Follow The Brand Podcast with Host Grant McGaugh

The 25% Health Gap Nobody Talks About: How One Woman's ER Visit Sparked a VC-Backed Revolution"

• Grant McGaugh CEO 5 STAR BDM • Season 2 • Episode 42

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What if the secret to women's health lies not in treating symptoms, but in understanding the unique patterns beneath them? Andrea Corleto discovered this truth the hard way, navigating her own chronic illness journey through a healthcare system that often left her questions unanswered. That frustrating experience sparked the creation of Lyv Health – a personalized longevity platform designed specifically for women.

The shocking reality is that women spend 25% more time in poor health than men. While men maintain relatively stable hormonal states throughout their lives, women experience dramatic shifts during various life stages – from postpartum recovery to perimenopause and beyond. These transitions often bring symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, mood swings, and night sweats that traditional healthcare approaches may dismiss or inadequately address.

Lyv Health takes a fundamentally different approach by combining comprehensive biomarker testing with AI-powered analysis and human clinical support. By examining approximately 70 different biomarkers, the platform identifies the underlying causes of symptoms, including hormonal imbalances, nutrient deficiencies, and metabolic issues. This data-driven approach doesn't just address immediate health concerns; it also reveals early warning signs for conditions like cardiovascular disease, the leading killer of women.

What makes this approach truly revolutionary is its ability to balance cutting-edge technology with essential human connection. While artificial intelligence processes vast amounts of health data in minutes (tasks that would take human clinicians weeks), real healthcare professionals review all insights and provide personalized support. This combination creates a healthcare experience that addresses both scientific and emotional needs – something Andrea wished existed during her own health struggles.

Whether you prefer natural approaches through nutrition and supplements or need medication-based interventions, Lyv Health offers personalized recommendations that fit your lifestyle and preferences. Ready to understand what's really happening beneath your symptoms? Visit lyvhealth.co to learn how data-driven insights could transform your health journey.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Follow The Brand! We hope you enjoyed learning about the latest marketing trends and strategies in Personal Branding, Business and Career Development, Financial Empowerment, Technology Innovation, and Executive Presence. To keep up with the latest insights and updates from us, be sure to follow us at 5starbdm.com. See you next time on Follow The Brand!

Speaker 1:

Welcome everybody to the Follow Brand Podcast. This is your host, grant McGaugh, and I get to talk about one of my favorite subjects, and people have been following me. You know how I feel about women's health. I've learned a lot by talking to other women when it comes to how they engage with the health care system that I just didn't know. I just was not aware of certain challenges that are there, that are not on the other side of the ball as a male. So we're going to continue some conversation. We're going to talk to Andrea Coletto about what motivates her right now. She has a fantastic platform. She's in that world of healthcare, she's in that world of technology, but she's in a world that she wants to influence others and educate people are on these types of subjects. So, andrea, you'd like to introduce yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yes, thank you so much, grant, for having me. I'm Andrea. I am the founder of Live Health personalized longevity platform for women and you know I got started with this very much coming from a personal space, navigating a chronic illness and realizing all the gaps in the healthcare system, particularly when it comes to women's health, so decided that I had to do something about it. If something's broken, I have to fix it, and that's how I got started on this journey of founding my company and, along the way, have shared. I've been very public about my journey getting diagnosed, navigating health, building a company in the health space and I think that's really resonated with people so excited to be here.

Speaker 1:

All right. Well, we're going to jump right in right there, because your personal journey, your brand origin, is very, very intriguing to me. Because, like you said, you've shared your brand. You know what was born from a very personal health journey my, I've got a personal health journey as well, but I want you, if you could, please walk us through the moment that you decided to publicly share that story and what shifted for you afterward.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a great question, I think for me, when I first was starting to figure out what was going on with my body, I turned to social media and I saw others sharing their stories of navigating their own chronic illnesses. And then along the way I found people that had similar symptoms to me, got referrals to books. I just realized how much value there was in others who had shared their stories. And so, as I started to figure things out eventually got diagnosed, got on treatments, started looking at the health space and educating myself, I wanted to give back too right, I wanted to also share my story for those who needed to hear it, for those who resonated, and at first it started with just in conversations, being very open about it and I realized how much people gravitated towards it and then got a little more comfortable sharing it on my TikTok, eventually on my LinkedIn and you know I hesitated, right, For example, like LinkedIn feels like a very professional network I wondered is there a space to share personal stuff there?

