Business Feature: The Well Company
We interviewed Dr. Maille Devlin from The Well Company for this week’s Small Business Feature. Her responses were full of wisdom that any business owner can benefit from and apply to their industry. Get inspired to think bigger, create a greater impact, and learn how to power through challenges as a new business owner with their story below!
V - What inspired your business?
TWC - “Both Dr. Christine and I have private practices which focus on preventative medicine, healthy aging, metabolic health and lowering risk for chronic disease. Chronic diseases are the top 5 causes of death in North America and are largely preventable through lifestyle changes.
However, when we see patients, it is usually too late to prevent disease and we are already in the treatment stage. Secondly, we are seeing patients one at a time, this is much too small of a scale to make a true impact on larger communities.
One day we were discussing exactly this and trying to think of ways to impact communities in a bigger way. Where could we implement wellness on an environmental level? What is something people do daily? They go to work. People spend most of their lives working. If looking to implement lifestyle changes, the workplace is the place to start due to the sheer time one spends there.
Additionally, the workplace can be a barrier for those trying to work on their wellness. However, when paid to work on wellness, it not only encourages those who have their own wellness goals, but also includes those who may not do it on their own.
THEN we did some research and looked into the financial aspect of things and found that employers can also benefit greatly. There is a large range, however, the average return on investment for a corporate wellness program is around 3:1 for a company. We found that companies who invest in their employees see economic returns, lower rates of both absenteeism and presenteeism in the office, and most importantly, employees feel cared for.
The principles of naturopathic medicine inspired the idea of individualization within the business. We found in our research that the most successful corporate wellness programs were those where the employees were engaged. Therefore, just as in a naturopathic appointment, we complete a full company ‘intake’ and then tailor our programs to suit the needs of the specific employees of the company.”
V - What was the biggest challenge you faced that you had to overcome when starting the business?
TWC - “COVID-19. Initially we were excited to go into the workplace for seminars, workshops and wellness days. Then, offices no longer existed. The places to network became very limited, meeting someone over the phone or a screen limits the trust they can put in you. As a new company, it has been difficult to establish trust and relationships during the pandemic.”
V - How did you stay flexible and navigate your business during the pandemic?
TWC - “Constantly reassessing and learning to be flexible. We realized TWC isn’t a strict program, but a company, so we can be flexible in our offerings. We focussed more on the company brand, values and mission, rather than spending time just on our offerings as these can constantly change.
We also had several brainstorming sessions. Fortunately, we were young enough in our company stages that we didn’t just have to ‘switch to online’ but could shift the program to become more flexible- online or in person, which actually expanded our offerings from Toronto → Global.”
V - What fear was holding you back before you got started and how did you get past this?
TWC -
“As new grads with not much of a business background, we both struggled with imposter syndrome. How did we get past it?
By realizing that being a new grad positions us well in some instances, such as the up-to-date knowledge we have in our field.
We have already found that while working with start-ups and young companies- we can relate to them on a personal level.
Having a core group of mentors in both our field and on the business side of things has been a tremendous help to constantly check in with.
Realizing and remembering our worth and the value we can add to companies and communities by sharing our knowledge and skills.
A lack of start-up capital. How we got past it:
Really assess what our priorities were for start-up costs
Created a tight budget, applied for grants
A saturated market. How we got past it:
After doing research, we realized that most of the most popular programs weren’t effective and employees were not very engaged
We talked with employees at several companies and they were either not aware of the wellness programs offered or were not interested.
We used this to create The Well Calculator, our own personalized intake to find out where a company and their employees are on their wellness journey.
Really focusing and listening to find out what companies actually want and what their employees need support with, within the realm of wellness, rather than bringing our own agenda to a workplace”
V - What has been the most rewarding moment since starting your business?
TWC - “Receiving a grant from the government through a business plan competition gave us validation and support that we’re headed the right direction.
Also, the moment we began to get feedback about how our program is different from others, and has helped motivate people to start their wellness journey”
V - What is the problem you’re trying to solve with your product/service?
TWC - “We want to create healthier communities. 1 in 2- adults over the age of 20 have a chronic disease, which are largely preventable, and we want this to change. Our mission is to both educate and motivate employees to change their daily behaviours, while also helping workplaces implement environmental changes in the office (or at home), so that a larger shift in the health of the company and eventually communities is generated.”
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Thank you to The Well Company co-founders Dr. Maille Devlin & Dr. Christine Chung for contributing to our weekly series!
Follow @thewellcompany.ca @dr.mailledevlin.nd @dr.christinechung