Medsider: Learn from Medtech and Healthtech Founders and CEOs - Why Small UX Details Can Matter More Than Years of R&D: Interview with Eli Health CEO Marina Pavlovic Rivas

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

In this episode of Medsider Radio, we sat down with Marina Pavlovic Rivas, co-founder & CEO of Eli Health.The company is focused on making hormone data accessible in real time through its saliva-based testing system that delivers results through a mobile app. A data scientist by training, Marina previously founded Gradiant AI, a machine learning company that was acquired in 2019. In this interview, Marina discusses how to evaluate form factor options without locking into a design too early, what beta testing reveals that years of lab work can't, and how existing consumer spending patterns influence positioning and pricing strategies. She also shares how regulatory considerations shaped product decisions from the outset and why building in-house proved more efficient than outsourcing when external partners said the company’s goals were impossible.Before we dive into the discussion, I wanted to mention a few things:First, if you’re into learning from medical device founders and CEOs, and want to know when new interviews are live, head over to Medsider.com and sign up for our free newsletter.And if you’re ready to level up your medtech game, you should check out Medsider Courses — 8-week masterclasses covering topics like fundraising, M&A and exit planning, design and development, clinical and regulatory strategy, and commercialization.These courses, featuring hard-earned lessons from elite medtech CEOs, can be purchased individually or come free with our All-Access Pass.If you'd rather read than listen, here's a link to the full interview with Marina Pavlovic Rivas.

We had two benchmarks that it needed to be as easy or easier than brushing your teeth and a price point that is as affordable or more than a cup of coffee. So that ultimately, in that vision of having a product that can be used daily if you want and easily integrated in your routine, those two benchmarks were guiding principles and doing the development. But then there's different ways to achieve that. So beyond the price point and, the ease of use, also the consideration around is it feasible to develop.

And in that feasibility piece, there's also the biological component. Welcome to MedSider, where you can learn from the brightest founders and CEOs in medical devices and health technology. Join tens of thousands of ambitious doers as we unpack the insights, tactics and secrets behind the most successful life science startups in the world. Now, here's your host, Scott Nelson. Hey, everyone, in this episode of Medsider, I sat down with Marina Pavlovak-Rivas, co-founder and CEO of Ellie Health,

a company developing real-time hormone monitoring technology for continuous health tracking. A data scientist by training, Marina previously founded Gradient AI, a machine learning company that was acquired in 2019. Here are a few topics we explored in this conversation. First, how do you evaluate early design options without locking yourself into a form factor too soon? Second, what does beta testing reveal that years of lab or preclinical work can't?

Third, how early should regulatory considerations shape product design decisions? And last, how to existing consumer spending patterns influence pricing and positioning decisions? Before we dive into the full episode, I think you'll want to check out MedSider courses. These new eight-week courses are designed to help you learn winning formulas from world-class CEOs. Medsider courses cover topics like fundraising, device design, and development, clinical and regulatory strategy, commercialization, and M&A. Each course covers hard-earned lessons shared by the MedTech founders and CEOs who join our program. Medsider courses can be purchased individually or they're included at no additional cost with the Medsider All Access Pass. You can explore

medsider courses at Medsider.com forward slash courses. Again, that's medsider.com forward slash courses. All right, without further ado, let's dive into the interview. Marina, welcome to Medsider Radio. Appreciate you coming on. Thanks for having me, Scott. Yeah, very much. looking forward to learning a little bit more about what you're building at at Ellie Health. So with that said, I recorded a very short bio at the outset of this interview, but let's start there. Give us a like a one or two minute elevator style kind of pitch on your background leading up to founding the company. Perfect. Well, I'm the co-founder and CEO of Eddy Health where our mission is to develop the real-time interface to the human body. And we're

starting that. We're starting with instant hormone testing. And my background, personality is in data science. I wanted to have access to this information myself, the hormonal data information being biased and liking to have data when it comes to making important decisions, but saw that it was missing for hormone data. So it really started out of a personal need, and that's what led us to get on this journey. Very good. And it looks like I'm looking at your LinkedIn profile right now. We'll link to it the full write-up on MedSider. But you, It looks like you started the company mid-2019, so kind of six, six, a little over six years in the making. Is that about right?

Exactly. So right, a couple months before COVID that we started the company. And it was mostly R&D for some time making this technology possible for the first time. It took six years of R&D across the chemistry, the microfriadic, the hardware, the software, the AI component, making all of that work together as a system, validating it. the approval process and so on. And now we're officially on the market since a couple months.

