Why Founder Energy Is the Ultimate Growth Lever

You know, 100 years ago, 50 years ago even, the average person was healthy. And today, if you look at the stats, the average person is sick and going to die of a chronic condition. And like, that is a travesty and something that anyone who wants to live a long, healthy and productive life, do their best at work, needs to underwrite and needs to think about as they're building their environment and trying to thrive in whatever they're doing.

Welcome to the Startup CEO Show.

I'm your host, Mark MacLeod. In this episode, I sit down with Justin Mares, founder and CEO of TruMed. Justin has founded several companies. He's had direct-to-consumer products that are health-related before this, and now he's on a mission to help wellness brands tap into government funds so more and more Americans can live healthy lives. We all know about the importance of sleep and exercise and food, but I don't know if we knew the extent to which we are full of toxins. Justin figured this out recently, and so I wanted to have him on to talk about that, but also as an ambitious entrepreneur to talk about about his health journey and how he's been able to optimize his health without sacrificing his company. I think this is a really important topic and an important example for all founders out there. Yes, you can be healthy, and in fact, by prioritizing health, you're going to build a bigger company. Let's listen to Justin. Justin, welcome to the Startup CEO Show. It's a true pleasure to have you here. How are you doing today?

Thank you. Glad to have it. Uh, glad to be here.

Amazing. So very often you're now, you will be maybe the 83rd or 84th CEO that I've had on the show. And with most of them, I've known them in some cases for years and decades. You, I just came across a few weeks ago when you were on Lenny's podcast. And I'm not sure if you know, but Lenny and I actually go way back when he, he had a startup called LocalMind. And I was one of the VCs that invested in his business, which of course Airbnb bought. And anyway, I've been fascinated with Lenny's journey with his podcast and more, I think more relevant for this audience, fascinated with your journey on two fronts, one kind of building and running a bunch of companies simultaneously, but also being on this health journey that I think is relevant for everyone. So, But before we get into that, maybe just tell folks who you are and what you do. This could take a while 'cause you do a bunch of things.

Sure. Yeah. So I would say, I tell folks like I'm Justin Mares. I have started a bunch of different companies, but today the like day job is I started a company called TrueMed about a little over 2 years ago. And what TrueMed is doing is we help, we're focused on the US and we help individuals in the US use tax-free money and something called an HSA or an FSA account on lifestyle interventions, think like exercise, sleep aids, supplements, even medically tailored meals in some ways that have been shown study after study to treat, reverse, or prevent disease. Like the, the big goal and the idea here is that if you look at the American healthcare system, almost $5 trillion are spent a year on it. Uh, less than 2% of that goes towards anything resembling prevention and almost none of that goes towards anything that we would call like a root cause lifestyle intervention. So, you know, like you, you get sick. You have autoimmune condition or something like that, you can go to the doctor and get prescribed innumerable pills and surgeries and those will be 100% covered for anything by your health insurance. And yet, if you start to get a flare-up of autoimmune or other issues and you go to an insurer or someone and say, "Hey, I want to change my diet or I want to fix this or I want to sleep better or I want to take this supplement to help with this condition that I think I'm starting to develop," that's all on you. You're the one that's paying for that. And so, So, I think this is kind of broken. Started TrueMed basically to make it possible for people to tap into these tax-advantaged funds and spend them on effective lifestyle interventions. So, that's kind of what— that's the day job. Outside of that, I previously started a company called Kettle Fire, which is now the largest bone broth brand in the US. And also, I'm an angel investor. I've invested in 70 companies personally, and I'm a venture partner at a seed-stage fund called Long Journey Ventures as well. So, like, do startup investing, board stuff with past companies I started, and then run TrueMed that as my full-time occupation.

Amazing. That's a lot.

Yeah.

It's fun though.

You know, it's like we're tackling a big problem.

Yes.

I really enjoy it.

