20VC: Hims & Hers: $4.3BN Market Cap on $2.3BN of Revenue: The Comeback | Why Being Public is 10x Better | The Death of the "Strategy" Hire | Why Performance Marketing is Worse than Brand Marketing with Andrew Dudum

Summary

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20VC with Andrew Dudum (Hims & Hers): $4.3BN Market Cap on $2.3BN of Revenue – Comebacks, Why Public Markets are Better, Death of the “Strategy” Hire, and Brand vs. Performance Marketing

Podcast: The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)
Host: Harry Stebbings
Guest: Andrew Dudum (Founder & CEO, Hims & Hers)
Date: April 4, 2026
Episode Theme:
An unfiltered deep dive into Hims & Hers’ meteoric comeback, strategic vision, and Andrew’s bold thinking on hiring, public markets, brand vs. performance marketing, innovation in healthcare, and leadership at scale.

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Episode Overview

This episode features Andrew Dudum, founder and CEO of Hims & Hers, discussing his company’s $4.35B market cap on $2.3B revenue, their journey as a public company, handling market volatility, building enduring customer relationships, and disrupting the healthcare industry—from business strategy to patient outcomes. Andrew unveils his thinking on grit in hiring, systematic innovation, the power and nuances of brand marketing, and how Hims & Hers is redefining the digital health landscape for both investors and consumers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Public Markets: Why Andrew Loves Being Public

• Fun and Discipline in Public Markets: Andrew shares that being public is "more fun" than being private, bringing constant accountability and forcing peak performance.

  • Competitive Energy: “If you’re a highly competitive person, you get to put out high benchmarks every 90 days and see if you can actually deliver on it.” (04:00, Andrew Dudum)
  • Hiring is stronger because public company performance is visible; it attracts talent who want that clear, results-driven culture.

• Advice to Founders: If your business is predictable and you’re in for the long haul, go public. Don’t romanticize staying private forever.

  • “You have to actually be able to predict your business with consistency… and you also have to be ready to sign up for a decade or two in the markets.” (05:38, Andrew)

2. Team Building: Death of the “Strategy” Hire

• Grit over Credentials: Andrew explicitly avoids hiring solely based on “fancy,” highly-credentialed resumes. Instead, he looks for people who have demonstrated grit, crisis leadership, and tactical excellence.

  • “I seek out grit… when you’re disrupting an industry… you have to have a team that is used to being uncomfortable and used to getting through it.” (06:57, Andrew)

• The ‘Strategy’ Trap: As companies mature, they can feel pressure to “upgrade” with outsiders with big company backgrounds—a mistake Andrew calls out:

  • “As you scale there’s a pressure to hire that big strategy person who has more credentials than you… I think you have to fight that at all costs. Huge mistake.” (07:56, Andrew)

• Continuous Replacements and Delegation: Your job as CEO/leader changes every 12 months; you must “replace yourself” over and over with even better talent and trust them, only getting deep in pivotal business areas.

3. AI’s Real Impact on Hims—Not Hype

• Types of Impact: Massive efficiency gains in essential knowledge and creative areas, not just engineering and support.

  • “We deploy about $1 billion in marketing spend every year… The speed of iteration with AI in [marketing and design] is actually one of the most tangible.” (11:45, Andrew)

• Physical Infrastructure as a Moat in the Age of AI:

  • “Some of the most defensible businesses in the age of Anthropic and OpenAI are businesses that actually do something physical… require actual specialization and infrastructure.” (23:37, Andrew)

4. Brand vs. Performance Marketing: The Long Game

• Brand Marketing Must Be Consistent, Not Sporadic:

  • “I think what you gain confidence in with brand marketing over time is that consistency is required… it has to be consistently random, if that makes sense… with consistency because it’s the multiple hits.” (33:24, Andrew)

• Avoid Shiny One-Offs: Out-of-home campaigns feel fun, but without repeated investments, they’re a waste. Great brands repeat their message relentlessly, even when it feels boring.

  • Memorable quote: “Early companies get bored of saying the same thing and then they move on. But what makes great brands great is the fact that everybody knows why they exist… because they say the same damn thing in 20 different ways every single week.” (34:05, Andrew)

• Performance Marketing Limitations: While still viable, the future is more about market creation, storytelling, and defensible brand—especially as AdWords/SEO gets disrupted by chat-based interfaces and AI search.

5. Business Model Innovation: Portfolio Bets & Discipline

• Venture Studio Mentality: Hims runs multiple “bets” (categories) much like an incubator, investing more in winners and shutting down losers—building a resilient, anti-fragile business.

  • "Every year we’re testing completely new go to market strategies, completely new categories …different bets. Some you starve. Some you fund.” (13:50, Andrew)

• Don’t Be First, Be Best: Enter categories when they can truly differentiate and deliver quality, rather than being first.

  • “I don’t think we actually need to be first ever in market. I want to be best in market.” (15:43, Andrew)

6. Disruption, Pricing, and Consumer Empowerment in U.S. Healthcare

• Driving Down Drug Costs: Hims helped catalyze an 80%+ reduction in GLP-1 (weight loss drug) pricing—making treatments affordable and expanding access.

  • “The blockbuster drug of the century gets cut by 80% in 18 months… because companies like us and consumers applied massive pressure to change the distribution model.” (18:27, Andrew)

• Direct Consumer Model: Andrew sees the fight as fundamentally bypassing opaque, paternalistic healthcare—offering transparency, choice, and affordability via consumer-facing digital platforms.

  • “I think HIMS is disrupting how healthcare is delivered in a consumer focused fashion… The most important part of our life doesn’t have any of those elements [on-demand, transparent, choice]. That’s entirely going to change.” (48:25, Andrew)

• Lab Testing as a Loss-Leader:

  • “Right now it’s the lab testing offering. We offer it essentially at cost …The loss leader value to the patient is incredibly important.” (46:06, Andrew)

• Vision for Preventative Care: Ultra low-cost/free testing, AI-driven guidance, and democratizing access to advanced diagnostics—starting from home devices to personalized care plans.

  • “A preventative front door that is near cost or free… give people information, and then… give them choice and assortment and a doctor to help navigate that for a cost that isn’t overwhelming.” (39:32, Andrew)

7. Leadership, Vulnerability, and Aggressiveness

• Embracing Discomfort:

  • “If you don’t feel like you are getting close to that line [of losing control], you’re probably not pushing hard enough.” (29:54, Andrew)

• On Early Mistakes: Spread too thin in early years by chasing every trend—learned that only differentiated, defensible products matter.

  • "Assortment doesn’t win. The right assortment wins." (31:12, Andrew)

• Retaining Mission and Perspective: Scaling brings pressures to conform, but trusting your instincts—while learning from data and mistakes—remains key.

