Colleen Lewis & Dr. Amy Lee - bluSONIL: Where Aesthetics Meets Longevity

Hey friends, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness and wellness industry podcast for over five years and running. I'm your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the honor of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. If you like the show, we'd love it if you took three minutes of your day to leave us a nice supporter review wherever you consume your podcast. If you're interested in staying up to date with the future of fitness, go to futurofitness.co to subscribe and get weekly summaries dropped into your inbox. Now onto the show. One theme keeps coming up: the right technology can make or break your business. That's why I'm thrilled to introduce our new presenting sponsor, Perfect Gym. Perfect Gym isn't just another gym management system. They are part of the Sport Alliance Group, Europe's leading fitness software company that has officially entered the US market. Now, I've seen this movie before, but here's the difference. They've opened up a U.S. headquarters in Boston because they understand that the American market deserves dedicated, localized support. After digging into the platform, one benefit especially stood out. They are simplifying the nightmare that keeps business owners up at night migrations. These guys were able to migrate one mega client with more than 250 locations in six different countries in just 20 days between two payment runs. No disrupting operations, no member loss, one seamless operation that simply works. Now, if you have ever switched platforms, you know how terrifying that process can be and how truly impressive that feat is. At a high level, here's their secret sauce. They give the power back to the operator. Instead of forcing you into their closed ecosystem, their Perfect Gym Marketplace connects with over 120 integration partners. So want to use your own app, your preferred payment processor, class pass for booking? No problem. Whether you're running a single studio or managing a multi-location enterprise, Perfect Gym was built from the ground up for multi-club operations. They have invested a ton into this platform, and now they're bringing that European engineering excellence to America. The migration experts have arrived. Check out perfectgym.com where enterprise level sophistication meets operator freedom. Today's episode of the Future of Fitness is brought to you by Flex, the only HSA FSA payments infrastructure built specifically for leading fitness and wellness brands. I have been so impressed with the Flex team and their vision to transform how people pay for fitness. They built a platform that makes HSA and FSA spending seamless, unlocking a new revenue stream for brands and giving consumers easier access to products and services that keep them healthy. Here's why this matters. Flex helps fitness brands increase average order value by up to 50% and boost checkout conversion by 30%. That is not just incremental growth, that is transformational revenue powered by consumer dollars that are already set aside for health and wellness. What excites me the most is that Flex is changing the game for the entire industry. They're bridging the gap between healthcare and fitness by making it simple for consumers to spend their pre-taxed dollars on the products and services that help them feel and perform their best. Flex works with fitness leaders like iFit, Johnson Fitness, Tempo, and Aloe Moves. Honestly, this is a no-brainer, and I rarely say that. If you want to see how Flex can drive growth for your fitness brand, visit with Flex.com. That is with Flex.com. Now onto the show. All right. We are live. Dr. Amy Lee, Colleen, welcome to the future of fitness. It's a pleasure to have you guys.

Thank you. It's great to be here.

We uh we're gonna cover some really interesting stuff for the industry. I mean, you guys are at a uh kind of a convergence of you know aesthetics, longevity, health span. Um, and with all of the science coming out and all of the trends and consumer demand in this particular area, it's it's a really good time to be talking about these these things and what you guys are doing. So we're gonna get right into it and and hear what you guys are up to at Blue Sineal. But let's start with some introductions first. Uh, Colleen, if you want to kick us off, and then we'll get to Dr. Amy Lee, and then we'll get into the meat of it.

Fantastic. Thanks, Eric. So I'm Colleen Lewis. I'm one of the co-founders of a company called Blue Sineal. Blue Sineal sits at the intersection of longevity, wellness, and regenerative aesthetics, all under one roof. And for the past five years, I've spent my career in the world of aesthetics and the world of wellness and metabolic health. Prior to that, for 30 years, I worked in the world of best-in-class businesses, started my career in the cosmetics industry, and then I spent about a decade in cosmetics, about a decade in the world of luxury specialty apparel, brands like Ralph Lauren and Burberry and the Estee Lauder companies. But I feel like I really found my home when I started my time in aesthetics and then wellness. And that's really how this vision was born. It was bringing everything together for the consumer in one place. And and I met Amy on this journey, and I'll let her introduce herself.

Yeah, I would love to hear you guys met as well.

Thank you. Yeah, so um I'm Dr. Amy Lee. I have been practicing medicine for about 18 years, but really in the past 10 years when I dove deep right into the metabolic health and now currently longevity space in the longevity space. I think it's just the evolution of the practice of medicine that have kind of guided me to focus on the one thing that I found important and impactful, which is really treating the foundation as core versus throwing medicines to acutely cover the symptoms, right? And so when um in the past 10 years, I've been working in this company here locally in Southern California, where I met Colleen in the past three years. And truly, this is a, I feel like her and I, we we're probably just the same person in makeup.

I just don't have a medical degree.

