#15: Aligning Work with Biology: Maggie McDaris on Cycle-Syncing for Optimal Productivity

Harnessing the Power of Cycle-Syncing for Female Productivity with Maggie McDaris

In this episode of Biohacking Eve, Judith speaks with Maggie McDaris, founder of Phase, about the untapped potential of aligning work with female biology. Contrary to popular belief, every phase of the menstrual cycle—menstrual, follicular, ovulatory, and luteal—comes with its own surprising cognitive superpowers. We explore how understanding and leveraging these shifts can help women optimise focus, creativity, communication, and decision-making at work, while reducing burnout. Maggie shares insights from neuroscience and endocrinology on why the traditional 9–5 model often clashes with women’s natural rhythms, and how cycle-synching can transform workplace productivity. This conversation is a practical roadmap for women—and the organisations that support them—to harness biology as a strategic advantage.

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction and guest introduction
 00:59 The problem with traditional work schedules
 02:21 Maggie’s personal burnout story
 03:59 Introduction to cycle-synching
 05:00 How Phase works
 07:27 The four cycle phases and their superpowers
 12:38 Phase integration in the workplace
 22:19 User feedback and future plans
 33:50 Embracing strengths during the luteal phase
 35:03 Challenges in building Phase
 35:56 Integration and user experience
 39:08 Addressing irregular cycles and contraception
 41:04 Future of hormone tracking and integration
 48:10 Cycle-based vertical opportunities
 01:02:33 Cultural and organisational challenges
 01:12:30 Medium-budget wellness solutions
 01:13:29 High-budget organisational wellness
 01:15:59 Cultural shifts for wellness
 01:18:24 Phase app: current features and plans
 01:20:00 Personal insights and feedback mechanisms
 01:23:15 Engaging with Phase: user participation
 01:25:41 Lightning round: myths, metrics, and personal hacks
 01:37:21 Investments in personal well-being
 01:40:56 Future breakthroughs and sentimental reflections

Social Media Links

LinkedIn (Maggie McDaris): Maggie McDaris

Instagram: @maggiemcdaris

📚 Resources Mentioned in This Episode

1. Phase.io – Cycle-Aware Productivity App
   
   
   
   • A neuroscience- and endocrinology-informed app that helps women align work and wellbeing with their hormonal cycles.
     
     
     
   • Features: personalized daily insights, “cognitive radar,” workplace integrations (Google Workspace, Office 365), and mobile app.
     
     
     
   • 🌐 Website: Phase.io – Meet the team and learn more about the mission
     
     
     
2. Related Research & Concepts
   
   
   
   • Cycle Syncing – Adapting lifestyle, work, and wellbeing to the four phases of the menstrual cycle.
     
     
     
   • Feasibility Study (University of Greenwich) – Early research validating demand for cycle-aware productivity tools.
     
     
     
   • Cognitive Radar – Mapping six key strengths: energy, focus, motivation, creativity, communication, reflection.
     
     
     
   • Future Integrations – Google Calendar, Office 365, Slack, Asana, Todoist, Reclaim.ai.
     
     
     
3. Referenced Tools & Comparisons
   
   
   
   • Oura Ring – For sleep, stress, HRV, and cycle insights.
     
     
     
   • Headspace & Calm – Examples of integrated wellness resources.
     
     
     
   • Peloton & Zoey – Models for combining fitne

Insta/TikTok: @BiohackingEve
Website: www.BiohackingEve.com

Transcript

Judith Mueller 0:00

And speaking of misaligning, is it true that you are not lazy? You are luteal.

Maggie McDaris 0:05

within the context of periods. I think this is one of the big pushbacks we get from corporations is that you know, these businesses think that women will come to them and say, well, I'm in my luteal phase, so I can't do X, Y, Z. When that's not true, the luteal phase, has a whole host of strengths and things that you would wanna optimize in the workplace. The reason I think people might feel or struggle during their luteal phase is what I just covered. Dopamine production is directly related to motivation. And because estrogen is really low in your luteal phase, that motivation, it seems harder to access. So it's not that you're lazy. That physiologically it is much more difficult for you to access that motivation that you might be able to access in other times of the month. And so one of the things with phase that we do is in addition to sort of mapping out your cognitive strengths, we also recommend tasks or workplace themes to help support you in these phases. So, for example, during your luteal phase, things like time blocking, really leaning into routine. Going and accomplishing some small tasks, some easy wins to build that motivational momentum are great ways to show up within your luteal phase and still feel like you're contributing in a meaningful way.

Judith Mueller (2) 1:17

Welcome back to Biohacking Eve, health Optimization for Women with Judith Miller, where we shine a light on everything that will help you reach your best self. As a woman, as unique and individual as then you can be live long and prosper my friend.

Judith Mueller 1:38

Hello and welcome back everyone. Today's guest is Maggie McDaris, the founder of Phase. The First Productivity tool designed for Women Phase, is a cycle aware productivity app built to help women align their work with the hormones designed by experts in neuroscience and endocrinology. It offers personalized insights to support a better focus energy and flow throughout the menstrual cycle, because contrary to popular belief, every single cycle phase actually has its own superpower. So we'll dig into that in a moment. Now, we've talked about hormones a lot on this podcast, but today we go beyond the basics. Not just what they are, but what they mean for how we work. Think. Lead and lift, because Maggie isn't building just another period tracker. She's creating a superpower operating system for female productivity. Welcome, Maggie.

Maggie McDaris 2:33

Hi. Thanks so much for having me, Judith.

Judith Mueller 2:36

So tell us a little bit about what's the problem you saw that phase.io was built to solve, and also what's your own journey towards that?

Maggie McDaris 2:44

Yeah, the problem that my co-founders and I. Discovered sort of on our own journeys is this real misalignment with specifically the nine to five knowledge worker, workday and female biology. The showing up with the same, you know, the same level of consistency every single day, nine to five, five days a week. Is not how female biology functions. We are rhythmic. We have ebbs and flows of various hormones that impact our cognitive functioning. And so that mismatch in biology creates increased risk of burnout for women, increased mental health struggles related to their work for women. So we built phase to really bridge the gap between the mismatch in. know, human biology and the way that the workday has been set up for, you know, decades at this point. My own personal journey was sort of a cliched story of burnout. So I was a part of an incredibly fast growing startup. It was in a fairly male dominated industry. I had my daughter, I returned to work 10 weeks after having my daughter, and about eight months later, my body started breaking down. I had periods that were hemorrhagic. I was bleeding so much during my cycle that I actually dealt with chronic anemia, so I was getting iron infusions regularly. My hair started to fall out. I was so exhausted that I was, you know, falling into bed at 7:00 PM. Meanwhile, our company was growing at about a 500% growth rate that year, and I launched a new division in the business, which was a consulting division that sort of took the services and operations that we had been doing for 10 years at that point and turned them into an advisory vertical for the business. All of those things combined sort of created a perfect storm for burnout. And I had two separate interventions within about a week of each other. One was my boss, who was the CEO of the business, who I credit immensely with helping me on my kind of recovery journey. She approached me, she said, hi. I see this isn't sustainable. What can we do to fix it? And so professionally, we hired three additional people immediately. Which tells you sort of the workload that I was managing at the time. And then personally, my family also sort of sat me down. They were like, hi, you're not okay. Your body's breaking down something has to change. This isn't sustainable. And so, you know, at home we sort of outsourced things like cooking and laundry and childcare to try to create a little bit more space for recovery and rest. One of the things that I did in that recovery season was see a functional nutritionist who introduced me to the idea of cycle sinking. Now my background, which we didn't really get into, is in nutrition and dietetics. I am a registered dietician. I started my career in public health. I worked in corporate wellness community wellness programming for a long time, but I kind of knew that I was out of my own scope at this point. So I was seeing a functional dietician and she introduced me to the idea of how these hormone fluctuations were not only impacting how I showed up at work, but you know, nutrition and my physical activity. And so for me, cycle sinking was a key element in my burnout recovery journey. And so fast forward then to summer of 2023 when I met one of my co-founders and we bonded over the shared experience of at a very late stage understanding how. Our monthly hormone fluctuations, were impacting, our brains, we're impacting our cognition, the, you know, professional strengths that we brought to work with us every day. And so that's where the idea for phase was formed.

Judith Mueller 6:06

Fantastic. So what would you say is phase aware care in your own words, and how does it differ from traditional health or peer tracking?

Maggie McDaris 6:15

Yeah, so I think Phase Aware care it, it takes the next step from simply tracking to then implementing lifestyle changes that suit the unique biology of each phase of the cycle. One really important thing I think Phase Aware Care does is it broadens our understandings of hormones that have been traditionally classified as what we call sex hormones. I know there are many other practitioners sort of on a similar campaign to start to declassify hormones like progesterone and estrogen as simply sex hormones because that really limits and minimizes the fact that they are key components in whole body functioning. And so for me, phase aware. Care is not just looking at these hormones in the context of fertility and you know, traditional sort of women's health issues, but looking at how they impact other body systems and making lifestyle changes to accommodate that impact on those other systems.

Judith Mueller 7:09

And would you say that phase is about health, productivity, leadership, or all three?

Maggie McDaris 7:16

Well, of course I'm gonna say all three. But I will say at its core phases of productivity product, it was built to help women understand the cognitive strengths that they can then bring with them to their workplace, to better organize their work and their schedules, to align with those strengths, to improve output, to improve productivity. That being said, we do see both leadership and health as secondary. Outcomes of utilizing phase on the leadership standpoint, we believe that if you understand where you are in your cycle, how that's impacting your brain, it's gonna help you be a better leader. It's going to help you manage teams as a team member. It might help you understand some inter team dynamics or just set yourself up for success for team related functioning. On the health side, if you can. Understand how your brain is set up to, you know, better perform during certain times of the month. Then that's gonna result in decreased burnout, you know, hopefully improved mental health symptoms because you're aligning your work and not sort of working out of sync, which is one of the causes of burnout amongst professional women.

Judith Mueller 8:22

So I've alluded to the superpowers earlier in 60 seconds. Can you walk us through the four cycle phases and one superpower on each that we don't usually talk about?

