Welcome to the Innovation Conversation, a podcast
about innovators, both in business and real life.
Hosted by myself, Ricardo Rescual and Harry McCona.
This podcast is also sponsored by ODEV Tech.
ODEV Tech is your premier software development
partner. Make sure you check them out at odev
.tech. The podcast is also sponsored by Notion
.so. Notion is offering six months for free for
new users. Make sure you check out our website,
thestoreofevents .co .uk to read in the software.
Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Innovation
Conversation. Today, we are joined by Oli Johnson.
Oli, welcome to the podcast. Hey, Ricardo. Thank
you very much. Pleasure to be with you. Oli,
would you like to introduce yourself to the audience,
please? Yes, I'll give a brief intro and a bit
of background. So I'm Oli Johnson, and I'm a
three -time startup founder. I live in Ibiza.
And I'm actually from London. I spent about 20
years working in the city in financial services.
And yeah, I've had a couple of different ventures
over the year. I'm currently focused on a health
tech startup working in the field of human resilience.
Interesting. So tell us all about both that journey,
but also the latest thing you're doing, Prescribe
AI, Prescribe Life AI, right? Yeah, prescribed
life AI. And yeah, I mean, one one very much
leads directly into the other. So I can give
a bit of background and a bit of narrative. So
as I said, I worked in the city and financial
services, mainly investment banking, always within
technology. Majority of that time was focused
on cyber security. So it's interesting, right?
Obviously, you know, lots of high pressure working
in those sort of top tier investment banks. I
spent about three years at the Bank of England
as well during the Brexit negotiations too. So
it was quite a lively time. Yeah, it was an interesting,
interesting place to be. But towards the latter
end, my major venture, I co -founded a cyber
security tech business in London, focused on
that financial services market. And yeah, I guess
to say, you know, on paper, looking at it, you
know, standing back, it was kind of pretty much
everything that I wanted. We had a high growth,
fast business. We grew the team to about 30 people.
We had some excellent financial service clients.
And yeah, it was good growth and it was rewarding
in many, many ways. But my era and it's one that
I've subsequently found out is very common in
the founder world. I had the classic approach
of a founder of being myopically focused on that
business growth. And that manifested as all of
the good support systems I had in my life around
health and wellbeing, you know, time with family
and friends, time away from work, everything
kind of got stripped away and laser focused just
on this five year journey that we had to build
and build a sellable company basically. That
led to major burnout for me, had a significant
health impact. So although, you know, on paper,
everything was good and you know, there was an
exit and you know, great, it left me in a really
poor physical and mental states. And I say, you
know, the sort of the nadir of that process,
I very clearly remember one particular time when
I've been traveling for work and I was flying
back to London for some meetings, client meetings,
team meetings, and Yeah, just to be totally honest
here I was on that plane and I felt so burnt
out and so beaten down by the whole thing that
Even though you know paper everything was great.
I I got to a point where I was like God if this
You know if this plane crashed, I wouldn't care.
I mean, that's honestly okay And you know a young
family, you know again great life But I was so
overwhelmed and felt so burnt out that I just
I was completely depleted And it was a real wake
up call for me of, wow, this is not going in
the right direction at all. And it's just an
interesting dichotomy where you've achieved what
you set out to achieve, but actually it brings
no real happiness or joy or contentment. And
yeah, it was a painful process. But it's kind
of, it's a story of every entrepreneur, which
is you find a problem and trying to fix it. Now
you found a problem before and you were very
successful at fixing it. And now the other problem
starts knocking on your door, which is the lifestyle
you're doing and the way you're approaching life.
So now you have a problem to fix. And then how
do you go from, I have massive problem, I need
to fix this to actually launching a company to
address that problem and actually fix that problem.
Yeah, sure. So, I mean, after I exited that business,
I took some time. I really needed recovery time.