Okay, got it. Yeah. So you're full on commercializing then. Exactly. Awesome. I also your website pulled up as well, right? So it's lea.health.el. If you're listening and don't get the chance to read through the full write-up on

MedSider, that's the website where you can learn a little bit more about the technology. Great website. Very interesting product, which we'll get into in more detail here. But it's Ellie E-L-I-Helf. For those that have no idea what Ellie's doing, what this product is, maybe start with a high-level overview, and then maybe we can drill into the details here in a bit.

Yeah, well, if we take a step back, hormones, very often when we think hormone, we think women's health, we think fertility. But the variety is that, yes, it's super important for those areas, but it has a major impact on all areas of health. and it's true for women, but it's also true for men. And hormones fluctuate frequently. And yet, we have access to this data very often once per year and sometimes not even.

So it's a snapshot that is incomplete. And similarly to how we wouldn't measure her heart rate once per year and make decisions based on that for the rest of the year. Or same for a sleep score. Now we're used to those continuous metrics for things like heart rate, sleep score, recovery scores, and we use that data on a daily basis to inform different lifestyle decision. Hormones have a major impact on all areas of health, but we don't have that similar live stream of data. So that really became a vision to make hormonal data accessible continuously over time or at least very frequently, and in a format that is real time and easy

to achieve. So two benchmarks were to have a test that is, as easy as brushing your teeth or easier and as affordable as a cup of coffee. So how it works, it's a very simple. It's a saliva test that you put on your tongue for a few seconds. You pull on the other extremity of the tab and take a picture with your phone to receive the result directly in the mobile app. That's something you can do throughout the month, throughout the year, to have a view in terms of how your hormones are fluctuating

and how different lifestyle interventions have an impact on those hormones. So we're starting with, currently we have cortisol on the market known as a stress hormone, but really it has an impact much broader than that on the body. But it's a great bar marker for both men and women who are wanting to see how different stressors, how they adapt to it, and how their biology reacts and adapt to those internal and external stressors and simulations. Got it. And so for the for the people that are they're listening there are more more pure play device folks, right? They're probably used to, you know, are familiar with CGMs, right? Continuous glucose monitors. This is sort of like it's akin to that, right? It's not, you know,

not necessarily a wearable per se, but it gives you the ability to consistently and easily measure, you know, certain hormones, at least with the current version, certain hormones on a more regular basis. Exactly. And we named the technology Hormometer, inspired by the thermometer and glucometer. So the CGM's analogy is very relevant because we wanted to make hormonal information as accessible as some of those others technology have done for temperature, for glucose, but for those bar markers that we don't have that real-time visibility into. So it's a very similar concept. The difference in terms of how we see people integrating it in their daily lives with glucose, for people who don't have diabetes, it's a very good lifestyle tool to be able to see

what's the impact of food on your glucose, but that stays relatively consistent over time. The reference range that is the one considered optimal stays quite consistent. And the impact of food also stays relatively consistent versus with hormones, especially hormones like cortisol, how your body reacts to different stressors like sports, like workplace, stress, many different types of activity that you're doing throughout time. It's not necessarily consistent. So having that visibility for a prolonged period of time, it's something that many people find a game changing. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. And I'm used to, I mean, when I've had my hormones, measured in the past. I'm used to either blood work, right, which I think most people have

probably done at some point, which, you know, you go to get your blood taken and send off to a lab, et cetera, or in some cases saliva, right? I think cortisol is often, but still the same principle holds, right, where it's like you do, even though it's easier maybe than drawing blood, you still have to like send the results off and they're not instant. And especially with something that cortisol, which should be measured much more often throughout the day to get a real snapshot of kind of what those levels look like. I could see how something like this would be extremely advantageous. On that note, in terms of the product itself, so it's like there's a hardware component, right? And you can certainly check this out, right, at the website that I mentioned,

which is, you know, Ellie Health, E-L-I-Halth. It's a product, but so are the, like, the strips kind of disposable then? You order, like, you order strips and then is that kind of how it works? Exactly. Currently, that's the format. So sometimes when people use it, some people make the analogy with a vaping tool because you put one extremity on your tongue. It kinds of look like that when you have it on your tongue, but you leave that extremity that has kind of a sponge-like material for 60 seconds on your tongue. The saliva is being collected, so there's no need to fill a tube. It all happens with that pad that stays on your tongue for 60 seconds. And on the other extremity, when you pull on it, that sponge-like material is being squeezed inside and released onto the

microfluidic process and the assay that has a chemistry component. And with that chemical reaction, there's then lines that develop and what the mobile app and the computer vision algorithms do, it's taking an image of the tests, including that chemical reaction that led to different color intensity and translates that color intensity into hormonal levels that you see directly on the app. Got it. Got it.

