Lauren Duggan
CO-FOUNDER, RILEY
Alate-night conversation between three West Cork friends sparked an idea which has led to a successful, sustainable start-up I started my career in Microsoft in
Dublin before moving to London to join a tech start-up.
I worked there for the past seven years but moved home to set up Riley earlier this year. Áine also has commercial experience in both start-ups and large corporates, with her most recent position of management in Salesforce in Dublin. And this is not Fiona’s first venture – prior to Covid, Fiona founded a sustainable outdoor lifestyle brand called SunDrift which she sold earlier this year to focus full-time on Riley.
We want to educate women about this plastic problem
The idea for Riley stemmed from personal frustration – from not having period products when we needed them. We were catching up over a glass of wine one evening at Áine’s place when an unexpected period arrived. Typically, even though this happens monthly, there wasn’t a tampon in sight. This fuelled a conversation around managing periods. We started to look for a solution and it led us down a shocking discovery path – how much plastic waste are in our period products. We knew we couldn’t be the only ones who wanted eco-friendly tampons and pads, and so Riley was born.
It is always a daunting leap to leave the security of a stable career but we were all so passionate about Riley.
We have very different skill sets which complement each other, and having a founding team of three is invaluable. It’s nice to have a team to rely on, to share the low points and celebrate the high points.
We launched this business remotely due to Covid. Fiona was in Dublin, Áine was in Schull and I was in London – there were a lot of Zoom calls and late nights! I think the most challenging thing about setting up any business though is actually starting; ripping off the Band-Aid and committing. You can’t actually test anything out and find out what is and isn’t working until you’ve started. We still work remotely now but aim to meet every few weeks for team sessions to work together.
There are so many women that want to make the switch to eco-friendly period products but aren’t willing to use menstrual cups or reusable underwear.
We wanted to develop an alternative: sustainable tampons and pads that are delivered through your letterbox when you need them. Riley’s products are made from 100% organic certified cotton meaning the cotton is grown using methods and materials that have low impact on the environment. There are also no harmful toxins or chemicals used. Finally, our wrappers on the tampons and pads are uniquely made from wood pulp and are biodegradable. So you can pop your tampon, pad and wrapper into the compost bin after use and it will break down in 12 months – as opposed to mainstream products that contain plastic that can take up to 500 years to break down and are the biggest culprits of waste on beaches.
The average woman uses 11,000 tampons in her lifetime. This is the equivalent of 5,500 plastic bags. Similarly, an average sanitary product can contain up to 90% plastic content – this means that it can take 500-1,000 years to break down. We want to educate women about this plastic problem and offer them new solutions that are better for the planet and better for their bodies.
The most important lesson we’ve learnt since we have been in business together is communication and trust. As a team of three, we have the huge advantage of being able to divide and conquer on tasks which has allowed us to scale Riley faster than we anticipated. We now need to keep up the momentum into next year, while building out the team to break into new markets!
We have started working with corporates and universities such as Vodafone, Paddy Power and Munster Technological University to provide free sanitary products to their staff and students.
Securing these large contracts was a huge vote of confidence for our business at this early stage, working to promote gender equality and sustainability initiatives in these organisations. We have also just secured €400k funding which will be a game-changer for us
As a new business, we’re very keen to listen to our customers’ feedback and figure out how else we can make women’s health and lives easier to manage.
We have lots of big ideas and just need to figure out the right direction to take. We also want to continue the fight against period poverty, both at home and abroad, as it is such an important element of why we created Riley – to do business for good.