How MEDVi Started With One Man and Grew Into a Telehealth Company

Some companies begin with a large team, millions of dollars in funding and years of planning.

MEDVi started very differently.

The company was built by Matthew Gallagher, who began developing the business largely on his own from his home in Los Angeles. Instead of building a traditional startup with a large workforce, Gallagher relied heavily on artificial intelligence, software platforms and outside partners to create a telehealth business focused initially on online weight loss treatment.

What happened next was unusually fast.

MEDVi opened for business in September 2024. Within its first month, the company had acquired about 300 customers. The following month brought another 1,000 customers.

By the end of 2025, MEDVi had generated approximately $401 million in sales, according to reporting by The New York Times, which reviewed the company's financial information.

The story of MEDVi is therefore not simply a story about a telehealth company.

It is also a story about one entrepreneur experimenting with a new way of building a business using AI.

 
Who Founded MEDVi?

MEDVi was founded by Matthew Gallagher.

According to MEDVi's own website, Gallagher is the company's founder and CEO.

His background was not originally centered on healthcare.

Gallagher developed an interest in computers and coding at a young age. As a teenager, he built websites for local businesses and later became involved in several internet businesses.

Before MEDVi, one of his best-known ventures was Watch Gang, a subscription-based watch company.

That experience gave Gallagher a background in online marketing, ecommerce, customer acquisition and building internet businesses.

When artificial intelligence tools became increasingly capable, he began experimenting with how they could be used to build companies more efficiently.

That eventually led to MEDVi.

 
How Did Matthew Gallagher Get Started?

Gallagher's early life was unconventional.

Reporting on his background describes a childhood that included periods of living in motels and cars before his family settled in Cincinnati.

His uncle eventually gave him a laptop, and Gallagher taught himself how to code.

One of his early projects was a fan website dedicated to musician Weird Al Yankovic.

That interest in computers eventually developed into a broader interest in websites and online businesses.

As a teenager, Gallagher built websites for local companies and experimented with different ways of making money online.

At 18, he had already built and sold a web hosting business for approximately $6,000.

These early experiences became important later because MEDVi depended heavily on digital marketing, software and online customer acquisition.

 
From Watch Gang to MEDVi

In 2016, Gallagher founded Watch Gang, a subscription service for watches.

Watch Gang attracted customers and grew significantly, but Gallagher later described the experience as one in which increasing the size of the organization also increased costs and slowed decision-making.

The company eventually employed around 60 people.

That experience influenced the way Gallagher approached his next business.

Instead of immediately building a large organization, he wanted to create a company that could move quickly with a very small team.

Artificial intelligence made that approach increasingly realistic.

 
The Idea Behind MEDVi

Gallagher saw an opportunity in online healthcare.

Telehealth companies had already made it possible for patients to communicate with medical providers remotely, while companies such as Hims & Hers and Ro had demonstrated demand for online prescription services.

At the same time, GLP-1 medications had become one of the fastest-growing areas of interest in weight management.

Gallagher believed he could build a telehealth company around this demand without having to create every part of the healthcare infrastructure himself.

MEDVi could handle the customer-facing business while technology and healthcare partners handled important parts of the medical process.

The company worked with platforms such as CareValidate and OpenLoop Health to connect patients with medical providers and pharmacies.

This allowed Gallagher to concentrate heavily on marketing, technology and customer acquisition.

 
MEDVi Started With About $20,000

One of the most unusual parts of the MEDVi story is how little money Gallagher initially spent building the company.

According to The New York Times, Gallagher spent approximately $20,000 on software and the first month of marketing.

Instead of hiring a large development team, he used AI tools to help create the company's website, software, marketing materials and customer service systems.

He reportedly used tools including ChatGPT, Claude and Grok.

AI image and video tools were also used to create marketing material.

This allowed one person to perform work that traditionally might have required developers, designers, copywriters, marketers and customer service employees.

 
How AI Helped Build MEDVi

AI was not simply used as a writing assistant.

Gallagher used it across different parts of the business.

AI helped with:

• Website development
• Software development
• Website copy
• Advertising material
• Customer service
• Business analysis
• Internal automation
• Marketing workflows

Gallagher also created AI agents that could communicate between different software systems.

The goal was simple: automate as much of the business as possible so a very small team could operate at high volume.

This became one of the defining characteristics of MEDVi.

 
MEDVi Launches in 2024

MEDVi officially opened for business in September 2024.

The company initially focused heavily on GLP-1-based weight management services.

The timing was important.

Demand for online access to weight-loss treatments was increasing, and consumers were becoming increasingly comfortable with telehealth.

MEDVi offered online evaluations and access to licensed medical providers, with prescription treatment available when medically appropriate.

The company used a digital-first model that allowed customers to complete much of the process online.

 
The Growth Happened Quickly

MEDVi's growth was rapid.

The company reportedly gained around 300 customers during its first month.

During the second month, it added approximately 1,000 more customers.

By the end of 2025, MEDVi had reached approximately 250,000 customers and generated $401 million in sales, according to The New York Times.

That level of revenue was remarkable given how small the core organization remained.

The company did not follow the traditional startup model of raising large amounts of venture capital and hiring hundreds of employees.

Instead, Gallagher continued to rely on AI, contractors and external technology partners.

