Entrepreneurial ventures is an early stage venture capital firm partnered with Entrepreneur Media that is dedicated to supporting passionate and innovative founders from day one. In this series, we're profiling the amazing entrepreneurs Entrepreneur Ventures is working with to share their insights on building and growing a thriving business.
For years, Camilla Sievers suffered periodic debilitating pain. “Five days out of every month I was completely out of order,” she says entrepreneur. Despite the very real pain she was experiencing, doctor after doctor told her that tests showed “nothing was wrong.”
When a friend found her curled up on the kitchen floor in agony, she offered to bring Sievers to a traditional chinese medicine practitioner. “I didn't know what TCM was, but I felt I had nothing to lose,” she says. “I went in there and came up with some herbs. And then, a month later, I had 70% less pain. And two months after that, I was pain free.”
This transformative experience led Sievers to become co-founder and CEO of Qi Healthalong with co-founder and CTO Nam Le. Launched in 2022, Qi Health is a digital health platform that provides women with access to natural and evidence-based treatments rooted in TCM. As the company prepares for its future growth phasewe spoke with Sievers about her plans to help tens of thousands of women across the country.
entrepreneur: Please give us elevator pitch for Health Qi.
Camilla Sievers: The oldest medicine in the world is traditional Chinese medicine, which has been around for thousands of years. Globally, 80% of the world's population uses alternative medicinebut it has not actually been brought online in the United States. So we are trying to make it accessible, reliable and transparent to help women with chronic health conditions. We see a great need for women to find relief from various symptoms, so we're taking the world's oldest medicine and putting it into a modern framework.
What inspired you to create this company?
Like many other women, I was put on hormonal birth control as a teenager. And then, when I stopped using hormonal birth control, I would have periodic weak cramps. I went to many experts in Germany, where I'm from, and in Austria, and they all 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 the TCM treatment, my energy changed. My sleep changed. My appearance had changed. My cycle changed. It changed my life. And it made me want to learn and do more. women's health it has just been chronically overlooked, understudied and under-researched.
Have you encountered resistance from clients unfamiliar with TCM?
We see women come to us after exploring everything that insurance covers and then exploring everything that insurance doesn't cover. They pay out of pocket for treatments but it still doesn't work. Then they say, “Let me try something alternative.” So we're getting them at the bottom, and sometimes they can lack confidence about it everything it will work. But when they decide to have a consultation, their minds are blown. They see such quick results after enduring 10-15 years without results and are truly grateful.
Credit: Qi Health
Is there a moment in your entrepreneurial journey that stands out?
After my personal success with TCM, we did an in-house trial to see if my story could be replicated. I thought it can't be this unicorn that magically works for everyone, right? Well, it was done. What we found was that many women did not come to us with just one condition they hoped to cure, but on average, they presented with eight symptoms. So you can come for menstrual pain or infertilitybut you also have insomnia, night sweats, indigestion, all of that. And all eight symptoms resolved within an average of four months. Seeing people cry with relief and reading the emails they sent saying, “You saved my life!” sticks with you.
What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs? FInanCInG?
Meet very specific people. We first spoke to generic funds that invest in everything and learned that they will not invest in women's health. It is very special – even though we are talking about 50% of the population. Target specific VCs who understand your industry.
Can you talk about your goals?
Currently, complementary and alternative medicine market in the US it is 29 billion dollars. (Complementary refers to drugs used alongside conventional medicine.) In 2033, the market will be $229 billion. This is because 60% of Americans have a chronic condition, 40% have twoand the western health care system is failing. People are looking for something that is not failing them, so you will see this explosion. Traditional Chinese medicine is becoming a huge market in the U.S. There are now over 40,000 practitioners—more than the number of yoga studios in the US Our growth has been through word of mouth for a long time and now our company is positioned to bring TCM to the forefront.
What is your advice for developing a community of customers?
We have learned so much from listening for our users. We built our entire platform the way it is because people told us, “I'd like this and not that.” It's important to find your first 100 or 200 people who are committed and loyal and want you to succeed and listen to them. You build momentum and manageable growth as they spread the word. And you're getting all that great input to improve your product and, for us, you're ready for new partnerships that will open up tens of thousands of customers.
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What is something that aspiring business owners think they need, but actually don't?
Lots of funding. There are so many things you can do with so little money. The startup has evolved so much since I started my first business in 2014. You can incorporate for just a few hundred dollars. You don't have to build your website or app from scratch. There are so many platforms such as Shopifythat allows you to stay lean, build a prototype and start testing your business idea as soon as possible. Don't go out and freeze before you really know what you're building and who you're building it for.
Any tips for getting through the tough times that entrepreneurship often brings?
Being an entrepreneur is really putting out fires all day long. And for me, it is an extreme privilege. When I wake up, I think about how privileged I am to do this and focus on the positives. Those emails and testimonials saying how we changed people's lives – to me, they far outweigh the hardships and make it all worth it.