Talk CNY Miniseries: Leadership Lessons - From Purpose to Growth: How Seen Nutrition Scaled a Women’s Health Startup

Summary

Talk CNY Miniseries: Leadership Lessons

Episode Title: From Purpose to Growth: How Seen Nutrition Scaled a Women’s Health Startup
Release Date: April 27, 2026
Host: CenterState CEO (Speaker A)
Featured Guest: Dr. Adrienne Batar, Co-Founder of Seen Nutrition (Speaker B)

---

Episode Overview

In this episode of the Talk CNY miniseries "Leadership Lessons," host CenterState CEO sits down with Dr. Adrienne Batar, co-founder of Seen Nutrition, to discuss the founding story and rapid scaling of their women’s health startup. The conversation focuses on how personal experiences, purpose-driven leadership, and community resources helped Dr. Batar and her co-founder, Dr. Jennifer Hahn, develop an innovative, food-based calcium chew—filling a major gap in women’s bone health. The episode also delves into winning the Grow NY accelerator, the importance of relationships and mentorship, and candid insights into entrepreneurial resilience.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Inspiration Behind Seen Nutrition

• Personal Journeys to Purpose-Driven Innovation

  • Dr. Batar’s mother has lived with osteoporosis for 31 years, diagnosed at 47, and Dr. Jennifer Hahn (co-founder) also has a rare form of osteoporosis ([01:11]).

  • Recognized a gap in the market for a real-food based, non-synthetic bone health supplement—specifically catering to women’s unique nutritional needs.

    “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.” — Dr. Adrienne Batar [01:31]

• The Power of Complementary Expertise

  • Dr. Batar, a food studies scholar, and Dr. Hahn, a clinical pharmacist, combined their “food as medicine” philosophies to create Seen Nutrition ([01:45]).

---

Overcoming Challenges: The Road to Innovation

• Technical and Business Hurdles

  • Technical: Developing, patenting, and scaling a novel food formulation posed expected but complex technical barriers ([02:50]).

  • Business: Lacking formal business backgrounds, the co-founders leaned heavily on mentorship, learning the ropes of e-commerce and scaling a direct-to-consumer product.

    “Scaling a e-commerce direct to consumer company required us to learn a lot... through mentorship and advising and just good old long hours and hard work.” — Dr. Adrienne Batar [03:25]

• Leveraging Cornell Agritech Food Innovation Lab

  • The team at Geneva, NY offered Seen Nutrition practical guidance, laboratory resources, and encouragement despite their newcomer status in food entrepreneurship ([03:48]).

    “They really took us seriously from day one, even though we weren’t seasoned food entrepreneurs by any means...they opened up their vast library of resources.” — Dr. Adrienne Batar [04:01]

---

Scaling Success: Milestones and Growth Drivers

• Serving All 50 States

  • Reached this milestone by leveraging relationships with menopause health coaches, physical therapists, dietitians, and through advisory roles at the Bone Health & Osteoporosis Foundation and National Menopause Foundation ([04:57]).

    “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.” — Dr. Adrienne Batar [05:19]

  • Customer feedback proved pivotal—many women longed for a calcium option that didn’t upset their stomachs.

---

Grow NY Accelerator: Transformative Impact

• Winning and its Outcomes

  • Being a Grow NY accelerator winner enabled collaborations with Holy Childhood (Rochester) for scaled production, benefiting both the company and a workforce with special needs ([06:15]).

  • The $500,000 prize accelerated hiring (customer support, operations, marketing) and supported more aggressive expansion goals.

    “With the $500,000 prize money, we are able to accelerate our hiring plans...we’re just accelerating the growth, accelerating our sales scaling process.” — Dr. Adrienne Batar [06:45]

• Advice for Future Applicants

  • Dr. Batar encourages startups to apply, highlighting the value of recognition, doors opened, mentorship, and even just being a finalist ([07:25]).

    “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 a real zoomed out perspective on the potential and promise of our business.” — Dr. Adrienne Batar [07:43]

---

Rapid Fire Leadership Insights

Influences on Leadership

• Biggest Influence:

  • Dr. Batar credits her parents, particularly her mother’s late-career achievements and her father’s encouragement to be bold ([08:46]).

    “My mom went to law school when she was 47 with four kids...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.” — Dr. Adrienne Batar [08:51]

Leadership Lessons Learned

• Take Decisive Action:
  • Quickly making and owning decisions is more productive than overthinking ([09:18]).

Motivation During Setbacks

• Customer Impact as Fuel:

  • Staying motivated by focusing on the real women benefitting from their products ([09:42]).

    “If I actually think about the women that we’re serving...we recognize that there’s actual people who depend on us and actual lives that we’re changing.” — Dr. Adrienne Batar [09:52]

Turning Challenges Into Growth

• Zooming Out and Assessing:
  • Sometimes resistance is a sign to course-correct rather than persist ([10:19]).

Lifelong Learning

• Continuous Skill Development:

  • Dr. Batar finds learning resources via YouTube and academic conference recordings ([10:50]).