  • “Trust my instincts... and remember that it’s going to be a long journey. The ups and downs are going to come and go, but persistence is most important.” (55:14, Andrew)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the joy of public markets:

  • “It’s boot camp. You have to deliver.” (04:00, Andrew Dudum)

• On hiring post-traction:

  • “Your job is changing every 12 months to level yourself up… you have to replace yourself every 12 months with talent equal or better always.” (09:19, Andrew)

• On Hims’ disruptive impact:

  • “In order to actually disrupt the system, you have to break part of the system. And I think our strategy is doing that.” (48:07, Andrew)

• On healthcare’s consumer revolution:

  • “You spend the most money in health, but you get the worst consumer experience—no price transparency, no on-demand, no choice. That’s completely going to change.” (48:25, Andrew)

• On discipline in messaging:

  • “When you’re bored of saying it, you’ve got to remember that there’s a new team member that’s never ever heard it before.” (35:58, Harry Stebbings, reflecting Andrew’s point)

• On parenting:

  • “All the kids answered the same way. [What’s the perfect afternoon?] Just playing with their mom and dad… Just be present and play with them.” (55:45, Andrew)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic / Highlight | |-------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:31 | Why Andrew prefers running a public company | | 05:38 | Advice on when to go public and founder orientation | | 07:56 | Dangers of 'upgrading' talent and the value of gritty, builder-background hires | | 09:19 | How to balance being hands-on with delegation as a CEO | | 11:45 | Practical impact of AI—especially in marketing and creative innovation | | 13:50 | How Hims runs like a venture studio—incubating multiple bets/categories | | 15:43 | Their philosophy: “Don’t be first, be best” in new categories | | 18:27 | How consumer demand and pressure drove huge drug price reductions | | 23:37 | How physical infrastructure gives Hims a moat in the AI era | | 33:24 | The discipline and design of effective brand marketing | | 38:28 | Vision for free preventative health assessments—enabling mass data and trust | | 46:06 | Lab testing as a mission-driven loss leader | | 48:25 | Breaking the traditional healthcare distribution model | | 55:45 | On being a present parent and building meaningful relationships with his kids |

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Final Quickfire (54:00–56:45)

Short and sharp, Andrew reflects on recent decisions, greatest fears, and lessons:

• Biggest regret: too slow investing in AI for key processes
• Retention matters more than CAC
• Dream sponsorship: FIFA World Cup
• Advice to younger self: "Trust your instincts and persist"
• On parenting: “Just play with your kids and be present. That’s what matters most.”

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Takeaways for Founders, Operators, and Investors

• Don’t fall into the “fancy hire” trap—grit, execution, and tactical excellence rule
• Brand is a compounding asset; build it with repetition, consistency, and a point of view
• Public markets can accelerate (not hinder) a company’s development—if you’re ready for the scrutiny and discipline
• Industry-defining companies solve real distribution and price transparency problems for their category
• Leadership means being comfortable with discomfort, learning from missteps, and always replacing yourself with better talent

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For more, visit 20vc.com.

Transcript

[Andrew Dudham]

One of the things I learned earliest in my career is if you can't hire people that are smarter than you, you will fail. You know, I think what you gain confidence in with brand marketing over time is that consistency is required. Yeah, the whole thing is totally fucked, right? If you look at the existing system in the U.S. this is 20 VC

[Harry Stebbings]

with me, Harry Stebbings now. I am so excited for the show today. We have Andrew Dudham, founder and CEO of Hims on the show. Hims are reinventing healthcare. But wow, it's been a tough six months. They are down 66%. They've got a market cap of 4.35 billion as of today, but they do over 2.3 billion in revenue. It's nuts. I'm so excited to sit down with Andrew today where we discuss this and so much more. This was so much fun to do. But before we dive into the show today, you're in back to back meetings all day. You're trying to stay present, but you're also worried you'll forget the decision, the action item, the important next step. That's where Granola comes in. Granola is an AI powered notepad for meetings. You jot down rough notes like you always do and in the background Granola transcribes and turns them into really clear, useful notes. When the meeting ends, no bots joining your call, no distractions, just a clean notepad that helps you focus during or after the call. You can chat with your notes, ask Granola to pull out action items, help you negotiate, write a follow up email even, or coach you using recipes which are pre made prompts. It's actually the same technology we use to create our podcast notes. Once you try it on a first meeting, it's really hard to go back. Head to Granola AI 20VC, that's Granola AI 20VC and get three months free with code 20VC, that's 20VC. Once Granola turns the conversation into clear notes, Fin turns that clarity into better customer support. If you're looking for a way to transform your customer service, let me introduce you to Fin, baby. Fin is the number one AI agent for customer service, resolving up to 93% of customer service customer queries automatically. There is no other agent that can do that. Not 93% of customer queries. Okay. No other agent can do that, so why choose? Fin is the best performing AI agent for cs. Fin doesn't just answer questions, it takes actions. It automates the most complex customer queries like refunds, transaction disputes, technical troubleshooting with speed and reliability. I wish my team was speedy and reliable. Beats every competitor in every head to head bake off. Completely configurable and code optional setup. My word. I mean the benefits just go on and on. It's easy and efficient implementation. It works on any help desk with no tedious migration needs. It's trusted by over 6,000 customer service leaders, including top AI companies like Anthropic, Lovable Synthesia, Klei Vanta. So if you're ready to transform your customer service team, scale your support and give team members time to focus on the really high level strategic work. Learn more about FIN at FIN AI20VC.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

You have now arrived at your destination. Andrew, it's been like six, seven years. I, I was, I was young and fresh when, when we last spoke.

[Andrew Dudham]

Sorry, I was a, I was a lot younger. We looked a lot better back then, but I say we're pretty good now.

[Harry Stebbings]

I listen, I think life's been pretty

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

kind to both of us. Can I start with a super weird one? And you might be like, dude, I thought we were buddies, but I speak to so many public company CEOs today and I can't find a happy one.

[Andrew Dudham]

I might be the only person that believes this, but I think running the company in the public markets is more fun than being private.

[Harry Stebbings]

Why you get shit on every day.

[Andrew Dudham]

Did I see it?

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

And I'm like, oh poor Andrew. And I so remember our dinner with your lovely wife. And I'm like oh I like so nice.

[Harry Stebbings]

And I see this shit on Twitter.

[Andrew Dudham]

I love it for a few reasons. One, if you're a highly competitive person, you get to put out high benchmarks every 90 days and see if you can actually deliver on it and you can build a high performance team to say, hey, we put this out and it's a big stretch, let's go kick ass and figure it out. When you're private, it's so easy to get cozy. You know the worst case scenario if you got some VCs that call you and they're stressed out about something. But in the public markets it's like it's boot camp. It's like you got to be, you have to deliver. So I love that from a competitive standpoint. I also love the ability to hire talent like in the public markets because they can see the vision and you're forced to not only talk about where you're going to go 10 years from now, but if you're going to actually like make steps quarter to quarter to prove it. So as a competitive person, I think It's a lot of fun also when you step back. Like, you know, we, we went public really early. We went public after like 36 months of launching, which was a little bit crazy. When you look at the biggest companies in the world, they went public within a first few years of launching. Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, all of them. Like they didn't stay private for 10, 20 years. You know, the founder was forced to figure it out in the public markets how we're going to grow, how we're going to get efficient and how we're going to tell a big vision. And I think that's a lot of fun.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I love that. Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, hims.

[Andrew Dudham]

That's right.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Nice that. Yeah. It's actually one of the oldest marketing tricks ever, which is like marketing by association. You know this, it's called Six Flags. Do you remember Six Flags? The really shit theme parks? Yeah, yeah. So I don't know them because I'm British, but like they wanted to be better than everyone else and so they just did massive billboards that said not as good as Disney, very smart. I know. I like a good marketing fascinated. You said there about going public so early. If you were sitting down with like the Collisons today, would you tell them to go public?

[Andrew Dudham]

I think if your business is ready from a predictability standpoint and you have a long term orientation, then I would encourage you to go public. I think those two things have to be true. I think you have to actually be able to predict your business with consistency because you can't enter the markets without that confidence. And you also have to be ready to sign up for a decade or two in the markets. Right. This is not something, it's not a quick exit, it's not a liquidity event. It's. That's the beginning. And so I would encourage any founder that has those two dynamics to consider it.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Do you think you can do what you want to do from a long term strategic objective standpoint and have the, as you said, the 90 day ticker of like, hey, we've got to go hard for the 90 days.

