Today, I’m joined by Jason Moore, CEO of Spren, a digital biomarker insights platform.
Spren develops software that uses a smartphone’s camera to detect heart rate variability (HRV) from a simple scan of the user’s finger. Its technology also leverages computer vision to analyze body composition and more. Using its API, fitness, wellness, or human performance brands can integrate Spren’s biometric data and insight interfaces into their own apps.
In this episode, we discuss the company’s wearable-free digital biometric technology, how they bootstrapped a direct-to-consumer app into a B2B platform, and how they use data to help people form healthier habits.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Jason’s strategy for giving customers the best end-user experience
- How being turned down by some investors helped Spren develop a better product
- How Spren is scaling its business and partnering with other health & fitness companies
Links & Resources
- Subscribe to the Fitt Insider newsletter
- Visit the Fitt Insider jobs board
- View current Fitt Insider investment and get in touch
Jason’s Links
- Spren’s website
- Elite HRV: the free Heart Rate Variability app
- Check out Fitbod
- Marius Pharmaceuticals’ website
Episode Transcript
This is a machine-generated transcript. Please excuse any errors.
[00:00:00] Jason:
People aren’t born caring about data, right? My goal in life is not track more stuff about myself. I want to have great relationships. I want to do well at work, my hobbies, or whatever.
The right data at the right time, personalized for me on things that I want to do, can really help me do those things better with less effort, so I can look good, feel good, and perform well at the things I want to do.
[00:00:34] Joe:
Welcome back to the Fitt Insider podcast. I’m your host, Joe Vennare
Today I’m joined by Jason Moore, CEO of Spren.
In this episode we discuss the company’s heart rate variability tech, how they turned a bootstrapped direct-to-consumer app into a B2B platform, and we talk about using data and wearables to help people form healthier habits.
Let’s get into it.
Hi, Jason, welcome to Fitt Insider. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:55] Jason:
Hey, Joe, happy to be here. Big fan. Like I was saying before we hit record, folks at our company are always linking to your articles and podcasts and stuff, so I’m excited to be here and talk to you and see what we can discover.
[00:01:07] Joe:
Yeah. Yeah. I’m very, very grateful and appreciative of that.
Likewise, I feel like I’ve been keeping up with you and the company for quite a while now. It’s been an interesting journey, a lot of which we can talk about today.
But for folks who aren’t familiar, can you give us the quick backstory on you and what is now Spren?
[00:01:28] Jason:
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
I’m Jason Moore, Founder and CEO of Spren, formerly known as Elite HRV.
The story starts when I got into health and fitness. The main two reasons why I got into health and fitness were because one, I love sports, I love competing and competitive games. And as I got older I found it harder and harder to stay mentally and physically fit, even though I was putting more and more effort into it.
And more importantly, on top of that, all of the top 10 health killers are really close to me and my family. As I was growing up, I was witnessing cancer, diabetes, obesity, gout, Crohn’s disease, IBS, pretty much you name it. It’s really close to me and my family.
So my whole life I’ve been wondering why these people I love, who are smart and hard working, why is this happening to them? Is this gonna happen to me, too? So my tech background, my backward in sensor data and software, combined with this passion for finding out the answers to these questions led me to found Spren, originally Elite HRV, about nine years ago.
[00:02:34] Joe:
Yeah, you’ve been, you’ve been at it for a while and it’s always, personally love hearing the. why, right. That drives somebody to do these things. And I think definitely resonates with Anthony and myself. That’s like we say, now for 15 plus years, like, it’s basically like wake up and figure out how do we make the world healthier?
Like, how do we help people get healthier, live healthier lifestyles? And that’s taken many different forms. And I think now like yourself, it’s like, how do we leverage technology and on all this great innovation to hopefully. Change the trajectory for somebody who, who might be on a different path. so for you, as that relates to, you know, where things are today, and you said starting nine years ago, maybe not the entire step by step journey
[00:03:18] Jason:
Yeah.
[00:03:19] Joe:
Those nine years.
