Weight Watchers Drug Pivot
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Sam proposes Weight Watchers could transform their business by pivoting from a traditional weight loss subscription service to offering prescription weight loss drugs like Ozempic to their existing customer base.
Key Points:
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Current Business State:
- 3.8 million paying subscribers
- $900 million in revenue last year
- $100 million loss
- Stock has plummeted (market cap down to $60 million)
- Current subscription: $9.99/month for first 9 months
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Proposed Transformation:
- Add prescription weight loss drugs (like Ozempic) to their offering
- Potential pricing: Additional $300-500/month per customer
- Transform from $100/year per customer to $5-10k/year per customer
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Market Context:
- Ozempic/semaglutide costs $500-1000/month without insurance
- Weight Watchers already acquired Sequence ($100M deal)
- Telehealth business for virtual prescriptions
- Enables prescription weight loss drug distribution
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Strategic Advantage:
- Existing large customer base
- Established weight loss brand
- Already positioned for "full spectrum of weight care"
- Recently repositioned for both behavioral and clinical solutions
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.