Marketing Happy Hour - Why Word of Mouth Still Beats Every Paid Channel | Lauren Schulte Wang of The Flex Co.

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

In this episode, we sit down with Lauren Schulte Wang, founder and CEO of The Flex Co., the brand behind the menstrual disc that has sold over 185 million units, holds 88% market share in its category, and is now carried in over 30,000 retail locations including Target, Walmart, and CVS. Lauren built Flex from scratch in 2016, creating an entirely new product category with zero search volume and a consumer behavior change challenge that she describes as one of the hardest jobs a marketer can have. She opens up about how obsessive customer listening shaped their entire go-to-market strategy, what it took to fight platform by platform to earn the right to advertise a period product on social media, why word of mouth is still their strongest acquisition channel after nearly ten years, and how reaching profitability in year seven gave Flex the agency to put customers above all else. Key Takeaways:// Changing human behavior is the hardest job in marketing. Flex isn't asking someone to switch brands, they're asking them to rethink something deeply personal. That challenge shaped every part of how they educate, nurture, and retain customers.// Retail shelf space is a billboard. Their target customer is in that aisle every single month. Lauren's strategy: build awareness through influencers and streaming TV, then let the shelf close the deal.// Word of mouth is still their number one acquisition channel, after ten years. Building a product people feel compelled to tell their friends about is not a soft metric. It is a growth strategy.// Profitability is about agency. Reaching profitability in year seven gave Flex the ability to make decisions that put customers first without being beholden to investor timelines or the next raise.// 88% market share and 3% awareness is the opportunity, not the problem. Most brands would panic at low awareness. Lauren sees it as the greatest runway ahead.Connect with Lauren: LinkedInLearn More: Website____Join the MHH Collective! The MHH Collective is a community for marketers and business owners to connect, ask real questions, and grow their careers together. Join for access to live Q&As with industry experts, a private Slack community, and ongoing resources: https://www.marketinghappyhr.com/mhh-collectiveSay hi! DM us on Instagram and let us know what content you want to hear on the show - We can't wait to hear from you! Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. ⁠Join the MHH Collective: ⁠Join now⁠Get the latest marketing trends, open jobs and MHH updates, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our email list!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow MHH on Social: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour, a weekly podcast helping marketing professionals and entrepreneurs build better strategies and hit career goals. I'm Cassie and I'm Allie. We're marketers and your hosts through these unfiltered convos with your peers and experts in the space. Let's dive in. Grab your favorite drink and let's get to this week's episode. We here at Marketing Happy Hour, I love diving into founder and CEO stories, of course. So really stoked to have Lauren Wong, uh, founder and CEO. of the Flexcoe joining us today on the podcast. Lauren, welcome to the show.

I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, so we're stoked to have you. Of course, we'll dive into just your story, building your brand, what marketing has looked like to you and also just your career journey as well and how you landed where you are today. But first, we, of course, have to ask what's been in your glass lately or what do you have in front of you now if you have something? I have.

I mean, it is 135 in the afternoon. If you were calling me at 6 o'clock, it might be a little different. but I am drinking my new favorite bevy, which is Sanzo, Sanzo, Yuzu lemon. I am a little slut for anything Yuzu-related. So when this beverage came out, I tried at Expo West a couple years ago. I was like, oh, my God, obsessed. It's so yummy. Yes.

We have talked at length about Expo West and Ally Nye's dreams of attending the event, just because we're big CPG, you know, consumer brand fans. I've seen that one I think at Whole Foods or something. So I'll have to grab it. Pick it up at your local Whole Foods. Next year you should come and come check out our art installation. It's the talk of the town. Yeah, it's.

I will say, I was going to say we have a calendar hold for the dates right now. So chances are we'll see you there. Yeah. Yes, maybe we'll do our next recording in person. Who knows? That would be great. Come check us out in hot products. We'll be there.

You won't be able to miss us. Absolutely. Sounds like a plan. Well, Lauren, if you don't mind, just as we dive into this conversation, just introduce yourself, if you can. Tell us a little bit more about the Flexco for those who may not be familiar with the brand. Tell us all the details.

