Dr. Nick Fabianodiscussed
No business yet — psychiatry resident & researcher, University of OttawaLifestyle psychiatry — exercise, sleep, diet, creatine as first-line mental health
Creator Fund Weekly — Sep 21, 2026Eddie DeDomenico, Megan Lightcap, Caroline Singer
Dr. Nick Fabiano: the 28-year-old combative voice of lifestyle psychiatry
5:04
from 6:02 in the recording
Creator Fund call, Sep 21 2026 (Riverside)
Eddie's pick, a direct follow-on to the Dr. Bruce meeting and the holding-company-around-experts idea: he went hunting for younger experts in the Nick Norwitz vein and found a 28-year-old psychiatry resident and researcher at the University of Ottawa who is 'so aggressively opinionated about consumer psychiatry' it's unlike anything he's seen. Roughly 1,500 Google Scholar citations, profiled as a rising star by Brain Medicine, quoted in the Washington Post and Fast Company. The category is lifestyle psychiatry: exercise, sleep, diet and creatine as the first line of defense, argued combatively on X (70K+ followers) in a very young, internet-savvy way — up to claiming that a psychiatrist who doesn't lead with exercise for depression is 'in the realm of malpractice.' No products or business yet; he's still finishing residency. Eddie wants to get in touch to see whether he'd start building — or dive in — knowing he's backed with capital and firepower. Megan agreed it's worth contact but wants to know who's actually in his core audience (especially if X is the main channel) and pushed that the broad lifestyle-wellbeing space is full of parroting experts, so be specific about what differentiates him; Eddie conceded today's differentiation is the energy and aggression, 'which doesn't necessarily make for a great business. It just makes them stand out.' On the James Clear question, Eddie: more clinical than that right now, 'but that's what this turns into.'
Things We Like
- The age-credibility combo is the find: 28, heavily cited (~1,500 Google Scholar citations), rising-star profile in Brain Medicine, quoted in WaPo and Fast Company — nobody with that background has come at consumer psychiatry this young
- Devoted, growing X audience whose posts pop off — a combative, internet-native voice in an otherwise tired, clinical space
- The advice is practical and consumer-facing (exercise, sleep, diet, creatine) — actual lifestyle guidance, not from-a-lab inaccessible
- Exactly the younger-expert profile the team set out to find after the Dr. Bruce meeting — same holding-company logic, without the age problem
- Greenfield commercially: nothing in market yet, so the business can be designed from scratch with capital behind him
Key Questions
- Who is actually in his core audience — especially if X is the main channel? (Megan: 'I can probably surmise a guess, but it's worth trying to understand')
- What differentiates him beyond energy and aggression in a crowded lifestyle-wellbeing space full of parroting experts? (Megan)
- Is he thinking about himself commercially at all — would he build alongside residency or dive in full-time with backing? (Eddie: 'you can't really tell yet')
- Does clinical-first content become the new-age James Clear / Atomic Habits play, and on what timeline? (Megan's frame, Eddie: 'that's what this turns into')
Conversation Quotes
- “He's so aggressively opinionated about consumer psychiatry. It's like something I've never really seen before”Eddie
- “Anyone in the psychiatry field who doesn't lead with exercise when it comes to someone that they're treating with depression is literally in the realm of malpractice”Eddie
- “Right now the specificity and the differentiation is the energy above all else and just the aggression, which doesn't necessarily make for a great business. It just makes them stand out”Eddie
- “Is this sort of like a new age Atomic, like James Clear vibe, or is it more clinical than that?”Megan