On this week’s episode of Don’t F*ck this Up, Lauren sits down with the trailblazing Cindy Gallop. Cindy is a brand and business innovator, the Founder of Make Love Not Porn, the Founder and CEO of If We Ran The World, and is globally considered the Godmother of Sextech.
As a fearless advocate for change in every industry she encounters, Cindy takes us on her journey of spearheading the social sex revolution. She sheds light on the untapped potential of an industry often shrouded in stigma, discusses the challenges she faced while seeking funding, and explains why she lives by the mantra "Don’t give a damn what other people think."
Download, review, and follow the podcast so you never miss an episode.
Follow Don’t Fuck This Up on IG: @dontfckthisup.podcast
Follow Lauren Alvarez on IG: @LaurentheAlvarez
Follow Cindy on IG: @cindygallop @makelovenotporn
Connect with Cindy on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cindygallop
Email the show at advice@dontfckthisup.com for your questions to be answered on an upcoming episode!
On this week’s episode of Don’t F*ck this Up, Lauren sits down with the trailblazing Cindy Gallop. Cindy is a brand and business innovator, the Founder of Make Love Not Porn, the Founder and CEO of If We Ran The World, and is globally considered the Godmother of Sextech.
As a fearless advocate for change in every industry she encounters, Cindy takes us on her journey of spearheading the social sex revolution. She sheds light on the untapped potential of an industry often shrouded in stigma, discusses the challenges she faced while seeking funding, and explains why she lives by the mantra "Don’t give a damn what other people think."
Download, review, and follow the podcast so you never miss an episode.
Follow Don’t Fuck This Up on IG: @dontfckthisup.podcast
Follow Lauren Alvarez on IG: @LaurentheAlvarez
Follow Cindy on IG: @cindygallop @makelovenotporn
Connect with Cindy on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cindygallop
Email the show at advice@dontfckthisup.com for your questions to be answered on an upcoming episode!
Lauren Alvarez (00:00)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Don't Fuck This Up. Today I am very happy to be here with Cindy Gallop, the founder of We Ran the World and Make Love Not Porn. Cindy, welcome to Don't Fuck This Up.
Cindy Gallop (00:12)
Thanks Lauren, thrilled to be here.
Lauren Alvarez (00:15)
I'm really excited to have you on the show. So much because of what we represent here is just about people who have said, you know, fuck it to what everybody else was doing and gone their own way. And before we get into all that, I have so much I want to chat with you about today. How are you doing?
Cindy Gallop (00:30)
fine. I'm good. I mean, you know, it's the start of a new year and that's always a good time.
Lauren Alvarez (00:34)
It sure is. Yeah. And I've seen you repost a commentary about, you know, women really setting out, I believe your direct quote is to make an absolute goddamn fuck ton of money. Is that how you put it?
Cindy Gallop (00:46)
An absolute goddamn fucking shit ton of money.
Lauren Alvarez (00:49)
That's it. That's it. And it sounds better when you say it too. So tell me about, you know, what, what have you got under your wings for momentum this year to make that a reality?
Cindy Gallop (00:59)
Sure, well, and in fact, so I have a sub stack called Dear which I started because people regularly ask me questions, whether they are writing to me at Make Love Not Porn, asking for sex advice, or ask me things on social media. And so I answer one question a week there. And, you know, somebody asked me if I made New Year's resolutions, and if so, you know, what were my New Year's resolutions?
You know, what I said in my answer was, you know, I'm actually not a fan of New Year's resolutions. I'm absolutely not a fan of New Year, New You. As far as I'm concerned, this is New Year's same old fabulous me. There's nothing wrong with me at all that needs improving. And by the way, I make that point, Lauren, especially because so many people seem to focus in on, you know, physical improvement. And I just think that's, you know, not a good thing to get hung up on. You know, I think I'm great.
Lauren Alvarez (01:41)
Hehehe
Mmm.
100%.
Cindy Gallop (01:57)
body looks etc. But I did say, you know, I have a specific resolution for this year, which is that, you know, I want 2024 to be the year of money and sex. And, you know, I share this because I'm assuming quite a lot of people will empathise. And in my case, I say that because, you know, I've been working for some time to raise some serious funding for my business,
and I'm determined to make 2020 for the year that funding materializes. But, you know, I encourage everybody, and as you say, especially women, to unashamedly and unembarrassedly set out to make an absolute god-unfucking-shit ton of money. And I do that not just because it'll benefit each of us, which hopefully it will, but because when each of us makes an absolute god-unfucking-shit ton of money,
We can then use that money to fund other women, to support other women, to help other women, to donate to other women. We need to build our own financial ecosystem because the white male one is not working for us. And a demonstration of that is, you know, last year only 1.7% of all venture capital went to female founders. We don't get funded.
