The Glossy Beauty Podcast

Remedy Place’s Dr. Jonathan Leary: 'Social self-care' is the future of wellness

Dr. Jonathan Leary is on a mission to change how and where consumers socialize. “We're the world's first social wellness club. What I mean by that is we're not a gym, we're not a spa, we don't do beauty, and we don't do aesthetics. All we do is self-care, but made social,” said Remedy Place founder and CEO Dr. Leary. “I'm really trying to change the narrative of how people socialize, but in a healthy way.” That means he encourages his clients to substitute happy hour for a group cryotherapy appointment or a work meeting for a group sauna session at one of Remedy Place’s three locations in L.A. and New York City. “We call them social substitutions with self-care experiences,” he said. This aligns with an overall sea change he’s seen in the U.S. that includes more interest in preventative health and less interest in drinking or socializing in bars and clubs. According to a 2023 Gallup poll, young adults are drinking less than previous generations: 62% of adults under age 35 say they drink, down from 72% two decades ago. “We're the sickest we've ever been, and people are lonelier than they've ever been,” Dr. Leary said. “There are so many things that need to change, and I think social self-care has the potential to be the largest vertical in the health and wellness industry.” Dr. Leary has a doctorate in chiropractic medicine from USC and got his start as a wellness- and sports medicine-focused concierge doctor in Los Angeles, traveling to the homes or offices of wealthy clients, many of which were professional athletes. This allowed him to test and perfect the offerings now available at Remedy Place. Many of his private patients became investors in Remedy Place, and Dr. Leary opened his first location in 2019. Remedy Place offers acupuncture, chiropractic care, cryotherapy, infrared saunas, red light therapy, IV therapy, contrast therapy and many more wellness modalities, all of which can be booked for groups or individuals. The company is known for its 30-minute ice bath class which includes guided breathwork before a group-led ice bath plunge. Clients strive to join the “six-minute club” after lasting as long submerged in the 39-degree water. “You are getting a huge endorphin rush and dopamine spike, which is responsible for that mood change [people talk about],” he said. Remedy Place is privately held. The company took on an undisclosed round of seed investments in 2021, according to Crunchbase, and a $5 million bridge round of investment in 2022. Investors in the latter include music producer Zedd, NFL player Marcedes Lewis and Australian music group Rüfus Du Sol. The latter investment was part of a company valuation of $60 million. While memberships are offered for a small price break on services, Remedy Place operates like a traditional spa or fitness studio where appointments for classes, group rooms and individual appointments can be booked in advance. Costs start at around $40 per session. The ice bath class is around $50 a session, while other modalities such as the lymphatic massage, start at over $100 per session. Remedy Place has three locations: one in L.A.’s West Hollywood neighborhood and two in NYC in Soho and Flatiron, with a fourth planned for Boston early this year. To grow awareness, Remedy Place has a robust OOH events strategy that includes pop-ups at cultural events like the Cannes Film Festival and Art Basel. Back at home, Nike, Peacock and Saint Laurent have all rented out a Remedy Place location for private events. But perhaps the largest collaboration planned for 2025 is a luxurious ice bath created in partnership with Kohler. It retails for $15,000 and is available for pre-order now for home and commercial use. Dr. Leary joins the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss all of this, as well as the evolving role of self-care for wellness consumers, in today’s episode.

Duration:: 46m
Broadcast on:: 23 Jan 2025
Audio Format:: other

Dr. Jonathan Leary is on a mission to change how and where consumers socialize.

“We're the world's first social wellness club. What I mean by that is we're not a gym, we're not a spa, we don't do beauty, and we don't do aesthetics. All we do is self-care, but made social,” said Remedy Place founder and CEO Dr. Leary. “I'm really trying to change the narrative of how people socialize, but in a healthy way.”

That means he encourages his clients to substitute happy hour for a group cryotherapy appointment or a work meeting for a group sauna session at one of Remedy Place’s three locations in L.A. and New York City. “We call them social substitutions with self-care experiences,” he said.

This aligns with an overall sea change he’s seen in the U.S. that includes more interest in preventative health and less interest in drinking or socializing in bars and clubs. According to a 2023 Gallup poll, young adults are drinking less than previous generations: 62% of adults under age 35 say they drink, down from 72% two decades ago.

“We're the sickest we've ever been, and people are lonelier than they've ever been,” Dr. Leary said. “There are so many things that need to change, and I think social self-care has the potential to be the largest vertical in the health and wellness industry.”

Dr. Leary has a doctorate in chiropractic medicine from USC and got his start as a wellness- and sports medicine-focused concierge doctor in Los Angeles, traveling to the homes or offices of wealthy clients, many of which were professional athletes. This allowed him to test and perfect the offerings now available at Remedy Place. Many of his private patients became investors in Remedy Place, and Dr. Leary opened his first location in 2019.

