Bringing Together At-Home Testing, AI, and Remote Medical Team to Help Manage Diabetes Effectively: Maria Hahn, Nutrix

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 0:00

And we believe that now is the moment

Alex X-Health.show: 0:07

Hi, I'm Alex and welcome to the X-Health.show where I talk to visionaries behind the latest innovations in healthcare. For the eXtra health of the future. I wish you could see the view from the 14th floor at Basel Area: the Rhine curling in the sun behind Novartis campus best architecture. My guest today is Maria Hahn, the founder of Nutrix and Swiss Digital Shaper for the third consecutive year. She has over a decade of experience in medical devices and consultancy, nailing go to market strategies. In four languages. Nutrix is one of the 50 Hottest Austrian and Swiss startups to watch according to Sifted. Their gSense digital health ecosystem provides assistance, monitoring, and control for people with chronic diseases and those embracing longevity. You'll hear about diabetes, obesity, AI-powered analysis and chat, human-powered telemedicine. non-invasive cortisol monitoring system. And more. Maria, a Swiss startup that received the first funding in Chile – what's so special about Chile?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 1:14

I think it's a little bit funny how this story started. But Chile, in the end, was the first country that decided to invest in us and they saw a big potential in what we are doing. Chile has a huge problem with diabetes, obesity, and they needed to bring technology. And Chile is also the country with the accelerator program to support startups from the public money. So basically, it's a program that is funded from the taxes to bring innovation to Chile. And when we started Nutrix, the very first opening that I saw for the non-dilutive funding was in Chile, and it was basically for women founders. And I thought that's a perfect match. And this is how we receive the first grant from Chile.

Alex X-Health.show: 2:12

Well, congratulations on that. And you mentioned the huge problem with diabetes. How huge it is? Could you say anything about the world statistics.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 2:23

So the official statistics are: 15% of population. And it's also expected that half of the people are not diagnosed today,

Alex X-Health.show: 2:33

We are speaking diabetes type 2?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 2:36

Normally, in all of the countries where we talk about the statistics for diabetes, 90% are type 2, 10% – type 1. Type 1 is the genetic diabetes. And type 2, unfortunately, depends on us. Where maybe, unfortunately and fortunately because we are in power of the type 2 diabetes, so it's a vast majority.

Alex X-Health.show: 3:04

Okay. And if we put that globally, so diabetes prevalence globally, what does it look like?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 3:13

It doesn't look good. And there was the latest publication from The Lancet, a few weeks ago, where The Lancet said, that's the disease of our century, the disease that is affecting, will affect 1.3 billion people globally. So today, we are talking about half a billion people. But yeah, the number will more than double. So it's, it's a huge, huge number of people that unfortunately will suffer and is already suffering from diabetes. And it's caused by our lifestyle, our diet, our lack of exercise.

Alex X-Health.show: 3:55

It is one in seven people.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 3:58

That's really massive. It is.

Alex X-Health.show: 4:01

Okay, so what's your solution, then?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 4:04

The point is that when we look at the number of people, those numbers are coming from developing countries where we lack doctors and where we basically cannot attend all of the people that have that problem. So I believe that we need to manage the chronic diseases in a smart way, like we manage our finance, very similar situation that happened with the FinTech and the change – how we manage our finance. I believe that this is something that we need also for the chronic diseases. So we need a digital solution. We need to track the patient continuously. We need to monitor the data from the smart devices, from glucose meters, from physical activity. It cannot be that the patient sees a doctor once a year and the doctor does not know anything about the patient's situation.

Alex X-Health.show: 5:12

And so this was the buy-in from the Chilean fund that you offered this global, in terms of countrywide solution – digital and, well, continuous.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 5:29

So in our case, there were two important factors in our history, short history of Nutrix.

Alex X-Health.show: 5:38

Wait, wait, wait, not that short. You have just mentioned, you will be celebrating tomorrow the third year, the third anniversary.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 5:46

That's true. But whenever we talk about the startups, we always talk about the ecosystem that surrounds the startups. And in our case, this ecosystem is that Basel ecosystem. And Basel is very strong in digital health, in therapeutics, in drugs development, etc.

