November 12, 2025 • 18 mins
Paul Corvino sits down with Steven Rossi, CEO of AlterMe. The company that supplies at-home DNA test reveals 13 key genetic insights & how they affect your fitness goals.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is CEOs you should know with division president of iHeartMedia,
Paul Corvino. Today I'm here with Stephen Rossy, the CEO
of alter Me, a personalized health and fitness system. Welcome, Steven,
how are you mister, to meet you. How's it going?
It's going real good. So before we get started and
do the interview where we start learning more about you
and your entrepreneurial journey, I like to do a quick
(00:25):
rapid fire Q and a you ready, Yeah, let's go
beat your ski vacation ski Michael Jordan, Tom Brady Brady
godfather or Star Wars godfather, Sean Connery or Daniel Craig Connery,
Stones or Beatles Stones. Celebrity people say you remind them of,
(00:48):
oh gosh, the Lately with the gray hair. It's George Clooney.
So I'll take it. Every guy with gray hair says
George Clinty. If you ask me, I say George George Clooney, right,
and that's something. But welcome. Before we learn about altime,
which I'm excited to learn it. Yeah, tell me a
little bit about yourself. Where'd you grow up? Where are
you from.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I'm from the East Coast originally grew up in the
Berkshires and Massachusetts. If you know where that is, I
know it very well. Round seven, yeah, offer Ruts. I'n
up there in Danbury.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
So I grew up in Lenox, mass and moved out
to the West coast in the dot com you know,
so nineteen ninety nine and spent twenty years in San Francisco.
Now I spend time down here in LA and also
out in Utah where we have Altermees offices, and I
live up in Park City. And that's the reason for
the ski vacation is I get to ski a bunch
living up there.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
That's not a bad place to be. A little sundance,
I hear is leaving.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, that's a bummer, but you know it's we've had
a good run. I think forty years of sundance there.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Not a bad run at all. Yeah. So where'd you
go to school? What did you study? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
So I kind of fell into technology. I wasn't you know,
my parents said, you know, applied to a bunch of
different colleges and the one that gave me a scholarship
was a tech school up in upstate New York called rensal.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Here Chet right in nobody.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, Troy actually affectually known as the armpit in New York.
But we made Troy okay.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Because my my nephew played football for reds Are.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
No way okay, yeah, good good D three football team,
the the you know, spent time there and I had
to pick a major. They gave me a scholarship, so
I was like, all right, that seems like a good
option for me. I ended up, you know, taking a
major in computer science. I had no idea what I
was getting into at the time. This is nineteen ninety six,
so you know, the birth of the Internet. I ended
(02:31):
up dropping out of school and moving out to Silicon
Valley to be part of the dot com boom in
nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Dropped out, you were in your sophomore Yeah, junior year.
Dropped out the year you were I'm going to go
do the Ternager and that's when it was happening. I
was president of sales and marketing at AOL at the time,
so we were, Yeah, we were on the verge of
really helping the Internet. I was at Lecos if you
remember that search engine.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, So we moved out Silicon Valley, wanted to get
into the scene. Spent two years there. My parents made
me come back and finish up my degree, so I did, but.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Immediately moved back. Did you do those two years when
you were up there?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I was at Cisco Systems if you know that company, right,
So I was, you know, working on their operating system.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
That was Andy Andy Andy Grove. Yeah, that was the
Andy Grove times. Yeah. Who well, Who's his famous line was?
What was about? He used to repeat the uh be paranoid, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Be paranoid, which we we we actually are, you know,
we lived. Thats hard to alter me, so we Uh
So I moved out there, went back, finished my degree,
and then I went back out to California.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
What would you do for them when you were working there?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I was an engineer at the time, you know, I
started my career in software development. Believe it or not,
I was you know, I wasn't the greatest engineer. I
was competent, but you know, with Cisco taught me, I
got exposed to all the different aspects of you know,
I worked on the same floor as the CEO, John Chambers,
and so I was lucky enough to get exposed to
the executive team and the business side of things there
and I really I realized quickly early on that I
(03:59):
was better at So what made you go.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Back to school when you've got your foot in with
a very hot company at.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
My mom, you know, at the end of the day,
I love my mom, and she said, I'm you know,
disown you if you don't get a college degree. So
I went back in two thousand, two thousand and one,
finished up, but went right back to in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Right where did you go to go back to Cisco?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
No, at that time, I went back and I went
into school again. I got my MBA at Berkeley after that, so,
you know, took the GMAT and went through that process.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
So you went went to Berkeley and he was still
so you were in Berkeley, you were still in the
Silicon Valley area. Yes, so you kept yourself connected.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Kept myself connected. I just do that, you know, I
was part of This is a weird time in Silicon Valley.
