Somnee Will Literally ReWrite Your Brain Waves to Help You Get Your Best Sleep

Most executives treat sleep as a variable. Something to compress when things get busy. Something to fix later. That’s the ROI brain talking: Sleep is overhead, not output.

The science disagrees. One in three people globally struggle with sleep, and the effects are not limited to grogginess. Poor sleep is linked to cognitive decline, impaired decision making, elevated anxiety, weakened immunity, and early onset dementia. If you aren’t sleeping well, you aren’t operating well. Full stop.

This is the market that Somnee is building into. The company was founded by four UC Berkeley neuroscientists, including Matt Walker, arguably the world’s leading expert on sleep science. Its product is a headband, worn for 15 minutes before bed, which reads your brainwave activity through clinical-grade EEG sensors on your frontal cortex, then uses neurostimulation to recalibrate your brain toward sleep-ready states.

Tim Rosa, Somnee’s CEO, describes it simply: If stress has your brain running at the equivalent of 220 beats per minute, the device reads that and brings it back to 90. It’s not a sleeping pill. It’s not a sleep tracker. It is the first consumer device that reads your brain and rewrites it.

“Sleep is foundational to overall health,” Rosa told me. “Not getting enough of it creates a cascade of problems. And you’re starting to see more research connecting poor sleep quality to cognitive decline as you age.”

The NBA invested in Somnee and ran a research pilot. The results: 31 additional minutes of sleep per night across the cohort. Time to fall asleep dropped from 24 minutes to eight minutes. The NFL Players Association invited Somnee to pitch during Super Bowl week. They won. Conversations are now active with the players union covering roughly 2,400 active players and more than 14,000 retired ones.

Elite athletes are the early adopters here because they understand that recovery is performance. But Rosa makes clear the product’s reach goes well beyond sports: “Whether you’re an executive, middle management, or showing up to work on time consistently, sleep affects everything.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

At our at our company, feel like people rely too much on sleep scores. You know, I think wearables have trained people to just get a score. And yeah, but it also creates a lot of anxiety. And so the most important thing is do you, when you wake up, do you feel good? Do you feel refreshed? Do you feel like you're ready to take on the day? You know, more or less. And so what we're trying to do is correlate what's happening with your brain and what we're doing with your brain to how you actually feel over time. Hey there, this is Tim Rosa. I'm the CEO of Somni, and you're on Behind the Brand with Brian Elliott.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Everyone, welcome to another episode of the show. Tim. Welcome. Thank you. We're sort of in the heart of San Francisco here, aren't we? We're out right on Market Street. It's a beautiful day in a secret uh studio location. But um I'm glad we could do this. We've been sort of talking off camera for a while. I've been following what you're doing. But for those who don't know what Somni is, kind of tell us like what it is and how you got this job.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Yeah, so Somni is a headband that you wear uh before you go to bed. It helps you fall asleep. It uses clinical grade sensors, so EEG and neurostimulation. Uh you wear it for 15 minutes before you go to sleep and uh helps you fall asleep and stay asleep.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

And then once that 15-minute little timer or something goes off, then Yeah, you can either take it off or you can wear it all night.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

The benefit of wearing it all night is that you're getting clinical grade sleep data. Um, unlike your wearable, worn downstream from the head, um, EEG is basically mapping and measuring your brain and your brainwave activity. Um, so you're essentially getting clinical grade sleep data sets, so sleep stages, et cetera, um, which for some people is incredibly important. Um, good data in is good data out, especially at a, you know, during a time of AI. Um, so that's important. The other benefit of wearing it all night is if you are someone who wakes up in the middle of the night, you can simply tap on the device, it activates the STEM to help you fall back asleep.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

So many questions. And you know, we we have talked a lot off camera about some of my health journey. My audience has heard me talk about my health journey a lot, but I I think it's worth backtracking or even zooming out a little bit and revisiting it because it's such an important topic. And I think it affects so many people that it's so relevant. But so, what is the problem that you're seeking out to solve?

