The Exchanges

Q Can I ask a really tough and probably off-schedule question, which is, I'm sure 90% of the projects that you engage with produce Very strong returns. How do you differentiate between good and strong versus hymns like out of this world rocket returns?

A Well, I would tell you that 90% don't return good returns. The percentage of success is far smaller. You know, we traditionally at Atomic will prototype anywhere from 20 to 25 companies per year, and we'll build three to four. And so that means that the vast majority of things we try We don't feel like our outlier opportunities, we don't feel like we have a unique distribution opportunity, and we pass on. And so, you know, what we are lucky to have is multiple years of growing data sets, right? So we've tested dozens of direct-to-consumer companies, which means we know CACs, we know marketing channel costs for each of these, we know the margin structures, and we know the LTV projections for a lot of different companies and brands that we've tried. And so when we build something like HIMSS and we see those numbers and we see the outlier opportunities, Opportunity. It's actually quite obvious, because you can look back on similar data sets and similar tests and say, hey, that is fundamentally different.

AI assessment note: “you can look back on similar data sets and similar tests”

Q Is the biggest threat to your business not actually OpenAI? And if ChatGPT is the kind of consumer interface with a lot of healthcare questions that people have today, which, you know, it is in most cases actually, and that's why obviously health is a big focus for them. Is it not the most natural extension ever that they extend that into delivery, supply, being your on-demand doctor?

A Something that people have been talking about a lot. Actually, Daria was mentioning this recently. I think some of the most defensible businesses in the age of, you know, anthropic and open AI are businesses that actually do something physical. Like they, they require actual specialization and they require infrastructure. And, uh, a huge part of what we do every single day is treat tens of thousands of patients with thousands of doctors that are specialized and licensed in every state or country in the world. And then actually help make people medicine. Um, and this is a million square feet of pharmacy fulfillment. This is, you know, hundreds of pharmacists and robotic machines that are actually compounding treatments or fulfilling branded pharmaceuticals. So when I actually think about the most, uh, the most defensive businesses, the businesses that can thrive in the age of AI and actually be enabled by them are ones where the conversation of something like ChatGPT massively expands the funnel. Of people engaging in health and wellness, but then can be driven to a platform that actually connects them with the specialist and connects them with the products and actually can get that delivered to their door. Um, and ultimately I think we're a combination of all of those businesses together. So, uh, you know, I think there's, there's a lot of opportunity with, with that funnel tha…

AI assessment note: “ChatGPT massively expands the funnel of people engaging in health and wellness”

Q transition of how people like consume healthcare. In terms of how people find you, I actually had Eran from Monday on the show, which was a fascinating show. And he said that with AI overview on Google, that they've lost 18%, or I might be a butcher, maybe 1515 to 18% of their, uh, AdWords in terms of acquisition. How are you seeing the way that people find hymns change?

A You know, it hasn't had particularly dramatic changes since, um, since, you know, some of these new AI companies have, have grown. I think for us, a huge number of people that come to us are, are first time patients interested in some of these care categories. And so they're hearing about it through, you know, watching Fox news. They're hearing about it through watching, uh, NFL on Thursday nights. They're hearing about it from their friend who all of a sudden is Feeling great. And the friend is talking about the treatments that they're on or, or the fact that they're getting care from hims and hers. So I think more and more for us, the brand and the, the spend is moving towards channels where you're talking about the opportunity to feel great. You're not reliant on, you know, maybe the, the AdWords, Google funnel that, that you mentioned. I do think those businesses inevitably will have. Struggle in transitioning to some of the, the, um, you know, the chat based interfaces, but there'll be ad networks that are built through those chat based interfaces that eventually just replace them. So, um, ultimately I'm not sure it will matter, but for us, I think an increasing amount of spend is actually going towards just telling people about all of the new things hims and hers is doing. The fact that you can feel great, the fact that it's affordable and you can come check it out. Um, a…

AI assessment note: “it hasn't had particularly dramatic changes since, um, since, you know, some of these new AI companies”

Q Um, in the last- Do you have the elasticity and budget to do that? I don't mean that really-

A It requires verticalization. It requires two tangible things. So last year we acquired Uh, your bio health, which is one of the, the few at home blood collection devices. I have it right here on my desk. Um, and this device costs just a couple of bucks to manufacture, and you can click it on your arm, and it's got 30 micro needles in time, inside of it. Each of the micro needles smaller than an eyelash. So if you feel nothing, you click a button, you feel nothing, and then a small tube of blood gets extracted from your arm in about a minute or two. You can then peel that off, and you can mail it to New Jersey. Which is where we have a lab processing facility, and we'll have a couple others in the next year and two, um, and run a full panel, you know, 50 biomarkers, and it will cost us like almost nothing. Now, today, if you go to, to Quest or LabCorp and try to get that panel, uh, cash pay, maybe it costs you a thousand bucks or 2000 bucks. If you, you know, uh, go online and go to different competitors, maybe it costs like 300 or 500 bucks for that panel. Um, uh, and, and my, my goal, my vision is like very quickly, I want to give that away as a part of the hims and hers membership for free. Um, because if you can get a sense of those metrics, and, and I'm not talking about just like baseline metrics, like, You know, your cholesterol and the things that I'm actually talking ab…

AI assessment note: “It requires verticalization... and it will cost us like almost nothing.”

