Leadership Lessons S4E2 - Dr. Adrienne Bitar

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Welcome to the Talk CNY miniseries, Leadership Lessons, presented by Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield, where we sit down with business and community leaders to discuss the lessons that have led them to where they are today and serve as a guiding light forward. Today, we are speaking with one of the co-founders of Seen Nutrition, a company that created a calcium chew out of whole food ingredients that support bone health naturally. Its co-founders, Dr. Jennifer Han, a clinical pharmacist, and Dr. Adrienne Bitar, a Cornell University lecturer, joined forces in Ithaca, New York, to create the calcium chew. Joining me today is Dr. Adrienne Bitar to discuss Seen Nutrition and what her journey teaches us about leadership, resilience, and building solutions to support women's health. Welcome, Dr. Bitar. It is a pleasure to have you with us today.

It is a delight to join you.

Oh, thank you. So can you please walk us through the process? What inspired you to create Seen Nutrition, and what gap in the market were you trying to fill?

It's a good question because when Jenny and I, Dr. Jennifer Han, my co-founder and I, first set out to create Seen, we did it because we saw a real need in the market. Both of us shared a commitment to bone health, and we both decided that if it wasn't us that was going to start this company, who could it really be? So I grew up watching my mom suffer from her own osteoporosis diagnosis for the last 31 years. She was diagnosed at 47, and then my co-founder, Dr. Jennifer Han, was diagnosed with her own rare form of osteoporosis earlier in life. And we recognized that there was a real gap in the market for bone health nutrition, satisfying those nutritional needs unique to bone health concerns, but with real food, not the synthetic supplements or the chalky gummies that we see on every retail shelf.

And combining our fields of expertise in food and medicine, I'm a food studies scholar. Jenny is a pharmacist, so we're food as medicine. And our shared commitment to bone health, we decided to start Seen Nutrition as a bone health nutrition company.

It's really beautiful to listen to the story, how you're talking about you used your personal experiences and really just overcame that to try to find a solution for women. So kudos to you and Dr. Han.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome. So my next question is in terms of the process, right? As you were trying to create the first real food calcium supplement, what was the process like? What challenges did you have to overcome, and how did you do that?

There were quite a few challenges. There was challenges from the technical side. So creating this novel formulation, patenting this novel formulation, scaling and manufacturing and packaging, this novel formulation all presented its hosts of technical difficulties, which is unsurprising if you're trying to do something new and innovative, you sort of par for the course that there's going to be challenges. And then the second part of our challenges was the business challenges because we came at this without much formal business training. And so scaling a e-commerce direct-to-consumer company required us to learn a lot. So we were able to manage these challenges through mentorship and advising and just good old long hours and hard work.

So then as you were creating this at Cornell's Agritech Food Innovation Lab, how did creating it in that environment really support your progress?

Well, just from a human perspective, the team up in Geneva, New York, so it's about 45 minutes from us in Ithaca was just really, really warm and supportive. Our contacts there, Mark Scoville and the whole team in Geneva, they really took us seriously from day one. Even though we weren't seasoned food entrepreneurs by any means, they may not have been that familiar with the bone health nutritional needs of women going through menopause, but they took us seriously and then opened up their vast library of resources. So everything from water testing, shelf stability testing, micronutrient testing, recommendations, we were able to rely on them to guide us to the right resources if they didn't have those resources in-house themselves.

I love it. In a sense, they made you feel seen while you were there from every step.

Yes, that's right.

They did. We felt very seen and understood.

Oh, that's beautiful. Well, it's so exciting that Seen Nutrition hit a major milestone last year. You officially served customers in all 50 states. So what would you say contributed to your growth and success?

I would say it's really relationships. This is something we found early on that, especially for people in the midlife transition, there are already a network of resources available to them like menopause health coaches, physical therapists that specialize in osteoporosis prevention and awareness, nutritionists, dieticians. And so through our professional networks, and we're both corporate advisors to the Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation, and then we're medical advisors to the National Menopause Foundation. We were able to reach out to the providers that women trust and ask for advice. And then by being able to leverage those relationships, we're able to spread the story of Seen. And then also just so many people have been struggling with calcium for so long. They come to us relieved that finally after 20 years, 30 years, they found a calcium supplement that doesn't upset their stomach. So that really kind of is persuasive on its own.

Beautiful. Dr. Bitar, in 2025, Seen Nutrition was one of the official winners of the Grow New York Accelerator. Can you describe for us what that experience was like, and how it's helped your company?

