Justin Mares
Founder & CEO, Truemed. On 4 shows, 4 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveauthorinvestor@jwmares ↗LinkedIn ↗justinmares.com ↗
Justin Mares is the founder of health brands including Kettle & Fire, Perfect Keto, and Surely, as well as Truemed, a platform enabling HSA/FSA spending on preventive health. He also co-authored the startup growth book Traction.
4shows
4appearances
74statements
32resolved
10supported
11contradicted
31%fully supported
84said about them ↓ Everything Justin Mares said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Mares: Coca-Cola spent $140M influencing US nutrition guidelines over 15 years
“Coca-Cola spending one hundred forty million dollars to influence our nutrition guidelines like they have over the last, you know, 15 years.”
Mares: Ketogenic diets can resolve schizophrenia, epilepsy, and bipolar symptoms
“One of the best therapies for someone that is schizophrenic or epileptic Or even, in many cases, bipolar. If you put them on a ketogenic diet, these things will, in many cases, just resolve.”
Mares: Average US child gets less outdoor time than a prison inmate
“The average child spends less time outside than, like, a maximum security prison where people are spending eight plus hours on phone.”
Mares: Average American gets almost 20% of calories from soybean oil
“Today, the average American gets almost 20% of their caloric intake from soybean oil.”
Mares: Ozempic users eating standard diets will suffer nutrient deficiencies
“If you're still eating the same crap that the average American is eating today, but you're on Ozempic and eating less of it, like, you are almost certainly going to be deficient in protein and micronutrients and a bunch of things that will have, like, long-ter…”
Mares: No US healthcare payer covers exercise for heart disease prevention
“And yet, if you look at our healthcare system, nothing in the healthcare system thinks about someone who is at risk of heart disease exercising as a healthcare intervention. No payer pays for it. No one incentivizes you to do that.”
Mares: Health requires changing personal environments, not relying on discipline
“I think that that is, like, an important idea that people don't think about enough is just how do you shape your environment so that it's naturally health promoting, as opposed to you know, having to, like, Discipline yourself and doing all the stuff that most…”
Mares: US permits 60,000 to 80,000 chemical compounds banned in EU
“And the end result is we have between like 60 and 80,000 chemical compounds in the U.S. That are not allowed in, in the EU.”
Mares: Monsanto spent tens of millions lobbying for glyphosate liability shield
“A couple months ago Monsanto was lobbying hard, spent tens of millions of dollars to get a rider and a bill that would basically make sure that no one could ever sue them for the potential health impacts of one of their most popular products, glyphosate.”
Mares: $14B in legal damages awarded over glyphosate health exposure
“There's been fourteen billion dollars of damages awarded to people that have gotten cancer or other diseases from glyphosate exposure.”
Mares: 80% of US schools hold contracts with soda companies
“80% of schools have contracts with soda companies.”
Mares: Ketamine therapy works better than SSRIs for severe depression and PTSD
“Ketamine therapy, ketamine assisted therapy works better than SSRIs in many cases, especially for treating things that are very intense, like treatment resistant depression, PTSD, things like this.”
Mares: Lifestyle and functional medicine interventions outperform talk therapy for depression
“There have been studies that show just by focusing and taking a functional medicine approach, you know, focusing on sleep, focusing on gut health, focusing on lowering your inflammation through diet and exercise, that combination of therapies works better than…”
Mares: Non-patentable peptides will be exceptionally disruptive to pharma
“Oh man, I think peptides are going to be so disruptive to our current healthcare system. You know, I think that if you look at peptides there needs to be way more research. I'm like, not totally yet a peptide believer. But there needs to be way more research, …”
Mares: Big food outfunded the NIH 11-to-1 on nutrition science research
“Most of nutrition science is funded by a big food company. They outfund the NIH, like, 11 to one on nutrition science, at least historically.”
Mares: Exercise and sleep treat chronic conditions better than pharmaceuticals
“If you look at studies, they show that exercise, sleep supplements, all these things actually work better for treating many chronic conditions than, you know, SSRIs or any such sort of other like pharmaceutical intervention.”
Mares: The US food system is poisonous to weak-willed Americans
“The American food system is basically poisonous to weak willed people like most Americans.”
Mares: Average American food is 40% to 70% less nutrient dense than 50 years ago
“Like, you know, the average American's food is something like between 40 and 70% less nutrient dense than it was even just 50 years ago.”
Mares: Superior recreational drugs are driving the non-alcoholic beverage market boom
“I honestly think one of the reasons I'm bullish on the non-alc space is, like, we are getting to the point where there are just better drugs. Like, if people want to, you know, alter their state of consciousness, I'm seeing a lot more friends that are like, Op…”
Mares: Ultra-processed foods make up 70% of children's diets today
“Most kids today are eating like 70% of their diet is ultra processed foods.”