There was the startup scene was really interesting. So after
the dot com era, you know, this is a time
where San Francisco was still way more artistic and there
was a really awesome music scene at the time, and
that sort of intersected with the technology scene. There and
(05:00):
I spent a lot of time talking to startups, working
with startups, going to all these you know, you know
music events that were also you know, part of the
tech community, and I met a lot of really cool
companies and would stay. I would advise for them at
that time, and you know, so just mostly through socializing.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
You were there at the time. Yeah, that's right. Was
the moment started. I know that because I was at AOL.
Was a year that I went over. I was at
AOL from ninety six to two thousand and one. Yeah,
and so Silicon Valley was really just taking off Palo
Alto became the place yep, I think it was Netscape
was in Monterey and that whole campus mentality was Yeah,
(05:37):
it was a fun moment, some moment. Yeah. Yeah, So
tell me, so you went back and who did you
work for? Now?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
So this is what two thousand So I went out
on my own. In two thousand and four, I was
advising for startup companies across mobile security. Had a company
that was you know, direct consumer. We were selling you know,
this mobile phone.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Software and it was really fun.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I got to work with a lot of entrepreneurs and
startup and learned from them, on how they build businesses.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
It's consulting. What were you doing? How how deeply were
you embedded at each of these companies? So it was
really good.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
What we call is go to market strategy, right, so
I would I would help them with their product development,
find the market for it, test stage.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
You know, the best company I helped build was a
four college students down here at USC who were flying
up to to San Francisco on the weekends to you know,
talk to venture capitalists and fundraise, and you know, I was.
I was spending time with them, helping them design their product, help,
you know, doing pr for them, everything that would get
(06:45):
either raise awareness of the business or the product market.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
PA few, so they're usually in between Series A and B.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I was fortunate enough to be going to school at
the same time, right, So I worked entirely for Founders Equity.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
All right, So, so tell us about some of these
companies that you worked with in Yeah, so I think
the next shift in the career was I was you
know this and this is really sort of the thread
that connects my careers.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
I was one of the early early team members at
a real estate website called Trilia. I was lucky enough
to meet the you know Triulia great. You know, we
was literally enough to meet some of the founding team there,
and they'd seen what I've been doing with these startup
companies and they said, hey, we got a role for
you here. We would love to have you, you know,
help us build the business, and gave me a job
(07:30):
in marketing and I really sort of cut all my teeth.
My cut my teeth on all aspects of marketing at
the time, and so that's you know, two thousand and
eight and then grew that business.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Always say at this point your specialty, your specific area
of knowledge was marketing and of yeah, so engineering you
were you were an engineer originally.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, engineering to product to marketing is the way to
think about that transition. You know, I started, I build products,
then thought about how to build products, and then lot
about how to market and sell those products. That's the
the thread that connects the career there. So you know,
I went early team member. It truly h and what
(08:10):
it was an amazing ride. You know, we we had
you know, the thing that I learned at that company
that I take through all the way to alter me
is how do you make things that are inaccessible to
people and make them way more accessible and democratize them.
So truly, at the time, you really couldn't find information
about real estate anywhere online. And so the first thing
(08:31):
that we did we called.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
It built dot com, which I think was founded by Gennet. Yeah,
just an alternative to their their classifies that were going away.
But they didn't really have the depth there. Yeah, they
didn't have that.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
The data wasn't available to consumers, and you know, the
power there we called the power to then they had
MLS listings at the time, No, no, there was no
access to the MLS.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
It was closed.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
You wouldn't know what a home sold for. And this
is the most important financial decision of your life. And
so you know, you're you're sitting there and you're saying, well,
why why isn't this accessible accessible consumers? And so that
founding mission and everything we tried to do was give
more power to the people. And so it's very fortunate
and lucky and worked really hard to help grow that business.
