#19 - 3D Body Scans: Coming to Your Gym

Today, we're going to talk to a company who has made some Star Trek tech real. This is The Tech Optimist.

We are reinventing personal health with our AI-powered photorealistic 3D body scanner to bring a device that can change the way we see healthcare.

It's really, it's not just the pounds. It's not just the stuff that you can't see. But I do think this kind of thing can be a huge tool in that journey for people.

We will be able to model the performance of athletes by modeling their musculoskeletal structure.

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Hi, uh, welcome to the Tech Optimist podcast. We're today visiting with another early-stage, uh, AV portfolio company, Shape, and its CEO, Alex Weyenberg. Alex, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

So, just to kick it off and tell us a little bit about Shape and what you guys do.

Yeah. So, I'm co-founder and CEO of Shape, and we are reinventing personal health with our AI-powered photorealistic 3D body scanner that is called Shape Scale. It actually tracks how your body shape changes over time. For example, by tracking your 3D body shape, when you lose or gain 4 pounds, we can actually show you exactly where. And, that matters a lot because you could have gained 4 pounds of lean mass in your upper body and be overall healthier and you're going to live longer, or you could have gained 4 pounds of fat in your midsection, some of it being visceral fat, which would dramatically affect your life expectancy.

Yeah. So, I mean, as I think most of our listeners know that we think Really, the class of GLP-1 drugs are pretty significant technology.

Yes.

And, we're just at the beginning phases of, but over the next decade, we think that this is going to have a profound impact on society. Again, I've shared publicly that I've dropped 55 pounds. I'm an ex-athlete, but COVID and life, I had put on some extra weight. And that we're actively looking for investments in this space. And Shape, I think, is a great example of it. So kind of moving beyond the— for us, it was 2 themes, GLP-1, right? That people are going to be more interested in their body composition beyond just a number on a scale. Yeah. And this combination of software and hardware, we think, is also a theme that is going to be really important over the next decade. And a big believer in Alex as a leader. And those are the 2 things we look for, is a big opportunity, a change in the marketplace and a team that we can get behind early in its development. So we're super excited about Shape. So tell us a little bit about the business strategy, Alex. I think, you know, there's both— you think of the consumer side, but also, you know, how do you think about this from a business model standpoint?

Shape, as mentioned, has launched their premium product, Shape Scale. Alex next begins to dive deeper into their business model, but I wanted to share Shape's mission statement from their website to prep your mindset for the conversation that ensues directly after this. Our mission at Shape is to empower individuals to take control of their health and wellness through innovative technology. We strive to create a world where tracking and monitoring physical fitness is effortless, accurate, and accessible to all. By bridging the gap between the human body and technology, we aim to revolutionize the way people understand and improve their health. With a commitment to design, engineering, and data science, we are dedicated to pushing boundaries and delivering products that inspire and improve lives. Let's get back into the conversation. Take it away.

Yeah, I mean, we, we thought initially to go directly to consumer, but we realized there is so many things that we can actually learn from experts in the field, whether they're personal trainer, coaches of professional sports team, whether they're bariatric surgeons or weight loss specialists or even plastic surgeons, there's so many things that we can learn from them by going B2B2C first. And at the same time, growing a very healthy business in terms of annual recurring revenue that it was too good of an opportunity to pass on because all these learnings that we can take from these experience we can after bring them to people's home in a lighter version. Obviously, we're not going to replace your doctor. But, that allowed us to really have a very interesting and I think innovative go-to-market strategy where currently, I mean, we're in 100 business locations including weight loss clinics, gyms, personal trainer, plastic surgeon, and even physiotherapists that are using our product. And, you know, but we are going to be by the end of this quarter, we're going to be in 200 locations. So we have doubled, literally doubled that number in less than a quarter. And so that allows us to reach a lot of people and get a lot of learnings. And that's what, you know, a startup, I believe, should do.

Do you sell these units? Do you lease them? Is it a flexible approach that way? How do you—

That's an excellent question. Actually, from the get-go, we realized that, and that goes back to the trend that you were saying about hardware plus software, there are incredible synergies there of having a physical device that actually captures unique data set that is personal to you. And then on top of that, we put in AI and intelligence. to provide unique services. So in the end, we are more of a software as a service platform, and the hardware is just an enabler. So businesses are getting Shapescale for $200 per month with no upfront cost. And we've signed up a lot of businesses. We have been growing, you know, over 50% month over month for the last 9 months. From $10K in ARR at the end of Q3 last year, we're almost at $450K in ARR. at the end of this quarter. And, but we're doing the same for consumer as well, is that we will sell them the device, but most of the value they will get through software and services. And therefore there's a recurring payment as well for the consumer, a small subscription, depending on what level of personalization you would like, what level of service you would like.