Alex X-Health.show: 6:14

Basel, Switzerland.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 6:15

And when we started, at the same time that we received the support from the Chilean government, we also received the support from the Basel city. So the Basel Innovation. And this was also acceleration for the digital health startups. So we had, from one side, the Startup Chile, that is very much user-oriented, and very much focused on the traction of the startups and go-to-market. And then on the other side, we had this view of how healthcare will look like in 2030, or how it will look like in 2050. Together with all the smartest people in this ecosystem, we had the possibility to discuss, learn, and participate in this conversation on how the technology will evolve to help people. And this is basically how we build the solution. So when we started, we had an idea on the PowerPoint, and an idea in our mind. But then we started to talk with different stakeholders. And this is how the solution grew. And this is where it is today. And probably it will look much different also in the next six or 12 months.

Alex X-Health.show: 7:42

Well, it's digital so obviously it changes with solutions available. So what do we have now? Because now this solution is already being sold in Chile. So what can people get? There is a kit... Okay, I sneaked into the Chilean website, and what I could see is that people get a kit and there is a finger prick blood glucose meter or CGM to choose from. And then there is a smart scale. And this is all connected to gSense ecosystem, also supported by gSense GPT, kind of chat GPT.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 8:33

There is so much in this ecosystem. We have on the one side, yes, we have our device, the gSense device for the glucose monitoring, we can use the data also from the Continuous Glucose Monitoring, the smart scale. And we are offering today, different health programs. So the devices are only the tools that our medical team is using. All this data through the patient app goes also to the medical dashboard, from where we are providing the support for the patient.

Alex X-Health.show: 9:08

Who's the medical dashboard for?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 9:10

For our medical team. So we have among our team doctors that are providing support to the patients, to the users. And this team includes nutritionists, endocrinologists, and very soon we will add also psychologists. And this is the team that is in charge of the patient journey. This is very important that we are not only the technology startup, we have a very deep medical focus. Each of the programs that we are offering and the programs that we have today are for diabetes, weight loss, prevention, and cardiovascular health. And each of those programs have the patient journey. It's a very well defined program that the patient is following using our technology.

Alex X-Health.show: 10:10

So the team, the medical team, is it. Nutrix medical team?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 10:15

Yes.

Alex X-Health.show: 10:15

Okay. Oh, that's cool.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 10:16

It's Nutrix medical team that prepared the treatment protocols that defined when, for example, the patient is receiving their WhatsApp messages. Because we use lots of touch points with patients to increase the patients' adherence. And those touch points can be through the WhatsApp – we send daily messages to the patients. We have also video consultations with the patients through the app. And those consultations might be with a doctor or with a nutritionist or with a coach. And then we also have the gSense GPT. And the gSense GPT is basically the algorithm that was trained by our AI team together with the medical team to answer questions of the patients.

Alex X-Health.show: 11:09

How did you find out about the questions?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 11:12

The questions – we talked, once again, with the doctors. And here we talked not only with the doctors that work for Nutrix, but we talked with different doctors. We have also now very strong medical team in Brazil that is advising us on the go-to-market in Brazil. And so we talk with them. We talk with doctors here in Switzerland, we talk with doctors, globally. And we ask them like, what are the questions that patients ask? And what's the most common question? So they said, mostly carbohydrates, diet. And then there were some questions about how to use the insulin pen. So all of this is programmed. And all of this was also checked by our medical team.

Alex X-Health.show: 12:07

And what's the GPT version that you use?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 12:11

We were very lucky that our platform is built on the Microsoft. And this was like an amazing decision that we made when we started. And we use the GPT 3.5 for the, our, gSense GPT. And we are very lucky to have geniuses in our team.

Alex X-Health.show: 12:36

It sounds amazing.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 12:38

I'm very, very privileged to work with extremely talented people. And the gSense GPT was built by our So you had this solution and then tested it with your medical AI genius Dominika that is extremely talented. And I'm also very proud that she's a female talent that we have. team. Yes, yes. And now, automatically, then we released it to the market. And I remember that, you know, at that time, we had the prevention booth at Walmart, at one of the supermarkets. And this was a hook for the people who were coming. We were testing the patients for the diabetes, you know, like in the supermarket between the beer section and the vegetables section

Alex X-Health.show: 13:40

Choose your way wisely.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 13:44

Exactly. And then we were promoting the latest release that included the gSense GPT and we were encouraging people there on the spot to ask questions. And yeah, mostly, the questions were about the food.

