Spotlight — Vala is reengineering the way we think about human performance
It’s great to see our members embracing our latest new space — Techspace Shoreditch, and one of the first companies to move in was Vala, a digital healthcare company reengineering the way we think about and optimise human health and performance.
Rob Stevenson, Co-founder and CEO, explained that Vala has been a long time in the making and was born out of a desire to create a company that helps people to reach their full potential. We had a chat with Rob in our fancy new meeting rooms at Luke Street to find out more about their story and how they plan to grow.
What is Vala all about?
Our purpose is to help every member of our community reach their full potential. At our core, Vala is a group of individuals driven by a shared belief that living the best life possible can be achieved through honest reflection, clear objectives, consistent effort, incremental change, community support and trust in the scientific method. With these pillars in place you can achieve your full potential across the key dimensions of physical and mental health. We are working towards achieving our mission by becoming the leading providers of human performance optimisation services and building a community that supports and drives our mission forward.
Tell us a bit about Vala’s story.
My co-founder Dr. Niall Aye-Maung and his wife, Elaine, started the business and asked me to get involved after we were introduced through my wife, Sarah. Elaine taught Sarah, at St George’s medical school in Tooting. We knew we wanted to start a business together and brainstormed a number of ideas — for some time we even considered opening a coffee shop in Elephant and Castle — but then we sat down and thought about what we cared about and the impact we could have on the world. Having all had experience navigating healthcare systems around the world, we landed on a shared frustration: the bias towards the treatment of symptoms and not causes. We knew we wanted to build a business that focused on the prevention, rather than just the treatment of sickness and disease.
The initial product concept came out of a problem with primary care. My co-founder Niall works as a doctor for the British Army. During a tour in Afghanistan his son was unwell and Elaine was really struggling to get a GP appointment in the UK. Niall found himself giving his son consultations via video link in Afghanistan! Soon enough, Elaine’s friends were bringing their children to get advice from Niall. We had found a problem, and decided to build our business around this.
How does tech play a part at Vala?
Technology is fundamental to what we do — but I don’t believe in the concept of a tech company or for that matter any company that ignores the fact that it’s purpose is to deliver a human experience or solve a human problem. We use technology to help humans create a happy fulfilled life. To date we have developed a secure platform to allow people to login and see a counsellor, dietician, personal trainer, GP or physiotherapist. People are busy, and this way they can make secure video, chat or telephone appointments at their convenience.
It all started from this, but we also knew that we had to build a community — just providing convenience and access with technology is never going to be enough. For this reason we are now building a community to help our members stay on track, and to achieve optimal health and wellbeing.
What’s happening at the moment?
We’re still trying to work out the best way to acquire customers. We’re looking for the best channels to use, and are looking at identifying people that get the most value out of our service.
How has investment money helped you to grow?
We’re completely self-funded. To date we have developed our technology through partnerships but will, ultimately be bringing everything in house.
How has bootstrapping benefitted the business?
Our service is novel and in any instance where you are making a market customer adoption can be slow. We’ve certainly spent a long time looking for product market fit. Being self-funded has meant that we haven’t had to manage the expectations of outside investors. Although, equally, we haven’t had the benefit of a capital injection to grow our team and move more quickly. It’s swings and roundabouts.
What’s in the roadmap for the future?
The big thing we’re working on is making high performance testing more accessible to people. We want to offer testing that is usually only given to elite athletes to more people and more conveniently, so you can really understand how fit you are and where or where you are in your personal health journey.
Of course, we’re always looking for more people to help us deliver this, more counsellors, personal trainers etc.
What have been your biggest learnings?
It’s never too early to get a customer; onboard a customer before you have built anything. And don’t be afraid of making mistakes!
What’s the biggest struggle for scale-ups that you are facing?
Identifying the gaps and skills you have in your team — and filling those gaps. You might be really competent at the tech side, with no marketing skills. Leadership needs to identify where you need help, and not be ashamed or embarrassed to ask for help.
Trying to do everything is also struggle. Entrepreneurs are often go-getters who like to do everything — but this is an issue. You need to start saying no to things, and prioritising what to spend your time on.
How has Techspace been able to support your growth?
Techspace have been provided really nice offices for us. As Techspace is a growing team themselves, they share advice with us and we are learning from them. Techspace is also a customer, offering Vala as a health care benefit to all members — so they are trying our product and we’re getting useful feedback.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Stop trying to impress other people and set your own goals.
Find out more about our member community by exploring our other member Spotlights here.
