I Don’t Need a New Job: Or How to Join Kilo Health Within 10 Minutes

I joined Kilo Health back in 2019, and I can prove that when people’s values and mindsets align, great things can be accomplished, even if you don’t have a plan.

BoomeranGO!, the first and only product for children provided by Kilo Health, was born through a journey that led me to where I am today. How it came to be, and how I arrived at this point?

Let’s have a talk.

I had no intention of joining Kilo Health, but I showed up the next day

It was 2019, a blistering summer day. I was soaking up the sun at Tech Park, Vilnius’ very own Silicon Valley, enjoying the calmness of my life without a clue about what was about to happen.

I decided to meet my friend for a coffee, who happened to be one of the main folks behind Kilo Health at the time. Although we went out for coffee, we somehow spawned into the Kilo Health terrace not long after. Well, how can you not?

In fact, my relaxing coffee, accompanied by the summer breeze, suddenly transformed into a job interview. As I sat there, I couldn’t help but think, “These guys are hustling for their lives here.”

Before I knew it, I was bombarded with a swarm of people asking me all sorts of business-related questions. It caught me off guard because I had no plans or intentions of joining Kilo Health. But they persisted, repeatedly asking me, “So, when are you starting your first day here?”

I was like, “Hold your horses. What exactly will I be doing here?”

And they were like, “We’ll figure that out. Just show up, and we’ll start doing something.”

So I did show up, and I never stopped showing up to this day. Back then, it was that our business mindset, speed, and our ideas were on the same wavelength, which made me jump onto the Kilo Health train.

At first, I was responsible for a sportswear brand, and then I moved on to supplements. Soon, I became the CEO of a subsidiary supplement company. That’s pretty insane, right?

BoomeranGO: your childhood choices, boomeranging back to adulthood

As I was exploring my next venture, I started looking into the latest health trends among children. What I found was concerning: their rates of obesity were skyrocketing, they were experiencing hypertension and cardiovascular diseases at younger ages, and their sleep quality was deteriorating.

We seem to focus on addressing diseases once they’ve already taken hold rather than starting prevention early on. It made me realize how much more we could do to prioritize children’s health right from the start.

As the saying goes, “starting from the bottom, now we’re here,” but in this scenario, it’s more like “starting from the top, now we’re on the bottom.”

We are treating the outcome and not the cause.

Also, when I did some research, I saw that existing solutions in the market were all about strict campaigns and rigid schedules dictating when to eat, sleep, or do anything else. But kids don’t respond well to that approach. They have a belief that they are invincible and that nothing bad will ever happen to them.

The key here is finding balance. It’s about helping them understand that if they’ve had junk food, it’s good to follow it up with something healthier. It’s about encouraging them to be a bit more active and make choices like opting for a glass of water instead of a soda.

However, we wanted to make it enjoyable and not overly strict. That’s when the idea struck me: why not create a mobile game? Today, kids are primarily engaged in 2 activities: watching YouTube or playing games. This is a statistically proven fact (I also have proof roaming around my apartment as we speak) for the alpha generation or screenagers, who are the first generation to grow up with screens from birth.

Since they naturally spend a significant amount of time with screens and will continue to do so, it made sense to provide them with something they are familiar with and find enjoyable. In a way, it becomes a natural part of their environment, or as I like to say, their habitat.

The reality of a co-founder

BoomeranGO! wasn’t my first gamified startup.

In 2012, I embarked on a journey with my team to develop a virtual rehabilitation system for children using Xbox Kinect. It was a concept aimed at transforming the traditional rehabilitation experience. Prior to this, children in rehabilitation clinics had to endure repetitive and monotonous movements during their practices in order to get better.

We saw an opportunity to make a change by creating a game that would make children feel like they were playing while simultaneously engaging them in rehabilitation movements. Alongside the game, we also introduced virtual rehabilitation rooms in clinics, revolutionizing the way therapy was delivered.

This venture marked one of the pioneering health tech startups in Lithuania.

Later, in my journey with Kilo Health, I had the chance to bring various business ideas to life, including supplements and nutrition products. Some of them turned out to be real winners, while others didn’t quite hit the mark.

There was a time when we went all-in, investing heavily and assembling an amazing team. We churned out 5 products full of hope and excitement. However, as time went on, we had to face the reality that some of them weren’t as successful as we had hoped. We had to make the tough call to shut them down because they didn’t meet our goals or gain enough traction.

That’s just how it goes when you’re co-founding a business. It’s a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, successes and failures. You’re in a constant state of creation, where some things soar to new heights while others fall short.

This is the life of a co-founder. You keep pushing forward, continuously creating and learning from both the wins and the losses. Does that excite you? You can experience this yourself. Check out our co-found program.

Mantas Kondratavicius

Mantas, a true virtuoso in the realm of gamified healthcare solutions, holds a prominent position as the head of BoomeranGo!, Kilo Health's very first product catering specifically to children.

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