Royi Metser - Inside Tracker Pro & Health Optimization Technologies

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over three years and running. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Please stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. But Pocket Suite is different. If you are a business professional or gym owner that needs clients to book time with you and want a seamless billing solution, then look no further. Pocket Suite has you covered. On average, fitness business professionals that sign up for this app see a 30% boost in income. That's because it's simple and has everything you need and nothing you don't. You can easily sell packages and subscriptions. Control your billing in one place, no need for Venmo, PayPal, or any other merchant solutions. Save backforth time with clients and prospects with a custom booking link. Set up automations to cut down on admin time, like client renewal reminders, seamless client onboarding, contracts, intake forms, etc., etc. Look, I know this because I used it myself. It took me less than 10 minutes to get set up and fire off my first client invoice. If you're looking for a time-saving, simple application that allows you to combine three softwares in one with a clean, professional look for clients and prospects, then you have to check out PocketSuite. Go to pocketsuite.io. That's S-U-I-T-E. Check out the Apple App Store or Google Play to learn more and give it a free test run. You can also click on the link in the show notes for my special referral offer. That is PocketSweep.io. When you do what you love, running, racing, or simply enjoying the great outdoors, you want to do it for life. Insight Tracker can help. Insight Tracker was founded in 2009 by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics. Using their patented algorithm, Insight Tracker analyzes your body's data to provide you with a clear picture of what's going on inside you while offering highly personalized, science-backed recommendations for positive diet and lifestyle changes. Okay, time for straight talk. It's time that each single one of us takes responsibility for our own health. Personally, given the results of my Insight Tracker DNA and blood tests, I now have a clear and simple game plan to lower my cholesterol and stave off my family's genetic history of heart disease. The best part is that the plan doesn't include any kind of pharmaceuticals, just personalized nutrition and natural supplementation. Possibly my favorite feature of Insight Tracker is the Inner Age Score, a singular metric that shows me how my biological age compares to my chronological age. They just gamify longevity. It's crazy cool. For a limited time, you can get 25% off the entire Inside Tracker store. Just go to InsightTracker.com forward slash future. But wait, there is more. If you're a coach, trainer, registered dietitian, or any other health and wellness practitioner, you can now leverage Inside Tracker services to help your clients perform better than they ever have. And you can offer them discounts while you earn revenue. Inside Tracker Pro is your gateway to offering your clients Inside Tracker, the science-backed, ultra-personalized performance platform trusted by elite athletes and top coaches. Just go to InsightTracker.com forward slash future to get more information and enjoy deep, deep discounts. That is insight tracker.com forward slash future. Look, friends, the fitness industry is changing faster than ever. The intersection of technology with fitness and health is growing bigger and more dynamic by the minute. Gyms are exploding figuratively, and their constituent parts are ending up at home, outdoors, on your wrist, or in entirely new places with brilliantly new concepts. Investors are pumping astronomical amounts of money into the market like we've never seen before. The FitTech Club believes that collaboration is the advantage to these times of change. That's why the club aims to bring thought leaders together to inspire them by making the right contacts at the right time and giving insights to the industry's most relevant and current trends. Here's what Melanie Lauer, CEO of Kettler and TriSports, says about the FitTech Club.

We have joined the FitTech Club because it gives us access to the most recent innovations in the industry. It gives us access to a unique network and to potential business partners that help us developing our business further.

If you're interested in the fitness technology game and looking to accelerate your growth, I highly suggest you check out fittechsummit.com forward slash club to learn more. You can join the highly valuable newsletter, apply for the FitTech Club itself, or simply learn more or connect with people like me. That's fittechsummit.com forward slash club. All right. We are live, Roe Metzer. Welcome to the future of fitness, my friend. Appreciate you having Eric. Yeah, I'm uh very appreciative of you. I've got to know you, you know, over several meetings over the past few years. I love obviously what Inside Tracker does, the products, and you know, you guys are sponsors, so thank you for that as well. Put that out there. Really appreciate the support on an independent podcast. But you are on the uh business development side of the house, and you have been extremely busy over the last few years. And today's February of 2022, so just give a little date stamp on there. Man, you guys are growing like wildfire. You guys seem to have a product now, especially, you know, I would imagine the pandemic and people's focus on health and what they can be doing on their own. Um, you know, it's been really valuable, and the data and the information you guys are getting is just becoming more valuable and more usable, I think, than anything. So anyway, I'll I'll stop talking. Let's get background on you, Roy. How did how did you get started with Insight Tracker? What's your background? What led up to it? Maybe you give us some updates on where you guys are at.

