Hot Smart Rich with Maggie Sellers Reum - The Fertility Crisis No One Talks About: 50% of Infertility Cases Are Caused By Men PLUS The Myths around Fertility, Miscarriage & Gender Roles That Lead Sam Diamond To Build Bird&Be

Episode Date: October 12, 2025

Sam Diamond, co-founder of Bird&Be, is on a mission to revolutionize reproductive health. From her own experience with pregnancy loss to raising millions from investors like Brian Lee (Honest Company), Sam shares the raw truth about fertility stigma, miscarriage, IVF, and why men play a much bigger role in infertility than most people realize. This is the fertility conversation you wish you’d had sooner -  honest, practical, and backed by science. We cover: Why male infertility is the leading cause of IVF in Canada How to test fertility at home (for both men & women) before spending years trying The hidden fertility red flags in your 20s and 30s Why stress, sleep, and lifestyle can impact sperm & egg quality overnight The truth about PCOS, perimenopause, and diminished ovarian reserve Fertility stigma today vs. mental health stigma a decade ago What doctors don’t tell you about timelines and proactive testing The story behind building Bird&Be as “the Honest Company of fertility” How Sam raised $1.8M in 4 weeks and brought doctors on as investors Why fertility care should be proactive, not reactive This important conversation is about empowerment, science, and taking control of your reproductive future rather than fear. HSR Angels get 15% off their first Bird&Be order with code HSR ⸻ This episode is sponsored by: - Recharge - get 90 days free - Subscriptions aren’t just about repeat orders - they’re about building real relationships. And that’s where Recharge comes in. They’re the subscription platform behind the brands you know and love - think Chamberlain Coffee, quip, Blueland, Bird & Be - and over 100 million subscribers worldwide. Recharge takes the headache out of retention with seamless subscription experiences, powerful analytics, and tools that help brands go beyond the moment to keep customers coming back. ⸻ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ If you like what you hear, rate, review, and subscribe to Hot Smart Rich, the podcast supporting women who own their worth — in business, wealth, and life. Subscribe on YouTube ⸻ 💌 Own your worth — and build the life you want. Subscribe to the Hot Smart Rich newsletter, the no-BS guide to startup life, consumer brands, and becoming your hottest, smartest, richest self, written by Maggie Sellers. Join 250,000+ women building wealth, confidence, and community on their own terms. Subscribe here ⸻ Become an HSR Angel in the ⁠Global HSR WhatsApp channel⁠! ⸻ Follow Maggie: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tiktok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Locker⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscriptions aren't just about repeat orders. They're about building real relationships. And that's where Recharge comes in. They're the subscription platform behind the brands you know and love. Think Chamberlain Coffee, Quip, Blue Land, Bird & B, and over 100 million subscribers worldwide. What we love, recharge takes the headache out of retention with seamless subscription experiences,

powerful analytics, and tools that help brands go beyond the moment to keep customers coming back. This is why we partner with recharge and why they're giving the HSR community 90 days free, helping brands test, learn, and grow their subscription business with zero risk. To claim this incredible offer of 90 days free,

click the link in the show notes. In case you missed it, you're allowed to be hot, smart, and rich. So let's get into it. Samantha Diamond. Are you ready to get hot, smart rich? Aren't we all? What a great response.

Okay, so this is a really, really, really exciting podcast because I actually think you're the second founder I've had on that I've invested in. And you are the latest investment out of HsR Ventures. You're also a Toronto girlie. Your last name is Diamond. And we're going to have like so much fun today talking all about pregnancy, fertility, building a company, everything. So I wanted to ask you a little pregnancy myth that I've heard. And I don't know if you're going to know the answer, but I am dead set on this being true. So please don't crush my dreams.

Okay. So I heard that you can actually kind of manipulate the sex of your baby based on when you have sex in your ovulation cycle because boy sperm swims really fast but dies faster. And then girl sperm doesn't die as quickly, but goes a lot further. Is that true? We don't know if it's true. But this myth is not based on total fiction. Okay. And I have boy, boy, girl. And you depicted that. And based on me having the girl and when conception happened, the myth could be true. So for anyone that's listening, because I don't fully understand when you're supposed to have intercourse to have the boy or the girl. Like, do you know when that timing cycle happens? Well, fun fact and huge misconception. And I think we all, like, we forget what sex ed was like because it happened in Canada back in like,

I don't know, grade 10. Yeah. In the U.S., there is about 17 states that are still teaching abstinence-only sex ed. No, there isn't. So a lot of people just don't have the background in terms of, like, what is happening in their bodies, when to have sex, what that means. Yeah. And so there's this white space. So we're filling the white space.

