Healthier: Building Health & Fitness Businesses

Will Read

How outlier health, fitness, performance, and well-being companies get built. Lesson-foussed interviews with founders, investors, elite talent, and solo episodes sharing proven frameworks.

Episodes

  1. 1d ago

    How to raise money from angel investors in 2026 | Nicola Telford, Tabu Ventures | Healthier Ep 11

    Nicola Telford runs Tabu Ventures, an angel community backing health businesses most investors find too awkward to look at: sexual wellness, women's health, addiction and recovery, and death. We talk about why culture accepts these markets before capital does, what the founders who break through have in common, and what she learned about taking money. That includes why there's never free money, how to fit-check an investor before you take their cheque, and the problems Tabu wants founders to work on next. CHAPTERS 00:00 Cold open 01:11 Welcome to Healthier 01:47 What Tabu Ventures is 02:57 The four taboo categories 05:05 Why these categories suit angel investors 06:18 Culture accepts it before capital does 08:45 Early signs capital is catching up 12:19 Healthier Note 13:08 What breakthrough founders have in common 15:30 Why a personal connection keeps founders going 18:54 Rebuilding your motivation after a company closes 22:35 There is never free money 24:50 Bad money and how to fit-check investors 26:32 How syndicates work with founders 29:10 Who invests with Tabu 30:40 How to be a useful angel investor 32:38 Tabu's request for startups 34:40 Addiction businesses with many front doors 35:56 Screen time, NoFap apps and the hype curve 39:13 Who Tabu wants to hear from Tabu Ventures: https://tabu.ventures/ Taboo + The Hype Cycle: https://tabu.ventures/insights/taboo-and-the-hype-cycle/ Pitch Tabu: https://tabu.ventures/pitch/ Healthier Notes, a founder's playbook every Friday: https://healthierco.com Healthier is the show for founders in health, fitness and wellness. Subscribe for more.

  2. Oct 1

    34 minutes to rethink how big your business could be

    Iain de Havilland, founder of NADclinic, joins Will Read to discuss building a business that supplies other providers, developing local partnerships and finding opportunities beyond your home market. Explore why Iain chose infrastructure as his route to scale, how practical clinics helped demonstrate products, and what founders can learn from adapting technology used in another industry. Join the Healthier Note for lessons, playbooks and events for founders in health, fitness and well-being: https://healthierco.com Find NADclinic: https://nadclinic.com

  3. Sep 24

    How this gym grew 30% a year—with no contracts

    How do you keep gym members coming back when they are free to leave? Evgenia Koroleva, founder of ONE LDN, joins Will Read to explain the choices behind a community-led fitness business — from flexible memberships and focused positioning to brand partnerships and new revenue streams. Evgenia shares how the gym measures community through attendance, retention and referrals; why Nike approached ONE LDN; and how she decides which ideas are worth testing. She also describes three years of approximately 30% year-on-year growth, rebuilding after COVID and planning the next locations. Practical ideas for founders building gyms, membership businesses and other companies in health, fitness and wellbeing. CHAPTERS 00:00 How to build a thriving gym 00:44 Meet Evgenia Koroleva, founder of ONE LDN 04:00 Making community a measurable revenue engine 07:25 Choosing who your gym is for 10:43 Why ONE LDN rejected long-term contracts 12:38 Testing pricing, memberships and new ideas 14:49 Spotting trends without chasing every fad 17:21 Finding new revenue in your existing space 20:48 Weighing the cost of recovery facilities 22:28 Keeping your offer simple 23:09 How partnerships led Nike to ONE LDN 26:40 The customer bigger gym brands overlook 28:40 Bootstrapping, rebuilding and deciding to expand 31:03 Three years of growth and the case for expansion 32:03 Choosing locations using customer demand 32:57 Founder resilience and celebrating wins ONE LDN: https://www.oneldn.com/ More episodes: https://www.healthstacks.ai/episodes Subscribe to Healthier for more conversations with people building in health, fitness and wellbeing. Growth and performance figures are reported by the guest.

