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Building Dashboards For The Body | Vatsal Singhal and Mohit Kumar @ Ultrahuman
337 Plays2 years ago
Second-time entrepreneurs, Vatsal and Mohit, speak about building Ultrahuman, one of the world's most advanced fitness and metabolism tracking platforms. Listen on as they share their journey of starting up again, getting into the fitness space, and coming up with India’s first metabolism tracker wearable.
Know about:-
- Trends in wearables
- Figuring out your “healthy”
- Launching Ultrahuman M1
- Customer acquisition strategy
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Transcript
Founding Runner and Acquisition by Somato
00:00:01
Speaker
This is the second part of Mohit and Matsel's conversation with Akshay about their journey as startup founders. In the first part, they spoke about the journey of building runner and eventually getting acquired by Somato. And we highly recommend that you listen to that episode if you have not done so already.
00:00:16
Speaker
In
Venturing into Ultra Human
00:00:17
Speaker
this episode, they talk about the journey of starting up again after the acquisition. Mohit Anvatsal's current venture is Ultra Human, which operates on the intersection of fitness and technology. We live in a data-rich world today. You have access to rich quantitative data to help you decide about almost anything, be it a restaurant you want to visit or a product you want to buy online.
00:00:39
Speaker
But the human body still remains in a data dark space. And Ultrahuman is fixing this by giving you access to your metabolic data in real time to help you make better decisions about your exercise and diet regimen. Ultrahuman is a global pioneer in the field and here are Mohit and Vatsal talking about the second time journey of being founders.
Inspiration from Thailand Break
00:01:00
Speaker
So I took a break. I didn't have any sort of ideas to work upon. So I thought that maybe I'll just take a break. And I was very fond of martial arts. So I took a break, went to this camp called Tiger Muay Thai, which is like a martial arts camp in Thailand. So it's a camp where
00:01:18
Speaker
On one side you have the mountain and the other side you have the beach. So you can train all day, 6-7 hours and with martial artists and essentially you go out and chill. I mean that's what I did for some time. And while I was doing that I was speaking to what's almost on a daily basis thinking about what are things that we could do because I was physically very stimulated obviously because of all the training but mentally I was not. I mean I wanted to build something new.
00:01:44
Speaker
So we discussed a bunch of things that we could do around remote work, around virtual tools, and our conversations used to always end at the world of health and fitness. Like how can we build something in that space where, or actually not even building in that space, we used to start talking about like, oh, this is what's happening in health and fitness. These are the new type of companies and the things that people are doing.
Exploring Fitness Tech Trends
00:02:08
Speaker
This is the new technology that we could try out.
00:02:10
Speaker
So we found a common pattern across maybe 20, 30 of our discussions and said like, oh man, I think we're just talking about this. Let's build something in the space.
00:02:20
Speaker
And what were the trends you were seeing, like, like the variables, was that what you saw that that's becoming a big threat? Yeah, so basically, largely smart data around fitness, diverging into smart variables and smart gems, or home gems, essentially. But we saw it on the protons of the world donors of the world.
00:02:43
Speaker
or all of these companies. And it's really interesting to see because just one year back or a couple of years back, you just hear of the gyms and your calorie trackers and your step trackers. And suddenly there is this purge of new companies going deeper into the biology of human being. And it's really interesting as a science student that you always want to learn more about your body, you want to learn more about the universe around you.
00:03:10
Speaker
So from a scientific curiosity perspective, it felt really interesting to read about these companies. So research, meet athletes who are using this, speak to the researchers. That's what we did by the way, spent our time doing all of these things and realized that there is so much human value that we don't
Balancing the Health Spectrum
00:03:25
Speaker
know. And about like, we know more about our cars than basically our own body. So yeah, that was the genesis of
00:03:31
Speaker
Yeah, we were discussing also what I figured was that like health as a spectrum, it's currently broken. It's like one side there are hospitals and the other side there are gyms, right? So those are two extreme ends, right? Whenever if someone wants to, let's say they think about being healthy, they are like, Oh, I need to hit the gym. But the answer is not in fact that we were also reading a lot of books and talking to a lot of researchers and
00:03:54
Speaker
And all of them said that it's not about we were in a gym and then only we'll become fit. Actually, most of the longest living people, they don't have a gym in the community. It's always you being active, eating clean, right? But how do you kind of get that to the consumer? It's a very, very difficult problem. You could always say, oh, sleep well, eat healthy and you'll be healthy. But what are these things, right? What is healthy? There is no definition of it.
