Whoop launches social network as membership nears 4 million

By Rebecca Stone

Whoop will launch Whoop Humans on Thursday to members at every membership tier at no extra cost, CEO Will Ahmed said, while the maker of screen-less fitness bands targets nearly 4 million members by year-end.

The network arrives inside the Whoop app and lets subscribers follow other members, including friends and family, while deciding what health data to disclose. Ahmed said the feature set includes:

• Selective sharing of sleep, recovery, workouts and achievements.
• Reactions and comments from followers.
• Photos and commentary attached to a member's data.
• Opt-in participation throughout.

How does Humans differ from Teams?

Whoop's existing Teams feature reaches a little more than half of customers, according to the company. Teams organizes groups around leaderboards, with every participant seeing everyone else's information. Humans changes that model: members choose followers and visible metrics. A trainer can track selected clients without those clients seeing one another's data.

The premise raises an immediate domestic question: how much does a spouse want to know about the other person's sleep score? Ahmed said beta members engaged more when someone reported a low recovery score than a nearly perfect one, which he said points to the feature's value when a person may be struggling and need attention.

Ahmed expects families, including adult children checking on aging parents, to become major users of Humans.

Is Whoop becoming a medical-wellness platform?

Whoop had already added four health functions:

• FDA-cleared ECG and atrial fibrillation detection.
• Blood-pressure insights.
• Blood testing.
• Medical-record uploads.

Ahmed reported large growth among people over 60 during the past 18 months, although he gave no customer totals. He also said Whoop was among the first companies accepted into a Medicare program that reimburses qualifying wearables capable of showing improved health outcomes. The company now has Medicare members.

Like its closest rival, Oura, Whoop is pushing more aggressively into the medical-wellness opportunity associated with an aging population. Ahmed framed the ambition as making Whoop a brand for personal health. That gives the social network a practical role: it can surface recovery and sleep changes to people who choose to share them.

What privacy controls protect shared data?

Ahmed described the following controls:

• Members choose which metrics to share and can remove followers.
• Stealth mode makes a member invisible for a few days without changing settings.
• Activities marked sensitive remain private by default.
• Health alerts and medical information are not shared at all.
• Members can report disturbing comments or photos, and Whoop reviews reported content.

Whoop sets 13 as the minimum age for membership, higher in some countries, and permits those users to share data subject to consents and privacy settings. Ahmed did not directly answer whether a parent could follow a teenager's data; he referred to the controls instead.

Whoop does not sell member data or license it to third parties, Ahmed said. “Our product is not you; it’s the membership,” he added.

Can Whoop turn scale into acquisitions?

Ahmed was more candid about possible deals than about current finances. Responding to Oura's announcement this week that it will pay $625 million for Counsel Health, a service offering on-demand physicians, he expects more consolidation among AI-focused, clinician-focused and wearable companies. Whoop's direct relationship with members puts it “in a position to be an acquirer,” he said.

Whoop did not disclose revenue or say whether it is profitable. Ahmed put headcount at about 1,200 and said platform membership has increased more than 70% per year for three consecutive years. The nearly 4 million members expected by year-end represent a company forecast, not a reported current total.

Ahmed said Whoop will certainly pursue an initial public offering in the future, but gave no date. The company raised a large funding round earlier this year. Oura, by comparison, shelved its own IPO of up to $2.2 billion in September, citing market uncertainty.

Retail distribution expands next March, when Whoop devices will go on sale at Ulta. The rollout will start with about 500 stores, with a target of more than 1,000 eventually, Ahmed said. Whoop's female audience has more than doubled from the prior year, he added, a measure the company reported without giving customer counts.

Ahmed brushed aside competitive threats from Google's new Fitbit Air band and Apple's reportedly developing Whoop-style band. Building a product does not guarantee success, he said, and Whoop's task is to remain focused on the aspiring people it serves.

The commercial test now is whether Humans, included at no extra cost, can deepen engagement as Whoop approaches a forecast 4 million members and Oura, Google and Apple compete for wearable subscriptions.