Yoav Susz - VI & Enterprise AI for Health

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[00:02:22] Yoav, Suz, welcome to the future of Fitnessman. Thanks very much, Eric. I'm really, really excited and glad to be here. Yeah, it's artificial. AI is just like... I think I talk about it on every single podcast over the last three to four, maybe more three to five months.

[00:02:41] And I had the opportunity to interview the founder of your company, Omri, like I think it was like five or six years ago. Like it was a long time ago. It was back when you guys had just the V-trainer, which was like the running coach in your ear.

[00:02:55] And I remember because I was using it and I was running trails in Truckee, California and I was playing with it. I'm like, okay, there's definitely something here, but it's not quite there yet. And so you guys have been in this world of AI for quite some time.

[00:03:09] And obviously it's now in the forefront of almost every conversation out there. So you guys know a little bit about this. You've been playing in it for a long time and it's going to be really cool to get your insights on how you guys call it enterprise AI.

[00:03:25] AI is a service and really fundamentally getting better health outcomes. And I'll say one more thing to set the table and then we'll get into your interviews. I was at Ursa earlier this year in 2023. I saw a panel on AI and it was good.

[00:03:42] I loved all the speakers, all friends of mine and they did. Great job talking especially about like, okay, well, how do we use this for marketing? How do we use this for? In reference to AI, operations and how to clean things up that way.

[00:03:59] But when Omri stuck with me and really grabbed me, I was like, well, what I'm more focused on is getting better health outcomes, not necessarily the marketing. And all that leads to better health comes, right? We become better marketers, we become better at operations. We pertain better.

[00:04:14] But that was something that really grabbed me and I tried to get in touch with him right after the panel, but there was just a line of people who wanted to talk to him. So I thought I'll just follow them later.

[00:04:24] Anyway, so let's get into your background, you all. Just set the table and then we'll go from there. Cool. My background. So I'm a little bit all over the place. I'm originally from Israel as my name implies, my difficult last name to pronounce and first name.

[00:04:39] But I grew up in the UK. So I lived in the UK from the age of one to 13. I went back to Israel, served in the military for four years. I actually ended up going to law school and practicing as a lawyer.

[00:04:51] I think I've never so quickly realized that I'm in the wrong place doing the wrong thing as I did when I walked into that law firm for the first day. And no disrespect to my friends, which are lawyers, but it just wasn't the right profession for me.

[00:05:03] So I decided that I wanted to make a change and I was fortunate about 10 years ago to come to the US and to go to business school at NYU. And from there, I very quickly fell into the wild of tech and the wild of startups.

[00:05:14] I mean, it was a consumer before then, but I got a chance to get under the hood and learn how the sausage is made. And the first company that I joined was also in the world of AI, Comfortable Optimum, which

[00:05:26] focused on the world of retention primarily for the world of gaming and retail and financial services, basically kind of how do you understand your existing customers or clients and identify which ones have higher lifetime value, lower lifetime value, and then how do you engage

[00:05:43] with them in a sustainable way? So I was there for a few years, left that went to another company in the world of productivity tech also doing a lot of AI around like how can contract management be a lot more efficient.

[00:05:53] But then about a year ago, a little bit more than that, I was approached by Omri by our CEO and the value proposition was just so compelling that I couldn't help but join.

[00:06:03] You know, you said AI is this, it's become, you know, this buzzword and it's a table, you know, it's, it's in the chat everywhere. But what's really fascinating is, you know, V's been doing this in the world of health

[00:06:15] and fitness for the last seven years way before it was cool. And I think that AI is a great title, but really all that matters is what does it do for you? Right in the same way that we don't often talk about, you know, the underlying technologies

[00:06:29] which make a lot of things that we're able to do today, you know, we're not all dumbfounded all day long by the fact that planes stay in the air, we kind of take that for granted.

[00:06:37] Then I think that that's the way that AI is going to go, right? AI is going to become a method, a means of achieving goals. And I think that there are a lot of different goals.

[00:06:46] And I think it's really important to understand that, you know, the goal, the AI is not a goal within itself. When people say, what's your AI strategy? Well, you know, AI is going to be a part of everything that we do.

[00:06:55] And I think we're seeing that more and more, but it's not in, it's not an end, it's a means. Yeah, it's really interesting watching you guys evolution too, because I see, I was just looking at the website this morning and scouring through it.

[00:07:07] And it seems like, correct me if I'm wrong, but V started off by creating a lot of different products like the V trainer, right? And a bunch of different products that utilize and apply AI. So it's everyone's looking for the applications of AI that are useful

[00:07:22] to the consumer and to businesses. But then now you're in something that you've deemed enterprise AI, right? Or AI as a service. So maybe let's set the table. Like what do those mean? And then we can continue on with the conversation.

[00:07:37] So, you know, we think about ourselves as enterprise AI for health. And what that really means is being able to take models, being able to take capabilities in the world of AI and productize them, right? Make them applicable for specific worlds, right?

