founders, the hiring, like the HR bit, the hiring of the people is just the most under appreciated part of it because it's people and it's not only hiring, but then inspiring, leading, keeping them on the page when everyone is wearing three hats, two, three hats at minimum. It's tough. You imagine it's going to be smaller. We have a small team, but

And you think, no, you're not going to have to think about that until you get to bigger stages, 10, 20, 50 people. But actually, it starts right at the beginning from the get-go, keeping everyone.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (20:43)
Yeah, they're the foundation of your culture, right?

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Jess (20:45)
Completely. And have such a big impact on like they're shaping it as much as you as in you're leading as the founder and it's very founder led. But like you said, they also have a helping to shape it as an employee. That's what helped from your corporate background. What about what you found challenging? And there's obviously there are hurdles in in setting up an early stage, you know, more so in FemTech, which is growing massively, but has ... is still ...

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Priyanka Aggarwal (20:58)
Absolutely.

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Jess (21:14)
early in terms of the category, what have you found that's been challenging and what would you say is the biggest learning that you've had to have?

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Priyanka Aggarwal (21:25)
Yeah, there's so much actually, right? I have now developed a kind of a rhythm on hiring and what works for me in the sense that really looking at someone's passion towards a mission is so important. Like you can't at this stage, you're not just hiring an individual for their skills, you're also hiring them if they are invested in the mission. And second is there should be some sort of a proof, not necessarily they should have done the job that you're giving them before.

But there should be a proof that they have the tenacity to go through the tough times because, boy, it is a roller coaster ride.

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Jess (22:02)
I like that. I might stop using that. So that's it. You made that in Bucket List.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (22:07)
I feel the second thing, is super important for me, it has been, and I underestimated this. I actually have continued with the panel. So the person who was life coaching me or giving, they are now part of FARA. Yeah. Yeah. So this behavior scientist who was, you know, who's who said, all right, Pri looks like you need help. I'm happy to chat with you. She's like,

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Jess (22:18)
Okay, the people that you in the beginning. Wow, that's really like.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (22:37)
played a foundational role for me because I know that every week there is a milestone and I am, I can't help it, I am very achievement oriented that I'm going to hit or miss. if not, there are more misses than there are hits. And I feel like I used to feel like down in the dumps with every of those milestones. And what Evy has been able to do is like, you know, almost life coach me through these, which is: Focus on the journey and not the outcome. And it's about the progress, the small steps that you're making and looking at that instead of just chasing because otherwise you take the joy out of the process. So that has been the biggest transition for me, which is not burning myself out, channeling the energy not from anxiety, but channeling my energy from really a good place of balance and nourishment for Aura as well.

And continuing to seek help through this, either via life coaching or making sure that I am in fully operating in balance mode, because I can't help other women if I am broken. We have converted that into a life coaching module, which is now available for free via the app because we found it so helpful. So that would be my second thing is that, you know, any startup founder is probably really ambitious, really driven, but just channeling that energy is going to burn you out.

You need to find your balance and make this a marathon, a multi-year journey, which is sustainable. Because if you are calm, your team is calm. If you're freaking out at everything, you're running a ship where people don't want to be with you for too long. Then the third bit has been, you said specifically around FemTech, I feel that because of the setup we are in, there is... So I've had conversations with multiple VCs where they think that...

That's interesting. I've never heard that before. My wife is a machine. She wakes up at five, takes care of the kids, does the office, cooks three meals, and she never complains. she has some low mood at times, but I don't think that's an issue because a lot of the money is with the VCs and these VCs are led by the stereotypical male... men. And my only response there is actually to shift the conversation to encourage that person to have a good conversation with his wife. That she probably needs support that she is not asking for and think she's dealing with that he's not aware of. Because boy, definitely she is. So that has been a bit of a challenge. But on the other side, I've also found highly supportive men who have, you know, there is a guy in the US who's like, you know, my fractional CTO who says, yeah, I am. This is the stuff you need to do, et cetera, doesn't want shares, doesn't want money, does it because he sees his wife needs it. So my husband, yeah, like who made sure that I do it because he saw his mom suffering. He made sure, like he said, that I know that we will regret not being able to help more people. So I'm going to run the house study study. And just because I went from being, you know, in the top 0.1 % salary to not drawing a salary

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Jess (25:38)
The enlightened.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (25:59)
This doesn't mean I'm doing majority of my housework. You know, we had a conversation which Sid initiated and he said, you don't start thinking just because you're primarily working from home, you suddenly become responsible for laundry and meal planning alone. We are gonna continue it this way. So having this conversation with your most nearest and dearest ones and also reframing any challenges if you're in the FemTech industry that you face from your investors or from people who just don't appreciate what you're doing.

As you know, convert that into more energy, convert that into, okay, this is another opportunity to educate men. So, because it is a tough ride. There isn't, you know, they're, it's highly gratifying because it is challenging. It's a little bit like motherhood, know, ⁓ that all those nights are so challenging, but it's highly gratifying. So yeah, that's a little bit of.

