Female Founders: Joni Hanson Davis of Beli Baby On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Hiring is an integral part of scaling. Our team has learned that as we grow and launch new products, being able to move fast enough internally to support is a big priority. Hiring people to keep pace with demand has been essential to our success.

As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Joni Hanson Davis.

Joni Hanson Davis is the female founder of Kirkland, Washington Femtech company Beli, modernizing reproductive, prenatal, and fertility health based on the latest nutritional science with one small, yet significant act of a daily prenatal vitamin for both men and women. After a long successful career leading Fortune 500 companies and technology startups to IPO, Davis founded Beli in 2018 with a personal mission to address the growing crisis of infertility and modernize the stagnant prenatal vitamin market. With Beli, Joni has taken a deeper look at how nutrition plays a vital role in sperm health, launching the first modern male prenatal in 2019 and their exclusive women’s prenatal in 2021 based on the latest folate and choline research to address both male and female fertility nutrition together.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

After a long successful career leading Fortune 500 companies and technology startups to IPO, I founded Beli in 2018 with a personal mission to address the growing crisis of fertility and modernize the stagnant prenatal vitamin market. The fertility market is a $24B market, and yet prenatal vitamins still haven’t caught up with modern nutritional science. 50% of all issues affecting fertility can be traced to male factor and nutrients plays a major role in successful pregnancy outcomes, yet no one was addressing the male side. The science led Beli to look deeper at how nutrition plays a vital role in sperm health, launching the first modern male prenatal in 2019.

Today, thousands of men across the country are using Beli and the company has built a following of loyal customers including heavy-hitter celebrity customers. The success of the men’s prenatal vitamin led Beli to launch an exclusive women’s prenatal in 2021 based on the latest folate and choline research to address both male and female fertility nutrition together. Beli has grown organically to become a profitable company with a multi-million dollar run rate with a small investment from strategic angel investors in the direct-to-consumer space in less than two years. Prior to Beli, I held executive positions with Microsoft, InfoSpace, and Tableau Software.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

I may have set out to create a line of science-backed prenatal vitamins for women, but something big occurred to our research team along the way. What about men? Would a prenatal vitamin designed to support sperm health make a difference in male fertility or fertility or pregnancy or even the health of the baby?

Instead of focusing entirely on what a woman needs for a healthy conception, pregnancy, delivery, and baby — and instead of assuming, as many people and companies still do, that women should bear the medical and psychological burden of this entire process — we looked at the other half of the equation.

Today, the idea of men’s prenatal vitamins is catching on. More companies are waking up to the fact that there are two sides to the pregnancy equation, and that covering all the bases means ensuring both parents-to-be are getting the nutrients they need for optimal fertility. And that’s a good thing. Women have borne the brunt of infertility issues for far too long. But infertility isn’t inherently a woman’s issue, and mainstreaming this idea of optimizing fertility for both partners is a game-changer.

When it comes to conception and pregnancy, so much is out of our control. Managing nutrition is one of the few ways we can increase our chances, and doing so with a scientifically-aligned prenatal vitamin for both partners shouldn’t be such a novel concept. At Beli, it isn’t. And we’re doing everything we can to make it common knowledge.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

In the early days, we were running shipping out of my basement and my kids were actually packing up customer orders. We tried to sort out the inventory with paper taped to the wall but items got mixed up and wrong orders went out to all the customers. Needless to say, it was not funny to our customers. We realized that we needed to move this to a more experienced team.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Good question. I see it as many people. We are so fortunate to have such an authentic and loyal base of customers at Beli. What has helped us achieve success is the combined power of the Beli community and their journeys to parenthood.

According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

There are many articles today that point toward the obstacles women face in balancing work with family. As a founder and mother to three kids, I see it as encompassing a broader range of factors.

In many scenarios, women are, unconsciously or consciously, expected to take ownership of most aspects of child and family-related responsibilities. At work, women are typically encouraged to make accommodations that lead to taking on part-time work, internally-facing roles, etc. Women face an uphill battle in climbing the ladder and gaining access to opportunities that help pave the path to future ventures.

