Hello everyone. It's Anne Duffy and welcome to the Just DeW It podcast. I am so happy that you're here with us today. And I have a special guest with me today that I met, over a year ago. And she just showed up at one of our Do meetings, was introduced to somebody.
Anne: And you will love her. Hi, Alice, Alice Stone. How are you?
Alice: Hi, everybody. Hi, Anne. I'm so honored to be included in your podcast.
Anne: Oh my gosh. Well, I'm so glad you're here because you have just amazed me from day one. But before we get started with this lovely conversation, I want to tell everybody a little bit about you.
Alice invented Sipify, an innovative straw designed for hot drinks that lets you enjoy coffee and tea without staining your teeth. Once she learned the Sipify helps people with swallowing issues, she pivoted to helping compromised patients sip comfortably. Safely and with dignity. She started her career as a filmmaker, smashing stereotypes in her first documentary film about women motorcyclists.
I want to know more about that. again, welcome Alice. this is so
Alice: cool to have you here today. Thank you again.
Anne: So I remember the first time I met you, was it a Dew coffee that you came to the very first time? And you had this little straw and it was so cool.
And you sent one to me and I just love the packaging of it. And I love the fact that you came outside of dentistry. And I don't even know, how did you find Dew by
Alice: the way? Shout out to Dr. Tina saw who I don't even know that well, but I was accepted into a women's incubator and there was another dentist there she said, I have to introduce you to Tina saw, should get back to her and tell her about do actually.
But anyway, it was just, you know, one person removed. And she just said, you have to meet Anne Duffy and you have to join Dew. And, I'm on this journey and I'm a learner. So, Someone tells me to do something.
Anne: for everyone who's listening, you not only joined, but you dove into the community, which is really cool.
I mean, you were, welcomed with open arms coming in from outside. You'd like, everyone's like, are you a hygienist? Are you a dentist? Are you an office man? What do you do? Nope. You're an inventor. You are an entrepreneur, a true entrepreneur. And again, DeW dental entrepreneur woman is if you're a woman.
First, and you happen to have a toe dipped in dentistry, please come and sit at our table. And here you are.
Alice: I mean, I had a pinky toe and I didn't know what to expect when I joined that first coffee chat. I thought this might be a lot of shop talk. I know there's just upheavals in dentistry with hygienists.
So I thought well, I'll give it a try. And you know, it was beyond welcoming. I suddenly felt like, I had my people and I had this overwhelming kind of, what can we do to help you? We want to learn about you. going to teach you what we know. And.
We're going to learn from you too. It was overwhelming. My first coffee chat.
Anne: Oh my God. And they opened doors for you, didn't they? I mean, that's, that's beautiful, but you've got something to offer, which is so cool because I think we were all like, oh my gosh, this is a great product. First of all, in dentistry, which Sipify goes beyond keeping your teeth white.
did you zero in on dentistry right away? Oh, yes. tell us the origin story
Alice: of Sipify. So my aha moment, it actually really starts from filmmaking because I still am a documentary filmmaker, but for years I have filmed, you know, real people on camera.
And your number one job as a documentary film director is getting people to feel comfortable because it's nerve wracking being on camera. I always felt like my smile was one of my most important tools, because as I was interviewing people, when I was done asking the question, I would just sit there and concentrate really hard on just smiling, because it's the best way to non verbally let someone know you're doing a great job.
So just mentally saying, doing a great job, everything you're saying is so interesting. So my smile was really important to me. And my dentist, just unprompted, one day said, you know, your teeth would be a lot whiter if you switched to iced coffee. And I said, I didn't know iced coffee didn't stain your teeth.
And he said, of course it stains your teeth, but you can drink it with a straw. And if you drink it with a straw, it bypasses the front of your teeth, but you can't drink hot coffee with a straw. And so I just got really curious. And I thought, why can't you? Why can you sip this steaming hot cup of coffee, and it's lovely, and it's my favorite way to wake up in the morning?
I'm not an iced coffee person. is it, as soon as you put a straw in, you scald yourself? So I just got curious, and again, That's what my filmmaking has been. I was curious about this, I was curious about that. So I just tried to figure it out. How could I drink hot coffee and hot tea, which I learned stains even worse than coffee, with a straw.