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Well, one in three people struggle with sleep. So um backing up, the company was actually started by four renowned neuroscientists at UC Berkeley. Okay. Um, one of them is a guy named Dr. Matt Walker, probably one of the more most famous science neuroscientists in the world when it comes to the science of sleep. Um, so what they did was they looked at, they spent five years of research, research and development looking at different types of neuromodulation that can not only help you fall asleep, um, so sleep onset, but stay asleep, which is sleep maintenance. Um, and the fact of the matter is we're in a global sleep epidemic. So one in three people struggle with sleep. Um, if you go to your doctor right now, there's only two tools, um behavioral therapy, which is called CBTI. It takes about six to eight weeks. There's um it can be very successful if you go through that, but there's a lot of friction in that process. You have to speak to a therapist. Um, the other is sleeping pills, sleeping pills, side effects. Some of them are addictive. Um, and most people don't want to have to take another pill. Um, so the fact that you can wear a headband for 15 minutes before you go to bed and it'll help you fall asleep and stay asleep is um, you know, that's it's a great solution for people that that are in there's certain audience segments that deeply struggle with sleep, especially as you get older, um, women in menopause or perimenopause. Um uh, but it literally affects one in three people around the world.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah, let's let's unpack that a little bit more too. Like how serious is bad sleep? Is it can it kill us?

SPEAKER_02 4:18

It can lead to a number of chronic conditions. Um, and you know, I mean, the reality is good sleep affects your physical health, your mental health. You know, if you're an athlete, it affects your performance. If you're an executive, it affects your ability to be a good manager and a good leader. And so, you know, sleep is foundational um to overall health. So not getting enough of it can create a lot of problems. And you're starting to see more research come out um related to quality of sleep and the impact on cognitive decline as as you get older. Um, so perhaps early onset, you know, dementia, et cetera. Um, so absolutely sleep is foundational to good health.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Let me tell you my story a little bit. And we've again we've chatted a little bit about this, but so when I started feeling terrible, sort of all all of a sudden. And this was about about eight years ago. Uh everything was fine. But I think, you know, the body cycles through its cells, I've heard about seven or eight, every seven to eight years. So you're kind of a new person every seven to eight years. Um, and for some reason I just started getting really bad, painful migraines. Didn't know why. Went to see my doctor, uh, and kind of did like a head-to-toe process of elimination. I wanted to find out what was happening. So started at the top, went to see a neurologist, and uh he said, Oh, this is easy. You just have uh you have migraines. So here's some pills. Of course. And I was I kind of took that at face value, thought, okay, if you say so, because I did an MRI, did the whole thing, you know, rule out brain tumor, all the extreme stuff, big ticket items. And um, it turns out I just had migraines, Tim. So that's what I did. I started taking some pills and um it helped for a little while, and then they kind of came back, and then I kind of felt not myself on the medication. Uh so then I went uh, you know, to check my eyes, thought maybe I had some eye issues, no, no problem with my eyes. Uh, check my teeth, did the whole 3D scan. If you've been to the dentist, yep, they could have that all the technology. My dentist thought maybe I had some sort of infection because I had a root canal or two. It was not that. Um, what else? Then down over, went to see the cardiologist. Of course, um, cardiologist was very concerned about my uh cholesterol. And so the general theme was that people were these doctors, well-meaning, well-intentioned, highly trained, and great, uh, but very myopic. Right? Like everyone just seemed to default to what their expertise was. Yep. Uh the cardiologist wanted to put me on a statin, the neurologist gave me pills for the migraine, etc. I started pulmonary expert, and he said, uh, I want to put you on a CPAP machine. That was his solution. Uh, but first he gave me a sleep test, and kind of as you alluded to, uh, you can figure out if you're, you know, the quality of your sleep through a sleep test. And he diagnosed me with mild sleep apnea. I had no idea what apnea was. Um when I found out it was kind of terrifying. Basically the the definition is, you know, um, you wake up 10 to 40 times a night and you don't know it. And if you're of a certain age, what happens is uh your tongue can fall back in your mouth and block your airway and so you kind of obstruction. Yeah, obstruction, you kind of you know, you'll you'll wake yourself up. Uh you don't suffocate in your sleep, but you'll wake up so many times what it's it's unnoticeable. Now, if you're obese and you have other issues, uh that could be a totally different um issue of why you have obstructions. But I was you know not that much overweight, although I could stand to lose a couple. Um, it was more of the other. So I tried the CPAP. I absolutely hated it. You know, it was like wearing a starfish on my face. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Um and you've got like the tube running, you know, along the bed and making the sounds, and you're like, I mean, it's very invasive.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

