What do you do when the company you built is finally scaling, and you realize you're no longer the right person to run it?
Shani Bocian Steinberg is the co-founder of Allermi, a telemedicine platform that prescribes customized, multi-ingredient nasal sprays for people living with chronic rhinitis. She started the company with her father, a longtime Stanford allergist who pioneered the approach in his in-person clinic. While away at school, Shani struggled to mix her own combination at the kitchen sink, and realized patients around the country didn’t have access to these unique formulations.
In this conversation, Shani talks about the decision to build a vertically integrated business, from the software to the compounding pharmacy to the medical team, and to go deep on a single category even when investors pushed for breadth. She shares how after strong growth in DTC channels, Allermi is building more diversified channels through partnerships. She gets candid about the “delusional optimism” it takes to start a company and what happens when fundraising knocks that confidence out of you.
Shani also opens up about her hardest chapter: scaling a fast-growing business while becoming a new mom, and choosing to hand the CEO role to someone better suited to take Allermi to scale so she could return to the creative and customer work she loves. She shares why being CEO forever shouldn't be the goal, and how to tell the difference between “this is hard” and “this isn’t working.”
About Shani
Shani Bocian Steinberg is the founder of Allermi, a pioneering telehealth company treating nasal symptoms such as congestion and post-nasal drip through personalized prescription nasal sprays. Inspired by her father's decades of experience as a Stanford allergist-immunologist, Shani founded Allermi to make highly effective, individualized relief more accessible and convenient. Under her leadership, Allermi has grown into a rapidly scaling digital health company, helping over 100,000 patients breathe better and live healthier lives. Shani lives in Los Angeles, CA, with her husband and toddler, and loves experimenting in the kitchen, live music and rainy days.
Presented by Aytza