Q What is your least profitable product that is most important? Do you remember we said about multi-product companies don't have to Yeah.

A Right, right now it's the lab testing offering. We offer it essentially, uh, at cost. We haven't verticalized any of this infrastructure, so it costs us, you know, you know, pretty much just as much money as we, we sell it for. Um, and again, it's because I believe the loss leader value to the patient is incredibly important, and that margin will continue to be terrible because what we're going to do is continue to reduce the cost as we verticalize it, And then actually reduce the cost to the consumer. Um, so that, that will always be, I think, um, a platform benefit from my standpoint where we try to make nothing on, um, but give patients information and access and, and that ultimately can be really transformative for them.

AI assessment note: “Right, right now it's the lab testing offering. We offer it essentially, uh, at cost.”

Q I want to kick off this day by discussing a little bit about you, and when you were a little boy, did you always dream of creating this incredible men's health and wellness brand, and what was that aha moment for you with HIMSS?

A You know, I would like to believe that when I was a little boy, that I had this incredible vision, and I've been working towards it for the last 20 years, but that's not Quite the case. You know, I think the story of HIMSS really came in the last four and five years as I've essentially watched dozens of friends very close to me struggle with many of the exact same health and medical issues, yet not really have open conversations and proactively take care of them. So everything from erectile dysfunction to hair loss to acne, these are all things that statistically all of us men as an entire gender struggle from, but the paths forward to actually take care of them are a little bit more fragmented. So men would result to late night Google searches and incognito browser mode on their iPhone and find very, very scary stuff online and snake oil, and I think what HIMSS aims to do is educate men about the normalcy of these issues, the fact that they are very, very common, the fact that there are opportunities for them to seek treatment for these issues, and that that treatment is actually very effective and very cost affordable. So that's kind of the background story for HIMSS, and it's something that I've really seen in action with so many of my peers in the last And that's really what kind of motivated me to get this going.

AI assessment note: “when I was a little boy, that I had this incredible vision... that's not Quite the case.”

Q to kind of hear stories from owning donut shops, um, didn't tell me that, did you? Uh, my, my Augustus Gloop was coming out there, but the, the talent element was one. And they said in particular, Jules Maltz, I think it was from IVP said that you're incredible when it comes to acquisition and retention. What do people get most wrong? Do you think about acquiring great talent today?

A I think often people as they scale, maybe founders as they scale, um, fall into the trap of trying to hire people that, um, have seen bigger scale than them and are more strategic. And they, they feel like they've gotten to the point of success where now it's time where they up level the talent to non startup folks, right? To like real professional people. Uh, and I think that is a huge, huge mistake. Huge mistake. Um, you know, when I look at, you know, Chris Payne is on our board. He's one of my mentors. Yeah. Great guy. I think one of the best operators I've ever met. And when I look at the team over at that, that Tony's built at DoorDash, you know, that team is, is an operating machine and they're huge, right? It's a 80, a hundred billion dollar company. Um, yet they're still operating with speed and focus, like a startup. And I think so much of that is because the team that Tony's assembled around them is a team of operators that love to build. Uh, and, and so I think as you scale, there's a pressure to go hire that big strategy person who has more credentials than you. And it's kind of, it feels almost confidence inducing as a founder to like get to that level. And I think you have to fight that at all costs. I've made mistakes. I've hired people like that because I thought it was the right move and I've always come back to, Find people who love the mission, who love to b…

AI assessment note: “fall into the trap of trying to hire people that, um, have seen bigger scale”

Q When with the benefit of hindsight, did you push too hard and you had to pull back?

A In the early years. And I think we still, I still, you know, try to moderate this with our business. Like we could launch, we could launch so many things within like a month. You know, you could launch a, um, a skincare routine or you could launch like a makeup You could launch sleep vitamins. You could launch like a wearable device. I mean, there's just like anything people are doing in health and wellness could live in the hims and hers brand, which is pretty powerful and also extremely, um, risky, right? Because if you, if you do too much and you, you move into the wrong areas, you, you, you waste a ton of resource. So in the early years, um, you know, I thought just having everything on the platform was how you win. And so we invested in, ah, skin care regiments, and we invested in vitamin supplements, and we invested in, you know, so many things that in retrospect were, were fairly commodity products. Um, and, ah, for pretty much the same price, or even less, you could walk across the street to Walgreens and get something that was pretty much the same thing. And I think that, that was a massive mistake. You know, I think it was, it was a belief that just assortment won. And I think there's a more nuanced perspective that the right assortment wins. And, and so, um, we're, we're really careful about categories. We enter products. We launch to make sure that their products an…

AI assessment note: “In the early years. And I think we still, I still, you know, try”

Q And I think, you know, we do meaningful jobs and you do a hugely meaningful job, but I think the most meaningful job that you probably do, which you'll agree with is being a father. Um, what's your final one? What's your biggest advice On being a great father, now having three boys.