But can you just talk about like what ultimately you kind of started or conceived the company as, and, and maybe the big jumps forward that kind of led you to where you are.
[00:03:31] Jason:
Yeah. So, so nine years in detail, we’ve got five hours, right?
No. So, basically, I, I really early on realized that, the modern world we live in is making it really hard for people to be healthy and fit. but it’s a little too late to go back to being hunter gatherers. And so looking for kind of innovative ways to help figure that out.
And I naturally, I have a background in tech, like I said, and sensor data, in other industries. And then kind of brought that into health and fitness that, that like orientation. So basically started out looking for what can we measure about the body? That’ll make it easier to make better decisions day to day and try to like tighten the feedback loop.
Cuz one thing I’ve learned in the past life is that. If you’re only measuring something once a year, it’s really hard to change, that thing, whatever it is, you know, because behavior happens minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. Right. so anyways, that led me to HRV, the Genesis of Elite HRV as just, I was looking, at research and looking for things to measure, to, to answer the questions of like, how can we get a more holistic understanding of the body and why it’s so hard to make good decisions and help make people make better decisions.
Be a little less reactive, a little more proactive and preventive potentially, which is very hard, psychologically. and so anyways, sparing the nine years of detail between then and now basically what that looks like now is, spread makes these kind of personalized insights about the body using deep biomarkers, like HRV and, body composition.
And we’ve actually evolved a bit. Just HR V in recent years. And we make that accessible now to about maybe 6 billion or more people, because we’ve also unlocked the ability to accurately do this from the camera, of your phone and other cameras over time, as an accurate biometric sensor. And then, we’ve made that embedable originally, we were direct to consumer.
Focused with our own Elite HRV app, which we’ve been very grateful to have served hundreds of thousands of people on. And over a hundred universities have used it for research and, Professional sports teams, win championships and Olympians, get those gold medals. We feel very, very proud about all of that stuff.
But we feel like so many more people need help. And so Spren was kind of the evolution of the business where, not only did we grow beyond HRV, as a biomarker. which is still important to us, but also, working more with partnerships and embedding these types of insights and sensing technologies into other products and services.
Because ultimately what we found is like, those are the places where people are actually trying to do stuff and, getting, getting a little bit into the weeds, right. right outta the gate in the sense that. people aren’t born caring about data, right? Like my goal in life is not track more stuff about myself, right.
Like I want to have great relationships. I want to do well at work or sport or hobbies or whatever, and data, the right data at the right time. Personalized for me on things that I want to do can really help me do those things better with less effort and underneath the surface, that’s kind of. The underlying goal here is how could people get better results with less effort so that they can look good, feel good, perform well at the things they want to do.
[00:06:58] Joe:
Yeah, and I think I want to circle back to the business model and how that evolved and potentially where it’s going, but also just maybe a quick. Primer for folks who aren’t aware, you know, we kind of gloss over this. I feel like a lot, with how ubiquitous, like health tracking wearables have become and how we think about data and the feedback.
But for, for someone who’s not familiar, you give ‘em like the 30 or 60 second, like, Hey, this is heart rate variability, and this is why it matters.
[00:07:27] Jason:
Yeah. Yeah, it’s great. Yeah. so it’s a pretty deep subject. we actually have taught multi-hour courses on this subject alone, but, basically there’s these tiny variations in your heartbeat. Every single beat is slightly different than the one before it, of when it occurs and sort of the inputs that the body is signaling for that beat.
And so through this, by measuring these really precise changes in beat to beat intervals, which is this thing called heart rate variability. We can actually get a window really deep into the nervous system, the cardiovascular system and the respiratory system. And, especially the nervous. System’s exciting because it helps us understand, like, how are you responding to exercise or how ready you are to exercise, or, how has your recovery been?
How has sleep going? What are your, what are your current stress levels? Like how likely are you to get ill in the next 24 to 48 hours? And then it can also give you really deep insight into progress over time, showing things like changes in cardio, respiratory fitness, or VO two max or, tracking, basically like resilience to different stressors, whether that’s physical or mental And things like that.