[Andrew Dudham]

I think you do. It takes, it takes discipline. I think it takes hiring the right people. You know, I think I focus on hiring a certain type of people. You know, they're not particularly fancy in background, they're not credentialed with like all of the really great tech companies. Like that's not what I look for. I look for mostly people who have been builders and have gone through some shit is like the honest reality. So if you look at our team. You know Yemi, our cfo, he was, you know, the divisional CFO of Uber during COVID The whole business disappeared overnight and he had to figure it out. Or Deirdre, our chief product officer, she was at Robinhood during GameStop. Right. Had to figure out that chaos.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Or do you seek out crisis in their lives? I know it sounds stupid, but you've mentioned two very iconic.

[Andrew Dudham]

Yeah, I seek out grit. I seek out a lot of grit because I think when you're disrupting an industry, which we are, and even in the last year our category has exploded and changed and been fraught with all types of chaos, you have to have a team that is used to being uncomfortable and used to getting through it and used to staying calm and having that resilience. And so absolutely search for people that have seen those types of ups and down and thrived in them. Because I think when you're disrupting, it's just inevitable that that's going to happen.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I spoke to so many people around you, like really, I stalked the shit out of you again, which was nice because I know you, but like to kind of hear stories from owning donut shops. Didn't tell me that, did you? Didn't tell you my Augustus Gloop was coming out there. But the talent element was one and they said in particular Jules Maltz, I think it was from ivp, said that you're incredible when it comes to acquisition and ret attention. What do people get most wrong, do you think about acquiring great talent today?

[Andrew Dudham]

I think often people as they scale, maybe founders as they scale, fall into the trap of trying to hire people that have seen bigger scale than them and are more strategic and they, they feel like they've gotten to the point of success where now it's time where they up level the talent to non startupy folks, right? To like real professional people. And I think that is a huge, huge mistake. Huge mistake. I think as you scale there's a pressure to go hire that big strategy person who has more credentials than you. And it's kind of, it feels almost confidence inducing as a founder to like get to that level. And I think you have to fight that at all costs. I've made mistakes, I've hired people like that because I thought it was, was the right move. And I've always come back to find people who love the mission, who love to build, who are tactically excellent at what, what the function actually requires, and again, who are gritty as hell.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

What are you not excellent at in the role of CEO but persist relentlessly despite your lack of skill.

[Andrew Dudham]

So many things. I mean, I'm constantly trying to find the balance of being in the weeds and building a team that can scale independently of me. That line of how hands on you should be, how strategically involved you should be, how tactically involved you should be versus.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Why do you come down on that then? Because we have the founder mode and the know. I love Ryan at Flexport, but like that, I'm so in the weeds and I love him for it.

[Andrew Dudham]

You have to be intentional about where you get into the weeds. I don't believe in this concept of like, every design review comes through me, everything that ships comes through me. Every decision comes through me. Like, it's one of the things I learned earliest in my career is if you can't hire people that are smarter than you, you will fail. And young managers struggle with this all the time. They. They're scared to hire people that are better than them because they feel like if I hire somebody better than me, what the fuck am I even doing here? Why am I here if I just hired somebody who's better than me? And in fact, it's completely the opposite. If you want to continue to scale in our organization or any organization that's growing, you have to realize that your job is changing every 12 months to level yourself up to the next next highest leverage focus area. In order to do that, you have to replace yourself every 12 months with talent equal or better always. To me, that's a really important realization that as a CEO and founder, which is I want to hire people better than me and so I trust them. Yet at the same time, if there are specific areas of the business that are critical, either strategic decisions or tactical implementations being worked on, you have to know when you go deep. And you need to acknowledge to the team, hey, this is something that's really important. I'm going to go deep on it. I'm not going to go deep on everything, but this is important. I'm going to be in the weeds here, dude.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I sit in these boards nowadays and honestly, they're mostly useless. It's so exhausting. And AI is at the top of every big company board discussion topic. Okay.

[Harry Stebbings]

No shit.

[Andrew Dudham]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

How does your business change with AI? How many people do you have today?

[Andrew Dudham]

About 2,000 employees.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Okay, you have 2,000 employees. How many do you think you'll have in 20, 30?

[Andrew Dudham]

That's a great question. Probably not many. More than two to 3,000.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

That's a big range.

[Andrew Dudham]

Yeah, we operate about a million square feet of Pharmacy fulfillment throughout the U.S. and so we have a large chunk of labor force which is actually just variable labor responsible for actually pharmacy oversight, pharmacy review and actually shipment of medication. So I can do a lot in regard to efficiency for core product engineering, accounting, finance, marketing, etc. But when you're actually running facilities, physical facilities, and a lot of this is actually required doctor and pharmacy oversight, you know, those you can't get as much leverage on.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Are you pushing AI down into every function of the org?

[Andrew Dudham]

Yes, yes.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Are you seeing have dramatic implications that we have? We have ENG and we have customer support. I think we over exaggerate elsewhere where it has impact.

[Andrew Dudham]

I think those two areas are critical. We're also seeing it have massive leverage in design. Right. So we deploy about $1 billion in marketing spend every year across the Hims and Hers brands. You know, the cost to do a live photo shoot, the speed of a food photo shoot for every single product launch. You know, we probably have thousands of variations of TV commercials, Facebook ads, Google Ads, et cetera. The speed of iteration with AI in that function, I think is actually one of the most tangible that I've seen across our organization.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

When you speak about the explosion of the business, that explosion is driven largely by GLP1s and weight loss. How much of that is the core business today? Is it 80% weight loss, 20% everything else? What does that look like?

[Andrew Dudham]

No, no. I think that's one of the funny things about our business is we are constantly in the headlines as a single category business. When we first launched, when you and I first met, we were the erectile dysfunction business, right? And it was front page of the New York Times and it was fun and silly and provocative and all we did from everyone's perspective was ed. And then we launched hair. And then all of a sudden it was like, we're a hair loss business. And then we launched the hers business. And everyone says, oh, hers is never going to work. You're just an ED and hair loss business. And then eventually we launched GLP1s and everyone said, oh, now you're just a weight loss business. And you know, a year from now people will say, oh, you're just like a Peptides business probably, if I were to take a guess, right? And so I think the reality is under the hood is that you have a dozen completely different clinical categories, completely different businesses, each scaling with very solid, robust growth. Which is why this business is interesting. Like that's why I run this business is the durability of it is quite strong because you have 10 different businesses with completely different customer segments. So weight loss is actually nowhere near the majority of this business. I don't think ever will be just because you're continuing to expand core categories and a lot of new categories.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

So do you run those as separate businesses? When I had Nick from Revolut on the show, he said something fascinating. He said, we run 26 different product experiments at the same time. I treat it much like a venture incubator and I give them more or less money depending on how well they perform. Do you run them as like a venture incubation unit?

[Andrew Dudham]

Yes, absolutely. I mean, you know, when we first met, I was over with, with Jack Abraham running Atomic Ventures for a long time. And that training of zero to one exploration, that is what Hims and hers is, right? Like, I think of it as a public shell for innovation in bringing great healthcare to consumers. Which means every year we're testing completely new go to market strategies, completely new categories. And the way we think about it is internally is just different bets and some bets you starve and some bets you fund and some bets you ring fence to allow exploration for a year or two. But they're run increasingly independently. The DNA of management is to look at it as a portfolio that continues to scale because ultimately in our business, health and wellness, what makes up great health and wellness is constantly changing. There's new diagnostics, there's new devices, there's new drugs, there's new learnings about, you know, the sauna and, you know, cold plunges or whatever it might be, whatever's trendy, right? Like all of this is changing and it's going to continue to accelerate. And our job is to curate the best and bring it to people at scale at an affordable cost. And so we have to think about this, frankly, as a portfolio that's constantly evolving.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I can't get my head around the sauna.

