Coffee with Hamish Grierson

Hamish Grierson is a refreshingly straight-talking Founder. 

His start-up, Thriva Health, was established in 2015. It provides at-home, personalised blood test kits that allow consumers to find out more about their long-term health, energy levels, fitness and more. 

This is, in Hamish’s own words, “preventative” tech – and with more than 100,000 blood tests processed to date, it’s a term we’re going to get used to hearing.

Since our interview was conducted, Thriva has secured a further £4 million of funding from Berlin-based VC Target Global, and planning to launch its own Covid-19 antibody tests for businesses to purchase for employees. 

Here are the best bits from a fascinating conversation…

Health tech is so broad – it’s bucketed in wellness, medical devices, biotech, b2b, b2c… so what is your 2020 definition of health tech?

Hamish: “In 2020 the definition of ‘health tech’ is completely unhelpful.  The problem is we are trying to stop people from entering the health system, and we do that using technology.

So are we a health tech company? If in the same bucket you've got someone like Babylon Health who are trying to provide you with an easier route into a doctor, then no.

So I’ve had to come up with a new definition of what we are, which either uses proactive health or clinical wellbeing.

I think the elephant in the room, frankly, is that the words ‘wellness’ or ‘wellbeing’ have become so polluted. They’ve been colonised by organisations or products or services that have a mild lack of scientific underpinning.

I just think as an industry it's probably helpful to start moving beyond the catch all of ‘health tech’.

It’s the same with ‘digital health’. If a guy on the street walked up to you and he said ‘what do you do?’ and you said ‘digital health’, what is he going to take away from that? You digitised health? What does that even mean?! So I'm not a fan of that either”

What are the major trends over the next 12 to 24 months within what we're going to call ‘healthtech’? Are there any particular areas that you're most excited about?

Hamish:“I think you'll see an increasing split between healthcare technology and proactive health technologies. And within both of them, I think the commonality will be personalisation.

I think everyone recognises that the one size fits all approach just doesn't work.

It increases on the healthcare side the cost of delivering everything from medication through to adherence programmes. On the proactive, preventative side, we all theoretically know what we should be doing – but most people aren’t doing it. So, you have to get personalised in the way that you deliver services”.

Have you noticed any major differences between the US Health tech market and the UK market?

Hamish: “Yeah, for sure. I think the US is a very good bellwether for where discretionary spend in particular is going, and the writing's on the wall. The amount of money people are spending on themselves is on the up – whether that's arming themselves with information by listening to Tim Ferriss or taking the supplements that Joe Rogan talks about – you and I listen to the same podcasts it would seem! It's moved out of the niches and into the mainstream. 

If you go to our kitchen you’ll find mushroom coffee, and it’s something that lots of people here consume – it’s very normal. That wasn’t the case two or three years ago, and it’s even more normal in America.

So, the amount of discretionary spend going into preventative, proactive wellbeing supported services is huge. It's really one of the growth areas that’s set to continue.”

Have you done an analysis of who’s embracing these health trends across the UK? I’m guessing that, for example, if you targeted tech areas in London, the use of mushroom coffee goes up, compared to other parts of the country?

Hamish: “I think there's probably some truth to the fact that if you're in technology, you get exposed to technologists who are perhaps more engaged in self-improvement and self-development as an area.

But by no means does the tech community have a stranglehold on it. I'm sure if you're a farmer in the North of England, actually you're just as reliant on having lots of energy and having a body you can rely on as anyone else. Probably even more so.

And information access has never been more distributed. So there's nothing stopping that farmer listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast while he's ploughing the fields or you know, sorting the cattle, just like someone on the Northern line on the way into work in London. 

So I think you're more likely to see the exposure and the early adopters be in the urban areas that you just talked about. But I think you'll be surprised how distributed the information has become. 

In the same way, go back 20 years to self-help as it was called then, and to Tony Robbins as an example. There were as many fans in Alabama as there were in New York.

I think also businesses haven't haven't done a good enough job with that yet. 

It isn't to say that those communities can't be engaged. You just have to start. And I think we, as a company with a pretty broad distribution across the whole of the UK… yes, there are more people who live in the Southeast, more people in the Southeast we've got customers in the far reaches of Scotland, Wales and Northern England. They’re very much not part of any sort of bubble.”

Is there a demographic change happening as well though – so, for example, will the next generation completely embrace Healthtech innovation?

Hamish: “I think that's absolutely right. And if you look at the trends around alcohol consumption, again for me it's a very good bellwether. It's through the floor. If you're under the age of 18, it's down by 25% or something close.

There's a lingering, deeper question here, a question about human nature. Do we as human beings need some form of altered state to survive – to actually to continue to live? That altered state might come through a spin class or it might come through gaming maybe?  Maybe it's not going to be alcohol, but perhaps there will always be something.”

What advice would you give to the 2015 you, as you made your start in the health tech sector? 

Hamish: “Think about brand and emotional engagement sooner. Don't lose sight of the fact that people make decisions for emotional reasons, not rational reasons. Never ever lose sight of that.

I'm a massive believer in the strength and power of good brands or bad brands. I wish I'd focused on it sooner. The thing is, there is no such thing as a business. You sell to a human being and human beings are buyers.”

Interesting… we do notice the more successful startups hire a CMO or Head of Marketing very early. Without that skillset it’s so difficult to stand out in the crowded startup space. Second and third-time founders are the same. They typically invest in non-software roles earlier on. Do you think some software developer founders believe the product will sell itself?

Hamish: “I think the problem with that is the outsized impact of the very small number of businesses that have products that happened to land at just the right time – and they develop their own flywheel. But that's just luck. And 99.9% of businesses don't have that.

So they've got to figure out how to generate an emotional engagement with a product that doesn't have that natural flywheel mechanic. In most cases it’s a case of ‘build it – and they will not come’.” 

What do you think the biggest advancements are that you're noticing in the healthtech space?

Hamish: “The application of machine learning and artificial intelligence. That's probably the biggest. On the healthcare side that can be image recognition for cancer markers or in ultrasound, that kind of stuff.” 

In our world, the application is more to help with personalisation. How do you use the datasets that you've got access to, to be able to tailor an experience at scale, in a way that’s personalised?”

I heard you mention something about nootropics as well. That's something I've been quite interested in – what are your thoughts on the evolution of this sector? 

Hamish: “It’s very difficult to do research on because of government regulation around nootropics. Up until they become nootropics, they're just straight up illegal drugs – hence the problem.

But it's a growing space, if you look what’s happening within psychedelics. So, the use of MDMA, for example, as a therapeutic property to treat post-traumatic stress disorder or depression. I think you’re going to start seeing a lot more credibility built into those niches.”

Finally,  what podcasts do you listen to, and what are you reading?

The Energy Gang and The Interchange – I'm really interested in climate change.

I listen to Pivot, which is Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher talking US tech and money. Also Recode Decode, Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan. 

And I'm reading a great book by the founder of Moz SEO, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World It's fantastic. It's a very rare insight into the truth of company building.