Female Disruptors: Lauren Bongiorno of Risely Health On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
There are many words of advice I’ve clung to over the years, and different ones have served me at different times. Something that has resonated with me most recently is that “It doesn’t matter how many people don’t get it. Focus on the ones that do.”
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lauren Bongiorno.
Lauren Bongiorno, founder and CEO of Risely Health, is challenging the current healthcare system and the world of Type 1 diabetes management through her company’s innovative health coaching programs and online educational classes. Georgetown medical students are currently researching Risely’s methods to publish the quantitative and qualitative results clients see in their programs. Lauren has been featured on the TODAY Show, is partnered with two of the largest diabetes technology companies, and is “making waves in the diabetes space on both a personal and systemic level.”
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Absolutely. I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), an autoimmune disease with no cure, when I was 7 years old. In the years following my diagnosis, my family and I quickly realized that thriving with T1D was pretty much dependent on what we did outside of my 2–3 doctors visits per year.
Over the years and especially as a young adult, I struggled to feel in control of my health because of the lack of education, support, and personalization our healthcare system offers. Even though I was lucky enough to have good insurance and a great endocrinologist, I ultimately surrendered to the fact that this was something I had to take ownership of. I set out to understand my body’s patterns and what sustainable health looked like beyond a number on a lab test. This approach completely changed not only my physical health, but my mental health as well.
When I was a senior in college, I was taking my LSATS and applying to law school. I was headed towards the direction of lobbying and creating change in healthcare. And one day in a yoga class I had a massive epiphany that creating change via an established route like lobbying wasn’t “mine” to do, not the path meant for me. I didn’t want to fight against a system for years and not see anything change after having spent 15 years figuring out how to empower myself to thrive in life despite my T1D diagnosis. I realized my personal journey was one I could harness to make an impact on an individual level — to empower individuals living with T1D to be able to create positive change in our minds and bodies now, rather than feeling stuck waiting for a cure or waiting for health policy to change in our favor.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Although my diagnosis was over 20 years ago, the medical system is still not set up to help T1D’s and parents of children with T1D truly understand their bodies to the level they need to.
We are very much in a healthcare system with a top-down model approach, where we expect our doctor to direct our every next move. The problem is that T1D is a condition with a lot of variability (every day is different and we’re making decisions every hour of the day) and our doctors don’t have enough time or resources to give us the personalized, integrative attention we need.
For a lot of people, they’ve recognized this gap but are often left feeling like, “I am not a doctor, I could never understand this or figure out what to do.” There are a lot of numbers and factors and it all feels very overwhelming, complex and out of reach. There is also the emotional and mental side to chronic conditions that you just don’t get a full picture of from bloodwork.
At Risely Health, we are disrupting the way that people with Type 1 Diabetes experience living with diabetes. Through our coaching programs rooted in scientific research and behavior change, community, and educational resources, we strip away the complexity and put people in the driver’s seat of their health.
All of our coaches and members of our medical advisory board have navigated T1D personally, so we’re uniquely equipped to guide our clients through this experience using the same strategies and knowledge that transformed our own diagnoses. Plus, we can connect with our clients from a place of shared experience and relatability that is, by itself, transformational for those who feel alone and isolated navigating T1D.
