Via Negativa Health, our operating method
Via Negativa is a way of life. Phil and John apply it to business.
Subtract before adding. Strip back the unnecessary. Major the majors. Respect what cannot be predicted. We apply the method in three places: to the numbers that define diabetes, to the individuals and small businesses we build for, and to the organisations that hold the system.
Three applications
One method, three places it shows up
Via Negativa is a way of life first, a business method second. Phil and John apply it in three ways. Each one does the same thing: strips back what is unnecessary, majors the majors, and respects risk the way it actually behaves, not the way the population average makes it look.
Working on your own T1D practice? Card 2 and the offer below are built for you. Running a device manufacturer, a charity, a research group, an NHS body, or a medical communications agency? Card 3 is the door, and Consultancy for organisations → is the full page.
The name is the method
Via Negativa: wisdom through subtraction
Via Negativa is an ancient principle: the wisest path forward is not to add more, but to remove what is unnecessary. Applied to health business: remove the agency taking a percentage of your profits. Remove the platform you don’t own. Remove the dependency on someone else’s tools and knowledge. Remove the opaque contract that punishes your growth. What remains is yours. Simpler. Stronger. Antifragile. The name is not a brand strategy. It is the operating method.
“Type 1 diabetes has been teaching us about Black Swans since 1921. Every hypo, every unexplained spike, every device failure at 3am is a reminder that the unpredictable is not the exception, it is the condition. We built The Glucose Never Lies on the principle that understanding mechanisms, not memorising rules, is what makes a person, or a platform, antifragile. We bring that same philosophy to every business we work with. And we ensure it is respected by putting our skin in your game.”
John Pemberton & Phillip Hayes, Via Negativa Health
The worked example
The HbA1c and Time in Range Guide is Via Negativa thinking applied to the numbers that define T1D management. Fooled by Randomness on the 14-day report. Black Swan on severe hypos. Antifragile on the 3 mmol/mol gap. Skin in the Game on who carries the consequence of a wrong target.
Who this is for
Individuals building serious things in the T1D space
We work with practitioners and creators who want to take their offering beyond information: into properly validated, clinically grounded, technically robust practice. This is not a facelift. It is a whole system, and you own it at the end.
What we build for you
Six things, combined the way we build for ourselves
Every component is something we built first for GNL, then scoped down or adapted for the individual practitioner. You end up with a system you own, that works without us, and that improves as evidence improves.
Two case studies
What we build for clients, and what we built for ourselves
One live engagement with an individual T1D coach. One self-funded rebuild of our own platform that proved the method before we offered it to anyone else. Both show the same thing: a two-person team investing, building, and iterating at pace only a small operation bonded by trust can manage.
Live client engagement · April 2026
Vanessa Haydock, Diabetic Health Coach
Diabetic Health Coach Ltd · diabetichealthcoach.co.uk →
Vanessa is a UK T1D coach with 54,000 Instagram followers, a live membership (Dominating Diabetes), and an audience that trusts her voice. She did not need a rebuild or a new brand. She needed the clinical evidence layer behind her content to be rigorous, current, and hers.
- White-labelled Grace on the DHC site, scoped to T1D education, ISPAD 2024, and ADA 2026. Members ask; Grace answers with evidence grades and source citations, in DHC’s voice.
- Monthly branded newsletter on a locked template: blue palette, a monthly Time-in-Range tip, three sections (blood glucose, mindset, monthly topic), locked CTA to the Dominating Diabetes programme. First issue approved.
- Clinical review sits with John; the technical build sits with Phillip; Vanessa’s creative time goes back to coaching, not to researching the latest ISPAD update.
- Commercial model: Skin in the Game retainer. We share the risk, we share the upside, we are not running the moment it is live.
Status: white-labelled Grace workspace live, first newsletter approved, monthly retainer commencing late April 2026. Active build, not a finished case study. Before-and-after numbers at the six-month mark.