Absolutely. Yeah, so again, thank you. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. So I've actually been with InsightTracker for, it's coming up on six years in about a week here, which is uh crazy to think about. I actually started my career in a completely different industry. I was in investment banking, um, doing MA advisory and capital raising services for growth technology companies, primarily in enterprise software. So um security software, cloud computing, um, and decided at some point that I wanted to move to the uh really two things. One move into operations and two work uh more closely in a in a field that was um connected to my personal interests and passions. And I would say that at the time I was a frustrated consumer of health and fitness uh products and services. I was confused and unsure around how I should be eating and exercising and living my life in a way that was right for um my unique needs and objectives, bombarded every day with what seemed like conflicting advice in these areas with very little insight into what was truly evidence-based and what was not. And so I I was honestly left uh paralyzed at times and unsure again of uh who to trust, what to trust, and uh how to live my life, how to eat in a way that achieved my unique goals. And I was introduced to Insight Tracker in this around late 2015. And you know, also someone who's very data-driven, background in finance. Um, and I immediately fell in love with a mission of Insight Tracker, which is to help every human being live a longer, healthier life. So I don't know that I could find a company with a more impactful or exciting mission than that.

That's pretty good. Yeah.

And the team was awesome. So I I really love the culture that was built. And what honestly sold me on joining was doing Insight Tracker myself before I joined the company. So I actually bought it uh during Black Friday, which uh is typically when Insight Tracker runs some pretty nice promotions. So I got an ultimate uh plan for myself, I got my blood tested, and I got access to my results and my recommendations, and the reaction I had when I got that back was holy crap! This is something that I think every single human being around the world could benefit from. And so that's what really got me excited about joining the company and helping to scale the business and try to make it accessible to as many people around the world as possible and help people take control of their health, wellness, and performance, and ultimately and hopefully live a longer, healthier life.

Yeah, man, it's great. I and for people maybe who want more of the science, because you know, we can get into the science, but I think our conversation better better be better served to our audience somewhere else. I had Dr. Gil Blander, um, the chief science officer and founder, I believe, right? The correct titles. Um he was on about a year ago. You guys can go back to that podcast, listen to it. It really gets into the science and the details of what Insight Tracker does, but it is extremely valuable. Uh, you know, there's I think you said it to me the first time and it clicked real quick. It's like, well, Insight Tracker, the DNA will show you the cards you've been dealt, right? And the blood test will uh show you how you're playing your cards. Did I butcher that quote or is that no, you nailed it.

I actually can't take credit completely for that. It's actually our CEO, Ronnie, who I heard it from the first time and I loved it. So I've been uh I've stolen it, basically. But yeah, you hit the nail on the head.

Yeah, it's it's really descriptive because it makes a lot of sense. And you know, I I'm curious to get into just from your past, what you what exactly were the frustrations with fitness, health, and wellness? And I'll I'll ask this because, you know, when I was a coach and gym owner, kind of in in that realm of operating within the industry, I would often take clients out for a cup of coffee and I would ask them, like, what frustrates you most about fitness and nutrition? And it was almost always about nutrition, like that was a big thing. Like, well, I don't know, eggs, are they good today or are they bad today? Like, yeah, are they gonna kill me or are they the best thing for me? Right. So I'm curious from your perspective, before you got into this industry, what were some of your biggest frustrations in that area?