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Jess (26:55)
But I really like that idea of of channeling it, because I'm thinking if I was in that room with the person saying, no, my wife's a superstar, she doesn't need any of this, I kind of channel that into anger and walk out. But I see that you have moved up the emotional maturity range there and redirected it into something that like an opportunity to educate, which is so admirable. And yes, this kind of balance is just making me think of motherhood.

And I asked that, selfishly as a mum of a little human being. I look on LinkedIn thinking, how can I, you know, can you actually be a founder and a mum? When I look on LinkedIn and I doom scroll there, it feels like it's a no. Cause I don't, I guess maybe I'm not following the right amount of mums out there or they're not there. I'm not sure what's your perspective on that and how, like, can you be both?

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Priyanka Aggarwal (27:53)
Yeah, this is really interesting. And I feel that part of it comes from the stereotypical founder image from California, working in the garage, sleeping in the office. Like that's what they used to speak about, Bill Gates and you know, and I highly challenge that stereotypical founder image. You do it your way. You don't have to like, it comes again back to what I was saying is that achievement doesn't have to come in a specific pattern.

Your startup journey, your organization journey, your life journey is your alone. And fundamentally, we as women are very different than men. We are not burning our testosterone always. We have both the yin and yang energy. We have the energy of yin, which is the nurturing, balance, intuitive cell. And we have our yang, which is our cortisol going. And we need to balance those.

Because when we channel too much yang, we are depleting our nurturing and we won't be happy. We would be in low mood. We would burn out. Once you break that stereotype and say, no, I don't need to fit into that. I'm going to design a life that I want to live. And that's the reason why I'm literally doing something which is so close to my heart. It totally changes. And if we can you to have Y Combinator saying, uh, you want to have time for your family for the next six months or something. That's what Y Combinator usually says. Yeah, think I highly challenge that message because we are not making it attractive to so many women who can add so much value. And I would not encourage women to trade off their health for short term even because it will have long term consequences to chase an arbitrary goal. Create a sustainable cycle.

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Jess (29:17)
There, that's the message.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (29:39)
And yeah, today the environment is run by highly consumeristic, highly capitalistic money, which wants very quick returns. You can even challenge that and source more patient capital or source capital, which aligns with your mission. Yeah, probably it'll take longer. Probably it'll be tougher, but you know what? You will do it on your own terms. Now, I'm not saying any of this challenging the status quo and doing it your way is easy, but I don't think women like it easy. None of the fights we have fought has been easy.

The second thing for me is that I feel that when a woman starts a company, like, and there is data that women leaders have 64 % more satisfaction among their direct reports versus male managers on things like empathy, concern, engagement. ⁓ I haven't seen an equivalent study for startup founders, but I bet that female startup founders will have a higher long-term success rate and better returns for long-term VC versus just raising and going after the second and third round, which is what we see a lot. Yeah. So you want something which has a strong foundation and built sustainably. But coming back to the motherhood question, I feel that for me, it is so simple. Like my son went ⁓ through a health crisis, I think sometime last year, and that made it so crystal clear to me is that: Who am I kidding? This guy is my first priority, no matter what. But this doesn't mean that I'm gonna, that I'm enslaved. I think it's also freeing up. And I made a choice that I will shift to a startup life only once he's five, because it, you know, now he's able to contribute to what I'm doing. He has this point of view saying, mama, every time she does this habit, she should at least get a hundred points and it should have like balloons coming out. Yeah. So.

What's that? So you channel your energy and your family will also feel it, but have that conversation with whoever you can seek support from. Like create a network of support and demand help, request for help, beg for help. Anything which gives you space, even to take a nice bath or a massage, because that's how we are caring for ourselves while building something awesome.

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Jess (32:01)
Yeah, I think that, I think every all founders, that's not a message just for female founders. I any all founders. I had a conversation with a founder the other day who had, his daughter was sick that week and they had to change the meeting time. And I completely understood. Like I, I sense that he felt rushed and, and eager to kind of dismiss it and put it to the side and like move on with the agenda. And I felt, I felt like I wanted to kind of say it's okay. Like we're all humans here. Like, and you can talk about your daughter, but it felt like there was a, his expectation maybe that we wouldn't understand or that it wasn't something that to be talked about. it made me feel a bit sad just at that point. And I thought, we should all be trying to just be a bit more human. I always think back to that one in the interview with the, remember during COVID and they had the little girl walked in on her dad during the video call? And I just think of that. It's so endearing and it's so real and it just helps ...