So, you know, it sounds like a bit of a cliche
really, but I took my family away. We went to
Thailand for six months and had a little villa,
you know, in the jungle, doing Muay Thai every
day and going to ice baths and meditating and
all that good stuff, which is, yeah, slightly
cliched, but it was very helpful for me. and
enabled that reconnection and time with the family
is very important. And in that time, I knew I
wanted to come back and have another entrepreneurial
chapter in my journey. And I got very interested
in what happened to me personally and burnout
particularly. And my wife is actually a medical
doctor and a psychiatrist. So I got some interesting...
background and feed in there as well. And I went,
yeah, I just decided, all right, I'm going to
come back and have a startup that has impact.
And I want it to be in the health and wellbeing
space. And that led us into various, various
different approaches. And we started working
with entrepreneurs. We built a little health
and wellbeing team with doctors, you know, lifestyle
medicine, various different modalities. And we
were doing beta programs and testing with entrepreneurs.
And we just learned a lot around that kind of
approach to health and wellbeing, staying resilient
and preventing burnouts. So that was that kind
of foray into it. And then over the next year
or so, what we really understood, there's a pretty
big gap there where as a coach working with clients
in executive coaching and that kind of entrepreneurial
founder coaching, there's often a gap between
how you're interacting with that client and having
actual data, like detailed data to understand
how that client is doing. And that's where we
are coming together, bringing two things together
in the marketplace. So health tech, along with
coaching tech, and we're building this human
resilience platform where we're taking really
detailed health data and resilience data on an
individual and giving those insights into the
coaches to the coaches so they can help their
clients in a better way. Interesting. So A culture
is no longer just someone who listens to people,
but they actually have insights on tons of data
points that can actually help them. You know
what? You need to exercise things like that,
or you actually need to take better care of your
diet. So you actually get that type of information.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, there's an interactive
component with the individual where we're collecting
that type of more anecdotal data and understanding
someone's lifestyle. But we also have some very,
very interesting cool technology where we're
taking very accurate biomarker data from the
individual, as well as DNA data. So we're looking
at someone's genetic makeup, genetic profile,
and looking at how their neurotransmitters are
wired, for example, to deal with resilience and
what they respond to in terms of things like
neuro supplementation. So I'll give you an example
of that. So I'm, you know, I'm quite prone to
stress and anxiety myself and having done, you
know, obviously we're working on this solution.
So doing this DNA testing myself, there were
certain neuro supplements that I found that would
be very, very beneficial to me. And going through
that process and then including those into my
daily intake has had a huge, huge impact into
how I'm sleeping, how I'm performing, how I'm
just feeling on a day -to -day basis and that
level of resilience is really leveling up. And
these, you know, this information, it's all gathered
from the data points you gather, right? So you
can measure some, you can measure it or you can
analyze someone's DNA and say, you know what?
You actually need to take this supplement or
that supplement to get you at the highest performing
level. Which, to be honest, actually does make
a lot of sense. You know, some people are more
prone to having cramps, for example, until they
start supplementing with magnesium. But until
you get to that point, I actually need to take
this. It's a big journey, isn't it? And the same,
I guess, can be can be said for mental health,
because like anxiety and stuff like that. Absolutely.
Yeah, it's like we position it as it's almost
like a shortcut. You could take lots of different
supplements. You could try different components,
combinations. But this is basically getting right
to the source of it and understanding it at a
very detailed level. It's a very powerful lifestyle
intervention that we can bring in immediately.
But that's one component, which is obviously
a very interesting part of how we can help people.
But the other technical component we have is
a facial scanning capability whereby there's
no hardware required. If you have a smartphone,
then we're able to do this scan. And effectively,
we're using that smartphone, and we're scanning
the face in about 30 seconds. And with that facial
scan, what we're actually doing is reading the
blood flow as it pulsates beneath the skin. And
from that pulsation... Any smartphone does that?
Any smartphone, yeah. Any smartphone could be
Android. Yeah, it could be iOS. Obviously, all
smartphones have... decent cameras now anyway,
and we have an AI component that augments the
data. And effectively what's happening is when
that blood is flowing beneath the skin, we can
get key biomarker data from the individual, which
is very interesting. It's also very, very accurate.
Everything's clinically tested. There's many
studies about it. So yeah, it's very interesting.
