We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jon Armstrong a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jon, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
Throughout my career in technology and management consulting, I always have been proactive with my health. In 2008, I did a preventative physical where many diagnostic tests that aren’t covered by insurance were completed by a functional medicine doctor. The results came back and lead me to an even deeper focus on my health. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer along with various other things include leaky gut. Through the next many years working with various functional medicine practitioners, my experience purchasing the products recommended to me was very disjointed. I was required to drive to health clinics to purchase some, then purchase others from 4-6 third-party owned eCommerce stores. Then I had to do it again the next month. Professionally I have a deep background in eCommerce, digital marketing and relationship selling online so I knew there was a better way. I couldn’t understand why my practitioners whom I trusted didn’t have their own eCommerce stores so I could buy everything from them. After doing some market research, I determined that I could build a solution that took away all the minutiae of running an eCommerce business within a health and wellness business. This would leverage the trust a health professional garners from their audience, and support them in extending their practice online to include healthy products. I then embarked on building a product catalog and commerce infrastructure to be able to do this at scale.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’ve spent more than 20 years building software and eCommerce companies, with a deep background in digital marketing, online relationship selling, and building platforms that connect businesses with their customers. Much of my career has been focused on helping companies use technology to better manage their customer relationships and create more effective online commerce experiences.
My entry into the health and wellness industry actually started through my own health journey. I was an early adopter of functional and preventative medicine, and in 2008 I went through a comprehensive preventative physical. At the time I had no symptoms, but the testing revealed several issues including thyroid cancer, leaky gut, and a number of other underlying health concerns. That experience really opened my eyes to the power of preventative and root-cause medicine, and it put me on a path of working closely with functional medicine practitioners for my own health.
As I went through that process, something stood out to me that felt very broken from a technology and business perspective. The product buying experience was extremely disjointed. A practitioner might recommend several supplements that had to be purchased on different distributor sites, then send me to several other websites to buy lifestyle or biohacking products through affiliate links. It was fragmented, inefficient, and confusing for the patient.
In many ways, it was also an invitation to simply go to Amazon and buy as much as possible there.
Coming from a background in eCommerce and relationship-driven online businesses, that didn’t make much sense to me. In a relationship business—especially healthcare—you shouldn’t be sending your customers all over the internet to buy from other companies. When that happens, you’re essentially giving your customers away to other businesses that will then market to them directly over time.
That realization led me to start building technology for this industry.
Today I’m the founder of GetHealthy.Store, a commerce and AI infrastructure platform designed specifically for the health and wellness ecosystem. Our platform allows practitioners, wellness organizations, and health brands to operate within a single unified commerce environment instead of relying on multiple disconnected tools.
We’ve built what we call an Integrative Product Catalog, which aggregates thousands of curated products across multiple categories including supplements, nutrition, home health, personal care, diagnostic testing, and wellness equipment. Practitioners can curate these products into their own storefronts, giving their patients a much better and more trusted shopping experience while also allowing the practitioner to maintain ownership of the relationship.
Where we are pushing things even further is through AI and data infrastructure. By aggregating product data, research, and practitioner expertise into one platform, we can power AI tools that help practitioners discover products more effectively and help consumers make better, more personalized purchasing decisions.
Ultimately, the problem we’re solving is that the health and wellness industry has incredible knowledge and product innovation, but the technology infrastructure around it has lagged behind. Our goal is to give practitioners and wellness organizations the tools to own their commerce experience, strengthen their patient relationships, and build more sustainable businesses.
What I’m most proud of is helping bring together practitioners, brands, and technology to support a more personalized, preventative approach to health. I believe the future of health commerce will be data-driven, practitioner-guided, and AI-enabled, and we’re building the infrastructure to help make that future possible.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
I funded our business through raising of convertible debt from angel investors including an early stage accelerator called Capital Factory. The angel investors were sourced through personal contacts, friends of friends, and industry people who were supportive of the idea we were pursuing.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I believe resilience is one of the most important traits an entrepreneur can have. Building a company from an idea into something sustainable requires navigating constant uncertainty, and there are hurdles at every stage—from the earliest days through medium-term growth and into long-term scale.
One of the biggest tests of resilience for our company was navigating the COVID period. For nearly two years it created a significant headwind for many businesses, including ours. During that time we had to be very disciplined about managing expenses and extending our runway while continuing to move the company forward. It meant slowing down certain initiatives around hiring, marketing, and expansion, while staying focused on the core mission of the business. We essentially had to keep the ship moving in the right direction, even if it was at a reduced speed for a period of time.
Resilience in those moments is really about balancing short-term survival with long-term vision. You have to make pragmatic decisions in the moment while still believing strongly in where the company is headed.
Another challenge that often requires resilience is when you’re building something that doesn’t yet exist in the market. If you’re doing something truly unique, it often means you’re a little ahead of where the market currently is—otherwise someone else would have already built it. That was very much the case for us. Along the way we had to listen carefully to the market, adapt our approach, and continually refine how we deliver value to practitioners, brands, and consumers in the wellness ecosystem.
Entrepreneurship in those situations isn’t about stubbornly sticking to a single plan—it’s about staying committed to the core vision while evolving how you get there.
Interestingly, what we’re seeing now is that the rise of AI has created a strong tailwind for our business. Many of the things we’ve been building around data, product infrastructure, and intelligent commerce experiences are now becoming even more relevant as AI begins to transform how people discover products and services. In many ways the market is starting to catch up to where we believed things were headed.
Looking back, resilience wasn’t just about getting through difficult periods—it was about continuing to move forward, learn from the market, and position the company so that when the opportunity arrived, we were ready for it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gethealthy.store
- Instagram: @gethealthyjon
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-armstrong-ba8238?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app