Maggie McDaris 8:32

of course. I hope you're not timing me because I will do my best to to cover this in 60 seconds. So when we talk about the four phases of the menstrual cycle, we're talking about the menstrual phase, the follicular phase, the ovulation phase, and the luteal phase. The key sex hormones we're talking about here are estrogen and progesterone and testosterone follicular stimulating hormone. And all of these key hormones interact with key brain regions like the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala and these interactions shape how women feel, how they think, and how they perform. So let's talk about the follicular phase. During your follicular phase. Estrogen is rising and rising quickly. I would say the key performance change that you will see here is estrogen's relationship to dopamine, to dopamine production, and dopamine receptor sensitivity. So as that estrogen is rising, your brain is more easily responsive and there's more dopamine available. That means motivation is incredibly easy to access. It's a great time to start new projects, to dream big, and it's when you're gonna show up feeling ready to go. And you'll look at things like long to-do lists or long travel days and feel less overwhelmed by them because your stress resilience is higher. Next, we have ovulation. Now the ovulatory phase, we have classified within the phase app as three days, even though it's really a single moment in time, but it's characterized by estrogen being at its highest point of the month, and then testosterone peaking and that combination results in an increase in verbal fluency and confidence. So this makes your ovulation phase a great time for high visibility communication, for pitches, for sales activity, and also for somewhat challenging internal team meetings where you need to be clear about what you're saying. we have the luteal phase. As you know, Judith, I'm on a mission to rebrand the luteal phase. Unfortunately it gets sort of characterized by a lot of the premenstrual symptoms that occur during the luteal phase. However, during this time, your brain is progesterone led. That means you have a really high attention to detail and your gut driven or intuition driven judgment is peaking. So it's a great time for ethically complex decision making. It's also a great time to just crank through some administrative to-dos, because those are gonna give you the dopamine hits. That are very difficult to access because your estrogen is a little lower at this time of the month. And then finally, we have your menstrual phase. This is where all your sex hormones are pretty low, but it's a great time for reflection. During this time of the month. Your left and right brain are communicating more efficiently than at any other time of the month. And so what I love about the menstrual phase, it's a great time to look at problems, to understand why they're problems, but also take that and turn it into proactive solutions and change for any projects that you might have. That was seconds, I think, but I did my best.

Judith Mueller 11:05

So why do you think we often ignore or even suppress these strengths in traditional work culture?

Maggie McDaris 11:12

I don't think any of

Judith Mueller 11:13

I.

Maggie McDaris 11:13

actively suppressing our cognitive strengths. I think it's more that the infrastructure of a nine to five knowledge workday is not conducive to optimizing these strengths. When you are expected to show up with the same output every day when you don't have a ton of autonomy over your schedule or how you manage projects or project deliverables. What that means is you're not taking advantage of when certain cognitive strengths are peaking. So I would say it's less that they're being suppressed, it's more that they're misaligned.

Judith Mueller 11:43

Fair enough.

Maggie McDaris 11:43

Yeah.

Judith Mueller 11:44

And speaking of misaligning, is it true that you are not lazy? You are luteal.

Maggie McDaris 11:50

No I generally take issue with the word lazy in general because I think there's a whole lot of cultural context mixed up in there. But especially within the context of periods. I think this is one of the big pushbacks we get from corporations is that you know, these businesses think that women will come to them and say, well, I'm in my luteal phase, so I can't do X, Y, Z. When that's not true, as I just kind of covered the luteal phase, has a whole host of strengths and things that you would wanna optimize in the workplace. The reason I think people might feel or struggle during their luteal phase is what I just covered. Dopamine production is directly related to motivation. And because estrogen is really low in your luteal phase, that motivation, it seems harder to access. So it's not that you're lazy. That physiologically it is much more difficult for you to access that motivation that you might be able to access in other times of the month. And so one of the things with phase that we do is in addition to sort of mapping out your cognitive strengths, we also recommend tasks or workplace themes to help support you in these phases. So, for example, during your luteal phase, things like time blocking, really leaning into routine. Going and accomplishing some small tasks, some easy wins to build that motivational momentum are great ways to show up within your luteal phase and still feel like you're contributing in a meaningful way.

Judith Mueller 13:08

That's definitely we'll, we'll talk. Out some calendar switches later on, but I've definitely made some, and it's quite interesting. But let's look at how phase.io works and practice. So for example, we're gonna look at it, what does it look like? What do I need to do as a user to actually get it to work? So like what data do I need to fit in, either actively or away for wearables? What does the output look like? What do I do with this output? And also, what can my team actually do with this output?

Maggie McDaris 13:37

Okay. Lots of things there. So I'll start simply and kind of we'll start big picture and get smaller and more and more granular. So, phase as a product has two key components. So first we have a mobile app. Our mobile app is the educational foundation of our product. It's where you will go to understand exactly what's happening in your brain during this time of the month and what that means for your work. Within the mobile app, we have what we call our cognitive radar, and that cognitive radar maps out. The six key areas of cognition that our algorithm has designed. So we have energy, focus, motivation, creativity, communication, and reflection. And so our mobile app day to day will show you the level of each of those six key areas of cognition as you go through your month. On top of the educational foundation that is our mobile app, we have workplace integration, so we have a browser extension and we have integrations into Google Workspace and Office 365, specifically within the calendar functions of both of those workplace tools. And the reason that we built Phase this way is because as I mentioned before, my background is in public health and I am very passionate that education only solutions. End up resulting in really whoever is using them, having to do more work in the end because you're giving them all this information, but they have to figure out how to apply it. And as a woman I don't need one more thing to do. I am already a CEO and a mom and have relationships. And so the idea of just getting a ton of new information that I have to figure out what to do with. Is incredibly daunting, but from a public health, health perspective is not effective. So phase takes on an education first model. So we have our mobile app, you have access to all of that information, but we've also created these workplace tools so that you don't have to do the mental work of applying that information. Within your workday. And so within, within the experience of the app, how someone would potentially interact with Faze, both on their phone and on their desktop every day. The first thing they will see every single day is a push notification. So this notification is a nice, you know, simple little sentence that reminds you that your brain might work differently today. it did yesterday. It's sort of a, a quick little contextual reminder that of all the things that are impacting your day, what you ate, your sleep, that fight you got with your grandma last night your hormones are also one of those things, and here's what that means for you today. And then with that push notification, you're prompted to go into the app where you do see what we call our cognitive radar. And that's where those six key elements are mapped in a very infographic way for you so you can see exactly where your strengths lie day to day. You know, I like to compare this to when you wake up and you check your ora ring stats. If you're like me and you're like, how did I sleep? I just, you want that sort of contextual knowledge to understand how your brain's gonna be functioning that day. And then within the app, the other thing we have is a calendar tool. So say you're not in front of your computer and you get an email from a colleague and it's, Hey, do you know we need a brainstorming session? When can we do it Within the calendar tool? In the app, you can toggle on any of those six cognitive elements. So. In the case of a brainstorming session, you need creativity and communication. You can toggle those on, and we actually map out day to day for you when those are peaking and when those are low, so that you can schedule accordingly. Internally we call this forward s thinking, but basically it allows you to start the process of aligning your work with those cognitive strengths rather than, you know, kind of going in blind. Scheduling meetings and realizing you scheduled that meeting for a time when your communication was really low, meaning that meeting is gonna ask more of you, thus potentially leading to burnout or, you know, a lower quality output.

Judith Mueller 17:03

Mm-hmm. It's really that energy mismatch that you're trying to avoid, right? It's not that you're trying to avoid the work, but it's really matching the energy to what's available, thanks to your biology.

Maggie McDaris 17:13

hundred percent. And I think, you know, one of the things we talk about at phase all the time is that what phase is gonna do for you is find an optimal time in a suboptimal week. Right? We know that you are not a hundred percent in control of your schedule, of your tasks, of your deadlines. We understand that. But even incremental improvement, 10%, 15%, 20%, is going to have massive impact on you from a health perspective, from an output perspective you know, from a productivity and job satisfaction perspective. And so for us, you know, when you toggle on those features and you look at your calendar and your colleague wanted next week and you realize, Ooh, actually isn't the best week for communication, we've still mapped out for you where it's gonna be highest in that suboptimal window. And so you can at least sort of find the best in a worst, right? And that's gonna have a massive impact on how confident you feel walking into those meetings that day. And also potentially. Some mitigation things you can do around that meeting. So if you know you've got a misaligned meeting, you can make sure you schedule in a little more rest. You can make sure you get enough sleep the night before, things like that. So then, you know, that's our mobile app. And then if you go to the desktop, we meet you at your desktop in a couple ways. So first is with the browser extension, and that is literally just a, a pin to the top of your toolbar that you can click on, which. Pretty much mirrors what the app says that day, so I know it's crazy. A tech CEO coming in here saying it's actually okay if you don't open the app. Because we've actually given it to you where it's most important, which is in your workspace so that you know, dropdown that's pin to your toolbar will kind of mirror the app. So you'll see the radar, you'll understand exactly, you know what cognitive strengths are available to you that day. And then within the workplace, integrations with Office 365 and Google Calendar, you can actually, we have that toggle function available to you. So you can see this in both the weekly and monthly view. You can toggle on and off those cognitive elements. We'll show you where they're high, where they're low every single day, so that when you're scheduling, you have that information to you, right where you're booking that meeting. And then as a final sort of stop when you go to book that meeting, we've also visually represented all of those strengths. So it's sort of one more gut check as you are organizing your schedule and your work to show you where your strengths are gonna lie cognitively and help you align your work accordingly.

Judith Mueller 19:21

This is actually super interesting. From the perspective of I'm an introvert, actually heavily introvert myself, so I can be social, but that takes a lot of energy from me and I really do feel that, you know, when I do in the cycle, for example, I've got four introduction meetings of things that aren't urgent that, you know, can wait a month or two, whatever might be, I literally have two Wednesday afternoons in the first half of my cycle and that's it. I'm like, well, you either pick one of your slots or you're gonna have to wait another month, which you know, most people, I mean. Maybe 5% of people say, can you do it sooner? And depending on the person, I might find another slot. But for most people they just, you know, I basically integrated that with Calendly in the sense that these are the dates I've made available. And Calendly, I just push a link to people and they sort of optimize it with whatever they need to do. And I do it on my end with what's already done. The other thing, for example, that I find super interesting, I've said this before on the podcast, but I mean, look, I hate. Public work and like photo shoots especially. Photo shoots, right? I, I don't know, women actually likes photo shoots. To be honest. I haven't met one yet.

Maggie McDaris 20:24

hate them. There was, I read a quote recently. There was something like being a CEO, like embarrassment is just a rite of passage. It just, oh, I, yes, agreed. Sorry, go ahead.

Judith Mueller 20:33

And I literally, I mean, I know I have to do them on a weekend and it has to be the closest weekend to ovulation. I know it has to be that if it can't be that weekend, I'm happy to wait a month because it's gonna make a world of a difference.

Maggie McDaris 20:45

A hundred

Judith Mueller 20:45

Yeah.

Maggie McDaris 20:46

there's a reason for that. During ovulation, your emotional intelligence part of your brain is seeing it the highest activity of the month. And so you are aware of the impact you have on people around you, which is great, and it gives you confidence to go into those solutions. The other thing I will say about the ovulation phase in particular, and also just late follicular, which is one of the reasons why the planning function and as you're actually. Scheduling an event phase really can come in and support you is that your follicular and ovulation self thinks you can do a lot of things that potentially your luteal self may disagree with. And so for us sort of constantly providing the context of where your strengths are lying helps protect your luteal self a little bit from your follicular self, from, you know, those two weeks where you're feeling super energized and you massively overload your luteal phase with things that are misaligned because you feel like you can take on the world during those times. So that forward

Judith Mueller 21:41

And I am.