No, you really are, right? I mean, you think about America, right? It's the largest Western economy, 10x the size of Canada where I live. And it's so clear, right? The standard American diet is just not working, right? Like the stats are sobering in terms of obesity rates, disease, chronic disease. Yeah, really, really, really sad. And we're not gonna solve that on this podcast, but maybe we can bring it in and focus on founder health specifically since everyone listening to this is, you know, a CEO or founder. And maybe I'll put this, I'll set up some context for this conversation. I mentioned shortly before we went on air that I started this community called Limitless and, you know, we just had our first event in Tulum last month and the whole thing behind it, right? As we were talking about, right? Like biggest outcomes in start— in the startup land, founder-led start to finish. Most CEOs fail. Some go all the way. Set aside luck and timing. What is it that enables those certain CEOs to go all the way? And as I've thought about it, the thing I've landed on is we need to solve for energy. Like most founders are doing it all wrong. Like we celebrate bro hustle culture. I'll sleep when I die. I'll sacrifice sleep. I'll sacrifice exercise. I'll eat whatever mindlessly while I'm in some Zoom meeting. Basically, I won't take care of myself because I think that's what I should do, right? I think like the price of success is to sacrifice, have deferred life, and when I exit, then I'll magically make it all better and catch up. And I think that's exactly backwards. Right? Like, you know, and so what I'm trying to do with Limitless is create a community of CEOs who prioritize physical fitness, mental fitness, and spiritual fitness, which gives them more energy, mental clarity, and inspiration, and which makes it far easier to build really big companies. And you think about energy, what is energy? It's our capacity to create. And what are you doing in TruMed and any of your prior businesses? You're creating right from nothing. You're turning a vision into a thing that exists. And so I was fascinated when I saw your interview with Lenny because you've been on this kind of personal health journey. And I think I'm unfortunately gonna ask you to say a things, a bunch of things that you said before, but can you walk us through kind of your journey and your discovery of kind of everything that we're doing wrong and how you've gone about fixing that when it comes to our health and toxins, et cetera? Because again, going back to this notion of energy, like we, we are what we eat, right? We have trillions of cells that are made up of what we put into our body. And so, uh, I'm really gonna turn it over to you and we'll see where the discussion goes, but I feel like it's, it's super important for every ambitious founder to hear what you have to say.

Yeah. So at a very high level, I would say that, um, we used to, like humans used to live in an environment that was, let's say like just much more closer to the one that we ancestrally evolved to spend time in. And so you can think about like, you know, 100 years ago, my great-grandma was not eating organic. She was not like making sure she was buying grass-fed. She was just like, she existed in an environment that where those were the only options. Like, you know, she existed in an environment that was not actively trying to poison her, was not using 1,000 different chemicals that the FDA had never regulated. It was not, you know, covered in like trillions of microplastic particles and was not like using tons of different chemical additives and other things to, trick her into being slightly more addicted to like foods that are ultimately not good, good for her and ultra-processed. And so I think that the thing that people frankly have just not wrapped their heads around as much is this idea that, you know, even, even as much as like 50 years ago in the 1970s, chronic disease burden was, was basically like 60% lower than it is today. Like, you know, we, we can talk a lot about big problems in the US, but like, I think one of the biggest problems in the US and frankly it's happening in more of the West now is that the average human in these environments is sick. And in many cases, the average human is in these environments is sick due to being in an environment that does not promote good sleep, does not promote good diet, does not promote, you know, toxin avoidance, does not promote any sort of these things. And so my view is that if you want to thrive, have energy, not be sick, you know, kind of look like you do into your like 40s and 50s, I think that it takes being much more intentional and much more active about how you think about many of these, these things that are causing the largest chronic disease crisis in human history, which is what we have in the US. And so for me, I think that often boils down to a couple things. Like certainly people talk about diet, exercise, sleep, all of that. I think that all of these things are incredibly important. Toxin avoidance, like I can go deep on any number of these topics, but my overall point is that, you know, pre 100 years ago, 50 years ago even, the average person was healthy. And today, if you look at the stats, the average person is sick and going to die of a chronic condition. And like, that is a travesty and something that anyone who wants to live a long, healthy, productive, and productive work, you know, life, do their best at work, needs to underwrite and needs to think about as they're building their environment and trying to thrive in whatever they're doing.

Yeah, I totally agree. I'm like two-thirds of the way through Peter Attia's Outlive. Which has been, yeah, sobering to read in terms of some of the stats, right? Over the— he calls the Four Horsemen, right? The four leading causes of death. This episode is brought to you by Limitless.

Limitless is an exclusive community of VC-backed CEOs who want to scale themselves and their companies without limits. The biggest outcomes in the startup world are founder-led. Meta, Amazon, Shopify, Airbnb, Canva, Nvidia. Behind every one of these companies is a founding CEO who didn't just scale their business, they scaled themselves. They added one zero at a time and today run companies with billions of dollars in revenue each. That's the goal of Limitless: to give you the tools, strategies, mindset, and community to lead at the highest level without sacrificing your health, relationships, or purpose. Through group calls, an elite peer network, a proprietary AI coaching bot, members-only library, and in-person experiences. Limitless gives its members everything they need to keep scaling themselves and their companies for as long as they want. Go to limitless.ceo to learn more.

I feel like people know about sleep even though they don't sleep. They know about it. Um, maybe they know about nutrition. We can go there. They probably know they should exercise, but they don't. The thing that I felt was maybe where we have no knowledge is what you have discovered around just the, the extent to which we are full of toxins. Could you, could you talk about that? Sure.

Yeah.

And then of course what you're doing about it.

