Sometimes when you don’t fit the mould, you need to break it – just ask Sonya Satveit, founder and CEO, Qanik DX Inc.
Satveit’s journey to becoming a FemTech Founder began with her own health story. When unaddressed hormone issues led to two miscarriages, Satveit realized our healthcare system wasn’t designed to serve the unique needs of women. The guiding principle, “let your pain become your purpose” led her to become a women’s health advocate through her blog Hormone Soup. When the blog reached women in 175 countries, she knew she had to do more to help so she set out to transform women’s health.
“One of the biggest things is I don’t fit the stereotype of a typical tech founder.”
Satveit founded Open Source Health, which piloted the first precision medicine platform for women’s health – a multinational project involving multiple stakeholders from the US, Canada, and Europe. Satveit published the results in the peer-reviewed journal, Learning Health Systems.
She didn’t stop there, her vision to remove the gatekeepers to lab testing, give women control over their data and empower them with knowledge resulted in her latest venture – a company called Qanik DX. She and her team have developed a mini-lab for the home to allow women to test their hormones and get real-time results delivered to their smartphone all in the comfort of their own home.
“One of the biggest things is I don’t fit the stereotype of a typical tech founder,” said Satveit. “I don’t check all the boxes, and I saw that as an opportunity to redefine what being a founder looks like.”
In this week’s episode of the #StartupCanadaPodcast, sponsored by Mastercard and Ceridian, Satveit discusses the importance of carving out your own corner in entrepreneurship.
The Startup Canada Podcast Show is a production of Startup Canada, a grassroots, entrepreneur-led movement to bring together, celebrate, and give a voice to Canada’s entrepreneurship community. On the podcast, Startup Canada Digital Programs Lead Matthew Curtis speaks with the movers and shakers of Canada’s entrepreneurship community to give a glimpse into the future of business, and share insights on everything from social innovation to the future of work, investing, and why we need to think bigger to take our businesses global. Join Matthew Curtis for new episodes every Tuesday airing at 10 AM ET for lessons, trends, and opportunities in entrepreneurship from Vancouver to Fredericton; and Israel to Peru.
You can find every episode of The Startup Canada Podcast Show at www.startupcan.ca/podcasts/
