You'll have noticed: We're a bit late with this email today. And I am sorry about that. But I'm also not. I wanted to spare you a rant from me today, so it took me a while to find an angle for this email today. (If you're here for the rant, head on over to my LinkedIn - there's plenty of that there! :D)
So to get back to the point, I'll be honest - the only thing I wanted to write about are all the fails and challenges I've seen in and around our ecosystem over the past weeks. It is so frustrating and so infuriating at times.
From HANX having to remove products due to Shopify restrictions, to problematic media coverage and research of digital contraception in the UK, to the "Boardy" debacle with its Trump-style appearance comments, to reproductiverights.org being shut down - it's been a rough week. And yes, there's the ever-present irony of Mark Zuckerberg championing "free speech" while we at Femtech Insider received yet another message from Meta about our account being restricted for sharing "health information".
But our latest clash with Meta's algorithms actually got me thinking about something interesting. And I'd love to share it with you today. Let me take you back to 2014, when challenger social networks made headlines with what became known as "The Great Unbundling."
The idea was simple but powerful: instead of one massive platform trying to be everything to everyone, Facebook started breaking things down into focused, single-purpose apps. Messenger for communication, Instagram for photos, WhatsApp for messaging. As Zuckerberg put it then, "Facebook is not one thing." Many startup tried to capitalize on this trend and started to build their own challenger brands to complete. Some succeeded. Others... well... not so much.
Fast forward to 2025, and I'm seeing something eerily similar happening in the women's health content space right now.
While we're all wrestling with social media restrictions and algorithmic nightmares, a new wave of startups is taking a different approach.
Instead of trying to fit health content into platforms designed for entertainment, they're building dedicated spaces where medical expertise meets modern content consumption habits. It's like they're unbundling women's health content from the major platforms, and honestly? I'm intrigued.
Just last week, I wrote about femble securing €350K in funding. But what really caught my attention wasn't the money - it was their pivot. They started as a period tracking app with 40,000 users (according to the company), but are now building a platform to help doctors become trusted health influencers for their own patients. No more random doctors on TikTok; they're betting on the power of existing doctor-patient relationships in the digital space.
Then there's Rosy, who's taken the concept of short-form video and given it a healthcare twist with what they call "Quickies." These are bite-sized videos from healthcare professionals covering everything from sexual health to chronic conditions. Think of it as taking what actually works about TikTok and Instagram Reels, but creating a safe space specifically for health information.
And then there's also FeelBetr founded by Dr. Erin Nance. After building a following on TikTok, Dr. Nance realized something crucial: health content shouldn't have to compete with dance videos for attention. On Feel Better, content gets matched based on health interests rather than popularity. If you're an endocrinologist creating content about hypothyroidism, you don't need to go viral - you just need to reach people who actually care about thyroid health. (As someone who runs a niche media platform, this really resonates with me.)
What's fascinating about all these platforms is how they're adapting to modern content consumption habits while maintaining professional standards. They're all betting on short-form video, expert-led content, and some form of community interaction. But unlike general social platforms, they're creating environments specifically designed for health information sharing.
Now, I'm not saying it's going to be easy. Building any new social platform is hard enough - add healthcare to the mix, and you've got a real mountain to climb. They need to attract enough users to matter, figure out sustainable revenue models that don't compromise trust, navigate healthcare regulations, and somehow compete with the convenience of existing platforms.
But then again they might have better odds than we'd think. When WebMD launched at the dawn of the internet, they had to convince people to look for health information online in the first place. These new platforms are meeting users where they already are - seeking health information through short-form video - but offering a more focused, trustworthy environment.
Could these specialized platforms become the WebMD of the video era? Will they successfully compete with general social platforms for attention? Could they even become acquisition targets for those same platforms? Time will tell if they can build large enough audiences to thrive independently.
But one thing's for sure: after a week of watching our ecosystem battle with the limitations of existing platforms, it's refreshing to see innovators creating spaces specifically designed for what we need. Comes to show: Sometimes the best response to restriction isn't to fight the system - it's to build a better one.
