Glen Tullman didn’t build Livongo into an $18.5 billion company by trusting spreadsheets, focus groups, or even the conventional wisdom of the health-care industry. He built it by asking a question so simple that it almost sounds like something your grandmother would say: “Would I want this for my own family?” That question, which Tullman calls the validation test, became the hidden engine behind one of the most valuable digital-health companies of its era. Livongo, which helped people manage chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, eventually merged with Teladoc in a blockbuster deal that made headlines across the business world. But Tullman has always insisted that the real breakthrough was not a piece of technology or a clever pricing model. It was a moral commitment to see every product through the eyes of the person who would have to live with it. Before anything was built, before a single line of code was written, before a single investor pitch was delivered, he would run the idea through the most unforgiving audience he could imagine: his own mother, his children, his neighbors. If the product wasn’t good enough for them, then no amount of market research could make it good enough for anyone else. This validation test sounds almost too soft to be the foundation of a massive business, but that’s precisely why it worked. It forced Tullman and his team to be honest with themselves in a world where most companies are really good at lying to themselves.
To call the validation test a “user study” or a “beta test” would be to miss the point entirely. Tullman wasn’t asking whether people would click a button or fill out a survey. He was asking whether the product would make a human life genuinely better. This distinction became clear in the early days of Livongo, when Tullman spent time watching real people live with chronic disease. He saw a man in his sixties fumbling with a glucose meter, embarrassed by his numbers, ashamed to tell his doctor that he had stopped testing because every beep felt like an accusation. He saw a woman who had been diagnosed with diabetes for years but had never once been told that the condition wasn’t her fault. The traditional health-care industry treated patients like problems to be managed. Tullman’s validation test treated them like people to be loved. That shift in perspective changed everything. When his team proposed a new feature, they didn’t ask whether it would increase engagement or reduce churn. They asked whether they would want their own mother to wake up to that notification, to read that message, to trust that device. If the answer was no, the feature was dead. If the answer was yes, they poured resources into it with total confidence. This is why Livongo didn’t feel like a typical health-tech product. It felt like something designed by someone who had sat in a kitchen with a frightened patient and said, “I’m going to make this easier for you.”
The validation test was especially powerful because it forced Tullman to confront the emotional reality of health care, not just the clinical data. Most companies in the space measured success by things like lab results, medication adherence, and doctor visits. Tullman cared about those things too, but he understood that they would never improve until something more fundamental changed: how the patient felt about themselves. When you have a chronic condition, every day is a reminder of your body’s limitations. You get a blood sugar reading that is too high, and you feel like you’ve failed a test. You get a message from your insurance company, and you feel like a number. You go to the doctor, and you feel rushed and judged. Tullman wanted to build a product that interrupted that cycle of shame. So Livongo designed a glucose meter that wasn’t cold and clinical but warm and approachable. It had a simple screen, a friendly voice, and, most importantly, it was connected to a real human coach who would reach out at the right moment, not with a lecture but with encouragement. The device didn’t just tell you your number; it told you that you were doing better than you thought, that you were not alone, that you had the strength to take the next step. This was the validation test in action. Tullman and his team didn’t ask, “Will this make our shareholders happy?” They asked, “Would this make our mother feel seen and supported?” And because they asked that question honestly, they built a product that people actually loved. And people who love a product use it. And people who use a product get better outcomes. And people who get better outcomes tell their friends. That word-of-mouth became Livongo’s most powerful growth engine.
It would be easy to dismiss all of this as sentimental, but Tullman’s validation test was actually a brutally smart business strategy. Think about how most companies decide what to build. They look at market data, identify a pain point, and then design a solution from the outside in. They talk to buyers, not users. They optimize for revenue, not dignity. They end up with products that satisfy every stakeholder except the one person who actually has to use it. Tullman flipped that entire process. By insisting that every product pass the test of being worthy of his own family, he cut through the noise and made decisions with remarkable speed. He didn’t need a year-long study to know whether a feature was worth building. He needed only to imagine the person he loved most in the world using it. If the answer was yes, he moved. If the answer was no, he moved on. That decisiveness gave Livongo a massive advantage over competitors who were paralyzed by bureaucracy and data. It also gave investors a story they could believe in. Tullman wasn’t selling a gadget or a software license. He was selling a promise: “We will treat your employees, your members, your family, the way we would treat our own family.” That promise was not just a marketing slogan. It was baked into the product, into the coaching, into the customer service, into the thousands of small decisions that made Livongo feel different. Investors saw that conviction, and they backed it. That is how a company built on a soft, emotional question ended up being worth $18.5 billion. The validation test turned empathy into an economic advantage.
The most beautiful thing about Tullman’s validation test is that anyone can use it, no matter what kind of business they are building. You don’t need to be a health-care CEO to ask, “Would I want this for the people I love?” You don’t need a million-dollar research budget to imagine your mother using your product and to be honest about whether it would make her life better or worse. This test is especially valuable in moments of self-deception. Every founder has fallen in love with their own idea. Every product manager has convinced themselves that the user will adapt, that the interface is fine, that the problem is on the customer’s side. The validation test destroys those excuses. It forces you to look at your product through the eyes of someone who doesn’t care about your pitch deck, someone who is tired, busy, and overwhelmed, someone who is trying to solve a real problem in a real life. If your product adds to their burden, it will fail, no matter how clever your feature list is. If your product lightens their burden, it will succeed, no matter how unpolished your first version is. Tullman has also used the test as a filter for opportunities. When a potential deal looks lucrative but requires you to exploit someone’s vulnerability or compromise your values, it will never pass the test. And that’s okay. Because the test is not just about building products; it’s about building a career you can be proud of. It’s about being the kind of person who can look at the people you love and say, “I made something worthy of you.” That is a standard that will never go out of style.
In the end, Tullman’s validation test is not a formula or a checklist. It is a way of seeing the world. It is a reminder that behind every statistic, every revenue target, every quarterly report, there is a human being who deserves to be treated with dignity. Tullman took that reminder and built a company that changed the way millions of people experienced their own health. He showed that you can be compassionate and competitive at the same time, that you can love your customers and still make a fortune, that the softest question in business—“Is this good enough for my family?”—can be the most powerful one of all. Now, as he leads Transcarent, a company aimed at making health care easier to navigate, he is applying the same test to even bigger problems: helping people find the right doctors, understand their benefits, and feel confident in their choices. The names and the markets have changed, but the test remains the same. And it remains as challenging as ever, because it asks us to be honest in a world full of shortcuts, to be human in a world full of algorithms, and to build things that we would trust with the people we love. That is the validation test, and it is the reason Glen Tullman’s name will be remembered not just for an $18.5 billion valuation, but for what that valuation represented: proof that empathy is not the opposite of excellence. It is the source of it.
