Deegan: GLP-1 adoption is a massive macro tailwind for strength training platforms
Tom Deegan · How Ladder Became #1 Strength Training App · Invest Like The Best · Jan 13, 2026 · at 56:24
Tom Deegan is the co-founder of Ladder, discussing whether macro trends like GLP-1 medications pose risks or opportunities for strength training apps.
0:00 / 0:11exact quote · 11.9s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“All the science would support that you need a strength training plan alongside your GLP one to, you know, you're at risk of so much muscle loss. So we think that's actually a, you know, kind of macro tailwind and something that will help us.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Tom Deegan
Deegan: Scaling personal training marketplaces requires automating away human trainers
“What we'd come to find out is that business would be very, Operationally complex difficult to scale. You know, ultimately, as you scale that business, it starts to look more like a call center, and you'd be inclined to start to automate away the very human you…”
Deegan: Digital health and fitness has no clear category winner
“There's no clear winner in the health and fitness category.”
Deegan: Pre-2020 fitness tech ignored dedicated strength training enthusiasts
“All of the innovation in the space was focused on the casual fitness consumer. We were noticing that it was all very cardio based, and we saw that this fitness enthusiast customer was really, they were being ignored, strength training in particular. There was …”
Deegan: Startups can will outcomes, but finance cannot will returns
“Because in the hedge fund space, I can promise you in the finance world, that's not possible. You can't just like will hedge fund returns. I think Bernie Madoff tried to do that and it doesn't work.”
Deegan: Founders should avoid raising capital from friends and family
“So I should have learned that lesson and said, I need to not raise money from friends and family. Instead, they were the only people at that moment that I needed to double and triple down. You just had to go even further all in. Not sure I would do it again or…”
Deegan: Fundraising during a pivot relies on selling conviction, not product
“One of the biggest lessons, particularly from that moment is like selling people on like your conviction in that moment, we were selling both like the product that we were about to shut down, but we didn't really even have visuals yet for the new product. So i…”