So kind of like I was saying at the beginning, it’s a sensitive, but non-specific biomarker, so it can go, you can go like really deep into the weeds on any specific. Really thing that people care about with HR, but that sensitive non specificity, is, makes it a really powerful tool for just gut checking if things are working or not, basically.
And that’s what
[00:08:58] Joe:
Yeah. And now you see, and, and more recently of course, with like, COVID right. You see, is this an indicator of, am I getting sick? Am I potentially getting a fever or things? Right. You have the, the temperature measure, which is, is separate, but also like this indicator from HV that like maybe kind of tips you off to like, Hey, something’s not quite right.
And, I’ve also seen it. Personally, and now I feel like it’s, it’s pretty common, right? As people are sharing some of the, the screenshots of their apps or what
[00:09:24] Jason:
Yep.
[00:09:24] Joe:
Social media that, alcohol is impacting this, pretty, pretty drastically. And, all these things that, that shed a light, right.
That, you know, we, we previously didn’t think about, how important or maybe essential is it. All of these wearable tech and different devices are now saying like, Hey, we can actually monitor this. If not continuously, at least. The majority of time throughout the day. And, and what does that look like in terms of enabling you right from the, the business perspective, but also as you think about the individual and the user, we talk about that, that feedback loop and what it means and how we can look back across that data. I guess how impactful has that been and, and maybe what does that look like as we continue that E.
[00:10:12] Jason:
Yeah. So, I mean, HRV specifically is, I mean, a lot of metrics are garbage in garbage out. And so, I think I’m really excited to see the industry kind of embracing quality a little bit more, that we’ve been kind of. Beating that drum for nearly a decade. And, at first we were like, no chest straps only.
And like, you know, a good number of people were like, love the insights. They get enough to wear a chest strap and, put that on regularly, but a lot other people are not. And so, it is really cool to see that you can track the stuff more easily. That’s why basically the underlying mission of our company is to make this type of insights more accessible to more people.
You know, to play to your question a little bit, there’s a couple of key things that people are gonna be tracking about themselves now and in the near future HRV and probably blood pressure and probably blood glucose, I would say are like some pretty cornerstone biomarkers over the next decade that.
Most people are gonna start either dabbling with or tracking regularly. And, again, HRV being a sensitive, but non-specific marker. it benefits so much from context. And so one of the benefits of being able to track it more easily is it’s also easier to start linking it to the things that you’re actually.
And so that kind of ties like closes the loop a little bit on this whole equation, which, like I said, nobody’s goal is in life is to just track more data about themselves. It’s like, I want to do stuff. I want to do it well. And I also don’t want to, I want to waste my time or my money or my, energy, if I can do something.
Better. I want to know that, right. And so, that’s kind of the benefit and the thing that excites me most about making these types of data more accessible. and it’s, it’s pretty wild to see now that we have this platform that, you know, people can kind of build on top of, the use cases that people come up with when you make this type of high quality data, more accessible.
[00:12:11] Joe:
Yeah, it’s interesting. Right? You talk about, it’s like the, there’s the level of making it more accessible and the hardware and kind of sensors, improving to the point where we can use that data. But then there is like, just like data overload. Like what, what do I do with this? What, from the perspective of.
You know, a brand or a company who’s innovating on this level, like, what do I even show to consumers? Right. How do I structure that in the app? How do I make it available? how do I improve that feedback loop or even modules for like behavior change on top of that. And I think in your case saying, just making it widely available and you know, the things that people are coming up.
Are incredibly powerful. how do you kind of, can you give us, I think that’s a good point to transition to the platform itself.
[00:12:58] Jason:
Yeah.
[00:12:58] Joe:
Look like? What are some of the use cases people are coming up with and then ultimately, how is that, you know, benefiting you from the, the business standpoint?
