Venture Everywhere Podcast: Emil Eriksen with David Ronick
David Ronick, entrepreneur and LP in Everywhere Ventures chats with Emil Eriksen, founder and CEO of &you on episode 82: &you and me.
In episode 82 of Venture Everywhere, David Ronick, LP at Everywhere Ventures, chats with Emil Eriksen, founder and CEO of &you — a Philippines-based telehealth platform providing treatment for weight loss, skin, hair, ED, and mental wellness. Emil shares how &you was built to fill critical gaps in the local healthcare system by offering accessible, personalized care through a friendly, omni-channel experience. Emil also discusses how the company is scaling quickly by focusing on community-driven service, strong unit economics, and expanding into new health verticals like diagnostics and longevity.
In this episode, you will hear:
Filling healthcare gaps in the Philippines with a localized telehealth platform.
Tailoring Western DTC models to a guidance-driven, relationship-focused market.
Delivering high-touch care through video consults and follow-ups.
Using lean MVPs and CAC benchmarks to validate product-market fit.
Navigating regulatory gray areas with a compliance-first approach to telehealth.
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TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 VO: Everywhere Podcast Network.
00:00:14 Jenny Fielding: Hi, and welcome to the Everywhere podcast. We're a global community of founders and operators who've come together to support the next generation of builders. So the premise of the podcast is just that, founders interviewing other founders about the trials and tribulations of building a company. I hope you enjoy the episode.
00:00:34 David: Hi, I'm David Ronick. I'm a New York based entrepreneur, an LP in Everywhere Ventures. I'm here today with Emil Eriksen, who's the founder and CEO of &you, a Philippines-based telehealth platform that provides treatment for weight loss, skin, hair, ED and mental wellness. Hello, Emil.
00:00:57 David: Great to meet you, David.
00:00:58 David: Great to meet you too. Let's start off with geography. We're on opposite ends of the globe. How did you come to live in the Philippines?
00:01:05 David: I lived four years in Dubai before. Before that, Spain and Sweden. I'm originally from Denmark. It was a long trip down through the different countries. I had some businesses that took me here and I've been here now for four years.
00:01:20 David: I'd love to hear the backstory. What inspired you to start &you?
00:01:23 Emil: I come from a family where most are in the medical field. My whole mother's side, all the doctors or nurses or doing research in the medical field. I don't think I've ever been book smart enough to go that route. I couldn't sit still for enough time to complete a medical school, but always been very fascinated about it.
00:01:42 Emil: The modern way of doing things, one preventive care, new treatments, let's say treatments that had great potential, but didn't get the attention I feel it deserved. Usually it's because of a profit perspective.
00:01:57 Emil: Once I started with e-commerce in 2012 and I saw particularly Hims when they launched and I believe it was ‘17 or so. It was this moment where you see this is how it's supposed to be. It's genius. I never really understood why it feels like there's that barrier from supplements to medicine.
00:02:17 Emil: You might not have it too much in the U.S. I think it's easily accessible, but at least in Europe, a lot of medicine, it feels like you're almost not supposed to have it. And it can be very hard to access.
00:02:30 Emil: I like that with telehealth, got a little bit more down to earth with it and explained how this product works. Customers didn't have to feel super weird getting whatever product they needed in their life. I just thought like, oh, this is a really great model, but I probably didn't really dare to hope I could do this one day because it wasn't really the system in Europe at that time.
00:02:51 Emil: It was very, very new. Fast forward. I'm in the Philippines since on other ventures and I start to see some telehealth popping up. So I started doing my research on this and after a few weeks, I get everything together and I can see that, okay, we can actually do this. And this was, I believe, mid last year. So by December or so we had all licenses and everything we needed to make this happen.
00:03:19 David: Got it. I'm so curious about how it's different. You mentioned Him's, Hers. I'm familiar with them and with Ro Health and some others in the U.S. market, but how does the Philippine market differ from the U.S. and how have those differences shaped your mission, your strategy?
00:03:36 Emil: It's probably different in 90% of all of it. It starts at customers don't really know exactly what they want. They don't have so many requirements. Let's say in the U.S., they already know what dosage they want to get. They know exactly what compound they prefer above another one.
00:03:54 Emil: U.S. is probably three, four, five years ahead in at least that space, if not even further compared to the customers we currently dealing with. So it's about stepping a bit back. You can’t be too complicated from day one.