00:04:16
Speaker
everything is so hard to comprehend and that was the problem is that whenever they start on this journey, they're all lost because there are so many things, there are so many protocols, so many trainers talking about this diet, that diet, which direction should the user take is a very hard problem and still is if you look at it, someone wants to start on their
00:04:37
Speaker
health and fitness journey, it's all over the place. They don't know where to go, what they need to do. And that is what you want to solve. Your user, you know, can start off their journey in an unbiased format. It's not like it's driven by someone's agenda of selling a protocol or selling like a supplement or a diet. It has to be unbiased. It has to be technology. Looking at your body and telling you, oh, this is what you do. This is what it will help you in that. And of course, a lot of iterations and stuff came up.
00:05:04
Speaker
What was the basic product idea that you had? You figured out that it is possible to get a lot more information about your body and then you figured out that the current products in the market are either gym-oriented or hospital. So what was your product idea?
00:05:22
Speaker
So we, we wanted to bring back objectivity to an individual's health journey, right? So while all methods work individually for people, like for example, going to a gym is not a bad answer for most people eating like, let's say a balanced meal is not a bad answer for most people, but it's about the minimum effective dosage or the precise dosage that you need to actually get better with your health journey. So why is this required? Because most people are unsuccessful with their health. If, if there were great answers out there,
00:05:52
Speaker
most people would have been successful and then there would be a last mile of 20% left which is finding it hard but if you look at almost 95% of people struggle with their health one issue or the other and just maybe 5% of hyper motivated people make it so how do you I mean this if you have a problem where most people don't
00:06:09
Speaker
make the cut or most people are not getting the right answer for themselves.
Objective Health Data and Individual Needs
00:06:13
Speaker
We felt the best answer is to actually show people the reality which is the data and let people decide and find out the best answer for themselves. So if you can see for themselves even that there are so many nutritional like methods and diets and exercise protocols out there,
00:06:29
Speaker
you will see their own data and decide by themselves, that is probably a platform where to help everyone, right? Because you might not like strength training, you might like cardio, you might want to play sports, you might want to like, just be more active and walk and invest in your sleep. So you could be any of these people and then arrive at the same or similar health outcome and not be boxed by a solution, which is basically, oh, I just have to go to the gym or I just have to take motorcycles or
00:06:54
Speaker
So because the reason was that everybody's unique, everybody's biology is unique, our lifestyles are unique, our stress levels are unique. So giving people awareness of their own state of their body and showing them data was the approach that we took. And that's why blood glucose, that's why I think about building our own variable as well very, very
Bio Wearables vs. Mainstream Devices
00:07:12
Speaker
soon. So yeah.
00:07:12
Speaker
Okay. So how would what you built be different from say an Apple watch, which also gives you information about your body or like, what did you want to build, which was not already being done by the more mainstream variable products. So Apple watch is available.
00:07:31
Speaker
And what we are building is a bio variable. So the difference really is that we, we get in more biological, like more layers of biological data. Like even Apple was, for example, I started getting into heart rate variability and other factors, but then we went a step deeper and said that, why don't we look at the, the, the factors that affect your metabolism? Like for example, the levels of the glucose or like state of the nervous system through HRV and
00:07:55
Speaker
Heart rate variability. Heart rate variability is a marker of your nervous system essentially so you can tell you whether you are parasympathetic or sympathetic. So it is also a stress marker. What are these terms? Parasympathetic sympathetic. Sure. So basically, parasympathetic and sympathetic. So when your sympathetic body is sort of like in fight or flight mode where you're parasympathetic, you're in the
00:08:16
Speaker
rest and digest mode in some ways and the ideal thing is to actually be in balance. You can't be in rest and digest always, you can't be in fight or flight always and in current society generally we have this imbalance in our lives that we are too much in fight or flight, like we are too much stressed or we are always running and we are not taking enough rest or basically we are too rested, we don't have any stimulation, that's also a problem.
00:08:38
Speaker
So HRV can give you a view of that balance of where you are. And similarly, blood glucose. More is not good. Less is also not good because glucose is like a, it's not, so glucose, people think that people sometimes think that glucose is a negative term because it's associated with diabetes, but it's also just like things in nature. Nature cares about balance. It does not care about more or less. So human physiology ensures that you need to have glucose in the optimum levels.
00:09:03
Speaker
If you have more glucose in your bloodstream, then you have higher insulin levels as well, which leads to downstream issues in your body around your cholesterol being oxidized, which leads to potentially leads to arteries getting blocked, right? So I mean, I'm just oversimplifying the phenomena and some medical doctors might want to punch me, but this is a phenomenon. This is a valid legit phenomenon, but some more is not good. Less is also not good because glucose is a fuel of your brain.