[00:13:06] Jason:
Yeah, for sure. So like, basically we’ve kind of been thinking, like working backwards from the problems that like, We always think about the consumer, the end user, the member, the client, as the ultimate customer for us. Like we really want to help people get better results with less effort basically, and feel good about.
The results they’re getting. but kind of unpacking that, what we found is that, you want slightly different things than I want. We have very different backgrounds, whether that’s genetics or environment or the choices we make day to day. and so consumers and end users and members and clients, this, this group of people, they’re kind of demanding more personalized, products and services by necessity and also more w.
Products and services by necessity. And so what we found is that we were like the data people at first and people were like, wow, I love the insights that you’re giving me about my body. So now what should I do? You know, and so we’re like, well, good question. So what are you into like, are you into CrossFit competitions?
Are you into just like playing with your grandkids or do you want to have great mental clarity for your, you know, your day job? oh, and by the way, here’s a thousand other questions to try to get to know you. And so, We were giving great directional guidance, but people were craving a little bit more specificity. and what we found is that the evolution of our business and our platform, led us to be able to make this type of stuff embeddable into other products and services. Where people are actually trying to do things. And so whether that’s coaching or content, driven experiences or community driven experiences where people are engaging either with each other or trying to make improvements to their health and fitness and wellness, let’s say like, an app that we’re really excited about partnering with is called fit, bud.
They help people with strength training. They have these really amazing algorithms that help you, progress and track, quantitatively your progress and strength training, and they reach hundreds of thousands of people. And, you know, part of the thing that we’re gonna be helping them do is, is show that progress because even with like the structured, guidance of the algorithm in the app, like an AI coach, it’s sometimes like just making health and fitness changes is. And you kind of need reminders that, Hey, this is working. we have quick sidebar. We have one technology that’s rolling out right now, that allows you to measure body composition really accurately using the camera of your phone. And so it’s comparable to a Dexus scan. It’s been something that’s been, in the works behind the scenes for a number of years and with our partners as well. and, makes it really easy to see, are you actually losing fat and gaining muscle? Or, you know, how are you proving your metabolic health, those types of things versus a scale, which I, I don’t need to kind of educate this audience probably, but like, basically an at home scale can sometimes be more, hurt than help.
Because it can be a little misleading. If you’re gaining muscle in you’re gaining scale weight, you might actually be. Advancing your goals, but, you know, that could be a little bit misleading. so anyways, got a little off track there, fit bod, is one example. Another example is a company called Marus that we’re really excited to partner with.
They basically help people with oral testosterone therapy and replacement, and they have a whole wellness component to their offer. and so they’re actually, if you look ‘em up right now, they’re in the process of launching their whole platform. and they just got FDA approval. And so that’s kind of another end of the spectrum, of people that are trying to quantify progress and get these sort of motivational little tidbits of feedback from the body. So it allows us to do what we do best focus on the data, the biomarkers, and delivering great insights from the body, but connecting those to things people are actually trying to do, ultimately
[00:17:00] Joe:
No, I think it makes a lot of sense. And it’s also from the perspective of where you initially came to this is like, how do we reach more people? Like,
[00:17:09] Jason:
Right.
[00:17:10] Joe:
Improve, you know, the, the health outcomes for more people. And I think it it’s, it can be super difficult to say, like, how do we build. The best in class thing and continue to innovate, and then also build the entire marketing layer on that.
And then the customer acquisition layer and then the, you know, growth layer, on, on top of all those things. it’s part of the reason why I love talking to founders so much is cuz you, you have to go through these different paths, right. And see like what, what are we good at? What do we like?
What’s working, what’s not working. How do we reach more people? Right. And solve all these, these different challenges along the way when it comes to this like platform.
Is this a, you know, API integration? Is it a licensing? Is it, some other type of deal that’s giving them this access in terms of how you’re thinking about like scaling and sustaining the, the business.