Um but when it comes to being being innovative and strategic and launching brands and as well as coming up with great new ideas that are a little bit non-conventional, I feel like she is definitely the right partner to deliver this. So that's kind of how we met in our previous career.

And Dr. Lee is a little humble, but I always like to brag and say not only is she a medical doctor, but she is triple board certified. So she really has the goods to back up her medical expertise. No, it just means I've been in school for way too long. That's all.

Yeah, I was gonna say, okay, so those uh to those of us who are a little naive too, what does that mean? Triple board certified.

Yeah, so you know, I I did the conventional uh practice where I've gone through residency in internal medicine. And so I am triple core certified in internal medicine, obesity medicine, and a certified physician nutritionist. So I really just want to hyper focus on all things metabolic health, food-related, weight management, and and so that kind of just overlaps with everything we do now.

Was there any uh, Dr. Lee, was there any specialty, a field of medicine that you were in before you got into this?

You know, the primary specialty is internal medicine. So I treat all adults and it's just kind of like a family med doc, but I extended my training, spent a few more years in clinical trials and and in clinical nutrition at UCLA, and then acquired my specialty board and obesity and nutrition, or you can call me a physician nutritionist. And so just everything that relates to food, intake, supplements, herbs, and also just learning all the practices and different dietary modalities out in the space and how to do it correctly and medically sound use and no use of medications. So that's kind of like my bread and butter.

I feel like that's rare, right? Like a medicine, nutrition coming together in a in a scientific way. Like that, I don't I don't maybe I don't talk to enough doctors, but I don't hear about that very often. Is that is that fair to say?

Yeah, it's it's literally, I mean, I mean, it's picking up, right? I mean, and I would say about 20 years ago, there's only a few hundred of us, and now every year, I believe that there's about you know 1,500 to 1,600 additional physicians that would uh get board certified in this field as well. But in totality, there's only about 9,000 of us in the nation, but 9,000 compared to 900,000 total doctors that are board certified. So that makes us like 0.01%. So, you know, as much as there are a lot of doctors that can practice nutrition and weight management and metabolic health, but it is really nice to have that certification on that wall to say I took the test, I'm dung through the ringer and did all this, but really to truly just be on top of the whole practice and also just really meeting the people that are running the show, who's doing all the clinical trials, who's proving things out. And so that's why I decided to spend the extra time and effort in really just being in that community and in that space.

Yeah. Well, I mean, that could be a whole nother conversation and a whole nother. So like there's another podcast. Yeah, I know. So let's let's find so you guys meet at some point. You're like, you know what? I think there's a gap in the market, there's a problem to be solved. You conceptualize Lucineal. Like, tell me, walk me through that process. What was the identification of the opportunity for you guys?

You know, look, as a consumer myself, I found myself becoming more and more interested in wellness, meaning, how do I live my longest and healthiest life? We like to say health span greater than lifespan. And, you know, there's a lot of biohackers out there. It's like, what's real, what's not real. If I want to do a contrast therapy session, I have to go to place A. If I want to get an IV, I have to go to place B. If I want to test hyperbaric oxygen therapy, I have to find a place, but then I have to go someplace else. And I've always been a consumer of aesthetic services. And so we really identified this big gap and this white space to say, what if we brought all of these modalities and all of these services in these two really core pillars, both which are really robust categories in the United States and globally? But what if we made it easy for the customer, the client, and said, you can do all of this here in a medically guided, outcome-focused way, in a high-touch hospitality experience and in an environment that will rival, you know, a Four Seasons or an Mandarin Oriental, for example. And so we're really excited to bring all of that together.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, uh so let's get into one of the questions I have for you guys because I've been noticing this in the marketplace when it comes to longevity and you know, the layering of aesthetics makes a lot of sense. So that's kind of a two-part question, so bear with me here. Number one is how are you guys going about curating the offerings that you guys are bringing in-house? Because what we're noticing now, at least from my perspective, is that the longevity category has a lot of wind in its sales, but it's kind of figuring it out. Like, what do we offer? What is the pricing? Who exactly are the customers? You know, can we scale this? Like there's a lot of questions to be had. It's exciting time, I think. So when you guys look about what you're going to offer, yeah, how do you curate those offerings? And then how critical is aesthetics to this? Because a lot of longevity clinics actually don't deal with aesthetics specifically. So yeah, give us give us some insights on that.

I'll kick us off and then Amy, you can join in. You know, when we were looking at what modalities and what treatments we were going to offer, both for the aesthetics, regenerative aesthetics specifically, and the wellness side, we were really focused on medically guided, clinical evidence-based outcomes. So, for example, as we were thinking about do we want to offer lymphatic drainage compression therapy? And the answer is yes, we do. But as we were evaluating that, Dr. Lee explored many different modalities. And we landed with Balancer Pro because it is used in hospitals, it's FDA cleared, there's a lot of clinical data about it, and we can actually claim lymphatic drainage, not just compression therapy, as an example. So it had to be outcome-driven, FDA cleared in most cases, or FDA approved, and then ultimately clinical data to support it. And Amy really guided our decisions on the wellness side. And Amy, what would you add?

