In a recent episode of her podcast "The Burnouts," Phoebe and her co-host and business partner, Sophia Kianni, the 22-year-old Stanford alum looked back at their time applying for Stanford’s "Lean Launchpad" course, which challenges students to develop startup concepts.
Inspired by her background in pre-med and reproductive health, Phoebe proposed a tech-enhanced tampon designed to monitor hormone levels and detect conditions like anemia during menstruation, Tatler reported.
At the time, Kianni — now the youngest climate advisor to the United Nations in U.S. history — said she thought the idea was brilliant.
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Bill Gates and daughter Phoebe Gates. Photo courtesy of Bill Gates' Instagram |
However, the pitch was rejected. Phoebe recalled the feedback: "They asked us "[what] problem does this solve, how would it make money, and what would it be?"’ she recalled, before adding "We couldn’t answer those questions."
She said the experience served as a "good reality check" and their "first big failure of many," which pushed the pair to pursue a new venture. They later co-founded Phia, a shopping app powered by AI that aggregates secondhand and retail fashion listings from across the internet. The app officially went live on April 24.