[00:17:59] Jason:
Yeah. So the, the only thing, harder in life than, improving health and fitness is finding developer resources. And so the joke when we’re going to businesses to say like, Hey, We want to make this as easy as possible to integrate because software engineers are expensive and hard to come by And they’re always over busy. so, it’s an SDK, a software development. And an API that makes it so you can drop it right into an app or even a a product. We actually help some companies launch their own wearables that are completely powered by our insights engine. And so, make it very easy on that front so that we can kind of focus on, okay, then how do we translate this into a great user experience and having our own direct to consumer audience?
A number of years and having hundreds of thousands of people who really were willing to go with us on this journey of tracking data and and getting meaning out of it. There are typically a little bit more power users, have really helped us kind of understand how to make it easier for people. And so we also think of ourselves as partners with our customers.
We really like sharing that knowledge. It’s not doesn’t cost anything and, just really setting them up to succeed and ultimately. It makes a win, win, win scenario here, because like you said, our goal of reaching more people, and making this more accessible to more people, it’s a lot easier to do that.
If we’re embedding into products where there’s millions of users and that’s what we’re doing, and then for them, they can improve their business metrics. Even though I know that. The businesses we partner with care about getting better results with less effort and stuff. They also have metrics like retention and engagement and revenue per user and conversion rates and customer acquisition costs.
We’ve actually been able to show that implementing our technology improves business metrics then it’s win, win, win for the end user, because the way it’s improving business metrics is it’s delivering a more personalized experience. It’s giving more engaging and motivating feedback from the body.
And, showing that all the work that you’re putting into your health and fitness is actually working or not. And maybe you need to try something else,
[00:20:06] Joe:
Yeah, as you’re, and as you’re doing this and as the, the kind of business has evolved, and now you’re, you’re working on this platform and the integrations and partnering with new. Says, how has the team kind of evolved? What does the, whether it’s the headcount departments or even, priorities from like that team perspective and what does that look like as you continue to grow?
[00:20:28] Jason:
Yeah, thank goodness the team has evolved. I feel like, the founders did a good job getting this thing off the ground, but, since then we’ve had some amazing folks join our, chief innovation officers, a multi-time startup success, story guy. And, he is got a PhD in machine learning and signal processing and biomedical engineering.
And so, just a, an amazing brain to have on the team to help us really make sense. The thousands of sensors that we deal with and, the billions of data points that we regularly process. And then our CTO, he actually, created the entire insights and analytics department at Facebook, from the ground up in the early days.
So as far as building infrastructure to process tons of data and derive insights from it goes like he’s, we’re still a long way off from stretching his limits and. Like I said, thank goodness. These are like the caliber of people that have joined the team and the mission. And we’ve had some amazing investors join the party as well.
I think this audience particularly we’d find interesting that we actually bootstrapped the majority of our journey and we were a profitable company before we ever took in outside funding. And so, the team has grown, the caliber of everybody has grown over time and we’ve all grown together. and now like, This is really a tech startup that is aiming to swing for the fences and, you know, change the lives of a billion plus people, whereas that may have been my, desire in the beginning.
The cards are actually lining up now to make that happen.
[00:22:04] Joe:
Yeah. It’s, it’s awesome. It’s exciting to see. And you talk about initially bootstrapping and then going out and raising funding, recently closing new funding, as you think about continuing to, to scale that business. What was that process like? You know, when you say, being focused on serving customers and thinking.
Making sure that you’re providing something of value to them. And now doing the hard work behind the scenes, right. Of laying this foundation for what it looks like going forward, going out and raising capital, pitching that much larger story to help millions or billion plus people. what was that process like?
And what does that kind of leave you poised for going forward?
[00:22:47] Jason:
Yeah. So, you know, at risk of sharing too much detail. the first time I fundraised was really painful. I’m a first time founder. I’m really a, product guy by nature. I love solving product problems through technology. so going out in fundraising, I thought originally was like, Hey, look at this cool technology thought you want to gimme money and, was dead wrong on that.
And that was years ago. Thankfully. but one of the things that I found the three times that we’ve actually raised money, we raised some angel, money, in 2020, we did a VC round last year and we actually just closed around right now that we’re about to announce. And this is like, one of the first places we’re we’re talking about it.
