Eva Prikler: Building Calming Solutions From Lived Experience
When Eva Prikler joined the Barclays Eagle Labs Female Founder Accelerator, powered by AccelerateHER, she was already building from a place of deep personal understanding.
Her company, Calming Solutions, did not begin as a neat business idea on a whiteboard. It came from years of listening to what her body was trying to tell her, learning the limits of pushing through, and realising that for many people, emotional regulation needs to start somewhere deeper than thought.
Now, as an AccelerateHER alumna and part of our Ready to Raise programme, Eva is developing a product designed to help people regulate through touch, grounding and the body.
This is a story about burnout, self-recognition, founder resilience and building a business that reflects what you know to be true.
From Hungary to Scotland: the personal story behind Calming Solutions
Eva grew up in Hungary and moved to Scotland at nineteen.
“I moved here when I was 19. I was completely on my own and there was a lot that I was carrying that I was not aware of,” she told us.
Her twenties became a period of gradual self-recognition. Not all at once, and not through one clear turning point, but through a series of moments that helped her understand what she had been carrying.
“Things led to moments… it was like, oh, okay. This is interesting,” she said.
At the time, Eva was working in a marketing agency. It paid more than anything she had earned before, and for a while, that felt like enough reason to stay.
“I just kept doing it because I’d made some progress… I’d never had that much money before. I just thought, I’m gonna stick it out,” she said.
But the cost started to become impossible to ignore.
Her body began forcing a conversation she had not yet been able to have with herself. Fainting spells. Migraines. Unexplained bruising. Chronic back pain. Sciatica.
“My body was letting me know this was too much… I’d never felt so bad,” she said.
Medical tests did not give her the answers she was looking for. On paper, nothing was “wrong”. In reality, everything felt wrong.
Eva tried to outwork the symptoms. She retrained. She went to counselling. She analysed childhood patterns. But the deeper truth was harder to name: she was living a life that was out of alignment with who she was.
Learning the cost of pushing through
As Eva reflected on that period, what stood out was how much of her early working life had been shaped by other people’s expectations.
She had learned to keep going because it made her look capable. For years, she confused that with being well.
“I don’t think I would’ve left my job,” she said, reflecting on the marketing role she held long after it stopped serving her.
The salary kept her there. Money had become both progress and pressure, a marker of safety that was not really safety at all.
Over time, Eva began to see how far she had moved away from what mattered.
“It was not in alignment with who I was,” she told me.
That clarity became the beginning of a different kind of decision-making. Eva started stepping away from the pace, pressure and extraction that had defined her working life, and began building something that came from a more honest place.
That shift became the foundation of Calming Solutions.
The birth of Calming Solutions
Calming Solutions emerged from Eva’s lived experience, rather than from a conventional founder playbook.
After years of trying to think her way out of overwhelm, she understood that the mind could not always lead people out of what the body was holding.
“I knew that this was going to be a solution that is based on the body,” she said.
The first prototype was a pillow designed to help people regulate through touch rather than thought. From the start, users gave practical feedback. They wanted something discreet. Something that could sit on a bed without needing an explanation.
The MVP was shaped through trial and error. Materials that did not work. Shapes that felt too obvious. Early versions that helped Eva understand what people reached for instinctively.
It was practical and emotional work.
“There is hard, and then there is harder,” she said, describing the reality of building something both intimate and scientifically grounded.
Calming Solutions is still in its early chapters, but the business carries the clarity of someone who has lived the problem she is working to solve.
The role of founder support
Eva is open about the role that support has played in her progress.
There is no pretence that building a business is something founders should do alone.
“People think they can do this alone… it’s impossible,” she said.
Her journey through Scotland’s founder ecosystem shows how different forms of support can arrive at the right time.
Business Gateway gave her early footing. Techscaler helped bring definition to the technical work. The Barclays fundraising programme helped her understand money as something she could learn to handle, rather than something to fear.
Each stage added another layer of clarity.
How the Female Founder Accelerator helped Eva move forward
For Eva, the Barclays Eagle Labs Female Founder Accelerator, powered by AccelerateHER, brought a different kind of support.
It was not only the expert sessions, although she spoke about Rachel Jones’ guidance with real respect. It was also the atmosphere in the room.
Women speaking openly about ambition, strain, fatigue, pace and progress. A space where founders could be honest about what they were building and what it was asking of them.
She found accountability, but not pressure.
“That support network… that’s the same in life as well,” she said.
For Eva, progress is shaped by who stands beside you. The accelerator gave her access to people, structure and perspective at a point when Calming Solutions was becoming more defined.
That kind of founder support matters. Not because it removes the hard parts, but because it helps founders keep moving with more clarity, confidence and connection.
From Female Founder Accelerator alumna to Ready to Raise
Eva is now part of AccelerateHER’s Ready to Raise programme, designed for high-growth female founders preparing to raise equity investment in the next 6 to 12 months.
For Calming Solutions, this next stage is about building on the foundations already in place: strengthening the business, preparing for investment conversations and continuing to shape a product with global potential.
Ready to Raise gives founders focused support across the areas that matter when approaching investment, from financial modelling and due diligence to growth strategy, investor conversations and data room readiness.
For Eva, it is another step in building with intention.
The five-year vision for Calming Solutions
When asked what she imagines five years from now, Eva answered without hesitation.
She wants the product on the market. Something people can reach for in the moments when they need grounding. Something simple, physical and accessible.
“They can really feel their breath and be in tune with themselves,” she said, “and not always just pushing through or pushing down their emotions.”
She sees a future where millions of people have access to a tool that supports them in a way traditional routes cannot always reach.
“People are looking for solutions other than talk therapy,” she said.
Not as a dismissal of talking therapies, but as recognition that many people are searching for tools that work with the body as well as the mind.
Eva’s ambition stretches beyond Scotland. A global product. Widespread use. A world where emotional regulation becomes part of everyday life, not a specialist skill reserved for people who already know where to look.
As she put it, “Your only limitation is the barrier in your mind… the sky’s the limit.”
It did not sound like vague optimism. It sounded like direction.
The kind that comes from knowing what you will no longer compromise.
Building from what you know to be true
Eva’s story is not one of instant reinvention.
It is the story of a founder who had to learn how to listen to herself before she could build something for others. A founder who knows the cost of pushing through. A founder turning lived experience into a product designed to help people reconnect with their bodies, their breath and their own sense of steadiness.
Calming Solutions is still growing, but its purpose is clear.
And Eva is building it with the kind of honesty, care and ambition that makes founder stories worth telling.
Are you ready to join the next Female Founder Accelerator cohort?
Applications are now open for the next Barclays Eagle Labs Female Founder Accelerator, powered by AccelerateHER.
This 9-week programme is built for female founders across the UK who are beyond idea stage, building a tech or innovation-led business, and ready to grow.
Founders receive practical masterclasses, one-to-one mentoring, peer accountability and access to a powerful UK-wide ecosystem of founders, mentors, investors and partners.
Applications close on Friday, 12 June 2026.
Apply now to take the next step with your business.
