Alexandra Wilkis Wilson: From Gilt to the Future of Wellness

Show Notes

Full episode, chapters and resources · Watch on YouTube

What does a builder of consumer businesses see in the future of wellness?

Alexandra Wilkis Wilson joins Demian Bellumio on Augmented Wellness to trace her journey from a New York childhood and summers in Key Biscayne to Gilt, GlamSquad and consumer investing at Clerisy.

They explore what sport teaches about resilience and teamwork, how founding a company changes the way you evaluate founders, and why better-for-you products and real-world experiences matter in an increasingly digital life. Alexandra discusses examples from her investing work and closes with advice for young women finding the intersection of their strengths and interests.

Demian also demonstrates an early racket-sports data prototype, prompting a conversation about what movement context might add beyond a watch's headline metrics. The demonstration is exploratory; its readings and potential coaching or health applications have not been independently validated.

Investment relationships and business experiences discussed are the speakers' accounts at the time of recording, not investment recommendations. Product views are opinions, not medical advice. Plans mentioned in the interview are not announcements of current product availability.

Hosted by Demian Bellumio. Produced by Betterness.

Official resources:
Clerisy: https://clerisy.com/
Augmented Wellness: https://augmented.betterness.ai/

Production note: the brief opening background animation and announcer voice are AI-generated. The guest portrait, interview footage and conversation are real.

Chapters:
00:00 Fresh eyes, rare yeses and startup reality
00:45 Welcome to Alexandra Wilkis Wilson
02:25 New York childhood and Cuban roots
03:43 Girls, ambition and the lessons of sport
09:30 Building Gilt and daily shopping habits
14:08 GlamSquad and the on-demand economy
19:40 Why shared experiences matter
20:47 AI styling and the move into Allergan
24:55 Partnering with Lisa Myers and raising a fund
28:58 From founder to investor
31:10 Wellness through a consumer-investing lens
33:44 Wellness events and community
36:29 Better-for-you beverages
37:32 Founder advantage and Smash Kitchen
39:38 Racket sports: the limits of watch data
42:13 An early sports-data demonstration
48:08 Closing advice for young women

What is Augmented Wellness?

Augmented Wellness is not a show about wellness. It is a show where wellness becomes buildable.

Hosted by Demian Bellumio of Betterness, it is a hands-on media lab where AI, health data, wearables, research, startup life, and agents stop being talking points and start becoming usable systems. Every episode turns a conversation with a real builder into a public artifact: an AI interviewer, starter kit, agent pattern, or workflow you can adapt with your own tools.

The recurring idea is to create your own AI interviewer. Use the artifacts with Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, a local agent, or any LLM that can read Markdown. Serve them through MCP when you want tools to read the context automatically. Connect Betterness when you want the system to come alive with permissioned wearables, labs, reports, goals, and lifestyle data.

Produced by Demian Bellumio with the support of agents from Betterness One, the agentic studio inside Betterness. Nothing on this show is medical advice. Opinions belong to our guests.

Intelligence in pursuit of better.

[00:00] I'm not a pharma or a healthcare person. And they said, well, that's exactly why you could be interesting because they want fresh eyes. So I learned very quickly in the role that you say no so many more times than you say yes. It's actually rare that you say yes. I've been a founder 3 times now. I'm investing in founders, and you know how hard it is, even the startups that from afar seem to do no wrong and just experience hypergrowth, and everything looks easy,

[00:30] I'm sure that it is not. It is never easy. Welcome to Augmented Wellness. Where we meet the people in pursuit of Better. Today, we speak with Alexandra Wilkis Wilson — entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of Clerisy. Hi, everyone. welcome to another episode of Augmented Wellness. I'm very excited here to have Alexandra, Alexandra Wilkis Wilson. we got to know each other a couple of years ago when, the whole Miami tech, scene was blowing up.

[01:01] but obviously, a lot has happened since, so I'm very excited to have you here. I, You know, I, see you as one of the leaders of, of the, of the, of the local community, especially with things that have to do with wellness and, women's products. And the reason is obviously your background, co-founded of Gilt, co-founder of Glam Squad, you also worked on, on, building a company with AI,

[01:30] styling technology that sold to Google and, then you were Allergan, which I would love to, to hear how that transition happened. And now obviously you're very active investing in all, all things in that, in those fields. So, so excited to have you, different perspective from other guests that I have so I'm, I'm really interested to, to, to explore it with you. Thank you so much for having me. Great, so, yeah, so let's, let's go.

[02:00] I usually like to. Go the way to the beginning, get a little bit of understanding of, you know, what were those, those pillars of, of life that, that brought you into what you do today. I understand you were, you, you were raised in New York, but you also, come from Cuban roots and you spend a lot of time here in South Florida in Key Biscayne. So take us back to those, you know, that, that part of your life. How was it? So you are correct. I grew up in New York City. my mother is Cuban.