Alex X-Health.show: 14:05

Could you walk us through the patient's journey? How the patient in Chile, because we're speaking about Chile, that's your first country, right, your first market, how a patient receives or buys the kits? And what they can choose from? And yeah, what are the touch points that you have with them?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 14:35

So the patients can subscribe online. What is also I think, really amazing is that this system is reimbursed by the public system.

Alex X-Health.show: 14:48

Oh, congratulations.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 14:49

Thank you. gSense is the first digital health solution for diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular health, that is reimbursed by the public system.

Alex X-Health.show: 14:59

So it can be also prescribed by a doctor in Chile?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 15:03

Not prescribed but there is reimbursement which is already amazing and great because this makes it more economical for the patients. And this was very important for us to make it accessible so that patients can subscribe to gSense online. And we also sell gSense to large companies, like the insurance plans, etc. So when the patient starts with us, they receive the starter kit. For the weight loss program, it will be the smart scale, they will get also the prescription for the laboratory test. So this is always something that we do. At the beginning of each program, we ask for the full lab check so we are sure what's the starting situation of the patient. And then we would also send different questionnaires to the patient. Automatically, the first day, they will start on the digital coaching through the WhatsApp messages and we would ask them to fill the questionnaires about their current diet, about their current physical activity, and the mental health. And once we have all this information in the system, so the blood test results, and here, once again, we use the AI – the patients can upload the PDF in our mobile applications. And we extract, with the AI, the raw data from the lab exams. And this is very helpful, because once again, this can go to the dashboard, and we can use it in different risk calculators. So once we have all this information, then we invite the patient for the first video consultation with the medical team. And then we define what are the goals of the patient and how we can make it happen during the program. And normally our programs last at least 12 months. So let's say like for diabetes, those programs are much longer because at the end, the patients with type 2 diabetes require support for indefinite amount of time. With the patients for the weight loss programs, it can be 12 months, it depends whether the patients are also preparing for the bariatric surgery. So we also see, let's say like a demand from the patients that are getting ready for the surgery, so monitoring before the surgery, and then monitoring after.

Alex X-Health.show: 17:58

Preparing the lifestyle for the change.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 18:01

Yes.

Alex X-Health.show: 18:02

And where's in that a family doctor? Or is it not an issue in Chile,

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 18:07

We are now in contact with doctors' organizations, and we also plan a presentation in November, during the endocrinologists' congress, where we will also share the results. So let's say, we always see our solution as a complementary to the public system. We do not want to compete with the family doctor, we know that what we offer is completely different than what they could ever offer to the patients. So there is no competition, and I wish that in the future they know what gSense is providing. And they can also recommend this to the patients.

Alex X-Health.show: 19:18

So what what are the differences or what, I can imagine, it brings to the patients. Like the frequency of contact with a medical team, for example, that's impossible in the the face to face current systems. What else is there?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 19:33

I would say that the the biggest difference is the proactivity of our medical team because we can make changes and adjustments to the treatment plan in advance because we see exactly what's the evolution of the patient. What is their glucose level, whether there were spikes, or for example, on the weight loss program, whether this person is really starting to loose weight or the person is not uploading the pictures of what they eat, or if they upload if the food that they're consuming, is not the right one. So this is the combination of the coaching with the monitoring allows for the better treatment plan. And higher adherence. This is something that with the traditional system, unfortunately, the family doctor cannot provide to the patient, because the time of the consultation is very limited. So on average, the doctor might have 15 minutes per patient. And it's not about... I believe that this visit can be very short but with the rest of the ecosystem and the rest of the support, and the data from the patient that we have.