[00:07:51] So if you think about, you know, what we're doing inside V and I don't want to get too deep into the models one because I'm not a data scientist, not going to do it justice. But how do you take a lot of these models which help us understand

[00:08:01] human behavior at a very fundamental level? But how do we now make them very, very applicable for the specific industries that we're serving? Because, you know, it's one thing to have uplift modeling or any type of modeling that's being used in the world of AI or multi-on-band

[00:08:17] it as a general concept. And it's another one to specialize that in the world of health. So what we're doing is we're taking the set of capabilities, this set of models and we are really productizing them and making

[00:08:30] sure that they are applicable very, very, very specifically for the world of health. So, you know, we're laser focused on the world of health, the only, you know, industries that we work in and the world of health care, the world of

[00:08:40] fitness and the world of wellness because, you know, we have a very clear mission, you know, which is one to improve health outcomes and to maximize ROI, right? Like that's what we want to do for the people that we're working with.

[00:08:53] We want to be very specific and we often get asked, you know, why don't you guys do this for, you know, retail, right? And we could, but, you know, specializing in the industry, understanding the industry impacts your product, right?

[00:09:07] It impacts what you're bringing to market, it impacts the models. And I think that we're laser-laser focused on this world because we want to make sure that our models, what they are able to predict,

[00:09:15] what they are able to optimize, what they're able to do is to make sure that in our way, and we're going to talk a lot more about that, like that we are helping people achieve their health outcomes, right? That end member helping them achieve their health outcome.

[00:09:27] But also, and as importantly, make sure that the organization is maximizing their financial returns as well because, you know, those things go together, especially in a country like the US. Yeah, yeah, capitalism has came here. You know, maybe you can walk me through some of the examples.

[00:09:42] I mean, I saw some of the brands that you work with, Samsung, Bowflex, Stronger U. There's a lot of really good brands. And I always find it easier to be explained through, you know, an anecdote or an example. So, like, pick a company that you can talk about,

[00:09:59] you know, a little bit more openly and then tell us how exactly you've come in and changed their A, you know, health outcomes for their constituency and then, you know, increase revenue. Yeah, absolutely. So I think let's look at this in kind of two paradigms.

[00:10:14] One of them is kind of the breadth of what we do. So we talked about enterprise AI, but if we really, what does it do for the actual companies that we're working with? So we're really focused on three main business KPIs.

[00:10:24] The first one is reducing cost of acquisition. So whether that's getting people to enroll into a health plan, or whether that's getting people to sign up to your fitness studio, or whether that's getting people to sign up to Cryo or whatever it is.

[00:10:40] How can you reduce the cost of acquisition and do that in a really efficient way? And, you know, the secret source is pretty simple. It's we have a better, we have more data and we have a better understanding of consumers,

[00:10:53] which allows us to be a lot more targeted in the way that we're engaging. Right? So if you think about, for example, let's take one fitness example in health care, example, if we're thinking about, you know, the world of plan enrollment

[00:11:05] in the world of health care, if we're able to identify split household where people are on different plans or if we're able to identify, you know, certain characteristics about families, about the way that they behave, about the media that they consume.

[00:11:18] And we can tell you who you should target and we can also tell you who you shouldn't target. That's incredibly powerful, right? And reducing that waste, right? Reducing that spend by just helping you target the people

[00:11:29] that are actually going to be potentially relevant for you is really powerful. In the world of fitness, it's very, very similar, right? If you think about like, let's look at Solid Call, which is one of the companies that we just started working with. We're super excited.

[00:11:41] So if you think about the world of acquisition with them, you know, ultimately, you know, they have locations and there's one right near my house on the Upper East Side of New York. You know, the traditional approach would be, you know,

[00:11:51] we're just going to send direct mail or we're going to, you know, target everybody that lives in the radius of whatever it is, a kilometer or two or a mile or two, whatever it is, depending on what trade area you're in.

[00:12:02] What we're saying is, well, no, you know, if you think about this radius around Solid Call, there's probably only 25% of people which are even relevant for you to target for lots of different reasons. Maybe it's the socioeconomic status or maybe it's, you know,

[00:12:15] their age or maybe it's, you know, their preference. Like there's just a lot of factors. And if we can help you say, hey, don't even target these people here because the likelihood of being able to convert them is very, very low.

[00:12:26] Then you're just reducing the cost of acquisition. It's very, very logical and simple. It doesn't mean that it's easy to do right. The models which help you understand who you should and shouldn't target are incredibly, you know, sophisticated. But the logic is really simple.

[00:12:39] Now makes a lot of sense to me. That's the first product. The second product is engagement. So, you know, you and I were talking about this before, Eric, but human beings were really, really good at signing up for things.

[00:12:49] And, you know, you know, which one of us hasn't been there at the end of December. We're like, January this year, I'm going to run a marathon and I'm going to start training and going to sign up for running club. Yeah. Great.

[00:12:58] But then, you know, it's late February and it's cold and you don't feel like getting up and you don't want to go. And that's what we're trying to solve at Vengage. We're not going to help you get up from your bed, but we're going to help an organization.

[00:13:12] And again, it's a good healthcare and fitness. But if you think about the world of healthcare, for example, and you think about, you know, chronic condition, you think about people that have diabetes or MSK or oncology, God forbid, right? Ultimately, a lot of the health plans have programs

[00:13:28] which are meant to engage these people and help them live healthier lives. Right? Because they know that for the plan, you know, they want to make sure that they can reduce cost of care. For the individual, they want them to live a much healthier life.

