Building the Wearable That Gets You Stronger | Miranda Nover, Co-founder of Fort Health
The Peel with Turner Novak
Turner Novak
4.6 • 11 Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2026
⏱️ 95 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Miranda Nover is the Co-founder and CEO of Fort Health. Fort builds wearables that automatically track strength training for people who care about longevity.
This is a new format I’m experimenting with. It’s the first time I’ve had a Banana portfolio company founder on the show while they’re still at the pre-seed stage. When I surveyed my subscribers a few weeks ago, you were most interested in more early stage VC-backed founders, and I’d love your feedback on what you think of this.
Miranda is still very much working through the idea maze and iterating on the Fort product. We talk about the megatrends driving consumer health, why she’s building a company that helps people get stronger, and everything she’s learned getting a hardware company off the ground.
She’s also in the middle of the current YC batch, and gives an inside look at what it’s been like and if she’d recommend it to other founders.
Thank you to Numeral and Flex for supporting this episode.
Try Numeral, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance: https://www.numeral.com
Sign-up for Flex Elite with code TURNER, get $1,000: https://form.typeform.com/to/Rx9rTjFz
Timestamps:
(3:37) Importance of strength training
(6:34) Benefits of being strong
(10:37) Evolution of Fort’s hardware
(15:58) Automating workout tracking
(19:29) Two types of strength trainers
(25:30) Building the strength company
(27:26) How healthcare is consumerizing
(40:43) Lessons building batteries at Tesla
(44:56) Hardest parts about building a hardware startup
(51:01) Adventures in vibe coding
(57:54) How to use Twitter as a founder
(1:02:09) The launch video industrial complex
(1:08:03) What it’s like doing YC
(1:10:19) Selling crayons in 3rd grade, Lemonade stands
(1:14:41) Miranda’s best vintage finds
(1:16:44) How Turner evolved as a VC
(1:22:22) Turner’s early social media PMF
(1:28:53) Inventing shitposting
Referenced
Try Fort: https://www.fort.cx/
Follow Miranda
Twitter: https://x.com/mirandanover
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mirandanover
Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Peel. I'm your host, Turner Novak, founder of Banana Capital. |
| 0:07.0 | Today's guest is Miranda Nover, co-founder and CEO of Fort Health. Fort builds wearables |
| 0:11.5 | that automatically track straight training for people who care about longevity. This is a new format |
| 0:16.5 | of an episode I'm experimenting with. It's the first time I've had a banana portfolio company founder on the show while they're |
| 0:22.6 | still at the precede stage. |
| 0:24.9 | When I surveyed my subscribers a few weeks ago, you were most interested in more early stage |
| 0:29.5 | VC-backed founders, and I love your feedback on what you think of this. |
| 0:34.1 | Miranda is still very much working through the idea maze and iterating on the four product. |
| 0:38.1 | We talk about all the mega trends driving consumer health that she's thinking about, why she's |
| 0:42.2 | building a company that helps people get stronger, and everything she's learned getting |
| 0:45.7 | a hardware company off the ground. |
| 0:47.7 | She's also in the middle of the current YC batch and gives an inside look at what it's been |
| 0:51.1 | like and if she'd recommend it to other founders. |
| 0:53.9 | As a reminder, I publish Rebbs of of the Peel every week, exploring the world's greatest startup stories just like this one. Check out the back-adlog of over 100 episodes and tune in over the next few weeks for guests like Gary Tann at YC, Chatham Putagunta at Benchmark, Jake Stoke at Serval, and Nik Nikiel at Footwork, and Scott Stevenson at Spellbook, the fastest-growing startup in Canada. Let's talk to Miranda after a quick word from Numeril and Flex. This episode is brought to you by Numerl. Numeril is the fastest, easiest way to stay compliant with U.S. sales Tax and Global VAT. It's easy to set up, |
| 1:28.4 | and they automatically handle all registrations, ongoing filings, and their API provides sales tax |
| 1:33.4 | rates wherever you need them with all the integrations you need. Numerals supports over 2,000 |
| 1:38.4 | customers in both the U.S. and globally, and they pride themselves on White Glove, high-touch |
| 1:42.5 | customer service. Plus, they guarantee their work, and they'll cover the difference if they mess anything up. |
| 1:48.0 | They're fresh out of fundraise, closing a $35 million series B from Mayfield, |
| 1:51.9 | which they're going to reinvest into building an even better product. |
| 1:55.2 | If you want to put your sales tax on autopilot, check out Numeril at their new domain, |
| 1:59.5 | numeral.com. |
... |
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