And so I encourage women to make as much money as is humanly possible so they can then use that money to fund other women.
Lauren Alvarez (03:24)
I mean, and I love that mentality, especially knowing that, I mean, Cindy, you came from an advertising background. I also worked in advertising for a long time, cut my teeth in that industry and editorial. Both are not friendly to women. I mean, let's just start there. And you really, you were in it for over 20 years. I mean, two decades spent in such a male-dominated industry, only to pivot and we'll talk about it in a bit, especially male-dominated industry, sex and now sex tech.
Talk to me a little bit about starting out in
Cindy Gallop (03:54)
sure. So actually, I began my career working in theatre. So I fell madly in love with theatre at Oxford University, which I attended. I read English literature at Somerville College. And Oxford has a very thriving student drama scene. And so I just fell in love with theatre, did everything, wrote, directed, stage managed, et cetera. But, and basically decided that this is all I want to do for the rest of my life.
But I knew I wasn't good enough to be an actress or a director. But when I was young, I used to draw a lot. And so at Oxford, friends kind of pulled me into designing theater posters for their shows. And from there, I got sucked into selling their shows then. And I really enjoyed doing that. And so I became a theater marketing and publicity officer, promoting theaters around the UK.
Lauren Alvarez (04:46)
Mmm.
Cindy Gallop (04:46)
which was all well and good until I got completely fed up with working 24 seven and earning chicken feed, which is what happens in theater. And at the time I was marketing officer at the Everyman Theater in Liverpool. And part of my job promoting the theater was giving talks to groups about it. So I gave a talk to a group of women in Liverpool and afterwards one of them came up to me and said, young lady, you could sell a fridge to an Eskimo.
And I thought that is the universe telling me something, time to sell out, go into advertising. And so I did.
Lauren Alvarez (05:18)
I mean, that's brilliant. When we think about having a background in something that's unrelated, you know, so much of career, and I think especially I hear it from a lot of women I've had on the show, is it's about pivoting. It's about, you know, going into spaces where maybe you're not familiar, but you're pulling a skillset through with you that actually translates quite well. Was it a fairly easy transition when you started off in advertising, or was it, I mean?
Truly a Boys Club was what I experienced. And then women who didn't want to let other women in because they had to crawl through the dirt, let's say, to get there. What was your experience coming into a new industry? Were you treated like the new kid on the block? Or were you, you know, you're good at coming into a room and gaining respect, I'll start there. But what was it like for you?
Cindy Gallop (05:58)
So I am regularly asked, so Cindy, what sexism did you encounter coming up to the ranks in advertising? And my response is always, a fish does not know what water is. Because of course sexism was all around me and I didn't notice it because it was the norm. So I had no sense of that at all. You know, my first job was at an agency that no longer exists called Ted Bates. It wasn't the most creative agency in town, but they were wonderful people at a well of a time.
moved on to J Walter Thompson, then an agency called Gilbrin is trot and then fetched up at Bartlebowl Hegety BBH where I spent the majority of my advertising career. But, you know, what I say to people these days, Lauren is, my so-called successful advertising career was entirely down to luck. I was incredibly lucky.
And I was incredibly lucky on two specific fronts. The first one is that I was incredibly lucky because I was never sexually harassed in a way that derailed my career. And by the way, I was absolutely sexually harassed, but not in a way that happened to so many women in our industry where they were retaliated against and managed out of the advertising agency they worked for managed out of the industry. So number one, I was
incredibly lucky because I was not sexually harassed in the way that destroyed my career. And the second reason I was lucky is because I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of female bosses I had in advertising too. I virtually always worked for men and I was incredibly lucky because I worked for men who saw my potential before I did.
who actively wanted me to succeed, who championed me and gave me every opportunity to do so. And that is not the experience of most women advertising.
Lauren Alvarez (08:04)
And I think also, like, I mean, you mentioned luck, and I think that it is, you know, part of coming into spaces is not knowing what to expect. You know, I think a lot of people kind of shun the expression of luck, but I do feel like there is a bit of good fortune, especially coming into an industry like that, where so many women do encounter harassment that does derail them, forces them to change industry, you know, a pivot.
by choice is very different than a pivot by force. And so I think that is something that we continue to see today, as a really large pain point in the advertising and marketing world. Being the flip side of it now, Cindy, not being in advertising per se, you're on the, I'll say, you've created the client side for yourself.