Speaker 2:

Would it look unprofessional or would it help people connect with me? And I found that it was a ladder. I started sharing what drove me to start my company and how I came into that journey and it really resonated with people. So you know, it was baby steps, starting from conversations to actually sharing it publicly and now speaking on podcasts and panels, and it's awesome to see that it either resonates for people because they've experienced something similar or they are currently experiencing something similar, or they know someone very close to them who did. And particularly for women, because we don't often talk about some of these topics, they're excited that someone is finally talking about them so important because, as you alluded to, you hesitated early on to lead with your personal health experience and on platforms like LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

But what I have found is that authenticity sells because you can't lie to yourself. Everyone was I'm going to say everyone but a lot of people have had challenging situations and they aren't always visible to a lot of different people. So when they hear an authentic story, it's like, oh yeah, she just she's going through something like I experienced and she's bold enough, she's brave enough to share it. I want to listen to this because that gives me a lot more confidence in what I've been through to tell that story. So hopefully, someone else doesn't necessarily have to go through that type of thing. So I want to understand from your lens what finally convinced you that vulnerability would actually strengthen your credibility rather than diminish it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, great question. You know I gave a panel at Harvard Business School where we sort of lead with it's sort of like a keynote and we lead with our story. You tell your story of your take on the world. It's called a my take, so you share your take on the world. What drove you to be who you are?

Speaker 2:

And that was the first time that I shared a lot about my background, both my background growing up, navigating a chronic illness, just everything in my life and how that brought me to where I am now and what I'm working on now. And it was very nerve wracking sharing that in a public setting, but I saw how much it resonated and I think that was one of the first sort of public moments of talking about everything. I shared photos of me at the hospital when I had to be rushed into the ER and I talked about you know the symptoms I was having and how painful it was. And I saw that you know many people, many women, came up after saying that's interesting. I didn't know that was not normal. I have the same symptoms.

Speaker 2:

Or, even more interestingly, I had a couple of guys approach me and say even more interestingly, I had a couple of guys approach me and say, hey, my girlfriend has a lot of those symptoms too. Is there a book that I can get her? Is there any way I can help her? And I was like, wow, the guys are listening too. And so it was really. It felt like it was making an impact. Right, if I helped one person understand that maybe what they were going through is not normal or shouldn't be the norm, then I've made a difference.

Speaker 1:

You made a complete difference, especially in the lives of those individuals. A lot of people. They think when they're going to do something like that, they'd have to influence the thousands and millions of people. But really, if you can at least influence one person possibly two with your story, you've done a lot. And then if you can resonate and then scale from there, that's just wonderful. Right. That just adds to the entire experience. Now you've positioned yourself at the crossroads of what I call longevity technology and women's health. My question is why is this intersection so critical right now and how do you see it evolving in the next five years?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a great question. So, on the women's health side, as you know, women's health has been under-researched, underfunded. That's slowly changing, but we're not there yet. So I think bringing awareness to different issues of women's health is super important. I'm a big advocate of hormonal health issues like endometriosis, pcos, as well as autoimmune diseases, which women are more prone to. So I think it's a very important space and it's finally getting more attention beyond. You know, women's health used to be seen as just fertility. Now it's finally being recognized as going beyond fertility, right, recognizing that women are not just about making babies.