Remedy Place offers acupuncture, chiropractic care, cryotherapy, infrared saunas, red light therapy, IV therapy, contrast therapy and many more wellness modalities, all of which can be booked for groups or individuals. The company is known for its 30-minute ice bath class which includes guided breathwork before a group-led ice bath plunge. Clients strive to join the “six-minute club” after lasting as long submerged in the 39-degree water. “You are getting a huge endorphin rush and dopamine spike, which is responsible for that mood change [people talk about],” he said.

Remedy Place is privately held. The company took on an undisclosed round of seed investments in 2021, according to Crunchbase, and a $5 million bridge round of investment in 2022. Investors in the latter include music producer Zedd, NFL player Marcedes Lewis and Australian music group Rüfus Du Sol. The latter investment was part of a company valuation of $60 million.

While memberships are offered for a small price break on services, Remedy Place operates like a traditional spa or fitness studio where appointments for classes, group rooms and individual appointments can be booked in advance. Costs start at around $40 per session. The ice bath class is around $50 a session, while other modalities such as the lymphatic massage, start at over $100 per session.

Remedy Place has three locations: one in L.A.’s West Hollywood neighborhood and two in NYC in Soho and Flatiron, with a fourth planned for Boston early this year.

To grow awareness, Remedy Place has a robust OOH events strategy that includes pop-ups at cultural events like the Cannes Film Festival and Art Basel. Back at home, Nike, Peacock and Saint Laurent have all rented out a Remedy Place location for private events. But perhaps the largest collaboration planned for 2025 is a luxurious ice bath created in partnership with Kohler. It retails for $15,000 and is available for pre-order now for home and commercial use.

Dr. Leary joins the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss all of this, as well as the evolving role of self-care for wellness consumers, in today’s episode.

