In this Founder Institute livestream, community manager Dustin Betts interviews Dallas Barnes, founder and CEO of Rhea Health, a Canada‑based digital counseling platform that helps women navigate the birth‑control journey. Dallas shares her personal experience of a painful, years‑long trial‑and‑error process that inspired her to create a solution that offers a detailed intake questionnaire, personalized contraceptive recommendations with explanations, side‑effect tracking, and boundary‑setting tools. She explains the broader problem: about one‑third of women try five or more birth‑control methods over an average of two years, incurring emotional, physical, and financial costs. Rhea Health’s platform aims to reduce this friction by delivering tailored information, a telehealth partnership for free doctor consultations and prescription delivery (currently for Ontario users), and ongoing one‑on‑one support. The interview touches on impact metrics, linking the company’s mission to Sustainable Development Goals and highlighting the high rate of unplanned pregnancies in North America. Dallas outlines the user journey—from signing up on the website, completing the questionnaire, receiving a personalized plan, tracking side effects, to accessing community support. She also discusses upcoming product roadmap (mobile app launch) and community‑building efforts on Instagram. The conversation concludes with Dallas offering advice to early‑stage founders about continuous learning and seeking support, and an invitation for listeners to join Rhea Health’s community.
Chapters
Welcome to this Founder Institute livestream. My name is Dustin Betts. I'm a community manager at FI, and I'm joined here today by Dallas Barnes. She's the founder and CEO of Raya Health, a startup providing personalized birth control guides. Dallas Barnes, thanks so much for joining us.
Hey, yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to have a chat.
Yeah, so I am a little bit familiar with you as an FI portfolio alumni, but please give us, you know, to start off, just your short pitch. So for those who would be totally unfamiliar with you, What is Rhea Health?
So Rhea Health is a digital counseling platform to support women all throughout their reproductive health journey, and we're just beginning with birth control. So we provide personalized information and support to help people along their journey of finding the right option, tracking any side effects, um, getting used to that overall trial phase of a new birth control and providing the support that they need to make make confident and comfortable decisions for their own health.
Perfect. Yeah. So we're going to dive into the details of Raya Health, talk a little bit more in detail about it. But to kind of kick off, just please tell us a little bit about yourself or your own startup story. You know, what was it that led you towards founding this startup to help navigate the female birth control journey?
Yeah, really, that's about it. I started Raya out of my own experience of not being able to find the right birth control option for me. And this was, you know, years of a grueling trial and error process, trying one option and experiencing side effects I wasn't comfortable with, trying another option, feeling totally unlike myself. I ended up trying one particular method and my body reacted so adversely to it that I was admitted to the hospital. And that was the last straw for me. I was like, it should not be this hard to find a birth control option that I like and that works for my body. So I ended up taking matters into my own hands and doing lots of research. And I ended up choosing a birth control option that I thought could work well for me and mesh with my lifestyle the best. I got a prescription for it, asked my doctor, and that was the best birth control option that I've ever used. And I really wanted to share this feeling of empowerment in my health journey with other people. And so Rhea was conceived from that, no pun intended.
Yeah, yeah, good one. Yeah, I, yeah, thank you for sharing that personal story. Yeah, it always helps kind of anchor, you know, where the where that boundary is coming from. And yeah, just, yeah, thanks for being open about that. So let's kind of dive in. Like, you know, I'm a cis male person, relatively inexperienced in the female birth control journey from a personal standpoint. And like, I found the statistics on your website about, you know, before versus using Reya to be quite impressive. So for those like me who might not be as familiar personally, please just tell us a little bit about the full scope scope of challenges that women can face in terms of like the time and the money spent in order to find the right birth control option for them?
Yeah, so this whole conversation started happening when I was really struggling to find an option that I liked, and I started to share my experience with other people, you know, friends and family in my circle, and it became largely evident that I was not alone, um, with this struggle. It's actually a third of women try 5 or more different birth control options before they find one that they like or they give up. And this process, this trial and error, can take over 2 years on average. And it's not only time-consuming, but it's expensive. It costs money to, you know, go through and try all these different options. And spending money on ones that don't work for you is not fun. It can also take a very emotional and physical toll on a person. And overall, when I was having these conversations with people time and time again, people felt unsupported and unprepared going into this decision-making process and throughout the whole experience in itself.
