Elliot Moss
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guest today is Farah Kabir, co-founder of HANX, the female focussed, sexual wellness brand. With a career in insurance, then in investment banking at Goldman Sachs, it was a moment of embarrassment that sparked Farah’s change of direction. After coming off hormonal birth control because of the side-effects, Farah was, she says, “mortified” to meet her boss as she was buying condoms. But a question soon followed, “Why should I be embarrassed to take control of any area of my health?” When her childhood friend, Sarah Welsh, a gynaecology doctor, saw a rise in women seeking to treat STIs and irritation from products they were using, Farah and Sarah saw an opportunity, “What if they created a gynae approved product, catering to women’s needs and desires and prioritising female empowerment and shame-free, open sex education?” HANX launched in 2018 and alongside their vegan condoms and lubricants, they’ve since broadened their ambition to address more aspects of a woman’s health journey and launched pregnancy, menopause and libido supplements, and a prescription birth control platform. In your own words, Farah, what is HANX? Hello, it’s lovely for you to have joined us today.
Farah Kabir
Hi, thank you for having me. Yes, so HANX is an intimate and sexual wellness brand, designed with women in mind. Our mission is to connect the milestones of women’s health all the way from your first period to your first time having sex, your first child, menopause and beyond, so really offering that true holistic women’s health perspective.
Elliot Moss
And is this what Farah Kabir when she was growing up thought she’d be doing and talking about?
Farah Kabir
I did not think I was going to be a ‘condompreneur’ at the tender age of three or four.
Elliot Moss
A ‘condompreneur’, you heard it here first, people.
Farah Kabir
I can tell you that. I mean, no, I don’t think it’s er, it was on the agenda. When I was quite small, I thought I wanted to be a dinner lady actually because that looked quite an easy job and you didn’t have to read the big text books that I could see my brothers and sister reading but no, I never really knew what I wanted to go into growing up even as a teenager but I was swayed into moving into a medical career so, being a doctor a dentist, which my dad would have loved and then I had a last minute change and went into business finance, still not quite knowing what I wanted to do.
Elliot Moss
Yeah, I mean, why, and why did you do that? I mean, you know, there’s a sort of a half joke about the Muslim community, the Jewish community and lots of ethnic minorities where you talk about, you need an ology, you need a profession and then you kind of moved from medicine and you ended up studying accounting and finance, that was your degree, what made you go away from science and the idea of health?
Farah Kabir
So I studied sciences at A-level and I was on track to apply for dentistry – my sister’s a dentist – and…
Elliot Moss
You have very fine teeth as well. Is this a family thing? Have you… to be treated? I mean, is that just luck?
Farah Kabir
It’s probably genes, yeah.
Elliot Moss
Genes, okay.
Farah Kabir
Um and it was a last minute switch. I realised that I wasn’t passionate about sciences. You kind of fall into a routine when you’re at school of doing your exams and studying and not really thinking about what you truly want and I felt like there was more to what I could offer, you know I don’t think it, I don’t think I would be suited to sitting in a dentist chair and looking at teeth all day so, it was a very last minute decision and I decided to switch to finance because I studied economics and I was pretty good at that and that came quite naturally to me and I come from a family of entrepreneurs so, it was sort of business runs through and it felt like an easy thing to choose at the time.
Elliot Moss
Was it actually a relief in a way at the time when you switched from sciences because people, you know I have friends, you have friends that are naturally going to become doctors or they’re going to go into you know the R&D world and laboratories and the like. Did you kind of deep down know that that wasn’t going to be for you? Is that why you think you were able to make that switch?
Farah Kabir
I mean, there was an initial panic as to what the hell are my parents going to think and you know my dad wasn’t very impressed that I’d moved over. But yeah, there was a sense of relief but even throughout university I really enjoyed my degree but I still didn’t quite know in which area particularly in finance I would go into, whereas when you go for a vocational career like dentistry or medicine, you are working towards that one position but yeah, there was a sense of relief, yes.
