Jessia Lloyd: Building ReAlign to Revolutionize Healing and AI

In this interview, Jessia Lloyd, founder of ReAlign, shares her entrepreneurial journey, from navigating personal challenges to creating a holistic AI startup that integrates cutting-edge science and ancient wisdom to help people heal and grow.

Can you share a brief note about yourself?

I’m Jessia Lloyd, founder and CEO of ReAlign - a holistic AI startup born from lived experience and the pursuit of deep, lasting transformation. My background is anything but traditional. I’ve navigated trauma, illness, and instability, and found my way back through spiritual study, embodiment practices, and relentless curiosity. That journey became my greatest teacher - not a detour, but the source for everything I’m building now.

ReAlign was created because I understand how difficult it is to create real change when you're overwhelmed, disconnected from your body, or carrying invisible weight. We’re designing an application that integrates cutting-edge science, somatic psychology, and ancient wisdom to help people not just learn about healing, but actually embody it in their everyday lives.

Our product is deliberately designed to feel naturally accessible, intuitive, gentle, and easy to use, even when meeting yourself feels difficult. We’re obsessively focused on creating an experience people genuinely want to return to - one that never feels like a chore, and always honors where they are in their journey.

I didn’t grow up with access to power or privilege. Every door I’ve walked through, I had to build first. And while that’s shaped me, it’s also made me deeply committed to creating tools that work for everyone, not just those already inside the system. I believe healing should be available, beautiful, and borderless - and I’m here to make that real. I’m now based in Ibiza, working full-time on ReAlign and preparing for our first fundraising round.

Why did you choose to start a business?

Because nothing else made sense. After everything I’d lived through, I didn’t want to work within broken systems - I wanted to reimagine them. I needed to create something I believed in at a soul level. Something that honoured both human complexity and spiritual potential. For me, business is a form of activism - a way to reclaim power, create community, and show that wholeness and innovation can co-exist.

ReAlign was born from a moment of deep clarity, a kind of inner download. I saw the convergence happening: AI becoming mainstream, breathwork and nervous system healing entering global conversation, mental health no longer hidden in the shadows. It felt like the world was finally ready and I knew I had to respond.

I didn’t start this for money or recognition. I started it because I see a future that doesn’t yet exist - where we can use intelligent technology not to escape ourselves, but to return to ourselves. Where community, consciousness, and care aren’t side effects - they’re features. This is about more than an app. It’s about helping humanity rise into integrity, into embodiment, into a new way of being.

With no traditional business or startup background, I knew I’d have to build this from the ground up - but that was exactly the point.

How did you start your business?

ReAlign began during a turning point in my life. I had just stepped out of a previous chapter - one that no longer aligned - and I found myself wide open to what could come next. I didn’t rush to fill the space. Instead, I gave myself six months off-grid: three months in Ibiza to rest, reconnect with myself, and decompress… and then three months in India.

India was life-changing. I spent time in ashrams, silent meditations, tantra retreats, Ayurvedic clinics - and eventually met my Guruji in a Vedanta school in Pune. That journey broke something open in me and gave me a kind of clarity and personal alignment I had never accessed before.

ReAlign didn’t start with a business plan. It started with late-night voice notes, scribbled journal entries, and conversations with people I trusted. There was no roadmap - just a deep inner knowing that this needed to exist.

I bootstrapped it from day one. Every pound I earned went straight into development, design, or legal foundations. I didn’t find co-creators on job boards - I found them through resonance. I didn’t come from the startup world, so I had to learn fast: how to build product, lead a team, shape operations, and grow a vision from scratch.

It’s been four months since I returned from India, and I’ve now been working full-time on ReAlign ever since. I’m based in Ibiza again, and entering a focused six-month sprint - building product, growing our marketing ecosystem, and preparing for our first fundraising round.

We’re still early. It’s messy and magical, guided more by intuition and grit than by playbooks and polish. But the response so far - from advisors, PhDs, neuroscientists, spiritual mentors, has been a clear yes. That’s when I knew: ReAlign is something people don’t just believe in. They want to be part of it.

What do you wish you’d known before you started your business?

That the internal journey is the business journey. No amount of external progress can compensate for inner misalignment. I knew this on some level - I’d done enough healing work to see the patterns. But I didn’t fully grasp how much my nervous system, trauma history, and unconscious beliefs would shape my decisions, my pacing, and my capacity.

