Female Founder Friday: In Conversation with Elizabeth Sergeant, Co-Founder of FLAIR

Elizabeth Sergeant, co-founder of FLAIR, is building a tech startup at the intersection of femtech and the future of work. With a background spanning pharmaceuticals, nutrition, functional medicine and women’s health, Liz has seen first-hand how physiology can shape confidence, performance and progression at work. FLAIR brings that insight into a new platform designed to help female leaders understand their bodies, optimise their performance and continue progressing through every stage of their careers.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Liz about her professional journey, the inspiration behind FLAIR, the fundraising process so far, and why staying true to a women-first mission matters.

FC: Could you summarise your professional background and your company for us?

Liz: I’m Liz Sergeant, and I’m the co-founder of FLAIR. FLAIR has really come about from my whole professional background and personal experience of burnout.

Previously, I had a 10 year career in the pharmaceutical sector in the UK and internationally, working on the commercialisation of drugs, initially in HIV and then with biologics in autoimmunity. From there, I transitioned into nutrition. I had always had that entrepreneurial spark within me, so I did my Master’s in Human Nutrition and then continued my education in functional medicine. That led me to build Well Nourished, which over the last fifteen years has become one of the UK’s leading women’s health and functional medicine clinics.

Through the clinic, we were working with a lot of very senior executives and entrepreneurs, supporting them with their health and hormones. The by-product of that work was really interesting. We saw women elevating their careers, building more confidence in the workplace, getting promotions, getting pay rises, and bringing so much more of their lives to life outside work too. They had more presence at home, rather than feeling like everything had to be a compromise. That’s where I met my co-founder, Lucy. She is an ambitious business leader who has built and sold three businesses. When she came to us she had recently stepped down from the board of one of the large businesses that had bought her last company - not because she wanted to, but because she was mid-forties and perimenopause had crumbled her stress capacity, resilience, energy and confidence.

We see so many women, particularly at that stage of life, having to step down, step sideways or step out altogether. Within 6 months Lucy was back on form, and that is really where FLAIR was born.

We are putting body and performance intelligence into the hands of female leaders so that women can continue to progress, perform at their peak potential, and help organisations reduce dropout and burnout before they lose the women they most need to keep.

There are so many inflection points in a woman’s career. It could be returning to work after pregnancy. It could be certain times in the menstrual cycle, where a lot of women experience challenges that create doubt, confidence changes and an impact on progression. It could also be perimenopause.

I also had a burnout situation myself in my early thirties. Fortunately, I was doing a lot of my nutrition training at the time, so I recognised the signs, but it required a huge identity shift. We don’t want women to get to that point. We want women to have incredible careers and still be completely present at home, rather than getting home and collapsing.

That is what we’re doing with FLAIR. We’re bringing together physiology-first leadership, combining someone’s day-to-day health and physiology insights with leadership development indices, as well as real-time insights from wearables and other data, such as calendar pressures.

FC: What fundraising challenges have you faced, and how have you navigated them?

Liz: We’re currently preparing for our first external raise and have recently secured SEIS Advance Assurance with the help of FounderCatalyst, which was an important milestone for us.

We had initially planned to raise this summer, but as the business has evolved we’ve made the strategic decision to push that back until autumn.

We are now going to delay our raise because we’re focusing on putting a lot more into our intelligence layer and developing the app further than we had originally planned. That will put us in a stronger position when we do go out to raise.

FC: Have you faced any barriers as a female founder?

Liz: Personally, I’ve been fortunate to have had incredibly positive experiences so far. What has struck me most is how generous the startup ecosystem can be when it comes to mentors, experienced founders and people willing to share advice.

One of the biggest things that has opened my eyes is how many people are out there who will go out of their way to support you. So many people are generous with their time, offering insight, advice and guidance. Sometimes these are people you’ve only just met and only had one conversation with.

The number of mentors and people who have been there and done that has been amazing. I’ve found that in the startup community and the investor community, there are people who have been in our situation before, and they just want to help and inspire people like myself and other founders.

As a female founder, I’ve not experienced any barriers yet. It could be that I’m not conscious of doors that are opened to male founders and perhaps not to female founders, but so far, my experience has been good.

What has been interesting is that our product is for a female audience. When speaking to some male investors and mentors, some might not immediately get it, which is absolutely fine. We’ve had people say things like, “I’ve coached hundreds of female executives and none of them have had this problem.” I know that isn’t true. It’s more that those women haven’t felt comfortable discussing it, which is part of the problem.