Elliot Moss
I think, I think the importance, and I’ve read this about you, about kind of moving away from this being a shameful subject and if it can be a shameful subject and I suppose in certain communities more than others, people don’t want to talk about sex, they don’t want to talk about either enjoying it or protecting themselves and all that stuff. That’s really been one of your key mantras, as I understand it. Is that because of, to you use the parlance, lived experience? Which I hate using but do you know what I mean? Is that, is that a familial, cultural thing and I don’t mean your direct family but the community itself and what, and the way that sex was not talked about when you were growing up. Is that where that comes from?
Farah Kabir
Yeah, absolutely. I mean with HANX we want to smash the taboos, break barriers and ultimately allow women to take control of their health without shame or embarrassment regardless of their culture, background, you know or religion and certainly coming from a Bangladeshi Muslim background, we certainly didn’t talk about relationships or sex as a family or would, you know the sex education I had was in school and that was pretty terrible at the time and you know, it could do with improving but certainly within I can only speak for my community, within the Bangladeshi and Muslim community, it’s very taboo and you know, it’s frowned upon, people get married and then have sex, you’re not meant to have sex before marriage, a bit like other religions so, if you even so much as talk about pleasure or women’s health in that capacity, it’s frown upon. So, I really want to break down those barriers, it’s not something that can be done overnight but by having you know role models from different cultures that, they’re empowering women to talk control, I hope over time we can break down those barriers.
Elliot Moss
And in terms of your own, just going back to university, I also read somewhere about what your finance understanding has given you, in your own words, “clout” and knowledge, which I found quite interesting so, there’s a sense of empowerment of like, “excuse me, I am an entrepreneur” but this isn’t someone with a fluffy idea, “I really know my way around all that”. Do you think that was important to you as you became an entrepreneur because some people just go straight into the thing, whereas you have a background in Goldman Sachs, you know, you know your way around numbers and balance sheets and raising finance. Just talk to me a little bit about what it felt like to know.
Farah Kabir
Yeah, it was super important for the business and I think what’s really helpful is Sarah and I have very complementary skillsets so, where I come finance, I understand the numbers and you know you could call me an Excel monkey, Sarah is the product expert, she’s a gynaecology doctor, she’s dealt with patients firsthand so I think the marrying of our two experiences worked very well for this business. It definitely added clout when speaking to suppliers or speaking to investors but I will say, I still to this day see a real disparity in female founders getting investment, which is a real shame and especially, you know, maybe slightly naïve of me to think that oh well I’ve got the Goldman Sachs label, tick, I’m a chartered accountant, tick, it should be relatively straight forward for me to get funding. That wasn’t the case at all, it was quite a difficult journey and that’s been evidenced with stats out there that less than a penny of every pound of VC funding actually goes to women and it’s even less for women of colour so, it hasn’t been as helpful as I have hoped when it comes to it.
Elliot Moss
But for your own, and I’ll come to that because we’ve had Debbie Wosskow on the programme a couple of times, she’s just been appointed to a Government taskforce around raising the amount of venture or capital that goes to female founders but that sense for you personally though, just to go into how it made you feel, you’re right about the industry and it’s, it’s horrific, that position, I hope it will change but in terms of your own confidence, do you think if you’d have just come up with the idea and you hadn’t had your background that you would be a very different, it would have a very different you know sense of possibility for you?
Farah Kabir
Yeah, absolutely. I think my background’s definitely equipped me with an understanding in how to build a business, negotiate, speak to various parties that are needed so, I think I don’t know whether we would have been in this position today had I not had the experience being at Goldman Sachs or being an accountant, really understanding the numbers because ultimately, cash is king and you need to know your numbers inside out and your cashflow so, yeah, I think it was super important, especially with a business like ours where we are consumer heavy, it’s very product based. Yeah.
Elliot Moss
I think you kind of knew you were going to do this and not a science degree because I think you secretly, quite early on, you knew you were also going to be an entrepreneur. Is that fair?