Yeah, for sure. And I think when it comes to kind of navigating through the comparisons, right? Obviously the price has to be right. But it just happens that we got the Maserati of all lymphatic drainage uh system. And it it's just it's funny. And I find myself actually just kind of going me deep into it and buying my own unit just to compare and see like what actually makes sense. But when it comes down to digging into the science, which is great because companies either would offer you all the great things and all the written up clinical trials, which you know, I'm obviously very experienced in reading and evaluating, uh, versus the onesie twosies where they have really no data to backup anything, but they have a great marketing team. So these are the things that we kind of have to navigate through and figure out all right, what's legit, what's not legit. And I guess it is kind of nice to have a science science person in the background to be able to go through all that. And sometimes these companies really bank on or focus on the jargon of marketing, where someone who's not medical might just go along with the flow, right? And just accept the fact that, oh, okay, I guess this is efficacious for that very reason. When in reality, once you dig into the data, it doesn't make any sense. And so we've done a lot of that with all our comparisons. And, you know, at the end of the day, there's a reason why things are expensive. And so we just ended up with kind of the better option of the alternative and things that we picked up.

Look, one other category I could give you an example on, Eric, is hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Now, there's a lot of folks out there that are now offering hyperbaric. I would say hyperbaric light, right? In quotes, because it's a fabric case cover. It is never going to get you. You might feel a little bit better when you get out of it because you're breathing, you know, almost pure oxygen during your time period, but you're never going to get the full metabolic health benefits if you're not in a hard-shelled hyperbaric chamber that is cylindrical, right? There's some square ones out there, but oh, by the way, you have an explosion risk because oxygen congregates up in those square corners. And so we specifically partnered with a company called One Hype. As a matter of fact, it's the only device that we're buying that's not manufactured in the United States. And this is a UK-based company. And there were two reasons, obviously, science-driven, medically based, outcome, clinical trials, all the things we've already said. And when we think about the experience, the experience in this chamber is far superior. You sit up, but you can recline and lounge down. You can watch a Netflix movie, you can bring your computer in, as opposed to some that, you know, they look like you're climbing into a coffin. Excuse the analogy, but nobody wants to climb into something like that for 90 to 90 minutes to two hours. And there's also windows out. So when you're in our chamber, you don't get that claustrophobic feeling that you would in another. Um, considering the client's experience was also paramount in our decision making.

But have you have you guys been following this guy who lived like on the ocean floor for like a long period of time? And basically it was the whole study on hyperbaric. I I'm I'm butchering this because I've just read high lines, but it came up recently because it's basically it's proving out the hyperbaric conversation, right? Of like his his bone density increased, his testosterone shot up, and he's like, I think he's in his 50s, like all these things that happen. Like and now I'm starting to get asked questions about hyperbaric therapies, which is really that's how I know, right? It's to be like, hey, have you heard of them? Like, well, I haven't tried it yet.

Well, you'll come to Blue Senile and you'll try it with us.

Well I love all those things. I love all those things. So, where are you guys at right now? Maybe we should start with this too. Where are you guys at as far as where the business is? And right now we're recording Q3 of 2025. So give us some insights into where you're at, what the journey has been like so far, and uh what what you're hoping to see in the next year or so.

Yeah, we are moments away from opening our very first location in Scottsdale, Arizona. We found a phenomenal location in Scottsdale Quarter, which is a premium lifestyle center in Scottsdale. We are in conversations with landlords for leases number two, three, and four. And we have a really bold vision. In the next five years, we envision opening between 15 and 20 locations across the country. And we do not see this as a franchise concept.

Yeah, that was my next question. Is this uh you guys are growing corporate?

We we are definitely going to go corporate. You know, look, I've, as I said in the beginning, I've worked for some of the very best brands in the world. And there's so many lessons I learned in working with those brands. But the number one is you have to control your brand and you have to control the execution and the delivery and the client experience. The best brands in the world, whether it's low end or high-end, are the ones that deliver consistency and that the client knows what to expect every single time, regardless where in the world they experience that brand. And I just do not believe that through a franchise you can accomplish that, specifically when you think about the types of services and the modalities that we're offering.

Yeah, the medical side. Okay, that's that's a difficult thing. I mean, I I know uh, you know, there's a lot of people in the market. We talk about them offline who are who are going the franchise route in the longevity space. I mean, it's just it's challenging the scale as it is, right? It's just a challenging model. And maybe talk about that. Like for people who are not super familiar, why is this a it's got its own unique challenges if you want to scale up to 15, 20, 50 or more locations? Like what are the challenges there specifically?