Ovulation is after the peak on your ovulation test. So a lot of people take these tests and they think that means I'm obvious. Okay. And ovulation actually happens after. So if you're trying, if you're trying to have a certain sex and not to say that it is like is or is not going to happen. But you should actually have sex at that peak for your best chances of conception. Okay. And then maybe you're going to want like a day or two before that. To have the boy or the girl. To have the girl. If it is true, if it is true. Okay. That they swim a little bit slower. Okay. Yeah. So you did not. go to medical school. I did not. How did you learn all of this stuff? Oh, it's like by process of

absorbing and absorbing and absorbing this information through building a company that this is what I do day in and day out all day, every day. And we spend a lot of time educating whenever I bring on a new employee, I do like a reproductive health boot camp with them. They also have time with our doctors on our team. But then they spend like a day with me and we go through the basics. Like, menstrual cycle, what, like, what happens when egg and sperm weight? Because most people just don't actually know. I have to admit, like, I know nothing about this at all. Like, I actually, for the first time, I think it was like two years ago, I noticed that like during my time of the month, when I was augulating, I was getting a lot of discharge. And I was like, oh, I just like,

don't know why sometimes, like my whole life since I've had a period. I'm like, why do sometimes I have discharge and sometimes I don't? And I had no idea was because that means that you're Yeah. Why do you feel like women specifically are not being taught what we need to know about our bodies from like such a young age? I think part of it is we've been in this cycle of like very reactive medicine. Yeah. And so we go to the doctor when something's wrong. And fertility and reproductive health specifically seems to have just kind of been an afterthought. Yeah. And I think when people are struggling, that's when they go and seek help. And we're not really talking about. And we're not really talking about. anything related to like what's happening in our bodies and how to get pregnant any earlier on. And so I think that's part of the reason it's just been reactive. I think there's like honestly there's a shortage of doctors and they can only do so much. And from a public health perspective, I mean, we've got that grade 10 health class.

And then we got not a lot else and it's kind of been up to the media. Social media, I feel like too now. Social media brands, companies to kind of fill that white space. And we want to make sure it's being filled with science. Yeah. Are you comfortable talking about sex in like your own sex life? I am. And we talk about it a lot with our kids.

And how old are your kids? My kids are 11, 9, and 6. Yeah. And they ask questions and we give them straight up answers. They are asking questions because they're hearing stuff at school or they're like interested in their body and they're experiencing. experiencing, like, feelings for the first time? I think it's a combination.

And then also because we are, we call it like our family fertility household. Like, we both work in the fertility space. Our kids have been exposed to what that means from a very early age. They understand what happens in a lab. They once, actually, one of my kids recently asked, like, do all babies cost money to have? And I was like, well, it depends what you mean by that. Because they're not thinking about IVF? They're thinking about IVF because it was the younger one.

They didn't really understand sex. And so they thought that all babies were made in the lab. Oh, my gosh. So with you and your husband and your kids, is there like moments where you're having like, we're sitting down and we're having like sex education or it's like an open format and you're like, feel free to ask anything? It's an open format. There's no formal education, although I have suggested a PowerPoint.

And then how did you land into building a at home fertility company? great question um the reason i ask that is because so many people listening to this like i've had a million lives and like a cat i've done everything from like entertainment building brands venture capital like working in startups working at like the biggest tech company sales force and i've found it so easy to seamlessly translate skill sets from like one to another but a lot of people feel like they get stuck when they do one thing so for someone that's worked at like the biggest color cosmetics companies in the world starting a PR company selling that now starting another company like how have you so effortlessly gone from one thing to the next? It's a great question. I think honestly

the getting stuck in your career is something that our parents' generation struggled with. We're like, you're a teacher and you're a teacher for your entire career. I think our generation is that transferable skill set. So if you can solve a problem in one company, you can solve a problem in another company. And like what I'm best in the world at is actually solving problems. So give me any problem. Doesn't matter if I know anything about it. quantum computing. I don't know anything about quantum computing, but if you have a problem with your quantum computing company, like I can probably solve it. Yeah. So I went from this career in cosmetics, opened a PR agency that focused on PR and marketing in the cosmetics industry. Because you just saw a

problem that no one was solving. I think when I, this was, I mean, I'm dating myself, but we're going back like, hmm, a solid 15 or so years now. Yeah. When I first launched our agency, we were in Canada. There weren't any bilingual PR agencies at all. We have a French market in Canada. So that was, that was a big piece. There weren't any really like small boutiquey style agencies kind of tackling the organic PR the way that we wanted to do it. And we came from brand. Like I came from in-house brand PR at Mac Cosmetics. Okay. And then you started your agency. You sold it. And then you just decided during the pandemic, like I am going to launch an at-home fertility company. I actually sold the PR agency because of this company.

