Since I was a teenager, I have had severe cycle problems, period pain and PMS – the answer to these was often always the same: pill or painkillers. I tried both, neither really helped. What finally took me on a completely different path was, of all things, professional dance.
As a competitive athlete, you quickly learn: your body is your most important tool. You watch him, you listen to him and you try to understand his signals because you have to. Because if you want to function on stage, you can’t afford any ‘blind spots’.
I applied this same approach to my hormonal health. I didn’t just want to suppress symptoms, I wanted to understand what’s really happening in my body, why I have these symptoms and how I can relieve them sustainably.
Back then, I wanted someone who could explain to me what was really behind my symptoms – beyond the standard recommendations. Hormonella was born out of this desire.
Since then, I’ve learned a lot about how to build a brand in the healthcare industry and what it really means to create a brand and create products that you would have needed yourself.
Learning 1: Outsourcing saves time – but those who understand their processes down to the smallest detail have a long-term advantage
In the early days of Hormonella, many people advised us: outsource as much as possible. Logistics, fulfillment, production – put everything in third-party hands. Scale quickly, do nothing yourself.
We deliberately did not follow this advice. Not out of stubbornness, but out of conviction: If you really want to master quality and customer experience, you have to understand every process in your own company and ideally carry it out yourself. This is the only way to judge whether an external partner really meets your own requirements.
A concrete example: At Hormonella we procure every single raw material ourselves, know every producer personally and rely on direct supply chains wherever possible. This is more complicated than ordering from a contract manufacturer. But it means that we always know what is in our products and where it comes from.
Automated and delegated – but only once you understand the process yourself. Then you will also know what you can expect from your employees and partners and what the respective limits are.
Learning 2: Accept feedback – but don’t follow every well-intentioned recommendation
We built Hormonella in the middle of the corona pandemic. The recommendation from almost all corners was clear: “Focus on online. Brick-and-mortar retail is uninteresting. Pharmacies are too slow.”
Despite this – or perhaps precisely because of this – we decided on a pharmacy-first approach. Not because we didn’t want to listen to the experts, but because we knew our target group. In the healthcare context, the pharmacy is more than just a place of sale. It is a space of trust.
So we set off. Pharmacy after pharmacy. Personal conversations, direct feedback, real exchanges with pharmacists and gynecologists. The result: Today Hormonella is available in over 8,000 pharmacies in Germany.
Get regular feedback from customers, partners and the industry. But filters. Because you know your company, your target group and your quality standards better than anyone from the outside. Listen, prioritize and test. And then decide based on what really suits your brand.
Learning 3: Transparency is not a marketing tool – it is the foundation
The supplement industry is loud. But many brands seem interchangeable: health claims that sound too good to be true, colorful labels with big promises and little tangible behind them.
It was clear to us early on: If we want to gain the trust of our target group, a simple “money-back guarantee” is not enough. We really have to show what’s behind our products.
Specifically, this means three things for Hormonella:
Firstly, the supply chain. In the supplement industry, most brands purchase products from contract manufacturers – where the raw materials come from and what exactly is in the ingredients often remains unclear. We procure every raw material ourselves and have extracts produced specifically for us. There is a direct quality reason for this: many plant extracts contain hidden fillers that do not appear in any list of ingredients. Because we have this in our own hands, we can guarantee the highest quality and purity for each individual product.
Secondly, the purity principle. We test not only the end product, but each individual raw material independently in the laboratory. For us this is standard. Unfortunately, this is often the exception in the industry.
Third, real advice. Many of our customers have already tried out a lot of things before coming to us. They often had the experience of not being taken seriously or of having bought products that did not deliver what they promised. That’s why we invest in personal consultations with experts and pharmacists so that our customers really understand what’s behind their complaints and get the support they deserve.
Trust comes from clarity, not volume. Show what you can really do – and also say what you can’t do. This is bolder than any health claim, no matter how promising. And more valuable in the long term.
About the author
Felicitas Dammertz is the founder of Hormonella, a female health brand from Berlin. Hormonella helps women to better understand their hormonal balance – with a digital hormone check and nutritional supplements that are available in over 8,000 pharmacies.
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