Maggie McDaris 21:42

really important then. Yeah.

Judith Mueller 21:44

Yeah, and especially having a DD and being very excitable, that is something I'm super prone to, so thank you for that.

Maggie McDaris 21:50

a hundred percent

Judith Mueller 21:50

When you mentioned the dopamine relationship. I mean, obviously that's something that, you know, with ADD we're struggling with, so that's super curious.

Maggie McDaris 21:57

We, have a whole blog post about this on our website, but it's something where we'll get into the feedback mechanism we're building in a little bit, but it's something we're really interesting to learn more about. And it's why, again, we've gotta remove the term sex from these hormones because they interact with so many other key elements of our physiology. It understanding how, you know, A-D-H-D-O-C-D, all, some of these other cognitive conditions. How they uniquely respond to some of these neurological changes that occur across your cycle. It's been fascinating to learn.

Judith Mueller 22:28

We're actually gonna add the link to the blog post for ADD to the show notes. Fantastic. So, in practice, how have you seen or have you seen team leaders adopt this? So are there any women, for example, who've made their face visibility public and used to rebook meetings or reshuffle SPRs?

Maggie McDaris 22:47

Yeah, we have a lot of testimonies on an individual level on how people are doing this. Right now we are running two pilots with small teams to investigate exactly how this would work. I do wanna put the caveat here. You know, I think we still, you and I live in this women's health space and I think sometimes we get a little disconnected with. Legal services firm based out of the city in London, right? And how they show up to work every day and what they're talking about and whether or not they would be comfortable doing something like this. And so we're really, we have to kind of walk that line a little bit. So yes, on one hand we are piloting this with small groups. On the other hand, we're making sure we're building features like a privacy setting, so that if you're ever sharing your screen, for example, and you forget to toggle off some of those elements, it's not gonna show up for your colleagues because you may not want that. To them. It's also part of the reason that we started with a B2C product because we really believe that giving our users autonomy over how they use phase is immensely important, and also who they share it with. Now that being said, as I mentioned, we're super excited. We've got two pilots running. We're really trying to understand how this works within team dynamics. Some ways that organizations are using for phase to communicate better with each other, to organize their projects and their workflows. And so we're looking at, you know, one like productivity outputs, so project deliverables, customer satisfaction, things like that. But we're also looking at employee satisfaction based output. So, you know. Decrease in absenteeism and presenteeism, for example. Increase in job satisfaction, things like that. So we are currently in process of measuring some of these team related outputs for the future when we do, you know, explore ways of incorporating phase organizationally in a way that works both for the business but also for the end user.

Judith Mueller 24:21

We'll come back to this again later, but I think this could be very interesting, both for female CEOs listening as well as, you know, people in larger corporation who say, actually, my team might wanna try this. What would be the best way? To go about that.

Maggie McDaris 24:34

So for right now, the best way to go about that is to, we would give bulk discounts for your team. So if you have a team, you wanna pilot a program you can reach out to us. We have a contact form on our website and we would love to have a conversation with you about that. That being said, we are very strategically focusing on our B2C product. You know, I don't know how much time we have to go into the, the decision making behind that but we really believe that a user led. Solution is going to be important because one, as I mentioned, it gives the user autonomy over how they use phase two it helps reassure them from a security standpoint if they opted into a product versus their company giving it to them how comfortable they feel with who's seeing what information is really impacted by that. But then the other thing is, you know, it allows your employee to opt in a solution that they think is going to work for them versus sort of forcing something on everyone as a whole. And so for us, B2C was the way we wanna go and, and honestly, in the corporate wellness space, you see consumer grade brands, Headspace, calm, Peloton see a lot higher engagement than you do sort of brands built specifically for businesses.

Judith Mueller 25:38

Okay, so next we're gonna look at what you learned building the platform about women, about data, and about tech itself. So we'll start with the product side. What surprised you doing in development? Something that you just loved or hated that you didn't expect?

Maggie McDaris 25:53

so I'll actually start with pre-development. We actually did a feasibility study two summers ago with the University of Greenwich to look at even, you know, the validity of a product like phase. Are people interested in it? What is the baseline understanding from women of how their hormones affect their productivity? Would they be interested in a product like phase? Would they pay for a product like phase? And one of the biggest surprises to me. Was the age range of women who were interested in phase, who perceived their hormones having an impact on their productivity and their willingness to pay. And would you believe it's younger women? I think we have a lot, there is a lot of conversation, amazingly so happening about perimenopause and menopause. But what we found was that that age group in particular, their responses felt a little, if I can use the word jaded, you know, it's like they've struggled most of their career with some of this. And so there was probably a kind of a layer of skepticism around something like phase when we looked at women age 18 to 25 and then 25 to 35, those women were highly interested in a product like phase. And we found a statistically significant correlation between that interest and the perception of their hormones on their career trajectory and on their job satisfaction. And so I think what we learned in that, because you know, Georgie and I were both in our late thirties, we sort of thought that our user would be like us. It'd be women who have a thousand different risk. Responsibilities, who are a little further along in their careers, who have a little more autonomy over their schedule. And what this feasibility study showed is that actually younger women, one, they're more educated than we were. I was 35 when I learned about cycle sinking. And two they, I think have a greater understanding of the impact of these hormone fluctuations on their lives. Therefore, they have a desire for phase that is much greater. So that was really interesting for us. And it's informed a lot from a design perspective, from a marketing perspective. And then, you know, from a product standpoint, one of the things that really surprised me, which it shouldn't have, because when I was working as a dietician, the number of times I heard just gimme a meal plan. Just tell me what to do. Don't teach me to fish. Just gimme the fish. Was in our early beta conversations, a lot of user feedback was, prompts are great. Understanding where I am is great. Can you just tell me what tasks to do? I just want you to tell me exactly what I need to do today. And so that, you know, in the phase app we have, you know, your daily radar sort of a couple sentences to give you some context on what it means. And then we actually added pretty quickly in our product roadmap, a list of aligned tasks and productivity themes so that you could take that information and apply it pretty quickly. And that kind of really practical element was, although it shouldn't have been and the hunger for that practical element was a bit of a surprise for us. And one of the things that ended up, you know, changing our roadmap strategy.

Judith Mueller 28:23

Okay, fantastic. And from the big data side, there any patterns that emerge when you look at the aggregate data that you wouldn't have expected?

Maggie McDaris 28:31

Yeah, I mean, listen, it's still early days. We launched about six weeks ago. So in terms of, you know, big data, I wouldn't

Judith Mueller 28:37

I.

Maggie McDaris 28:37

the amount of data we have big yet. But one of the main things I would say is over 80% of our users report that the integrations into their desktop are the most important feature which to me just sort of solidifies and reinforces our thesis that people want integrated tools. They do not just want information. I think I see this a lot in the women's health space. I really, I see this a lot in the wellness space. These really education only focused products, these education only solutions. And what our data has shown is that people don't just want another webinar, another handout, another paragraph. They want you to help them apply that. Into their life in the easiest, most seamless, most efficient way possible.

Judith Mueller 29:20

This makes sense, right? Because a lot of us don't take or simply can't take the time to sharpen the access away. We need someone to actually give us an access just a little bit sharper.

Maggie McDaris 29:30

exactly.

Judith Mueller 29:30

From the individual user's point of view, what was the most. Powerful feedback you've received. Maybe something a woman learned about herself, her team, the world.

Maggie McDaris 29:39

I will tell you a really meaningful theme that we saw in early feedback and we are still seeing in early feedback, which is the amount of grace women are giving themselves for showing up, not feeling their best. I think, you know, within traditional work culture, the narrative up until this point has been, pretend you don't have a cycle. Hide your tampons up your sleeve. You are the same every day. And we're not. And to pretend like we are is a massive drain on our mental health, on our physical health. And so one of the best messaging, and we get it consistently all the time, we get emails saying, I just have so much grace for myself because I woke up just not feeling my best. And that. It's been really interesting and one of the things we're doing now is starting to study and look at the impact of self-esteem on productivity. And when I say study and look at, I mean there's actually already a ton of literature out there that shows that your self-esteem, the confidence you approach your workday with positively impacts your output. So there's, you know, a direct relationship there. And that is really exciting for us because we now can ask the right questions to show the relationship between not just aligning your work with your cycle and the impact of that on productivity, but how aligning your work impacts your confidence, how aligning your work impacts your self-esteem, how aligning your work impacts your job satisfaction, and in measuring those and looking at those, then we can again relate those to productivity and output and continue to reinforce the value of our product.

Judith Mueller 31:02

So this concept of grace is really interesting. I have to admit, I came to this very to late, and by that I mean sort of my mid thirties. I've always been someone, you know, to push, push, push. Well, I've come from a. Culture, but also from a family where with this, this was just normal work ethic was just what you had, right? And that's something you very much prided yourself on and was also reinforced by the system, whether that was, you know, the family, the employee, the university, whatever it might be. So I came to this pretty late and it took me a long journey. It wasn't just that I woke up one day and oh, well, maybe I should cut myself a bit more slack. Where do you think this is emerging from now? And how can we support that trend?

Maggie McDaris 31:43

I mean, it's hard to pinpoint an exact place where this is emerging. I think one is just, you know, leaders within the women's health space who have been yelling probably for 10, 15 years are finally getting national platforms. I do think, and you'll hear me again talk about it later, I think the menopause movement has actually helped every area of women's health. Now, I will say it's now become sort of the only area of women's health and we need to. Potentially reassess how we talk about it. But I think that movement and the adoption from a cultural standpoint of understanding the suffering that women who are going through menopause and perimenopause, menopause are dealing with, you know, the change there is starting to trickle down into other areas of health. I would still say cycle sinking is an emerging. Concept. You know, I think there are a couple products, we'll talk about some of them later. Wild ai flow living that have been doing this for a couple years now. But I think the idea of understanding how the different phases of your cycle are impacting other areas of your physiology is still emerging. Research. We're seeing that you know, from a marketing standpoint and understanding how much education we have to do in some of our campaigns, 40% of women still couldn't tell you when they ovulate, right? So, again, while yes, more and more people are learning this. didn't learn it till a couple years ago. You didn't learn it till a couple years ago. It's because it's new and there's a massive population out there who still doesn't quite understand. And so I think in our marketing and in our messaging, we also have to hold space that they may not understand. They may not care as much as we do, but we can still solve a problem for them. So how do we do that? Well.

