WoW Woman in FemTech | Natalie Rechberg, CEO of Valley Electronics AG
Interview by MarijaButkovic
Natalie Rechberg has a passion for empowering women through body literacy and menstrual cycle data. As CEO of Valley Electronics AG, Valley Electronics GmbH founder of Valley Electronics LLC and M.I.S.S. GmbH, and founder-creator of the Daysy, Natalie has kept focus on her primary goal - putting control into women’s hands in the form of fertility femtech that breaks new ground in terms of innovation, accuracy, and accessibility.
Following in the footsteps of her father, Dr. Hubertus Rechberg, Natalie has steered the four companies to develop and grow with a rare integrity and sustainability. Her father began his pioneering mission in 1986, to provide fertility trackers globally to women wanting to understand and live in tune with their cycles. As Natalie gained wider experience in Marketing and Communications, she assisted in the development of Valley Electronics and distribution of its fertility trackers, seeing the Lady-Comp become the most popular fertility tracker in Europe. The US market was her ground to reach the growing number of women interested in fertility tracking within the booming femtech market.
The Daysy reflects over 3 decades of experience and research, the company’s unique and precise technology, and continues to innovate from a hardware and software standpoint. It is the world’s first fertility tracker to connect with a smart phone-based application. The upgraded Daysy 2.0 was the winner of the Red Dot Design award in its launch year, 2019. There are now half a million women worldwide who have chosen Valley Electronics fertility trackers to support their self-knowledge.
Natalie leads the company as a reflection of her personal goals. Valley Electronics centers family-friendliness, openess, compassion, and sustainability in all areas.
Natalie, tell us more about Valley Electronics as a company, your company culture, your mission and vision.
Our company, Valley Electronics AG, is based out of Zurich, Switzerland. We’re an international research-based medical technology company with a long track record of developing and distributing fertility trackers.
Valley Electronics is family-owned, currently by myself and my husband and previously my father, and as such we stand for the values of transparency, compassion, openness, equal opportunities, family-friendliness, and sustainability. Valley Electronics’ company culture is based on respect, openness, and personal development.
In 30+ years, we’ve created and developed five fertility trackers, cumulatively used by half a million women worldwide.
Our mission is to provide women with the knowledge and tools they need to make informed and powerful choices about their menstrual cycle, their fertility, and their body.
We support women who want to be in control of their own body - for natural family planning but also for a deeper knowledge about oneself in harmony with the female nature.
What kind of products and services does Valley Electronics offer to their customers?
Our fertility trackers are Daysy, Lady-Comp, Baby-Comp, and Pearly. These femtech devices are unique in their combination of a highly calibrated basal body temperature sensor and unique algorithm. Daysy was the first device of its kind to combine this technology with an app.
We are one of the few companies in this field to still maintain around-the-clock customer support via multiple channels as access points for our customers. We understand how essential this is when women are using our technology to make important and powerful decisions.
Your expertise lies in fertility tracking, the company develops and distributes reliable, precise, and user-friendly technology for natural fertility awareness. Would you say that talking about (in)fertility is still a taboo? Did you find it difficult starting a conversation around infertility 30+ years ago when the company started operating in this space?
My father created the Lady-Comp in 1986 long before ‘fertility and menstrual cycle tracking’ became a trend. Femtech as it exists today was not a market. The fertility tracking concept has existed and been used by women for centuries. He tried to minimize user errors and make it more accessible by developing an automated system (algorithm + highly calibrated sensor), which adapts to the individual user over time. The whole point is to make it simple and accessible to anyone.
Back in 1986 the topics of periods, the menstrual cycle, infertility and fertility were not discussed as openly as they are today. It was a taboo, often not even discussed between married couples. This is still the case currently for some.
Valley Electronics was one of the first companies to openly talk about the menstrual cycle, periods, sex, fertility and infertility by creating quarterly newsletters for doctors, pharmacies, and the wider public.
I would say it was 2010 when the company saw an increasing interest in fertility trackers.