00:09:27
Speaker
So if you're under fuel and we're all people who are cognitive species, right? So we want to think, we want to perform, we want to create new art. So if we are under fuel, then that's also not okay. And the fuel does not just come from your food, it also comes from your liver trying to create, or basically your body trying to create more glucose, either in the liver or through muscles, et cetera. So that's why glucose biomarker is interesting. It's a real time biomarker. It can tell you, uh,
00:09:54
Speaker
what foods were metabolically healthy for you, which foods are the ones that need more optimization. It's more important in the latest or in the modern context because we're living in the era where we probably have absolutely the least amount of visibility now in terms of the amount of hidden stuff that's there in our food.
00:10:16
Speaker
right? Because of all the crazy food engineering that has happened over the last few years and decades. So if you can't see what you're putting into your mouth or your body, you can at least see the response of your body, right? Because the first part is highly misleading. It's shadowed by all the fancy marketing and all the brand that people have, the SMG companies have created, but you can at least for yourself evaluate what's good for you and what's bad for you.
00:10:40
Speaker
instead of believing in something that, oh, this grain is amazing for me, or this is the healthy, this healthy term is being over abused across all brands and all systems across the world. So how do you figure out what's great for you? So that's it. And also, and also what he figured was that most lot of the research that says, okay, this grain is great, or, or this this food gradient is great. It's you like people don't read
00:11:03
Speaker
who has funded that research as well. So there could be a hidden agenda about everything. And again, you get to know from products from someone, you don't know if that person is also selling that product. So now if you have a benchmark that you do with your body, it doesn't matter, that product might impact someone differently. But what is the impact of that on you is something that is so unique.
00:11:26
Speaker
And that is what you want to get at. It's your journey. It's no one else's journey. It's not a blog. It's not a YouTube video that you do and you'll see the results and you'll have the best state of your body. It's about your journey and you need to take it. You need to iterate over it. Let's say you love something but it is bad for you. Now how do you get that into your life? You have to make sure that it's still there in your life. You can't say that, okay, if I stop eating that today, you already are diseased. You already cannot consume your favorite foods. So that's not the answer. It can't be.
00:11:54
Speaker
As a community, we have been growing, eating, and enjoying food, and every community has that. So that cannot be said. That's not the culture that you should follow. It has to be along with something. So how does a bunch of non-medical folks go about building a health tech product? I mean, you don't have that academic training into the space. So how did you go about actually building a robust product
00:12:21
Speaker
with like which was backed up by some science around it and all of that like the two layers to it one is that this naturally has you can say an entry barrier to this industry has an entry barrier to this which is you need to be well read to some extent about this space even if you don't have academic qualification you need to basically understand
00:12:43
Speaker
What are the modern practices to understand that the best places actually
Learning and Building in Health Tech
00:12:48
Speaker
look at like same evolved markets and look at like, what sort of health products are people using. So as an internet entrepreneur, this is your strength as a researcher, this might not be my strength, but as an internet entrepreneur, this is my strength. I can understand new businesses, new age businesses, internet businesses are much better way.
00:13:06
Speaker
That was one stream of learning. The other stream of learning was more traditional, which is we had to learn physiology ourselves. We had to go through loops of learning human biology. We had to go through our loops of going deep into the subject ourselves, microbiology, human biology, physiology, all the popular subjects as well, like the usual stuff around, let's say, if you read David Sinclair's book, Lifespan or basically all the new and real women stuff, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But also the devices that are taught in the medical schools because
00:13:36
Speaker
you're essentially working with folks from the industry who are top researchers, doctors, coaches. And even if you don't have the same level of knowledge should have the base entry level of knowledge to actually have an informed conversation. So it did take some entry barrier cost. But I think apart from that as well, it took us months and months and months and months of learning and it is still ongoing experience. And we believe that's that's going to be our strength. In fact, like we're starting for a place which is not academic, but I think
00:14:03
Speaker
Eventually, this is going to be a strength that we're going to be up on the internet. Entrepreneurs are learning more about human biology and learning more about medical sciences because we are coming from an information agent era. We could learn faster and we could learn more practical stuff because we are working with more practical folks. Essentially, we are working with people who have actually seen more clinical trials than natural red theory.
00:14:26
Speaker
So that's how we feel about the learning problem here. You have the benefit of the outsider's ability to question assumptions, which someone from the system may not be questioning assumptions as much as an outsider would.
00:14:40
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's definitely an advantage, but at the same time, like I think the, unless we are, we have the minimum base level, we can't ask intelligent questions. So we have to, there has to be some level of qualification for asking intelligent questions. Okay. So your thesis was to build something which empowers the user with data and like saying glucose or HRE, like, like these were the two main things at like, how did you go about building that? Like for that actual.
