icon-account icon-glass

Popular Searches

Popular Products

The Lean Protein
Whey protein powder for weight-loss.
The Energy Booster
Pre/intra-workout powder with BCAAs.

CATEGORIES

Urban CEO Jack Tang On What It Takes To Grow A Modern Wellness Brand

30th November 2020

Community Health

30th November 2020

By Caitlin Bell

In 2014, Jack Tang and Giles Williams founded Urban with the intention of starting a massage-at-home service. However, what started as a way to book wellness online become much more. We recently spoke to Jack to find out about Urban's journey over the past few years, how they've dealt with lockdown, and how he ensures he take care of his own personal health and wellness.

Hi Jack! So what inspired you to launch Urban?

In 2014, my business partner and I saw how unfairly wellness professionals were treated in the industry. They would often be working in salons and taking home as little as 20% of the service price. We saw this as an opportunity to disrupt a growing industry and not only offer a fairer share of the economics for the professionals, but also provide customers with on-demand wellness at their fingertips. This is something that I believe is now more important than ever.


Why is wellness and taking care of ourselves so important in this modern day and age?

Wellness is more important than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic. Taking time to care for ourselves helps with all elements of mental wellbeing, from coping with stress, to dealing with turbulent situations, and generally living healthier and happier lives. 

More broadly, we’re all living much faster-paced, busier lives, which makes self-care and taking time out of our day to focus on our own wellbeing increasingly more important.

What makes Urban stand out in a market that’s becoming increasingly more saturated?

We’re constantly innovating and solving the broken experiences within the industry in order to place our customers (both end users and practitioner partners) at the heart of everything we do. We invest heavily in tech to ensure we offer the best in class experience. We recruit great people who are deeply passionate about this industry and we have nurtured a strong community of partner professionals to offer their services on the Urban platform.


Can you explain how technology has played a key role in Urban’s development?

Technology is at the core of our business. It is the underlying platform that hosts all of our partner-practitioners’ businesses and is where customers can discover and book them. We use technology to solve complex problems and make mobile businesses far more efficient (for example, routing and shortening travel time between appointments, diary management, payments, reviews and rating), while at the same time giving our customers access to on-demand wellness at a moment's notice. We offer and will continue to offer a wide suite of tools for partners to run their businesses more effectively.

Urban was founded on the principle of having therapists come to wherever the customer is. How was this affected by lockdown and how did Urban overcome the obstacles presented by this time? 

Lockdown has not only directly affected our business, but it has also prevented our partner-practitioners from going about their own daily business and earning an income. At the start of lockdown, the team worked tirelessly to launch a digital pop up consisting of private one-to-one video sessions that allowed us to continue to provide an income to our practitioner community, as well as staying connected to our customers and enabling them to stay well during lockdown.

View this post on Instagram

Natural, authentic and strong: three words Urban pro Mal B uses to describe her style of Thai massage, which she mastered in the Chiang Mai countryside. Now based in South London, we caught up with her between bookings...⁣ ______⁣ ⁣ ⁣ 1. How are you finding life back on the road?⁣ ⁣ Luckily I've had a lot of bookings which has helped me back on my feet – people need to de-stress in these difficult times. Everyone has been very understanding of the new safety guidelines and still rate my massages very highly.⁣ ⁣ 2. Is there anything you wish more people knew about Thai massage?⁣ ⁣ A lot of people tend to associate it with stretching, probably due to how it has been presented in western media. My style uses acupressure techniques along the main energy "sen" lines of the body.⁣ ⁣ 3. What's your number one aftercare tip?⁣ ⁣ Upping your magnesium intake. Whether that’s a bath with lots of Epsom salts or a magnesium supplement, it's the quickest way to relieve tightness in the muscles!⁣ ⁣ 4. How have you been keeping well? Any new self-care routines?⁣ ⁣ It’s been really important for me to keep active. I've started working on my cardio and strength training up to three times a week. As a massage therapist I need to take care of my own body so I can deliver the best treatment everytime.⁣ ____⁣ ⁣ Find Mal on Urban 👉 urban.co/p/mal⁣ ____⁣ ⁣ 📸 by @gregorydewode 😷 Please note that all Urban pros now wear masks as well as visors.

A post shared by Urban App (@urbanapp) on


We’ve also partnered with Collective Benefits to provide mental health support to our partner-practitioners during this time, giving them access to mental health practitioners for live support. Additionally, we’re also working with the financial services company Steady Pay to offer our partners a stream of advanced revenues using their historical trading history on the Urban platform. This is money which is to be paid back when they're able to resume their activities at a later date.

How do you ensure that you take care of and prioritise your own personal wellness, mentally and physically?