[02:30] She came to this country in, 1962 during Peter Pan. And I used to spend all of my summers growing up in Key Biscayne and so really developed a love of Miami. my mother, my grandmother really would enforce, a lot of tennis, a lot of Cuban culture, so including croquetas and things like that, and I, made lots of. Friends locally, many from all over Latin America, it was,

[03:03] not a typical place to spend summers for New Yorkers, but I always loved it, for so many reasons, and in 2020 during COVID, my husband and I and our two kids made the decision to move here full time and very happy about that. Yeah, and that's where about the time we met, Do you still play tennis, or I do. I do. Oh, so I have something really cool to show you. I have two, two cool things to show you, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm a tennis player, but now I started to padel, playing padel,

[03:31] and, yeah, I, I'll, I'll, I'll leave that for, for the end, so, so, but you also went to all-girls school. Yes, I went to an all-girls school in New York City from kindergarten through 9th grade, so I think. Subconsciously or even consciously this idea of girl power and feminism was very much rooted into me at at a young age to believe that women are capable of

[04:05] doing anything that they set their mind to and not to worry about previous barriers blocking advancement for women. Yeah, yeah, well, I wanna, I wanna, yeah, so I, went to a boys school, and I have a daughter, Yesterday we bought her car. Oh my goodness, she's not even 16 yet, but it we bought her car, which is also gonna be my car. We said we're gonna share it, but I, wanna dig into that

[04:31] because I'm, I'm raising my daughter to be just the biggest badass, you know, she's my companion in everything we do, you know, both, in activities, you know, we scuba dive together, we kiteboard together. and, and you know, I, you know, so I, struggle, you know, because obviously in Miami she goes to private school and it's like how do I teach her, you know, values, and even now, yeah, I bought her a really nice

[05:00] badass car, you know, but it's like. You know, she sees how much I work and she sees what I do and she actually is very engaged with me. She comes to my events, she, you know, she learns. and so, the, you know, that, that, this subject is for women, you know, how, how do we, you know, how do we, empower women, and girls to understand. You know, how do that they could do anything they want. How, how, how do you see that, that change from basically those years to today?

[05:31] Is there any changes? Is more positive things? Sure. Well, first of all, I love everything you're saying about your relationship with your daughter, and I think that's so important for her and for her to see what's possible. I was, very close to my father growing up. I still am. He's, he, my parents moved to Miami, just a year after we did, and, my Father was actually very much my mentor in a lot of business decisions, really at the since the start of my career.

[06:03] And, I think having that closeness, a, a young girl with her father, I think's really important. I, mean, look, I, I'm not the type of person who likes to complain or think that. Life is hard and whatnot. I think if you are a go-getter, it doesn't matter. what your gender, your race, your religion, your,

[06:31] disposition, anything. If you are a go-getter, you, you go, you fight, you come up with your goals, and you do everything possible to do the best you can to achieve them. And I think, some of us have more obstacles put in front of us than others, but really it comes down to that grit and that desire to push forward when you have challenges, and you're a founder building business. I've been a founder 3 times now.

[07:00] I'm investing in founders, and you know how hard it is, and, even the startups that from afar seem to, do no wrong and just experience hypergrowth and, everything looks easy, I'm sure that it is not. It is never easy. Yeah, so did you play sports? Growing up, yeah, so I, always played tennis from a young age in, I went to actually a boarding school in New Hampshire and picked up squash

[07:31] there. Here in Miami people probably don't really know what squash is, but it's kind of like padel, but it's indoors, so I like racket sports, and I played, I played squash competitively in college and, love skiing and, love the outdoors and I love, which is relevant to what you're building. I do love taking different kinds of classes, so fitness classes, Pilates, those types of, Classes I like trying whatever the new boutique fitness craze is so but in

[08:02] terms of actual sports today I would say tennis is my number one yeah, no, because I mean it's a theme. I mean everybody that I have the luxury of of interviewing, are amazing, from doctors and, it's, I've heard, I love your podcast, and it's funny how, how many of them, you know, were athletes, you know, or, or, or competitive, and especially with women, my daughter, I, you know, going back to, I, showed her some statistics that, that, you know, women that actually play all the way through

[08:33] high school, end up in, in, in better roles, executive roles, down the line, you know, and it has to do with obviously the, value of sports and team, you know, team playing and grit. Yeah, and hard work. I, think the team dynamics are really important too because building businesses is all about being part of a team, motivating a team, leading a team, so having your role, you know, and, being the best of your role. I mean, she plays volleyball, and you know, now it's getting hard, you know,

[09:02] because girls are getting into the 6 ft, height, you know, she's, she's actually pretty tall for, for her age, but you know, again, as you could tell, I, could spend hours talking about her, So, yeah, so let, let's move on a little bit on On, you know, Gilt, How, you know, so Gilt, I remember, obviously a very known brand in the fashion space, right? So tell us a little bit about your role there and, you know, the company.

