Dr. Steven Lu, Co-founder and CMO of Everlab, shares his journey from traditional healthcare to creating a proactive approach to health. He discusses the limitations of conventional medicine and how Everlab leverages AI and personalized diagnostics to empower individuals in preventative health. The conversation also highlights the importance of sleep quality, hydration, and emotional resilience in maintaining wellness, as well as the supportive community initiatives designed to foster a healthier lifestyle.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
From ICU Shock To Preventative Medicine
Dr Steven Lu moved from intensive care to GP training after seeing preventable late-stage illness. He retrained to build proactive, preventative care rather than only react in ICU settings.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Migrant Childhood Shaped Listening Skills
Steven spent primary school years in China and returned to Australia, which trained him to listen and perceive subtle cues. He credits this migrant childhood for sharpening empathy and attention in clinical work.
insights INSIGHT
Survival Is Not The Only Success Metric
ICU success is often measured as survival, but survival alone misses long-term quality of life. Lu realised preventing disease earlier yields far greater lifetime benefit than saving lives at crisis point.
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My guest for Ep217 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Dr. Steven Lu.
Dr. Steven Lu is the Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Everlab, Australia’s leading preventative health and longevity startups.
With over 15 years of clinical experience, Steven specialised in the prevention and management of complex medical conditions including heart attacks and strokes. After years of treating late-stage illness, he shifted focus to building a proactive model of healthcare, one that empowers people to catch risks early and take control of their long-term health.
That idea became Everlab.
Since launching, Everlab has scaled rapidly across Australia, combining full-body diagnostics, personalised blood testing, and AI-driven insights to make preventative healthcare more accessible and actionable.
The company recently closed a $15M AUD Seed round led by New York based Left Lane Capital. I was proud to continue backing Steven and the Everlab team through Playbook Ventures in this latest round.
In addition to our investment, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Steven through The Komo Club, where he’s a featured speaker in both Cohort 1 and 2. The Komo Club has also partnered with Everlab who support our members directly with DEXA scans, blood testing, and 1:1 medical consultations as part of their cohort experience.
In this episode, we discuss:
Steven’s transition from private practice to founding Everlab
The shortcomings of traditional healthcare and Everlab’s approach to solving them
The key health pillars every founder should build into their routine
How Steven manages his own health and family life while scaling a startup
Lessons from building a high-performance team in a highly regulated industry
& much more
Timestamps:
00:02:13 Steven explains his transition from ICU and private practice to preventative medicine
00:04:31 Migrant childhood between China and Australia builds empathy and listening skills
00:14:00 Night‑shift epiphany in ICU: “we could save more lives by intervening earlier”
00:29:45 Meeting Sam Kothari and transitioning from a boutique practice into a scalable startup
00:51:22 The three pillars: nutrition, movement, rest. Which is the highest‑ROI starting point
00:58:54 Chronic sleep debt in startup life, how to measure sleep quality with objective, subjective and behavioural data
01:09:48 Dangers of visceral fat and how to reduce it
01:30:00 Seed round validation: 40,000+ biomarker data points show significant member gains
01:34:25 Balancing a high‑growth mission with fatherhood: savoring scarce moments with kids
Our partners:
Thank you to Sam Kothari, Chai Ng and Kelly Huang for their help with research for this interview!
A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:
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