It's invasive, and I just thought this is gonna ruin my romantic life too. Hey honey. I mean, if I'm being honest, like that was my main reason for like ditching this. Yeah, I was like, this is not sustainable. I'm not doing this until I'm 90 or I die. Um I thought there had to be a better solution, but I didn't know it. So I kind of sought off on my own to kind of figure out what was happening. And um anyways, so through through the research, I think that's like one of the ways I found you. We met through a mutual friend also, but like so I felt like lack of sleep was killing me. I was getting heart palpitations. Uh I and and so my non-scientific conclusion, just using logic, was that obstruction was sort of cutting off oxygen to my brain, therefore probably triggering a headache. Uh on top of that is a lack of sleep. So fatigue and just just being tired and like I woke up feeling like I was hit by a truck or had a hangover, really bad hangover, again, you know, contributing to a headache. So it could have been multiple triggers uh from multiple places. And then these heart palpitations are really scaring me. But again, uh when you have lack of oxygen, your blood gets thicker. Uh and I don't know why that cardiologist didn't think of this. I had to think of it. I have no training, but it's like that can cause these heart palpitations. So I was thinking maybe I was having a heart attack. Not the case. It was sleep, sleep deprivation. So, you know, I was uh impaired while driving or working, or you know, it even uh affects sexual performance. It's a drag. So like for me, I realized like sleep is the gateway to everything. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So it's an important problem that you're solving. Um how did you how did you how did Somni come up with this technology? I mean, it's pretty this is not like some of these other wearables that are like heart rate variability or this is like high-tech stuff.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, as I mentioned earlier, so that the the company was founded by uh four neuroscientists from UC Berkeley. Um, you know, the last company they created was Neurofocus. So they use EEG to map and read your brain to try and understand your emotions and feelings and reactions to certain products or ads or things like that. They end up selling that to Nielsen Media, which became the foundation of their cognitive research and platform. So you're getting real-time data from a consumer. Um, so in the in the past, when you know, when I was working with researchers, the margin of error was pretty high and you would it would take like weeks to get the data back. So it was lagging. So to to basically put a product or an ad or whatever in front of a consumer and get a real-time accurate response was very powerful.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

But the point is, is that oh wait, quick question. Was this like facial recognition kind of software where they were? No, they were they were using um your brain, brain data. So it's more like a uh one of those old-fashioned uh what do they call it? Uh using EEG. But what's the truth or the truth machine like uh when you get hooked up to a lie detector?