[09:30] Sure, so, we co-founded Gilt back in 2007 and If you can think back to what online shopping looked like back then, if you can even remember, I can promise you it was very different from today. And, you know, you had the world of Amazon, you had department stores beginning to sell online, but shopping online for desirable fashion was not nearly as typical and

[10:03] common and, as easy as it is today. so the idea of Gilt really came about to bring online the excitement of a New York City sample sale and to do it in a, in a format that, encouraged our members. So we had everybody log in with, an email and a password. And, once you did that, you were a member, to log in every single day to basically check the site for new brands and new inventory.

[10:32] So it was this idea of, fresh inventory, appointment shopping. I think in today's world, you would call it, we basically had daily drops, but we didn't use the word drop. And For many reasons, Gilt took off really quickly, and the consumer got excited, loved shopping online, could make decisions quickly. we started focused on women's fashion.

[11:00] So the first brand we ever sold, was a brand called Zac Posen, and very quickly we started convincing, and that's what I did. I was, I was in charge of the merchandizing and convincing what became thousands of brands around the world to partner with us and You know, now is not a big deal, but back then these brands, they weren't even selling full price online. Well, I don't know if you know this. I was an investor in Moda Operandi. OK. Was I a competitor? So Moda came after, and, you know,

[11:31] Moda's a beautiful site. Moda wasn't about the, discount, I think for it was more about the connection with the designers, yes, and so. Complementary. I mean, the same type of consumer, could certainly shop on, on both sides. Gilt was really, a way to discover, new, new brands every single day across different categories. We started in women's fashion and then we moved quickly into men's home decor, kids. We, we dabbled in, travel.

[12:00] We had a business we launched called Jet Setter. We had something called Gilt City, which was like a Groupon, you know, a Gilt version of, of Groupon, so to speak, and I think what was really fun for me as a founder of this business was meeting our engaged members all across the country, later all across the world, and so many of them were just so addicted to, to the shopping experience and Excited about what we were building and really rooting for our growth and our success and, I co-founded it with one

[12:34] of my best friends, Alexis Maybank. We're still super close and, we were, we were the consumer and so I think. And we, and we wrote a book together actually that came out in 2012 called By Invitation Only How We Built Gilt and Changed the Way Millions Shop. And the reason we wrote that book was really to inspire other women to think about creating startups and thinking big, and, launching companies and

[13:02] pursuing their dreams. Yeah, yeah, and I mean, going to that point of, of you being the consumer now, I, was sharing a little bit before we started now with obviously the Everything that's happening with AI, you know. The ability to be the consumer and build what you want as a consumer is just crazy. I, you know, I'm gonna share now a little bit of something I built, but this, this ability to now almost build anything you want as a consumer and then

[13:31] obviously being able to then take it to the market and potentially, you know, make it a business or make it, something fun you wanna share with someone is, is, is incredible today versus obviously, years ago, So, and, Gilt got sold or acquired the company Hudson's Bay acquired Gilt, and the idea of that acquisition was to really put Gilt together within Saks OFF 5TH because they had their own off-price business,

[14:02] OK, and then Gilt, Then what happened after that? You, well, I actually left before it was acquired. I moved on to be co-founder and CEO of a business called Glam Squad, which offers in-home beauty services and, you know, continued support. Gilt while, while I had moved on, you know, always making introductions to brands. I still have brands contact me today saying, oh, how do I get on Gilt? And unfortunately, not, not too many people from the original days work there

[14:33] anymore. I think I know of one, which, which is saying a lot because Gilt got up to about 1300 employees at one point. but anyway, moved on to learn about the on-demand economy when we were seeing the Uber of everything is, is when I got. excited about this idea of glam squad, so having beauty services that were, affordable, vetted, being able to, come to you, to your home, your

[15:01] office, a hotel if you're traveling, in, in a very, seamless way in terms of being able to book the appointment. So, you know, obviously this is something that, is of a lot of interest to me in betterness because I mean, the, I, think we're also talking a little bit, I mean. In, in the, in sort of the, wellness space, you know, the, coaches, the individuals, that, you know, today are even becoming

[15:31] more important than sometimes the, actual brands, right, the actual gyms, because, now with Instagram they have huge followings. I mean Miami is full of people that train people in their backyards, you know, so how, how do you see that world today changing. you know, back then I, guess you had, beauty experts that would go to people's houses. is that, yes, so, in the instance of Glam Squad, it was.