(09:15):
Spent seven years there, growing it through the acquisition of
you know, Zillo bought it in twenty thirteen four three
point five billion dollars and was lucky enough to stay
on with the Zillow team and learn from them.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Zillo teams an interesting storial. So they were struggling, yep,
and then they came up with the calculator.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
They did dis Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was it was
really funny to be part of that acquisition and they
were you know, that's estimate was a real breakthrough in
terms of you know, awareness and traffic and all the
things that matter to consumers, not.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Just what their house is worth, but what their neighbors have. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, voyeurism is the was a great way to drive
consumer traffic to their site.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
So how long are you there for now? So all in,
I was there for eight years. So what year are
we at now?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
So now we're twenty Yeah, we're twenty you know, twenty
twenty thirteen was the acquisition. I stayed around at Zion
and ran product. It's sort of a comeback to our
own engineering and product. And so now two years after that,
we're we're now at twenty fifteen, and I'm still staying
connected to all my crew at Trulia, and two of
(10:22):
them say, hey, we're thinking about going out and starting
our own company.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Would you like to come with us? Said?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Sure, sounds like an awesome opportunity. I've always wanted to
be at the ground floor and be an entrepreneur myself.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So now you're expertise in engineering, product and marketing. Yep.
So now you've got to finance and money raising exactly
like you know, I really rounded out.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So I was on the founding team of a digital
healthcare company called Solve Health.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
And you might say, hey, that's.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
A pretty big leap to go from from real estate
to healthcare, but the mission and the business fundamentals were
the same. You know, we were the vision for Solve
Health is to give people give every day people access
to same day, next day healthcare, so you know, I
can go into all the medical issues that waiting twenty
(11:15):
four days to get into the doctor creates. But we
we wanted to open up access to healthcare using software
and you know, consumerization of the healthcare technic.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I always had an interest in healthcare and health and wellness.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Absolutely, yeah, I it's always been a focus for me.
I think the time it Solved really solidified my passion
for helping other people improve their health. You know, there
we were writ in the bealue of the beast to healthcare,
and you know, scheduling appointments and dealing with insurance information
and payment information when it comes to healthcare.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And how long did you stay? Did you stay itself?
It was an eight year build, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
So we raised ninety three million dollars over those eight
years from awesome investments like Bill Gurley at Benchmark, James
Slavit at Greylock, Teresa gow at a Crew Capital, amazing
set of that. Those were our board of advisors. So really, yeah,
I was the main main uber. Guy did open table.
(12:17):
You know, he's a consumer marketplace guy at the end
of the day, and he was just in a you know,
just being in the same room as that guy, you
can just learn so much.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
And so it's a short amount of time.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
He you know, they I really got my you know,
my entrepreneurial merit badge doing that. You know that business
is still doing incredibly well.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
And why did you leave?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Two reasons why. I think, at the end of the day,
I'm a consumer. I'm a consumer person, and working inside
of healthcare and doing the B two B aspects of
healthcare didn't just fill my passion. The second thing is
I met these two entrepreneurs, Scott Cohen and Blake Johnson,
and they were building this company that was really focused
(13:00):
on you know what I love, which is democratizing access
to performance, uh, performance based science and fitness. And so
they I got to meet them through a friend and
there he's the lawyer in general counsel at alter Me,
and they were, you know, they were building this business
(13:20):
and had gotten too the stage where they're right about
to put it into market and they needed a CEO
to come in and help operate and scale the business.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
What was it about alter Me at this stage? What
was this something in the value proposition that got you? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
I think at the end of the day, when you
think about personalized wellness and fitness, there's a lot of
companies out in the market who maybe take on one
piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
You know, to to to.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Use science to improve health, to lose weight, to improve longevity,
you really need to focus on four things. It's sleep, exercise, recovery.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And nutrition.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And if you think about all the consumer products in
the market, you know, they may take on one or
two of those things, but there's not a company who
is taking that and putting it all together and creating
a truly individualized system for for the person who's you
put this together? And it's it's DNA based. I believe
that's right. Yeah, so we we take your DNA.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
And how do you take your DNA? It's a blood sample.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
No, it's very easy. It's a cheek swab. We send
it to your home. It's a cheek swab. You send
it back in and we have this proprietary test that
within twenty to forty eight twenty four to forty eight hours,
we delivered.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Done one right now while you're here. Yeah, you should.