Being on the flip side of it now, what guidance would you give to somebody who is attracted to these spaces, let's say the agency space specifically, early in their career and they're intimidated?
Cindy Gallop (08:50)
So first of all, I would just make the point, Lauren, that I actually never stopped working in advertising. What I mean by that is, you know, I left the corporate world in 2005, but, you know, for the past 20 odd years, I've been working with the Ad Council. I am one of three campaign review committee chairs for the Ad Council. The other two are Susan Cradle.
and the global chief credit officer of FCB and Margaret Johnson of Goodby. We oversee the process whereby agencies work pro bono with the ad council, I've sat on a number of different boards. I continue to speak at advertising industry events. I have a personal coaching practice where I coach many people from my industry, men, but especially women.
and I consult with a number of agencies as well. So I've continued to work in the advertising industry. And so, you know, that's a total of 38 years spent working in advertising. And so first of all, what I've been saying for many years and I bore myself repeating this, but I repeat it because it has to be said, is that
I make it clear, especially to women and people of colour, that nothing is changing in advertising. And the reason for that is very simple. At the top of our industry, as at the top of every other industry, is a closed leap of white guys talking to white guys about other white guys. Those white guys are sitting very pretty. They have their enormous salaries, their gigantic bonuses, their big pools of stock options, their lavish expense accounts. Why on earth?
would they ever want to rock the boat? Oh, oh, they have to talk diversity. They have to appoint chief diversity officers. They have to have diversity initiatives. They have to say the word diversity a lot, especially in public. Secretly, deep down inside, they don't want to change a thing because the system is working just fine for them as it currently is. It's like the old joke about the light bulb. How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?
Lauren Alvarez (10:45)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Cindy Gallop (11:09)
only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change. And in our industry, the light bulb does not really want to change. And so the narrative that I've been championing for years is actually the narrative art that can be discerned if any of our listeners choose to do this. If you go to YouTube and watch every keynote I've ever given at the 3% conference,
Lauren Alvarez (11:13)
Hehehehe
Cindy Gallop (11:37)
So the 3% conference was started 11 years ago now by a wonderful woman called Kat Gordon, female creative director. And it's called the 3% conference because back then only 3% of all advertising agency creative directors were women, 97% were men. We as women are the primary target of all advertising because we're the primary purchasers and influencers of everything. But we are constantly sold to through the male lens.
So took a woman to do something about this. So Kat started the 3% conference and I keynoted the first one and I keynoted everyone for the next 10 years until Kat eventually closed down 3% conference and kept us 3% movement. And I'm sharing this because as I say, each keynote over 10 years followed a very specific narrative arc.
So the very first year of the 3 percent Conference, 100 people, small hall in San Francisco, I gave a keynote about what the problem was, about the lack of women in an industry that should be female dominated because it's primary target is female. In year two, my talk was, so here are the micro actions, the very simple tiny actions women and men can take every day in the industry to make this change.
My talk in year three was, change isn't happening fast enough. And so here are three accelerants to make change happen faster. My talk in year four was, change still isn't happening fast enough. Here are the barriers that are why it's not happening and here's how you break them down. My talk in year five was, change isn't happening fast enough, now I'm really pissed.
So, funnily trying to change the system, the only way we're gonna change is outside the system. And so my talk that year was titled, Women and People of Color in Advertising, Here's What You Do Next. And my talk is composed of 10 bullet points where I said to the audience, I want you to start your own industry. And I explained that what I meant by that was, start your own business.
But I deliberately articulated in that way, because when you start your own business, you can make that business work exactly the way you want it to. You can design in the workplace culture in which you thrive, the work-life balance you want to operate, the business model is how you want to make money. And when you do that, you are starting the industry we all want to live and work in. And so my talk was 10 things that...
10 actions everyone could take that meant that the moment they walked out of that conference at the end of that evening, they could start their own agency. And I explained that when I said that, I didn't mean start an agency like all the ones you see around you, start something that gives you agency. And so my talks subsequently were all about how to do that. And, you know, after I gave that talk in the subsequent year,
I heard from a ton of people, women and men, who said, you inspired me to start my own industry. And so from then on, every year at 3% conference, I had a section in my keynote where I would shout out the people who in the past year had started their own industry because of what they heard me say. So what I say to anybody coming into the industry today is
And in fact, I gave this answer many years ago. I gave a talk at Cannes Lions, and in the Q&A, a young woman put her hand up and she said, Cindy, what is the single piece of advice you would give today to a young person going into advertising? And I said, don't. And then I said, let me explain what I mean by that. Don't go into advertising to go into advertising. Instead,
go into advertising to make what you want to happen happen. So I said absolutely by all means go into advertising by which I mean absolutely take a job at the first agency that's lucky enough to hire you and then take a long hard look around you at the industry and ask yourself what do I think is missing that should be there? What would I like to make use of in this industry that I can't
what could I uniquely bring to the table that nobody else has in this industry and then start that? Because we have not even begun to see how much our industry can be reinvented through the female lens. And also the point I make in this context is, when you invent the future advertising, you start what is missing in our industry that you can uniquely bring to the table.
