Sex-tech entrepreneur Alexandra Fine’s company, Dame Products, sells highly designed, sleek wares that seem more at home in a high-end gadget shop than a seedy porn store. Fine launched a successful crowdfunding campaign for the business in 2014 and has since been navigating the challenges of securing investors, developing new products, and courting potential vendors and customers. But its sexual nature has left the company open to stigma and censorship. Dame is routinely barred from advertising on common marketing platforms; in 2018, the company filed a lawsuit against the MTA for banning it from running subway ads. (The lawsuit was settled in 2021.) “Advertising policies will list us and guns in the same section. I find that sad,” Fine says. “At the end of the day, vibrators have a real medical purpose and positively impact people.”
In recent years, Fine’s life has only gotten more complicated. As a mother of two toddlers, she’s learning how to balance being a CEO with raising a family. But with the help of her “finance brah” husband, two nannies, a generous mother-in-law, and a meal-delivery service, Fine has figured out how to get work done while still getting home in time to put her kids to bed. But don’t assume that her job means she’s flying off to raucous orgies every weekend: When it comes to sex, she says, “I’m pretty boring in my day-to-day.” She lives with her family in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Here’s how she gets it done.
On her morning routine:
I have two little ones, a 3½-year-old and a 1½-year-old. They’re a big part of my morning routine — helping them get dressed, helping them get out of the house. Today I woke up before them and meditated. I really do try to meditate almost every morning. Sometimes that doesn’t happen. Before I had kids, my morning routine was a bit more robust. It took me a good three years to figure out how I could consistently mediate and do the gratitude work I used to do every morning. I have a five-minute journal. I love spending time in the morning setting my intentions. I still do that, but it’s not as luxurious.
On a typical workday:
I usually get to the office around 9 a.m. and have a meeting around 10 — whether it’s an all hands or the brand team or a growth meeting. I spend that first hour prioritizing for the day, thinking about what needs to be discussed in my meeting. I’m looking at my schedule and today it was at least six hours of meetings. Right now I’m doing a lot of OKR (objective key result) settings and team-goal settings. An important part of my job is painting the picture of where we want to go and helping the team set measurable goals for themselves that help us get there. I want everyone to have clarity in their jobs and know what’s expected. Just like in any relationship, boundaries and expectations being clearly stated is helpful and valuable.
On the difference between being a manager and being a mom:
I set an OKR for my daughter once. She didn’t hit them — I was joking around about how many words she could speak, and her ability to walk. She was able to walk by the end of year, but I read somewhere that she should have 20 words, and I don’t know if she really had 20. I remember reflecting on that and thinking that there’s a real difference between being a manager and being a mom. Being a mom is much more unconditional. I just want her to enjoy life and try her hardest, though that’s also true for employees. Sometimes you don’t hit your OKRs but you tried, and you showed up, and the love is still there. The OKR isn’t everything.
On the importance of child care:
I have an amazing support team. How do you do it all? You don’t. You outsource, you get help, you pay for help, and that allows you to seem like you’re doing more. I have two nannies. I think I spend like $100,000 on child care. I wish someone had sat me down and said, “This is how much it’s going to cost.” No one does that, because it’s scary and embarrassing, and all the reasons people don’t like to talk about money. But it’s a lot. All of the sudden, if you’re making $170,000 before taxes, after taxes you’re just paying for child care.
On dividing household duties with her husband:
I’m going to throw my husband under the bus. His favorite joke whenever I bitch that I’m doing more is “better than average,” meaning he’s doing better than most men so I should be happy with that. I don’t put together our diaper bag. I don’t know any other husband who’s in charge of the diaper bag. He was cleaning out my breast pump and my cousin was there, and she was like, “I don’t think my husband knows how to do that.” But it’s classic: He’s the breadwinner. I’m married to a finance brah.
On taking maternity leave:
The first time, I took eight weeks off, then started going back part time. The second time I was so much more prepared, and I knew, or thought I knew, what I would want. I really only planned to take two full weeks off. I wouldn’t recommend it. I think I pushed myself a little too hard. But on the flip side, stepping back into work was such a reminder of who I am. It’s nice to have more than one job — when you’re stepping back and forth between them, one feels like a vacation. Work felt like a vacation and a break from motherhood.
On when she felt she’d “made it” professionally:
Early on when Dame launched, in the first 14 days of our crowdfunding campaign we had a $70,000 day. We blasted through our goal. I remember thinking, This is a real business. I wasn’t wild and irresponsible in spending all my time and savings on this thing. I’m no longer unemployed, in my parents’ eyes. I actually have a job. But last summer, someone interviewed me on habits of successful people and I really got stressed. Am I successful? I still feel that. I’m not sure if I’ve made it. My natural way of being is having such high expectations for myself that once I reached them, they weren’t high enough. That leads to a world where you never feel like you’ve made it.
On the piece of advice she wishes she’d had at the start of her career:
I remember really early on someone telling me, “You are not your business.” I thought that was really good advice, but I had it on the first day of my career. I don’t think I sat enough with what it meant to be in a position of power. If you don’t recognize the power you have, you’re kind of swinging around a sword that you don’t even know you’re swinging around. You are in control of people’s salaries. People are going to take you really seriously so you need to be extra careful with your words. It’s valid of them to take what you say literally and be concerned about your opinion. I wish I had understood that more in the beginning.
On recognizing success:
I also didn’t realize how successful the business was in the early days. I just want to go back in time and smack myself — you have every valid reason to be confident in this business. I remember VCs turning me down saying things like, “Oh, we like to see businesses triple year over year and you’re doubling year over year.” And I’d be like, “Yeah, but we’re profitable and other businesses are not.” And they didn’t care. I’d cry because we weren’t hitting the metrics that the VCs wanted to see, but like, no. We were doubling year over year with no Facebook marketing and very little investment. That was pretty amazing. I wish I’d recognized that at the time.
