More Watter Co.

Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

Industry: Health, Fitness, and Wellness

Founding Student Name(s): Anthony Watters

Brief Description of Solution: More Watter is a health and wellness company that leverages exercise and community to improve health outcomes for people with chronic conditions, mainly diabetes, hypertension, and those recovering from stroke. Regular exercise has been demonstrated to reduce the risk from and to reverse the impact of many chronic health conditions. The service is particularly geared for urban communities that lack access to preventive health care and other health and wellness resources.

More Watter Co. seeks to leverage place-based community with technology to engage patients in an impactful and meaningful way. Exercise data from Fitbit and other devices from workouts is combined with qualitative data and community resources to develop and inform fitness plans for individuals. The program aims to improve health measures like blood pressure, blood sugar, body weight, resting heart rate, and fitness level. Our goal is to reduce health care inequity and transform community well-being by using exercise to improve long-term health outcomes for people with chronic conditions.

Funding Dollars: To date, More Watter Co. has raised more than $63,000 to develop a pilot project with additional funds pending.

What led you to launch this venture? I’ve always felt like it was my personal purpose to make an impact. My first venture was a nonprofit that gives scholarships to high school seniors and helps them as they matriculate through college. As a first generation college graduate growing up in Baltimore, I did not know how navigate that space and I wanted to help others, which I still do.

I was an athlete my entire life playing football, lacrosse, and swimming. I played for Dunbar High School, which has an illustrious history, and I went on to play college football at Howard University. I really wanted to be around sports, so I studied sports medicine and human performance. It was this combination of study, my skillset, and my desire to make an impact and be a part of the community that merged together.

We know there are demonstrated health benefits to exercise. While a doctor may recommend exercise, insurance providers rarely cover the cost for exercise, and there are very few examples of exercise being used as a modality to treat chronic diseases in any health care setting. My business partner, Alex Harrington, PhD, and I were both educated in the fields of exercise science and physical therapy, and we understand the impact of exercise has on health and well-being. As natives of Baltimore, we also see opportunities to expand impactful and affordable health interventions for underserved communities.

When I formed More Watter Co., I was still working full-time in rehabilitative medicine for a Baltimore-area health care provider. At the time, I developed a post-rehab exercise program for people living with, Parkinson’s disease, and people recovering from stroke. Although patients were getting better, the reach was limited and there was no ability to scale the program within of this health care provider. I decided to quit and strike out on my own.

What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? I feel the most accomplished when I’m able to help one of our patients reach their goals. For example, one of our stroke patients struggled to stand out of her wheelchair when I started visiting her home during the pandemic. After about six months, we were able to walk for about three blocks in her neighborhood. The joy and happiness I saw on her face is what makes all of this worth it. Although we haven’t treated many people thus far, we know that we are trying to do is impactful and important, and that is what I’m most proud of.

How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture? I decided to get my MBA for the purpose of improving my business skills and growing my business. Johns Hopkins was a good fit because of its focus on the business of health. I took the Health, Technology, and Innovation pathway during my MBA program. The HTI pathway allowed me to learn the business of health and understand how money moves within health care. It was also important to just learn how to connect with folks and work my network.

What founder or entrepreneur inspired you to start your own entrepreneurial journey? How did he or she prove motivational to you? I think that I was always intrinsicly motivated to be an entrepreneur. I grew up in a hardworking blue collar family who always believed in entrepreneurship. My great grandmother owned a store in Tarboro, North Carolina, and my grandfather provided for three generations of my family through his landscaping business. I would work alongside him every summer to make money before going back to school in the fall. My family was always my first inspiration and that foundation has given me the tools to build on their legacy.

During my MBA program, I was able to work with Obafemi Ayanbadejo. Femi is a Carey graduate, a former NFL player, and works in the health industry. When they were assigning industry mentors for the MBA program they said to me, “I have the perfect person for you.”

Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? My first semester marketing management class was particularly helpful. The class was divided into teams and asked to pick a top 30 business to develop a marketing plan for. My group include several MBA/MPH dual degree students from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and they insisted we build a plan for my company, which the professor allowed. That was the first time I was able to leverage the Carey community for my business, and that kind of support always continued. It’s one of those intangible things that’s difficult to describe, but it’s been really impactful for me. 

What professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? Professor Mario Macis was very influential. His courses really stick out to me, especially his Behavioral Strategy class. Another was Professor Kevin Frick. He developed a course experience for us after our planned experiential learning trip to Belize was canceled because of the pandemic. He put together an independent study consulting project, that involved the Johns Hopkins schools of nursing, engineering, business, and medicine. We worked collaboratively with students and faculty on a project. It helped me to learn how to work with organizations, and it was one of my favorites.

How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? The Baltimore-area startup ecosystem, specifically the social innovation ecosystem, has been crucial to my development as an entrepreneur and the growth of More Watter Co. Our business model  has been refined over the years while benefitting from mentors participating in the Baltimore Corp Elevation Awards (‘19), Johns Hopkins Social Innovation Lab incubator program (’20), the Innovation Works/Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship accelerator program (’21), and the University of Maryland Medical System Capacity Building Program (’22). Each of these accelerator programs is tailored for entrpreneurs who develop solutions that positively impact the communities they serve. The programs complement each other well and the network of social innovators work together toward a shared vision of a better Baltimore.

What is your long-term goal with your startup? Our long-term strategy is to grow to become a community staple and a primary resource provider for community members suffering from chronic conditions. We want to use the data from the first 100 patients we serve to help secure a more long-term partners with insurers and health systems in the Baltimore region who want to manage costs and improve quality of care for underserved communities of color.) As membership grows, we want to be able to have our own space, as we are renting space right now. To treat folks, we want to be able to have our own facility. Eventually, we will scale these facilities, maybe two in Baltimore, and then break into other markets like Philadelphia, Virginia, Atlanta, and Texas. I think this is something that can grow and scale, and folks from communities can help other folks in their communities get healthy. I’m also very interested in the managed Medicaid space. We could serve as a boutique insurance firm that manages claims for folks in underserved communities, and we could combine resources around us to help people.

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