If you’re looking for ‘a new’ feminine product, Georgia State student Chante Knox has created a solution under her business, DelivHer Femcare.
Knox, founder and CEO of DelivHer, and her competition partner Dia Davis won a total of $105,000 in prizes from Enterprise and Innovation Exchange (EIX) for pitching DelivHer.
The Anu Clean Cup is a patented single-use flexible cup that is worn internally, underneath the cervix that both collects and absorbs menstrual flow. It is also hypoallergenic and non-latex.
Knox got the idea for the Anu Cup when tampons weren’t enough to collect her flow.
“Tampons last me, like, two hours, tops,” Knox said. “That’s a lot of time out of your day when you’re a girl or a woman, and now, you have to plan your entire day around your cycle. A friend of mine turned me on to menstrual cups, but it doesn’t absorb, and it only collects.”
She described sitting in her bathroom and being shocked with how messy it was removing and emptying the menstrual cup.
“I was completely mortified with the removal process,” Knox said. “And I was determined to figure out a way to make it better.”
The patent for the menstrual cup was issued about 100 years ago, according to The New York Times, but it has not been widely embraced because of religious and cultural beliefs and taboos surrounding contact with menstrual blood.
However, now that conversations about periods have become more prominent in society, women are using menstrual cups as an alternative to disposable pads and tampons due to cost efficiency and easier period management.
Knox’s company DelivHer will soon offer the Anu Cup in a personalized subscription box for people to manage their menstrual cycles.
“You come to our site, you take a short period quiz, and then, we custom curate a period box for you,” she said.
Knox was inspired by observing how different other women’s cycles were.
“Every woman’s cycle is unique,” she said. “I grew up in a house with five women, and we all experienced our periods differently. One of my sisters can’t get out of bed for two days, and [another] one of my sisters cramps for four days, and the doctor has to prescribe medication for her. Everyone’s different.”
Knox found when researching other period boxes that they all had one similar problem: limited options for customization.
“I started researching period boxes and found that most of them are one size fits all, or you can customize them, but it’s an additional charge,” she said. “So, our [boxes] are unique because they fit your personal needs.”
Knox used the example of pain medication.
“If you don’t have cramps on your period, we wouldn’t send you any pain medication,” she said.
DelivHer will also have customizable snacks for the box.
“Some women have salty, sour or sweet cravings,” Knox said. “I don’t like chocolate, so if you put chocolate in my box, I probably wouldn’t order it again.”
Her idea for DelivHer was her way to introduce the Anu Cup to the market without having to fight for big companies to sell her product.
“The reason why I thought about a subscription box is because we knew that we would have some difficulty getting into the market because there are legacy players like U by Kotex and Tampax that have been in the market for a long time,” Knox said.
She said that major companies would not realistically want another cup competing against their lucrative products.
Knox has plans in the future to deliver the Anu Cup to consumers through other means.
“We’ll eventually do wholesale and be in retail stores where tampons are found, but we figured the easiest way to enter the market would be directly to the consumer,” she said.
Knox said that her patent for the Anu Cup was rejected at first, but then, she learned that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejects most people’s claims the first time.
The first couple of patent attorneys she interviewed were men. Knox said that they just didn’t understand her idea. Then, she met patent attorney Justin Miller.
“He was able to take the ideas I had at first and put them on paper,” she said. “I described it to him, and when I spoke with Justin, he [understood] what my idea was.”
Miller even shared Knox’s ideas with his wife.
Knox balances student work as a public relations major, DelivHer, her career as a realtor and her job as the assistant producer at “The Streetz Morning Takeover,” a radio show.
She said that it’s hard, but her secret is that she stays organized.
“I’ve got a big wall calendar. I set tasks, goals and milestones and just mark things off,” she said. “Some days, I don’t finish all of them, but I have a direction of where I want to go and what I [want to] do. That does not deter me.”
Knox says students have responded positively to DelivHer.
“A lot of students have asked when they can sign up and when they can get the cup. Most students are very receptive to it,” she said. “Even the guys are like, ‘Wow, I’ll tell my mom and my sister.’”
Knox’s advice for people who want to start a business is to just get started.
“If you’re passionate about something, you’ll do it,” she said.
Knox has plenty of ideas for the future of her business.
“We’ve already filed patents for another version of the cup and a reusable version of the cup,” Knox said. “It’ll be a product line, and I’m thinking of offering other things to go along with it.”
DelivHer will also collaborate with other companies.
“We also have vendors that want to be a part of the box, so on the site, people will be able to shop for their products,” she said.
According to Knox, DelivHer is still in beta testing right now but it will be fully functional by the end of this month.
