After years working in healthcare and tech startups, Linda Xu hit a wall during the pandemic-burnt out, stressed, and frustrated by wellness products that didn't work and didn't feel made for her. With a background in biomedical engineering and product management, and a deep appreciation for both Eastern and Western approaches to health, Xu decided to build something different.

Enter HUA Wellness, a line of stress relief supplements created for women, grounded in traditional herbal wisdom and backed by science. From her early experiences with her physician mom and Chinese grandmother to navigating the pressures of startup life, Linda's journey is the foundation of HUA Wellness's thoughtful approach to wellness.

In this Q&A, she opens up about her experience starting her company and why wellness needs to be realistic, inclusive, and rooted in balance.

What inspired you to create HUA Wellness?

I was inspired to create HUA after experiencing burnout working at tech startups during the pandemic and not being able to find effective supplements for stress support. Not only did I find many brands ineffective but also I just didn't resonate with them. Many wellness brands marketed to women felt unrelatable with celebrity or influencer driven branding, or inauthentic with brands that touted holistic Eastern inspiration without any founders behind the brand that reflected those backgrounds. Meanwhile, in the adaptogen space, it was dominated by a hyper performance and masculine energy driven by these biohacking bros that wanted to live forever. After I discovered that I was not alone, young women are nearly twice as stressed as young men, I wanted to create a solution that better addressed stress relief for women.

How has your background in biomedical engineering and product management informed your approach to developing wellness products?

Having a biomedical engineering background and having worked in the medical device industry definitely helped me navigate a highly regulated space and seek higher quality standards for my products. While supplements need to comply with FDA guidelines, they don't need to be approved by the FDA before being on the market, so many supplements brands forgo additional validation processes. Having become familiar with rigorous quality control standards from working in an industry much more regulated than supplements (medical devices are on a whole other level), it helped me weed out suppliers with lower standards and find ones that do go that extra mile to ensure product quality.

As for being a product manager in the health industry, it has informed me on how to build, test, and adapt quickly. Even though I was building digital products (e.g. apps and websites) as a product manager, there's a lot that carries over into the strategy for building a consumer brand. When you're launching a new brand, there's a lot of experimentation that you need to do to figure out what messaging resonates and what marketing channels move the needle the most. Being a product manager has taught me to be nimble, iterate quickly, and problem-solve to meet the needs of my business. Savvy prioritization is also very core to a product manager role so that has helped me remain scrappy and creative with my resources, which is crucial when I'm currently bootstrapped as a solo founder.

Your mother plays a key role as a consultant in developing HUA Wellness products. How has it been working with her and how has her expertise influenced your formulations?

It's been great working with her but obviously, it can be an interesting dynamic with her being my mom. My mom has been passionate about health and wellness my whole life so that really influenced me a lot growing up. I didn't take much over the counter medications growing up, not because it was bad or anything, but because my mom always looked to nutrition and vitamins first when it came to preventative health. So, in that sense, I think she was a little ahead of her time as a doctor in that she emphasized holistic health and stress management in addition to western medicine before it became everything that everyone talks about now. No matter what I was striving for - whether it be in school or career - she always stressed that health was the most important, being sometimes the opposite of a stereotypical "Asian tiger mom".

In terms of her influence on HUA, she was really vital in validating suppliers and ingredient quality as well as helping formulate the supplements with high potency dosages that would actually bring results, a big problem in the supplement world. She also tells me what she's seeing in the real world in terms of the current illnesses and health problems her patients face that can help inform our product R&D and what problems we can develop solutions for. That said, she sees a lot going on and has a lot of ideas all the time but as a small brand, I know we need to stay focused in the short term and tackle a specific problem, like stress management, and expand to other categories when our brand awareness has grown.

As someone with both Chinese and American cultural influences, how do you approach blending Eastern and Western wellness philosophies in your products?

As mentioned in the above question, holistic health was really emphasized to me growing up. Nutrition, supplements, sleep, and mental health were constant lectures from my doctor mom. I also grew up with my Chinese grandma who would give me these disgusting but effective herbal drinks whenever I felt a cold coming on. Growing up in America, though, I didn't appreciate these teachings as a kid and just wanted to fit in with other kids. I was fiercely independent, rebellious and stubborn so after a while, I started taking things for granted and would roll my eyes after hearing the same lectures on health from my mom over and over again. In college, I would demand my mom to write me antibiotic prescriptions to speed up recovery for things I could get over naturally through rest and taking care of myself but those things just seemed overrated to me-everything was about speed. After college, I hustled in various startups and idolized a career in tech so again, I wasn't thinking about health.

Once the pandemic hit and suddenly, work-life boundaries completely blurred and I was just working non-stop, things finally caught up with me and I became completely burnt out to the point of physical symptoms, which ultimately made me revisit those earlier teachings from my mom and embark on a wellness journey that led me to start HUA.

With HUA Wellness, I wanted to balance the best of both worlds-the holistic Chinese approaches that emphasized boosting your body through natural remedies and rest with the American culture that champions speed and results. Our products feature natural ingredients used for centuries in traditional herbal medicine but we're also careful in our sourcing and formulations to use empirical, science-backed standards to ensure quality and performance. For example, our Chill Switch Stress Support supplement includes adaptogens like ashwagandha and holy basil, traditional herbs that go back centuries, but we use patented forms of those herbs that have been studied in real, human clinical trials, and we formulate with the same clinical dosages that those studies show to be effective at reducing stress.

