Meet Claire Coder, the founder of Aunt Flow

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for reading our tenth blog post. We are honored to have Claire Coder, the founder of Aunt Flow, featured on our blog! Claire Coder is a 25-year-old Thiel Fellow, a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, and the founder and CEO of Aunt Flow. As the founder and CEO of Aunt Flow, she is committed to ensuring everyone has access to period products. Through her work, Claire is committed to creating a solution that enables businesses and schools to offer high-quality period products for free in public restrooms in a sustainable manner.

Before Aunt Flow, Claire’s very first business was a button company. She started her button company at the age of 16 and by the time her senior year of high school rolled around, she was a top seller on Etsy. A pattern we’ve noticed for most of the entrepreneurs we’ve interviewed thus far is that the prior experience when they were younger, however minimal it was, is what truly sparked their curiosity and dreams for their own business in the future. While Claire is now in a completely different sector, Claire thanks her button company for truly igniting a flame inside of her and helping her discover her passion for building companies from the ground up. Her entrepreneurial foundation in her small business was what made her push her boundaries to think outside of the box and start her own business.

Before getting into the details on how Aunt Flow was founded, and how Claire was inspired, here is some brief background on period inequity, specifically in the United States.

Katie Krumperman writes in an article titled “Period Poverty in the United States,” that “Around 16.9 million people who menstruate live in poverty in the United States. Among those women, two-thirds said they struggled with affording menstrual products in the last year, and 14% of college girls in a study surveyed said they struggled to afford period products.” Additionally, The Girls Helping Girls Period states how “A person may use nearly 10,000 tampons in a lifetime. Some women have reported giving up their food stamps for money to buy tampons. A 2021 study showed that 14% of college-attending women had experienced period poverty in that year; an additional 10% experienced it every month.” Lastly, Nicole Reeve-Parker writes in an article titled. "Breaking the cycle of period poverty to achieve menstrual equity," “In the U.S.: 16.9 million people who menstruate in the U.S. are living in poverty, and of those, two-thirds struggled to afford menstrual products in the last year. 14.2 % of college-menstruating people in the U.S. had experienced period poverty in the past year.”

Claire founded Aunt Flow at the age of 18. After getting her period in public without the supplies she needed, she thought to herself, “Toilet paper is offered for free, why aren’t tampons and pads?” At that moment, she decided to drop out of college and start Aunt Flow. Claire thought of the millions of menstruating individuals not just in the US, but globally, and how her experience was simply one story out of many, and so, Aunt Flow was born. Substituting outdated coin-operated tampon dispensers, Aunt Flow's patented dispensers enable businesses to provide 100% organic cotton tampons and pads without charge. Their mission is simple, yet fierce, to provide period products to every individual, free of charge.

While building Aunt Flow, Claire faced a lot of pushback from organizations saying that offering free period products is too expensive, or that it’s not necessary. In response, Claire compared menstrual products to toilet paper — both are necessities. Aunt Flow is committed to ensuring EVERYONE has access to period products. Aunt Flow has a donation program in place so that, for every 10 tampons and pads they sell, they donate 1 to a menstruator in need. Claire calls this people helping people. PERIOD.® In 2022 alone, Aunt Flow donated over 1,600,000 period products to individuals in need.

Aunt Flow was the first company to eliminate "feminine hygiene" from all of its packaging back in 2017. Aunt Flow recognizes that not everyone who menstruates identifies as 'feminine.' Menstrual products or period products are more clear inclusive terms that Aunt Flow uses. Additionally, this replacement of terms eliminates the taboo on periods. After all, what does "feminine hygiene" even mean? Claire believes that breaking the stigma around periods is crucial when it comes to normalizing them. She strives to educate people about menstruation and to highlight the importance of ensuring readily accessible products for unexpected periods.

While there is more work to be done when it comes to period education, there has been a growing trend toward increased accessibility of period products. As more and more states are requiring businesses and schools to offer freely accessible period products, Aunt Flow wants to be the ones there to support them. As such, Aunt Flow has gone to the courthouse, testified, and thrown Period Parties to celebrate the passage of such legislation.

You can support Aunt Flow’s mission by getting involved in the menstrual movement. This includes organizing menstrual product drives, leading menstrual education workshops, and urging schools and businesses to do their part in investing in high-quality menstrual products free of cost for everyone. Visit their website www.goauntflow.com to learn more about how you can advocate for Aunt Flow at your school or workplace. Make sure to follow their social media, as well as their YouTube channel.

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