[Andrew Dudham]

Andrew, you have to do the sauna four times a week. No, I didn't grease for 20 minutes. It cuts all.

[Harry Stebbings]

Have you seen what it does to the motility of your sperm? You've got three kids, buddy. Some of us have got none.

[Andrew Dudham]

Got to bring an ice pack in there.

[Harry Stebbings]

I'm not going to bring an ice

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

pack for my balls.

[Harry Stebbings]

I'm sorry. This is genuinely.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

This was like the most unattractive thing ever. And it's like, you know, Huberman's like,

[Harry Stebbings]

oh, it extends life by like, you

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

know, he's not doing ice packs.

[Andrew Dudham]

We'll sauna together next time I'm in London.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I'd do it with you.

[Andrew Dudham]

Yeah. All right.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

There you go. You said there about kind of the best. I think a lot is learned from what did you do that with the benefit of hindsight you wish you hadn't done?

[Andrew Dudham]

It's a great question. For us as a business, I think it's important to constantly be in a customer's mind, the mindshare of the new evolving health and wellness categories. And so I think in many categories we've been quick to market and in many categories we've been kind of like, you know, patient to market. And in retrospect, I constantly am kind of evolving my perspective on like how fast we should be there. My net net takeaway is I don't think we actually need to be first ever in market. I want to be best in market. And so when I think of new categories, peptides for example.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Right.

[Andrew Dudham]

You know, a lot of conversation about 10, 15 peptides going from category 2 to category 1 compounding so that people can actually get access to things like BVC157TB500. This is an incredibly interesting category. You won't see us be first to market in this category. You'll see us when we launch it, feel extremely confident in the clinical protocols, extremely confident in the guardrails, make sure that the supply chain and the quality is done to a level we are, you know, feel is bulletproof from a pharmaceutical standpoint. So, you know, there's a lot of introspection in my brain around speed and prioritization of which categories to enter. But what I always come back to is not being first, but being best. So that from a brand standpoint, people know hims and hers to be high quality and trusted. Like when we actually bring something to market, you know, it's safe, you know it's done right and you know, it could be something that's, that's powerful and important for your, for your health.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I always remember Hugo Bauer, who was the product guy from Xiaomi and he said on the show when you're doing anything in physical product, you need to choose one. You need to be feature king or you need to be price king.

[Andrew Dudham]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

What are you?

[Andrew Dudham]

I think you have to be both for us. I think you have to have the best at the most affordable price eventually.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

How come it was $1800 to $2000 for WeGovy and Ozempic then, which wasn't wholesale?

[Andrew Dudham]

Well, what is it now?

[Harry Stebbings]

Well, the self pay price at the

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

time was 300 to 400.

[Andrew Dudham]

Yeah, it's down to about $149 in 18 months on hims, we just announced the Wegobi pill 149.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Is that not post novo deal?

[Andrew Dudham]

Oh yeah, yeah. It's through partnership. No, absolutely.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

So we want to be price king and feature king.

[Andrew Dudham]

We want to curate the absolute best at prices the masses can afford. And I think the way you do that is you work with ecosystem partners, you leverage the scale of the platform. Right. We're the largest global distributor at this point probably of medicines. And so by able to then working with, you know, the best diagnostic companies, the cancer grail detection company. I don't know if you've ever taken this test. This is a test that I've been taking for five years. I've had everyone in my family take because there's, there's cancer in my family.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

What was the test?

[Andrew Dudham]

It's called the gallery test by Grail. It's a blood test and it can detect, you know, 50 to 100 cancers. And it focuses specifically its best at from a clinical standpoint, some of the harder to find cancers. Prostate, pancreatic, ovarian, cancer. And it's a simple blood test. You know, we, this blood test was thousands of dollars for the last few years. We were able to work directly with Grail, bring that test, I think it's in market now and hims and hers at like 600 bucks. And my hope is over the coming years they'll continue to come down to a few hundred bucks. Where everybody could do this on an annual basis like going to the dentist. Right. It's just check to see if there's any early signs, any early protein indicators of stage one cancer tumors. So there's an arc. Right. When the GLP1s first came out, it was $2,000 list price. We applied incredible pressure to the drug companies. The current administration in the US did an amazing job. And thanks to the drug companies, they actually agreed to bring them down from the thousands of dollars to 150 to $200 cash pay prices. I mean that is like completely transformative. It's not something that's really happened in pharmaceutical history that the blockbuster drug of the century gets cut by 80% in 18 months. The reason for that, I think the reason it happened in part is because companies like us and consumers applied massive pressure to change the distribution model. Right. In 18 months, the distribution model has completely changed in pharmaceuticals in the U.S. instead of going through PBMs and insurance, they're going straight to customers through platforms like ours at prices everyday people can afford. And so there's an arc to that price reduction. But I think for us, we want to have the absolute best and also want to be able to apply pressure to bring that cost down as much as we can.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Do you think like a pill pack sold too soon? When you think about the erosion of PBM's power that you mentioned there and how challenging it was for a business like Pillpack.

[Andrew Dudham]

I don't know too much about Pillpack to be totally honest. What I don't believe is that the pharmacy fulfillment part of our business independently is a particularly valuable business.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

How should I think about the preventative healthcare companies that I'm pitched every day, whether it's your Pre Novos or your Necco's in the uk, which is expanding to your. Is that the future? Some are much deeper, some are much shallower, some are much more expensive. How do you understand analyze that space? Is that something that HIMS would do?

[Andrew Dudham]

We spend a ton of time looking at that space and actually we did a partnership with Pernovo that was announced just a couple of weeks ago. I think where there's a lot of interesting companies right now is in highly specialized levels of testing for clinical areas that are meaningfully unmet. Right? So you look at things like cardiovascular disease, right? Still one of the number one killers. Most dads die of a heart attack, yet a statin is, you know, two cents for me to manufacture. And if you take a statin every day, then you won't die of a heart attack or you're meaningfully less likely to have a heart attack. Yet nobody does it. And so there's biotech companies right now working on therapies where a single injection quarterly or a single injection annually can absolutely obliterate your cardiovascular risk. And if you can do something like that, you meaningfully curve that rate of death and you get ahead on prevention for cardiovascular disease. Prunovo, I think is another interesting one, right? It's how do we get ahead of detection for things like cancer and early tumor detection? My dad had stage four colon cancer when he was 39. It then cost the healthcare system hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars to have surgery and then treat him for many years with chemotherapy, right? And then afterwards the care involved to kind of get him back to a steady state. The idea of an annual exam that can scan your body for early signs, early proteins through blood testing, or early actually imaging signs that can detect a millimeter sized tumor is incredibly fascinating. Now I think a lot of clinical people, and they're smart, you know, believe something like that is not yet ready for mainstream and it might not be. I kind of choose to be opportunistic in giving people the ability to make those trade offs for themselves. I take Prenovo annually, so, you know, I recommend it to my family. Is it perfect? Absolutely not.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

How much is Prenovo?

[Andrew Dudham]

I think now it's maybe about 1,000 or 1,500 bucks a year.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Okay, that's better than I thought.

