Newsletter #17: An Interview with the Semaine Health Co-Founders

The market for women’s health supplements in the United States is big and growing rapidly.  Unsurprisingly, many new entrants have been attracted to the category, but relatively few have clinical proof that their products actually work.  Enter Semaine Health: founded by Lauren (who suffered from endometriosis) and her husband Matt (a PhD biologist looking to solve Lauren’s health challenges), Semaine Health is on a mission to inspire a future where women’s health and hormones are celebrated and understood.  Semaine Health currently has products to address hormone balance, bladder health, period support, peri/menopause support, gut health and others.

Below is the transcript of a list of questions Ocampo Capital CEO Karl Bracken (KB) asked Semaine Health co-founders Matt Crane (MC) and Lauren Lee (LL) on June 7^th, 2025.  They answered these questions independently with complementary answers.  Enjoy!

KB: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today.  I am excited to share your story!  To start off, what is Semaine Health?

LL: Semaine Health is founded in a love story that grew into a way to shift the paradigm in women’s health with plant-based, science-backed supplements.

MC: Semaine Health is a women’s health company that creates science-backed supplements designed to address the root causes of hormonal and inflammatory issues, and not just the symptoms. We do this by tackling the cellular imbalances that underlie many of the most common and frustrating health challenges women face.

KB: What inspired you to start Semaine Health?

LL: Seeing how few options there were on the market for super common pain points that women face throughout their lives: from period pain to menopause symptoms. More personally, as someone with endometriosis, I’ve met so many women who were tired of not finding solutions to pain that completely erodes your quality of life. And I’m lucky enough that I married an incredible scientist and compassionate innovator.

MC: Semaine Health started as something deeply personal, and really from being Lauren’s patient advocate. As a scientist working in academic research, I grew frustrated knowing that many discoveries we made in the lab might take decades to actually help people. So I decided to use my background to create something that could help her now. After months of research into inflammation, gut health, and hormonal pathways, we developed what became our first product—and the transformation in her quality of life was profound. That experience made me realize I didn’t want to wait years for impact; I wanted to build something that could help women feel seen, empowered, and better today. That’s what drives Semaine: combining rigorous science with real-world solutions that improve women’s health in meaningful, immediate ways.

KB: How did you come up with the name of your company?

LL: We wanted to tie the name to the cyclical nature of women’s bodies: our hormones change daily, weekly, monthly and through different stages in our lives. Semaine means “week” in French. Most of our ingredients are sourced from France, Spain and Italy so we also wanted a nod to our European roots.

MC: Exactly! We wanted a name that acknowledged that rhythm, and also hinted at our mission: to support women not just for one moment, but throughout every week, every phase, and every chapter of their health journey. Semaine Health is about meeting women where they are, with products that work in harmony with the body’s natural cycles.

KB: Please tell us about your experiences leading up to starting Semaine Health.  What about your background helped you?

LL: I’m a graphic designer and art director. I love communicating stories and ideas through visuals and words. It’s my favorite challenge every day to tell the Semaine story better and more clearly so it finds a wider audience to help.

MC: Before starting Semaine Health, my background was in bioengineering, with a focus on studying how cells respond to different kinds of stress, particularly during aging. That scientific training gave me a deep understanding of how cellular imbalances contribute to so many health issues. Coming from academia also gave me a mindset rooted in experimentation. In science, you’re constantly forming hypotheses, running tests, analyzing results, and iterating, and I’ve carried that approach directly into how we run Semaine. Unlike research, where there’s a “right” answer you’re working toward discovering, in business we’re mostly trying to avoid wrong paths or find ways to iterate and improve. That’s why we test everything, from product formulations to messaging, using data and feedback to avoid costly mistakes and stay focused on what truly works for our community.

KB: What were the biggest surprises as you launched Semaine Health?

LL: Constantly hearing that our supplements were addressing a great niche audience. Women? People who have periods and go through menopause: that’s more than 50% of the world’s population. I’m still kind of astounded by that assessment. It’s true that not everyone is a supplement user but these pain points are the opposite of niche.

MC: One of the biggest surprises when we launched Semaine Health was just how fun and exciting it was to see people using our product and telling us it was changing their lives. We had spent so much time in research and development, making sure the science was solid and the formulation was effective, but nothing prepared me for the emotional impact of hearing someone say, “I finally feel like myself again,” or “This is the first thing that’s actually helped me.” As a scientist, you're used to abstract results and long timelines, but launching Semaine brought immediate, real-world feedback.

KB: What have been the most memorable moments or milestones in Semaine’s history, thus far?

LL: The day we launched our first supplement in March 2020. We had quit our non-Semaine jobs 6 months before and it felt exhilarating and terrifying to actual launch a product to the world.

MC: One of the most memorable milestones has been seeing the tangible impact our products have had on Lauren, who is been the inspiration behind everything we’ve built. Every formula we’ve developed started with her in mind, especially our focus on helping with chronic inflammation. From the time we started Semaine to now, we've been able to lower her inflammation markers by over 70%, which has translated into real, daily improvements in how she feels. That kind of result – backed by data, but deeply personal – reminds me why we do this. It’s not just about creating great products; it’s about transforming lives, starting with the person who inspired it all.