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Similar to that, right? Um I think that's tied.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Uh uh Yeah, yeah, but this is literally it's in theory, yeah, but this is using your actual brain wave. Okay, you can tell I'm non-scientific. And so, but the point I wanted to make was they felt like they perfected through EEG the ability to read the brain, understand the brain. And then they wanted to figure out how to rewrite the brain, meaning to influence um what was happening. And so that started this quest to figure out the most effective type of neuromodulation or neurostimulation. And so neurostimulation has been around for decades. Um, it's not, it's not new. Um, there are many types of neurostimulation or neuromodulation. So you have uh magnetic, you have a direct current, so it uses a very low electrical frequency. Um, you know, the language of the brain is electricity, neurons fire. Um and so electric is something that uh can be very successful. Um, there's auditory, which is an indirect approach. Um, where they landed was in TES, so transcranial electrical stimulation. There's a direct current approach, which has been approved by the FDA for treating things like anxiety and depression. And then there's an alternating current. They decided to focus on alternating current because it allows for the most forms of personalization of the stimulation uh frequency and the actual uh influencing the brainways and so the rhythms. Um, direct current is the same current for everyone, as you know these days in life. It's all about personalization. So that's where they landed. They focused on that. The other benefit uh as opposed to some of the other forms of neuromodulation is that it not only affects sleep onset, so your ability to fall asleep, but so that improvement is by over 50%. It's like 55%, um, but your ability to stay asleep, which is the most difficult. And so that improvement is about 35%. And so that's why they decided to focus in on that. And so that's how the company was started. I was brought on about two years ago. Um, I was recruited by some of the scientists. So Dr. Walker, I call Matt, Dr. Knight, um, and then Vinod Kosla from Kostla Ventures, who's one of the uh the main investors. Um, so I was brought on because I had spent about, I spent about a decade in sports marketing and and whatnot. And then I ended up um helping launch a company called Fitbit. I wasn't a founder, but I helped build the category of wearables at Fitbit. You know, we had a lot of success. Introduced the world to heart rate tracking on the wrist, um, introduce the the world to sleep stages and sleep tracking beyond the a clinical setting, right? Most people had no clue what what sleep stages were. And so we we introduced that. Um we we created the category of wearables and had a lot of success. You know, we during my tenure, we sold about 140 million devices. Um, and you know, everyone thinks it was easy, but um, I I like to tell this story in the beginning of Fitbit, um, we had Chuck Schumer saying that Fitbit was the demise of healthcare in America because your biometric data was, you know, it was invasive, it was going to be shared and et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. So it took us having to go to DC, hire a lobby lobbyist. Then we got President Obama uh wearing a Fitbit, which was great. I remember writing the letter and sending it to him. Um, he started wearing a Fitbit, and the next thing you know, we had um staff challenges between Republicans and Democrats. And the point that I'm trying to make is it was a new category of product. We had to do a lot of education. Um, it wasn't easy early on, but we created enough momentum and we just chased that growth. So coming to Somni made sense in that it's really a next generation wearable. You know, Fitbit is, you know, the OG of wearables, Gen 1. Um, with the advent of AI, with the advent of um better sensor technology, smaller sensors, you're getting more accurate data sets. So um I view Somni as you know the next generation of wearables where you have clinical data. In our case, we're a closed loop product, meaning it works to read your brain, kind of like a diagnostic. And then it um is essentially working as uh a sleep aid intervention. Um, so we're basically helping you fall asleep, which is really unique. Most wearables um just tell you what's happening. Um, depending on the sensor and this where it is on the body, some of that data is more accurate than others. Um and there are other things like you know, algorithms, et cetera, that influence that. But um, you know, what what we're trying to do is is create this new category of of products. So focused on brain health.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah, it just makes me chuckle because you're right. I mean, you if you read, you know, um you're wearable, your basic wearable. Okay, you know, you took X number of steps. I don't know how accurate really that is. Doing I I've sat there and sort of swung my arms before I've taken no steps, I could still get steps to read. The other thing is, you know, if your BP is high, it's like, congratulations, it sucks to be you. Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't fix anything. I mean it gives you an indicator, right? Which is great. I mean, uh it's better than nothing. I think I'd rather have the data than not have the data. Um what have you learned as a non-scientific person who's sort of at the helm of this brand helping it in where we are, about why people have a hard time with sleep? So, you know, in my uh experience I had the apnea issue, but I know other people have whether it's anxiety or you know, a rush of thoughts, I I've I've uh been unable to sleep just because I my brain's been flooded with ideas. Like, what do you learn about why people struggle with sleep?

SPEAKER_02 17:53

I think it's it's it's deeply personal and unique to the individual, right? Um the majority of people, you know, especially now, we're glued to our phones. Um, we're scrolling, we don't give our brain breaks. Um, and so anxiety and stress in, you know, staying up at night and and you know, being being absolutely tired, but you're absolutely wired at the same time. And and so I think that is uh, you know, Matt talks about, you know, the 10 protocols for good sleep hygiene, et cetera. But at the end of the day, it's how we change our behaviors and our patterns, especially with all the information we have now and the the understanding of good sleep hygiene. And and again, like some people can get away with six hours of high quality sleep and and others, you know, need nine. Um, sleep is deeply personal, right? It all depends on your life and who you are and what you're doing and how you live, and then figuring out um how to make those adjustments. And so that's why we've been so successful is is helping people. Matt has been an incredible advocate for good sleep and sleep hygiene and what's happening and what we're doing with Somni is creating another tool that you can use to help you um fall asleep. But, you know, there's so many variables, like even depending on gender, I think in in age, um, you know, at the end of the day, you really need to lower your core body temperature. So um, you know, you have new products coming out, new innovation. You have eight sleep, you know, which is I don't know if you have an eight sleep, but I do have an eight sleep. Yeah, it's it's it's great, especially if you're someone that runs hot. To be able to get in a you know, a cooler bed and have it adjust with you with you throughout the night is incredibly powerful.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Yep. I even um when I was going through my situation, and by the way, it's made basically like a total 180. Um and it was a combination of a lot of little things that made the difference. Some of them were sleep habit related. Um, like I got blackout curtains. Yeah. I felt like you know, the slightest bit of light was not productive, so I didn't do the blackout curtains. I also tried to get more into a routine, like uh going to bed about the same time. Routine is so powerful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

