Brand Architects: Cheryl Sew Hoy of Tiny Health

Sometimes the most innovative solutions come from our most personal challenges. For Cheryl Sew Hoy, it was the stark difference in health outcomes between her two children that led her to build Tiny Health, a company that's revolutionizing our understanding of gut health.

Join Bora Celik as he chats with Cheryl Sew Hoy, the Founder of Tiny Health.

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"My daughter was born through C-section, and she ended up having a lot of eczema, food allergies, sensitivities, sleep issues, colicky issues," Cheryl recalls. "Then my son was vaginally born, and he didn't have any of the issues his sister had."

This dramatic contrast sparked a journey that would transform Cheryl from a successful tech entrepreneur into a pioneer in the emerging tech-bio space. But the path wasn't straightforward, especially for someone without a scientific background.

The Resistance to Building a "Mom Company"

Despite her personal connection to the problem, Cheryl initially resisted the idea of building a company focused on maternal and infant health. "At first, I was like, to create a company that's very mom-related was like... I wanted to create a SaaS company," she admits. Having previously sold a company to Walmart Labs and led innovation initiatives in Southeast Asia, she worried about being pigeonholed.

But the science was too compelling to ignore. "One in two kids today have a chronic condition, which is a lot and it's not normal," she explains. "And we can change that."

Building Credibility as a Non-Scientist

How do you build credibility in a scientific field when you're not a scientist? Cheryl's approach was methodical and humble. "I put in like maybe 40 hours just watching this video and taking notes," she says about taking a PhD-level course in sequencing methods. "I felt like I needed to be an expert in it if I'm gonna start this company."

She also surrounded herself with scientific expertise, recruiting advisors from prestigious institutions like Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins. "I wanted to build a credible company that academia will respect," she explains. Her first advisor, Ruben Mars from Mayo Clinic, spent an hour every week for months teaching her about microbiology and sequencing methods.

Validation Before Venture Capital

Instead of rushing to raise venture capital, Cheryl spent two years and $50,000 of her own money validating her idea. She recruited ten pregnant mothers for a study, building her bio-informatics pipeline with part-time contractors. "I didn't want to raise a single VC dollar until I validated that I can actually build my IP by myself," she says.

This patience paid off. When she finally raised her seed round in 2021, it jumped from a planned $2 million to $4.5 million in just two months.

Marketing with Authenticity

Cheryl's approach to marketing has been as methodical as her approach to science. Rather than splashing out on big campaigns, she started small, testing Google search terms to understand what parents were really worried about. "People were searching for eczema, and eczema became a huge thing," she recalls.

But her most successful channel has been working with influencers – and her approach is anything but conventional. "I DM'd most of like... I think the first 100 influencers I met one-on-one," she says. "I talked to them, I shared my story over and over again. Genuinely from the heart."

Beyond Babies: The Evolution of Tiny Health

What started as a solution for infant health has evolved into something much broader. "Tiny has evolved from tiny babies to the tiny microbes in your gut," Cheryl explains. The company now serves adult customers, professional athletes, and is developing B2B partnerships with premium gyms and health assessment companies.

This expansion brings its own challenges. "Sometimes I feel like I'm running two to three companies in one," she admits, "because there's a consumer like ecom part, there's the science part... and then there's the B2B part."

But Cheryl's ambition remains clear: "Every time you mentioned gut health in the future or gut testing, you think about Tiny Health." It's a big vision, but one that's rooted in the same personal mission that started it all – helping families avoid the health challenges she experienced with her own children.

From resistance to building a "mom company" to pioneering a new category in tech-bio, Cheryl's journey shows how personal experience, when combined with rigorous validation and authentic leadership, can create revolutionary solutions to complex health challenges.

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