A You know, there's a, there's a, um, something I watched once where they asked a whole bunch of little kids, um, what their absolute perfect afternoon was. And these are like two, three, four or five year olds. And the perfect afternoon was all these kids answered the same way, just playing with their mom and dad. Just like sitting with blocks and playing with their mom and dad or drawing with their mom and dad or, or something with their mom and dad. And I don't think, you know, when you're exhausted and you're a parent and you're trying to do everything and pulled so many different ways, you realize that actually all the kids want to do is just have you present and, and truly present. And so my greatest advice I think would be to, to try really, really hard to just play with them. Like actually play, like get down on your, on your knees, on your butt, in whatever they're doing, uh, and just ask what they're doing and ask if you can do it with them. Um, because you feel like they light up, uh, because in parenting, like it's, it's hard to actually, uh, make time for that. But I've found that, that that's, that's really the most important and valuable stuff.

AI assessment note: “my greatest advice I think would be to try really, really hard to just play with them”

Q Do you run those as separate businesses? When I had Nick from Ravelud on the show, he, he said something fascinating. He said, we run 26 different product experiments at the same time. I treat it much like a venture incubator and I give them More or less money, depending on how well they perform. Do you run them as like a venture incubation unit?

A Absolutely. I mean, you know, when we first met, I was, um, you know, over with, with Jack Abraham running atomic ventures for a long time. Um, and that training of zero to one exploration, um, that is what him's and hers is, right? Like I think of it as a public shell for innovation and bringing great healthcare to consumers. Which means every year we're testing completely new go-to-market strategies, completely new categories, and the way we think about it internally is just different bets. Um, and some bets you, you starve, and some bets you fund, and some bets you, you ring fence to allow exploration for a year or two. Um, but they're run, uh, increasingly independently, and I think the, the DNA of management is, is to look at it as a portfolio that continues to scale. Because ultimately, In our business, you know, health and wellness, what, what makes up great health and wellness is constantly changing. There's new diagnostics, there's new devices, there's new drugs, uh, there's new learnings about, you know, the sauna and, you know, cold plunges or whatever it might be, whatever's trendy, right? Like all of this is changing and it's going to continue to accelerate. And our job is to curate the best and bring it to people at scale at an affordable cost. And so we have to think about this, frankly, as a portfolio that's constantly evolving.

AI assessment note: “they're run, uh, increasingly independently, and I think the, the DNA of management”

Q transition of how people like consume healthcare. In terms of how people find you, I actually had Eran from Monday on the show, which was a fascinating show. And he said that with AI overview on Google, that they've lost 18%, or I might be a butcher, maybe 1515 to 18% of their, uh, AdWords in terms of acquisition. How are you seeing the way that people find hymns change?

A You know, it hasn't had particularly dramatic changes since, um, since, you know, some of these new AI companies have, have grown. I think for us, a huge number of people that come to us are, are first time patients interested in some of these care categories. And so they're hearing about it through, you know, watching Fox news. They're hearing about it through watching, uh, NFL on Thursday nights. They're hearing about it from their friend who all of a sudden is Feeling great. And the friend is talking about the treatments that they're on or, or the fact that they're getting care from hims and hers. So I think more and more for us, the brand and the, the spend is moving towards channels where you're talking about the opportunity to feel great. You're not reliant on, you know, maybe the, the AdWords, Google funnel that, that you mentioned. I do think those businesses inevitably will have. Struggle in transitioning to some of the, the, um, you know, the chat based interfaces, but there'll be ad networks that are built through those chat based interfaces that eventually just replace them. So, um, ultimately I'm not sure it will matter, but for us, I think an increasing amount of spend is actually going towards just telling people about all of the new things hims and hers is doing. The fact that you can feel great, the fact that it's affordable and you can come check it out. Um, a…

AI assessment note: “it hasn't had particularly dramatic changes since, um, since, you know, some of these”

Q When I, when I interviewed Nick at Revolut, he said brand marketing was the single biggest thing he's changed his mind on in the journey of Revolut, which I thought was an interesting statement. What do you know now about brand marketing and spend on things that seem facile? What do you know now that you wish you'd known?

