We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Melanie Scholz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Melanie, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

After I had my first baby, I became pretty passionate about breastfeeding (best parenting trick ever!). However, I struggled with pumping and bottle feeding. Instead of supporting me in my breastfeeding journey, these products often made my life harder. Pumping was uncomfortable and I never got enough milk when I needed it. And bottle feeding was also problematic. Both of my babies refused the bottle. Because these products were failing me, I sometimes felt trapped and overcome with mom guilt. I realized two things: 1) there must be other options, after all we have successfully breastfed babies for millions of years without any of these products and 2) I am not the only one who struggles. There is a large study that shows that 62% (!!) of pump users report similar or worse problems (Qi et al., 2014). For me, the natural alternative to pumping was hand expression, which is not only comfortable and always accessible but also super effective. Hand expression saved my breastfeeding journey. All I wished for was a better receptacle to collect hand expressed milk… And cup feeding is the perfect alternative to bottle feeding. Even newborns can do it. That’s how I came up with a simple, elegant solution for collecting and feeding breast milk.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a mother of two with a PhD in biomechanics. I am the creator of kindestCup, a 3 in 1 breastfeeding cup for collecting and feeding breast milk. kindestCup is the only breastfeeding product on the market that supports breastfeeding in several natural and effective ways, and offers a reliable alternative or complement to pumping and bottle feeding. With kindestCup, breastfeeding parents can do more and worry less.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

In 2018 I was invited to participate at a Hackathon at MIT, titled “Make the Breast Pump Not Suck”. I was on stage, talking about my experience with hand expression and how easy and effective it is. Folks were surprised that I went back to work (twice!) without ever using a pump. I don’t think they really believed that hand expression could be as good or better than a ‘state-of-the-art’ breast pump. To make my point, I took out my boob on stage and hand expressed milk into the audience. People in the first couple of rows (probably about 10ft) definitely got sprayed and it caused quite a bit of commotion. Ultimately, kindestCup was included in one of the winning design projects: an emergency kit to protect breastfeeding after emergencies and disasters.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

kindestCup is made of 100% food-grade silicone but I have no background in silicone manufacturing… I taught myself 3D CAD design while sitting on the couch, breastfeeding my newborn. Once I had captured the design I envisioned (after a few 3D printed prototypes), I reached out to silicone manufacturers. At first, I was looking for North American companies but they shot down my design and didn’t seem eager to work me. I ended up connecting with a Chinese manufacturer who made a few microscopic tweaks to my design to improve manufacturability and guided me through the process of selecting raw material, production tooling (mold) etc. My contact there, Vicki, Mi, spoke excellent English and was a breastfeeding mom herself so she got exactly what I was trying to do. I believe that this is the only time in the history of humanity that you can develop an entire product, from idea to final result, from the comfort of your couch, while breastfeeding a baby! I also had to change my perception about ‘made in China’ products. China has clearly surpassed North America in terms of manufacturing expertise. For me, ‘made in China’ no longer stands for just low quality, cheap products. My design has a pretty large overhang, which is tricky for mold release. North American companies had no clue how to deal with that and told me it was ‘impossible’ to make my cup. I basically had no choice but to go overseas, where they have that kind of expertise.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kindestcup.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kindestcup/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kindestcup
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kindestcup

Image Credits
Jesus Nieto Lindsay Kalbfleisch Genesis Harris Bonita Wagler