Rick Ramos

Former CMO · Healthtech executive · Author · Health optimizer

I spent the first half of my career scaling health companies — HealthJoy, and a series of healthtech startups where I ran marketing and strategy at the executive level. I understood healthcare systems, insurance, provider networks, and the machinery of how Americans access care. What I didn’t understand, for a long time, was my own biology.

That changed when I started getting serious about optimization. I ordered the labs. I tracked the data. I ran the experiments. And I discovered what most high-performing men in their 40s and 50s eventually discover: the standard healthcare system is not designed to help you perform — it’s designed to catch disease. There’s a massive gap between “not sick” and “operating at your ceiling,” and almost nothing in medicine is focused on closing it.

I built The Optimization Stack because I couldn’t find what I needed when I was looking for it. A clear, structured, honest resource that told me exactly what to measure, in what order, with real recommendations — not affiliate bait dressed up as advice.

I’m not a physician. I don’t diagnose or prescribe. When clinical care is the right move, I say so clearly and point you toward the right people. What I do: apply the same systems-level, constraint-based thinking I used to build health companies — to the problem of human performance.

The book

Stop Running on Empty is my book on TRT and hormonal optimization for men who want clarity, not complexity. Written for the man who is smart, skeptical of hype, and done being told his labs are “normal” when he doesn’t feel normal.

[ Book link — add on launch ]

Other work

TRTPower.com — Resources and information on testosterone replacement therapy for men navigating the process.

ApexBlood.com — Optimization-grade blood testing. The panels that standard physicals don’t order and that actually matter for performance.