And you know, ache up and bet like if that is one of the biggest things that you can do.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Consistency, yes. And Tim, it's it sounds so silly, but like we're walking around this meat suit and we have no idea how it works. It's still kind of mind blowing. Even for people who think that they're progressive or you know, they love technology, or even they're they're highly educated, we just have no idea what's going on. Yeah. So I mean I get really excited about products like this because I want to understand like why it's happening and how I can prevent it, so that I can just have a higher quality of life. I mean, the older I get, the more limitations it seems like or compromises I have to make. Yeah. You know, whether it's like I'm playing pickup basketball or tennis or I'm surfing or pickup hockey, you know, you get injured. It's like I don't want to get injured as fast, but anyway, I digress. But um the little habits made all the difference. And um, and you're right, I started to get into a routine so that I didn't have to have an alarm clock. I just woke up naturally with a circadian rhythm. Um, but still I know like so. I'm married to someone who is uh extremely creative. She is, you know, uh uh diagnosed adult, she has adult ADHD, um, which is a superpower if you let it be. Oh yeah, absolutely. She can like f uh focus and be, for example, painting she refurnishes furniture and uh she'll be like hand doing gold leaf, and it's like, how are you doing that, first of all? Um, without error. But she'll forget to eat. It's like yeah, six hours ago. Go by. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

And well, that's you train your brain because your whole life, your it's is spent with distraction. So you train your brain to hyperfocus.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah. And she's hyper-vigilant too about the attention to detail. So, you know, in one sense, that is a superpower. Like I don't have the concentration or attention to detail like she does, but it cuts both ways because then she'll forget to eat or hydrate or even sleep. And it's like she'll go to bed and then she'll just be like looking at the ceiling. And I just wonder like somnees for someone like her, like absolutely. Absolutely. So that's going to map her brain and do what? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

So basically the way it works is it takes about 21 sessions to go through our protocol. And the first five to seven sessions are what we call brain mapping. So as I mentioned earlier, you know, each of us has, we have our own sleep biomarker, which means that, you know, no brain is the same. It's we're all unique snowflakes, as Matt likes to say. And so what we're trying to do is identify what is what is your optimal state for sleep, what is your optimal brain rhythm, and and thus the frequency that we should be stimulating. And so it takes for us about two to five, sometimes seven sessions to figure that out. And they're 15-minute sessions. Yeah, well, so it's a 15-minute session before you go to bed. The first minute approximately we do a uh EEG um scan of your brain. Are you feeling anything while you have no not during that? So EEG is just it's just measuring your brainwave activity. Yeah. Um, then you go into the the STEM. Um, and then following the STEM, we do another brain mapping to determine how much we've altered your sleep. And so it takes again about two to five, sometimes seven sessions to figure that out. And then our AI model during that is it's testing and kind of testing different frequencies and rhythms. Again, it's infinite because each of us are unique to figure out what is optimal for you. So once we've figured that out, the model begins this phase of uh refinement. Um, and so you go into this optimization phase and then maintenance. So again, it takes about a month, so 21 sessions to go through that. Um, following that, uh, you know, we uh have 85% success on improving your sleep onset and then improving your sleep maintenance.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

And so what is the result of the basically the diagnosis or the dialysis? Like uh after those sessions, you get like an is it an app that you see the output? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

So it tells you go to sleep at this time, or like what is it so so basically the the app is it uh walks you through the the stimulation. Um if you want to do that, you can use the app. Um and then you know, in the morning, uh well, the app, we ask you a series of questions about your day. Um, you go through the the STEM session, you wake up in the Did you have a traumatic experience today or something? Well, like did you drink what when did you drink caffeine? Did you have TH? There's a number of questions that are basic for us to understand. Um you go through the STEM, and then the next morning we you get a sleep report, um, and then we ask you a series of five questions because the scientists are are at at uh at our company feel like people rely too much on sleep scores. You know, I think wearables have trained people to just get a score, and yeah, but it also creates a lot of anxiety. And so the most important thing is do you, when you wake up, do you feel good? Do you feel refreshed? Do you feel like you're ready to take on the day? You know, more or less. And so what we're trying to do is correlate what's happening with your brain and what we're doing with your brain to how you actually feel over time.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