Super helpful. And just to confirm, the two hormones that you're starting out with is cortisol and progesterone. Exactly. And we have testosterone coming up next. Ah, very cool. Can you offer up like a rough timeline of when that may be available? 2026.

Okay, so next year, so coming soon, yeah, we're reporting this here in late, late 2025. So in the not too distant future, very, very cool. And then I presume on the app itself, I'm not sure if it's currently available, if not probably plans to have it sync with Apple Health, potentially with, you know, ORA or Woop, if you wear one of those devices. Exactly. So currently the integration that we have is people who are able to sync their verbal,

let's say, ORA, Whoop, Apple Health, Garmin, and have that data on the app. The other way around is not yet available. So having the hormonal data in Apple Health or perhaps one day in your URA or ROOP, that's something that we see the future is going there. But currently, the integration is available only in the direction of your mobile towards the HAPDAP. Got it, got it. Okay. Very cool.

And you mentioned you're in fully like fully commercializing. Any specific geographies, it looks like it's available here in the U.S., but is that the primary focus right now? or are you commercializing elsewhere? Exactly. Primary focus is the U.S., so it's available in the U.S. and in Canada at the moment.

Okay, very good. And what is the regulatory pathway here? Is it a class one device, class two? What's the... So it's hormone dependent. For cortisol, it actually falls under the wellness guidelines. Ah, okay. Because our intended use is ultimately to support

those wellness and lifestyle decisions. For progesterone, although it's also the fundamental intended use is also to support those lifestyle and wellness decisions. However, we also measure or detect ovulation, and that's considered a regulated claim. So for progesterone, it's a class 1, 510K exempt. Okay, got it. Got it. Super helpful. All right. With that said, let's let's dig into kind of the journey, right, that you've been on over the past, you know, six plus years now. Now take us back to kind of those pre, either the pre-COVID days or maybe even kind of through

those early COVID years, you're working on the earliest versions of this, you know, poor six plus years of pretty, it sounds like pretty extensive R&D efforts to get to where you're at now. Give us a sense for maybe some of the one or two biggest lessons learned, right, kind of moving from those early iterations. Because I think that those are oftentimes the most challenging for a startup when, you know, you don't have probably endless capital to work with, but are still trying to make. meaningful, meaningful development progress. So it gives a sense for kind of what you learned, looking back on those formative years. Yeah, there's so much to say. We could split it by six

months and we could do a full hour for each of those segments. But I would say if we go back to that time when we started, sometimes a medical device company can be often a spin-off of, let's university research, something that had the time to kind of reach a certain state of maturity before being formed under a commercial entity. In her case, it started with the mission and that vision that we have to make this information available in real time. So we were not tied to a specific format, which, of course, there's challenges related to that, but we mostly saw it as an opportunity to build from really first principles, and being able to say what's the best way to approach this.

Is it a patch? Is it an add-on to a watch? Is it an add-on to something else? For example, something that we can put in the toilet to analyze urine, why not? So we really had a full extensive research around what's really from a best format standpoint, the thing that would be ideal for users and to match this vision. And once we set that approach on something, saliva. Then we had to define which approach would be best. Would it be

electrochemical? Would it be something else? And for that, we had a lot of work to do to ultimately find that ideal path. And something we've done initially was to try to not reinvent the wheel where we didn't have to. So we looked into, is there components that are available commercially? The answer was no. And then is there some academic research that we can spin off. We looked for labs all over the world. We had a couple finalists, one in New Zealand, one in Spain, one in Canada, and ultimately build some of those research partnerships. And the conclusion after some time working together was that it was ultimately not suited for what we were trying to achieve. So one of the pivotal decision that

we made at some point was to build everything internally, to build their own labs, to develop the technology from scratch internally. And now we do the manufacturing internally as well. And that's a learning looking back because especially when you start in the space, there's a lot of assumptions around what it's supposed to cost or what is supposed to be in place to achieve an outcome like this one. For example, when we wanted to put our lab together, we had different quotes where it was, let's say, $3 million to put the lab together. But total funding we had for the company was 1.5. So there's no way we could do that. But by approaching it in a way where we were able to see the fundamentals and put that in place, we ended up being even more cost-effective than if we

