30. Josh Clemente: Founder and President of Levels talks finding the idea, metabolic health, SpaceX, and more

In this episode of Business Cloud hosted by Ryan Atkinson, Josh Clemente shares how he went from used car salesman to rocket ship engineer at SpaceX to founder of Levels. He explained why the Levels team cares about more than credentials, how he learned firsthand the difference between being physically fit and healthy, and why it’s important to follow your obsessions.

From a used car lot to SpaceX

Josh landed a SpaceX engineering job after graduation, which introduced him to a focus on human performance.

After three months from graduation, I was selling used cars and I finally got a call from the SpaceX recruiter and started six years of engineering there. And it was another education in and of itself, started to learn about mental models that include things like first principles thinking as opposed to just like industry thinking. And it was the time of my life. And from there, ultimately, I was able to lead a team that was developing pressurized astronaut life support systems. So it was things like oxygen breathing apparatus, the spacesuit hookups, the pressure controls for the spaceship capsule, just a lot of really interesting stuff that started to expose me to human performance. And it was there on that project that I actually first became exposed to metabolism as a concept that could be optimized. And that ultimately led me to what I’m doing now.

The importance of mentors

Some people can learn from books, and others learn by doing. When seeking out mentors, it’s not always an older/younger or novice/professional relationship.

There are kind of different spectrums of people, obviously, and all the different personality traits. Some people prefer to just kind of retreat into the information and learn on their own and others pick up information through kind of almost reverse engineering, watching other people. And I’m more of that type. I can definitely read a book and get the concepts, but to see it in action is completely different. And so for me personally, the way that my brain works, having people around that are willing mentors is just absolutely crucial. You know what I mean? And this says nothing about tenure. To be a mentor, you don’t have to be someone who’s completed an entire career and is retired or something like that. You can mentor each other on just specific passions and interests that you’ve developed over only a short period of time.

Building a team based on talent

At Levels, the definition of a rockstar team isn’t based on credentials and traditional qualifications.

At Levels, we are looking for the world-class people across each of the verticals that we have to execute it. And there’s a lot. We have metabolism and physiology, we have psychology and behavior change. We have the science of sensors and hardware and biosensing. All of these things, content and education – again, we aren’t qualificationists, we’re not, credentialists, we’re not looking for someone who is best in class on their resume. What we’re looking for are people who have built things before, demonstrations. They know how to take the theory and turn it into an actionable product that can be passed on and scaled. Yeah, that’s what we’re optimizing for is the sweet spot between, I think education, knowledge, knowledge capture, and execution and velocity.

Levels provides feedback in real-time

Most of us reach for the most convenient food at hand. When you can see the cost on your body, many people will begin to think twice.

Levels tells you how your food and lifestyle affect your health in as close real-time as possible. The way that we do this today is we take information from sensors like continuous glucose monitors, and we develop actionable insights on top of them. So you have this raw data coming out of a sensor that is telling you something about a molecule in your body. For most people, that molecule, that raw data has absolutely no context. All they know is, “These are numbers. What should I eat for lunch?” Right. Most of us sit down, you ask them, what are you going to eat for lunch and why? They come up with a blank stare or they say, “I’m going to eat this thing that I read on the Internet or something that my mom has always cooked for me or something that just tastes good.” Well, with this raw data that comes from the current generation of biological sensors, we can now build with sophisticated software a path to better decision making. So instead of just leaving people up to their own devices, to try and figure out what this data means or to just eat based off emotion or intuition, instead, you can have real-time feedback from your own body in as close to zero time as possible.

The difference between healthy and physically fit

Josh was very fit, but he wasn’t feeling healthy. The disconnect lay in metabolic health.

One day I just had this realization, I don’t feel healthy. Physically fit is one thing. Health is something entirely different. And so I had this moment where I just was, “I feel miserable mentally and physically, I am fatigued. I’m irritable. I don’t remember, honestly, the last time I felt good.” This was a surprising juxtaposition because the traditional assumptions I had were that, A, a calorie is a calorie, it doesn’t matter if it’s broccoli or Skittles. It’s the same. It’s just energy. And, B, that if you are a fit person because exercise equals health, then you are a healthy person. And so I was like, “I mean, I don’t have any extra weight. Doctor says everything’s good. Why am I not feeling great?” And that is the moment where everything changed for me. I started to explore metabolic health.

Don’t start measuring once something’s broken

An engineering mindset can be applied to more than just engineering. For example, why would you wait until your body breaks down to start tracking something like glucose?

I went to my doctor, I asked for a prescription for one of these CGM devices and he basically laughed me out of his office. He was just like, “That’s ridiculous. You are not diabetic.” And not only that but even if you were diabetic only for uncontrolled diabetes where an uncontrolled type two diabetes, when insulin is needed, do you ever need to consider a CGM. Other than that, you don’t need to care about glucose. And that doesn’t sound right. Just speaking with my engineer hat on when I develop systems that have to function. And when you’re hands-off in an environment where you can’t fix them, you don’t just not measure something until it breaks. You get as much data as possible about the health of that system continuously because you don’t want it to fail and you want to be able to see as it starts to break down as opposed to waiting and then trying to back out of a failure when that has already happened.