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Priyanka Aggarwal (32:54)
Yeah

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Jess (32:59)
break down that wall and it's just perspective giving because at end of the day we're all, the background like behind the camera is the same for so many of us. And the more that we can.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (33:11)
Are we kidding right? Like why a mask saying, ooh, I am hyperproductive and I'm this no all of us have our struggles. We feel anxious multiple times a day. Yeah, if our child gets sick, that's the only thing we'll be worried about while the need for ambition is still strong and it's ...

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Jess (33:29)
Yeah, two things can be true. You can still be ambitious and have maybe pull a long day, but then the next day you're there and you're helping them out.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (33:40)
And no one's judging you because they are going through their own shit. So, yeah, I think somewhere we landed on this idea that you need to be picture perfect, but I love the pictures which are full and I to live a full life and also with the people I work, not show that I'm not going for perfection. I'm going for 70 % and seeking help for the rest 30%. Let's see how far I get, but at least I won't regret.

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Jess (33:44)
Exactly.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (34:10)
any of it because I would have felt that, yeah, I'm not in poor health because I took care of myself and I'm giving the best possible to my family and my business.

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Jess (34:20)
I think that's a very wise and long-term and sustainable way of doing things. I respect that. I have some questions just to finish off with. If we think about maybe a future founder, female founder, male founder or otherwise. Some quick questions to as a tip and also I just personally want to know the answers. What is one thing that you wish someone told you before you started this journey?

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Priyanka Aggarwal (34:46)
It's the time things will take. And they always take longer than I plan. Be it figuring out the tech, be it figuring out... And you feel it when you start getting traction. You feel it. It's very tough to describe, but you feel it in the words you hear back from the women. But it may take time. It may take multiple iterations. So had someone told me that it's not like... In the corporate world, you put a milestone and then you have a project plan and two, two, two, two, two. you just. That that's just your input. It doesn't determine the output until the time you're not getting to the point where you're actually serving the people you want to serve. You will iterate because that's your goal, right? To make these people happy and feel better. So at the moment you are too obsessed about your timelines and too obsessed about your milestones.

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Jess (35:17)
Yeah. Just goes. Yeah, you make that.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (35:42)
You may make trade-offs to this end goal, which will bite you really hard. So I, I wasn't ready for, you know, even though four months doesn't seem a lot, but I wasn't ready that the app takes four months. was like, get it out, get it out, but no, it will take multiple iterations, dozens of it. So that's what I want to say. Don't do it in a rush. You're building something for long-term, get your foundation right and have the patience for it.

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Jess (36:11)
Okay, what about one thing that you have read recently or listened to recently that is helping you at the moment or has helped you that you've thought of as you've gone through those challenging times?

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Priyanka Aggarwal (36:26)
This is a really good one. Yeah, because I'm always reading. So I'll make a couple of suggestions here. I feel the first one I want to make for women founders is the book "In the FLO". I think it's by this lady, Alisa Vitti. She talks about cycle syncing that how we have different energy levels, different type of. So our brain actually changes in four phases of our cycle every month. So different parts of our brain are fired up, which means that at certain parts of the month, we are more analytic, more intuitive. Just we are wired that way. And that's beautiful because we are not the same, like wake up, go for a nine to five job and come back. No. So once you sync with that beautiful rhythm, like now I know that when I need to do my creative work, like which of my phases is magic for me. And I know that during my luteal phase and during my menstrual phase, it's great to get stuff done. chop, chop, chop. I'm highly productive.

This is just helpful for me to not blame myself of running a nine to five, you know, drill or nine to nine drill when I'm not wired that way. I'm a more complex human being. So that would be my first suggestion. The second is "Mastery". So this is freedom from other people's opinion. This is a great, great book. This changed my life.

Yeah, so this is about how no one is spending time thinking about you. And the more you worry about other people's opinion, you're reducing your degree of control and basically making yourself feel not so good. And that is a really good reminder for me continuously.

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Jess (38:10)
That sounds like it's kind of seminal reading for.

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Priyanka Aggarwal (38:13)
Yeah. Yeah. And the third is, you know, again, it's not a plug, but it's fundamentals, would highly recommend to do the even if you don't want a personalized plan, even if you're a guy, I would highly recommend doing the life by design coaching that every reset Dr. Avery reset our behavioral scientist has, it just got fundamentals. Like, it will align the life you want to live to your day to day, and you will feel happier each day.

So I highly recommend doing that. There's so much more. Like, there is this great book about, Rutger Bregman, who is a Dutch author has written about mission. I can't remember the name, but it's about don't waste your life, you know, dedicated to something which is going to make your presence feel valuable.

So when you're existing, there is a minimum value differential of your existence. The difference you've made will be felt. But there's so much more. So I highly recommend any founder to just keep a book by your bedside to keep on provoking you, but also keep on being that friend that you need and journaling every night before you sleep. It's so important.

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Jess (39:29)
I need to get back to that. That's good.

Thank you for the time. Can't wait to see where it goes and I'm going to be following along with my app view!

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Priyanka Aggarwal (39:40)
Thank you so much for all your support!

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