Sima Sistani, chief executive officer of WeightWatchers, celebrated one year at the company this March. However, as a longtime member of the points-based weight loss program, Sistani was no stranger to the program prior to joining the company.
Sistani’s personal experiecne with WeightWatchers combined with her experience in tech and building virtual social experiences at brands like Yahoo, Tumblr and House Party, has resulted in a digital-forward, community-driven approach at WeightWatchers. And following COVID-19 and the rise of Ozempic, Sistani’s approach continues to evolve. As she marks her first year in the corner office, Sistani sat down with Beauty Inc to discuss her vision for WeightWatchers, the impact of semaglutides on the weight loss industry and the importance of building community.
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Since joining WeightWatchers, how has the business evolved?
Sima Sistani: We were at this critical turning point in our ability to continue to stay relevant because COVID[-19] had really catalyzed the shift to digital membership. What was once more of an analog retail business turned into a digital business very quickly. The opportunity for me coming in with my background in digitizing social relationships and coming from growth tech was to take everything I had learned about building and scaling digital businesses, but to have that aperture against this program that I loved personally.
I anticipated walking into a lot of technical debt and the truth was that we actually had a very solid foundation in terms of our tech stack. What we needed to address was the organizational debt of a company that was still working like an analog retail company versus what we had become. That showed up in a lot of different ways. It meant embracing data-informed, agile decision making and development. It meant rethinking things like our marketing from doing traditional TV advertising to more performance based marketing. It meant thinking about other types of modalities and therapies that might exist for people on a weight loss journey.
WeightWatchers was built on an in-person meeting model. How are you thinking about creating that same experience digitally?
S.S.: I still believe deeply in IRL [in real life]-based experiences. One of my past achievements was building a video chat company called House Party and we used to say we always wanted to be the next best thing to in-real-life. I still believe that’s true here as well. We want to meet the members where they are and 80 percent of them are experiencing WeightWatchers in a digital-only environment. That has to be at the core of everything we do, digital first. Now, for those who want and need further accountability and are looking for IRL community-building and coaching, we want to be able to offer that. We just need to do it in more flexible ways. The history was retail-based locations. We are now moving to what we call our “Studio ats,” [the brand styles it as Studio @s, which are flexible meeting spaces], which are more pop-ups where we are able to extend our footprint and it’s also a lower cost basis in those cases…. Everything that we do from behavior change techniques and standpoint, we want that to be able to live fully realized in a digital experience but I also really want to inspire people to get up, get out and meet each other in person.
As you are aiming to build an online and in-person community? How are you thinking about the “loneliness epidemic” and the trend of social wellness?
S.S.: When you think about community there are some grounding principles and one of the main ones is that you have a shared interest and a shared experience. Somebody who is struggling with weight, that is a very vulnerable, emotional feeling, and it allows for the kind of connection that people only get when they’re sharing something vulnerable and intense. There has to be that built-in reciprocity that allows people to then feel connected, and then hopefully grow from the experience. Those are grounded principles of disclosure, vulnerability, repeat encounters, reciprocity, these are all really important principles to building connection and community…That is what people find in WeightWatchers and the reason that it works is not just because of our points program, and our behavior change program. It’s not because of the relationship between the individual and the coach. It is the peer-to-peer relationship that makes us unique in our ability to have people feel that they’re more likely to adhere to the program because they have that unique accountability with a peer group.
You’ve mentioned building “digital blue zones” with WeightWatchers. What does that mean?
S.S.: I reference, when we think about our vision and who we want to be and how we want to show up, the research that Dan Buettner did about “blue zones.” There are places in the world where people live to be centenarians and the research that they’ve done is not just in how you move or what you eat, but it’s about your social circles… For a lot of our members, we are helping them not only with their weight health, but we’re helping them more broadly by building a community, by helping them with loneliness, by helping them have optimal health and a quality of life that that is above and beyond what they would have had.
You recently acquired Sequence, which will allow users to receive prescriptions for semaglutides like Ozempic and Wegovy, if eligible. How do you see this class of drugs impacting the weight loss industry?
S.S.: The reality we’re in right now is there is a lot of misinformation and a lot of bad actors… We can come in and be the responsible adult in the room, providing a more holistic education about these medications, and being able, through our virtual clinic Sequence, let people know if they qualify, if it’s medically appropriate for them to have weight loss medication. I’m saying weight loss medication but that’s really not even what it is. It is about treating a relapsing chronic condition of living with overweight and obesity… These medications have achieved a new modality to help people who are struggling with the biological and genetic underpinnings of living with overweight and obesity.
As the weight loss market becomes increasingly saturated, especially with the rise of semaglutides, what is WeightWatchers’ strategy for remaining relevant?
S.S.: Authenticity is the strategy. We’re the leaders in the space and we have to be authentic and honest about the conversations. That comes from acknowledging the parts in the past where we’ve also been responsible and acknowledging as things evolve and develop. We have a significant lapsed membership base. Some of those people are lapsed because they had success on the program. Some of those people are lapsed because our program wasn’t enough. We know why now. These medications have shown us that the gut-brain access is incredibly powerful, and that these hormones are working against people… Being honest about where we could have done better is an important part about continuing to build trust.
What’s next?
S.S.: This category is still put in the same bucket as hair loss, but being able to help somebody who is struggling with heart disease or diabetes is not the same as somebody who is dealing with balding. What I would like to see is for us to catalyze the fact that 10 years ago we said this was a chronic condition. If we’re looking back, 10 years from now, five years from now, we’ve all embraced the fact that this is a chronic relapsing condition and we’re viewing it as such and therefore, people have access to the medications. As people start to address the condition, there’s going to be a whole group of people who are also going to start to see this success and are going to be looking to optimize it further.