Stanford graduates redefine tampons with ‘Sequel’ for women’s athletics
Dreams became a reality for two Stanford Product Design graduates, Amanda Calabrese ‘19 and Greta Meyer ‘19, when a class project evolved into the company, Sequel, that is pioneering the next generation of tampons.
Last fall, the two launched a partnership with Stanford athletics for the 2024-25 academic year that provides free Sequel tampons to student-athletes. This marked the first official collaboration between a college athletic program and a tampon brand in NCAA history.
“It was always our intent to support athletes that struggled with the same problems that we had, which was period products not being reliable when they needed to be,” said Calabrese, who was a student-athlete while at Stanford. “And being able to collaborate with Stanford Athletics is a dream because that was where we started.”
Sequel tampons are now making a quiet impact in locker rooms and team bags. In order to support Stanford athletes at their peak performance, Sequel tampons feature helical grooves instead of traditional vertical channels, creating a longer flow path for improved absorption and leakage protection.
“It’s important that [the athletes] have a regular cycle,” said Stanford assistant athletic director Sarah Lyons, regarding the partnership. “We want to be able to take care of the things that we can help them control so they can give their focused and undivided attention to their sports, to the coaches, and to the goal, which is ultimate success.”
At Stanford, Calabrese and Meyer were both high-level athletes – Meyer on Stanford’s Division I lacrosse team and Calabrese on the Open U.S. National Lifesaving team – who dreaded leakage while competing on their period. Frustrated by existing tampon designs, they set out to build a more reliable, leak-proof alternative, an idea that first took shape in their shared ENGR 145: Technology Entrepeneurship” class.
The two classmates landed on the spiral tampon and co-founded Sequel shortly after graduating in 2019. It wasn’t until fall of 2023 that the Sequel tampon was FDA-cleared and market-ready, but the timing proved to be advantageous, especially with women’s sports seeing record interest and viewership around the same time.
Beyond supplying products for Stanford’s 20 varsity women’s teams, Sequel is also the official tampon provider of the USL Super League and Unrivaled Basketball League – both women’s professional sports leagues that were founded within the last four years. Two former Stanford athletes are ambassadors of the brand, including WNBA player Lexie Hull ’22 and pro beach volleyball player Charlie Ekstrom ’23.
“Women’s sports is the moment right now,” Calabrese said. “It has a captive audience, and it allows us to access fans, moms, daughters, people that are playing sports and using their bodies. It allows us to have our product put to the ultimate test of reliability, comfort, and performance.”
The partnership with Stanford athletics was just the beginning for the Forbes 30 Under 30-recognized duo. Calabrese and Meyer now want to launch more partnerships, grow their TikTok presence and expand their affiliate program that is open to student-athletes from all college programs.
“We’re working on some really cool stuff with our partners,” Calabrese said. “Stuff you’ve never seen before. Stanford was the first NCAA partnership, and we’ve got a lot of other firsts coming. That was the first domino to fall.”
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