    “A lot of academic conferences put their conference proceedings on YouTube...if it’s anything to do with bone health or bone health nutrition, very cool.” — Dr. Adrienne Batar [11:00]

---

Final Advice to Entrepreneurs

• Embrace Your Role and Seek Resources Early

  • Identify as a founder from day one; engage with resources like the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) for support and legitimacy ([11:33]).

    “Start early, identifying yourself as the co-founder of X Company...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...saying it made it real.” — Dr. Adrienne Batar [11:37]

---

Memorable Quotes — Quick Reference

• On market gaps and personal “why”:
  “If it wasn’t us that was going to start this company, who could it really be?” — Dr. Adrienne Batar [01:18]

• On the Grow NY 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.” — Dr. Adrienne Batar [08:11]

---

Notable Segments & Timestamps

• [01:11] — Origins and inspiration for Seen Nutrition
• [02:50] — Technical and business challenges in startup phase
• [03:48] — Role of Cornell Agritech Food Innovation Lab
• [04:57] — How relationships enabled nationwide growth
• [06:15] — Winning Grow NY Accelerator and scaling impact
• [07:25] — Advice for accelerator hopefuls
• [08:38] — Rapid Fire: Biggest leadership influence
• [09:18] — Leadership lesson: Taking action
• [09:42] — Staying motivated by customer impact
• [11:33] — Final advice for entrepreneurs

---

Tone & Takeaways

Friendly, encouraging, and deeply authentic, Dr. Batar’s conversation is a blend of actionable business advice, personal storytelling, and core leadership lessons. The episode is particularly valuable for early-stage founders, women’s health advocates, and anyone seeking insight into scaling mission-driven startups.

---

For more, find additional content with Dr. Batar on CenterState CEO’s social media channels and the Talk CNY miniseries on your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the talk CNY miniseries Leadership Lessons presented by Axcelis 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 Hahn, a clinical pharmacist, and Dr. Adrian Batar, a Cornell University lecturer, joined forces in Ithaca, New York to create the calcium chew. Joining me today is Dr. Adrienne Batar to discuss See Nutrition and what her journey teaches us about leadership, resilience, and building solutions to support Women's Health. Welcome, Dr. Batar. It is a pleasure to have you with us today.

[B]

It is a delight to join you.

[A]

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

[B]

It's a good question because when Jenny and I, Dr. Jennifer Hahn, my co founder and I first set out to create Scene, 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 Hahn, 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 our food as medicine and our shared commitment to bone health, we decided to start Seeing Nutrition as a bone health nutrition company.

[A]

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.

[B]

Thank you so much.

[A]

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

[B]

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. 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.

[A]

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?

[B]

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 like we are contacts there. Mark Scoville and the whole team in Geneva were just, 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.

[A]

In a sense, they made you feel seen while you were there.

[B]

That's right, they did. We felt very seen and understood. Oh, that's beautiful.

[A]

Well, it's so exciting that see 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?

[B]

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 rely that specialize in osteoporosis prevention and awareness, nutritionists, dietitians. 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, like, 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.

[A]

Beautiful. Dr. Batar. In 2025, senutrition was one of the official winners of the Grow Ny accelerator. Can you describe for us, like, what that experience was like and how it's helped your company?

[B]

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 juice. 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. It'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 sales scaling process.

[A]

You all are doing wonderful. You and Dr. Hahn. If someone's at home and they're saying, you know what, I would like to apply to the Grow Ny accelerator, but they're unsure if they should, what would you say to them?

[B]

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 NY mentor, Alex Hagan. That was extremely helpful in just professionalizing our books and make, and it was helpful in educating. It gave us a real zoomed out perspective on the potential and promise of, of our business and what we had already accomplished to that point. So long story short, and then if

[A]

you win, you win.

[B]

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.

[A]

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.

[B]

Okay, I'm ready.

[A]

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

[B]

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, you know, nothing's too big for you to just break into. So my parents.

[A]

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

[B]

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.

[A]

How do you stay motivated during difficult times or setbacks?

[B]

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 7 by 5 by 3 white boxes going out to Kansas and California and the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, and then we see the reviews, we about talk, 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.

[A]

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

[B]

I think it's good to zoom back, zoom out, and think, like, why? 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.

[A]

How do you continue to grow and refine your skills?

[B]

YouTube. 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, you know, six views, probably two of those views are mine. If it's anything to do with bone health or bone health, nutrition, very cool.

[A]

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 says an entrepreneur, they're working on bringing their product to market, what advice would you give them?

[B]

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, 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 C 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.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

You did great. Well, if anyone watching would like some additional content from Dr. Batar, it will be available across Center State CEOs, social media channels. Talk CNY. The miniseries Leadership Lessons, presented by Axcelis Blue Cross Blue Shield, is available across all podcast platforms and on centerstateceo.com thanks for watching. Have a great day.

[C]

It's why I love my job. It's literally the best benefit that Excellus has to offer where you can actually sit and talk to someone face to face.

[B]

I've been studying this for two weeks now. I solved my problem in 10 minutes.

[C]

I try to make it as simple as possible. I look at each member as if they were my family. And I would want someone to take the necessary steps to reassure them and not not take up too much of their time.

[A]

Come see us if you have a

[B]

problem and we will help you.

[C]

And if we don't have the answer,

[B]

we'll find the answer together.