All you have to do is operate it successfully for a reasonably short period of time. Because the thing about that closed leaf of white guys talking to white guys about other white guys is by definition, they cannot innovate and disrupt because homogeneity is the enemy of creativity. But they can sure as hell acquire innovation and disruption. Start your own industry, operate it successfully for a reasonably short period of time.
Lauren Alvarez (17:11)
Mm.
Cindy Gallop (17:21)
And giant holding company X will buy it from you for an absolute god damn fucking shit ton of money and that is the fastest path to wealth creation in our industry.
Lauren Alvarez (17:32)
I mean, here, first of all, I think that there's something really strong there to be said about not just like disrupting something, right? Everyone's talked about disrupting, flipping the table over. It's about creating something that hasn't even been done before. And I would be remiss not to mention here that you did exactly that. I mean, I love what many people may know about make love not porn is that you started it from a TED talk. But what a lot of people might not know is that you actually...
Cindy Gallop (17:34)
I'll see you in a few days.
Lauren Alvarez (17:57)
did this in one of the three minute slots, right? That they give to audience members. It wasn't a scheduled Ted talk. It was a four minute talk that you got up, launched your business and, you know, dropped the mic essentially and literally, right? And from there, Make Love Not Porn was, you know, you had launched an industry. And I will say also, because this was 15 years ago, this was before sex tech was being uttered,
And you had this idea of first from a social standpoint to disrupt, to create, but also from an industry standpoint to say, this doesn't exist yet. I'm going to do this. Talk to me about what led up to that moment. Was this premeditated over months and months of time? Did you know you were going to do this at TEDx or were you like, today's the day and you woke up that morning? Where did that come from, Cindy?
Cindy Gallop (18:43)
So I'm a great believer in serendipity. Everything in my life and career has happened by complete accident. I have never consciously intentionally planned anything. My ex-boss at BBH, John Heggety, has this great mantra, do interesting things and interesting things will happen to you. And I'm a great believer in that as well. So, you know, make love not porn was a total accident. It came about because I date younger men, they tend to be in their twenties.
And I realized 16, 17 years ago, before anybody else identified this issue, I realized through my direct personal experience dating younger men, that when we don't talk openly and honestly about sex, porn becomes sex education by default in not a good way. And as I'm a naturally action-oriented person, I went, wow, if I'm experiencing this, other people must be as well, I'm gonna do something about. So pure as a little side venture, I put up a loan money,
15 years ago, a tiny clunky website at makelovenotporn.com that in its original iteration was just copy. The construct was porn world versus real world. Here's what happens in the porn world. Here's what really happens in the real world. I had the opportunity to launch Make Love Not Porn at TED. I became the only TED speaker to say the words come on my face on the TED stage, six times in succession. The talk went viral as a result. And it drove this
extraordinary global response to my tiny website that I had never anticipated. Thousands of people wrote to me from all around the world, young and old, men and female, straight and gay, pouring their hearts out, telling me things about their sex lives and their porn watching habits they'd never told anyone before and I realized I'd uncovered a huge global social issue. And so
That was what made me feel that I now had to take Make Love Not Porn forwards in a way that would make it much more far reaching, helpful and effective. And so I turned into a business designed to do good and make money simultaneously. And so today, Make Love Not Porn is the world's first and only user generated, 100% human curated social sex video sharing platform.
So we're kind of what Facebook would be if it allowed you to openly, healthily, socially, sexually self-expressed, which it clearly doesn't. if porn is the Hollywood blockbuster movie, Make Love Not Porn is the badly needed documentary. We are a unique window onto the funny, messy, loving, wonderful sex we all have in the real world. And what we're doing is we are socializing, normalizing and destigmatizing sex. We're bringing out of the shadows into the sunlight.
to promote consent, communication, good sexual values and behavior. We are literally sex education through real world demonstration. And what I then had to do was, so what I did not realize when I embarked on this venture was that my tiny team and I would fight an enormous battle every single day, not even to build Make Love Not Porn, but just to keep it alive. Basically because every piece of business infrastructure, any other tech startup takes the brunt, we can't.