Alex X-Health.show: 20:59

Right, so let's go back to the patient that just had this first video call. And then he or she starts, well, you've just mentioned uploading the meals. So it's like you take a picture of it, and then you get it analyzed? What's there?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 21:18

Yeah, so we ask also patients, especially before the nutritionist consultation, we ask them to upload, what's you are having? We want to see, okay, what's the portion size? And how much carbohydrates the person is having? How much protein? To really spot the errors, possible errors, that the patient has now, currently in their daily habits. It all helps us to support that person better.

Alex X-Health.show: 21:58

Okay, how does this work? Because now I'm curious, this is perfect, you don't really need to do much. I mean, some people already take pictures of the food, right?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 22:12

Right.

Alex X-Health.show: 22:13

So how does it work? Technically, you know, because I can imagine, you know, there might be different sizes, like plate sizes, right? So it needs to recognize a plate size, right?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 22:24

So today there is a lot of, let's say, human factor that is involved on our side. All of those images are checked by our nutritionist team today. And they are also analyzed together with the patients during the video consultation. So I feel like for the moment, that is not much AI that we are using. I am confident that we will add more AI to the processing of the food images in the future. But today, we are using our team. And I believe that today the most important is this conversation. And that is on the real cases. And it's like giving feedback. Now, like they're giving feedback, it's very important that you give feedback on the specific thing that that person did that you didn't like. And in those video consultation, it's like this, we have the really tangible data, tangible information. We can make the conversation about the specific meal that the patient had and analyze what was not okay, with this and what kind of changes and adaptation this person would need to introduce to lead more healthy lifestyle.

Alex X-Health.show: 23:52

Okay, so I can imagine like at the beginning, we have this video call and you know, the person is very enthusiastic about starting the programs, like, Yes, finally, I'm doing it. And a couple of days later, or a week later, or maybe a couple of weeks later, when you can see the meals are not uploaded anymore and the person is not moving too much, what happens then?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 24:19

We have those alerts for the medical team. And they are defined, like, when do we call the person, when do we follow up with the patient that we see that ,okay the patient is disengaging with us? And this is what we do. But for the moment, the feedback that we are receiving is that as we are sending, daily, those WhatsApp messages, many of the patients told us, I finally realized what I need to do. Like, I realized and this was from the, for example, patient with diabetes. She sent me a message saying, I finally understand this, and I know that I need to lose weight. Yes, I have diabetes, but I finally realized that I need to make changes in my lifestyle. And this is very important for us from the vision and mission of what we want to do. We don't want to focus on prescribing drugs to those patients. We want them to really realize that, hey, what I was doing for maybe a past decade or more, was not right.

Alex X-Health.show: 25:39

Or not enough, taking meds, for example, and that's it.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 25:46

Yes. And this is this holistic approach that we are providing, through technology, through innovation but really thinking that it's extremely important what we eat

Alex X-Health.show: 25:59

What I'm hearing here is also there is and the physical activity that we have. much more humans involved. Yes, you actually get real contact with a human, who would advise you not face to face, more like face through screen to face?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 26:24

Right.

Alex X-Health.show: 26:25

Okay, so let's go back a bit. Because what I find also extremely interesting about Nutrix is how did you come up with the idea at all. So I want to go back to this MIT Innovation and Technology Bootcamp when you met your co-founder, Nikhil Singh. What was the... Or maybe let's start first with why did you go to the bootcamp at all? MIT is Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 26:55

I always wanted to launch my company. And I worked for the corporations. And the time was passing by, and I really wanted to start something, and I realized that I start now or... or maybe it will be too late. No, no, no, hey, it's never too late, right? Exactly. Now, I get it also, that it's never never too late. But I felt like, okay, now would be the right moment. I have learned a lot in the companies that I worked. And it would be great to learn something. And I was looking for inspiration, ideas. And then when I saw this information about the MIT, I felt like, that's perfect. Because you know, it takes you out of your daily routine. You go and just dedicate yourself to think, okay, what could I launch? And then you get coaches and support from the MIT. And, once again, we follow a system. You cannot do it by yourself. You always need like a mentor or a coach, even the best sports person needs a full team. So I felt okay, this is MIT. This is MIT team. So this would be great.

Alex X-Health.show: 28:20

How long was the camp?.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 28:25

Very, very short, super intense. And it was the very first one that was done in Japan, in Tokyo.

Alex X-Health.show: 28:32

So it was in person?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 28:34

Yes.