Farah Kabir
You know it’s really funny you say that so, you know I’m the youngest of four, my two brothers and my sister and even my mum and dad all have some kind of entrepreneurial flair and they all, my siblings all have their businesses or went into their own businesses very early on, whereas I was always quite happy making mistakes at someone else’s firm and just learning and you know every Christmas we all go round the table and you know, my brothers will say, “Oh, there’s a commercial property for sale” or “there’s this” or “have you thought about this, Farah?” and I’d always be like, “no, I’m fine, I’m quite happy at Goldman” and when we thought of this idea and that question came up again, I said, “well actually, I’ve got this idea” and at first there was huge shock and it was like an episode of East Enders, Christmas Day edition, what has London done to you? What on Earth? But as I started to explain the commercials behind it and the fact that this is not only serving women’s health but it’s a fantastic business that they got on board with it quite quickly so, I know you say that maybe I was destined to do this but I think I had a lot of influence from my parents and my family even though I was trying to put that at bay for a while and you know, not wanting to…
Elliot Moss
It’s like the Mafia, you can only keep out the family for so long. Farah Kabir is not my mafiosa, she’s my Business Shaper today and she’s also the co-founder of HANX. Much more coming up from her in a couple of minutes.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and you can hear this very programme again if you pop Jazz Shapers into your podcast platform of choice. And I’ve just been reminded when Farah was talking to me earlier, of course it’s available on BA High Life, not on selective flights, on pretty much all of them, how about that. My guest today is indeed Farah Kabir, co-founder of HANX, the female-focussed sexual wellness brand. So, you’ve built this thing, it’s been going now six years, you’ve been funded over a couple of million quid, you can buy your products, one can buy your products in well-known high street outlets like Boots and Sainsbury’s I think and Tesco probably.
Farah Kabir
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
All these other places. That’s pretty cool. I mean that must, you know seriously, from a, from a standing start and an idea where your family were going “yeah, what’ happened to you” to this. Just talk to me a little bit about how you’ve managed to grow it because the idea is one thing but actually getting out the starting blocks in this space, and it’s a relatively new space as well. What’s, what has been the fun bit of that and the bit you look back on and are proud of?
Farah Kabir
Yeah, I mean, a real proud moment for me was when I saw our product in the Boots branch, this very same Boots branch that I’d bumped into my boss when I was buying alternative condoms so, that was a real pinch me moment and you know I think I’d be lying if I said it was easy and there was a guide book to entrepreneurship but the reality is, it was pretty difficult. I think launching products in what is a male dominated industry as two women was pretty tough initially. Trying to get retailers to understand that we’re offering something different and were trying to serve, you know, over 50% of the population, women, who have not been addressed today but after a lot of perseverance and not taking no for an answer and probably a bit of stalking on LinkedIn to find the right person, getting into retail, you know Boots was our first big chain and that was really important to us and that really propelled our business, you know, we do have an online presence but ultimately these products impulse purchases so, if someone needs condoms there and then, they’re going to go to a store and no online and that also solidified trust and authority so, when a consumer sees our products in a Boots, a Tesco, a Superdrug, they know that it’s legitimate and it works and it’s backed and I think it’s a really important point you know when we launched the product, we thought it would be very straightforward to get into the hands of women. The reality is, you know, the other choice was a household name for a long time so there was a lot of behaviour change you need to do in order to encourage people to use a more sustainable alternative so, we’ve had a lot of fun with marketing and branding, finding different ways to get in the hands of our consumers, which has included sort of tongue in cheek campaigns. We had 10,000 flowers in Box Garden with a HANX on the stalk of each flower and it was all about having a sustainable shag, if I’m allowed to say that, for promoting the vegan and the sustainability credentials and doing things that the usual players would not do and speaking to women in a way that’s real and relatable, a way that doesn’t gloss over the realities of being a women in the modern day and I think that has had a real appeal for our customers, they feel like they’re heard, they feel like they’re part of the journey and that these products were made for them.
Elliot Moss
Is that your voice and Sarah’s voice or is it the voice that the clever marketing people said, “This is the voice you have to adapt” and adopt, rather?
Farah Kabir
I think it’s mine and Sarah’s voice to be honest. You know, when we thought of the idea, we were the core audience and you know that has now developed and we’re a little bit older and a little bit wiser but yeah, it was pretty much mine and Sarah’s, we did have some great marketing input but the reality is, we were our customer so we knew how to speak to our customers but we have a fantastic internal marketing team who are the queens of content, so all the great posts you see on Instagram, we can’t take responsibility for that, that’s our amazing marketing team.
Elliot Moss
But they’ve, they’re taking their lead from you obviously.
