What If Your Wellbeing Was Your Best KPI

We talk with Julia, founder of Wave Six, about turning a decade-long health journey into a holistic health tracking app that helps people spot patterns across daily life. We also unpack pitching practice, supportive founder communities, and why protecting wellbeing is the only sustainable way to build. 
• building Wave Six to track sleep, nutrition, movement, relaxation, relationships and self 
• using correlation to find personal patterns and outcomes over time 
• living through MS and uncertainty, then choosing proactive responsibility 
• making sustainable changes like removing gluten and dairy gradually 
• moving from a restrictive diary to a need for smarter health tech 
• naming Wave Six as a ripple effect plus six tracking categories 
• learning fast through speed-date pitching and direct audience feedback 
• shifting from landscape architecture to entrepreneurship later in life 
• using Set Squared and Canopy for courses, mentoring and community support 
• founder advice on direction before speed, boundaries, recovery and avoiding burnout 

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Transcript

Welcome And Meet Julia

Stewart Noakes 0:01

All right, fantastic. Series five of the Founder Friday. We're already on episode two. Julia, wonderful to have you here for those people. And I don't know who they are, but don't know who you are. Please, can you tell us who you are and what you're working on?

What Wave Six Tracks Holistically

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 0:15

Hi, I'm Julia. I'm the founder of Wave Six. So Wave Six is a lifestyle, health, and well-being tracking app that lets you track more holistically. So you can track sleep, nutrition, movement, relaxation, relationships, and self. Because I found on my um health journey I was looking at tracking apps and they were all very niche. They were all very focused on one specific uh aspect like exercise or nutrition or sleep. But I wanted something that lets you track more holistically and correlate all these very different data points in your life and see what the outcomes are and see what the patterns are that about what works for you and what doesn't.

Stewart Noakes 0:58

Okay, so like all good entrepreneurship, it started from a personal pain point, right? You couldn't solve your own problem with what was out there in the market and decided to make it for yourself and I guess other people that are like you, right?

MS Diagnosis And Taking Control

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 1:10

Exactly. So yeah, I'd had health problems. I um was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, neurological condition without a cure, just shortly after the birth of our third child. And um for 10 years I was struggling with my health, and um I was diagnosed with Lyme disease um as well. And uh I followed the programs or you know, the things that my doctors told me, um, take immunosuppressants for the uh for the MS, um, take antibacterial um antibiotics for the um Lyme disease. But I thought I need to know which disease I was suffering from and need to get better. And that's when I realized I need to take responsibility of my own health. And uh I was yeah, I went to the last Lyme disease specialist and he said, Julie, I don't think you've got it. And that's I I broke down and I thought, okay, I need to change tech here and need to stop following the doctors and specialists and um need to look what I myself can do. And so I started my health journey and I worked with a nutritional therapist to get myself as healthy as possible. I always had this vision of um if you got a dirty room, the flies come, and if you clean up the room, the flies go. So I thought if I get as healthy as possible, maybe my body will be able to keep it in check. And the nutritional therapist started really slowly, just said, cut out gluten, cut out dairy, because I can see from your blood results that you got detoxification issues. And um, even those two really small steps took me months to implement.

Stewart Noakes 3:03

Um, not small steps, are they? When you try and take gluten and dairy out of your diet, that's an awful lot of stuff.

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 3:09

It is. Um, but she was brilliant because she said you don't need to do it overnight, you don't even need to do it in the next two weeks, just take your time and make it a small, sustainable steps. And now, you know, I don't know, 15, I don't know, 12 years later, 13 years later, I'm still doing it. So that was the the initial point, and it was really mind-opening for me. Um, because all of a sudden I could see I got responsibility for my own health, and there are things I can do proactively to change the outcome of how I'm feeling. And that also got it here, uh, changed you know, 2015.

From Paper Diary To Pattern-Finding Tech

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 3:53

I took it then further and um kept a little diary about all the things I was doing, trying to see you know what was helping me. So I put in you know what I was eating, what um what my symptoms were those days, how my energy score was. But I realized that this is really restrictive because I couldn't correlate all the data together. So in the front, I was um tracking my periods, for example, but I couldn't overlay it and couldn't go through it. So I was thought, oh yeah, I need some tech to help me uh decipher all this and find the patterns. And that's when I looked at yeah, tracking apps. And the funny thing was um my energy, the fatigue was my big problem at the beginning. So I looked at energy trackers, and I just thought, no, no, no, no, I don't want to track my energy and um my electricity and gas consumption and no on something else, and then all the other trackers they were also you know very focused on exercise or relaxation or nutrition, but I wanted something that looked at all the other aspects as well and to correlate those. So when I couldn't find anything, and believe me, I I really looked. Um, I thought, okay, let's once my energy will stabilize and I will feel better, that might be something I'd like to look at.