[00:13:38] What V can do is we're really, really good at identifying who are the members that are at a risk of falling off the wagon, right? Who are the members that, you know, if we think about

[00:13:49] fitness that have signed up for the gym and really wanted to come in. But something's changing about their behavior. And we believe that there's a risk there. But it's not only that, it's being able to identify out of that group

[00:14:00] of people that are at a risk of attrition. Who are the ones that would benefit from getting a nudge? Right? So imagine, Eric, that like I don't just want to know that you're at a risk of not coming in because, you know,

[00:14:13] if you pull a list of all of your members which haven't come in in 45 days, that's a pretty good approximation of the people that are at a risk of churn. I want to be able to identify that you're persuadable,

[00:14:23] that you're somebody that if we give you the right type of nudge, we're actually going to be able to influence your behavior. And that's what we're trying to do across healthcare, across fitness, across wellness. We're trying to say, hey, Eric, Joav, Jessica and Sarah,

[00:14:36] you know, these are four people and we can see weeks and months in advance before they've made the decision that they're going to leave or stop taking part in a program. We can identify and then we can match them with the right type

[00:14:48] of intervention. So whether that's saying, hey, you know, Eric would really benefit from somebody at the front desk calling him from solid core or, you know, a nurse calling him. But Joav, much better to send him a text message because he doesn't like people calling him.

[00:15:04] And Sarah, you know, she should get a piece of direct mail, etc., etc. So that's the second thing that we do. It's engaging members for any purpose, reducing attrition increasing lifetime value and we can dive as deep as you'd like into it. But that's the basic idea.

[00:15:19] And the third part of what we do is basically how can you use AI to reduce operational expenses in your business? And we touched upon this a little bit earlier, but there are a lot of processes today, which are still incredibly

[00:15:33] manual and repetitive. And, you know, which don't have which there are just much more efficient ways of dealing with them. If you think about the world of billing, if you think about the world of staffing, there's just a lot

[00:15:44] of areas and what we're doing at V is we're able to provide a set of technologies that are able to really help businesses identify those areas where there's a lot of potential to automate, where there's a lot of potential to reduce their operational costs and automate that.

[00:15:59] So that was a really long answer to a short question, but those are the three things we focus on. It's like reducing cost of acquisition, engaging members and increasing lifetime value where relevant. And then thirdly, how can we transform your business and reduce the operational expenses?

[00:16:12] I love it. I mean, my simple mind loves things in threes. So you're speaking my language. The, you know, it's curious, just kind of a side note, but I wouldn't, you know, as a gym operator, I always found that things like merchant processing, charge backs,

[00:16:26] all to be very over complicated, right? And I think like when I look at like the applications of AI, it's taking things that are just over complicated and simplifying them, you know, for the human mind. I mean, what else is something like specific like that?

[00:16:39] Like merchant processing, bill of charge backs, bill backs, is that something that gets cleaned up? Absolutely. But I think that, you know, the analogy here is really relevant because if you also think about the world of engagement generally, right?

[00:16:52] If you were able to take the GM, right, at every gym, let's just take a simple example and tell them, go through the record of every single member you have, look at when they came in, when they didn't come in,

[00:17:04] look at if they opened emails or they didn't open emails, look at what are the patterns of behavior. Could they theoretically replace AI? They could, right? We could just have an army of people going through people one by one.

[00:17:15] But what AI allows you to do is to do that at scale, right? And, you know, we work with Fit Athletic out of San Diego. And when we met their GMs, you know, they told us that they, you know, they sit there and they see somebody walk by,

[00:17:27] they go, oh, Eric, I haven't seen them in a long time. So they'll walk up to him and they'll chat with you and they'll, you know, see how you are. We want to give that touch at scale, right?

[00:17:36] We want to be able to, you know, make humans better at their jobs, right? We want to help them spend less time doing the repetitive things. We want to, so whether it's charge backs or whether it's identifying

[00:17:46] members for engagement, what AI and machine learning is really good at doing is being able to take things that are just tedious, difficult, hard to do for humans, right? And give them the insights, right? Tell them where they should be focusing their time

[00:18:02] so they can make the most impact. Today I'm joined by Curtis Christofferson on my very first micro interview in the future of fitness. Kurt is the owner and founder of Workout and Innovative Fitness. He is a 20 year veteran in the wellness space

[00:18:16] and he's got the success to prove it. He's also a long term friend and colleague. Kurt just recently launched a newsletter called Healthy Ambitions to give back to the industry that's given him so much. His goal to help other entrepreneurs scale their wellness businesses just like he has.

[00:18:32] Right, Kurt. What is one actionable insight you can provide our listeners that has been incredibly valuable to you in your business career? Wow, powerful question. And I could have so many answers to that one. But, you know, I'd say that, you know, the biggest element

[00:18:47] of scaling your business is hiring the right people. And without the right people, you can't scale. And, you know, one of my token rules is hire people that you admire. Hire who you admire. When you do that, chances are the people that you admire

[00:19:01] have some levels, experience, education or impact that you might not be able to provide. And so when you hire people that you admire and the value that they bring to your organization, inevitably they're going to help you scale your business. No matter how big or small it is,

[00:19:17] when you hire people that are unlike yourself that contribute value that you can't contribute, but you're winning. And so my biggest rule, hire who you admire, whether it's the things that you admire about them around their education, experience, impact or even how they lead their personal life.

