Michelle Gelband Builds Openly Health for Women's Sexual Health

Sexual health is the throughline between nearly every condition, relationship, and stage of life, and it's also one of the most fragmented corners of women's healthcare. Michelle Gelband learned that twice over, as a clinician and as a patient. Openly Health is her answer.

Michelle Gelband is the founder and CEO of Openly Health, a platform that helps women navigate sexual health by connecting them with vetted providers, evidence-based education, supportive community, and trusted products in one place. A psychotherapist and sex therapist who holds an LMSW and an MPH, she built her career across OB-GYN hospital systems, clinical research, and mental health. A member of the Entreprenista League, she never set to be a founder. The problem she cared about made the decision for her.

A problem she lived and treated

Michelle watched countless women struggle to find answers while she worked in healthcare, and she navigated many of the same challenges herself while living with endometriosis. Over time she saw that the problem was not a shortage of great clinicians. It was the absence of a trusted place to navigate the system. "Women shouldn't have to spend years piecing together care across Google, Reddit, AI, and multiple providers."

Sexual health, she is quick to point out, is far more than STIs and the act of sex. It is the throughline between every condition, human, and experience, and it deserves a front door of its own.

What Openly Health brings together

Openly Health serves women navigating everything from endometriosis, vulvodynia, and pelvic pain to low desire, menopause, postpartum changes, anxiety, and relationship concerns. The platform connects them with vetted providers, education they can trust, community, and products, all in one place.

It also serves the providers. Michelle designed the platform to help clinicians connect with patients, grow their practices, and collaborate inside a trusted multidisciplinary network.

Building credibility before scale

Michelle focused on earning trust during her launch. She creates educational content, shares her perspective, and personally reaches out to clinicians, researchers, and women's health organizations.

"It's been slower than a traditional marketing launch," she says, "but those conversations have been invaluable in shaping the platform and building trust from the ground up in the right way."

A year of proof

This past year, Michelle completed her MPH while continuing her clinical work, launched the Openly Health MVP, and began introducing the platform to providers, founders, and leaders across women's health. Taking a problem she had cared about for years and watching it become something real is the accomplishment she is proudest of.

As a self-described non-technical founder, she credits Claude Code with helping her build the MVP and move faster than she thought possible. Every conversation, she says, reinforces how urgently the problem needs solving.

Advice from the early days

Michelle is early in her founder journey and honest about it. Her biggest learning lesson so far is that asking for help is not a weakness, and that harder days are part of the path.

Her advice to other founders is the practice that shaped Openly Health. "Talk to the people you're building for early and often," she says. "It's tempting to spend months perfecting an idea, but the most valuable insights come from real conversations."

What's next

Michelle is focused on growing the network of vetted providers, expanding educational content, building out a product marketplace and community, and learning from early users. Longer term, she hopes Openly Health becomes the trusted destination women turn to when they need to navigate sexual health, and the place providers want to be because it helps them reach patients and improve care together.

You can follow Michelle on LinkedIn and explore the platform at openlyhealth.io.

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If Michelle's approach to helping women navigate sexual health resonates, the Entreprenista League is a community of women founders who value connection, shared experience, and practical business insight as they grow. Learn more about the Entreprenista League right here.