In September 2018, SportsTech Ireland and Kemmy Business School, UL launched the Sports Entrepreneurship Masterclass, which was the very first of its kind in Ireland. The two day event welcomed athletes, entrepreneurs, coaches and leading sports innovators to participate and present at the event. Over the course of the two days, there were many insightful lectures. One of the standout product talks, in terms of ingenuity and innovation, was given by Orreco Product Development Manager and FitrWoman Co-Founder Grainne Conefrey.

FitrWoman allows female athletes to optimise performance during their menstrual cycle. Many studies have highlighted that the menstrual cycle can be a major deterrent for women partaking in sport. In a study conducted by Populus on behalf Orreco, 54% of women have had to stop exercising as a result of their menstrual cycle. This increases to 73% in 16 to 24-year-olds. In a separate study by Women in Sport it was identified that 42% of women do not exercise while on their period. The FitrWoman app is helping to combat these issues. The app helps athletes to track their menstrual cycle. It then provides personalised training and nutritional suggestions tailored to the changing hormone levels throughout the cycle. We caught up with Grainne to discuss how the product came about, the remarkable highs to date and what’s next for this invaluable product.

Intrapreneurship and the Development of FitrWoman

Although FitrWoman first launched in the Apple Store in 2016, the seeds were planted years previously. Grainne graduated from UCD with a degree in Sports & Exercise Management. Her first job out of college was outside of Ireland in Boston where she worked with Hill Holiday Marketing Agency. Grainne explained the relevance of this role.

“One of the biggest clients was Major League Baseball and I was working with the MLB account team. In this role I was working closely with the marketing team, developing the next seasons campaign. I also had to research and analyse the other major competitive sports in the USA. This included the NBA, NFL, NHL. It was an amazing experience.”

This experience gave Grainne her first taste of working with elite athletes. Upon moving back to Ireland she wanted to continue in this field and started working with Orreco in Sligo. Orreco is a company that is well known to SportsTech Ireland. It was founded in 2009 by Dr. Brian Moore and Dr. Andrew Hodgson. Their goal is to use proven sports and data science to enable elite athletes to perform at their best.

It was through this role that Grainne met Georgie Bruinvels. Georgie is a research scientist who,at the time, was completing a PHD on female athletes and the effect of the menstrual cycle on performance.

“Through her research, Georgie was discovering all these fascinating insights, most of which weren’t widely known by the public. There was information on how the body changes during the menstrual cycle and how you can adapt your nutrition to perform better during your cycle. The more we spoke, the more we decided that this is something that all female athletes should know. We decided to pitch our idea to Orreco and see where it would take us.”

This bit of intrapreneurship proved vital to FitrWoman’s success. Having the backing and support of an established sports science company afforded them huge opportunity for growth.

“Orreco gave us a small fund to put toward the development of the first version of FitrWoman. Initially, we outsourced the development to create an MVP version. However, after the success of this version, Orreco backed us even further and we were able to bring development in-house. We have a fantastic product team and sports science team to help us with future development. FitrWoman has very much become a part of the Orreco roadmap. Having the support of Orreco from the start has been incredible and has created some great opportunities for us.”