As a Bay Area native, it isn't often I get to interview people from my home region. Most interviews I do nowadays involve people from the other side of the continent, while others hail from another altogether.
That changed in recent weeks, as I sat down with two fellow Bay Area natives in Claire and Ellen Randolph. The sisters are co-founders of WellTheory, a healthcare startup focused on offering "evidence-based nutrition and lifestyle coaching" in an effort to provide quality autoimmune care. The company's founding stems from a deeply personal place, as Ellen, who also serves as WellTheory's CEO, explained she stumbled into what she described as a "chronic health mystery" while working for another healthcare startup that she told me left her "totally bedridden" at the otherwise spry young age of 25. She said she experienced a "laundry list" of symptoms only to have doctors -- ostensibly bound by oath to care for people -- dismiss her body's feelings because she was "too young to be sick." It took Ellen embarking on a long journey to eventually discover her illness was autoimmune in nature, with her saying it wasn't until she finally got to the root cause of her condition and altering her diet and other lifestyle choices that she felt as though she could "reclaim my health." Ellen shared her experiences on TikTok, her posts amassing 25 million views and 85,000 followers who have walked a familiar road coping with chronic illness.
Connecting with those people provided the seed which grew WellTheory.
"We realized there were so many others who were impacted [by autoimmune conditions] like us," Ellen said. "We wanted to create the experience we wish we had during our health journeys as patients."
For Claire's part, her career in tech started as chief of staff at Dropbox where she worked on its people operations team and learned how to "build great teams and what makes great leaders." She was working at another company when her sister first became sick, saying she had a "front row seat" to Ellen's health deteriorate. Claire acknowledged it was "really challenging" to figure out how best to help her sibling; not only did she not know what to say or do from an emotional standpoint, the practical problem was neither woman could get answers on what exactly was wrong. The process led Claire down a path of enlightenment of sorts, as she learned a lot about functional medicine from her sister and how to best advocate for one's own body. But it wasn't merely watching Ellen. During the first year of working on WellTheory, Claire would become sick herself and, fortuitously enough, would be the company's first-ever user. She said the experience taught her ways in which lifestyle changes can help manage and mitigate symptoms, adding she feels "fortunate" to be able to give back and help others do the same thing for themselves.
"I'm a happy user of our service and believe in what we're doing," Claire said.
On its website, WellTheory states its care team is made up of people who well know autoimmune struggles because they are people who can understand and empathize with the journey. WellTheory further says they offer "continuous [and] personalized care" in five influential areas: movement, nutrition, sleep hygiene, stress management, and relationships with self and others. The company's team has experience working with individuals who cope with conditions such as Long Covid, lupus, alopecia, and, like Tanya Rad, Hashimoto's disease. A WellTheory membership includes one-on-one video sessions and unlimited messaging with one's care team, invitations to classes and the community, perks such as discounts on supplements and advanced testing, and more. The WellTheory app is available on iOS and Android.
Ellen's so-called "aha moment" for what would become WellTheory was when she decided to go public with her story. At the time, she had no following to speak of on TikTok and initially focused on simply sharing her experiences in the hope it would help someone. She recalled having a to-this-day "vivid memory" of waking up one morning after having uploaded a video the day before about symptoms she thought were normal but in actuality signs of an autoimmune condition. The video, she told me, had 1.6 million views alongside "thousands" of comments. The comments were especially instructive because they illustrated to Ellen that she wasn't alone on her path; there were, in fact, legions of people like her and her sister who were "looking for better solutions and answers" to their health conundrums. The sisters' lived experiences, combined with skills learned whilst working on previous product teams, helped Claire and Ellen better understand what people needed in terms of care and, pointedly, the roadblocks that are barriers to said care.
"[We wanted] to create the experience we wish we had earlier on our health journeys," Ellen said of the impetus for founding WellTheory. "For us, it was important to validate this wasn't just an experience we had. The reality is that our stories are unfortunately not unique. This is very common... there are 50 million Americans suffering from autoimmune conditions. Those rates are quickly rising, and these are conditions disproportionately impacting women and other minorities."