When people don’t get it, I try to understand why. I ask myself whether it is the way I’m communicating. That has helped me keep a really open mind. If a door doesn’t open, I might go back and knock again once I’ve understood the issue and refined how I explain it.

I think we have quite a strong growth mindset. We’re always asking, “What can we learn from this? How can we grow from this?”

There will be people who don’t get it, especially in the sector we’re in, and most investor conversations are still with men. But there are also so many who do get it, because they either see it playing out in their organisation and recognise the intelligence and competitive advantage FLAIR can bring, or have wives, female friends and women in their lives who they care about. Those are our people. It’s about knowing who your people are and who aren’t.

FC: Since working with FounderCatalyst, what significant milestones has FLAIR achieved?

Liz: There have been quite a few things. We were awarded sponsorship to build our MVP, so we’re now working with an app developer to take the initial MVP, which was a version I created, and build a proper one that integrates our intelligence layer, logic and the guided LLM system that works behind it. The sponsorship was worth around £15,000, which was a really great win. The most important work happening right now is the development of FLAIR’s intelligence layer, which sits underneath the product.

We’re translating years of practitioner expertise, behavioural science, systems modelling and scientific evidence into proprietary decision logic. I’m spending most of my time doing this throughout June, alongside a talented specialist who we met from an amazing introduction - again I’m so grateful for all the people we’ve met along the way.

We also went through the Founder Institute London cohort in the autumn, which was the most incredible experience. I think every startup founder needs to go through that. It was intense, but incredible. We graduated from that and actually won the London pitch competition, which was brilliant.

In May delivered a huge piece of work for a global management consultancy across their European team of female consultants, which was very cool. And hot off the press, they are so interested in what we are developing they have agreed to be pilot partner, so we will be beta-testing with their consultants later this year, which is a great opportunity. Finally, we have been working with interns from the University of Oxford, who are supporting us with the scientific research piece.

So there is a lot going on, and it is all very exciting.

FC: What advice would you give to female founders who are just starting out?

Liz: I would definitely say explore accelerators. Some are better than others, but Founder Institute was an amazing experience.

I joined the ideation accelerator last summer, which really evolved the product. We had the core idea, but the access to mentors and the challenge you get from people on a weekly basis absolutely accelerates your thinking around the product.

It also makes you do the market validation, the end-user validation, the customer validation and the product-market fit work. It takes you through all of that, and although it is intense, it is the best. You also meet an amazing community of other founders who are at the same or a similar stage, which is incredibly valuable.

Another piece of advice is to stay true to the cause. We’ve had people say, “You can’t make it just for women. My organisation won’t buy something just for women.” You have to have the confidence to say, “You’re not going to be the right organisation for us.”

If we don’t build this specifically for women, the physiological data behind the intelligence becomes generic, and then it won’t address the specific needs of women. Maybe in the future we can expand, but that’s not the core at this stage. We are about female leaders.

It’s about staying true to that cause and continuing to have conversations until you find your people and your early adopters, the ones who do get it and are ready to back you.

I would also say surrender to the process. There are so many variables in being a startup founder, especially when you are having to do everything within a business. Sometimes your plans won’t be what you expect, and you have to surrender to that.

I like to be able to visualise where we’re going and what the future might look like. I’m open to change, and I like change, but when you can’t see where it’s going, that can be mind-blowing.

FC: Are there any exciting projects or developments coming up for FLAIR?

Liz: The big exciting thing is that our proper, fully functioning MVP will be ready for user testing at the beginning of July.

So our immediate focus is completing the first fully integrated version of the platform, which enters user validation in July and August. We’re planning to have a full product ready to go out into beta testing with organisations in the Autumn.

Having that first proper MVP out there, fully integrated with the different intelligence layers and logic, is really exciting.

We’re also doing a huge piece of work on the intelligence layer with systems dynamic modelling. I’m probably even more excited about that than the app, because that is where the intelligence really sits. This is the true long-term asset of the company.

A huge thank you to Liz for taking the time to speak with us and share the story behind Flair. Her work is a timely reminder that women’s leadership, health and performance should not be treated as separate conversations. They are deeply connected, and FLAIR is building the tools to help female leaders understand that connection and use it to thrive.

We’re proud to support Liz and the FLAIR team as they continue building, testing and preparing for their next fundraising chapter. You can follow Liz’s journey through her LinkedIn profile below.

Website: www.flairleader.com
Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethsergeant/
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/flairleader/
Author: Jen Jeffries, Marketing Executive at FounderCatalyst