The small print always says no adult content. And it's all pervasive. I can't get funded. I can't get banked. I can't advertise Make Love Not Porn. I can't promote Make Love Not Porn. I can't put payments in place. I can't work with tech services I want to work with, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, that was what led me 10 years ago now, I guess. You know, I was trying to raise funding for Make Love Not Porn. It was proving a nightmare. And so I basically decided
to define, pioneer and champion my own category, sex tech. And I did that because when you have a truly world changing startup, you have to change the world to fit it, not the other way around. So I decided that to get over investors reluctance, I was going to give make love not porn somewhere to live. I was going to define my own category. So I literally wrote the definition of sex tech. If you Google sex tech, I'm result one on page one of Google.
Lauren Alvarez (22:45)
Mm.
Cindy Gallop (23:02)
And sex tech is any form of technology or tech venture designed to innovate, disrupt, and enhance in any area of human sexual art and human sexual experience. I coined the hashtag sex tech. I didn't invent the term per se, but I'm directly responsible probably in the hashtag as why this is used today. And I began speaking at tech conferences all around the world on why the next big thing in tech is sex tech. Because I thought at base level, if I just say this loudly enough, often enough in enough places people start to believe it.
And they did. Today, 10 years later, sex tech is a thing. It's a known category. If you Google it now, there's a ton of coverage, ton of research, and I'm acknowledged as being the godmother of sex tech and making that happen. Because there are many, many sex tech founders out there, particularly female sex tech founders, we all face the same challenges. We're a very collaborative community because we are out to break all of this down together for all of us.
Lauren Alvarez (23:36)
Yes.
I think that what's so interesting about that, Cindy, and I wasn't aware that you had created the hashtag. I think that that's brilliant. And coming up when you do Google sex tech, you are the first person that comes up in the results. And I knew that wasn't paid advertising as well. So you're right. You didn't even ever leave advertising. You're out here making it happen as well. You also have spoken about the difficulty in finding investors for especially female-founded sex tech startups.
Cindy Gallop (24:03)
Thank you.
Lauren Alvarez (24:29)
What I found was so interesting is that instead of wallowing in sadness, you're not a wallower. Let's just clear the air there. There's, there's no question about it, but instead you decided to raise the world's first dedicated sex tech fund. Talk to me about this and was the impetus for this purely out of frustration or was it also from having other folks talk to you and say, I can't get funded or was this from your own experiences and you're like, fuck it, I'm doing this first. Where did this idea spring from?
Cindy Gallop (24:54)
Sure. Well, basically, as I said, I began 10 years ago, actively, deliberately defining sex tech and championing sex tech as a category. And that led to two further accidents, because again, none of this is intentional or planned. So the first accident was that because I was
demarcating and defining and delineating this category, I began seeing for myself the enormous potential within it, not least financially. And the second thing was that I gained a global reputation as a champion of sex tech. Sex tech founders began writing to me from all around the world. To this day, literally every day, a sex tech founder writes to me from somewhere in the world. And they write because they have all the same barriers I do. They can't get funded. They can't put payments in place.
And I realized that I have unique access to extraordinary sex tech deal flow. And so, you know, back in the day, I was still struggling to get Make Love Not Porn funded. And so I went, OK, if I can't get my own startup funded, I'm just going to have to get the entire category funded. And so in a seemingly counterintuitive mood,
Because I couldn't raise $2 million to scale Make Love Not Porn, I decided to raise $200 million to start the world's first and only sex tech fund. And, you know, because basically what if nobody else is going to, then I will. And this was absolutely an act of desperation, a last resort, because I couldn't get funded any other way I'm going to have to fund myself. And so I began having dialogues with investors about, you know, raising a dedicated sex tech fund.
And I found that what I surmised was absolutely correct. There are more people willing to fund the category than individual ventures within it for a couple of reasons. You know, if you fund my sex tech fund, you know, you're at one remove from, you know, you didn't actually fund somebody with sex, you funded a fund. But secondly, because, because sex tech is still, you know, a very unfamiliar category for most investors.
Lauren Alvarez (26:57)
Mm.
Cindy Gallop (27:16)
The benefit was with a fund, I do your due diligence for you. You know, I can absolutely serve up the best deals because I am the domain expert, you know, and I have access to this extraordinary deal flow. But I then had to back Burner, the idea of the Sextech Fund because I actually raised the $2 million I needed from an unexpected source, which is my existing angel investor. But I...
I absolutely intend when I can raise the round of funding I'm now looking for from A Love Not Poor, I intend at some point to go back to raising that fund, because the opportunity only gets exponentially bigger with every passing year.