Yeah, no, and I could see from a business perspective, if you could close one new plastic surgeon surgery case, or you could sign up a couple more people into your gym. The ROI on this is probably— they're doing it in a very business development perspective, I assume. Yes. So, I think that's probably a segue right into our audience in the Alumni Ventures community, which is the ask is, Hey, if this is something that might help you in your business, can you kind of just rattle off the kinds of people, again, Alex, that might be interested in the Shape Scale?

Yes. So, if you can introduce sports team coaches, personal trainer, weight loss doctor or clinics, bariatric or plastic surgeons, we can help them bring their practices or businesses to the next level by providing unique insights for them and their clients. And one of the examples I want to give is a weight loss clinic in Las Vegas that's working with JLP1 that tripled their conversion since they started using ShapeScale by showcasing what is going to happen to their client in a very visual way. They went from, you know, 30% sign-up rate to 90% sign-up rate literally by incorporating this in their signup process. So that's the first ask I have for the community. The second one, we're building a product that we want to put in everyone's home because that has incredible implication on health and healthcare. So if you are thinking of getting one for your home, we're going to have a special discount for alumni ventures when we launch officially at the end of this year.

Yeah. And again, I would also say is like, because we're going to be picking up one for our company here. So again, I would encourage you as kind of an employee benefit. I know that there's something like 16 million Americans on GLP-1 drugs. That number will probably double,

I

think, in the next 12 to 24 months is Supply increases, knowledge increases. I know at our company of 125 people, the number of people that are on this medicine just kind of doubles every 6 months. So again, as a corporate benefit, again, Alex, if you're an AV portfolio company or just a friend of Alumni Ventures, again, reach out to Alex. I'm sure— Yeah. I think there's some HR departments, people in culture where increasingly this is something that could be made available maybe in the same room where we reserve a space for nursing mothers, parent kind of thing. You can put it in there privately for sure. But again, I think as people Think about this lifestyle choice, the before and after picture or during. It is really, I think, one of the bits of advice that I personally give to people, friends and family that are going on these drugs is I think it is really a great idea to take kind of a picture once a month for your journey. Yes. Because really, it's not just the pounds, it's not just the— Stuff that you can't see, but I do think this kind of thing can be a huge tool in that journey for people.

Hey everyone, taking a quick timeout so I can tell you about the Sports Fund from Alumni Ventures. AV is one of the only VC firms focused on making venture capital accessible to individual investors like you. In fact, AV is one of the most active and highly rated VCs in the US, and we co-invest alongside renowned lead investors. With our Sports Fund, you'll have the opportunity to invest in a portfolio built around tech and business advancements across the sports world, from personal wellness to sports media to team ownership. This fund is focused on companies that have the potential to tap into the massive global sports market that is expected to exceed $250 billion by 2030. To get started, visit av.vc/funds/sports. Enjoy the rest of the show.

Oh yeah, I mean, it's the perfect companion for these kind of treatment. First of all, It creates more engagement and the visuals speak for themselves. Some people also cannot, don't realize they are losing so much and so fast. And so this is kind of them reconnecting with their body and understanding, hey, this is what is happening. This is where I'm losing the weight. And typically it gets them even more excited to be on that journey. and take other steps that are also necessary. And I think you've been talking about this in your other interview about GLP-1, is that you need to have the, at some point, the lifestyle change. You need to get the food noise under control. You need to get that diet a little bit higher on protein. You need to get the exercise going. And ShapeScale is amazing for that because at some point you're getting on a plateau, right? Yeah. You're losing the fat, But those, you want to do more effort and more effort is that you're going to start exercising. You're going to feel better about exercising because you're not going to hurt yourself. So, you're going to build lean mass, lean muscle mass. And that's great, especially as you age for bone health because it's going to maintain your bone density. It's going to maintain your mobility and your posture. And so, ShapeScale, so your weight is going to stop to change at some point.

Yeah.

But ShapeScale can actually show you what's going on. And some people have lost zero weight, but you can see literally the volume is moving from the bottom of their waistline up to their body and their legs and adding literally years and years to their life expectancy.