I should have brought a code of an interesting way
of doing it on here. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So we have our proprietary test. We look at sixty
different aspects of your of your DNA.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
So you you where do you get the package? You
ordered it online?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, you can go to alter mea dot com. You
can buy your buy your DNA swab. It's eighty nine dollars.
We ship it to you. It's there in two days
and you can send us your sample sample and then
you send it back. And how often do you have
to do this swab?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
You don't have to do once. It's only a one
time thing.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Your DNA is your DNA, you know, it's how you're
coded but we look at we're trying to reveal eighteen
traits within your DNA that allow us to personalize a
health plan for you around those four pillars that I mentioned.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Are you using AI? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Absolutely. We use AI in a couple of different ways.
One is around the personalization. So we have we take
your DNA. We also have a wearable that allows us
to give us your biometrics and we know what your
goals are and what your activity history looks like, and
we put that into our AI to make daily recommendations
(15:39):
for you based on what the best thing for you
to do today is. So, for example, if you haven't
slept well, we know what your resting heart rate looks like.
We know what your heart rate, their ability looks like.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Can you check this every day? Yeah, you can check it.
I check it every morning when I wake up, you know,
I get up. How do you check it in an app?
Speaker 2 (15:55):
It's an app, YEP, it's an altered Me app, and
so on your app, you're seeing your readiness score for
the day, your daily recommendations, what your plan looks like
for the week. You know the macronutrients you should be
eating at any given time, meal recommendations that help you eat,
you know, stay on.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Track and full time recommendations. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Every morning I wake up, I I know if it's
a strength day, a cardio day, that's based on my
DNA how recovered I am. You know, when I'm stressed
out or I'm traveling. This morning, I woke up, I
didn't sleep well in the hotel, and it's telling me
to do some breathwork and meditation today. So so yeah,
it's really personalizing.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
You've got I've got to get this, and then yeah,
tell the audience how they can get this. So alter
me dot com is that our website. Go there.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
The first step is to order your DNA kit. Uh,
you know, like I said, you'll you'll receive the kit,
you'll take the sample, you'll get a notification of your results.
We have fitness advisors who can walk you through those
results to help you understand how you change your life
and communicate.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah. Yeah, through our.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Website you can. You can go there and communicate really
really fascinating. Yeah, I mean we all want to live
to be one hundred and fifty. Yeah, and and the
benefits of real good while we're doing Yeah, you know,
on our team, we hired the former chief performance officer
at Nike and under Armour. He really came up with
the alter methodology.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
So it's a combination of intentional recovery, Zone two cardio,
which which you know can help it, building your cardiovascul endurance,
and functional strength training. And so the combination of those
three things have proven health benefits as you do them
over time.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Really really interesting. Yeah, once again for the audience, I'm
here speaking with Stephen Rossi, the CEO of Altimate, a
personalized health and fitness system that actually takes your DNA
and customizes a program for you. You could check it daily
or even more so, it seems, and get yourself on
the right track to a healthier and more vibrant life. Well, Steven,
(17:56):
thank you so much for coming in. Thank you once
again the Steve Rossi, the CEO of alter Me. Go
to alterme dot com to send for your kit and
start living a healthier life. At least, you know, people
are out there working every day and you never know
what's working and what isn't. At least now you're able
(18:17):
to know that what you're doing is the right way.
It's personalized to you. I could try taking this you
know this might this might be good for ninety percent
of the population, but not for me. That's right, and
this is this is and there's really no other way
to find out, so this is a great opportunity. Once again,
this is Paul Corvino, Division President of iHeartMedia saying thank
(18:40):
you for listening to another episode of CEOs you Should Know.