00:04:05 Emil: Let's say if we talk about the GLP-1s, like just the term GLP-1 is not commonly known here. Ozempic is starting to be a thing people know what is, where this was everywhere in U.S. and Europe two, three years ago. So you have to go a step back to make sure that you don't talk about things that people don't fully understand.
00:04:24 Emil: The way of communication is very different. They're very friendly in the Philippines. You can't be too professional. You really have to replicate this one-on-one feeling you have if you go to your family doctor through 20 years. We're trying to make that feel as homey as possible, where if you look at many of the international models, I think people prefer speed.
00:04:47 Emil: They just want to get through it as little friction as possible, where here they really prefer a lot of guidance and follow up calls and talks and chats. Like, am I doing it right? We're doing our best to accommodate that.
00:04:58 David: I see. So would you say it's more transactional here in the U.S. and more interactive and more guidance and handholding required in the Philippines?
00:05:05 Emil: Definitely. Even Europe, not just this business, so I think any kind of commerce. Yeah, there's very much still that like personal connection and then things might not go that quick. So if you just make a super quick website checkout, it might be really, really cool in the U.S. but here it might not be exactly what they feel good about.
00:05:25 Emil: They want it to be a bit of texting this number, talk on this phone, talk with this person. It doesn't have to be perfect by U.S. standards, but here they need that personal touch.
00:05:36 David: I see. I noticed that you're doing video consultations. Do you do those for all services?
00:05:42 Emil: We do it for all services. We don't necessarily need to. It's one of those things where it becomes a bit complicated because you have some compliance, then you have some responsibility in terms of the doctors and the medical responsibilities.
00:05:57 Emil: It's a bit of a tricky field. Some people really need this consultation and others really prefer to skip it, but we need to do it. We're still learning. We've only been doing it for two or three months now.
00:06:08 Emil: I feel we're getting the hang of it, but I do think one day those consultations might not exist in the same format anymore, at least what's happening with AI and everything. So it's an exciting thing to follow.
00:06:21 David: Is it more about regulations and making providers feel comfortable? Is that where comes from?
00:06:27 Emil: It's definitely a big part of it is that you need to. There's some product groups where you could not do it, but we do it just to be a hundred percent sure.
00:06:35 Emil: Another thing where Asia in general, especially Philippines, differentiate from the U.S. is that it's very hard to figure out what you can do and can't do because it's not really updated. So if you go in and check the law and documents, the new memos coming out, they're often contradicting and there's no clear guideline for whether you're allowed or not allowed to do things. Often when we see this, we take the safe side just to be sure.
00:07:01 David: Understood. Other differences in terms of culture in the Philippines in terms of the views about some of the sensitive topics that you're treating or stigma.
00:07:12 Emil: Definitely. Have you ever been to the Philippines?
00:07:14 David: I have, but it's been quite a long time.
00:07:16 Emil: It's a very interesting country. That's why I'm still here. I really love the country. On the surface, it's a very conservative country. They're highly religious. I believe it's one of two countries where divorce is illegal.
00:07:29 Emil: They have some very conservative, old school. You don't really talk about, let's say, sex problems or anything like that. But then at the same time, Philippines is one of the biggest consumers of porn.
00:07:41 Emil: You have these big contradictions, which you also feel under people. You can say one thing and see another thing. It's really a hit or miss when you do stuff. You can see it with marketing or a re-brand something. Might be that you ask people and they might all say, this is not going to fly.
00:07:56 Emil: But then when it actually comes out there, people love it. It's not so black and white in general. They're very open, but they need a friendly push and they need to know that it's okay to be open about. Once they are open, then Filipinos are very, very open about things. They don't keep things too much for themselves.
00:08:13 David: Do you have locals on your team to help you bridge the many cultural gaps?
00:08:18 Emil: Yeah, for sure. I don't think it's possible to run a business here without locals. You definitely need some power from the local people here. My partner is also Filipina. She helps me a lot with understanding the culture here.
00:08:31 Emil: Half the partners in the company are also locals and on the office, 80% are Filipinos. Part of the culture, they are quite close to Americans. Compared to any other Asian country, it’s probably the most Americanized. Many speak English as the first language as well. So it's quite easy to navigate here.
00:08:49 David: Congrats on going live. I understand you went live. Is it in April?
00:08:53 Emil: Yeah, I think it was the last three days of March we put the site live. So April was our first month.
00:08:58 David: Always exciting. But there's always also that expression of everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Hopefully you didn't get punched in the mouth, but any big surprises or learnings or aha moments since you launched?