[16:02] hairstylists, makeup artists, nail technicians who might be doing work with Glam Squad as supplemental income. They might have their own clientele. They might already have a freelance, private clientele and want to supplement. Some people maybe worked at companies like Drybar or. Makeup artistry at Sephora and wanted to quit environments that were

[16:31] more rigid and structured in terms of their hours and at Glam Squad the beauty professionals had control over their schedules much like an Uber driver can control their schedules so this was back in 2014 when this notion of on-demand economy flexibility, was so important to so many, To so many people, and I think the consumer was getting more and more, excited and tempted by convenience and so it was really kind of the intersection

[17:03] of that. How, but that has continued to grow, right? I mean, because, I mean that has become probably even bigger part of the economy today. How, how do you see that evolving, You know, because today, especially even, even in the way that the market is changing, you know, the job market is changing and things like that, it seems that people are preferring to have their own independence. I mean, in the wellness space, at least, it's just incredible in Miami, obviously, probably not in many cities, the amount of friends that I have that are yogi

[17:33] instructors or even sound healers, and, you know, they live a really good life, you know, they get all this flexibility, they get to travel around the world, they have a nice car. You know, they live in a nice apartment, but I think they still. At least for me, one of the things that I'm trying to do is help him a little bit get organized, you know, how do you turn your [unclear] into a business, even get incorporated, amazing. I think, I think what you're doing is really incredible

[18:00] for, so many, so many of these independent workers or smaller businesses, etc. Look, I think COVID was such a pivotal moment in so many people's lives. It was really a reset, I think, for, A lot of individuals to think about what they wanted to prioritize professionally, personally, many people moved from one city to another or out of cities, people started engaging in more remote work.

[18:31] I think a lot of priorities shifted for, for people and so health and wellness now more than ever, I think is top of mind for consumers and so, Whether it's, you know, I'm not surprised to hear that you, you might have people who, serve as a yoga instructor, but then they also might be a day trader or, or something kind of a, a funny, or that they're leaving day training to be a yoga instructor, I mean.

[19:00] Amazing. I love that. so I think technology is enabling, enabling this, and, plat platforms such as yours, I think it's incredible, yeah, and, also, you know, thinking also about the AI and taking over the jobs. Mm There's something that [unclear] would not be able to take over, which is really that trust, that relationship, that human connection that sometimes is, is being offered by, by, you know, by, these, these special people. I think, you know, they're, they have a calling, right?

[19:31] They wake up every day trying to help other people, live a better life, so it, it's a very interesting, and exciting space, Well, to that point of AI, I, we, so, so now I have a fund, with a partner. Her name is Lisa Myers. We have a fund called Clerisy, and we are a consumer focused growth equity fund, and one of our investments is, which I, think you know is in, Eudemonia Summit, which is a health and wellness, summit that takes

[20:01] place in November in West Palm Beach. And that is so on trend with something that, that we believe to be really important is experiences and experiential opportunities. I think with So much AI and technology out there. Humans are also craving, interacting with others, learning, together with others and having experiences. So, now, now more than maybe in the previous 10 years,

[20:31] I think experiences are, are really, really critical, yeah, and the, those things that you cannot really replace with technology alone, so. But going back to glam squad, then somehow, you know, you, you went into the pharmaceutical space at Allergan, yeah, so I, the, story, so I, can tell the story from as I was going through it or, or in retrospect, but I guess I'll do it as I'm going through it. So I, from Glam Squad.

[21:00] Went on to work on an AI and machine learning startup you mentioned it sold to Google. No one's heard of the startup because it sold before it was launched, but our working name was, was called DRESR, and while I was working on this startup, I, and that startup you started, or, I, so. It's a long story, but I was co-founder of one business called Fitz, which was in-home, closet organizing, and I was

[21:31] the chief marketing officer of DRESR, and these two businesses were being built in conjunction so that we could learn from the physical experience of sending stylists into people's homes to organize their closet. We could learn. Firsthand how consumers interact with all the items in their closet and all the potential products in the world that they could buy related to styling. So it's a bit complicated. It was Fitz, which did launch and sold later to Tradesy, was the Trojan horse for

[22:05] the business DRESR. if that makes any sense. anyway, so as I was building that with an amazing team, I went to see a man at BCG because I had stepped off a board, Perry Ellis actually based here in Miami, and was looking for another board opportunity and. Spoke to this gentleman at Boston Consulting Group and he said, you know, we

[22:30] don't have any board opportunities right now that would make, make sense in terms of our clients. However, one of our major clients, Allergan, really wants to focus on the consumer, and Brent Saunders, who was the CEO, is looking to disrupt the consumer landscape, within Allergan and. so I said, well, I'm not really looking for a job at this point, but I am familiar with Allergan. I did know that they, the company owned Botox and