Thank you, Steven. Thanks all. Listen to CEOs you Should
Know on the iHeartRadio app.
This is CEOs you should know with division president of iHeartMedia,
Paul Corvino. Today I'm here with Stephen Rossy, the CEO
of alter Me, a personalized health and fitness system. Welcome, Steven,
how are you mister, to meet you. How's it going?
It's going real good. So before we get started and
do the interview where we start learning more about you
and your entrepreneurial journey, I like to do a quick
(00:25):
rapid fire Q and a you ready, Yeah, let's go
beat your ski vacation ski Michael Jordan, Tom Brady Brady
godfather or Star Wars godfather, Sean Connery or Daniel Craig Connery,
Stones or Beatles Stones. Celebrity people say you remind them of,
(00:48):
oh gosh, the Lately with the gray hair. It's George Clooney.
So I'll take it. Every guy with gray hair says
George Clinty. If you ask me, I say George George Clooney, right,
and that's something. But welcome. Before we learn about altime,
which I'm excited to learn it. Yeah, tell me a
little bit about yourself. Where'd you grow up? Where are
you from.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I'm from the East Coast originally grew up in the
Berkshires and Massachusetts. If you know where that is, I
know it very well. Round seven, yeah, offer Ruts. I'n
up there in Danbury.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
So I grew up in Lenox, mass and moved out
to the West coast in the dot com you know,
so nineteen ninety nine and spent twenty years in San Francisco.
Now I spend time down here in LA and also
out in Utah where we have Altermees offices, and I
live up in Park City. And that's the reason for
the ski vacation is I get to ski a bunch
living up there.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
That's not a bad place to be. A little sundance,
I hear is leaving.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, that's a bummer, but you know it's we've had
a good run. I think forty years of sundance there.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Not a bad run at all. Yeah. So where'd you
go to school? What did you study? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
So I kind of fell into technology. I wasn't you know,
my parents said, you know, applied to a bunch of
different colleges and the one that gave me a scholarship
was a tech school up in upstate New York called rensal.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Here Chet right in nobody.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, Troy actually affectually known as the armpit in New York.
But we made Troy okay.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Because my my nephew played football for reds Are.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
No way okay, yeah, good good D three football team,
the the you know, spent time there and I had
to pick a major. They gave me a scholarship, so
I was like, all right, that seems like a good
option for me. I ended up, you know, taking a
major in computer science. I had no idea what I
was getting into at the time. This is nineteen ninety six,
so you know, the birth of the Internet. I ended
(02:31):
up dropping out of school and moving out to Silicon
Valley to be part of the dot com boom in
nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Dropped out, you were in your sophomore Yeah, junior year.
Dropped out the year you were I'm going to go
do the Ternager and that's when it was happening. I
was president of sales and marketing at AOL at the time,
so we were, Yeah, we were on the verge of
really helping the Internet. I was at Lecos if you
remember that search engine.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, So we moved out Silicon Valley, wanted to get
into the scene. Spent two years there. My parents made
me come back and finish up my degree, so I did, but.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Immediately moved back. Did you do those two years when
you were up there?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I was at Cisco Systems if you know that company, right,
So I was, you know, working on their operating system.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
That was Andy Andy Andy Grove. Yeah, that was the
Andy Grove times. Yeah. Who well, Who's his famous line was?
What was about? He used to repeat the uh be paranoid, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Be paranoid, which we we we actually are, you know,
we lived. Thats hard to alter me, so we Uh
So I moved out there, went back, finished my degree,
and then I went back out to California.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
What would you do for them when you were working there?
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I was an engineer at the time, you know, I
started my career in software development. Believe it or not,
I was you know, I wasn't the greatest engineer. I
was competent, but you know, with Cisco taught me, I
got exposed to all the different aspects of you know,
I worked on the same floor as the CEO, John Chambers,
and so I was lucky enough to get exposed to
the executive team and the business side of things there
and I really I realized quickly early on that I
(03:59):
was better at So what made you go.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Back to school when you've got your foot in with
a very hot company at.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
My mom, you know, at the end of the day,
I love my mom, and she said, I'm you know,
disown you if you don't get a college degree. So
I went back in two thousand, two thousand and one,
finished up, but went right back to in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Right where did you go to go back to Cisco?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
No, at that time, I went back and I went
into school again. I got my MBA at Berkeley after that, so,
you know, took the GMAT and went through that process.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
So you went went to Berkeley and he was still
so you were in Berkeley, you were still in the
Silicon Valley area. Yes, so you kept yourself connected.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Kept myself connected. I just do that, you know, I
was part of This is a weird time in Silicon Valley.