It's helped our company a lot. We were thrilled to be nominated. Even being a finalist helped us open doors. We were able to formalize our relationship with Holy Childhood in Rochester, and they've assisted us in really scaling the production of our calcium chew. So they've been a wonderful manufacturing partner that both benefits us as a local company, and then it benefits their workforce, many of whom have special needs. And then it was a financial benefit for us as well. So with the $500,000 prize money, we are able to accelerate our hiring plans. So we have an office in Ithaca, New York, that's where I'm sitting right now, and we're hiring. We're hiring a customer support operator manager, and a marketing professional. So we're just accelerating the growth, accelerating our scaling process.

You all are doing wonderful. You and Dr. Han. If someone's at home and they're saying, "You know what? I would like to apply to the Grow New York Accelerator, but they're unsure if they should." What would you say to them?

I would definitely advise them to do it. Just apply to the program. It does require a little bit of paperwork, and they do have a video option, which I recommend you doing. But even if you don't win one of the prizes, just being nominated is an honor and a privilege and it opens doors. It gave us the mentorship of our official Grow New York mentor, Alex Hagen, that was extremely helpful and just professionalizing our books and it was helpful in educating. It gave us a real zoomed out perspective on the potential and promise of our business and what we had already accomplished to that point. So long story short, and then if you win, you win. And it's just a wonderful experience. It's a wonderful sense of community and camaraderie between the finalists, the mentors. It's a great program. So long story short, do it.

Love it. Thank you. So next we are getting ready to go into our rapid fire section. So in this section, we have a little fun. I'll ask you a question and then the goal is for you to answer it within 30 seconds, and then we will move on to the next question.

Okay. I'm ready.

All right. So your first question is, what or who has been the biggest influence on your leadership journey?

I would say my parents. My mom went to law school when she was 47 with four kids. So a huge tour de force of a woman. She started her own law firm in her 50s, immigration law firm. So she's a huge inspiration to me. And then my dad, who is always just telling me to knock on doors and nothing's too big for you to just break into. So my parents.

Your parents sound wonderful. What is one of the most important lessons you've learned as a leader?

Just to make decisions. It's easy coming from an academic perspective to whiffle and waffle and hem and haw and think about it and overthink about it, but at some point you just have to make a decision and live with the ramifications of those decisions. So I think action faster has been a helpful lesson for me.

How do you stay motivated during difficult times or setbacks?

I listen to our customers. Starting a business is not easy, but if I actually think about the women that we're serving and when I think about our little seven by five by three white boxes going out to Kansas and California and the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, and then we see the reviews, we talk to them on the phone, we recognize that there's actual people who depend on us and actual lives that we're changing for the better and are maybe even just a small way that's extremely motivating.

That's beautiful. How do you turn challenges into opportunities for growth?

I think it's good to zoom out and think, why am I facing this challenge? Am I just pushing something that shouldn't be pushed anymore? And then taking that as an opportunity to think like, well, maybe this isn't the right course for me. So recognizing that a challenge is probably there for a reason and a challenge communicates something to you and maybe it's not good just to push at it and push at it and push at it, but rather say, "Well, maybe this is something I should walk away from.

How do you continue to grow and refine your skills?

YouTube. I watch a lot of YouTube videos late at night. That's my entertainment. What I recognize is that there are gaps in my knowledge and that a lot of academic conferences put their conference proceedings on YouTube. So when you see a really dry academic paper on YouTube with six views, probably two of those views are mine if it's anything to do with bone health or bone health nutrition.

Very cool. So we know what you'll be doing then watching a YouTube video in your free time. That is beautiful. That is beautiful. All right. Well, as we prepare to close, my last question for you is, if anyone watching this is an entrepreneur, they're working on bringing their product to market, what advice would you give them?

I would say start early, identifying yourself as the co-founder of X company. One of our first steps was to join the Small Business Development Center, the SBDC, which provides free, accessible, virtual or in- person mentorship to everyone all over the country through the regional offices. So we worked with the Binghamton SBDC. And it was a really remarkable moment when maybe just a couple months after Jenny and I incorporated, we told someone new that we were the co-founders of Sea Nutrition and saying it made it real. And so find those resources early and identify yourself as a real ... You really have stake in this and this is who you are now.

Beautiful. Well said. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Bitar. It was truly a pleasure having you on today.

Thank you so much. This has been a really fun way to explain our journey and our commitment to bone health nutrition.

You did great. Well, if anyone watching would like some additional content from Dr. Bitar, it will be available across CenterState CEOs, social media channels. Talk CNY, the miniseries Leadership Lessons presented by Excellus BlueCross BlueShield is available across all podcast platforms and on centerstateceo.com. Thanks for watching. Have a great day.

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