00:15:08
Speaker
everything. So we believe that so these are biomarkers, right? These are markers for your own biology, you can read and understand these markers to understand in an objective way how your body functions. And we believe there are two types of biomarkers. One is the dynamic biomarkers that once that change the real time with your lifestyle. So for example, I eat something, this biomarker changes glucose, I get stressed. The other biomarker changes HRV, for example, and you work out that also causes it to change
00:15:38
Speaker
Absolutely. And also glucose to change because of gluconeogenesis. So these are the dynamic biomarkers. Sleep is also a dynamic one. It changes on a daily basis because you have to actually sleep to see sleep biomarker. But then there are static ones as well. I mean, this is sort of like internal classification, but the static ones are the ones that are also moving, but they don't move as fast, essentially. So for example, my couple of months period, like
00:16:00
Speaker
Yeah, my LDL levels or my cholesterol levels or essentially my biological age, telomeric age, for example, or basically my microbiome status. All of these things take time to change because they happen over months and weeks and not essentially over minutes and hours essentially. So for example, today I can decide, I can switch from fat burning to car burning mode by doing five or six different things.
00:16:25
Speaker
Or I could, for example, get a mega insulin spike earlier in the day and then all my fire burning gets shut in the body. I can do that. The response and the outcome is instant. Whereas if I want to change a microbiome, I can't bomb my microbiome and basically expect my gut to change right today.
00:16:42
Speaker
I have to do it gradually, right? You can eat antibiotics and do it. That you can do. I'm saying not in a symbiotic way, not in a way that is sustainable. The microbiome is almost like a colony and a colony of people, for example. If you go and find it and they said, oh, get the fuck out, like all of you guys. So that's going to be backlash. But if you can tell people that, oh, we're getting in more interesting people in the colony and then
00:17:09
Speaker
you guys basically should extend accordingly or let's find peace the middle ground that's a much more gradual way so so that's that's one way to think so like what is the product you built around measuring all of this like tell me about that actual what you have built so far like the first thing that we built is this it's on the arm and you see it
00:17:31
Speaker
It's a patch. With glucose patch, we burn the glucose biosensor. It starts transmitting glucose to your smartphone. The glucose data that we pick, we apply algorithms on top and generate insights. Insights that seem or basically can tell you more about how your glucose variation during sleep or what your glucose variation during sleep would mean or post food means for you essentially. So how glucose varies post food and post activity, post sleep, mid sleep,
00:18:00
Speaker
means different things. So all these things are different algorithms and different views or lenses to look at because obviously people don't got to remember these
Real-Time Metabolic Tracking with Ultra Human
00:18:08
Speaker
things. So we applied these algorithms and created a score called the metabolic score. The metabolic score is a score out of 100 and higher the score better your state of metabolism. All right. So what you're trying to do on a daily basis in real time is that we're trying to increase your score as much as possible, right?
00:18:26
Speaker
No, so fat burning is a much more complex phenomena. So higher the score, more balanced your state of metabolic health is, which basically means in simple terms, you don't have enough. I mean, the factors could be things like you don't have a lot of glucose variability. Your glucose is fairly stable, which basically means your insulin response will also be stable.
00:18:45
Speaker
which means that your average glucose is not on the higher side, it's on the lower side. So, body is doing a great job in terms of managing glucose. So, to remember, body does not want a high level of glucose. It does not also want a low level of glucose. It wants to modulate. And to moderate and modulate glucose, essentially, it uses insulate.
00:19:02
Speaker
So insulin is like a carrier molecule, right? So it picks up glucose and transports it to places or cells where you can use glucose to actually use it as fuel. So body is moderating it, but when it fails to moderate because we're over consuming food, over consuming types of food that are non-healthy metabolically, not sleeping well. So if you don't sleep well,
00:19:24
Speaker
body becomes more insulin resistant, right? So your body has insulin, you have glucose, but the same insulin stops working for you because body becomes more insulin. Lack of sleep creates insulin resistance basically. So those are the things that start happening and a glucometer can actually preventively tell you like the glucometer and the algorithms that we have built, which we call cyborg as a platform can preventively tell you how much more optimization scope you have in your metabolism or your state of metabolic health.
00:19:51
Speaker
Now why is this important for somebody who does not have a problem? It's because you can, on one spectrum, avoid all the diseases that, by the way, affect almost 90% of our population. We have a higher probability of getting a metabolic disorder than not today, as the citizens of the world. So 88% of the world has one sort of the other metabolic disorder. So this metabolic disorder could be diabetes, free diabetes, hypertension, obesity, some sort of visceral damage.
00:20:16
Speaker
etc. Fatty liver, all of that. Men have a slightly higher chance. But even in women, for example, PCOS is a huge problem, right? The stational diabetes is a huge problem, right? So that's one side of optimization. The other side is your energy levels, right? If your metabolism is not functioning well, your energy levels are going to be not very stable. They're going to spike, dip, spike, dip. You wouldn't have the right amount of focus levels. You don't have the right amount of fat burning capabilities as well.