[23:01] Juvederm and Cool Sculpting, and I said, you know, I'm, I'm not a pharma or a healthcare person. And they said, well, that's exactly why you could be interesting because they want fresh eyes. So, fast forward 6 months later, I, ended up, Working at Allergan and leading, and I had so much fun. I have to tell you, prior to that, I probably would have said, oh, corporate America, not for me, you know, I can't deal with politics, but I really loved it. one of the reasons was, working under Brent Saunders and, Bill Meury,

[23:32] who was the chief commercial officer. They were incredibly open-minded in terms of thinking about the consumer, and they recognized that the company. had not done enough, and, for many reasons, which I learned, Related to medical regulatory, legal, and compliance, there are a lot of rules in the pharma industry. I had to learn all these rules, but what I was given, was the freedom and the ability to create startups within a big, pharmaceutical

[24:02] company, and the startups were, targeted to consumers to address concerns that they might they actually, you actually got to they launched, we built them, because sometimes it's hard and, you know, they, they, they have the plans, but. Sometimes they launch. Absolutely, no, I, learned a lot. I was, I was only there two years because AbbVie came in and acquired Allergan for $63 billion and so, you know, I'd never experienced numbers

[24:31] this big in terms of budgets and, acquisition price, etc. but I really loved learning about the aesthetics industry and pharma and healthcare and also got to learn a bit about M&A from the perspective of a big corporate and how does a big corporate think about what types of companies, it might want to acquire one day. So, that was, it was announced in 2019 that Allergan was being

[25:00] acquired and I started speaking to my now business partner, Lisa Myers around that time after it was announced. Because I found myself in a position where a number of, search firms were contacting me, related to my next chapter, and so venture capital firms were calling private equity firms, potentially as an operating partner role and so I called Lisa for advice and I said, and she was a

[25:30] partner at L Catterton at the time and we had become. pretty close, I'd say professional friends. We admired one another's careers, and I said, you know, I'm thinking about what's going to come after Allergan. I could have stayed, but it made sense to leave knowing that the whole C-suite was, was going to leave in the acquisition. And she confided in me that she wanted to launch a consumer-focused growth equity fund and that she had actually been thinking about

[26:01] who to partner with, and she had even told her husband about me that someone with my broad background would be kind of a perfect balance to hers because she had been an investor also very broadly across consumer and both of us with global experience. So fast forward we decided to partner together and raise a fund, which ended up happening during COVID that we were raising a fund. So now not a big deal to raise money on Zoom, but at the time it was, I mean I

[26:31] can't tell you how many investors were like we've never had an investor conversation on Zoom without meeting somebody in person and but that's what you had to do and. And, you know, we did, we did what it, what it takes to get it done, raised our first fund, which would, which is an $84 million fund, and. Have been focused on investing in the consumer landscape, really companies innovating in, in the white space of consumer.

[27:00] Nice. Well, we're gonna dig a little into that. also, I don't know if you knew, but Brent was an investor in my last company. Oh, I didn't know that, but it makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we, we actually incredible executive and, smart person, to, to. To learn from and yeah yeah I learned a lot about him because obviously my last company was in mental health about Also The amount of money that goes into R&D and clinical trials and sometimes those trials don't work out and

[27:34] you know might be hundreds of millions of dollars down the drain, yeah, as a, as a frugal founder it's impossible to, to realize the magnitude of, of money that can get spent in that area. Yeah, so, so yeah, so being an investor obviously is, is, you know, and after being a founder for so many times it's, you know, the, they call it the dark side, right, in, in

[28:03] the, in the sense that, you know, it's, as a founder, it's, you know, you almost feel that sometimes, you know, you're not listened to the right way or people don't spend enough time researching you, understand you. What, you know, what do you see on the other side cause I know it's also, I, was, I, I've, I've also been an investor since 2010. again, I was an investor in Moda Operandi. I've been an LP in many funds since, all that. I've done maybe like 60, 70 seed deals.

[28:32] it's hard to say no to, you know, especially say no to friends, when they come to you, with ideas and they, they think, obviously everybody thinks they have the best idea in the world and then you're saying no to, you know, to someone that. that you know, obviously you have a social relationship with or, or even deeper relationship with how, what, how, how has it been for you? obviously growth, growth sometimes a little different than early stage, yes, you know, well, agree with everything that you said.

