An article from the the future... (2025 to be more specific!)
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend a life-changing event called Summit at Sea and while aboard I had the chance to meet and listen to Eric Ryan (founder of Method Home and Olly.) The concept for this "article written from the future" was something Eric did at Method and that is where the idea came from...
The Christmas and Holiday Season has always been my favorite time of year… Growing up, my family would also have a big Christmas Party and those events still stand out to me as some of the best times of life, being able to spend time with family and friends while the rest of the world seemed to be on hold for a few days; I did then and still do see these couple of weeks as an amazing opportunity to unwind a bit and prepare for the year ahead.
This particular holiday season is a bit special for us, here at Ladder, as it marks that 10th holiday season we’ve been able to share together… I find myself reflecting on the past decade’s successes and failures and it really has been an amazing journey. To say that the past 10 years have gone as we had expected them to go, would be drastically inaccurate, but it has been an amazing ride and we are tremendously grateful for the time we have spent together, the people we have worked with and the customers whom we have served.
When we started Ladder, in June of 2015, we knew that we were entering a space that was rapidly evolving, but there would have been no way for us to really understand what the future would hold. Above all, what I am most proud of is the ethos that we have been able to build as an entity that has staunchly guarded our core values, in everything that we do. We have done our very best to epitomize the type of organization that my co-founders and I wanted to build, from the very beginning. Below is a list of our initial core values and it is remarkable to me that though so much has changed, these have not and still remain integral beacons constantly guiding us towards our north star of helping people find happiness through health and wellness:
November 22nd, 2015
1. A TEAM is always stronger than the sum of its parts
2. There are always winners and losers, COMPETE
3. Know that HARD WORK is just the bare minimum
4. Convey PASSION in everything you do
5. Stay LOYAL to the team, our customers and our partners
6. Give people the benefit of the doubt and always ASSUME POSITIVE INTENT
7. Maintain OPTIMISM, even during the most trying times
8. Take ACCOUNTABILITY for both the good and the bad
9. CONFIDENCE is a choice, prepare to have it
10. Maintain a sense of perspective and always act with INTEGRITY
11. Understand the importance of GRIT and always embrace it
Though our core values have not changed, a lot of other things have… Starting out with just the 5 of us in a small office in South Boston, MA and growing to what is now a collective team of 1,645 employees between Boston, Nashville, San Francisco, London and Vancouver and over 270,000 “producers” who use our platform on a daily basis to put our customers in the best possible position to succeed.
Our producers have evolved from individual health and wellness professionals, offering a digital coaching service, to a formidable ecosystem of both individuals and companies. Collectively, we have over 1,190 specializations of physicians, therapists, coaches and practitioners creating a holistic team of preventive health experts who proudly serve our close to 4,000,000 active users, through a wide variety of both in-person and virtual services, fully integrated with our product marketplace and data repository.
Again, there really would have been no way for us to fully understand where the company would go, but any successes that we’ve had have been a true reflection of our firm commitment to epitomize our core values and work, unwaveringly, towards our sole mission of helping people find happiness through health and wellness. Hindsight is always 20/20 and its fun to look back at what we had initially envisioned and see how our original plan looked, in comparison to the reality that has been the last 10 years! Below is a brief memo, from November of 2015, articulating Ladder’s NOW, NEXT and FUTURE and surprisingly this vision hasn’t been all that different from what has actually happened.
November 20th, 2015
NOW- We’re going to own the digital coaching/behavior modification space, within the health and wellness vertical. Though we aren’t first to market, we offer a better service at a far more affordable price… while driving significantly greater value to our producer group and tying in a gatekeeper group that enables us to access a significant acquisition channel that is not available to our competition.
NEXT- Once we establish a certain level of scale, relative to digital coaching (our initial core transaction) we’ll start to own more of the in-person transactions. Phasing consumers into digital H/W coaching, at an amazingly low barrier of entry, and phasing them into in-person, when needed, to supplement the ongoing digital relationship.
We’ll create a paradigm shift in the current health and wellness landscape, driving utility to the consumer and moving the perpetually stagnate metrics of % of population who belongs to a gym and % of gym members who buy PT. No longer will 12.5% of the population belong to a gym, with 10% of those people buying PT… but much higher percentages accessing the aforementioned offerings, less frequently, offset by the education, process and accountability to process provided by digital coaching.
FUTURE- We will further expand the stakeholders, on the Ladder platform, to create a fully holistic action care team that truly drives preventive medicine. Ladder will eventually be a platform, monitored by the physician, that facilitates both digital and in-person interactions between the consumer/patient and all applicable service providers who can holistically work with said consumer/patient to proactively treat/prevent future chronic and/or preventable health issues.
There is no telling what type of advances will take place relative to the specific assets that can help put people in the best possible position to succeed (relative to their health and wellness,) but there is no question that the most valuable cog in the puzzle will always be the delivery mechanism, the vehicle… and that is what we will create.
We’re starting with an MVP, in digital coaching, that will allow us to scale usage and that alone is a very powerful, much needed and tremendously economically viable transaction… but the real value is in creating the vehicle that can continuously connect people with the practitioners and products that will allow them to find happiness through health and wellness. That is what Ladder will do.
As I sit here and think about what the next decade has in store for us, I can only hope that the next 10 years are even better than the last 10 have been. I look forward to taking on any challenges that lie ahead, as we work towards continuing our quest to put people in the best possible position to reach their health and wellness goals.