How This 6-Time Founder Turned HSAs Into a Preventive Health Startup Powerhouse — and the 4-Step Framework He Uses to Solve Any Problem

By the time Justin Mares had sold four startups and steered his fifth, Kettle & Fire, to be the top bone-broth company in the US, he realized a clear truth about being an entrepreneur: “Finding a problem is far, far better than finding your passion. Passions come and go, problems are lasting.”

He had cracked the code for growing companies and shared the formula in his book Traction, which became required reading in business schools. But now he was in search of a bigger problem he was uniquely qualified to solve.  

Mares’ work bringing healthy food to a wider audience highlighted a big issue for him. Even amidst growing obesity and chronic illness, preventative health was almost non-existent in the healthcare system. But there was one exception: HSAs (health savings accounts), which are essentially like 401ks for immediate or future medical expenses. And though historically HSAs had been used for prescriptions and doctor co-pays, Mares saw that 20 years since inception, HSAs were on the same growth path 401ks had been 20 years after being created, and he realized that IRS regulations allow for preventative use of HSAs when prescribed by a doctor.  

So he built a telehealth process and, with it, one of the fastest-growing startups in the country. Truemed lets consumers pay for thousands of the world’s top preventive health products, ranging from Peloton and 24 Hour Fitness to Nike Strength and Eight Sleep. Mares spoke to Entrepreneur about the four steps to solving any problem, the importance of anchoring your identity to process, not outcomes, and why boundaries are the key to an entrepreneur’s performance.

Give us the elevator pitch of your business and your role in it.
I am the CEO of Truemed, and we’re the leading HSA/FSA marketplace for preventative health products. HSA/FSA accounts were created so people could use pre-tax money to pay for interventions that treat, mitigate, or prevent diagnosed medical conditions. Our marketplace allows people with qualified medical issues to use pre-tax HSA/FSA funds on lifestyle interventions like sleep aids, exercise, and supplements that studies show can treat or even reverse many chronic conditions.

Tell us about a time you made a decision everyone around you disagreed with and what happened next.
I knew that starting Truemed, we’d have to educate people on our approach. Research shows that lifestyle interventions are among the most effective tools we have for treating many chronic conditions that make up 90%+ of our healthcare costs. Yet sadly, our healthcare system has no way to prescribe or incentivize patients to use them to treat or reverse disease. I wanted to change that, but doing so meant approaching healthcare differently than most folks in our space.  

Earning trust with the industry took a while. We had many conversations with skeptics, and went to conferences, hired lawyers specific to the space, and mapped out all the possible reasons folks could take issue with our approach. We had informational conversations with every kind of stakeholder and with each conversation,  we’d write down their concerns or questions. We turned this into a long document that we used to track industry objections and our response to these objections. 

Slowly, as we were able to educate the market and build partnerships around who we are and why we’re doing what we’re doing, players in our industry began to understand and accept our approach. 

What’s something small, like a daily routine or mindset shift, that changed the way you lead or perform?
The key to performance is actually boundaries. A few examples: “No-Meeting Mornings” has been important for me. I protect creation time by pushing meetings later and doing the highest-leverage work before the world can re-prioritize my day for me. I also aim to have Tuesdays and Thursdays each week free of calls, though I don’t always succeed. I also limit myself to six tasks daily to make sure that each day I’m getting the highest-leverage work done. 

What are the three things every entrepreneur should know for starting a business?
The top layer is to anchor your identity to process, not outcomes. Say “I’m someone who runs good experiments,” not “I’m a wellness guy/tech guy/DTC guy.” That keeps pivots from feeling like ego death. The everyday three are: Hire a great team, make sure everyone is oriented to making a dent in one mission, and don’t run out of money (easier said than done). 

What is your process for problem solving?
There are three key steps, starting with step zero. 

• Step zero: Ask, “Am I uniquely qualified to solve this problem?” If so, great! If not, my time is better spent finding that person. 
• Step one: Define the scoreboard — the one metric that would convince us we’re right in our solution. 
• Step two: Generate and rank the 10 ways you might solve the problem, including the ones you’re biased against. 
• Step three: Ask, “If this works, what additional problems would it create?” This lets you avoid solutions that are secretly expensive in the second-order effects.