Founded 2021: Musely Challenges Conventional Healthcare to Treat Problems Others Overlooked

Founded in 2021, Musely is a San Jose, California–based tele-dermatology company focused on providing patients with access to treatments for chronic skin conditions, hair loss, menopause, and other aging-related concerns. Today, the company says it is trusted by more than 1.2 million patients and promotes authentic reviews based on its patients’ experiences.

For Founder Jack Jia, building Musely meant tackling a problem that extended beyond developing a telehealth platform. He saw millions of people struggling with conditions that the traditional healthcare system often treated as cosmetic or wellness concerns, leaving patients with limited options.

“The greatest challenge was building a business for problems that the traditional healthcare system did not take seriously,” Jia said.

Patients dealing with chronic skin conditions, hair loss, menopause, chronic pain, and other concerns were often left choosing between expensive office visits, mass-market products that didn’t work, or no treatment at all. Jia believed telehealth could provide another option, but earning patients’ trust required more than creating a website and shipping products.

Musely took a vertically integrated approach, bringing doctors, pharmacy, chemists, technology, and patient support into the business so it could control and continually improve the patient experience. That approach was more difficult to build, but it allowed the company to develop treatments for problems that others considered too niche, difficult, or even untreatable.

The company also took a disciplined approach to growth. Rather than pursuing a growth-at-all-costs strategy, Musely remained lean, focused on profitability and maintained discipline around capital. According to Jia, that approach gave the company the ability to spend more than a decade testing and refining its model without giving up control or compromising the patient experience.

That experience shaped Musely’s culture around three principles: solving problems that others overlook, proving that treatments work, and building a sustainable business around the patient.

Jia’s approach to entrepreneurship is rooted in questioning assumptions. He calls it common sense, although the concept is often referred to as “first-principles thinking.”

Before founding Musely, Jia wanted to build a putting green in his backyard. After a contractor quoted him $300,000, he questioned why the project needed to cost so much. He researched the materials and construction process and ultimately built the putting green himself for about $5,000.

That experience taught him to ask a simple question when faced with a conventional solution: Why does it have to cost so much?

He brought the same thinking to Musely. When Jia looked at the traditional cost structure surrounding tretinoin, a medication used to treat acne and fine lines, he questioned whether there was a better way to make the treatment more affordable. By breaking down the existing model and rebuilding it from first principles, Musely made tretinoin available at a cost that Jia says was up to 700 times lower than pharmaceutical options.

The company applied the same approach when developing The Body Cream. Experts had told Jia that certain body skin conditions were effectively untreatable because the skin was too thick for medications to penetrate properly. Rather than accepting that conclusion, Musely developed its proprietary Musely Micro Base using smaller molecules designed to penetrate the skin and allow medications to work.

The experience reinforced Jia’s belief that entrepreneurs should be willing to challenge conventional wisdom when it doesn’t make sense.

“Break the rules, but use common sense as your guide,” Jia said.

That philosophy extends beyond products and into how Jia builds his team. Rather than focusing primarily on years of experience, he looks for talent, passion, curiosity, and a willingness to learn.

His approach is to prioritize talent and passion over experience, particularly in a startup environment where conventional wisdom can sometimes limit how people approach problems. Jia believes talented people who are hungry, curious, and willing to learn quickly can bring a different perspective to challenges that may otherwise seem impossible.

After more than a decade in business, Musely has also learned the importance of moving quickly when testing new ideas. Jia believes entrepreneurs inevitably encounter obstacles that cannot be solved simply by thinking about them longer. Instead, they have to test potential solutions, learn from failures, and keep iterating.

“Failure is not the opposite of success. Failure, followed by a better iteration, is how you reach success,” Jia said.

For Jia, however, not every problem is worth disrupting. Entrepreneurs should look for large markets with meaningful, widespread problems rather than spending their energy trying to transform a small market with limited potential impact.

That means knowing where to go against the grain—and where doing so can create the most meaningful change.

Jia also believes successful companies need more than people who can solve problems. They need people who can identify the problems worth solving in the first place.

The strongest team members, he says, develop a genuine passion for the space they work in, recognize important problems that others overlook, and remain committed enough to find solutions.

Musely’s evolution reflects that philosophy. What began with a desire to challenge how people access treatment has grown into a tele-dermatology company serving more than 1.2 million patients, according to the company.

For Jia, the lessons from building Musely come back to a willingness to question assumptions, move quickly and remain focused on problems that matter. Entrepreneurs may not always know whether an idea will work when they begin, but they can increase their chances of success by testing their assumptions and listening closely to what they learn.

The goal isn’t simply to break the rules. It’s to understand why they exist, determine whether they still make sense and build something better when they don’t.

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