From Surviving A Stroke to Laso: The Journey to Building a Better Symptom Tracker
By Janelle Soriano, Founder of Laso
I didn’t initially set out to start a health tech company.
I just wanted to feel better. I was desperate to make sense of my health and take some control of it back.
When I had my first stroke at age 30, everything changed. Suddenly, tracking symptoms wasn’t just a nice-to-have, it was survival. It was the difference between knowing if it’s just a headache and regular pins and needles on my feet, or if a 911 call is critical because I’m having another stroke. But the tools I found didn’t make me feel seen, supported, or even functional. They made me feel like I was “failing” at being sick.
Checkboxes. Sliders. Drop-downs. Symptom tracking apps that required more energy and cognitive power than I had. Apps that assumed I had the cognitive clarity and physical bandwidth to fill them out daily.
Some days, I could barely hold my phone or stare at screens, let alone log pain levels and triggers.
So like a lot of people in the chronic illness community… I stopped tracking altogether.
But my symptoms didn’t stop. And neither did the overwhelm, guilt and shame.
A Health System That Makes You Work While You’re Already Unwell
Anyone who's been dismissed, gaslit, or brushed off by doctors knows: symptom tracking isn’t just about memory. It’s about proof.
You track to show patterns, frequency and intensity. To legitimize your pain. To advocate for yourself when the system won’t.
But the irony is: the very people who need this data most are often the least equipped to manage it. Chronic illness doesn’t come with consistency. It comes with fatigue, flares, brain fog, and unpredictability.
The burden of logging everything perfectly and consistently every day is unrealistic and, frankly, unfair.
The Spark for Something Different
One day, frustrated and foggy, I remember thinking:
"I talk about my symptoms all the time… what if that was enough?"
That’s when the idea for Laso was born.
What if symptom tracking didn’t feel like a chore? What if it felt natural and frictionless?
What if it worked with your voice? Your pace? Your lived experience?
Building for the Foggy, the Flaring, and the Fatigued
I took everything I knew from my years building and launching first-in-market apps across the US and from my time heading International Expansion Strategic Initiatives at AWS, to my lived experience as a patient and I started reimagining what symptom tracking could and should be like by designing Laso from the ground up: a voice-first, low-touch symptom tracker that finally made sense for people like me.
With Laso, you don’t have to fill out a form.
You don’t even have to type.
You just talk — as much or as little as you want. Laso listens, extracts what matters (like symptoms, triggers, intensity, patterns, timelines), and turns it into usable health data.
It’s built to be as easy on the body as it is on the brain.
Because people managing complex health conditions shouldn’t have to work harder just to be taken seriously.
What Makes Laso Different
Voice-first and narrative-first by default: built for those who are too tired to fit into long, complex forms and checkboxes
AI-powered parsing and analysis: turns raw thoughts into clean, structured symptom logs
Designed for real-world use: flares, fog, fatigue, and everything in between
Built by someone who gets it: not just for users, but with them
More Than a Product, It’s A Personal Promise
For me, Laso isn’t just an app.
It’s a promise I make to every person who’s ever thought:
“I don’t have the energy to track everything, but I still want to understand what’s going on.”
“I need to be able to explain this to my doctor, but I can barely make sense of it myself.”
“I don’t want to feel like I’m failing just because I’m too sick to stay consistent.”
Laso is for all of us who live in the messy middle of health and hope.
It’s for the days you show up, and the days you simply can’t.
If you're reading this and you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by your symptoms, dismissed by a provider, or frustrated by health apps that just don’t get it, I see you.
And I built Laso for you to be your steadfast companion on your health journey.