Redacare is an online platform co-founded by Yasmina Renaudin that connects clients with certified holistic therapists offering services like acupuncture, reflexology and Reiki. It aims to simplify appointment booking and client management for both practitioners and users.
Yasmina’s journey is deeply personal. Her experience as a mother inspired her to create better care, and she brings a background in promoting integrative medicine in France. She’s also active in the Irish entrepreneurial ecosystem, having participated in events like National Women’s enterprise day and International Women’s Day panel discussions. Kerry MacConnell caught up with Yasmina for a chat about her journey so far…
Kerry
Yasmina, you’re very welcome today. Can you tell me what inspired you to start Redacare and how has your personal journey shaped the platform’s mission?
Yasmina
My husband and I are parents to a child with health issues, and, trying to help him, we took him to see all the doctors and holistic therapists we could find in Ireland, France, Morocco or Canada, and doing so, we saw firsthand what French therapists have access to, speaking about tech tools that the Irish don’t have, and this is where we thought we could do something about it. My husband is a software engineer, so it came in handy to create an online platform and for myown background, I have a Master’s degree in finance. I worked for big companies like KPMG and L’Oreal, but I spent two years as a mmember of the directory of an organization in France called Notre Sante to help connect the doctors with holistic therapists. This is what is called integrative medicine, and the way we look at it is that we need to consider the person holistically, as a person, and do whatever works best for them. So I learned a lot through that two years, and this is also what gave me the idea of creating Redacare here in Ireland.
Kerry
That brings me nicely to the next question, which is, can you share the moment when you realised this idea could become a business?
Yasmina
I stopped working for a few years to have my kids and see them grow up. That was very important for my husband and I, and when my youngest started ‘big school,’ I wanted to go back to work. I just couldn’t go back to any work after everything we had gone through with our son, I needed something meaningful. This is when I thought, I really need to do something about Holistic Therapists and bring what is working very well in France to Ireland. But I needed to see if there was a market for it. I googled it, as you do, and I found out that the complementary medicine market is growing up by 24% per year. This is huge. The other thing that I came across was the WHO first summit about complementary medicine in India in 2023 and the highlight of that summit was complementary traditional integrative medicine, and seeing that we can see how everyone now is trying to consider the person and not the disease anymore, and try to help them, by many ways, to get to that stage of wellness.
Kerry
What gap in the wellness or holistic therapy space does Redacare aim to fill?
Yasmina
I can speak from experience, when I was looking for therapist for my son, for example. He had hay fever. Doing my research, I found out that acupuncture was very helpful. In his case, I tried to find an acupuncturist in Kerry, where I am living. I found a doctor who is also an acupuncturist. I called him, the secretary, said he stopped since covid, this was in 2023 so the website wasn’t updated. Then I found another therapist. I didn’t know if she could treat kids. I it took me one week to send her an email. It took her two weeks to get back to me. It took us six weeks altogether to book an appointment. This is where I could see that finding an app or platform where I could find all the key information I need about the certified therapist and a booking system could be life changing for me, and as a mom again, I will sit to look for those therapists after 8pm when the kids are finally gone to sleep. This kind of platform exists in France. It is very successful. It is very handy, because in one place, you can see the therapist and see if they can help you, if they can treat a child or an elderly or a pregnant woman. All those information need to be centrally located, and this is what is lacking. Usually, if I find a therapist and love whatever they are doing, but they might have only an Instagram page, and I cannot even find where they are located. Are they in Ireland? Are they in USA? Sometimes information is lacking when the therapist tweet themselves. So Redacare helps them put all the key information together.
Kerry
How do you see Redacare evolving the way people access alternative therapies?
Yasmina
the main thing for us is security and safety. We are working with certified holistic therapists only. They need to be a member of a society or association of their field. They need to be insured and certified. Of course, the way we see the need for complementary medicine increasing around the world, we know that this is something that also exists in Ireland. Whenever I speak to someone, people always share with me the experience or the need for them to find the right therapist, the right match. So I know that Redacare is helping therapists to be more visible online, to have those tech tools that usually they’re not very good at, and to make them more visible for the patients who are looking for them.
Kerry
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in the early stages of building Redacare?
Yasmina
for myself, I will say, I had more support than challenges, but English would have been my biggest challenge, as it’s not my first language, and it took me a while to find the right words to explain what I was trying to do, but I think I’m getting better at it! (laughs)
Kerry
Definitely! Can I ask, did you encounter any scepticism or barriers in promoting Holistic Health digitally?
Speaker 2
No, the market is ready for it. The more I speak to people, even to investors, they’re like, ‘I use complementary medicine. I would love to see such a platform, a safe one available, where I can go and find someone who can help me.’ So the need is definitely there.
Kerry
How has being part of the RDI hub influenced your journey?
Yasmina
in so many good ways. For example, the RDI hub looks amazing. People are always very happy to come here, and it looks very professional away from my own home. And the other thing is support. Whenever we have a questions we can just turn to one of the members of the team, and answers are always there. Then there’s the events that we attend. We are always learning, we don’t feel like we are lost somewhere in this entrepreneurial journey on our own. We are a team. I have colleagues, even though they are not in my own company,) but they are running their own companies, and can go through things together. We can speak about struggles and learn from each other, which is very much needed at our (early) stage.