[00:19:33] I think when you surround yourself with great people, you're winning the day. Oh, that's awesome. Kurt, thank you so much for that. And if you guys want to learn more, please check out the Healthy Ambitions newsletter. You can go to Kurtis Christopherson.com

[00:19:46] to subscribe and learn more about it and all the great content he's putting out there. Thank you, Kurt. Awesome. Thanks. Yeah. Interesting. I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of how, maybe I don't want to, you know, over present myself over confidently.

[00:20:04] But I think I have a decent understanding of how it applies in like a gym and in a health club environment. One of the things I want to ask about was like health care plans. Like you brought that up. Like how does it work in that environment?

[00:20:15] Yeah. So when you think about the world of health care, there are a couple of things that we're doing. One of them, as we mentioned, is enrollment. And when you think about enrollment, that's everywhere from getting somebody to enroll into the specific plan. Right? As we mentioned before,

[00:20:28] sometimes people are in a household where they're covered, but their spouse is also covered somewhere else and they can make a decision on which health plan they should go to. So getting enrollment into the plans is one part of what we do as well as Medicare.

[00:20:40] Right? If you think about the world of Medicare and Medicare Advantage, we're really good at helping organizations be able to identify who they should target and how they should engage with them in order to drive more enrollment. Then if you take it a step further, right?

[00:20:52] If you think about the world of health care, right? You might have somebody who's got multiple chronic conditions and right now how do we help navigate them between the different things to make sure that they are utilizing the right set of tools

[00:21:06] that they're getting offered by their health plans. Right? And that can be self-funded employers or that could be the plans themselves. So we're able to help the members really navigate between those things and also make sure that there's some level of coordination. Right?

[00:21:19] If you've got a few chronic conditions at the same time, how do we know how to engage you? What should we reach out about first? Right? There's a lot of things which are happening that that's kind of the second level.

[00:21:29] Right? If we look at kind of all of the different types of programs, treatments that you can get. And the third level of what we're doing is when you look at a very, very, very specific program. Right? So I think a good example is MSK, right?

[00:21:43] Where we've been working with a huge national payer. And what we're helping them do is we were able to take the amount of members that signed up. Right? There's an eligible population that can sign up for this MSK management program.

[00:21:58] We were able to triple the amount of people that ended up signing up. And from there, we were able to really increase two things. One, the longevity. So how long does somebody stay on average in this program? And then how often are they engaging? Right?

[00:22:13] How often are they speaking to a coach or how often they are engaging with a digital type of plan, class, whatever they might have there. So in the world of healthcare, it's really about two things. One, getting people in the relevant door, whether that's health plan door

[00:22:28] or whether that's the different types of programs that they have, then it's helping them navigate between all of those different things and making sure that they're getting enrolled in the right ones. And then lastly, it's about making sure that they are being retained, right?

[00:22:41] That they're staying in these different programs. So if we look at another example, diabetes management, there it might be being able to identify and say, hey, we've seen something about Eric's signals. He's not logging his glucose or whatever it might be.

[00:22:56] And now what's the best way of engaging with Eric to get him back on track? Is it sending him a piece of content through the app? Or is it through getting a nurse to call him? Or is it through sending a text message?

[00:23:12] And I think that, you know, that matching of not just who's gonna benefit from getting a nudge, but then what does that nudge need to be? What does that nudge need to be? How should it be delivered? And when should it be delivered?

[00:23:23] That's where you really make an impact because also if you think about the operator, right? If you think about, you know, if you're running an MSK plan and right now you've got a team of, you know, patient coordinators or nurses which need to reach out to people

[00:23:37] when you ask how are you guys deciding who they're reaching out to? It's typically a very rules-based approach, right? Anybody which we haven't seen in X or Y time. But that's very inefficient and that causes a lot of frustration for the nurses as well

[00:23:50] which are calling people that don't wanna speak to them or not picking up the phone. So if you can make that time more efficient and that's what we're doing, right? And it's amazing to see the transformation where all of a sudden, you know,

[00:24:01] kidney management and you hear from the nurses every day I get a list from V of the 30 people that I should call and when I should call them it's never gonna be 100% but all of a sudden way more people are picking up

[00:24:12] way more people wanna talk to them and you can feel the impact, right? And you can truly measure it and you can see that, you know, everywhere we're massive geeks at V and I say that with love. Everything we do is against control groups

[00:24:26] and we're big on statistical significance but, you know, it's really powerful to be able to see the impact of what you do and being able to translate both into health outcomes and again, we're not doing anything clinical. We're never giving clinical recommendations.

[00:24:42] What we are doing is identifying members who in the case that we're talking about are at a risk of attrition, identifying those that are persuadable out of that group and then making sure that we are using the playbook that the health plan already has

[00:24:58] or the organization already has in order to drive them back into it in order to nudge them back and to keep them longer and to make sure that they get kind of the best result. Awesome. And so we've kind of covered, you know, gym and health club operators

[00:25:11] covered, you know, healthcare providers. Any other particular categories that you guys are working with right now? Nutrition is a huge one for us. Okay. Nutrition is a huge one and then I'd say wellness generally and I think, you know, wellness and recovery is growing so quickly, right?

[00:25:30] And whether that's, you know, stretching what you're seeing more and more infrared sauna that you're seeing across the country, cryotherapy that you're seeing in a lot of different places. There's a lot of really, really great stuff happening in that world of wellness and recovery

[00:25:44] and we're doing a lot of really fantastic stuff there. You know, ultimately the way that we think about it is we can make an impact where there is repeatable health behavior, right? Repeatable billable health behavior. That's where we make an impact.

