Maria Markina and Allie Griswold are the co-founders of Athena Club, a digital FemCare subscription company focused on providing high-quality products for women–without the high price tag. Maria’s role at the company is running branding, product development, and marketing, while Allie works on growth and operations, making the perfect partnership. Before Maria co-founded her company, she was an international tennis player (NBD) and enjoys reading in her free time. Allie is a Philly native who loves karaoke, and is a big Eagles fan. Beyond delivering high-quality tampons straight to your door, Athena Club has donated over 10,000 tampons to women in need and recently partnered with WeWork to pack 2,000 products to go to homeless shelters in the NYC area. Below, these impressive co-founders tell us how they wrap up a busy day at the office.
6:30 P.M.
Maria: I will generally still be at the office finishing up on emails, or connecting with people on the west coast. Some of our partners are out there, so my days can get a little bit longer if we have calls or meetings. We have beers at the office so sometimes I might have a beer with a few of my teammates, especially on a Friday, making it more fun!
Allie: I usually try to leave the office around 6:30 P.M. There are a few things I finish up at home, but it’s nice to take a break and change up the scenery to my couch and a fluffy blanket. After several years of traveling every week as a consultant, I’m still adjusting (with varying levels of success) to being home every night and cooking. I’ve started stopping at the grocery store on my way home to pick up a few things for dinner (plus a much-needed snack for the walk home).
7 P.M.
Maria: I will usually start heading home and thinking about what I want to eat for dinner (I think about what I want to eat too often and my Instagram feed does not help). I bring my dog to the office so we take a longer stroll to walk off the day (blood circulation is much-needed after sitting all day). When I get home, I will typically check on emails again to make sure there is nothing urgent, or if I still have a few things to wrap up!
Allie: I put on some music (my Spotify daily mix #2 really gets me) and make one of my two dinner specialities: turkey tacos or turkey chili. I tried innovating the other week to do the tacos in potato rolls as a taco/burger mix to change it up. I don’t think that one will be staying in the rotation…
8 P.M.
Maria: Food is here! I will typically eat while reading a book, or watching some sitcom like Friends or How I Met Your Mother (love them)! My boyfriend, dog and I will then probably settle on a movie or a TV show we can watch together.
Allie: I live with a good friend and long-time roommate, and we try to find time to catch up over dinner (luckily her bar is as low as mine is for cooking expectations). We’re also both huge pizza fans (and are lucky enough to live by Little Italy) so we order the tie dye pizza from Rubirosa about once a week. It’s life changing. We talk about everything from our days to our work to the latest rom coms we’ve seen, and it’s a great way to start winding down from the day.
8:30 P.M.
Maria: I’m probably still doing the same thing as at 8 P.M. 🙂
Allie: My roommate and I are really into The Good Place right now on Netflix. I wasn’t sure during the first few episodes (I also saw them out of order on a plane so no surprise there) but I started watching from the beginning and the plot twist blew. my. mind. My roommate has already seen it all the way through but is re-wactching it with me (it’s that good), and we’ll watch an episode together while eating dessert. I try to eat pretty healthily throughout the day, and my evening snack is the one time I let my sweet tooth win out.
9 P.M.
Maria: I will often take some time to think about key things I need to do the next day, maybe even do a whiteboard session by myself. I love writing things out because it really puts everything I need to do, or focus on in the next couple of days, in perspective.
Allie: I plug in for 30 minutes to follow up on emails and customer questions. It’s really important to us to be there for our customers to talk through any questions they have about the products, the experience, their periods, life in general – whatever it may be! We want to create a safe and inclusive space for women to get the information they need about their health and their periods.
9:30 P.M.
Maria: Hop in the shower, and then do my little nightly routine which involves washing my skin, moisturizing, and brushing my teeth haha. After that I will probably read a book until I fall asleep, or if I am too tired from the day, I will maybe just keep watching a few more episodes of Friends.
Allie: I like to finish up the night by reading for a while. I light a candle, play some relaxing piano music (shout out to the Spotify “Peaceful Piano” playlist), and read for about an hour. Right now I’m reading What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty (the same author as Big Little Lies) and I’m obsessed. I usually read until I can barely keep my eyes open and then get ready for bed.
11:30 P.M.
Maria: I got to bed at around 11pm-12am after checking my email one last time. I know screen light is not recommended before sleep, and I am really trying to keep my phone away from me once I get in bed.
Allie: I recently changed up my nightly skincare routine after getting a facial with a friend at Heyday. They recommended some wonderful natural products (I have really sensitive skin) like Grown Alchemist olive leaf cleanser that I’ve started using regularly. I do some light stretching, take off the 20 pillows from my bed, and usually fall asleep pretty quickly around 11:30 P.M. or so.