WoW Woman in FemTech - Lisa Volkers, co-founder and CEO of PERIOD.
Lisa Volkers is the co-founder and CEO of PERIOD., a privacy-first women's health and cycle tracking app.
A year ago, Lisa realized she was surprisingly disconnected from her own body and menstrual cycle. Determined to learn more, she started researching online, only to find a flood of conflicting information. Like millions of women, she turned to period tracking apps, but quickly became frustrated by outdated experiences and the realization that many of them profit from users' most intimate health data.
After venting her frustration to her boyfriend, Diederick, he challenged her: "Then build your own app." Lisa laughed and replied, "Fine. And I'll call it PERIOD."
Three months ago, that idea became reality.
Today, Lisa leads PERIOD., a fully bootstrapped company that has grown to more than 45,000 users. Within a week of launch, the app reached #1 in the Dutch App Store and quickly gained national attention, with coverage across virtually every major Dutch newspaper.
As CEO, Lisa oversees the company's brand, partnerships, and growth as PERIOD. expands from the Netherlands into the rest of Europe. Alongside its consumer app, the company is also bringing menstrual health into the workplace through PERIOD. at Work.
Lisa is an outspoken advocate for privacy in femtech. She believes women deserve health technology that works for them, not for advertisers, and is committed to proving that privacy and growth can go hand in hand. PERIOD.'s privacy-first approach has been featured by international publications including VICE and Inc.
Tell us a bit about your background and your projects so far.
My name is Lisa, I just turned 30 and I live in Amsterdam with my boyfriend. I studied in Amsterdam and got a degree in Marketing. After that I started my career at the biggest girls magazine of The Netherlands. After working there for four years I became the Editor in Chief. In January 2026 I started building PERIOD., my privacy first cycle tracking app together with my boyfriend and in March we launched. Within two weeks we had 10.000 users. Turns out, I wasn’t the only girl frustrated by the exciting apps. PERIOD. has been number one in the Dutch App Store multiple times, we’re growing towards 100.000 users in September and went viral across pretty much every major Dutch newspaper, all fully bootstrapped. My focus is brand, partnerships and growth, basically getting PERIOD. into the hands of as many women as possible while keeping our promise that their data is never the product.
How did you get into this industry? Has it been an easy industry to get into or have you had many challenges?
Like a lot of women, I was frustrated that the most popular cycle apps quietly treat your most intimate data as something to monetise. We thought women deserved the opposite, a privacy first, easy app that simply never sells you out. Getting into femtech as a bootstrapped, female founded team was not easy. We had no big budget and we were up against venture backed giants, so we had to win on trust and word of mouth rather than spend.
How long did it take you to be where you are now? What was the biggest obstacle? What are the challenges of being in the industry you are in?
We reached number one in the Dutch App Store within two days of launching, which still feels surreal for a small bootstrapped team. The biggest obstacle is the same thing that makes us different: we refuse to sell data or run ads, so we cannot buy growth the way others do, every user has to come through trust and genuine word of mouth. The wider challenge in femtech is exactly that trust gap, women have been let down by apps that monetise their data, and rebuilding that confidence takes time and consistency.
What are your biggest achievements to date?
Reaching number one in the Dutch App Store and passing 10.000 users in two weeks, now growing towards 100.000 users, fully bootstrapped and almost entirely through word of mouth. Going viral across pretty much every major Dutch media outlet. Being featured in international startup media including Inc. Talking to big companies who want to implement PERIOD. plus as an employee benefit. And building an app that is genuinely private by design, available on iOS and Android in 19 languages.
What are the projects you are currently working on?
Our big focus now is taking PERIOD. international, starting with the UK and then Germany and the Nordics. Alongside the consumer app we have built PERIOD. at work, which helps employers support menstrual and women's health in the workplace, and PERIOD. plus for people who want to support the mission and unlock more. The through line is the same everywhere: privacy first, free at its core, built for women not for advertisers.
PS. If anyone reading this knows someone who could help us grow PERIOD. internationally, hit me up. Bootstrapped founders read every email, I promise.
Is the #WomenInTech movement important to you and if yes, why?
Yes, very. Women's health has been underbuilt and underfunded for decades, partly because too few of the people building and funding technology have lived these experiences. Movements like Women in Tech and communities like Women of Wearables matter because they put more women in the room where products get designed and funded, and that is exactly how you get tools that actually serve women rather than extract from them.
What will be the key trends in your industry in the next five years and where do you see them heading?
Privacy and data rights will move to the centre of femtech. With the regulatory pressure on the big players around how cycle data is handled, women are paying attention to what happens to their data, and that will only grow. I also expect AI to become genuinely useful in women's health, but the winners will be the ones who do it privately, without training on people's intimate data. And women's health at work will become a normal part of how good employers think about wellbeing. In five years we will be the European cycle tracking app standard for all women who prefer their intimate data being private and not for sale.
What is the most important piece of advice you could give to anyone who wants to start a career in this industry?
Build from a real problem you actually care about, and protect your users' trust above everything, because in women's health trust is the whole game. And do not wait for permission or a perfect budget, we proved a small bootstrapped team can reach number one by staying close to users and being honest about what you do with their data.
Who are three inspirational women in your respective industry you admire?
First of all Karolina Löfqvist and Jasmine Tagesson, cofounders of Hormona. Karolina and Jasmine have been best friends since they were five years old. They built Hormona together after Karolina spent years dealing with undiagnosed hormonal symptoms that the medical system failed to explain. They turned that personal experience into a hormone testing and tracking platform now used in more than 185 countries. What I admire is that they did not just build an app. They built hardware too, because the answers women needed did not exist yet. That is the kind of mission driven building I find genuinely inspiring.
Also Tania Boler, founder of Elvie is very inspiring. When Tania pitched investors in the early days of Elvie, she was repeatedly told that women's health products were too niche. She built the company anyway. Today Elvie is one of the biggest femtech success stories in Europe, with more than 136 million dollars raised, 200 employees, and products recognised by TIME as one of the greatest inventions. What she built (pelvic floor trainers, smart breast pumps) is not the category PERIOD. operates in, but the path she walked, building a women's health hardware brand at scale in Europe, is the kind of proof point every European femtech founder benefits from.
And last but not least Caroline Noublanche, founder of Apricity and CEO of Epoca. Caroline cofounded Apricity, the world's first virtual fertility clinic, taking what used to be an in person, high friction process and reimagining it as a digital one. She is now building Epoca and continues to push femtech forward as a French founder in a space dominated by US and UK names. What I admire is that she bridges medical care and technology. Apricity is not just an app, it is a clinic. That is a much harder thing to build, and it shows what femtech can be when it goes beyond tracking and into actual healthcare.
