After a decade as a leading voice in the vacation rental industry and publishing a Wall Street Journal bestseller on mindset, Andrew McConnell identified an opportunity in the wellness space. With co-founder Lou Zameryka, he launched Alively, an e-commerce platform that uses personal health data to provide customized product recommendations to consumers.

A Data-First Approach to Personal Health

Andrew noticed a gap between modern technology and health commerce. “It’s pretty crazy in today’s market that your thermostat knows how to adapt temperature, and Spotify knows what song to play based on time of day,” he notes. “Yet, when you go to another marketplace, you get a generic search box, and at best, you’re getting recommendations based on others’ searches.”

“We live in a world where 60% of Americans have wearable devices. People are ingesting and throwing off tons of personalized data that could be used to help better inform [their choices],” Andrew notes, revealing how the idea for Alively came about.

Lou Zameryka & Andrew McConnell

The platform capitalizes on health-tracking technology adoption, structuring its approach around five pillars of health: fitness, nutrition, sleep & recovery, mindset, and social connection. “There’s also stress management and mindset and how you engage with the world around you—social connection and your purpose in life,” Andrew explains.

Research supports this comprehensive strategy. As Andrew explains, “You need all those components. If you have amazing fitness but you’re eating terrible food, you can end up with diabetes because you’re not putting the right fuel in. If you’re doing everything right, but you’re not getting enough sleep, you can get early-onset dementia. Socially isolated older adults have a 50% greater risk of developing dementia than their more socially connected peers.”

Instead of simply selling products, Alively tracks whether purchases achieve desired outcomes. “If you buy something in a normal marketplace, maybe you get a compliment for the new T-shirt or dress, and that feels good,” Andrew says. “But when you buy something health-related, you’re trying to move a metric: get better sleep, increase energy, lose weight, add muscle, etc. There’s something tied to it.”

The platform bases recommendations on measured results. “We see 73% of people who buy this other product get an extra 22 minutes in deep and REM sleep at night within the first 45 days,” Andrew explains.

Product testing includes comprehensive monitoring. “We have at-home blood tests that you can do,” Andrew notes, adding that the system actively tracks product effectiveness.

Expert Partnerships Drive Personalization

Alively carefully selects health experts to guide users. “We’re not trying to deliver universal answers,” Andrew points out. “We’re saying, ‘Here’s this person’s answer.’ If you find person X credible, we will package all that to make it easy to discover, digest, and see what that person does.”

He illustrates this approach with specific examples: “If you’re a competitive athlete, the right role model for you might be Greg Bennett, the world’s #1 triathlete. If you’re perimenopausal, then maybe Laura Gassner Otting [WSJ best-selling author] is the right one for you because of what she is working on and how she’s been able to do what she does [resonates with that audience].”

These collaborations extend beyond typical influencer relationships. Through the “Home of Healthspan” podcast, Alively produces detailed conversations with experts about their health experiences. “We have a conversation, and we work through their goals. We discuss what they’ve tried that may not have worked, what they’re doing now and why, and the results they see,” Andrew says, adding that the process is transparent and mainly unedited.

This content powers personalized storefronts where followers access products their chosen experts use. “From all that, we create customized storefronts for them in our marketplace,” Andrew explains. “Instead of a Linktree with 17 different links, we have everything in one storefront. It’s way easier for people to buy the things they want and obtain the things that appeal to them.”

The business structure includes profit sharing with experts. “We do a revenue share with the role models from that, so they have an incentive to make it effective and share that content,” Andrew says.

Measuring Health Improvements

Alively evaluates success through multiple health metrics. “Ultimate success for everyone is to have measurable results showing that people are living healthier longer,” Andrew says. “That is why our role models are typically out there. They’re trying to help inspire and support other people to live healthier and longer. That platform we’re building is to do exactly that.”

The company uses various indicators to track progress. “They’re different metrics that lead up to that,” Andrew elaborates. “Are these messages getting in front of people? Are they engaging with these messages? Are they then acting on them? Are we making it easier for them to add [a product] into their routine?”

Andrew emphasizes their flexible approach to measurement. “I don’t think there’s an objective one,” he explains. “I think the objective would be an NPS score. Are the customers happy? Are the role models happy? Are the brands happy?”

This strategy recognizes varied stakeholder goals. “For each of those, what makes them happy with the experience may be different,” Andrew notes. “The brand may be brand building rather than just pure sales. For the role models and influencers, it could be growing their followership because more people are discovering them, or maybe it’s revenue. And so it’s all about the page conversion.”

Users define success individually. “For the consumer, it could be, ‘I came because I cared about sleep, but I cut 14 pounds of fat,’” Andrew explains. “Or, ‘I came to lower my cholesterol, and now I’m getting 30 minutes of great REM I wasn’t getting before.’”

The platform monitors specific health indicators across users. “Has their heart rate variability across all these people doing this been increasing? Has it stayed flat? Is it going down?” Andrew details. “Are we not just pushing a product but [seeing] the product as a leading indicator and the actions you’re taking to living that healthier, longer life?”

Andrew highlights health optimization as an ongoing process. “We don’t see it as a one-time, year, or even decade experience,” he says. “This is a lifelong journey for which we’re your partner. And so that’s going to be changing. I don’t know if there’s an objective, singular metric for each person. It’s understanding where they are in their health journey and what they care about.”

Creating Authentic Health Communities

Andrew sees specialized content creators gaining influence. “There will be the top, with millions or tens of millions of people following. But they’re also much smaller creators that may be more credible to a lot of people because they’re able to engage at a more personal level,” he predicts. 

“We will see more people with 5 to 15,000 followers creating amazing content and a real community around what they do in a back-and-forth engagement.”

This direction supports Alively’s mission to democratize health optimization. “All of us have the opportunity not to wait until it goes wrong but to start investing in it today,” Andrew emphasizes. “And this happened so many times in my life. People say, ‘Oh, I’m fine.’ And then start working on their nutrition, movement, and everything, and we wake up like, ‘I have so much more energy. I’m happier. Everything in my life is better because of this.’”

“Your health is the one area you will trade everything else in your life to get it back,” Andrew concludes. “Every day you’re not doing that is a missed opportunity because it’s a day gone. The best time to start would have been 10 years ago. The second best time is today. Alively’s waitlist is officially open.”