Holy crap. You see that smiling teenager up there? She just cured the freaking hiccups.
No, seriously, she really did — and she did it with lollipops. Okay, they’re vinegar-flavored lollipops, but still, this is all very impressive to me, especially when I think about the way I spent my time when I was her age.
It all started two years ago, when Mallory Kievman — then all of 11 years old — came down with an annoying case of the hiccups that wouldn’t go away.
She eventually took over her family’s kitchen, trying more than 100 folk remedies before coming to the conclusion that vinegar “triggers a set of nerves in your throat and mouth that are responsible for the hiccup reflex arc.”
So: vinegar lollipops. Voila. And like any good American, Kievman is turning her knowledge into a business model: She’s now the CEO of Hiccupops, a startup that boasts the involvement of multiple MBAs as well as a grant from the Startup America Partnership. She rang the bell at the NYSE back in January.
She is, in a word, amazing.
For the capper, read this interview Mallory did with Tech Cocktail, where she shares some of the lessons she’s learned as she brings Hiccupops to market. Her sagest advice — for teen girls as well as tired old entertainment writers — comes at the end: “If you know you want to do it, you know there’s a specific goal in mind, don’t take no for an answer.”