[Andrew Dudham]

Yeah. And so I think, and again, these are machines that cost $500,000 one time purchase to buy, but then you're charging, you know, $1,000 or $2,000 a month or a year. And so the idea that this cost could come down dramatically is very real. 500k machine capitalized over a decade, the cost could come down to something like $300 a year to do this test eventually. And that's where my brain goes when I'm thinking about the future is what are the Swiss cheese layers we can give people that together make up really great prevention. Working backwards from what we know causes, you know, shortening of life and health

[Harry Stebbings]

span is the biggest threat to your

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

business, not actually OpenAI and if ChatGPT is the kind of consumer interface with a lot of healthcare questions that people have today, which it is in most cases actually, and that's why obviously health is a big focus for them, is it not the most natural extension ever that they extend that into delivery, supply being your on demand doctor?

[Andrew Dudham]

You know, it's something that people have been talking about a lot actually. Dario was mentioning this recently. I think some of the most defensible businesses in the age of Anthropic and OpenAI are businesses that actually do something physical. They require actual specialization and they require infrastructure. A huge part of what we do every single day is treat tens of thousands of patients with thousands of doctors that are specialized and licensed in every state or country in the world, and then actually help make people medicine. This is a million square feet of pharmacy fulfillment. This is, you know, hundreds of pharmacists and robotic machines that are actually compounding treatments or fulfilling branded pharmaceuticals. So when I actually think about the most defensive businesses, the businesses that can thrive in the age of AI and actually be enabled by them, are ones where the conversation of something like ChatGPT massively expands the funnel of people engaging in health and wellness, but then can be driven to a platform that actually connects them with the specialist and connects them with the products and actually can get that delivered to their door. And ultimately, I think we're a combination of all of those businesses together. So you know, I think there's, there's a lot of opportunity with that funnel that opens up with things like ChatGPT.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I agree with you in terms of like physical infrastructure and real world requirements, meaning there's just inherently more value there because it's harder to do. So does that look like a partnership? Then say I come in and I say, hey, I've got a, I don't know, a rash here and I'm worried about it. And then they siphon it off to him. So how, what does that relationship look like?

[Andrew Dudham]

Yeah, I mean, I think it's similar to what you see on Google. I don't think it's going to be all that much different. Right. That you'll be able to partner directly with Anthropic and chatgpt and find patients that are looking for certain services and then have handoffs to specialized implementations. Right. It's going to be, I think there's great opportunities to partner with all of these players.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

We mentioned kind of transition of how people consume health care in terms of how people find you. I actually had Aaron from Monday on the show, which is a fascinating show and he said that with AI overview on Google that they've lost 18% or I might be butchering me maybe 15 to 18% of their AdWords in terms of acquisition. How are you seeing the way that people find him's change?

[Andrew Dudham]

You know, it hasn't had particularly dramatic changes since, you know, some of these new AI companies have, have grown. I think for us, a huge number of people that come to us are first time patients interested in some of these care categories. And so they're hearing about it through, you know, watching Fox News. They're hearing about it through watching NFL on Thursday nights. They're hearing about it from their friend who all of a sudden is feeling great and the friend is talking about the treatments that they're on or the fact that they're getting care from hims and hers. So I think more and more for us the brand and the spend is moving towards channels where you're talking about the opportunity to feel great. You're not reliant on, you know, maybe the AdWords Google funnel that you mentioned. I do think those businesses inevitably will have struggle in transitioning to some of the chat based interfaces, but there will be ad networks that are built through those chat based interfaces that eventually just replace them. So ultimately I'm not sure it will matter. But for us I think an increasing amount of spend is actually going towards just telling people about all of the New things hims and hers is doing the fact that you can feel great, the fact that it's affordable and you can come check it out. And it's a lot of market creation, both in the US and globally, versus this latent demand that you're capturing through some of these more streamlined channels.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

If I gave you an unlimited checkbook, what would you spend on today that you're not currently spending on?

[Andrew Dudham]

I would definitely sponsor Ferrari F1, because I've told my wife that if I were to have one job that wasn't my current job, it'd be a Ferrari driver, but she did not really like that answer.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Do you think that would be a net positive for hims as a business? Don't laugh.

[Andrew Dudham]

The Ferrari sponsorship? Yeah, at this point, probably not, because I'm not sure we're, we're live in every market with the penetration we want, where that, that global footprint matters. I think eventually it would. I think eventually in the coming years, you know, World cup and, and global sponsorship opportunities actually do matter because, you know, this year was a, a huge level of commitment to win internationally. I mean, we, we did not dip our toe. I mean, we, we acquired three or four companies.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Did you acquired Eucalyptus for like one and a half billion in cash somewhere around there.

[Harry Stebbings]

How does that come to be?

[Andrew Dudham]

Dude, you know what it comes to be because you get to know the people really well. I've known Tim probably four or five years. I think he was the best operator overseas, no question. I mean, his understanding of the customer, his ability to build a team that just moves fast, experiments, is willing to take risks and fail. I mean, when I first met Tim, he was live in like six or seven markets and it was all failing. And he was telling me how chaotic it was, and I was like, I don't know, man, this sounds crazy. You're in like, Indonesia, you're in Japan, you're in all these different places. Like, is it going to work? He's like, I'm not. Not sure, but we're going to try it. And then a year later he's like, okay, it didn't work. We're like toning it back. We're going to focus here. And his humility and his willingness to experiment and test and learn is incredible. And because of that, they've just moved so much faster than everybody else. I mean, they're the dominant player in Australia, dominant player in the uk, dominant player in Germany, quickly growing in Japan. I mean, it's just a phenomenal business. The power of what we built in the US from a cash flow standpoint has enabled us in the last four or five years to buy that business with pretty moderate dilution. Right. Because you can actually just fund the purchase of it off the balance sheet over the next couple of years, which is incredible. And so we have committed a huge amount of dollars in focus internationally because I just think the opportunity for the brand is pretty consistent whether there's a national system in the UK or not.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Does it give you cold sweats at night being as aggressive as you have been, as quickly as you have been? I remember entering Dax from Lightspeed Dax to Silver and he mentioned the challenge, Lightspeed, the POS system in a lot of restaurants and he mentioned the challenge in acquiring so much so quickly. I think they made 18 acquisitions in a two year period. Are you worried of like, oh, fuck, I now have to integrate eucalyptus and these three other businesses?

[Andrew Dudham]

Definitely. There is a very fine line of driving so fast that you're losing control, there's no question about that. What I've found, at least in running this business is if you don't feel like you are getting close to that line, you're probably not pushing hard enough. And so I do think that uncomfortable gut feeling where you're constantly questioning, constantly evaluating, constantly tweaking the strategy or the tactics, that feeling is what success feels like. And so I've kind of taught my team that we're going to get really comfortable with that feeling feeling. We're going to get really comfortable sitting in that feeling and questioning and reevaluating and pushing. Because I think that's how you win. Right? Like I was a rower in high school and I remember, you know, my coach saying, the group of guys out there that is willing to be the most uncomfortable and in the most pain are going to win this race. And that's actually true in that sport and that's true in, you know, in most sports. And I think that's true in business is like if you can put yourself in environments where you're being aggressive but smart, taking the right bets, but have a team that is bought into the mission and comfortable with that level of aggressive risk and I think it's the right formula. So to me that's what makes this fun.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