00:20:44
Speaker
Fat burning though just to qualify is a much more complex phenomena. Actually, to be honest, it's simple and complex at the same time. It's also thermodynamic equation. So if you're consuming more calories, but your metabolism is working well, eventually metabolism will give up and you will eventually gain fat. But if your calories are under control and your
00:21:03
Speaker
watching your state of metabolic health, that is the best state for your body, potentially. It's a good enough state, basically. For a non-diseased individual, it's about avoiding disease but also living a much better quality of life. We have athletes who are actually trying to hit their personal best or trying to improve their focus via glucose monitoring. Athletes who are trying
Future Biomarkers for Ultra Human
00:21:25
Speaker
to lift more by understanding how glucose metabolization in their body works because it's not just physical strength that
00:21:32
Speaker
that gets affected by also mental capabilities, cognitive capabilities. Because glucose is also remembered, the fuel for your brain. So that's how we think about the product. That's how the product works today. In the future, you can expect us to add more biomarkers and more dynamic and also static ones. Like how do you know more about a microbiome? How do you know more about the state of your, basically the state of your blood biomarkers? So that would be, you come to the platform and you can go as deep as possible.
00:21:58
Speaker
Right because you're trying to live better quality of life and it's and it will take some effort to do to undo some damage and also to get to the level very good perform higher so.
00:22:11
Speaker
If you like to hear stories of founders, then we have tons of great stories from entrepreneurs who have built billion dollar businesses. Just search for the founder thesis podcast on any audio streaming app like Spotify, Ghana, Apple Podcasts and subscribe to the show.
00:22:32
Speaker
How did you actually build this? Did you have to do an R&D and build something from scratch or was there something already available? For example, if today someone wants to launch a smartphone, then you know that there is a supply chain in China where you can go and figure it out. But how do you launch a glucose patch?
00:22:53
Speaker
Yeah, so the technology is a 20 year old technology in terms of the hardware. And the form factor has improved recently, like the last five period years, but the software side, the information layer, et cetera, is fairly recent. And traditionally it's been used for diabetes reversal. Initially it was used for type 1 diabetes management.
00:23:10
Speaker
So it's still being largely used for type 2 diabetes management, but then the type 2 folks realized that glucose is an interesting biomarker. Let's use it for reversal as well or for managing type 2 diabetes. We are bringing it to general lifestyle. So what we had to do was to actually study all lifestyle papers and essentially understand for the non-disease population, what does glucose actually mean? That's what we had to go deep into. And for that, we had to actually start with sports scientists than doctors.
00:23:36
Speaker
because sports scientists are actually at the cutting edge of human performance. They're not trying to help people reverse a disease, but they're trying to help people live a better quality of life, want to perform better. So we started with sports scientists, like basically who had formal sports science degrees, had basically exercise physiology background, et cetera. And then we started adding more layers of medical doctors. You'd see that medical doctors are more factorated, obviously, sports science are more experimentated. It's a good balance, right? You want to have both people in your team, people who can tell you the truth upfront.
00:24:05
Speaker
And people who can actually say that, oh, we can take this risk, potentially. So that's what we did over the last 15, 18 months. Got a good balanced team into the picture around sports science and medical team, medical panel. And we are from, we are internet entrepreneurs. So we have this power of being able to think and wear both hats. Basically, the idea that we can learn everything is and anything if you put in an effort is what we believe in. So that's why we have been able to sort of like strike a balance. And that's what it takes.
00:24:32
Speaker
But in terms of like, you're selling a physical product. So how did you figure that out? Like, do you manufacture this in-house or like the glucose pads? We don't manufacture it in-house. We partnered with OEMs. OEMs like Avid, Texcom, Vitai, all of these folks, essentially. These are some of the largest companies in the space. And we partnered with them and then we essentially helped people use the products and drive it sites. The software layers are the information layers of the house.
00:25:01
Speaker
But you're not selling it as a branded product of your own, but what Google does, the Android OS is theirs, but you can use a Samsung phone to access Android OS or you can use a OnePlus. Is that what you're doing? So I think it's slightly more complex than that. The idea really is that the fact that we need to
00:25:25
Speaker
We need to have, it's a medical device, first of all, right? So if it's a medical device, we believe to have substantial amount of trust on the system before using something like this. So that's how we went with our trusted partner, who has basically tested the spread with thousands and potentially millions of people. And the hardware question is out of the box and out of the version, the hardware thing is out of the version. And then people have to just start forming trust on the software layer and the insights layer. So that's how we started. Yes.
00:25:54
Speaker
So, you're not selling it under your... This doesn't carry your branding, it carries the branding of the partner. So, the way to think about this is that, yes, it does carry the branding of the partner as well, because people should know what they deserve to know, obviously. So, when this data about glucose comes in, how do you know that this data is coming after he ate something or this data is coming after he exercised or this data is coming while he's sleeping?