Stewart Noakes 5:21

That's super interesting. And you know, one of my reflections is that uh whenever I meet you, you're always full of positive energy, you've always got a great big smile, you're always open to other people, and it just shows how much work that takes to always be like that. But but I've never seen you in any situation where you're not those things. That's really interesting. Even when we bumped into each other next uh when you were going to the hockey and stuff, you're still exactly the same person. Amazing.

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 5:49

Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I'm generally a very positive, optimistic person, and I have to say that that really helped me on this journey as well, because I still get out of up out of bed in the morning and I'm still super excited about you know wave six and what I can hopefully do and what the impact I can hopefully have um for other people um in a similar situation. And uh yeah, it's it's it's it's good fun. Yeah, loving it.

Why The Name Wave Six Fits

Stewart Noakes 6:20

Now tell me, why is it called wave six? I mean, it almost feels like it should be called agency or something at this point with the way you've described it. But what does wave six mean?

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 6:28

So it was quite funny. I went um to I was at my parents' house in Germany for for a weekend to see them, and I locked myself in my old bedroom and thought I really need um a good name for this because I've called it first what works for you. And then everyone said that this is too generic, you need a you need a name. And I thought, yeah, but this is literally what works for you, is the essential thing. Um by that time we also already had the W as a logo. And I thought, okay, it needs to be something with a W, it needs something I can pronounce with my German accent. And and then I came up with Wave because the WAVE stands for the ripple effect a single lifestyle change can have, and it's rippling through your life and creates a big wave, hopefully. And six is for the six categories you can track so sleep, nutrition, movement, relaxation, relationships, and self.

Stewart Noakes 7:27

Yeah, if you get that to five, you could do that on one hand, much easier, right?

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 7:33

Wave five doesn't sound right. Oh, yes, and then and a new really nice thing, and then I went down into the kitchen and my mother was cooking, and I said, I think I found a name, it's wave six, and she said, I like it. She could pronounce it, she could remember it, and I thought, okay, that's it.

Stewart Noakes 7:52

Very good, very good.

Pitching Under Pressure And Winning

Stewart Noakes 7:54

No, one of the standouts for me this year is uh obviously you won your People's Choice Award in Bristol at uh the speed date demo night format. And uh I don't know what you remember about that, but uh my reflection was that when you did your first demo, which was I think you did four or five on the evening, you were a little bit faltering. You kind of I wouldn't say you fell on your face, but you you definitely weren't in your rhythm. Uh but by the end, you were like calm and confident and your energy was up, whereas everybody else had dipped by the time they'd done their third one. They were kind of dropping down a little bit in terms of they'd done all their intensity. And uh and you were a clear winner on the on the evening. So many people voted for you. It was a really, a really big gap. So, what do you remember about Speed Date, Demon and I and how it felt to do that?

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 8:41

I I loved it because um you only changed the format, I think, on the day or the day before from one big presentation or pitch to to everybody to that format. And first I was daunted and I thought, oh my god, four times. But I urge anyone who wants to practice their pitching to enter one of those, and especially in the speed date format, because you get so much out of it doing your pitch four times in a row and getting all this amazing feedback because you did it in in a small group. The feedback was very intimate, personal, intense. Yeah, it was brilliant, brilliant format.

Stewart Noakes 9:22

There's no hiding.

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 9:23

No, no hiding, and it's just there was so much energy in the room, it was incredible. Um, yeah, absolutely loved it. Yeah, I thought I felt I could have gone on for you know four more or whatever. Um, but it was yeah, I got a lot of out of it. Um, it was definitely something I would recommend to anyone.

Stewart Noakes 9:42

Yeah, we we pioneered that format only last year um because of a venue that restricted us in the way that we could do things, and we just had to come up with a different approach. And I loved it so much the first time we've done it, it's now become a constant part of the calendar. It's uh it's actually my favorite format. All the formats are good, but this is definitely my favorite. Uh, and partly because I think people make friends out of it. It's uh there's this collegiate nature of the way people were asking questions and building off of each other, where they end up with this sort of rapport and desire and curiosity, if you like, to talk to each other more afterwards, which is brilliant. Great community.

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 10:18

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. People came up afterwards, and the only shame about it is that I've no idea what the other founders were doing. So you miss the other founders' pictures. Um that was yeah, because usually the rapport with them more than with the audience sometimes, um, standing in the wings and um um being nervous together. But like this, it was yeah, fantastic atmosphere, great audience. I definitely recommend.

