Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Melissa Snover of Nourished On The 5 Leadership Lessons She Learned From Her Experience
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Fall in Love with Failing — Every time you fail it’s an opportunity to learn and narrow down on the road to success. We faced a lot of challenges when developing Nourished and certainly didn’t get it right every time, but that’s what makes the journey so interesting and your final success so rewarding!
As a part of my series about “Lessons From Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Melissa Snover.
Melissa Snover is an award-winning entrepreneur and visionary in the world of food technology and 3D printing. She is passionate about developing innovations which offer solutions to her customers, challenge her competitors, and disrupt current market offerings. She is currently the founder and CEO of Rem3dy Health which pioneers personalized solutions across preventative and curative health under the brands Nourished (Personalized Nutrition) and Scripted (Personalized Medicine).
In 2019 Melissa raised the highest ever female founder seed round in UK history for Rem3dy and is an ambassador for women’s equal access to finance. She is an avid supporter and mentor; supporting young people of all backgrounds to begin studying in STEM fields and is a passionate and proactive advocate for women in business.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I have been an entrepreneur my whole career and have successfully founded and ran several businesses from finance to food tech. I have also been an avid consumer of supplements since my 20s and used to carry around with me a large transparent bag of various supplements and vitamins. While traveling on a business trip in 2018, I accidentally dropped this bag on the airport floor in security. Crawling round in my suit and heels picking them, I thought there must be a better way to travel and keep up with my nutrition regime! From there I sought to find a way to simplify the way we take vitamins and make the combinations 100% customized to the consumer.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company?
When we started making personalized health, we knew that the background technology that we had in relation to hardware would be beneficial. We didn’t know that the material science that we developed for Magic Candy Factory, which was the world’s first 3D food printer with FDA and FSA approval, would also be so instrumental. This technique involved a hydrocolloid suspension technology in pectin and is now one of the most powerful aspects of Nourished due to its ability to encapsulate the active ingredients. It allows us to layer multiple nutrients, superfoods, and vitamins on top of each other without interfering each other and has created an extra layer of hyper personalization.
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?
In 2010 I founded Goody Good Stuff which was the world’s first vegan, allergen free and natural fruit gum. When I first started pitching this brand, I had painstakingly created a forty-page presentation which went into precise detail on every area of the business I thought any buyer would be interested in. When pitching to one particularly well-known supermarket chain, I was very kindly but awkwardly informed that the industry standard was a maximum of ten slides, and I had just made this poor guy sit through four times that! I was totally embarrassed by my own naivety and eagerness, but needless to say I still received an order from the buyer and have never created a forty-page presentation since!
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Innovation is at the heart of everything we do at Nourished, and we are committed to using ground breaking technology to create impactful solutions for our customers. Our patented 3D printing technology allows us to combine multiple active ingredients into one bespoke gummy vitamin which is 100% personalized to the customer. This gives us a real advantage in the market as most of our competitors rely on importing and repackaging their products to create ‘personalized packs’. At Nourished, we are the first ever truly manufactured personalized nutrition product as we 3D print every order on demand, which also ensures higher efficacy and absorption levels than standard isolated pills. By making everything in our HQ in Birmingham, we are also able to have greater control over our supply chain and significantly reduce our carbon footprint.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
We are constantly looking for ways to optimize our current offering and bring new, innovative solutions to the health and wellness industry. We are working with several marketing leading corporations who want to take advantage of our cutting-edge technology and formulations to launch new product ranges.
Each NPD cycle we conduct is centered around personalization as we believe this is paramount when developing health solutions. With our advancements in additive manufacturing, we can achieve real customization on a mass scale quickly and effectively, which is not possible with mainstream manufacturing. Our NPD is low cost and no risk with hyper speed which is 100x faster than traditional development cycles.
We are currently developing personalized protein bars and a personalized pets range which we will be launching later this year, and which will again be a first in the industry due to our innovative manufacturing techniques.
Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?
Throughout my entrepreneurial journey I have been a proactive and passionate advocate for women in STEM, and regularly hold talks in schools to help inspire and educate young women on the benefits of pursuing a career in STEM. I truly believe one of the biggest reasons why we don’t see many women in STEM is the lack of role models — as if you can’t see it, you can’t be it! Some of the young people I meet during these presentations are truly remarkable, and their skills and knowledge are super impressive; so, I am excited to see what they will bring to the sector!
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women in STEM or Tech that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts? What would you suggest to address this?
Access to funding is a big issue for women in STEM. The Rose Review (a study by the government into the gender gap in UK entrepreneurship) showcased the disproportionate amount of money going to male founders (and also coming from male investors).