Judith Mueller 33:20

And it's also, I mean, with this kind of product, there's also the element of how do you solve a problem for someone that doesn't know, doesn't realize they have a problem. Right?

Maggie McDaris 33:27

or is scared that acknowledging difference is acknowledging weakness. And that's, you know, a huge reason why you'll notice in all of our messaging with phase, hopefully in my messaging with you today, we focus on the strengths. I understand that in your luteal phase there are debilitating physical symptoms that's happening. We never wanna diminish that. We never want to you know, it. All the lived experience of millions and millions and millions of women. That being said, there are cognitive strengths that also exist. During your luteal phase and during your menstrual phase. So our job at phase is to tell you what those strengths are so that while you're sitting on your couch with your heating pad, you can do work that isn't because you have to show up at work when those things happen. Sometimes you can do work that is not draining even more from you, but you can do work that is instead, you know, maximizing your cognitive ability that day.

Judith Mueller 34:18

Now potentially also empowering you, right? In the sense that at least I got something done today, even if it meant sitting on the couch with the heating pad.

Maggie McDaris 34:26

And hopefully you can get a couple more somethings done because those somethings made sense for what was going on in your brain.

Judith Mueller 34:32

And it's building that momentum, right? Which again, we touched upon the dopamine earlier. It's like ticking some things off, makes a lot of things easier. Okay, so let's have a look under the bonnet for a moment. What makes this hard to build? Because in theory it's easy, but in practice I really imagine it's not.

Maggie McDaris 34:50

Yeah. Definitely not easy. We are very fortunate to have an incredibly talented CTO, who, has pretty much built faith from the ground up. He's an experienced and exited tech founder. But one of the biggest challenges we made for ourself it's a problem we created, is our integrations into workplace platforms. So, you know, we have a huge reliance on platforms whose code we have absolutely no access to or control over so that is always gonna be challenging, right? And, and our plan is hopefully to expand our integrations into more platforms, project management tools, you know, other AI driven calendar tools, things like that. And so that's always gonna be tricky because there's elements of our user experience that we don't have control over. So. That's challenge number one. Now we've done a lot to hopefully, you know, mitigate some of that risk. We have a ton of automated systems right now that are daily checking any changes that any of the platforms we're integrated into. And whether or not they may or may not impact our code or integrations you know, making sure we are technically injecting code into other people's websites. It was never gonna be easy. And so we have systems to make sure that from not only a UX standpoint, but from a UI standpoint, something doesn't. of a sudden look weird one day. So we, in addition to building the product, had to simultaneously set up a lot of systems of checks and balances, if you will, to ensure that the integrity of phase is maintained while these third party products are changing and messing with their code. So I was challenged number one. Challenge number two is clearly displaying multidimensional information from a UI standpoint is very challenging. You'll notice a lot of health apps look like a dashboard. They look, it's a ton of information and a ton of numbers at once, and we have six areas of cognition that we are displaying over time, day to day. And so that presented a challenge just from a design standpoint to do that in a way that made sense, where you could take a quick look and understand without having to read a ton or look like you were looking at your car dashboard. So that you know, from a design perspective was a little challenging. And then add on top of that. Okay, well what if you add or take away some of those elements, then what's happening from a design standpoint, how does that impact our brand? How does that impact the user experience? And then the third and final challenge, and this is one that we are dealing with now, is we are, as I mentioned, a two platform product. We have our mobile app and we have our calendar integrations. And one problem we are dealing with right now is how do we get users to adopt the calendar integrations? Because when you have a part of your product that 80% of users say is the most valuable, but you have people who've downloaded your product not doing. That's a problem. And so we've spent quite a lot of time and energy over the last couple weeks to set up some systems to help our users understand the value of the integrations and make it seamless, easy. It, it's like less than two minutes worth of time to then set up those integrations on their desktop to sort of pair the power of the two products at once.

Judith Mueller 37:36

And I imagine there's also other things, especially in the data and the learning where, for example, getting consistent data is difficult. So like linking, you know, sleep cycle with cycle phase could be inconsistent, tagging, et cetera.

Maggie McDaris 37:50

Yeah, I mean, before, the biological data to sync, even just the products that are supposed to be tracking that analytical data for you, they don't talk to each other. We have currently three third party products that we use to understand the user journey, both before they download the app, once they download once they're in the app, whether they download the calendar integration and they don't talk to each other. So, you know, from

Judith Mueller 38:09

Wow.

Maggie McDaris 38:09

endpoint standpoint, any tech developers out there, there is a massive opportunity to create a single analytics tool to help with all of this. But yes, you know, outside of that is also understanding making sure that we are getting all of the information that we need from the user to be as effective and accurate in the sort of predictive element of our algorithm as possible.

Judith Mueller 38:30

So that's the tech fund. Let's have a look at the biological fund. So how do you handle women with irregular cycles or those for PCOS, for example?

Maggie McDaris 38:38

Yeah, the short answer is we don't in its current form phase depends on a baseline of regularity to function properly. Phase is a predictive tool. A lot of the value of phase is being able to look 1, 2, 3 months ahead so that you can set up your schedule for success if that forward. Is unknown, if it's inconsistent, that then negatively impacts the value that we can bring to our user, and we are incredibly honest about that. One of my pet peeves actually with any cycle syncing products is. N not being honest about the impact of certain types of contraception, the impact of irregular cycles, because women's health is women's health and there's such a lack of research to understand the why behind some of these things. I think we just have to be really honest about when our product is not appropriate. And so, you know, throughout the course of our onboarding, our algorithm is suited for women who. Cycles from 24 to 36 days. If you are outside of that, our algorithm is not appropriate for you today. Now as, and I know we're gonna talk about as we start to collect more information, as we start to understand women's health more, there's some incredible companies doing incredible thing on, like real-time hormone tracking, for example. We will be able to expand that algorithm. But for right now. We are really focusing on women who are cycling regularly and we do include many different types of contraception. There's just a couple specifically progesterone only, where you don't have any sort of placebo week, where again, phase is not appropriate because you're sort of flat. Your hormones you know, the synthetic hormones have sort of flatlined you. And that's okay. And for us, the market of women, which is billions, faith is appropriate for, we are okay with being accurate for the few that we're appropriate for then rather than trying to. women who phase is an appropriate for to use our product for the purpose of growth and, and hopefully that's a theme you'll hear a lot today. We are an incredibly evidence-based, values driven, ethics driven company.

Judith Mueller 40:26

And obviously appreciating BEAT at the moment, but there's a lot of tools that, you know, you can integrate down the line. So for example, there's a hormone informed symptom logging, so breast tenderness, cervical mucus, mood swing. There's all sorts of, you know, AI smoothing, data blending. You can look at HIV, for example, is heart rate variability. You can go, bBT, basal body temperature, et cetera. So there's a lot of, you know, runway down the line.

Maggie McDaris 40:51

There's a lot and we're really excited. I mean, you know, the first thing we're doing is just integrating ovulation as a tracking point for us.'cause right now it's just when your menstrual cycle is adding some educational elements so women understand what they can track when they, you know, maybe their menstrual cycle. Say they're on marina hormone driven contraception, their menstrual cycle is super light, or they don't have one at all, but they're actually still ovulating. So, you know, creating that tracking 0.1 allows them to engage in the product. But two, you know, there's an educational component because again. You and I live in a space where I know what basal body temperature is. I also went through IVF, so I know what basal body temperature is. But a lot of women don't. A lot of women don't know what heart rate variability is or what happens during your luteal phase to your heart rate variability or what happens when you're pregnant to your heart rate variability. So, you know, there's, there's also kind of, that's why we say we're not education only where education first, because the education piece is important. People need to understand, you know what ovulation is to then be able to understand how they can map it. So as I mentioned, we're currently building out that function, but you know, our goal with biological input, whether it be cycle related or you know, sleep related, is definitely something we're looking at in the future. Is for the purposes of the predictive nature of our algorithm. We are not a traditional health app. We are not a symptom manager. We are not, you know, we really classify ourselves as a productivity tool whose inputs are biology, rather than being a health app that helps you be more productive. And so that means that, you know, when you have PCS symptom or PCOS symptoms or PMS symptoms. We're not gonna be the tool you come to to tell you how to manage that. Instead we'll be able to tell you what that means for your workday, if that makes sense. So, you know, we have to be a little bit strategic because there's so much health information out there that we stay focused to the goal and the problem we're solving. While not overloading our user with a ton of information, that actually isn't why they came to the product in the first place.

Judith Mueller 42:36

So speaking of information, also inputs around integration. What is life and what's planned? So there's clue, natural cycles, aura, apple Health, et cetera.

Maggie McDaris 42:44

Yeah. So what's great about all of those that you just listed is they actually all integrate with Apple Health. So for us, all we need to do is integrate with Apple Health, and we have access to clues data. We have access to natural cycles data, we have access to aura's data. I will just, I won't say the name. They're the largest period tracker in the world de integrated with Apple Health. Last year which I find is an immense disservice to their users and they did it, I'm sure to protect from competition, make it more difficult to switch from one period tracker to another. But I think it's an immense disservice to mental health and immense disservice to their users because that means that any other cycle related cycle syncing, cycle tracking that their user wants to, you know, achieve is more difficult'cause they now have to log into places. Anyways, that being said,

Judith Mueller 43:29

On that happy note.

Maggie McDaris 43:30

on that happy note we are currently working on integrating with Apple Health to make it easy for us to, you know, pull in any of that data very quickly.

Judith Mueller 43:39

Okay. And in terms of we sort of touched on this briefly, but is face usable for women and perimenopause as well? Is it just for cycling women?

Maggie McDaris 43:49

just for, we're currently focused on cycling women. And again, that is because of the predictive nature of our model. Any woman who has gone through perimenopause, any physicians who work with perimenopausal women will tell you that

Judith Mueller 43:59

I.