And so that I think the sleep score anxiety comes from like, I didn't I I tried my best, but I didn't perform well.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's it creates the sleep scores create a lot of anxiety for people because if you're not sleeping well, it just becomes a flywheel of negative uh information, right? Yeah. Um if it's out of a hundred and you get a six year, what the hell? Like I felt like yeah, I did a good job, but then it but the purpose of sleep is to help you sleep and help you feel better the next day, right? Yeah. Um, obviously the brain is doing a lot during that process of sleep, but at the end of the day, we want you to feel good um so you can, you know, live your best life. You know, our tagline is sleep more, live more. Um, and so that's that's what we do and that's how it works. But you don't have to use the app. Um, so one of the top feature requests from some of the pro athletes and CEOs we work with is phone-free. So when they're traveling, they want to use it on flights. You know, obviously when you go from the West Coast to the East Coast, your circadian rhythm gets thrown off. Right. So the ability to utilize it while you're flying is a big deal. Um, and then there are people that don't want to have any kind of um they they don't want to have, you know, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi or things like that. They don't want to have their phone. You know, we uh sleep scientists all say, keep you don't want to have your your phone in bed with you, right? And so the ability to use the device phone phone free is really powerful. So um you can leave your phone out of your bedroom, you just tap on the device, you hold the button, and then it activates the the protocol. And Dr. Walker basically walks you through like the session and he explains, okay, now we're, you know, mapping your brain. And the product uses bone conduction speakers. So it uses your skull to um uh to basically uh conduct the the audio. And so it's it's actually really amazing. But so Dr. Walker walks you through what's happening in the process. And while we're doing that, we're playing meditative music and you go through your session. So phone free. Right now, I think it's almost 80% of our users don't use their phone.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Okay. A couple of questions. So I'm imagining how this worked. And I think probably after this, um, I'll get the product and I'll do a full test. And maybe I'll do a like a uh post interview on my experience with it independently. But so I'm trying to understand I get the um the diagnosis or I get the you know the process, I get it how maybe how it works scientifically. I can start to imagine that. What I'm not figuring out is the result of that test. Is it like a spoken meditation? Like Brian, I know it seems like you're very anxious today. You told us, you know, it was New Year's Eve.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Yeah. No, like no. So what what you get is the next day is you get a basically a sleep report. So that looks at like when you fell asleep, how long you're asleep, the quality of your sleep, um, the stages of your sleep. Yeah. Um, so you get all of that information, and it's clinically accurate data because we're using your brain waves to measure your sleep stages.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

But what am I doing? What kind of instruction or help am I getting to correct it?

SPEAKER_02 29:04

Well, the AI is correcting.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

So basically, what we're trying to do is Oh, you're saying it's all happening in here. Yeah, it's all happening in your way. So it's like kind of re-readjusting.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

It's it's it's basically, as I was saying, it's way we're reading your brain and we're rewriting your brain. I mean, now stimulation is basically helping your your brain prepare for sleep onset. Um, and so that's how it works. Okay, like one moment.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Yeah, yeah. Then we give you, I know it's a whole new technology, so I I hold it. Let me just let me just restate what I was thinking, which is it's and correct me if I'm wrong. So if your brain is firing in a certain rhythm, let's just call it, you know, beats per minute, because we can all relate to that in music. Maybe you know, I've had a really stressful day, or you know, maybe it is New Year's Eve and I'm kind of wrecked, or maybe I have a traumatic experience. Instead of that regular, let's say 90 BPM, I'm at like 220. It's like going great. But I'm not aware of it. It's all happening in my dome. Exactly. So I put the Somni device on and it senses that I'm out of whack. Yep, that's normal, and it's gonna reconfigure, readjust back to that 90 BPM exactly norm. Yep, and therefore will help me get back into the regular rhythm. Exactly. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

Yeah. Compte. Yeah. So and that's that that's the innovation behind it is you know, most people don't realize like sleep is crazy. Sleep is managed through your frontal cortex. And so our sensors are directly stimulating. So the EEG sensors, we don't have them all around your head, we just have them on your frontal. Um, so we're measuring your brain, and then the stimulation is happening uh on your frontal as well.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Okay, so how about in cases uh so are there are there certain sleep things that Somni cannot fix or adjust? Like so sleep apnea is real, yeah, especially if you're extremely overweight, it's a big problem. And I don't want to disparage CPAP because for some people it's like their only option and they'll die without it. I mean, literally, if you're obese and it's the only option, fine, no judgment. But um are there some things that it won't fix or can't fix?

