From Concept to Company: Gemma Stuart, Founder, Gutsy Health Entrepreneur UK talks to Gemma Stuart, founder at Gutsy Health, about the importance of addressing problems with a personal connection, the challenges of bootstrapping and building a supportive network of fellow entrepreneurs to stay motivated.

Gutsy Health, founded in 2022, is a company focused on improving gut health and overall well-being through a combination of personalised health insights and nutritional guidance.

The company won the MedTech & HealthTech StartUp of the Year in Scotland at the UK StartUp Awards 2024, celebrating the achievements of startups and early-stage businesses across various sectors in the UK.

What inspired you to start your business?

I think of myself as a problem solver. I can be pretty tenacious if there's a problem that needs fixing. But I've suffered from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) for 10+ years. And to be candid, I was fed up with embarrassing toilet dashes, painful belly bloat and not being able to find anything in the UK that worked to calm my digestive upset.

I studied IBS online at the University of Michigan, purely to try to help get my own gut back on track. Through studying, and then learning more about biotics and other ingredients, I realised products that had worked to calm my digestion that I bought from Italy and France were postbiotic based, meaning they contain beneficial substances created by good bacteria during digestion.

I spent hours on IBS forums and online health stores to try to find similar products in the UK, and when I couldn't, I had the strongest feeling I've ever had about anything in my life: that I could bring together some industry experts and scientists to help other people who experience bowel urgency. It definitely wasn't easy navigating building a product, but I knew I had to do it. I created Gut Wealth supplement with three things I knew people wanted: it tastes good, is easy to take, and most importantly, it calms digestive upset and urgency.

What was your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?

My biggest personal challenge when setting up the business is that initially I wanted Gut Wealth to be a faceless business.

Looking back, I probably still had some shame around talking about my own gut ill-health and symptoms such as urgency and painful bloating. But I soon realised that people trust and believe in my story and the IBS experiences I've had. I feel like it took a bit of guts to get over my discomfort and shame and break the taboo around talking about "poo". I can confidently say now that I've said and heard it all, and am very comfortable talking about tums, bums, and guts!

I've completely changed my thinking on wanting to keep private. I think there's lots of faceless businesses out there but, my LinkedIn following has grown to over 11,000 by openly sharing the day-to-day challenges of growing a brand from zero.

Related: Entrepreneurs, Here's Why You Should Listen To Your Gut (Literally)

How did you secure your initial funding?
I've bootstrapped the business to date from my savings. Partly because I didn't understand the different fundraising options, and partly because I don't like owing people money. Similar to a lot of startup founders, I didn't know what I didn't know.

I've been on a steep learning curve with understanding funding options. And I think one of the biggest challenges ahead for me is going to be doing my equity fundraise. I know my product, business and I will be investment-ready by the end of 2024. But it would be silly of me to think it's going to be easy, given the global stats that only roughly 2% of capital funding goes to female-led businesses.

And because I've never raised before, this is going to be a big opportunity and challenge for me to make sure I get the right partners who understand just how important this product is, the financial opportunity and also work with people that can have a bit of fun too.

How do you handle failure or setbacks?

I'm definitely not philosophical about failing because of course it's not the best feeling- but I do try to fail quickly and move on. But let's be honest, that's sometimes easier said than done.

The harder setbacks for me is when I've paid an expert to do something and they haven't delivered. If I hadn't delivered on something, I'd do everything in my power to fix it. But not everyone's the same on that front. Handling setbacks gets easier with time, and I've learned to pivot quickly, and have learnt to only work with partners who share my values.

What advice would you give to someone starting their own business?

I have two bits of advice: First, just get started! It doesn't need to be perfect, get your minimum viable product or service onto the market. Secondly, get feedback as quickly as possible and act on it, your customers will tell you if you ask them, and be prepared to make changes.

For example, on my first product launch, it became evident pretty quickly that the pack size wasn't great for postage costs and also we needed an entry pack size for new customers. But I wasn't able to pivot on that one quickly, but as soon as I did, monthly revenue increased by around 25-30%.

How do you stay motivated during tough times?

Running a small business means wearing a lot of hats- product development, sales, marketing, finance, customer service, operations, social media and website. So I say that the biggest challenge is the "everythingness" of it all.

I'm never not motivated, but there are times when the challenges feel overwhelming. So I've found that growing my network of other founders both in real life and through LinkedIn has been the best mindset shift for me. Only founders truly know the realities of building something from scratch, and most have a great sense of humour, and we all help each other out.

I'm based in Scotland and I've really found my tribe- and there's something unique about the founder experience, and the challenges of the "everythingness" that goes with it, that sharing the good, bad and ugly with my founder friends can bring light to the tough days.

'Trep Talk: Gemma Stuart, founder of Gutsy Health, shares her tips for achieving success

Identify the core problem "I've been talking about success with our intern team recently, I think success is about knowing what you want then working to get it. While the business and our product is award-winning, success for me is when Gut Wealth has helped people feel better, go about their lives and not have the worries of gut troubles on their mind. It's really simple."

Define your purpose "I'm scaling this business but I think it's easy to get caught up on success being a number but if you're chasing that, and that alone, it's a fast way to burn out. So figuring out what you really want, is the best thing you can do to succeed in getting it."

Related: From Concept To Company: Alexandra Smith, Co-founder and Partner of FuturePlus