Why I Built a Tea Brand That Actually Sees Women’s Hormonal Health

When Chelsea Jambo asked a doctor for preventative care at 24, with a grandmother dying of cancer and her mother having just found a lump, she was told to come back when she actually had breast cancer. That refusal is where Our Body began. On this episode of Unscripted Small Business, host Zaneta Chuniq Inpower talks with Chelsea about building a women’s wellness brand around hormonal health, and about the symptom-based teas that grew out of her own search for a natural alternative to the Tylenol she was living on.

What follows is a conversation about the cultural moment finally breaking the taboo around women’s health, the funding gap that women’s wellness founders face in an AI-obsessed startup world, and why Chelsea has come to believe that education, not the product, is the real engine of her brand’s growth.

The Most Empowering Era in Women’s Health

Chelsea sees this moment as the most empowering phase she has witnessed in women’s health. Conversations that used to happen only behind closed doors are now being had openly, and that openness is dismantling the idea that periods, perimenopause, and menopause are things women shouldn’t discuss.

“It’s not really taboo for women, it’s taboo for men.” — Chelsea Jambo

“Us women, we have a voice, we have a platform, we’re half the world’s population. Let’s talk about this, let’s start changing the narrative, and let’s provide other women with education.” — Chelsea Jambo

The Doctor Who Wouldn’t Put His Name On It

The business, as Chelsea puts it, started “out of a pure frustrating passion.” With a family history of breast cancer, she went in asking only to understand her risk and was met with a flat refusal that she experienced as part of a healthcare system that is often unkind to women, and to women of color in particular.

“It’s not like I’m saying I have a cold. It’s like I’m trying to figure out if I have a risk of having cancer, a serious disease, down the line, and his refusal shocked me.” — Chelsea Jambo

“If the healthcare system is saying come back when you have cancer, which is something I’m not okay with, then how can I support my body?” — Chelsea Jambo

Building the Body and Finding a Natural Alternative

Rather than wait, Chelsea took inventory of her own health, resolving to build her body up so it could handle illness if it ever came. That inventory surfaced her debilitating period pain and the realization that the Tylenol and Advil she leaned on were their own long-term problem, which sent her looking for something that targets symptoms instead of masking them.

“I want a natural alternative to pain management — something that actually targets the symptoms rather than masking the pain.” — Chelsea Jambo

“Can we not have something that is one tea but looks at all the symptoms, like bloating, cramping, mood swings, all of them?” — Chelsea Jambo

Symptom-Based Teas: One Product, Every Symptom

Chelsea’s favorite way to explain the product is a multi-symptom cold medicine. Our Body’s teas are built on the same logic but for the female body: they are symptom-based rather than locked to a single presentation, so different women with different symptoms in the same phase all find relief from one tea. The formulations are engineered so the herbs work together without harming the body.

“Because our teas are symptom-based teas, they target all the symptoms within that phase, allowing a woman who experiences heavy bleeding to find relief, a woman who has cramps relief, bloating relief, just by one product.” — Chelsea Jambo

“Our teas are meant to be used for all women and all experiences within all the hormonal phases.” — Chelsea Jambo

The Funding Gap and the “Just a Tea Company” Problem

Building in women’s health has meant swimming against a startup current that flows toward AI and tech. On top of the funding challenge, Chelsea has had to correct a persistent misconception about what Our Body actually is, and push back on doubt, often from men, about whether women’s hormonal health is even a real business.

“No, we’re not a tea company. We’re a woman’s wellness company.” — Chelsea Jambo

“Us women need something like this, need the support like this, because the female body is intense and navigating it is intense.” — Chelsea Jambo

Navigating DEI and Growing Through Education

Amid the noise around DEI and women’s health, Chelsea’s approach is to stay rooted in her values and keep showing up. She has found that the brand grows less through the product itself and more through education, meeting pushback with the lived reality of what women’s bodies actually go through.

“There is a way in which we’re supporting women regardless of what certain people think.” — Chelsea Jambo

“You pull any woman aside, even the women in your family, and ask, how are your hormones, or what is it like to be in the female body — any woman would take the opportunity to educate anybody.” — Chelsea Jambo

Advice for New Founders

Asked for three things she would tell anyone starting something they’re passionate about, Chelsea offered a founder’s playbook drawn from her own hard days: give yourself grace, let your passion carry you, and don’t try to do it alone.

“Give yourself grace, because there’s going to be so many moments where you’re going to be beating yourself up. So just walk with grace.” — Chelsea Jambo

“Hold on to that passion. Let that passion light your way. Let that passion be your driving factor to creating whatever you want to create.” — Chelsea Jambo

“Find a community from the beginning, people who are in similar boats as you, who can understand what you’re going through.” — Chelsea Jambo

You can find Chelsea Jambo and Our Body on Instagram at @shopourbody, and shop the full line of hormonal symptom-based teas at ourbody.ca, with a retail expansion planned later this year.