I think nutrition was a huge one. So I'll give you a simple example. I was 140 pounds, six feet tall in college, and decided at some point I wanted to start to put on some muscle, bulk up. And so yeah, I would spend hours on the internet reading about how to do that. And there are so many different resources that you can go to to try to understand how to achieve that objective. And I went down at some point the rabbit hole of uh this concept of if it fits your macros, right? Um, so just make sure that you're eating a ton of carbs, uh a gram of protein per pound of body weight, sometimes even two grams per pound of body weight, very little fat. And it doesn't matter what you eat as long as you hit those macronutrient prescriptions, you're gonna be good to go. You're gonna put on muscle. And I was following that for a long time. Um but every year, every month, it seemed like it was changing. Um, at least the advice that I had access to. And it was very unclear, again, what I should be doing and what was really evidence-based, and what was just, you know, someone's opinion on the internet that I happened to be following at that time. Um, but then as I got older, um, it became less about um kind of the aesthetics um and more about also being healthy and staying healthy. Um, and I think I've learned even in the last six years that I've been at Insight Tracker, um, this concept of just because you're fit doesn't mean you're healthy. I think is has never been truer than it is today. And I'm hearing it more and more from our partners and our customers that they're looking for more than just fitness, and the definition of fitness is expanding. And I felt that personally too. Um, so it was very hard to understand again what what's the truth around nutrition? Who's right about nutrition? Are eggs bad for you or eggs good for you? Is coffee bad for you? Is coffee good for you? And oftentimes it's not these black and white answers, it's somewhere in the middle. But um what I was frustrated with was the lack of uh trusted uh advice and a trusted source that I could go to and I could feel confident that hey, the advice that I'm getting from this source is backed by really strong and validated peer-reviewed literature. And that's one of the things that excited me the most about Anti Tracker when I did it is every single recommendation had a reference link that I could click and it would drop me in PubMed and I would be able to read a study that supported that recommendation. That was an approach that blew my mind. Uh and I thought the world needed that because there's so much BS out there. Um, so I would say the frustration was really around um the trust, not not knowing who to trust, not knowing what to trust, and feeling paralyzed by the um the conflicting and misinformation that was out there.

How did your nutrition plan or your approach towards food change after you did your kind of initial insight tracker experience?

Well, I think it gave me very specific and personalized recommendations. So it didn't give me a meal plan, it didn't give me a macronutrient prescription, it really identified for me a few things. Um the specific areas in my body that I needed to focus on optimizing, um, and then the specific foods or supplements that I could use to attack those problems and optimize my body. So, simple example, I was 26 when I first did it and I found out that I had high cholesterol. Now, I don't want to get into whether cholesterol matters or not, because that's a whole other again debate that I think is very hard for all of us to um really understand who's right and who's wrong there. But I think it bottom line is reducing my LDL numbers is not gonna hurt me. So it was something that alarmed me. My LDL was clinically high. And one of the things that Insight Tracker recommended I do was um obviously to bring my lipid levels down, but uh to eat oats or barley because they're high in beta-glucan, and there's plenty of literature to show that oats or barley can have a dramatic improvement on your in particular my LDL, which is what I needed to improve. So it was December 2015, my LDL was 158, which again is really high. Uh, and I started eating oatmeal, which I'd never done for breakfast. And I joined Insight Tracker a month or two after that, and everyone at the company seemed to be eating oatmeal for breakfast. We had oatmeal in the kitchen at the office, so there was no excuse for me not to eat it for breakfast every morning. And I retested about three months later. This is March 2016, and my LDL dropped about 40 points in three months from 150 something to in the low 100s.

Yeah, it's huge.

Just by making that one simple change to my diet of starting to eat oatmeal. So that's a very specific example of how my nutrition, uh my nutrition changed.

People age at different speeds, and the date on your license may not represent your inner biological age at all. If you're looking for ways to extend your health span and slow down the aging process, the keys to health and longevity run in your blood. That's why InsightTracker provides you with a personalized plan to boost your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. Created by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics, InsightTracker analyzes your blood, DNA, and fitness tracking data to identify where you're optimized, and more importantly, where you're not. You'll get a daily action plan with personalized guidance on the right exercise, nutrition, and supplementation for your body. Add interage 2.0 to any plan for a definitive calculation of your true biological age to see how you're aging from the inside out. I was proud to find out I'm a few years younger than I thought I was. For a limited time, you can get 20% off the entire Inside Tracker store. Just go to InsideTracker.com forward slash future to check it out, learn more, and get your own. It's insight tracker.com forward slash future. On to the show. Yeah, that's a great story. And it is, I mean, it just gets so confusing. I I, you know, I reflect on it like I don't know if this is a reflection on the fitness industry, if it's on the educational institutions, on our medical institutions, or but man, I I I look at my doctor that I go to once a year, and I have to, no offense to him as a person, it's a system that he's working within. I only get him, it's the annual physical. I only get him for 20, 20, maybe 30 minutes if I'm lucky. Uh he doesn't request a blood panel, I have to do that. And by the end of the day, it's just kind of like even if I do have the blood panel such a checklist, and there's no what I call like, okay, the well, what now factor, which inside track, I like anything that empowers the everyday person to take more control over their health because I think we lean too much on the medical institution for our health. We point the fingers too fast when our health goes south uh because we didn't take responsibility. We just gave it up. We really just gave it up. I think we wanted to give up the responsibility in some weird way. So um, you know, that's something that I really appreciate. And there's a lot of, you know, you guys do it really well. There's a lot of other companies that are doing similar things, which I in different areas in different ways. And I really appreciate it. And I know it's being well received in the market, which I would love to talk about as well. And you guys have had some fantastic business years. Um, curious, you know, share what you can, like how the last year, year or two been for Insight Tracker, and uh what do you attribute that growth to?