No, I couldn't agree more, Alex. I mean, it's almost like the twin pillars of weight loss One is the weight loss and losing the fat, but then it is about exercise, flexibility, lean muscle mass. Mm-hmm. And, I was with my brother in Colorado, Summit County this past week, and it's just we're similar ages, late 50s, and wanting to continue to ski, to bike, to go on long hikes at altitude, to fish, fly fishing, you're squatting, you're casting, those kinds of things. If you want to do those in your 60s and 70s and maybe even the 80s, again, this is just another tool to, I think, motivate and just monitor your progress as you put in the work. Talk to me a little bit about sports. And, I can think about football teams and those kinds of things. What's your perspective on this as a tool for teams in sports?

Well, right now, it is not the most focus we have because we're just seeing more traction from other segments, typically the weight loss and plastic surgery as well. We've seen a lot of traction on that side. But we do have a very strong base doing sports. And I think it's going to be an incredible tool because first of all, right now, I mean, we can do body composition in a pretty advanced way by directly inputting your body shape into an AI model that correlates that with a DEXA scan. So we have a dataset of 1,000 DEXA scans and we're getting some amazing results. We can estimate visceral fat, we can estimate your bone mass and the lean muscle mass. So we can do all the BMR calculations. So all that is, you know, we do 90% of what the DEXA scan does without having a DEXA scan for a team. It's like 10 minutes of each athlete there. It's a 1-minute scan for each athlete. We have face recognition, they can just step one by one on ShapeScale, even just to measure weight, we can deactivate the scanning. And, they can just get the weight of everyone on the team one by one in just literally 2 minutes.

Yeah.

Just because we have this technology. But, I think beyond that, when you think from a musculoskeletal standpoint, we will be able to model the performance of athletes by modeling their musculoskeletal structure and how we can in the end help them perform better. Because in the end, it is physics. And by inferring that structure, we will be able to provide highly personalized plan to get those because you're already at the 99%. How do you squeeze this last 1% from your top athlete so he can beat— the competition. That's what we will be able to provide in the future. It is still, we still have some work to do on that. But we can, for example, already animate the scan. We can already model a lot of things of what is going, infer what is going on inside by just looking at what is outside of the body by having this correlated dataset. And that's what gets me. I'm an athlete, right? Mm-hmm. So the origin story, maybe we're going to talk a bit about this. is that I used to do gymnastics at a pretty high level, training 20 hours a week with champions, et cetera. And so, and I keep doing sport every day here in San Francisco. So, bringing a new technology to athletes to help them perform is something that I care deeply about.

Yeah. So, tell us a little bit about, a little bit more about the origin story. How did you get off the ground in—

Yes.

kind of where you've been and kind of tell us a little bit more about where you're going, Alex.

Exactly. So, like I said, I was an athlete training gymnastics 20 hours a week. So, I've always been in great shape. I'm one of the lucky to being born almost like that and have this asset. But, that's until I moved in 2010 to to China for work. And there's one thing that you need to know about me, I love Chinese food. So, when I moved to China, I started eating Chinese food, you know, pretty much breakfast, lunch, dinner. It was mostly, you know, high carbs diet, noodles, the delicious bao and dumplings. And, you know, after a couple of months, my wife asked me if we were getting pregnant and she was talking about me.

Okay.

So, you know, You know, and I was like, that was the first time in my life I felt like, yeah, I'm actually, it's a little bit like a story about COVID right? Like things got in the way and I was working hard and not taking care of it. So I hired a personal trainer and I started, you know, a protein-rich diet. And, you know, I do that for 5 weeks and then I buy the latest, you know, connected scale. So I was very excited. And, you know, after a couple of weeks, what happened? Well, obviously I gained 4 pounds.

Right.

And

muscles heavier than—

Because I built muscle pretty fast and muscles are denser. And so then I look at myself in the mirror and I realize I look different. My clothes are fitting different.

I

already start to feel my shoulder opening. My posture is better. And then it hit me how many people are struggling with that same problem, especially the ones that are not as fortunate with their metabolism or as fortunate with sports that I was, what must have been the journey for them. And also it made me realize, wait, we're measuring the wrong thing. And if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. Yeah. The body shape change actually provides you a more engaging— that's important, the engagement in the feedback loop, but also a faster feedback loop. You start doing a new routine, you can see the effect. And that directly hit me. And another thing hit me is what you said about the combination of hardware and software, because I had worked all my life on building hardware products. What is the most important thing is actually the data that they collect and what you can do with it. And this becomes increasingly important, especially in the age of AI. If your device can capture a unique dataset and extract insight from there, well, that's it. Someone would have to recreate that dataset. And that's what takes the time, right? The algorithm is always getting better. So, yeah.

