Episode 65: Ari Tulla - Co-founder & CEO of Elo, Turning food from the cause of disease to medicine

Today’s guest is Ari Tulla. Ari is the co-founder and CEO of Elo. Ari and his team created Elo to turn food into medicine so you can live life to the fullest. To accomplish this, they’ve built cutting-edge AI (from a proprietary analysis of 3,000 peer-reviewed studies) to apply to your personal health biomarkers and deliver precision to nutrition. Then, they relentlessly optimize and improve your nutrition over time. They’re starting with supplement packets, but their ambitions extend far beyond that. They won’t stop until they’ve succeeded at transforming food from the cause of disease to medicine. Ari’s passion for helping others optimize and understand their own health started long before Elo. After months of him and his wife combing through specialist after specialist trying find the right doctor to address a specific issue, Ari, in 2011 co-founded BetterDoctor, a comprehensive doctor data engine that powers the healthcare market with accurate doctor data. Today, BetterDoctor is part of Quest Analytics, a company that builds networks of doctors and is accessed by 200 million Americans each year. When not working Ari spends his time on the steep cliffs, powdery slopes, and big cold waves that only Northern California can offer. And, depending on the month, you may find him on some epic endurance adventure living off of the bare bone necessities, and we’ll get into that. In this interview, we get into Ari’s time growing up in Finland and Finnish culture, what it was like working on the cutting edge of mobile gaming at Nokia, BetterDoctor, and all things Elo and health optimization.

Timestamps

00:03:11 Growing up in Finland and traveling a lot

00:07:45 Finnish culture and happiness

00:11:47 Economy of Finland

00:16:22 What he was interested in doing for a career growing up

00:19:49 Working at VisualWeb and entrepreneurial spark

00:22:17 Working at British American Tobacco and key takeaways

00:27:48 Moving to the US to work at Nokia

00:31:23 Working on the cutting edge of mobile gaming

00:34:45 His perspective on smartphone addiction

00:39:06 Why he left Nokia

00:40:23 Inspiration to start BetterDoctor

00:43:40 What is was like to start a new company

00:46:22 Selling BetterDoctor

00:50:38 Biggest leadership lessons he learned at BetterDoctor & Quest Analytics

00:52:47 Did he accomplish what he wanted to at BetterDoctor?

00:54:06 When he started working on Elo

00:55:54 His world view that he's bringing to Elo

00:59:43 Elo today

01:04:05 The biomarkers they test

01:06:50 What's powering the recommendations behind Elo?

01:09:03 Elo's integration with wearables

01:10:01 Core customers and target market

01:12:22 Cost to use Elo

01:14:33 Ari's spartan month/week

01:17:13 Must-dos when visiting Finland

01:18:40 What he wants to accomplish 5 years from now

01:19:34 His daily routine

01:23:08 His driving force

01:24:47 Parting words of wisdom for the aspiring entrepreneur