Kerry
And what role has mentorship or peer support plays in your growth as a founder?
Yasmina
Oh a huge one. As you can hear, I’m not Irish, I’m French-Moroccan. So I was lacking lots of information in the entrepreneur world, and mentors could explain to me what way to go, what to do, how to adapt to the Irish market. So this is priceless.
Kerry
And how does Redacare use technology to streamline the experience for both therapists and clients?
Yasmina
We have one platform for everything you need, the information about the therapist, the way they can help you what their therapy is, what it is used to treat or to help with, their certifications, the time you can book with them. Everything is in one place. This is for the therapists also to have everything centered. They don’t need to send those texts to say if they’re available on a Friday at 2pm or Monday at 8am the platform does this for them, and it sends the reminders, it sends confirmation emails, and this helps to reduce The no-shows by 60% and we know how those appointments are very important for the therapist, so we would like to help them manage their admin smoothly.
Kerry
Are there any upcoming features or innovations you’re excited about?
Yasmina
(Laughs) My husband loves his job, and he’s always doing new things. He has just redone the whole website two days ago with a new technology. It’s not visible on the front-end of the website, but there is a lot of work in the back-end. And the other thing is that we are also moving all our data to Ireland. It was in Europe previously, but we decided to have everything in the same country for safety reasons.
Kerry
Yasmina, as a French Moroccan entrepreneur living in Ireland, how has your multicultural background influenced your approach to wellness and business?
Yasmina
I grew up in Morocco, where using herbs was as natural as drinking water. And then I moved to France, where going to the osteopath was something that everyone would do, or having homeopathy at home was very normal. So I grew up in this environment. Coming to Ireland, I was looking for holistic therapists, and I was amazed by the number that I found just in Killarney, for example. What I found hard was to get information about them. Usually, the websites are very old, not updated. Information is lacking. Again, sending those SMS if the evening time can be very daunting and takes time on both sides. So also, we wanted to give back to those therapists who have been there for us. They were the ones creating the space being there listening. Don’t get me wrong, the doctors did an amazing work, but they are overworked. They are busy. They are always rushing, and it was feeling so good to have to be sitting in front of someone who could understand and create that safe space where we could explain and get understood and get the right support that we needed alongside the allopathic medicine. So this platform is our way to say thank you and to help change the landscape of holistic medicine in Ireland.
Kerry
And what does wellness mean to you personally?
Yasmina
The state, when we stop worrying all the time. I went through very, very hard times with my son, and I couldn’t see the tomorrow at some stages and wellness is when you don’t need to think about your health anymore, because you feel good, you wake up, you don’t have any worries health-wise or any pain.
Kerry
It’s something we all take for granted. And Yasmina, what milestones has Redacare achieved so far that you’re most proud of?
Yasmina
So many! We had an amazing support in Ireland. I think its the way we had people available to help at every stage. We were very lucky to be accepted in the new frontiers program phase one and two, that helps us build everything about the company, the business and finances, everything, and then we had great support from Kerry LEO. We had our primary grant from them, and all that help made Redacare possible and available and online, and we just have a new member of the team with our sales manager with over 20 years in international companies. And she believes in everything we are doing, and she sees the meaning in such a platform trying to help in our way. And yes, we cannot wait for what’s happening next.
Kerry
Do you have any plans to expand Redacare beyond Ireland or into new service areas?
Yasmina
Of course, to both. The plan is to open the platform to physiotherapists and many, many other therapists that are available, but it’s hard to get them online. The other plan will be to expand internationally. We are considering UK, of course, but also Canada and Morocco, where we have a very strong connections. We don’t need to go to France, because the service already exists there, and it’s absolutely impressive. A platform like Redacare in France has over 1 million visits per month, which is huge. So this is not the market we are going after, but this is a market we are learning a lot from.
Kerry
And what advice would you give to other women considering entrepreneurship in wellness or tech?
Yasmina
Just go for it. The help is there. There is amazing support, specifically for women, there are networks, again, just for women to give that support, that understanding, to create that space. So just start, what I had was an idea, and today, we are growing. We have big dreams ahead of us, and we are willing to go after each of them.
Kerry
And last question, looking back, what has been the most defining moments in your entrepreneurial journey?
Yasmina
I don’t think you know it, but you were there when it happened. It was at the (NDRC) Founder Weekend organized by the RDI hub. It was online at that stage, I think February 2023, and I joined just because I saw an Instagram post and they said, I have nothing to lose. I have my idea. Just go for it. But speaking to each of you made me realize that there was a business, there was something I could do about it, and from there, very nicely. Maeve (Lyons) was working here at RDI hub, made me meet with the manager of the New Frontiers at that stage. And this is where the story started. Everything started at that Founder Weekend, just going with an idea. The growth today, after the New Frontiers Program that I also joined the PreAccelerator program with the NDRC here in RDI hub, I had the grant from LEO by them. Everything was possible because of that weekend.
Kerry
(Laughs) That’s lovely and totally unscripted! That is a lovely way to wrap up. Thank you so much, Yasmina, so much happening – very exciting times ahead. Thanks for joining us. And if somebody wants to find out more about your platform, how can they access Redacare?
Yasmina
Please do. Our platform is Redacare. Redacare.io
We are also on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, and I am always happy to have a chat.
Kerry
Thanks very much Yasmina.
