Laura Modi on the formula aisle wake-up call, investing in mothers, and choosing your core memories

When Laura Modi’s first daughter was born, she assumed feeding would be the easy part. Liquid gold would flow. Nipples wouldn’t hurt. The whole kit and caboodle. Instead, she found herself standing in a pharmacy aisle, waiting for a clerk to unlock a case of formula, feeling like she’d failed at the most fundamental act of motherhood.

That moment sent Modi—a former tech executive who’d moved from Ireland to the U.S. after college—down a research rabbit hole that would eventually become Bobbie, the infant formula company she founded in 2018. Built on the premise that American parents deserve the same quality standards available in Europe, Bobbie has grown into one of the most recognizable brands in the baby space, navigated the 2022 formula shortage, and invested in its own domestic manufacturing—all while Modi was having three more kids.

In this episode of the Motherly Podcast, Modi sits down with Liz Tenety to talk about what it really takes to build a company and a family at the same time, why the conversation around formula feeding needs more joy and less shame, and what she’s learned about herself as a mother of four at 40.

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Meet the expert

Laura Modi is the founder and CEO of Bobbie, an infant formula company on a mission to change the cultural conversation around how we feed our babies. Originally from a small town in County Mayo, Ireland, Modi moved to the U.S. after college to work at Google and went on to build a career in tech before founding Bobbie in 2018, shortly after the birth of her first child. Under her leadership, Bobbie has grown into a nationally recognized brand, navigated the 2022 infant formula crisis, and invested in domestic manufacturing to ensure supply chain reliability. Modi is a mother of four and a vocal advocate for paid family leave, maternal nutrition, and policy reform for parents in the United States.

Liz Tenety: What surprised you about motherhood?

Laura Modi: Everything I went through in life before, there was a level of preparation and planning and expectations for what I was getting into. As a type A woman, you’re sort of ready for it. And I went into motherhood and it was like a slap in the face. The funny thing is, the first person I remember being mad at was my own parents. I grew up in a world where your parents are telling you as a woman, you can climb the career ladder, you can be like any guy, you could be the president one day. But very rarely for our generation did we also get told, and you’re also going to be an incredible mother—and by the way, here’s everything you should know, and here are the trade-offs. I just expected it would be natural. And then the disappointment wasn’t because motherhood was failing me. It was because I wasn’t expecting a lot of the things that came my way.

Liz Tenety: Can you talk about some of those early memories around feeding your first child?

Laura Modi: Before having a baby, I never even thought about it. I believed my body would do this naturally. Liquid gold would flow. The skies would open up. Nipples wouldn’t hurt. The whole kit and caboodle. And it wasn’t like that. It was my first visceral feeling of, I am failing at being a mother. I am failing my child at nourishing them. My body’s not doing what I’m told is natural. Why am I left with this deep disappointment in me, in society, in my body? It was a very visceral feeling of failure.

Liz Tenety: So what did you end up doing?

Laura Modi: I went in and out of trying to breastfeed her. I got mastitis. My nipples were bleeding, I had blisters, I had a fever. And I found myself in a pharmacy choosing formula. To pause for a minute—I’m standing in a pharmacy, choosing a product where the other solution comes from the human body. It was so drastically different in my mind. And then I had to ring the shame bell. They’re like, aisle three, unlock formula. You’re just going to announce to the world that I’ve failed to feed my child. I went home with formula and the first maternal instinct was, make a bottle, feed your child, don’t starve them. And then the next feeling was, what am I feeding her? Why isn’t it better? Why hasn’t it changed in 30 years? And the why, why, why led me on a deep research rabbit hole as a mother.

Liz Tenety: Talk us through going from that moment in the pharmacy aisle to founding a company.

Laura Modi: It took a moment. A lot of people are like, and then you left the pharmacy and started a company. No. I was 30 pounds overweight. I didn’t know who I was. I was a shell of a human. But I found something I was deeply obsessed with—what it meant to nourish my child and give them the best nutrition and also bring back my supply. During that year, what I call a mini PhD, I grew my own thesis for what a new formula would look like. If we could change culture and have a brand that stood for more than powdered milk, what would we be about? The thesis culminated to a place of confidence. And then I peed on a stick for the second time and found out I was pregnant again. I turned to my husband and said, let’s do this. Let’s start a formula company. That was 2018.

