Ti Chang has been in the business of building beautiful vibrators for more than a decade - but she's still making waves.
This article is part of a series around femtech and the people leading the charge in this growing sector. See the femtech series here.
Venture capital funding: Check. Profitability: Check. Distribution in mainstream retailers: Check.
Ti Chang, co-founder and VP of Design at Crave, has checked so many of the boxes startups aim for - and she did it as the head of a company that sells vibrators.
And not just any vibrators. Beautiful vibrators. The company’s best known for the Vesper, a powerful vibrator designed to be worn as jewelry. It’s a bold piece of bling, but it's also a statement. Pleasure, it says, is something that can be worn with pride.
For Chang, focusing on delivering products that center women's needs has been a lifelong pursuit. As an industrial designer, she says she’s only ever worked on products for women since she graduated from college.
“As a female industrial designer, I realized I was so rare in the industry,” Chang said. “Industrial design is a really big label that includes a lot of things … there weren’t a lot of women at the table making those decisions around design, so that’s always been my focus.”
It wasn’t long before that focus turned to sexual health and now that she’s been in the business for more than 12 years, she says she sees the adult industry “starting to mature.”
She has a good perspective on how much it’s changed since launching a line of intimate accessories in 2008 under the brand INCOQNITO.
“I bootstrapped this company and sold that to Crave,” Chang said.