Farah Kabir
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
It strikes me that just thinking about you know the way you described the things in front of you, I think you quite like an obstacle, I think you sort of quite like the problem because you can double down on it and move on, you know smashing the taboo of a, of a Bangladeshi Muslim woman going into this category, coming up against the big guys, smashing it down, getting it seen in Boots, smashing it down, you know keep developing stuff and you’re, you’re bashing left and right. Where’s that, if I’m right, why, why do you like doing that?
Farah Kabir
It’s a very interesting question. I think I don’t like hearing no for an answer, it gives me a bit of a fire in my belly to prove someone wrong. I think I get a lot of the resilience and fight from my mum. You know, my mum came to the UK in the ‘70s, she was one of the first Asian women in the community in York where I’m from, she was the first woman to have a job and where trousers and ride a bike to work, which was frowned upon, you know, she was shamed by the community, a lot of the women in the ‘70s who were Asian didn’t work, their partners went out and worked, and so she faced a lot of backlash and I think her resilience and tenacity, you know to raise us as the children that we are and kind of stand her ground, she’s a bit of a feminist, I think I get a lot of that from her and she, she’s had a really, really tough ride but despite that, you know she’s always out there with a smile on her face and super positive so I think I get a lot of that from her and I think we all do, me and my brothers and my sister.
Elliot Moss
Here’s to your trailblazing mum. You touched on it earlier, the fundraising bit and the stats are very bad when it comes to in every pound, less than a penny, even if it was a penny now and it’s gone up, go to women and then it must be an even smaller subset to women of colour. Have you personally got involved in that, in that movement or are you just going, “I’ve got to raise money for my business and I’m going to make the best case for it”?
Farah Kabir
I’ve done both. So, whilst I’m raising, I actively make a point to, to ask why, you know, if I’m speaking to a VC, who else have they invested in, do they have anyone on their board of directors who are female, you know that’s a great start because I think there’s a lot of, a lot of diversity washing out there, people feel like if they have a person of colour on the front of a prospectus that that therefore makes them diverse so, I certainly over the last eighteen months, I’ve tried to be a bit more vocal about it. If you follow me on LinkedIn, probably get the HANX team into trouble but I am a bit vocal about why people who say that they fund people of colour haven’t and if they haven’t, you know why is that but I think it is scary to do that, to speak up as a founder, especially when you’re fundraising, you have to be very careful and I know speaking to other founders who are in a similar place, they don’t want to, you know, speak about it until they’ve exited their businesses because then there’s no, there’s no risk but any initiatives that are out there I think are fantastic and I want to support but ultimately, you know, as founders that don’t get funded, we don’t need any more mentorship, we don’t need another PDF guide, we need money.
Elliot Moss
Show me the money.
Farah Kabir
Show me the money.
Elliot Moss
And on that front, on that front, have there been individuals who have reached out back to you and gone, “we’re dealing with this, I want to do something and I’m actually going”, you know, “help me find the next businesses I should be investing in”. Have they done that?
Farah Kabir
Yeah, even better than that, people have come, who work in certain VCs and have said, “Can I individually invest in this company as an angel?”, so we’ve been truly humbled and honoured that a number of people in the VC space are on our cap table and they’ve invested in HANX personally and actually, a 100% of our investment has come from angels, high-net-worth individuals and often a lot of them have been customers of HANX, so they’ve come forward and said, “I love your brand, can I invest” and we actually recently opened up an investment round for our customers last year and it had great pick up and was funded within eight days so, it just shows the power of having a product that works, a community that resonates and truly doing something with purpose that can help change people's lives for the better.
Elliot Moss
So now there’s a voice around fundraising, there’s a community of a couple of thousand at least and growing obviously, because that was the initial, the initial group of people you pool together, there’s a burgeoning relationship with your partner, Sarah. All these things, and you sort of touched on it, you said, “I,” you know, “I’ve probably grown up a bit”. That’s a lot of growing up. How would you describe the way you lead now versus the way you led when you first kicked this business off?
