It’s not just to ‘wear and be cute’
For Emmy James and a lot of the other women she played basketball with, it was a big problem, but not one that easy to talk about: the health problems brought about by wearing synthetic compression undergarments under their uniform shorts after hours and hours of practice and competition.
James, a Jacksonville University senior who was a member of the school’s women’s basketball team, believes those undergarments lead to frequent yeast infections, urinary tract infections and often crippling pain.
“You’re wearing something that is not conducive to your body,” she said. “It’s so uncomfortable I’ve had times personally — and I don’t mind speaking about it — where I literally could not walk, it was so uncomfortable.”
She figured there hasto be something better, a different kind of fabric, that could ease those problems. So she took that idea to her entrepreneurship professor at JU, James Simak.
He likes to say that a good entrepreneur is one who spots a good problem, then comes up with a good product to address it.
Simak reckons James has what it takes to be a good entrepreneur, and it’s certainly a good problem she found. Getting the right product, though, is, he says, the hard part.
The first step, they figured, was for her to enter the 2023 Dolphin Pitch on JU’s campus, an annual contest for students, faculty, staff or alumni, who pitch their entrepreneurial ideas for recognition and prize money.
She was shy, scared at first to enter. But Simak persuaded her to do it, telling her she had a good shot at winning.
James ended up winning first prize, even though she was nervous, and even though she could see some squirming in the audience at the topic, which she said is often “taboo.”
“The first time I did the presentation at the university, you could see the discomfort,” she said. “And then when I really dove into it ... “
But after her presentation, women came up from the audience to talk with her. They, alas, knew what she was talking about.
There’s money to be made
James is 22, from Orlando, a senior majoring in marketing in JU’s Davis College of Business & Technology.
She’s 5-foot-8 and played guard and small forward, and was part of a team that won a state championship in high school. She went to the University of Southern Mississippi, where she played on the women’s basketball team, but after serious knee injuries she transferred to Jacksonville University.
Injuries kept her from playing in any JU games; doctors told her she risks serious problems if she puts her knees through any more competition. So her basketball career is over, after years of competing at a high level.
She misses the camaraderie and competition but now has a new challenge.
“I took my competitiveness from the court and I started into entrepreneurship,” she said. “You start off in this world, you start from the bottom. Nobody knows you. No accolades. Nobody cares about a state championship.”
But she has been getting help from those who see something in her — and her potential solution to a real problem.
Since winning the Dolphin Pitch, James has been mentored by JU faculty members who have been guiding her toward making her idea real. She also received an internship at PS27 Ventures, which invests in and works with startups.
The university’s biology department will be working with her on prototypes this spring, she said.
Christine Sapienza, JU’s executive vice president of Partnerships & Developments, is on a business team that James has assembled. And she brings some medical knowledge: Her academic career was largely in health care sciences.
“I was first captivated by her,” Sapienza said. “Behind any good entrepreneur has to be the human factor. Being an athlete it was real to her, being a woman it was real to her.”
For now, Sapienza said, James’ idea is just that — an idea. The university, though, might help make it real.
“It really comes down at this point to the material, we are working with the textile production,” she said, noting that any product would be tested for antimicrobial efficiency and wicking ability. “We’ll be able to as an institution to help her design that.”
To make it a success, James will have to be in it for the long haul, said Simak. After all, by the time you hear about a startup, he said, it’s probably been in business seven or more years.
Simak is confident in her future, whether it’s this product or something else down the road. “She wants to run a company, she wants to be an entrepreneur. She’s well on her way to knowing how to do it,” he said. I think she’s going to be wildly successful.”
He said her shyness has turned into an outgoing confidence, with some of the swagger of a top athlete.
You can see that when she talks about her future: “There’s enough money out there for everybody to make,” she said, “and I’m definitely going to be one of those people to get some of that money.”
‘A feminine hygiene product’
James said of her anxiety over pitching her idea came because the experience was such a contrast to her life on the basketball court. And some was due to what she calls “imposter syndrome,” which came, unbidden to her, from being a Black woman entering a new field of opportunities.
“Sometimes you don’t feel seen,” she said. “When you’re around individuals and you’re trying to talk to them and they’re looking away, it’s like being a little kid in class, trying to jump real high to get somebody to call on you. First it was intimidating but after a while, after encountering really good people, I realized it doesn’t matter. You show up as who you are, and what’s meant for you is meant for you.”
James said some companies are making products they claim will reduce problems for female athletes, but she still believes there will be a better product to come.
“I started thinking: What if we just changed the material? What if we created something natural, that does the same thing — because we have to wear it — and see if it will reduce that?”
It’s going to take time, she knows. She graduates April 27 and plans to stay in Jacksonville to try to shepherd a better product through what she figures will be several years of trial and error.
“It’s not just something for women to wear and be cute. This is a feminine hygiene concept,” James said. “So I’m willing to take the time that it takes to really figure out what it is.”