Yeah. So one, one of the, one of the things that I think is one of the biggest problems in the country is this toxin problem that I talk about. So if you look like 93% of Americans have glyphosate, which is the most sprayed pesticide in the U.S., in their blood. 97% of Americans have something called PFAS. It's basically what's called a forever chemical. It's a small chemical that is an endocrine disruptor, meaning it messes up your hormones, meaning it has an impact across your entire androgen system. And basically, it impacts fertility, hormonal growth, all these sorts of things, especially when you're exposed at key developmental periods. These are forever chemicals because they don't break down. They're almost impossible to get out of the body. 97% of people have these in their bloodstream and in their urine. And so we are just like swimming in a sea of environmental toxins. In large part, this is because in the US specifically, you know, relative to you all or the UK or much of the EU, we take the approach that of just a sort of assuming that the average novel chemical that humans have never seen or been exposed to is probably fine. And like in the rare case that it's not, which is obviously something I totally disagree with. And in the rare case that it's not, you know, people will, the FDA will do safety studies to understand is this chemical bad and how do we get it off the market? That basically never happens. And so, that's backwards. Yeah, completely. And so, like, I think that the assumption here, there's something of this idea of like the precautionary principle. And I think when it comes to human biology and human health, we should not be assuming that any novel chemical introduction, you know, can actually is like, is like most likely good for human health. The EU, they take a very restrictive approach. They basically have allowed around 1,600 different chemical compounds to be introduced in their food, water, ingredient, you know, like skincare, things like that. In the US, we, and they basically say the only these compounds are allowed on the market after extensive safety testing. It's very similar to what the US does with pharma drugs or something like that where we do a bunch of safety testing and then you can use it. The U— the US follows the exact opposite approach. And we basically look for once, like assume that a chemical is safe. Literally there's something called generally recognized as safe, which is where a chemical manufacturer can run their own studies and tell the FDA without actually showing them any sort of studies like, hey, we tested this one thing and this chemical's totally fine. So this is what happened in the case of trans fats. Trans fats were introduced in the 1970s. You know, basically like over the next 40 years, they, they were everywhere. They were used in almost every like packaged product that was using hydrogenated oils and fats. And estimates are over that like 45-year period where between where they were introduced and between when the FDA merely required them being on labels, they still have not banned them. Around 8 million people have died of heart disease almost directly related to the inclusion of trans fats, you know, in various products. And to me, that is just an example. And by the way, along the way, the first flag of trans fats are probably bad came from a scientist, Frank Kummerow, who in late 1970, wrote an email or wrote a letter to the FDA saying like, we think that these things are quite bad. You know, waited more and more data, more and more data showed up. And only in the late '90s did him and a group of people actually sue the FDA to say, hey, the evidence is very much in favor of getting trans fats off the market. And only then, after like 7 more years and another lawsuit, did the FDA actually respond to say, okay, fine, we'll require like consumer packaged goods companies, they actually label and include trans fats on their nutrition labels. We're not banning them, we're not limiting them, we're not doing anything, just has to be on the label. Now, I think that you could maybe make an argument that this, like, let whatever chemicals in the system go and we watch carefully and we're very responsive if we see any sort of potential risk. If you balance the let it go but are very responsive to risk approaches, maybe that approach makes sense. But in a, in a situation where it takes 50 years to get some of these compounds that we know are causing chronic disease, like heart disease off the market, or even get them on a nutrition label, like there is no possible way that we should be taking any sort of approach where it's like, yes, gimme all the novel environmental chemicals and toxins that, you know, by the way, as a random individual in the US, you can't even opt out of, like, what would it even mean to B, as a, to say, as a consumer, I wanna avoid PFAS, I wanna avoid glyphosate, and I don't want any trans fats in my foods. Basically impossible.

Awful.

Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I'm not a big ketchup fan, but I've noticed the ingredient list for ketchup in the UK as an example versus the US, they're completely different products.

Definitely. I mean, if you look like there's a, I can't even find it right now, but if you look like in, I think it's in French fries, McDonald's French fries. McDonald's, obviously same company. In the US, they're selling a product that has like something like 35 different ingredients. In the UK, it's like 4. And you know, again, I'm not saying UK french fries are incredibly healthy, but certainly like there are 15 to 20 different ingredients that are in US french fries that don't need to be there, that have almost never been in human biology ever, that certainly like probably we should take an approach of maybe this thing isn't actually that healthy.

We, we won't solve this from a political standpoint, but just for my own amusement, do you think, I mean, is the root cause of this, I mean, corporations are obviously pathologically interested in profit. I don't think we have a solve for that unless it's legislated, but like, is the other root cause of this just lobbying? And is there a solve for that?

