Bold Is Enabling Healthy And Active Aging In Place – An Interview With Co-founder And Ceo Amanda Rees

We could make our product as accessible and available to people as possible, by partnering with doctors and health plans so that it doesn’t just fall to them to find it and pay for it directly.

So you basically built Bold to sort of scale the work that you had already done with so many other older adults in the Bay area by yourself?

I have to give credit to a lot of mentors and advisors who I did my training in Tai Chi for fall prevention program with.

So I definitely tapped into a lot of the research that existed before around this, but designed it with a little bit of a bold, fresh twist. 

Can you walk me through the process your users go through when they sign up?

It’s all web based. You don’t need to download an app and you don’t need a smartphone. Although a lot of our members do take classes on their smartphones. You drop in your email, your name, and then we ask you a couple of questions. For example, how often do you exercise? Do you want to start seated or standing? Are you interested in balance? strength? cardio?

And a couple of other things that help us understand your baseline, particularly for balance. Have you had a fall recently or are you worried about having a fall? What are your barriers to exercising? 

That helps us better give them the resources, the support, the kind of advice or nudges that might help them actually bust those barriers. And be able to start taking the classes and go. Based on those questions, we create all sorts of programs for people because at Bold we really believe in listening and reflecting that we’ve been listening to what our members are telling us.

So those classes could be 15 minutes of seated Tai Chi, where you only take class twice a week, but over time, those 15 minute classes become 20 minute classes three times a week. Getting gains doesn’t have to be fast.

Or somebody might come in and say, I’m not worried about any of those things. I just like the convenience of being able to work out at home. And what we saw during COVID, was that a lot of gyms and senior centers closed. So we actually had a lot of folks looking for high intensity cardio classes with everything from jumping jacks and burpees, which are not necessarily in our balance programs, but we have expert instructors, we put together a few cardio and strength programs that our members are loving right now. So it really spans, the whole point is that we can adapt it and personalize what the program looks like depending on who signs up and what they’re looking for.

We also have fun things, you can track your streaks for how often you’re taking classes. You can participate in the community, meet other Bold members. We’ve started doing some live classes and some sessions where you can ask the trainer things like how do I do a squat? what do I do if I have arthritis? what are the best exercises for arthritis in my hands?

And so really wanting to just be , that resource and that place, somebody can go when they have questions that we’re in a position to help them with. 

Are the live classes new?

We’ve done live classes over time. But recently we’ve started doing weekly sessions where you sign up for once a week for the whole month, and then you can take four classes or five classes with same trainer and same group of people.

So it’s kind of nice that before and after class, you get a chance to say hi, kind of like when you’re at a boutique studio or any sort of gym, and you can see people from class week over week, and there’s something really nice about having that connection. 

I imagine that during Covid, that must be super nice for people to get the gym experience at home.

Are you able to track people’s progress? Do they have to fill in a survey after two months to see how much progress they’ve made? 

Yes we actually took some core fitness assessments that are actually promoted by the CDC particularly around balance strength and mobility.

Four-stage balance, timed up and go and the sit to stand test. That’s actually the first thing we did at Bold, we said, these are such good assessments to give someone not just a sense of how am I doing today, but am I improving over time? And also how do I compare to other people my age?

That’s an extra way that we can personalize a program, but I think it’s actually more meaningful for a member to see how they’re doing over time and also just understand for themselves, where they are today.

It definitely helps with the motivation part, right? Seeing that you’re making progress. 

Yes, absolutely, and it’s important to note sometimes unexpected things happen and whether it’s that you are a caregiver and suddenly, your schedule is squeezed or you have to travel. We hope someone travels to a place where they’re able to still take Bold classes, but we get it. It’s not always up and up and up and better. So it’s also helpful to have that data so that if someone slips back a little bit from where they used to be, they know they can get to where they were before and go even further.

So I don’t want our members to be discouraged if they ever notice they’re not where they were. We can have a conversation about it and figure out how we get back there. 