Maggie McDaris 44:01

varies woman to woman. Everyone's experience of it is different that how their hormones fluctuate during perimenopause and then drop going into menopause differs. And so because of that difference, it makes it very hard to be predictive. So right now. We know as we look to expand our market, we actually might look younger, we'll most likely, sort of look the other direction. Look at women who have just started their cycles, who are, you know, a university or secondary school who are just starting to understand their bodies and their brains. Kind of, of trying to empower and educate the younger generation to come into the workforce empowered with this knowledge already. And so that's something that we're really excited about because we love everything that's happening in the perimenopause and menopause space. There is also a lot happening there. I think there are tons of solutions for women who are going through perimenopause or menopause. There probably, you know, could be more, but there, there is a lot available for us. We wanna solve another problem, which is women who are cycling, who still don't feel their best because they're showing up and, and then their work is misaligned with their cycle. One thing that would make perimenopause more appropriate for phase is some of this new hormone tracking technology that is in development. You know, so if we could get real time hormone data. example, our algorithm is hormone driven. So it's it's based on the fluctuations within, you know, hormones and how they impact cognition. And so if we were able to get real time data, we would be able to then adapt the algorithm to people who have it. For example, irregular cycles, which is often what happens during perimenopause or who's hormones are not in what we would call like standard levels. You know, when P-P-C-O-S, other conditions, et cetera. That being said, we hold that very loosely because even though a lot of these projects are in development, they are years away from market readiness. And then on top of that, once they arrive, we actually don't have a baseline for realtime hormone data being tracked. Hour to hour to hour. We don't know what normal is. So then to sort of ascribe meaning to levels that we don't even know whether they're normal, abnormal, abnormal is a little bit dangerous. So, as I mentioned, we are an ethical company. We're an evidence-based company, and so while the idea of this real-time hormone data is very exciting. also know we're probably a couple years minimum away from it being applicable to third party products like ours the short term. Products like Aura, for example, who are tracking basal temperature, who are, you know, very accurately. Tracking heart rate variability, things like that. Those are much more short term ways we could potentially integrate and, you know, expand the scope of the women who phase is appropriate for.

Judith Mueller 46:31

Fantastic. And I think this mirrors some of the discussions I'm having around digital twins, which. Kind of says it in the name already, but it's basically having all your health data in one place and talking to each other. So rather than having, oh, I've had some bloods taken here and my aura tells me this, that to the other and et cetera, it's all talking to each other. But there's also this argument of, well, it's great if you start doing that in your thirties, forties, fifties, but really ideally down the line because we dunno what baseline is. Ideally we should be tracking things in our twenties and seeing how they develop. Because baseline, again, is super individual as well. Right? That's the next thing. So sticking with the landscape we've seen, for example, world AI for sport phases clearly about cognition and productivity. What are other cycle based verticals that you see developing? So nutrition, fertility, mental health, et cetera.

Maggie McDaris 47:24

So I think nutrition is one where I, I would actually say nutrition was kind of the pioneer for cycle sinking. Things like seed cycling were some of the first, I would say signs of cycle sinking, being applied to wellness, you know, broader wellness outside of just your menstrual health that I saw. So I think, you know, nutrition eating in a way, in accordance with your cycle, not only are there a lot of products and services available, but I think there's still a lot of market opportunity for products like that. I also think, and again this goes back to if you can take a drink every time I say it, moving outside of these being called sex hormones and just looking at the hormone landscape as a

Judith Mueller 48:00

Okay.

Maggie McDaris 48:00

looking at cortisol, looking at our blood sugar management hormones, they all interplay our quote sex hormones. You know, glucagon and insulin. Cortisol, they all talk to each other. They all play. And so I do think, into other hormonal inputs, some of the cortisol tracking sleep. Even looking at like the relationship between, you know, your hormones and melatonin. For example, my ora ring could tell you some things about how my sleep changes during my cycle. I think that those expanding kind of our view of hormones on our systems and applying them to tools then to, you know, wellness specific tools, I think that's gonna be huge. And then to your point, finding ways. For those products to talk to each other so that it's easy to take and pull data and share data between those products to improve the overall user experience.

Judith Mueller 48:49

So this is more of a continuation of the previous theme, but who is already doing well in this space and what do you think is missing?

Maggie McDaris 48:56

Yeah, I mean, I've mentioned them a couple times. I think Aura is actually doing a really good job. And, and their role is the data collection piece. And one thing I really respect about Aura is they outsource where they need to. And what you'll, you'll hear, I'm really passionate about this later, about single point solutions versus massive dashboards. What I love about Aura is where they're not an expert. They bring in an expert. So the example I give is when you show that your stress signs are peaking, they will link out to Headspace. And give you some breathing meditation. They're not trying to be headspace. They are, you know, they have their niche, but they will link you very clearly, very easily to a resource that then allows you to mitigate the symptom that they have been tracked. And so I really think that they are doing an excellent job of one, being leaders in the type of data that we're collecting and making it very easy and accessible to the user, but then also taking that next step of not giving the user. The thing to do, but connecting them with a tool that helps them do that. And so, yeah, so I would say, I would say they're doing it very well and, and other products

Judith Mueller 49:56

And for ex,

Maggie McDaris 49:56

is, is doing it well too. I mean, their heart rate variability study on, on pregnancy and early delivery was incredible. Sorry, go ahead.

Judith Mueller 50:03

and the interesting point about Aura is it can also give you the biological feedback of whether that meditation you just did is actually working for you. Right? So you get the real time loop back. Okay. If you could partner with any org or product wearable calendar Lab platform, who would it be?

Maggie McDaris 50:19

I mean, listen, aura, I've shouted you out a couple times, you know but I would also say other AI calendar apps. So we really see from the productivity standpoint an opportunity in integrating with the reclaiming AI and Todoist of the world to help automatically organize and categorize your calendar. So these are tools that help people organize their to-do list. There's a lot of automation in them. If we could give them, say, categorical tags on some of those tasks in which phase of the cycle they're most aligned to I think there's a real opportunity to, again, take one more level of burden off the user to, you know, really apply some of these cycle sinking concepts. Also, you know, the feedback that integrating with products like that would give, so you could have alignment scores this week. 70% of your time was aligned with your cycle 60% of your time. So you could also start getting some sort of real time impact feedback to help you then understand the value that a product like phase is bringing to your life.

Judith Mueller 51:11

I like that idea. So taking that one step further, if we could design one dashboard for women to navigate work energy, sex, nutrition, focus, what would that look like?

Maggie McDaris 51:24

I am smiling at you because you may not like my answer. I don't think we should, is my answer. I think we should let women opt into the pieces of the above that they want to. This is where my public health, the little monster that lives inside me, sort of likes to come out every now and again because I do think that if you approach a group of people and you give them a hundred wellness solutions, they will use none of them. you approach a group of people and you say, what problems do you have? What are your ideas on how to fix it? And you give them one or two solutions to fix those two, even if it wasn't the problems you think they have or the problems you think they should find important. Then the second is always gonna be more impactful. More effective. See higher engagement and see higher efficacy. Right. A really good example I'll give is like, does your company need mental health app or do they just need a morning where no one can book meetings? You know, and so I think for me, we really need to let women opt into any of the solutions that they want to. think also giving users a ton of information all at once, a ton of tools all at once can be overwhelming. When you look at the products that are really successful in this space, calm. Isn't trying to be Peloton flow, isn't trying to be Zoey or to give like a productivity example. Slack isn't trying to be Asana. There is a very clear argument from a, a business and market standpoint for the success of these single point solutions. Also, when you look at studies and sort of cognition and user experience, often like excessive options, excessive features. Increase cognitive load. It makes it harder for users to make decisions or use products effectively. You know, people often open an app with a specific goal in mind. If the app is sort of a grab bag of all these unrelated tools, if you make it hard for them to find that one particular thing. It's hard for users to find value quickly. And so, you know, for us, and maybe you've even heard it as I've kind of answered some of your questions, this is an approach we take at phase is solve one problem at a time and make sure you're solving it before you start solving another problem. Do that one thing, do it well. Get your users engaged, and then you can start adding value by layering in other things. Do we eventually want phase to be able to incorporate circadian rhythm? Absolutely. But we're not gonna do that until we know that we are applying biological rhythms to the workspace. Well, within the context of these hormone fluctuations. While we need to give people autonomy to choose the types of things that are valuable to them, if we are going to do that, these tools all have to be able to talk to each other. So going back to your original point, I'm not saying. That only single point solutions, you know, you have to have one tool for absolutely everything. I'm saying that we need to create tools so that people can opt into what they need, and we make it very easy for them to find and apply what they need. And if what they need is multifactorial and there are different tools, those tools have to be able to talk to each other and integrate well. And that's where I think. Not just in women's health. I would say this, you know, in the tech space in general, there is a lot of opportunity to find ways. And again, that's why I mentioned the example of Aura, because they have, rather than saying, oh, we're gonna build this, they said, we're gonna outsource this and make it very easy. And I think if we can start to do that in other ways and get a little less. Scarcity mindset about this space. And realize that if we're able to do that well as a product, then actually rising tides lifts all boats. I think it's gonna have way more impact than creating these like massive hubs data hubs and, you know, resource hubs for women.

Judith Mueller 54:45

So you made a very interesting point in the sense that we don't even necessarily know what this particular person might. Want, they might not even know it themselves. So on one

Maggie McDaris 54:54

Exactly.

Judith Mueller 54:55

What are the known unknowns, but also even more interestingly and also more difficult, what are the unknown unknowns that you find most fascinating? So the things that we suspect that we're missing or we can't actually see.

Maggie McDaris 55:07

Yeah, so I'll, I'll approach this kind of from the productivity point. You know, I think. One is that we actually have very little information on just how much these hidden hormonal rhythms. And I'll say, you know, not just, you know, take it out of, of hormone, take it out of these hidden physiological rhythms, shape, workplace performance, shape, creativity, collaboration, impact, burnout, not just for individuals, but for teams and systems. You know, I think I, I use the example of. Our hypothesis versus, you know, what was reality? And apply it to the stigma of cycle sinking at work. So I have a leader say, well, I don't want my colleagues to use this as an excuse. When we look at what happened during COVID and they started measuring productivity for people who are working from home they did not see the decrease that they thought they. C, right? They saw that increased flexibility resulted in increased performance. And I think for me, we need one more data. To your point, we need more baseline data, understanding how people who aren't doing this are being impacted by it. And then two, we need to make sure we have systems in place that measure the efficacy of products. Like phase, you know, or you. Other work supporting products on output, improved productivity, et cetera. So for me, in terms of what's unknown, I could go on forever and ever. I think the unknown unknowns are what systemically do organizations need to do to walk the balance between maintaining employee privacy and giving them the tool they need? I would say. This is a problem I've seen many people try to solve and I don't know if anyone has landed quite on that tightrope yet. And it might be a tightrope that needs, to kind of adapt to, you know, some employees and, and small teams especially. A couple of these pilots are teams of only women. They're gonna come to work and tell you where they are. Georgie and I, we come to work, bless Sam, our CTO. We're like, where are you? Or we'll be in a meeting. I'm late Lule guys, I just need you guys to know this is not an aligned meeting. You are not gonna get my best. Some people work in environments like that and are people like that, and then some people aren't. And so for me, the unknown unknown is how do we create cultural narratives, create cultural tools, create our organizational tools that allow the optimization of things like phase and things like cycle sinking at work. And that is a big question mark, because I don't think anyone has landed on that yet.

Judith Mueller 57:22

You. Your points regarding objections from orgs, for example, when we talk about

Maggie McDaris 57:28

Yeah.

Judith Mueller 57:28

reality. What else are you seeing?