Yeah, I'm Lauren, founder and CEO of the Flex company. We created the company back in the company. back in 2016. So we're coming up on our 10-year anniversary, which is really exciting. And my co-founder, who is now my husband and I have built this business from basically creating a category, which is the menstrual disc, from pretty much zero to, as of last year, having sold over 185 million discs, more than 30,000 retail locations. And we are the number one cup and number one disc brand in the United States, which is super exciting. And if you've never heard of a menstrual disc, you're not alone. I think we have 88% share of the market, but only 3%

awareness. A menstrual disc, we make both single use and reusable, but it's a product that is shaped like a disc. It is not a cup. It is not a tampon. You wear it inside of your body. You wear it for up to 12 hours. It holds six super tampons worth of fluid. But when you go to urinate, it can empty itself in the bathroom. So you can empty it hands free. So basically you put one in the morning, you go about your business all day, you go to the bathroom, it empties itself, and you don't have to think about changing it again until it's the end of the day and you're back in the comfort of your home. So we were originally viral because you can also use it to have mess-free period sex. You do not need this product for period sex, you can have period sex full of mess. I have no care

one way or the other, but that was the original claim to fame. And our cup is a patented cup because it has a unique little pole tab that allows you to just slide it out and remove it as easily as a tampon. So it's the only cup on the market that has that benefit, which is why I think it's the number one cup. That is absolutely incredible. And congratulations on all the success in the last 10 years and looking forward to what the next 10 holds. I'd love to dive into the brand building specifically, especially since you built an entirely new category. What has been more challenging for you throughout this journey? Has it been to convince people to switch products that maybe they were already using or convincing them to rethink something they've used

their entire lives? It's such a good question. My background's in marketing and I've done both B2B and B2C marketing. And I've always said that the hardest job that a marketer has is to try to change human behavior. It's next to impossible to convince somebody to change something that's so deeply ingrained and as personal as what type of period product that you use, right? I'm not asking somebody to switch from a conventional tampon to an organic tampon or a conventional pad to one of our Better for You pads.

Those types of conversations can be a lot more direct. I'm fundamentally asking you to change the way that you interact with your body, to learn about your own anatomy, and to take a chance. The closest thing I can liken it to is learning how to ride a bike, although I would say riding a bike. But the first time is much, much more difficult than learning how to use a disc or a cup. And so, yes, there certainly has been this evolution of the brand where we started 100% direct-to-consumer. We scaled very, very quickly in the first few years. we grew to $20 million in revenue. And then from there on the heels of that success,

went an Omni Channel into a bunch of retail doors before Omni Channel was really a thing. And the reason that we were so successful, I think, is we had this obsession with being close to our customers. And in conversations with customers, we would hear their hang-ups of either why they didn't want to try the product, aka, I don't know how to put it in, is it going to get stuck,

or I am afraid of removal, aka I think that's going to be really messy to remove. How can I do that if I'm on a date or in my dorm room or, you know, on an airplane? And through those conversations, really help to inform our go-to-market strategy, our pre-imposed purchase, you know, content flows, what our customer support team looks like, how people can reach us, and even the organic content that we put on social media. So it is definitely not as simple and straightforward as, you know, positioning yourself as a better for you, fill in the blank, whatever category you want to say. And it is also a little bit tricky because our customers are everywhere, but often it's like I don't know whether they're a customer of mine or not. It's not like they're like a aloe yoga or something where you see the logo on their shirt.