Lauren Alvarez (27:56)
And I think that's brilliant. You know, you talked about a lot of, you know, the industry being driven by men. I think it was driven by men, funded by men was how you put it and managed by men. It's directed by men. It's targeted at men and disrupting that the sex tech market share. I mean, looking ahead, you know, the valuation just in the US alone is gigantic. And we're talking in the, you know, 30 billion plus category.
globally, I mean, where do you see, you know, the most opportunity and perhaps with that opportunity always comes the impetus of wanting change, right? We'll try to wave a wand, but I would say you have more than a wand because you're actually making shit happen. What would you change knowing that the market share is there, knowing that there are people who are eager to launch their own businesses within this category? What is perhaps we're going to speak to the most frustrating parts of it?
Cindy Gallop (28:45)
So I have a very different and unique perspective on sex tech than anybody else. And that is because of what I'm doing myself. So, you know, we talk about the fact that make love not porn is spearheading, what we call the social sex revolution. The revolutionary part is not the sex. It's the fact we're finally making it social.
And so the point I make to investors about both make love not born and sex take is, oh my God, the money there is to be made. But the money that has to be made in two areas, the second one of which right now, nobody even conceives of because nobody even thinks it's possible. So the first area is obviously the money made out of sex. We all have it. We all enjoy it.
It's recession proof and the market never ever goes away. But the second area is, oh my God, the money to be made out of socially acceptable sex Because when you do what make love not porn is doing, socialize and normalize all of this, bring it out of the shadows into the sunlight, you then normalize people feeling really okay about publicly buying.
Lauren Alvarez (29:43)
I'm going to go to bed.
Cindy Gallop (30:09)
your products, goods and services, then publicly doing what they do with everything else, reviewing, recommending, sharing, advocating, and publicly badging themselves as brand ambassadors. That's the trillion dollar financial future that I'm going after. But what is interesting is the single most important piece of advice that I've had to give over the past decade to fellow sex tech founders.
Lauren Alvarez (30:22)
Mm.
Cindy Gallop (30:40)
is basically revolves around this issue of socializing. And I'll explain what I mean by that. Years ago, a young female founder came to me with a sex tech startup. There are many of these now, but back in the day, she wanted to redesign sex toys, make them cool, sell them online. So she was talking me through her startup and she went, and the thing is, Cindy, people are really embarrassed to be seen buying sex.
So we're going to package them like this, send them out like this. And I said to her, okay, hold it right there. You need to go right back to the beginning and re concept your startup from the ground up. Because you need not to say to me, people are embarrassed to be seen buying sex toys. You need to say to me, we're going to make people not embarrassed to be seen buying sex toys. When you concept and design a business around existing societal bias and prejudice, all you do is reinforce it.
Lauren Alvarez (31:09)
Hmm.
Cindy Gallop (31:39)
I refuse to bow to existing societal bias prejudice, I'm out to blow it apart. And I make that point because, you know, people unconsciously internalize society's disapproval of anything to do with sex in a way that then actively damages their ability to do the kind of business they want. Sex more than any other area proves the truth that saying we do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.
Lauren Alvarez (32:06)
Mm.
Cindy Gallop (32:06)
And so I'm constantly having to encourage other sex tech founders not to be euphemistic, not to blandify their startup, not to make investors feel more comfortable by pretending you're doing something you're not, et cetera, et cetera. Because that is not the way to the business success that you envisage when you came up with the idea in the first place.
Lauren Alvarez (32:31)
And I mean, as you said, you have to change the world to fit it and not the
the other way around, right? And that was something that you said in the beginning, I think that's so poignant and really topical here. And there is so much shame around sex, especially I would say in the United States, I think, you know, US centric conversations. I mean, everything from the way we're educated in class, it's very male centric, it's very much, you know, taking away the focus from female pleasure. There's never even a discussion of that, forget it. And so I think also, you know, something we discuss often on the show is when we're constantly putting energy out for
change, when we're championing something, when we're the driving force of innovation or of an area that is still catching on, it can be really draining. It's bringing energy back for yourself after giving so much to everyone. You're working with consulting clients. You're working to really educate the masses. How do you charge up and reserve time for Cindy? What do you do to bring it back for yourself? You said more sex this year, so I'm guessing that's part of it. Can you share a little bit about how you refill the reserves?
Cindy Gallop (33:34)
So, you know, I was asked a similar question last year, where, you know, I was giving an interview about the stress of being an entrepreneur. And the interviewer said, so Cindy, you know, do you have like, you know, a daily self care practice where you can, you know, recover from all the stress? And I went, Oh, yeah, absolutely. I absolutely have a daily self care practice.