Metabolic health isn’t a light switch

Health is a spectrum. When you put in the right “reps,” you begin to set yourself up for long-term metabolic fitness.

Metabolic health is not either fast or slow or you’re not either metabolically healthy or unhealthy. In reality, it’s a spectrum of health, and everyone is somewhere on that spectrum. And just going to the gym and putting reps in to get stronger. If you are making the right decisions day after day with focus, effort, and repetition, you can improve your metabolic function as well. And so that’s why we refer to it as metabolic fitness. And that’s ultimately what Levels is intended to do.

Follow your obsessions

Josh finally decided to pursue the startup path when thoughts about glucose and health wouldn’t let go.

I started to just improve my meal selections just through trial having that data stream was the most insightful opportunity I ever had to make decisions and then improve them be based on data from that original decision. And so anyway, that whole process of trial and error ultimately led me to feeling significantly better and having just completely different glucose control. And that’s when I thought, “You know what, as much as I love working on high-speed tunnel transportation, I think I have to go work on this.” Because I’m just insanely obsessed with it. I was spending all night reading papers and just daydreaming about it. And so that was ultimately what I had to go do.

Success doesn’t happen overnight

Entrepreneurship can be a long and difficult journey. It took Josh two years before things with Levels started to really click and gain momentum.

It took me almost two years from the time that I left Hyperloop of being completely unemployed with no income stream, living off savings to ultimately have the very first positive development in the Levels story. And that is when I was able to get a co-founder to join me. Up until that point, it was just a solo, fairly lonely, and I would say slow-moving, somewhat disappointing experience. Right? And it was strictly the personal, I think, vindication that – not vindication, that’s the conviction that this is something that should exist that got me through it. I continued to use CGMs. I continued to learn from them. I continued to love that data stream and learn more and more from it. And that is the thing that got me to stick with it. It is just like that passion. And I definitely would’ve abandoned ship if it were something else.

The power of lifestyle choices

The truth is that major chronic conditions can be limited or prevented with the right lifestyle decisions early on.

People hear all these different labels and they think they’re different illnesses. Reality is that many, many, many of these, and in the US, on the order of 120 million cases are avoidable and preventable in the beginning. It’s just caused by chronic lifestyle choices. And our belief is that, people don’t want to be healthy, they just lack better information. They lack tangible information, right? It’s one thing to tell someone you need to eat healthier and work out more. It’s another thing to be able to say lunch one hour ago was not good for you. You should try to change that up, right? And to have your body tell you that. It’s a very different experience. And so that’s the goal of the company is to eventually get to the point where we have essentially immersed this technology into society in a way that it’s no longer assumed that it’s for either the biohacker who just has a lot of extra money to spend. And it’s a little toy for extra data or the person who has a serious diagnosis of some existing condition. That it is, it’s out there in a mainstream way.

Ryan Atkinson: Hey, everybody. My name’s Ryan Atkinson and you are on the Business Cloud. If you like entrepreneurship, health, stories, SpaceX, grit, fun, then this episode is seriously for you. We’re joined by Josh Clemente. Who’s the CEO and founder of Levels, which is unlocking metabolic health by the use of a CGM. And the way that Josh describes it is awesome. This dude has the sharpest mind I’ve interacted with. He was a great, great guest to have on just throughout his story on Levels is so cool. He would prick his finger 60 times a day, guys. That is I’m a diabetic, and that is crazy to me. So this was an awesome episode. I loved having Josh on this. It was a lot of fun to record.

Ryan Atkinson: You guys are definitely going to have to check out the Levels health blog that even plugs at the end. And it’ll also be in the description. And if you have as much fun listening to this episode, as I did recording it, please press follow, please press subscribe. It really does mean a lot to me. And I know just Josh is going to do awesome things and I’m really excited for him and Levels. So let’s jump in the episode. Let’s hear more about Josh and Levels. So, Josh, thank you so much for joining us.

Josh Clemente: All right. Thanks a lot for having me on. I’m excited to jump into this stuff that I care quite a bit about, and I know you do too.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah, I’m super excited to… Yeah. Talk all things, CGMs, blood sugar, and how you started this. Before you start, I got to ask you our fun question. So what is something that you’re happy to splurge on money-wise, something that you’re just happy, “I’ll probably spend a few more bucks than I should.”?

Josh Clemente: The two things, because I can’t limit it to one, are food and books.

Ryan Atkinson: Oh, I love that.

Josh Clemente: Yeah. Food, it’s something that’s changed over time. I used to be the type that would just whatever’s the cheapest, I will buy it no matter what rock bottom price is. That’s I took pride in living on $40 a week of groceries or whatever. And now I’m the opposite. Obviously, stage of life matters. I’m not a college kid anymore, but I will splurge on the nicer ingredients that come from sources that I understand. And then books. I think somebody somewhere, it might have been Paul Graham, he just said, “Give yourself an unlimited book budget relative to your income and you will never regret it.” And I took that to heart. And so now if somebody recommends a book, I buy it and…

Ryan Atkinson: I love it.

