Mike Lucas Podcast Transcript
Mike Lucas joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Mike Lucas. Mike Lucas is an adventurous New Zealand entrepreneur and executive who successfully built, scaled, and exited the global market research technology company TNS Conversa in 2007. As a dedicated ocean enthusiast, surfer, wing foiler, and snowboarder, he later channeled his passion for the sea into luxury eco-tourism.
He teamed up with a group of close friends and investors to develop Vunabaca, a stunning master planned 140 million residential and marina community on Malolo Island in Fiji. This exclusive tropical paradise was designed around the ultra-luxury Six Senses Fiji resort, which features a world-class boutique hotel and 100% solar powered luxury residences.
After decades of pushing his body in extreme conditions, he recognized a massive market gap for simplified premium and scientifically backed wellness routines for active individuals. To solve this, Mike applied his institutional scaling expertise to co-found North Performance alongside premier Silicon Valley orthopedic surgeon Dr. Massy Reynolds, co-founder Uri Kuerer, and of course, none other than Paul Oliver. Well, good afternoon, Mike, or morning in Australia to you. This is Brian. Welcome to the show.
Mike Lucas: Hi, Brian. Nice to meet you. And yeah, welcome and good morning from Australia.
Brian Thomas: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you for making the time. I know… I don’t know, that’s probably about 14 different time zones that we’re traversing, so I appreciate that.
Love doing podcasts in Down Under, and someday I’ll g- I’ll go down there and do one there as well and requi- record it live. So Mike, let’s jump in real quick. You’ve had a remarkable arc, building, scaling, and exiting the market research tech company TNS Conversa in 27- 2007, then developing Vunabaca, a $140 million luxury eco resort community around Six Senses Fiji, and now co-founding North Performance.
What’s the connective thread across market research, luxury development, and wellness, and how did a lifelong surfer and snowboarder end up building a longevity brand?
Mike Lucas: Yeah, it was an interesting journey for sure. The connective thread is really building a business as I care about and love. I find myself in businesses that are grounded in some kind of form of consumer insight with really strong unit economics.
I’ve built businesses with friends and usually self-funded, so, and it’s a very unique situation. TNS Conversa was a market research-based business consultancy that grew to be a– in forty-three countries within five years. We sold to a FTSE listed company called WPP. What I loved most about the business was using analytics and insight to provide actionable advice at a, a senior level executive level for large corporates around the world.
I took those learnings into Vunabaca the development in Fiji. It’s a luxury high-end large scale integrated development with residential property hotel, marinas, and it’s grounded in survived i-in ensuring that we, we built a product that was lifestyle focused, wellness focused.
It’s by one of the best surf breaks in the world. So it was right up my alley. It’s an incredible project to be involved in. And the real underlying premise of the, of the business was the emerging trend of wellness and experience-led property development and tourism. It went very well. We ended up with Six Senses Fiji being the anchor tenant running the hotel development.
They went on to become one of the preeminent wellness brands in the world. From there the journey probably got a bit more personal with North Performance and Supplements. I’m really active. My family’s active. We love surfing, snowboarding, foiling. We, we train most days. Three daughters and a wife are very active, and as I went through my forties and into my early fifties, I really wanted to make sure I could continue performing to the level I had have been over the– over my lifetime.
And hence got very involved in supplements, daily nutrition, and evidence-based performance. So they all connect via this fr-primarily consumer insight and then finding businesses with strong unit economics
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. Love the backstory. You’re really just highlight some of, some really great things that you were involved with and, and grew as far as businesses.
But now I’m excited, to talk about more as we go through the podcast about North Performance. But just, just again, love your activity in and outside of the, the workplace obviously. But as you get older, you s- kind of slow down, and, and I just know exactly what you’re talking about. We’re about the same age, and just, yeah.
