Viral videos. Stimulus checks. Vampires.
Madeline Gregg didn't have a normal path to entrepreneurship. But then again, who does, really?
It all started when Gregg, a certified sex educator and intimacy coach, realized that TikTok was becoming the new Google.
"People are literally just typing their questions into the search bar, whether it's, 'how to change a tire' or 'how to put in a menstrual cup,'" she said. "I saw that as an opportunity — I started to produce a lot of content to build up a following and basically did all of the education for free."
Nothing was taboo in Gregg's videos, and one particularly humorous one where she referred to a menstrual cup as a "vampire shot glass" went viral in December 2020. It got roughly 1 million views and tons of engagement. One influencer, Gwenna Laithland (@mommacusses), shared Gregg's video and commented, "First. Let's normalize period talk please. And someone start a menstrual cup company called vampire shot glasses."
Two days later, Gregg hired a lawyer to get the trademark to do just that.
"Little did I know how intensive it was to create a menstrual cup company," she said. "I kind of bit off a lot. I didn't really think it through when I first bought that trademark, but I've learned along the way."
In recent years, gender neutral language has made an appearance on period products to be more inclusive to non-binary and transgender people. Gregg said she created Vampire Shot Glass to be the first "radically" gender inclusive menstrual cup company that includes representation in not only its packaging, but in its marketing materials, too.
"The goal is to make it a national brand and really shake up the menstrual products section," she said. "I'm excited to offer another option for people and make it more mainstream."
It took a full calendar year to start the business, from finding U.S.-based menstrual cup manufacturer and a box manufacturer that could make coffin-shaped packaging to making sure the product was FDA compliant.
Gregg, a stay-at-home mom of three, put all of the money her family received from stimulus checks into the business, as her partner was able to keep their job and work from home when Covid-19 hit.
"Their job was never in jeopardy during the pandemic and we were very fortunate for that," Gregg said. "We had a lot of extra income from the stimulus checks, so we used that and our tax refunds from the past two years. It all went to this."
In total, Gregg said she's invested roughly $10,000 into the business, but she needed more capital to start production. Gregg launched Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for Vampire Shot Glass last month and has successfully raised $21,000 from more than 400 investors.
Starting the campaign was terrifying as Kickstarter is an all or nothing platform, Gregg said, but with nearly 900,000 followers on TikTok, the hype for the product was already there. She reached her $20,000 goal with about a week to spare.
Gregg said she's also received interest from other accredited investors, but she's being selective on who she partners with to maintain the integrity of the brand she's building.
Early-bird investors in the Kickstarter had the chance to get a Vampire Shot Glass for $25 before it retails for $30 to $35 online and in stores. In Louisville, the products will be available at the Old Louisville Coffee Co-op and TOZA Soap, but Gregg wants to get it into national retailers too, while also growing its e-commerce platform.
"I would love to see this in Target because if you walk down the menstrual aisle, it's a lot of pink and it's a lot of girly items," she said. "I think this product would really fight that gender dysphoria a lot of people feel when they go to the checkout aisle."
