Gaele Lalahy is the COO of Balance App which provides free advice for women going through the menopause.

Through Balance App you’re shining a light on the perimenopause and menopause experience so many women are going through. What impact would you like to have on women around the world through Balance App? 

Despite the fact that 20% women suffer severely from one or more  of the 37 different symptoms of the menopause it takes 9% women over 10 appointments to get a diagnosis. Time to get a diagnosis has  to drastically improve to reduce suffering and enhance the future health of women.

At balance, our mission is to improve women’s health around the world and the fastest way to do this is to empower women themselves with unbiased, evidence-based information and knowledge so they can instigate a faster diagnosis and demand access to the appropriate treatment.  The app is free and allows women to have access to personalised expert information, track their symptoms, download their personal health report to take to their healthcare professional as evidence, and have access to a support community of like-minded women. 

Since the launch, the response has been phenomenal and the comments from women who have been struggling for so long until they discovered the app are heart-breaking. We are just shy of our first anniversary and already have hundreds of thousands of women in over 100 countries using the app, women  to whom we have given the courage and the knowledge to go and seek the right treatment for themselves and truly change their lives. 

There’s always a lightbulb moment before the beginning of a new venture. What was that moment for you?

When I decided to leave Panasonic after an amazingly rewarding 20 years career, and jump into the void, I did not have a job to go to or even a plan. There were many conversations, many options covered, and possible career paths. 

And then there was Louise.

When I met Dr Louise Newson for the first time there was this energy, this passion to act, to fight, to get things done, to accelerate the cause. She opened my eyes to her world and the fight she had been fighting almost on her own for years. 

Coming from a big corporate  the fact that 31% women thought about reducing their working hours and 32% had thought about leaving ( 3 )  because of the impact of sub-optimal menopause support and treatment, completely shocked me.

Dr Louise Newson is an unstoppable force of nature, she has created one of the largest menopause clinics in the world and is dedicated to menopause care. Louise started to create free resources online, training courses for healthcare professionals, she founded a Charity, hosts one of the most popular medical weekly podcasts and still finds all the time she can to see as many patients as she can.

Louise has a crystal clear vision, to improve women's health globally. The task is humongous, there will be 1.1billion postmenopausal women by 2025. 

So Louise tells me, we need to do more.

And at that point, I can see what Louise sees: 

The huge unmet need to help women, the need to change cultures and lift the taboo, the need for education, the need to speed up diagnosis, the need to offer affordable and accessible care. 

And the opportunities; the opportunities to get brands and leaders on board to shout louder, the opportunities to keep women in work to fight gender inequalities in the workplace, the opportunities to use tech to help more women quicker, in more countries, the opportunity to be part of the change to advance women’s health globally.

We are working round the clock to make that profound and essential change.

Tell us about your experience prior to Balance App?

In my former role, I was a member of the Board at Panasonic UK, a worldwide Olympic and Paralympic partner, leading the company’s marketing communications across the entire consumer product portfolio and managing brands such as Panasonic, Lumix, Technics to name just a few.

I led the Global digital campaign for Panasonic during the London 2012 Games, worked with team GB on the Rio Games, set up an online film school with VICE and The Raindance Film festival. I am passionate about tech innovation and I had the chance to set up Panasonic’s digital marketing and ecommerce arsenal from the start and work with The Bakery London and many start-ups to bring a number of media first innovations to Panasonic. As a former national Rhythmic  Gymnastics gymnast, I have a passion for sports and I am humbled to be a Non-Exec Director at the National Paralympic Heritage Trust supporting the drive for more diversity in sports. 

When did you first get the sense that Balance App was developing a significant audience?

We used to celebrate every new 10,000 downloads as a new milestone and around March time we achieved 100 000, and in May we doubled that.  What happened then at that pivotal time is that women started to tell us their stories, and we started to hear daily the amazing impact that the app was having on women’s lives, like Elaine’s, one of our users, “ I am so grateful to have discovered this app. …After 15 years of no help I started my HRT journey yesterday”.

At that point we realised we had something very powerful in our hands, something that was really helping women finally get the knowledge they needed to get a diagnosis and access to treatment they desperately needed. At that moment, I told the team, let’s stop counting. There is a much bigger job to do and we cannot be satisfied with hundreds of thousands. 

By 2025, 1.1 billion women are expected to be postmenopausal and until we help every single one of them receive the knowledge and support they need, we shall not rest!

With the technological build of Balance App - how does this speak to the strategic direction of your company?
Product development is at the heart of our strategy for the next 6 months. We are focusing on making the app scalable and build a robust data model that will allow us to grow at speed, and be smart with the data that we collect. Understanding our users better through our insights and listening to user feedback. We are making user experience improvements to current functionalities but also working on taking the app further in terms of brand new functionalities. This will enable us to support women not only get to the right diagnosis and treatment faster but also to help them thrive with their overall health and wellbeing during their perimenopause and menopausal years.

What is your day-to-day role with the company?
I run the apps operations.  We are in a major growth phase but at the same time lots of the foundations need to be laid out to be ready for the next stage of expansion. 

My time is split between leading the tech development of new services in the app,  building the balance brand and marketing capabilities and growing the user base, ensuring the app is commercially sustainable by developing new commercial models. I’m also building a lot of really exciting brand and research collaborations.

How did you fund the initial launch of Balance App?
We have been funded by an angel investor who has seen  first hand the debilitating effects the menopause can have on people and how with the right evidence-based information and treatment women could get their lives back, get back to work and thrive. 

There is this shared energy between us to help more women, wherever they are, whatever it takes. We are so very grateful that they bought into the vision and have trusted us from day one.

What advice would you give to early-stage founders wanting to harness the power of technology to create a positive impact?
Focus – but remain curious.  Concentrate on developing an amazing product that truly addresses an unmet need. That has to always be the starting point and the focus. 

It is purpose first, with tech innovation serving that purpose. Not the other way round.

So focus, but at the same time, make sure you keep a little bit of time around the edges to keep your eyes and ears open because things will come up, things you have not thought about, so be tuned to it and don’t be afraid to shift, pivot, adapt. A start-up is an ever evolving beast.

What are your top three tips to hire and develop new talent?

I have had the chance to work with the most amazing team members and seeing them do well in their careers and achieving their ambitions is one of my biggest job satisfactions. 

So my top tips for developing new talents:

• Play to their strengths 

• Create a positive environment. 

• Trust them and let them make mistakes 

Can you describe Balance App in three words?

• Caring 

• Empowering 

• Essential

What’s next for Balance App?

We are really excited to be part of the Greater Manchester Research and Innovation health accelerator and through that we hope to be able to quantify and evidence the impact that the app is having on women’s health.

Our dream is to empower more women around the world, women who need it the most, in countries where the menopause is even more of a taboo, in countries where women have less access to medical treatment, in countries where women have less of a voice. 

We believe we have one of the largest communities of peri-menopausal and menopausal women in the world and this provides us with outstanding  evidence  of what women are going through and what are their barriers to achieving a better health. We want to use these insights to be a power for change and deliver what women need to lift these barriers and taboos and help as many women as possible around the globe thrive through their perimenopause and menopause