ELEKTRA HEALTH: Your Guidance To Menopause
Menopause. It might be one of the scariest - and least understood - words in the women’s health dictionary. 80% of women report negative quality of life factors while going through menopause, but once on the other side women often find an unburdening, freeing, and incredibly creative sense of renewal. Aimed at educating women and removing taboos around menopause, Elektra Health is here to create a new digital health tool for women in this phase of life. With World Menopause Day approaching on October 18, we talked to Elektra founders Alessandra Henderson and Jannine Versi about why they’re tackling this important and overlooked issue.
For those who don’t know (and there are a lot of you!) menopause is a natural decline in the reproductive hormones when a woman reaches her 40s or 50s, resulting in a permanent end of her menstrual cycle. No more periods = the good news. Along the way, menopause can be a 7-10 year journey for most women, with 34 known symptoms. Until Elektra came to shake up the sector, there were few accessible resources for women to learn about menopause and receive treatment.
“The fun for us is we get to meet these badass women who are taking things into their own hands and really changing the conversation around this.” - Alessandra
“Elektra Health is on a mission to smash the menopause taboo. We empower women who are navigating the transition with access to high quality, world-class care, education, and support,” Jannine said. “We are a digital platform, and we have fantastic menopause experts - physicians who are steeped in menopause and know how to treat it well.”
Surprisingly, a large percentage of OB-GYN programs do not train their doctors in menopause and how to treat its symptoms, which include hot flashes, night sweats, and brain fog to name a few. Elektra is dedicated to providing women education on what is going on in the body, what to expect, and evidence-based tools and solutions to get through it. Elektra’s founders are focused on the light at the end of the tunnel, encouraging the women in their network to look forward.
“There are positive things - you don’t have to deal with the hassles of menstruation and birth control anymore. We hear from women that they feel incredibly creative, and if you can get your symptoms under control you feel a lot more energy and a new type of creativity. Women tell us you really just don't give a sh** anymore. A lot of women who have moved through this transition have a new lease on life and how to spend it. It’s necessary to focus on moving into that brilliant phase,” Alessandra tells us.
On Finding a Co-Founder
Alessandra had extensive experience in startup environments and left her job at Human Ventures to start Elektra in January 2019. She met with several potential co-founders who did not share her vision, but when she met Jannine things clicked and a casual introduction turned into a 3-hour conversation.
“Most people, when you say ‘I want to build something in women's health’ really focus on fertility. It's a clear line to egg freezing and postpartum. Jannine was one of the first people who got it immediately on the importance of menopause,” Alessandra said.
Jannine’s background made her the perfect fit to co-found Elektra. She was working in health tech and is the daughter of a urogynecologist, a doctor who focuses on one of the main symptoms of menopause. The topic Elektra was facing was not as foreign to her as it had been to others, who only thought about reproduction when it came to women’s health.
“Alessandra was incredibly compelling and I totally understood the issue right away. I’m fortunate to have people in my life who are in the academic and medical space around menopause, so we've tapped into some of those networks of physicians who really see this as a massive opportunity in a space that has been lacking in innovation. We’re happy to have the support and championing of physicians who really know their stuff and have been looking at this for decades,” Jannine said.
Alessandra serves as the CEO focused primarily on the consumer-facing aspects of the business, while Jannine is COO focused on clinical operations. The co-founders emphasize the collaborative nature of all of their work, especially on marketing, growth, and fundraising.
Another thing they have in common, both Alessandra and Jannine got their undergrad education in humanities disciplines! Jannine’s intro to entrepreneurship was in college as the 3rd employee at Insomnia Cookies - a part-time cookie baker working the graveyard shift. Alessandra came into the startup world through her original passion for art and was an early hire at Artsy. She founded the MIT Startup Studio in NYC before heading to Human Ventures.
“I fell out of love with the art world and more in love with building things. Early-stage innovation really speaks to my heart,” Alessandra said.
Business Model and Marketing
Elektra launched its service in March 2020. Currently, the startup operates as a D2C platform primarily in New York, and its service offering is broken into several options to create an effective but accessible experience. Women can receive one-to-one consultations with Elektra physicians, who provide guidance and hormone therapy prescriptions. Elektra also offers one-to-many group programs and education, similar in format to pregnancy classes women attend. Eventually, they see the programming expanding across channels and geographic borders as Elektra grows.
Elektra’s special sauce is their unapologetic approach to Menopause education.
“Alessandra built the Elektra Digest which is our newsletter with open rates like I’ve never seen,” Jannine said. “I think it's this signature mix of taking a bold stand, being highly science-based and speaking to women like adults rather than being all pink and feathers and cartoons. There’s something that really resonates with this Gen-X audience.”
The Name
Early on, Alessandra hosted a collaborative naming party with some trusted advisors and friends, where they ultimately landed on Elektra, a name Alessandra’s parents were considering for her when she was born! She sees the name as an empowering identity for women.
“I do think about the name when taking that bold stance. Who is your superhero, who are you stepping into as you enter this new phase of life? I think of Elektra as my alter-ego,” Alessandra said.
The Advice
2020 is a crazy year to launch a company, but after their initial success, the women behind Elektra are pushing forward with plans to raise a seed round in the coming months. They shared their most valuable ideals with us to inspire future founders:
Find an awesome Co-Founder! When it comes to building a company 1+1 is greater than 2.
Follow curiosity as opposed to a set path, talk to experts, and read as much as you can.
Learn to ask for help and ask for things, because a lot of times people will say yes.
Check out Shoe Dog by Phil Knight and listen to Jerry Colonna’s Reboot podcast for more insight.
For those interested in elevating your menopause journey, check out Elektra Health here.
Photo courtesy of Elektra Health.
Written by Kendall Embs.