[29:02] I would say that I learned very quickly, in. Building Clerisy and we're a 4-person team. We have, two principals on our team, Zach and Susie, who are incredible, and both of them had prior private equity and investing experience. I was kind of the, newbie coming in as, as the operating background. so I learned very quickly in the role that you say no. so many more times than you say yes, it's actually rare that you say yes, when you think of, how many opportunities we, we look at on, on any

[29:35] given week and, over a number of years. So, you really have to be discerning about so many things. And I think seed stage, often you're investing on the, people, so the founders and, maybe their early team. And the idea and how big the tam could be. And, you know, for, for me, I think of, you know, how, how

[30:01] How badly do they want it and, are these the people who are gonna ultimately make this business succeed and that's very different than the type of investing we do. I mean we at Clerisy come in after there's product market fit there are metrics we're looking at margin and profitability and. Distribution and how could we potentially help because when we invest in a company it's not just really about the capital it's it's much more than that it's, you

[30:31] know, do we have the expertise do we have the network to open doors do maybe in some cases some of our existing portfolio companies could be. Helpful in in certain ways to to newer investments, but we really want to bring added value to every investment that we do and we invest, I'd say broadly across consumer and if you look at the past several investments that we have made health and wellness, better for you, longevity are really

[31:03] becoming so important to our portfolio and I think that's because they're all becoming so important to the consumer. Yeah, yeah, so I wanna get into that obviously cause of this, you know, something that I'm, I'm very interested to see your perspective, you know, in the, in the wellness space. I mean, there's so much going on right now, I don't even know where to start, you know, ask, so what is, what within the, health and wellness space, what, you know, what would you say are the areas that you are most excited about?

[31:32] Personally, sure, well, so as a fund we've made investments in better for you food and beverage. So we're investors in OLIPOP. We're investors in, a company called CleanCo, which is non-A Spirits. So, you do. Well, I remember, you connected us when we did the event, yeah, so we got to try their, their products, yes, and, since your event they launched. Delicious RTDs ready to drink.

[32:00] So, there's gin and tonics, clean margaritas, clean mojito, and an Aperol spritz, so I, I'm, I'm a big fan and you know, zero sugar, zero calories, zero proof. we are investors in Mush, which is an overnight oats company, high fiber, high protein, delicious, and actually the founder lives here in Miami, We invested in a golf-related business called Golf Forever, which is really about

[32:30] helping. golfers, whether, whether they are beginners or the number one player in the world, Scottie Scheffler, who's involved in the company as a partner, helping with rotational power, flexibility, balance, etc. using, using a swing trainer together with an app with technology, kind of coaching, coaching the movements, and honestly, I'm not really a golfer. I'm. As I mentioned, I'm a tennis player, but that rotational power that you can get

[33:00] through using the swing trainer is just as relevant for tennis, for a padel, for pickle, for baseball, anything, any move, any sport that involves that rotational power move. It's actually a great, great tool for that developed by a chiropractor and hospital for special surgery. Nice. So, So in the wellness space, obviously, Eudemonia, I know, I know well, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's an event company with probably many more layers. what else, you know, what, you know, what else are you seeing?

[33:33] You know, in, in. In, in that experiential side of things, sure, so because that is a very different investment than, you know, a product company, right, absolutely, and full disclosure, our investment in Eudemonia Summit is much smaller than our typical investment, I think for us it was a chance to work closely with the founders for us. Us to be advisors to them and also for us to get a front row seat on all

[34:00] of these innovating companies within health and wellness and longevity. So, it was almost an amazing pipeline. access for us because going into events, so, so I don't know if you know, but, you know, Blondish, the DJ, yeah, so she's one of, she's my cultural advisor at Betterness, we're, we're dreaming a lot of really cool things because obviously right now music and wellness are, you know, she invited me to go to, with Diplo, when he did the, you know, he has the run clubs,

[34:33] which are crazy, I mean. Here in Miami he had probably 10,000 to 20,000 people run a 5K, so everybody paid about $100 to $200 to run a 5k. And then you know, have a concert in the middle of the day. Obviously no, you know, well, there was some alcohol in the back, but nobody really was in, in that vibe. It was more, being together, being together, having fun, dancing together in

[35:03] the middle of the day, sweating, but it's genius because a 5K is literally a run that almost anybody could do, and you would see that, you would see anybody running it. I mean, and then yeah, and then you had a good time in a, in a concert. I, love that and it makes sense that it's happening in Miami. I think there's so such an emphasis here which I love seeing, but he took it to 17 cities. Oh my gosh, OK, yeah, that's great. It's, it's, but, but just the numbers of that are, are, I mean, just doing back of

[35:32] the envelope math is, is really interesting. I mean 10 to 10,000 plus people every concert, you know, $200. Just, that's just the ticket. The merchandise, it was incredible that he had, yeah, he has, Diplo is amazing. He has like really cool looking shirts of very retro and, you know, Diplo Run Club. but yeah, so that's the experiential things of brands that, that could scale to some really interesting numbers and very, I mean, he literally Build that overnight.