Josh Clemente: … happy to get that knowledge and also to contribute to people who put in thousands of time more I think of their life into the information than I will.

Ryan Atkinson: That’s what I, honestly, love about books is someone could spend thousands of hours doing a bunch of research and it takes you 10 hours to read it. It’s phenomenal. I love it.

Josh Clemente: That’s right. Yeah, exactly. It’s the best source of information.

Ryan Atkinson: That is for sure. But I want to turn over the floor to you. Can you give us a quick introduction about who you are and why I’m so excited to have you?

Josh Clemente: Yeah, my background is mechanical engineering. I have a focus in heat transfer and sort of systems engineering, but I started off as a mechanical engineer. I wanted to work on cars, tried to get a job at Tesla after school. I was obsessed with vehicles as a kid growing up. And Tesla, honestly, just couldn’t fit me in there. I got an internship and they basically turned me away and were like, “We’re moving our design offices.” And so on a whim, I just asked for help. I was like, “Well, how do I confirm that I have a spot waiting for me?” And they’re like, “Well, we can’t do that. But if you want to work at another Elon company like SpaceX is looking for engineers.” And that seemed like a stretch. I mean, I was… Again, I just did not think that I had aerospace in me. I was just a mechanical engineer.

Josh Clemente: So I figured I might as well go for it, applied, worked every angle I could to get introductions and recommendations in there. And finally, after three months from graduation, I was selling used cars and I finally got a call from the SpaceX recruiter and started six years of engineering there. And it was another education in and of itself, started to learn about mental models that include things like first principles thinking as opposed to just like industry thinking.

Ryan Atkinson: So cool.

Josh Clemente: Yeah. And it was the time of my life. And from there, ultimately, I was able to lead a team that was developing pressurized astronaut life support systems. So it was things like oxygen breathing apparatus, the spacesuit hookups, the pressure controls for the spaceship capsule, just a lot of really interesting stuff that started to expose me to human performance. And it was there on that project that I actually first became exposed to metabolism as a concept that could be optimized. And that ultimately led me to what I’m doing now.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. I love that. And so how did you learn? So you come from mechanical background, mechanical engineering background, and didn’t really know a lot about the aerospace industry. How did you learn in the industry?

Josh Clemente: The nice thing about the environment of SpaceX is that it is not a credentialist environment, meaning…

Ryan Atkinson: Okay.

Josh Clemente: There was actually someone who I really look up to who was a geologist by training. And that-

Ryan Atkinson: Interesting.

Josh Clemente: And that was designing the main structure of the rocket bodies at SpaceX. And the way that happens is just somebody at SpaceX is like, “Look, I need help on this project. And I know this person who, despite what they look like on paper is amazing at this. Can we please consider him for a position?” And then that person gets evaluated, they come in, they work hard, they demonstrate that they can do it. And no one really ever cares whether or not they have a PhD or a master’s degree in structural engineering. And so that is… That’s kind of how it goes is that being a green, mechanical engineer, but having just a complete obsession with what we were doing. And really being immersed in the expertise around me was key.

Josh Clemente: It’s just like spending a lot of hours there, paying attention, or asking help from people who know it better than I do. Basically, trying to get office hours with other engineers at the company is how I learned. And you basically pick it up by osmosis and over time you start to see how other people are doing things to save themselves a lot of effort that might be collaboration, you take a little of their work, they take a little of yours, so you can make it easy on each other. But at the end of the day, it’s just… I think it all comes down to the environment that rewards effort as opposed to qualifications.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. And that brings up a question that I had in mind. How important is surrounding yourself with people that are so helpful or so ambitious or so hardworking? How has that helped you and your development?

Josh Clemente: It’s everything. I mean, I think there’s a certain degree of… There are kind of different spectrums of people, obviously, and all the different personality traits. Some people prefer to just kind of retreat into the information and learn on their own and others pick up information through kind of almost reverse engineering, watching other people. And I’m more of that type. I can definitely read a book and get the concepts, but to see it in action is completely different.

Josh Clemente: And so for me personally, the way that my brain works, having people around that are willing mentors is just absolutely crucial. You know what I mean? And this says nothing about tenure. To be a mentor, you don’t have to be someone who’s completed an entire career and is retired or something like that. You can mentor each other on just specific passions and interests that you’ve developed over only a short period of time. And so having a tight group of friends that spend a lot of time working on interesting problems, even across industries is a really great way to develop intuition and knowledge in spaces that you don’t work in. And that’s kind of what I’ve realized and learned in my own life is that I really want to surround myself with people who are motivated, passionate about not just learning but also sharing that information.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. And I know we have really haven’t talked about Levels but at Levels is that who you’re surrounding yourself? Is it really that critical point on A-players that are going to help you and help the company grow? Or is that kind of a mindset you have with finding the company?