So this company had been in the work since really like 2016 was the initial idea. Okay. And was it from like a personal problem? It was part personal problem for sure. Like I had gone through pregnancy loss when I was trying to build my family. And it absolutely devastated me in a way that I didn't expect. And I think that I knew the stats, but I didn't understand. the feelings and implications.

And as a result of that experience, I kind of dove into integrative medicine with the help of naturopathic fertility doctors. And I learned so much. Like I learned, you know, things that I had just never even dreamed of when like kind of researching fertility and all the things that you can be doing. And I was like, again, why are we not being proactive? Like there's so many things I could have done. And why are we not being proactive?

Yeah. just felt really, really passionate about the fact that, like, other people needed to know this. Yeah. And so I kind of just said, I'm going to just leap, like we are leaping here. Well, that's one of your founding mantras. I don't know if this is for the company or for you, but you say bravery over certainty, which is like your founding principle, you guys are really the first at-home fertility company that's focused on men infertility because men infertility is 30 to 50% of infertility.

why do you feel like nobody saw that white space? I think people are starting to see it, but male fertility is still so stigmatized. And it's interesting. I think that for sure companies in the past have had a fear around tackling that space because they weren't sure that the customer was there. Yeah.

The customer's there. So who's buying it for men? Because as I say all the time, like women control 85% of consumer spend, They are making household decisions. And it's like even I can speak to the conversations I've had with Courtney where it's like, I'm the one learning about everything and bringing it to my person to be like, this is what we would need to have to do when we are ready to like start our family. How do you even get to the men if the women are the ones making the decision?

Or are you selling directly to men? We're selling directly to women. We're selling mostly to women, although there are quite a number. and I would say it's increasing of men purchasing it for themselves. We talk a lot about internally at Bird and B and soon probably externally about sharing the load. Yeah. Oh, love that. Love that.

So male infertility is the only disease that when a male has an infertility diagnosis, it is the only disease where they're not the actual person being treated. It is their partner being treated. So the male, maybe they're going to take some supplements. On a rare occasion, they might need a surgery. But the female is still being treated. So if they are going through IVF because of male infertility, which, by the way, in Canada is the number one reason. People have gone through IVF in the past two years.

What is the number one reason? Male infertility. Number one cause, number one reason people are choosing IVF in Canada. In the U.S., it is second only to embryo and egg banking. Wow. So male infertility is a problem. If you're going through IVF, it is the female who's doing injections, hormones, egg retrieval surgery, embryo transfer carrying the pregnancy and birthing. So if there's a woman listening to this that is in a relationship with a heterosexual partner and is struggling to get pregnant, how do you suggest that they bring up to their partner that there might be something that's not, not just what she's struggling with, but maybe something that is causing the problem with their partner. That's a great question. And I think the story kind of starts earlier, wherever possible.

So if you are thinking about getting pregnant, if that is on the horizon, absolutely, both parties need to, they absolutely need to be tested. And who does the testing? So you can test at home as a first step. It is very, very chill. You can do it in the comfort of your own home. there are options you don't have to go and drive and sit in one of those rooms in a clinic and have it all be very stressful and uncomfortable and scary you can start you can like dip your toes dip your toes at home you can take an at home male fertility test you ejaculate i can say that on air right yeah of course we love sex into a little cup it's kind of like a COVID test for your sperm okay you get the results in 15 minutes

And you will know immediately if you have an issue with your sperm. Okay. On the female side, there are tests that you can do at home. There are red flags. We call them fertility red flags. What are some of those? So ovulation issues. So are you getting your period regularly every month?

Are you having painful periods? Are you having painful sex? Are you getting, when you're doing the actual testing of ovulation? And we always recommend, if you're using an app, we always recommend pairing that with an actual test using a urine test. Right. So if I'm using aura to track my cycle, like that's something that you would say I need to pair that with and what would I pair that with?

You would pair that with and at home, you would pair that with these. Okay. You would pair that with these. What is that one? This is an ovulation test. It is super inexpensive. It is easy to use. You dip it in your urine.

You take a few tests a month. And you're looking for that like very dark line. You're looking for a peak. Okay. And if you're not seeing a very dark line or if you're seeing mom, multiple dark lines through the month, that's a problem. Okay. You want to go and see your doctor.

Okay. We have an at-home ovarian reserve screening test. This is our proprietary technology that we developed over the course of two years. It is the same as a pregnancy test as an ovulation test. It's a dipstick. And it is measuring a hormone called FSA. If your FSA is high, that means your ovarian reserve or your egg quantity might be a little bit lower than we want it to be. it's not a marker of your fertility, but it is a marker of your timeline.

Okay. So you might be closer to menopause than you think. And it can happen in your 20s. It can happen in your 20s. You see women in their 20s almost at menopause? Yes. It's called diminished ovarian reserve and it can happen in your 20s. Between the ages of about 30 and 40, almost 25% of women have a high FSAH

and are experiencing those first symptoms of perimenopause. earlier than expected. And that can affect how many kids you want. Wow. Subscriptions aren't just about repeat orders. They're about building real lasting relationships. And that's where Recharge comes in. They are the subscription platform powering the brands you know and love.

Chamberlain Coffee, Blueland, Bird and B, and over 100 million subscribers worldwide. What we love, recharge takes the headache out of retention with seamless subscription experiences, powerful analytics, and tools that help brands go beyond the moment to keep customers coming back. From flexible billing options to automated retention strategies, they make it easy for brands to deepen their connection with every customer, turning one-time buyers into loyal advocates. This is why we partner with recharge and why they're giving the HSR community 90 days free, helping brands test. Helping brands test.

learn and grow their subscription business with zero risk. To claim this incredible offer of 90 days free, click the link in the show notes. So let's say you and your partner have not had this conversation and you're trying to get pregnant and you're not having any success. And you're in a domestic partnership where you really are like carrying the shame of that experience. How have you seen the most effective conversations happen? when a woman brings to her male partner and says,

I think that there is another type of test that we need to do, which is not just on me, but it's also on you. So I think there's ways to make this fun. Okay. Like as Courtney said, he's like, do I take this to the strip club? And like, I'm just kidding.

You can, like, you can prep it however you want. But like, make it fun. Okay. There are tests that we can do that are both pleasurable and informative. For females, unfortunately, none of them are pleasurable. They are just not pleasurable. Yeah. The males, I mean, it's a pleasurable experience.

Go to town. Okay. Go to town. Test that sperm. I think it's important to bring up. Listen, we want to have a family. We are targeting this family as a couple. We want to do the things to make ourselves as healthy as possible.

Yeah. On the road to growing our family. And we want to make sure everything's good. And we want to avoid spending too much time trying at home if we're going to need. the help of a clinic. Like this is an arduous process. We don't want to be trying at home for two years, only to find out there was an issue we could have flagged two years ago. It's stress on the relationship. It's stress on finances. We want to get in to see a doctor as early as possible. What would you say to the people that always say, like, I was going through IVF and it was so stressful

and then we just stopped trying and we got pregnant? Like, does that happen more often than people think, like, is your stress playing a huge role in infertility? I think I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not, a doctor, but from what we've seen in the research, stress, like hardcore stress, there are types of stress that you can put on your body that have an impact on the quality of sperm and egg. For females, there's a kind of athletic stress. So if you, quality of sperm and egg, for females, there's a kind of athletic stress. So if you are exercising to the point where your period stops, impact your fertility. Okay. Interestingly, on the male side, that type of type of stress, let's say, lack of sleep. It actually can impact your sperm pretty quickly.

I had a really cool conversation a couple of weeks ago with the director of a sperm bank, one of the only sperm banks in Canada. And she said that she has clients that are flying in to do their donation because they are donors who are paired specifically with a couple that's receiving sample. And they've flown in and their first sample after sitting, on a long flight or after being up for, you know, however many days is crap sample. So little things can actually have an impact. The kind of stress where you have anxiety unconfirmed, nobody really knows how much of an impact that has on your fertility.