And the other thing I think that was part of our beta and you and the company, Alex, is the evolution that this between version 1, version 2, version 3. Yes. We just think that there's huge option value here with the data. Obviously, B2B, B2B2C can provide a great structure for that. I think obviously the technology of what you're going to be able to learn about the human body from these kind of scanners will grow over time in our opinion. And, I also think there's some— if we're going into a world that is more digitized as well, I think there's a future that may be 5, 10, 15 years away where a device, this device or a device like it that is scanning you, knows your body, can be kind of a virtual agent for you. Yes. So, once you scan it, once you scan Mike, it's not a huge step to create a virtual avatar of Mike, right? Kind of thing. So, again, I think whenever you invest in a company like Shape, you're somewhat buying an option on what Alex and his team and the data as a platform could become, especially when you're in— this is not a Series D that we're participating in. Where it's— they figured that all out. So, likely to evolve.

I personally believe it's one of the greatest opportunities of this century to bring a device that can change the way we see healthcare.

Yep.

I mean, every science fiction movie has a body scanner that magically, you know, can detect an anomaly in your body and potentially says, okay, this is what needs to be done. Well, it's not going to be a CT scan because this is radiation. It's not going to be an MRI machine because it would send every metal object in your house flying around, right?

So Alex here brought up a really fun sort of concept that I wanted to dive into a little bit just for fun. He talked about, you know, how in sci-fi movies and in TV, there are like sci-fi body scanners or sci-fi genetic technology examples throughout pop culture. So I wanted to share a few because I think some of them are really cool and some of them are from my— some of my favorite movies. So we're gonna start at the OG from the 1966 Star Trek series. So in The Wrath of Khan, Kirk uses a retina scanner to access Project Genesis data. And then at the beginning of the episode, I gave you a little bit of teaser on the tricorder. So the tricorder is that handheld device that Spock and Kirk and all of them use to scan for life forms and record technical data. Now, there's a medical version also which can be used to diagnose diseases and record body stats, which is kind of more along the line, I think, of what Alex is talking about. But, and then we'll hop to a little bit more modern, WALL-E from 2008. EVE. EVE is a perfect example of this. So EVE, her name, the white droid's name, Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. And she's a droid equipped with a scanner to detect self-sustaining life. So, you know, in the movie where WALL-E shows her the boot full of the plant and then absorbs the boot with the sustaining life in it and kind of shuts down, right? And then that's kind of what the whole movie's about. So that was a pretty cool scanning technology by Disney. And then also in the Disney realm, we're going to end with Jarvis from the Iron Man movies. Jarvis. So not only is Jarvis an exoskeleton personal assistant for Tony Stark, but he also scans Tony Stark's body and his equipment and his suit and everything to make sure he his operation is at his best possible capacity. So yeah, figured I would just share a few fun sci-fi genetic technology examples, and let's get back into the interview.

But but you walking. A device where you walk in front of and automatically watches over you. I mean, today it's a robotic scanner that rotates around your body, but it's going to be included in your wall and you will walk out in front every morning and it's going to watch over you. It's not just about fitness, dieting, and aesthetic. We already know that we can— dermatologists are like, oh, wow, you can take a picture every time of the same location. guaranteed good photographic quality, but we can track melanoma like this. That's exactly what we do. So just, and we found dozens of things like that, including breast cancer, deep vein thrombosis, you know, stress fractures, infections that we could catch early on. And that's one of the things that I deeply care about because my, one of my brothers passed from cancer. from, you know, a form that we could have— it could have been saved if we would have caught it earlier. And so, that's one part of the thing, which is really, there are really so many insights and nobody has looked at your body in terms of body imaging from non-radiation or non-high, you know, magnetic, just using visible and non-visible light. So, hyperspectral, if you wish so.

Yep.

So that's one thing. But then there's another opportunity that is also there is because if you create a device that have people coming to every single day, now you became the front end. You became like Amazon.

Yeah.

So if I tell you Amazon is going to build something on top of having people coming every day to their store, you're going to believe them. If I tell you Amazon's going to build FedEx and, you know, replace FedEx. If I tell you FedEx is going to be like Amazon, you're going to laugh. You're going to be like, no way. So having that unique connection with the user, a regular one almost every single day or every day because we're in their home, I think that's what is the greatest opportunity. Think about you hurt your knee and your knee is swollen. We have your credit card information and your insurance information. The AI automatically finds out. That there's a covered piece of compression wear that includes, you know, maybe lidocaine or, you know, or, you know, anti-inflammatory capsules that you can get for free. So, ShapeScale is going to get you free stuff in your home for you, just personalized to your body shape and what is going on with your body. And, that is a new form of healthcare. We have basically created the real preventive healthcare. So,

I mean, if you think about the future of healthcare, you know, it's the— but it starts with the data, meaning the measurements, the blood work, this visual, all of that. We— I think where we're headed is increasingly nursing, doctoring, at least initial diagnosis or triaging is going to become more and more kind of AI-driven. And software-driven to allow the people to do kind of the higher value-added summary oversight. Surgery obviously is not going to be done for a long time with robots. But, I do think this scanning thing, scanning and data whether it's wearables through it's a whole body scan, I think is going to have a role as well. So again, I think there's tremendous opportunity for Shape in what you're doing.

