What Can a Picture of Your Poop Tell You About Your Health?
As the timeless children book so eloquently stated, everyone poops. But until now—in this modern biohacking, data-driven moment—very few people had thought to track those poops and harvest the findings for health reasons. This is where Throne, a wellness startup founded in 2023, comes into play. Their mission is simple: to create a world in which toilet trackers are as commonplace as smoke detectors, and provide the general public with valuable knowledge that for years has been regarded as, well, waste.
“It’s amazing how much information we’ve just been literally flushing down the toilet,” says John Capodilupo, Throne’s chief product officer.
As more people turn their attention to preventive medicine and self-optimization, start-ups have zeroed-in on every possible function of the human body as a category to both demystify and monetize. Under that umbrella, the trending topic of gut health has influenced everyday consumer products—probiotic sodas, popcorn with extra protein, fermented raw nuts—and inspired others to provide tools for digestive system maintenance. Companies like Viome, Seed, and Clooudie offer at-home gut health tests, probiotic and prebiotic supplements to nurture the gut microbiome, and even chewing gum engineered to ease digestion.
Poop tracking, though, is a relatively recent development. Throne and a handful of other companies have emerged from the bowels of the wellness world to bring attention to your gastrointestinal tract specifically. As rising colorectal cancer rates in younger American men have generated more health anxiety, these companies reason that knowing what’s going on inside your body (and your toilet bowl) might be the difference between catching a serious medical condition early and learning from a doctor that it’s too late. But can monitoring poop actually unlock the secret to living a healthier life? Or, is Throne just one more drop in a growing bucket of health data that complicates, rather than clarifies, our approach to living?
The idea behind Throne was born not from a classic bathroom ponderance but from a 2021 poker game in Austin. It was there that Scott Hickle met Tim Blumberg, who would go on to become his co-founder. The conversation, much like the bodily functions that drive their company, was somewhat shrouded in taboo.
“We were talking about startup ideas that you would love to start, but wouldn’t want your name associated with,” Hickle, who is also CEO, recalls with a nostalgic laugh. “Everyone else is pitching sex, drugs, rock and roll, and Tim was like, smart toilets.” What started as lighthearted boys’ talk around the poker table did eventually materialize into a real company once Hickle and Blumberg realized their somewhat juvenile idea could have very real, adult financial payoffs. “We didn’t take it seriously until 2023, him and I were leaving to go start our own company. I called my mom. I was like, ‘Hey mom, is there any medical utility to looking at people’s waste?’ She’s a geriatrician, primary care physician for adults 65 and up. She was like, ‘Honey, there is a goldmine of health information in people’s waste.’”
To make their lavatory dreams come true, they spent two years developing not a full smart toilet, per se, but a smart device that clips to your toilet. The apparatus is roughly the size of a can of soda and looks like the cousin of a self-install bidet. It consists of a motion sensor, a camera with a small light, and a microphone. Rather than having to press a button or remember to boot up the device upon sitting down, Throne is activated by your presence in the bathroom, or rather, the presence of your phone in the bathroom. When testing my very own Throne, I was often startled by its blinking orange light, which illuminates as you approach the toilet and the device senses your phone. That light then turns green to signify that your phone is synced up, signaling that all involved parties are ready to go. (Hickle describes this process as a “little Bluetooth handshake.”) In other words, it does not automatically recognize your butt when you sit down, or clock when a different butt graces the seat.