What do you do to stay active and stay young, and you feel like things are slowing down? So thank you. So Mike, you said North was born not in a boardroom, but on the water and in the mountains. When you and co-founders Uri Kurup, Dr. Messi Reynolds, and Paul Oliver found, you’re all very active, lifelong surfers, snowboarders, et cetera, hit the kind of long-term joint damage that ice and rest couldn’t fix.
Take us to that moment, if you don’t mind. Was… What was the personal frustration that made you realize this was a business worth building?
Mike Lucas: I’ve been pretty tough on my body. All of us have actually. Yuri particularly, both of us requiring, We’ve been through numerous knee surgeries, shoulder surgeries, all through action sports.
And at, at the time when you go through these experiences, you become more knowledgeable on, on recovery, and you, you get more in tune with your, your body and, and how to get back to where you were. In about 2024, I got to a point where I’d made a lot of… I had a lot of success with minor surgeries on my knee and stem cells and the likes that had kept me in a position to carry on performing, but I really needed to address a major issue in the knee.
I met Dr. Massey Reynolds. He’s an orthopedic surgeon, regenerative medicine specialist based in Silicon Valley. An incredibly talented individual very personable articulate, and I ended up getting unicompartmental knee replacement with Dr. Massey. We spent many hours talking about how difficult it was to comply with the supplement regime that was required really to, to aid recovery and performance.
I found myself taking about 10 different supplements which is very hard on a daily basis. You– The supplements only work if you’re consistent and reliable. When you’re taking 10 different products, it becomes almost impossible over time. I asked Dr. Massey, “Why aren’t these products all-in-one?”
He said, “Well, all of the all-in-ones out there at present aren’t at clinically proven doses. They usually have around 90-odd ingredients across 10 to 13 grams so they, they consist of proprietary blends, so they won’t tell you what the dose is.” I said, “Why can’t we develop a, a product that’s based on science, it’s grounded in science, on evidence base that we included the best quality ingredients out there in the marketplace with the clinical trials behind it and then make it easy to take on a, on a daily basis, easy to travel with?”
That became the brief for the product. Dr. Massey Reynolds then started working with nutritionalists a number of academics who have deep knowledge in supplementation as well as adventure athletes. And the th- the thinking behind it was that adventure athletes have put their bodies through the extreme ends of what’s possible from a cognitive and physical perspective and if we could improve recovery and performance amongst adventure athletes the product will resonate with the general population.
Everyone wants to stay active for as long as possible
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. And I, I really appreciate that. You’re very passionate about what you do. Obviously very active. You don’t want to slow down. Part of it’s Mother Nature, but, but there’s still more in us, right? So I love how the fact that you know, after all these surgeries, you need to figure out something with your injury, your recovery, the future mobility.
And with you and Dr. Messi talking about, “Well, gosh, how do we do this?” I love the fact that you’re like, “Why don’t we build it?” And you built something rounded in science, best nutritional ingredients. It’s an all-in-one package which makes it much more simpler and, and easier to do because you have to do that on a regular basis.
So thank you. Mike, you bring institutional scaling expertise from the tech world. Dr. Reynolds brings elite orthopedic and regenerative medicine, and Yuri brings the operator’s eye. How do these three very different backgrounds actually come together in building the product? And what does your tech scaling experience let you do that a typical supplement founder can’t?
Mike Lucas: Very good question. I mean, it’s obvious what Dr. Massey brings. He works with these high-performance athletes and individuals who are very busy, so his, his clinical understanding and performance experience brings exceptional wealth to the table. Yuri is ex-special forces. He’s very focused on logistics and operational excellence.
So he is the guy that brings day-to-day delivery to the project. We have two other founders, and then I’ll, I’ll move on to how my, my experience in scaling ex- adds to the team. The other founder is Paul Oliver. He runs a large scale digital marketing company. It’s a D2C business, so his experience is obvious.
And the other, the other contributors are the elite, elite athletes themselves. So we work with 30-odd elite athletes, adventure athletes from Olympic skiers through to the world’s best mountain bikers, surfers, snowboarders. Names that you may or may not know, such as Travis Pastrana. Some of the action actors like Scotty Eastwood.