[36:00] I mean, from one year to the next. Well, he started with such a powerful fan base, so that, that helps, I think, yeah, well, so. So yeah, let's talk about, you know, obviously we talked a little bit about drinking, right? So if you're an investor, investor in, in, in, is that the only company, the CleanCo that that is CleanCo and OLIPOP, are both, beverage companies, sorry, can you share a little bit more about about OLIPOP? Sure, so OLIPOP is a better for you soda, pre prebiotic,

[36:35] high fiber, and you can buy it both, originally it started. where it was a refrigerated, refrigerated product, but they also have now a shelf stable product. So if you're familiar with poppi, you know, OLIPOP is, is playing in the same category. I, think OLIPOP's better for a number of reasons, but poppi is the one that got acquired. poppi has been acquired, and, I'm hopeful OLIPOP

[37:03] will, will have a great exit too. So what, you know, so obviously there's a ton of these, companies that seem to, as you said, have success overnight, you know, and we know it's not that easy. Obviously, usually with a very social media heavy success and a founder that is probably very, you know, very face of the brand. What, what do you see as the You know, the, secrets of, of success of these brands, and then obviously they're coming with the, big corporates are coming

[37:30] and hitting them. So I think when you have a company that has some sort of competitive advantage, and that could be with the founder if it has a, the founder has. A a large following, you know, we're seeing this actually in our most recent investment which is a company called Smash Kitchen which was founded, by 3 people, so 2 of them had been serial entrepreneurs, Sameer

[38:00] who was co-founder. Founder of the dog food company, called Jinx, they also have cat food as well. and prior to that, he was part of the founding team of Casper, and then the other co-founder is Sean Kane, who was co-founder of the Honest Company, And the two of them partnered together with Glen Powell, the actor, and launched this business called Smash Kitchen, which is really redoing pantry stable, pantry staples. So think, better for you, no

[38:34] high fructose corn syrup, non-GMO, anything you'd, you'd have in your pantry. From ketchup to mustard to mayonnaise to olive oil to salsas and salad dressings, etc. and they're really innovating in the space and they're growing so quickly and I think a lot of that is because they had these serial entrepreneurs who know how to build companies quickly. They have the star power.

[39:01] that is authentic, in Glen Powell. He, he was, Maverick Top Gun if you, if you didn't, I didn't, you know, anyway, and he's very authentic because he is, you know, a Texan, loves to grill with his family. He's personally super involved in the company, and this business launched initially at Walmart, together. They work very closely with Walmart, but it's also being sold in Erewhon in Los Angeles, which, you know, your listeners probably know that Erewhon is, you know,

[39:32] very, very high end, so it can really cater from the Walmart shopper shopper to the, to the Erewhon shopper. Yeah, interesting, well, so, So let you know this is the, time that, we like to show a couple of interesting things. So I, actually wanna go into the tennis, and show you something that I built. So I'm a, I'm a, I mean, I'm not a, I'm, I, play tennis, but I'm, I'm, I wouldn't say I'm a tennis player, but I, love it.

[40:00] I love the sport and now, as I said recently, I got into padel in Miami. You have to, but I actually got into padel even though I'm Argentine, so obviously I grew up, with a lot of padel playing. but I got into it because, number one, it's a great way to meet investors in Miami, you know, seems like every investor today is playing padel, but I, wanted to prove the technology that, that, that we developed. So, do you know Strava? I do, yes, yeah. So Strava, you know, I'm a cyclist, that's, I would say my, my, my most, sport that I excel at, and I was surprised in betterness, what is

[40:35] it that we're doing? We're, we're basically are building technology for. The business, you know, the B2B, we're a B2B2C company, so we're building technology so we could equip the, business owner and the business owners could be from a coach to a gym to be able to, you know, better connect with their end consumer, right? So they could support them in their wellness journey and it's very broad. we have from individual coaches to gyms.

[41:00] And then the question is, how do I connect everything about their daily life, right? So we, now we do nutrition tracking, we do, obviously we'll connect to every wearable. But when you start digging a little deeper into that is, OK, so in Strava, yeah, I'm a cyclist, I buy a Garmin computer, I go ride. You know, and then I could see my wattage. I don't know how much you know about cycling, but you see your wattage, your cadence, you know, you could go really deep into it when you get into other

[41:30] sports. I don't know if you know this, but in tennis, do you wear an Apple Watch, or no, I have an Oura, OK, an Oura. But so you know, an Apple Watch, there's a tennis setting, so you press tennis, you play tennis, all it measures is your HRV or your, HR, your heart rate. So I'm like, OK, well, but. Like if you look at Strava, I could see where I rode, I could see how fast I did my segments. Like, I'm playing in a court, I'm moving around. I wanna know what's going on with that and I wanna interpret it.

