Cleo Davis-Urman: "There Was No Good Reason" (From Saks Fashion Director to 4,300 Retail Doors)

Cleo Davis-Urman is the co-founder and CEO of Barrière, the transdermal vitamin patch brand now in more than 4,300 retail doors including Target, Walmart, and Anthropologie. She got there from luxury fashion, employee number five at Moda Operandi and later fashion director at Saks Fifth Avenue, by way of 100,000 medical-grade masks she sold during COVID and a blood panel that showed she was dangerously deficient in iron, B12, and vitamin D after ten years of taking a reputable oral supplement.

In this episode she explains why up to 98% of a swallowed supplement can be lost in digestion, why the real problem was adherence rather than formulation (about 85% of Americans start a supplement routine and fewer than 40% stay with it), why she manufactured to German and UK standards rather than take the faster route through an unregulated US supplement market, why she still refuses to make a magnesium patch, how Dear Dairy and Steady Motion push the brand past vitamins, and why she believes waiting for a perfect product is how most people talk themselves out of a company.

🎁 20% off Barrière with code WS20: mybarriere.myshopify.com/discount/WS20

🎟️ The inaugural Womansplain Summit is October 16 at The Malin Chelsea, NYC, keynoted by Robinhood CIO Stephanie Guild. Cleo is on the Women's Health panel, What Medicine Still Gets Wrong, at 10:05 AM. 120 seats, most already spoken for. $275 through September 30, then $300: luma.com/7bxd1137

💌 Womansplain Collective+: founder matching, member dinners, priority Summit access. womansplainpod.com/membership

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