Entrepreneurs’ ventures is an early-stage enterprise capital firm in partnership with Entrepreneur Media that goals to support passionate and modern founders from day one. In this series, we profile the amazing entrepreneurs Entrepreneur Ventures works with to share their insights on building and growing a successful business.
Over the years Kamila Sievers she suffered from debilitating menstrual pain. “Five days a month I was completely disabled,” he says Entrepreneur. Despite the very real pain she was experiencing, doctors kept telling her that tests showed there was “nothing wrong.”
When a friend found her curled up in agony on the kitchen floor, she offered to bring Sievers to the hospital traditional chinese medicine practitioner. “I didn’t know what TCM was, but I felt I had nothing to lose,” she says. “I went there and came out with some herbs. And a month later the pain was 70% less. And two months later I had no pain anymore.”
This transformational experience led Sievers to turn into co-founder and CEO of the company Qi Healthalong with co-founder and CTO Nam Le. Launched in 2022, Qi Health is a digital health platform that gives women with access to natural and evidence-based TCM-based therapies. As the company prepared for its next phase of growth, we spoke with Sievers about its plans to help tens of 1000’s of ladies across the country.
Entrepreneur: Give us a lift pitch for Qi Health.
Camilla Sievers: The oldest medicine in the world is traditional Chinese medicine, which has been around for 1000’s of years. Globally, 80% of the world’s population uses alternative medicine, but in the United States it hasn’t really moved online. That’s why we attempt to make help for women suffering from chronic diseases accessible, reliable and transparent. We see a great need for women to find relief from a number of symptoms, so we take the world’s oldest medicine and put it in a modern framework.
What inspired you to create this company?
Like many other women, I used hormonal contraception as a teenager. And then when I finished using hormonal contraception, I had debilitating period pain. I visited many experts in Germany, where I’m from, and in Austria, and all of them told me the same thing: “We can’t find anything.” The translation is: “We can’t help you.” So I just endured the pain. After TCM therapy, my energy modified. My dream has modified. My appearance has modified. My cycle has modified. It modified my life. And it made me want to learn and do more. Women’s health is simply chronically missed, undervalued and under-researched.
Have you encountered resistance from customers who are not familiar with TCM?
We see women come to us after they have researched all the things that insurance covers and then researched all the things that insurance does not cover. They pay out of pocket for treatment, but it still doesn’t work. Then they say, “Let me try something alternative.” So we get them at the very end, and sometimes they might lack that trust All it’ll work. However, when they resolve to seek the advice of, they are surprised. They see such quick results after 10-15 years of no results and are truly grateful.
Source: Qi Health
Are there any moments on your entrepreneurial journey that stand out to you?
After my personal success in TCM, we conducted an internal trial to see if my story may very well be repeated. I assumed, it may possibly’t be this unicorn that magically works on everyone, right? Well, that is what happened. We found that many women got here to us with not only one condition they wanted treated, but on average they reported eight symptoms. So it’s possible you’ll come in for period pain or infertility, but you furthermore may suffer from insomnia, night sweats, poor digestion, all these items. All eight symptoms were resolved inside an average of 4 months. Seeing people cry with relief and reading the emails they sent saying, “You saved my life!” sticks with you.
What is your advice for entrepreneurs looking for financing?
Meet very specific people. Initially, we talked to generic funds that invest in all the things and learned that they’d not invest in women’s health care. It’s too area of interest – although we’re talking about 50% of the population. Reach out to specific VCs who understand your industry.
Can you talk about your goals?
Currently, complementary and alternative medicine market in the US it is USD 29 billion. (Complementary refers to medicine used alongside conventional medicine.) In 2033, the market shall be price $229 billion. That’s why 60% of Americans have one chronic disease, 40% have twoand the Western healthcare system is failing. People are looking for something that will not allow them to down, so you are going to see this explosion. Traditional Chinese medicine is becoming a huge market in the US. It currently employs over 40,000 practitioners – greater than the variety of yoga studios in the US. Our development has been by word of mouth for a very long time, and now our company is able to be sure that TCM is brought to the forefront.
What is your advice for growing your customer community?
We’ve learned a lot by listening to our users. We built our entire platform because it is today because people told us, “I would like this, not that.” It’s vital to find the first 100-200 individuals who are committed and loyal and want you to succeed, and listen to them. You build momentum and manageable growth as you spread the word. You get all this great input into improving your product, and for us, you are ready for latest partnerships that can unlock tens of 1000’s of shoppers.
What do aspiring business owners think they need but don’t actually do?
Lots of funds. You can do a lot for so little money. Starting a business has evolved a lot since I began my first company in 2014. You can start a business for just a few hundred dollars. You don’t have to build your website or app from scratch. There are many platforms like Shopify that allow you to stay lean, build a prototype, and start testing your enterprise idea as soon as possible. Don’t go out and raise until you actually know what you are building and who you are building it for.
Do you have any advice on how to survive the difficult times that entrepreneurship often brings?
Being an entrepreneur is principally putting out fires all day long. And for me it’s a huge privilege. When I get up, I think about how privileged I’m to find a way to do this and focus on the positives. Those emails and testimonials about how we have modified people’s lives – for me, the efforts far outweigh the hardships and make all of it price it.