Stewart Noakes 10:46

Yeah, no, I'm I'm glad you like it too. It's uh we we made a rule about four years ago to never do events that we didn't enjoy ourselves. And uh I know this seems like a silly thing to do, but one of our events got so big that actually we as organizers didn't enjoy it because it became like three events going on at the same time, and we didn't really get to talk to people, and it was all about the faff of slides and all the rest of it, and it went orchestration, if you like, and we just resolved at that point to do smaller events that were more engaged, that had more human interaction, that we actually enjoyed ourselves, and whenever we get close to doing one of the big events or the things that we don't enjoy, we just stop ourselves. It's like a real mindful thing. We figure if we enjoy it and everyone then then that's good, but everybody else does too, then that's even better, right?

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 11:31

Yeah, but it's brilliant to be in a position like this where you can just say, Okay, that's enough. Right, we'll cut it down.

Stewart Noakes 11:38

We had to make the mistakes first, right?

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 11:42

But this is entrepreneurship in a way, you learn you learn by doing, and then you pivot and uh and change. And I think it's absolutely right what you say, you need to do what you enjoy, you know, because your well-being and you're yeah, you're the most important person, and you need to do what what you believe in and what you stand for. So yeah, I don't know if support this.

Stewart Noakes 12:05

We're in our own bubbles, of course, but I think we do a better job as a result of actually knowing that we're enjoying what we're doing rather than I don't know, following a prescription of what people expect us to do. So, yeah, I don't know. Let's see. Maybe there is a lesson in there somewhere. Um, so so tell me, do you have entrepreneurship in your background, in your family, in your

From Landscape Architecture To Founder

Stewart Noakes 12:23

education, anything like that? You know?

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 12:25

Not at all, not at all. Um, my father's a businessman, but that's as far as it went. I came to the UK 30 years ago to study landscape architecture. Um, had a very creative um background and career, which I really, really liked. Um, so if any one of you knows the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park, I was the assistant landscape architect on that one. So with an opening with a Queen and Prince Philip. So it was uh almost I loved it. Really, really nice career, lovely profession. Um, but then we had our first daughter in London, and then we thought, okay, this London is too big, we want to go um somewhere more family friendly. So we moved to Bath and uh had three children in quick succession, and then I developed right after I had the third one, developed my health problems and then couldn't go back to work. So during that time that I I wouldn't even say took out of working because it just was my you know um decision and I couldn't have worked basically. Um I did uh set design for local theatre companies, which was again you know nice um creative work, working with people on a on a um in a project, in a team. And uh and then when my energy stabilized again, I thought, what do I do now? I came to a crossroad. I thought, do I go back into landscape architecture or do I do something about my thoughts about holistic health tracking and uh and do something where I can use those 10 years of experience of my health journey to hopefully help other people and to have an impact? And uh I found a nice landscape architectural firm in Bas who I thought, oh, I could maybe work for, and I looked at their website and there was this picture, oh God's year, um, of this row of computers on both sides. And I just thought it just fell. I thought, no, no, no, I don't want to go back to this. Let's try and and do something. So um I became an entrepreneur. I didn't even know what the words that was a thing. I just did it and uh um yeah, great, great journey learn by doing, learning by doing every day, pretty much. So yeah, there was no entrepreneurial background at all in there, but thankfully, you know, there's amazing networks like Canopy, like Set Squared, that are very welcoming and supportive and happy to help. So that does yeah, that's a great bonus.

Stewart Noakes 15:17

Oh no, we met originally through the Set Squared stuff. Maybe it's uh it's a good chance to reflect. You know, what have you got out of the Set Squared stuff uh side of things and what have you got out of being part of Canopy?

Learning Through Set Squared And Canopy

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 15:28

So I I wish I'd heard about Set Squared a year before I actually did, because I thought, okay, I'll let's do this, but I didn't know where to start, and that was four or five years ago. And um yeah, I just wish I'd known that there was this amazing community out there, and uh it would have helped a lot at the beginning. And um, since I joined Wave uh Set Squared, you know, that yeah, I learned a lot, the amazing courses, amazing supportive people like yourself, and the great webinars, workshops helping people to learn all about um entrepreneurship and business things. And then yeah, being a part of of Canopy is is incredible. I love the international aspect of it and just having a very supportive network of incredible people who are happy to give up their time and support, you know, people like me who come no at this from a completely different angle, uh, but who are happy to help and support. So it's very much appreciated.

Stewart Noakes 16:43

Have you had any uh mentoring sessions in the Canopy stuff? Any any of those that stand out?

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 16:48

Yeah, and that was um, yeah, Pedro was great. Uh you know, it's just a laugh and uh just really positive and um you know some great characters. And it's it's just it's just you feel the you feel the love and the support of these people and you know just willing you on and trying to yeah pass on that knowledge and experience to you, and uh it's it is incredible. Um, people, you know, one day I want to be a mentor as well, and be able to be in a position that I can be able to give back what I've what I've received, um, because it's a it's yeah, brilliant program.

