Womaness Co-Founder & CEO, Sally Mueller, on Building the Menopause Market from Scratch

Midlife women hold $15 trillion in spending power but have nothing worthwhile to spend it on—at least in the health and wellness market. That is, until Womaness changed the game. In this episode of Reclaim, we unpack the important and inspiring story of Womaness, the leading women's wellness brand that's modernizing perimenopause, menopause and aging support. Tune in as host Destinee Berman sits down with Co-Founder &CEO, Sally Mueller, to explore how to build a category-defining brand in women's health, why education and relatability matter more than perfection in marketing, and the strategies that transformed a personal health crisis into a thriving omnichannel business. Sally’s personal story inspired a journey that has scaled her business across DTC, Amazon and retail—all through one principle: celebrate the midlife woman and reclaim the voices that culture forgot to amplify.

Tune in as host Destinee Berman sits down with Co-Founder & CEO, Sally Mueller, to explore how to build a category-defining brand in women's health, why education and relatability matter more than perfection in marketing, and the strategies that transformed a personal health crisis into a thriving omnichannel business.

What You'll Learn:

How to identify a product category opportunity through personal pain
The "relatability with aspiration" framework for brand imaging
How to reframe positioning when early messaging alienates rather than invites
The one-third, one-third, one-third channel strategy to mitigate wholesale risk
Why paid social alone won't drive retail awareness and what will
How to educate retail partners on category placement and signage
How to balance founder burnout with boundary-setting

This episode takes us behind the scenes of one powerful principle: celebrate the midlife woman and reclaim the voices that culture forgot to amplify.

Episode Resources:

Sally Mueller on LinkedIn
Womaness Website
Destinee Berman on LinkedIn
Future Digital Website

Episode Highlights:

05:58 Turn Personal Pain Into Market Conviction

Sally shares that she rejected existing menopause products recommended by her doctor because they failed to meet the quality standards she'd learned building brands at Target and Who What Wear, revealing how founder authenticity and high personal standards can validate genuine market gaps. For a growth leader building trust-based products, this serves as a reminder that when you lead with genuine conviction rooted in lived experience, you attract investors, media, and customers who recognize the difference between a “me-too” product and a category-defining one.

16:22 The 13-Product Thesis & Launching With Full Conviction

Womaness launched with 13 products across multiple symptom categories despite investor pushback claiming they were launching "too many;" Sally recognized that a legitimate menopause brand required solutions across the full midlife journey, not isolated symptoms. This framework directly challenges the lean startup dogma and applies powerfully to women's health, where customers expect holistic solutions addressing interconnected symptoms rather than point products. For a Series B women's health brand, applying this means auditing whether your product portfolio actually maps to how customers experience their health challenges or whether you've artificially fragmented the solution.

29:50 Language Shouldn’t Alienate Your Audience - Reframe It

Sally discovered that leading with the word "menopause" on packaging and in-store actually repelled women who didn't yet identify with the term or thought they were "past" menopause, forcing Womaness to pivot to "healthy aging" as an inviting umbrella concept that educates deeper once customers are engaged. For growth leaders in women's health, this illustrates a critical tension: symptom-based messaging drives immediate conversion among aware audiences, but category-building messaging expands the addressable market by meeting women where they are emotionally and linguistically.

47:20 The $15 Trillion Midlife Woman Opportunity

Sally revealed a stark statistic from Womaness's investor pitch deck: only 5% of advertising dollars are directed to midlife women, yet they control $15 trillion in spending power, a disparity that represents both a cultural invisibility problem and a massive market inefficiency that savvy brands can exploit. For a growth leader in women's health, this is a permission structure. Brands that authentically serve midlife women are not chasing a niche, they're addressing a demographic with more economic power than any other segment but almost no marketing attention relative to their size. The real opportunity is cultural work. Namely, helping younger generations see midlife women as celebrated, powerful and worthy of investment, breaking the silence and shame that shaped previous generations.