Alice Williams is a force of nature. After suffering from crippling period pain for her entire adult life, she decided that women deserved better, more effective pain relief options. Her company, Ovira, builds wearable devices that stop period pain. Two years in, Alice has built a powerhouse B2C tech company servicing thousands of women worldwide.

It took Ovira 100 days to sell to their first thousand customers, and 100 days to sell to their first 10,000 customers. In this episode, Alice talks candidly about what it's like to build a multi-million dollar business and shares what new founders can learn from her journey.

Time Stamps

• 2:02 - Introduction to Alice Williams and Ovira
• 2:38- Why has women's pain been overlooked?
• 3:18- How Alice’s own personal fix was able to be launched into a product
• 4:20- What’s the science behind Ovira?
• 5:13- How Alice views product leadership and excellence.
• 6:59- Why founders need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable
• 8:22- Alice’s work experience prior to Ovira
• 10:22- Selling thoroughbread horses - a surprising way to learn the ropes of business
• 11:39- Alice's experience during startmate
• 13:15- James Tynan on his experience working with Alice
• 15:10- How Alice prioritises her customers
• 16:08- The Pareto principle
• 19:23- How to make really good mistakes (how Alice lost $3m of product)
• 21:40- Assessing investors
• 23:39 The future of Ovira!

Alice Williams Bio:

Ovira founder Alice Williams struggled with endometriosis, a painful disorder that impacts so many women around Australia. Tired of feeling debilitated she was inspired to find a solution to a problem experienced by women worldwide. After researching pain remedies to help with her own endometriosis, she came across electrotherapy. She began her startup journey at the Startmate accelerator program backed by venture capital firm, Blackbird.

Podcast Notes:

Ovira is a TENS machine - that’s Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation if you want to get fancy. Ovira works by applying a small electrical current through two compression pads that are placed over nerve roots that supply the sensory fibres to the uterus. Once in place and turned on, the current prevents the pain signals from travelling to the brain, and causes the muscles in the uterine area to relax, resulting in a calming analgesic effect.

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