Building Emmi: Volume 3

Building Emmi is a weekly series from the overlap of founder life and chronic illness, written by someone navigating both

What’s moved in the business this week

This past week felt slow but necessary in that it involved a lot of planning, calls, and ramping up my quickly expanding team. This is all in service of preparing the infrastructure for our second coaching cohort launching in June!

The results from Emmi’s customer survey came back faster and more clearly than I expected. Respondents told me exactly what they want: lab interpretation support, 1:1 PCOS coaching, symptom tracking with real insights, and above all, someone who can help them understand what’s actually driving their PCOS rather than just managing symptoms in the dark. 60% of survey respondents joined Emmi’s cohort 2 waitlist, and I’m incredibly excited to build this program for them.

In the spirit of focusing on cohort 2 sales and infrastructure, I started testing several HIPAA-compliant practice platforms to have in place before cohort 2 launches, and built standardized session prep and summary templates so that Emmi’s coaching program can eventually be delivered by someone other than me.

I was also happy to see several people in the broader Femtech ecosystem start to take notice of what we’ve been building. A physician-backed fund reached out after seeing Emmi featured in a women’s health newsletter. A Kellogg alum started a pro-bono brand strategy project with me, and I have three live intern projects led by insanely smart women who are completing degrees from Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, and applying for medical school. This week made me incredibly grateful for the support I’ve received from my growing community in making Emmi a reality.

What I learned about PCOS this week

The customer survey data confirmed something I’ve believed since I started building Emmi but hadn’t seen validated at scale: women with PCOS don’t just want to feel better. They want to understand what’s happening in their body well enough to navigate it themselves, with providers, across life stages, and through the hard seasons when life… is just life, and there isn’t bandwidth for a 12-step morning and night routine.

I also independently heard from two of my coaching clients that they want to understand what “good” PCOS management looks like beyond a 12-week coaching program. How should they think about building their care team, who are the right providers, and how should they show up to those sessions? What infrastructure and support do they need on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, and year-to-year basis as their health goals and bodies change? How does having PCOS shape their health trajectory more broadly, and how can they feel empowered, informed, and cared for through these seasons?

These questions unlocked something I’ve been grappling with as both a founder and woman with PCOS who is undergoing a fair bit of life transition. Care navigation isn’t just a feature in a PCOS lifestyle platform, it’s the product. A 15-minute provider appointment will never be enough. The gap between that appointment and a woman trying to figure PCOS out alone is where Emmi lives, and it turns out that’s not just a problem for women who are newly diagnosed. It’s a problem whether you are 1 month, 1 year, or 10 years into your PCOS journey.

An honest behind the scenes

Truthfully, the past week felt frustrating. I felt like I was constantly pushing uphill and didn’t make nearly enough progress despite all the time I spent trying to cram productivity in between the margins of calls and travel.

Part of the reason this week felt so challenging was that it was smashed in between two travel weekends for a childhood friend’s wedding and a college roommate’s bachelorette (the joys of 30!). I hate to admit this, but I almost let my anxiety about building Emmi pull me out of both. It’s ironic that one of the motivations for building a company was to give myself the autonomy to truly be present in my life and with my loved ones, and it still feels like I’m struggling to take advantage of it.

Despite feeling pressed for time and anxious heading into the bachelorette weekend, I left feeling more at-peace and present than I have in months. I was able to pull myself out of my head and into an experience that reminded me that community, joy, and love are all central pillars I want to build my life around. In order for Emmi to facilitate that vision, it’s incumbent on me to build my business integrating sources of community, joy, and love along the way. More to come on how I approach this!

While talking about life pillars and values probably sounds ‘woo-woo’ coming from a health tech founder, understanding this has been exceptionally important in my path to becoming an entrepreneur. I wouldn’t be building the life I am today without a deep investigation of my values and what I believe a life well-lived includes.

It just so happens for me, that definition includes creating better PCOS care.

Something that’s stuck with me this week

On navigating chaotic times from one of my favorite authors and meditation teachers:

“When chaos is all around you, the wisest choice is to create peace within you.”

- Yung Pueblo

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If you know a founder or a woman with PCOS who would benefit from following along, forward this their way.