had done those partnerships. So looking back, that was a big learning, how much it's possible to do with very little. Sometimes it can be surprising when we have the right team in place. There's a lot that we can do, but sometimes it feels counterintuitive because there's a lot of those external, let's say, advice or opinion that points toward a different conclusion. No doubt. I mean, it's so, I've used this phrase a lot. I'm sure you've seen it over and over again, right? I think Steve Jobs is famous for quoting it, right? You can only connect the dots looking backwards or retrospectively. It's hard to do that looking forward. And that's certainly like that resonates with me kind of running a startup as well. It's like you're constantly trying to make decisions, the best decisions, obviously. But the conclusion's not like it's hard to see. It's hard to peek around the corner and you typically don't have all the information you have. So I can imagine when you're going through that process, there's probably a lot of differing opinions, right? Like, don't do this. It's going to lead to, you know, it's going to be, it's, it's too much CAPEX initially,

et cetera, et cetera. Did you think you'd end up in a spot where you'd be actually more cost effective now? But I'm sure that that probably wasn't, you know, apparent, you know, when you were making, you know, some of these decisions. Initially, we saw that it could be a possible outcome, but it was unclear if really it would be that much more cost effective or not, but it was out of necessity also because we didn't initially even speaking with different contractors and we were presenting the goals. We often had the response that it's impossible.

So imagine a situation where you're willing to pay a partner and the response is, no thank you, it's impossible to do. But again, going back to first principles, there was no evidence that it was not possible. And there's a quote, I don't remember exactly how I saw it recently, but basically saying that not because there's nothing that prove that it's impossible, that it's not necessarily the case. Yeah. I mean, just to kind of double-click on that point,

because that's so real, right, especially when you're doing something fairly innovative, there's going to be so many naysayers, right, that say you're foolish, you're too ambitious, et cetera. But it's tough because it'll get your head. it's far easy to just agree with them versus just pressing, versus pressing forward. I just think that's such an important point because it's very real. And if you're living, if you're, if you're founder or CEO listening to this and you're going through that, that's common.

And if you've got conviction, oftentimes you have to make the hard choice and say, I'm going to ignore that advice. Even if it's coming from a trusted source or an experience source, I'm going to ignore that advice and press forward. Exactly. And I just remember the quote, it's absence of evidence. isn't evidence of absence. And that's something for us very often that we had to operate with because it can be, when you speak to different experts and experts, and there's fields, experts and assay experts and setting up labs, experts in all of those different areas and that they're telling you it's going to cost at least $3 million

or it's not possible to reach those limits of detection and so on. it can be easy to say, well, they are the experts, so they must be right. And you want to stay as a founder, humble and open to the feedback and the information that you get because ultimately you're trying to navigate the world to get to where you need to go. So that information is extremely valuable. But you have to distinguish between taking those data points to form your own opinion versus taking it as is. So for us, one of the big learning, too, was how can we leverage that information, leverage those data points, but always putting it in context of they think that and it's true in their context. But what could be different in this context, making that it's maybe not true everywhere.

Or, for example, if they say a lab is at least $3 million, trying to go back to the basics and be like, okay, the tables, how much they cost? the few point how much does it cost and where is that how does that add up and is there a way an alternative that makes that in their case when they're putting that in place it's true but in her case is there a different way that is not necessarily accessible to them but that is accessible to us and where we can make it happen right right the example you just gave i'm sure there's like a series just of like why related questions like why does it have to be expensive why is that driving the cost et cetera, et cetera. But that quote you mentioned is so spot on, right? Because in your scenario, and I'm sure you were talking to a lot of smart people, the fact that there was no evidence

that suggested it wouldn't work was really crucial, right? Maybe there wasn't evidence that suggested it would, but there was also no evidence that suggested it wouldn't either, right? So I just think that's a super interesting kind of insight. I'd like to transition to kind of your approach to commercialization, right? Because it's obviously quite relevant since you fully launched, just a few months ago earlier this year. But it sounds like you were in kind of a private beta leading up to this. Talk to us a little bit about that approach and whether it was helpful. And looking back, whether you take that same kind of commercial approach

where you'd launch almost privately, it sounds like, and then laddering up to a full commercial release. Yeah, it was extremely valuable to us. And it was multiple phases, the private beta being the one prior to the public, public launch, but throughout the development with six years of R&D, it's easy to be in your corner, in the lab, focus on making it work from a scientific and engineering standpoint. But what was important to us was not just to solve those scientific and engineering challenges, but also to arrive to a product that meets the unmet needs of the market from what it

delivers in terms of value and information, but also from a firm factor. standpoint, all of the little details play such a big role. So throughout that time, from the very beginning I was mentioning of defining what's the path we would adopt, would it be saliva, interstitial fluid, urine, something else, which format we leverage user feedback heavily across all of those stages, from forming really the basis of the technological direction, the form factor and so on, up to the end. where and even before that when it was one component that was developed to see is it user-friendly and so on.