Alex X-Health.show: 28:34

Wow.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 28:35

It was a beautiful week.

Alex X-Health.show: 28:38

Oh, my, just yeah, thinking about Tokyo, and everything that comes with Tokyo, the food, it must have been wonderful.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 28:49

It was really, really amazing experience. And this is how I met Nikhil. In this program, you work in the team of six. And this is how we started to brainstorm, like, what could we do?

Alex X-Health.show: And like: 29:04

at all? Or did you have some initial ideas that you came with?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 29:09

No, zero. And we had this lunch break... At that time, I worked for Straumann, the dental implant manufacturing company in Switzerland. And my colleagues said, you know, you work in the mouth related area, let's do a sensor on the tooth. And, uh, yeah, it was very crazy idea. And that's also the idea that we presented at the Web Summit after the MIT bootcamp and this is how we won but I'm not sure whether we will pursue the original idea today. But what I'm confident about is the biomarkers in saliva. So this is for sure something that we are doing, and this is for sure, something that we will have. And we have a great project on this also right now.

Alex X-Health.show: 30:10

We actually had a whole episode about saliva and what's so great in saliva. But from your perspective, what do you want to include in this kit? Or is it the same kit that you want to use this saliva testing? And how do you want to test that?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 30:47

So today, we have a project ongoing with the Northwestern University and support from Innoswiss, and we are working on their non-invasive cortisol monitoring sensor. And this will be most likely the very first sensor of this kind, that will allow for the stress hormone monitoring with medical grade at home, non-invasively. So it's like a blue ocean of opportunities.

Alex X-Health.show: 31:19

But you also would use a different device that you can test it at home and not send it to the lab, right?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 31:27

So basically, it's with the gSense device. So the device that we are using today for the blood, we will and we already did adjust for the multisensor monitoring.

Alex X-Health.show: 31:46

So now you're speaking – broader.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 31:51

It's a newer space of opportunities. But the very first one that we will do is the one that we are doing with the university for the cortisol monitoring. And we believe this is a very nice continuation of what we have today on our ecosystem. Because with this sensor, we can better support patients with obesity, because cortisol is explained, very, very important in the especially the fact that we are accumulating in the area of the belly. And we let's say that, overall, the chronic stress is the reason of all chronic diseases. So it will also help in this area to check whether you are chronically stressed, or you're just you know, like stress for for this day. So lots of opportunities with this

Alex X-Health.show: 32:47

[MID-ROLL] This episode is brought to you device. by the X-Health.show. And so if you liked this podcast, be generous hit Follow, leave a review – that helped me invite more such amazing guests for you. Thank you. [MID-ROLL ENDS] Again, going back to the camp, you had this idea, and then how did you go about validating it? So Nikhil was not from Switzerland, or was he?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 33:12

No, Nikhil is originally from India. Basically, we started to work on this, and then we got the support from investors. That said, at the beginning we got grants, then we started to raise money. And those grants and funding that we received, we allocate the funding for the clinical studies.

Alex X-Health.show: 33:41

So Nikhil's background is tech, or?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 33:45

Nikhil's background is really design. So he's really focused on customer-centric design, and making the products appealing for the general public. And this is also, I think, what differentiates us from the

competitors: 34:04

we are the lifestyle company, we have a very fresh look and feel. And then from the technical side, we have Jemish. Jemish joined us, he was not at the bootcamp, he joined us shortly after.

Alex X-Health.show: 34:20

I'm just thinking that, actually, you could choose the whole world for your first market, for your first country when you want to start. But then I'm thinking about like, how many languages do you speak? And then I sensed that it gave you a bit more freedom in looking for that country because that's Spanish, English we're speaking now, Italian and Polish.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 34:54

Yes, yes. But you know, for me... as we are in Switzerland, here people speak so many languages, that I don't feel that I speak so many. But yes, this actually helps. Because you feel like in your country. You can communicate with people, you can organize things and this definitely helps. So now as we are preparing for the entry in Brazil, I started to learn Portuguese also. Okay, so I still need to learn two more languages Portuguese and German. And then I think I'm happy.

