Jill Angelo co-founded digital health startup Gennev in 2016 to break taboos around menopause. The company started with personal care products and an online platform with discussion boards and educational resources, and in 2018, developed a so-called menopause assessment to help women understand where they are in the process. About 70,000 women had taken the survey as of August, Angelo says--a valuable data set in a woefully understudied field.

Now, users can also book individual telemedicine appointments with doctors and health coaches who specialize in women’s health, or get a monthly membership for continued access to providers. (While Gennev doesn’t yet accept insurance, patients can pay for appointments with FSA and HSA plans.)

With $5.3 million in funding, the company is looking to expand its services to mental and sexual health, and to use machine learning to help women predict and manage their symptoms. “Our vision is to be the women's health platform for the second half of life,” Angelo says, “starting with menopause.” -- Sophie Downes

JJ Ramberg was annoyed: The serial entrepreneur and former MSNBC host would throw on workout clothes, grab her phone, and have no idea what podcast to choose for her run. Apple’s podcast reviews were useless--she didn’t know whether the reviewers shared her taste--and individual recommendations from friends only got her so far.

Late last year, she took the complaint to her brother--and together, they came up with the idea for Goodpods, a podcast-centric social network that Ramberg defines as a mix between Goodreads and Instagram. The siblings initially planned to launch in late March, until Covid-19 presented an existential crisis: Is it appropriate to launch a company right now? After some soul-searching, Ramberg says, they decided the answer was “yes.”

The app had already been beta tested, so lieu of an in-person launch, Ramberg worked to garner attention by recruiting celebrities as users--leveraging her TV connections to enlist names such as Kim Kardashian West, Simon Sinek, Katie Couric and Malcolm Gladwell. “The most gratifying thing is seeing that it works,” Ramberg says. “When you have an idea for something, you think it’s great--but you never actually know if anyone’s going to use it until you really put it out there.” – Cameron Albert-Deitch

Before becoming an entrepreneur, Jodi Huettner accepted a “no” when she heard one. During nearly four years as a junior field engineer at Keystone Environmental, she chafed, literally, at the ill-fitting safetywear designed for men’s bodies. That clothing also made it nearly impossible to quickly go to the bathroom during a shift in the field. Her options were not good: lost productivity by traveling long distances to a the bathroom, chronic dehydration caused by avoiding liquids for 16-hour shifts, and bladder issues from holding her pee all day.

Huettner spent a year developing coveralls with zippered leg seams for modesty during a quick pee in the field, an adjustable waist, and proportions that fit a woman’s body, all while meeting safety standards. Her company, Helga Wear, is now developing specialized gear for female pilots. Now, when Huettner hears a no, she thinks about how to go “above or around” that person. “Whatever the excuse may be, there’s always someone out there who’s going to turn the story around for you. You’ve just got to find them,” Huetter says. –Gabrielle Bienasz