When with the benefit of hindsight, did you push too hard and you had

[Andrew Dudham]

to pull back in the early years. And I think we still, I still try to moderate this with our business. Like we could launch so many things within like a month. You know, you could launch a skincare routine, you could launch like a makeup Brand, you could launch sleep vitamins, you could launch like a wearable device. You, I mean, there's just like anything people are doing in health and wellness could live in the Hims and hers brand, which is pretty powerful and also extremely risky. Right, because if you, if you do too much and you, you move into the wrong areas, you waste a ton of resource. So in the early years, you know, I thought just having everything on the platform was how you win. And so we invested in skincare regimens and we invested in vitamin supplements and we invested in, you know, so many things that in retrospect were fairly commod quantity products. And for pretty much the same price or even less, you could walk across the street to Walgreens and get something that was pretty much the same thing. And I think that that was a massive mistake. You know, I think it was, it was a belief that just assortment won. And I think there's a more nuanced perspective that the right assortment wins. And so we're really careful about categories. We enter products we launch to make sure that their products and offerings at that, that are actually differentiated for people that are hard for other people to receive and get, get access to. And maybe that means it's pharmaceutical grade, it's manufactured in a way that is very, very challenging to get quality, or there's a level of personalization that is required in this care of treatment that makes it unique to you. But when I think about some of the early D2C brands that launched, you know, they were selling commodity products and those products capped out at, you know, a billion in revenue or a couple hundred million in Facebook spend. And the curves were like this. And that's my nightmare, you know, and, and so in the early years made a lot of those mistakes and, and try to make sure we, we don't do that again.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I do want to go back to the brand marketing element just because I suppose you mentioned obviously brand being a core component of like the defensibility. You know, when I, when I interviewed Nick at Revolut, he said brand marketing was the single biggest thing he's changed his mind on in the journey of Revolut, which I thought was an interesting statement. What do you know now about brand marketing and spend on things that seem facile? What do you know now that you wish you'd known?

[Andrew Dudham]

You know, I think what you gain confidence in with brand marketing over time is that consistency is required. So I think in the early years with brand marketing, as companies are growing, they throw some dollars, you know, let's do an out of home campaign in New York because it's like really cool. It's like Takeover Subways, right? Which we did a ton of. And they do it once and everyone, this team is so fucking excited because it's so cool and you can see it and you take pict of it, but you do it once and then like months go by and it gets taken off and then that's it because you did it and it was fun and cool and you look at the numbers and like, ah, maybe there was like a little spike in New York City. Maybe on this day, like you can't really tell. Probably not, but you, you hopeful. And then the next year like, okay, what are we going to do this year?

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Right?

[Andrew Dudham]

Like that's just like it's a guaranteed way to just lose money. It's a great way to feel good and it's super fun. It's like so much fun and we've done a ton of it and it's really fun. Like that's not a business strategy. I think in order to have brand marketing work, I think it has to be consistent. It has to be consistently random, if that makes sense. Like you have to be appearing in different places for people in a randomized way, but with consistency because it's the multiple hits. Like you have to be hit 10 different times in 10 different ways for all of a sudden that to say, hey, there's like a cultural zeitgeist association with hymns right now that I need to pay attention to. Like, what are they doing? That is showing up in so many ways in my life where your brand trust elevates, your cultural relevancy elevates. So it isn't a one off thing. And I think in the early years, you know, you hope it is, you try to track it, but it does require a level of dollars, it requires a level of consistency. And actually, you know, Kathy, our chief comms officer told me this when we were interviewing, which I completely believe. She's like the thing early companies struggle with when it comes to communications in their brand is they get bored of saying the same thing and then they move on to the next thing. Right. Like early companies, we're excited, we're young, we're changing. So like, here's our vision and here's what we stand for. Then three months later, like it's changed up a little bit. I want to say something different because I already said that thing in that last podcast. Let me say something new in this new one. And in fact, what makes great brands great is the fact that everybody knows why they exist, why they fight, who their customer is, what the value is they deliver. And it's because they say the same Damn thing in 20 different ways every single week. And so I think that's one of the key parts about brand marketing or comms in general is consistency, making sure that that message and that narrative is not changing, which requires an immense amount of discipline. And in many ways it's like a lot less fun. It's much more of an engine. But over many, many years, I do think it builds.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

When you're bored of saying it, you've got to remember that there's a new team member that's never ever heard it before.

[Andrew Dudham]

That's right.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

And so you need to deliver it with the same passion and gusto that you did. I also think not enough are opinionated enough. If you look at the Hims and Hers brand today, where would you say you are not opinionated enough?

[Andrew Dudham]

I think Hims and hers will increasingly have a stronger perspective of what great healthcare looks like. And I think as we grow, we are building an understanding of patients at a scale that I don't think most have. Right. When you think about the fact that we're treating 10, 20,000 patients a day, like the largest health systems in the world are not treating 10 to 15,000 patients per day, there's an immense amount of knowledge that's being built around different types of patients, their demographics, their risk factors, their biomarkers, what medicines and treatments work, why, what side effects they have, how much they feel better, combination therapies that are beneficial. Like there's just an immense amount of knowledge base growing where I think we're going to be able to start having stronger perspectives of, of what excellence looks like in healthcare. What do we believe the gold standard in preventative care is? Like if you Harry, want to be the absolute healthiest 29 year old, right, and be ahead of the curve, what are the 10 things you should be doing, what are the tests you should be doing specifically for you? What are the treatments, whether they're holistic supplements or maybe sauna, right. That you should be doing and what's that exact regiment and get ahead of it. And there you go, you're going to be a, you're going to be gold standard, right?

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

You're so far off gold standard, dude, you're doing great.

[Andrew Dudham]

You're doing great. And I think that's actually the point of like, to me that's such a key part of the Hymns and Hers brand is like, everybody feels that way everyone feels so far away from optimal and it's really hard to take the first step to have that confidence to like make a change. And so most people that come to Hims and hers, our first time customers, because I think we as a brand try really hard to empower you and say, hey, that first step is going to be easy. We're going to make it easy. It's kind of like that old Marine or Navy SEAL story of like you make your bed in the morning, right? Because when you make your bed in the morning, you've completed something like a very tactical action, you've had success, there's like positive adrenaline and then from there you're going to do other great things throughout the day like hims and hers. I want to make it so easy for everyone to take that first step in feeling great that it empowers a lot of people to do so. And from your question, we're going to have a stronger opinion about what great actually looks like.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

So for anyone wondering, that is General McRaven's commencement speech, one of the greatest speeches I think recorded and on the Internet. I've listened to it probably a thousand times. It used to be the start of every single run because it's 16 minutes, which is always the most painful of any run. The first 16. So amazing. Aligned. I've got an out there idea for you. You said that you want to make it easier. Why do you not have HIMSS preventative assessments in every city and say, hey, we'll tell you what's wrong with you like a pre novo does or like any other preventile and you can choose to buy with us or not. But by doing that, you're building up the world's largest set of healthcare data for free. And you give it for free and the treatment's what they pay for. It's like you're a loss leader. Also, what a goodwill engine. I would go to the dinner party even if I didn't buy products. I'll go to all my friends and be like, you'll never guess. I found this sad about myself when I went to hims. Oh, what's hims?

[Andrew Dudham]

I think we are, we are very close to that being a reality.

[Harry Stebbings]

Are you able, do you have the

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

elasticity and budget to do that? I don't mean that really.