00:26:21
Speaker
How are you able to figure that stuff out? So this glucose monitor transmits glucose real time, almost real time into your smartphone. And then when you eat something, you most probably get a spike. If it has a glucose or gabs in it, essentially, right? Sometimes even proteins. So in these three scenarios, your glucose will spike. And we naturally use it to tell us that what happened. Sometimes during exercise also it spikes because of gluconeogenesis. So we ask the user to ask that, oh, what really happened? And the user tells us,
00:26:51
Speaker
This is what happened and that's how we get to know. You don't need to record it for everything. You need to record only when you get a spike. That's one. The second behavior is that people also integrate with third-party platforms like workout platforms and those things integrate with our platform essentially. For example, Apple Health.
00:27:10
Speaker
integrated Apple Health. So the data is in Apple Health that gets automatically picked up. And that tells us where in section of the curve, what really happened. So especially for workouts, the workouts show up directly. And we know that this is how your group was varied during the workout. And this is why you feel explored because of how your group was worked. Yeah.
00:27:26
Speaker
And so that is what Google Maps would give you, like are you in this place and something like that, I guess. That's a good way to say it. So it's very contextual. Basically, when you hit a spike, only then the platform, or you have a different type of spike, like basically the shape of the spike is not extremely sharp, but it is like sort of like a long, like large area under the curve and the nudge is different. So it's extremely personalized. Like if you and I put on the same hardware and have the same, as if the same app, my insights would be extremely different.
00:27:54
Speaker
than yours, because it depends totally on like everything almost right. And even the stress levels, for example, today, if I'm more stressed today, my response is going to be poorer than the other day.
00:28:04
Speaker
What all insights does a consumer get? One is of course like a score and there is some sort of gamification to make the consumer hit a better score. What else besides that? So the score is one and we have something called the metabolic vectors. The metabolic vectors are you can say the same algorithm, the same metabolism algorithm.
00:28:25
Speaker
verticalized into three different use cases. One is the aesthetic fueling use case. The second is the productivity or the focus use case. And third is the longevity use case. So how can you look at glucose and, for example, live longer? So that's longevity. So we use a certain factor called the circadian factor, for example. So how it's gamified is that we have put it in a triangle, which we call the L triangle. So if you want to live longer, have good levels of focus and also the athlete, I should get a perfect shape. So the more perfect slopes you get,
00:28:54
Speaker
the more balanced you are in terms of your physiology and goals. So that's one of the ways. And also I think not just the factors but I think just in glucose there are so many factors built in. Let's say for example you had a coke and how your body reacted to coke
00:29:11
Speaker
is like there will be a sharp rise and a sharp fall. So we kind of capture all of those and tell you that there's been a crash in your bloopers and now you'll feel hungry because you've had a crash. So it becomes very, very contextual and deep as you will start using the platform. Like for example, if you had two or three spikes during the day, we of course assist that and tell you that, hey, your variability has been on an uptrend. That means, okay, you've been partying. Now's the time to get back on your routine. So there are a lot of these micro nudges that you will start
00:29:41
Speaker
getting as in when you when you use the platform right everything is like being captured while you sleep now enduring sleep how your glucose should be and how it is today and how the trend was basically something that only a machine can do you can't look at it and say okay oh yes it was fine today it's not fine because because it's deeply embedded into that into that data stream
00:30:00
Speaker
So you could start doing stuff like recommending it's time to eat something or even recommending what kind of food to eat. And because the glucose is low, so the consumer will feel hungry in a cup in like a little while. So before he does something like snacking, he should eat something healthy. There's so many possibilities. Like, I mean, you're, you're looking at health as a, as a all day activity than a one hour at the gym activity. So you have so many optimization,
00:30:29
Speaker
Vectors is actually right throughout the day. Eating an hour early has so many compounded benefits compared to most things that people do. For example, if you're eating at 10pm every day, just try eating at 9pm for a few days at sea because your body will be able to digest food in a better way and then your sleep quality will be better which improves your insulin sensitivity, which improves your food response and which will give you better energy levels and which will prompt you to eat a little earlier essentially.
00:30:56
Speaker
It's sort of like a physiology is interesting because it's sort of like a directed wheel. So if you just move one leg and then everything moves together. And so is this like a pros you pros you pros you I don't know how to pronounce that word, but like a pro consumer product or is it for a late consumer? Like are you looking at people who are like real enthusiasts to adopt this or like what what is who's the product for?
00:31:20
Speaker
So everybody who is curious about their health, so people who are more objective and curious, the platform for them. If we speak to 10 people around us and ask them the question that, do you want to live a healthier, do you want to be more healthy? Everybody says yes. But within that set, have people who are more curious.