Anyone can have an autoimmune disorder, but to Ellen's point, they typically affect women more than men. She shared some statistics, telling me 80% of autoimmune patients indeed are women; there are certain conditions, she added, that are 16 times more likely to affect women. Both Ellen and her sister felt strongly this did a "disservice" to women everywhere, with Ellen telling me autoimmune disorders in women are a "crisis" that most people may not realize is so prevalent today. People have long theorized about the best way to approach solutions to these problems, but for WellTheory, Ellen said "we had a clear picture of what the mission was for the company and what we were trying to accomplish." She went on to say the company's North Star "has been crystal clear" as the duo has continued to build out their startup.
Claire concurred, telling me she and Ellen became certified coaches during the pandemic. Claire's education focused more on general life goals and how best to achieve them, while Ellen's was more health-centric. However disparate the particulars were, both women "learned a lot" and are grateful to know more about what coaching can enable and how to advocate more effectively. This is especially poignant in the healthcare arena, as Claire lamented the reality that people spend "so little time" with their providers that it can be hard to have candid, heartfelt conversations about how one feels physically and emotionally.
"We were exposed to this model of coaching and ongoing support and have seen how much of an impact that can have on somebody," Claire said. That was an important part of the experience -- we wanted to provide [it] to others as well. It's so hard to rush through all your story in a couple of minutes, then have time to cover everything that you want to do with your providers. We wanted to create a space where people could feel heard [and] share their story [and not] feel rushed out of the room."
An area of particular import to Claire and Ellen is accessibility. One of the main reasons WellTheory is a digitally native platform is due largely to the notion that many with autoimmune conditions fatigue easily and quickly. This sapping of energy means in-person excursions to a brick-and-mortar doctor's office often are untenable. Claire characterized the ability for WellTheory users to get virtual care from home as "really useful," citing chronic pain as another reason not to leave the friendly confines of one's humble abode. As a practical matter, she noted how virtual appointments can be extremely beneficial for those with hectic schedules. All told, WellTheory is set up in such a manner that people can "take when they need it" whenever they have symptoms or need help. In this way, technology is but a means to an end; it is the conduit through which WellTheory operates. (Thank you, modern internet.)
Ellen agreed, saying WellTheory allows for 60-minute visits with providers, a number she said is 4 times the average length of a doctor's visit. She also mentioned 45% of autoimmune conditions are derisively labelled as "chronic complainers" during the diagnostic process, which leads to patients feeling like they aren't being heard by the people sworn to do the utmost good by them. WellTheory was conceived and developed not only to be convenient but accessible too, with the company engaged in talks with employers and healthcare plans to make its product available to more people at zero cost. Ellen reemphasized the idea that technology is the driving force behind WellTheory's existence, but as with the many concerns about AI, isn't priming for a future where human interaction is obfuscated and "automated away." To both sisters, human-to-human contact is essential to their work because, as Ellen said, "there are important relationships being built based on trust." For a segment of disabled people already used to mocking and marginalization, the human component is crucial. That's why tech is used for automation; it leaves providers free to be with patients.
"We're focused on building tools that enable our care team to deliver the best possible care they can," Ellen said.
When asked about feedback on WellTheory, both Claire and Ellen shared the company has received effusive praise from members. Ellen said most people are "grateful" WellTheory is around to fill a void that heretofore prevented them from getting much-needed care, sharing an anecdote about users with rheumatoid arthritis whose joints are so swollen they can't get dressed independently. With WellTheory's therapies, they're now able to do so. WellTheory is working towards the betterment of others, which Ellen said raises feelings of self-esteem and increases autonomy and agency. WellTheory is making care more accessible, which in turn makes members feel empowered and capable in their everyday lives. Three years removed from its initial beta, WellTheory is making inroads on "[cultivating] these longitudinal relationships [and meeting] our members over this lifelong journey."
Ellen said WellTheory's goal is "reversing the autoimmune epidemic."
"We have empathy for the lived experience," she said of her and her sister's ethos. "We're both WellTheory members, so we live and breathe the product and utilize it every day. At the end of the day, sometimes in healthcare there can be perverse incentives where the patient isn't put first. That's part of why we started direct-to-consumer because we wanted to create the ideal patient experience first and foremost. It benefits us [as a business] because even when you're going through a health plan or employer, you're still needing to reach the end consumer."