Speaker 2:

And at the same time, there's been this boom in the longevity space, particularly with Brian Johnson, peter Attia all of the primarily longevity guys, and so, as there's a lot of interest in extending lifespan and healthspan, I realized there's a gap in a female first approach, which is what my company is all about. A female first approach, which is what my company is all about, because a lot of these protocols work for men or work for individuals. A lot of these are also just like white men, right. What works for them, the protocols that work for them, might not work for a person of color, might not work for a woman, and so I wanted there to be a little bit more of a conversation of the intersection of longevity with a female first approach, to really understand what works for us. Right, it's not.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of hype around cold plunges, but those aren't actually very good for women if they're too cold. So there's all of these things that are unique to our biology, and now, with AI, we can actually start to personalize the protocols. Ai can read all your medical data and summarize it and connect the dots in a way that would take a human weeks. It takes AI a couple minutes, and that's really powerful. And so if we can take all of the new innovations in longevity, use AI to look at the different biomarkers through blood testing, through wearables you know we have all this data now and then use that to personalize what the protocols look like for every woman or for every person, I think there's a lot of power there. So all of these things have sort of started to come up in recent years, and I think there's a lot of value in being at the intersection of them.

Speaker 1:

I like what you just said there. I mean, I love the audience. Just back up and read what you just said, because this is the power of where artificial intelligence can really be helpful. I think one of the reasons why the medical field has been kind of slow to adopt certain things because it takes a lot of data. They have to crunch a lot of different numbers and get a lot of different clinical information in order to arrive at some kind of a prescription if that's what it is some kind of drug or some kind of clinical plan that's going to come together. So it takes a lot, but now if you've got a tool that can do it faster as far as data crunching, let's get all the data in.

Speaker 1:

And now, instead of you know what we can only look at one particular individual, one particular world or location, now we can look at many at the same time. That's going to open up the field. We should probably get much better results when it comes from a medical perspective because we have much more information at our disposal Now. Artificial intelligence now it plays a big role in your business and in live lives. Health approach right. Lyv health approach right. I want you to help us understand. How does the balance the promise of AI with the need for, let's say, empathy, right, and then trust in women's health? How does that play into your first, explain what your platform is all about and explain how it can help us in those aspects.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, of course.

Speaker 2:

So Live Health is a personalized longevity platform for women. We help you get to the root cause of symptoms and then also preventatively, look at any areas of risk to optimize for long-term health. So we start with a blood test. We test about 70 biomarkers to understand what's going on underneath the surface and then from there we create a very personalized report, and that's where we leverage AI plus clinicians to make sure that what we're providing is really personalized. We give you tactical recommendations on what you can do to improve those biomarkers and then we provide the support.

Speaker 2:

That's something I noticed was really missing in the longevity industry. It's not just about having the data. What good is data if we don't do anything about it? It's actually helping you take action. So we have clinicians and coaches that become your partner on the journey and help you understand nutrition, what are the foods that you should be eating, you should be avoiding, given any symptoms or any biomarkers, exercise, mental health, and then also supplements and prescriptions if needed. So we take a very holistic approach to helping women feel their best and manage both any symptoms that they're having whether it's due to postpartum, perimenopause or menopause and then optimize any areas of risk for long-term health.

Speaker 2:

So it's a really interesting intersection because we do leverage AI. As I said, we use it to look at all the data points. We collect data from the biomarker testing, from wearable data. All our members take an intake form where we get a sense for both where they're at in terms of health, but also their life right. A lot of times, your lifestyle has a big impact in how you're feeling or what you can actually do, and so we use AI to really synthesize all that data, connect the dots right so that when we look at a biomarker that's out of range, we're not just looking at it in a vacuum, we're not just saying this is out of range, but actually this is out of range and you're told, as you have this condition and you're at this stage of life and you're doing these things, so here's what it actually means for you. And that's something that I saw from other longevity companies, where I would get my blood test results and it would say, oh, this inflammation marker is out of range. Well, of course it is. I have a chronic illness that's an inflammatory disease. Of course it's going to be. It is. I have a chronic illness that's an inflammatory disease. Of course it's going to be. They're not connecting the dots. We are connecting the dots using AI. And then, of course, we have clinicians in the loop that review everything before it goes out to our customers. So I think that's a really important part.