Maggie McDaris 57:32

Yeah. You know, a couple things. One is, is privacy concerns. These are from individual users. I think anything that integrates into a workplace tool, people are worried that data is gonna be used against them. It's, you know, there is a reason that we are a UK based company. That our servers are based in the eu, we are GDPR compliant. We want to make sure that we can reassure any user that is using phase, that their data is. Highly protected is highly private, and what they want to share is completely up to them. So that's, that's a big one, is just fear that because of the existing stigmas that, you know, a tool like phase or acknowledging the differences is going to be used against them. Another one is one I've mentioned quite a bit, which is just the default and I would. Argue the male manager default is, oh, this is gonna be used as an excuse. And that just completely disregards the fact that what this also means is there's certain times of the month where that employee is gonna be the strongest person in the room for something. The example I always like to give is if I came to any manager in the world and said, Hey, I've built a tool, it maps your employee's brain. It tells you what they're good at. When do you want it? They would go, Uhhuh, yes, please. As soon as I say it's based on their cycle, it's hormone driven. We have to talk about periods too. They go, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And so to me, all that highlights is it's not that you don't want this, it's that you are uncomfortable with the context of this thing, with having to talk about things like periods. You know, one of the things we have to do in addition to building tools like phase that make it very easy for women to do this on their own time, on their own desktops, is start to shift that cultural narrative. Empowering organizations, both, you know, male and female employees, to understand this, using anatomical words, making, you know, creating cultures where, you know, women don't have to hide tampons up their sleeve. People are comfortable using the term period. And that unfortunately is a very. Very large tasks, but you know, I, I do see us and the Women's Health Movement in particular, slowly chipping away at that day by day.

Judith Mueller 59:41

So what can male managers do right? Or are already doing right at the

Maggie McDaris 59:48

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Judith Mueller 59:49

support their female colleagues? And then when you go to the org level, what can male executives or executives in general do at the organizational level?

Maggie McDaris 59:59

Yeah, so if it's all right, I'm gonna switch my responses to that because actually what male managers do is a direct reflection of what's happening at the organizational level. So anything from a wellness perspective, you can create the most incredible toolkit in the world. You can give all your employees gym memberships and you know personal dieticians and personal trainers and access to one-on-one custom concierge healthcare. If you as an organization, one, don't have the time off policy. That you need to support that to support them utilizing those tools. If none of your executive team are utilizing that and talking about it openly, if in fact there's punishment or stigma around using some of these resources, no one's going to take advantage of them. So actually at the organizational level, you have to have the culture and the policies to support this behavior adoption or else no one's going to take advantage of any of the resources that you provide for them. So if you want your male managers to be able to talk about periods. You as the CEO or the CTO or whoever it might be, you need to talk about periods because at the end of the day, no one is going to do what they don't see executive leadership doing because that's where culture starts. It starts from the top. And then. From there, if you are sort of walking the talk, then it is just a matter of providing the right resources, providing the right education not only setting the example, but also giving the vocabulary, giving the tools to any of your managers so that they can participate in this culture that you are trying to build. You know I mentioned earlier that example of like, do your employees need, headspace, or do they just need a morning without meetings? I think the other thing that organizations and managers need to do is, you know, I mentioned culture is kind of top up, but it's, it's really both. It's a sandwich. You also need to ask the employees at every level of your organization what their needs are, because the other thing is you could create what you think is an amazing culture. Oh, you can come, you can talk about what you're eating. You can go and take, you know, your lunch for a doctor's appointment. That's great. If actually the women in your company just need better maternity leave, if they need better access to childcare stipends none of that other stuff matters. And so the other kind of key thing that both at the organizational level and managers need to be doing is asking their employees what their problems are and what they need, and ideally doing this in an anonymized way because people just aren't super comfortable telling you face to face what their needs are.

Judith Mueller 1:02:18

Have you seen any? Cultural, not shifts, but divides or otherwise between, say the US and eu for example, we've seen that large tech companies in us have financed egg freezing. In Europe, they haven't done that, for example.

Maggie McDaris 1:02:33

Yeah, it's so interesting because one of the things that I found when I moved to the UK, actually, so American, as you can tell, I'm based in London, was the ease with which people in the UK and Europe talked about menopause. Menopause is still somewhat stigmatized in the US I think, that is because I will say hustle culture. Started in the US and is way more toxic in the us. So a lot of the pushback on some of these conversations is again, that idea that something that fluctuates is a weakness. And so for me, while conversationally the conversation around menopause is way more progressed, menopause care, looking to organizations to take responsibility for menopause care is much more progressive in the UK and Europe. The you know, then say the us the hustle culture elements of the US have permeated pretty aggressively, I think to the uk where a lot of. UK businesses sort of feel they have to match that. And so in terms of while they can have the conversation in terms of implementing some of the change, I think the barriers are kind of the same across the board. You know, from a cultural perspective, I would say the US has. An uphill battle. And that is because even when you look at the fact that the NIH research has the term women removed from any grants from, you know, a, a a, a cultural standpoint, there is a lot of regression happening there in terms of support for women. And I think the impact that women feel is fear of. Leaning into some of those things, if nationally, those things are being deemphasized. So, you know, and there's also just issues of like censorship and that from a business standpoint make operating the US a little bit tricky right now. So it's, I would say that neither is. Perfect. They kind of both have their issues. But I feel optimistic, more optimistic, I would say about the UK and Europe and the conversations they're having. And how quickly, like when you look at, for example, moving towards like four day work weeks. You see, you know, countries specifically in Western Europe kind of leading the conversation on those, those types of cultural conversations. Feed into the optimism that, you know, the conversations we're having around cycle sinking and cognition in the context of work have a place here. Whereas in the US I think it is, you're banging down a door versus sort of pushing one that's already a little bit open.

Judith Mueller 1:05:01

So this is super interesting because its heart phase is a. Consumer product, but meant for the workplace. So I know you

Maggie McDaris 1:05:11

Yes.

Judith Mueller 1:05:11

wanna go through the consumer, but for example, if we had people who were leaders in organizations of whatever size they might be, let's take the examples. So imagine a corporate gives every woman a phase of web budget. What should they spend it on for best impact and what can they get a different level? So for example, we wanna have day zero to day 90, what would the impact be?

Maggie McDaris 1:05:34

Mm-hmm. So, I mean, the low budget, you gimme 50 pounds. I'm gonna tell you phase of course you know, that every employee in their company who is a woman or who is a period having person should have access to phase as a step one, both to sort of solve some of that educational you know, foundation building as well as, you know, help them integrate some of these concepts as a workforce. What I will say is, you know, our plan, and it's how we're dealing with some other partnership types sort of like professional women's group partnerships, co-working partnerships, is that we do, you know, we'll offer, say a bulk discount for your teams and we'll also give a 45 minute onboarding webinar so that in addition to, you know, the tool, you also get a little bit of handholding into, okay, here's what we mean when we say cycle sinking. Kind of a lot of what we talked about at the start of this podcast. Here's what happens to every part of your brain. And those conversations are. Intersects so anyone in your organization can attend them. So you're already kind of planting the seeds of that cultural comfort of having some of these conversations. So of course, I'm gonna say at the low end of your budget, step one, give people access to phase and let us come in and help teach them how to use it. At a medium budget, I actually would say some of these biometric tools, I would say give a stipend, don't give a tool. So, you know, and again, like I said, drink every time. I'm like, let them choose. Let them choose. Rather than. Well, yeah. You know, I mean, well, yeah, sorry.

Judith Mueller 1:07:02

now.

Maggie McDaris 1:07:03

It would be I think there's whole podcast where that's kind of the theme. You're right. Take a sip of water take a sip of your tea. But I think give a wellness technology stipend. So for someone that's gonna be an AA ring for someone, if they're marathon runner, they don't need the same entry level support. As someone who's not right, they're probably pretty health aware. They're probably very physiologically aware. They know exactly what's going on in their body and when, but maybe they want that new Garmin, right? And that to them is an investment in their health and in their humanness outside of being just an employee. So for me, that$250 budget is what sort of technological tool, tool-based support can you give? And then from a high budget standpoint, I would say. This needs to be an organizational initiative. Rather than sort of giving individuals all that money, which. Sounds great. They're not gonna use it well if you, as I mentioned before as an organization, have problems. So bring in a corporate wellness consultant, get someone to come in, bring in in a third party to understand what actually your organization's wellness needs are before you go and send every employee to a lab to get a bunch of blunt drawn that may or may not be relevant to them. So, you know, or even worse, bring in a company to do like blood sticks and finger sticks and blood pressure right next to the person that you work next to every single day. Don't do that. If you don't have the internal resources, invest in a third party service to really deeply understand what the wellness needs of your organization are, and then take the rest of that money to provide resources on site that can then support those needs while also then in those lower budget tiers, providing some of the more day-to-day practical tools to your user or to your employees to be able to apply those things at home as well.

Judith Mueller 1:08:42

And out of these, again, they're different ranges, right? But what is the biggest bang for the back? I'm gonna take phase outside for now, but what do you think has got the biggest RI actually.

Maggie McDaris 1:08:54

It's tough because, are we talking ROI in terms of the wellness of your employees or ROI as you as for you as a business?

Judith Mueller 1:08:59

Both I suppose.

Maggie McDaris 1:09:01

Both. So ROI for the employee, I would say is that medium tier is giving them a tool and giving them the choice that makes them feel that their wellness needs are seen and supported. I would say ROI from an organizational standpoint is the larger budget specifically a simple kind of organizational analysis because any other money you spend the impact of that, the ROI of that is going to be lessened if it is not spent in the correct way. So the most valuable thing you can do is to make sure you understand what the needs are of your organization. And for me, you can't really put a price on that because if you could spend 50 pounds, you could spend 50,000 pounds. And if you do it solving the wrong problem, the impact is a negative one at that point?

Judith Mueller 1:09:51

And what do you think would be the. Lowest friction culture shift companies could adopt right now. So this could be one of your both. This could be something completely different.

Maggie McDaris 1:10:01

No, I think the lowest friction cultural shift companies can adopt is just by finding the appropriate language to talk about things. I think still there's this we'll call it the, the stigma pause. You know a boss is like. Oh, are you, you know, do you, are you feeling, are you, is are, are you on your period? And that hesitancy just causes a level of discomfort that inhibits, you know, creates a barrier to change for any solutions and a barrier to change for any cultural shifts. And so for me, I think a very low friction cultural shift is a linguistics change is starting to talk about these things as they are don't talk about. Women's way, and you'd be surprised the terms that still exist within large corporations in particular because they're multi-generational, right? So you have people running a lot of these organizations who it was incredibly stigmatized to talk about some of these things. So for me, investing in language is massive because if you can openly say. You know your period. If you can openly talk about your luteal phase, if you can, you know, openly talk about PMS symptoms or cramping or, you know, I think that, and I know there's some HR leaders being like, but wait, there's some complications. But I think in general, if we can use the anatomically correct, physiologically correct term for things, it just makes them facts rather than problems. And it has a massive cultural impact.

