In this episode of The Future of Consumer Marketing, host Roman Kirsch interviews Peter Malmqvist, Co-Founder of Circle Health. After scaling Frontier Car Group to a €150M+ exit with 4,000 employees across 10 markets in 2019, Peter made an unconventional pivot to healthcare following his own frustrating experiences with traditional medicine. Despite being told his eczema was an incurable chronic condition, Peter found complete symptom relief through holistic approaches—inspiring him to build Circle Health’s hybrid care model that bridges the gap between conventional healthcare’s time constraints and alternative medicine’s fragmentation.
Topics Discussed:
- Transferring operational excellence from physical retail (used cars) to healthcare delivery
- Positioning as the solution for the 90% of patients left unsatisfied by traditional healthcare’s brief consultations
- Building a multi-city expansion model through practitioner career development
- Creating a healthcare brand with credibility in an inherently skeptical market
- Developing digital infrastructure for remote care while maintaining high-touch relationships
- Building partnership ecosystems with insurance providers, testing labs, and product resellers
- Leveraging first-party data from in-clinic diagnostics to develop evidence-based supplements
Lessons For Consumer Marketers:
Content Strategy: Focus on Pain Points and Solutions, Not Features
Circle Health’s highest-performing content (reaching 1M+ in engagement) follows a specific formula: identify a specific symptom (like digestive issues), explain potential root causes, provide immediately actionable home solutions, then position their services as the comprehensive solution. Generic content showcasing facilities or therapies without this pain-solution framework consistently underperformed.
Leverage Consumer-Practitioners as Authentic Content Creators
Their practitioners create educational content based on direct patient experiences, establishing thought leadership in specific niches like gut health. This approach outperforms polished marketing materials by demonstrating practitioner expertise while creating parasocial relationships with potential patients before they book.
Layer Brand Building: Physical Touch points → Digital Experience → Product Extensions
Circle Health deliberately sequenced their go-to-market: first establishing credibility through in-person clinics in Schlottenberg, then expanding to digital care delivery, and finally launching their supplement line (March 2025) backed by clinic-derived data. This layered approach created trust transitions that wouldn’t have worked in reverse order.
Target Audience Precision: Patient Profiles and Experience Gaps
Their intake data revealed three specific patient segments: digestive health (primary pain point), hormonal health (75% female clientele, average age 37), and energy deficiency/fatigue. This segmentation allows for hyper-targeted acquisition rather than generic “wellness” positioning, attracting patients who have already attempted conventional solutions without success.
Use Operational Model to Solve Category Talent Bottlenecks
In a market dominated by single-practitioner operations (1.5 practitioners per alternative health practice), Circle Health disrupted the talent model by offering unprecedented practitioner development pathways—specialist training across modalities, management tracks, and future practice leadership. This approach generates 7+ qualified practitioner applications weekly, creating a competitive advantage in scaling physical locations.
Ecosystem Partnerships as Acquisition Channels
Beyond conventional marketing, Circle Health built strategic partnerships that function as patient acquisition funnels: Aware Labs (sending blood testing clients to their clinics), a network of alternative practitioners who resell their supplements, and private insurers exploring preventative coverage. These partnerships provide multiple entry points to their ecosystem while reinforcing clinical credibility.
Bridge Public-Private Payor Models for Accessibility
Rather than positioning as a pure luxury service, Circle Health has strategically designed their offering to be partially reimbursable—about 25% of patients receive full reimbursement through private insurance, while others can get partial coverage through public insurance with doctor referrals. This hybrid approach expands their addressable market while maintaining premium positioning.