You know, look, I think so I've run stores organizations when I was more junior in my career before I ascended into C-suite responsibilities. I wouldn't say that there's anything more challenging or less challenging in this concept. It comes down to do you have the best real estate? Have you negotiated the best financials on that real estate? Are you attracting and hiring the best talent in the marketplace? And then are you delivering on the promise and are you executing? You know, look, talent is a unique thing in this type of category because we're looking for mid-levels, so nurse practitioners, physicians, assistants, and also naturopathic doctors and attracting those medical professionals that have the depth of experience and the qualifications that we're looking for, you could say would be one of the hardest things. However, it's interesting with the launch of Blue Senile, as we put up our construction graphics in Scottsdale Quarter, we put a QR code that said, you know, scan to learn about employment opportunities. And then we've also had a really lovely pickup in the press of our first press release. And we just did our media kickoff event with the Scottsdale regional publications. And what I can tell you is we haven't run one ad to attract talent. We have gotten people that are medical professionals, naturopathic doctors, mid-levels, experienced injectors, experienced aestheticians, experienced functional medicine practitioners, as well as everybody that's then in the support role, which are the non-medical team, equally as important, front desk team members, wellness guides, general managers. And every single person has come in through us not spending one money on marketing that we're hiring. Now, do I think that that's going to happen for us in every single market? No, I do not. However, I am confident that with Dr. Lee, her counterpart on the aesthetic side. So we have a second chief medical officer, Dr. Tia Paul, who is a board-certified dermatologist. I'm I'm confident that when you put that level of credentialing behind this brand, we will be able to hire people of substance that will help us bring the brand to life.

Yeah, it brings up an interesting question. Maybe Dr. Lee, this is a question for you. So attracting talent for something like this as a medical professional, is this a really attractive opportunity, like versus the more traditional medical path? Right. Is this it sounds like It's unique, sexy, cool, you know, more positive. You're doing like preventative health versus like reactive care. Like, yeah. So, how how as a medical professional are you attracted to something like this?

Yeah. All the things you just mentioned for sure. It's very different. I would say people would say it's alternative or non-conventional. But it's also it's also a different way of thinking about how you want to approach your client or consumer or or you know your patients. And I feel like there is a subset of providers out there that really want us to think outside the box and they're really tired of the conventional practice of medicine, just like I was 18 years ago. You know, there's something bigger out there where we can actually do good and do it well. And we are actually interviewing a few of them. Like I've already gone through uh a couple candidates, and they have this passion and energy of kind of reminding me of myself. I'm old now, so you know, I'm kind of like, okay, I'm there we go again. But it's nice to see those types of individuals where they come out and they they just brighten my day because I realize, all right, you know, I'm not the only one trying to negate impact in this world in my lifetime. There are now others that have the same similar thought process. And then just to add on to our previous comment on how difficult it is to scale this type of business in a franchise study is all the regulatory in every state. Like my main job isn't like clinical care anymore. My main job is to figure out what are the nuances of each state and how each state kind of function as its own little country when it comes to medical board, nursing board, and how you even practice in general. So it's very interesting. I mean, we're high-level, obviously, if you consolidate all these services to one person like myself, where I think about this all day long, then you really don't need to waste time with, you know, teaching individuals on how to run the show in 50 states. And this is how we kind of mentalize how we're gonna do this and scale.

Yeah, you're you're more like a director of regulatory affairs at this point, right?

Yeah, I'll just say I have a lot of I have a lot of calls with people that are non-medical in every state to teach them what we do for a living. So it's exciting though.

Yeah. You know, when um I was thinking about this, I was actually walking around downtown Whitefish the other day. There there's no longevity clinics where I live. Shocking. But the uh but there is aesthetics. Like I was I was like, oh my god, I didn't even notice them. I just walk by them so often. I'm like, there's at least two or three. So here's the question I'm getting to is like I feel aesthetics is established as a as a service offering, right? Longevity is still, as we were discussing, still finding its way. So how do you merge like when the marketing and the positioning and the education and the consumer, like what how are you guys going to approach how are you approaching that in the marketplace? Taking one thing that's kind of established, bringing in these new modalities and trying to, you know, combine them for something unique.

Yeah, there's such a synergy between regenerative aesthetics and longevity treatments and therapies. And as we've been talking to candidates, you know, there are injectors that are like, look, we're treating her menopausal and menopausal women. And there's only so much we can do from an aesthetics perspective without talking about what's going on inside of your body. So hormone replacement therapy is something that will improve your outward appearance, right? Your hair, your skin, your nails. Another great synergy. Look, to regenerate your own collagen, we're going to focus on microneedling. We're going to focus on laser and light therapies. And I've done a lot of that in my life. And now, after I have one of those therapies, I'm going to march myself to our hyperbaric oxygen chamber and I'm going to do an aesthetics protocol because hyperbaric helps with the healing, right? We've just damaged the skin. We're going to help with the healing. And hyperbaric is also clinically proven to improve collagen production. So that's like the synergy that nobody else can offer that. We also know that, you know, stacking peptides and microdosing GLP1s and using IM vitamin shots will help your outward appearance as well as support your internal metabolic health. So get an IV, jump in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber, get a facial, get a microneedling treatment, and we can do it all for you.

