Skincare that knows you better than you do
with El, Same Skincare
Skincare that knows you better than you do
Show Notes
El is the co-founder and CEO of two companies operating at very different scales of ambition. Her day job is Made AI, an AI-powered manufacturing platform that uses an agentic model to help brands and factories build products 10x faster. Her side hustle is Same Skincare, a company born directly from a medical crisis: an emergency surgery that removed a five-pound cyst along with her right ovary and fallopian tube, followed by a stage four endometriosis diagnosis she had never heard of before.
Six weeks of post-surgery bed rest became a research sprint. What El learned - that one in ten women have endometriosis, that it accounts for 58% of infertility cases, and that there are currently no diagnostics and no therapeutics for the condition - turned into a company. Same Skincare is EDC-free (endocrine-disrupting chemical free), donates proceeds to EndoFound for breakthrough research, and is building a predictive algorithm that can forecast a breakout with 80% accuracy up to three days in advance, including where on the face it will appear. The beta is live at sameskincare.com.
The Skin-Hormone Connection: What Same Skincare Actually Predicts
The core insight behind Same Skincare's technology is not new to medicine - it is just new to skincare. The connection between internal hormonal state and external skin condition is well understood in clinical research. Nobody had commercialized it. El's algorithm uses wearable biometric data - specifically Apple Health Kit and Oura Ring data - to model each user's individual biorhythm and generate personalized breakout predictions.
The primary driver is basal body temperature (BBT). During a typical 28-day cycle, BBT rises twice: right before ovulation and again during menstruation. That internal heating creates the conditions for a breakout - which is why, if you ask any woman, those are the two most likely times she will have one. BBT is not a direct measure of hormone levels (measuring hormones in real time remains difficult), but it is a reliable proxy. Stack BBT with heart rate variability (HRV) as a stress proxy, sleep quality, and lifestyle factors, and you have the variables of the equation. The app solves for skin outcome.
The shift in philosophy is as significant as the technology. The current beauty industry is reactive: here is a problem, here is a product that fixes it. Same is trying to be proactive: here is what is about to happen, here is what you can do to prevent it. And crucially - El is explicit about this - skincare products are approximately 10% of what determines your skin's condition. The other 90% is hormones, stress, sleep, and lifestyle. The $352 billion global skincare industry has not yet figured out how to commercialize that 90%.
Low-Cost, No-Cost Biohacks the App Recommends
One of the most practically useful dimensions of Same's approach is the emphasis on interventions that do not require purchasing anything. El gives two examples directly from the app's recommendations:
Cold water face splash for low HRV. When your HRV is lower than your personal baseline in the morning - a sign your nervous system is stressed - the first thing the app recommends is splashing cold water on your face 10 times. This is scientifically proven to improve HRV. Over roughly three weeks of consistency, the effect compounds.
Legs-up-the-wall before bed for high evening stress. Elevating your legs against a wall drains blood back through the lower body, calming the nervous system. This improves HRV overnight, which shows up the next morning as clearer, more luminous skin. It costs nothing.
The Andrew Huberman Lab framing applies here: El describes her approach as aggregating, organizing, and productizing knowledge that already exists in science but has not been made accessible or actionable. None of the interventions are proprietary. The product is the system that tells you when to do them and why.
Why Vanity Is the Right Entry Point for Hormone Health
El's framing for how to get people - particularly women - to care about endometriosis research and hormone health is direct: appeal to vanity. Not because that is cynical, but because it is honest about human motivation. People have always cared about their appearance. The earliest prehistoric artifacts are objects related to fertility, weight, and physical presentation. Meeting people where they already are - in a skincare routine they already have - and then introducing the underlying science through that entry point is not a trick; it is good product design.
El calls this “hot girls science” - the idea that caring deeply about your skin is a legitimate on-ramp to caring about your hormones, your endocrine system, and eventually the research gap in women's health. Same Skincare is simultaneously a consumer brand, an education platform, and a fundraising vehicle for EndoFound. Those three things are not in tension; they are the same funnel running in sequence.