And when all of the system was ready and validated and ready to be launched, that private beta really helped us in fine-tuning different things that may seem minor when you look at the big picture. For example, solving some of the scientific and injuring challenges that we've solved, it's something that took six years. but then there's some little detail in the product. Let's say you have to pull enough for the saliva to flow. So sometimes it's just a few millimeters that can define, is it enough or not?

And if those instructions are not clear, from a user standpoint, the conclusion is it doesn't work when it's a super simple tweak of maybe just adding one screen in the mobile app and that's all. So a few hours of changes, but from a user's standpoint, point. It's what ultimately unlocks that six years of effort to make that possible. So for us, it was that way of being able to get the feedback by being very close to them and being able to act quickly on what we were receiving as information, make those changes and see ultimately if we were getting to that extremely smooth experience that we wanted to deliver.

Yeah, and that insight that you learned or that example that you just shared, was that learned from one of those kind of those private beta launches? Hey, everyone, let's take a quick break to talk about Fast Wave Medical, the company I co-founded and lead as CEO. We're developing next generation intravascular lithotripsy or IVL systems to tackle complex calcific disease. Over the last few years, we've closed a series of oversubscribed funding rounds, bringing the total investment into FastWave to over $50 million. Corporate interest in the IVL space is growing to the $900 million. acquisition of Bolt Medical by Boston Scientific in 2025, and Johnson and Johnson's $13 billion acquisition of Shockwave Medical signal a lot of attention on emerging IVL startups like FastWave, and we're making serious progress. In addition to recently receiving our ninth patent,

we've successfully completed peripheral and coronary feasibility studies and are gearing up for pivotal trials. If you're interested in investing in the fast-growing IVL market, head over to fastwavemedical.com forward slash invest. Again, that's fastwavemedical.com forward slash invest. Now let's get back to the conversation. Exactly. And here we don't have a visual, but when you pull on the strip, when you pull enough, there's a dot that appears.

And that dot was not there previously. It became clear that sharing with users, you have to pull enough. What does that mean? What is enough? How do you communicate that when you're not there with them? So instead of saying something vague, like you have to pull enough or pull fully became you have to pull until you see the dot.

So from a hardware standpoint, just adding that little dot made a big change. And from an app standpoint, we also saw that previously we were, for example, saying you have to pull until you see the dot, but many users were still missing it. and by making an update where instead of just saying it with words, we were showing it with a video with an animation around the dot. Instead of clicking next in the app, they have to click, I see the dot. So there's kind of no way to miss it, that those small tweak ultimately made a big change in terms of making sure that people had consistently a smooth experience.

And that's what some of the things that the beta enabled us to do. Yeah, I mean, super important because we're obviously talking about, you know, the user experience, but in this scenario, it could have, it could be like the difference between it worked and it didn't work, right? Something so small. And it just, like hearing you describe that, it just so reminds me of the importance of being as close to the end user as possible, right? And in your case, obviously, this was a private kind of beta launch. But even if you're developing a catheter or, you know, something that's a little bit more invasive. there's still opportunities throughout that development process to be very, very close to end users.

And sometimes it's easy to, you get in such a routine of like, we're going to get feedback once a quarter or twice a year from our, you know, our key opinion leaders, right? And get sort of stuck in that cadence when in reality there's a lot more opportunities to be even closer to the end users, whether they're physicians, nurses, patients, consumers, etc. Exactly. And we're very lucky in that sense because we're, with the earth form factor that is ultimately designed to be tested anytime, anywhere. We also use opportunities where, let's say, we're in events and someone asks us about what we do. Instead of explaining, we hand out a product and see live how someone with absolutely no context

will use it. Where do we see when if they don't say it, that there's some friction or that they kind of pause before going to the next steps? all of those different form of feedback because it can be easy. There's something called a book called the mom test around how to be able to solicit feedback from users in a way where like your mom, if you ask her, is the product good? Maybe she will not necessarily tell you it's not. So there's a different approaches there where you can try to go around the bias to really get to

the information that you need. It's spot on. It also reminds me of like the differing opinions that you get from from thought leaders or experts that like in a particular domain versus maybe the average or the normal user, right, which is, you know, represents, you know, a larger segment of that sort of adoption bell curve, if you will. So, you know, getting to the, getting real, like actual real genuine feedback from a wide variety of users is, you know, super crucial.

One other follow-up question, I guess, and thinking about the user experience, obviously, that was probably front and center, right? Considering this is, you know, this is a product that's going to be used in the home, hopefully on a routine or consistent basis. It sounds like you evaluated like, almost like a, I don't know, a wearable. You mentioned earlier, something that sits in the, in the, in like the toilet. Like, how did you ultimately land on the form factor for, you know, for the hormometer? Is it my pronouncing it right?

