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

Sheilisa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

I’m on a mission to transform the way women experience the challenges of midlife, menopause in particular. I created Fria Jewelry in response to the lack of “respectful” options to address the discomfort of overheating due to hot flashes. I literally woke up one day in 2016 with the idea of “cooling jewels” and the goal was to create a beautiful way to beat the heat without any negative side effects.

My why is because I see so many women feeling diminished at this life stage and nothing could be further from the truth. If you’re fortunate enough to make it this far, you’re a warrior! And nothing, especially not a normal, inevitable, biological function, should get in the way of you being your best self. So, once I learned that in some capacity I was deemed “less than” all of a sudden because I reached “a certain age,” I became determined to be a champion for beautiful, vintage women everywhere.

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

I woke up one September morning in 2016 with the idea of “cooling jewels.” I wasn’t sure what it would turn into, but I knew I had to pursue it. The name Friá means cold in Spanish. It has a pretty melodic sound, plus I believed that we deserved a pretty way to beat the heat of those miserable hot flashes, so since necessity is the mother of invention, Friá was born!

1.1 billion women worldwide suffer from the discomfort of hot flashes, and 72% just endure because there are so few remedies and not enough information on how to handle the discomfort. There is no primary go-to remedy that is widely
adopted – and medicinal options (i.e., hormone replacement therapy)can sometimes have dangerous side effects. So we created a new option, cooling jewelry using a passive technology called evaporative cooling. This is one of the key differences between Fria and other cooling options on the market.

What also sets us apart is that we are not a medical device. We put ourselves in the category of accessories or jewelry. Our accessories are beautiful, and integrate with the wearer’s normal fashion aesthetic. It’s also innovative as it is activated with just cold water, and is completely discreet. No one will know that the wearer’s pretty bracelet also has a health benefit.

Menopause is not just a physical challenge, but also an emotional/psychological one. So, we decided to address the problem holistically, providing a tangible product, education, and support via community as our platform. Our approach is designed to comprehensively help women make informed decisions and provide another, non-invasive, non-medicinal alternative to obtain cooling relief. There is so much that we women (and men) don’t know about this life stage. But if we have a safe space to ask questions – that can then be posed to our medical practitioners, this experience can be less dreadful. I believe women should have full agency over their bodies and their biological functions, but we will continue to have difficulty in this area if the narrative around menopause or midlife, in general, remains negative and our knowledge and information remains limited.

To combat the lack of knowledge problem, we created a show we call The Pause, Reclaiming Our Time that can be viewed on YouTube. On the show we discuss all things related to midlife. We call it a safe space to share this experience in a no-judgment zone. We’ve been on hiatus since Covid but expect to resume taping new shows later this year. Readers can just go to the tab on our website to view past episodes.

I speak at women’s functions and on health panels whenever I get a chance – to help change the narrative and give a new vision of what a woman going through the change looks like. If we stop the notion that menopause means old, more people will be willing to learn and talk about it more openly. For us, knowledge is power. I began my journey 12 years ago. It was miserable and I was clueless. But I knew there had to be a better way to experience it, so I decided to create a new blueprint for us to follow that had less misery and more joy.

My most victorious moment of this endeavor to date was when I realized I had accomplished what I set out to do. I created
from nothing, a beautiful solution to an old problem and brought it to market. When people started buying them and saying positive things, is when I finally allowed myself the luxury of saying “I did it!”

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Absolutely, I read all the time, books that are intended to enhance my thought and leadership skills. I’m especially into audiobooks right now. But I have two favorites and both relate to my business and personal life as blueprints for living. The first is “The 7 habits of highly effective people” by Stephen Covey and the second is “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coehlo. 7 habits has all the key foundational habits and practices necessary to be a leader, thinker, problem solver and effective executor of goals, personal and professional. The Alchemist is a very spiritual book that speaks of pursuing your personal legend aka life goals. I could write a book for how they have impacted me but I’d say, if you need guidance that is viable for life’s endeavors, read them. You’ll thank me later!

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

Funding this business has been one of the greatest challenges, next to learning the language of the startup ecosystem. In the early stages, (up til recently) I had to bootstrap the endeavor as I was unsuccessful in raising funds. This meant I had to learn to make a dollar out of fifteen cents! Since I wasn’t able to raise either venture or angel capital, I became extremely resourceful. As a single mom, I had to learn to budget my funds to manage the needs of my household, so I was no stranger to stretching money. However, in a consumer products company, the development, engineering, design and manufacturing are huge costs. Once again, I learned to be resourceful, building relationships with pros in each of those areas, and creating payment plans that were reasonable. I also entered and won as many pitch contests as I could and applied for as many grants as I qualified for to get as much non-dilutive funding as possible. While these were not huge sums, it was always enough to keep us afloat until the next big opportunity presented. Once we started selling product, a few more funding doors opened and finally we were able to get a small business innovation research grant (SBIR) from the government that helped with progressing our R&D and allowed us to hire talent. So, I said all that to say, funding the business wasn’t easy, but I allowed myself the grace to take baby steps, and the lessons that came with each step to make incremental progress.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.myfria.com
• Instagram: @friakeepyourcool
• Facebook: @fria – keep your cool
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilisa-mcneal-1705
• Youtube: Menopause: Reclaiming our time