Jeff Sawyer Lee Builds Smart Scales That Help You Attain Your Goals

Staying healthy and fit isn't always the easiest, so Jeff Sawyer Lee builds tech products to help people manage their weight goals. 

Lee is the co-founder and CEO of FitTrack, a health tech company that uses smart technology in its patented smart scales to provide users with personal health data to make better lifestyle choices. Launched in 2019, Toronto-based FitTrack is on a mission to make health management sustainable and straightforward.

Consumers can purchase scales that sync up with a mobile app to track and trend data over time. FitTrack can track 17 health metrics between its scales and mobile app, provide personal health coaches, workouts, and share progress charts. 

"I grew up in Malaysia with doctors as parents who shaped my view on how daily lifestyle choices affect your health and what healthcare should be," Lee told Lifewire in a video interview. "The majority of healthcare is focused on treatment instead of the prevention side of things. I saw a gap in that market."

An Entrepreneurial Spirit

Lee started his entrepreneurial journey at a young age in Malaysia. He purchased second-hand phones to resell them. His family moved to Canada when he was in high school, and surprisingly, he wanted to be a singer back then.

That dream didn't come true, but Lee did earn a bachelor's degree in marketing and communications from York University before embarking on a career in investment advising. He said he felt unfulfilled in this career, so he quit his job and started learning everything about building a business. 

"I think the entrepreneurial spirit has always been in me, but it wasn't until after I graduated when I got back into it," Lee said.

Lee started a few ventures and returned to work in the corporate world before landing on FitTrack. After working two jobs, Lee spent three to five hours each day watching YouTube videos to study different marketing tactics. 

"It's important as business owners to have these money-generating skills," he said. "For anyone who wants to start a business, marketing is a very important skill you need to learn."

When Lee was conceptualizing FitTrack, he said he was thinking about building something that had an impact by making people's lives better. Lee is passionate about helping people understand their health better to make lifestyle changes. This is why FitTrack also offers personalized nutrition and workout plans.

"If I'm going to work this hard, I might as well make an impact," Lee said. "In the end, happiness comes from service to others, and that's kind of what inspired FitTrack."

Building Grit

FitTrack has 200 global employees, most of which are developers who help build and manage the company's MyHealth application. Lee attributes much of FitTrack's success to grit and resourcefulness when thinking about growing his venture. 

He said FitTrack has been entirely self-funded from the beginning. The company has been on a steady growth track and has brought in $80 million in revenue in its first two years of business.  

Lee said one of the most rewarding aspects of building FitTrack is reading customers' reviews and seeing how the company's tech is changing people's lives and health outcomes. FitTrack attracts all kinds of users, but Lee said reading reviews from people with diabetes, hypertension, and other health issues mean the most to him. 

"Reading feedback like that is what gets me the most excited to see what we are doing is creating a positive impact on users' lives," Lee said. 

Over the next year, Lee wants to focus on educating users on the importance of prevention so they can stay healthy. FitTrack's co-founder is also looking forward to building out a more robust ecosystem of healthcare management by expanding the type of data the company shares. 

"Understanding your body is great, but knowing how to improve it is even better," Lee said.