Yeah, I think that certain, like, I think there's two root causes here. I think that, One, cert— like you can certainly blame corporations and lobbying. I think that certainly like FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, they spend a lot of time and money on drugs, almost nothing on food. I think food is basically causing many of the chronic conditions that exist in the US. Hopefully that's changing. I think like Marty Makary and, and the FDA today is doing a tremendous job and, and taking a very hard look at a lot of the food stuff that I think is important. But I, I think a lot of it is legislative, like even just switching things like food, the food pyramid, changing what we put in like school lunches and hospital foods and prison foods and militaries, changing our approach to generally recognize as safe, the sort of like insane approach that we have to regulating chemicals that I just mentioned, just switching those couple things. And you could even just copy European standards or copy another country that has better outcomes from a chronic disease standpoint. Just doing that would be a tremendous upgrade in the US system. And I think that's purely regulatory. I think the other side of this is that, you know, frankly, the US, we have some of the lowest, like as a percentage of income, the US spends some of the least on our food of any nation in the world. Like Europeans, I think that in the US we spend around like 17% of our income on food. Europeans, that's like 25, 28%, depending on the country. Now, yes, like Americans are wealthier on a per capita GDP basis, but still I think that one of the things is to not absolve the American consumer a little bit, there's a crazy demand for food that is like cheap, tastes good, and is kind of addictive. Yeah. And so, you know, it like part of this has been that in the '80s, in the '90s, like people thought and were thinking a lot about how, oh wow, like a Twinkie or a SnackWell thing that's fat-free is healthy. Like maybe I'll buy that rather than get anything resembling a whole food. And so there has been a lot of demand for these kinds of foods. Like, yes, I think they're artificially cheap. Yeah. I think they're artificially cheap. I think they're, you know, addictive. But I think that a big part of the change has to be the American consumer deciding I'm no longer gonna buy this crappy product that is making me sick from some big food conglomerate. Like, I'm gonna invest in real food made by producers that share my values.

Yep. I totally agree with that. So since we won't solve this at a macro level, like, do you have a set of recommended practices for, well, anybody who wants to be healthy, but obviously founders trying to be the best version of themselves?

For sure. So, I kind of mentioned in the beginning, I think that a lot of this is just, it just comes down to your environment. Like, if you look at the animal kingdom, for example, if you take an animal and, you know, an animal in the wild will almost never be obese. It will almost never have like many of the chronic conditions that we associate with Americans and others in the West today. You put an animal in the zoo, you put it, you speed it a non, feed it a non-species appropriate diet. You prevent it from moving, you mess up its sleep. All of a sudden that animal gets sick, it gets fat and starts losing its hair and starts developing ticks, like all these crazy things. I think that you can kind of analogize that to humans where I think that the biggest thing to think about as an individual is how do you build your environment or influence or change your environment so that it is health promoting and not health detracting. And for me, that means a couple things like one, making sure that you're sleeping well. So, going to bed at appropriate times, probably changing the lights in your house, removing like blue light that comes from LEDs, having blackout curtains, having a decent mattress, even using something like an Eight Sleep, which like I personally love, you know, doing things like that. Focusing on your diet. I think that sourcing as often as you can organic local food, participating in what is almost certain to be, like almost everyone has access to a local food system around them of farmers markets, small grocery stores, places that are selling products that are really, really high quality. I think that a good rule of thumb, frankly, maybe you could say I'm biased, but I like truly believe this, is basically just don't buy anything from a big food conglomerate. You know, if it's made by a big food company, don't buy it. It's like almost certainly these are not companies that have, that are thinking about your health when they come to think about designing different products and selling products. Next thing I think a lot about is like toxin avoidance. And so, that means filtering your water, Probably filtering your air, swapping out a lot of things in your clothes so that you're not getting like polyester and you're not wearing polyester underwear, things like this. You know, there have been a lot of studies that show polyester underwear lowers sperm count. You know, they put dogs in polyester underwear for like a year. Sperm count went down like 40%. Fortunately, though, dogs like— they switched them back to different, you know, dog underwear that was using natural material, not polyester. And within 45 days, I think sperm count was back to normal. And so, there, there's all of these things that I think are important in thinking about your environment. But if you can minimize toxins, improve your diet, and improve your sleep, I think those are the foundational things that give you the energy that allow you to do things like work out more, exercise more, move more in your day-to-day. Even things like buying a treadmill. Like, I use a treadmill desk a lot of the day. Incredibly useful way to get 5,000, 10,000 steps a day without literally even thinking about it.

I do all my coaching calls on a treadmill.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I think honestly that to me, so often, like, people overlook the basics. Everyone wants a hack. Everyone wants to know, like, if I butthole sun and do 30 minutes of sauna and train my neck, you know, like, I'll unlock some insane state of health. And I think very often it's just, it just comes down to how have you designed your environment and is that environment health-promoting or, you know, health-attracting? Yeah.