Obviously, you want to support a lifestyle where you are healthy, mind, body, soul. we always recommend any sort of like social group support, therapy, anything like that for somebody who's going through a journey to help them is like it's huge. It's huge if it's affordable. You've also compared the fertility stigma today to mental health stigma about a decade ago. What's the one thing that you wish everybody did, whether they're in a relationship or not to prepare themselves for the journey of getting pregnant? Start early, for sure. I think it's something that we need to think about earlier on than just even when we're, okay, today we're starting. Yeah. I think it's something we need to be thinking about years, years in advance. And that's all related to how you treat your body. In the medical community, menstrual cycles and sperm health are now kind of being called the fifth vital. It's a link to how healthy your overall body is. And when we're thinking about how. how our bodies are functioning and overall wellness.

We want to make sure that we are sleeping well, eating well. We're not smoking. We're not drinking or drinking very little. Yeah. We're not consuming food that's going to destroy. That's huge. Most people are not exercising enough. We're lifting heavy weights.

This is very important. And we need to be doing this for years, years in advance. So as a fertility company, this is the really hard thing when you're startup, right? You can't be everything for everybody. But obviously, if you're targeting people and they're like their early 20, that aren't thinking about family planning, that's a long sales cycle by the time that they're ready to actually purchase your products and become part of the Bird and B family. So what do you feel like the conversation needs to like be directed towards those people versus

who you're speaking to, which I would assume is primarily like 20, late 20s, 30s, like late 30s. I think testing early is the message. Like make it fun. Make it fun. Test early. And again, like women in their 20s can't. experience issues related to their reproductive health. Yeah.

Even if they don't want kids and they're sure that they don't want kids, issues with their menstrual cycle, issues with their ovarian reserve, these are things that you want to take to your doctor. Yeah. You want to know what's going on in your body and how to solve for it. PCOS, huge. Well, do you know how I got diagnosed with PCOS? This is the first time I've talked about this on, which is so cool. But I really struggled with my menstruation cycle when I was younger.

I would not get a period for like three years during high school. and had crazy hormonal acne when I was like 25. I invested in Alara and I went and did a bunch of the tests thinking it was like a fun investor exercise. And the doctor, when we were doing like the recap of all my test, she's like, I think you might want to turn your camera off. Like you have one of the things that we're treating. And I was like, it's okay. Let's just keep the camera running. And I just hear her say like you have PCOS.

And I was 30 or 31 at the time. And I just kept thinking like, how did I go my entire life? and nobody, not one doctor thought to think, like, missing periods for years, I guess because I don't look like a typical PCOS patient. I just was undiagnosed. And I'm obviously now at the age where, like, I'm just turned 33. And family planning is, like, consuming my brain. And I am now at the stage where I'm, like, doing the ovulation test, doing the sperm test this

week. But it's a little scary because both my partner and I are obviously a little older in terms of, like, when people should be starting to think about this. Why do you think it's one of those things that so many women are afraid to like find out in case it's not what they want to hear? I think we're afraid to find out honestly about anything medical. Yeah. That could impact the dreams that we have.

I mean, any diagnosis is a scary thing. I think there's comfort in knowing how many other people are diagnosed or suffering with, something that have been successful. So PCOS, I am PCOS too. So not typical symptoms, but I also had the crazy hormonal acne crazy and also didn't get my period. And by the way, like when it was put on acutane, like was never thought to like go through any sort of holistic, proactive care. And now there's a lot more studies. So the anosatol, it's as effective as medication, why people struggle with fertility, but the most treatable. Interesting. Most treatable. Okay. So when you were thinking about building Burden B, you put on an early pitch deck that you were building the honest company of fertility.

Funnily enough, Brian Lee is also one of the reasons that I'm now involved in this deal. For people listening that don't know, Brian Lee is the co-founder of the honest company. He is your lead investor. So you manifested that shit of getting Brian Lee on. I manifested it. How did that even come to be? I love, this is one of my favorite story. So this is the power of female founders. Okay. I had connected with a female founder who created a hair tool company. And another female founder had connected me with her.

And I kind of gave her my pitch deck and kind of gave her my pitch. And she's like, I have a couple of investors who I met along the way who actually didn't even invest in my company. And I would love to introduce you. And one of them was Bam Ventures, which is Brian Lee's venture fund. And my pitch deck already had said, the honest company of fertility. And when I spoke with somebody in the BAM family, they were like, you know, Brian is the honest company. I'm like, I'm so embarrassed, but this is the pitch deck. Like, this is our pitch deck and this is what we want to be. And they were our lead investor.