Liz Tenety: As a European looking at the American market, how did that perspective shape what you thought was possible?

Laura Modi: It was everything. As an Irish woman, I became a mother in the U.S. to American babies. I had to mother in an American world. But I could draw comparisons. My friends and cousins and sister back home had paid federal leave to choose how they wanted to feed their baby. They had choices on the shelf, and that formula came with global standards that were constantly evolving. Meanwhile, American moms wanted that so much they were packing suitcases full of powdered milk and shipping it into the country. I’m here in the U.S., a first world country known for being the most innovative in the world, and something seemed very backward. It made me realize it’s so much more than about the milk. It’s about changing the culture around what it means to be a parent in the U.S.

Liz Tenety: I saw a quote of yours: “I didn’t get into this because I like making powdered milk. Becoming a parent makes you an activist.” Talk about that.

Laura Modi: When you become a parent, you’re born with a responsibility to better the world for your children—the nutrition opportunities, the society they’ll grow up in. That responsibility has you look at the status quo and see opportunities everywhere. I use the word opportunities because policies are broken, products are broken, the conversations are broken—and every single one of them is a beautiful opportunity to lean in and be an advocate to change it.

Liz Tenety: Building a company while growing your family is incredibly hard. In those early days, how did you manage it?

Laura Modi: This feeling of wanting to have it all also requires trade-offs—deep investments, acknowledging that there are different seasons in life, some where you’re drowning and it’s not sustainable, and that’s okay. I had advisors who were very blunt with me about trying to find balance. They said if you want to have that level of impact, throw balance out the window. It’s not going to exist. But understand the trade-offs and come to accept that this is a season of life. When I wasn’t able to be there for certain moments at school or someone else was bringing my kids to doctor’s appointments, the only way I could get through it was understanding that I made these choices. My next season is going to look very different. But it’s acceptance of different seasons.

Liz Tenety: Talk about the cultural conversation around formula feeding as it existed when you started Bobbie, and how you’ve tried to shift it.

Laura Modi: When you feed your baby—formula or breast milk—it’s one of the most all-consuming but beautiful moments of your first year of parenting. Feeding your baby seven times a day plays one of the biggest roles in that first year. So the conversation around feeding deserves way more attention and love and joy. It needs to move away from what feels like martyrdom and the feeding wars and into a position of pride and excitement, because you are doing one of the most magical things regardless of how you feed your child.To go from a place that was quite negative and stigmatized and controversial to now, where people are openly talking about it online, wearing Bobbie on a sweater, getting our logo tattooed on them—there is no greater joy than knowing the conversation has changed so dramatically that people want to wear it with pride. If we can change the conversation so people don’t feel like they have to hide, that’s the goal.

Liz Tenety: Can you talk specifically about the product itself? What scared you in the formula aisle, and what practical nutritional changes have been made with Bobbie?

Laura Modi: The first thing that scared me was that the ingredients weren’t things I would have fed myself. The second was that there was no education or anticipation that a carb like corn syrup might be the first thing you’re putting into your child. Infant formula is designed to mirror breast milk—the same carbs, proteins, and fats. Most moms don’t realize that 50 percent of breast milk is sugar. We shouldn’t be scared of sugar, but we should be questioning what type of sugar a formula company is using. My big push was, let’s not fear formula. Let’s take a lens at improving it with better ingredients, better sourcing, the highest organic certifications, pesticide-free and clean label. Not every ingredient is treated equal.

Liz Tenety: You also had to navigate the formula shortage. What was that experience like as a leader and a parent?

Laura Modi: Being the CEO of an infant formula company when the most talked about news item of 2022 was that there’s not enough formula on shelves—it was a call of duty. I went on a two-year journey, purchased manufacturing, and made major investments. I can safely say I am utterly obsessed with every ounce of how that product is made.During the shortage, the need for Bobbie was escalating faster than our ability to replenish supply. My head of growth came to me and said, we have to turn off bringing in new customers or we could run out for existing subscribers. A lot of people in a fast-growth startup would take the bet. But I woke up the next morning as a mother and said, I won’t take that risk. For the subscribers who took a bet on signing up for us, that was a promise. So we turned off accepting new customers for seven months. It was a motherly decision.