KB: What’s the biggest challenge you have faced thus far as a company?

LL: Growing pains! A blessing and a curse. Being part of a fast growing company, the dream is fast growth but it also means intense growing pains and pushing forward when mentally you think you’re not ready. And you hit those milestones again and again (if you’re lucky).

MC: One of the biggest challenges we’ve faced as a company is staying focused. In the early stages of building Semaine, there were endless exciting ideas, opportunities, and directions we could explore, and it was tempting to try to do everything at once. But we quickly realized that chasing too many things dilutes impact. What’s helped us stay grounded is constantly coming back to our core mission: creating science-backed solutions that truly help women feel better.

KB: What advice would you give other entrepreneurs?

LL: Find a cofounder who compliments your talents and will work as hard as you with as little ego as possible (something I definitely have that with Matt). And build your resilience muscle.

MC: Start a business with your spouse. It might not be for everyone, but for me, it’s been one of the most rewarding parts of building Semaine. You get to spend your days working toward a shared vision with your favorite person, celebrating wins together, and supporting each other through the inevitable challenges. It’s not always easy, and you definitely have to learn how to separate work from life (at least sometimes), but building something meaningful together has made the entire journey more fun, more fulfilling, and deeply personal.

KB: What traits in entrepreneurs are most crucial to success, in your experience?

LL: Resilience and perseverance. It’s such a rollercoaster ride and the ups and downs can feel intense. You will have missteps and burn out. It’s the ability to accept those, move through them (or rest when you can), and keep going.

MC: Resilience. Building a business is hard. There are setbacks, missteps, and moments where nothing seems to go as planned. That’s just part of the process. What matters most is how you respond: you have to be willing to learn from what didn’t work, let go of perfection, and keep moving forward. Resilience isn’t about avoiding failure. Tt’s about using every stumble as fuel to build something better.

KB: Semaine is scaling rapidly.  At this point, what does a successful future for Semaine Health look like to you?

LL: Success is Semaine being synonymous with women’s health: that customers feel like they have safe and effective options that make their lives better because their pain points were heard and addressed.

MC: To me, a successful future for Semaine Health means becoming the go-to brand women trust for science-backed, compassionate solutions to the health challenges they’ve too often been told to just live with. It’s not just about scaling products. It’s about scaling impact. Success means that millions of women feel seen, heard, and better because of what we’ve built.

KB: What work do each of you lead at Semaine Health?  What have been the decision points to hire outside for other roles?

LL: We split things like you would imagine a creative and a scientist would! I oversee all content creation, brand development, packaging, etc. And Matt does everything else! Over the past 2 years we’ve started to hire to help build out a content team, inventory team, and business development.

MC: Lauren is the driving force that keeps us moving forward. She has an incredible ability to make decisions, and push projects across the finish line. I tend to be the one who likes to revisit decisions after diving deep into another study, book, or dataset to make sure we’re really on the right track. Day to day, I focus on anything quantitative (from inventory and finances to analyzing media performance). When it comes to building our team, we've been really lucky. Our growth has been organic and rooted in relationships. Friends of friends, trusted collaborators, people who believe in the mission as much as we do, or recommendations from advisors. They’re the ones that make Semaine possible.

KB: How do you leverage advisors?

LL: We’ve been lucky to have an incredible group of diverse advisors: those that are experts in brick-and-mortar retail, finance/unit economics, and digital marketing. It’s incredibly reassuring to have expertise from fields we had no background in.

MC: This is our first rodeo. It's not only our first time building a company, but for me personally, it’s my first job outside of academia. So having a strong team of advisors has been absolutely essential. We lean on them to point out blind spots because we have a bunch. And building a company is so consuming that you need people to pull you out and see a different part of the picture.

KB: What does an ideal advisor look like to you?

LL: An enthusiastic expert that will jump on a call or respond to an early morning text. Things shift and change so quickly in a start-up, having flexible and supportive advisors who remain optimistic are key.

MC: An ideal advisor has no ego, but brings deep domain expertise and a real excitement for building. We want someone who can confidently tell us when we’re wrong, and just as importantly, explain why, so we can learn, grow, and avoid those mistakes going forward.

KB: What are you most excited about over the next year at Semaine Health?

LL: We just had a great retreat with the team in Scotland (Matt and I lived there for four years before starting Semaine) and hired a fractional CMO. Continuing to build and encourage an amazing team as we reach new milestones is hard but so rewarding. And we have a lot of growing we’re doing in 2025.

MC: We’re at a point where the science, marketing, and momentum are all aligning, and it feels like we’re just getting started. I’m also excited to keep growing our team and building out the infrastructure that allows us to scale without losing the personal, mission-driven heart of what makes Semaine special.

KB: What kind of advice do you have for me and Ocampo Capital?

LL: We feel so lucky to be part of the Ocampo portfolio. Thank you for being our strategic sounding board through these past few months of growth. I wouldn’t change a thing!

MC: My advice? Clone yourself. We could definitely use more Karls in this world.

KB: That is very nice.  Thank you both very much for taking the time to speak with me today.  I am so excited to watch Semaine Health continue to grow!