Turning a Wellness Program Into a Sustained Health Venture

The Challenge

Sanitarium needed Pivio to do more than launch in a digital format. They needed a program that retained participants and produced measurable outcomes, the kind of evidence that justifies sustained investment and turns a wellness initiative into a venture worth scaling. The existing model could inform participants. It could not reliably change their behaviour.

Our Approach

At Experience Foundry, we anchored the work in behavioural research, surfacing the constraints, motivations, and decision points that determined whether Pivio participants would actually sustain change. Working alongside the Sanitarium team, we rebuilt the program around how behaviour change actually holds. The result was a digital health system: live support groups, expert led video content, articles, and habit formation tools, organized around a 12 episode lifestyle transformation series that grounded each lesson in a real participant story. Every design decision was validated against behavioural evidence rather than assumption.

The Results & Impact

Within the first year of a three year roadmap, the redesigned Pivio program produced measurable outcomes across the metrics that determine whether a health venture is worth sustaining: biometrics, blood markers, and lifestyle habits. A longitudinal study tracked retention beyond program end, evidence that participants were not just completing the program but holding the changes it produced.

Sanitarium commissioned a second cohort. The program shifted from initiative to investment thesis, defensible on outcomes rather than enthusiasm.