00:31:38
Speaker
They want to approach it in a new way. Because unfortunately, most people are struggling with their progress in fitness. Right? So this is for the 95 and five ratio, right? So are these 95 people out of 100? If people want to commit to a new method and an objective method, we are a platform for them. If not today, then tomorrow.
00:31:58
Speaker
That's how we think about it because everybody wants to live a great quality of life. Potentially, everybody wants a great quality of life and wants to have good energy levels, wants to be devoid of disease. There's this famous saying that a healthy body has 1000 needs, a sick body only has one. So essentially, nobody wants to fall sick eventually. So falling sick should be an option for people eventually, in the next few years maybe. So that's what we want to get to. Being healthy should be an option. Today, you don't have that option.
00:32:26
Speaker
They are bombarded with confusing stuff all around. So can you take objective measures and find your path which works for you? That's probably the best way. And what does it cost? There would be like a one-time cost for the patch and then a subscription I guess.
00:32:43
Speaker
So we don't have subscription yet, but you can purchase 14 days of monitoring for 5000 bucks and around three months monitoring for I think around 24,000 bucks and one year is close to a lakh. So these are the three. Generally, we see people taking the one, taking the three month or the one time sensor, but people who don't know about the product, they take the one time sensor and then they understand, oh, this is how it affects me. And then they take the three month one and only the one that you're calling prosumer or people who are actually on a
00:33:09
Speaker
mission to change their life completely, transform their body. They take the early one, which is basically, after the next one year, I'm committed to my school. They take the early one. So 14 days because the patch lasts for 14 days. That is correct. Why does it last for 14 days? Is it a battery thing? I mean, what's the reason? Why can't you get a patch which lasts longer?
00:33:30
Speaker
Good question. We want to get the patch that lasts longer but today the patch has a bio enzyme that can only survive within the skin for 14 days and beyond 14 days the efficacy and the accuracy reduces. So the hardware manufacturers have put an upper limit of 14 days. In case of some other OEMs it's also 10 days for example and the OEMs that have a 90 day patch as well.
00:33:53
Speaker
But then we went ahead with the one that was a good trade off, essentially, like good accuracy and good variability and all of that.
User Value and Positive Churn
00:34:01
Speaker
I mean, you're not getting that lifetime customer value benefit. I mean, if people are doing 14 days and then three months, what after three months?
00:34:11
Speaker
So it totally depends on people and their use case, right? So we are in preventive, so we will see positive churn as well from people, right? It's not like positive churn is bad because the fact that what we should be curious about, careful about is that are people deriving enough value? So people are deriving enough value in three months, they're getting healthier, they understand more about their life. It's a great outcome.
00:34:34
Speaker
Why should I change somebody and say that? Oh, please use it for the year. That doesn't make sense. The concept is minimum effective dosage. So it has to be used in a spare, sort of like in a way that you require the minimum amount of effort and you get to your goals. Now, people are naturally aging. Everybody ages, right? So obviously over the years, if people derive value, they'll come back.
00:34:54
Speaker
and say that, oh, I need to do another state with you because I need to commit to my health again. But the bottom line across everything, whether it's a one year user, three month user, even a 14 day user, the idea is to deliver value for them within that time duration. If we deliver value, that's our goal. I mean, if we end up being a product that people buy and
00:35:14
Speaker
hang their clothes on, then we could have done anything else. But we want to be a company that people use the product for. We want to be a company that people forget after buying. So that's an ethical constraint that we're putting on in terms of how we think about products.
00:35:30
Speaker
But from a long-term perspective, wouldn't you want to have some play like you've got a customer and you had them download the app? The app is just lying idle on the phone. Wouldn't you want to have some sort of way for that engagement to be continuous, regular, even after that three-month period is over?
00:35:51
Speaker
I mean, getting people to download an app is like a, I mean, there is a spend that has gone on it. It's a certain amount of asset that you're creating. If there are 10,000 people who downloaded your app. So sure. I mean, you know, we're thinking of a coaching model. We're thinking of a way to give people actionable data beyond their journey as well.
00:36:08
Speaker
though, to be honest, the most change you make is during the journey, because you're being monitored, right? So you have to make a change, you're accountable to yourself, but at least 20%, or at least 20% of that would be achieved being off the sensor as well. So try out a few experiments around that. Like, how do people think, right? When when they're off the sensor, and can we can we make them think, retain some of the learnings that they had during this trip, something like that. Like, like, when Goki didn't like coaching in that sense, like a
00:36:37
Speaker
So I'm not aware what they did, but I think in this case, we would love to basically help them from their glucose data because there's a lot of data on people in terms of how they consume their food, how much work out they get, etc. We'd love to create like a food strategy for them, for example. How should they be eating? Should they be eating with their time window? Should they be eating?