Speaker 2:

When it comes to healthcare and AI, we're still at the point where having a clinician in the loop is really important to make sure that everything is accurate. And then the support is all humans, right Having a person that you know. If a lot of our members are navigating perimenopause and menopause and having a coach that they can talk to that says you're not going crazy, your symptoms are very real. Here's what you can do, and I understand you are a busy mom or taking care of your parents. Here's how we're going to make these changes fit into your life and into your schedule, because not everyone has time for like a hour long routine workout routine in the morning. Maybe it's like let's get 15 minutes here and here and between meetings, and so I think the personalization has to be human too. It helps, but I think healthcare is so personal that having clinicians in the loop is something that's not going to go away for a while.

Speaker 1:

I think this is so important. You have a on your platform. It's a subscription-based platform. You've got members you now have. You have a community, so people. I would figure you're not feeling isolated at all. You've got a community of people with some similar experiences that you can then engage with. So I'm starting to get you the clarity aspects of what you do, right, you know like, hey, how is your you know system or framework or business a little bit different? So I'm seeing this clarity in action, you know, and what the practice of engaging with the patients and the clinicians have been. Now you first tell us how long you've been in business and you've done something with a lot of people or small business owners haven't been able to do, and that is to attract investors into your business. Tell us about that first experience where somebody's like, hey, I think you got something here. We'd like to see if there's something we could invest in for you and just kind of describe that whole experience.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. So we are VC-backed. We launched this year, so we're pretty new and have been really lucky to see a lot of traction in the early days, as the mission and what we offer really resonates with people and with investors as well. We were approached early on by an investor that we're now working with. They're a large VC fund in Silicon Valley and we're working with their healthcare arms, so that's helped us get off the ground, especially when it comes to making sure that we're able to hire the right medical advisors, the right clinicians, have the right infrastructure, and so that's been really powerful.

Speaker 2:

We're early on in our journey so we'll probably, you know, continue to race as things go, but for us, it was really important to make sure that we were aligning ourselves with investors that were aligned with our mission and that wanted to head in the right direction. You know, at the end of the day, like who you partner with on your business makes an impact on the strategy, on the direction, on the expectations. So something we were, as in our first round of funding, talked to different investors and, I'll be honest, there were some that you know. We went to dinner with them and I really liked their investment person.

Speaker 2:

When we went to dinner with the whole team, I decided I don't want to work with these people. I don't want them, I don't want to be, I don't want them helping me make decisions on my business. I don't want to be talking to them for the next 10 years, and I think that's an important boundary to set. And then it completely off the opposite. When we talk to the investors that we did get funding from, we felt like we were very much aligned on the journey, on the approach, had the right support. They also had a female VC, both in the healthcare arm leading the healthcare arm and leading the fund, so I thought that was really powerful. So, yeah, for us it's aligning ourselves with the right type of investors that see the vision.

Speaker 1:

That's important because it's a business partner.

Speaker 1:

And if they're not on the same level or where you are in the passion that you have for the business, the purpose that you have for the business, the why, you know why are we doing this. And if you're not aligned with that, if you only see, you know the financial aspects of it all and that's all you're doing, the dollars and cents. I always look at finance. That's a reflective thing, it's reactive, you know it's more reflective thing, it's reactive, it's more an effect than it is in cause. So that way, if you're going to evaluate the business, evaluate its cause, what is it doing? Who can it impact the most? And then you start to see the true potential of what you want to truly invest in. So the numbers you may be looking at right now are not going to be the numbers in three to five years. But if you help us to grow in your alignment with the business goal and what we're looking to do and I love your particular mission and what you want to accomplish You've got all the ingredients.