Yeah. The number one performance hack is sleep, but it's not a hack. Yes. Yep.

100%.

I love that you brought up animals cuz you know, my observation is like every living thing on this planet seeks balance and homeostasis except for humans.

Yep.

And I would apply that not just to ambitious humans, but actually all humans, like ambitious humans, right? We think we can just keep going forever. We think we can work like this is net new craze in San Francisco, 996, 9 AM to 9 PM, 6 days a week, like 72-hour weeks. And we think somehow we can do that, which is bullshit. So that's out of balance. But even I'm going to stereotype here, like just the regular person with a regular job who does their job. They're not particularly inspired. They come home and then they just numb themselves with Netflix or doom scroll. They're also unbalanced. Like they're not healing themselves. They don't have time in nature. They're not moving. They're eating crap. I'm totally stereotypist, but like, anyway, like we're just out of balance. And like, I think we think we are separate from nature. We're nature. Like every living thing is nature. And so we have to come back from that. And of course we have to consume nature, right?

Yeah.

When you go into the grocery store, you go to the, the, the extremes, never in the middle, you know, wherever the, the fruit and veggies and, and yeah, organic meats.

Yep.

But not the packaged stuff.

A hundred percent.

Yeah.

I completely agree with you.

I'm curious for you, like, again, often founders will say they feel like they have to, like I said before, like I have to sacrifice sleep. I don't have time or I don't have energy to work out. I'm too busy to take a lunch break. I can't take, you know, little restorative breaks here and there.

Yep.

Of course they're just making it harder for themselves, but like you are a founder, you've founded multiple companies. So like, how has going on this journey made you, like, has it made you a better founder? Has it Have you ach— do you feel like you would've achieved more if you sacrificed the way everyone else does? Like, like what's been the impact for you as a founder?

Yeah, I, I think that a lot of this stuff comes down to like what timeline are you thinking about and optimizing for? For me, like, is it true that if you looked at a 1-month output, um, you know, someone that was doing 996 would outperform someone that was doing like 45, 50 hours a week? Uh, I think so. Like I, I really do think that some of these people, they will sacrifice and burn a lot of things, burn their personal health, burn relationships, burn all these sorts of things to, to try and like shift as much benefit or, or performance into a short period of time as possible. I think that can make sense for a time, frankly. Like there was certainly a, a phase in my life when I started my first company, Kettle and Fire, where I was working a lot and it was, I was weirdly starting a health company and was like, not the healthiest I've ever been for sure.

Yeah.

You know, but I think that like first year, two years can often be very challenging. However though, I think that as I have like fixed my environment, done a lot from a health standpoint, I certainly have much more energy and feel like excited and energetic to show up to work. And frankly, like Kettle Fire is 10 years old now. Almost all of the benefits in that company and almost all of the value in that company has been created in the last like 2 or 3 years. Like there is such a real way in which just being able to stay in the game for a long period of time and attack every single day with energy over a 10-year period. I think that is where so much of the value of starting a company, you know, gets, gets created and delivered. And I think that if you're doing 996 for 2 years, 3 or 4 years at the start of your career, with very few exceptions, I think it's just going to be hard to maintain that pace for a very, very long period of time. And still be sane, like your life, get excited by the company, work with other people that, you know, that inspire you. That said, though, you know, I think that this is probably advice for the average. I like— and frankly, it does seem like certain people like the Elons and others do seem to work some, some something more like a 996 than not and have been since they were like 23 or something. So, so I don't know. All I know is for me that I feel like great, high energy. I show up with health, show up and like, I feel like I can do this forever, which is not something that I see all of my friends necessarily feel.

Yeah. You know, Elon's a dangerous example. I think he's an outlier on many dimensions. I actually think he's Martian, which is why he's so hellbent on getting back there. So yeah, dangerous to follow him as an example, but you, you didn't use this word, But when you talk about staying in the game, you refer, you're really referring to what Warren Buffett thinks is the most powerful force in the universe, which is compounding.

Yep. Like exactly.

Growing a little bit year after year after year. You look up one day and you have a big company, or like compounding a skill. Like, I don't know, I practice guitar 2 hours a day. I make a tiny little bit of progress each day, but I look fast forward a few years and I'm like a virtuoso guitarist, you know? So yeah. Yeah. It's just staying in the game.

I could not agree more.

I'm curious, is it just time? Like if you look at the kind of that inflection with, with Kettle and Fire, is it just now a market trend? Like I certainly, I was a CrossFitter forever. I think you've been a CrossFitter, so we need to talk about that.

Yep.

