Sometimes finding a complementary pairing can make all the difference. Nuna Med Founder and CEO Ali Barta believes that one of the most potent examples of this idea is in the combination of scientific and natural health remedies. When I sit down with Barta and CFO Anthony Roberts, however, I can’t help but think that they also exemplify this sentiment, with backgrounds and skill sets that seem to perfectly enhance the other’s. As rising Second Years at the Darden School of Business, Anthony and Ali (who is also pursuing a Masters of Public Policy degree from the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy concurrently with her business studies) had the rare experience of being in both the same section and the same learning team during their first year at Darden – what this means, essentially, is that they spent every waking moment together. For some pairs, that glut of “quality time” would inevitably mean that their personalities would begin to repel, but for Barta and Roberts, it simply means that they’ve come to understand and respect each other even more. When Anthony– who knows he will be returning to his pre-Darden employer, Bain & Company, after graduation next year – mentioned to Ali that he would be interested in working with her in the iLab, it was the natural win for Ali. This summer, the dynamic duo is working side-by-side to launch Nuna Med’s first product, a natural herbal tea for urinary tract infections.
It’s no surprise that many of Barta’s pursuits seem to typify this yin and yang approach. She comes by her deference to both science and alternative medicine honestly, with parents who raised Ali and her three siblings with a harmonious blend of their two very different perspectives on health. Her mom subscribed to an organic lifestyle steeped in “maple syrup right from the tree” and antibiotic-free milk “long before it was popular,” while her dad’s faith was firmly planted in the benefits of modern medicine alone. To this day, Barta values both points of view, and she seeks to create natural products that form a powerful complement to traditional health regimens through Nuna Med.
The company’s flagship tea was developed by a naturopathic doctor in California, whom Barta’s mom solicited advice from after a bad accident left Ali dealing with a spinal cord injury and resultant bladder issues. After that accident three years ago and the frequent UTIs that followed, Ali began to develop a resistance to the antibiotics she’d been taking heavily to combat those issues. At just 25 years old, she knew this wasn’t a sustainable method of treatment, and her mother encouraged her to explore potential remedies outside of traditional medicine. After trying the doctor’s unique herbal tea, Ali says, she hasn’t had to take antibiotics for about a year – “it’s worked amazingly for me.” But beyond anecdotal testimony, “there’s good research on the main ingredient in the tea, which says it’s effective in preventing recurring UTIs.”
Nuna Med traces its name to a shorthand for “Nurtured with Nature,” but the roots of its underlying philosophy can be found in the natural remedies Barta witnessed around the world during childhood travels abroad. “My parents always traveled together, and they really thought that the best way to spend money and educate their children was through travel.” During a family trip to Ecuador, they discovered a local seashell ointment that worked wonders on an injury her youngest brother sustained from playing baseball with Ali’s other brother. This story exemplifies the Nuna Med philosophy – “it’s about taking products like that, making sure they’re effective and safe, and not just always going straight to something over the counter. There is a place and role for prescription medicine, we just want people to [explore the idea of natural products as a] first line of defense.”
Entrepreneurship has always run in Barta’s blood. She has countless stories of the ways she took advantage of typical kid experiences to flex her entrepreneurial muscles – from selling lemonade and cookies at the A&P stop with her best friend (now Nuna Med’s graphic designer) to starting her own side swim lesson business while she worked as a lifeguard and even working a few-month stint at McDonald’s to learn more about fast food operations when she was considering an entrepreneurial foray into healthy fast food. But after spending her post-undergraduate years working in sales and distribution for the Hain Celestial Group, and her personal health experiences, she believes Nuna Med is the right idea upon which to stake a more permanent claim.
Roberts, who is acting as Nuna Med’s CFO, brings his compatible skill set to the team from a background in consulting and prior experience with startups. While, at this stage of development, both he and Barta each have their hands in a little bit of everything, Anthony is particularly impactful when it comes to helping Ali sketch out the future of Nuna Med – from branding and prototyping to culture to sales channels and even future product lines. “We’re just in constant conversation,” Roberts says, and “we’re trying not to get locked into one modality” but rather expand into other products that are “safe, effective, and research-backed.” Fittingly, Barta and Roberts see the company’s current and future sweet spot lying in the idea of creating additional complementary combinations of ingredients, just as the tea has done. “A lot of supplement companies sell pure supplements (pure magnesium, etc) and a very broad set of supplements…without much oversight.” Companies rarely cite research that validates whether certain combinations of supplements are more effective than others. Luckily for Nuna Med, if anyone knows how to create a winning combination, it’s these two.