Aagya Mathur, MIT Sloan Class of 2018

Tell us more about your company and what you do

Aavia is a daily ovarian hormone health guide. Our app helps members understand how their ovarian hormones impact their day-to-day lives, from quality of sleep to energy levels, mental health, mood, sex drive, skin, and more. We offer horoscope-style insights into their hormone cycle and peer-to-peer community within the app. By unlocking the connection among your brain, body, and hormones, our members can optimize their lives around their cycle.

We started Aavia to give young people tools to understand how their hormones impact how they feel. The majority of our members have anxiety and depression, and we have found that within three weeks of using Aavia they experience a 52% decrease in stress and a 115% increase in confidence in their health. 

Through our unique platform, we’re building the largest, most diverse dataset on female hormone health, opening the doors to understanding the connection among hormonal, physical, and mental health as never done before. By focusing on hormone health, we’re unlocking the next generation of health for people with ovaries.

Was it always your goal to found a company?

I have started a few services and organizations on the side, and it was always with the purpose of solving a problem. Now that it’s my full-time job, I couldn’t be more thrilled about tackling an incredibly complex problem that impacts half of the world’s population.

Why did you choose to do an MBA at MIT Sloan?

Sloan encouraged collaboration across campus. I have a background in science and consulting, and I truly believe that cross-collaboration and working with multidisciplinary teams are the most efficient and effective way to solve the biggest problems. I met my two co-founders outside of Sloan through the MEMSI program that brought students from different majors together. Aavia’s strength comes from the fact that my co-founders and I have different interests, skills, and ways of thinking.

How did your experience at business school help you with your venture?

I started Aavia while I was still in business school, which gave us access to a lot of valuable resources. Firstly, I had the ability to choose how I spend my time, which gave me more flexibility than I had while working full-time. My classmates from business school and across MIT offered a diversity of experiences and a wide network, and we’re lucky to still be supported by so many of them. Whether it’s through cold emails, MIT Venture Mentoring Services (VMS), or Delta v (MIT’s accelerator program), alums and EIRs were invaluable in answering questions, making introductions, and offering frameworks and feedback. We also received non-dilutive funding through Sandbox, Delta v, MEMSI, and MIT 100k.

What advice would you have for other entrepreneurial women that want to start a business?

• You and your business are only as big, powerful, capable, and impressive as you let yourself believe. Don’t limit yourself or your business, and have grit to withstand the naysayers. Use the power of storytelling to bring people along the journey and to call them into all that you are doing and dreaming.
• Surround yourself with founders at your stage or a stage ahead of you for both tactical and emotional support
• If you don’t listen to and work with the end-user, the solution is not going to be something they like or something that’s actually going to help them. If you can’t fulfill those two things, why are you even developing the solution?

Each of these elements gave us the escape velocity to start meaningfully solving the problem we set out to solve.

What are your hopes for the future of women entrepreneurs?

As today’s women entrepreneurs continue to elevate each other each day, we are laying the groundwork for future entrepreneurs to thrive. I envision a world where future women entrepreneurs will step into a startup ecosystem where the foundation is built on tenacity and support. In that environment – where limits are removed – they will build with even more momentum, innovate more rapidly, have even more impact on their end users, and be role models for generations to come.