Yeah, I I think it's it's really the perfect storm of trends and um consumer demand around, first of all, um you know, health and fitness tracking is becoming more and more popular every year. We're so used to tracking everything about our bodies and getting more used to that with the different wearable devices that are out there. Direct-to-consumer diagnostics has become more and more popular with companies like 20 Cure and Me and Ancestry.com where they're leading the charge on the DNA front, but also you know blood testing. Um, so I think tracking has become mainstream. That's number one. Number two, I think um I'd be remiss not to mention COVID as a really kind of accelerator for the consumer demand and desire for taking control of your own health and understanding the impact of um staying healthy so that you are resilient when something like a COVID uh strikes. I think also longevity has become more and more mainstream. People are more and more interested in not just achieving short-term objectives around performance or weight loss or you know, whatever it might be, but also how how are you able to put yourself in a position to do the things you love for as long as you possibly can? And for some people that might be, you know, run until they're 60, 70, 80 plus years old. For others, it might be I want to be able to play with my grandkids when I'm 90 years old. Um, it spans the gamut, but I I think people are more and more aware of positioning themselves to live not just a long life, but also a healthy long life. Um and the work that people like David Sinclair, I think, are uh is really contributing to that um consumer awareness and demand. Um I think there's a ton of consumer generated health data that's out there as well, which is another trend that we're seeing. So again, we're collecting more and more data, so there's a ton of a greater volume of data, but there's a gap. And that gap is what do you do about that information and how do you translate all of this data into actionable insights? And I think that's the gap that still has not been filled well. And I think consumers are starving for it. And then the last thing which you touched on is this kind of overarching macro issue, which is the current health care system, the way it's set up as a fee for service system, is just simply not set up for health optimization and proactive and preventive care, which leaves a gigantic gap in care and. Places some of or all of the burden really on us as individuals to take control of our own health and wellness. And so I think you're seeing all of these trends really come together and contribute to massive demand from individuals that want solutions like Insight Tracker offer. So I think really that that's the kind of market trends that we're seeing. And then on the business side, I think we're just doing a great job of it. I think one of the things that makes the company unique is it it's it was founded by a scientist. You had Dr. Blander on your podcast. He started Insight Tracker back in 2009, right after he spent time as a postdoctor fellow at the Lenny Garante lab at MIT with David Sinclair and Lenny Garante. Gil is a researcher, he's a scientist, he's not a wasn't a businessman. He started Insight Tracker because he devoted his life to helping people live longer, healthier lives. And so that commitment to doing everything in a way that's validated by peer-reviewed literature is one that I think makes Insight Tracker stand out in the market and attracts people who care about science-based solutions. So I think that's the key, is that the product really is, in my opinion, the best in the market. And then of course, you know, we're doing a great job on the sales and marketing side, really um executing. So we we've had tremendous growth. Um last year was our best year in company history, I mentioned to you, almost four X year every year over 20 uh 2020, and then in January 2022, we had our our best month uh in company history. So things are definitely in the trending in the right direction.

Yeah, those are good trends, man. Well, I think it's understated. So I'm curious, you know, success uh oftentimes brings competition, right? People start to see, hey, they they're on to something here. Are you guys starting to see more competition in this? Like how how would you let me stick back? How would you define the space that you guys are in or or created? How would you define that?