(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to the Glossy Beauty Podcast. I'm Lexi Lebsack, West Coast Correspondent at Glossy. And I'm joined today by my colleague and co-host, Sarah Spruchfiner, Senior Porter, and Head of the Pop Vertical at Glossy. What's going on Sarah? - Not much. This episode's gonna be very exciting. We have Dr. Jonathan Leary on the podcast today. He is the founder of Remedy Place, which is sort of touted as the first social wellness club. Sarah, I know you must have heard of Remedy Place. - Yes, I have absolutely heard of Remedy Place. It is, we've got it in New York as well. It is a bi-coastal situation. - Yes, they have two locations in New York and they have one in LA and they are about to open their fourth location this spring in Boston. And they are really kind of disrupting the wellness space, I would say. So I thought that Jonathan would be such a great guest, but I'll give you guys a little bit of background. Basically, Remedy Place is a wellness center. They have acupuncture, chiropractic care. They do infrared saunas, red light therapy. You can get IV therapy. You can do contrast therapy, cryotherapy, a lot of therapies at Remedy Place. A lot of Remedy's is what they call them, but I would say they're probably best known for their ice bath class, which sounds exactly like it is. You go and you take an ice bath class where the instructor kind of guides you through it and you're doing it alongside other people. And of course, we know ice baths are so popular right now. Jonathan through Remedy Place even had some success on TikTok over the last few years doing different ice bath challenges and stuff like that. Really interesting, interesting company. So basically a little background on Jonathan. He is in sports medicine. He is a chiropractor. He also studied alternative medicine as part of his doctorate from USC. And he has an interesting story that when he got out of school, he kind of realized that he didn't like the clinical and hospital setting, both for doctors and care providers and also for patients. And of course, we know there are a lot of problems with this system, especially in the US. And so he came up with this Remedy Place concept like over a decade ago, but he didn't have the funding to actually do it. So he just kind of sat on it. And instead he started as a concierge wellness doctor here in LA. Do you guys have concierge doctors? You must in New York, right? Is that like a phenomenon yet? There's a couple companies that I have seen trickle up and have been very intrigued, but also assume that they're just prohibitively expensive. - Yes, definitely prohibitively expensive for most people. It's a very like 1% type thing. There's quite a few well-known concierge doctors here in LA, but it basically means that you don't really have a brick and mortar practice. You're kind of like, I mean, you might have a brick and mortar practice as well, but the sort of like meat of it is that you're going around to these people's homes and you're administering all kinds of care. You're kind of like on dot on call for them across anything that they need. He really focused on sports medicine. So like a lot of athletes, professional athletes, things like that. And all of the modalities that they're doing at Remedy Place, he tested out on all of these athletes and all of these big people who have very discerning taste and have a lot of high expectations. And the clients he was seeing, the patients actually turned into, through the years, his mentors and then his investors. So he opened Remedy Place in 2019 and they do all kinds of stuff, but yeah, it's cool. I'm gonna let him sort of get into a little bit, but it's definitely a pricey place to go. The ice bath classes are about 50 bucks a pop and it's a 30 minute class, which is I would say on par with like the very fancy fitness classes that you'll find nowadays. Cryotherapy is around 45 to 50 bucks a session based on how large of a package, lymphatic pressure. That's pretty expensive. It's over $100 per session. So this is definitely tailored to people who are very into their wellness. When I think of this, I think of like biohackers and people who are already wearing wearables and getting data on themselves and really getting ready for this next wave of wellness. Yeah, so I thought he would be, I thought he would be a really great addition to our lineup today or our lineup this month for January, which of course we're doing all wellness stuff in January for the new year. But he talks about in this episode a partnership with Kohler. He's made an ice bath that is quite pricey and is gonna be available this spring for businesses, for spas, for people to have in their homes. And his big thing is really that people want new experiences. People want a different type of wellness. People don't wanna go to the bars and the clubs anymore like they used to. Drinking is not as popular as it once was. So his whole motto is he's sort of offering this better for you alternative and remedy places set up. So the modalities can be practiced with friends, with groups, you can have like six people in an infrared spa, you can do your IV therapy next to people in private rooms. And he told me that most people who come are coming in groups. So very interesting concept here. So interesting, I am fascinated by that. Like let's hit the sauna Friday night fascinating. Totally, but I mean, if you think about it, it's like it's certainly a lot better for you. I think dread going out for a drink with people 'cause I'm like, it's gonna be so fun. And then I'm gonna feel so crappy tomorrow. It's like almost like, I get this movement again. Oh, away from drinking. I totally think just an interesting, totally an interesting cultural stuff for sure. Yeah, definitely. All right, well, let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Dr. Jonathan Leary. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Hey, Jonathan. It's so nice to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. I'm excited. Oh, good, good, good, good. You have really just such an interesting wellness concept with Remedy Place and three locations now. Curious, how do you sort of describe Remedy Place to those who are unfamiliar with this type of wellness offering in this sort of evolving world of self-care? Yeah, so we're the world's first social wellness club. So what I mean by that is we're not a gym, we're not a spa, we don't do beauty, we don't do aesthetics. All we do is self-care, but made social. So I'm really trying to change the narrative of how people socialize, but in a healthy way. So instead of doing the normal things like food and alcohol for a date night or a meeting or where you're doing a Friday night or where you have your birthday, we're basically replacing those things and substituting them. We call them like social substitutions with self-care experiences. And our goal is one, we all need to take care of ourselves better because people are sick and they've never been. So we need to really up the self-care, but also the other big problem in the world right now is loneliness. And people really don't have those amazing connections and they're isolated more and more. And I think when people do try to socialize, the first thing they do is go and have a drink or they go out and they're doing unhealthy habits, that's really how we've been trained to socialize. So our goal with a social wellness club, one is to make you feel better, but also give you a new way to socialize. And that way, the clientele that we're really working with, they're busy, they say we don't have time to do certain things, but if it's how they socialize, how they connect with the people they love, and how they take care of themselves all at the same time, we really can be bundled up and multitask all in one. - When someone first discovers Remedy plays, what's the modality, what's the treatment that they sort of like ease in with? What's like the first one that people normally do? If there is one. - Everyone knows us for our ice bath class. You know, we're the first place in the world in a commercial setting to turn ice baths into a class format. So instead of like in how you book a battery or a soul cycle, here you book your own tub in every 30 minutes a new class starts. And you start off with 11 minutes of breathwork, you pick a song and then your coach through up to six minutes and 39 degree water. And because they're a club, we don't do a lot of traditional marketing and it's all word of mouth and we really care about our guest privacy. Most of the time people aren't in the club snapping photos or filming their experiences, but the ice bath is the one thing that people are like so proud of that they did it, that I feel like that gets the most attention. So sometimes that is the first way that people enter into the club and it's a great way to enter the club because it's the most powerful thing I think we can do in six minutes and you feel like an absolute superhuman. - Wow, and you had some success on TikTok. I think I read that about around like doing ice baths and like educating consumers, potential consumers about ice baths, right? - Yeah, you know it's so funny is when we opened in 2019 and before the pandemic, you know, I started posting some of our ice bath videos and our events online and they started going viral and my team thought it was the funniest thing. And at the time I was like, what do you mean? They're like, that's for kids or like TikTok dancing, that remit doesn't belong on it. So I actually stopped, but at that time, we had hundreds of millions of views between our hashtags of like the six minute club, social self care, social wellness club. Like I was just putting these hashtags on every one of our videos and we were just like defining this category and they were getting so many hits. And I wish I never stopped because I feel like then we know what happened to TikTok. But it was amazing just to drive awareness of like just people seeing people do these, what they thought was crazy going in this ice bath and like large groups of people doing it. And now every company and all these groups are doing these ice bath events all over and it was just cool because we were the first ones to really do that. - Wow, and what for someone who doesn't know, what are the benefits of an ice bath? Like what can you actually prove happens to the body and why is it positive? - Yeah, I mean, I think right now, one of the biggest things I see happening is people feel that they don't control their mind or their body. And I think from a mental health component, doing something so challenging and teaching yourself that you're in control is a really powerful tool that I've seen drastically improve mental health. On top of that, you are getting a huge endorphin rush and dopamine spike, which is responsible for that mood change. You'll also notice a substantial decrease in inflammation. So if you have the aches and pains, that's what people really know it for, but it does cause you to drastically lean out and it does target your brown fat to start breaking down the body and in all the areas that we want to. And your metabolism spike, you sleep incredible, your body's buzzing. And it's really phenomenal to think that it's not just like this physical thing, but it's also a mental thing and it helps our sleep, which we all know is so important. And even though I hate the cold, I'm obsessed with ice baths, only because like I was saying before, there's nothing that really can shift you that much, physically, emotionally or mentally in six minutes. Then I think an ice bath can. - And when you mentioned six minute club, that's jargon for people who sort of have hit that level of being able to be in there that long, right? - You know, but surprisingly, most people do. And I think that's where us having that coach and having other people there that are all guiding you and doing it with you and like the true power of what we call like social self care, it does get you through. And then people are like, wow, I cannot believe I did that. And accomplishing something hard and doing something that you think you can't do is also really good positive reinforcement on the brain as we're trying to rebuild these neurological connections. - Okay, so on the ice bath conversation here, you have a partnership coming out with Kohler in the spring of this year, right? You created, I think I read that you called it the best ice bath in the world. Tell me about that. - Yeah, so I've been working with Kohler for a little over two years now. And we've been working on it behind the scenes on October 1st last year in 2024. We have made the official announcement in our Basil in December. We did a pop up event I can tell you about. And then yes, they'll be shipping out in the spring. But we average so many ice baths. I think it's like a thousand ice baths a month that we've been doing for a long time. We've been open since 2019. I had my private practice for five years. I've been studying the impact of ice baths for over a decade, but also studying the data on customer and guest feedback like the experience and analyzing every single tub on the market. What's wrong with it, whether it's manufacturing, whether it's engineering, whether it's customer service, whether it's warranties, whether it's the chilling system, the filtration system. I mean, every single one of them. And I had it all documented of like, what would make the best ice bath in the world? And when thinking of making an ice bath, you know, me or remedy were not manufacturers. So we were not gonna create the best ice bath, even though we had the best data to support it. So when figuring out who would be the right partner, naturally it was Kohler. And Kohler's been making baths for over 150 years. So if you think about that, after all the data and our expertise, analyzing and like dissecting every single one on the market and then having the best plumbing manufacturer in the world, it was the perfect complement. And I can honestly say that it is the best ice bath in the world because there isn't one that's better. And I just cannot wait for people to have it in their homes. - Okay, so you can pre-order it now. I saw that online. How much is it? Tell me some of the details. Like, you know, it can, can like the average home, you know, take this on. Like what is the plumbing requirements? Like, who are you trying to reach and how much is it? - So it's definitely a luxury product. It's $15,000. But this is the first one that can be indoor and outdoor and plumbed in. You know, it's crazy that a lot of these ones, you know, the indoor outdoor makes sense. Not everyone would want it for both, but the plumbing and being able to plumb it in to fill it up and drain it. People that are putting it outside, they're just using a hose, they're empty into their patio, you know, for something that you're gonna permanently have in the space. This isn't something that we want you to hide in the corner. This is something that we want you to design a whole entire room around. So you can bring it outside or inside. You can plumb it in, not plumb it in. It has the best filtration, the best chilling system, the ergodynamics of how you sit in the tub to make sure that you're properly, you know, submerged. Like there's reason behind every single detail. And we also, because of the power of the breath in the success of you lasting six minutes, we installed this breathwork bar that teaches you how to breathe so you follow along to this light, which puts you in this really nice deep meditative state while learning how to breathe. And we also have an app component that will tie you in where I can either personally coach you or there's like just different coaching sessions. And then you have, you know, real customer service and you know, real warranties and if something breaks, we're here to fix it. And we have the nice, colder name that really stands behind the engineering. - Wow, I can see this being like a very valuable play for like spas and hotels. And are you also going that direction? - Yeah, so we'll have a commercial version as well. The launch is with our residential product, but the commercial would come shortly after. - Wow, congratulations, that's very cool. - Yeah, you know, and I think about it, you know, even when talking with different groups or even colder, like how many of these do you imagine people would want? I'm like, there's a bathtub in most homes. Like an ice bath should be in most homes. And if you think about it, a cold bath is way more beneficial than a hot bath for our health. And once people continue to adapt and the awareness keeps shifting, it's for me, I'm like, every home should have a wellness component. And like the future of luxury homes to even standard homes, whether even if it's just a shared amenity space, I feel like every single one in the world will eventually be like a normal, stable product in the home. - Yeah, wow. Well, I wanna get to the best question of this interview and the most important question, which is what is your wellness routine? What are you doing? You have pan-picked all of these modalities. You've been working in this world for years with such high profile people with such great results. What are you doing? Tell us what your routine is. - Oh my God, I could talk to you for hours or days. - I know you can, but-- - Yeah, let me figure out how-- - What are you doing now? - All of my programs are centered around data. I think starting with data, having, I do my blood work every six months to do a full functional medicine screening, this is what I feel as though is the most in-depth thing I can do possibly to understand my body at that moment in time from deficiencies to hormonal imbalances to like measuring gut health, sensitivities, toxicity levels. This is basically like my instruction manual to my body every six months. And then between that and then my wearables and things like a VO2 Max testing to just like movement assessments, cognitive function tests, I, we have all of these things that now we can test. And I think that's important because right now like we've gotten, we've gotten so sick with humanity that you probably hear all the times about prevention. And I, I actually think it's crazy because I'm like, we've gotten so sick that the goal is just to not be sick. Never mind like, there's the whole other side over here that is way more important. And my background with sports medicine was, I had worked my athletes to be the healthiest people that they could be so they could perform on the field. And we need to perform, but in life. So I think it's like, there's so much there. And first, everyone listening is about understanding your body because what I do might not work for you in every single day, our body and our physiology changes. So we need to adapt based on what we need. So I think whether it's like an ordering or a whoop or, you know, any local place that they can go due to any form of data collection, especially with AI in the future, I want you to think of creating like an encyclopedia of data over time in the most organized way because when AI takes over, that's gonna be the best source to help us, but only if we have organized data. And then I mean, I move every single day. I think movement cures. I do movements that fix my body, not break it. I don't think we need to be crazy. I look at food as anything I ingest or anything I put on. My skin is either helping me or working against me. I analyze all of my environments. I audit, you know, from like where I get coffee to how I walk to work to my work environment, to where I hang out with friends 'cause I think environments play a major role in who we become. And, you know, I do all the self care. I think everything in Remedy, I do, 'cause I believe in it and I know it works. And the last thing is just creating healthy routines and habits with people that I love. You know, I think the big thing within my wellness routine that I think has made the biggest impact, not only for me, but for the people I love is, instead of going to another dinner during the week, I've replaced two or three dinners a week where we go to Remedy and we go in the contrast suite. And I'm like, wait, I get myself here and I get to help my friends out. And also, we're all being enhanced in the same room, which creates a deeper connection. You think, if you and me win had drinks, we're gonna be drinking a depressant and a dissociative. So we're actually not really connecting as much as we should be where if you and me were sitting in a sauna or like getting through a nice bath together, our bond is actually gonna be strengthened so much more because we're more open to it. - Well, I've seen a lot of data and I know you've seen similar data, if not the same data, that shows that drinking has become less popular. Bars and clubs are losing their allure, especially for younger people. And I know that at Remedy Place, you're working to really replace that with wellness. And I think that what you said to me before when we chatted was that people are really hungry for new experiences and hungry for different things to do, exactly what you're saying here. Tell me a little bit about, do you see that manifesting in your customer? Like do you see groups coming in for after for like happy hour hours, like in the hours that they would go to happier? Do you see like there are people coming in and you tell me? You know what I'm talking about. - Yeah, I mean, I think in 2019, that was the hope, right? It was me, I've been working on it since 2012. Everyone said that's the most LA thing that won't work. But then people really were coming for a date night. They really were coming for their meeting spot and I was like, "Wow, this is what also makes us special." And now as we're designing future clubs and even where like we have one coming out in a couple of months, yeah, like it's not just about a reservation for you and me. Like people want to come with more than a party of two. And I think I want to just look at everything we do when we socialize and figure out how am I crafting how am I crafting an experience around that that's healthy? And I think you'll see a big evolution as we grow and what that means and how we get to have a lot of fun with it. - So you mentioned you're, are you opening another studio soon? - Yes, we are opening Boston next. We haven't released the date yet, but we did announce that we are opening Boston and it is pretty soon. - That's so exciting. What is your sort of goal? Like how many studios do you want to have? And I'm curious as, you know, I think maybe like a skeptic of this might say that exactly like what maybe someone said to you early on where of this is so LA or it's so New York or this is for biohackers or this is for health nuts or, you know, do you think that there are customers to support like large scale growth? And if so, what cities are those? And like will the studios be sort of tailored for those regions or you tell me what your vision is? - Yeah, my vision and dreams are so ambitious, but I, but so is the opportunity. You know, I think right now health and wellness is a multi trillion dollar industry on its way to a nine trillion dollar industry over the next couple of years. And I think that we're the sickest that we've ever been. The top eight chronic conditions in the US reached an all time high in 2023. We're waiting on the 2024 stats. People are a lonelier than they've ever been. Alcohol's going down. There's so many things that need to change. And I think that self care and social wellness and social self care has the potential to be the largest vertical in the health and wellness industry. And if you think about that at scale and then think about every single industry is gonna need the leader in the space that is driving the innovation and protecting it and setting the regulations and teaching and I want Remedy Place to be that company. My goal is to help reach more people than any company in the health and wellness industry. And it's not just through our clubs, you know, we'll always have these clubs that will scale across the US and globally, but we will get into product spaces, you know, just like our ice bath is one example. We can be in every single home. We can be the commercial ice bath in every major development. That's one. But then there is so much more. A lot of it, I can't talk about it yet, but it goes well beyond just our brick and mortar. And like I said, it's just, it's so exciting. And what keeps me up at night is that I just don't have enough time and there's so much to do. And it's just an exciting time to be in the space, not only as like my passion, but also because people are really waking up. And if you just look at what has happened since even the pandemic, the shift in mentality so fast, things that I thought, I always knew that this was coming, but not this fast. And I'm like, we're like just touching the surface to what I think is going to be insane. Like who is the apple of this industry? Like talk about a $9 trillion industry. - Yeah, no, you're, I think you're totally right. And I think you're also sort of like really hitting on an interesting point here that we see sort of repeated across conversations within wellness at the pandemic was a huge catalyst. How far ahead do you think the pandemic pushed us into wellness and this other side of self-care? Or if you even do? At least a decade. I mean, listen to self-care, alternative medicine, even me saying the word human connection and have the importance of a relationship on your health, those all sounded either like so woo-woo or just like so spas, like a luxury thing you would do. But we've been trending sicker and sicker every year, but no one was waking up. And I think the tragedy of the pandemic was a lot of people, we lost a lot of lives. And it was a really scary thing to know that if you were high risk, that no one could really help you. And I think seeing that at global scale, like even thinking about LA or New York or like the big cities in the US, we were always so far ahead with the wellness, with the fitness. But now countries that I never thought would be reaching out or reaching out, but it's interesting because they're all now understanding it and needing it all at the same time where it used to start with one place and then trickle out. But now it's like even places like London, I'm like the demand in somewhere like London where they're just, they just got onto like the fitness wave is now like self-care and the social wellness is almost the same as the fitness hype. And I'm like, wow, like think of how long fitness has been around in the US and all the things that have evolved over the past 20 to 30 years. It didn't take that long for the world to get self-care or social wellness. And I'm telling you from a hospitality or developer side, everyone in every country is thinking about it. - Wow. So looking ahead to just this year, to 2025, how far do you think will come this year in the world of wellness? What do you think will change this year? What do you think, like what are your predictions for the next 12 months? - I think short term, you're gonna see self-care, social wellness, just like how there's, you know, a gym on every corner. When people used to think there was like one gym and then you couldn't have another one, I think you're gonna see some type of self-care, social wellness thing everywhere or at least the start. I already hear it buzzing with people looking for investments and decks in the real estate world, just like figuring out like all of these concepts are coming to life. I think you're gonna see a drastic decline, continue in alcohol and then it's gonna lead to people looking for new experiences, whether it's wellness or not. There are people who still need to connect and they still need to socialize and that's super important. And then I think advancements in AI and wearables, like every month something new is happening with wearables. And I think the more that happens in AI, the more it's gonna happen with wearables. And I think anything that happens with AI is gonna drastically help make health and wellness more accessible. I think the biggest thing that is missing in our healthcare system is education. 'Cause at the end of the day, like I can't make you healthy. Only you can make you healthy. And I always say that you're minding your bodies, you're number one asset and you don't even know how it works. I'm like, how are you supposed to take care of something if you don't even know how it works? And that is usually the privilege that isn't accessible. But I think with AI and those advancements, all of these learnings and all of these findings that we're gathering, people are gonna actually get to understand no matter who they are, where they are, what they have access to that they can teach themselves. And the foundational pillars of health are very simple. And you don't have to come to remedy to be healthy. You come to remedy for a good time, fun new social experience and to like push the boundaries beyond, you know. But I really think that it's all about, like I said before, like, are you moving? What are you eating? How are you taking care of your mental health? And what are these routines and practices and human connection that you can be doing on your own? And that's what I hope that we get to build at remedy with this brand and this platform, is to continue to build the trust and reliability and then be able to pass that forward so that we can reach everyone everywhere in that bigger mission that I was saying. - Yeah. What does your customer acquisition strategy look like now? What is working the best for your current LA New York markets? - Yeah, I mean, what's interesting is we didn't really even have marketing until a little over a year ago. What worked for us were really always our events, you know. It was every person that comes in, given the best experience possible, and they talk about it, word of mouth, is the most powerful tool. I feel like if you have something good, you make them feel better, you build a good memory, people come back. And then I was also very fortunate that I had my practice for five years that I built like the patient lists and everyone to kind of just like flood in. But I would say events, like people want experiences and I love, that we say like we can remedy any event and we can do anything anywhere. And it doesn't matter if it's canned film festival to Coachella to anything. I think that I love to show like, even with the Art Basel activation, like we made a healthy beach club at Art Basel. I'm like, people are partying all week every year at Art Basel. Like I want to give them a new experience. So we did like day parties and then we did one evening party and I was like, it's so cool to think that people are actually receptive to changing how they would normally socialize. But also it isn't just like a chore to fun. And we had like a DJ set up every day and in the last couple of days, we're getting like over 300 ice baths a day. I think our evening event was over 700 people. And I'm like, wow, like those moments almost get me emotional 'cause I'm like, it's working, it's actually working. People are changing. - Wow, how do you measure the success for out of home events like that? - You know, we were in the process of learning and doing that, I think we haven't, if I'm being honest with you, it hasn't been a priority. It was really just like, do it. But now we're bringing on some amazing people into the business and they're like, yeah, but there's also important ways that we can learn and how to help them better. And also, you know, ways to continue to talk to them and update them. So they're working on all those systems and those procedures, but not in my wheelhouse, it's over in the marketing and operations side. - Fair, fair. Well, I know you guys also do some very cool events like in your studios right now. So like I think in the LA one, or maybe it was New York as well, but I heard you guys did an event for Nike, for Peacock, for St. Laurent, like just really, really great huge brands. So I'm curious as to sort of how do like in studio events fit into your overarching business model and sort of how do you like leverage it? How do you, is there a way you can continue to stay in contact with these people or do you just sort of trust that they're there and they've experienced it and now they're probably gonna come back? - Well, the coolest thing is these aren't actually partnerships. Everyone always looks for a venue to have a party or an event. Usually it's traditionally at a restaurant or bar, but what we've just found, and this just came by inbounds in the beginning where it was just like, people were like, we just want a fun new experience. What can you do? And then we realized that this could be a major part to our business. And, you know, we have to limit, we only allow one a month in each club, but we don't want to overwhelm or shut down the club too often. So just be respectful to our guests, but all of these brands have not only done these events, but they love it and it's fun and everyone that gets to come is like, this is just new and different and healthy. And then it's just building a positive connection in their brain of like a healthy memory, something new connecting us with the brand that's doing it. And even last year, like we filmed Baby Girl, like the movie in Remedy. So is there like some scenes there? Like, so from like filming movie sets to product launches, to corporate outings, the last month we did something with Peacock and the new Soho Club and they had this whole activation around one of their shows. And I'm like, sky's the limit. We're just the venue, right? And then it's open self-care. We can program the room in all these different ways. We can bring it outside things, but we always want to create something to the spoke. You know, we have our capabilities. We have exactly what we can do. We show how you can mark it to the space and what other people have done if the brands are okay with us sharing that. And yeah, it's been amazing and it's been so much fun. - That's so cool. And that's so amazing that a lot of that has been like inbound. I feel like I hear about businesses like getting an agent and obviously having like this very vigorous PR strategy to get like anything like this. - Well, we're lucky that now we have an internal team in the marketing side that has events and partnerships. And we work with like the best PR agency in the wellness space. So they're always, you know, like we're all on the same kind of wheelhouse and the brands always talk. And yeah, so now we have a whole system and, you know, pitch and now we go after some, but a lot of them, you know, it really just started with the network that we had. - Yeah. Do you want to call out your PR firm? 'Cause you just said they were the best. - Yeah, Jack Taylor. We work with this, this girl Heather Morris, she's a partner there and she is the best of the best. I'm so lucky that I have her. I've known her for a long time. She was a friend first. You know, we were in a stage where I could afford the best of the best at that time. And now it's been over, I think two years and I'm just so grateful to have her. She's a rock star and her team, the whole team with her. - Awesome. So Americans, as we've been talking about are so stressed, are so anxious. And I want to talk quickly about a thing that I heard you say to me when we first met and that was that you said stress is actually a good thing. What do you mean by that? - Moderate stress. - Moderate stress, okay. - Yeah, clinically proven which science is backed is moderate stress enhances performance and enhances our memory. And if I think, if you think of, there's so many things I can actually walk through like exercise, exercise, we're using resistance to tear our muscles, right? That's a stress in the body, but then our response back and how we healed that response and that stress and how we adapt to it makes us more resilient. As a kid, the more bacteria or viruses that we're exposed to, that's how we built our immune system or thing of like a vaccine, you're getting a little bit and your body learns how to react. Some same thing when we look at an ice bath or a sauna or a hyperbaric. And the more that I started to like just like study this, I was like an ice bath or a sauna or a compression or an acupuncture needle or an adjustment. You could consider everything that we're doing at remedy, a stress and how your body responds to the stress is how we become more resilient and how we become more strong. So I've become really fascinated and what I'm spending a lot of my time thinking through is, all right, what is every system or function in our body that separate all of them and what am I doing to add resistance or stress in a certain amount of dose to become stronger? And of course, too much stress or there are things that are just toxic that you don't want to teach your body to respond to, just like you can over train, you can over ice bath or over sauna. So you have to understand, but your body's really resilient and adapt. So it does adapt to those things you're doing. That's why you have to change it up or change the way that you do it. Same thing with like a workout. If you do the same work at your whole life, your body's adapted in plateaus. That's why you have to change it every eight to 12 weeks. So if you start looking at all the things you can stress in the body and then, all right, what is the adaption rate of those stresses and then how do you change it? I am almost thinking that stress is the new self care, right? It's like, and I haven't talked about this too much publicly because I think I eventually want to write a book on it, but it makes so much sense on how maybe we've been looking at this, like stress is the number one killer and all these things is bad. And I think we're actually just making people weaker and weaker by eliminating all of these things. And that's what's kind of scary because I'm seeing it. I'm seeing it with people's immune systems. I'm seeing when people's gut health. I'm seeing it in so many different verticals. And I'm like, whoa, I think we're actually approaching all of this wrong. And that is what's really mind blowing to me and what excites me because it also changes how I think we help people. And you'll see how I take and use that and how I keep studying that moving forward. - We're gonna be watching. Wow, that's a very interesting perspective. And I totally makes like a complete sense, right? It's like whatever doesn't hurt you makes you stronger kind of vibes, some old school vibes there. - Yeah. - Yeah, very interesting. What percentage of your customers are members and what percentage are sort of just like walking in and how do you convert those walk-ins into members? - Our goal is actually not to be more members. For us, like the original goal that I was always contemplating like, is this a private member's club or not? And we chose not to because I'm like, if the end vision is to change the global way of how we take care of people, I don't wanna shut anyone out. And that can't really be a core brand value if it is private. So the goal was always, hey, we do all the car services or experiences as we say. And then only a small subset of memberships per club. And it's a very small fraction of our business as memberships in the beginning. I always just say, it's like, we don't do deals with influences or celebrities. And I was like, this is a kind of a nice way to have like a membership that's really discounted bundle that we can give to all the people to have like a little skin in the game. Over time, our membership strategy is trying to shift and understand like, what do our members actually want and need right now? We're launching something new called the assessment suite and we coined it Mervian. This is where people come to the club, they love their services, but they don't know which ones they need to be doing or why or like based on their goals, what are the actual routines that they need in the club to hit the goal, but then also to stay on track. So our new membership has taken that into consideration where in the membership every quarter, we measure over up to 600 data points. So we call like remedy markers. And this fully assesses how healthy you are and how to make you healthier. Where everyone else is, are you sick or you not sick? For us, that's not, we're not in that business. We're here on the other side, but I think it's really interesting that so many people come to us and like, we don't know how to be healthy or are we healthy? Just 'cause we're lean and we're like, eat pretty clean and we exercise like are we? And that isn't always necessarily true. So I'm really excited about this new initiative that we launched in remedy. It actually launches next week. And I just love it because this is included in the membership and you get to retest every quarter. And then you can actually see, is what I'm doing working or do we need to change it? Or here are all the things in my life that are going on this quarter, what am I doing to offset those things? And at the end of the day, like my job and Remedy's job is to educate our guests, our members, the consumer, and the fact that now we'll have more data to educate you on excites me because that only allows us to do our job better. - Wow, okay, last question here. Do you have any tips for anyone out there listening who is interested in getting further or deeper into the wellness space? What tips can you give them? - I would say start small and build a routine out of it. I think routines turn into habits and habits turn into change. And what I've seen personally with my patients and with Remedy is we all do certain things throughout the day that are just ingrained in us. How you brush your teeth, whatever your routines are, I always say like routine pairing. What is the one thing you wanna add, pair it with something that you already do? And even if you just start with that one, the success rate that I've seen with my patients actually adapt this new thing is way more successful. And it's already, since it's attached and they've already done, it's easier. But remember like your body's ever changing. So what you have to do for your health could ever be ever changing and just start to learn. Like anything that you can do to learn about you, everyone's body's different. Get a wearable, understand like, you can start doing these things and you feel better. And that's the initial one to like wake up the brain to know that you can feel better. But when you do the thing and then you make a routine out of it and then you have data to track it, that is where you actually start seeing the change. And at the end of the day, there's no limit with our health. Like you could be substantially better and better and better and better. And when you're healthier, you're happier and you're more successful with every vertical of your life. And I think a lot of people are just in a tough place or they're vulnerable and like, it kills me. I just like to see like everyone has the potential to feel this other side. But even that other side is just one thing over but there's so many. And I just hope with this raise of the awareness and more people talking about it and more opportunities like these podcasts or TV appearances or articles. Like everyone in the media is doing their job right now that's allowing people just to know that there's options. So give it a shot, try a bunch of things and just know that only you can make you healthy. So if you're waiting for a magical pill or magical something else, like it's not gonna come. And I think it's really important just to understand expectations and ownership because my goal is to make sure that you feel independent of your health. - Jonathan, thank you so much for taking time to be on the podcast today. This was such a great conversation and congratulations on all the things that you've accomplished and your new Boston location. We're gonna be, we're gonna be watching. - Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. - And thank you for listening to this episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast. If you enjoyed it, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening. And for even more coverage on the beauty industry and more, please visit glossy.co/beauty. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]