Yeah. And I feel like, you know, in our practice, everyone always thinks in silos, like, which organ system am I fixing today? Well, guess what? Your skin is actually one of the biggest organs on your body, and it's a reflection of you, right? You know, sometimes people say, Oh, you have that glow. You know, maybe that one day you drank extra smoothie and whatnot. But it really does, it's very telling. Like if you fix your inside, you will see it on the exterior, and vice versa. You know, you come here for lasers, why not do your best and optimize every aspect of what you can do at home so that you can extend that benefit of what you just spent thousands of dollars on, right? For the uh exterior beauty. So this is to me, it makes total sense. It was just a matter of finding the right partner to execute this.

And you're right, Eric, there's a huge lift in terms of education for the consumer. You know, we're doing a four-week immersion onboarding training when we start. So we open December the 5th, but our team members start on November the 10th. And there will be a, you know, a huge education we'll do internally, but also in our marketing and how we're engaging with the client when he or she comes in to ensure that they're really understanding it. I think there's a big responsibility for everybody who's in this space, whether it's wellness, longevity space or the aesthetic space, to educate. I think there's a lot of uninformed clients out there that are trying things. And we see a huge responsibility to educating.

When you guys are going about putting together the menu of offerings for these, are you selling treatments or are you selling results? Like what I'm trying to get is like, you know, if someone comes in, they're like, well, they're picking, they don't know what they're picking off an offering menu. And then like, well, no, I just want my skin to glow. Okay, great. Well, then we'll put this together for you. Here's the result. Here's like, are you kind of curating that for them or are you letting them choose? Like, how does that how are you guiding the clients?

Yeah. First of all, we're not selling onesie, twosie treatments, not at all. We're actually selling outcomes and we're here to help solve problems. We do have a membership model, which will give those people who become members, you know, a really front row seat to all things blue cineal. And we'll start with blood biomarkers, gut biome, DNA testing, body composition testing, a Vizio skin analysis, which lets you see not only what's going on at the surface, but below the surface of your skin on your face. And then from those results, we'll actually curate a personalized plan that will address what we're seeing in the individual markers, as well as to help address what that client wants to address. And so we think that that's also a really big differentiator. And yes, somebody can come in and get a facial or do a contrast therapy session a la carte 100%. But to really get the best impact and results from Blue Cineal, we believe that having that level of data and that personalization is the winning ticket.

What do you what can a consumer expect to invest? Is there like a range on a monthly scale that you guys are looking at for average client value? Or yeah, how are you looking at the cost factor?

You know, what's really interesting is as we were looking at our cost of goods and then what is the retail price, we're going to be competitive with the other people out there in the marketplace, the med spas that are doing, you know, aesthetics treatments, some of the longevity folks that are out there, some places because you're going to get better results from the modalities we've chosen. You know, we're priced, we're priced at market. We're not above market. When you think about our memberships, there is um blue radiance for the consumer who really wants to focus on aesthetics, but oh, by the way, we're gonna give them some wellness credits every month. And then there's blue vitality, which is the reverse. Hey, I really want to focus on wellness, but guess what? We're gonna give you some credits over here in aesthetics. The price point of that membership is $299 a month. However, the value of that monthly membership is over $900. So we really look to give a great value equation to the membership offering. There's another one that's called uh blue longevity. It's $499 a month. It's really the combination of the two things that we just said, but that has a value of over $1,200 a month. So we feel like we've gotten really sharp pricing that will be very competitive in the market. Yeah, we're excited about that because we want people to have access. We want to be able to help and support a larger group of people, not just the upper echelon. And of course, we'll help them too.

Daniel turn them away.

No.

That's that's that's very um, I mean, from what I've seen, that's very reasonable pricing. I think, you know, when you start comparing to okay, when you say longevity, most people now think of rich white dudes. Right. Like that's kind of like there's yeah, biohackers are spending, you know, over a hundred thousand dollars a year on their uh longevity efforts. And so everyone kind of thinks it's like, well, that's for the Uber rich. But like that model is very affordable. I think a lot of people, especially those who uh you know put their disposable income towards their own health and wellness, like that, that's not unattainable. So that's exciting because I've always just wanted to see more, you know, I want to see more access.

Absolutely. We're all we did a full analysis on the market offerings, what the market could bear. And look, when you come into Blue Senile, you're going to feel the difference, right? The environment that we're creating, every single thing from an architecture and design perspective was intentional. We have curved spaces. It feels very organic. It doesn't feel like you're walking into a clinical treatment room. And of course, we'll be clinically appropriate in treatment rooms as we need to be, but the environment will be elevated beyond anything, honestly, that's on the market today. And it's not inexpensive to do that build-out, but we definitely think it's worth it.