So it what's really interesting is that what we don't have customers, at least I don't see customers at a at a broad level coming to us and asking, hey, why should I do Insight Tracker instead of product X? I think honestly, the the biggest competitor that we have is the status quo, is doing nothing. It's continuing to do what you're already doing. Now we have I would say there are products and companies in the market that are um potentially competitive, but not directly. So I see them more as complementary. So for example, we have wearable devices, right? These are they're collecting data about your body and then in theory giving you insights about what to do to optimize your body. Um you could say that those fill some of the needs that we fill, but I see them more as a compliment than a competitor. You have direct-to-consumer testing companies like Everlywell, let's say. Um, I think they've really carved out a niche in the diagnostics, direct-to-consumer diagnostics. And I think we're not really about that. We're not a blood testing company. We've built a software platform that is designed to give you advice and guidance around how to optimize your health. So again, I see it really as complimentary. You have all this data, now let Insight Tracker take the next step and tell you what to do about it. So I don't really see direct competition. We don't really see direct competition. That also might be because the market is so nascent still, even as mainstream as it's become, it's still so early. I think I would categorize it as optimization. We're in the optimization market, health optimization, performance optimization. And I think there's a lot of players that are are operating in that space. And it's so early and there's so much room for growth that um we're not really running into direct competition. I think it's um a lot of the players that are in this market are very complimentary and are really just filling different needs for consumers that care about this.

Yeah, I like the way you put that. I don't think I've ever heard the health optimization market, but when I when I I guess I look at it through that lens, I start to see how fast it's growing. And, you know, it's uh, you know, David Sinclair, I think he is, is it his term, you know, it's about health span, not lifespan. And you're you're spot on. I mean, there's more and more people now who are more interested in like I I go to I ski a lot. Um you know, and I look at the mountain here uh in Whitefish and I go out there and I'll oftentimes sit on a chair with someone in their 80s and I'll ask them how long you've been skiing here. And they're like, oh, since you know 1971. Right. And I'm like, holy cow, you've been doing this for like 50 years. And they're like, Yeah, you know, they get and they ski twice as much as I, uh, granted they have more time. But to me, that's kind of like what people are starting to see that they want is especially like, you know, your kids, you have a certain amount of time with your kids, and then they go out of the house, and then now what? Right. Now you have this the rest of your life to kind of get in shape, and that's when people start to get in shape. It's kind of right, it's kind of backwards the way our whole life kind of unfolds. You know, by the end of our lives, that's when we have all the time and free money. Right. And uh that's when people want to enjoy their their life the most. So it's it's an interesting market. I mean, when you look at the okay, let's talk about the health optimization market then. Maybe not people are direct competitors, but what other um companies do you see making a real impact and doing well within that particular segment?

Yeah, so I I think um wearables are a big category, and I think we see that as something that we want to integrate more into the inside tracker experience, right? So we want to play nicely with all of these uh um amazing products and services that are out there that are really just giving people more insights into their body, which is the goal for us too. So I think Aura is doing a great job. I think they've really um found a critical um niche in sleep. Um so I'm wearing one myself. I think um the form factor and the the app, I think is it combines to make a really great um kind of overall product and solution around uh sleep and device, uh wearable device tracking. Um so I think they're doing a great job. Um I think on the DNA side, you really have companies like 23andMe and Ancestry lead the charge there and generate a ton of awareness around this concept of, hey, you know, I can do a test from the comfort of my own home and get some insight about my own body and my health. Um so of course they've done a great job kind of paving the way for a lot of this. And again, same deal there. We really want to be complementary with this DNA testing company. So if you want to, you can take your 23 Mirror Ancestry.com DNA test data, upload it to Insight Tracker, and kind of take the next step in your health and wellness um journey. So I think um kind of those those categories of products are doing uh doing a great uh great job.

Do you uh I'm getting a little off track here, but it's kind of fun anyway. Uh hormone optimization, right? Have you guys started to dive down that rabbit trail of what uh like that that's a fascinating to me? I you know, I dabble with hormone optimization um uh you know, after my collegiate competitive career just to see if this the kind of stuff works. And by golly, it does. Like, you know, everything, like I it's like I went back in time like 15, 20 years because I started to get all my hormones optimized from you know, all of them, testosterone included. Are you guys starting to look at uh you know potential partners or science in that area as that becomes more, I guess, uh accepted as in the mainstream for as far as health and and uh optimization?

Yeah, so I can tell you our approach is we we're looking at, so as you know, blood biomarkers really are the foundation of the analysis that Insight Tracker does on your body. It's one of several inputs, but it's the the foundational one, is what's happening in your blood. Now, there's a few criteria that we use to generate the list of markers that we're currently analyzing. These are markers of kind of health and wellness, not of disease. Um, these are markers that you can influence through your nutrition and lifestyle. So we don't want to measure something that you can't improve through natural interventions. And they're markers that are not optimized in at least 1% of the population, so we want to have a broad impact. We are looking at several hormones in um in that list of 40-something markers. There are several hormones. Um, testosterone is one of them, cortisol. Um Vitamin D, I think, is technically a hormone. Um, there is DHEAS for women. So um we're looking at several hormones, but but our approach really is to look at, okay, for this marker, let's look at all the established peer-reviewed literature around this marker and specifically around the interventions and the nutrition lifestyle interventions that have been shown in the peer-reviewed literature to improve and optimize these markers. And so that's the approach that we took. So we we are uh following the science. And when there is a really strong evidence that says because your level of biomarker is A, therefore you should do B, that's when it makes it into the inside tracker system. So that's kind of a generic answer to your question, but that's in general our approach to this.