Alex X-Health.show: 35:36

Then China's waiting! How did you validate your solution then in Chile? So any clinical studies, you started any focus groups?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 35:47

Yes. So we did several studies in different countries. We did studies in Portugal, in Spain. And we did also studies in Chile. And we did different things, because we did, really, the clinical studies, we did the studies for the new technology, wher we had patients for two weeks using their devices, monitoring, using different systems,, and then using this data for our algorithm. And then we had other studies that were just for the regulatory approval. So just the pure data that okay, this works as it should and it's safe for the patients. And then we had also focus groups. We also had studies that were for the go-to-market strategy, for the branding, for the communication with the patient. And in those studies, we had the patients, we had the doctors, so like different stakeholders.

Alex X-Health.show: 37:02

Was there anything you could mention now that shaped the final product? I can imagine there were a lot of things, but anything outstanding from patients, or medical doctors that they said, experienced, or just passed to you to reshape, or shape the final product.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 37:28

Definitely. And this is, I believe, how our ecosystem was born. Because the very first study that we did with the patients was only on the device, the focus was only: OK, this is the device, this is how it looks like, you get your data, etc. And then we discovered that the patients were like, Yeah, this is cool but I need much more. Because I feel lonely, I feel depressed, I don't know what to do. And then we realized, oh, wow, it's not enough. We transfer the data and they see the data, we need to provide them with the complete solution. And this is how the ecosystem was born. So this is basically from the conversation with the patients.

Alex X-Health.show: 38:14

And then the doctors, weren't they like, we didn't do it this way.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 38:18

To be honest, we were, I think, very lucky that we connected with tech fans, with the doctors that were looking for solutions and to support the patients differently, to really bring the technology, bring the innovation, and be able to make it happen. And, for example, our medical director in Chile, he used to work for the Health Ministry. And he is probably the person in Chile that made the highest number of video consultations, so telemedicine sessions, with the patients. And he was looking for a solution like ours. But he told me, Maria, I had never seen something working, you know there were startups coming to me and promising something, but I never saw this in real life. So he was very enthusiastic and very motivated to join us.

Alex X-Health.show: 39:25

And I can imagine you were also, you just mentioned, lucky to get someone who's not only enthusiastic but also has this experience with patients and already with video consultations.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 39:43

Exactly. So I think we were very, very lucky to get the team that we have. And also we saw that there is a demand on the on the doctor side.

Alex X-Health.show: 40:00

Mutual attraction, maybe. Because we mentioning luck and I can imagine it's a lot of hard work actually put into the solution that doctors may say, Um, this might work, how about I try it?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 40:13

Yes.

Alex X-Health.show: 40:15

Because, actually, well, it's their trust at stake.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 40:21

Yes. And it's also a completely different way of working with doctors. It was like: now we have in our What's that they might feel a bit uncomfortable? team engineers, AI experts, software developers, and doctors and nutritionists. That's a completely, completely different mindset. When we talk about the Lean Startup, you need to first explain to the medical team what the Lean approach is. And how do we make it together so that they still feel comfortable with the patient. They are doctors. And we always say, you know, if you launch your solution, and you don't feel embarrassed, you launch too late. This is something that is not acceptable by the medical team.

Alex X-Health.show: 41:21

Ah, that's again the trust, their public trust that's at stake.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 41:26

Yes but in the startup environment, you really need to go and test the solutions. And check whether you should go into that direction or you should dedicate resources in some other area.

Alex X-Health.show: 41:45

How do you now envision growth of Nutrix? Or maybe, maybe let me ask it differently, about your go-to-market strategy? Because Chile is just a start, right?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 41:58

Yes. So we are in Chile, and the great part of the ecosystem is that this is in Spanish. And Spanish is the second language globally. So now we will enter the Mexican market also. And that is huge, gigantic...

Alex X-Health.show: 42:20

with just Mexico City, right?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 42:24

The Mexico City is just like 30 million people. So we will start in Mexico City. And overall in Mexico, you have more than 60% of population with obesity or overweight, there are also expectations that more than 60% of the population will have one or more chronic diseases by 2025.

