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Jeremy Jacob is the owner of Float SA and Evolve Human Optimization Labs, which offers alternative wellness therapies such as an infrared sauna, muscle stimulation.
Maverick Quirante, 23, submerges himself in the Cold Plunge at Evolve Human Optimization Labs.
Vera Smith lays back in a massage chair while receiving contrast therapy to treat a knee injury at Evolve Human Optimization Labs.
Christian Weatherly, 22, takes a deep breath before getting into the Cold Plunge at Evolve Human Optimization Labs.
Christian Weatherly, 22 and Maverick Quirante, 23, relax in the cold water of the Cold Plunge at Evolve Human Optimization Labs.
Christian Weatherly, 22 and Maverick Quirante, 23, relax in the cold water of the Cold Plunge at Evolve Human Optimization Labs.
Christian Weatherly, 22 and Maverick Quirante, 23, relax in the cold water of the Cold Plunge at Evolve Human Optimization Labs.
Behind an unassuming storefront in a shopping center on the North Side, a business opened three months ago that might qualify as “the world’s first walk-in biohacking facility.”
That’s how owner Jeremy Jacob describes Evolve Human Optimization Labs, a wellness center featuring machines you won’t find in most gyms or spas. Together, they offer an experience in “biohacking,” which refers to a movement championed by podcaster Joe Rogan, among others, seeking unconventional and do-it-yourself methods to improve one’s health.
In Evolve’s central room, offerings include an interactive video game screen for cognitive training — useful for athletes training to make split-second decisions, Jacob said. Visitors can also use an “inversion table” to flip themselves upside-down to decompress their spines. There’s a row of massage chairs, as well as headphones for guided meditation. A stretching area features a mirror that doubles as a video screen, with a virtual instructor to demonstrate moves.
Further back, there is an infrared sauna, as well as a room for “contrast therapy” featuring a pair of small pools of cold water — one at 57 degrees and one at 44 degrees — beside two saunas set to about 185 degrees.
Customers can choose between a day pass for $49 or a membership starting from $59 a month — prices geared toward giving regular people access to biohacking equipment that only the wealthy can typically afford, Jacob said.
“I haven’t been able to find anyone else in the country that’s doing what we’re doing here,” Jacob said. “I see biohacking as an emerging industry, and nobody was approaching it from the service side.”
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Jacob’s ambition is to grow the business as a franchise. He has a verbal agreement with a partner who plans to open a second location in a sports complex in the Chicago area, he said.
Evolve is Jacob’s second business. Six years ago, he opened Float Wellness Spa, a facility where customers can float in sensory deprivation chambers to relax. He co-owns the businesses with his wife, who works as an administrator at Trinity University.
Jacob recently sat to discuss his entrepreneurial drive, the biohacking industry and his goals for Evolve. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: You said there’s no other place like this in the U.S. What makes your business unique?
A: The unique thing about what we’re doing here is that we’ve incorporated 20 different wellness and athletic recovery protocols. I haven’t been able to find anybody that has this number of services. Also, we operate in a model where people can use a day pass or a membership to access the services.
Q: Is it intended for athletes?
A: Yeah, but I wanted it to be more than that, so we also have a lot of folks that are here for just the general wellness protocols. We have traditional saunas, but also infrared saunas. We’ve got the massage chairs. We’ve got a lot of things that can help people improve their health, their immune system.
Q: What does “biohacking” mean?
A: Biohacking is basically just a fancy way of saying anything that you’re doing to improve your health and wellness. A lot of times, that includes technology.
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There’s a lot of big names and influencers in the biohacking world. Dave Asprey is considered the godfather of biohacking. He has a facility in Beverly Hills that is kind of similar to what we do, but I also find that the biohacking industry is very elitist right now. It’s pay to play; you have to buy all these expensive devices. I really don’t like that. I’m an old punk rocker, so I don’t like this elitist idea that it’s only available to people that have the financial resources.
Q: Are these devices scientifically tested?
A: I would say one of my big minimal requirements is I have to believe in everything that’s here. For a lot of these things, I’ve read studies specifically on the device; (with others) it just kind of makes sense. We know that heat and vibration are good for certain types of injuries or inflammation. We’ve got knee sleeves that are contrast therapy, so they actually switch from hot to cold in a session, and that’s going to surround the whole knee. So some of these are using new technology to do something where it used to be a bag of ice.
