Urska Srsen

Sršen describes leaving medical school to study fine art sculpture, where she focused on shaping physical materials with her hands. She says founding a company felt personal and emotionally demanding, much like making art: others evaluate the work, and founders must revise it and keep going.

Bellabeat began as an effort to build a professional remote monitoring system with input from Sršen’s mother, an OB-GYN and department head in Ljubljana. The team found that their technically capable prototype was too complicated to implement and did not engage patients. They shifted to a consumer product designed to make pregnancy tracking accessible and social, including a device and app for listening to a baby’s heartbeat.

Sršen argues that wearables could help bring reliable health data into everyday routines and eventually connect consumer products with professional healthcare. She sees pregnancy as a useful starting point for preventive care, including efforts to reduce risks associated with obesity, inactivity, and stress.

The founders found Europe fragmented and difficult to navigate, but said starting with few resources made them resourceful. While short on money and marketing experience, Bellabeat entered the 2013 Pioneers Festival competition, won, met Michael Seibel, and applied to Y Combinator. The team moved to the United States within two weeks of meeting him.

Moving to the United States brought new challenges, including serving customers in English, but the team kept working, speaking with customers, and improving the product. By YC Demo Day, Bellabeat had sold more than 8,000 devices and expanded into the US market; the company closed a seed round two weeks later. Sršen credits the team, execution, customer feedback, and the resilience built through earlier setbacks.