How Somos’ Randall is Tackling Metabolic Health
I had the pleasure of interviewing Cristina Randall. Cristina studied Systems Engineering at the University of Waterloo, then after doing investment banking in Japan, IT consulting in India, human development in Southern Africa she found herself building a payments platform in Latin America. Conekta grew to become one of the biggest payment platforms in Latam but she had to leave to go on a health journey that pulled her into the world of health and wellness where she is currently tackling metabolic health and fitness with her new company Somos.
What motivated you to launch your startup?
I went through a health crisis of sorts. I got sick with Lyme disease and because western conventional medicine offers little in terms of treatment and diagnostics for this disease. I needed to learn how to get better by myself though biohacking. It was a long journey (For more about this, I wrote a book that people can check out that goes into more detail about the experience — it comes out next month.) and I learnt a lot, enough to be dangerous in the healthtech space. I realized how broken the system was and realized the opportunities in healthcare and I felt a huge responsibility to do something about it. And Somos, my current company, is what emerged.
What is it that excites you about what you’re building?
The developed world is facing a metabolic health problem of enormous proportions. If we take the US as an example, less than 10% of the population is metabolically healthy (defined by triglycerides, blood pressure, obesity, blood sugar levels, etc). This problem is a time bomb for the country and the consequences from poor metabolic health will take a toll on the economy in the years to come, not to mention the healthcare systems that are understaffed and inefficient and quite frankly not structurally set up to deal with the burden of chronic illness, which now makes up the majority of healthcare costs. On the bright side, there is a new field of precision and functional health that is emerging and looks at the person as an individual, taking into consideration the millions of data points about a person’s lifestyle, habits, nutrition, exercise, and even genetics. It is estimated that 80% of these chronic diseases are preventable.
Somos is at the forefront of this space and we are building a way for users to understand their body to make better decisions and more preventatively to get back in the driver’s seat of one’s health. We connect to local laboratories for blood tests, use wearable device data and provide glucose monitoring in real-time in an easy to understand interface where users can have visibility and then make changes in their lifestyle and behaviors. We are currently focusing on Mexico, since it is the market I know best, having built my previous company there, and also it is the market that excites me most about the impact we could have. Mexico is the number 1 country with the biggest metabolic crisis. It is estimated that 60 million people have diabetes and insulin resistance and similar to the US, the vast majority of the population is not metabolically fit. This health burden is growing in Mexico where Coca Cola is cheaper than water and vegetable/canola oil (a driver of metabolic dysfunction) is the cooking staple for the most delicious tacos. The pandemic shed light on this problem as Mexico suffered more than most countries with significant comorbidities to Covid-19 related to metabolic disorders like diabetes, heart disease, and insulin resistance. So this opportunity to impact millions of lives and reverse the trend of poor metabolic health gets me up in the morning.
What has been your biggest challenge when growing your startup?
Subscription revenue models are not as easy to get right in LATAM compared to the US, you must hit a painful need by a defined target user and build trust overtime. Also in our space education is a major focus. The majority of people who are metabolically unfit or who have insulin resistance don’t even realize it (until their symptoms become more severe.) So we are building awareness of the problem and “trailblazing” in this sense which means we must create a great content / educational strategy.
What are your future plans for your startup?
We are focused on building a world class product that caters to the Mexican’s needs with an excellent customer experience. Apart from product development, we spend a lot of time thinking of word of mouth and the right combination of features that will be sticky “enough” for a specific group of users.
If you had to share, “words of wisdom,” with a Founder who’s about to start their own startup, what would they be?
Words of wisdom are sometimes cheap and there is a lot of fear about the current economic situation. Sometimes we need a reminder that the best businesses were created in downturns and challenging economic scenarios. So entrepreneurs should not be discouraged but should operate more tightly. For instance, given the fundraising climate though, don’t put the horse before the carriage, and tighten spending. For this year and the next it will be more difficult to raise the round that you expected. So my best advice would be to hunker down and tweak your business to focus on profitability and more organic “growth” especially in Latin America.
Also anytime a founder asks me about advice now by default I always advocate for founder well-being and balance now since I feel I can speak from first hand experience. Building a business is a marathon and as you get older, you appreciate your own health more. You can’t run a marathon when you are stressed or sick or running on fumes. So learn to prioritize your own health whatever that means and care about your nutrition, sleep, exercise, and community. We only get one body, there are no returns or refunds ! And when you have optimal health, you can make optimal decisions for the business and the super hero efforts needed to build a business will be more sustainable in the long run.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
I’m more active on Instagram and LinkedIn these days. So people can reach out to me there and I’ll be happy to connect. For people in Mexico, we would love you to try Somos. If anyone has any questions or wants to talk about Somos they can reach me at Cristina@somos.me.
This was very insightful. Thank you so much for joining us!