But in the CrossFit community, everyone was talking about bone broth and like, is it just timing or did you find you were more creative because you were less stressed? Like what, what was it that caused the inflection?

Yeah, I, I think it was two things. Like I, when, when I started Kettle and Fire, for me, the question was just always, it was when I started Kettle and Fire, for me, the question was much more, is this going to be like, this is going to work at some point. There is indefinite demand and desire for products that are healthier for you, grass-fed, you know, toxin minimized and like much more nutrient dense than exists today. It felt like for me, the question was definitely people are going to want more bone broth. They're going to want a product that is clean, high protein, you know, grass-fed, all like all the things that I think are important. It was just a matter of when. And I think that for, for me, the thing that I was just curious about was what, what will it take to like build this trend and how in the interim can we build supply chain, marketing team, sales capacity. And I think that the trend has grown really nicely in the last 2 years. Protein demand has just absolutely exploded. Sure. You know, and I think that people are realizing more and more every single day that our food system is poisonous, that people are malnourished, and that people are not getting the nutritions that they need to thrive. And I think that bone broth and Kettle Fire is just a huge solve. It's like literally the highest protein per calorie product that you can consume. You know, and, and we, yeah. And we have the, like what I would call by far the highest quality product on the market. And so for us, I think it was a matter of time and like now it's grown steadily every single year since we started the company. And you know, again, talking about compounding, here we are 10 years in, it's like quite a big business, which is, which has been really cool to see.

I love it. As an aside, listening to you, you've clearly done a lot of research, so I'm wondering, Are we overdoing it on protein? Like I'm doing a gram per pound now. It feels good. I feel good. But like, yeah, what are your, what are your thoughts? Are we, are we overdoing it on protein?

Yeah, I, I think that, I think that so often the mistake of the last like several years has been, has been sort of like trying to optimize around one macro and missing a lot of like what goes into that macro. And so when, when people say, you know, not, not to like call you out, but like when someone says like, I'm optimizing for 1 gram per body, per, you know, per kilogram or pound of body weight, Oftentimes they're not talking about like what is the type of protein that you're getting? And I, and do I think that someone that is eating a ton of like vegan protein powder and using, that is using like generic peas and getting a pound of protein, you know, it's like, I don't, I'm not really sure that that's healthy. And I think that oftentimes people will over-optimize for one metric, like a protein macro in, in what they miss is like the body is a very complex system. Like our biology is meant to try and search out and get nutrients so that we can thrive. I think that if you eat a bunch of your, your calories from whole food sources, very often, like if you have a focus on protein, you know, eating it from whole food sources, well, you'll sort of know, am I getting enough to meet my nutritional goals? If you're trying to like add muscle, you're working out intensely, all this, like I think a pound of protein per body weight can be a great goal. If you're not willing to make any other changes to your life and you're just trying to hit like a macro goal, you know, and, and eating your vegan protein and walking 3,000 steps a day and never strength training. I don't know. I'm less, I'm more skeptical that that is like the right thing to aim for.

Yeah, that's totally fair. Yeah. So, you know, I'm 55. I did CrossFit for 6 years. I just stopped 2 months ago.

In fact, why'd you stop?

Burpees.

Yeah.

I just hate them. And then doing, I don't know, like 100 of a thing and I just feel like I loved it. I loved the community. I actually, you know, years ago wrote a blog post about how CrossFit made me a better executive because I just created this discipline. Like before I showed up to work, I went to CrossFit. We do some batshit crazy shit in CrossFit and I don't know if you do hit a one rep max deadlift or nail a handstand pushup or you know, some other kind of complex gymnastics move and you come into work, you're like, I'm unstoppable. I'm gonna crush today.

Yeah.

Like, look out. And then, you know, when you start to get serious about it, then you start prioritizing sleep and nutrition. And certainly Greg Glassman, who founded CrossFit, has been talking about just what you described, right? Like whole foods, right? Like his prescription for food just make is so common sense, right?

100%.

So there's so much that I loved about it. I just found that, you know, muscles are the fountain of youth. We lose a little bit of muscle mass and bone density every year over 40. Like, I don't even remember 40, it was so long ago. And so I just wanted a bit more hypertrophy and a little more recovery time for tennis, which is kind of another passion. But I, I love CrossFit and it's like the opposite of Fight Club. Like you have to talk about it. So yeah, we're checking. So are you still doing CrossFit?

Yeah. So I, I was doing, I was doing CrossFit. I actually started Kettle and Fire out of when I was at the San Francisco CrossFit box with Kelly Starett.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. I since then have—

That was a great, the one that was the one down by the water, right?

Yeah. Near the Presidio.

I trained there and I, I felt like I walked into the cast of 300. Everyone was like shirtless and jacked and I was just like this. Little guy.