And that's the kind of origin story of Sipify. Oh my gosh.
Anne: that's just so cool. And that's a true entrepreneur, you see a problem and you try to solve it.
So how did you develop and tell us a little bit about this straw because I love the workings of it.
Alice: Yes. Okay. The reason why a straw in a hot drink scalds is because when you're sipping the traditional way, you're sipping from the top of the cup that is making contact with room temperature air.
So the top of the cup is much cooler than the bottom. Once you put a straw in, you're pulling from the bottom and it's hotter. And that's why a straw makes a hot drink, scalding drink. So I thought, well, what if there was a way that I could introduce room temperature air into the straw? And that's what the sipify does.
It aerates and it has very teeny tiny precision laser drilled micro holes. And then the silicone cover has these air shafts. So it just lets in air in between the silicone and the stainless steel metal and it drops into the straw right before it hits your mouth and it cools. Genius. Well, Thank you.
Thank you. But the really exciting unique benefits of the straw all came from I really had a compassion to do good, which is why I think I fit in so well. with dues. It doesn't matter that I don't have the dental background. And sometimes the conversation's over my head and that's okay. But, I only discovered the benefits of this job because I wanted a charitable aspect to my business.
So I didn't want to do like, we donate a percentage of our proceeds. You know, I really wanted to give product. And I was trying to think of what population would appreciate. A donation of sipifies and I came upon Parkinson's because everyone that I know who's living with Parkinson's drinks exclusively from straws.
And I thought, oh, they must be drinking, really tepid or lukewarm coffee, or maybe they're not drinking coffee at all anymore because they can't drink hot coffee. So I just cold called a Parkinson's organization. And this is when the universe aligns. So I called him, he picked up the phone, and I told him why I was calling, and he said, you're not going to believe this.
I just came from getting my teeth cleaned this morning, and I'm having my first cup of coffee, and I thought, oh gosh, my teeth are so nice and shiny now, and I put a straw in it, and I said, you didn't put a plastic disposable straw in your hot coffee, did you? And he said, I know it's bad, I know it's bad.
He got it immediately, and he introduced me to some patients, and I donated, was, the prototype stage. And it was my good fortune, the very first patient that received a prototype is a retired assistant professor of Harvard Medical School. Oh my gosh.
Anne: You can't
Alice: make this up. Okay, keep going. otolaryngology.
So she tries it and she calls me and she said, Oh, it's very nice. I enjoyed the hot coffee with the straw, but I think it's going to lessen my chances of aspirating. And I said, Oh, isn't that nice? In a way that she understood immediately that I didn't understand. She said, Oh no, Alice, this is huge.
And she said, I have a straw that is slow limiting. And it's very, you know, medical looking. And she said, and I did a side by side comparison and the sipify is better at limiting the flow. And if I can control my sip sip size, I lessen my chances of aspirating. that's when I just pivoted. And before I was.
Trying to get to hygienists and trying to get to, dentists and all of the kind of teeth whitening thing. And then suddenly I wanted to talk to any speech language pathologist I could who had an expertise in swallowing. But then it wasn't until I went to Under One Roof that lots of hygienists started telling me, Oh, this is way bigger than Parkinson's.
I would say the first one was Debbie Gallupi, who I had interacted with from the chats, but then I met her in person, And then, she introduced me to Susan Cotton, and Susan Cotton said, Oh, Alice, anyone who has oral or head and neck cancer, anyone who needs to have radiation in their throat needs to control their sip size.
that opened up that Avenue. And then Debra Carrier has been incredibly helpful to me. you know, I jumped right in. I got to under one roof. And I just had a little table, I didn't have a booth. So it didn't take me that long, I threw my little tablecloth on, I put my little straws, I was like, done in 20 minutes.
Debbie Gillopi said we're setting up Deborah's booth for her. And I was like, sure! So the next thing I know, I'm like, dragging this mannequin with Jamie. Oh yeah, Jamie Marbo. Yeah, Jamie Marbo. So we just it was firsthand, I just saw like, wow, these women are there for each other.