00:09:11 Emil: It has been incredibly smooth launch. Probably my best to date. Let's hope it stays that way. This is like my 10th or 15th startup so you've been through the different ones and you know how quick it can also turn around again. So I'm still keeping the celebration a little bit back, but it really looks good.
00:09:31 Emil: We came great from start. We've seen great growth. Customers seem to love the way we do these things. We're just seeing a great interaction that I've only seen a few times before.
00:09:42 Emil: I think we really filling a gap that was there. They really seem to welcome it. It's not like, oh, you're trying to do this. There's not that much negative. People in general are very happy for the product we put out there. So it's good to see.
00:09:55 David: Awesome. Love to hear that. What would you say your early read is on who loves you and why? I got asked that once when I was pitching to an angel investor who was founder of Skype and I stole his question because I love it.
00:10:08 Emil: I think for now we're very focused on the weight loss category because that was really where the biggest gap was. Right now is definitely female dominant. We see around 90% of our customers are females at this point.
00:10:21 Emil: People stay or customers really stay around. We have had very high repeat purchase rate already. Often when you start a business here, you'll get told that it's too modern or it's too nice or it looks too good. Filipinos are going to feel intimidated.
00:10:36 Emil: So a lot of businesses here look crappy on intent because they don't want it to look too nice. Cause then they might think that it's from the U.S. and they don't ship here or something like that.
00:10:48 Emil: So it gets the same look and we didn't listen to that and just went all in and trying to make this what we think would be nice in the West. And it seems like people took it in. It was not just us that thought that was nice. They welcome it. They don't feel intimidated. All are great.
00:11:02 David: Nice. Is there some insight that you had about this opportunity that others or experts might disagree with? Would you say that's one of them or is there something else that comes to mind?
00:11:12 Emil: About Philippines?
00:11:13 David: Well, about the opportunity. A lot of times when I've started ventures, I've gone to talk to experts, investors, and they've said this will never work because X, Y, and Z.
00:11:23 David: Ideally, I've done my homework and I've seen something or I can say, respectfully, I understand why you're saying this will never work in this way, but I interviewed a hundred customers and I have a view that may not be popular, but I believe it.
00:11:37 Emil: I think I have many ideas that people might not agree with. Everywhere is the first time I ever take investment in. So the last 12, 13 years has been all bootstrap from whatever profit I made from the last business, pumped into the new ones.
00:11:51 Emil: I probably run business in a very different way than usually, because I have never really answered to anyone before. And I haven't been used to convincing people that this is the right thing. I think I trust my own instincts a lot because I burned my fingers quite a few times too. So I learned it the hard way and not through convincing people.
00:12:09 David: What keeps you up at night about this business other than us making you wake up at 7am to have this podcast?
00:12:17 Emil:00:12:34 Emil: The door is really open to expand in multiple directions, whether it's to the testing lab facilities, production facilities. It's wide open for new players. With this momentum that we're currently seeing, we really got great from start.
00:12:49 Emil: And we just really want to get at this as quick as possible. I have so many things I want to do and there's only 24 hours in the day and you do need to sleep once in a while. I think that's the one. I'm just super excited to see how this develops.
00:13:04 David: As you look to prove product market fit, what things are you watching most closely?
00:13:09 Emil: I come from performance marketing. So I typically do MVP in a week. Might not have the product or anything, but for me, product market fit is a lot about acquisition costs. I know that's not the full picture, but in my world it kind of is.
00:13:24 Emil: Cause I know if I can have this acquisition cost and approximately this cost on the rest, then I can build a great business and then everything else comes after. So for me, that's really how I determine if something is good or bad is like, what can I acquire a customer for?
00:13:39 David: And you mentioned you're having a high repeat purchase rate. So if you've got both of those sides figured out, you're well on your way.
00:13:45 Emil: We do, we've seen very good metrics this time.
00:13:47 David: Are you starting to try to cross sell products or is that kind of down the road?
00:13:52 Emil: I would say not much, like not something we push, but people automatically buy more. If you have a consultation with the person that said ED issues or something like that, it might be that a longer consultation, they find out that maybe it will make sense to lose some weight. Those happen, but more organically, not something we really push too much with segments and not yet. But eventually it will definitely come.
00:14:15 Emil: We are looking into launching some new general health angles soon, where it comes more into the longevity area. We'll also go more into the whole testing area as well. It's also very difficult here to get your blood panels and it's very expensive.