[42:01] So I went and bought myself a, a Garmin, a Garmin, you know, very expensive, watch. they measure, so I'm gonna show you here, cause this is, this is fun just to show it, OK, so this is, we're gonna do a little experiment here of, of what is the possibility today with some of the, technologies that exist, in, in racket sports, padel tennis. So this is me playing padel, in Wynwood padel the other day. so this is a $1000 watch, the Garmin fēnix X with a lot of sensors and all

[42:33] that. I play padel. It actually they do have the setting padel, and it, it tracks GPS and it tracks, which obviously is where you can see my speed and it tracks heart rate zones, right? So if you were, you were able to do this in tennis in, in, In Apple, it would only track your heart rate. But then the question is what happened in there, right? Like I, I've been running around, so you could, I don't, can you play there? You could play this so you could see that little thing moving around there and

[43:01] that's about all you get. Right? So then I said, well, what can we do that, that is better? So. I built my own algorithms, and I started actually. You know, using what Garmin gave me, but then I said I'm gonna build, I wanna tap into the algorithms of the actual device. So I built the, my own, my own app in Apple. so I'm gonna show you here,

[43:33] let me see here. I have so many activities. Let me find, and I find here padel. So this is padel in the same court using my own app, which does things that are no app in the world does that I've ever seen so far. So now I could see myself in the court, but I could actually see how I. Play the sport.

[44:00] You know, so that's my GPS signal, but then I am able to. You know, see how I play in the actual zones. Oh my goodness. And I said, well, but that's just GPS data. What about how I'm hitting? So then I actually built the ability to now see yourself. In a three dimensional space. In how you actually hit uses a sensor of the, of the device.

[44:32] That's amazing, and I would say. In a tennis context, I would love to have this data and show it to my pro and have him analyze it with me, and I can just hear him saying, you see, you didn't go up to the net enough or every, and, or, or. I can imagine him saying, do you notice every time you went up to the net we can tell that you won the point, reinforcing kind of all the things that he's

[45:00] constantly telling me, so I love that. So I mean I could show you. basketball or tennis. I mean, I have tennis there too. any sport, soccer, let me show you here. This is, this is actually really cool. Well, Sha, you play basketball, right? he was excited. I was telling him, did you, oh, you haven't seen this. so this is me playing basketball in a basketball court in the middle of Miami. That's amazing.

[45:32] I think also having a betterness AI interpretation too of your [unclear] like if you, if you could give feedback, if AI could basically be the coach and give the feedback of like, here's what you did well, here's what you, you know, did better than the last time, not as good as last time, yeah, no, all that is, part. Of it, it's part of it, actually even better than this, one of our partners is Ortho Miami. we're talking about doing a program, preventive orthopedic program,

[46:04] where we could actually tell you as an athlete, so obviously there's the coaching side, yes, exactly, so imagine now, now you hire a tennis coach. And the tennis coach coaches you and immediately after you get a report of how you did that class and then you could compare it to other classes and it could go from cardiovascular fitness to all the way to strategic movement in the court and all that. But, but an orthopedic doctor could now say, hey, you know, I

[46:31] see, you know, you're, you're an Ironman or a marathon runner, you're putting so many miles. I see that you're starting to basically show signs that, you know, something is, is off or you're running, you know, you're playing basketball, some other sport and something is off in the way that you're playing. So yeah, the, potential of the technology is, is, is very exciting. I love it. I'm, I'm, I'm convinced. Well, yeah, so, this, this is actually very new, so, so, yeah, so

[47:01] we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll roll it out. We're rolling it out now in the next couple of weeks, but yeah, it's, it's exciting to, to, to get it, you know, someone like yourself saying that, you know, this is cool stuff, very cool stuff, and I think it's so relevant to what consumers want right now. Well, so I end with this, so, one of the interesting, anecdotes of, of, of me actually had a, an investor meeting this week and I was showing the panel.

[47:30] it's, just The investor was saying, well, this would allow me to now trash talk better my partner because you know he was saying, he always says to me. Oh, why do you burn like 1400 calories and I burn like 800, you know, when they watch a watch, and he's like, now I could show them because you're not moving in the court, you know, I'm like running all over the place and like, but, but, but it, it's true. Like if you just track heart rate, you will not get the full story, you don't get the full story of what's going on, yeah, so, or whatever.

[48:00] [unclear] to you. Oh thank you. Well this is, it's fun, little, you know, show and tell that we do here, because we're excited about these technologies that we're building. So, any closing thoughts, advice, will have an advice for young girls, you know, today, the future and my daughter again is going to sophomore year. how should she be thinking about the future? I mean, I mean, I would say to your, well, first of all, to you,

[48:31] keep, keep doing what you're doing, very, very impressive and, sounds like you're so close to the consumer, which is important, and you're figuring out that product market fit and if you don't get it, I know you and you keep iterating, to your daughter and to. young women out there, I think that the sooner you can figure out what you're good at and what you enjoy doing, and, figure out What

[49:00] is at the intersection of what you're good at and what you enjoy doing and if you can one day turn this into a career, then you will most likely be very successful and very happy in your career doing what you're good at and doing what you love. Yeah, thank you. That's exactly the advice I give her. well, thank you so much for, for being here with us. another episode on [unclear] Wellness, so I'll see you next time. Thank you so much.