So I'm still trying to figure that one out. If you or any of your marketers have a tip for me for how flex users can be out there loud and proud, let me know. I'll give you a quick example. I was volunteering at a maximum security prison a couple of months ago. And my husband, co-founder, and I do this on a regular basis. And we're coaching entrepreneurs in this entrepreneurship program. And you go up in front of the group to start and there's other volunteers there. And you kind of like, you know, I'm Lauren and this is what I do and da-da-da-da.

and I had, I think, five or six different people in this group of 70, none of the people who are incarcerated, but like other volunteers and people that work for the program come to me and say, oh my gosh, I'm a diehard disk user or I'm a diehard cup user. I'm using flex right now. And it's so funny and fun and rewarding to have those types of interactions. But I need to find a way that people can kind of like put the bad signal out to say like, hey, yeah, we're on this team. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm curious to kind of dive further into that and get some ideas flowing because I'm already thinking of a couple. I'm curious in terms of the creative lens, what you think helped Flex stand out as you were building the category. Well, it's changed a lot from 2016. I think I had originally built a business case for myself. And the biggest use case, like from a marketer's perspective, was Kotex U. when they had switched their packaging, and they've changed it many, many times since.

But I think around 2012 or 2013, they changed their packaging to black. And they instantly gained a ton of market share from the other incumbents because the packaging actually stood out on shelf more. And they were trying to attract a younger millennial consumer, and they were really successful in doing that. So their insight was, we want our packaging to look more bold, more unique, and grab those people at point of sale when they're already looking to make that purchasing decision, when they're usually just going to grab the brand that they always know and trust and said we want them to grab us,

and that's how we're trying to stand out. I'm talking like Codex you. So the first insight that we had was we wanted our packaging to be something that anyone felt comfortable picking up on the shelf because at our core, we are about eradicating stigmas around periods and menstrual cycles and women's health in our bodies for all people. So whether you are a 25-year-old guy and you know nothing about periods, we never want to make you feel ashamed about any kind of questions that you have.

There's no stupid questions. We also don't want to make him feel ashamed if he's going and buying that product off the shelf for his girlfriend. Equally, we don't really believe in this idea of pinkwashing that everything has to be really girly either that period fluid needs to be portrayed as blue instead it should be portrayed as red. That helps normalize and kind of break down this experience that 51% of the population has for

one month, one week out of every month for, you know, the majority of our lives, pretty much. It's so fascinating and I kind of want to double down on something specific around just the term period because I found it so interesting that you actually had to fight to use that. in terms of your advertising and your messaging. And what did those conversations actually look like with different platforms? Going back to the days of when Facebook first launched Facebook advertising, this is when we started seeing DTC emerging brands really come out. So we're talking like the Warby Parker's, the Oways, the Casper mattresses of the world.

I'm really dating myself here. And at that time, Facebook was really, trying to get more people on their platform and trying to monetize the platform. So they are making advertising very, very affordable. So you see this, like, crush of brands in all different categories coming to Facebook for the very first time and, like, launching new businesses or putting their existing businesses on there and really being able to reach a new, younger audience and have a different format for advertising than in the past.

It was very, very cost prohibitive to be able to advertise on more. traditional channels like cable TV. And so at this time, we launch and we get a bunch of press, like a lot of press, we went viral all over the world around mess free period sex, by the way. And even though the press was writing so much about us, we could not launch an ad on Facebook to save our lives. And it was a couple of different things. One, we couldn't show red fluid.

That came later. That was like kind of phase two. But phase one was just being able to out. advertise a period product at all, our products were flagged as sexual content. And it could get flagged by a user or the internal policy, but over and over again, we were unable to scale our ads. Meanwhile, we watched peers in our space who were advertising basically Viagra, white labeled under a different brand, just blowing up and raising a ton of venture capital and parlaying that then into, you know, other brands. And that was really exciting

for them, we wanted an opportunity as well, building a new category, coming up with the word disc, like menstrual disc, period, disk. There is zero search volume for this on Google. So we needed to find a way to cost-effectively advertise. Social media advertising was that way. So we started with Facebook, which later became meta, but we kind of went platform by platform and had to use our connections from Silicon Valley to fight at the leadership level to get the internal policy changed just so we had the right to pay money and pay a lot of money in advertising.