Speaker 1:

You've got a great platform, You've got a great system and you understand the people that are out there. That's really what it's about right? There's so many people out there already that may be going to a similar experience that you went through and that they need to find this family of people that can help them. So I guess my question for you is if you could give us one piece of advice, you know, especially to other founders, other people that are on their business, who want to use their personal brand to drive growth. What would that be?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question, and I think, particularly in the early stages, investors are investing in you, not necessarily in your idea. They, of course, have to believe that the idea has some legs to it, that the space is interesting enough, but, primarily in the early stages, they need to believe that you are the right person to do it and that you are going to figure it out. So for us, what that looked like is on my side. My background is in consumer health. I was at a consumer tech company before. I grew to 200 million and had another company after, so this is my second startup, and so I showed that professionally, I have the right background to scale a consumer company and personally, I have the passion for it. I've felt the pain points. This is personal to me, this is something I want to fix, and so that shows them that I'm willing to jump through hoops to get there and I have the skills to be able to do that. And then, similarly, on my co-founder side, who is more on the medical and technology side, you know they have to believe that she's also the right person to help me execute on this, that we're the right partners on this, that we work well together and that we're very passionate about this and able to scale, and so I think it really is about your story.

Speaker 2:

Why are you doing this, why do you have the skills to do this, and what sort of insights do you have on the industry that others haven't right, like showing those earned secrets?

Speaker 2:

After you know, we talked to like 100 plus women before we even came up with the idea, because we wanted to make sure that we were building based on not just my experience, but the experience of other women as well, and so, I think, also showing that you've done the homework right. Do you have the right skill set, the right passion and the right knowledge to be able to do this? Because, at the end of the day, investors are investing in you, and I will say, like putting yourself out there too. I started posting on LinkedIn a lot recently, and we've had angel investors and VCs reach out. We've had angel investors and VCs reach out, and I think it's just right like nothing changed from the time before I was doing LinkedIn posts to after. I'm the same person, it's just that it's out there, people are seeing it and I'm inviting people on the journey with me, and I think that visibility is also really helpful.

Speaker 1:

Man, you're singing my song. I have my own framework it's called the Brave Framework and I use that framework to do exactly what you're talking about. First, you've got to understand your origin story. Storytelling is so important. That kind of identifies the brand. What is it about? What's the big, why there? And you've also done your research. Right, you've done your research so you understand the market. You've got to understand the market that you're going to penetrate and what's going to be your key differentiators, whether it's going to be your communication or the skillset that you're going to bring to the table that no one else really has.

Speaker 1:

There's a gap, and you have identified that gap and it's a huge gap, but then can you fulfill it? And then you went to the world what I call the application layer what's going to be the platform that you're going to use? And you're able to create this AI empowered platform, which I like that a lot, because that gives you speed to market is so important. So if I'm an investor and I'm starting to look at this, I love the brand story Like, yeah, that's powerful. Let's look at this research, what do they have for research? And then you're able to present that to your pitch deck right and what your understanding is, to get me up to speed or what you're talking about, then I have a better understanding of your application and you're authentic in what you are doing, and then we can start looking at the assets that you've created.

Speaker 1:

And then, when you get to that visibility world, as you just alluded to, I then made my story visible and then, all of a sudden, you know you got a lot of people now interested in what you're doing. You know, obviously, the end users, the audience, people like, yes, I've been, you know, in this type of situation, this kind of pain, this kind of block that I've had when I'm engaging with the healthcare system. This seems to be something that I can then engage with. That's going to give me confidence to move forward in my particular journey. I think that's great. And then you're executing on the idea.

Speaker 1:

That's what I call the brave framework. You are brave and I can see that about you. You're like, look, grant, I got this down cold. I know what to do, I'm making it happen and I'm going to continue on this journey because there's somebody out there that needs you and I want you, if you don't mind, take the mic right now. I want you to speak directly to that pool of women that are out there that are fragile right now Maybe they're the silent majority and talk to them about how you can help them.

Speaker 2:

Yes, of course. So there are so many phases of life and transitions for women. Men just get to live life in the same hormonal state their whole lives. In our case, hormones really change.