Alex X-Health.show: 42:54

That's huge.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 42:56

Yeah, unfortunately, there's lots of health problems in Mexico. So Mexico is a very interesting market for us to make an impact and help people live more healthy lifestyle. And then we are also preparing for Brazil. And we started already conversations with big partners. So we always look for the strategic partnerships with whom we can collaborate and make this go-to-market faster.

Alex X-Health.show: 43:29

So could you now tell us a bit more in general about what's important when considering go-to-market strategy because this is also what you did in your corporate career, too.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 43:41

I think from the medical and digital health startup or any health-tech startup, the most important is

the regulatory approval: 43:51

how fast I can go in this market to launch my solution. According to the regulatory approval laws, and for us, this was also the decision, why Chili – we got the support, but then we also realized that we can make that regulatory approval very, very fast. And this is how we started. Now, in Mexico, we are also ready. So I would say, first of all, check the regulatory situation, and then check the demand in the country for your solution. In our case, there is no solution providing this kind of support for the users today in Latin America. And this creates a huge opportunity for us and also for the patients to support them, to help them improve the situation. And then also talk with the people, get to know them, get to know really the needs. So we did several focus groups, we talked, we did the in-depth interviews with the patients to learn and then, once you launch, start to analyze also information from the first users. Why they really bought your product, why they really bought that gSense solution. So this was for me extremely important to know, okay, what are the arguments? Ones that make them decide.

Alex X-Health.show: 45:37

I love that. I love that because this is pre-launch research but then you continue also post-launch, which is very important, right?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 45:46

Yes. Because if you manage to sell to 10 patients, and you learn from them, then you can go to the next 100 with improved strategy, with improved materials, with improved communication. So this is something that is very, very important for us. And this is where we have lots of data on what's our Persona, what was the Persona before we launched, what was our idea. And this was also very funny because we had like this, okay, for the weight loss it's a lady she's like, between 35 and 45, etc. And then, I remember, the very first person that bought the system, the program for the weight loss, was a guy. And we were just laughing around! So the first users, you really know them by name. It's like a big celebration in the team. But it's also a very beautiful moment at the beginning.

Alex X-Health.show: 46:53

And how do you follow up with them? So do you do it from the system point of view? Or do you contact them? Oh, you are in contact, actually, right from the very beginning with video calls, with a chat...

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 47:09

Yes. But apart from this, we also have questionnaires. And those are checked also from the clinical studies, the type of questionnaires for the health improvements of the patients. So on one side, we track how they are evolving with us. And then from the other, yes, we have also now a person that is Quality and Patient Success Manager. And we really brought that person like: that's your role, you're responsible for the success of the patients and she's in contact, and she's collecting this feedback, so that we can make it better.

Alex X-Health.show: 47:54

How did that Persona change? Did it change? Does it evolved from this 35 to 45 lady.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 48:02

So now, we thought that we will have mostly women users, we see that the ratio is not so much higher, that, for the moment, it's balanced, which is good. What we also see is the big interest in our weight loss programs. Our first program was the Diabetes Program. But we see the highest interest in our weight loss program.

Alex X-Health.show: 48:37

Well, it can actually work also, for the diabetes type 2, so...

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 48:42

Yeah. But overall, we feel very glad that what we created and what we prepared is now serving people. We had a lady that said, I'm on your program, and now I would like to give it as a gift to my husband for his birthday.

Alex X-Health.show: 49:06

Oh, wow!

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 49:08

Which is so great to hear, you know, like, yeah, that's a wonderful present.

Alex X-Health.show: 49:12

It is, it is a lovely thing indeed. Any mistakes or rocky alleys, you'd advise startups to avoid? From your experience or from your corporate experience?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 49:27

Lots of! We learn so much. But I would say very important is to register all the patents, all the trademarks, all the brands. It's very important. When you think also about going global. So securing your name will be used by you. And also to patent your technology. So I think it's a basics and I'd say in all programs they will tell about this. We are also very privileged here in Switzerland because we are receiving lots of support for this, for the protection of our innovation. And then I would say: resilience. Right now I don't have an example – the things that we did that we could make it better. But what I would just say maybe to other people who are starting, is just: prepare for this, it won't be an easy ride, you know. I think this should be stated, it will be tough and you will, your character will become stronger. And this will also make you a CEO person or the founder person. It's very important to be resilient and it's very important to care about yourself. So that's meditation, physical activity, healthy eating. It all has a massive, massive impact on us.