A You know, I think what you, what you gain confidence in with brand marketing over time is that consistency, um, Consistency is required. So I think in the early years with brand marketing, as companies are growing, they throw some dollars, you know, let's do an out of home campaign in New York. Cause it's like really cool. It's like takeover subways, right? Which we did a ton of. I mean, they do it once and everyone, this team is so fucking excited cause it's so cool and you can see it and you take pictures of it. Um, but you do it once. Um, and then like months go by and it gets taken off and then, and then that's it. Right. Um, because you did it and it was fun and cool. And you look at the numbers and like, ah, maybe there's like a little spike in New York city, maybe on this day, like you can't really tell probably not, but you, you hopeful. Um, and then the next year, like, okay, what are we going to do this year? Right? Like that's just like, it's a guaranteed way to just lose money. It's a great way to feel good. And it's super fun. It's like so much fun and we've done ton of it and it's really fun, but like, that's not a business strategy. I think in order to have brand marketing work, I think it has to be consistent. It has to be consistently random. If that makes sense. Like you have to be appearing in different places for people in a randomized way, but with consiste…

AI assessment note: “what you gain confidence in with brand marketing over time is that consistency is required”

Q Uh, what system would you, what part of the system would you most like to break that you haven't broken yet?

A I think we're in the middle right now of breaking how, uh, healthcare is distributed entirely. So instead of going through the PBMs, and then through insurance, and then through reimbursements, all of that complexity that nobody understands in the US. I don't think any of it makes sense. I think all of it, or as much of it as possible, will go through consumer channels like him's and hers, where you can pick up your phone, Have on-demand access, have total price transparency, have complete choice of which doctor, which specialists, which treatment, complete information access, and then, and then control. The system in the U.S. is entirely paternalistic, right? You get treated with whatever they, they, they want to give you, and, and the incentives and reimbursements and costs are so convoluted that it's, it's wildly overwhelming. And so when I think of every other industry we love, Food delivery, you know, financial services, banking, uh, retail. Everything is simple. It's on demand, from your mobile device, price transparency, customer choice. Yet the one thing that is the most important part of our life doesn't have any of those elements. And it's the biggest industry in the U.S. It's where we spend the most money too. And so I think that's entirely going to change. And so I don't think HIMSS is a D to C company. I think HIMSS is disrupting how healthcare is delivered in, in …

AI assessment note: “we're in the middle right now of breaking how, uh, healthcare is distributed entirely.”

Q What is your least profitable product that is most important? Do you remember we said about multi-product companies don't have to Yeah.

A Right, right now it's the lab testing offering. We offer it essentially, uh, at cost. We haven't verticalized any of this infrastructure, so it costs us, you know, you know, pretty much just as much money as we, we sell it for. Um, and again, it's because I believe the loss leader value to the patient is incredibly important, and that margin will continue to be terrible because what we're going to do is continue to reduce the cost as we verticalize it, And then actually reduce the cost to the consumer. Um, so that, that will always be, I think, um, a platform benefit from my standpoint where we try to make nothing on, um, but give patients information and access and, and that ultimately can be really transformative for them.

AI assessment note: “right now it's the lab testing offering. We offer it essentially, uh, at cost.”

Q to kind of hear stories from owning donut shops, um, didn't tell me that, did you? Uh, my, my Augustus Gloop was coming out there, but the, the talent element was one. And they said in particular, Jules Maltz, I think it was from IVP said that you're incredible when it comes to acquisition and retention. What do people get most wrong? Do you think about acquiring great talent today?

A I think often people as they scale, maybe founders as they scale, um, fall into the trap of trying to hire people that, um, have seen bigger scale than them and are more strategic. And they, they feel like they've gotten to the point of success where now it's time where they up level the talent to non startup folks, right? To like real professional people. Uh, and I think that is a huge, huge mistake. Huge mistake. Um, you know, when I look at, you know, Chris Payne is on our board. He's one of my mentors. Yeah. Great guy. I think one of the best operators I've ever met. And when I look at the team over at that, that Tony's built at DoorDash, you know, that team is, is an operating machine and they're huge, right? It's a 80, a hundred billion dollar company. Um, yet they're still operating with speed and focus, like a startup. And I think so much of that is because the team that Tony's assembled around them is a team of operators that love to build. Uh, and, and so I think as you scale, there's a pressure to go hire that big strategy person who has more credentials than you. And it's kind of, it feels almost confidence inducing as a founder to like get to that level. And I think you have to fight that at all costs. I've made mistakes. I've hired people like that because I thought it was the right move and I've always come back to, Find people who love the mission, who love to b…

AI assessment note: “fall into the trap of trying to hire people that, um, have seen bigger scale”

Q as you have been? You know, I remember interviewing Dax from Lightspeed, Dax to Silver, and he mentioned the challenge, Lightspeed the POS system in a lot of restaurants, and he mentioned the challenge in acquiring so much so quickly. I think they made, like, 18 acquisitions in, like, a two-year period. Are you worried of, like, oh, fuck, I now have to integrate Eucalyptus in these three other businesses?

