Featured Founder: Dr. Sera Lavelle of Bea Better Eating

Welcome to our Featured Founder series, where you’ll meet startup founders from Tampa-St. Petersburg who are building and scaling their ventures to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges. We interviewed Dr. Sera Lavelle of Bea Better Eating, an app that rewires your mind to stop using food for emotional comfort and end the cycle of guilt and shame—something calorie counting and medications like Ozempic can’t fix.

What inspired you to launch your company?

I was running two successful therapy practices in New York City—NY Health Hypnosis & Integrative Therapy and Soho Integrative EMDR—both of which I started and still proudly own. My journey began while I was in graduate school, when I launched my first practice with the goal of helping people heal their relationship with food and overcome emotional eating. Over the past 17 years, I’ve specialized in evidence-based treatments like hypnosis and EMDR, working closely with patients to address the deeper emotional challenges behind their struggles with food.

What inspired me to launch Bea Better Eating was seeing the limitations of the tools available to people struggling with emotional eating. Too often, they’re told their problems stem from personal failings like a lack of discipline or willpower, which only perpetuates shame and prevents healing. I realized that most solutions in the wellness space focus on surface-level changes, rather than addressing the emotional and psychological roots of eating challenges. Bea was born out of a desire to create something different—an empowering, compassionate tool that leverages mindfulness, hypnotherapy, and AI to help people heal their relationship with food in a lasting and meaningful way.

What pain point is your company solving? What gets you excited to go to work every day?

The pain point Bea Better Eating is solving is the toxic cycle of diet culture and its failure to address the emotional complexities of eating. For decades, people have been told their struggles with food are personal failings, and they’ve turned to methods like calorie counting and restrictive dieting—solutions that not only fail but often trigger disordered eating behaviors. Bea addresses this by offering an alternative rooted in compassion and evidence-based practices, helping users shift away from shame and guilt to build a healthier relationship with food.

What gets me excited to go to work every day is knowing that Bea has the potential to do something extraordinary: not just help individuals, but change the societal narrative around eating. I’m passionate about creating a tool that truly empowers people to heal in a way that’s supportive and sustainable. The thought that Bea can show people they are not broken—and that there’s a path to healing that doesn’t involve judgment or shame—fuels me. Seeing this vision come to life and knowing it can make a meaningful impact on both individuals and society is what drives me every single day.

Name the biggest challenge you faced in the process of launching the company. How did you overcome it?

The hardest challenge I faced was accepting that I couldn’t keep seeing my patients or remain hands-on in running my practices while dedicating myself to Bea. Stepping away from direct patient care was one of the most emotionally difficult decisions I’ve ever made. Over the years, I had built deep, meaningful relationships with my patients, and saying goodbye to them felt like letting go of a part of myself. The decision to restructure my practices and transition into a hands-off advisory role was gut-wrenching. I love the work I do and the people I serve, and it was hard to imagine not being directly involved. Thankfully, I’ve built an incredible group of clinicians who are not only highly skilled but also deeply compassionate and committed to our mission. Knowing they could carry forward the work we started together gave me the confidence to step back.

I overcame this challenge by focusing on Bea’s larger mission. While it was incredibly painful to step away from my patients, I knew that Bea had the potential to help so many more people than I ever could on my own. I leaned on my belief that Bea could fundamentally change how people approach food and eating, empowering them to break free from the toxic narratives of diet culture. That belief, along with the support of my team, made it possible to navigate the transition and stay committed to building something extraordinary.

Where do you see your company headed next?

We’ve just launched our MVP, and I’m beyond excited about what’s next for Bea Better Eating. Partnering with the former Chief Behavioral Officer at Noom has been an incredible milestone, allowing us to refine our approach and ensure we’re delivering meaningful, evidence-based solutions. With early user feedback coming in, I can’t wait to see how the next version evolves to make an even greater impact.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have Ruby Manaderos, my cofounder and an extraordinary product designer, leading the charge on the app’s design and development. Ruby’s creativity, vision, and expertise have been instrumental in bringing Bea to life, and I couldn’t imagine a better partner to shape its future. With her talent and our shared mission, I’m excited to see Bea grow into a transformative tool that helps people heal their relationship with food and redefines how society approaches eating.

Give us a tactical piece of advice that you’d share with another founder just starting out.

Invest in people and their growth—it’s one of the most valuable things you can do as a founder. My biggest lesson came from wanting so much to support everyone that I sometimes failed to fully acknowledge the outstanding and let others who weren’t aligned with the mission take too much of my time. Trying to make everyone happy diluted my focus, which ultimately didn’t serve the team.

Empower those who are exceptional and be intentional with your time and energy. Every mistake is a learning experience, and building something meaningful starts with investing in the right people and helping them thrive. When they succeed, your business succeeds.