There was the startup scene was really interesting. So after
the dot com era, you know, this is a time
where San Francisco was still way more artistic and there
was a really awesome music scene at the time, and
that sort of intersected with the technology scene. There and
(05:00):
I spent a lot of time talking to startups, working
with startups, going to all these you know, you know
music events that were also you know, part of the
tech community, and I met a lot of really cool
companies and would stay. I would advise for them at
that time, and you know, so just mostly through socializing.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
You were there at the time. Yeah, that's right. Was
the moment started. I know that because I was at AOL.
Was a year that I went over. I was at
AOL from ninety six to two thousand and one. Yeah,
and so Silicon Valley was really just taking off Palo
Alto became the place yep, I think it was Netscape
was in Monterey and that whole campus mentality was Yeah,
(05:37):
it was a fun moment, some moment. Yeah. Yeah, So
tell me, so you went back and who did you
work for? Now?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
So this is what two thousand So I went out
on my own. In two thousand and four, I was
advising for startup companies across mobile security. Had a company
that was you know, direct consumer. We were selling you know,
this mobile phone.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Software and it was really fun.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I got to work with a lot of entrepreneurs and
startup and learned from them, on how they build businesses.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
It's consulting. What were you doing? How how deeply were
you embedded at each of these companies? So it was
really good.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
What we call is go to market strategy, right, so
I would I would help them with their product development,
find the market for it, test stage.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
You know, the best company I helped build was a
four college students down here at USC who were flying
up to to San Francisco on the weekends to you know,
talk to venture capitalists and fundraise, and you know, I was.
I was spending time with them, helping them design their product, help,
you know, doing pr for them, everything that would get
(06:45):
either raise awareness of the business or the product market.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
PA few, so they're usually in between Series A and B.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I was fortunate enough to be going to school at
the same time, right, So I worked entirely for Founders Equity.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
All right, So, so tell us about some of these
companies that you worked with in Yeah, so I think
the next shift in the career was I was you
know this and this is really sort of the thread
that connects my careers.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
I was one of the early early team members at
a real estate website called Trilia. I was lucky enough
to meet the you know Triulia great. You know, we
was literally enough to meet some of the founding team there,
and they'd seen what I've been doing with these startup
companies and they said, hey, we got a role for
you here. We would love to have you, you know,
help us build the business, and gave me a job
(07:30):
in marketing and I really sort of cut all my teeth.
My cut my teeth on all aspects of marketing at
the time, and so that's you know, two thousand and
eight and then grew that business.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Always say at this point your specialty, your specific area
of knowledge was marketing and of yeah, so engineering you
were you were an engineer originally.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Yeah, engineering to product to marketing is the way to
think about that transition. You know, I started, I build products,
then thought about how to build products, and then lot
about how to market and sell those products. That's the
the thread that connects the career there. So you know,
I went early team member. It truly h and what
(08:10):
it was an amazing ride. You know, we we had
you know, the thing that I learned at that company
that I take through all the way to alter me
is how do you make things that are inaccessible to
people and make them way more accessible and democratize them.
So truly, at the time, you really couldn't find information
about real estate anywhere online. And so the first thing
(08:31):
that we did we called.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
It built dot com, which I think was founded by Gennet. Yeah,
just an alternative to their their classifies that were going away.
But they didn't really have the depth there. Yeah, they
didn't have that.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
The data wasn't available to consumers, and you know, the
power there we called the power to then they had
MLS listings at the time, No, no, there was no
access to the MLS.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
It was closed.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
You wouldn't know what a home sold for. And this
is the most important financial decision of your life. And
so you know, you're you're sitting there and you're saying, well,
why why isn't this accessible accessible consumers? And so that
founding mission and everything we tried to do was give
more power to the people. And so it's very fortunate
and lucky and worked really hard to help grow that business.