A Definitely. You, there is a very fine line of, of, uh, driving so fast that you're losing control. There's no question about that. Um, what I've found at least in running this business is, is if you don't feel like you are getting close to that line, you're probably not pushing hard enough. And so I do think, um, That uncomfortable gut feeling where you're constantly questioning, constantly evaluating, constantly tweaking the strategy or the tactics, like that feeling is what, uh, uh, success feels like. And so I've, I've kind of taught my team that we're going to get really comfortable with that feeling. We're going to get really comfortable sitting in that feeling and questioning and reevaluating and pushing. Um, because I think that's how you win, right? Like, um, I was a rower in high school. And I remember, you know, my coach saying, you know, the, the, the group of guys out there that is willing to be the most uncomfortable and in the most pain are going to win this race. And, and that's actually true in that sport. And that's true in, in, you know, in most sports that I think that's true in business is like, if you can put yourself in environments where you're being aggressive, but smart, taking the right bets, but have a team that is, you know, bought into the mission and comfortable. With that level of, of aggressive risk. And I think, I think it's the right formula. S…

AI assessment note: “Definitely. You, there is a very fine line of, of, uh, driving so fast”

Q Do you run those as separate businesses? When I had Nick from Ravelud on the show, he, he said something fascinating. He said, we run 26 different product experiments at the same time. I treat it much like a venture incubator and I give them More or less money, depending on how well they perform. Do you run them as like a venture incubation unit?

A Absolutely. I mean, you know, when we first met, I was, um, you know, over with, with Jack Abraham running atomic ventures for a long time. Um, and that training of zero to one exploration, um, that is what him's and hers is, right? Like I think of it as a public shell for innovation and bringing great healthcare to consumers. Which means every year we're testing completely new go-to-market strategies, completely new categories, and the way we think about it internally is just different bets. Um, and some bets you, you starve, and some bets you fund, and some bets you, you ring fence to allow exploration for a year or two. Um, but they're run, uh, increasingly independently, and I think the, the DNA of management is, is to look at it as a portfolio that continues to scale. Because ultimately, In our business, you know, health and wellness, what, what makes up great health and wellness is constantly changing. There's new diagnostics, there's new devices, there's new drugs, uh, there's new learnings about, you know, the sauna and, you know, cold plunges or whatever it might be, whatever's trendy, right? Like all of this is changing and it's going to continue to accelerate. And our job is to curate the best and bring it to people at scale at an affordable cost. And so we have to think about this, frankly, as a portfolio that's constantly evolving.

AI assessment note: “Absolutely... some bets you starve, and some bets you fund”

Q How should I think about the preventative healthcare companies that I'm pitched every day, whether it's your pre-Novos or your Necos in the UK, which is expanding to you. Is that the future? Some are much deeper, some are much shallower, some are much more expensive. How do you understand, analyze that space? Is that something that HIMSS would do?

A We spend a ton of time looking at that space and, and I've actually, we did a partnership with Pronovo that was announced just a couple of weeks ago. Um, I, I think where there's a lot of interesting companies right now is in highly specialized levels of testing for clinical areas that are, that are, um, meaningfully unmet, right? So you look at things like Uh, cardiovascular disease. Um, right. Still one of the number one killers. Most dads die of a heart attack. Um, yet a statin is, you know, two cents for me to manufacture. And if you take a statin every day, um, then you won't die of a heart attack or you're meaningfully less likely to die of a heart attack. Yet nobody does it. And so there's, there's, you know, biotech companies right now working on therapies where a single injection quarterly Or a single injection annually can absolutely obliterate your cardiovascular risk. And if you can do something like that, you meaningfully, you know, curve that rate of death and you get ahead on prevention for cardiovascular disease. Pronovo, I think is, is another interesting one, right? It's, it's how do we get ahead of detection for things like cancer and early tumor detection? You know, my, my dad, you know, had stage four colon cancer when he was 39. It then cost the healthcare system, you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars to Have s…

AI assessment note: “where there's a lot of interesting companies right now is in highly specialized levels”

Q Is the biggest threat to your business not actually OpenAI? And if ChatGPT is the kind of consumer interface with a lot of healthcare questions that people have today, which, you know, it is in most cases actually, and that's why obviously health is a big focus for them. Is it not the most natural extension ever that they extend that into delivery, supply, being your on-demand doctor?

