Entrepreneurs Alison Greenberg and Audrey Wu used to log off investor emails with “comfortable vaginas!”
The co-founders of Ruth Health wished to supply telehealth providers for pregnant ladies to speak about incontinence, intercourse and different changes that include giving delivery.
Like most cash-strapped startups, Ruth Health started leveraging social media to promote the corporate. But the content material proved “offensive” to these platforms: Early in 2020, Instagram took down a submit that used the phrase “vagina.” On Pinterest, one in every of Ruth Health’s advertisements exhibiting a breastfeeding lady was flagged for inappropriate content material.
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“It simply doesn’t make any sense,” Wu stated. “Then we tried a distinct set of images and people had been rejected as effectively. And it simply turns into tough. Like, how do you really present a lady feeding her little one?”
Ruth Health isn’t the one startup battling this dilemma. The billion-dollar femtech sector is filled with startups of their infancy. In reality, 40% of funded femtech startups in 2022 are at their seed stage, in accordance with Crunchbase information. Armed with a small advertising and marketing finances, they depend on broadly used social media platforms to develop an viewers and present proof of idea to buyers. Without that entry to broadly used advertising and marketing platforms, attracting funding could be difficult
“It fairly frankly puzzles us, however sadly if we wish to do that on the platform, we have now to abide by the principles they set,” Wu stated.
Trouble getting buyers on board
For a very long time, femtech (learn: female-driven well being applied sciences) have sat on the again burner of enterprise funding from a mostly-male VC pool. Since the time period was coined in 2016, the sector broke the $1 billion mark in enterprise capital raised for the primary time in 2021, per Crunchbase information.
Now it’s dealing with a brand new hurdle: Getting enterprise corporations on board as startups battle with a go-to-market technique.
Emmeline Ventures, which invests in women-centric startups, has a portfolio of startups tackling ovarian most cancers, sexual well being and even a sportswear startup that permits for air flow across the pelvic space.
“We have to speak about it proper upfront as a result of we all know these points are on the market, and (founders) must have a plan round how they’re going to market what they’re constructing, given the place the hurdles are,” stated Naseem Sayani, cofounder and managing director at Emmeline Ventures.
Dipsea, a sexual wellness startup that gives a variety of audio erotica, has a historical past with Meta relationship again to 2018 that includes a rotating forged of Facebook representatives. Weeks would go by when Facebook allowed Dipsea’s content material, the corporate stated; on different weeks, posts would get slashed ceaselessly.
“We consider {that a} pleasure-first product, the product that creates erotica, is a sexual wellness product,” stated Gina Gutierrez, co-founder and chief artistic officer at Dipsea. “And we predict that separating pleasure exterior of wholesome intercourse is definitely actually problematic.”
As Dipsea started pitching its sexual well being platforms to primarily male buyers, the identical questions arose: How can Dipsea be much less beholden to Facebook and Instagram and nonetheless get in entrance of a giant quantity of shoppers? Would or not it’s attainable to scale the platform with out Facebook? Could it survive if it had been unable to promote on Meta?
“I can confidently say that it makes buyers second-guess investing in sexual wellness companies,” Gutierrez stated.
But enterprise corporations gained’t be capable of ignore the femtech trade for much longer. The sector is rising as extra firms in pharma and digital well being construct fertility medication, health-tracking apps and sexual wellness merchandise.
Funding peaked throughout the second quarter of 2021 at $892 million, an $807 million soar from the earlier quarter. That momentum hasn’t stopped regardless of the current financial downturn.
Consequences
The Lowdown, a London-based femtech startup, additionally skilled getting flagged on Meta platforms. The sexual well being platform crowdsources peoples’ experiences with several types of contraception so sufferers can higher perceive uncomfortable side effects and decide the proper contraception technique.
Despite this seemingly noncontroversial goal, the platform has to make use of an @ image when discussing the vaginal ring on social media.
Once the workforce posted “Who’s up for some Sunday intercourse chat?” on an Instagram story to advertise a panel discussing libido, vaginal dryness and uncomfortable experiences with intercourse. Instagram took it down for violating what it known as “grownup sexual solicitation tips.”
“We don’t permit folks to facilitate, encourage or coordinate sexual exercise on Instagram,” the platform stated.
“It’s simply one other barrier for ladies looking for details about this sort of stuff,” stated Matilda Lucy, digital advertising and marketing strategist at The Lowdown.
Social media platforms make use of promoting and content material laws to assist monitor posts because the platform scales. Sexually suggestive content material just isn’t allowed on Meta platforms (within the handful of examples given, a unadorned statue of David is compliant however a lady consuming a banana isn’t).
Tiktok bans advertisements targeted on “intimate” physique components. Instagram doesn’t permit nudity both, even within the type of artwork, however will permit feminine nipples within the context of breastfeeding, health-related content material or as a type of protest.
Navigating the particular guidelines for every platform is tough. Algorithms have hassle digesting the total context of a picture: Is a photograph of feminine nipples a type of artwork? Protest? Health consciousness? Or all three? But it additionally has 1000’s of human eyes scanning the web, witnessing issues too terrifying for Facebook’s platform, and making split-second choices on whether or not or to not permit that.
But these split-second choices can cripple startups that depend on social media to market their early-stage startups.
“(Now) we have now carried out it lengthy sufficient that we have now a way of what’s ‘secure,’ however that requires us to speak round our product in a method that arguably isn’t the perfect expertise for Facebook customers,” Gutierrez stated. “Because if individuals are promoting merchandise to you with out utilizing the reality of what the worth proposition is like, is {that a} greatest case situation?”
Getting artistic
Despite the limitations to social media advertising and marketing, startups have discovered methods round huge platforms.
“It’s a barrier to progress and conversion, nevertheless it’s not a dealbreaker as a result of there’s so some ways to succeed in that finish shopper … it really turns into about, how artistic is that founder being round navigating round these hurdles?” stated Emmeline Ventures’ Sayani
From the startup perspective, Dipsea has invested a bigger share of selling {dollars} in podcast advertisements, capitalizing on the shared audio platform. Meanwhile, The Lowdown has in its armory a robust website positioning technique for natural searches, bringing folks on to its platform.
Ruth Health discovered its residence on Tiktok, garnering 1000’s of views per video on breastfeeding, affected person advocacy and life postpartum. In reality, Tiktok is likely one of the largest site visitors drivers to its website.
“We find yourself having to take these to different locations as a result of, are you able to do an Instagram stay about this?” Wu stated. “I don’t know. We haven’t tried. And fairly frankly, why hassle, proper?”
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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