  4. Sep 7

    Why Building Health Hardware Is So Brutal — Stefan van der Fluit, FLOWBIO

    “Don’t get into hardware if you don’t like being punched in the face 10 times a day.” Stefan van der Fluit has spent six years building FLOWBIO, a wearable that turns sweat into data about sodium and fluid loss for endurance athletes. He joins Will to explain how childhood dehydration and an attempt to earn a professional IRONMAN card led to the product; why the hard parts of hardware can become a defensible moat; how FLOWBIO shifted from a DTC-first plan to a business where 65% of sales come through retail partners; and why its strategy alongside much larger wearable companies is to go an inch wide and a mile deep. They also cover authentic athlete relationships, the Tour de France “Spot the Bulge” idea, creating more surface area for luck, leading with humility, and the difference between creating value and capturing it. Disclosure: Will Read is an investor in FLOWBIO. FLOWBIO: https://flowbio.com/

  5. Aug 11

    How he got the biggest gym founder on his board (Max Cotton, Vor)

    Max Cotton fought MMA professionally, then spent five years building Vor, an AI exercise programming engine that deliberately avoids LLMs. He tells Will about the founder who spent $40,000 in tokens on an LLM that produced the same workout every time, how PureGym founder Peter Roberts came to join the board and fill the round, the two pivots that took Vor from consumer coaching to B2B infrastructure, and why starting a company tested him more than cage fighting and ultramarathons combined.

  6. Jul 14

    What's Actually Going On Inside You (AI Can Now Tell You)

    Hamish Grierson, co-founder and CEO of Thriva, gives a screen-share tour of how the UK blood-testing company turns your results into action. We go through Compass (three tests a year, chosen for you based on your goals and history), how Thriva benchmarks your markers against people your own age and sex rather than a sick population, and the difference between being "in range" and actually being optimal. Then Hamish shows the Healthspan dashboard — blood data sitting alongside Oura, Garmin and Whoop in one view — and demos the new Thriva Health Assistant live, fielding a cholesterol question and an Omega-3 dinner query with full longitudinal context. This is what happens when a purpose-built AI has your actual blood history, not just the test you paste in. Timestamps 00:00 Cold open 00:32 Why Hamish co-founded Thriva 02:10 The problem with standard blood test ranges 04:05 Thriva Compass: choosing your three tests a year 07:20 Live demo: reading a Thriva results dashboard 09:45 Optimal vs in-range 12:00 Healthspan dashboard: blood + wearables in one view 15:30 Why wearables without blood context miss half the picture 17:45 Introducing the Thriva Health Assistant 19:10 Demo: cholesterol question with full blood history 22:00 Demo: Omega-3 dinner query 24:15 What the Health Assistant cannot do 25:30 Wrap-up

  7. Mar 18

    The Best Vibe-Coded Health System We've Ever Seen

    Mike Hudack (CEO of Sling Money, former executive at Meta, Monzo and Deliveroo) built a personal health data platform almost entirely using Claude Code — connecting his whole genome sequencing, blood tests, Oura Ring, 13 years of Withings data, and workout logs into one AI system. He did it as a side project, with prompts, while running a startup and raising three kids. In this episode, Mike walks through the exact system and how it caught something none of his individual apps could: a specific overtraining period, identified by cross-referencing HRV data with blood tests and workout logs. He also demos a food tracker he built in 10 minutes and explains why he's returning his Whoop. LINKS & RESOURCES - Claude Code: https://claude.ai - Oura Ring: https://ouraring.com - Withings: https://www.withings.com - Strong App: https://www.strong.app - DNAComplete.com: https://www.dnacomplete.com - SNPedia: https://www.snpedia.com - ElevenLabs: https://elevenlabs.io - OpenAI API: https://openai.com TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Introduction 1:30 Mike's background — Facebook, Deliveroo, Monzo, Sling Money 3:02 Building a food tracker in 10 minutes 3:59 AI detects overtraining from cross-referenced data 5:30 Whole genome sequencing analysis with Claude Code 8:23 Why conversational AI beats dashboards 9:46 Claude vs ChatGPT as your doctor 11:00 Layering data: Oura, Withings (13+ years), Strong app 13:30 The FatSecret problem — £1,500/month for UK access 15:00 MCP server architecture 16:50 Why Mike is returning his Whoop 18:00 WhatsApp-based health AI via Open Claude 19:24 "Most exciting thing in the last hundred years" 20:30 Proactive daily health summaries ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT HEALTHSTACKS AI workflows for training, nutrition, and recovery you can steal today. Hosts: Will Read & James Grant Website: https://healthstacks.ai Subscribe for new episodes every Wednesday ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #HealthStacks #AIHealth #ClaudeCode #OuraRing #Whoop #GenomicData #HealthData #PersonalAI