And they came in and have been absolutely incredible because Brian knows everything about consumer brands. When you say you're building the honest company of fertility, what does that mean? For us, when you think about trying to have a baby, what I want everyone to think about is Burden B. I want Burden B to be the thing that they know and they trust along the way from trying to conceive through to pregnancy, postpartum, and beyond. When Brian found out that you put on the pitch deck, the honest company of fertility, what was his reaction to that? Brian is the most chill guy. I think he kind of like brushed by it. He didn't even acknowledge it. Brian. Brian is those humble, incredible, smart, supportive investor. And like, he just totally didn't make a big deal.

Okay. When you brought in BAM, you actually raised $1.8 million in four weeks during the pandemic. And you just closed another round. How are you so good at raising money? I did not start off being good at raising money. I think that's important for everybody to know, honestly. When I first, first went out to raise money, it was probably a year before we did that pre-seed round. And the company was in a different form with a different name and a different idea. Wait, what was the name before? Okay. So the original name of the company that we kind of iterated on was MyCycle. It was called MyCycle.

Okay. Which we then had decided, like, that is very specific to females. I was, that's the first thing that came to my head, yeah. And so we knew kind of quickly that that wasn't going to work. Because you're focusing on male fertility. We're focusing on female and male. Yes, equal 50-50, but that wasn't going to work for males. But the first kind of iteration of the company, we'd gone out to a couple of investors

and everyone was just like, no, what are you doing? And I remember feeling stupid. Like they would throw out these acronyms in meetings. And I had run a successful company before, but in a totally different space. Yeah. They would speak in this language that was completely foreign to me. What do you think the biggest double standard is that you faced as a female founder? I have a great story.

One of the first investors that I pitched was a male. And he asked why somebody would use more than one pregnancy test. And he couldn't he couldn't understand it. I would say that was one of the few times, though, that someone didn't understand what we were doing coming from like the male female dynamic yes for shocks me by the way it it does but he wasn't the right investor for us and I would say for the most part like 95% of the other meetings that we've had or have taken over the years people get it and a lot of our investors are male a lot of them so I don't really feel like we faced any sort of like pushback being female that's actually shocking

to me because I often hear a lot of times when it's like a beauty founder specifically, the male investor says, I'm going to bring this back to my wife and see what she thinks. And I always just tell women this, like you're making your boyfriend, your husband, whoever is rich by not being able to be on the table and be actually making the investment decisions, but be giving them the tools of like how we're spending the money. So I actually find it really shocking that men understand this because I feel like there is this conception in society and this stigma that like infertility, you know, to your point is like the women going in and getting treatment and the ones that are like going through the shots and injections and like actually being the one to carry the baby. So I'm like

pleasantly surprised, but I am very shocked to hear that like men are really open to it. You know why? Why? Because they have all gone through it. So through the period of time where we were pitching our business and I would say even further beyond that when I'm having conversations with suppliers, manufacturers, literally down to the people making cardboard boxes, I literally, 75% of people want to share their story with me. Because they've struggled to conceive. Because they've struggled or their brother has struggled or their aunt has struggled or someone in their life has struggled.

And it is so common that it's not this like wild idea. People understand that this is epidemic. So where did the name Burden Be come from then? another great story for you. This is a story about someone who did not get us. Okay. So we, at the very beginning, hired a creative agency to help us with name, logo, colors, brand, et cetera. And I said, whatever you guys do, like, you know, here's the concept.

Here's what we want. Come back with a list that does not include any, like, female names. Like, don't give me a list of, like, Greek gods that. were female and like names of females i don't want that okay so they came back and the names were shit at the same time i was i was i was remember this very clearly i was in the car with um our lawyer at the time and we were just like running names and names and we were like the birds and the bees bird and the bees and i was having him look up trademarks as we were driving and bird and bee was free and i was like that's it's bird and bee it's like the birds and the bees but like what is birds and

The birds and the bees. It's like how you teach your kids about sex. Oh, is it really? I see, I didn't know that. Is this a millennial? Is this an older millennial? Okay. Well, it's funny because I actually wanted to talk about that too, because you are in your 40s and you're building this company. And I think I just saw this stat where like so many women that are building successful companies nowadays are actually a little bit older. I think a lot of women listening to this that are in their late 20s, early 30s feel old or feel like their time has passed. And we're, seeing all these young female founders and influencers and whoever and as a female founder building in their 40s, what do you feel like the advantage is to starting a company a little bit later in life being a mom versus near 20s or 30s? I think stability is a big piece of it. Okay. I think when you're young, you're also still learning. Yeah. So what you learn between the ages of like 25, 35 to 40, it's life changing. Yeah. And it also. comes with confidence. Once you prove to yourself that you can do something, no one can stop you. So when you get that confidence and the stability, you're not living on ramen noodles in a studio

