Anastasia Vernidub Is Rebuilding Wellio AI for Wellness Coaches

Anastasia Vernidub launched Wellio to a network she trusted. Online fitness and wellness coaches she already knew would sign up, feel the difference in their admin load, and tell other coaches about it. Onboarding friction stopped coaches before they reached the part of the product that mattered.

Anastasia Vernidub is the founder of Wellio AI, an AI client-management assistant for online fitness and wellness coaches. She spent more than 9 years building digital products across healthcare, technology, e-commerce, and AI, and she is a certified nutrition coach with her own client roster. A member of the Entreprenista League, Ana is rebuilding the product around what those first coaches showed her.

“A strong product is not enough if people struggle to get started or do not already understand why they need it.”

Since that launch, Ana has spent the time rebuilding Wellio around the people it is for. This is what that looks like now.

The launch that stopped at onboarding

When Wellio first came out, Ana was deep in the product. She assumed the coaches in her existing network would adopt it, see the value, and help spread the word on their own. Getting set up proved harder than she anticipated.

“Onboarding issues created too much friction, so coaches never reached the point where they could fully experience the product’s value,” she says. She calls it a difficult and important lesson, and she changed her order of operations because of it. Customer discovery, clear positioning, and demand now come ahead of new features.

“Looking back, I should have started building the audience and testing the marketing much earlier, alongside the product,” she says.

Wellio is for coaches

Wellio sends client check-ins on schedule, reads the responses, and flags clients who need attention. It drafts a reply in the coach’s own voice for the coach to approve or edit. New clients can be set up from a voice description, written notes, or photos.

It also gathers what clients already track into one screen, connecting to apps including Apple Health, Garmin, Whoop, Oura, Fitbit, and MyFitnessPal. Her customers are “online fitness coaches, personal trainers, nutrition coaches, and other wellness professionals who manage clients remotely and want to grow without sacrificing the quality of their support.”

What she brought from 9 years in product

For most of her career, Ana was solving problems inside established companies. She led digital products across healthcare, technology, e-commerce, and AI, taking them from early concept through launch and scale, and she expected to keep doing that.

“Entrepreneurship became real to me only after I immigrated to the United States from Russia and I had to rebuild my life and career from the ground up,” she says. “That experience pushed me to think beyond the next job title and ask myself what I truly wanted to create.”

Her nutrition coaching work exposed the problem. Managing her own clients through fragmented workflows showed her how much of a coach’s week disappears into repetitive work and disconnected tools.

Accepted into an accelerator

One of Ana’s biggest wins this past year was a place in the Foundervine Accelerator USA 2026 cohort, one of 24 early-stage companies selected. She came out of it with mentorship, founder support, and a much clearer understanding of how to build the business around Wellio.

“I am most proud that I took Wellio from an idea to a real product and put it in front of actual coaches,” she says. “I was willing to listen when the first version did not perform as expected, confront what was not working, and rebuild it.”

“That process required resilience, humility, and a willingness to keep learning,” she says. “Wellio is still early, but proving that I can create something from the ground up and continue moving forward through uncertainty has been a major accomplishment for me.”

Relationships before you need anything

The thing Ana wishes she had known earlier has nothing to do with software. “Start building relationships before you need anything,” she says. “A strong community takes time.” The opportunities that have mattered came out of genuine connections she had already made.

She treats her own hours with similar intent. “I do not aim for perfect balance every day. Some days require more work, while others allow more space,” she says. “I try to be intentional about what deserves my attention instead of letting everything feel equally urgent.”

What’s next for Wellio

Ana is heading into a relaunch, with the near-term focus on building demand and growing the client base. Wellio is in early access, and the waitlist is open. Longer term, she wants it supporting both coaches and their clients across industries, handling communication, progress tracking, and admin in one place.

Her advice for anyone in the middle of a rebuild is short. “Just keep going. You will not have everything figured out, and that is okay. Learn as you go, trust yourself, and remember that you’ve got this.”

You can follow Ana on LinkedIn, follow Wellio AI for build updates, and join the early-access waitlist at wellioai.com.

Ana’s rebuild is a reminder that hearing hard feedback early is the fastest way forward, and that the relationships worth having get built long before you have an ask. The Entreprenista League surrounds you with women founders who will tell you honestly what they learned and stay in your corner while you act on it. Learn more about the Entreprenista League right here.