Made AI: The Manufacturing Agent Platform
El's primary company, Made AI, uses an agentic AI model to make the manufacturing process - sourcing, sampling, production coordination between brands and factories - dramatically faster and simpler. The product is bootstrapped, took a small friends-and-family round, went out to San Francisco VCs earlier in the year, received a term sheet, and declined it. El's reasoning: she wants to build an enduring company, not one that is overvalued too early and then cannot grow fast enough to justify the cap table.
The most interesting product insight from Made came from a go-to-market mistake El describes openly. The team built AI sales agents for factory suppliers - tools designed to handle inbound customer questions and reduce load on the sales team. They assumed suppliers would be enthusiastic. They were not. The language of AI replacing sales agents felt threatening. El's solution: stop calling it an AI agent and start calling it a “customer advocate” - a new role that was never on any org chart, doing work that was never being done rather than replacing work that was. The same technology, repositioned from threat to opportunity, changed the reception entirely.
The 50-Automations-in-50-Weeks Framework
El shared a team productivity framework early in the conversation that is immediately replicable: every week, define one workflow, break it down completely, and automate it end-to-end. Three to five hours of investment per week. Over 50 working weeks, you have 50 automated workflows - a compounding operational advantage that is invisible to competitors and nearly impossible to replicate quickly.
The workflow discovery method is the part that most teams skip: El asks her team what their biggest complaint is. What is driving them nuts? The psychology flips immediately - instead of AI feeling like a threat or an obligation, it becomes the solution to something the team actually hates doing. That framing makes adoption genuine rather than forced. The target is not perfection; even a 50% or 80% automation of an annoying task is a meaningful improvement over the status quo.
For the host's specific problem (inbox overload from two kids heading into school), El broke it down into a three-week sequence: Week 1, categorize emails by person using a tool like Fixer. Week 2, break down tasks within each category. Week 3, build a Zapier flow that pushes categorized emails into a date-stamped task spreadsheet. That is the whole system. The point is not to eat the whole thing at once - it is to stack small, completed automations until the mountain is climbed.
Tools & Resources Mentioned
- Same Skincare - El's predictive skincare app; beta available at sameskincare.com
- Made AI - El's AI-powered manufacturing platform; usemade.ai
- EndoFound - Endometriosis Foundation of America; Same Skincare donates proceeds to fund breakthrough research
- Apple Health Kit + Oura Ring - primary wearable data sources powering Same's predictive algorithm (BBT, HRV, sleep, stress)
- Function Health - Dr. Mark Hyman's comprehensive blood panel service; 100+ biomarkers, biological age assessment, 20 vials of blood across two sessions
- Andrew Huberman Lab - podcast El cites as a fellow aggregator of low-cost, no-cost health optimization tools
- Fixer - email categorization/tagging tool referenced for inbox triage automation
- Enjoy the Work - startup studio; El cites founder Leslie Fine (PhD in Game Theory, early Salesforce) as a guiding influence
- Zapier - referenced for connecting categorized emails to a task management spreadsheet
- EDCs (Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals) - found in over 90% of everyday products (skincare, cleaning supplies, food); linked to endocrine system disruption and conditions like endometriosis
Frameworks
50 Automations in 50 Weeks
Define one workflow every week, break it down completely, and automate it end-to-end. Three to five hours of investment per week compounds into 50 workflow automations per year - an operational advantage that is invisible to competitors. Find the workflows by asking the team: what is driving you nuts? That question reframes AI from threat to relief and surfaces the highest-friction problems naturally.
The Skin-Hormone Connection
Your skin is a biomarker for what is happening with your hormones internally. Basal body temperature, HRV, sleep quality, and stress levels together predict skin outcomes (breakouts, luminosity) with measurable accuracy days in advance. The skincare industry has focused on the 10% of skin health that products influence; Same is building around the 90% driven by internal biology and lifestyle.
Vanity as an On-Ramp to Science
To get underserved demographics engaged with important health research, meet them where they already are. Women already have skincare routines. Using the desire for clear skin as the entry point - and then delivering hormone health education and research funding through that channel - is not manipulation; it is product design that respects how human motivation actually works. El calls this ‘hot girls science.’