00:36:57
Speaker
across different hours because some people are not so great with fasting because they turn hypoglycemic during late evening. So they should eat more frequently and even like two, three hours before sleep. But if somebody is fat adapted and they're pretty cool, metabolically flexible, they can eat within like a four hour window and still be chill.
00:37:17
Speaker
So what is your food strategy? What grains work for you? Which grains you should probably avoid? How much carb you should be eating and how much protein and fats you should be eating based on the goal that you have? And how to eat these in moderation? If you want to include nuts, for example, in your diet, how should you be including these?
00:37:34
Speaker
All these are valid questions and it's not a diet to be honest. It's a food strategy that we're talking about. And it's an evolving strategy because the body is changing. We don't realize this. It's your aging. Your body is changing. So a need of healthy fats today is different from five years back and then 10 years back. Even a few months back, depending on how I'm metabolizing fats, this need changes. So yeah, that's what the platform takes care of.
00:38:00
Speaker
So this food strategy sounds pretty, like it sounds like a massive opportunity, right? I mean, there is a, such a massive industry around diets, be it influencer, or books, or subscriptions, or like even going to dietician, whatever. So that's like a pretty massive market. So like, are you planning to do a human-led approach or like your algorithm-based approach or what like, what will that look like that food strategy product? We don't know yet. So we'll probably do a combination.
00:38:33
Speaker
that looks like that something that works for people and then make it scalable. And that would be like a subscription model, I guess, like a monthly subscription for a personalized food strategy. Could be that. Or it could be something that comes along with your subscription today or with your purchase today. OK, OK. Like you pay 24,000 and you get, say, maybe for a full year with a patch every quarter or something like that. That sounds pretty amazing. OK, OK.
00:38:55
Speaker
of these two. I'll start with the answer that
00:39:02
Speaker
And how are you doing customer acquisition? Today it is completely organic because we have a waitlist and what happens is the waitlist of 30,000 plus people and what happens is people when they put on the batch they post it on Twitter or Instagram and when they post it more people want the batch. So that's how the growth thing works today. And so that's what we have been trying to fulfill as much as fast as possible. But why do you have a waitlist? Is it like a
00:39:30
Speaker
supply constraint of patches or like a strategy? No, it's a combination of us trying to ship the most reliable platform to people in increments. So let's say, for example, theoretically, if you ship out 10,000 invites today and all 10,000 people tell you the same thing that, oh, this feature was not working for me, then what have you learned? You haven't learned much, but if you ship it to 1000 people,
00:39:56
Speaker
They tell you five things that don't work and five things that work. And then you fix those five things that don't work and ship it to the next 1000. Then you as a platform have learned much more. So that's one reason. And then there is a supply constraint as well, but it's a combination of these two. Okay. Essentially it's a way to do fast iteration, like keep doing small matches, improve and then. That's what private beta is.
00:40:16
Speaker
Therefore, yeah. But how did you get such a large volume? How did you kickstart it? Was it just like you put out a tweet saying that we are now in Whittawood and then people are planning and then it just snowballed from there? That's how it happened. Exactly. Amazing. And I think you've been covered by a lot of global publications also. Are you gladly doing it for Indian market or are you shipping across the globe?
00:40:43
Speaker
Feel good for the world. We believe this is a global problem. Right from now also? Not yet. We are increasingly finding ways to scale to the US market and the Middle East market. So that's how we're thinking. How did you fund this? Have you raised funds so far? Tell me about that.
00:41:02
Speaker
We raised $25 million in two rounds. Our seed was 7.5 and then we raised $17 million round recently. Yeah, so that's what we raised. What was the, like, the second round happened pretty fast, like, after the seed round. What was, like, was it the traction so far? Yeah, the traction used to love organic interest and on the brand, like, basically the ability to create a novel method
00:41:31
Speaker
and algorithm, the IP, essentially all of these factors. And who are the investors or capital? So Nexus, Bloom, Falcon Edge, and Stateview. So these are the four. Some of these diets which, you know, I just want to like care from you. Are they fair? Do they actually work? Like say you have this one meal a day kind of a thing, a intermittent fasting. Do things like that improve your metabolic score or do they make it worse?
00:41:59
Speaker
all of these things work each one of these diets work the question you have to ask is that do these work in the longer run for you as a lifestyle right so can you do this for 20 years can you do keto for 20 years you can't right so so do you want to do this for three months so it's a tool is what people should realize so being in the
00:42:17
Speaker
Ketogenic mode is not a bad thing. But if it's a time bound thing and you want to do some sort of insulin fasting and essentially do not have glucose spikes for a long time and are trying to change your body composition for some time, these are not bad things. But if you're thinking that this will become your lifestyle, then this is a mistake.
00:42:36
Speaker
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