Urinary incontinence is rarely discussed as a wellness category, despite its profound impact on women’s daily lives. That silence has shaped how products are designed, marketed, and experienced for decades.

In this episode of Reclaim, Destinee Berman sits down with Alexandra Fennell and Mia Abbruzzese, co-founders of Attn:Grace, to explore what happens when founders approach an “unsexy” category with brand thinking, customer empathy, and commercial discipline.

The conversation unpacks why they left established careers to build in women’s incontinence care, how they identified opportunity inside a market controlled by a handful of incumbents, and the early customer insights that reshaped their product and positioning strategy. They also discuss the realities of scaling in a trust-based health category, from confronting stigma to building a business designed for long-term category change rather than short-term growth.

This episode explores both pillars at the heart of Reclaim: how founders earn trust in sensitive health spaces, and how thoughtful operators turn overlooked problems into sustainable, profitable companies.

What You'll Learn:

Tune in for insights on making this unassuming category purposeful, profitable and rewarding. 

04:53 Making Unsexy Work: Test Demand Before Full Commitment
Alexandra and Mia reveal that they created fake Facebook ads for a nonexistent incontinence brand to validate market demand without significant capital investment, proving women actively searched for better solutions. This approach is critical for growth leaders launching in overlooked categories where conventional wisdom suggests the market doesn't exist digitally or is too niche to pursue. Rather than betting months and millions on product development, they spent minimal ad spend to gather real comments revealing genuine pain points - insufficient products, irritation, bulkiness, and leakage. Their suggested approach is: set up low-cost, time-bound Facebook or Instagram campaigns with landing pages that test messaging and audience responsiveness before committing to full-scale production. 

15:34 Market Research Isn’t Gospel: Why Expert Mentorship is Critical
Alexandra and Mia initially assumed they could replicate the success of organic cotton period products by applying the same material to incontinence care, until a 25-30 year nonwoven industry veteran, Linda, explained that cotton absorbs blood well but fails spectacularly for urine. This mentorship moment saved them from months of wasted development and supplier conversations pursuing the wrong material science. For growth leaders building in women's health, this highlights the critical importance of seeking advisors with deep category expertise who can challenge your foundational assumptions before you've invested heavily in the wrong direction. 

18:45 How D2C Engagement Helps Build Trust
Alexandra and Mia share a critical insight: discretion was the hidden competitive advantage in women's incontinence care. Their D2C model eliminated the shame and embarrassment of shopping the "aisle of death" in retail stores, allowing women to receive products discreetly at home. This insight reveals why intimate health categories remain dominated by legacy brands: they've never challenged the purchasing experience itself, only the product features. You can apply this by treating your early D2C customers as a feedback engine, systematically capturing qualitative insights from reviews, customer service interactions, and community conversations to identify unmet needs that drive disproportionate loyalty. This approach transforms your customer acquisition channel into your product innovation lab, enabling you to build a moat around differentiation that legacy competitors can't easily copy.

22:32 Retail as a Discovery Channel for CAC Optimization
Alexandra reveals that retail expansion became a critical unlock for reducing their customer acquisition cost from $180-200 down to much more efficient levels, because physical shelf space provided brand validation that random Facebook ads couldn't match. When trusted retailers like CVS stock your product, it signals legitimacy to consumers who are naturally skeptical of unknown D2C brands in intimate health categories. For growth leaders managing tight CAC constraints, this represents a counterintuitive growth lever: investing in retail distribution doesn't cannibalize your D2C channel - it amplifies it by creating a discovery pathway that feeds customers back into your full-price, full-margin online funnel.


Episode Resources: