Let users opt in to share anonymized data with university researchers

David BarnardAnd to that point, I feel like especially in the age of AI, but even before, people who are wary about these things have way more resources to dig deep and figure out, is this real? I mean, I think I set Claude Cowork on it like, "Hey, is this a real company? Is this a real product? Is this backed by science? Is this just BS?" And so, that kind of trust building is so important.

Luke Martin-FullerFor sure. And it's so important that people do that research on their own. But I think for us in our case, actually, research in a different sense has been a huge lever. So we have invested in science since the moment we were out there. Even in our free app, one of the first features we built was an opportunity for people to opt in, to share their data on an anonymized basis with researchers. And at the time, this was really important because so little research was happening, especially around long COVID, which was one of the key illnesses we helped with when we started. And we were able to hand off data which has gone to be published in some of the best kind of research publications there are. I mean, we've had papers published in Nature about how you can use HIV and heart rate to predict future symptom events, which is just incredible.

Luke Martin-FullerWe've done work with Mount Sinai, with Imperial College London, a paper that we published about the interaction between symptoms and the menstrual cycle. And I think as much as this is really accretive to the mission, and the mission really is all about making visible illness visible both to you, but to your doctor and those around you, and then to the research community at large, it's super consistent with what we're here for. It also goes to …

David Barnard… those kind of things? Because there are so many health and fitness apps that really could be sharing anonymized data that could help move things forward. And I mean, screen time apps, I mean, there's tons, sleep apps. There's just so many ways that you could tie research into it if it was the right product. So give me a quick overview. I mean, this won't apply to everybody, but I think it'd be interesting for some people to hear what that takes.

Luke Martin-FullerFor sure. I think it's really hard and it's not something that moves a revenue number at least immediately. So it's kind of difficult for some teams, I imagine, to justify. But as I say, it was just so core to what we're here for and our mission statement that we had to do it. But why is it hard? So I guess you have to build out new flows. Informed consent is a really important thing. So you have to tell people who you're sharing the data with, for how long and for what purposes. So those are new journeys in the app. You have to go out and get kind of ethics committee sign-off. You have to work with an academic institution that has the capability to go and get that sign-off and create all of the documentation that goes around research.

Luke Martin-FullerAnd then you have to build the mechanisms, the piping to anonymize data, to completely wipe it of any identifying factors while retaining the core stuff, and then get that into researchers' hands in batches or in real time, whatever's needed. And none of that is clearly without cost or head scratching or complexity. But it's really worthwhile, especially when we knew then, and we certainly know now that we're sitting on the largest dataset that …

David Barnard… getting the attention of those kind of people who can help bring trust. So again, for the average app, it might not be a research institute, but you need to find people in that relevant niche that can kind of add that layer of trust and help you build trust, even if it's not with research, it's just with the right review or the right kind of framing or some product feedback or something like that. So how did you actually make the connections?

Luke Martin-FullerSo I guess from the earliest days, even when we were building our free app MVP, we were in touch with researchers. We're building this tool. We'd love to get your insight onto how we can make the most valuable thing. And that was an easy in, right? You're looking for advice and help from someone before you've got an ask for them. And actually in the earliest study that we did, I think was actually more pull rather than push. I think one of the researchers we'd spoken to said, "Hey, if you've got all of this data, I would love to do a study on it."

Luke Martin-FullerAnd that kind of was a bit of an unlock where we were like, "Yeah, of course you can. Of course you can. Obviously we need consent from people and we need to figure out how to get it to you, but we're going to work on that because it feels like an important thing." So yeah, I just think in whatever space you're in, whether it's fitness or sleep or screen time, you're probably already chatting to the right people who would love to get their hands …