At the core of my own wellness regime is regular eight hours of sleep - I think this is really important and underestimated by a lot of people in business. I also make sure to put away my phone and enjoy quality time with my family and friends as much as possible, be it while at dinner or simply doing the cooking and washing up in the evening.


Also, I have routine treatments help me to manage stress and anxiety. I make sure to have them regularly each month and find that they’re the perfect way to restart my body and mind.

What’s been the most rewarding part of growing Urban? 

It definitely has to be seeing the impact that we've had on both our customers' and partner-practitioners' lives. It has been transformative for the financial wellbeing of our partners, and has empowered our customers to look after themselves in a way that fits around their busy schedules.

To learn more about Urban, you can find them here. For an exclusive 20% off Urban's services, use code INNERMOST20. 

< Older post Newer post >

Need Expert Advice?

Take the quiz

Take the quiz

If you're not sure where to start, take our 5 minute health consultation to get product recommendations tailored to your goals.
Read more

Other Insights

The Myth of Optimal Health

The Myth of Optimal Health

We live in an age obsessed with the idea of “optimal.” The optimal diet. The optimal supplement stack. The optimal training split. Scroll through Instagram or YouTube for five minutes and you’ll find someone with a 17-step morning routine, a kitchen cupboard full of powders, and the confidence that they’ve cracked the code to human performance. But here’s the truth: Chasing “optimal” is one of the fastest ways to fall short in your health. The Illusion of Optimal Health culture has a way of dangling perfection in front of us. Big food companies do it when they market the “perfect” meal replacement shake. Biohackers do it when they promise that cold plunges, red-light therapy, and nootropics are the missing links to peak performance. But research paints a different picture. Studies on diet adherence consistently show that most people abandon strict or extreme health plans within weeks.  Fad diets, whether keto, paleo, or juice cleanses have dropout rates as high as 50–70% in the first two months. That’s not because people are weak. It’s because perfection is unsustainable. When you aim for “optimal,” you’re often aiming for something that doesn’t exist outside of a lab study or a heavily edited social feed. Consistency beats Intensity If you strip away the noise, the science is clear: the best plan is the one you can actually stick to. A Stanford University study looked at exercise adherence and found that people who built moderate, consistent routines were far more successful over the long term than those who went all in with aggressive, “optimal” plans. Think about it: Walking 8,000 steps daily is far more powerful than hitting 20,000 steps once a week. Sleeping 7–8 hours a night consistently beats the occasional marathon lie-in after a week of late nights. Eating balanced meals most of the time will always outperform the perfect, but impossible, “clean eating” schedule. Consistency doesn’t look flashy on social media. But it’s what drives lasting change in real life. The Perfection Trap The bigger danger of chasing “Optimal Health” isn’t just that it’s unrealistic. It’s that it creates guilt and paralysis. Psychologists call this all-or-nothing thinking. If you miss your “perfect” 5am workout, you write the day off. If you slip up on your diet, you feel like you’ve failed. Over time, that mindset burns people out. A review published in the Journal of Behavioural Medicine highlighted how rigid, perfectionist approaches to health goals were strongly linked to higher stress, lower motivation, and worse long-term outcomes. In other words: aiming for perfect often leaves you worse off than if you’d just aimed for “good enough” consistently. The Simplicity Advantage At Innermost, this is the philosophy we’ve always stood behind: better health should be simple, not overwhelming. We don’t believe in flashy shortcuts or marketing gimmicks. We believe in science-backed products designed to slot seamlessly into your life so you can actually stick with them. A few examples: The Hydrate Blend makes staying on top of electrolytes effortless — without the sugar, fillers, or artificial aftertaste you’ll find in the big sports drinks. The Rise Blend gives you clean energy and focus, without adding another complicated ritual to your already busy day. Our protein powders support your health and fitness goals with nutrients you and your body recognises, instead of pushing the latest overpriced fad ingredient. The goal isn’t perfection. It’s progress. Progress, not Perfection So here’s the takeaway: you don’t need the “optimal” plan. You just need a plan you’ll actually follow. If you focus on moving most days, eating whole foods when you can, sleeping properly, and staying hydrated, you’re already ahead of 90% of the population. It’s not sexy. But it works. And it’s sustainable. So the next time you feel the pressure to add another step to your routine, ask yourself: does this make my life simpler or more complicated? If it’s the latter, it probably isn’t worth it. Health isn’t about chasing perfection. It’s about building momentum. An imperfect plan, done consistently, beats the “optimal” plan abandoned after a week.
Read more
Folate Blog Image

What is Folate? Uses and Health Benefits

Folate, also known as vitamin B9, is a pretty important nutrient no matter who you are. Here, we cover the benefits of folate and some tips on working it into your diet.
Read more