Yeah, things like your heart rate variability,
your breathing rates, your resting heart rate,
cardiac stress, all of these things that can
give real insights into how an individual is
doing on a day by day basis. I can try this out.
No, it's really worth it. Absolutely. We have
a little MVP that's out so you can buy it. We've
just completed our pre -seed funding round. So
we've been raising for the past six months. So
it's an exciting stage for us. We've got some
really fantastic strategic advisors who are on
board with us. And now we're in this build phase.
But yeah, we do have a very early version of
MVP, which you can try out. It's very cool. It's
definitely worth having a look at. Wow. It's
super impressive. So how do you combine this
with the DNA testing? Well, it's basically we're
enriching as much data as possible. So what we're
effectively building is something we're calling
a human resilience engine. And for us, it's about
putting as much data as possible from the individual.
So we have that DNA genetic profiling that we're
doing. We have the daily check -ins that we're
doing with the facial scans. And then we're having
this interactive capability where effectively
it's like an AI resilience coach in your pocket.
So we're finding out from the individual how
they're feeling, and then pulling all of this
data together to give incredibly accurate and
detailed and, you know, basically live information
on how an individual is doing from a resilience
perspective. This is like groundbreaking thing.
I mean, it's absolutely impressive what you're
doing. Because literally just yesterday I was
messaging, we have this message group, WhatsApp
group, and I was just messaging saying, I wish
someone would just come up with this magic pill
to deal with all the stress of the daily life
of an entrepreneur, right? Of course, you know,
people can go sideways. I think some people are
saying, oh, are you suggesting we should start
taking drugs? Like, no, that's literally the
opposite of what I'm saying. I'm just saying
I wish there was just the magic pill. And now
you literally came up with this magic pill, right?
It tracks your DNA. It tracks the way your blood
flows. through your face and how stressed you
are. And then on top of that also combines with,
I guess, some type of questionnaire and daily
check -in just to see how you're actually doing.
I mean, that's really impressive. Yeah, we're
using the best of AI, basically. I mean, what
I say is in this sector, we're a preventative
health technology, effectively. And in this area,
since the introduction of AI, since AI has become
commonly available, It's had a huge impact on
this sector and it's enabled us to do some really
fantastic, amazing things that a couple of years
ago would have sounded like science fiction,
but actually, you know, it's here right now and
it's incredibly powerful. And just, you know,
the backgrounds, the backdrops of what we're
doing, the inflows in investment into. preventative
health tech have been huge. I think there's over
$700 billion invested within Europe in Q1 alone
this year. That's sort of COVID level. So it's
a record when money was very cheap. So it's record
levels of inflow of capital. And I believe that
reflects the fact that things are moving so fast
and there's so much possibility now. And if you
think of the value of that, one thing that I
really discovered myself as a founder having
burnt out, although on paper, things were really
good and it was a good exit. It could have been
much better if I'd had a preventative measure
to protect my health and something that I've
seen in many areas. And obviously I have that
founder backdrop, but you know, it's true across
so many industry sectors, you know, whether it's
financial services or healthcare or education,
there's a huge financial impact and burden through
mental health issues and Burnout is a major component
of that. It's a very big statistic. I do like
to put it out there, but the World Health Organization
and the World Economic Forum did a study in 2019.
And it was the first time that burnout was really
recorded as an official condition. And in that
study, the impact to the global economy is a
trillion dollars a year through mental ill health.
And burnout makes up a major component of that.
And particularly at the leadership level, the
impact of companies, if you think of lost productivity,
poor decision making, the cost when someone burns
out, the time they have on the bench, and the
lack of staff retention, costing on average 200
% of someone's salary to rehire someone. And
if you're looking at big C level salaries, that's
a huge cost. So having preventative solutions
to help people from preventing from burning out
and upping their resilience has massive personal
benefits, but also a direct monetary value as
well. It's huge. And actually you can address
some of the major causes of that, which is probably
diabetes, heart disease, cancer. And what's the
other one? And I think bone issues or something
like that. And you can just, you can actually
track someone's health way before they develop
any of the symptoms. And obviously they're going
to reflect in a way of a burnout, but you can
just, yes, this is huge. This is absolutely huge
and groundbreaking as well. It's really interesting.
