From Pills to Purpose: How a Personal Struggle Became Meri
By Shir Shany, 3rd year student Adelson School of Entrepreneurship
Winning second place at the Capstone Project Finals still feels surreal.
I entered the accelerator with Gymy, a company I had built a few years earlier: lockers for renting gym equipment. I saw a chance to bring it back to life. But through the people I met and the conversations that followed, I realized something hard and important: Gymy would be difficult to scale. That honesty opened the door to something else.
The real story started with my own body.
For six years I was on the pill. I gained weight, felt low, and stopped feeling like myself. When I finally came off it, I turned to basal body temperature tracking to understand my fertile window. Every morning, the second I woke up, I had to take my temperature. I forgot constantly. Staying consistent was nearly impossible. I spent hours searching Google for the product I needed. It did not exist. So I decided to build it.
Just like we learned in the program, the first thing I did was go to market. I built a simple landing page with a payment link and posted it in a Facebook group of about 1,000 women. Within a few hours, 31 women bought. The comments were overwhelming and deeply moving. That was the moment I knew there was something real here.
One of the first things I did next was go to Tami, the program director, for advice. She was incredible. She shared her perspective and connected me to so many people. That conversation was a true turning point. From the moment Oz heard about the idea and the validation, he was all in: excited, supportive, and constantly opening doors.
Since then we have built a prototype, filed a patent, brought on incredible advisors, and been accepted into the Mamram accelerator and Zell. My dream is simple and big: to make natural, hormone-free pregnancy prevention easy and accessible for women around the world.
I am so excited for the journey ahead. And I am endlessly grateful to the people who have been with me from day one: Oz Alon, Dr. Tamar Yogev, and Sharon Zahavi. Your belief, guidance, and generosity shaped everything. Thank you.
Meri