Mares: Fixing crop subsidies is single biggest lever for food reform
“From a food system standpoint, I think the biggest single lever that we could pull, which would be extraordinarily politically challenging to pull, is fixing our, like, crop subsidy system.”
Mares: Ozempic Is Unlikely to Be a Cure-All for Obesity
“You know, and I just think that it is quite unlikely that Ozempic is the one thing that is going to be a cure all.”
Mares: Most US political issues stem from chronic health crisis
“I think many of our political problems are downstream of the fact that many, the majority of the country is just sick.”
Pre-orders on sketchy landing pages are the ultimate proof of demand
“If people are willing to spend 30 bucks on a product they've never heard, tasted, smelled, whatever, that doesn't exist on a landing page that looks like it was a scam, that is probably a pretty good sign that this is a thing that people really, really want.”
The other half of the tape: Justin Mares's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 80 times in 39 episodes across the shows. 4 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Sam Parr 21Jordi Hays 20John Coogan 15Calley Means 11Shaan Puri 3Augustus Doricko 2Erik Torenberg 1David Senra 1
Statements about Justin Mares, by other people (4)
Coogan: Wealthy Americans traveled abroad for GLP-1 drugs before US availability
“The, like, GLP-I's were, like, widely available for, like, five years before they came to America, and a lot of rich people were going abroad to get them.”
Puri: TruMed's HSA/FSA checkout integration is a phenomenal business opportunity
“This is such a good idea. By the way, this is a phenomenal idea. This is a 10 out of 10 opportunity.”
Puri: Most business operators and content creators rarely excel at both disciplines
“People are good at one of the, I know a bunch of amazing business people who don't want to or suck at creating content. And I know some great content people that I'm like, once I meet them, I'm like, oh, you've, this is what, this is your business. You've neve…”
Parr: Passed on TrueMed because founder had too much going on
“My most recent one is Justin Mayer's TrueMed. He was raising for it at a, I forget what it was, reasonable valuation. Justin's my friend. I think Justin's amazing. He had, he, I thought he had too much going on and I was like, no way are you going to focus on …”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
TBPN 45
My First Million 34
the Startup Ideas Podcast 1
2026 10 mentions in 4 episodes 3 per episode
- Elon’s wildest interview yet — our reaction
- Steph Smith: “This opportunity is totally overlooked”
- The Simplest Way To Make $1,000,000 Isn't Starting A Business (it's working in one of these 10)
- Meta Acquires Manus, Nvidia's $20B Groq deal, Doordash's Reddit Firestorm l Diet TBPN
- every mention in 2026, scene by scene →
2025 34 mentions in 14 episodes 2 per episode
- I run a $180M+ company...here's how I'm using AI on a daily basis
- The Real Cost of Ultra-Processed Food | Calley Means on TBPN
- The END of Ski Season? (E26)
- Investing in the Future and the Importance of Science Fiction
- WELLNESS Is the New WEALTH | Kirsten Green ON TBPN April 4th
- Augustus Doricko (Rainmaker) Talks Terraforming, Regulation Battles, and Climate Tech
- Lulu Cheng Meservey on Founder Mode, Attention as Currency, and Building the Future.
- This guy made Millions by inventing the $1 Menu
- 6 more episodes that year, every mention in 2025 →
2024 27 mentions in 13 episodes 2 per episode
- The Dark Story Behind Ozempic’s $500B Business Empire
- Surviving a VC Holiday Party (ep22)
- Inside JD Vance's Portfolio (ep8)
- Who's Getting Rich Off Ozempic? (e12)
- We Got Drunk And Came Up With 8 Business Ideas (#540)
- Election Betting Gone WRONG (ep15)
- What is the TRUMP BUBBLE? (ep11)
- Trump's Secret Career (ep7)
- 5 more episodes that year, every mention in 2024 →
2023 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2022 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2021 4 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
- The $5M Question, The Company You Would Build If You Had the Time, VR Therapy, and More
- Dr. Andrew Huberman’s Path to Fame, Money, and Total Human Optimization
- How To Get the Most Out of Every Event and the World Premier of Southern Sam’s Sticky Icky
- Frameworks to Become a Billionaire with HubSpot Co-Founder Dharmesh Shah | My First Million #197
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Justin's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 a16zLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Truemed | 1 | 29 | 23% 5/22 | full record on the a16z Podcast → |
| MY FIRST MILLIONLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Truemed | 1 | 20 | 100% 3/3 | full record on My First Million → |
| TBPNLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Truemed | 1 | 15 | 17% 1/6 | full record on TBPN → |
| STARTUP IDEASLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Truemed | 1 | 10 | 100% 1/1 | full record on the Startup Ideas Podcast → |