Sisterhood, right? And Palomo was helping set up that booth. And I met Jennifer Stanley. And, she has gadget girl and she did a whole little piece and she videoed my booth and she's been awesome. It's just, one do after another.
And then it's so great like Debbie Gallupi is always saying you need to contact so and so. and all I do if I have an email, like I put in the subject line and just say, fellow do, and then I know they're going to open it.
Anne: Oh, that's, it's so beautiful.
And that well, there's a lot of things here. First of all, you took something It's almost like, divine when I think about it, Alice, how, like I said, you can't make this up that the guy just, answered the first phone call had just been to the dentist.
And then you, call somebody at Harvard medical and that connection and then how the dues are helping you. And then Not only helping you physically, but just from a, mindset of this is bigger. This is bigger. Keep going. Keep going, Alice. Keep going. Because this is something that can save people's, their mindset their lives. And the fact that they can actually normalize having a cup of coffee versus having to, that from their lives. A little simple pleasures because it's the simple things that make life so simple. special. And it's a simple straw.
I love it. It's called Sipify, but it's almost like Simplify. It reminds me of Simplify, the drinking of hot beverages the funny thing that it came from the whitening of teeth, but I also love the idea. That you started off with origin story of your smile in filmmaking, so often, we know that in the dental arena, we can certainly back that up.
And you just backed it up for all of us dental professionals that it is so important to smile and it does turn somebody's day around. And it does give people comfort and confidence that, did a good job. They're on the right track. There's so many.
Synergies here between dental and just people that are just living their lives,
Alice: Yeah. And I happened, my brand is Sipify, but the company behind it, I named Confidence Smiles and it turns out to be very fortuitous because another path that I'm following. With Sipify is people with disabilities and that's where the dignity word came in that little blurb I sent you.
I have met several people now with disabilities who say I need to drink from a straw because I have max low facial things going on. And when I drink from a regular straw, I dribble and it's uncomfortable for me. So I don't. drink in public. one woman said, this is amazing now because you and I can be in Starbucks and you're using a Sipify because you want to keep your teeth white and I'm using a Sipify because it's the only straw that I'm comfortable drinking it in public and nobody knows.
this woman actually taught me the concept of universal design, which I did not know. universal design in the disability community means the same product is used by abled people and by disabled people with no change whatsoever. it just makes them much more comfortable. You know, It's not like that very medicinal looking straw that first patient with Parkinson's showed me.
Oh
Anne: my gosh. Yeah. I mean, This whole conversation is giving me, goosebumps, just how broad it is and how, beautiful people are, no matter what. What their physical, disability is, we all have certain things that we want and it's to normalize that is just a beautiful thing with something again, simple yet very
Alice: powerful.
it's a humble little straw, but hydrating safely and confidently it's essential. Yeah. Well,
Anne: We take it for granted. I certainly take it for granted. and the dues, women, So we really do have that, it pulls at our heartstrings. And not that men don't have, hearts. be pulled on as well, but it's just something about the hygienist. I love the fact that it under one roof that, and I know that you just kind of exploded there. Everybody was like, Oh my gosh, this is so amazing.
You know, you think, you it's just so. it's interesting how when you have an invention, you cannot stop. You have got to continue, and don't quit on yourself. And the idea, because as a filmmaker and this comes out because you're telling so many stories and you can just, you light up when you start telling stories.
That is definitely your role in this world is to tell the stories and you studied it. And now this is almost like every time you get a new story and I've seen you on, I'm going to go on and do connect. So if Anastasia's listening to us, she has trademark for coffee chat.
We can't help ourselves, but there are new coffees. Every time I see you tell a story just light up like a Christmas tree, and it's, beautiful to see because that's in your heart. And it's the stories that, really. sell the product, of course, you know, we want people to go, especially if you're listening to this and you have anybody in your family or that, you know, in your patient, list that has a need for this.
First of all, everybody wants white or tea, so everybody could use a Sipify, right? Yeah. But also It just levels it up when you start talking, disabilities, Parkinson's, cerebral palsy. I mean, Oral neck cancer. I mean, Those are all things that are really all around us, but we don't know.
And when you get into the dental community, all of us know people that could benefit from this, that's how the word spreads.
