Ida Tin’s Battle to Build Clue, a Period-Tracking App

Ida Tin wanted to build an app to help women track their periods. For months, she went door to door, pitching the concept to early-stage investors in Berlin, London, New York, and Silicon Valley. Often, Tin, a soft-spoken thirty-seven-year-old from Copenhagen with cerulean-framed glasses, was the only woman in the room. Many potential investors balked at the notion of software with inputs for levels of menstrual bleeding, breast tenderness, and sex drive, or the capacity to digitally share windows of ovulation with a partner. Time and again, Tin told me, the men sitting across from her in pitch meetings said, “I only invest in products I can use myself.” The idea embarrassed even some who saw its business potential; one venture capitalist who eventually made a small investment insisted that his involvement be kept private. But Tin persisted, cobbling together fifty thousand euros. She launched the app, called Clue, in 2013, basing it in Berlin. It quietly amassed millions of active users, primarily in the United States. “This was clearly not a niche product,” Tin said. This past November, Clue announced that it had closed a twenty-million-euro round of funding.

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