They Called It a Great Job and He Was Offended. Then He Bought a Lab on a Handshake.

People kept telling Sanjiv Lal he had a great job. That's what offended him.

He was a drug rep. A couple hundred grand a year, a company car, and a territory he had built into something real. Every time someone said what a great job, he heard it wrong. Bro, he thought, this is my business.

The numbers backed him up. At one startup he generated about $15 million in revenue. He got paid well, he says, but he didn't make a million. He sold the science, brought the relationships, and helped the company get funded, and the company kept the rest.

Today Stu introduces him as a nine-figure guy. He co-founded Regen Therapy and the Motive family office, he owns hotels, his family office owns the Beverly Hills Rejuvenation Center, and he talks about fear better than most people who write books on it. This is the story of how a guy who was offended by a compliment got there.

$15 Million for Them, a Small Slice for Him

Sanjiv studied pharmaceutical sciences and went to work for Eli Lilly right out of school. He left for two startups, one out of the South Bay in California, and that's where the $15 million happened.

He's clear that he wasn't a victim. He was paid well. But the math started nagging him. If he had the laboratory, the equipment, and the science, he could hire the people to do this work. Light bulbs, he says, kept going off.

It took about four years to figure out. He was on what he calls the money hustle, doing 1099 side gigs to keep his life going while he looked for a way in. In 2011, he found one.

A Handshake Dinner in Cincinnati

He was hunting for a genetic laboratory when he found one in Covington, Kentucky. It was going out of business. He met the owner, a man named Nigel, over dinner in Cincinnati and made an offer that boiled down to this: let me use your science and technology, I'll bring my team and relationships, and we'll keep this alive.

It started as a handshake. Sanjiv also handed Nigel a complete business plan. The lab needed investment, and the deal was 50% his, so he didn't mind putting money in. They formalized everything later, but the dinner is where it began.

The partnership ran four or five years, and Sanjiv calls it his first taste of hustling for himself. Every decision, work and life, came from his own abilities. He had spent years working for someone else's mission. Now it was his.

Notice what he did here. He didn't wait to have the money, the lab, or the credentials. He brought the part he was sure of, the sales and the relationships, and let a partner cover the part he wasn't. That's a better playbook than saving up until you feel ready.

Doctor, Lawyer, Pharmacist, and "You Don't Own a Hotel"

Sanjiv was born in Parma, Ohio, to Punjabi parents who immigrated. He jokes about the mantra every kid in an immigrant household knows. You're not a doctor, you're not a lawyer, you're not a pharmacist, you don't own a hotel. The logic comes from a good place. They didn't come to this country to be poor. They wanted guaranteed jobs and guaranteed results.

He owns hotels now. Of course he does.

The fear underneath that mantra is what he and Stu spent a long time on. Stu told a story about a young man in his life who was weighing a risky sales opportunity. When Stu asked him a question, the answer started with "I'm afraid that." Stu texted him the next morning to point out those words. Fear is a safety mechanism, he said, but fear unchecked will keep you from doing anything. He sent him John Wayne's line about being scared to death and saddling up anyway, and 2 Timothy 1:7: God hasn't given us a spirit of fear.

Sanjiv took it further. His claim is that humans are born afraid of only two things, loud noises and falling, and every other fear is learned from parents, friends, school, and church. He calls the result "wage slaves," people so tied to a $60,000 or $70,000 salary that they stay in a job they hate. The unhappiness leaks into their families. He knows because he lived it. He was happy that he could provide and unhappy because he wanted more.

The distinction I'd keep is Stu's. Not all fear is bad. Responsible fear protects you. If a sentence starts with "I'm afraid that," stop and check which kind it is.

180 People and a Baseball Field

Why did people leave LabCorp to work for a young lab? Stu asked him directly.