[00:25:58] And so nutrition is also a great one, right? If you think about whether it's, you know, vitamins and supplements where that's a world in which there's a lot of repeat behavior and if we can help identify, you know, one, who are the members that might be interested

[00:26:12] or who are the customers that might be interested in it and then identifying, you know, which ones are not adhering and trying to understand why, you know, is it because they got the wrong thing? Is it because, you know, they switched to a competitor? Whatever it is, right?

[00:26:25] But I think that all of those areas are areas where we're seeing a ton of impact and dental as well, surprisingly. But I'd say that like broadly speaking health behaviors, right? Things which you can tie to your health and health is also of course mental well-being, right?

[00:26:38] If you think about, I'm a massive meditation fan and have been for the last few years but I think that that's a huge world for us as well, right? Being able to help make sure that they are spending their time trying to acquire the right people,

[00:26:56] the people that are actually gonna care about this and not wasting their money in places that they shouldn't and then making sure that we're able to help people really stick with it because that's the hardest part, right? I think that when, you know,

[00:27:09] when the initial novelty of all of these things wear off, like how can we help people stick to the things that they want to, right? How can you make it easier for people to stick to New Year's resolutions? How can you help, you know, people stay

[00:27:21] with these behaviors, with these things which are making their lives better? And I think that it's fun, right? It's fun and it's great to be able to try and impact people in that way and I think that it's, I told you before we started recording

[00:27:34] but I think that one of the quotes that hopefully she hears this but Alissa Shaw, the COO of Solid Core, she told me that you never feel bad about trying to get somebody to work out and there's a lot in that.

[00:27:46] And I think that I think about that every day that AI has a lot of scary applications, right? And we hear about all these guys going to testify in Congress and is AI gonna take over the world? And I think maybe, I don't know

[00:27:59] and who am I to say but when you see the applications that AI can have in helping people just live healthier lives, I think that there's just something really magical about that. And I think that, as we said before when you pair it with the fact

[00:28:15] that it helps these organizations be better at what they do and make more money, which is a good thing. You know, I think that that's where, when you can create a win-win for everybody I think that that's where there's a lot of magic.

[00:28:27] Yeah, the meditation is an interesting one. I've probably started and stopped a meditation practice well over 50 times. Like I want to, I have the best intention to do it. Right? But then it's like you start your day and it's like a million other things you prioritize

[00:28:42] and that but that's the whole point of meditation is like no, you got to prioritize this first that everything else is runs more smoothly anyway. But that's actually a really interesting example because I think that, you know the problem with, if we talk about engagement for a second

[00:28:57] like engaging existing minds I think that one of them that there's two in my opinion two really big challenges in that world. One of them is identifying who you should reach out to. Right? And right now typically even if you go to the most sophisticated organizations

[00:29:12] it's still a lot of rule-based stuff. So they'll have some logic in their HubSpot or Braze or Salesforce or Interable or Clavio where it says if no event in last 15 days then put them in this group. And that's fine but it's not personalized, right?

[00:29:30] Because if I know that Eric very specifically looks like somebody else that had a very specific type of behavior and I'll really simple example let's say that you used to meditate every day if I haven't seen you in a week that's a massive red flag

[00:29:49] and I should do something about it. But if I have somebody else who meditates once a week but I haven't seen them in a week it's not such a big deal and that's like a really simplified example but it's about one being able to see

[00:30:00] on a more individual level, Eric needs a nudge. That's part one but the second part is now how do I optimize the actual outreach to you? So for if I see that what got you to stick to meditation for a week or two weeks in the beginning

[00:30:16] was that you used to do it at different times of day then I need to experiment with when I'm nudging you sometimes at 3 p.m., sometimes at 1 p.m. I should try with a push, I should try with a text. You need to experiment

[00:30:26] like we don't have a crystal ball but I think that there needs to be that mindset of testing and iteration because that's how you get people to change behavior you can't do one size fits all and I think that the big challenge

[00:30:37] is that the vast majority of organizations understand that one size fits all doesn't make sense that you're paying a massive cost of generalization but it's difficult to put it into practice because at the end of the day there's HubSpot or GymSales or any other system

[00:30:54] and you need to tell it what to do and I think that that's what's exciting about what we bring to it is we're not replacing your CRM and your HubSpot and your sales was that still gonna be there but we're gonna help you identify who you should target

[00:31:07] and then we can match them to the right thing to say to them and it's moving away from one size fits all or few sizes fits all to one size fits one and that's where you start seeing the real results and that's where you get people

[00:31:22] it's not gonna be everybody, right? Maybe we can't get you to meditate but maybe somebody that looks just like you if we nudge them in the right way we will be able to influence their behavior in one way or another. Yeah, it's personalization, right?

[00:31:33] Which is another big buzzword this year in 2023 is like how do we get the journey towards fitness and health for each individual more personalized and we can do that through data and its applications and presumably now through a very powerful tool called artificial intelligence so it's pretty exciting

[00:31:49] and one of the things I wanna cover to you today I'm gonna try to think about how to present this question the way I want but in all the conversations that are taking place about artificial intelligence both we could say at the dinner table

[00:32:01] at the board room level like wherever it may be where do you think people are missing the mark? Where do you think are the biggest people misconstrued it or they're just not understanding it correctly? Like what are some of the places

[00:32:15] that we could be a little bit more accurate? I think there's this whole idea of like technology adoption where it starts off I don't remember the name of it but it goes like this right in the beginning for this massive hype

[00:32:29] and it feels like it's the solution for everything, right? It's like, oh AI is here and Chad GPT is gonna replace religion and I think that we're seeing a lot of that which is like what's your AI strategy? What do you do?