A Something that people have been talking about a lot. Actually, Daria was mentioning this recently. I think some of the most defensible businesses in the age of, you know, anthropic and open AI are businesses that actually do something physical. Like they, they require actual specialization and they require infrastructure. And, uh, a huge part of what we do every single day is treat tens of thousands of patients with thousands of doctors that are specialized and licensed in every state or country in the world. And then actually help make people medicine. Um, and this is a million square feet of pharmacy fulfillment. This is, you know, hundreds of pharmacists and robotic machines that are actually compounding treatments or fulfilling branded pharmaceuticals. So when I actually think about the most, uh, the most defensive businesses, the businesses that can thrive in the age of AI and actually be enabled by them are ones where the conversation of something like ChatGPT massively expands the funnel. Of people engaging in health and wellness, but then can be driven to a platform that actually connects them with the specialist and connects them with the products and actually can get that delivered to their door. Um, and ultimately I think we're a combination of all of those businesses together. So, uh, you know, I think there's, there's a lot of opportunity with, with that funnel tha…

AI assessment note: “the most defensible businesses in the age of... open AI are businesses that actually do something physical”

Q I mean, how does that come to be, dude?

A You know, it comes to me because you get to know the people really well. I've known Tim probably four or five years. I think he was the best operator overseas. No question. I mean, his understanding of the customer, his ability to build a team that just moves fast, experiments, um, is willing to take risks and fail. I mean, when I first met Tim, he was live in like six or seven markets and it was all failing. And he was telling me how chaotic it was. And I was like, I don't know, man, this sounds crazy. You're in like, Indonesia. You're in Japan. You're in all these different places. Like, is it going to work? He's like, I'm not sure, but we're going to try it. And then a year later, he's like, okay, it didn't work. We're, we're like toning it back. We're going to focus here. His, his, his humility and his willingness to experiment and test and learn is incredible. And, and because of that, they've just moved so much faster than everybody else. I mean, they're the dominant player in Australia, dominant player in the UK, dominant player in Germany, uh, you know, quickly growing in Japan. I mean, it's just a phenomenal business. And I think the power of what we built in the U S from a cashflow standpoint has enabled us in the last four or five years to buy that business with pretty, you know, moderate dilution, right? Cause you can actually just fund the purchase of it off the ba…

AI assessment note: “it comes to me because you get to know the people really well. I've known Tim”

Q When with the benefit of hindsight, did you push too hard and you had to pull back?

A In the early years. And I think we still, I still, you know, try to moderate this with our business. Like we could launch, we could launch so many things within like a month. You know, you could launch a, um, a skincare routine or you could launch like a makeup You could launch sleep vitamins. You could launch like a wearable device. I mean, there's just like anything people are doing in health and wellness could live in the hims and hers brand, which is pretty powerful and also extremely, um, risky, right? Because if you, if you do too much and you, you move into the wrong areas, you, you, you waste a ton of resource. So in the early years, um, you know, I thought just having everything on the platform was how you win. And so we invested in, ah, skin care regiments, and we invested in vitamin supplements, and we invested in, you know, so many things that in retrospect were, were fairly commodity products. Um, and, ah, for pretty much the same price, or even less, you could walk across the street to Walgreens and get something that was pretty much the same thing. And I think that, that was a massive mistake. You know, I think it was, it was a belief that just assortment won. And I think there's a more nuanced perspective that the right assortment wins. And, and so, um, we're, we're really careful about categories. We enter products. We launch to make sure that their products an…

AI assessment note: “In the early years... I thought just having everything on the platform was how you win”

Q When I, when I interviewed Nick at Revolut, he said brand marketing was the single biggest thing he's changed his mind on in the journey of Revolut, which I thought was an interesting statement. What do you know now about brand marketing and spend on things that seem facile? What do you know now that you wish you'd known?

A You know, I think what you, what you gain confidence in with brand marketing over time is that consistency, um, Consistency is required. So I think in the early years with brand marketing, as companies are growing, they throw some dollars, you know, let's do an out of home campaign in New York. Cause it's like really cool. It's like takeover subways, right? Which we did a ton of. I mean, they do it once and everyone, this team is so fucking excited cause it's so cool and you can see it and you take pictures of it. Um, but you do it once. Um, and then like months go by and it gets taken off and then, and then that's it. Right. Um, because you did it and it was fun and cool. And you look at the numbers and like, ah, maybe there's like a little spike in New York city, maybe on this day, like you can't really tell probably not, but you, you hopeful. Um, and then the next year, like, okay, what are we going to do this year? Right? Like that's just like, it's a guaranteed way to just lose money. It's a great way to feel good. And it's super fun. It's like so much fun and we've done ton of it and it's really fun, but like, that's not a business strategy. I think in order to have brand marketing work, I think it has to be consistent. It has to be consistently random. If that makes sense. Like you have to be appearing in different places for people in a randomized way, but with consiste…

AI assessment note: “what you gain confidence in with brand marketing over time is that consistency... is required”

Q I'm sorry to be, and this may be a total tangent, but is it not like totally fucked that doctors get incentivized by drug companies?