Alex X-Health.show: 51:21

So did you learn that on the way, or? I'm just gonna give you some more background guys, because I actually saw Maria pitching – through the video – on this Web Summit that she already mentioned, in 2019. So she entered the stage with a bandaged hand. And then she mentioned why her hand is bandaged as the start of her pitch, which was like, what? Three minutes? You had three minutes? And she started with, why my hand was bandaged? Well, because she wanted to surf...

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 52:01

Yes, enjoy!

Alex X-Health.show: 52:03

...before the pitching. And actually she out-competed 900 other startup pitches. And the presenter there was mentioning, how cheerful you were. So my question is, because you appeared there so calm and cheerful at the same time, did you learn that? Or is it natural?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 52:33

No, thank you so much. I've meditated for years now. I practice meditation and I was first introduced to meditation at my corporate work. This was, I think very important that if you want to have a better focus, better productivity, stress less, I believe that we need to practice meditation. Because otherwise, it's very challenging to cope with all the different signals and impacts, and all the noise that is around us.

Alex X-Health.show: 53:17

What kind of meditation do you do?

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 53:20

At the beginning, I started with

Alex X-Health.show: 53:22

Okay, I have both! Headspace, the most common app. Now I must say that I switched to the to the new one and it's amazing – Waking Up.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 53:35

I heard about this on a podcast and then I downloaded it. And yeah, I think it's great.

Alex X-Health.show: 53:43

So how long do you meditate a day? 20 minutes? And today, I was in a hurry because in the morning we had some loads of stuff. So I came in, I meditated here in the office, I thought, Yes, I need to clear my mind. It's this self-care. It's like, we don't need much. And I think you can do it even shorter when you are very, very busy or you have kids and lots of stuff going on in your life. But I think it's very important to dedicate this moment and just clear your mind and focus. Now, if we could think about two things at the same time: what's the big vision for Nutrix or any exit strategies you think about? And on the other hand, what are just the next steps.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 54:39

The big vision is that we are the first solution for the digital health in Latin America. And then we expand to other markets. So we really want to be the number one solution. And that's why we also expanded and we go broad, we want to provide the support for the patients with chronic diseases but also solution for preventive health. We always wanted to do that. And it was always important for us to diagnose early on and prevent. Make a disruption that was done in the FinTech area – do it in the digital health. And this is the opinion that we share with the experts and we believe that now is the moment. And we also believe that gSense will pay an important role in this. So this the big vision. And we want make a positive impact on the health of the people. That's also very important for us, we want to make this positive change and we do not think right now about the exit. We think we are still a young company and we still have lots of things to do, and to grow, and to expand, and to conquer new markets. So lots of exciting things ahead of us and, for sure, lots of learnings. And then, immediately, execute sales, add more users to the platform, learn, improve, and enter Mexico and Brazil.

Alex X-Health.show: 56:41

Awesome, awesome. So I wish you all the best on this road to the market. And for you guys listening if you want to, you know, just check more about Nutrix, please go to nutrix.tech.

Maria Hahn, Nutrix: 56:55

Thank you so much.

Alex X-Health.show: 57:02

Thank you.[POST-ROLL] I'm totally impressed by the audacity of researchers turned startup founders, doctors turned entrepreneurs or ordinary parents turned healthcare innovators. People battling the battles that no one fought before. For the eXtra health of the future. So if you see a startup posting on LinkedIn, show them some love, hit Like, comment: That's fabulous. If you have a couple of drops more of that altruism, follow the X-Health.show, leave a review here. I'll be able to bring more of these visionaries to you. So a big thank you. You're awesome. See you next week.

SPEAKER: 57:35

[DISCLAIMER] The information in this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. If you have any medical questions, please consult your health care practitioner. The opinions on the show are Alex's or her guests. The podcast does not make any responsibility or warranties about guest statements or credibility. While the podcast makes every effort to ensure that the information shared is accurate, please let us know if you have any comments, suggestions or corrections.