(09:15):
Spent seven years there, growing it through the acquisition of
you know, Zillo bought it in twenty thirteen four three
point five billion dollars and was lucky enough to stay
on with the Zillow team and learn from them.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Zillo teams an interesting storial. So they were struggling, yep,
and then they came up with the calculator.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
They did dis Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was it was
really funny to be part of that acquisition and they
were you know, that's estimate was a real breakthrough in
terms of you know, awareness and traffic and all the
things that matter to consumers, not.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Just what their house is worth, but what their neighbors have. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Yeah, voyeurism is the was a great way to drive
consumer traffic to their site.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
So how long are you there for now? So all in,
I was there for eight years. So what year are
we at now?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
So now we're twenty Yeah, we're twenty you know, twenty
twenty thirteen was the acquisition. I stayed around at Zion
and ran product. It's sort of a comeback to our
own engineering and product. And so now two years after that,
we're we're now at twenty fifteen, and I'm still staying
connected to all my crew at Trulia, and two of
(10:22):
them say, hey, we're thinking about going out and starting
our own company.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Would you like to come with us? Said?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Sure, sounds like an awesome opportunity. I've always wanted to
be at the ground floor and be an entrepreneur myself.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So now you're expertise in engineering, product and marketing. Yep.
So now you've got to finance and money raising exactly
like you know, I really rounded out.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So I was on the founding team of a digital
healthcare company called Solve Health.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
And you might say, hey, that's.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
A pretty big leap to go from from real estate
to healthcare, but the mission and the business fundamentals were
the same. You know, we were the vision for Solve
Health is to give people give every day people access
to same day, next day healthcare, so you know, I
can go into all the medical issues that waiting twenty
(11:15):
four days to get into the doctor creates. But we
we wanted to open up access to healthcare using software
and you know, consumerization of the healthcare technic.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
I always had an interest in healthcare and health and wellness.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Absolutely, yeah, I it's always been a focus for me.
I think the time it Solved really solidified my passion
for helping other people improve their health. You know, there
we were writ in the bealue of the beast to healthcare,
and you know, scheduling appointments and dealing with insurance information
and payment information when it comes to healthcare.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
And how long did you stay? Did you stay itself?
It was an eight year build, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
So we raised ninety three million dollars over those eight
years from awesome investments like Bill Gurley at Benchmark, James
Slavit at Greylock, Teresa gow at a Crew Capital, amazing
set of that. Those were our board of advisors. So really, yeah,
I was the main main uber. Guy did open table.
(12:17):
You know, he's a consumer marketplace guy at the end
of the day, and he was just in a you know,
just being in the same room as that guy, you
can just learn so much.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
And so it's a short amount of time.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
He you know, they I really got my you know,
my entrepreneurial merit badge doing that. You know that business
is still doing incredibly well.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
And why did you leave?
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Two reasons why. I think, at the end of the day,
I'm a consumer. I'm a consumer person, and working inside
of healthcare and doing the B two B aspects of
healthcare didn't just fill my passion. The second thing is
I met these two entrepreneurs, Scott Cohen and Blake Johnson,
and they were building this company that was really focused
(13:00):
on you know what I love, which is democratizing access
to performance, uh, performance based science and fitness. And so
they I got to meet them through a friend and
there he's the lawyer in general counsel at alter Me,
and they were, you know, they were building this business
(13:20):
and had gotten too the stage where they're right about
to put it into market and they needed a CEO
to come in and help operate and scale the business.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
What was it about alter Me at this stage? What
was this something in the value proposition that got you? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
I think at the end of the day, when you
think about personalized wellness and fitness, there's a lot of
companies out in the market who maybe take on one
piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
You know, to to to.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Use science to improve health, to lose weight, to improve longevity,
you really need to focus on four things. It's sleep, exercise, recovery.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And nutrition.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And if you think about all the consumer products in
the market, you know, they may take on one or
two of those things, but there's not a company who
is taking that and putting it all together and creating
a truly individualized system for for the person who's you
put this together? And it's it's DNA based. I believe
that's right. Yeah, so we we take your DNA.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
And how do you take your DNA? It's a blood sample.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
No, it's very easy. It's a cheek swab. We send
it to your home. It's a cheek swab. You send
it back in and we have this proprietary test that
within twenty to forty eight twenty four to forty eight hours,
we delivered.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Done one right now while you're here. Yeah, you should.