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Alex, You know, what's next for Shape?

Well, we just finished building our 10,000-square-foot factory near Shanghai, and now we have our first mass-produced batch of 1,000. We actually got the first 100 delivered last Friday. We're pretty excited.

Congratulations.

So, and I mean, we already have a lot at, you know, businesses and in-home. We have, you know, we have actually all the metrics that we need for Series A or even B level. So our NPS is in the high 60s. We're getting organic business, people expanding installation. And even some metrics are Series B level, like our CAC payback time is like less than 6 months. Our churn is less than 10%. And we know how even to further improve this because it's an early product. We still Yep. Learning and constantly talking to our customers and making those improvements and fixes they are asking. The only metric where we are still working on is that we think we're a bit early in terms of revenue. And our target is to hit $1 million ARR, and we are executing super fast on that. Like I was saying, we're growing 50% month over month. So, We're going to hit this in the next 2 quarters. We have, with the round that we just closed, we have enough money to reach ramen profitability by the end of the year. So yeah, we're going to look at opening our Series A once we open, once we get to that $1 million ARR.

No, super. It sounds like you're well on track. So Alex, as an athlete, tell me your favorite productivity hack.

Yeah, so I mean, cold shower or cold plunge in the morning. I get that for free here in San Francisco because I'm surfing at

Okay,

there you go. So this morning we're surfing under, under the bridge with one of our computer vision interns.

I would say a third— sorry to interrupt, but a third of the venture capitalists in the morning, you know, you're likely to raise your Series A by getting up and cold plunging under the bridge in San Francisco. Just introduce yourself a lot, Alex.

Yes.

Honestly, with this productivity hack that Alex shared, the cold plunge, I wanted to look into a little bit of the benefits of it because I'm starting to think about, you know, maybe doing the cold plunge every morning. I think it's a really cool idea. So I wanted to share a few, you know, benefit facts from just doing a cold plunge or from doing a cold shower every morning. So cold plunges may help treat depression and improve mood by increasing dopamine and endorphins within your body, which can make you feel more happy and alert. And then sort of research suggests that cold plunges can also lead to long-term mental health benefits such as reduced anxiety and depression. But then some physical attributes is cold plunges may help with pain relief. So cold water therapy can reduce swelling, lessen pain, and speed up muscle recovery. I mean, it can also help with inflammation, blood circulation. It can help sort of with metabolic efficiency, blood sugar, and like insulin sensitivity. So overall, it seems like a pretty good thing to start adding to your morning routine. So,

so that, that is one. I think, you know, I have another one which is more business related is I always like to plan tomorrow the night before because it brings a lot of clarity in your execution. And sometimes at night you have challenges and They're getting solved. And then I have another one actually for people who are traveling a lot because I'm traveling all the time back and forth to China and around conference around the country. So that's my favorite kind of cardio full body workout is taut rope skipping. It's an excellent full body workout that you can do anywhere. The rope is light and easy to transport. All you need to have is the right music to get you motivated. And, when I travel, I just do 30 minutes of skipping as a warm-up and then a short HIIT workout and then the cold shower. So, it's part of that cold plunge trick.

It's my wife's favorite form of exercise is skipping rope actually. And, it's just so portable, so easy. And it's just so effective.

And it's fun. And it's fun. You can do tricks. So as a gymnast, I love to do tricks, right? So being able to not always do the same movement is something that, you know, train your coordination, your mobility, your reaction time. You are exercising different kind of muscle fiber as well because you are always kind of reacting to the rope. So I think it's a great exercise.

Well, Alex, thanks for joining the podcast today. Again, we're super excited about being part of Shape and its journey. Again, strongly encourage our audience to reach out to Alex if this is something that you'd like to get in early on. Again, Alex, super appreciate your time today and looking forward to being part of your A round, and we'll catch up soon.

Thank you, Mike. It was a pleasure. Happy to come back anytime you want. Excellent.

All right.

Thank you.

Thanks, Alex.

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