Exactly, hormometer. How did you land on the form factor that exists today? So it was a mix of different points. So first was around, we had two benchmarks, that it needed to be as easy or easier than brushing your teeth and a price point that is as affordable or more than a cup of coffee. So that ultimately in that vision of having a product that can be used daily if you want

and easily integrated in your routine. Those two benchmarks were guiding principles in doing the development, but then there's different ways to achieve that. So beyond the price point and the ease of use, also the consideration around is it feasible to develop? And in that feasibility piece, there's also the biological component

because there's some fluid like blood that are established, considered gold standard. Then there's other fluids like saliva where there's really strong data showing the correlation between saliva and blood. And then there's others like interstitial fluid like sweat that are extremely promising. However, much less data for hormones at scale. So then it was all a question of which risk do we want to take? Do we want to do the fundamental research in even showing that those fluid are valid to measure hormones. So that's one first layer, that if it has not been established,

the first step is to establish that. And then the technological and scientific risk in terms of, is it feasible to develop a technology, keeping in mind that we have multiple bar markers. So is it feasible to develop? And is it feasible to develop for multiple bar markers? and then the regulatory piece, consideration that let's say if it's a patch with interstitial fluid, small needle, much likely a class two, perhaps class two de novo, versus another path that can be wellness instead,

very different from a regulatory standpoint, and manufacturability, which leads ultimately also to that cogs and that cost point, where even if all of that is possible and feasible, is it a price point that would enable that widespread adoption or is it a price point that would be so high and that it would be limited to some clinical uses? So those were really the key factor that we took into consideration. Yeah, and that regulatory piece is so, so important because if you were to pursue a certain design that did ladder up to write a de novo pathway, as an example, the costs or the budget, right, that you need to allocate towards that process, it does, it changes the fundamental dynamics of the company, right? Or could potentially change the fundamental dynamics of the company. So, so,

so important to kind of nail down as early as possible. So I'm glad you brought that up. I want to circle background to fundraising, but just on the price topic, I think a lot of people that are hearing about, you know, some of these consumer health technology products still operate in a world where if it's not paid by insurance, the average consumer or patients not going to adopt it. And obviously, I have direct experience that flies in the face of that runs counter to that idea, but it's still quite common, right? So give us a sense for kind of how you thought about pricing,

because I'm looking at the site right now and just under cortisol test, I can get 12 tests for $99. That's very cost effective. And then it looks like the yearly plan is, at least right now anyway, when we're recording is on sale for just over $3,000. So it's still pretty price effective, but some people just operate again from this mindset of like, oh, if my insurance doesn't cover it, I'm not going to pay for it. So give us a sense for kind of your experience with this, you know, operating that decision framework for consumers. Yeah, well, in our case, we like to compare our technology to the category of warbles where there's some interesting examples.

When we look, let's say at smartwatches, it's a category where people are used to pay out of pocket and don't necessarily expect that reimbursement, although there's more and more programs now from an employer's standpoint, for example, that cover some of the costs. But there's that willingness to pay out of pocket to have the information in your own hands and enabling you to optimize your health on a daily basis in a similar way than those wearables are enabling. So that's from a let's a smart watch standpoint. But then when we look at other technologies like the CGM, it started in a very clinical context

with reimbursement and evolved now into that more consumer pay out-of-pocket space with even the traditional manufacturers like Abbott. Dexcom that created a direct-to-consumer version of their CGM so that people can buy it out of pocket. That's a trend we're seeing more and more. So what we see is that when the price become affordable enough and the information is information that helped them feel at their best, perform at their best on a daily basis, that there's that willingness to pay. And we see it in the, I don't know the number top of mind, but when we look at the wellness

a space, it's a space that is growing more and more and where that the spending is also growing. And we're seeing also interesting trends of the categories where people spend their money, that it's less and less in things like going out, alcohol, and more and more into those tools that can enable you to optimize different areas of health and wellness. Yeah, no doubt. That's a huge growing trend. and this is just a hunch, but my feeling is that because you've positioned the device as a wellness tool,

right, versus a like a peer play, you know, kind of medical diagnostic, that lends itself well to people kind of being able to kind of make that connection. Oh, this is similar to like a price that I pay for my aura ring, right? Or my whoop, you know, watch or my garment or something like that. So it's easier for them to make the connection versus someone that fuse this as like a, a medical diagnostic, they're going to almost assume, you know, insurance is going to pay for it. Exactly. And there's pros and pros and cons for each. And I've met different founders in the