[Andrew Dudham]

It requires two tangible things. So last year we acquired your Bio Health, which is one of the few at home blood collection devices. I have it right here on my desk. And this device costs just a couple bucks to manufacture. And you can click it on your arm and it's got 30 micro needles inside of it. It each of the micro needles smaller than an eyelash. So if you feel nothing, you click a button, you feel nothing and then a small tube of blood gets extracted from your arm in about a minute or two. You can then peel that off and you can mail it to New Jersey, which is where we have a lab processing facility and we'll have a couple others in the next year and two and run a full panel, you know, 50 biomarkers and it will cost us like almost nothing. Now today, if you go to Quest or LabCorp and try to get that panel, cash pay maybe costs you a thousand bucks or two thousand bucks. If you go online and go to different competitors, maybe it costs like 300 or 500 bucks for that panel. And my goal, my vision is very quickly, I want to give that away as a part of the Hims and Hers membership for free. Because if you can get a sense of those metrics, and I'm not talking about just baseline metrics like your cholesterol and things, I'm actually talking about things that are even more sophisticated, like genetic predisposition risks which you know, very few people get access to, or cancer risks or polygenic risk stores. If you have a really accelerated risk of colon cancer, there's things you should be doing that are different. To me, that is the vision, a preventative front door that is near cost or free. And that requires us to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, which we're doing right now, to totally verticalize this stuff and actually own the devices, the lab processing and that fulfillment. But then a platform that says here's everything we know, here's what we can help you with, give guidance and again make that next step really, really easy.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

I thought it was really interesting. Gokul Rajaram, who's amazing, I don't know if he knows. He basically said his biggest lesson from Square, where he was for many years, was that when you're running a multi product company, not every product line has to be profitable.

[Andrew Dudham]

That's so right. Yeah. And I think for us, I think that entry point and that data collection, it serves two purposes. One, most people just don't even have access to this stuff. So they don't even know if they're like doing well, you know. I'll give you an example. One of my best friends, mid-30s, he's trying to live healthy. He was telling me the other day how he's running a lot. He looked at his cholesterol Numbers. And they were. They were, like, kind of out of whack. So he's like, now starting to eat more salmon and going for a run. I'm like, oh, that's great. Awesome. And then I told him, hey, have you done testing for this specific genetic risk factor for heart disease? It's called lipoprotein little A. He's like, no, I've never done that test. So he ran. He did that test, and he came back, and he's like, my number is, like, 450. I was like, well, that's a problem, because that number should be, like, under 70. And if it's 450, it means there's a pretty good chance you're gonna have a heart attack at, like, 50 or 60. And he looked at me. I'm like, do you have. Has anyone ever had a heart attack in your family? He's like, well, my. My dad died when he was 60, and my dad and my grandfather died at 55. Both have heart attacks. And, like, to me, that moment was why all of this matters. Because he went to his doctor. He went to a cardiologist because he was trying to do well. They gave him a set of panel and blood tests, and his numbers were a little bit off. So he started to go for runs. Great first step. What they didn't test was a genetic predisposition marker that we now know is so much more important. And if you have that high genetic predisposition number, your cholesterol numbers need to be, like, amazing, not good. They have to be incredible, or you're gonna have a heart attack. Like, there are so many therapies. He should be starting now because he now has access to that number. That's the kind of stuff I want to give away for free. Like, that. That level of information helps people actually, like, get preventative, not reactive. And put it on a care spectrum where if somebody wants to be aggressive, they can. If somebody wants to be conservative, they can. But I want to give people information, and then I want to give them choice and assortment and a doctor to help navigate that for a cost that isn't overwhelming.

[Harry Stebbings]

I'm sorry to be. And this may be a total tangent, but is it not, like, totally fucked

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

that doctors get incentivized by drugs companies?

[Andrew Dudham]

One of the things I learned earliest in my career is if you can't hire people that are smarter than you, you will fail. You know, I think what you gain confidence in with brand marketing over time is that consistency is required. Yeah, the whole thing is totally right. If you look at the existing system in the US Almost nothing has to do with patient outcomes or patient happiness. Right. So many people make money, everybody makes money, but none of them make money in any way that's actually reflective of success of the customer or patient. And I think that's where our model is most powerful. Like we only make money at Hims and hers. If you are happier and healthier, period, because you pay us, you pay us to be healthier. If you don't feel healthier, if you don't feel happier, you stop paying us. And so our incentive is only aligned with you. And we then fight behind the scenes, the drug companies, we fight the diagnostic companies, we fight everybody and we work with them, but we apply pressure to them to get the best stuff at the best price to bring it to you. But ultimately we only succeed if you succeed.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

In a way though, your business is like my business, which is like, we don't want you to be too successful where you don't need us. A world where businesses don't need venture capital is a problem for me, that's

[Harry Stebbings]

not a good thing.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

A world where humans don't need any medication.

[Harry Stebbings]

Andrew, I hate to say it is

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

not a good business for you.

[Andrew Dudham]

Well, for us it's not necessarily about medication, right? Like you will always, always need somebody to help quarterback your wealth and your health, right? Like as you grow, as you age, you're always going to want to have somebody who's an expert partner that's available to you 247 that you trust, that can help you navigate how you feel in life. And this changes, right? Like at different milestones, like you might not be there yet, but in the 10 years from now though, things will be popping up all the time. That trusted partner becomes so valuable, but I don't think that changes. And so that relationship that can last decades with hims and hers is what matters, right? Like me just getting you a specific treatment today and making the most money I can from you today, that actually isn't what matters to me long term, right. I'm 37. I've got like a multi decade perspective on how big this business can be. In order for it to reach that, that maximum value, you have to build a brand that people trust to have with you for a very long time. And that means often saying, hey, right now this treatment might not be for you, but we're here for you when something else pops up. And here's more information and here's more diagnostics and here's maybe a wearable device and here's some other habits and food and nutritional support to help you along the way.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

What is your least profitable product that is most important?

[Andrew Dudham]

Right now it's the lab testing offering. Right now it's lab testing because we offer it essentially at cost. We haven't verticalized any of this infrastructure, so it costs us pretty much just as much money as we sell it for. And again, it's because I believe the loss leader value to the patient is incredibly important. And that margin will continue to be terrible because what we're going to do is continue to reduce the cost as we verticalize it and then actually reduce the cost to the consumer. So that will always be, I think, a platform benefit from my standpoint, where we try to make nothing on but give patients information and access and that ultimately can be really transformative for them.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

What do you think not enough people know about HIMS that they should know?

[Andrew Dudham]

I think a lot of people are still trying to understand why we are fighting so hard. Right. People see us in the headlines all the time recently seeing us in the headlines for GLP1s and you know, with drug company conversations.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Why do we see like negative connotations with you and not roe?

[Harry Stebbings]

It seems like the world likes to

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

dunk on you more than ro.

[Andrew Dudham]

I think when it comes to hims is a disruptor. We are actually disrupting. I think we are pushing buttons that structurally change how people get access to care in this country. If you look in the last 18 months like we were talking about, the most important medicines of the century got cut by 80%. Not only did they get cut in cost, but now they're available through consumer channels at prices everyone can afford. I think we played a part of that intentionally. Right? We applied massive pressure, regulatory pressure, consumer pressure. We leveraged hundreds of thousands of patients to raise their voices to say, hey, these medicines could save our lives. Let's actually get them to us in ways we can afford. And coverage is now expanding dramatically and the prices are tanking. And so I think our willingness to be at the forefront of disruption and push on behalf of consumers I think causes friction.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

And RO isn't innovating in that way. Hence they don't get the criticism.

[Andrew Dudham]

I don't, I don't know if I, you know, I won't talk specifically about any other brand because I'm not sure their strategy, but, but I would say, you know, in order to actually disrupt the system, you have to break part of the system. And, and I think our strategy is, is, is doing that.