Self-funded proof · under three months
The Glucose Never Lies (our own platform)
theglucoseneverlies.com · see the live platform →
Before we offered this to anyone else, we did it to ourselves. We started with a Wikipedia-style content store: 120+ pages of clinically accurate writing sitting in static isolation, no tools, no revenue, no membership. In under three months, John and Phillip, working nights, weekends, and early mornings, turned it into a fully interactive evidence-based platform.
- Six interactive explorers built from scratch, live on a Laravel API, each one covering a clinical decision space no other public tool covers (activity and exercise, exercise carbs, AID optimisation, hypo and hyper treatment, exercise planning, alcohol).
- Grace, our in-house T1D AI, three tiers (Basic free, Pro free with account, Max £50/month), grounded in a curated 541-paper evidence base and full ISPAD and ADA ingest.
- Multiple revenue streams created from zero: Grace Max personal subscriptions, educational grants from device manufacturers, consultancy retainers, via Negativa partner engagements.
- Design system, registration flow, login, dashboards, podcast with 16,300+ downloads, weekly Thursday research newsletter, site-wide Grace widget, all shipped and live.
- No external investor. No agency. John and Phillip investing, creating, executing, and iterating at pace, with precision.
This is the proof. Small team. Bonded by twenty years of friendship. Clinical authority on one side, enterprise engineering on the other. The same two people are what you get when you hire us.
Side by side
Two platforms, one method
Vanessa and GNL started from different places but share the same structural DNA. The table below maps where the two overlap today and where each trajectory leads.
The pattern: both started with an audience and authentic voice. Both needed clinical rigour that lived experience alone cannot sustain at scale. Both now run on the same evidence engine, the same technical infrastructure, and the same operating method: subtract the unnecessary, own what remains, put skin in the game. Vanessa’s trajectory proves the model works for individual practitioners; GNL’s trajectory proves we built it for ourselves first.
How it works
Three intake stages before we ever quote you
We do not price on a phone call. We price after we have done the work to understand what you actually have, what you actually need, and what we can actually deliver. No charge and no commitment until Stage 3 is complete.
We work across three levels. Every engagement includes the option of our Skin in the Game pricing model: a lower fixed cost in exchange for a small share of your revenue growth. We only earn more when you earn more. Figures are confirmed after Stage 2 of intake, not before. We do not publish them here because they depend on your baseline, your goals, and whether Option A or Option B is the right fit.
All engagements: six-month initial term, then rolling monthly with 30 days notice. VAT added where applicable (GNL Ltd VAT No. GB 516 3272 08).
Start here: the key product for individuals
Grace Max, from £50 per month
If you work in the T1D space as a coach, creator, nurse, or clinician, Grace Max is the one product we recommend first. At £50 per month you get evidence-graded answers on demand from a curated 541-paper base, full ISPAD 2024, full ADA 2026, and the same engine that powers every Via Negativa build. Most of our individual clients begin here and scale into a full engagement only once the practice is earning.
Grace Pro is free with a GNL account if you want to try the engine first; Grace Max is the paid personal tier for working practitioners.
- Agreed build fee, agreed monthly retainer
- Predictable cost, predictable scope
- Right fit when your growth path is already clear
- No revenue share, no upside beyond the retainer
- Lower upfront build fee, lower monthly
- We take a small share of your revenue growth above baseline
- We only earn more if you earn more
- Share ends at a pre-agreed threshold, never open-ended
- Right fit when we both believe the build will move the numbers
What we are not. We do not consult and run. We consult, and we are in. Our success is tied to yours. Via Negativa: we remove the unnecessary layers, the opaque contracts, the platforms you don’t own, the intermediaries taking a cut of your growth. What remains is yours. And we grow with it.
Ready to subtract
Start a conversation
If you are building something serious in the T1D space and want operators with skin in the game, we would like to hear from you.
Get in touch with Johnjohn@theglucoseneverlies.com · No pitch deck required
Working with a manufacturer, platform, or research group instead? Consultancy for organisations →