In 2023, Tayla Cannon moved from Australia to the U.S. for a job in a metropolis she’d by no means seen earlier than.  

“No household, no associates, only a contemporary begin,” she informed TechCrunch. A sufferer of persistent again ache,  she first began working in physiotherapy, considering it was serving to make a distinction within the lives of others. But the normal physiotherapy mannequin by no means fairly lit a spark in her.  

She moved to interventional cardiology however solely grew to become extra disillusioned
with the bodily rehab mannequin with “its localized, reactive, and volume-based nature,” she mentioned.  

In the meantime, in her spare time, she grew to become a content material creator, sharing her perspective on-line about “proactive” and “holistic” methods folks can eliminate ache.  

That took on a lifetime of its personal. 

She now has greater than 130,000 followers on Instagram, a firm referred to as Athletic Rebuild, which offers rehab and efficiency teaching for athletes, and now, a platform referred to as Rebuildr, a HIPAA-compliant and mentorship app to assist rehab professionals run their very own companies on-line, set to launch early subsequent 12 months.  

“I wasn’t making an attempt to construct a enterprise; I used to be simply placing my mind on the web and serving to folks rethink what care might seem like.”  

Cannon and her works caught the attention of Sluggish Ventures, which introduced on Tuesday that it invested $1.1 million as a seed spherical.  She is one in every of the primary creators to obtain a verify from Sluggish Ventures’ $60 million Creator Fund, which seeks to again content material creators and influencers making an influence on-line.  

Cannon mentioned she had no plan when she began sharing her ideas on social media in 2024 after which determined to make this her occupation. “There was no technique, no roadmap, and certainty no enterprise mannequin behind it,” she mentioned. She credit what most content material creators do for her success — remaining genuine and sharing unfiltered however real ideas.  

Increasing a model on social media shouldn’t be with out challenges, nonetheless. Her social media presence, and due to this fact model, was rising quick, which was good however additionally a drawback. She was immediately confronted with the necessity to perceive enterprise logic, shopper acumen, and content material technique to attach with new audiences. “None of which are taught in healthcare,” she continued. “We’re skilled to assist folks, to not construct manufacturers.” 

The turning level got here when she truly realized she was the bottleneck to her personal enterprise. “I couldn’t maintain scaling one thing that depended solely on me. I needed to construct one thing that would develop with out me,” she mentioned, including that she ended up hiring folks to assist her together with her tasks.  

She additionally grew her technique when she moved from simply speaking about what’s damaged on the planet of rehab and began engaged on options to assist repair it. Rebuildr is meant to be a “full shift from localized reactive care to a proactive, holistic mode,” Cannon mentioned, “combining shopper options, clinicians, training, and the software program to ship all of it at scale.”  

She was launched to the workforce at Sluggish Ventures via a buddy who invited her to one of many agency’s occasions in Austin. “I had zero intention of elevating capital,” she mentioned. “I wasn’t even pitching. I wasn’t even getting ready a deck.”  Nonetheless, she related with Megan Lightcap, an investor at Sluggish, and informed her about what she was constructing with Rebuildr.  

“The dialog sparked one thing,” Cannon mentioned, including that Sluggish has helped her “think about a model of Rebuilder that’s even larger” than what she envisioned.  

Others private coach software program on the market embrace TrainHeroic, Trainerize, and Everfit. Rudder hopes that her product, Rebuildr, essentially reshapes the rehab trade.  

“I need to make high-quality rehab accessible wherever on the planet, not restricted by geography, insurance coverage, or 30-minute appointments,” she mentioned.