Liz Tenety: How has motherhood shifted your view of what is worth funding and what’s been underfunded?

Laura Modi: Becoming a mother is eye-opening to what it means to invest with patience for long-term impact. How do you invest in the next generation and not just the next quarter? Childcare is massively broken. But to invest in childcare in a fundamentally different way, you’ve got to invest in the time it takes to change culture, change an economy, probably change policies and government structures. This is not going into a back room and whipping up a piece of technology.Maternal nutrition is another massive one. I’m in the nutrition space and each time I had a baby, all I’m doing is focused on my baby’s nutrition, but I am depleted. Education is another—you become a mother, you’re in this new place of discovering what’s possible, and the world of education in this second season of life is a huge opportunity.

Liz Tenety: What have you learned about this generation of parents by working directly with them?

Laura Modi: What I’ve noticed is that transparency is not enough anymore—parents want proof. They want receipts to show that brands and companies are not just talking about certain things but actually taking action. Parents can cut through the BS of that very quickly.I also think over the last 10 years, there’s been a lot more embracing the personalized mother that you are, rather than feeling this desire to fit into binary boxes—formula feeding mom, breastfeeding mom. We’re owning our individuality. We’re deciding what matters to us, and we’re okay sitting at the table with someone who has a different view and defines who they are differently. There’s confidence in people saying, I am this person, and it doesn’t fit into a typical box.

Liz Tenety: You’re 40 now. Tell me how you feel about midlife and the kind of human you are at this point.

Laura Modi: It’s going to be a great decade. I am so much more sure of myself today than I was having my first at 30. My aperture for growth is so much greater, but my confidence on knowing where I want to grow and what I do and don’t know is also so much greater. I’ve never felt like there’s more to learn in life than I have now, and at the same time, I’ve never been more confident in what I do and don’t know.I’ve always approached my life in decades. My 20s were about discovering my career and myself. My 30s were about building—my personal life, my professional life, starting Bobbie and having kids. And I see my 40s as being about nurture. I’m going to nurture who I am, my motherhood, my children, and my company. This is going to be a decade of nurturing everything I’ve grown.

Liz Tenety: You’re incredibly busy. How do you decide what really matters for you to show up for?

Laura Modi: It’s truly the things that bring me joy. I’m going to say it—I don’t get much joy from some of the school parenting things. I do get a lot of joy standing on the sidelines of the soccer field on the weekends. I don’t get a lot of joy doing bedtime routines, but I do get a lot of joy taking my kids out for surprise-and-delight moments, even if it’s letting them come to the park in their pajamas late at night to build those core memories.I’ve decided it’s okay to put more time into the things that bring me joy, because when my kids see me happy and in my element, that’s being the parent I want to be. I’ve chosen my things that I want them to remember me for. And by the way, it doesn’t have to be that mom was a great cook. She’s terrible at it.

Liz Tenety: What’s next for Bobbie?

Laura Modi: I want to keep being the obsessed formula company with every ounce of what we develop. I say this to the team all the time: we are developing the hardest, most important product in the world. Choose another product that is more important than what it means to feed your baby the sole nutrition that gets them to where they are by year one. If we can continue doing that by changing nutritional standards, changing government policies, and feeding more babies and parents with peace of mind, we’ve done our job. I want to get to the place where in 10 years, Bobbie has fundamentally changed culture because of every action we’ve taken.

Liz Tenety: At Motherly, we believe that motherhood brings out superpowers. What do you see as yours?

Laura Modi: Anticipating needs. It’s important as a CEO in a fast-growing industry where you’re trying to forecast the market. But it’s also important as a mother of four—you’ve got to anticipate needs fast. I get a joy out of going, I saw that coming, you’re ready for it. It allows me to stay two steps ahead and be ready for what’s to come.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Listen to the full conversation on The Motherly Podcast.

source https://www.mother.ly/podcasts/laura-modi-the-motherly-podcast/