Josh Clemente: Yeah, absolutely. The team is everything. So SpaceX has achieved a ton of amazing things and it’s not Elon who… Elon is a great leader, honestly.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah.

Josh Clemente: But has to, and he does understand that the team is how these things get accomplished. And so he has to motivate people to align with the mission and then work really, really hard to get it done. And so that’s I think that holds true across every major achievement that is happening amongst teams is that it’s greater than the sum of its parts. And so at Levels, we are looking for the world-class people across each of the verticals that we have to execute it. And there’s a lot. We have metabolism and physiology, we have psychology and behavior change.

Josh Clemente: We have the science of sensors and hardware and biosensing.

Ryan Atkinson: Amazing.

Josh Clemente: All of these things, content and education… And so we… Although again, we aren’t qualificationists, we’re not, credentialists, we’re not looking for someone who is best in class on their resume. What we’re looking for are people who have built things before, demonstrations. They know how to take the theory and turn it into an actionable product that can be passed on and scaled. Yeah, that’s what we’re optimizing for is the sweet spot between, I think education, knowledge, knowledge capture, and execution and velocity.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. Honestly, got to say this already, you’re talking, I’m chills. You are very sharp-minded I can tell. And you’re saying concepts that are like, what in the world, but I have to… We have to ask, what is Levels Health? I should have asked this before because I have thousands of questions to follow after that one. So what is Levels Health? How would you come with that? What is it?

Josh Clemente: Yeah. So Levels, I like to summarize it as… Levels tells you how your food and lifestyle affect your health in as close real-time as possible. The way that we do this today is we take information from sensors like continuous glucose monitors, and we develop actionable insights on top of them. So you have this raw data coming out of a sensor that is telling you something about a molecule in your body. For most people, that molecule, that raw data has absolutely no context. All they know is, “These are numbers. What should I eat for lunch?” Right. Most of us sit down, you ask them, what are you going to eat for lunch and why? They come up with a blank stare or they say, “I’m going to eat this thing that I read on the Internet or something that my mom has always cooked for me or something that just tastes good.” Well, with this raw data that comes from the current generation of biological sensors, we can now build with sophisticated software a path to better decision making.

Josh Clemente: So instead of just leaving people up to their own devices, to try and figure out what this data means or to just eat based off emotion or intuition, instead, you can have real-time feedback from your own body in as close to zero time as possible. And so to summarize, Levels builds feedback loops based on biological sensors, to tell you how to build your lifestyle. And it is personalized to the individual. Today, we are a full program that includes telehealth access to continuous glucose sensors, including a prescription consultation with a physician. And then you get access to not only those sensor devices, but then the Levels software suite that sits on top of it and provides you with a full month of sort of guided exploration of how your body responds to the choices you’re making across nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress. And then helps you sort of reformulate your choices in those areas in order to achieve better metabolic health, optimization, ideally over a long period of time.

Ryan Atkinson: I love that. So what health decisions, you say, you’re being more conscious making decisions because what I’m having for lunch, I know how it affects me. What health decisions have you seen yourself change and people that have used this? What changes have they made because they’ve been on Levels?

Josh Clemente: So when I started out on this kind of journey that ultimately led here, I was working at SpaceX. I was kind of burning the fuse at all ends at the same time, essentially.

Ryan Atkinson: Geez.

Josh Clemente: I really wanted to succeed. So I was really working all the time. I didn’t sleep much. I ate whatever I could get my hands on and-

Ryan Atkinson: Cheap. Whatever is cheap.

Josh Clemente: Yeah, exactly. Well, SpaceX at that time, they provided a lot of meals, but I’ve always had a sweet tooth. As someone who… I was also a CrossFit trainer, I’m still a CrossFit trainer. Somebody who has always been fairly physically fit, I can say that I think pretty confidently, but has not ever had an issue with weight gain. I basically ate whatever was in front of me.

Josh Clemente: And I would literally eat candy for dinner at periods of time in my life. I’m embarrassed to say. But all of this kind of eventually built up to a point where one day I just had this realization, I don’t feel healthy. Physically fit is one thing. Health is something entirely different. And so I had this moment where I just was, “I feel miserable mentally and physically, I am fatigued. I’m irritable. I don’t remember, honestly, the last time I felt good.” And-

Ryan Atkinson: Wow.

Josh Clemente: This was a surprising juxtaposition because the traditional assumptions I had were that, A, a calorie is a calorie, it doesn’t matter if it’s broccoli or Skittles. It’s the same. It’s just energy. And, B, that if you are a fit person because exercise equals health, then you are a healthy person.

Josh Clemente: And so I was like, “I mean, I don’t have any extra weight. Doctor says everything’s good. Why am I not feeling great?” And that is the moment where everything changed for me. I started to explore metabolic health. By the way, for those that are listening and we keep throwing this word metabolic around. Metabolism is often thought of as fast or slow metabolism how quickly you digest and process your food. The reality is metabolism is all of the processes that occur in your cells to turn your food and your environment into energy, right? So it’s everything you’re exposed to the sunlight, the water, you drink, the food that you eat, that all has to turn into energy. Every cell in your body needs energy to effectively to perform. And so metabolic health means how well are your cells accomplishing that task?