I should have brought a code of an interesting way
of doing it on here. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So we have our proprietary test. We look at sixty
different aspects of your of your DNA.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
So you you where do you get the package? You
ordered it online?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, you can go to alter mea dot com. You
can buy your buy your DNA swab. It's eighty nine dollars.
We ship it to you. It's there in two days
and you can send us your sample sample and then
you send it back. And how often do you have
to do this swab?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
You don't have to do once. It's only a one
time thing.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Your DNA is your DNA, you know, it's how you're
coded but we look at we're trying to reveal eighteen
traits within your DNA that allow us to personalize a
health plan for you around those four pillars that I mentioned.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Are you using AI? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Absolutely. We use AI in a couple of different ways.
One is around the personalization. So we have we take
your DNA. We also have a wearable that allows us
to give us your biometrics and we know what your
goals are and what your activity history looks like, and
we put that into our AI to make daily recommendations
(15:39):
for you based on what the best thing for you
to do today is. So, for example, if you haven't
slept well, we know what your resting heart rate looks like.
We know what your heart rate, their ability looks like.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Can you check this every day? Yeah, you can check it.
I check it every morning when I wake up, you know,
I get up. How do you check it in an app?
Speaker 2 (15:55):
It's an app, YEP, it's an altered Me app, and
so on your app, you're seeing your readiness score for
the day, your daily recommendations, what your plan looks like
for the week. You know the macronutrients you should be
eating at any given time, meal recommendations that help you eat,
you know, stay on.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Track and full time recommendations. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Every morning I wake up, I I know if it's
a strength day, a cardio day, that's based on my
DNA how recovered I am. You know, when I'm stressed
out or I'm traveling. This morning, I woke up, I
didn't sleep well in the hotel, and it's telling me
to do some breathwork and meditation today. So so yeah,
it's really personalizing.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
You've got I've got to get this, and then yeah,
tell the audience how they can get this. So alter
me dot com is that our website. Go there.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
The first step is to order your DNA kit. Uh,
you know, like I said, you'll you'll receive the kit,
you'll take the sample, you'll get a notification of your results.
We have fitness advisors who can walk you through those
results to help you understand how you change your life
and communicate.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah. Yeah, through our.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Website you can. You can go there and communicate really
really fascinating. Yeah, I mean we all want to live
to be one hundred and fifty. Yeah, and and the
benefits of real good while we're doing Yeah, you know,
on our team, we hired the former chief performance officer
at Nike and under Armour. He really came up with
the alter methodology.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
You know.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
So it's a combination of intentional recovery, Zone two cardio,
which which you know can help it, building your cardiovascul endurance,
and functional strength training. And so the combination of those
three things have proven health benefits as you do them
over time.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Really really interesting. Yeah, once again for the audience, I'm
here speaking with Stephen Rossi, the CEO of Altimate, a
personalized health and fitness system that actually takes your DNA
and customizes a program for you. You could check it daily
or even more so, it seems, and get yourself on
the right track to a healthier and more vibrant life. Well, Steven,
(17:56):
thank you so much for coming in. Thank you once
again the Steve Rossi, the CEO of alter Me. Go
to alterme dot com to send for your kit and
start living a healthier life. At least, you know, people
are out there working every day and you never know
what's working and what isn't. At least now you're able
(18:17):
to know that what you're doing is the right way.
It's personalized to you. I could try taking this you
know this might this might be good for ninety percent
of the population, but not for me. That's right, and
this is this is and there's really no other way
to find out, so this is a great opportunity. Once again,
this is Paul Corvino, Division President of iHeartMedia saying thank
(18:40):
you for listening to another episode of CEOs you Should Know.
Thank you, Steven. Thanks all. Listen to CEOs you Should
Know on the iHeartRadio app.
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