In recent years the femtech for fertility field has gone into rapid acceleration. Women openly speak about their periods, fertility and infertility issues. Women are taking back control of their bodies and are interested in exploring alternative options.
What’s the role of social media nowadays in educating women about their health and how is Valley Electronics using social media (or any other) channels to talk to their customers directly?
Social media is a very important channel to communicate and share knowledge and education. For our field, the knowledge gap can be quite wide, and we must educate on the fertility cycle, the fertile window, ovulation, and basal body temperature in order to reach those women who would benefit from our fertility trackers. We find women are eager to fill the gaps in their education around the menstrual cycle and reproductive health.
We work with our scientific advisory team and many health practitioners, from OBGYNs to naturopaths, to make sure that we communicate good, solid, helpful information and advice.
We have not chosen to focus on large scale, extravagant marketing pitches or grandstanding (nor do we have the pressure of external investors that might demand that we do so), but instead we have grown a community of users from good, solid word-of-mouth. We have only chosen to reach out to other audiences when we’ve felt those audiences were likely prepared and ready to hear about our fertility trackers.
We have a private Facebook group where women can discuss any topic they need support with. It’s important to create a trustworthy environment where topics around the reproductive system can be discussed and where women are heard.
What is something that you wish they had taught you about women’s health at school?
In my school years (in Germany) we learned about the human reproductive anatomy and about safe sex and birth control.
We didn’t learn about the menstrual cycle and how hormones affect us. We didn’t learn about fertility tracking. We definitely did not learn how vital and important a menstrual cycle is to women’s health.
I feel we should be taught this knowledge in school. Understanding the menstrual cycle is important for our overall well being. I think it’s important that girls in puberty get to know themselves by understanding their cycle. Through menstrual cycle literacy we can improve women’s health, wellness, self-knowledge, and self-confidence.
How do we teach and encourage women to talk about both fertility and infertility openly? Also, how do we educate society that infertility is not just a woman's issue and that men should be equally included in this conversation?
We need to set up the environment to allow education and open discussion, without shaming. We have to close the gender gap in health innovation and not make topics like this taboo. Infertility can be due to the woman, the man, both, or unknown problems. Some studies have reported that 40% of infertility cases were related to men, 40% of women, and 20% to both. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) study the male factor contributes to infertility as much as 51.2%. It all comes down to education.
In your opinion, what’s the next big thing for Femtech and Women's Health industry?
The growth of this sector has only just started, and we will see many more inventions and approaches as we finally give women’s health the same attention as men’s health. We will see diversity in the options, allowing women to find the “best method for me”. I think the next big topic to be tackled by femtech is menopause.
What’s that one thing that’s most rewarding about your job at the end of the day that keeps you motivated and inspired?
We solve a problem by giving users a choice to easily and reliable track their fertility and menstrual cycle. That is per se rewarding enough. We have thousands of happy users and that keeps me motivated and inspired.
Valley Electronics AG, based in Zurich, Switzerland, is an international research-based medical technology company with a long track record of developing and distributing fertility trackers. Thanks to this accumulated knowledge, Valley Electronics has been able to manufacture and bring to market reliable, precise, and user-friendly technology for natural fertility awareness. With its products Daysy, Lady-Comp, Baby-Comp, and Pearly, the company offers the highest possible reliability, well-engineered technology, and a wealth of 30+ years of experience on the market.
Website: http://www.valley-electronics.ch/
Women of Wearables is very proud to have Valley Electronics AG as one of our sponsors and supporting partners for the upcoming FemTech Forum 2020 - first virtual global conference about FemTech taking place on 25th of June!
Find out more about our agenda and speakers here!
This interview was conducted by Marija Butkovic, Digital Marketing and PR strategist, founder and CEO of Women of Wearables. She regularly writes and speaks on topics of wearable tech, fashion tech, IoT, entrepreneurship and diversity. Visit marijabutkovic.co.uk or follow Marija on Twitter @MarijaButkovic.