The duo were asked what the hardest double-standard is they’ve had to overcome, and the answer was unanimous: Children.
“Always children,” Phoebe said. “We’ll have investors ask us all the time, ‘Well, what happens when you two go have babies?’ And I remember one time crying about that. I called my mom and she was like, ‘Get up or get out the game, sis.’ I was like damn.”
Phoebe added she struggled with the assumption that because she was a woman investors thought she was “going to be around for 10 years … you’re going to have kids and then you’re going to fuck off.”
Sophia chimed in that when a venture capitalist asked what was going to happen to Phia in the event the duo had children, she responded with: “What’s going to happen to your venture firm when you have kids?
“He’s like why would that affect anything? And I was like, ‘You answered your own question.'”
The Phia founders met while rooming together at Stanford, saying their relationship was first formed out of rivalry before they realized their competitive spirits could be a force of nature if they worked together.
The duo decided to launch a business, locking themselves in their dorm for a week and dreaming up as many ideas as possible.
One notion was a Bluetooth tampon, though the pair quickly realized they lacked the expertise in the health space to make the product work.
But between Sophia, who had a background in sustainability, and Phoebe, who has worked in women’s advocacy and empowerment, the idea of a more streamlined and targeted consumer experience was formed.
Though Phia launched less than a week ago, the Gen Z founders already have some advice for women in the workplace navigating the question of children and illustrating their value to their employers.
She continued that employees “can’t be doubted” if they had proof of their worth: “You can’t be on your back foot of ‘Oh what’s going to happen when you’re a mother’ if you can show up to your boss and say, ‘This is my win sheet, this is what I’ve created for the company and this is what I deserve.'”