Yeah. The hospitality thing is really critical. I um, so my first kind of experience with this, I was at the Dosera clinic in Park City last year getting a treatment on my knees. And now they're now partner with CubeNot. And when I went in, like, first of all, everyone was super nice, right? It wasn't like you go to, I mean, we all know you go to the doctor and normally it's like it's a cold waiting room, you're gonna wait, everyone's late, you're gonna get rushed. It's just not there's no hospitality there, it's just like a checklist thing you got to do. But this was like they call me 20 minutes ahead, be like, hey, I just want to make sure you're finding the place okay. When I showed up, they had like, you know, some tea and coffee ready for me. This is amazing. This is not medical. So the hospitality thing, I think, is really important because people are gonna start investing this type of money and it's it's a shift in the consumer expectations like they they should expect more, right? They should expect more if they're paying that much.

Yeah, yeah. And these things don't cost much money. Smile and ask how are we doing? It goes a long way. I always say, hey, we gotta give everyone that feeling of the Starbucks effect where you can make your own coffee for stuns at home, but yet you choose to come in to you know, pay four bucks for the same coffee. Why? Because of that community and the faces and the recognition. And that's really something that we want to prioritize, you know, in this business as well. Because truly, other people have contrast therapy, other people have IV hydration. What makes us stand out? We gotta be the whole package for sure.

One of the things I want to cover before time runs out is uh, you know, in our conversation in preparation for this, Dr. Lee, you're talking about you don't mind living in the gray area. I thought that was kind of a good quote. Explain what that means, like and and what does that mean for you know Lucineal and and what your efforts moving forward?

Yeah, you know, um of course we want to do the right thing all the time, every day, right? But sometimes in a fast-paced industry where things are just growing left and right, and you know, all of a sudden you get this new product or new service or new technology, sometimes the things are what I call gray, meaning, hey, they haven't been like they haven't gone through a robust clinical trial, for example, but there are little baby trials that you can dig up and information and testimonials. And I think what we are placed in a position of being kind of early adopters of all things cool and new and innovative, we want to do the right thing and delivering all the right information to the consumer and a client. So then we are practicing medically sound services, right? And so when we say alternative as well, and what we do because we're not conventional, people call as alternative or or a little bit different, then a lot of times they tie in that ward of, oh, you just get kind of in the gray.

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I embrace Greg because that means there's newness and innovation and new ideas and people with new thoughts and passion. And this is where I'm kind of at for the past 10 years. You know, we've been working with compound pharmacies, for example. To a lot of my colleagues who are in health systems, working for the Kaisers of the World or Academic, they find what everything I do to be alternative and in the gray because they have no concept of how to even capture, like, why do you even source some compound pharmacies? Why don't you just buy from the pharmaceuticals? Uh, why don't you prescribe conventional branded medications for, you know, whatever the cost is? And when in reality, there are so many different options out there. And these are all legit in industries of businesses that we can leverage and use at our advantage for delivering things that no one else is doing. And so, you know, this is what I do, and I am passionate about being in the gray for that very reason to be the first to get there and also first to deliver something that's kind of cool and new.

And you know, we could we could use peptides as an example of what people think is kind of in the gray. But there's a lot of clinical data around peptides and how you can stack peptides to get the best outcomes for yourself and for the clients. And like it almost doesn't feel in the gray to me, although it is certainly not sitting in the general public's psyche, right? It's a select few people who know about peptides. And hopefully we'll begin to educate further and we'll help more people understand peptides and the value that they have and the outcomes they can deliver for you and your health. But you know, I don't think about peptides being in the gray, but in the medical community for sure it is.

Yeah, they've been around for a long, long time.

Exactly.

Very long time. What do you guys expect is going to be the most popular offerings that you guys provide?

Tough one. I think I'll go first. Okay, go ahead, Amy, and then I'll go.

I definitely know. I feel I'm pretty confident to say peptides are in the next wave of like innovation. Only because now that I'm kind of knee deep into the community talking to owners of compound pharmacies and manufacturers, you know who's ordering what, and you know all the clinical trials out there. There are hundreds of trials being conducted right now, just studying GLP ones. So that tells me people are focusing on the one molecule that has a lot of potential for not just weight management, but all things wellness, longevity, and metabolic health, obviously. So you know where the money is going. And so you know that there will be one company that's gonna be the forefront of making something or creating a branded medication or and whatnot. But you just kind of look in the space of, hey, who's doing what in clinical trials? And then you it gives you a really good picture of what's going to be the next big thing. Peptides have a lot of benefits, like you said, Eric, it's already out in space. This is a matter of finding the right partners to legitimize it and practice it and set standards to it. So that's my that's my input. That's my hundred million dollar bet.

Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna hold you to it. Yeah, yeah.

100%, 100 million dollars. You heard it here in peptides only. Okay, so then I'm going to answer on the aesthetics category. While we know that Botox is the gateway drug into aesthetics, we really expect to do a lot of laser light microneedling, and then an injectable that's a biostimulator called Sculptra. We think that that's really where our bread and butter is going to come in in the um aesthetics category.

You know, in the uh the peptides, I took a little trip down this road because I was like, maybe I'll I'll you know open or invest in an online peptides clinic, right? And I was like looking at all the different options. I'm like, this is okay. This is not straightforward. Like there is no straightforward path if you want to get into the peptide business. And you know, we looked into what it takes to create a compound pharmacy and you know, you sourcing like all these different things. And I was like, my buddy and I was I won't say his name, but he's very influential in the space. I was like, Yeah, screw it. Like, I don't want I don't want any piece of this. So I I people who are into that, like especially the compound pharmacies, like I appreciate the uh difficulty and the the really the courage to get into that space and do it well, and then there's the of course of sources, the other ones that a lot of people are sourcing on their own now, which are you know not for human use, right? Just for clinical purposes, as they say, where you can get them cheaply, but you don't really know where they're coming from. So anyway, it's it's it's this wild, wild west of peptides right now, where I'm just really keen on watching from a distance to see where it goes. And you guys have the advantage of working with compound pharmacies, so that takes off a lot of you know the rest of it. It's just I don't know, total side note.

And you know, Eric, not only do we have the advantage of working with compound pharmacies, but with the best compound pharmacies in the world. And Amy has had relationships with them for many, many, many years. And so it's not like we're, you know, it's not like we're experimenting as we go into this service offering at Blue Cineal. It really comes from a deep trust and a deep relationship.

And do you guys want to give a shout-out to any of those compound pharmacies that you like? Or are you gonna keep them secret?

Oh no, yeah, we can share. I overshare all the time because you know it's it's karma. You know, we work with a company called Red Rock, and we've been with them for years of my previous career as well, but they're legit and they're always innovative on the things that they think about and adding on to their product line. They're based out of Utah, and I know recently they were in the process of building out what we call 503B compound pharmacy component, so which is huge.

Um because they're currently from a distinction perspective.

Yep, yep. And um, and in the talks as well with other companies like mixed gen, it's also a one-stop shop kind of deal where they have the technology piece as well as sourcing for legit compound pharmacies with all the backing and legality in place. And so this is what we do. This is our, you know, like every day when we talk to compound pharmacies, and there are thousands of them out there. It's a matter of who are you in the industry? And do you have all the backing regulatory and paperwork that I asked for? And I have a whole laundry list of things like, hey, if you want to work with me, these are the things you have to provide. And oftentimes I would say about six out of ten times, some of them they just don't have anything. So this is how we do our vetting on who the right partners are. And that is probably the most important part in in kind of our sourcing and yeah.

And then beyond the clinical piece of it, you know, we know the owners of these compound pharmacies. Sometimes they're pharmacists, sometimes they're not. Amy and I visit. Compound pharmacies. You learn a lot when you do a visit and a tour. And, you know, it just doesn't seem like people in this space that are prescribing these things are doing all of those things. And look, I think there's plenty of people out there that are totally legit that are offering some of the same services and they're doing it in a really appropriate way. But it is a little bit like, hey, buyer beware. Make sure you know and have the trust in the place that you're working with that what you're getting is what you're expecting.

Yeah. Well said. Good. Okay, here's a fun question for you. When you look at all the trends in longevity right now, what do you think is the most overblown like modality? Yeah, something like I I'm just gonna I'm thinking like this because like Gary Breca is an example of someone who is like he's everywhere. But like he does, you know, he works out inside of a bar like a bariatric chamber. Or not bariatric, you know what I'm trying to say.

Yeah, he does in a hyperbaric chamber.

Hyperbaric chamber, yeah, and like he wears a weight fest everywhere. Like there's all these things, like we're okay, all right, let's just pump the brakes, everyone. Like, what what is so what do you guys look at? What makes you chuckle a little bit about what people are willing to do for for longevity right now? And what what do you think is maybe not worth the investment?

Amy, do you want to go first? I don't know, I might get a haters.

That's all right. Don't worry, no one listens to this anyway. Yeah, just get whichever do you want.