diagnostic space sometimes wondering, should I go that more clinical route, the more wellness route. And there's pros and cons for every path. But in the case, it was clear that the impact we wanted to have was at scale for people to be able to use this technology in a, let's say, non-diseise approach where one day our product could be used for screening diagnosis, but where we wanted to start and where we were seeing the biggest impact we could have at scale is in that wellness sector, but which comes, yes, with the willingness to pay, but also a lot of work to do on the education side, especially when you're creating a new category like we are continuous hormone monitoring or frequent hormone monitoring, ensuring that education around what it can unlock and having

people clearly seeing the value proposition to be willing to make that step of purchase. Yeah. I'm looking at the clock. I know we don't have a ton of time left here, but I want to get your opinion on this most recent fundraise, right? It looks like in earlier this year, kind of mid mid, 2025, you were able to raise it a $12 million series A. So congratulations. Congratulations. on that. I mean, that's, you know, raising a, raising a decent amount of capital is no, no easy fee, regardless of, you know, a hot space, right, that that you're kind of operating in with a novel technology. But looking back at, you know, what it took to get that round closed, any kind of key, key learnings, right, that surface that experience or maybe a better way to say it with,

if you had to raise your series B right now, is there anything that you do, you know, you do differently? The series B I would envision would be different than the previous rounds, because now we have market data, we have data around revenue, around the traction and all that momentum that we're able to show with actual metrics versus for a previous round, we were pre-revenue, and that's extremely common with medical devices company. But to your earlier point, very often a medical device company are operating within a clearly defined category, with a clearly defined code and a very defined clinical need versus when you're in that more consumer space

and creating a category for the first time, there's still the market risk that's outstanding. So you can show everything of the risk on the technology side, scientific side, regulatory and so on, but not yet having clear proof point around the market demand. So for us, that was really the, the biggest challenge in being able to show the different data points that makes it, at least to us, obvious that is inevitable.

That was one of the big lift. And of course, the earlier round, the big lift was around showing similar data points of why we thought it would be possible to develop the technology. So it's a lot around not having the clear proof point that you can do what you say you're going to do, but having enough to. kind of build that story. And what was helpful with the series A round was that history that we had of being able to show.

And especially there are some of those investors that have been following us for quite some years. So being able to see that we were saying we're going to do this. And many people thought it was going to be impossible, but then achieving it and kind of building that trust. And we said we would do that. And we did exactly that is helpful. But now it will be less on that.

trust of demonstrated execution in the past and data points around the future. Of course, there's always a mix of that, but in that case, we'll have actual data from the market. Yeah. That point you mentioned about being able to communicate on a consistent basis, what you're going to, what you intend to accomplish and then what you actually did accomplish. So it's so important because I got to imagine, I'm looking at the kind of the syndicate of investors that looks like it was kind of a good representation of both existing investors and new investors, but probably even some of those new investors, you had conversations with several years ago that said maybe no, or not now at least, right? But you, I'm assuming, but correct me if I'm wrong,

you probably communicated them on a somewhat of a consistent basis. And they saw over and over again your team's ability to execute. And so that just, that really, really helps foster and sort of grease the skids for, you know, an eventual investment opportunity. But is that fair? Is that a fair description? Yeah. And we stayed in touch, not so frequently, but, let's on a yearly basis. And the conversation that really felt great was when you didn't speak with someone since a year and they say, what have you been up to? What did you achieve?

And last year that we said we have five things we need to do, complete the R&D, do the approval of the product, do the clinical validation, set up the manufacturing, launch the product in that beta phase, and then come back a year later. And when they say, what have you been up to? say, well, exactly those five things have been achieved. So that builds the, that does build the trust. And that's something, especially for a first time founder listening, where there's not necessarily that track record building those data points. And there's someone, I don't remember

who, that said that investors don't invest in dots, they invest in lines, meaning that have those different data points over time and see where, how is it trending. So to not be. care to speak with people even when you're starting and don't have much because when you're executing and doing what you said you wouldn't do and sometimes the plan changes that's fine but showing that consistency that grit and that ability to figure things out does build the trust so often a no is not a definitive no and we've seen it with some of our investors that it was too early for them, let's say, in the pre-seed, the seed, but the series A that they were able to build that trust. And sometimes it's also that different people are willing to take