I've touched particularly on the biomarker data
from the facial scanning, but actually, we have
other risk indicators in there. So that's highly
accurate information, which is up there with,
we don't advertise ourselves as a medical device,
but it's medical device grade. But we also have
from the other data that we collect, looking
at other components that we can get, we have
these risk indicators into those other potential
diseases like hypertension, heart disease, diabetes.
So again, it's about having these early indicators
where Really, you're looking to keep someone
healthy and that really does look like the future
of medicine. Now we have AI capability there.
Things are changing rapidly and it's a really
exciting space to be in. Is this like a one -place
job where you just go in and buy everything you
need? So if your app then figures out that I'm
lacking on some type of nutrient or I actually
need some supplements, you can then sell me those
supplements on top? Yeah. So interestingly, so
we... You know, we've got, as you imagine, we've
got a strong scientific team internally as well.
We've got a number of senior medical doctors,
we've got a data scientist on board, you know,
nutritionists. So the first phase of our, the
first commercial build that we're bringing out
will have a minor marketplace capability available,
but that's something that we're looking to improve
as we move forward. So what we want to do is,
you know, sadly there is... a lot of poor quality
supplementation out there. There's a lot of poor
quality services. So we're looking to leverage
the knowledge that we have in the team to bring
the very best quality supplementation, neuro
supplementation, and also some human services
as well. So if things become acute for an individual
and they need specific intervention and help,
that's something we're looking to bring to the
table as well. So our AI -powered coach will
be helping the individual on a day -to -day basis.
We're also working with executive coaches, so
we have that sort of escalation pathway. But
critically, the third pathway for escalation
will be to expert help. So that could be a therapist,
it could be a medical doctor, it could be a lifestyle
doctor, it could be a psychiatrist even in more
serious terms. But what we'll bring to that is
the expertise, so the pre -vetting basically
to make sure that you're getting the highest
quality help rather than just doing it by yourself.
And it's also, it's a new way of looking at the
health because you don't just go to the doctor
when the prevention, you know, when, when shit
hits the fan, you actually go way before that
saying, you know what? All my markers are completely
off the charts. I'm dealing with a lot of stress
right now. I'm trying to build this gigantic
thing or just life's just getting me super stressed.
I need to act right now to prevent any disease
from even showing up in the first place. Right.
This is huge. It's life changing. That's exactly
right. I mean, that is the approach and Again,
Ricardo, I'm building this out of experience
as well. When I look back to think, well, what
would have helped me in that scenario and how
could things have been different? And during
that time when I was building that business,
I was seeing a therapist once a week, which was
helpful. But in the maelstrom of so many calls
and meetings and work, everything else got kind
of lost. And I didn't have someone daily there
helping me and giving me these insights. It certainly
was affecting my mental health in a very serious
way. It was disrupting my sleep. It was disrupting
my diet, my exercise routine, my time with my
family, and directly to my health as well. And
things were deteriorating. And when I was looking
at, well, how could I come back and help people
in that situation? I'm building this around all
of the things that I experienced. And what I
found are commonly are common experiences with
many people in those high pressure positions.
You know, when you're under pressure from so
many different sides, sadly, that's a part of
life for many, many people these days. It just
feels normal. Obviously, you know, with my startup
founder hat on, I know what it's like when you're
doing so many different things and so many competing
demands. But as I said before, that's not to
say in any way that people across many industries
are experiencing the same thing. It's just sadly
a fact of life. Yes, but it's it's I mean, I'm
just thinking about the impact. This is gonna
have it's huge It's literally life -changing
for a lot of people because right now there's
you know, people keep on saying Oh, you're pretty
pretty diabetic or you so there's a lot of people
that are pre -diabetic But they never really
address the cause of why does that why is that?