Q: How did you come to open Float?
A: We heard about floating in 2014. Joe Rogan has always been a big advocate of flotation therapy, and he was talking about it on his podcast. And we had to drive to Austin to float. So I took my wife up there. When we came out, we were both blown away. We were like, we need to bring this to San Antonio. It was one of those opportunities where it was the right time. Flotation therapy was starting to be recognized as a really great mental health tool. You know, it was scary, because everybody was like, “That’s not a thing that’ll work in San Antonio.”
Q: Because San Antonio is thought to be behind the times?
A: Yeah. They were like, “That’s an Austin thing.” I always hated that. I love San Antonio, because of the culture and the people here. When people say things like that, it’s like we’re not good enough to have something that you’ll find in New York or L.A. I think that’s where there’s a huge business opportunity. Go to Portland, go to San Francisco, go to New York, see what’s trending there. It usually takes five years to make it here. If you respond to that before anyone else, that’s where there’s opportunity.
Q: What do you get out of a float?
A: We’re in a world where we’re constantly overstimulated: cellphones, televisions, advertising, all that kind of stuff — throwing off our dopamine release. … In a flow tank, it’s as little input as possible. It’s kind of like a fasting for the nervous system. You come out feeling really refreshed.
Q: Did you always want to be an entrepreneur?
A: Yeah. I had my own lawn businesses when I was a kid. I grew up in Odessa, West Texas. It’s just a weird place to grow up. I didn’t fit in. I was always a weird kid. I had a mohawk. I was into punk rock. I opened a haunted house when I was 18. In college, I had a margarita machine rental business. But I didn’t come from money, so it was always like, I don’t have any capital to invest in starting anything. There was always that frustration.
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For the most part, when you look at entrepreneurs, there’s a lot of folks that had a jump-start. When we opened Float, you know, you gotta sign your mortgage on the line, take out a big loan, bigger than anything I had ever pulled out. So it’s really scary. We put every bit of cash and everything we had into that.
Q: Do you do advertising?
A: That’s where, I think, we excelled. Some of the other places that didn’t make it … people have this mentality of, “if you build it, they will come.” But people have to know you exist. There has to be an investment of either time or energy, I think. We did both. You know, those two years between when we were writing the business plan to when we were actually able to open, we were going down to First Friday and passing out flyers telling people what flotation therapy was. We were doing it at events and bringing in influencers, things like that. I think a lot of businesses put marketing capital as the last thing — if we have money left over, we’re going to do advertising. It’s like, no, that’s backwards. You need to invest in that first.
Q: What other advice would you give to people who want to start a business?
A: It’s an interesting time. With things like “Shark Tank,” there’s a lot of conversation around entrepreneurship, but I don’t know how much of that conversation is realistic. You know, let’s see the work behind doors and the actual stress and everything that goes on. You have to be fully dedicated. You have to be willing to be flexible and creative. You have to wear multiple hats. I definitely encourage it if you’re a self-starter, because at the end of the day, there was nobody there other than the fear of financial ruin to tell you that you have to go in and do this work.
Q: It seems like the biohacking trend has been popularized in large part by alternative media figures such as Joe Rogan.
A: I think a lot of people are having that conversation about being proactive with their health. Obviously, the (health) pyramid is always going to be movement, exercise and eating well. I’ll put that above anything we do here. And sleep. Those are the fundamental things. But if you want to go beyond that, that’s where you have what used to be considered alternative wellness. One of the issues I see with Americans is we always think we do everything the best. We forget that there is a whole world of cultures out there. Cold plunging and heat have been around in every ancient culture that we have writings of. You go to Russia, and it’s a banya. There’s more saunas than people in Finland. In Japan, it’s called onsen, where you go from a natural spring to cold water.
Q: You’ve only been open for three months, and you’re already working on plans for a franchise. That’s pretty fast, right?
A: That opportunity kind of fell in our lap. But I also see that this has worked pretty much from day one. Again, there’s not anyone else offering this. I’m a big planner. It’s always been the plan to franchise it, from the beginning. We still have a lot of work to do in that realm, but I think that’s where this is headed. And we want to do it as quickly as we can, to take advantage of the opportunity.
Richard Webner is a freelance business writer and former real estate reporter for the Express-News. He earned a graduate degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and an undergraduate degree in History from Northwestern University.