Ultimately, I don't see Eastern and Western wellness philosophies as opposing forces. I believe we need both to navigate the complexities of modern life. You can't rely solely on one or the other for optimal health. Eastern traditions have long understood the mind-body connection, which science is only recently catching up to, like how gut health affects emotional well-being or how stress manifests physically. But those philosophies were designed to maintain health, not treat the chronic or modern-age illnesses we face today.

On the flip side, Western innovation undoubtedly has brought us speed and convenience, but also created many of the problems we're now trying to fix -- disrupted sleep from screens, poor diets from processed food, and burnout from our always-on culture. That's where Eastern wisdom serves as a reminder: our bodies weren't built for this pace, and there's value in slowing down and reconnecting with the natural world. At HUA Wellness, we embrace this duality. Our products are designed to be fast and effective because we know life is busy, but we also champion a holistic lifestyle rooted in nature, mindfulness, and balance. Just as my Chinese and American backgrounds represent two distinct but complementary approaches to health, urban wellness itself lives in the tension between tradition and modernity, slowness and speed, nature and tech. HUA exists in that in-between, offering realistic, intuitive wellness for how we actually live today.

What has been the biggest challenge in launching a supplement brand?

The biggest challenge in launching a supplement brand is financing the inventory, particularly when you're a small bootstrapped brand. Many manufacturers require you to place a high minimum order quantity. Or, if they have lower minimum order quantities, their unit pricing can be high. At the same time, you never want to order TOO MUCH upfront inventory as well when you don't have the data to accurately project demand. So far, I've been able to balance it well and am able to order in small batches and reinvest our profits to acquire more inventory as we grow and develop more data. But we would definitely have better economies of scale and better margins once we've grown to have a much larger order volume. It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem when you're starting out and you have to manage your risks and figure out how best to scale appropriately.

There's a lot of debate around supplements. What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about them?

I think the biggest misconception about supplements is that they are a cop out providing a quick fix and that they are unnecessary as long as you eat a balanced diet. While a balanced diet is always priority number one, there are very real reasons people take supplements. People can have dietary restrictions and genetic or medical conditions that prevent them from obtaining enough nutrients from diet alone. Plus, there is evidence that our food has, over time, become less nutrient dense due to climate change and modern farming practices, so even if you eat perfectly, you may not be getting the same amount of nutrients that people got a hundred years ago from eating the same foods.

At HUA Wellness, we help busy professionals, particularly young women just starting out in their careers (some of the most stressed out demographics out there - twice as stressed as young men), and we strive to promote a realistic, accessible type of wellness. That means acknowledging that no one is perfect in their diet and life choices all the time. It's easier said than done and it's often limited to people with privileged positions that have the time and money to access freshly prepared, organic foods at all times. Our stance is that you should live a healthy lifestyle and spend time in nature as much as you can but you should also have tools at your disposal that help bridge the gaps that inevitably occur in a busy, fast-paced urban lifestyle. Supplements, like their name suggests, are supplementary and are never intended to replace a balanced diet, but we want to offer the best tools you can have to enhance the lifestyle you're already living. At the end of the day, taking supplements is a personal choice and it may not be for everyone. But when it comes to a natural solution for effective stress management, we want to be the best option out there to help people stress less so they can live more.

How do you see the role of supplements in a holistic wellness routine?

I see supplements as pretty ingrained in a holistic wellness routine and can be the actual forcing mechanism to help you stay consistent. For example, I take a "magnesium mocktail" made with our magnesium powder every night and in doing so, it helps me maintain a better bedtime routine. I like to sip the drink while I read or write down a To Do list on pen and paper for the next day. Either way, it helps me transition out of looking at my phone screen and into a more analog world that preps me better for sleep. Similar thing with the Chill Switch - whenever I feel incredibly overwhelmed or anticipate going into a stressful work situation, I take a pause and take the supplement to ease my stress levels. And just the act of intentionally taking the supplements can be a break from the monotony and help me take a step back, breathe and reset in the moment.

Your mission at HUA Wellness includes reconnecting people with nature. Beyond your supplements, what initiatives around green space advocacy or urban wellness are you most proud of developing?

We're just starting out, so it's a little too early to say! But our whole branding and messaging is very much rooted in embracing green spaces and advocating for more. We highlight notable green space projects and provide education on the benefits of green spaces as well as the hurdles that prevent green spaces from being accessible to all. We're organizing our first community brand event this spring in Central Park where we're going to host a "wellness picnic" that merges activities such as meditation and art with a picnic social. We're super excited about this event and can't wait to continue building community in real life through outdoor events that provide opportunities for people to gather and enjoy the green spaces in their cities.

How do you personally balance urban living with nature in your daily life?

I try to take a walk every day outside. I do so as a regular habit, but also during times of stress where I just need to clear my head to be able to think. Walking outside not only helps me reset, but it's one of the best ways to help me come up with ideas and be creative. I enjoy habit stacking as well - doing two things at once to encourage habit building. Sometimes on a walk, I'll have an idea of a topic I want to discuss on social media and I'll film a video while I'm on a walk. I do enjoy running in the park as well and there's no better way to feel like the main character than running to a killer playlist through beautiful scenery.

_______________________________

*Edited for length and clarity

Photo: Images provided by Linda Xu and HUA Wellness