apartment anymore. And if like you don't make the next paycheck, you're out on the street, you have a certain level of stability. Yeah. You can then build from there. Yeah. I was literally saying this to my sister the other day. Like I think truthfully, your 20s are not nearly as good as your 30s. And I'm not 40 yet, so maybe your 40s are even better. I feel like there's such a misconception, though, about having it all all at once. And you've been really clear with people like you don't believe in work-life balance. You believe in building systems to design the life that you want. How do you do that? I do that with a lot of help. Okay. I do not believe that there is such thing as work-life balance. You can be the best mom and the best boss and the best wife and the best friend. You

cannot be them all at the same time. Yeah. Each category gets the best of you. You. And the best at a specific time, certainly other things fall off when you're being the best boss one day. I think you need help. So I have a full-time nanny. I have parents that help me drive my kids to and from all of their activities. I have in-laws that have my kids over for sleepovers when I'm traveling. I have an entire village of moms in our school circle that are while I'm here now, picking up and dropping off my kids at school, at soccer, at dance, at gymnastics, because you cannot do it all yourself. Subscriptions aren't just about repeat orders. They're about building real lasting relationships.

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normalize that. I have work guilt too and I have wife guilt too. We're built a little bit to feel guilty, but we have to normalize the guilt. And we also have to do some things for ourselves. What do you do for yourself? I exercise every single day. Every single day, that is my me time. And on top of that, my newest kind of me thing is I take one walking meeting a day. I do that all the time. One meeting is on audio. I put on my weighted vest. Yeah. And I dip down into the ravine by my house. And that meeting is on audio and I'm moving and I'm outside. And that is the time where I am doing good things for my body and doing good things for my company. Being in your 40s and being a founder, are you thinking about like this personal brand as a CEO and founder? It's actually amazing.

Touchland just sold for obviously like a crazy amount of money. And I wouldn't say that that founder has like a super strong like personal brand where they're all over social media and like being on every podcast. What do you feel like your perspective is on building a founder personal brand when you are a mom and you are in like your 40s, not like a 20 year old that's just like going on social media every single day? I think it's great if you can do it. I think brands that have founders that have a big personality online really benefit from it. It takes a lot of time. What you do, Maggie Sellers every day, takes a lot of time. It is a full-time job and it's a full-time commitment. And I think that for me, I have to pick and choose

where I'm spending my time. But generally speaking, between what I do in a day with my kids and at work, I don't have the same kind of time to commit to the personal brand in that way. Well, I think that's like why I'm so happy that we're talking about this because I think it's also why you wanted me in the round, right? Because it's like I'm going to be very loud and proud of like being a Byr an investor. And I think for those people that are listening that like don't want to build a personal brand, don't want to have to like share their entire life. Like there is a way to do it. And I actually think like this is the ideal situation for me because it's like this is a company that I'm now invested in. I'm going to be going through over the next little while. Is that intentional where

you were like we now need to because I'm not building this like founder personal brand. We now need to bring people in that are going to like talk about burden B that have personal brands. We needed our champions. And I kind of saw what you were doing out there, women supporting women. What you've done is you've built a business around supporting and highlighting women founders and kind of gaps in consumer space surrounding women's issues, especially with Alara. And I love that. And so when people like you are brand champions and can share honestly their journey going through the process. process and working with us and using our products and how it's supported you, I think that's

better in a way. And that's also why we work with a lot of doctors. Yeah. The doctors who've either come in as investors or come in as partners, they are championing what we've built. Well, so a little crazy story because when I heard about Bird and B through Brian, I think you DM'd me when it was like the nudesics collab. And then my sister goes, that's so crazy because I just saw this at my fertility doctor and 70 to 90% of people trying to conceive or are pregnant use supplements. Most of them are self-prescribed without a medical professional or doctor, but you're sold in doctor offices. Why? We're sold in the clinics that whose sole job is to get people pregnant. Yeah. It is. But why do they trust your product over others? Well, when we're able to present the

research behind our products, and we've done real clinics. And we've done real clinics. studies. So there is a big misconception in the supplement world about what evidence there is to support a product. And most brands rely on studies per ingredient. This ingredient has been studied to improve X, Y, or Z. Or this ingredient in our product shows our users, their iron going up. Of course it does. There's iron in the product. Their iron's going to go up. Our studies have studied the clinical impact of the product on an actual parameter. So, for example, on the male fertility product, we took male infertility patients. They did three months on our product. They had a semen analysis before and after. And we showed over 50% improvement on sperm motility,

so the way it moves. So that's an impact on a clinical parameter. It shows that the product works the way that it's intended to work. Are you going to be entering into the sperm races? I saw all this crazy stuff about the sperm races recently. You know what I love about the sperm races? Yes. That they're bringing male fertility to the public. Like people are talking about sperm quality. Yeah.