I, I must not have been there. So, but yeah, I mean, it's, it was, it was amazing. Like amazing community, amazing people. Like it, it was awesome. But I ended up stopping just because at that time, shortly after I started traveling a lot and I found that like if I was gone for a week not doing CrossFit and came back, my body would just get absolutely wrecked. And so, yep. You know, I was, I was, yeah, I downshifted and focused on the business for, for a couple years and did more work than working out.

Um, mm-hmm.

For probably worse.

Mm-hmm. So speaking of work, I'm curious how you, so you're running TrueMed, Kettle and Fire still exists, you're still running it, but maybe you have someone day to day or you're like literally running it as well.

No, we, we have a CEO there, so I'm, I'm like, uh, at the board level chairman, everything like that.

Okay. Uh, you got the venture partner thing. I don't know how much time that takes. And then of course you have a brand new startup in the form of your child, so you're busy.

Yeah.

Like, so how do you make it all work? Like what systems, routines, boundaries, like, yeah, how do you create or how do you, how are you able to thrive in, in these different roles?

Yeah, it's a good question. So I, I would say at a very high level, I'm very fortunate. Like I work on, you know, Kettle Fire like is an incredible business. We have an amazing team. I worked with many of them for many years before kind of stepping back and they, they know what they're doing. And, you know, with TrueMed, like I am firmly operating and so much of my life is at the intersection from friends, professional work at the intersection of like working on this chronic disease problem that it feels in some way like it all just kind of works. Like I work harder on TrueMed and I meet interesting people. Some of those people are starting companies, which makes them good investment candidates from a seed stage standpoint. You know, as Kettle and Fire grows, I get, I like meet people through my work as a board member there and interface with people at Whole Foods or other retailers or influencers or others that like we end up partnering with on the TrueMed side. And so I do think a lot of these things work. Frankly, too, I think that the second piece of this is just I'm so fortunate to really enjoy what I do. And so I will say that like I don't work 996 in any sort of like rigorous, I'm in the office sense, but I definitely work a lot. Uh, and I, but like what people would say, oh, Justin is working right now. Like I just, I just enjoy it. And so like I'll wake up on a Saturday and be like, heck yeah. Like I'm so lucky I get to work, you know, work or, um, you know, play on this company that I started on this idea that I care about. Um, one of my friends like started a company and he has a similar feeling and he's like, I, I get to play this company today. You know, it's, it's not work. It's, it's literally play. And for me, I love it. I feel like work is my hobby at this point. Um, You know, and, and I really enjoy it and so I do it a lot. Yeah.

I think a lot of founders would, would, would feel that way, right? Like they obviously, they love what they do. It could still lead to burnout. Like too much of a good thing is still too much. So like, I don't know. Yeah. How does it feel? Do you feel, do you feel like you have good sustainable boundaries or sometimes do you feel like it's too much?

I mean, there are times where things feel like a lot for sure. There are some days, but I think that for the most part, I, it feels pretty good. Like I think that, and you know, maybe we're lucky, maybe it's a moment thing, but for right now I think that we are hitting our goals. We have fairly aggressive goals. We have a great team. There's like tons of things that we can be doing better. There's tons of areas that I can lean in and do better. Uh, but I really do think that we're doing like some of the best work of our lives. We're solving an important problem. Um, and we're really fortunate and lucky that that we can kind of lean in and do this. And I think that it feels fairly sustainable right now.

Do the Surely and Perfect Keto brands, are they still around as well? And do you still own them?

Yeah. Yeah. So they're, they're still definitely around. Okay. You know, my, my time on those is kind of less. We have good operators that are CEOs of each of the businesses. So I'm, I'm spending less time on those for sure. But yeah, they're, they're still around, like have, you know, some material number of customers, but you know, Perfect Keto's never raised any money. Shirley's raised some money and is like doing a big retail push right now into the non-alcohol wine space. So I would say we're making progress.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So 3 times you've put yourself out of a job and replaced yourself, which I'm guessing a bunch of folks would find interesting. Could you talk about how you made that work?

Yeah. Yeah, it's a good question. So I'd say a couple things. We, like, I started the companies and at some point as the companies kind of grew, I felt very strongly that, you know, it was, I really love the early stage. I love solving problems. I love doing all this stuff. But at some point, the reality is that like there reaches a time at the company where I think that it is, I am not the best person in the world to take a company from X to Y. Like, and I think for Kettle and Fire and Perfect Keto and Shirley, like that was, that was, that was certainly the case. Shirley, I was actually never the CEO, you know, but, but, but with the other companies, I think at some point I was like, there, there's a tremendous opportunity here and there are people that are much more experienced and going to be much better at taking this company to the next level than me. And I think that in, in all of those cases, that has been has turned out to be the right decision.