 
Why Gallagher Did Not Build a Large Team

Gallagher had already experienced the challenges of running a company with dozens of employees through Watch Gang.

With MEDVi, he wanted to avoid repeating that model.

The idea was to keep the organization extremely small and use technology to handle repetitive work.

Eventually, however, the scale of MEDVi made it difficult for one person to handle everything.

Gallagher hired his younger brother, Elliot, as the company's only full-time employee besides himself.

Contractors and external partners were also involved in different parts of the business.

This meant that the phrase "one-man company" needs some qualification.

MEDVi was not literally operated by one person.

It was a company built around an extremely small core team supported by contractors, technology platforms and AI.

 
When MEDVi Started Having Problems

Rapid growth also created problems.

As customer numbers increased, MEDVi's automated systems sometimes produced incorrect information.

The company's customer service systems could give incorrect pricing information or make claims about products the company did not actually offer.

Gallagher said he had to personally deal with some of these problems during the company's early growth.

At one point, technical problems with the website reportedly caused MEDVi to lose potential orders.

The experience demonstrated one of the weaknesses of an extremely automated business model.

Automation can dramatically reduce costs and increase speed, but mistakes can also scale quickly when there are not many people supervising the systems.

 
MEDVi Expands Beyond Weight Loss

MEDVi eventually began expanding beyond its original focus on GLP-1 weight management.

The company moved into men's health products, including treatments for erectile dysfunction.

It also added healthy meal delivery plans.

According to reporting in 2026, MEDVi planned additional areas including women's health, hormone therapy, hair-growth products, supplements and skincare.

This reflects a broader strategy.

Rather than remaining only a weight-loss company, MEDVi is attempting to become a larger digital healthcare platform.

The company's own website now describes MEDVi as a personalized telehealth service and says it has served more than 500,000 patients and works with more than 1,000 medical providers.

Those figures are company-reported and can change over time.

 
MEDVi and the Role of AI

The MEDVi story is particularly interesting because of how extensively AI was used.

Traditional healthcare startups often require large teams for technology, marketing, customer support and administration.

MEDVi attempted to replace or automate portions of those functions.

That approach allowed the company to move quickly and keep its core payroll extremely small.

It also represents a broader change happening across the startup world.

AI is making it possible for individual entrepreneurs to perform work that previously required entire teams.

MEDVi is one of the more extreme examples of that model.

 
Regulatory and Legal Scrutiny

MEDVi's rapid growth has also attracted regulatory and legal scrutiny.

In February 2026, the FDA sent a warning letter concerning allegedly false or misleading claims on a MEDVi-related website operated by a marketing agency.

The FDA raised concerns about claims involving compounded medications and FDA approval. The company said the relevant language was removed after the warning.

A separate lawsuit filed in California accused MEDVi of violating the state's anti-spam law. The company declined to comment on that lawsuit, according to reporting.

These developments are important when looking at the MEDVi story because the company's rapid growth has occurred alongside increasing scrutiny of its advertising and marketing practices.

They should be considered separately from the company's reported financial growth.

 
Where Is MEDVi Today?

MEDVi has grown far beyond the small operation Gallagher originally created.

The company now offers a broader range of telehealth services and says it has served more than 500,000 patients.

Its current website highlights personalized healthcare, online medical providers and at-home access to treatment.

The business has also expanded its use of human account managers.

This is an interesting development because it shows that even a highly automated company eventually needs human interaction.

As the customer base grew, MEDVi began assigning human account managers to some customers so they could receive more personalized support.

AI remains an important part of the company's operating model, but humans have become part of the customer experience as well.

 
What Makes the MEDVi Story Different?

There are several reasons MEDVi has attracted so much attention.

First, the company was built extremely quickly.

Second, it used AI across many parts of the business rather than using it only for content creation.

Third, Gallagher avoided building a traditional large startup workforce.

Fourth, MEDVi entered a rapidly growing healthcare market at a time when demand for online weight-management services was increasing.

And finally, the company's growth happened without the traditional venture-capital path associated with many high-growth startups.

That combination makes MEDVi an unusual example of how AI is changing entrepreneurship.

 
From One Man to a Major Telehealth Business

Matthew Gallagher's journey with MEDVi began with a simple idea: use technology and AI to build an online healthcare business faster and more efficiently.

He started with roughly $20,000, built much of the initial operation himself and launched MEDVi in 2024.

Within a little more than a year, the company had generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales and served a large customer base.

The business has since expanded into additional healthcare categories while continuing to rely heavily on automation and a small core organization.

At the same time, MEDVi has faced regulatory and legal scrutiny, showing that rapid growth does not eliminate the challenges of operating in healthcare.

Final Thoughts

The MEDVi story is ultimately bigger than one telehealth company.

It shows what can happen when an entrepreneur combines digital marketing, software, AI automation and an existing healthcare infrastructure.

Matthew Gallagher did not start MEDVi with a large office, hundreds of employees or millions in venture funding.

He started with an idea, a relatively small amount of money and a willingness to use emerging AI technology wherever possible.

The result was a company that grew from its September 2024 launch into a telehealth business reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales.

MEDVi's future will depend on how successfully it can continue expanding while maintaining medical, regulatory and customer-service standards.

But its beginning remains one of the more unusual startup stories of the AI era.