How a Shared Fertility Struggle Empowered Two Ex-Nike Employees to Launch Their Own Prenatal Company

In Exit Interview, Marie Claire has a candid conversation with someone who has left their job. We learn all about their experience—both the good and the bad—plus why they decided to leave and what life looks like on the other side.

Here, we talk to ex-Nike employees Vida Delrahim and Ronit Menashe, who forged a remarkably close and supportive relationship as each other’s work wives for nearly 20 years. Together, they navigated some of life’s biggest milestones—with serendipitous synced marriages and firstborns—and leaned on each other during more complex challenges, including trying to conceive. After both experienced miscarriages in their late 30s and early 40s—dismissed by doctors with comments like “You’re lucky you even got pregnant”—they set out to find better guidance, ultimately leaving Nike to launch WeNatal, a California-based prenatal supplement.

Marie Claire: How did you land in the wellness space after your marketing careers?

Vida Delrahim: When Ronit and I met in Nike’s corporate marketing department 20 years ago, we instantly became best friends. We always assumed we might team up professionally one day, likely in events or marketing. But life had different plans. In early 2020, we both had miscarriages within a week of each other—my second and her first—and our doctors were surprisingly dismissive, saying, "It just happens.” Separately, we were both given little optimism or practical guidance—basically told there was nothing we could do. The doctors' offices were very matter-of-fact, which just happened quite a bit with "geriatric pregnancies." Since this wasn’t my first miscarriage, I took it at face value and assumed it was my fault.

Ronit Menashe: I’ve always wanted to work in the wellness space. When I got my MBA at USC, all my classmates interviewed for every job under the sun—places like Taco Bell, Kellogg’s, or General Mills. Those are considered prestigious positions from business school because they pay well, but there was a disconnect for me. I wanted my career to make a real impact.

While at business school, I had just one interview at Nike, which I got. I thought, “Wow, this will be the best thing ever. I’m going to make an impact at a huge company.” But after eight years at Nike, I realized I still didn’t feel like I was truly changing lives in the health and wellness space, so I decided to pursue functional medicine.

After Nike, I got a job with Dr. Mark Hyman, who I worked with for four years. He's a leading functional medicine doctor. When I had a miscarriage at that time, I knew that what my conventional doctor was telling me was a little bit of gaslighting and just a little bit of lack of information on her end. Researching on my own, I learned there are many root causes of miscarriage; women can do a lot to improve egg quality at any age, and men account for half the fertility equation.

VD: I was still working at Nike and remember getting a call from Ronit where she revealed what felt like a groundbreaking discovery—that men contribute just as much to fertility as women, yet nobody discussed men’s prenatal. We realized there was not only a nutritional gap but also an emotional gap: women often shoulder the entire fertility burden. Given our own experience with pregnancy loss, we knew something had to change. We wanted to educate, shift gender paradigms, and spark a broader conversation. It was the start of the brand.

MC: How did your experience at Nike shape the way you developed WeNatal?

VD: Nike is at the top of their game, and being a premium brand was ingrained in both of us when we started working on the start of our own company.

RM: We learned the importance of a strong visual identity and brand experience there. They excel at integrated storytelling across all platforms and that premium experience from customer service to how you check out, how you open the box, and the messaging. That mindset has been rooted in everything we do.

It's why we initially contacted Brightland's brand designers but received quotes in the hundred-thousand-dollar range—way beyond our budget. That led us to work with Kati Forner, who had recently left a design agency. She’s an incredible designer who helped us establish our brand’s foundation and brought our vision to life, creating the elevated experience we learned to value at Nike.

MC: What was it like getting a small brand off the ground?

VD: We kept telling ourselves, “We’ll launch next month,” only to discover we needed to do something else. We were meticulous about our formula, continually updating it as new research emerged and double-checking every detail. Our background taught us that we’d only have one chance to make consumers fall in love with WeNatal, so we invested heavily in the brand experience—from the website design to the packaging—ensuring every touchpoint would be memorable, innovative, and unlike anything else on the market. Otherwise, what’s the point of launching another prenatal product? That commitment to getting it right explains why it took two years, but it also shaped a truly holistic offering that addresses real needs in prenatal care.

MC: Vida, you still worked at Nike at the time. How did that go?

VD: I was open about the project from day one, sharing updates on social media because it truly was a labor of love—and a healing journey after my two miscarriages. It felt good to help other women facing similar struggles and to let them know they’re not alone. Since we bootstrapped the entire venture, I couldn’t afford to quit my job. I even mentioned it in Nike meetings, explaining that this was my second passion, but it had nothing to do with athletic apparel or footwear—I never wanted to compete with Nike. Since it was so different from Nike’s day-to-day work, it didn’t conflict with my role. I squeezed in work on nights and weekends. Ronit and I would get together, and while our kids played, we’d be busy cranking out work.

MC: How did your co-workers react?

VD: My boss had an idea, and honestly, so did everyone else. Every now and then, people would say, “I heard you started WeNatal!” Everyone who knew was incredibly supportive. Even now that I’ve fully left Nike, it’s rewarding to hear former colleagues—sometimes even current employees—saying they loved hearing me on a podcast or seeing what I’m doing with the brand. Friends from our Nike years have been an enormous source of support, and we’re all still cheering each other on as our careers evolve.

MC: What did you learn about work culture?

VD: My time at Nike taught me that people are at the heart of a brand; they’re the ones who truly bring it to life. We’ve been fortunate to hire people we love, respect, and admire—those who genuinely believe in our mission. The work will get done, but it’s crucial to surround yourself with a community that cares as much as you do. For instance, one of our newest hires had been taking WeNatal for two years before reaching out because she wanted to be part of what we’re building. That kind of passion is a blessing. We treat our team like family, and that’s something I learned there: when you invest in people above all else, the brand becomes real.

MC: Would you have done anything differently?

RM: The biggest learning I think we've both had is to trust our gut. When we saw red flags, we knew we should not proceed, but we didn't have the expertise to negotiate out of a contract or say the money is sunk—let's get out now and move on.

VD: Sometimes, as a first-time entrepreneur, you second-guess yourself. And I think the reality is we've been around the block long enough to trust our intuition.

Now we go back to that, and we're like, "Nope, let's stick with it. We know what we need for this brand." And trusting our gut as a female founder, I think, is a very important skill set you need to reinforce.