Noom: Saeju Jeong

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2022

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Saeju Jeong moved from South Korea to the U.S. in his mid-20's, he barely knew anyone, didn't speak much English, and had only $5,000 in savings. Today, he's the CEO of Noom, one of the most popular weight loss/wellness apps in the U.S. Inspired by his late father—a doctor who criticized the profession for treating people only after they got sick—Saeju and his co-founder built their first fitness product in 2007. Several pivots later, they arrived at Noom, an app that carefully tracks what you eat, how you sleep and when you're stressed out. Noom has hinted it may go public this year—if so, the valuation could be as high as $10 billion.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:14.0	The reality was, guys, that we didn't have much money left in the bank.
0:19.0	I remember we had like $2,700 and I returned to our one bedroom office during the summer.
0:27.0	We had a one-timey AC and super hot, so we were all wearing one of the underwear.
0:35.0	Because it was so hot.
0:37.0	Everyone was wearing underwear and there was a fan.
0:40.0	One fan and one tiny AC was struggling to blow out the cold air because it was not cold anymore.
0:47.0	Even one of the engineer had the towel around his neck because he was sweating too much.
0:53.0	And I had hard time not crying because I felt so bad.
1:03.0	Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists and the stories behind the movements they built.
1:15.0	I'm Guy Ra's and on the show today, how a failed idea for a stationary bike led to more failures before Seju Jung landed on Noom, a wellness and weight loss app with millions of users.
1:35.0	There's a book that came out in 2009 called Nudge.
1:38.0	It was written by two influential scholars, Richard Taylor and Cass Sunstein.
1:43.0	One of the central arguments the writers make is that it's possible to nudge people into making better decisions about their finances, their health and even their happiness.
1:54.0	And you can do this by making very simple tweaks in how you present information and options to people.
2:02.0	The book was incredibly influential.
2:05.0	It was almost required reading in the Obama White House.
2:08.0	And it also had a huge impact on business and marketing.
2:13.0	It's why, for example, many companies automatically enroll their employees in retirement or health plans rather than ask them to sign up.
2:22.0	It turns out most people want to participate in those things, but many of them just forget to check the box.
2:29.0	I mention all this because it plays a somewhat indirect role in today's story.
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