[00:32:42] And then AI has become like a goal within itself and I think that that's a mistake I think that the real question is where can AI be applied? And I think that where can AI be applied really depends on the different types of businesses

[00:32:57] but I think that there are a lot of areas that it can be applied and I think that the way that people should be thinking about it is like in a sense, what are the really obvious things today that you can't do because you're limited

[00:33:09] by the tools that you're using especially when it comes to data and especially when it comes to granular things and I'll try to explain what I mean by that but if you think about, I doubt that anybody would argue with a statement

[00:33:23] that better personalization will lead to better outcomes. Like there's, it's nearly a dumb thing to say because it's so obvious. Then why doesn't it happen? Like why do you still get these really, boring generic emails? Like open up your updates tab in Gmail

[00:33:41] and tell me how many of those messages that you got that actually resonated with you on a good day it's under 1% I would say. So why does that happen? And I think that the reason that happens is because we didn't have the tools

[00:33:52] which allowed us to do something which is very obvious, give the right person the right message at the right time. And I think that that's where AI is becoming particularly interesting. It's being able to take areas where there are vast amounts of data

[00:34:09] where it's very difficult for the human, for a human to be able to see all of the patterns in there independently. It's difficult for them to identify what are the trends that the data is showing because it's not always obvious. There are things which are very counterintuitive

[00:34:24] sometimes in which models show you. There are correlations that you expect and don't show up or vice versa. Give you a small example. One of the, a good predictor of who you should be targeting to join your gym that's like a really simple example

[00:34:39] is how close they live to the gym, right? And that makes sense. But it's actually sometimes the inverse because for example, if you have a gym which is HVLP, right? Which is a relatively low membership juice maybe the people that you should be targeting are actually the people

[00:34:55] which are commuting through your trade area. If your gym is in an affluent neighborhood and you've got a low price point maybe the people that you should be targeting actually don't even live within a radius of 10 miles from you but they commute through there every single day.

[00:35:08] And that's something that it's difficult for you to ask all of the questions in the world but AI and machine learning can pick up on those trends and say, hey, you know what? Really interestingly, the highest LTV members you have live 25 miles away from here

[00:35:22] and you know what's even more interesting? They only come in on weekdays. Tell you something more interesting than that. They only come in between five to seven PM and all of a sudden it's showing you something that was there. It was hiding in plain sight nearly

[00:35:34] but it was very difficult for you to do and I think that, you know, that's one. And the other one, I'll give one more example and I hope the answer is not to elaborate but the second one is personalization, right? So again, abuse term.

[00:35:49] I think that that was the last type cycle was personalization but everybody's familiar with A-B testing, right? And people say A-B testing is personalization A-B testing suffers from a really, really fatal flaw. In A-B testing you test out two variants, right? Let's keep it really simple.

[00:36:04] One of them is first month free and the other one is get a pack of personal training and that's the ad that I'm gonna run. I'm gonna run those two ads. In traditional A-B testing, you look to see what's worked

[00:36:16] and then you say, okay, A is better than B from now on everybody gets A but obviously that's not the right thing to do, right? Some people prefer to be so where you wanna be able to get to

[00:36:27] is if Eric needs to get message A, he gets message A. You have needs message B, he gets message B. Lisa needs another message, he gets message C and again, it's logical. Why aren't people doing that because they didn't have the tools to do that

[00:36:39] because they didn't have the ability to do that and I didn't even say very selfishly that what I find exciting about what we do is that we don't replace the existing tools if you've got a member management system you've got a CRM, it's hard to change those things.

[00:36:53] I've been in the world of trying to convince people to switch CRMs, it's hard. You've built things in it and you train the teams and nobody has an appetite for changing but if you can make those systems smarter, if you can tell them, hey,

[00:37:05] let's use the campaigns you've set up but I'm gonna send the right people and it's gonna make an impact and it's gonna show you, I think that that's where you start seeing really, really fantastic things happen. Yeah, love it man. Yeah, since I got you here

[00:37:15] and AI has just been on my mind all the time like I was talking about I'm actually doing, I think it's next week monitoring a panel for Athletitech Network to talk about people about AI and specifically in our industry. So you're always thinking of new questions to ask

[00:37:30] but if we just let's zoom out for a minute, right? Like where do you think outside of like military applications and kind of the ones, but where do you think AI is being used for the greatest benefit outside of health and fitness?

