Founders Everywhere: Helle Jeppsson
Founders Everywhere: Helle Jeppsson
Helle Jeppsson is the co-founder & CEO of Scape, the leader of wellness on-demand in Latin America, delivering spa-quality massages and facials to your home, hotel, or office.
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Would you like a massage right now?.....me too. As more people are seeking respite from the fast-paced world, wellness services like facials and massages are becoming increasingly more popular and integrated into modern lifestyles. SCAPE is a Mexico-based wellness app that provides spa-quality massages, facials, and body treatments, on-demand to your home, hotel, or office. They currently operate in 25 cities in Mexico, 4 in Colombia, and will be expanding to Chile and the Dominican Republic.
Co-founder and CEO Helle Jeppsson has over 17 years of experience in the care and wellness industry having owned spa chains in both the US and Mexico. She is joined by co-founder, partner, and CGO José de Murga, COO Patricia Jiménez Villa and CTO Aurora Rodríguez Espinosa. Helle shares more about her journey and how SCAPE is improving the lives of customers and therapists. Time for a SCAPE!
What is SCAPE’s North Star?
Our North Star is to make high-quality wellness services more accessible to people in Latin America. The other part of our mission is to transform the lives of therapists. Latin America has one of the highest densities of therapists per capita in the world, with over 60% working in the informal economy and over 90% being women. There is very little technology in the wellness space and by working with SCAPE, therapists usually make five to six times what they made before. They also have flexible hours, which means they can combine work and family time; and they can work safely, because being a therapist in the region is a highly risky profession. We really value making positive changes for both our clients and therapists.
What sets SCAPE apart?
What sets us apart is our on-demand approach using technology. This is an industry that uses very little tech in general and we are tech-based; we offer bookings through our website and app. We deliver spa-quality services in as little as three hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year from 9am - 11pm.
We’re also very quality oriented and think about every detail from the music, the sheets, the oil, to the overall 360 degree experience. People won’t ask, “Have you booked a massage?,” they will say, “Have you books a SCAPE?” That seems easy, but that takes a lot of work to get there, so I think we've really positioned ourselves as a brand experience.
Tell us about some recent milestones SCAPE crushed.
We recently raised a $1.3M oversubscribed seed round. Up until now, we’ve been bootstrapped, which I think gave us a great advantage in this fundraising environment.
We’ve provided over 85,000 services and today we are the most far-reaching wellness company in Mexico with more than 1,000 therapists.
What’s on the horizon for SCAPE?
We started out as B2C company, but we’re excited to further develop our B2B programs. We have Scape Work, which offers corporate wellness through chair massage programs and gift certificate programs. We also have Scape Hotels, which provide spa services for boutique hotels in the region.
What were some of your greatest challenges founding SCAPE?
This was my first time raising capital and people don’t talk enough about the mental health aspect and all the emotional ups and downs. Being a woman raising in Latin America has definitely been a challenge as well. Unfortunately, there were very few women on the other side of the table and I think it was the first time in my life I felt like it would have been easier to be a man. I hope to see this change in Latin America, with more women represented on both the founder and investor side.
Any favorite podcasts?
There’s one in Spanish called Cracks Podcast with Oso Trava. He does some really good interviews for people looking for content on the founder side. I also love Naval because it has great inputs for entrepreneurs but is also soul satisfying.
Fun Fact: I'm half Swedish, half Norwegian, and I grew up in Madrid. I speak Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish, French, and English.
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Aquí está la versión en español de la entrevista con Helle en Founders Everywhere.