Yeah. No, that's I think it's a great answer. And I think it's uh, you know, it it proves the the positioning that you guys have. I want to make sure we give enough time too, because you guys are starting to use Inside Tracker, not just you know, for the consumer market. And um, but you're starting to put this in the hands of practitioners, you know, fitness and health professionals and as a tool, right? Uh so and that that I is the pro platform. So maybe tell us a little about the advent of that, what you guys are doing within how people can can uh start to harness the type of data for their for their own coaching practitioners.

Yeah, absolutely. So part of my role at Insight Tracker is I'm the director of business development, what that means for us, or part of what that means for us, is building um channel partner programs for us. And one of those channel partner programs that we actually launched last year is called Insight Tracker Pro. And the the hypothesis behind Insight Tracker Pro was there are coaches, trainers, dietitians, other health and wellness practitioners and professionals that are facing some challenges with the work that they're doing with their clients. Number one is they want more data about their clients so that they can better personalize the uh services that they're providing, the advice that they're providing their clients. Many of them agree in the value of blood analysis and blood biomarkers as a way to get a more complete and holistic picture of what's happening inside the body of your client so that you can better personalize the advice that you're giving them. Um but without a tool like Insight Tracker, it's at best a gigantic pain in the butt to get a blood analysis done just because you care about your health and wellness and to look at the markers that we know are critical for overall health and wellness, things like vitamin D and testosterone and cortisol and ferritin that are not included in routine blood work. And at worst it's impossible. So getting access to the information was one big challenge. But then I think the more important one that we're solving is okay, what do you do with that data once you get it? How do you translate it into insights and recommendations that are right for you and for your client? And um Insight Tracker solves both of those problems. And we had a lot of professionals that were using it for themselves and may even recommend that their clients go and get Insight Tracker, but we wanted to create a more formal and structured program to make it easy and attractive for them to make Insight Tracker a tool that they can have in their toolbox to better serve their clients. So that was really the objective behind launching this program. We launched it about a year ago, it's turning one year old in about a month. And um, again, it's called Insight Tracker Pro, and the model is um make Insight Tracker available to professionals who want this as a tool, one of many tools that they can use to help their clients achieve their health, wellness, and performance goals. So we now have uh almost 500 professionals that are in the program. It's a combination of coaches, trainers, dietitians, nutritionists. Um they can offer Insight Tracker to their clients at a nice preferred uh price, but more importantly, they're able to really utilize the platform and the data to help their clients achieve their health, fitness and uh performance objectives.

Yeah, that's it's a it's a great idea. One of the things I would imagine too, I would add to that is is a value of doing this is the scope of practice. Like you guys kind of take that, right? Like it's it's very hard if you're you know, fitness or you know, healthcare, whatever certification or whatever body certified you, or what kind of education you've had behind it. You know, there's always you're walking a fine line a lot of times when you're doing nutrition, especially when you're looking at DNA results, right? So you guys can help bridge that gap, I'd imagine, too. It takes a lot of the liability off the practitioner, right?

You hit the nail on the head, yeah. I think the practitioners and professionals see the value of the data. They don't necessarily feel confident interpreting the data for their clients or uh providing nutrition prescriptions if they're not a registered dietitian or nutritionist. Um and we take that burden off of their shoulders. We check the box for them, they know the importance of it, their clients want it. We check the box for them, we allow them to offer their clients a solution that helps them dial in their nutrition and their health without them, with them staying within their scope of practice. So I think I think you hit the nail on the head.

Yeah, that was always a big one. Uh that for me, especially when I was practicing, is I always wanted access to you know, hormone panels and things like that. But I had to really be very careful. Eventually, what I did is I just partnered with a natural a doctor of natural medicine and just like it was the the 5% of my revenue is is worth it to not have to worry about um you know doing all that and and potentially getting a letter from a lawyer someday.