Farah Kabir
Honestly? It was a lot of learning on the job when we first started. Unless you’ve built a business before, you really don’t know what you’re doing, like, I was quite lucky in that, you know, I had my siblings and a good network and you know Sarah and I, we had each other but a lot of it was learning on the job for the first time, whether that was you know setting up a supply chain, find a warehouse or even figuring out what type of boxes have to go into Boots’ warehouse, like everything, you know, we’ve done it.
Elliot Moss
Did you sort of think you were playing at it at first, like you’ve got to be kidding, do I know anything about this or were you confident enough to go, “I can crack this”? Do you know what I mean? When you look at something and you’re going “here’s the list of things that Farah has to do” and you’re like “secretly, really?”
Farah Kabir
Well yeah, I do get imposter syndrome sometimes and I sometimes think, “Oh my god, am I doing this? Have they got the right person?” but I worked for Red Bull during my university years and that gave me such, it taught me how to sell ice to Eskimos like…, so you get a bit of a knack and a bit of a feel for it and, and you know, when we first started the company, the was so much to do but there was the two of us, right, so we could both tackle that and there was a lot of learning on the job that we had to do but now we’ve got a bigger team, I think the key thing for me with leadership, is leading with kindness and you wouldn’t often put the word ‘kindness’ in business, you just think that the two don’t go hand in hand.
Elliot Moss
And just give me an example of what that means in real life.
Farah Kabir
Well, I learnt this from my really lovely boss at Goldman, he was incredibly…
Elliot Moss
Which is also a phrase one doesn’t hear very often. Just the “really lovely boss” bit obviously.
Farah Kabir
There are good people.
Elliot Moss
Of course there are, of course there are, I’m kidding.
Farah Kabir
There are good people. My lovely boss, Ian, at the time my mother had kidney failure and she wasn’t very well and I wanted to be back to visit her while she was on dialysis and Ian was fantastic, he gave me such flexibility. So long as I was on top of my work, I was able to be at home if I needed to and not come into the office or take time for appointments with my mother and that level of empathy was huge for me at a time when I needed it the most and it made me respect my team even further, it made me respect my boss who made me feel like I was part of something and that they understood me and it made me want to stay with them, right and do everything I could for the team and I think that’s a perfect example that has been really good for HANX, like we have a carer on the team who has care responsibilities for their care in that we give them that flexibility for, we have a mother and I think leading with kindness and compassion, you’ll get the best out of your employees. I’m not saying everyone can do this, obviously there are certain constraints in certain roles but if you can have that awareness, you’re really going to get the best out of someone that works for you.
Elliot Moss
Simple, hey. And people… we should all be doing it. Final chat coming up with my guest today, Farah Kabir. And we’ve got a classic from Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66, that’s in just a moment.
My Business Shaper, just for a little bit longer, is Farah Kabir and she’s the co-founder of HANX. So there’s a lot that’s happened and you’re doing a lot but I feel like you’re at the beginning of the next phase, which is things are hopefully going to grow a lot and I know they’ve grown significantly revenue-wise and I’m sure profit will be rising nicely as well. How are you going to make it happen? You know if I, and we chatted again in three years’ time, what’s the story going to be?
Farah Kabir
You’re totally right, we’re at a, we’re at a key turning point in the business and I’m super excited by what’s to come. I mean, if we’d have spoken five years ago, we just launched condoms and lubricants in retail. We’ve since developed that proposition, so we offer products at various stages to women’s health and we’ve got prescription birth control so, it’s a really exciting time for us. We launched four new products last year as a super small team, like that’s unheard of so, the focus really for us is getting these different products in the hands of customers now, now that we have products that can serve mothers, aunts, sisters, daughters of various ages so, it’s really exciting, we’re in most of the major retailers in the UK and we’re looking to conquer the US, so that’s the next big chapter for us. We organically had over 10,000 e-mail subscribers from the US without ever really investing in any spend there or advertising so, in the last eighteen months, we became FDA approved for some of our products and we’ve launched online site so, the key focus for us over the next years is really expanding in the US and doing the same model, which is retail and online, building that awareness in retail and converting it in customers online.
Elliot Moss
I’m kind of conflicted because on the one side the zeitgeist says that there’s far more female empowerment and it’s happening…
Farah Kabir
Totally.