There is one one modality where I feel like I'm gonna dive deep on, which is the plasma exchange. Plasmaporesis, where are you going? You get hooked up almost like a dialysis and exchange all your plasma. The claim is it takes out all your inflammation, all the markers that aren't supposed to be around, and you know, then you get all your kind of clean plasma back. I find it a little bit aggressive, and maybe because maybe because I was trained and I did rotations in the nephrology ward where I watch these poor souls going through dialysis and they just sit there for you know four hours at a time because their kidneys don't work. That's one thing. If your kidneys don't work, you need dialysis and you get need that exchange. But in this case, this is just a what they call a voluntary plasma exchange. You get hooked up to a machine, blood gets chicken out, and things get cleared up, and then it gets put back into your system. It seems extreme to me because of the nature of it, one, and probably because I'm biased, because like I see it as a modality to treat a disease state, and it just takes a long time when in reality all your organs should work. And why can't we do all the things that are a little bit more conservative before you approach something so aggressive, right? But I don't think you know there are people out there that that lives by. I think even Dr. Martin Hein is all about it. But I I feel at the end of the day, there's there's a lot to a consumer that is affordable that you can do before you approach the more aggressive uh modality. And that's kind of my take on it. Not that I'm against it, I'm just kind of like probably won't be in at Blue Sunille anytime.

I mean, just what it conjures up as far as a picture in your mind, right? It's so like scary, that's all it's like some kind of Dracula scenario, right?

You know, you know what's interesting? I have been in and out of a lot of different places that offer some of these services, not all of them, right? Just having experiences. And there's one that comes to mind, they're now franchising, and they offer that service. Like the device in the chair was just like sitting in a hallway. It's like, hmm, yeah, didn't it certainly wasn't an elevated experience? And the medical doctor uh that I talked to was like a clinical OBGYN. And I was like, do I want that person doing a plasma exchange for me in this hallway? So it didn't feel like the right thing for me. I'm gonna answer on the aesthetics side of the business. I think PDO threads are super overrated. I think they were introduced several years ago. If you don't know what they are, Eric, it's a thread that gets like put in and then they pull it up, right? And it's it's marketed as non-surgical facelift. And I'm gonna say, yeah, no, that's not exactly what the outcomes are. There's a lot of adverse outcomes. And I actually think that we'll see PDO threads become less and less used. And it is not a treatment that we will offer at Blue Signal because if we don't believe in it, if we wouldn't do it, exactly, just pull it right on.

So yeah, they like put a thread underneath like your chin area and then they pull up your your face essentially.

Yeah, yeah. There's different places that they can be put in. They can be put in in your cheek, and you know, you know, everybody wants to get that like elevation, right? As we age, everything starts to calm down. Look, I said this in our pre-chat, and I'll say it again. I don't want to look like my 28-year-old daughter, but I want to look like my personal best at every stage of life. So at 58, I want to look my best and I want to age well. We don't talk about anti-aging because everybody is aging. The outcome is, you know, not great. The other alternative is not great, right? You're either aging or you're dead. And so we talk about aging well, and that's really what we're focused on. Awesome.

Last question for you too. As an industry, if people are listening, like what do you guys need help with? What would you like to hear from people about? And then how would you like them to get in touch with you guys?

Amy, go ahead first. You know, we just want people to give us, be open-minded, you know, uh, walk into my studio and be transparent and vulnerable about what you don't know and ask us questions. Because if I'm an open shop, I'm gonna know, and everyone in the shop or in the studio will know everything about the business, right? I want you to pick our brains, walk in and quiz my associates on all things technology and how it all works. You know, like be an Eric. Like you asked really good questions today regarding like how things even stack, how do you even blend services and modality? I want all those questions because in order for you to be convinced, you have to be given that information from us. I want you to know our purpose and why we're even there in the first place. And we want to be approachable, you know. If in the moment you feel like, hey, look, LuciNeal's not living up to our expectation, let us know. Very open-minded, and we want to sustain in this business and in your community. So love to hear everyone's thoughts.

And what I would say is we have a huge level of intellectual curiosity as the leadership team. And we know that the technology is moving fast and the science is moving fast. And as new things come on the market that are outcome-based, clinically driven, we will explore adding those treatments and those services to our offering. And so if you're out there and you're working on something that you think we would want to know about, we want to hear from you. Things like, you know, brain mapping and QEG types of services. I really think the brain is the next frontier. Brain and sleep, and they're super, super connected, right? So we're focused on sleep solutions. We're focused on brain in the next, you know, as we continue to explore and say, what can we be doing differently? What are the other things that we think our clients are going to be interested in? And we want to be leading in those categories versus following. And if somebody wants to get in touch with us, it's really easy. Amy at bluesignal.com and I'm Colleen at bluesignal.com. You can also always go to our website at bluesinial.com and you know, send us a message through the em through the website as well. And we would love to hear from you.

Awesome. Well, you guys, thank you for for doing this. Um, I got to ask a lot of fun questions today. Uh, this whole space is just it's so exciting and cool, and um it captures the imagination for kind of what's hostile with our lifespans, right?

Absolutely.

So it's it's a fascinating time to be alive.

And that it is.

Yeah, really appreciate it. So, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Amy Lee and Colleen Lewis. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This was your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minute. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it. We want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the futureoffitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the future of fitness. Have a great day.