Josh Clemente, Co-founder and President at Levels, talks about his experience at SpaceX, Levels' unique product launch strategy, correlation between glucose and insulin, building a remote-first culture, and the future of health monitoring technologies.
Levels focuses on continuous glucose monitoring to empower individuals in improving their metabolic health.
The culture at SpaceX emphasizes effective communication and extreme accountability.
Levels prioritizes constant iteration and customer interaction to develop key features and promote a personalized approach to optimizing nutrition and exercise.
Deep dives
The Origin of Levels
Levels was born out of the founder's personal experience with metabolic dysfunction and the realization that continuous glucose monitoring could empower individuals to take control of their health. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of metabolic health, further driving the development of the product.
Lessons from SpaceX
The culture at SpaceX emphasizes effective communication and extreme accountability. By avoiding acronyms and promoting clear and inclusive communication, everyone at the company can contribute regardless of their background or experience. The responsible engineer framework ensures that individuals take ownership of projects, resulting in faster progress and innovation.
Launching Levels and Shaping the Product
Levels initially focused on providing access to continuous glucose monitors and gathering user feedback to prototype the experience. Through constant iteration and customer interaction, key features like food logging, data comparison, and personalized insights were developed. The company emphasizes the importance of optimizing nutrition and exercise based on individual metabolic responses, challenging the assumptions based on elite athlete practices and promoting a personalized approach.
Importance of Metabolic Health
The podcast episode highlights the importance of metabolic health and its impact on overall well-being. It emphasizes that metabolic health is not fixed but can be improved through mindful actions. The episode discusses how metabolic health affects everyone, regardless of their current health status. It also explores the concept of metabolic fitness, encouraging individuals to focus on their day-to-day actions and make sustainable changes to improve their metabolic health. The episode further sheds light on the alarming rates of metabolic disorders, such as diabetes and prediabetes, emphasizing the need for increased attention and action to address this widespread issue.
Understanding Glucose, Insulin, and Nutrition
The podcast delves into the relationship between glucose, insulin, and nutrition in maintaining metabolic health. It explains that glucose is the primary source of energy for the body, but excessive and erratic fluctuations in blood sugar levels can lead to insulin resistance and its associated complications. The episode highlights the importance of consuming whole foods in their original state to ensure a slow and controlled breakdown of carbohydrates. It also emphasizes the significance of a balanced macronutrient profile, including protein and fat, and the order in which they are consumed to optimize blood sugar and insulin responses. The episode provides insights into the benefits of these dietary approaches in maintaining glucose control, improving insulin resistance, and supporting overall metabolic health.
In this video, we spoke with Josh Clemente, Founder and President of Levels. Josh gave us an exclusive insight into the early days at Space, collaborating with NASA and learning from Elon Musk.
Josh also talks about their unique product launch strategy in Levels, centered around constant product iterations and continuously speaking to customers. He is giving us insights on how one of the world's most successful metabolic health companies is running and insights on Glucose, Insulin, and many more.
Lastly, he addresses Level’s distinct asynchronous remote-first culture while maintaining its infamous responsible engineer framework.
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:03:40 - Early days at SpaceX, learning from Elon Musk
00:07:00 - Culture at SpaceX and Levels - using the responsible engineering framework
00:09:00 - How the Levels founding team was formed, and Josh being patient zero
00:13:30 - Product launch strategies and similarity to YC’s product launch philosophy
00:20:05 - How the first people learned about Levels and how Covid put them on the map
00:25:50 - Correlation between glucose and insulin and defining metabolism
00:41:50 - Building a unique culture at Levels and why they don’t use Slack
00:50:30 - First principles thinking and other mental models
00:54:20 - The future of hardware sensors Level’s 5-year plan
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More about Levels ► https://levelshealth.com/
More about Josh ► https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshclemente/
Levels Podcast ► https://www.levelshealth.com/podcasts
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The Site ► http://tryterra.co
More Podcasts ► https://blog.tryterra.co/podcast/home
Twitter ► https://twitter.com/terraapi
LinkedIn ► https://www.linkedin.com/company/terraapi
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