Idea
Repurpose a glucose monitor into a continuous cortisol (stress) monitor
Zelby, a mechanical engineer, took apart a Levels glucose sensor and realized the same enzyme-on-a-sensor approach could measure cortisol continuously — giving real-time stress feedback, including for parents wanting to know if their kid is stressed.
“And so you aren't going to get that real-time feedback of something is causing me a lot of stress, I need to just chill for a minute or take a deep breath. And so I think you could probably repurpose one of these continuous glucose monitors. When I posted about that, some people also brought up hormones like testosterone. Which I think could also be really interesting.”
Steal thisAdapt the cheap continuous glucose monitor's enzyme-sensor approach to continuously track cortisol or other hormones.
Number
Lululemon buys Mirror home gym for $500M
Shaan notes the in-home Mirror workout device sold to Lululemon for $500 million, a strong exit for a hard hardware-plus-new-behavior business, and frames it as the template a glucose-monitor company like Levels could follow.
$500M
Acquisition price of Mirror by Lululemon · USD
“So Mirror got bought by Lululemon yesterday, $500 million. And, you know, on the surface is like one of those really hard businesses. It's like Hardware, new behavior for customers, really expensive. And so you could see all these different ways that it was gonna fail. And this, this female founder who did it and the VCs who backed it, it paid off and it got bought by Lululemon for a really great exit.”
Framework
Shorten the feedback loop and you can win
Shaan's product heuristic: anytime you take something with a long feedback loop and make it immediate, that's the foundation of a great product. Glucose monitoring like Levels works because it shows fast how food affects your body.
“And I think in general, anytime you can take something that has a really long feedback loop and give people an immediate feedback loop, that's a— that's the foundation of a great product. Like, that's— if that's the only thing your product did, you can win.”
Steal thisFind a domain with a long feedback loop and build the product that makes the feedback immediate.