Alice: And then there's even people who are just, have a temporary real need. If you had eye surgery, and you're told you have to look down, and you cannot tip up, and you need your coffee like, that's part of your routine, this is a way that you can still have your hot coffee, or Debbie Libby had a friend who after an endoscopy, she was having some sort of issue, and she couldn't swallow at all, and she ran over, this is a neighbor, she ran over and gave her a Sipify, and she could drink.
Anne: especially with kids too. I think it's something that, you know, it's kind of unique. It's not a throwaway and it's theirs. there's so many different ways and laterals that you can move in with this. just love the fact you've come up with this idea.
And you're still going with it. And it's something that could be used, by so many.
Alice: first hire. I've been just a little company of one and now I have Julie Burns, who's my brand ambassador. Who's working just four hours a week, tell us about Julie.
Yes. So Julie's 28 and she has cerebral palsy and she finds that she chokes. helps her to use a straw. So she was using regular cylindrical straws, but she loves the Sipify and she uses the Sipify with everything. And I have a photo of her sipping beer at Disneyland.
Anne: So you can sip every at cold, hot, but again, it goes further on before having hot coffee.
This is is amazing.
Alice: Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh yeah, the compromised patients use it with everything, I just thought to myself, I could try to reach out to the cerebral palsy community, or I could try to have speech language pathologists reach out on my behalf, why would I not hire the actual person with cerebral palsy to be my spokesperson?
And Julie I can understand her, but she is kind of hard to understand and she usually uses assistive technology. She has a talk to text program, so she's reaching out, she's doing zoom calls for me, and she's emailing and she's. Working within her network, and right now she's focusing on through her network the Private school that she went to and various other organizations that she's involved in and she's trying to find people who are willing to be videotaped talking about their experience with the Sipify.
So the next thing I'm going to have is a whole series of videos, testimonials from people with CP.
Anne: No, it doesn't surprise me. Back to the filmmaker, back to the filmmaker in you.
Right.
Alice: Exactly. You know, this
Anne: kind of reminds me of the, when I think about it is when I was an oxy fresh, the Oolet it's a tongue scraper and it was the first tongue scraper that was actually brought to the United States.
So, you know, Usually they were like a silver piece of metal that you would scrape your tongue. And I think it came from, India or Asia, one of those countries that there was very common for them to use. And this was a plastic thing. And no one in the States had been using or manufactured it.
that was gosh, 25 years ago. And now it's a part of everybody's, home care kit similar to what you're doing. It's. The first of its kind. going to keep following you for, 10 years from now, Alice, and just see where this goes, because it's a very unique, piece of equipment, I don't know if it's equipment. What would you call it?
Alice: call it assistive technology now.
Anne: Assistive technology that can change the lives of a lot of people. And so if you're listening to this today, we will have a little note in the bottom of our show notes here on how to get to the website for Alice.
How do people find you, Alice? do you have a website and is your story on the website?
Alice: Yes. Okay. Yes. My website is Sipify. me. So S I P I F Y dot me. And if you go on there, there's my story. But also testimonials from, various patients. You can see a video of Julie it's coming up soon.
I don't think it's quite on there yet. But if you go to my Facebook page, Sipify. me, you can see Julie Burns talking about how she drinks exclusively with, Sipify and how it helps her. But you can see expert opinions from swallowing experts as well. It's all
Anne: on there. you know, as a dental professional, we love that kind of stuff.
It will help our patients because we see all disabilities, all people, all financial, areas of their lives. And we see all. types of people in our operatories and everybody knows people that can use what you have. So I'm just so happy that you're here today that we get a chance talk about this.
It just gives me some hope in the world that, you're there. best intentions and now look how it's opening up for people in need. so spread the word everybody. And remember if you've got something and you want somebody to help you set your table, join us at the do community dental entrepreneur woman.
And uh, we'll be there to help you drag your table around, give a mannequin, you know, drag the mannequin around, spread the word open doors to which your life mission is, which I can see that this is yours, Alice. And I'm, thrilled to know you and to see the dignity that you're giving to people.
Thank you. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. We'll see you next time, everybody. And most importantly out there dues keep doing you. Thanks. And we'll see you next time.