Josh Clemente: How well are they, how efficient are they at taking the fuel you give them and turning them into energy? And so that was my issue is. I thought, “Okay, something’s wrong with my energy systems” because the primary symptom I had was just extreme fatigue. And I started to explore the literature what is involved in metabolism? Okay, glucose. Glucose is the primary energy molecule for the modern human that’s what most of our cells run on. So I started measuring my glucose, using a little finger stick thing, pricking my finger, and tracking it in an Excel spreadsheet. It’s kind of crazy. Yeah.

Ryan Atkinson: Well, that’s sick. I like that. I love that.

Josh Clemente: So that’s how it all started. And I was just trying to look for anything. I didn’t really didn’t know what I was looking for, but just first start with the data.

Josh Clemente: And so over time, I started to develop a data set. It didn’t really make any sense. It just kind of clouds of measurements. And then I read this book called Wired to Eat. And in the book, Robb Wolf describes a continuous glucose monitor. And so this is a sensor I had never heard of this before. It was developed for the management of diabetes. And it gives you a continuous data stream of your glucose. And I mean, it was just light bulb moment. I was like, “Oh, man, that is what I need immediately.” Because I’m basically, I’m kind of doing that myself, except it’s not continuous. I’m pricking my finger and bleeding on strips every couple minutes.

Ryan Atkinson: But it’s all automated.

Josh Clemente: Exactly. It’s automated. It’s so convenient. So I went to my doctor, I asked for a prescription for one of these CGM devices and he basically laughed me out of his office.

Josh Clemente: He was just like, “That’s ridiculous. You are not diabetic.” And not only that but even if you were diabetic only for uncontrolled diabetes where an uncontrolled type two diabetes, when insulin is needed, do you ever need to consider a CGM. Other than that, you don’t need to care about glucose. And that was… That doesn’t sound right. Just speaking with my engineer hat on when I develop systems that have to function… And when you’re hands off, right, in an environment where you can’t fix them. You don’t just not measure something until it breaks. You get as much data as possible about the health of that system continuously because you don’t want it to fail and you want to be able to see as it starts to break down as opposed to waiting and then trying to back out of a failure when that has already happened. That’s unlikely to work.

Josh Clemente: And so I was just like, “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would you wait until something’s failed, right?” Anyway, to make this whole long story short, the ultimate realization was that these devices are… They provide the most valuable data stream that I had ever come across. I put one on and within two weeks I had enough data to know that I was spending significant portions of my time in the pre-diabetic blood sugar zones. And this was all driven by my decisions, by my lifestyle. Effectively, the meals I was eating, the poor sleep or lack thereof, and the other lifestyle choices like drinking in nearly an entire pot of coffee every single day. These were driving me into this hyper stressed, high blood sugar, and sort of blood sugar variability zone. And it only came about that I understood this through just reading papers, digging into primary research.

Josh Clemente: And I just had this moment where I thought, A, this technology’s incredible and it’s really hard to get your hands on. And, B, once you do get it, the data is not really actionable. It’s very opaque. And there’s an opportunity here, I think, to truly scale the opportunity for every person to achieve better metabolic fitness. And I say metabolic fitness because, I said a few minutes ago, metabolic health is not either fast or slow or you’re not either metabolically healthy or unhealthy. In reality, it’s a spectrum of health, and everyone is somewhere on that spectrum. And just going to the gym and putting reps in to get stronger. If you are making the right decisions day after day with focus, effort, and repetition, you can improve your metabolic function as well. And so that’s why we refer to it as metabolic fitness. And that’s ultimately what Levels is intended to do.

Ryan Atkinson: Well, I must give you props because pricking your finger 60 times a day, I hate doing it twice. I’m a diabetic. And when I have to prick my finger, it’s , “Oh, my God, this is so archaic, why am I back? This is 200.” So to get all that data is amazing, hats off, claps to you. I mean-

Josh Clemente: It’s a little bit crazy. I admit.

Ryan Atkinson: So were you still at SpaceX when you were getting all this data for yourself? Understanding why… Okay. And then my question to that is, so how did you ultimately decide to take that step into, “I’m going to solve this problem and leave SpaceX?” That’s a crazy decision to make, isn’t it? That’s crazy.

Josh Clemente: Yeah. It is crazy in retrospect, but actually, the timeline was quite a bit longer. I finished up my, the most extreme part of my project at SpaceX after about six years. And I had this opportunity to go work on another startup, which I did on and off for several years. And then I also had this opportunity to work in Hyperloop. So I kind of… I decided that I was going to go branch out and try to be entrepreneurial even before I left SpaceX. I was like, “All right, I’m going to go do this because I could see myself working at SpaceX forever, but I want to make sure that I gave this entrepreneurship thing a shot.” And, actually, at that time, I had not worn a CGM yet.