Judith Mueller 1:11:24

And I think one way to help that, because one thing I've just noticed is you said, you know I'm I have my period. That's the only time when we ever talk about is someone the only,

Maggie McDaris 1:11:33

Mm-hmm.

Judith Mueller 1:11:34

feel like the only time a male manager or someone. Would expect

Maggie McDaris 1:11:38

Yes.

Judith Mueller 1:11:39

might be off a game is when she's off a game. But what they don't see is when she's at the top of a game.

Maggie McDaris 1:11:44

When she's on her game. Yeah, there are, your period is one sixth of your entire cycle. There are four other phases. And yeah, I think, you know, going back to the empowerment language is that even on your period, there are strengths, there are things that that person who is on their period, who is in their menstrual phase, is best suited for compared to someone who is in their ovulation phase and that shift if we could do that. We're unstoppable at that point.

Judith Mueller 1:12:10

Perfect. So speaking of unstoppable with phase, what is life now and better? What is the roadmap? Where are things going?

Maggie McDaris 1:12:19

Yeah. So right now what is available is our core app. So we have our, and I will say it's available only on iOS. Currently we'll talk about that when we talk about where we're going. We have an app available in the iOS app store, and we have integrations into Google Calendar, Google Workspace. We have a browser extension which follows you across any tools you're working at within Chrome and Edge. And there's a couple more. Those are the two biggest ones. And then we also exist within Office 365, specifically within the Outlook function. So that's where we are today In terms of where we're going, there's a couple key projects that we're working on. One. Is Android. So we are working on building phase for Android. It is the highest priority on our pro product roadmap right now. And that is, you know, something we're hoping to be able to launch sooner than later. Couple other things that we're working on. One is a feedback mechanism, and this is gonna be massively important for us as a business. I think it's gonna be massively important for the individual user, and I would also say it's going to be massively important within the broader women's. Space. So what we're doing is we're creating a feedback mechanism where the user can look at our radar and tell us, most likely, by drawing the radar to kind of represent their day, but tell us how accurate we are. So this is the day they are in their cycle, and this is where their perception of their cognitive strengths. And then that will do two things for us. One, on a micro level, we will slowly and steadily with. Our clinical team heavily involved in understanding how we weight all these changes be able to shift that individual's algorithm to become more accurate to them. So I'll give a really good example, and this was one of my biggest learnings actually, and when I launched phase, was something we like to call the obvi post Ovulation cliff. So for me. One of the worst days of my cycle is not the day before I start my period. It's the day after I ovulate. Because you have your estrogen peaking, you get a testosterone spike, your progesterone's a little higher, and those things bottom out the day after you release the egg that day, I feel rubbish. I feel horrible. And for me, the why, going back to that why piece, it was massive. It was immense to go, why in the middle of my month, you know, I, I cycle, think I'm aware. Why do I feel so bad during this day? So that being said. We've talked to some women where they don't really experience that cliff in the same way. And so our algorithm maps that cliff. But we wanna give women the ability to tell us how, their own perceptions of their experience so that we can customize it. Now, we're gonna do that in a way that is appropriately weighted because we understand that things like sleep or what you ate are also gonna affect these things. So on a micro level, we begin to customize the algorithm to the user.'cause right now it's just based on, large scale data. The other thing that that does is it allows us to collect primary data on the perception of how people's brains change across their cycle. That data doesn't exist right now. We have, you know, there's pieces of it, you know but in general, an individual saying, across my cycle, here's how creative I feel, here's how energized I feel. Here's how focused I feel. So if we can do that. And then, you know, take that data and organize it. I think there's a really exciting opportunity for us to really lead this conversation around not just how your, you know, cognition changes based on your cycle, but actually how we approach physiological rhythms and how we apply them to the workplace. So things, again, like I mentioned, looking at like circadian rhythm, if we can prove that it works. With this hormone cycle becomes much more easy or it becomes much easier to replicate and and improve for other biological rhythms. So, you know, that's actually not on our next six to 12 months. That's a much larger product, but the feedback mechanism itself is on our six month dashboard and we are very excited about that.

Judith Mueller 1:15:55

This is a really good point, Ashley, because you mentioned one of your personal idiosyncrasies, for example, what you're experiencing.

Maggie McDaris 1:16:01

Mm-hmm.

Judith Mueller 1:16:03

but for me, for example, these stereotypical is, oh, you have PMS three days before your period starts.

Maggie McDaris 1:16:08

Yeah.

Judith Mueller 1:16:08

that's not the case for me. I get the snackies at days, sort

Maggie McDaris 1:16:13

Mm-hmm.

Judith Mueller 1:16:13

4, 5. Then I've got

Maggie McDaris 1:16:15

Yep.

Judith Mueller 1:16:16

4, 5 days where I'm totally fine and it's completely plain sailing. But like all the PMS symptoms, I actually get early in the month for whatever reason that might be. And it's just, this also links back to what we said earlier about giving grace because for example, for me. I've always beat myself up when you know, I was eating too much when I was hungry. And the things, when you're hungry. There's not much you can do. What you eat is your choice, but whether you're hungry or not

Maggie McDaris 1:16:38

Yeah,

Judith Mueller 1:16:38

choice. And just

Maggie McDaris 1:16:40

exactly.

Judith Mueller 1:16:40

for them, saying, okay, it is that time of the month already. And for me it's just different. It might be for other people. Okay. Fantastic. So actually speaking of. We touched on this earlier, but how can our listeners participation? It could be testing, it could be feedback,

Maggie McDaris 1:16:55

Yep.

Judith Mueller 1:16:56

it could be workplace pilots.

Maggie McDaris 1:16:58

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, first thing is please use the product. I will, you know, go ahead and say on the annual plan you get a 30 day free trial. There are a lot of subscription app advisors who would probably advise us against that, but for us it was really important for our user to get to use the app through an entire cycle before they made a decision on the value of that app for themselves. So step one is go to the app store download phase. You can subscribe for the 30 day free trial. Use it. And then we have tons of ways to provide feedback. You can do it through the app store. We've got emails and ways you can provide feedback. So yeah, we are still, we're in sort of our early soft launch phase right now. For us, the most important thing we can do right now is make sure we are solving the problem we say we're solving and make sure we are, if not. Getting rid of, sincerely limiting the barriers to entry for any user using our product. So that's step one. Obviously go download phase, use it, tell us what you like, what you don't like. But step two, I would definitely say partnership. So, so one of the things we're doing right now is we're working with a lot of professional women's groups. We're working, working with a lot of co-working spaces. We wanna find ways to get phase into large groups of women. Who, you know, outside of just the organizations that they work in. So organizations really that these women are opting into. So industry groups, for example. And we're doing a lot of education and kind of discounts for these groups and providing it as a resource for the leaders of these groups to provide to their members. So if you're involved in any of those organizations, if you're interested in bringing on phase, either myself or we have an incredible panel we've got a clinical team with. Impressive and varied backgrounds who can come speak to the group members either virtually or in person if they're London based. So we're doing a lot of, I would say, kind of. Network building and organic growth initiatives in that way. So if you are interested in that let us know. And then the final thing I'll say is because if my CMO were here, she would be remiss is if you have any context in the press or podcasts or anyone, you know, we, part of our job as the leaders of phase is to lead the conversation around this. And it's why I'm so thankful, Judith, you invited me today. Because not enough people are talking about it. And not only do we want more people talking about it, but we wanna be the ones talking about it. So if you have any context or interest that way let us know. I'm on a bit of a speaking tour this fall.

Judith Mueller 1:19:06

Brilliant. So quick lighting, round one hormone myth you wish you could delete from the internet forever.

Maggie McDaris 1:19:13

I think one hormone myth I would delete from, you know, the internet forever is the bad rap that the luteal phase has gotten. Our luteal phase is 14 days long. And it is characterized within the luteal phase of you know, by a bell curve, basically a progesterone rising and falling, meaning the first three days of your luteal phase and the last three luteal days of your luteal phase are gonna feel very different. And so to paint half of your cycle with a broad brush, and, you know, I, it's, it's easy to mummify, I get it. You know, oh, you know me when I'm in my luteal phase. Me when I'm in. Follicular phase, but the reality is, is actually those hormone fluctuations are every couple days. And so for me, I wish I, you know, I've mentioned, and I think a talk you heard, I am on a campaign justice for the luteal phase because that middle section of your luteal phase, there's an element of focus. There's an element of groundedness. There's an element of intuition that you is very difficult to access other days of the month. And so my, you know, myth that I would like to bust that the luteal phase is the worst phase of your cycle or one of the worst. And that actually I would propose it is one of the best.

Judith Mueller 1:20:15

So one Metric Apple Health should start tracking tomorrow.

Maggie McDaris 1:20:20

I mean, I know I talked earlier that we have no baseline for this hormone data. I actually think cortisol would be a really interesting thing, and I know there's some products that are out there right now, but if Apple Health could integrate with some of these cortisol tracking tools quickly, I think that there is a massive opportunity, I would say for, for Apple because what's interesting about cortisol as a stress hormone is it affects every other area of your body. So that data would be impactful for every mental health. App that you have, every breathing app that you have, every workout app that you have. If your cortisol is spiking and you're about to do a HIIT workout, that's very important information to know. So for me, if Apple could start integrating with some of these cortisol tracking tools, that I think would be a game changer.

Judith Mueller 1:21:03

So two points on that. Number one is we've got a very interesting episode on the cgm. So continues glucose monitoring, which touches precisely on cortisol and the cycle and

Maggie McDaris 1:21:14

Yeah.

Judith Mueller 1:21:14

actually move throughout your cycle. And the second thing

Maggie McDaris 1:21:17

Mm-hmm.

Judith Mueller 1:21:18

called L-E-C-E-L. I Health that

Maggie McDaris 1:21:22

Mm-hmm.

Judith Mueller 1:21:22

developing these kind of tests. Okay, so

Maggie McDaris 1:21:25

Amazing.

Judith Mueller 1:21:26

one phase aware hack you use personally that isn't in the app yet.