A Yeah, the whole thing is totally fucked, right? If you look at the existing system in the US, almost nothing has to do with patient outcomes or patient happiness, right? So many people make money, everybody makes money, but none of them make money in any way that's actually reflective of success of the customer or patient. Um, and I think that's where our model is most powerful. Like we only make money at him's and hers if you are happier and healthier. Period. Because you pay us, you pay us to be healthier. If you don't feel healthier, if you don't feel happier, you stop paying us. And so our incentive is only aligned with, with you. And we then fight behind the scenes, the drug companies, we fight the diagnostic companies, we fight everybody and we work with them, but we apply pressure to them to get the best stuff at the best price to bring it to you. But ultimately we only succeed if you succeed.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, the whole thing is totally fucked, right?”

Q I think the world of Jack, real man crush for me with Jack. Yeah. Total hero. But final one, Andrew, tell me, paint the vision, paint the picture. What are the next five years hold for you and for him and hers?

A You know, I think for me in the business, I'm going to continue to run this business because I'm incredibly passionate about where we're at. I think we're in the first couple of innings of what I was saying is, A very, very long baseball game. I don't know if they have baseball out where you're from, but this opportunity to transform healthcare, to give people access to healthcare from the comfort of their phone, they can go to a website for hims.com. They can pick it up and immediately get connected to a doctor for 20 bucks. I mean, it's something that I think hundreds of millions of people in this country would benefit from. It's something we're incredibly passionate to stay focused on. So I think five years from now, hopefully we're a much larger part of people's lives. We're helping more people. We're in part of more conditions in more countries, and we're continuing to do what we love doing.

AI assessment note: “five years from now, hopefully we're a much larger part of people's lives.”

Q the quickfire, it's not giving it away, but, uh, kids do take a lot of money, as my father always tells me. But I, I do have to say, you're about to become a father for the first time. Insanely exciting. How do you think becoming a father will change maybe your mindset around leadership, around engagement with the team, around being an operator? How do you think it changes?

A I think the biggest thing that pops up for me is how my son is going to react to how I lead. The things I say, the way I lead, the types of reactions I have to people, the amount of empathy I use with people, the patience I maintain with my team, you know, Things that I can always improve on without question. And you can ask anybody that's worked for me. There's a hundred things that I need to improve on. You know, I think there's just more of an emotional dynamic that I think about when having a kid, because that kid's going to be sitting there watching me do it, right? They're going to be in the room or working from home in these dynamics. They're going to watch me when I get upset. They're going to watch me when I'm wrong. They're going to watch me how I react when somebody did something amazing. How did I respond to that person? How was I appreciative of that person? And so I think there's an emotional dynamic for me of just kind of a Reflection of my leadership style, because I want to be obviously a leader that my kids can look at and be proud of, and I think that's something that you're not always proud of. When you're in a high grind, high intensity situation, you lose your temper, or you're not thinking smart, or you're not taking the time to be patient, whatever it is, right? So I think that's something that I think hopefully will just continue to improve, and I think…

AI assessment note: “I think the biggest thing that pops up for me is how my son”

Q I mean, I tend to have an espresso martini, but breathing will work well as well, I'm sure. But I want to finish today. On the next five years, for you and for HIMSS and for Atomic, what does that roadmap look like?

A Oh, we've got a tremendous amount of things coming out the door. So with HIMSS, we have a number of new medical and wellness products launching that Statistically, the vast majority of men need and are suffering from, and it's just incredible that we're able to bring it to these guys at such great prices and so easy and in such a beautiful form factor. So over the next few months and coming years, you'll see HIMSS expand into many, many more categories that are all exceptionally important. And with Atomic, I think we'll just keep doing the same, continue to test dozens of opportunities and build very, very few. And hopefully those few that we build are big businesses and have huge impacts. And I think what we found is each new company we built keeps getting better and keeps learning from the last one. And so we have the unique advantage of being repeat founders dozens and dozens of times and concentrating those cycles into very small periods of time, which I think just allows us to move much faster and screw up just a little bit less than everybody else.

AI assessment note: “over the next few months and coming years, you'll see HIMSS expand into many”

Q I want to kick off this day by discussing a little bit about you, and when you were a little boy, did you always dream of creating this incredible men's health and wellness brand, and what was that aha moment for you with HIMSS?

