The Digital Platform Empowering Wellness Practitioners
The Heallist offers an all-in-one tech solution for wellness practitioners and holistic healers to grow at a time when interest in alternative methods is at an all-time high
Picture this: a serial entrepreneur has built and sold a successful influencer marketing platform to a software company and decides to take a beat and recharge, visiting wellness practitioners and attending retreats.
The average wellness consumer has trouble enough trying to rest their mind but for entrepreneurs? It’s impossible.
Such is the case with Yuli Ziv, founder and CEO of Heallist, a groundbreaking tech platform for wellness practitioners that comes at a time when demand for holistic healing and alternative medicine is surging.
Launched last year, the idea for Heallist was born as Ziv was on her own wellness journey, where the marketer and technologist in her couldn’t ignore the glaring gaps practitioners faced. Unlike other industries, healers lacked the tech ecosystem needed to thrive.
“They were either using traditional medical platforms, practice management platforms that are way too expensive for this kind of audience (or way too complicated) or they were using software that was created for hair salons that really didn’t address their unique needs,” Ziv tells Athletech News, adding that some were still relying on pen and paper for bookings.
“It was really such an eye-opening moment for me,” Ziv says. “There are so many incredible practitioners that I met and teachers that I’ve worked with who just didn’t have that online presence or the tools in place to really help get them to the next level.”
Ziv then created an all-in-one platform to address their unique needs for everything from booking, scheduling, payment processing, telehealing, and having a polished, professional website so prospective clients can get a quick snapshot of a practitioner’s experience, services, and certifications.
Of course, there’s also the tech stack—integrations for booking intro calls and connecting Google Calendar, Zoom, Stripe, or PayPal—tools that make business operations seamless. Still, it was important for Ziv to solve other roadblocks for wellness practitioners, noting that she felt it was a responsibility Heallist had to provide not just top-tier tools but other (and often overlooked) essentials.
“A lot of the healers are solopreneurs,” she says. “They work in silos and their own modality and their own practice. Some of them are part of wellness centers, but most of them just have their own practice, so they don’t have that community, that network, where they can learn from each other, connect or refer to each other, advance in their careers, or get advice. So we really had to step into that space.”
Heallist began creating educational content, a podcast co-hosted by Ziv featuring experts from various fields, and online workshops that cover everything from finance to marketing.
“It’s just been so incredible to see this community,” Ziv says. “They are so thirsty for that kind of knowledge. There’s no such thing as an MBA for healers, so we’re kind of stepping in to fill some of those gaps as well.”
Similar to the fitness industry, Ziv believes the pandemic has fueled consumer interest in wellness and helped push it to the forefront. However, she also points out the failures of the American healthcare system as a contributing factor.
“In the U.S., we’re the country spending the most on healthcare, yet we have some of the lowest life expectancies,” Ziv says. “People are starting to look for alternative solutions because they’re just not getting some of those answers from traditional healthcare, especially when it comes to preventative practices and complementary medicine. I think consumers are becoming more and more educated and more empowered to look for other solutions. It doesn’t replace traditional medicine, but the need for complementary solutions is there.”
In turn, Ziv sees a ripe opportunity for those looking to launch a career in alternative practices or holistic healing or to make a career pivot.
“We’re also seeing this role of a holistic practitioner becoming more of a viable career path for people, and it’s something that is respected, reputable, and certified,” Ziv says. “It’s a legit business, and I think it’s something that we’re just seeing get started.”
As for what’s ahead for 2025, one of Heallist’s focus areas is on serving practitioners who are looking to launch and scale digital products, courses, retreats, and events and partnering with holistic organizations such as schools and retreat centers.
Retreats, in particular, have been a highly requested feature of Heallist members — a call that Ziv and Heallist were happy to answer.
“The hosting feature totally came through our community,” she says. “It was just requested so much because a lot of the more established practitioners host some amazing retreats. The retreat booking platforms that you see today are geared towards clients discovering retreats and searching for them, but none of them have all the admin features that someone like a retreat host needs.”
Heallist’s new retreat hosting feature covers all the details for hosts, allowing them to create different packages, payment plans, high-ticket services, and more within just minutes.
“That’s where software sometimes has to be specific to the industry because you can’t figure out all those details with just a generic project management software,” Ziv says.
Despite Heallist’s tech-forward approach and expertise to serve holistic healers and alternative practitioners in scaling their craft, its foundation remains deeply rooted in people.
“As much as we’re a software platform, I always say community has to be part of it,” Ziv says.