All these people put a lot of pressures on their body and they came on board to challenge us really on the taste of the product, the usability, the form it comes in and then gave us feedback on the recovery and performance they experienced as we formulated the product. So they set the bar really high of what our expectations were and theirs to create a product that would work for them and, and a, and a delivery system that works for them.
We went with a, a, a tablet, which is a effervescent tablet that is easy to take on a daily basis, has incredible taste and as well as a sachet that goes on top of the tablet for those high output days. So they, they gave us the credibility. They pushed, they pushed the bar significantly higher.
We knew if we could deliver for them, we’d deliver for the everyday person who wants to stay active, but they also gave us scale. Each one of these athletes became a co-owner in the business. Almost half the business is owned by the athletes or the scientific board. And they have a combined unique following online of over 70 million people.
So that gave us the immediate reach and credibility to launch the business. From my perspective I’ve been involved in large scale global businesses and very focused on the unit economics. And I knew that if we could, if we can capture people not just through hype, but through a product that people wanna use on genuinely on a daily basis over the long term- The business will scale itself, particularly given the unit economics that are there.
We’re self-funded and we’re well-funded so we can continue to grow the business through this athlete reach, the product itself, and, and then we think we’ll have very long-term relationships with our customers.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. Love that story. It’s great. You, you know, you highlighted obviously a lot of work that you put into this.
You’re very active. You’ve, you’ve scaled companies. But Dr. Messi Yuri Paul Oliver obviously with his marketing and go-to-market experience. But the fact that you brought in some really I mean, high elite athletes including actor Scott Eastwood, which is really cool you started with them to prove your product and to prove your commitment to the product and the well-being of people that are very, very active.
So I appreciate that. And then Mike, the last question of the day, your whole thesis is about keeping active people performing at their peak for longer, not just repairing bodies, but extending health span. As regenerative medicine, wearables, and personalized nutrition all advance together right now, where do you see performance longevity heading, let’s say, over the next five, maybe even ten years?
And what role do you want North to play in redefining what’s possible for people who refuse to slow down?
Mike Lucas: Yes, I think the biggest shift is that as people age, they no longer accept that they can’t do what they love doing. They want to carry on surfing, they wanna carry on s- cycling, walking, hiking, skiing, snowboarding.
Whatever they love, they wanna carry on into their 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond. They wanna stay active and feel capable. I think all the wearables, the d- diagnostics, the better nutritional data will provide us feedback into how we’re sleeping, how, how stressed we are, whether we’re hydrated, which will inform our performance and recovery.
But at the end of the day, the information alone won’t improve how we perform and how we recover. It will give us feedback. I think the fundamentals never change. You have to eat well, sleep well, stay active, manage stress, and stay hydrated. That won’t change. I think what will happen is products like North over time will create a routine that is easy to maintain.
It will help improve and optimize performance and recovery for everyday people that wanna get better today and into the future and keep doing what they love. So I, I think, I think it’s the, the outcomes are really driven by changing your behaviors on a daily basis consistently with quality, quality ingredients, quality products.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. Love of the fact that you’re committed to people that are active, people that need to have a simple and easy way to take a supplement on the go, traveling, whatever that is. And that, that’s awesome. And, and you’re absolutely right, like we talked about this, as people age, they just can’t accept the fact that they’re slowing down in their active lives.
And it can be frustrating. But I like that you’re gonna lean into technology a little bit. I think wearables will certainly play a, a, a big part of this to provide those data points so we can make improvements over time. But again, just love what you’re doing in engaging folks that are really, really active to kinda help really show the rest of us that it can be done.
That’s awesome. So thank you. And Mike, it was such a pleasure having you on today, and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Mike Lucas: Thank you, Brian. Love to speak again.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Mike Lucas Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s Podcast Page.