It can be very difficult to navigate the VC and funding ecosystem for anyone, but when you consider that women get less than 1% of VC funding it’s clear that it is more difficult for us. Secondly, it’s clear that there is a lack of access and exposure to female role-models. There are so many of them out there, but sadly they don’t seem to get the same limelight and media access as the likes of Elon Musk, Bill Gates etc. so this inevitably leads to a lack of inspiration for young women to become involved in STEM themselves. Careers in STEM often start young and with this lack of representation in the industry for women it is often much harder to forge a successful career in STEM later on in life.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a woman in STEM or Tech. Can you explain what you mean?
I don’t think there are particularly myths around women in STEM but there is a common misconception that to be successful in tech you need to be a coder. In my role as a CEO of a rapidly growing tech start-up, I use a variety of material science, ingredient biology, additive manufacturing, algorithms, and decision-making engines online. Being involved in the tech industry is not limited to just coding and you don’t need to know how to code in order to be successful in STEM.
What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience as a Woman in STEM or Tech” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)
Fall in Love with Failing — Every time you fail it’s an opportunity to learn and narrow down on the road to success. We faced a lot of challenges when developing Nourished and certainly didn’t get it right every time, but that’s what makes the journey so interesting and your final success so rewarding!
Never Stop Learning — Throughout my career I have never stopped educating myself. From learning marketing strategies, accounting protocols, additive manufacturing and how to raise investment; I am constantly growing and developing my personal and professional skills to ensure I am the best CEO I can be.
The Easy Way & the Right Way — My mother has always told me this and it is so true! When we develop a new product, we are doing something totally innovative which had never been done before, so the lack of guidance and case studies to refer to can be exhausting and frustrating, but ultimately so much more gratifying than doing something ‘easy’.
Surround yourself with people who are better than you and don’t be afraid to ask for help! I am a perfectionist and when I was starting out, I wanted to do everything myself. My team at Nourished is absolutely incredible and being able to delegate to them has been a game changer for me!
Practice the mirror philosophy in all you do. Showing empathy and respect to your team is absolutely paramount and will inspire loyalty and dedication.
What advice would you give to other women leaders to help their team to thrive?
Ensuring that your onboarding process is effective and thorough is super important when you are bringing in new people, and that your company culture is understood and practiced by everyone is also crucial. Invest in your people with management coaching to help them develop professionally and personally. Treat your team with empathy and lead by example — how you do one thing is how you do everything!
What advice would you give to other women leaders about the best way to manage a large team?
When you have several different teams within your company it is also important to ensure there is a synergy and relationship between them, and that they don’t operate as separate entities. At Nourished we went from 4 people to 100 people in just 18 months and have managed to maintain our start-up culture with constant communication throughout the business, as well as celebrating each success and making each member of the company feel valued and that they are making a real impact on our future.
It is also important to have a leadership team who shares your work ethic, values, and vision for the future. Remember that you are never finished with optimizing your leadership and what you did yesterday is probably not going to work for what you do tomorrow if you are growing really fast.
None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My CTO is one of the most skilled and intelligent people I have ever met and has been paramount in the success of Nourished. Together we developed the patented 3D printing technology that creates each personalized Nourished stack, and his attention to detail and expert knowledge of additive manufacturing has been invaluable when scaling the business.
Martyn first started working with me 7 years ago with my business Magic Candy Factory, and it has been a real pleasure for me to watch him grow professionally over that time. He now has his own building dedicated to developing our technology and his own team of technicians who support him in optimizing our current 3D printers, as well as his research and development into new manufacturing techniques to support our NPD cycles.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
As well as bringing personalized health solutions to the masses, our commitment to sustainability means that we are helping to Nourish the environment, as well as our customers! We don’t use any single use plastic in our manufacturing facility or product packaging, which is all either completely home compostable or recyclable.
We believe everyone should have access to nutritional support which is why we’re so proud to have partnered with Vitamin Angels UK. Through our partnership, we’re committed to helping Vitamin Angels UK reach the communities most at-risk for malnutrition and food insecurity. Vitamin Angels provides life changing nutritional support to women and children throughout the UK and around the world, helping children thrive and reach their full potential.
In addition, throughout the pandemic we utilized our facility to help those within our communities and key workers on the front line. We used our R&D lab to make free hand sanitizer for all of our customers, our tech department 3D printed PPE equipment for front line workers, and we specifically formulated Nourished stacks to help protect the body’s immune system.
You are a person of enormous 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?
My vision is to make affordable and accessible preventative and curative health solutions for everyone, which make a real impact on their everyday life.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My mother is a very wise woman and has always said to me, “If it was easy, everyone would do it.” Throughout my entrepreneurial career this advice has given me huge amounts of comfort and encouragement when faced with challenges. When you are trying to achieve something which is a world first and truly innovative, there is no easy path; but that is what makes the journey so much more remarkable and rewarding.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Inspirational Women in STEM and Tech: Melissa Snover of Nourished On The 5 Leadership Lessons She… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.