335. Justin Mares, Co-Founder & CEO of Truemed

Today, I'm joined by Justin Mares, co-founder and CEO of Truemed.   Truemed is scaling payment infrastructure to enable HSA/FSA spending on lifestyle-first health interventions like gym memberships, supplements, and sleep aids.   In this episode, we discuss building payment rails for preventative health.   We also cover: Prevention economics Securing funding from a16z Education, partnerships, and employer integrations   Subscribe to the podcast → insider.fitt.co/podcast  Subscribe to our newsletter → insider.fitt.co/subscribe  Follow us on LinkedIn → linkedin.com/company/fittinsider    Truemed's Website: www.truemed.com  Newsletter: justinmares.substack.com    -   The Fitt Insider Podcast is brought to you by EGYM. Visit EGYM.com to learn more about its smart fitness ecosystem for fitness and health facilities.   Fitt Talent: https://talent.fitt.co/  Consulting: https://consulting.fitt.co/  Investments: https://capital.fitt.co/    Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (01:18) Kettle & Fire background (02:19) Letters of medical necessity (03:42) Payment integration (05:33) Survey and approval process (06:32) Loophole criticism (08:45) Prevention economics (10:37) Broken default assumptions (11:34) Merchant excitement (13:21) Mission-driven founders (14:09) Scaling challenges (15:34) Education strategy (17:07) Partnership approach (18:12) Employer integration (19:34) Tracking outcomes (21:26) Infrastructure layer (22:12) Evidence-based future (23:06) Merchant metrics (24:26) Competitive differentiation (27:56) Insurance expansion (29:10) Data gap (30:05) a16z funding (31:41) Near-term experiments (32:27) Conclusion