I was also young, and I didn’t have the obligations of having a family. If an email came through in the middle of the night, I would respond.<\/p>\n
Like a lot of women, I compromised my health<\/a> and the things that really mattered to me in the process.<\/p>\n Autoimmune disease diagnosis<\/p>\n While my professional life was thriving, my health started breaking down. In 2016, I started having weird symptoms.<\/p>\n I was losing hair. I had always been a morning person, but suddenly, I had extreme lethargy. My skin had been affected. I was cloaked in this wild brain fog all the time. My fingers were incredibly inflamed, and I was gaining weight rapidly.<\/p>\n I ignored it and kept going.<\/p>\n Then I broke out in shingles. That finally sent me to the doctor. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease<\/a>: Hashimoto’s Disease. My physicians believe it was partly because of the extreme stress I was under.<\/p>\n I was having a challenging time getting pregnant around that time. That’s when I realized what I had done. I had always envisioned starting a family, so I blamed myself.<\/p>\n I decided to change my environment<\/p>\n I changed my diet<\/a> to make it more anti-inflammatory. I got started on a prescription medication that helped with the autoimmune disease.<\/p>\n When I got my diagnosis, my doctors told me I needed to reduce my stress. I wondered how I was supposed to do that while leading a company. Then it clicked \u2014 no job was worth my health.<\/p>\n I decided I needed to change my environment. I left my role at Clique and was recruited by URBN to lead the activewear brand Free People Movement. I finally got pregnant during my last few months at Clique and joined Free People when I was seven months pregnant.<\/p>\n I was there for about a year. But I knew when I started the job that something felt off. I felt this pull to start something of my own.<\/p>\n Launching our supplement brand for women<\/p>\n Perelel makes supplements for women’s health.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alex Taylor<\/p>\n Around the time I gave birth to my son, I found myself piecing together a vitamin routine from multiple sources and sorting pills from different bottles. My obstetrician, acupuncturist, and naturopath were all giving me different advice.<\/p>\n Then I met my cofounder, Victoria Thain Gioia, whose daughter was born with a nutrition-related cleft lip. We learned how critical certain nutrients can be during pregnancy, and decided to start a business in the supplement space<\/a>.<\/p>\n We set our eyes on fundraising. But then, COVID hit, and everyone’s checkbooks slammed shut. So we decided to bootstrap.<\/p>\n We launched the business in September 2020 with five different products meant for different stages of pregnancy. We did fundraising after, with a seed round<\/a> led by Unilever Ventures and Willow Growth. In subsequent rounds, we had Selva Ventures and Prelude Growth Partners participate.<\/p>\n By that time, I had had my second child, a daughter. My partner worked in the film industry and would have to be away for months at a time on location to support our family.<\/p>\n I was grateful to live close to my family in Los Angeles. My mother and mother-in-law often came to help me with the children because, in those early days, I couldn’t afford a full-time nanny<\/a>.<\/p>\n How I keep my stress levels low as a mother and founder<\/p>\n Taylor said she has a strict routine to help her manage her stress as a mother and business owner.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alex Taylor<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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