I'm curious, do you make them a quasi co-founder or they just get some options? Like how do you make them behave like an owner? Because there's owner magic, right?

Oh yeah. I mean, I think they all have options. They all have equity. They all have like either profit shares or other sorts of things that, you know, that make us both mission aligned. I very much believe in giving equity to everyone that I work with. And so, So yeah, so, so very much, very much so. It is like an equity thing and a thing that I think is important to get alignment across the leadership management, everyone.

Yep. Cool.

Yeah.

So maybe as we wrap up, we, we began with TrueMed and I'd love to come back to TrueMed. Like, I definitely feel that more and more people are aware that, hey, We're doing this wrong. Like healthcare is anything but healthy. There's no prevention. I need to change my lifestyle. And so I've, I've certainly begun to get involved with some wellness brands that I literally just joined the board of one this week. So curious, how do brands work with TruMed and how do you turn this into a movement where this is more and more people who are repairing themselves and thriving?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think that we are at the beginning of a huge transformation in how people think about healthcare, at least in the US. Like I kind of mentioned this at the beginning, but the average person, when they think about the healthcare system, they think about doctors and hospitals and PCPs and pills and surgeries and all these things. None of these are actually like health-promoting. You know, in fact, none of all of these things are basically, they, they're reactions to someone getting sick in some way, shape, or form. And that may have made sense at a time when, you know, chronic disease was a fourth of what it is right now. And when most of the things that, that, you know, required hospital care and engagement with the healthcare system were more acute injuries, breaking a leg, childbirth, things like this. I think that now, you know, as most of the spend and most of the issues in our healthcare system are chronic conditions, the whole system of like pills, prescription surgeries, doctors that barely talk to you and don't know you from like the next 10 patients, but they're going to spend 15 minutes with just makes increasingly less sense. And I think that like mathematically and fundamentally, people have to start thinking about healthcare through the lens of how do we actually make people healthy. And if you believe that and you think that is the case, then we are like on the precipice of more and more people starting to underwrite and think about things like food interventions, supplements, sleep aids, this whole host of things as actual medical interventions. Like that is the mission and the movement that TrueMed is working on starting. And frankly, like a lot of the data is on our side. If you look at many different studies, you know, if you're working to treat or reverse obesity or treat or reverse even things like depression, there's a study that came out recently that showed that, uh, it was cycling, walking, strength training, yoga, tai chi, dancing. It was like 18 different things that involve movement were more effective than SSRIs when it came to treating treatment-resistant depression. And you know, if you go to your doctor and say like, hey, I'm, I'm dealing with depression, it's pretty bad. What are they going to prescribe you? It's going to put you on an SSRI or send you to a therapist, both of which clinically, and the research is showing, work less well than many of the lifestyle interventions. And so we, we want to advocate and build this movement where people start to think about these effective lifestyle interventions as actual healthcare interventions. And other players in the healthcare system start to understand that and then are willing, you know, eventually to pay for them, to incentivize people to do them, to like give you a, a, you know, a certain amount off of your premium if you join a gym and go 5 times a week or eat healthy or whatever it is. And so that is the world that we're, we're trying to build towards. And like the thing that I think it's a real opportunity in today's healthcare system.

Yeah, I love it. I definitely want to see that world happen. You know, as an aside, this company's not in the US, but I know there's a US equivalent, like I'm a customer of a, a company in Canada called Nia Health.

Yep.

And twice a year they come into my house, draw a bunch of blood, I pee in a cup, I go to a facility and do a VO2 max test and I do a DEXA scan. And the same way like an e-commerce brand or a SaaS company has like a dashboard with all these metrics, I have a dashboard with all my biomarkers and the trends and then recommended lifestyle interventions for anything that's off. So like this, Yep.

Amazing.

I have like, I'm running my health the way I run a company, you know?

Yep.

Like with the KPIs and the tracking.

So I, it's amazing.

I really hope more and more people do that.

Yeah. I, I could not agree more. And I think there's a bunch of these companies that are popping up, at least in the US, like Function Health, Superpower.

Yep.

That, that are starting to, to do these kinds of things and make this easy, which is really exciting.

Well, Justin, thank you so much for making the time and I really hope hope that this conversation motivates more people to jump on the health bandwagon. You know, I say to my CEOs all the time, like, I don't know, like a healthy person has 100 priorities and a sick person has one priority, which is to be healthy.

100%.

So like when we go sick, we realize like nothing matters but being healthy.

I could not agree more.

Awesome.

Hey, thanks for listening to the Startup CEO Show. If you'd like to connect with me, be sure to visit my website at Mark MacLeod me or follow me on LinkedIn at @TheMarkMacLeod or Twitter @MarkMacLeod_. And if you want to tune in again next week, be sure to subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you next time.