  8. Mar 9

    How I Built an AI That Personalises Workouts to My Body: HealthStacks with James McAulay

    James McAulay connected his Garmin, Strava, TrainingPeaks, gym app, and a 65-page blood work report into a single AI coaching system inside Claude Desktop — no code required. He runs four live demos showing exactly how it works. The system critiques recent runs using sleep and HRV data, designs structured workouts based on readiness metrics, spots gaps in gym programming, and personalises post-workout nutrition from specific blood markers. What you'll learn: - How to connect multiple health data sources to one AI agent using MCP servers - A system prompt structure that gives AI enough context to actually coach you - How to turn blood work into personalised, actionable nutrition guidance - The honest limitations — what AI coaching can and cannot replace Resources: www.healthstacks.ai/episodes/ep3-james-mcaulay

  9. Feb 12

    I Built a Custom GPT to Manage My Supplements

    James walks through how he built a custom GPT that knows his blood work, health goals, and red lines — and how it recently told him to stop taking glycine. In this episode, you'll see: - How to build a custom GPT that acts as your personal supplement advisor - A prompting technique that compensates for gaps in your own knowledge - Why stacking similar supplements can work against you (and how AI catches it) - How to design 8-12 week experimental review protocols with pass/fail criteria - When to default to your doctor and when AI is the better prep tool Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 00:30 HealthStacks show intro 01:06 Origin story — the scatter-gun approach before AI 02:10 Why experimentation loops matter 03:21 Key principle: start with goals, not supplements 04:02 Screen share: building the Custom GPT 06:19 Three health goals explained 08:25 System instructions deep-dive 08:57 Prompting technique: "ask me clarifying questions" 10:14 Getting started advice for beginners 14:17 Case study: why James removed glycine 17:10 "Top 5 interventions" live demo 18:17 Role prompting: specialist vs. generalist 21:34 Results walkthrough 24:08 Building a full daily stack with dosing schedule 27:04 The future of the supplement industry 29:13 Failures: when the same AI gives conflicting advice 30:34 Final stack review 32:50 Wrap-up and takeaways Resources ChatGPT Custom GPTs: https://chatgpt.com Randox Health: https://www.randox.com GlyNAC: https://examine.com/supplements/glycine/ Ashwagandha: https://examine.com/supplements/ashwagandha/ Yeast Beta-Glucan: https://examine.com/supplements/beta-glucan/ Urolithin A: https://examine.com/supplements/urolithin-a/ Website: https://healthstacks.ai #supplements #ai #health #customgpt #biohacking #healthstacks

  10. Feb 4

    How I Fact-Check Health Claims Before Buying Anything: HealthStacks Episode 1

    Stop wasting money on supplements that don't work for you. In this episode, I show you the exact 3-step workflow I use to fact-check health claims, personalize recommendations to my blood work, and find high-quality products at the best price. Will Read demonstrates how he uses Consensus.app to search peer-reviewed research, then ChatGPT with his blood test data to check if supplements are actually right for him — including how AI caught a potential problem with his multivitamin. 🔗 RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE • Consensus.app: https://consensus.app • Examine.com: https://examine.com • Full show notes: https://healthstacks.ai/episodes/001-bogus-health-claims ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Introduction 1:03 The problem: 15 years of conflicting health advice 2:44 Demo: Testing BCAAs in Consensus.app 5:17 Red flags that make me reject a supplement 6:42 Positive example: Researching creatine 8:49 When science disproves what you've heard 10:03 Beyond supplements: Training and sauna research 12:40 Personalizing with ChatGPT and blood tests 14:46 Why iron supplements weren't right for me 16:17 AI catching a multivitamin conflict 19:11 Shopping for quality supplements 22:28 Is all this research worth the time? 23:51 The complete workflow 🎙️ ABOUT HEALTHSTACKS AI workflows for training, nutrition, and recovery you can steal today. New episodes weekly-ish. 🔔 Subscribe: https://youtube.com/@HealthStacksAI 🌐 Website: https://healthstacks.ai

  11. Season 1 Trailer

    Steal These Health & Fitness Workflows: Introducing Health Stacks

    Coming Soon: HealthStacks: AI & Tech for Health & Fitness

  • 1 Trailer
    10 Episodes

Trailer

About

How outlier health, fitness, performance, and well-being companies get built. Lesson-foussed interviews with founders, investors, elite talent, and solo episodes sharing proven frameworks.

Information

  • Creator
    Will Read
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    11
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Will Read