My daily self-care practice is I have no husband and I have no children.
Lauren Alvarez (34:05)
And so that right there gives you time to live your life and to unplug.
Cindy Gallop (34:08)
That is fan fucking-tastic. I adore being single. You know, I've never wanted a marriage, I've never wanted children. You know, I cannot wait to die alone. I'm not a relationship person. And I have to tell you that honestly, that makes life so much less stressful. I don't have to worry about anybody else other than myself. And I mean that by the way.
Lauren Alvarez (34:11)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.
Cindy Gallop (34:33)
only in the context in which you're asking this question, because obviously I have a wonderful family, wonderful friends, and I care about them, you know, but unlike so many other people, especially women, I don't have to give of myself to a husband, to children, to the household, to child care, to all sorts of things that make it all the more difficult to be an entrepreneur. You know, I operate my own schedule, I operate, in fact, you know, I talk about this as
Lauren Alvarez (34:38)
course.
Cindy Gallop (35:02)
For me, one of the joys of being single and living on my own is that I get to operate a highly erratic eating only eat when I'm hungry, which means I eat at very odd hours of the day or night. I don't have to worry about feeding anybody else so I can eat whenever I want. And I can eat really idiosyncratic snacks that anyone else will go, oh, that's disgusting, but nobody's around so I can eat whenever I want.
That is absolutely for me very high on the list of the joys of being single. And you know that is enormously de-stressing.
Lauren Alvarez (35:37)
I can see that for sure. I mean, I can say I'm actually, I'm a newer mom. And when I disclosed my pregnancy to my last employer, two weeks later, my job was eliminated.
if anything, it was an incredibly clarifying event for me because it's not my identity of being a mom. It's not my identity of not being a mom
But there is a freedom in knowing who you are and what you want and what you want from your day. And when someone, I think, kind of looks at that or hears you say it and then points the finger back at you and is like, yeah, you can't have it. I mean, I thought I was gonna have seven months of parental leave. I spent that time applying for jobs, And I was like, what the fuck is this? And I think that it's so interesting to hear, you know, I know that you were on the Child Free podcast
and I loved you were asked a question that was so interesting. It was like well How do you relate with the child free movement? You're like I don't it's just for me And I appreciate that I think about you is it's not like it's part of your brand because you're doing it to be cheeky Are you doing it to do it's just part of who you are as you And that's the that's the thing. I've learned the most is like I had to make my Instagram private I had to you know had to I felt like I needed to because every time I have a conversation People just wanted to talk to me about being a mom
And there's so much more to me than that. And it's just like there's so much more to you than whether or not you chose to have a partner or kids or anything.
Cindy Gallop (36:58)
I realize at some point last year, you know, it's very interesting how, again, you know, I go back to that saying about we do not see things as they are, we see things as we are. You know, I realized at some point last year that whenever I meet somebody, and this is universal, you know, male, female, whatever age.
Lauren Alvarez (37:08)
Yes.
Cindy Gallop (37:18)
unconscious until I suddenly became aware of this, my unconscious default assumption is that they're single and they have no children. So I'm always startled when A, someone references the fact they're married or partnered, and B, I'm always startled when someone references the fact they have a kid or children, because my default assumption comes from where I'm sitting, which is that I just assume that everybody is single and has no children. And
And as I said, I do this completely unconsciously until I suddenly became aware of it. But but you know that is my version of what too many people think, which is that they assume everybody must be part of everybody must have children. And you know, I think we should all challenge our default assumptions.
Lauren Alvarez (38:05)
I really appreciate that too. And yes, I've certainly had my share of, men tell me they were gonna mansplain me on how to be a parent. And I'm like, shut the fuck up. We're not doing that today because I don't lead into a conversation and say, oh, would you like to see pictures of my child and this and that? And sorry if I shocked you by saying I have a baby. No. So knowing that you mentioned not being married, you've said wanting to die alone. I think that's a proclamation.
Cindy Gallop (38:24)
No, too soon.
Lauren Alvarez (38:34)
Who supports you when you're making big moves, big decisions? You mentioned you have a great friend group. You know, what do you tap into when you're on the precipice of something? You're like, oh, fuck, this is big.
Cindy Gallop (38:44)
Honestly, I mean I talk to my friends but I don't, I make my own moves. I make my own decisions. I don't need anybody else to endorse them. I really don't.
Lauren Alvarez (38:50)
I love that. Yeah.
