So I had Dr. Adeel Khan on the Infinite Income podcast, and I went in thinking we’d mostly talk stem cells and anti aging. We did. But honestly the part I keep thinking about is how he built the business around it.
Quick note before anything else. I’m not a doctor and this isn’t medical advice. I’m just telling you what he said on the episode and what I took from it as a guy who’s been doing this online stuff for a long time. If you want the medical side, go to someone qualified. That’s it.
Who he is and why I wanted him on
Adeel is a sports medicine doctor by training who moved into what he calls the biotech longevity world. He runs clinics in a few countries and works on the research side too, peptides, stem cells, gene therapy, all the newer stuff most people haven’t heard of. He’s worked with athletes and celebrities, Chris Bumstead and Tony Robbins came up on the episode.
I’ve done stem cells a few times myself in Costa Rica. I told him straight up, I’m a little more aggressive than most people, like if it helps me even a little bit, cool. So I had a bunch of selfish questions lol. But the stuff that stuck with me was mostly business.
Everyone says it works, almost nobody measures it
This was the biggest one for me. He said the longevity space is kind of the wild west right now. Everyone’s suddenly a longevity doctor because it’s hot, and a lot of clinics are telling people the stem cells will make them younger without measuring anything at all.
His clinic was the first, according to him, to actually measure and publish data on biological age. Not a huge study, he was clear about that, a few case reports and now they’re working on a bigger data set. He said they do a baseline test, then repeat it four to six months later to see what changed. And when other clinics brag about how many thousands of people they’ve treated, his answer was basically, okay, then why aren’t you publishing it?
I asked him if it’s as simple as taking a group of people and measuring them. He said it’s not rocket science. It just takes effort.
And I mean, that’s every business I look at. People tell me their ads work, their sales team is good, their offer converts. Okay, show me. If you don’t track the metrics, then we’re just guessing. He’s doing the same thing in medicine that I’m yelling at people to do in their funnels. Measure it.
Being honest is what builds the name
He said something I didn’t expect from someone in his space. On the claims side he’s actually with the regulators. A lot of stem cell clinics say they can treat everything under the sun, and he thinks that gives the whole field a bad reputation and gives patients false hope. So he splits it up. Here’s where the science is strong for us, like orthopedics and chronic pain. Here’s where it’s still experimental and we don’t know for sure.
I brought up the Elf thing, the “world’s best cup of coffee” sign, because that’s what a lot of this advertising looks like to me. Maybe that’s just cuz I run businesses. But he made a good point that people are getting smarter. Someone sees an ad, spends two minutes on ChatGPT, and figures out what’s what.
So the clinics overselling are kind of burning themselves. The guy who tells you what it does and what it doesn’t do is the one people end up trusting. I see it in coaching all the time. Overpromise and you get the sale, then you get the refund and the bad review. Can’t build anything on that.
He looks the part, on purpose
He talked about his own routine a little, the infusions, the facials, the hair stuff. He showed before and afters of his hair online. And he said part of the reason he does it is because he’s seen as a longevity doctor, so if he doesn’t look the part people question whether any of it works.
He compared it to a trainer trying to get you in shape. If the trainer’s out of shape, why would you listen? I’ve said the same thing about business coaches forever. If you’re teaching people how to make money and you’re broke, it’s a tough sell. You are the proof, so to speak.
The clinics aren’t even the money maker
This part was interesting to me because I’ve always been the online guy. Brick and mortar scares me a bit. Staff, locations, capex, opex, it’s a lot of risk. I’m not against it per se, it’s just a lot.
He basically agreed. He said the clinic business was never his plan to get wealthy. He sees it as a service first, and second it creates a halo effect. When you treat high profile people, it opens doors to everything else. He now has a peptide manufacturing business, he’s involved in stem cell research and development, he’s an adviser or partner in a couple other companies, and he launched a supplement line. He said he wouldn’t have any of that without the clinics.
Then I asked if you could set it up where you use other people’s facilities. He said that’s the model he wishes he’d started with. In Turkey they run a pop up inside another local clinic, he didn’t invest anything in it, and he goes a couple times a year to do treatments.
That’s the takeaway for anyone thinking about a physical business. You don’t always have to own the building. Partner with someone who already has it and test first.
Pricing comes down when everyone catches up
I told him I’d seen stem cell treatments anywhere from like 12 grand to 30 grand for what’s supposedly the same thing. He said early on a lot of places were charging way more just because they were the only ones doing it. Now there’s more demand, more manufacturers, more competition, so prices are dropping. He said something that was 30,000 you can now get for like 15,000, and their own Muse cell treatment that was maybe 50 grand a couple years ago has come down by about half.
That’s just business. When you’re first you can charge a premium. When everyone catches up, the price falls, and you better have something else going for you, like data, results, or a name people trust.
He still says do the basics first
For all the cutting edge stuff we covered, he was pretty blunt that there’s no shortcut. If you’re sleeping like crap and eating like crap, stem cells aren’t the program for you. He said start by measuring things like your sleep, then look at light in the morning, air quality, the boring foundation stuff. And he said relationships and purpose matter for longevity more than people talk about.
We got into Brian Johnson a bit. I get his perspective, but I don’t want his life. If you live forever and it’s not exciting, what’s the point? I’m pretty crazy health wise and even I think he takes it to another level. Stuff like a cold plunge twice a week or the sauna, I just feel better after. That’s enough for me.
So, the stuff I took from this one: measure what you do, don’t oversell, look like your own result, and you don’t need to own everything to grow. He’s doing it in medicine. Same rules apply to whatever you sell. Simple as that.
Want to know what’s capping your business right now? Take my free 90 Day Ceiling Plan. Answer 18 questions and get a written plan, built on your own numbers, that names the one thing holding you back and what to fix first.
