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Claire Coder

Claire Coder

Founder and CEO of Aunt Flow, a Columbus-based company providing free-vend period product dispensers; Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and Thiel Fellow.

Nov 9, 2026

10:53
What are some of the other things that might be less obvious or more intangible that go into your calculations when you're considering risk?
11:04
Well, generally when I consider business risk, if I'm making a decision that doesn't make sense on paper, right? Like real risk is something that doesn't make sense on paper.
11:17
Somebody will do all of the math and they'll be like, oh, that's risky.
11:20
It's like, no, no, no. I'm doing something risky.
11:23
If you can't even make it make sense, like, right? Like, no, like that's risk.
11:30
An example of that was when, In the middle, in February of 2020, we were planning to implement our first dispensers for Aunt Flo period care solutions, right? We rely on people menstruating outside of the hall.
11:43
And in February of 2020, I started getting phone calls.

10 MINS LATER

21:42
Go to Shopify.com slash Kwame to hear your first...
31:43
That's profound
31:45
... and that has made people the single hardest part of building a company for me, the single hardest.
31:53
And we, I found all of our manufacturing for our dispensers, for our tampons, for our pads.
31:58
I did global sourcing.
31:59
I managed a trade war.
32:00
I, I managed through a pandemic.
32:02
I did all of these things, and still yet, people management is the number one thing that has been the hardest for me.
34:35
Yes

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