Yeah, yeah. So, so 5 options and years of time. And so, so that kind of leads me like into the next obvious question, which is like, you know, so why Rhea help— why, you know, this personalized plan and explanations of your options are such a game changer for those who are navigating the birth control journey, um, for the first time.
We find that it's really helpful to pay attention to the details. Everyone's birth control journey is so unique, and we're all coming from different situations, um, and different health backgrounds, that it's so important to focus on these details that make our situation individualized. So when we take that time up front and ask the right questions and have a comprehensive counseling process to begin with, it can significantly increase the opportunity for somebody to find an option that they like and that they feel comfortable using. So with Rhea, we take that time and we put our users at the forefront of this decision-making process, and we try and meet them where they're at in this journey. To provide them with information that's specific to them, that's relevant to their situation, and support thereon after.
Yeah, because, um, yeah, so there's like a questionnaire, right? So you get to understand like very, you know, different aspects about their medical history, um, or their unique like menstrual cycle, or, um, and that kind of— what I like the most is that you really emphasize that You explain why these options might be a good fit for the particular person. So adding the detailed explanation, the why behind the recommendations that you're making.
Totally. And too often that's left out of the conversation. It's like you go to your doctor and they ask you a few questions and then they hand you an option. And unfortunately, we aren't taught birth control in school. We don't really know the questions that we want to ask. So we take this option and oftentimes it's what the physician is most familiar with or what they have free samples of. Doctors are busy people and they have to know a lot about everything. So they may only have 10 minutes with the individual and that's just not enough time to dive deep into all of the options available, their potential side effects, what to be prepared for when going to try one of those. So for us, it's so important to, yeah, explain that. How did our system take the information that the individual told us and come to these conclusions. So really being able to give people all of the tools that they need to feel confident in this process.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so I wanna talk a little bit about impact. Your product can obviously make a really big impact in the lives of your individual users when you compare like their journey through Rhea versus possibly having to navigate, you know, trial and error that could take multiple years without it. Do you think of yourself as a social impact company or include kind of that positive impact narrative when you're pitching your company? And I guess if the answer is yes, are there metrics that you're thinking about for measuring like the total impact that you're creating for Raya?
Yeah, 100%. I think that Raya does influence and have a large impact on the, you know, positive outcomes of someone's health journey. And I think that's really significant. We can take it and also measure it against the Sustainable Development Goals in terms of equality, education, and health. And these things are really important. I think at the core, it makes a sustainable company and a company that's thriving and something that's really important to me. So I'm really excited to be able to, you know, help people along this journey and provide that positive impact There's some ridiculous statistics that 50% of pregnancies in North America are unplanned. And I really want to, you know, and sometimes unplanned pregnancies are the most beautiful thing for sure. And not to say that everybody who's using birth control is using it for pregnancy prevention, but that is a huge part of the story and something that we are wanting to better prepare people for and help them make these choices that fit with their own lifestyle and what they want and what their goals are.
Yeah, yeah, I like that kind of focus on that family planning metric, or as like an overall kind of guiding metric, because like you said, I didn't know that it was that high. It does sound quite startlingly high for just North America when you consider that in the more developed regions of the world, like, you should have, in theory, like, access to those kind of family planning. So yeah, 50% sounds high to me. So yeah, that makes sense. So right now, REDA is only for Canadians, is that correct?
Yeah. So right now we're only operational in Canada, um, but we do have plans to grow. Um, but yeah, just for Canadians at this moment.
Uh-huh. And so talk to us about the user journey, I guess, for somebody just getting started. I kind of alluded to it at the beginning, like they can go on your website today and start by completing your questionnaire. Um, yeah, just tell us a little bit about that process for Canadians who might be interested in trying out Raya.
