Solving a personal frustration with a business idea seems to be the latest entrepreneurial trend. Hannah Samano, founder of data-driven health platform, Unfabled, tells Jennifer Sieg how she made hers work.
Hannah Samano realised there was a problem that needed solving the day she frustratingly found her tampons next to dog food in the supermarket.
“Why is my consumer experience around female health products so poor?” the now-founder of women’s data-driven health platform, Unfabled, asked herself as she moved through the checkout line.
With an itch to fix what she considered a “fragmented” market, Samano had her one-stop shop – thanks to Shopify at the time – up and running within weeks.
Using a business idea to solve a personal frustration is nothing new for Britain’s entrepreneurial community, but for Samano, it was a combination of the two that helped her get a head start.
Even if she just landed herself in what she likes to call the “trifecta” of headwinds.
Spotting the opportunity
It wasn’t until Samano’s first internship with a tech start-up abroad in Paris that she realised she had a knack for business.
“I became totally obsessed with this idea that people could just get together and start building a company,” she says.
Samano found herself utilising that newly-discovered obsession to her advantage as she moved through various later roles in the e-commerce industry, including a graduate training program at Unilever and a leading position for femtech start-up Kasha.
There were “loads” of innovative solutions surfacing within the women’s health market throughout her career, Samano tells me, but none of them were enough to relieve her underlying frustration.
“Across the landscape, there were lots of different brands or service providers or solutions for specific problems like menstrual cramps, periods, fertility, everything,” Samano says.
But as a consumer, it was taking me so much time and it was so confusing and so stressful to figure out what to trust and what was right for me.
Hannah Samano
Now, with the help of AI, Unfabled uses a unique data moat to personalise products and care for each of its customers – all within one online platform.
You could say the skills Samano developed throughout her tech start-up career are what helped get the ball rolling with Unfabled, but as she reflects on those early days, she says it took much more than a ‘tech-savvy’ mindset.
The ‘trifecta’ of headwinds
In 2023, less than two per cent of female founders received venture capital funding. Add in a crowded consumer market and the reluctance for funding within a female health-focused business, and the odds become “stacked against you,” Samano says.
A McKinsey Health Institute analysis found that 11 start-ups focused on erectile dysfunction received $1.2bn from 2019 to 2023, while only eight start-ups addressing endometriosis (a condition affecting a female’s uterus) received $44m – the difference, Samano says, seems to be from a lack of understanding.
Thankfully, Samano found investors who were keen to hear her out. Just last month, Unfabled announced its most recent $1.6m (£1.3m) funding round – bringing the total to $2m (£1.6m).
“It’s nothing particularly unique for me to share, but like truly the experience of being a female founder fundraising for female health and for consumers is crazy,” Samano says.
“It shouldn’t be that hard,” she continues while acknowledging the greater issue at hand.
Samano considers that first funding round to be her biggest challenge yet, but rest assured it is worth it to persevere – even if it becomes “a lot to wade through”.
Being one with the consumer
By not taking what seemed like hundreds of “no’s” for an answer, Samano used the power of community – and social media – to lock Unfabled into the market.
We are on a mission to become the world’s most trusted destination for female health and when you unpack what builds trust, I think that community is integral to that.
Hannah Samano
The data-driven personalisation and innovation within the team is what sets Unfabled apart from the rest, she adds, and it only continues to grow.
By putting yourself at eye level with the consumer, you’re able to reach them in a way they appreciate – through “easy to digest and relatable” content, Samano says.
“It doesn’t seem like it’s your doctor telling you what to do,” she adds.
“It seems like it’s your best mate who actually is speaking to you in a way that sounds like you.”
Now that things are starting to run according to plan, Samano plans to get back to what she enjoys most – building the business, and team, even more.