It's incredible. Yeah. A lot of people were like, is this a joke? And I was actually so happy because I had just invested in you guys. And I had seen the clinical study of like 50% of people are improving their sperm mobility when they're on burden and be. But I think it's like such an interesting thing to bring up. because if someone's listening to this that is trying to get pregnant, thinking about conceiving,

and they're on the fence about using burden B, like, what would you say to them that differentiates your product from everything else out there? There aren't a lot of doctors who will stand behind a product, and we have literally fertility doctors, as well as fertility naturopath, so complete integrative care, who are standing behind the product, who are offering it in their clinics, who are giving out samples, clinics who have dispensaries are selling the product to their patients. because they see its efficacy and they've reviewed what's in it and they can agree these are the ingredients and these are the doses that have an actual impact and they're safe to take with fertility medication as well and that is why I decided to invest literally that was like the reason when my sister said like it's in my doctor's clinic I was like if doctors are putting their stamp of

approval on this like this can be huge it's a rule of three you got to see something three times and then you know it's Kismet. Yeah. Okay, with that, we're going to do a little rapid fire so people can know Sam Diamond. Okay? Would you rather have a horrible investor meeting or a toddler tantrum? I would rather have a toddler tantrum. That says a lot.

I can fix that. Okay. L.A. or Toronto. My family and my friends are in Toronto, but the weather in L.A. Can I meet you halfway? Yes. Okay, this is a really controversial one. Tim Hortons or McDonald's coffee?

McDonald's coffee. I know, but what is up with Tim Horton's coffee? I don't know. There's something weird in it. Who is your favorite comfort creator? Oh, I have a few. Okay. Have you ever watched Cecilia on Svalbard?

No. Cecilia lives on Spalbard Island. It's a city close to the North Pole and she documents her life. She's famous. She's millions and millions of. followers and she has this like calm life in a cabin in like the northern most northern region in the world she's very comforting i love chef bay okay love love her should we do a collab with chef bay one day yes i am obsessed who is your vision board of collapse so there's a few top docs

online that have big kind of big followings so there's there's a number of them okay i would i mean Maggie Sellers. Love you. Valeria. Give me a little Valeria. Yeah. Former Torontoian. Love her.

We have a couple of new products coming out that are not fertility specific. Okay. Would be perfect for Valeria. Okay. Who is your dream celeb spokesperson? She's not a celebrity, but she's like my celebrity. Okay. Whitney Wolf heard.

Love her. Yeah. Newly pregnant too. But she is kind of a celebrity. She is a celebrity. Yeah. What is the first app you check in the AM? My email.

Okay. Okay. Sleep in or spa day? Sleep in. Night in or out? Night out if you let me sleep in. Okay, love that. All right, baby free vacay or solo staycation? Baby free vacation.

What is your dream day? No kids or no email? No emails if it was a real no email day. So like if you didn't need me to solve a problem or if I didn't, if I came back and everything was chill. No email. Okay. Sam Diamond.

Thank you so much for coming on HotSmart Rich. I'm so honored to be a part of Bird and B. I couldn't be more excited. It's the first investment I've done in over a year. I just felt so compelled when I met you, met the company, saw like everything that you guys are doing to change the stigma and the conversation around fertility. Where can people find you? And also can we do a giveaway?

We can definitely do a giveaway. Okay. We'll one up the giveaway and we will also offer a couple of. consult with one of our naturopathic doctors. Okay, I love that. So product plus naturopath. Okay, perfect. You can find us online, birdinbee.com. You can find us on Amazon soon to find us in retail. I know. This is a huge thing that I just found out. It's going to be very exciting retail. Manifestation. This is a manifestation. Wait, this is huge news. So anyway, thank you so much for coming on, Sam. And I'm so excited to be a part of the family. Thank you for having us. Bye, guys.