[00:37:45] Like is there any areas that you're looking at where you're like, damn, those guys are doing a really high quality work or do you feel like people who are doing really quality work are just kind of heads down now being really quiet? That's a really great question

[00:37:56] and honestly I don't know if I'm knowledgeable enough to answer it smartly. I can tell you that from what I've seen I think that in the world of fintech a lot of exciting things that happen which I actually think are gonna democratize access

[00:38:09] to capital because I think that, particularly in the US and I say this as an immigrant which is very, very appreciative of the US. Credit scores are really tough, right? Like it's a very, very rigid archaic system and I think that you see a lot in fintech now

[00:38:27] how can we use a lot more data and lots more sources in order to assess the risk and assess the credit worthiness of people but as a downstream impact of that it will allow more personalized offers to people, right? So if somebody wouldn't have been able

[00:38:48] to get a line of credit before because they didn't have a credit history here I think that there's a lot of work which is happening there which is interesting and I think that that's a great thing, right? Making the pie bigger giving more people access to capital

[00:38:59] or giving more people the ability to try and do exciting things. So I think fintech is definitely a really interesting world and then I think outside of the world of health where I think that the applications are just incredible, right? I was reading something yesterday

[00:39:14] and I didn't read this deeply but some mother whose kid has had symptoms for 17 years and no doctor knew what was going on and she typed it into chat GPT and told her what it was and yet an anecdote but still like the potential is clearly there

[00:39:29] also the potential to freak out, right? Any of us who've ever Googled WebMD and immediately told themselves that they're about to die in the next 24 hours of course there's gonna be some, it's about that but I think that that's a really, really interesting area

[00:39:42] and I think my worry about it is AI is being used to generate a lot of content like I'm a massive literature lover and I think that like my concern is AI is being used right now to create a lot of content

[00:39:58] and I wonder are we gonna see the pendulum actually swing to the other side where human driven content is actually gonna be so valuable and the ability to write well and the ability to articulate yourself well is gonna be, or originally, like where does that go?

[00:40:15] Like that's something which is really, really interesting to me because you know the first book written by AI has already been probably written and the first song by AI has already been written right if you've heard like The Drake without Drake

[00:40:26] and like Frank Sinatra and all of that so it's interesting times and we're clearly seeing some really interesting things happen and I think that there's a lot to be optimistic about because I think that it's gonna hopefully, it's gonna usher in

[00:40:40] this new era of more access to more people and I think that that has the potential to be a massive positive. Yeah, the content thing is both alarming and kind of, I don't know, obviously I like to create content and I consume a lot of content

[00:40:57] and one of my favorite things that AI and sounds funny but it is funny, like on Instagram there's this hand on what is but they put Arnold Schwarzenegger into these different characters. So you can get him singing, the hills are alive

[00:41:10] from the sound of music and he's dancing around it's his face but it's his voice and he's singing this song and it's hysterical I'm like God who doesn't wanna see that? Like everyone I pass it to is like this is so weird and funny, right?

[00:41:22] But then as it gets also really scary like the deep fake stuff and how do we know what content is real? Like especially when we get into like the political aspect of things that it is a bit concerning but you know what I

[00:41:34] like the way I personally use it is you know I have a couple apps that will just take my podcast and they'll create a newsletter quote on quote right? But the newsletter kinda sucks. It's like, you know it's not me it's like it's not way anything I'm saying

[00:41:49] but it does pull out the high points which saves me time from going back and listening to the entire thing and then I can apply that so and you know the content thing's gonna be really interesting to see how people

[00:41:59] but you can, I mean you can still tell but at what point won't you be able to tell? It's the Turing test right? When will we not know that machines generated it and I think that yeah it's difficult to predict right? It's difficult to imagine and you know

[00:42:14] it's we're gonna have to live through it and see but I think you know I think that when I take a very broad view of like macro of humanity I think that typically you know technologies have managed to usher in good more than bad they always have costs

[00:42:31] but I think that you know they and I think that that's a really good example of like will this be able to usher in more content because you'll be able to spend less time re-listening to the podcast to pick out

[00:42:43] you know the best parts of what you wanna put on air again you can play it the other way which is the machines picking it for you so is that the best? So there's lots of different ways of thinking about this

[00:42:53] but I think that you know in a sense I read a book once called Fish Don't Exist highly recommended and there was something interesting in there which is people misunderstand Darwin as saying that the strongest will survive but it's actually the most adaptable will survive

[00:43:10] and I think about that a lot and I think about you know and especially in the world of AI we can't wish it away it's not going anywhere so it's about you know how do we learn to use it how do we learn to

[00:43:22] help it enhance the best parts of us and I think that the whole trust issue is a massive massive massive opportunity for somebody to solve because how do you know what's real and you know if we really wanna get met out of it what is real?

[00:43:36] So I think that there's a lot of interesting questions which are coming up but I think you know we have to be there and we have to make sure that to the best of our abilities we're helping to push it in the right direction

[00:43:48] and the direction that brings the most benefit to the most amount of people and I think that very selfishly for me being a part of V today I think that that's awesome right the ability to go to sleep every night and say hey you know yeah it's capitalism

[00:44:01] and yeah we're selling things to people but ultimately the recipients of this the end members these are people that are gonna live healthier and better lives that's awesome that's really really great You know you're not the first executive that I've talked to on the show

[00:44:14] who got into the fitness, health and wellness space and just thoroughly enjoyed it got out of it from some other industries that are pure capitalism right with maybe not the best outcomes for society and they get into here and the so you know other than like that

[00:44:31] that benefit that you're talking about that you go to sleep well at all at night you go to sleep well at night what are the differences have you noticed about the fitness and health industry like you know anything that's been contrary to some of your experiences

[00:44:45] in other industries Really nice down to earth people like to be really you know if anybody looks back I've met some lovely people in the world of retail and I've met a lot of lovely people in the world of finance and in the world of online gaming

[00:45:01] there's a lot of really fantastic people but I think that fitness down to earth like you know even those that have done really well in a running massive organization it's an industry of people you know who are pretty kind and generally speaking