Speaker 2:

So whether you're navigating postpartum and trying to get back to your old body and trying to understand how things work now, postpartum, or entering perimenopause, having a lot of these symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, mood swings, night sweats, whatever it is like, things are changing and you're like what's going on with my body? So we help you look underneath the hood to really understand what is causing the fatigue. Is it a hormonal issue? Is it a nutrient deficiency? Is it metabolic? What's causing some of the other symptoms? Right, regardless of what the symptoms are, we look through blood testing to really understand what is causing them, because I think a lot of healthcare system sort of tends to treat on symptoms, putting on a band-aid. We really want to look at the root cause and then from there, optimize. And then the bonus of that is, while you're doing the blood testing, not only do we uncover what's causing the symptoms, we're actually able to look at things like cardiovascular health and metabolic health to understand whether you might be at risk of anything. Cardiovascular risk is a big thing for women Heart disease is the number one killer of women, actually and so looking at that data early on is so valuable. And a lot of times these hormonal transitions can actually exacerbate the risk, particularly as estrogen declines, testosterone declines, and so that's something that we look at as well, plus the symptoms, to understand your phase of life, what your symptoms mean and then, most importantly, what we can do about it.

Speaker 2:

And we take a very holistic approach. If you are someone who prefers to go natural, let's talk about nutrition. Let's talk about exercise. Let's talk about supplements. If you're like, listen, I don't have time for any of that, I'm really busy Give me the pill. Let's talk about what treatment is right for you, and we have our clinicians we're very experienced in women's health to be able to do that. So this is sort of what I wish existed. I had to figure out how to get the blood tests that my doctors wouldn't recommend, what to do with my diet, how to change what supplements I was missing. So this is very much inspired by what I wish I had and, after talking to so many women, what they wish existed. So hopefully we can help a lot of women and not just feel better in the short term, but also live longer, live healthier. Women spend 25% more time in poor health than men, and I want to change that.

Speaker 1:

That's an interesting stat, that is a show-stopping statistic 25% more than men. So that should tell us something. And I also love the fact that you solved your own problem. You know, you come out with a business idea Like you know what? I have a problem, I have this problem and I'm solving it and this is how I did it. That talk about authenticity and storytelling, like that is huge. I see why you're growing at the rate that you're growing at and that you are helping people at a great rate. This is wonderful. I want to ask you because I always turn the tables at some point in time that now you've been on a lot of podcasts, you've done a lot of interviews, you've talked to a lot of different people, but this is your first experience on the Follow the Brand podcast with me. How did you feel about it?

Speaker 2:

It's great. You know, I really appreciate the approach you take of looking at the personal story and the personal brand. A lot of podcasts focus more on tell me about your business or tell me about your take on this industry, and I think what's so unique is when we get to talk about the personal stories, and a lot of the podcasts that I gravitate to is I want to understand the founder's story. I want to understand what it was like early days. What kind of crazy thing did they do to get their company off the ground? What motivated them? And so I think that that's a really interesting perspective that you're bringing in, and I appreciate you having me on to share my story.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I want to have you on every week to share your story because this is so, so important. It's a very important topic. Not to make any light of that. It is very important to understand. We as a people have to take be accountable for everything in our lives, and that includes our healthcare, and we have to do what we can to alleviate. You know some of the situations that you're having. You are doing that and I really appreciate you doing that. You've got to tell us, got to tell the audience how to contact you so they can get more information about your business.

Speaker 2:

Yes, of course. So to find my business you can go to livehealthco. So that is L-Y-V health dot C-O. Or feel free to reach out. Livehealthco, or feel free to reach out, you know. You can find me on LinkedIn under my name or email us at hello at livehealthco. We're always open to chat.

Speaker 1:

Well, hello, hello, hello.

Speaker 1:

I want to encourage the entire audience to listen to all the episodes of Follow Brand. They are very similar. What you just heard from Andres, he has kind of laid it out. This is so important to understand and then how we can take control of our own situations and to make it further. That's why I have a library of knowledge, a library of individuals, a library of HI agents. They're called human beings. You should check them out. Agi agents that are human beings. You should check them out. There's over 200 of them sharing their stories, just like you just did. For us to get better, they are available at 5 Star BDM. That's number 5. That is Star S-T-A-R. Bdm. B for brand, d for development infomessagecom. I want to thank you again so much for being on the show.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, Grant.

Speaker 1:

You're welcome.