00:14:31 Emil: And after that, it's very hard to get a doctor who can actually explain you what it means. So you will go a lot into those different verticals which is going to be interesting for any previous customer, whether you came into us to get ED meds or weight loss meds. Most of those schools will be interesting in getting proper testing to make sure they're healthy.
00:14:55 David: Are there shortages of doctors in the Philippines?
00:14:58 Emil: Yes, I believe it's one of the worst ratios in the world, at least in Asia it is. Many here take the doctor or nurse education or the main goal to go abroad. A lot of them actually go to the U.S. because it's one of the safer ways to get a visa. I understand it.
00:15:15 Emil: The issue is they often talk about that the U.S. healthcare system is broken. I think the Filipino healthcare system is too, just in a different way because they really have such a big need for skilled professionals. But because of the lower salaries here in general, all the skilled or many of the skilled medical professionals, they will go abroad.
00:15:34 Emil: So you're just stuck with this gap. That's very tricky. We tried to hire a nurse. I think it took us six weeks where a doctor you can hire in a day. This is really all around. The care is really not optimal here. I think that's also why the government is pro telehealth. They're actually, they're pushing it for private companies to come in and assist. I guess they see there's an idea in this to help fix the problem.
00:16:00 David: Is there anything else that you'd like our listeners to know about your business or about your mission?
00:16:05 Emil: I think we got pretty much around it. I would recommend anyone to come visit Philippines if they ever get the chance. I believe it's a country that is often overlooked because it might not be the easiest to get to, but it's incredible people and there's a lot of opportunity for businesses here.
00:16:20 David: Perfect segue. That's been quite a long time since I've been there. Tell me a little bit about a favorite local food.
00:16:26 Emil: The food, at least from my point of view, might not be the areas to put too much weight on. What I really like about it here is it's the most happy people I've ever been around. Filipinos are just super happy.
00:16:38 Emil: They're very simple, very complicated at the same time, but they're very happy people to be around. You get in a good mood. Denmark for me, what I grew up with in Scandinavia where things are very stiff.
00:16:48 Emil: People really don't talk about the things, everything's so serious. It's just work, work, work, sleep. Here they're very, very good at just enjoying every moment. The country by itself is in rapid development. It has its issue, for sure.
00:17:02 Emil: And I think that is mainly what you hear about in international media. And then when people come here and visit, they see Philippines they never really thought existed. For me, it's really the perfect place to live and work at least right now in my life.
00:17:17 David: Great. I understand you’re based in Manila. Are there other destinations in the Philippines that you like to explore or get away to?
00:17:24 Emil: We just built a condo here in the city. So our next project is build a house on one of the islands. We bought some land out there a few years ago. The idea is to maybe shuffle a bit between the city and the islands in the long run.
00:17:37 David: Nice. It sounds like you've lived all over the world. If you had a guess of where you might end up next, where would it be?
00:17:45 Emil: Actually, the last missing country is U.S. I want to cross that off. I want to see if it's something for me. Eventually, probably either L.A. or New York. I think that would be the next destination.
00:17:58 Emil: I should say I've been around now and I don't really see much interest in trying Hong Kong or Bangkok or something, because I feel I tried Asia now and got the best out of it so probably U.S.
00:18:09 David: We'd welcome you here. Where can listeners find you? Can you tell us your domain for work and also anything personal that you write where people might follow you?
00:18:20 Emil: I actually don't have too much of a online presence. I'm super focused on trying to get this business up, but our website is Andyou. A-N-D-Y-O-U.ph. If anyone wants to check that out and to get in contact with me, I do have LinkedIn, my email and everything is written there, but otherwise they can probably find me on the website.
00:18:41 David: Great. Emil, it was a pleasure speaking with you. Enjoy the conversation. Thank you so much. I look forward to chatting further down the road and best of luck with &you.
00:18:50 Emil: Yeah. Great meeting you, David. Thank you.
00:18:52 David: Thanks so much.
00:18:55 Scott Hartley: Thanks for joining us and hope you enjoyed today's episode. For those of you listening, you might also be interested to learn more about Everywhere. We're a first-check pre-seed fund that does exactly that, invests everywhere. We're community of 500 founders and operators and we've invested in over 250 companies around the globe. Find us at our website, everywhere.vc, on LinkedIn, and through our regular founder spotlights on Substack. Be sure to subscribe, and we'll catch you on the next episode.