[00:45:16] you know I think that are in it for the right reasons so I think that that's one big change and I think that the other one is the opportunity I think that you know it's so early in the world of fitness and health

[00:45:28] and the way that they use data it's so early and it's you know I think that I feel like you know we're selling the picks and shovels because it's the amount of data that you know the world of health has is far far far beyond most industries

[00:45:44] so I'd like think about retail but I think about some I don't know where you like buying things I'm wearing a Mac Weldon t-shirt right so Mac Weldon how often does somebody buy there three times a year twice a year four times a year

[00:45:57] how many times are they opening up their email think about fitness people are walking into your gym three times a week four times a week once a week twice a week the amount of interactions that you have with those people the amount of data that you can collect

[00:46:11] you know a friend of mine Brad the VP operations at Midtown Fitness amazing guys super sweet he told me that you know they started collecting data on which which pieces of equipment people were using like the depth of data that exists inside this world of health and fitness

[00:46:29] I think people have been sold a lot of stories about retention and this that and the others over the years in fitness and that's made them skeptical a little bit might get it but I think that the level the depth of data

[00:46:41] that the world of health and fitness has today means that the ability to truly get to one-to-one communications with people is the highest that I've seen in any industry yet the execution is still early and that is just something that even if you look at it

[00:46:59] purely as a business person I'm like wow and this world is only growing right it's like if you think about people today are so much more in touch with the importance of you know working out not just

[00:47:12] so that physically I look great when I go to the pool but what does it mean for my mental health right what does it mean for my whole being and people are thinking about recovery in ways that they've never thought about it before right like

[00:47:23] so this world is only growing the amount of data in it is massive the utilization is still very low so there's just a ton that can happen here and I think that the outcomes are going to be fantastic because like you know the the honest truth is that

[00:47:40] I actually think that if more people and like if we finish on the noted fitness I think that like more people working out will be a better world right because I think that

[00:47:51] we a lot of us are listening to Andrew Huberman and all those kind of people about the effects it has on you but you're healthier, you're calmer, you're happier so if we can be a part of that through this good things. Yeah I love it man

[00:48:04] let's finish up with a couple things so if you can just share you know any kind of updates on the business itself it's numbers from as far as like I know I think you guys have a series A

[00:48:14] you know what employees you're at like where is the business at today from I know you are a private company so share what you can yeah so we're growing very very quickly we've been you know more than doubling over the last four or five years already

[00:48:27] we get to work with some of the biggest players in the country so you know we've talked about some of our customers but everywhere from you know people like Optum and Anytime Fitness and 24 hour Fitness and Gold's Gym and Solid Core which I mentioned

[00:48:41] you know a bunch of others which I can't share quite yet but I would love to so things are really really growing very very very quickly at V anybody listening we're hiring so V.co have a look we're always hiring great people and I think you know

[00:48:57] it's a really really exciting time to be a part of the business you know as you mentioned we started off in the world of hardware we've been doing enterprise SaaS now for the last five years started with the world of retention and added on both the acquisition piece

[00:49:10] and the business transformation piece so things have grown quickly we're very focused on this kind of deep and not wider approach so we're not you know we're not a fit for everybody we typically tend to work with the larger organizations so

[00:49:25] I would say that in the ranges of 25 million dollars and up in revenue is where we really see that we can make an impact and make the juice let's call it worth the squeeze for our customers as well so

[00:49:35] awesome man well I uh I would just make a note to people that I want to introduce you to so let's uh let's figure out that we're how can we help you as an industry like if people are listening right now

[00:49:47] like what do you need help with what would benefit what would uh prompt people to reach out to you one I think you know if any of these things are something that that's relevant or interesting or challenges that an organization is facing you know we're very very

[00:50:00] consultative and I think that people would be surprised by the amount of times we said you know what we don't think that we're the right fit so I would encourage anybody that's listening which you know this thing wants to

[00:50:10] think about acquisition differently because we are approaching it very differently or think about retention differently or think about you know a lot of the things that they're doing from an operating order of operations I don't have a better way of calling it but if there are

[00:50:23] any processes inside your business that you think could be optimized come talk to us uh you know we would love to be able to to share our thoughts we love you know we love the world of health

[00:50:34] and we're very very passionate about it and I think that you know the best thing that we can have is more and more good people in this world which are in it for the right reasons and you know help this industry grow awesome awesome and

[00:50:45] where would uh where would you like people to go or how would you like people to get in touch with you so if you want to reach out to me it's yov yov at vi.co and you can go to our website vi.co as well

[00:50:57] that's probably the best way of getting in touch but uh yeah beautiful this has been a really fun conversation uh everything I hope for yov it's it's been really interesting to get to your take on things I mean I could have asked you questions about you know

[00:51:10] Skynet and you know all the other fun things that you know come out come about at the dinner table but I think specifically for our audience I think Skynet is qqqq one of next year that's not quite yet

[00:51:21] yeah okay okay great great great I'm looking forward to it um anyway thank you so much for joining me really appreciate it ladies and gentlemen yov sus thanks very much Eric appreciate your time thank you for having me hey wait don't leave yet

[00:51:36] this is your host Eric Malzone and I hope you enjoyed this episode of future of minutes 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

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[00:52:24] so thank you so much this is Eric Malzone and this is the future of fitness have a great day