A Health Startup Founder’s Message to Young Entrepreneurs

By the end of 2020, Vanessa Rissetto — alongside a team of four part-time dietitians — generated $934,000 in revenue and $48,000 in profit providing nutrition services to patients. 

That team of dietitians founded Culina Health, a virtual platform that has since raised over $20 million dollars and has secured a $7.9 million series A led by Healthworx and backed by CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield.

“And then venture capitalists started calling,” Rissetto recalled, reflecting on her experience following her success during Culina Health’s first year in 2020.

Delivering Nutrition Services Better

Vanessa Rissetto is the co-founder and CEO of Culina Health, a virtual clinical nutrition service that allows patients to connect with registered dietitians for insurance-covered health care. As Culina Health has grown, Rissetto’s path has been far from a straight forward one, taking on the challenges of fundraising, developing her trust, and shifting her role from a clinical dietitian to an entrepreneur of a nutrition services startup. 

Vanessa Rissetto founded her company in 2020, but her objective for it was planted six years earlier. In 2014, Rissetto was working as a clinical dietitian at Mount Sinai Hospital and came across a New York Times article about a dietitian named Tanya Zuckerbrot who was charging $10,000 for a package of nutrition sessions.

“I call these people the worried well. It’s people who have money and high health literacy, and who try to throw money at hacks,” she said. “And I was like, I think I could do this better and people don’t have to pay for it. I’m a really good clinician and I can solve your problem.” 

Catalyst for Launch

The idea took its place in Rissetto’s mind for years, until COVID-19 gave her a new opportunity in 2020. During the pandemic, telemedicine visits were reimbursed at the same rate as in-person visits, providing Rissetto with a new model for a financial outlet.

Rissetto’s values were centered on trust in her clinical approach, allowing for the vast majority of her patients to flow in the form of referrals from physicians who trusted her work.

“If you know, you know. Then you refer to Culina,” she said. “They know that they can trust us because we understand science.” 

Overcoming Challenges

Cash and Funding

Though patients began to flock in numbers to Culina Health, cash flow became a new problem. Most patients relied on insurance, and as a result of its slow pay, Rissetto found herself drawing personal funds for payroll while waiting for claims. 

Despite her dietitian background, Rissetto attacked the problem with a new approach: to learn fundraising. Rissetto continued to raise money, but Rissetto was not convinced that her company was “real.”CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield’s decision to invest was a turning point for Rissetto, changing her view on her company’s standpoint.

“Payers are risk averse and they don’t want to invest in anything unless they are sure,” she said. “That’s when I was like, okay, I guess this thing is legit.”

Rissetto encountered potential deals with many different investors, and the same question was asked of her many times:“why did she not copy her competitors more aggressively?”

Rissetto held her stance against these investors. “The only thing I have is my license and the doctors that I have relationships with,” she said. “So I have to stay on the right side.” 

Personal Challenges

Culina Health’s rapid growth unfortunately occurred simultaneously alongside Rissetto’s personal health crisis, as she faced a breast cancer diagnosis in May, 2023. During this time, the company was left to stand without her in its decision-making process. 

Mary Matone, Culina Health’s Chief of Staff, faced this period of Culina Health firsthand alongside Rissetto.

In an email, Matone wrote that Rissetto “”continued to show up when it was absolutely essential, but also knew when to prioritize her health and trust other leaders.” 

Matone also described this period of Culina Health’s history as an “evolutionary year,” emphasizing that the pressure caused people to take more ownership of their own domains and collaborate better.

Competitive Threats

As clearly as it has been shown, Culina Health has succeeded in facing many of its problems, though Rissetto mentions that her hardest problem is being faced at the current moment. The wellness market has become crowded against its competition, and GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic have joined in. 

Rissetto describes that nutrition care and weight-loss treatment have come face to face within the market. She says, “There’s more noise around wellness and nutrition, and the lines are blurred.”

Inspiring Young Entrepreneurs

Rissetto directs her experiences towards the younger audience of aspiring founders and entrepreneurs, pushing them to have confidence in their profile and their work.

“Nobody knows your business better than you,” she said. “Most of the time, you’re really low and questioning your life choices. And then there’s like two bright spots that make you not want to throw yourself in the middle of traffic. And then, oh, there’s an exit.”

Rissetto finishes off with a piece of advice that she herself overlooked during the early years of nutrition services startup Culina Health.

“You have to be able to explain what you’re building clearly,” she said. “If people don’t get what you’re doing, you’re at a problem.” She continues, “Can you do the work? Can you stand behind your work? Does your work have integrity?”

Author Bio…

Ruhaan Keote is Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Prowler Newspaper at Bridgewater-Raritan High School in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Ruhaan founded and led a national multi-school startup accelerator with 900+ student participants.