So, it has gotten easier each time because every time the investors from the previous round have also. Great advisors and mentors to us. And even the ones that didn’t invest, the ones that told us no were also great, feedback loops for us to say like, we’re like, Hey, we want to help a billion people.
They’re like, you’re never gonna do it if you’re doing that thing. And so, It really helped us learn and iterate on the model. And then ultimately what we found over that same period of time is that there are so many companies trying to help people with health and fitness and trying to address it from a thousand different angles that there’s actually space in the market now for a layer of infrastructure that can connect, these products and services to the human body, which is really what we’re passionate about most.
And so again, like kind of just looking at our customer list, we have, Chronic long COVID, and chronic health disease, apps and products, helping people with that. We have people of course, improving fitness in a thousand different ways. We have, these testosterone kind of, pharmaceutical oriented use cases, insurance companies, we actually have, mental health and, breathing.
And meditation type companies that are really interested in this. And so it’s really cool because, it’s a easier vision to pitch, because it actually matches us and the DNA of our team better, but it also, matches kind of the underlying mission of reaching all these people in a way that, makes sense, right.
Versus saying like, oh, Don’t get me wrong. I love a lead HIV and the audience there and the, and the user base there and our, our community, there is really a better way to say it. And we’re still gonna continue to support that community. but. It’s really hard to say, have everybody go to this one place to track their biomarkers and then go to other places and do the things that you want to do.
And so we’re really excited about this platform concept, where we can focus on what we do best and we can power up all these experiences. And we already have companies with over, I think it’s 45 million in active, monthly active end users now, integrating Spren technology. So that’s really, it’s exciting.
[00:25:45] Joe:
Yeah, right. It’s, that’s huge to, to be able to, to kinda just even change how people access this information at scale. as you think about this and maybe a few more questions as we, we get towards the end of the conversation, you know, sh. Shifting who that customer is ultimately, right. You’re reaching these end users and you want to impact more people.
What does that look like from the Hey getting in front of them, making them know that this technology is available, helping them get it integrated and, building out right. That, that kind of partnerships aspect of the business.
[00:26:16] Jason:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a great, question. Yeah. Underneath the surface. A lot of people listening might, appreciate that there’s a lot of business learning happening as well.
Over the past couple of years, as we shifted more towards PB platform, also, recruiting other advisors And people to the team who knew a lot more about, you know, connecting the dots for those things.
But, basically the critical thing is connecting the journey of the end. With the business metrics of our partners and making that really clear and easy to understand. And fortunately it’s, become, it seems to be going really well. And So one of the things is, is like, there’s this tailwind of people interested in tracking things and, and people interested in more personalized and holistic experiences.
So businesses are kind of looking for solutions, even if it’s a small change. From going from like here’s a thousand workouts to choose from in your content library to here, let’s measure HIV real quick, get a recovery score, and then just narrow the selection pool by things that you’re probably more recovered, and better able to handle.
Right. That one small change actually. Dramatically amplifies the user experience. And so, the results just speak for themselves basically. And that’s been really great. because honestly I’m not, the most natural sales person. I don’t like asking people to do things that they’re uncomfortable doing.
So, you know, I just try to build really great products, basically.
[00:27:47] Joe:
Right. Yeah. That’s the, that’s the hard part, right? if it does the work for you, I mean, like that’s the, the ultimate, right? Just the results kinda speak for themselves. And I think everybody kind of hopes to get to that point, when they’re building something. But, even when you’re talking about, narrowing down the workouts based on like, like that recovery score, it just, it just gets to this level of.Personalization that I think the word is like almost became overused, right?
[00:28:14] Jason:
Yeah.
[00:28:15] Joe:
So much of it has been based on preferences, you know, and not personalization based on biomarkers, based on a recovery score based on HRV. And now it’s really getting to the place where it gets super interesting.