Josh Clemente: I had only been pricking my finger while I was at SpaceX. I then went to… I went out and I worked on the startup project and I also spent a year at Hyperloop and it was then I finally was able to get a doctor to… Well, actually, a doctor did not prescribe me. A friend of mine went to Australia where these devices are over the counter. And he brought back a CGM, which I was able to borrow from him or use actually because they are disposable. And that was the only way I could get a CGM. And that experience, now several years on, from when I started pricking my finger was the light bulb moment. It was when, after all of this effort, after pricking my finger 60 times a day, but not having any realizations, that’s when I realized, “Wow, I actually have pretty dysfunctional glucose levels.

Josh Clemente: I mean, it’s not so bad that I’m near a diabetes diagnosis, but it is entirely my fault. I’m driving these glucose variability, this roller coaster that I’m riding, which by the way, the large peaks are not what I was feeling. It’s the crashes that came after them that’s synced up with my fatigue. Right? And so I started to just improve my meal selections just through trial having that data stream was the most insightful opportunity I ever had to make decisions and then improve them be based on data from that original decision. And so anyway, that whole process of trial and error ultimately led me to feeling significantly better and having just completely different glucose control. And that’s when I thought, “You know what, as much as I love working on high-speed tunnel transportation, I think I have to go work on this.” Because I’m just insanely obsessed with it. I was spending all night reading papers and just daydreaming about it. And so that was ultimately what I had to go do.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. I mean, I have 30 questions that come off of that, but that’s what I want to ask next is, so is that when entrepreneurs, you think should really take that next step is of like, “I can’t get this idea off my mind. I need to actually go pursue this,” like you did or what are your thoughts on that?

Josh Clemente: I personally… And this is a bit biased because that’s my experience. I think that’s necessary. And the reason I say that is that it is impossible to predict what is coming next when you make that decision. You’re riding a high, it’s very similar to riding a high where you’re just like, “This is a complete obsession. I love this space. I love this idea. I’m convinced it’s going to work.” And you decide to jump off the ledge, whatever that is, whether that’s leaving Hyperloop or what have you. And then time starts to go by. And progress is slower than you would hoped. And things are complicated in a way that you hadn’t predicted. And if you… I truly believe… It took me almost two years from the time that I left Hyperloop of being completely unemployed with no income stream, living off savings to ultimately have the very first positive development in the Levels story.

Josh Clemente: And that is when I was able to get a co-founder to join me. Up until that point, it was just a solo, fairly lonely, and I would say slow-moving, somewhat disappointing experience. Right? And it was strictly the personal, I think, vindication that… Not vindication, that’s the conviction that this is something that should exist that got me through it. I continued to use CGMs. I continued to learn from them. I continued to love that data stream and learn more and more from it. And that is the thing that got me to stick with it. It is just like that passion. And I definitely would’ve abandoned ship if it were something else. And so that’s just my perspective. I think it’s possible to do in other ways but probably much more challenging.

Ryan Atkinson: Did you expect entrepreneurship to be like that lonely at the beginning or…

Josh Clemente: No, I’m kind of a… I have the perception that is often it’s the grass is always green or sort of perception. So I certainly was like, “Oh, yeah, I’m just going to go start a company and it’s going to be fantastic. And we’re going to achieve this great goal.” And then I went after that. And I think that when the rubber hits the road, as a solo individual, you can start to get, I think pretty quickly distracted in a way that is much harder if you have a team. So this is one of the challenging things about being a solo entrepreneur is that there are a lot of shiny objects. You haven’t really structured your thoughts, you haven’t mapped the surface of the things you need to achieve to get to your goal. And so I spent a lot of time chasing down rabbit holes of business and legal requirements, regulations that… Having someone else to really be at your side, helping you gauge priority would probably have helped me avoid some of that.

Josh Clemente: So, yeah. It’s like you’re almost in an echo chamber of one. So it’s really important, I think as quickly as possible to, A, get feedback from people who you trust and then, B, start building the team. You really have to do that quickly.

Ryan Atkinson: Mm-hmm (affirmative) I love that. And I just got the notification on my phone that my blood sugar’s going high actually. It’s been good all day, but it’s just going high now. But I have to ask you, who is your guys’ target on this? I mean, you’re at pre-diabetic levels because of lifestyle choices, who is your guy, that’s target consumer on this?

Josh Clemente: Well, the goal of the company is to solve the metabolic health crisis. And I call it a crisis because it is currently, globally growing at an increasing rate. So the number of people… And this is specifically avoidable chronic illness. So metabolic health underlies all of the cells in your body need to be able to function optimally or well in order to stay healthy. And so as that process starts to break down, lots of different tissues are affected. So when we say chronic illness, we’re not just talking about diabetes, type two diabetes, by the way, we’re also talking about heart disease, we’re talking about Alzheimer’s and dementia, which are on the rise. Alzheimer’s is being called type three diabetes today because of the insulin resistance in the brain.

