Meet Nancy Saddington and Elisabeth Dewey co-founders of Mondays
Mondays was co-founded by us, Nancy Saddington (N) and Elisabeth Dewey (E) in 2018 and launched a year later.
N: There are two of us. Myself and Elisabeth, who is an astute and driven ex-banker with a new-found passion for technology and periods! Like me, she is a mother of three and juggles Mondays with family life.
For a woman who faints at the sight of blood a period product brand might be the last business her family would have imagined her launching - but Elisabeth is as passionate about periods and period education as she is about her other great loves - skiing, coffee and socialising. Elisabeth is definitely the professional networker and extrovert of Mondays!
E: Nancy my co-founder and the CEO of Mondays is the ‘brand protector’. She is incredibly hard working and has an eye for detail that is invaluable. I am inspired by her vision and ambition, she is a go getter and I enjoy the challenge of working with her, there is nothing she doesn’t seem to get to grips with.
What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal?
N: Believe it or not, the inspiration for me was the shaving subscription service my husband had signed up to! I had found out about plastic in period products from my midwife when I had my first child, but had difficulty finding plastic free period products. It meant I would often find myself having to buy traditional products that were full of plastic. But if I had them by subscription……
So, seeing my husband’s shaving products being replenished and arriving conveniently in the post every 6-8 weeks made me realise I, and many other women, needed a plastic-free period subscription service. And at that moment, Mondays was born!
E: When Nancy told me that the period products I’d been using for so many years were not only packaged in plastic, but also made with plastic, it really shocked me. The second shock was how difficult it was to find natural alternatives. When Nancy came to me about the idea to create a range of period products that would be made from organic cotton and contain no plastic, delivered in the post by subscription, I was hooked! I knew that I didn’t want to use traditional products any more, but my real motivation then and continues to be, is that I really do not want my daughters to grow up thinking their bodies and periods are worth so little.
N: The end goal for both of us is to see Mondays become the go to brand for high quality plastic free products. Making change possible with our customers but also through our membership with 1% For the Planet where we donate 1% of our turnover, regardless of whether we make a profit or not, to environmental causes.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?
N: It isn’t always perfect! For any start-up, after a few weeks, months or even years after, launching there will be things you review and revise. As customers use products and feedback changes will need to be made. The biggest lesson would be to make sure you get honest people to give honest feedback FAST!
The quicker you react to feedback and improve things where necessary, the better your brand becomes. It’s all a positively reinforcing cycle.
With all the success stories around entrepreneurship and how innovative people have to be to take the leap. How do you think you’ve innovated your sector and why?
N: We have gone a step further than simply offering women a healthier, natural and environmentally friendly product, we have rethought periods. Our Bespoke Box is the ultimate in period care. The whole essence of Mondays is that we have created and designed a customisable box that is delivered to the home, or office, on a rolling basis. A woman can choose her personal combination of 25 period products (that’s 23,000 different combinations), that works for her. Every menstrual cycle is different. We all have different bodies so this gives subscribers the opportunity to choose how often they want products delivered from every 21 to 90 days. This allows and encourages a woman to value her body positively, not only because she uses high quality period products that are better for her (and the planet) but also because she can monitor her period and learn about her body.
Sadly, we often hear from gynaecologists that women don’t listen to their bodies and find out about long-term indications of a health issue that were ignored or not discovered soon enough, that could have been more easily treated if investigated earlier. The more we listen to our body the more we get to know ourselves.
What are your thoughts on failure?
N: I hate it. But I’m learning it’s an essential ingredient for success.
E: Successful entrepreneurs have many more failures behind them than successes, it is inevitable. Owning up to them, facing them and learning from them, while it’s hard, is the key.
If you could be in a room with 4 entrepreneurs, who would they be and why?
N: Tim Warrillow, co-founder of Fever-Tree, because he took on a global giant with an incumbent that was so dominant people would use the brand name Schweppes instead of saying tonic water. Taking market share from a global player such as Coca Cola is what we at Mondays are trying to with leading brands in our sector. To get advice from Tim on marketing and what it takes to change such a habitual purchase would be awesome.
My next one would be Yves Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia. For decades Yves has been making the ‘right decisions for the planet and employees, even when that meant taking business decisions that on the face of it could make the business less profitable. The success of Patagonia shows that when a company makes the right decisions for the right reasons, the customers are loyal and the business will benefit.
At Mondays, we are committed to the planet and we firmly believe that business can be a force for good. We have been a member of 1% for the Planet from day one. This is not traditionally a business decision that Venture Capitalist firms, or investors, support but it was something that was important to us. It was the right decision for Mondays and our mission.
I’d also love to have the Danish entrepreneur, Mette Lykke from Too Good to Go in the room. This brand is Mette Lykke’s second successful start-up and she is a real inspiration. She is using technology to address the problem of food waste, encouraging both food producers and consumers to benefit. To understand how she achieved such a change in the consumer perception of food waste and give it a monetary value would be exciting. At Mondays, we believe that technology can address the lack of healthy and natural alternatives in the period product market, by giving women a very simple and time saving way to choose what products they buy. We believe this will encourage more investment into finding alternatives and make plastic free periods the norm.
Lastly, we’d have Tania Boler from Elvie. What a brand! The range of products are simply fantastic and apply technological advances to a very neglected area of female health. Elvie’s products address very real situations and significantly improve and simplify the task at hand. I believe, as Tania Boler does, that it is a very exciting time for Femtech because there is a growing momentum of interest, money and talent,
There is still a great deal to be done and we want to be part of the story.
What plans do you have for Mondays over the next two years?
N: Simple. We want to make the name Mondays synonymous with plastic-free periods.
What’s the single most important decision that you made, that contributed to your business?
N: Asking Elisabeth to join me on this journey, Mondays would not be Mondays without her.
E: We decided to be environmentally friendly and we truly are. We’re the only period subscription brand to be 100% plastic free. From the box that our products arrive in to the sticky strip on the back of our menstrual pads. Everything is free of plastic.
When you put the issue of period waste into context, it’s pretty shocking. Women use an estimated 11,000 disposable period products over the 450 periods they each have in their lifetime. And this is just one woman - so it’s unsurprising to hear that tampons, pads and panty liners amount to more than 200,000 tonnes of waste per year in the UK. I think we can all agree that plastic does not belong in period products.
How did you conquer those moments of doubt that so often affect entrepreneurs or stop many with great ideas – what pushes you through?
N: My husband advised me from the outset - take one step at a time. I am very fortunate to have such a fantastically supportive family behind me. Whenever I feel like I am at an impasse I take time off the problem, go for a run, spend time with the children or go out socialising with friends and with that space comes the ability to break the problem down. I then think about three steps that are needed to move the business in the right direction. It’s easy to take little steps and obviously I’m super lucky in that I love what I do.
What’s the most important question entrepreneurs should be asking themselves?
N: In an industry like ours where little has changed in a long time, people should be asking ‘why is it that little or nothing has changed?’ Understanding why people repeatedly buy a product will ultimately highlight what needs to be done to drive people to switch their loyalty to your solution.
What do you think gives a brand longevity?
N: A great product and an even better customer service and a brand that keeps true to itself and stakeholders. That’s why people will come back again and again.