So is it just a matter of diet? Is this matter
of like if exercise it's a combination of multiple
things But I guess with your services and with
the software building you can actually analyze
and say, you know what? Maybe you should look
at your DNA. There's a reason why you tend to
eat certain things. You can probably supplement
and don't feel the need for. You can also deal
with your stress a lot better. You can also find
therapists that actually help you manage all
that stress that causes that. And here's the
best trainer for you, for example, stuff like
that. So it's actually preventative medicine
in a way, but it's awesome the way you're incorporating
AI with it. It's really, really inspiring and
impressive. Thank you. Yeah, it's like I say,
it's an exciting time to be in this field. Certainly,
one of the exciting things for us is the scalability
of the product. One thing we found when we were
doing programs individually for founders and
execs, the frustration from us is not being able
to do that at scale. And not just from a revenue
perspective, but we want to have impact and we
want to help as many people as we can. And what
the solution gives us is a way to get out and
help lots and lots of people in a highly scalable
way. And also, working with coaches, the way
we're approaching this is We are partnering with
executive coaches, founder coaches and enabling
them to use the platform and use the service
for the clients that they're coaching. So it's
a way for them to have a bigger impact as well,
to help their clients on a deeper basis and to
help more people without impacting their time.
So again, it just amplifies that reach and yeah,
we want to get out there and help as many people
as possible. That's impressive. And how, how
was the market response to this? I mean, you,
you had, you know, I was your second time founder.
So you've been around, you know, probably a lot
of investors. What has been their response so
far? It's been good. Yeah. It's been strong.
And from an investment perspective, I mean, you
know, let's just be completely frank here. It's
not the easiest time to raise, particularly pre
-seeds. It's challenging, but yeah, we had a
good successful raise. We closed within the timeframe
and we actually had oversubscription. So, and
yeah, I think nicely from our raise, we had a
lot of appetite and the early stage VCs that
haven't come on board for the first round, there's
been very strong appetite to come on as soon
as basically we're revenue generating. So we're
almost on paper about halfway through our next
funding raise just with the people who are on
the bench ready to go. So it's been, yeah, there's
been strong investor appetite in a challenging
environment, which has been really good. And
then on the other side, looking at the client
side generation, we've had really good reception
and really strong resonation. I think, you know,
it's interesting. There are very few people that
you'll speak to in this space now, you know,
around founders, execs, coaching, who don't recognize
burnout and human resilience as a major pillar
in success. Maybe you'll find one or two, but
there are few and far between. And people really
do understand that. having success without your
health and well -being and resilience going with
it. It's not really a thing. You might even achieve
on paper what you thought you set out to achieve.
But if you're feeling, frankly, dead inside and
your mental health is deteriorating and your
physical health as well, even if you have that
paper success of the business or your revenue
targets, it's pretty much meaningless. So, you
know, that is such an important pillar. And it
does support, you know, being resilient and functioning
on an optimal level. There's no question about
it that, you know, improves your decision making,
improves your ability to manage a team, improves
your ability to think strategically. And all
of those things are absolutely vital if you're
building a business or you're operating at sea
level. Without that, then, you know, you're going
to be in real trouble. So the reaction to the
people we've spoken with have been very strong.
And you know, frankly, certainly to the tech,
you know, people are often surprised that that's
even possible. Sometimes it's some skepticism.