different risks, to not take technological risk, but market risk, yes, market risk, but not regulatory risk. So that's something to understand that it's not necessarily, it's not personal, that they have their thesis. And when you understand that, you're able to connect in a way that's beneficial for everyone. Yeah, yeah, those are such good points. And if you're listening to this and kind of thinking, like, how do I, how do I do all of this and still, you know, operate a company and, you know, continue to develop, you know, a product, you know, it could be as simple as having a core kind of tracker or Excel sheet, right? It could be obviously something more sophisticated like a, you know, a CRM, but it could be a tracking system and just, you know, setting up a reminder for yourself to follow up, you know, once a quarter or once every six months with some of these, you know, investors that you're having kind of. conversations with. And ideally, you're sending out some sort of update, right, to these, these groups as well, kind of giving them a kind of an inside look at what you're trying to accomplish. Then, you know, if you accomplish that, you know, what you did, what you did, you know, the milestones

that you did achieve. So it doesn't have to be like super complex. It could be actually relatively simple. It's just a matter of, you know, forming that, forming that habit. So with that said, I want to use the last maybe five, five, five, ten minutes or so kind of covering that the rapid fire portion to this, this interview. But again, for everyone listening, highly encourage you. I mean, especially if you're into like health tech. This is a really cool product. It's LA.health is the website, E-L-I.health. We'll link to it in the full write-up on MedSider.

And if you're new to these interviews, these longer form articles, accompany the podcast. So if you're more of a reader and not necessarily a listener, they're a good way to kind of pick up on some key learnings that our guest share throughout the, throughout these discussions. So again, for everyone listening, if you don't get to that, it's Ellie. E-L-I-Houth. Very cool technology. It would be fun to watch. Fun to watch your team continue to roll

out even more, even more tests in the future. So with that said, Marina, rapid-fire questions. Feel free to expand if you want to answer in sort of short fashion to. That's totally fine. But take us back to kind of 2019 and looking back over the past six years since co-founding the company. What's the most surprising or unexpected thing that you've learned? I would say things are how to say how to put that that very often things look very hard and it's surprising how when you look back it seems easier. Retrospectively it seems easy and when you do it, it's not. So I guess the takeaway there is that often there's a lot of things that feel hard but those

hard things eventually become easy and then there's new hard things that then become easy. So how, I guess, adaptive people can be. Yeah, that's good stuff. All right. So if you could go back to the beginning, right, when you were, you know, first prototyping, right? And thinking about, you know, how you wanted to solve this kind of this hormone measurement problem. Anything that you do differently looking back? Well, now we know what was the path that led to making this possible.

So if we were to start back again, there's quite a few hundred iterations. that we would skip the approach that we use of sometimes even doing different things in parallel to see what was the one that led to the best result. It's something, it's an approach that we still use today and that I would recommend in many cases. Yeah, the easy answer is you'd go straight to this form factor, right? If you could do it differently, no need to iterate. Just go straight to this.

This is the one. the 2000 iteration and go to that one. Right. But I almost guarantee that you wouldn't have learned a lot of those key lessons, right, along the way that are probably going to be even more powerful as the company kind of continues to scale. So last question I've got for you. Let's say we've got a room, you know, of a smaller group of maybe 20 to 30, you know,

health tech, med tech entrepreneurs. And you want to leave them with kind of one thing that they absolutely need to get right if they're going to experience any sort of success with their, their venture. What would that, what would that be? I would say that there's so many things, but ultimately, I do find that grit and continuing to move forward is the defining factor, because there's a bunch of challenges, there's a bunch of things, and there's a million things that we need to do right when we're a founder, and we won't know all of those things. But if we have the perseverance to continue learning and to continue, if we fell in one way,

to try another, and that applies yes to technology, but also to many different things like how to build the right culture and so on, that perseverance, I would say, and grit is the core factor. Good way to wrap it up, and I would 100% or 1,000% agree with that sentiment. Like, that is absolutely a must if you're going to hopefully experience some sort of success in the world of startups, persistence and perseverance and grit, however you want to describe that. So with that said, Marina, I can't thank you enough for coming on the program. Again, for everyone listening, Ellie.health is the website, E-L-I-D-Helfth. I highly encourage you to check out the technology. It's very, very cool. We'll link to it in the full write-up on MedSider as well. But I can't thank you

enough again, Marina, for coming on the program. Well, thanks for having me. I'll have you hold on the line. But again, for everyone listening, you've made it this far, appreciate your listening attention as always until the next episode of MedSider goes live. Everyone, take care. Hey, it's Scott again. One quick thing before you go. You see, I love bringing you insightful conversations with the best founders and CEOs of medical device and health technology startups. But here's the thing. I'd be super grateful if you could help me reach even more ambitious doers who share our passion. So if you found value in this podcast, if you found yourself

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