WorkPersonalised Gut-Health Platform
A consumer-health venture, evidence-gated
Personalised Gut-Health Platform
A personalised gut-health venture for the Sri Lankan market — live validation surfaces first, the product second.
- Status
- Prototype
- Category
- Web experience
- Year
- 2026
- Role
- Venture research, positioning, and both live validation builds.
Prototype in public terms: the validation surfaces are live; the diagnostic product itself is a researched plan, not an operating service. All health claims deliberately hedged.
The problem
Personalised gut-health testing barely exists in Sri Lanka, and the trust bar for health products is high. The tempting move — build a lab, launch a kit — is also the expensive, wrong first move.
Constraints
- Health claims must stay defensible — the copy itself is a compliance surface
- No lab, no inventory: demand has to be proven before capital is spent
- Local market dynamics — pricing, trust, imports — don't follow the US/EU playbook
The approach
Research before build: laboratory options, regulatory position, white-label routes and realistic pricing — which killed the build-a-lab plan and reshaped the product. Then validate demand with the cheapest honest instruments: a food-insights quiz that hand-sells individual reports, and a premium waitlist landing for the wider platform.
What was built
- A verified research base covering labs, packaging, regulatory posture and market pricing
- A live food-insights quiz funnel with unlock codes and a hand-sell flow
- A premium fifteen-section landing with a server-validated waitlist
- A brand system positioning the venture as gut intelligence, not a test kit
Contribution
Built with Next.js · Supabase · Zod · Vercel · Cloudflare Pages
Technical decisions
Kill the lab, keep the venture
The research said don't build a lab — partner for the heavy science, own the experience and the interpretation layer. Cheaper, faster, and more honest about where the value is.
Outcome
- Two live validation surfaces, end-to-end verified against their database
- A go/no-go framework gated on real demand signals before any capital spend
- Clear separation maintained between what's live and what's planned
Current status
PrototypePrototype in public terms (internally: pilot) — both validation surfaces live and verified; the diagnostic service itself remains a plan.
Lessons
In health, the copy is a compliance surface. Writing claims you can defend is a design constraint, not a marketing afterthought.
Next stage
Hand-sold reports first; a lab partnership is only unlocked by real demand signal, per the venture's own gate.