When you think about the potential there, and I don’t have to tell you, but, even when you say something like that, Typically right. You go to an app workout library, and it’s like, what type of music do you like? did you, how many times a week do you want to workout? And it’s like, do, do, do you click all the boxes?
And then it gives you the workout. Some, and this is a much different thing, which is I think super exciting. looking ahead, now we talked about kinda the evolution, raising new capital, thinking about all these integrations, the whole host of different partners that really span. Fitness mindfulness, chronic disease, healthcare, it sounds like.
So a ton of potential there, as well as you lay the, and I’m sure you have with the team and internally, and especially as you’re going through the investment process, but, just in terms of, thinking about things that. Are on the roadmap that are either most exciting or you’re, you’re kind of talking to the team about and being like, Hey, this is where we want to be.
As we get to, you know, the next three to six months, right. Everything in startup land is much more condensed to a shorter timeframe. So maybe even, weeks or months as opposed to to six months. But, what’s kind of coming up. What’s top of mind for you that maybe you’re talking to the team about, or that we should look out for.
[00:29:45] Jason:
Yeah, SOPR came out of stealth mode this year. and we had connections from our Elite HRV audience that made it fortunately very easy to kind of get, the platform launched and to get a lot of our early adopters, really excited about it. A lot of those companies are coming online right now as we speak.
And so it’s a really exciting time for us to see all of these new products and services that have Spren embedded in them. And. Even from wearable devices to apps and kind of everything in between. So that’s a lot of the excitement right now is as you can imagine, as a startup with, customers that serve tens of millions of users, we’re often quite busy.
Just making sure that they’re very successful with those rollouts. but, we’re starting to see a little bit of, capacity to take on some more. Partnerships. And so that’s another thing in the near future that we’re doing, and there’s always this natural, continuous innovation cycle as well, kind of happening in the background.
And so when we started out, with elite HIV long ago, it was literally just showing data from the chest strap. To the user basically. And they would have to go read research studies and like figure out what to do with it. Right. we’ve come so far, but they’re still so far to go. As far as this, vision or mission of accessibility it kind of breaks down into two buckets and I’ll, I’ll try to stay tight on this. One is the, hardware side. So the sensing that’s one reason why we’re so excited about our camera technology and to support a variety of wearables. But our camera tech makes it easy for app developers who don’t have their own wearable to make this successful to a lot of people. And then the other is the interpretation of the data, right?
So it’s like, accessibility is in part how you, can interpret this. Because I don’t have time to think, about this much. Let’s go read, read research studies and, and so we’re continuously pushing the envelope on saying like, oh, okay. instead of saying like your HRV is 76 milliseconds, you know, we’re gonna say like, oh, for you, Joe, today, you’re looking a little bit more stressed out, maybe between your fourth and fifth meeting today, you take five minutes and do this breathing exercise, and you can expect greater mental clarity into the afternoon, right?
Like something like that is far more valuable than saying your HIV is 76 milliseconds. And so, That type of stuff will be continuously rolling out over the coming months. And especially as we partner with more exciting companies, and really help them solve their problems because each one’s like a little bit different, whether it’s kind of physical exercise or, mental wellness or mental fitness or mental health.
And, and there’s a whole span of kind of adjacent, goals that people have.
[00:32:38] Joe:
I think that point around feedback and it’s, it’s almost, you, you beat me to the last question you, you answered. Which is awesome, is like, how the platform evolves right? In terms of what you’re offering these people and, and beyond the HIV reading, and then the second piece being like that, Behavior modification aspect, right? Like taking it that next step, the, the recommendations, the, the kind of little nudges that’s like, Hey, this is what we do with this information to your point where nobody wants to sit around and like track everything and then read a bunch of PA research papers and try to figure out how to implement it.
You can help do that for them and do that in kind of more apps and wearables and places along the way. so yeah, it’s definitely exciting.
[00:33:19] Jason:
Yeah, thanks. Yeah. And it’s like ultimately actually going B2B has really helped us focus on the business metrics. And again, not to go too far off, but on the conversion side of things, the technology is really cool and it helps provide a baseline for where your starting point is. So then when people are like, oh, I want to try this app.