And I think that that's the thing is that when we spent a lot of time and energy thinking about what others are going to think of us, But I think that you know people are really worried about offending really worried about how we craft a message and so.
What advice do you have? Because I think you're full of it, of advice, that is. What advice would you have for someone who does get caught up on worrying about what other people are thinking when they're making a bigger statement, when they're doing something that is maybe seen as new or different or disruptive?
Cindy Gallop (39:23)
I've been saying this literally decades, don't give a damn what anyone else thinks. Fear of what other people will think is the single most paralyzing dynamic in business and in life. You will never own the future if you care what other people think.
Lauren Alvarez (39:38)
I mean, I think that to me is really the epitome of this show as well, is when you're doing something different, when you're going left, when everybody else is going right, you can't be caught up looking back because you're going to get stuck in the past. You're going to get stuck in worrying about the way things should be. I mean, knowing that we only have so much time together, I would love to also know a little bit about your perspective on people who are wanting to get funding, wanting to lean in. Who is your ideal client? If someone's listening to this and they're like,
I have a sex tech idea. I wanna get funded. I wanna do this. Like who's, let's speak it into existence. Who's your ideal client, Cindy?
Cindy Gallop (40:14)
basically, I coach anybody who needs my help. And I coach a number of sex tech founders, because, you know, as I mentioned earlier, they write to me every day, I get a huge number of messages asking me for free advice. And I am not able to do that because I'm a bootstrapping founder who has to support myself alongside make love not porn through doing paid coaching, consultant speaking.
So, you know, I'm very straightforward about that. I explained that I am unfortunately, you know, I'm not in a financial position to be able to respond to every one of the, you know, 20 odd requests for free advice I get every single day. And so I'm only able to engage in a paid coaching consultative basis. And so I do indeed coach Sextic founders on, you know, how to raise funding. So no, I mean, my coaching practice
is for anybody and everybody who needs my help in whatever capacity, you know, that there is no ideal client. It's just anybody who wants to make a change.
Lauren Alvarez (41:18)
love that. I mean, what are your favorite brands right now, whether they're in the sex tech space or otherwise, you feel like are really doing business right? Because there's a lot of focus on who's doing it wrong, who's fucking up, but who do you think is doing it right? What are you a fan of right now?
Cindy Gallop (41:31)
Honestly, you know, there are, I mean, first of all, in terms of broader well-known brands, very few people are doing it right. And I'll tell you why I say that, because, you know, I'm, and I call this out on social media all the time, but I get completely fed up with brands putting out a message of diversity and inclusion when they're bored with their leadership team and their company is predominantly white men. Okay. So.
I'm all about communication through demonstration. Don't say it, be it and do it. And I can tell you very few brands are being it and doing it. There are many obviously, you know, wonderful sex tech startups, female founded startups that are working to change that. And so, you know, I would just say that I fully endorse every, you know, woman, person of color who is right now starting their own industry because that's the future.
Lauren Alvarez (42:30)
I love that. I mean, Cindy, where can people go to learn more about you, what you're up to, what we can expect from you next? Where would you like folks to go? And we'll link it in the show notes too.
Cindy Gallop (42:31)
Thank you.
Great, thank you. So you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Cindy Gallup and also at MakeLoveNotPorn. I'm on LinkedIn, you can follow me there, you can follow me on Facebook. Obviously, please do go to MakeLoveNotPorn.tv, sign up, support me by subscribing and do subscribe to Dear Cindy on Substack and send me your questions because I thoroughly enjoy answering them.
Lauren Alvarez (43:04)
I love that so much. Before we wrap up today, what is one final thought you'd like to leave our listeners with? I love that so much. Before we wrap up today, what is one final thought you'd like to
Cindy Gallop (43:12)
Um, honestly, um, and I'm single minded about this because, you know, most other people aren't. Um, if you want to support women, do it with money. And what I mean by that is obviously investors who can do this fund female founders, but you know, if you want to support anybody, you know, as I've just said to you, I would love you to go to make love, not porn, sign up and subscribe.
You know, subscriptions start at $10 a month, emmily affordable. But operate that principle with every woman you want to support. You know, could you buy one of her products? You know, could you contribute to whatever her cause is? Consciously think about, you know, putting your money where your mouth is. How can I help this woman financially? How small that amount is?
But that's what we need. All we need is access to capital, again, however small, in a way that we don't get, but too many white men do.
Lauren Alvarez (44:21)
I feel that deeply, Cindy. Cindy, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been another episode of Don't Fuck This Up, the podcast answering the ultimate question, how the fuck did you land that cool job? I'm your host Lauren Alvarez, and we will talk to you next week.