Our Founder's Story

Bonjour! I’m Olivia, Neli’s co-founder.

Maybe you can relate: for most of my tech career, I pushed through. I showed up early, stayed late, and never once mentioned why some weeks felt so much harder than others. I didn’t have the words for it. I just knew something was off, and I assumed it was me.

The fatigue before my period. The brain fog mid-cycle that made me feel like I’d lost 20 IQ points overnight. The anxiety that crept in out of nowhere. I’d sit in meetings fighting to stay sharp, wondering why everyone else seemed fine.

No one talked about it. Not my manager, not HR, not the wellness program that offered me a meditation app and a fruit basket. So I did what a lot of women do: I smiled, compensated, and burned out.

Eventually, I left. Not because I wasn’t good at my job, but because the job wasn’t built for someone with my biology. I felt drained. Defeated. Like my body had failed me.

Without cycle-awareness, I had no channel to share my truth and get back on track.

What happened next changed everything. I started studying. I read the research on hormonal cycles, nutrition, exercise physiology, and sleep. I learned that my energy, focus, and mood weren’t random — they followed a pattern. A predictable, science-backed pattern that no one had ever told me about.

I started living in sync with my cycle. I adjusted what I ate, how I moved, when I scheduled deep work, and when I gave myself permission to rest. Within months, I felt like a different person. In my late 30s, I became the healthiest, most energized version of myself.

And that’s when the heartbreak hit: this knowledge would have saved my career.

If someone had told me — or better, if my workplace had known — that my body wasn’t broken, that I just needed different things on different days, I would never have left. I would have thrived.

That’s why I built Neli.

Not as a wellness trend. Not as a women’s issue sidebar. As a real tool that helps companies support the people they already have, by working with biology, not against it.

I’m also incredibly blessed to be married to an experienced CTO who saw how much this vision mattered and helped me bring it to life. He watched me struggle and heal. And when I said “I want to build something so no woman has to go through this alone,” he said: “Let’s do it.”

Neli is our baby. Born from real pain, real science, and a deep belief that workplaces can do better.

If you’re reading this and something resonates — if you’ve ever pushed through a hard week without knowing why, or watched a colleague quietly disappear — know that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Your biology isn’t your enemy. It can be your greatest advantage. And I’m here to help you and your team see that.

With love and purpose,

Olivia Dufour

Co-founder, Neli