Josh Clemente: We’re talking about stroke, we’re talking about amputations and blindness. There’s all of these downstream effects. And this is truly a crisis. It’s just that we call it by a bunch of different things. So people hear all these different labels and they think they’re different illnesses. Reality is that many, many, many of these, and in the US, on the order of 120 million cases are avoidable and preventable in the beginning. It’s just caused by chronic lifestyle choices. And our belief is that, people don’t want to be healthy, they just lack better information. They lack tangible information, right? It’s one thing to tell someone you need to eat healthier and work out more. It’s another thing to be able to say lunch one hour ago was not good for you. You should try to change that up, right? And to have your body tell you that. It’s a very different experience.

Josh Clemente: And so that’s the goal of the company is to eventually get to the point where we have essentially immersed this technology into society in a way that it’s no longer assumed that it’s for either the biohacker who just has a lot of extra money to spend. And it’s a little toy for extra data or the person who has a serious diagnosis of some existing condition. That it is, it’s out there in a mainstream way where it’s as common to see someone monitoring their biological health or their metabolic health, as it is today, to see someone with a step counter or a heart rate monitor. In my opinion, they’re fundamentally the same. It is you learning from you.

Ryan Atkinson: That’s what I love about Levels is it gives you that conscious decision of, “Okay, I just had pancakes for breakfast and now at 10:00 I feel like crap.” Because, for example, last night my blood sugar is shot up, and I just feel like crap. And so these people that they don’t have this monitor on them they can’t really tell. I mean, that’s going to be life-changing in a way of understanding, “Okay, I can’t make these lifestyle decisions anymore.”

Josh Clemente: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s so interesting because it can kind of be a lot of people think it’s very intuitive. They’re like, “Oh, yeah, of course, if you eat a bag of candy, your blood sugar’s going to go through the roof.” Well, I knew that abstractly, right? I knew that from biochemistry or whatever, but I didn’t actually know it until I ate what was actually just brown rice or a sweet potato and saw the way that my blood sugar responded to that. I mean, that was such a learning moment for me. And I described my sweet tooth earlier. I have not touched candy since that first CGM experience. And that is something that if you had told my family that would happen, I mean, I was such an obsessed candy eater, they would never believe it.

Josh Clemente: And the reality is that I saw the degree to which my body was affected by what I thought were very healthy complex carbohydrates. And I knew intuitively, okay, a couple Skittles, which are just pure sugar, just pure refined sugar, going straight to bloodstream is a disaster. And for someone like me who does have cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease that run in my family, I’m optimizing for both the long-term and the short-term. I don’t want these crashes and this fatigue that I’m experiencing. So I want to improve these roller coasters I’m riding. But at the same time, I want to make the decision that’s going to keep me healthy in the long term. I don’t know what’s coming in life, and I just want to optimize.

Josh Clemente: And I think everyone experiences that same thing when they see the data, it’s… And I’m not, by the way, correlating food or cigarettes but if a smoker could see the effect on their lungs of each cigarette, I don’t think smoking would be as common. It’s the fact that you can kick the can down the road that allows that to continue being a habit. And I think this is somewhat similar. It’s similar in concept where we can shine a light on each of those little micro-decisions and show you potentially what is a better option instead.

Ryan Atkinson: I love that. Yes. And for all the entrepreneurs listen out there, maybe that is a business idea where you can actually quantify how bad cigarettes are for you, Levels is doing it for food. But that’s with rice, I used to eat rice for lunch. For lunch, I always have chicken, spinach, and carrots, but I used to have rice in there, but I took it out because my blood sugar, after it would spike. And so when people are able to see that data, I think that there will be conscious decisions made on, “Okay, I should not be doing this again.” And that’s what I love what Levels is trying to solve.

Josh Clemente: Yeah. You know, it’s funny that the rice thing it’s, some people seem to do quite well with it but for the most part, rice is just… It’s a processed grain. And it breaks down quite quickly. And what’s amazing is for people like yourself who have had diabetes for a long time and have had this data stream, it’s all almost like second nature now. And I love that because it’s a demonstration of exactly what we want to achieve for the whole population. And historically, these devices have been hard to get, they’ve been complicated and expensive. And the beauty I think of what we are trying to achieve is that by opening up the technology to the entirety of the population, as opposed to a small subset that have a condition like type one, we’ll be able to unlock the mechanisms of economies of scale. So the supply and demand changes dramatically.

Josh Clemente: And when you’re talking about literally 100X, the number of potential people or a 1000X unit economics start to change, right? If you can make that happen and you have a price-conscious consumer who now purchasing that product, it creates downward price pressure.

Josh Clemente: And I think eventually, it makes this technology, which is, I can only imagine, how beneficial it’s been to the type one community.

Ryan Atkinson: Oh, yeah.

Josh Clemente: We can make it that much better, that much more available, that much more affordable. And that’s our goal is we do not intend to interfere it in any way. We only want positive benefits for this technology and for everyone who needs it in the long term, I think everyone with diabetes, of course, I mean, it’s… In my opinion, it is unbelievable that there is any person who is managing diabetes without a CGM. I don’t understand how it’s possible. It’s the most impressive thing. Yeah, I want to make sure that that happens and more that anyone who wants to learn about their bodies and potentially avoid preventable type two or just wants to feel better has access to the tech.