A You know, I would like to believe that when I was a little boy, that I had this incredible vision, and I've been working towards it for the last 20 years, but that's not Quite the case. You know, I think the story of HIMSS really came in the last four and five years as I've essentially watched dozens of friends very close to me struggle with many of the exact same health and medical issues, yet not really have open conversations and proactively take care of them. So everything from erectile dysfunction to hair loss to acne, these are all things that statistically all of us men as an entire gender struggle from, but the paths forward to actually take care of them are a little bit more fragmented. So men would result to late night Google searches and incognito browser mode on their iPhone and find very, very scary stuff online and snake oil, and I think what HIMSS aims to do is educate men about the normalcy of these issues, the fact that they are very, very common, the fact that there are opportunities for them to seek treatment for these issues, and that that treatment is actually very effective and very cost affordable. So that's kind of the background story for HIMSS, and it's something that I've really seen in action with so many of my peers in the last And that's really what kind of motivated me to get this going.

AI assessment note: “I would like to believe that when I was a little boy... but that's not Quite the case.”

Q as you have been? You know, I remember interviewing Dax from Lightspeed, Dax to Silver, and he mentioned the challenge, Lightspeed the POS system in a lot of restaurants, and he mentioned the challenge in acquiring so much so quickly. I think they made, like, 18 acquisitions in, like, a two-year period. Are you worried of, like, oh, fuck, I now have to integrate Eucalyptus in these three other businesses?

A Definitely. You, there is a very fine line of, of, uh, driving so fast that you're losing control. There's no question about that. Um, what I've found at least in running this business is, is if you don't feel like you are getting close to that line, you're probably not pushing hard enough. And so I do think, um, That uncomfortable gut feeling where you're constantly questioning, constantly evaluating, constantly tweaking the strategy or the tactics, like that feeling is what, uh, uh, success feels like. And so I've, I've kind of taught my team that we're going to get really comfortable with that feeling. We're going to get really comfortable sitting in that feeling and questioning and reevaluating and pushing. Um, because I think that's how you win, right? Like, um, I was a rower in high school. And I remember, you know, my coach saying, you know, the, the, the group of guys out there that is willing to be the most uncomfortable and in the most pain are going to win this race. And, and that's actually true in that sport. And that's true in, in, you know, in most sports that I think that's true in business is like, if you can put yourself in environments where you're being aggressive, but smart, taking the right bets, but have a team that is, you know, bought into the mission and comfortable. With that level of, of aggressive risk. And I think, I think it's the right formula. S…

AI assessment note: “Definitely. You, there is a very fine line of, of, uh, driving so fast”

Q When you speak about the explosion of the business, that explosion is driven largely by GLP ones and weight loss. How much of that is the core business today? Is it like, 80% weight loss, 20% everything else? What does that look like?

A No, no. I think that's one of the funny things about our business is we are constantly in the headlines as a single category business. When we first launched, when you and I first met, we were the erectile dysfunction business, right? And it was, you know, front page of the New York times and it was, uh, uh, fun and silly and provocative. And all we did from everyone's perspective was ED. Uh, and then we launched hair and then all of a sudden it was like, we're a hair loss business. Uh, and then we launched the hers business and everyone said, oh, hers is never going to work. You're just an ED and hair loss business. Uh, you know, and then eventually we launched GLP ones and everyone said, oh, now you're just a weight loss business. And, you know, a year from now, people will say, oh, you're just like a peptides business probably if I were to take a guess. Right. And, and so I think the, the reality is under the hood is that you have a dozen completely different clinical categories, completely different businesses, each scaling with very solid, robust growth, which is why this business is interesting. Like that's why I run this business is the durability of it is quite strong because you have 10 different businesses with completely different customer segments. So weight loss is actually, you know, nowhere near the majority of this business. Um, um, and, and I don't think ever w…

AI assessment note: “weight loss is actually, you know, nowhere near the majority of this business”

Q I mean, how does that come to be, dude?

A You know, it comes to me because you get to know the people really well. I've known Tim probably four or five years. I think he was the best operator overseas. No question. I mean, his understanding of the customer, his ability to build a team that just moves fast, experiments, um, is willing to take risks and fail. I mean, when I first met Tim, he was live in like six or seven markets and it was all failing. And he was telling me how chaotic it was. And I was like, I don't know, man, this sounds crazy. You're in like, Indonesia. You're in Japan. You're in all these different places. Like, is it going to work? He's like, I'm not sure, but we're going to try it. And then a year later, he's like, okay, it didn't work. We're, we're like toning it back. We're going to focus here. His, his, his humility and his willingness to experiment and test and learn is incredible. And, and because of that, they've just moved so much faster than everybody else. I mean, they're the dominant player in Australia, dominant player in the UK, dominant player in Germany, uh, you know, quickly growing in Japan. I mean, it's just a phenomenal business. And I think the power of what we built in the U S from a cashflow standpoint has enabled us in the last four or five years to buy that business with pretty, you know, moderate dilution, right? Cause you can actually just fund the purchase of it off the ba…

AI assessment note: “it comes to me because you get to know the people really well.”