So obviously, we have, you know, we have the
receipts, we can we can back it up. But yeah,
the response has been fantastic. It's been very
amazing. I was just thinking about that case
of the astronauts who were kind of lost in space
for months or something like that. Right. And
when they came back, obviously there's things
you cannot change when you go to space. So you
come back, all your muscles are depleted. You
don't have as much strength as you used to. And
also your face looks horrible because you've
been in space. So gravity does play a role. There's
nothing you can do against it. However, NASA
took such good care of these astronauts that
when they came back, they were actually perfectly
normal. of course they look a little bit older
because that's just being space does that to
you but they went through that experience and
that just prolonged their stay in space and they
came out perfectly normal i think it's the same
thing when you the stuff you're building it's
kind of the same thing which is you might go
to some really rough unexpected periods but you
will be able to come out out of that alive and
well and still fully functional and and in control
of all your capabilities which is quite impressive
yeah i think the thing is i mean again from my
experience recovering from burnout is a major
ordeal and it can take months and it has such
a big impact. And obviously the impact of the
individual is huge, the impact of the business
is massive, the impact of the people around you
as well. So having that preventative approach,
it saves so much trouble. By doing things on
a day -to -day basis and being aware of how you're
feeling inside, how you're feeling physically,
and actually having the data to correspond with
that to tell you, well, this is the reality of
how you're actually coping. Being able to keep
in front of that is so much more valuable than
having to go through that burnout and, you know,
feeling hopeless and feeling like, you know,
everything that you've been working towards can
feel like nothing after a while, you know, if
you're in that mental space. So it's so much
better. to have that proactive approach and take
a bit of time out your day. You know, don't work
14, 15, 16 hours every day. Not to say it's not,
you know, there are times you have to work hard,
right? You have to. But that is counterproductive
over prolonged periods. You know, everybody is
an entrepreneur or, you know, C level. There
are times when you have to pull those kind of
hours. But if you do that persistently and you
don't take days off and you don't take downtime,
that's when things really, you know, the wheels
start to come off. And that's true, you know,
I think for anybody. So what advice, because
you have been around, what advice would you give
to the young entrepreneur listening to this podcast?
And, you know, they know a little bit about the
stuff you've done and just starting out. So what
advice would you give them? Hey, I mean, it's
interesting because this is almost a controversial
space to be to be talking about because there's
very much particularly around I think the younger
audience and maybe people and I found this from,
you know, LinkedIn conversations and being in
various founder communities where I've learned
a lot. I think sometimes people in the younger
generation, when they're more fresh to the project,
there can be a mentality of not going to happen
to me. And I put my hand up to having been guilty
of that. I was so headstrong and passionate about
what I wanted to build. And, you know, I had
this grand plan of execution and I was so focused.
And I think it's quite common to have that, oh,
I'm fine. I'm going to be okay. My message would
be take care of yourself and be proactive. Don't
neglect things that keep you healthy and well.
There are some real basics where if you aren't
getting the sleep that you need, you are going
to suffer. If you aren't exercising, you're going
to suffer. If you're not having that internal
awareness, things slip off really quickly. You
need to keep on the front foot of your health.
So I would encourage people not to ignore the
signs. And I also think having a professional
in your life is really helpful as well. You know,
I'm a big believer in coaching. I'm a big believer
in therapy. I'm a big believer in mentorship
as well. It can be very, very powerful. You know,
mentorship is a bit of a, I'd say a bit of an
overlap. There's an intersection there. So having
a mentor. from a business perspective can be
fantastic for strategic thinking, decision making,
team building. Effectively, it can be a shortcut
to avoid those mistakes and get faster. You get
to where you want to get to faster. And I think
if you can have a mentor in your life who can
also keep you on track from a health and well
-being perspective, that's a powerful thing to
introduce. What do you do now? When things go
bad, what do you do now? Yeah, I take my own
medicine, frankly. It's a good question because
there has definitely been times with building
this business where I've gone through the same
things. I've started at five o 'clock in the
morning and I finished at 10 o 'clock at night.
I've done that more frequently than I should
do and I don't feel good about doing that. But
what I have now is I have the ability to spot
that and know where that can lead and I put a
cap on it. I make sure that I'm prioritizing
the things that I need to do to keep myself to
keep myself well. I'm also using our own technology,
which is helpful. You know, I have a have a coach.
I'm part of a group where we have accountability,
which really helps. So, yeah, I'm just like the
health and well -being practices, the neuro supplementation,
the focus on sleep quality and various kind of
lifestyle interventions. I've done certain things
where not necessarily even doing it for the sake
of pure health. but framing it around productivity
and performance as a founder where you know you
need to perform. I find that if I put all those
building blocks in place, then actually what
happens for me is my performance increases. And
that's such a motivating factor. You know, you
can see you put the building blocks in and the
output is so much higher, better quality that
it's becomes, you're in sort of no brainer territory
really. You just, you feel that you have to do
these things. Holly, I'm curious. I'm just looking
at a picture. You don't have, at least from what
I can see, any devices on you. So you don't have
the Aura ring. I don't think you have an Apple
Watch one. So is there any device you actually
recommend and that works really well with your
app or quite on the contrary, they're redundant?