I do think, yeah, you're right on that. I think that's critical that that um professionals stay within their scope. I do think that there is value in working with another human being, a coach, that you can't automate it. So we I want to be very clear. Inside tracker is a software company. We're building the best app, I believe, in the market, in this market. Um, but that we can't automate the connection that you have with a human being and a human coach. And so I think the value that a coach can play in particular is around being an accountability partner, compliance partner, for you to, okay, Insight Tracker has provided the recommendations, the provided the nutrition um prescription, so to speak. Now let's make this a part of our overall plan. Um, and I'm gonna help hold you accountable to your Insight Tracker plan and make sure that you're building the healthy habits that Insight Tracker suggests that you build and do it in a way that's sustainable. So I think that's really where coaches in particular can play a critical role.

Yeah, yeah. And what about education? I mean, are you guys offering on the coach and practitioner side? Are you guys helping educate them on how to use this, like best practices for out of how to integrate it with your clients? How are you guys helping there?

Yeah, so I I think that's critical, and that's really what we're focused on. I'm focused a lot of my time on that in in particular, is how do you arm a professional with, first of all, general knowledge and information, information about Insight Tracker, the product, so that they can feel confident offering this to their clients. And then as a next step, um, how do you provide them with the education they need to start to interpret some of the insights and recommendations that InsightTracker is providing? Um, and so we're trying to do both. Um, so we have started to provide some um education around, you know, we did a few webinars around the blood biomarkers that are most critical for optimal endurance. So if you're a running coach or a triathlon coach or you know, a dietitian that works with endurance athletes, uh, what are the markers that you should be, your clients should be paying attention to? Which ones are the most critical for optimizing endurance or for an endurance athlete to pay attention to? Um, within the scope of kind of uh wellness and performance optimization, what does it mean if someone's you know vitamin D is low, right? Well, it puts them at a higher risk for something like a stress fracture, for example, right? Um and here are some of the recommendations that Insight Tracker might generate for those people, and here's how you can use those insights and then incorporate it into the uh training plans, let's say, that you're writing for your clients. So we're starting to do more and more of that education. And um you should expect to see that formalized uh in 2022 in a way that makes it very accessible to coaches that want to join this program. Um I want them to have easy access to education so that they can level up as a professional and feel confident using this data to better help their clients.

Yeah, that's awesome, man. And what what is the uh if I'm a coach and I sign up for this, what would what am I actually getting? Is it like access to a back-end portal? Um you're mentioning educational growth this year, but what what is what are you guys offering them?

So it's a it's a handful of things. The first is they can offer their clients a nice discount on Insight Tracker. Um they also get a pretty steep discount on Insight Tracker for themselves to do it. And that's actually a requirement that we have for you to become a pro partner. We require that you experience it yourself for a couple of reasons. First of all, um we believe you should have your own experience with the product before you, your clients, experience it. And um we don't give it away for free because we think that it's important for the coach to put some skin in the game. If they're not willing to spend their own money on this product, how can they expect their clients to do that? So uh we do give them a nice discount, a nice discount for themselves. They're then able to offer their clients a discount. They do receive a cut of every transaction, so we want to support the coach. A lot of these people are um uh you know doing this alone. They're sole you know business owners running their own business. So um we do give them uh additional uh revenue stream. Cool. And then uh there's a resource center they get access to, promotional educational materials, and then if if they're qualified, they do get um a coach dashboard, which allows them to access client insights and recommendations through a secure online portal.

Right on. Um yeah, I like it. I think it's it's a valuable tool overall. The um you know, I want to ask you this question too, because when you when you look at the whole market, and it's just a fun question I like to ask people because you're in the space so much, but yeah, outside of the sun and the stuff that we've talked about already, you know, obviously Insight Tracker and uh Aura Rings, um what when you look at health technology, right? Uh, you know, a lot of people are talking about um mindfulness being, you know, mental health and technology around that being a really exciting area. But what what gets you, Roe Metzer, really excited when you look kind of the technology side of fitness, health, and wellness? What outside of what you the scope of what you do daily, what what what do you think is going to be a big mover in the next year or two?

So I think um a particular area that I'm excited about is around that health span angle. I think it's becoming more and more important. And InsightTrecker has a tool that's called Inner Age, which tells you your biological age.

I like that one.