You actually have these conversations with members helping them get back on track?

Our member experience team emails, texts, and does phone calls.

There’s no set schedule, and some members don’t seek out or necessarily want that kind of high touch, but we do have a lot of members who do really like having text reminders or somebody to ask questions, or just let us know that they are recovering from a cold, so that’s why they haven’t taken class in a couple of weeks. 

We really see that as just another channel for us to listen and provide that support.

How much does membership cost? 

You can sign up directly on our website for twenty-five dollars per month, so it’s just a monthly subscription fee.

We do have a basic membership where you’re able to do those assessments, get access to a set of classes, but you won’t have access to all the classes or all the programs. But for us, like I said, at the beginning, it’s really important to make Bold as accessible as possible, and one of the ways that we see we can do that is through partnering with health plans.

So we’ll be announcing some partnerships soon that are going to make it so that anyone with this particular organization is going to be able to sign up and get premium Bold membership at no cost. Our hope is that we can make that possible for millions of people who really could benefit from Bold and are looking for something like bold.

My next question was if people can get it reimbursed, so you kind of already answered that. 

One thing on reimbursement, they don’t have to pay and then submit for reimbursement in our partnership. They’re just going to be able to sign up and use their ID in order to get access.

But I will say there are a lot of progressive plans that are saying, we won’t necessarily do a partnership with one organization, but if you sign up for classes, you can get it reimbursed. So some people today are able to get that kind of reimbursement. I hope more and more health plans will start doing that soon.

I hope so too. I think it’s such a great step forward that healthcare providers are taking.  Helping people get exercise goes a long way. Like you said, for preventing falls, which is a huge, huge, huge issue, not just for the healthcare system, but for people. Because people who have fallen, can have severe implications, for the rest of their lives. 

Yep. And even more than falls, I know that’s where we started, but there’s so much amazing research around how exercise can help with improving or managing symptoms for a lot of chronic conditions.

So arthritis, COPD, Parkinson’s, peripheral artery disease. There are a lot of ways that you can use the power of exercise, and that’s really where I think the research comes into play. We say sort of not all exercise is created equal.

So if you want to be working on your balance, if you walk, walk, walk, walk, that’s not necessarily going to help your balance. Because you’re missing out on side to side movements, backwards movements. And when you think about when you might fall, it’s not necessarily like you’re only walking forwards and you’re falling forwards and catching yourself.

You have to make sure that you’re training proprioception and reaction in all directions. And so with that kind of attitude of not all exercise is created equal, but instead of having each person have to figure out the research of what they need, can we actually make that really easy and streamlined for them?

So my hope is really soon, we’ll be able to release a few other types of programs that are research-based and can help people feel better. 

It can also help people feel better mentally and emotionally

It definitely helps with stress and anxiety and depressive symptoms. When I was caregiving for my grandmother, things were really tough and I didn’t feel like I had time and I didn’t necessarily want to leave her home just to go take a class or do something. And I think there’s probably a lot of people where exercise can help sort of build that resilience and be that support when times are tough and times are tough outside of the pandemic too. But especially now when your options are pared down, it’s important. 

Where do you see bold in five to 10 years? What’s the bigger vision?  

Definitely moving in this direction of layering on more types of programs, more types of experiences that might even go beyond exercise as far as helping people age well, but it all comes back to how do we give people, everyone, ourselves, more agency and how we’re aging in a way that’s clinical and research based, but just feels fun and just feels like you have the tools and the resources and the support you need to age well.  

I think we are in a position to really be leaders in that space. Trying to really nudge towards embracing aging, if you actually think about it, instead of saying, I’m not going to age or I’m anti-aging, then you actually have a headstart in trying to make those types of changes, decisions, investments in your health as you age.

And I think a lot about financial tools and products, where they talk about how you start investing and saving early, and then you see the returns over time and it’s important to start making those decisions or investments as early as you possibly can.