Ryan Atkinson: Yeah. Before I got my CGM I’m on Dexcom. So I got my CGM about two years ago, actually this July and before my A1C is probably at 11, which is awful. Now it’s at six, which is pretty manageable.

Josh Clemente: That’s amazing.

Ryan Atkinson: But that is one thing that I love about Levels is, you guys are really, I want to say, kind of catapulting the industry into such a data-driven decision world for CGMs. And that’s one thing that I’ve got to applaud to you because the data you get from your Dexcom apps now, it’s great, but you’re not able to make and conscious decisions. And now that Levels able to provide that, I mean, it’s awesome.

Josh Clemente: Yeah. I think it’s… If you think about heart rate and heart rate variability, for example. The sensors that measure those metrics are, they’re like little LED… They’re optical measurements, right? And what is interesting is that technology was developed 30 years ago. It was originally used in hospitals to monitor patients and then in the lab for research. And it took a very long time but eventually, they became commoditized. It became readily accessible. And what’s interesting is you look at a WHOOP or an Aura or an Apple watch and what makes them an extremely valuable product that helps people understand the effects of exercise and the quality of their sleep is the software. It’s the behavior change experience that takes that raw data and leads you to a conclusion.

Josh Clemente: It does the analysis for you and just tells you more about it. That’s what Levels wants to do for the raw data coming from the CGM is exactly what’s happening with heart rate and heart rate variability. You take this little [multicent 00:33:36], whatever it is, sensor package, and turns it into an experience that is a durable good that people want and love using day after day. And that’s the direction I think… It’s great that the hardware has been developed to the degree it has. The software has historically lagged, and we have a great opportunity to change that.

Ryan Atkinson: I love it. And we are winding down on time. I could talk to you for five hours straight. But two more questions for you real quick. If you could have one person to market your company, be an endorser, an ambassador for you, who would it be?

Josh Clemente: Ooh, that’s a great question.

Ryan Atkinson: I’m going to send him a clip right after this.

Josh Clemente: I would have to say Robin from Peloton, Robin Arzon. So she is a killer trainer. She’s got an amazing persona and, in history, she’s also type one- and she-

Ryan Atkinson: Ooh, I don’t know that.

Josh Clemente: … crushes it. Yeah. And so she’s familiar with CGM. I think it’s just a really powerful role model for fitness and has a ton of followers and in for good reason because she leads people to better health. So it would be awesome to have her on our team, I would say.

Ryan Atkinson: I love that. And then last question, just a holistic question. If you could go back and give yourself advice so, when you were young 20s, I know you were very zen back then too, but what would it be?

Josh Clemente: Good question. There would be a lot. I think I would have to… Hopefully, I would have a heads up so I could…

Ryan Atkinson: Eat healthier, eat healthier?

Josh Clemente: Yeah. Hand over a book. Yeah. It would probably be something, we talked about it at the beginning, the types of people to surround yourself with.

Ryan Atkinson: Awesome. I love it.

Josh Clemente: Yeah. I would probably give myself some recommendations to find people who are doing things that are impressive relative to the others in their field. And I think that’s typically related to rate of change, velocity, how quickly they accomplish things and spend time with them. You know what I mean? They’re really smart people who have a lot of information, but what I think is most important is how is that information being translated into outcomes. And so find the people who are doing that process and they’re typically not the best in their field. They probably have a lot of people to lean on for that, but they are certainly the best at getting stuff done.

Ryan Atkinson: I love that. Josh, thank you so much for joining us. You were awesome. You were very sharp-minded. I could just tell right away. I was holy smokes this dude, this dude’s got something going on.” But, Josh, where can people find you? Or where can people check out the website? Can you just plug all that forces for that?

Josh Clemente: Totally. Yeah. Right now the best place is levelshealth.com. The blog is a great place to start. By the way, if you want to learn more about our company-

Ryan Atkinson: It is good. It is very good.

Josh Clemente: I love that. You’ve been in there. One of the core components of what we’re trying to do is educate people about what metabolic health is, metabolic fitness, and then why it’s relevant. So start with the blog. I think it’s a great place. We love feedback on it. And then you can also find us at Levels on Instagram and Twitter. And we’re currently in a closed beta. So we’re still developing our software. We’re still getting closer to launch but please reach out, sign up for the waitlist or the newsletter and we will be in touch. And then you can follow me at Joshuasforrest with two Rs on Twitter.

Ryan Atkinson: Perfect. Everybody, that was an awesome episode. Josh, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so so much. That was a great episode.

Josh Clemente: Ryan, thanks a lot for having me on, man. I appreciate the, A, awareness that you have of what we’re building and then also just the really insightful questions.

Ryan Atkinson: Perfect. Thank you, Josh, so much.

Josh Clemente: Thank you.