Um that's a really fun way to summarize a ton of information into one score and to give you a status of okay, what does this all mean for my health in a way that's very relevant to the mission of the company, which is helping people live a longer, healthier life. I think health span and longevity is going to become more and more important, mainstream. So I think that's a big trend over the next year or two that I expect to continue to accelerate, and I expect more and more people to um be interested in that. So I think inner inner age or biological age is one particular um one particular exciting uh insight and future. Uh I also think any tool that can give people more continuous insights on what's happening inside their body is exciting. So I think you're seeing a lot of buzz around continuous glucose monitoring. Um that's a really interesting area. And anything that we can do to make it more accessible for customers to get this data more frequently, right? So you're not going to get a blood test more than once every few months. But if we can give them more information more regularly around what's happening inside their body and do it by connecting to devices like wearable devices, but also devices like CGMs or home kits that they can do from the comfort of their own home, I think that that's an area where Insight Tracker and tools in this market start to become a kind of guardian angel in your pocket, right? Something that's always with you that can provide you with health and wellness advice all the time and see the full picture of what's happening in inside your body rather than at specific points in time. So I would say those are two areas that I'm pretty excited about.

Yeah, man. Can we go back to the inner age one? Because I I've actually talked about it um a number of times. I do, I do like I like singular metrics that you can track and improve. Right. I think um, you know, I'm 45. I think my inner age was one or two years less than my chronological interviews. Like, oh that's cool. Yeah, I guess. I don't know. Am I? You tell me. I I I want to be like 35, right, on the inside. I hear you. But um I'd probably have to give up bourbon, I would imagine. Uh but how are you guys getting to that score? Uh like what what what's give us a little bit of the insights on the science we have? Because if people ask, someone asked me that, I'm like, you know, I don't really, I don't really know. Uh I like the score, but I haven't really dug into like how's it actually come to.

So we actually launched a new. Version of it. So if you go on our website, you'll see that it's actually called Interage 2.0 because we we did improve the algorithm a few years ago. But I'm not a scientist, so I'll give my uh my summary of how it works. Um essentially what we did, what our what our science team did is they looked at the literature um that's around kind of mortality and longevity, and specifically the biomarkers and other factors that are correlated with mortality or longevity. And there's certain biomarkers that are either positively or negatively correlated with um mortality. And so we're looking at the markers in your body that are um have been shown statistically and in the literature to be correlated with longevity, and then using your level to calculate whether you're um aging faster or slower, so to speak, than you should be. For example, HSCRP is a marker of inflammation, and it's been shown to kind of rise with age, right? So um that's one marker that's included in the inner age algorithm, and it's using your CRP level to tell you whether your body is aging faster or slower than it should be. These are also markers that you can improve, right? So you can actually reverse and improve your biological age by improving some of these markers that are correlated with longevity. Blood sugar is another big one. So at a high level, that's how the score is calculated.

Yeah, it's cool. You know, there's you know, I work with Joel at Morpheus as well, and uh, you know, we're we're looking to figure out a number for the MFIT score, which is one singular number to see how your fitness is actually doing because there's so many ways you can fitness is very it it's objective, right? No, it's subjective. Yeah, sorry, wrong word in many ways. But if you can just get to a score that you can track and you can lean on, you know that's a good measure. I think people really like um you know the that aspect and even the gamification possibilities that come of come from it as well. Um so that's it's uh it's a cool feature, man. Really, I I know we're butting up on time. You're a super busy guy. Um so I just want to, I guess if people want to, if if well, I take it back because people can listen. There's a code for this. If you go to insight tracker.com forward slash future, you can get a discount on all this stuff too. So people can go to that. If people want to get in touch with you, they want to talk about partnerships or um you know just business development opportunities. Uh where do you send them?

So there's a page on our website that's for potential uh pro partners, insight tracker.com slash pro. If you fill out that form, I'll see it, um, get in touch with you. And yeah, we're we're looking for partners that are um you know either interested in the pro program or have other kind of partnerships um in mind, and that could be anything from a coach to a gym to a brand that operates in and around our space that sees an opportunity for for collaboration.

Awesome. Awesome, man. And then where do people find you? LinkedIn a good place or uh, LinkedIn is perfect, yeah.

LinkedIn is perfect.

Yeah, that's where I am all the time too. Well, Roe, thank you so much for the time. Uh you know, once again, I think it's really cool to keep taps on you guys. I'm excited that you guys are growing. Uh, you guys are good company, you're doing good work. So keep it up, man. Ladies and gentlemen, Roe Metzer. I appreciate it, Eric. Thanks for having me. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is 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 futurofitness.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.