Women tend to face the added pressure of seeking out mentorship, network connections, and sources of funding for their companies. Today’s venture capital landscape remains male-dominated. Not only is it challenging for female founders to get a foot in the door, but they need to pitch a product or service that may better serve women — often to a room full of the opposite sex.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

From a workplace perspective, the solution is not necessarily female-focused. At Beli, we know it takes two. Having flexible working hours, parental leave, and child care that is offered to both parents are important steps to overcoming the challenges women face in climbing the ladder and embracing bigger opportunities.

Supporting more female founders also comes down to making introductions to investors, and supporting female fund managers. Female-led venture firms allow for funds to reach more female founders.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

It is increasingly important to realize the value that diversity in perspectives brings to the startup sphere and within company leadership in general. Women represent half of the world’s population. There is a massive opportunity for female founders to bring products and services to market that address women’s needs. Women’s healthcare is one example. In company leadership, women bring a different perspective that helps to maximize ROI, minimize loss, and identify where existing products and services can be developed to have a greater social impact.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

In line with discussing parenting and female founders, dispelling the myth of what a founder looks like. A founder doesn’t need to be a certain gender or age or come from a certain walk of life and educational path. A founder can be a parent preparing the kids for school one minute and then sitting down to collaborate with their team the next.

Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?

As a mom, founder, and CEO, I feel pulled in so many different directions during the day and I wear so many different hats. Multi-tasking is a critical skill, as any founder can attest. Numerous emails, tasks, and issues need attention at once.

Additionally, no one can explicitly tell you when to backtrack, move forward, or course correct. A successful founder is someone comfortable with prioritizing tasks, taking accountability for their work and team, and making difficult decisions on which path to take. At the end of the day, they need to be confident in making quick decisions that best benefit their customers.

Successful founders have the tenacity to face the unknown to carry out their vision, despite all odds. This routine uncertainty is not for everyone. Those who prefer a clear path forward and daily structure tend to thrive better as an employee rather than as someone striking it out on their own.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

Hiring is an integral part of scaling. Our team has learned that as we grow and launch new products, being able to move fast enough internally to support is a big priority. Hiring people to keep pace with demand has been essential to our success.

Marketing is all about strategic experimentation. I am a big proponent of testing new marketing channels or different strategies and some work well and some flop. It’s having the appetite to try new things while also managing the bottom line.

Authenticity pays off. I chose to launch and grow Beli authentically. I took more of a grassroots approach to growing Beli — we didn’t start with splashy paid articles, we grew the business authentically and I truly believe that is what has powered our success to date. It may have been a bit of a slower path, but I was able to scale to $1m+ profitably just starting with 150k in under two years.

Operate lean. I operate as a very financially sound company, so we aren’t willing to burn through cash to artificially inflate the top line with major impacts to the bottom line, it’s not financially sustainable in the long term.

Embrace flexibility. While there is some predictability in my day as a founder, such as school times and daily meetings, it is incredibly important to be flexible throughout the day and not stress about staying on a strict schedule.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

At Beli, we are a prenatal company that makes science-aligned vitamins for men and women in an effort to help empower them with the greatest chance of conception, pregnancy, and a healthy baby. And part of our mission is working to erase the personal stigma of fertility issues and pregnancy loss.

The one thing that keeps me up at night is this: How do I get Beli in the hands of every person who is thinking about, pregnant, or just had a baby? I truly believe that everyone would benefit from Beli’s prenatal vitamins for men and women.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Fertility and reproductive health is a $23 billion industry and growing at warp speeds but men are often overlooked in the pregnancy equation, despite the fact that sperm health is 50% of the equation and plays a dramatic role in not only creating but sustaining a successful pregnancy.

Despite the importance of the male side of the equation, the vast majority of products in the market have been focused on women. It is surprising that in 2022, women still bear the physical and psychological burden of getting and staying pregnant when science is telling us men’s sperm health is just as important as egg health.

We need to elevate that message because science tells us this is a big part of the equation that is not being addressed.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Arianna Huffington

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.