Stewart Noakes 17:36

Well, I mean you're already a role model, and as a people's choice winner, you you're you're always welcome to be a peer mentor as well, somebody who's showing what 18 months, two years ahead looks like and helping to pull people through. That's an incredibly powerful thing if you ever want to do it. Um now as we finally come towards the end of the interview, you know, I always wanted to uh always want to ask what's your best advice for a first-time founder? But before we switch to that, is there anything you want to ask me? I'm always open to that in the middle of these things.

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 18:03

Yeah, but uh what was your vision for Canopy?

The Vision Behind Canopy’s Community

Stewart Noakes 18:08

Well, it was a combined vision, and a lot of the the stuff that was in our origin story was really from my co-founder Matt and his wife, Kelly. And what uh he saw and what he what he taught me about in Boston was how everything was very siloed. So we were like the 58th incubators that open in in Boston. Uh and everybody, you know, had their little niches and their little crews, and you know, there were it was almost like everybody was a different shape or colour, you know, in everything you did. What Matt said was, I know all these incredible people across all these different things, and they never talk to each other. So what we want to do is we want to show them how it's all interconnected, and we want to bring them together under one roof through our events or through our co-working or through our incubation programs or whatever we can do, so that once they're there and they can see each other, we can then and he's a bit of an activist as Matt. So he said, I want to activate them on some particular things, what is called in Boston wicked problems, so systemic problems that you can't easily fix. And he said, Once I've got the smartest people in the room that are all helping each other, and I tell them about these things, I reckon we can do something really mega. So back in 2014, we were talking about algorithmic discrimination and homelessness in Boston and all these kind of things with these groups, and it was Matt's like joy to actually try and activate folks to think about this. And our opening keynote speech was from Noam Chomsky, uh talking about the role of uh innovation in peace and international security. And again, that was a feed from Matt uh one of his mentors and personal friends, and uh he invited him along to give this keynote and sort of set the time for how we would act in our in our future mission. And that was the only talk we've ever had to arrange that needed to police escort for the main guest because it can be relatively polarizing. We filled the auditorium at TAFS that day with sort of 400 folks to come and see him. Uh yeah, so the idea was basically how interconnected everything was and how we could put people together to create to sort of people with the same DNA. So we had literally in our first space in Boston somebody running for state senator alongside non-profits, alongside artists, we had dogs and kids in the space, we had uh tech people as well building hyperscale ideas, uh, all from this little space in the centre of Somerville, opposite one of our favourite bars, over the top of a citizen's bank, you know, and and it sort of started from there. Um an interesting origin, that's for sure. And it sort of morphed and pivoted and moved around and become Lisbonified and uh you know, moved into different countries and stuff all the way since 2014. Great question. Thank you for that. All right, so what's your best advice for a first-time founder who's watching this?

Founder Advice: Health Before Hustle

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 20:56

Basically, first of all, I heard or read something the other day which really stuck with me. And it's remember that the compass was invented before the clock. And I loved that because I thought, yes, you need your direction first of all, and you know, it you take as long as it takes for you, and it especially resonated with me because I always said, you know, my top three priorities are the children, it's my health, and then it's wave six. So I know that my journey takes longer. I know wave six could have been already much more successful, but and that's the main issue I want to in part to every everybody who thinks about this journey. It's you need to be really mindful of your well-being. Your well-being and your health are your biggest assets. And if you don't look after those, you know, whichever U idea you've got, if it's the most amazing idea, you won't be able to follow it through. So from my journey being in bad health, being rock bottom, um, I just know that, for example, I will never ever get into burnout because I learned my lessons that my health is incredibly important. And I just know, for example, three weeks ago I did a conference and I'm still recovering from it. And yeah, it takes longer, but you know, so be it. Then there's nothing I can do, but I know I will recover, and I got the trust in my body, and then trust in my systems, and then trust in my in all the steps I'm taking to help myself. Um, but yeah, the most important thing I would say is be mindful of your health, prioritize your sleep, prioritize your relationships, look after yourself. And if there's a deadline, yes, of course, push for it, but make sure you recover after and put healthy boundaries in place, learn to say no and uh and enjoy the journey and fall in love with your problem, follow it through, and um yeah, be the person you you want to be. And as you said earlier, you know, you do what what you want to do, create the life you want to live, um, and try and be the best you can and uh live a happy and healthy life and look after yourself.

Final Reflections And Thanks

Stewart Noakes 23:47

Thanks, Julia. That's really amazing, and thank you for all the positivity that you bring to the community uh for sharing your story today and being a role model that you are. Uh, you know, it's really special when people do this and show everybody that there's so many different ways that you can start, so many different ways that life gives you these journeys and suddenly the opportunities are there. And if you grab them, you know, you can go on and build things like you've had done with wave six. So congratulations to you. And thank you very much for being here. Thank you so much.

Julia Marshall Wessendorf 24:13

No, thank you very much for having me. That was a very lovely chat. Thanks, Stewart.