Of course. So yeah, if anybody's interested, um, our— the best way to get in touch with us or get started is through our website. So our solution right now is primarily web-based. Um, we're moving in other directions, but, um, we have a membership service that gives people full access to our digital platform. And the first step is to sign up online, and then our system takes you through an initial intake questionnaire. And this is what gives us all of the information and details on where the individual is coming from. So things like their medical history, their hormonal profile, past experience with birth control, preferences, lifestyle, all of this that can really paint that picture for our system to suggest options that could work really well for them. And as you mentioned, it explains why. So what in the profile led our system to suggest that option? What should they be prepared for when going to try it? Et cetera. We then provide a personalized next steps plan. So helping people either access that option, learn more information, or whatever makes sense for them in their journey. For our Ontario REA users, we do have a partnership with a telehealth company, and this enables us to offer free doctor consultations and prescription delivery. It's only for Ontario REA users right now, but stay tuned if you're outside of Ontario. And then our system provides personalized one-on-one support. You're able to book consultations with somebody from our team, a lead birth control guide, and then you'll receive access to our tracking system. So helping people monitor their side effects, track their side effects, and see how they're doing. And this is a really great way to manage that trial phase. So when you're first on a birth control option and being able to see, you know, is this option working for you or not and what support do you need? Throughout that process.
Yeah, I'm so glad you brought up that last piece, yeah, because we hadn't talked about that yet. So yeah, basically as you navigate, you know, the trial and error period, having like something that helps you quantify or make it, you know, more objective and less subjective, just kind of to decide if that's the right option for you. So yeah, that tracking that you get through Raya is also a really, really key part. Is there any other like feature? I guess I feel like you kind of went through the whole user journey there. Is there anything that we haven't sort of talked about yet, a key feature or something else that you want to highlight here while we're talking about the product itself?
Yeah, so something that Rhea helps people do is really outline their boundaries when it comes to birth control. So these are things like, what are you willing to tolerate? Your body is going to be changing with hormonal and non-hormonal methods. There are changes that occur. So being able to be aware of these things beforehand and have indicators for yourself when you're going through this process And being able to outline, you know, what you are willing to, yeah, endure, I suppose, is a really great way for us to have these markers throughout this trial phase. So as you're going through and you're tracking how you're feeling and you're answering these check-in questions at these various checkpoints, our system may say, you know, the past week or so, this, how you're feeling was passing a boundary that you set out for yourself beforehand. Is that okay? Do you want to revisit that? How do you feel about that? Let's have a conversation. And being able to have these markers and these indicators is a really great way for people to see if that option is right for them. And ultimately, it's putting that onus and putting them at the forefront and giving them the tools that they need to make these choices that really, you know, enable their health journey.
Yeah, yeah, that definitely makes sense. That sounds great. So my next question is a more general entrepreneurship question, which is like, what advice would you offer to somebody who's in the very early stage or maybe even just an aspiring entrepreneur that's just getting started? Is there something that you wish you knew that you know now, if you rewind the clock back a couple of years ago at the very beginning of your founder journey that you want to impart on other early-stage founders who might be watching?
I feel like this is such a funny question because I'm still, you know, asking other founders that question. I feel like I'm learning new things every day. And every day, you know, one hour I'm like, this is awesome. And then the next hour I'm like, what am I doing? So I think, you know, what I would share with people is that it is a journey, as cliché as that sounds, but, Always learn and be open to learning and ask questions, ask people for help. Put yourself in a situation where you can learn but also feel supported within that learning. And I think that's where growth ultimately happens.
Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's definitely good advice for any founder. So I guess this is the final question that I really have here, which is just, you know, where is Red Health headed next? Are there any other news or updates that you want to share with the Founder Institute community or any asks for the audience who might be watching?
Next steps for us, we are transitioning from a web-based first to mobile app, so stay tuned for the launch of that. It'll be in the new year. But an ask for our community, if anybody is struggling or knows of anybody who is, we are growing an online community of women who are taking their health into their own hands and taking their own health journey. So you can find us on Instagram @rehahealth, pretty easy, but we're also here to help. So if anybody is needing support in this area, we're here for you and you're not alone.
Absolutely. Yeah, great. And the website, we have it linked down below, but it's rehahealth.ca. And yeah, this has been really interesting learning about your company and how Reha Health is helping Canadians to much more quickly and easily navigate that birth control journey and find the option that's right for them. And yeah, we're all really looking forward at the Foundry Institute to keeping up with where you're headed next. So Dallas Barnes, thank you so much again for joining us today.
