Finding Our Mountain
Stakeholder letter # 01
A few months ago, The Body Protocol wasn't called The Body Protocol.
It was called Optima One.
I have a thing for alliterations when it comes to branding.
I've created the BrunchBag, but there was also Colony Club, Canary Creative, Cheese Couture and countless other business ideas inside my head that never made it into the real world.
OptimaOne was the first name that felt fitting.
And honestly, I didn't want to waste too much time on something that felt like such a minor detail that early on. I wanted to focus on the idea first. The story.
What we were actually trying to build.
The vague idea was already there: bringing different areas of medicine, health, weight loss, functional medicine, aesthetics and plastic surgery, together to help Oliver's patients understand their body before deciding how to change it. But how do we do that?
This summer, something changed.
Ironically, part of that change came from one of the most difficult chapters of my personal life.
After almost fifteen years away, a complicated family story forced me to go back to Lanzarote.
The island where I was born, but also a place I had spent a very long time trying not to look back at.
And while I felt like I was drowning, I started seeing The Body Protocol differently.
The volcanoes. The lava. The ocean. The colours. The silence. The drama.
And one morning, while walking through the vineyards of La Geria between those mountains, I suddenly saw the connection.
You can't climb a mountain while you're drowning.
You need to reach the shore first.
Catch your breath.
Get back on your feet
...and only then can you start climbing.
I was applying that metaphor to my own life.
And then I realised it applies to almost any challenge we face.
It applies to building a business.
You can't feel creative or build something from the ground up, while you're grasping for air.
And it applies to weight loss and body transformation too.
You can't start climbing with another diet, injection or surgery if you haven't first understood what's keeping you at the bottom.
First, you need to understand where you are.
Then you can decide how to move forward.
The identity of The Body Protocol was literally looming right in front of me:
The mountain is you.
The Body Protocol is your guide.
That sentence is much more than a tagline.
It became the philosophy behind everything we're building. And somehow, Lanzarote went from being part of my past to becoming part of The Body Protocol's future.
So, what have we actually done?
August & September
A lot has happened behind the scenes over the last few weeks.
The Body Protocol now has its identity.
We created the brand, its visual universe and the framework around the patient journey.
Our website is live. I see the website as a living, breathing ecosystem for The Body Protocol. It will change as we learn and grow.
For now, I wanted it done rather than perfect.
We made our first two online sales pre-lauch and 0 promotion Oliver has already been working with patients within this philosophy for more than a year, but these two felt different.
Two people trusted Oliver with their health through the platform I built.
They're our first proof of concept.
We joined MentorDay.
We're now participating in the programme as we start thinking much more seriously about how The Body Protocol can scale beyond Oliver and me.
We started our first conversations around capital. I've had an initial conversation with a company in Barcelona about what accessing capital could eventually look like.
We're nowhere near fundraising tomorrow.
But I'm starting to learn what questions we need to be able to answer.
And next: social.
We haven't officially launched The Body Protocol on social media yet.
I'm procrastinating. Hiding behind the screen, saying that its intentional, that I wanted to build the foundation firts, but in reality, impostor syndrome and fear of being seen is so hard to overcome.
What I'm questioning
I also want these letters to include what we haven't figured out yet.
And right now, one of those things is pricing.
Our assessment combines a medical consultation, blood work analysis and biomarker analysis, medical history review and an personal strategy.
The value is there.
But we're learning something about the market.
In Spain, we might spend without even questioning the amount on a hotel night, a great dinner with wine and drinks, or a table at a festival.
Healthcare feels different.
"The price of healthcare is invisible to us."
In Europe, we grow up with public healthcare and/or private insurance.
We go to the doctor, show a card and leave.
We rarely see the actual cost of the consultation, the tests or the medical work behind it.
And I think that changes our perception of what medical expertise should cost.
But this has also made me question something else:
Is this actually a pricing problem? Or is it a product structure problem? The Body Protocol isn't supposed to be a one-off consultation.
Oliver is giving his patients a strategy for the next three months.
So perhaps the experience and the payment, should reflect that.
An initial assessment, followed by shorter monthly check-ins. A three-month commitment with a payment structure that follows that journey, rather than a single transaction. And then there's accountability.
When you invest your time, effort and money into something, you show up differently. We want patients who are ready to commit to their own health.
So I'm currently trying to find that balance:
How do we make The Body Protocol accessible enough to start, while creating enough commitment for people to actually follow through?
I don't have the answer yet.
And if you're reading this, I'd genuinely love to know what you think.
What comes next?
Now it's about turning the idea into a system.
Testing. Learning. Building the technology. Growing our network.
There's still a lot we don't know.
But for the first time, I know exactly which mountain we're climbing.
Thanks for reading until the end,
Sabrina Co-Founder, The Body Protocol
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