Maggie McDaris 1:21:32

Yeah, so I sort of touched on it earlier. I protect my Cliff day and that, you know, again, it's something that is with the app, we really focus on the strengths. But for me personally I use the app to understand when that cliff day is going to be. And I protect it aggressively with my scheduling because that day it, it is so draining for me to do a lot that I'm very specific about the types and kinds of work that I will make available to myself. So I know it's technically sort of phase related but we don't, we don't have like a prompt in phase, for example of like, you're, you're a cliff. But for me, in the way that I apply cycle, sinking to work, the most effective thing I can do, I'm similar to you. My PMSI, I always hate saying this publicly, it's like women who talk about having a really great birth experience or like, oh, my child slept through the night. I'm like, I don't get PMS really now to, I mentioned like my periods postpartum were hemorrhagic, but I never had cramping, I never had any of the sort of psychological symptoms of it. It just sort of, when it came, it was aggressive. And so for me that is the day of the month when I know that anything I do outside of what I'm aligned to do is going to drain me immensely. And so I can make a big impact on my overall health by predicting one single day. And again, I don't sign off of work. I'm just very specific around the types and kinds of work I will engage with on that day.

Judith Mueller 1:22:51

Fantastic. So careful questions. What are the three things that you wish your colleagues and or customers would know that you believe would really move? The needle in your field,

Maggie McDaris 1:23:04

So I can't say justice for the lal phase again, can I?

Judith Mueller 1:23:07

can.

Maggie McDaris 1:23:09

No, I think one is you know, we have to understand that this is a culture problem in addition to a tool problem because I do think we cannot, forego one for the other. And it's why, you know, at phase I mentioned we're working with professional organizations to give talks, et cetera, because we know that our product does not live in isolation. It exists within a culture where there's still a lot of stigma, a lot of fear, and a lack of education around the things we're talking about and solving with phase. And so, you know, step one is you have to solve for both. I also think it's easy when we're in the women's health space to focus on everything that's going wrong. I've been to conference after conference, I've listened to podcast after podcast, and it's a lot of, here's why we don't get funding, here's why organizations won't adopt us. Here's why I, there's a bit of a fatalist mentality or sort of a moral high ground that we like to stick to, which I think actually gets in the way of us understanding why someone is hesitant to adopt something that we're presenting to them. And so, you know, I think the second thing would be. Let's restore some of the optimism if we can. To this space because that optimism helps build connections with the people who you think are getting in your way. Because let me tell you, there's nothing more powerful than converting someone who you used to see as an adversary to a champion. But the only way you can do that is to not. Stiff arm them and disqualify them even from the conversation. So that's, you know, sometimes you have to solve systems from within. So that's step two. And then, number three, I would say, and this is sort of directly linked to the other, which is that I find in this space we talk a lot about what hinders us. There is a scarcity mindset, and I would say, we'll call it an internalized niched mindset. I'm gonna coin that term. And it's that within this space. I still believe these solutions, the women's health area, there is so much opportunity and generally speaking, a rising tide lifts all ships. So, you know, have that conversation with someone you might perceive as a competitor. Have the conversation. You know, with an investor who invested in a similar organization. I think that there's a scarcity mindset that is projected onto. This space, both, you know, in the women's health space in particular, but you know, we've even seen it somewhat in like the productivity space as well. There's a bit of a scarcity mindset, and when you look at actual data, adoption numbers, market size, it's just that that scarcity doesn't exist. It's a fallacy. And so I would say, you know, make sure that you don't ascribe to that and how you choose to operate as someone who is working within this space. Because a rising tide lifts all boats. So maybe that's what the billboard would be.

Judith Mueller 1:25:49

I'll stay. What is the book or books you've given the most as a gift and why? Or alternatively, what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life and why? I.

Maggie McDaris 1:26:02

Yeah. So I think these are my two go-tos and if you've heard me on any other podcasts, you're probably gonna be like, yeah, of course. Those are. So I have two books that have really greatly impacted my life. The first is a book called by Adam Grant called Think Again. And it's all about the science of changing your mind. And I think it's immensely important, especially when you work in a field that is so. Made up of and driven by people who care a lot people who often find satisfaction in being on the moral high ground and being moral ambassadors. And I think the, you know, it, those types of people, sometimes it's hard for us to change our minds. I say us'cause I, I consider myself one of them. And so the book think again, talks about sort of the four archetypes of what happens when we're presented with information that's new or maybe contrary to what we thought we knew and what archetype you fall into. So there's the lawyer, the preacher, the politician, and the scientist. And so, you know, it is something, it's a book I've gifted a lot because it also creates really great context to talk about like inter organizationally, for example, interpersonal team dynamics and why you might push back on certain things and not other things. One of the biggest takeaways for me personally was caring the most doesn't make you right. And I think that is a really important takeaway for all sorts of areas of your life. So that one, and then the other one, this is a very sort of organizational specific one, and that's Radical Candor. And it's basically a book by Kim Scott and she talks about feedback, the importance of two-way feedback loops, and how to give feedback in a way that is kind. Most importantly, that is clear because I think a lot of the give feedback advice we've been given, and I will say especially some of the cultural differences from working in the UK versus the us is that the kindest thing you can do is create that feedback sandwich where you say, here's something good, here's something bad, here's something good. But actually all you're doing then is asking the person who's receiving that sandwich to figure out what the meat is. When the kindest thing you can do is to be very, very clear. About what you need. Again, give, yeah, give you the, it's just to give you the meat on a platter. Right? And so, those two books for me, I think, are sort of guideposts in how I approach life, but also, you know, specifically how I approach phase and how we built it.

Judith Mueller 1:28:04

Fantastic. What purchase of a hundred pounds, dollars, euros, or less has most positively impacted your life in the last, say, two to three years? On recent memory?

Maggie McDaris 1:28:16

This one was easy. And this is why employers, you ask your employees what they want and need. Because if you just handed me a thousand pounds, you know, a quarter, this is exactly how I would spend it. And it would impact my health more positively than anything else I could spend it on. I reinvested in the hobby of horseback riding recently, and I pay for a trainer to ride twice a week and I pay to lease a horse. And that there is nothing in my life that feeds me the way. That horseback riding feeds me. Now. I have a kid, I have a family, I've got a dog there's love and fulfillment in those things, but they are transactional often. And the way that horseback riding is this thing in my life that I do solely for my own pleasure. It's one of the only things that I do solely for my own pleasure, solely for my own enjoyment. The gift that is to me is immense. The gift that is to my mental health, the gift that is to my physical health is immense and it is. 100% the best money I spend on a regular basis.

Judith Mueller 1:29:11

Fantastic. And what is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you've ever made? And that could be an investment in money, time, energy, et cetera.

Maggie McDaris 1:29:21

Okay, I'm gonna say something, and I actually haven't shared this publicly, so I'm a little nervous about this. But when I was postpartum, and these two things are somewhat related, but when I was postpartum, I got a, postpartum OCD diagnosis fairly quickly after giving birth to my daughter. And one of the best things that I ever did was invest in my sleep. Postpartum. So my husband and I actually got a night nurse and we invested in someone else caring for our daughter during the first three months of her life so that I could get quality sleep. And you know, it's something that I'm hoping, maybe talking about it publicly can sort of destigmatize it a little bit, especially in the women's health space where for some reason mothers feel like they have to be martyrs. But you know, for me, having someone. Help me protect my mental health by protecting my sleep during that time Was, I kid you not, and, and anytime someone says, what's the best money you ever spent? I will say it's the night nurse that we had. I won't say her name publicly for privacy, but she and I, we still text and my daughter's, you know, almost four. She was such a key and instrumental part of my postpartum experience. And I cannot think of money that I have ever gotten that level of ROI on in any kind of area of my life.

Judith Mueller 1:30:34

Fantastic. So what is an

Maggie McDaris 1:30:36

Yeah.

Judith Mueller 1:30:37

habit or an absurd thing that you love?

Maggie McDaris 1:30:40

So I don't know if it's that absurd, right? So I have a couple. Things. But one of the things that I, in growing up in the rural, not rural, it was growing up in the southeastern part of the US is I actually grew up hunting. And so I'm very comfortable around certain types of weaponry and still enjoy engaging. With that, I mostly bows there's a lot of cat jokes there. But for me, the reason that was so instrumental in my formation as a human was the and respect that a lot of the people who engage in those type of activities actually have for nature, actually have for caring for our natural world and the relationships between all sorts of things. I think maybe there's an element of that kind of early introduction to biology and nature that sort of fueled my progression into a wellness career. Whereas now it's not something I really participate in regularly. It's more just. You know, occasionally when I go back to the states, I'll sort of work on the skills related to it, but I don't really hunt anymore. But you know, for me that, and understanding the respect and relationship between humans and nature at a very early age, from people who, even though it seems like they take advantage of nature, actually have an immense and deep, deep, deep respect for what they're doing was super instrumental to me and a little bit niche I would say.

Judith Mueller 1:31:53

And it's actually quite regulated, not in the sense of regulator, but in the sense of, you know what populations and at what time of year, et cetera. You're actually allowed to hunt. So I've heard that argument before. I've also heard the respect for nature before, so that's an interesting one.

Maggie McDaris 1:32:07

It's wildlife management. A lot of it is, a lot of it is population management. A lot of it is, you know, helping create healthy ecosystems, but by doing a somewhat hard thing. So yeah, there's probably a metaphor in there somewhere.

Judith Mueller 1:32:21

we'll find it. What are you

Maggie McDaris 1:32:22

Yeah.

Judith Mueller 1:32:23

at the moment? So what is the next exciting breakthrough that you can see coming?

Maggie McDaris 1:32:27

Yeah, so I've already touched on this and it's our feedback mechanism because you know, as I mentioned, we are a values-based company and for us, we don't just want to, passively participate in kind of the women's health and productivity space. We really want to contribute to it. And so this feedback mechanism we're building, you know, we will have tons of data on, you know, engagement and customer satisfaction and things like that, that obviously we can use to at least progress the conversation forward. But for us, being able to collect primary data and contribute to the larger research landscape in this space, especially as it relates to female cognition and what's going on in our brains. Because we have very unique brains. That to me is incredibly exciting. And so, you know, the feedback mechanism we're building is, is a key piece to that.

Judith Mueller 1:33:08

And final one, who would be a perfect sidekick in your work? So this could be someone past or present, real or imagined.

Maggie McDaris 1:33:15

So I'm gonna get a little sentimental here, and I'm gonna say my daughter. And yes, she's only four. So in some ways she'd be a little bit of a liability today. But for me, so much of what we are doing at Phase is driven by creating a better version of the future. For other women, and that includes my daughter. And so I would love to, as soon as possible, in any way possible, include her in this journey with me because she is the huge motivation behind it. And she is, I think, a representative of. Hopefully the version of work-life balance, the version of productivity, a story that has historically been written by men that hopefully we can start to shift and shape. And I don't just want her to benefit from it. I want her to be an active participant in it. And so less to sort of help myself and more to sort of invest in her. And then in the future, I would absolutely choose my kiddo. And at this point it would probably just be building magnet tile models of whatever it is we were working on. But you know.

Judith Mueller 1:34:13

Fantastic. Maggie, thank you so much for coming on.

Maggie McDaris 1:34:16

Of course. Thank you so much for having me.

1:34:24

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