Flex reached profitability in just about seven years. And this is something we don't really talk with founders a lot about that journey and what that road looked like. Were there moments when taking the slower path was actually a better business decision for you guys and like what did that path look like overall? We've raised $20 million in the life of the business. So I wish that I could say that we are bootstrapped from day one, but that was simply not possible, given that we own our own manufacturing equipment, it's all proprietary, we have a lot of IP and patents and things like that. We took the high growth route in order to further our mission as quickly as possible. We want as many people as possible to know that this new technology exists. We want to inform them

how to use it. We want to ensure that we nurture them and that they have a successful first-time experience and that they're a customer for life and then become an advocate. And word of mouth is still our strongest marketing channel to date. That's how we get the majority of our customers. And when we think about profitability, you know, we really reached this turning point in the road where I knew either I could be on this hamster wheel of always going out and chasing the next venture capital or chasing the next venture capital or growth equity for that matter. And with each of those successive turns, I would, you know, potentially be bringing on really amazing partners. And we have, again, we've raised $20 million.

We brought in some really incredible investors along the way. And it gets to a point where you build a business that's self-sustaining and then we are able to control our own destiny. We can make our own decisions. We're not beholden to, you know, an outsider who might not be as passionate or might not be as aware or as empathetic to the customer. that we're trying to serve. And so by building a profitable business, to me, is really about agency,

and it's really about serving our customers first and foremost. And the shareholders that we have on board and the investors that we have on board are 100% aligned with that vision and mission. And so we're all working together in lockstep to build the greatest shareholder value, which is also in turn building the greatest customer value. But I'm not beholden to some arbitrary timeline or next raise. our next hamster wheel situation, where I might have to make a decision that is not putting our customers first.

So I'm like a big, big fan of raising as little money as possible and just focusing on what makes our customers happy and building an enduring business that can continue to grow and support them. It doesn't have to be low growth or no growth. It can be both profitability and high growth. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, going back to marketing for a second, here. You mentioned this idea of awareness for this product and the fact that it's an option. I'm just

curious, you know, today as it stands in July of 2026, what are some of the channels or kind of tactics that you guys are utilizing when it comes to marketing to just help raise awareness and spread the word and get the brand out there? The two biggest ways that we get customers, honestly, are word of mouth and retail, like being on a retail shelf. We took a very non-traditional approach in our business playbook for retail by starting launching in mass retail and then going into drug and then parlaying that into launching in Walmart. And prior to launching in Walmart, I would hear potential investors, not our existing investors, say, you know, that's really great that you were successful in Target, but can you do it

somewhere else? And then we were really successful in CVS, okay, but can you do that somewhere else? And being successful in Walmart is a totally different beast. and what we were able to demonstrate is that flex products, our disc and cup products, and also now are better for you pad and panty liner products, are mainstream. They are made for the average American, the average person that shops at Walmart, and therefore, you know, the total market opportunity for this business is so much bigger and greater than maybe people before the category existed might have believed.

What's really important for us today is having that shelf space and being able to drive velocities at shelf that are maintaining that shelf space is essentially free advertising for us, right? It's this billboard right in the middle of like an aisle that women shop, our target demographic is there every single month pretty much, like picking up their products. And so if they see ads from us through streaming TV or on the New York City subway and then their friend is telling them about it and then they see an influencer, the ultimate payoff is seeing us at shelf at a major retailer like Target or Walmart or CVS. Absolutely. And I think along the lines of this conversation, too, thinking about Gen Z specifically and how you're targeting them, obviously the consumer behavior from Gen Z is very different than someone like Cassie. and I write on the millennial side. And so they're learning about disks on TikTok, right? And bringing those conversations to their doctors as an opportunity to have an open conversation about it and learn more.

And I'm sure that they're, again, referrals from friends, et cetera, seeing it on the shelves. And so what is that tell you about how consumer education is changing, specifically with this younger generation? One stat that really shocked me in our consumer insights. And by the way, we have a full-time. person dedicated to customer insights. That's how passionate we are about staying close to our customers. Something that really surprised us, and this came maybe four years ago,

is that Gen Z was actually not, and this stat has held true, by the way. So it hasn't like, oh, four years ago, TikTok wasn't that big. Gen Z is primarily finding out about their period products in total from OBGYNs. That's really interesting. OBGYNs have told us that they're finding out about discs and cups from their Gen Z patients. So there seems to be this mismatch, and it's been interesting to watch over time as more millennials are now, you have moved through their residency training and our OBGYNs of a younger generation. They are now caring for this education and information because they're savvy on the new technologies that have existed over the last 10 years and come to market in the last. 10 years period underwear, you know, all the organics.

