Serial health founder and angel investor Ari Tulla on why healthcare is AI's most impactful arena for the next five years, where founders should build, and what it took to make Elo Health profitable after starting a couple of years too early.
What you’ll learn
- Why Ari thinks healthcare is the most impactful place for AI over the next five years.
- What large language models can do with messy health data, and why companies lose money collecting it.
- Where founders should build: turning data into meaning, then into coaching that helps people get better.
- Why Elo started a couple of years too early, and why food as medicine was so hard to sell.
- The move to supplements and fertility, sold through doctors who recommend the product.
- Why a CEO's job is almost completely selling, and the AI outbound playbook behind recent YC growth.
- How to choose a co-founder, including the 100-question test Ari did with his.
- Angel investing with $5k cheques, and the personal operating system behind a big life.
About Ari Tulla
Ari Tulla is the co-founder and CEO of Elo Health, a profitable personalised supplement company, and the company behind Luminary Vitamins. He has built three companies back to back with his co-founder Tapio Tolvanen, whom he met at Nokia, where Ari worked on the games business. Before Elo he co-founded BetterDoctor, which was acquired by Quest Analytics, where he served as CEO. He has been an angel investor for 15 years, writing small cheques into founders he believes in.
Will is an investor in Elo Health.
Resources
Chapters
- 00:00 AI's bad sales pitch
- 00:20 Intro
- 01:49 Welcome to Healthier
- 02:27 Ari's path into health
- 06:01 Go all in on the new AI tools
- 07:13 Why healthcare is AI's most impactful arena
- 08:34 What LLMs can do with messy health data
- 10:31 Why companies lose money to collect your data
- 11:07 Will's AI health experiment
- 12:59 A medical team of one
- 14:12 Who wins: big tech, model companies or startups?
- 16:35 How fast the world is changing
- 18:55 How Elo pivoted
- 21:50 Food as medicine
- 23:13 Why customers wouldn't do the finger prick
- 24:02 Getting CAC and LTV right
- 24:33 Starting a couple of years too early
- 25:24 Healthier Notes
- 25:53 Why Elo moved to supplements
- 27:30 Fertility, and doctors who recommend
- 29:39 Make it their idea
- 30:31 A CEO's job is almost completely selling
- 31:21 Increase your surface area of luck
- 32:57 The AI outbound playbook behind YC growth
- 35:21 The ten-year question
- 36:41 The decisions that shape a life
- 38:36 Choosing a co-founder
- 40:25 The 100-question co-founder test
- 42:22 Lessons from angel investing
- 44:56 $30k set aside, $5k cheques
- 46:12 Why second-time founders win
- 47:19 Often the first money in
- 48:00 Ari's personal operating system
- 49:59 The colour-coded calendar
- 51:21 Meeting-free Wednesdays
- 54:47 Who can we trust in health?