Andrew Steele won an Olympic medal for Team GB, then built Stride, a preventative health membership with almost 16,000 paying customers in 65 countries.
Stride hit a £4m run rate within three months of launch, bootstrapped, mostly selling DNA tests that nobody can buy twice. We talk about how Andrew went back and worked out why people were really buying, the three jobs customers hire Stride for, the GLP-1 programme nobody wanted, why going direct to consumer first made gyms, resorts and employers easier to sell to later, how he has mixed bootstrapping with VC and non-dilutive funding, and how an £800-a-year membership is heading for 85% renewals.
Disclosure: Will is an investor in Stride and a StrideOne member.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Cold open
01:16 Welcome to Healthier
01:37 What Stride is
02:44 16,000 customers in 65 countries
03:31 Selling whatever was ready
05:12 A £4m run rate in three months
05:31 You can't sell a second DNA test
06:26 Demand with no outlet
07:28 Talk to customers, or trust your instinct
09:14 What the consultation data showed
10:06 Healthier Note
10:31 Three jobs customers hire Stride for
12:48 Why "live forever" is a farce
14:00 Health as identity
16:47 Health optimisation has been hijacked
18:29 One better decision at a time
19:28 How Stride chose its product mix
22:18 The GLP-1 programme nobody bought
24:49 Why consumer first
27:12 Practitioners, gyms, resorts, then employers
29:10 How D2C data helps B2B partners
30:17 Bootstrap first, then raise
31:37 Commodity blood tests plus AI
32:26 The most ambitious research study in human health
34:40 Explaining the value is the bottleneck
37:02 85% renewals on an £800 membership
38:43 Where to find Stride
Stride: https://www.getstride.com/
Andrew's essay, What happened? Stride happened: https://huper.substack.com/p/what-happened-stride-happened
Healthier Notes, a founder's playbook every Friday: https://healthierco.com
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