[Harry Stebbings]

What part of the system would you

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

most like to break that you haven't broken yet.

[Andrew Dudham]

I think we are in the middle right now of breaking how healthcare is distributed entirely. So instead of going through the PBMs and then through insurance and then through reimbursements, all of that complexity that nobody understands in the U.S. i don't think any of it makes sense. All of it or as much of it as possible will go through consumer channels like him's and hers where you can pick up your phone, have on demand access, have total price transparency, have complete choice of which doctor, which specialists, which treatment, complete information access and then control the system in the US is entirely paternalistic, right? You get treated with whatever they want to give you and the incentives and reimbursements and costs are so convoluted that it's wildly overwhelming. And so when I think of every other industry we love, food delivery, financial services, banking, retail, everything is simple. It's on demand from your mobile device, price transparency, customer choice. Yet the one, one thing that is the most important part of our life doesn't have any of those elements. And it's the biggest industry in the U.S. it's where we spend the most money too. And so I think that's entirely going to change. And so I don't think HIMSS is a D2C company. I think HIMS is disrupting how healthcare is delivered in a consumer focused fashion. And I think we're in the midst of that change. I think people are just coming around to it and you're starting to see it with the GLP1s as a prime example. But I think in the next five years it's going to accelerate to about a.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

The lock in and power of EPIC is just mind boggling. Does that progress or prevent innovation in the healthcare industry?

[Andrew Dudham]

I don't think it's relevant actually when you look at the patients coming to HIMS and hers today, the patients starting their healthcare journey, the majority of them do not have legacy data and systems within all the Mr. Platforms, right? They moved to a new city, they moved to New York and they're 22 and they're like, like I don't have a doctor yet. I'm feeling a little sad. What do I do? Right? And their, their first time entry into the healthcare system is HIMS and hers. And so the, the wave of, of healthcare for the future, for the next 20 years, for the 50 years after that is, is going to be a patient population that's starting today. And that's why I think, you know, you have to, you have to build a relationship early, you have to have an assortment of care that starts young for people so that you can give them example of what great looks like and then build with them over many, many years.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Final one. And then I promise we'll do a quick find. I know I've jumped around the whole thing, but that's why I love what I do these days. I think your food industry is at the root of all your health care problems. What you guys do to your food is not natural. Like, apples are not meant to be that large. Salmon is not meant to be that cut.

[Harry Stebbings]

Do you agree that food is at the root of a lot of your healthcare problems?

[Andrew Dudham]

100%.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

How? Genuinely, dude, how do you eat healthily and sustainably in New York today when

[Harry Stebbings]

it's all completely artificial?

[Andrew Dudham]

Yeah, it's really challenging. I think the current administration is doing an amazing job on that issue. I really do. Right. Like the push to eat real food, the push to normalize, the fact that all of the ingredients on these labels is garbage, it's chemicals. The push to educate people to actually see what is good for you and look at those labels and require food companies to disclose it and to force changes on high processed foods or corn syrup use like it's poison. You know, my wife is, my wife is French. And so when, when we're visiting her family overseas, I look at the labels. It's crazy. I mean, you know, when you look at a French fried bag of, in a French grocery store, it's potatoes and it's olive oil and that's it. You know, you, you go to Safeway here in the US and you look at it and it's 40 different things. So I think there's a huge problem with the food industry. I think the government applying pressure and regulation there is a wonderful idea for people because undoubtedly that's a massive part of the obesity epidemic in the country and also probably the mental health epidemic and many, many other things.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, I'm totally with you. I feel. And actually on this one, I feel really sorry for. I don't know how to class this wealthist whatever, but I feel really sorry if you don't have money because I think it's really hard then.

[Andrew Dudham]

Oh yeah, it's so difficult. I mean, we've got three little boys and I, you know, we try to, you know, feed them well. And so we'll buy like a carton of organic blueberries, right? And that carton is expensive. Organic blueberries in San Francisco, it might be like seven bucks and I'll open It and I'll put it in front of the boys for breakfast and they'll grab handfuls and it'll be done in 15 seconds. Right. And so the idea that, you know, healthy food costs this much and is consumed that easily is a real challenge right now. And so anything people can be doing to eat locally, to have local farms to make sustainability in their communities easier and better, I think is all positive.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Yeah, I totally get that. Dude, I want to do a quick firearm with you. Okay. So I'm going to say a short statement.

[Harry Stebbings]

You give me your immediate thoughts.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Does that sound okay?

[Andrew Dudham]

Sounds good.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

What decision have you made in the last two years that you would reverse today?

[Andrew Dudham]

I think I was too slow to force the company to invest in completely disrupting their team processes with AI.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Which process was disrupted most?

[Andrew Dudham]

I think customer care, provider quality, all patient interactions. I think we were a year or two too slow on totally changing the model of how patients interact with the platform.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

CAC goes up or retention goes down, which scares you more.

[Andrew Dudham]

Retention going down.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Why?

[Andrew Dudham]

There are always ways to optimize efficiency on acquisition. There are always new channels, new brand campaigns, new growth avenues. But if you don't have a sticky customer and for some reason they're becoming less sticky, your product market fit, your patient happiness, your customer happiness is going in the wrong direction.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

CAC only ever goes one way. Agree or disagree?

[Andrew Dudham]

Disagree at scale. I think with scale, with assortment, with brand value, new channels become unlocked, new efficiency grows, leverage accelerates. With assortment, it often only goes one way, but I don't think always.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Other than Ferrari, what do you not sponsor that you would most like to. World cup, like the event itself. The FIFA World cup brought to you by hims.

[Andrew Dudham]

Yep.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Well, you got the US One coming, dude. It's not too late to spend some dollars, right? What advice would you give to yourself? Starting hymns again. You mentioned Jack and Atomic and starting it as part of Atomic. What do you tell yourself going back to the very start?

[Andrew Dudham]

I would tell myself to trust my instincts as we continue to build and get bigger and bigger, continue to trust my instincts. And also remember that it's going to be a long journey and the ups and downs are going to come and go, but that the persistence is going to be most important.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Now, I think we do meaningful jobs and you do a hugely meaningful job, but I think the most meaningful job that you probably do, which you'll agree with, is being a father. Final one. What's your biggest advice on being a great father now? Having three boys.

[Andrew Dudham]

You know, there's Something I watched once where they asked a whole bunch of little kids what their absolute perfect afternoon was. And these are like 2, 3, 4, 5 year olds. And the perfect afternoon was all these kids answered the same way. Just playing with their mom and dad. Just like sitting with blocks and playing with their mom and dad or drawing with their mom and dad or something with their mom and dad. And I don't think, you know, when you're exhausted and you're a parent and you're trying to do everything and pulled so many different ways, you realize that actually all the kids want to do is just have you present and truly present. And so my greatest advice I think would be to try really, really hard to just play with them. Like actually play. Like get down on your, on your knees, on your butt in whatever they're doing and just ask what they're doing and ask if you can do it with them because they light up. Because in parenting like it's, it's hard to actually make time for that. But I found that that, that's, that's really the most important and valuable stuff.

[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

Dude, I so appreciate you. I so appreciate the friendship. I so appreciate you putting up with my incredibly wayward, I mean real breadth to the conversation. You gotta give me credit, but you've been fantastic.

[Andrew Dudham]

Appreciate you having me. Good to see you again.

[Harry Stebbings]

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[Podcast Host / Interviewer]

My word.

[Harry Stebbings]

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