Yeah, it's very, very perceptive observation.
So I have worn devices in the past. I guess it's
okay to mention a particular make. But yeah,
I used a whoop for around six months and it's
really interesting. I think wearables in that
guys, they are often focused more on the sort
of the fitness element of the health and, you
know, I'm into fitness, I do a lot of training
and it is interesting to have that data. But
personally, you know, I don't I'm married, I
don't wear a wedding ring, I don't wear a rock,
I've got no jewelry and hated wearing the woop
really distracted me. I hate the fact it got
wet when you're, you know, having a shower or,
you know, if you're training and yeah, so I,
you know, I, I stopped wearing it just because
of the inconvenience really. Um, but they do
put in some interesting biomarker data and actually
within our solution, we're pulling in data from
devices that you might have as well. And that
approach I sketched out earlier around. Creating
a data set that's as rich as possible So the
facial scanning with the DNA data with the interactivity
with the with the AI of resilience coaching and
this human resilience engine Another data stream
that we input is from wearable devices if one
of our clients has a device So if you're wearing
a whoop, you've got an aura ring a Fitbit even
your smartphone where it's tracking, you know
steps and things like that We can pull all of
that data And really what we do is you just all
go into our data set. So the richer it is, the
better we can provide the help to the individuals.
So yeah, there is an interplay there. So you
kind of become someone's best friend, isn't it?
Because you get to know them in the level that
no one else actually gets to know them. And then
you can then advise them, hey, you know what,
you should supplement with this, you should actually
go and talk with a coach, you should actually
go and talk with a therapist, they're going to
help you to the next stage. So it's, yeah, it's
quite a lot of stuff, but it's absolutely fascinating.
Yeah, that's right. I mean, there's two components
there, which is definitely worth touching on.
So one is that Obviously, the more we do this
and the more data we have, doing it in a regulatory
compliant way. that data set we can also cross
reference so it's likely there's not just going
to be you who's going through something specific
so obviously we react as individuals based on
our genetic makeup you know our lifestyle all
of those different factors but the more we learn
with our human resilience engine the more powerful
it becomes so knowing what works for individuals
in certain circumstances we have pattern recognition
capability so then we can enable us to help others
in a more precise way. So that's really important.
And the other element, which I touched on briefly
there, is the data element and the privacy element.
Obviously, we are going to know a lot about an
individual. So one very important component to
our platform is being completely compliant with
regulations. Naturally, people are very protective
over their health data. It is sensitive. There
are things that we will know, which others won't.
So obviously everything we built is completely
compliant with those regulations, whether it
be HIPAA in the US or GDPR in the UK. I think
it's one of the things that people don't realize
is how important it is to actually have privacy
over that data. whether it be DNA data, which
there's been many cases of people actually having
it out in public nowadays, I think it was 23
and me that really wrong very quickly. Yeah.
And the same thing goes for in terms of your
actual health data. So I think the NHS has had
multiple breaks in data, multiple data leaks,
which obviously is a massive problem. And then
you do wonder Who actually owns that data? What
do they actually do with that data? And how much
value do they actually know? And can that be
used against you in the future? Because one of
the things that for me always was a bit scary
is just understanding, will I be denied health
insurance because I actually don't drink that
much, because I ate too much when I was training,
like something like that. You actually don't
want to be in that position, right? So it's quite
important to have that in place, that data protection
in place. Yeah, of course. So, you know, we take
security incredibly serious and, you know, I
come from a cyber security and data privacy background,
so I'm quite well placed and I understand the
environment pretty well. So yeah, with our dev
team, security is the basis of everything we
do around data, data security and data privacy.