There's a much wider variety of brands and formats than there were 10 years ago. So I really credit Gen Z for being very comfortable with these conversations, very body literate in a way that maybe we weren't. I don't know. Maybe we credit their parents, Ali and Cassie. I don't know what. No shade on our parents, our education system. but these Gen Z women are very impressive to me.

Yeah, we're hearing that more and more from different brands, like even, of course, outside of your space. And it's just fascinating to see not only the way that Gen Z is consuming information and learning about new products, but how they're impacting others, including people outside of their generation. So that's really interesting. I would have never guessed that that's how everyone's finding out about these products. I would love to just hear from you too, you know, as we close out, if someone were to look back at Flex 20 years from now, what do you hope they say, you know, you impacted the way that they looked at certain things or the way that you all changed the conversation?

Like, what, what is that thing if you were to call out that you hope you impact consumers from years from now? 20 years from now, I hope that people look back at Flex as a company that welcomed them. with open arms, that educated without any judgment, that changed their period for the better, and that made their lives a little bit more comfortable. We get invitations to weddings. We get graduation announcements for high school and for college. We have on our refrigerator at the office just a litany of handwritten letters that we've received from women through the years that have said that Flex has fundamentally changed their lives. And when I have, think about our opportunity that lies ahead, if we only have 3% awareness, that's every

marketer's dream, right? You have this product that is really sticky. You have a ton of word of mouth that's driving a lot of the growth of the business. You have these strong retailer relationships. And you have people that are telling us every day that we've changed their lives for the better. I can't ask for a greater purpose on planet Earth than making women feel more comfortable for one week out of every month for their adult lives. So that's, that's a legacy. I hope to continue. Yeah. So, I mean, that stickiness is such an awesome opportunity, like you said. What, what excites you about just the marketplace, about marketing, just opportunities out there? What is something you guys are maybe excited to test or continue leaning into just as we continue

in 2026 and beyond? I love that marketing is changing every week. Every day. I used to say every six months. Like, oh, the landscape's changed again. It's every day now. It's literally every night and I get home. I'm like, got to check my Instagram for all these influencers I follow on AI and marketing. Like, whew.

I, one of our company values is to practice a growth mindset. And we mean that quite literally. It is a practice. It is a daily practice to show up and to have. an open mind and to say, I can do something better, I can do something differently. And the way that marketing is changing so quickly and rapidly now doesn't leave any of us feeling like, oh my gosh, like I'm behind or anything like that. Instead, it feels like this wave that we have this unique opportunity and time to be able

to ride and to learn from. And I love the dissemination of information and how open people are to sharing and helping one another. I had a conversation with a stranger yesterday who was connected from like a third degree connections. I'm like, you know, three connections deep with strangers. And this person was willing to get on a call with me and just share his advice with me about one particular topic in marketing. And I think that's a really landmark of our time right now that wasn't necessarily true 10 years ago when it felt like there was so much more gatekeeping. So I'm just so excited about what's ahead for marketing and how Flex is embracing all these different changes.

Yeah. Well, with that too, we're so excited to just stay in touch with you and also just follow along with the brand as you guys continue to grow and evolve and super stoked to watch that journey. Do you mind just sharing how we can stay connected with you personally, but also all things flex as well? For sure. We are on all of the socials at Flex.

So just at F-L-E-X. You can find us on TikTok, on Insta, on Facebook if you still use Facebook. But we have, yeah, on threads on everything. We're just F-L-E-X. We mostly post on TikTok and Instagram. And my link is in the bio. It's Lauren Shulte Wong, but you'll just see my personal link up in the bio. Amazing.

Lauren, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for sharing your journey. It's so inspiring and fascinating to hear. And just like I said, very excited to continue to fall along with everything that you guys do. Thanks, Cassie. Thanks, Sally. This has been a lot of fun. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Marketing Happy Hour.

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