What really caught me off guard was how long everything takes. And how often I’d find myself questioning whether I was moving fast enough, doing enough, being enough. I can be incredibly hard on myself, especially when I forget that I’ve never done any of this before.

I don’t have a business degree. I didn’t come from a world where people taught me how to build systems or raise capital or scale a tech company. I’ve been learning it all in real time - and improvising, intuiting, and integrating as I go. And honestly? That’s been part of the magic. I think the best systems are built by those who were never taught the “right” way to do it anyway.

Did you have any support in your journey?

Yes - and it’s been everything. My support system is made up of real people, bonded not just by skills or roles, but by shared values and deep relational trust. I want to take a moment to say thank you to everybody that is currently supporting us and is a part of the ReAlign team.

To mention some:

I met my CTO about halfway through this journey. What struck me immediately was how respectful, steady, and safe his presence was. I’ve carried deep trust wounds and he never pushed, never made me feel I had to prove or perform. He let me lead in my own way, and over time, we built a foundation strong enough to call each other co-founders. He brings tech brilliance, yes, but more than that, he brings a deep reverence for the vision, and an invaluable perspective that brings balance to our processes. I’m incredibly lucky to have him by my side.

My Head of Marketing, on the other hand, has been with me long before ReAlign had a name. We’ve been friends for years, soul-family level. For over five years, we’ve been dreaming, journaling, voice-noting, and philosophizing about healing, embodiment, and systems change… not realizing that those threads would one day become the roots of ReAlign. Without him, I wouldn’t be standing here in my full strength, and our understanding and ability to communicate with absolute honesty is a true asset to the integrity of the business.

Our bond has weathered the usual disagreements and friction any long term relationship may encounter, but that's only made our communication stronger. He’s never wavered on his commitment. He came to me with clarity and conviction. He truly believes building ReAlign - this tool that can help people on a global scale - is among the most meaningful things a person could choose to do right now, and despite any difficult moments, he’s continued to choose to stay and to fight for the vision.

We don’t operate like a corporate org chart. We operate like a family. We’re not just building something for the world, we’re building something that comes from us. ReAlign is embedded in our stories, our narratives, our blood. This isn’t a company we clock in and out of. It’s who we are. It’s why, no matter how long it takes or how many doors get shut in our faces, we won’t stop. Because this moment - this build - is what we’ve been waking up dreaming about for years.

What is your greatest challenge as a business owner?

Holding the vision while navigating the weight of responsibility. I care deeply - about people, the mission, the quality of what we’re building. That care is a gift, but it’s also heavy at times. I’m bootstrapping. I wear multiple hats. And I’m building something that doesn’t really follow a traditional map.

One of the biggest challenges has been giving myself permission to do things differently. We’re not headquartered in Silicon Valley, we’re laying roots in Ibiza, London, and Dubai. For some, that might raise eyebrows. But for us, it’s exactly what we need. Ibiza brings us into nature, embodiment, community and healing. Dubai gives us structure and a global bridge to the future. And London grounds us in conversation, funding pathways, and one of the global front lines of people balancing work and life.

It’s where bold ideas meet thoughtful discourse. Where heritage and innovation coexist. Where the human element isn’t lost in the tech - but made central to it.

It’s part of our bigger vision to expand ReAlign into global markets like the US, starting with Los Angeles, when the time is right. But we’re not rushing. We’re building slowly, with intention, and in places that feed our nervous systems and product market fit simultaneously - not just our metrics.

Balancing innovation with execution, intuition with structure - that’s been my personal edge as a founder. And I’m still learning how to hold both.

What advice would you give to your past self before opening your own business?

Start sooner. You’ll never feel fully ready, but you’ll grow as you build. Don’t wait for permission or perfection. Trust that your voice, your story, and your truth are enough. And take care of your body - your nervous system is the CEO. The doors will open if you feel truly worthy of them. And that, oh - I’m so proud of you.

Reflecting on your path to entrepreneurship, what key piece of advice would you offer to aspiring founders?

You’re not just building a product = you’re building a mirror. Every friction point along the way will reflect something back at you. Your fears. Your patterns. Your power. Let it. That’s where the real growth happens.

Stay close to your why. Surround yourself with people who keep you rooted in truth. And don’t be afraid to disrupt the systems that never made space for your kind of genius. The world doesn’t need another founder playing by someone else’s rulebook. It needs people brave enough to write their own.