Elliot Moss
…and it’s happening everywhere. And on the other side there are some serious obstacles still, I think, for this because it’s a very young category in a way. Are there things that worry you? Are there things that really genuinely worry you about overcoming or is it just, if it comes up, I’ll deal with it? You know, specific things.
Farah Kabir
Yeah, there are, there are real barriers in the space that we’re in from corporates so, one of our biggest marketing channels is through Meta. Meta ban a lot of our adverts because we’re classed as adult content. You know, by the very nature of our products, they put us into a category that is a vice category.
Elliot Moss
But surely you can just go and have a conversation with them and hope they’d understand, right, or is it just an algorithm?
Farah Kabir
If we were the size of a huge corporate, absolutely but we’re a small business and we don’t have a, a rep and so, we’re kind of at the mercy of their algorithms. If they see an ad and they reject it, you know, we then have to go through a appeals process. That’s quite burdensome for a small business like ours. The time it takes to appeal, to then iterate the advert and see what works. That’s just one example of a corporate, you know, when we launched, within 48 hours a huge payment provider pulled the facility for us to get subscription customers because we’re classed as adult. So it’s seen as a real taboo sector and so I think we’ll continuously face those challenges even with banking, we’ve had this issue too and I think there does need to be a change in policies and I don’t think that will happen overnight, I think that all takes time. There’s a reason why they’re there in the first place and I understand.
Elliot Moss
For sure, yeah.
Farah Kabir
So I think we’ll constantly face challenges like that for as long as we are in the category that we’re in which, it shouldn’t be the case, you know, the fact that we’re not able to use the word ‘menopause’ is ridiculous, we’re not allowed to use that in any advert, it goes against policy guidelines. So there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to really empower women and their health.
Elliot Moss
And you personally, beyond those specific issues which are kind of structural and need a bit of intellect and a bit of drive to get through, are you in a good place? Are you ready for that next thing or are you already going “we’re six years in” or is it more like, “no, I’ve just got going, I’m, I’ve got energy, I’m up for the, up for the fight”?
Farah Kabir
I’m raring to go. I’m so excited for this. Every challenge we’ve had, every year has not made me think, “oh god, I’m tired now”, I’m super pumped. Every challenge that we have, it just, it’s almost quite motivating for me, it’s like I want to prove them wrong and do it.
Elliot Moss
Yeah, you liars, I said you like the fact. And what about the family, the brothers and the sister and family and parents and all that? Is there a, is there a real sense of “we’re behind you”?
Farah Kabir
Yeah, I’m so happy that I have a supportive family. They’re amazing with this, especially because it is taboo, you know, I, I’ll drop my mum off at the mosque sometimes and she’s still, she’s still really proud even though I’m quite nervous and I kind of hang back and you know, my brothers and my sister are super supportive. I’m super close to one of my brothers and he is, he’s very entrepreneurial and he can’t sit still so he has like four different things on the go at once so, whenever, whenever I have a challenge or I’m really struggling, he is my motivational man, Issam is my go-to so, without him, I don’t think I’d still have that fire in my belly.
Elliot Moss
Issam, keep going. She’s getting a lot from it. It’s been great talking to you, really great. Good luck with this next phase. Good luck with conquering America. Go and get ‘em and obviously, good luck with growing the business here as well.
Farah Kabir
Thank you.
Elliot Moss
Just before I let you go, what’s your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Farah Kabir
Leon Bridges, Coming Home. I love the artist, I could listen to him for days and he reminds me of the times that I’d spend in New York. I’ve got a lot of friends in New York from time at Goldman so, it just reminds me of there, the days I had just roaming in the summer down the streets, down Broadway.
Elliot Moss
That was Coming Home from Leon Bridges, the song choice of my Business Shaper today, Farah Kabir. She talked about being the customer. “We were our customer” she said and how important is that when you’re launching a new product to have really deep and authentic insight. Leading with kindness and compassion and why that’s so important and a really lovely expression, “the empathy made me feel as if I was valued and I was part of something” and that’s a really important output of being kind. And finally, that sense I got from Farah the whole way through that there was a real fire in her belly every time she heard no, she went up right against it and made sure it was a yes. Great stuff. That’s it from me and Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You’ll find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive, to find out more just search Jazz Shapers in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.