Sanjiv said culture. A great vision and mission matter, and most corporate mission statements are wallpaper because nobody owns them. A founder's mission is their own thoughts and feelings on paper. In interviews, he'd talk about how he saw the industry and where he wanted it to change, and the interview ran both ways. A lot of the people willing to take a flier on him were stay-at-home moms returning to the industry who wanted a job with purpose while a spouse held the steadier paycheck.

He talks about what it's like to have 180 people working for you, and calls it wild how responsible you become when that many families rely on you. It takes a little ego to want that, he says, and a lot of humble pie, because the founder is the last person fed.

One picture sticks. His team would rent a semi-pro baseball field and bring their families for a picnic, with bounce houses and free concessions. Sanjiv watched people who had bought homes because of the business he created fill the stands. He calls it a blessing.

I'd say that's the real answer to the LabCorp question. Benefits can be matched. Seeing the person whose name is on the mission eat last cannot.

The Patient Who Was Also the Revenue Cycle

This part of the story changed his mission, and he told it plainly. Sanjiv spent four days in the ICU. A year after his last treatment, he says, he had stage 3 kidney disease, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, and physicians kept throwing drugs at him. He felt like he was on the cycle of death.

He says regenerative medicine from an overseas company fixed him. And he says it hit him sideways. He had worked the revenue side of healthcare, making sure the billing and ICD-10 codes were right. When he was in the ICU, he was worth something to the doctors. When he came out, he was worth something to the pharmaceutical companies. He didn't want to be part of that anymore.

So he created a lab and a product called Cell Factors, which he describes as acellular and DNA free. In March 2025, he and his partner at Motive bought the Beverly Hills Rejuvenation Center. He and another partner started Regen Therapy to bring regenerative medicine to the rest of the country, from Omaha to Montana. His stated goal is a lifespan of 120 years, with a health span and joy span to match. He says we're dying at 77, our health span ends around 65, and our joy span might be 30.

I'm not qualified to grade the medicine, and you shouldn't treat a podcast as medical advice. These are his claims and his experience. What I can say is that his advice, before putting anything into your body, find out who you are, is the best part. Start with nutrition, rest and movement, your environment, your relationships, and a reason to get out of bed.

He and Stu agreed on that last one. Stu's dad, at 72, climbs mountains with him and looks younger than most people his age, and Stu thinks joy has something to do with it. Sanjiv's term is joy span. Run clubs work for the same reason. You need a crew.

Owner-Operators, Not Investors

Stu said he'd never created a family office, so he asked how Sanjiv runs his. The rule is blunt. Motive doesn't invest in businesses it doesn't operate. If they buy something, they run it. Sam Brooks, his partner in that space, operates the Beverly Hills Rejuvenation Center day to day. Sanjiv describes himself as a vision, sales, and business development guy who needs great operators.

One acquisition was losing revenue when they took it over. They made their own mistakes, he admits, and it took about a year and a half to stabilize. Now they're in a growth phase and considering corporate stores or franchising.

Hotels follow the same pattern. They bring in a third-party management company, upgrade the interior, and push the average daily rate, which is revenue per room. They want returns above what the stock market gives. He cites 8 to 12 percent as the benchmark. And when he says family money, he means it. It's him and his partner, investing what they earned.

That control mindset matches what Stu hears from other family offices. It only works if you actually have operators, which Sanjiv credits to Sam and another partner. Without them, he says, he wouldn't be where he is.

What Stuck With Me

Sanjiv's mantra is that the best investment you can make is in yourself. He says it again and again, and he means it as a business strategy, a health strategy, and a fear strategy all at once.

What I noticed is how much of his story runs on the same engine. A man hears that he has a great job and feels insulted. He sees a dying lab and offers a handshake. He lies in an ICU bed and realizes he's been profiting from other people's illness. Each time he decided to own the thing instead of renting his talent to it.

He also asks founders to find out who they are before they start adding inputs. Good advice from a man whose business is adding inputs. Take the advice first.

Recorded for the Startups with Stu podcast. More at startupswithstu.com.