We treat it very, very seriously. And obviously
we're mindful of, you know, 23andMe is a perfect
example where... You've got this huge market
capitalization for that company, which has then
dropped to close to, you know, close to zero
based on those, on those data links. And actually
for us, one of the things we have is, is the
DNA component is particularly, we're particularly
mindful of how important that data is and the
privacy and people's concerns around that based
off things like the 23 and Me League. So we make
that a optional add -on for the individual. So
if an individual doesn't want to give their DNA,
and I think we will. come up against that in
the conversations that we've had. So we make
that a separate component where it's effectively
an add -on. So if you don't feel comfortable
with providing that level of data, then we can,
you know, we can leave that out of the solution.
But I'm sure the data is in safe hands. I mean,
especially with your background, because you're
not just a random funnel, you actually have a
background in cybersecurity. So it does make
it a little bit more safe, I think. Yeah, so
it's like I say, it's a very high priority. And
security by design is a concept I absolutely
believe in. So you bake that right into the DNA
of your technical infrastructure of your product.
And that's a very smart move to make. And, you
know, obviously, with my cyber backgrounds, I
always have my eye on what's going on in the
market. And, you know, when you see these these
data leaks and these cyber attacks, you know,
it's devastating for companies. And, you know,
if you have a a leak of that kind of data, then
naturally, the people who have had their data
leaked is, you know, it's a huge worry and potential
impact. So yeah, it has to be it has to be part
of the strategy for us as a you know, core component.
Makes perfect sense. Ollie, what does the future
look like for you? Next five years? For me personally,
well, yeah, I have my I have my startup founder
hat on definitely. So we've made commitments
to our investors of what we're planning to do.
And we have a five year plan where we can build
the company and at least have it in a position
where we could exit. So not necessarily that
we will at that point, but that's very much the
five year strategy. So we're obviously at the
early phases of that. And yeah, we're working
through on a methodical basis. At the moment,
I'm building up the team, which is an exciting
time. Obviously done that first race successfully,
and we're now able to augment the people working
with us, which is exciting. I'm living in Spain
in Ibiza, which is very nice. Yeah, very nice
weather. It's a good place to live. Yeah, personally,
I'm thinking about maybe relocating in a year
or two. I think there are other places in the
world where, you know, certainly there's more
activity in that health space, in that health
tech space, so it might make sense to make a
move. I've also got a very young family. I had
a new baby daughter delivered two weeks ago.
Congratulations. Yeah, so I've got two babies
now. I've got my start -up baby and I've got
my actual new baby as well. I also have a five
-year -old daughter. So yeah, it's an exciting
time. There's lots happening. I feel like I'm
in that, in that kind of midlife stretch pose.
I've got sort of, yeah, young family. I've got
a very active business. Got a lovely wife who's
doing a lot of heavy lifting with the family,
but also, you know, slightly ailing parents as
well. So it's that typical kind of midlife squeeze
where you have pressure from all sides. It is
exciting and it's fun. But yeah, certainly there
are, there are times where it takes a bit of
a toll as well. I can imagine. Yeah, that's because
it sounds like you have a lot on your plate.
But thankfully, you now have all the technology
available to you from the stuff you're building.
So that's like, you know what? I can deal with
this. This time is going to be completely different.
So yeah, quite impressive. Ollie, if people want
to reach out to you and find out more about the
wonderful things you're doing, what's the best
way of doing so? Yeah, LinkedIn would be great.
I'm doing a bit of work on LinkedIn at the moment,
always receptive to any connection requests or
anything of that nature. And so it's Ollie Johnson.
O -L -I. Ollie Johnson, yeah. Sounds good. Oli,
it's been an absolute pleasure. I wish you the
best of luck. Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you so much, Ricardo. It's been a total
pleasure here today. The podcast is also sponsored
by Notion .so. Notion is offering six months
for free for new users. Make sure you check out
our website, the startupevents .co .uk to read
them this often. This podcast is also sponsored
by startupnetworks .co .uk. Startup Networks,
it's an online forum where you can find all the
resources you need to run your startup. from
grants to investors to tips and tricks on how
to be successful in your startup. This podcast
is also sponsored by ODEV Tech. ODEV Tech is
your premier software development partner. Make
sure you check them out at odev .tech.