Customer Advocate vs. Job Replacement
When positioning AI tools to audiences who fear job displacement, do not frame the AI as reducing existing roles. Instead, invent a new job category the AI fills - work that needed to be done but was never on anyone's org chart. Made AI repositioned its factory sales agent as a ‘customer advocate,’ a role that answers customer questions that were previously going unanswered. Same technology, completely different adoption response.
Enduring as the North Star Metric
The word ‘enduring’ - a company that lasts, that is not a flash in the pan - forces different decisions than ‘unicorn’ or ‘scale.’ It changes how you evaluate investors (are they here for a quick multiple or a long journey?), how you price rounds (overvaluation kills companies that cannot grow fast enough to justify it), and how you make product decisions (does this create durable value?). El declined a term sheet based on this filter.
FAQ
What is Same Skincare and how does its prediction technology work?
Same is a predictive skincare platform that uses biometric data from Apple Health Kit and Oura Ring to forecast breakouts with 80% accuracy up to three days in advance - including location on the face. The core signal is basal body temperature (BBT), which rises predictably before ovulation and during menstruation, creating conditions for breakouts. BBT is layered with HRV (stress proxy), sleep quality, and lifestyle data to build an individualized predictive model. The app then recommends low-cost or no-cost interventions to prevent the breakout rather than treat it after the fact.
What are endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and why does Same avoid them?
EDCs are chemicals found in everyday products - skincare, cleaning supplies, food packaging, cosmetics - that interfere with the body's endocrine (hormonal) system. After her endometriosis diagnosis, El audited everything in her environment for 24 hours and found EDCs in over 90% of the products she used daily. Because endometriosis is tied to hormonal disruption, and because the endocrine system governs so many downstream health outcomes (including skin condition), Same Skincare was built to be entirely EDC-free.
What is endometriosis and why does it matter beyond women's health?
Endometriosis affects 1 in 10 women globally. There are currently no diagnostics (diagnosis requires invasive surgery) and no therapeutics (nothing actually treats the condition, only symptoms). It accounts for 58% of infertility cases. El argues that anyone interested in human reproduction - regardless of gender - should care about closing the research gap in endometriosis. Same Skincare donates proceeds to EndoFound, which funds breakthrough research exclusively.
What is Made AI and how does it use AI agents for manufacturing?
Made AI is an agentic AI platform that makes the manufacturing process - from initial product design through sourcing, sampling, and production coordination - 10x faster and simpler for brands and factories. A key product insight came from repositioning the AI: rather than framing it as an efficiency tool that reduces headcount, Made positions its factory-facing agent as a ‘customer advocate’ - a new role that handles questions and communication that was previously falling through the cracks. That reframe changed supplier adoption from resistant to receptive.
How does the 50 automations in 50 weeks framework work?
Each week, identify one workflow by asking the team what is most frustrating or inefficient. Break that workflow down into its component steps. Automate it end-to-end using whatever AI or automation tools fit. Repeat for 50 working weeks. The time investment is three to five hours per week. The compound result is 50 automated workflows per year - an operational advantage that builds invisibly and is very difficult to replicate quickly. The psychology of asking ‘what's driving you nuts?’ rather than ‘where can we use AI?’ is what makes the process stick with teams.
Why is the longevity and biohacking space dominated by men?
El's view is direct: most research has historically been done by men, on men, about questions men find personally relevant. Women's bodies operate on a 24-to-28-day hormonal cycle rather than a 24-hour one, which makes standard research protocols - designed around male physiology - produce results that either do not apply to women or actively harm them (intermittent fasting is her example: effective for many men, disruptive to female hormonal balance). Until more women enter research and medicine, the tools, protocols, and products in the longevity space will continue to be calibrated for a body most women do not have.
Why did El decline the venture term sheet for Made AI?
She wanted to build an enduring company - one that lasts - rather than optimize for a fast valuation markup. Her concern with the current VC environment (where billion-dollar seed rounds are becoming common) is that overvaluation creates a growth expectation the company cannot meet, which eventually kills it. Taking the right partner at the right time matters more than taking available capital quickly. Going slow and knowing who you are building with was the guiding principle.