They know where my starting point is, and they’re gonna personalize my journey. Now I have more trust that this might be the product for me. Right. Then when you’re on that journey, you get these nudges that help you personalize and get better results, but also show you that you’re making progress. Right.
And so getting that feedback loop kind of closes the loop, cuz you’re like, I’m working so hard at this. I don’t know if it’s working. Right. And so being able to say, oh, you’re improving your cardio respiratory fitness, or you’ve lost you. Body fat or gained muscle or done things like this at that kind of feedback loop, really helps with engagement, which then translates to retention.
So, and then revenue per user and all that stuff. So, yeah, anyways, it’s just like, it’s really helped us calibrate around those critical pain points. versus if you just left me up to my own devices, I would. Like the type of person that just builds cool stuff that I want. . And so it’s been really helpful.
And we’re just, yeah.
[00:34:36] Joe:
Yeah, that’s part of it too. And we’ll get you out here in a second, but you know, oftentimes you do see. Especially in the health and fitness space, like a former athlete or still an engaged athlete, whether they’re professional or not, or whatever, played in college, just really passionate about it. Weekend warrior, who personally went on like some type of journey to improve their performance or outcome, or what have you.
And they’re like, I want this thing and they, they, they start the company or they partner with somebody to start it. They raise the money and then it becomes another. Product, what have you, that’s serving that particular type of person, like an athlete or somebody who’s super fit or, you know, somebody who’s striving towards that particular goal.
And I think one of the things that I’m most excited about is this innovation continues is like, we’re getting to the point now where. I think truly you start to see the we’ve referred to it as like trickle down health. Like how do we take these elite metrics, hardware technology, and implement that in a way that the average person sees it.
They don’t even know what’s happening. I don’t want them to know what’s happening. I just want them to, you know, make the, the habit change on the other side of it. And, I think this is a, a good example of that. And, yeah, I’m just forward to, I think seeing that evolution continue across the industry more broadly.
[00:35:57] Jason:
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And I share that same sentiment, like basically, and one, small nuance might be that I want people to have the option, to be able to understand and know what’s going on under the surface, but only if they want to. And so otherwise not bother people with it. And just say like, here’s a better product, a better service.
That’s more personalized for you that gives you the right gamification or feedback loops that you need to stay motivated and engaged. But ultimately it’s about just reaching your goals, with less effort. And, I feel like one, one of my co-founders would roll their eyes, at this because in the early days, like that passion alone was driving me to just build product.
And there was no revenue model, no business plan or anything attached to it. After a couple years of zero revenue, my co-founders like you know, if we keep working on this, we might want to figure out how to. Biggest sustainable business out of it. And so, ultimately what we found is like, if we’re really helping people solve those problems, then it’s worthwhile to them to pay for it too.
So, that’s helpful.
[00:36:58] Joe:
Yeah. Yeah, right. It’s, it’s all part of it.
I think right there we’ll actually wrap it up. Thinking about all the ground we covered, thinking about these partnerships, a ton of folks who are building these various app companies that could potentially be good integrations. And I think a number of people who are interested kind of nerd out on the data, and want to check it out.
So, for anyone following along, where would you point them?
[00:37:23] Jason:
Yeah, Spren.com. S-P-R-E-N.com. You can learn a lot about our technology and our platform there. We’re also super communicative people. We love talking to customers, or users, or whoever.
Elite HRV is still out there as a free app, if anybody wants to use it and start tracking HRV data. I will say it’s an experience that’s tailored for power users.
So, for most people, we like to point them to our partners to get a better experience with tackling specific things. But, yeah, you can find us out there, Spren, or Elite HRV.
[00:37:58] Joe:
Awesome.
Yeah, I hope folks check it out, and I’m super grateful we got to chat today. I’m excited to share the conversation.
[00:38:04] Jason:
Thanks, Joe.