Essentially, there are 8,760 hours in a year and a person living with T1D will spend approximately 2 of them with an endocrinologist. Through community, education, and coaching, Risely Health fills the gaps in between.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Back when I was a solopreneur in 2017, I fundraised on Kickstarter to help launch our first physical product, the Diabetic Health Journal. We had hundreds of pre-orders and when it came time to sign and ship them, I realized there was no way I could do it all by myself and get them out in a timely manner. I come from a family who is very supportive of each other so without hesitation, my grandparents jumped in to help with shipping. I thought man power was exactly what I needed to speed up the process, but my grandpa, who is Peruvian and very meticulous, insisted that all of our home printed USPS labels be cut using the one small paper cutter in their house instead of us splitting them up and cutting them with scissors. My grandpa’s process probably ended up taking 3 times as long to do the job but every single package that went out looked pristine with straight labels. The lesson it engrained? Giving an unparalleled experience to your customer is always in the small details and experience they get from start to finish.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
Amy Jo Martin from Renegade Global and the founders Susan Lenderts and Elran Tsabag of Activated Concepts have all been instrumental in both my own leadership growth as well as the growth of Risely. A recent story that comes to mind is from September 2021 when Amy Jo set up an in person “shark tank” pitch where a select handful of her mentees had 5 minutes to pitch an idea for their company to a panel of judges. The panel was made up of four highly esteemed judges, including Vic Keller, who has had multiple companies acquired by Berkshire Hathaway, and Rosanna Godden, who was the former Amazon/Whole Foods VP of finance. I ended up winning the pitch and a $10,000 grant to kickstart what is now Risely’s Cornerstone Classes- an online hub for video classes that help fill the education gap for people and families impacted by Type 1 Diabetes. But the real impact my mentors have had is in the continued encouragement to keep sharing my mission and vision and go outside my comfort zone in new ways.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
To positively disrupt an industry requires going beyond innovation. When I think of positive disruptors, I think of smaller companies that are able to successfully compete with larger companies or systems by nurturing a segment of the population that isn’t already getting what they need. I think of Risely Health in this way. I believe disrupting an industry becomes not-so-positive when it is disruption for the sake of disruption and making noise… when we are forsaking taking something down just because we want attention or profit, not because it’s solving an actual market problem. An example that immediately comes to mind is the rise of social media. It is incredibly disruptive in creating new ways for people to connect and relate to each other, yet headlines, buzz words, and one sided narratives breed a place for cyber bullying, cancel culture, and the rise of mental health related conditons. Loud doesn’t always mean positive.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
There are many words of advice I’ve clung to over the years, and different ones have served me at different times. Something that has resonated with me most recently is that “It doesn’t matter how many people don’t get it. Focus on the ones that do.”
When you’re disrupting the way something has been done for decades, in this case the way we’ve traditionally been supported through a Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis, you’re naturally going to have people who question the validity, impact, or cause for change. I could focus on this, but I’ve learned that it’s more instrumental to focus on the mission and vision of the work we’re doing, plus all the transformations people have had going through our programs: the people who are able to finally have a healthy pregnancy, teachers who have more energy and focus to make an impact on their students at school, T1D nurses who finally have support in prioritizing their own self care, parents of T1D kids who are able to sleep through the night again or return to a career they love… this is what I focus on when that snake percentage of people judge from afar.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Well, right now we’re in a really exciting time. Georgetown medical students are in the process of researching the qualitative and quantitative outcomes that our clients get from going through our coaching programs. If this research is published, we’ll be working towards forming more strategic partnerships with insurance companies to be able to expand accessibility to our health coaching programs and educational materials to more clients who are in need of our resources and services.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Expansive curiosity is one of our guiding principles at Risely Health and is ingrained in our company culture as well as in our community. In years of getting curious about how myself and my all female team can be more efficient with our work, I found a challenge faced by women that aren’t typically faced by our male counterparts. Men’s hormones follow the same pattern every single day whereas women’s hormones fluctuate throughout the month. Within this cycle are phases where we are more creative, others when we are more analytical, and others where we are more collaborative. With this deep level of awareness of your body, you can sync your work to your advantage and it becomes an asset rather than a challenge.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
I’m a big fan of “think weeks” for creativity. A few years ago I went on a solo retreat to Joshua Tree and for four days I limited technology and instead hiked, read, and created. While I was hiking, I listened to The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer on audiobook. His words profoundly influenced my ability to trust in my entrepreneurial journey without needing to 100% understand how it would all connect in the end.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
A healthcare system that is more proactive than reactive in how it supports people.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Don’t relay information. Figure out why it matters to people.” When I look at the work we’ve done and continue to do at Risely, it comes back to this. Our work is so transformational for people not because we are giving them more education from a textbook. It’s because they are able to see that when their health transforms, so does everything else: their relationships, time, careers, and most importantly, themselves.
How can our readers follow you online?
You can find me on Instagram @Lauren_bongiorno and learn more about Risely at Riselyhealth.com . Podcast coming soon:)
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Female Disruptors: Lauren Bongiorno of Risely Health On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.