The Shocking Reality of Starting a Company at 23
How one woman's personal experience with IUD insertion inspired her to co-found a startup revolutionizing women's healthcare.
Building Cervica: Creating a Better Future for Women's Healthcare
I never thought I would start a company.
I studied Cognitive Brain Science and Music in undergrad, and at one point, I thought I would either pursue research professionally, work for a music company, or become a concert pianist.
Directionless, I joined my master's program at Tufts, where I co-founded a women's health medical device company alongside Elizabeth Owens and Juliana Rosen. We were drawn together by a shared belief that women deserve healthcare that has actually been designed for them, and that the tools and standards currently used in gynecological care are long overdue for an update.
Cervica is what we built in response.
A Growing Demand, and a Broken Experience
IUD insertion is one of the most effective forms of contraception available, with a success rate above 99%. It is long-lasting, reversible, and requires nothing from the patient after placement. The demand is clearly growing: adoption has increased from just 2% of contraceptive users in 2002 to an estimated 20% in 2026, and 160 million women globally now use IUDs as their primary form of contraception.
And yet, fear of the procedure keeps a significant number of women from choosing it-not because the method fails them, but because the experience of accessing it does.
Somewhere along the way, women's healthcare settled for a standard that was never designed with women in mind. Women were not required to be included in clinical trials until 1993, and the decades of research conducted before that exclusion was corrected left gaps that the medical community is still working to fill.
Gynecological care is one of the areas where those gaps are most visible-not in the absence of procedures, but in the absence of serious efforts to make those procedures better for the patients who undergo them.
A Personal Turning Point
When I got my own IUD, I was told to take ibuprofen and was given a misoprostol pill that did not work. My doctor admitted she had zero confidence in it before handing it to me, and that moment stayed with me.
I have heard so many similar stories from friends-women who came out of the procedure shaken, in pain, and feeling like their discomfort had not been taken seriously.
The idea for Cervica came to life when my teammate Liz shared an insight from a provider interview we had conducted together. The doctor told us about a makeshift pain management method she was administering to her own patients because she felt there was simply no better option available.
That was the moment we knew this was a problem worth solving.
What We Are Building
Cervica is developing a pain management tool for IUD insertion that integrates directly into the existing clinical workflow without adding time or disrupting what providers are already doing.
Our goal is to prove that IUD pain is real, that it is variable, and that it is addressable-and to give women a solution that clinicians will actually use.
Building Cervica During My Master's Program
Building Cervica during my master's program was not a linear experience.
It was interviews and prototypes scheduled between classes, pitch preparation happening alongside hours of finance homework, and a company taking shape in whatever time was left over.
Over the course of the program, I conducted more than 100 customer discovery interviews, developed and iterated on our prototype, built our financial model, and prepared for the Tufts Derby Center New Ventures Competition, all while completing a full academic course load.
I was also teaching piano lessons throughout the week and had just started an internship at an investment bank. There were stretches when my calendar did not have much white space.
I made the time no matter what. I never hesitated to pick up the phone, and I pursued this idea with unwavering commitment because the alternative was leaving a problem unsolved that I already knew how to approach.
What Came Next
In April 2026, we placed first in the healthcare track of the Tufts Derby Center New Ventures Competition and took home $20,000.
We are now part of the Tufts Venture Accelerator, spending the summer building, testing, and speaking with the clinicians who will eventually use what we create.
We are graduating in August 2026 not with traditional degrees and job offers, but with a company, a prototype, a regulatory strategy, and a clear-eyed understanding of what it takes to change a standard of care that has been in place for generations.
Once my graduate program ended, I continued my marketing work at the investment bank and was given full ownership of the company's marketing sector.
Now, I am the Co-founder and CMO of an early-stage startup.
Starting a company straight out of a master's program sounds idealistic until you realize that passion does not defer loan payments.
However, I have gained invaluable connections, experiences, and insights that I would not trade for the world.