SPEAKER_02 31:19

Yeah, so so so OSA, obstructive sleep apnea, so that is a blockage, right? And that can be caused by weight, it can be called caused by just your jaw structure, so genetics. Um, so that is a blockage. What we're focused on is neurological. So insomnia is neurological. Yeah. Um, osa is is basically physical. Yeah. So it's a physical blockage. Yeah. That said, um, we're in conversations right now with the largest medical institution in the country about um comesa. So comisa is when you have both sleep apnea as well as insomnia. And it turns out that this medical institution, based on their own research um within their sleep clinics, that's over 70%. So you could have sleep apnea and think that you're fixing your sleep, at least you're you're obviously improving your your air, your breathing and the air passage, but you still have the neurological issue of insomnia. And so you still have issues with your sleep. And so there's CPAP has low adherence. It's a very invasive experience currently, um, in the way that you know things are changing. Um, but so to answer your question, we don't directly improve OSA, but people that have it, that have COMISA, you will see an improvement. Meaning that if you're using Somni and you're also using your CPAP, um, you're gonna see an improvement in your overall sleep. And so the future for me is, you know, we're having conversations with some of the biggest companies around the world that are developing treatments for for OSA. Um, we're just focused on the neurological side, but you could see a future where these devices are working together, the data sets are working together. You could also, if you're wearing a CPAP, now have an understanding of what's happening during your sleep, right? Because if you have a product like Somni that's measuring your brain, and you can look at when you're wearing a CPAP versus not wearing a CPAP, what is the improvement of your sleep look like?

SPEAKER_03 33:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Um, and so it's it's actually really interesting, you know, at the moment. And of course, there's new technologies. There's actually neurostimulation for for OSA. Um, so it's invasive. They embed uh a stimulation sensor in your neck, and it basically, if your tongue falls back, it activates the muscle to open that that ad up.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

So yeah, and they have mouth guards, yeah, and different things. Um well that makes it really clear. I get it. Um and again, it kind of brings me back to uh, I think about my son now who's um in high school, he's an athlete, but you know, he's a teenager, and and he also is like my wife, he has that sort of neurodivergent bring. Again, superpower, but like sometimes and it could just be a function of where he is in his uh growth stage, but like that kid cannot get to sleep sometimes. Yeah, uh I hear rustling downstairs at 3 a.m. He's having his fourth dinner or fifth dinner. Um, and I'm just like, why can't you just go to sleep? And he's like, I have no idea. And from again, my non-sci scientific uh knowledge and research like melatonin is terrible. Our body makes it naturally, but if we take too much, it can be very har harmful or like it's a hormone.

SPEAKER_02 34:48

So you're basically putting a hormone. You put a hormone in your body consistently, your body stops making that hormone.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Yeah. So then there's sleep pills, yeah. Um, which I think everyone uh understands that that's not a scalable solution. I mean, you you you take one or two, you know, uh over a couple of months, no big deal if you're having a some sort of issue, but it's like that's not a sustainable solution. Um so this is really good to know.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

Yeah, and that's why right now we have a lot of we pretty much have every sports organization um reaching out to us. So last year the MBA invested in us. Um we did a research pilot uh with the MBA. Um we improved, uh we added 31 minutes of sleep. We reduced in that cohort, it was like 24 minutes to sleep. The national average is 20, but we went from 24 minutes to eight minutes. Um, pretty much across every metric, we saw an improvement. Um, and if you think about it, and and now, you know, the NFL, we just won uh we got invited to the NFL Players Association's pitch day during Super Bowl, and we won that. Um and and yeah, it was really cool. And now we're having conversations with the players union about working with not only the active players, there's 2,400 active players, there's like I think 14 or 17,000 retired NFL players. Um, and so it's and when you look at athletes, they are so focused on doing anything possible to improve their performance that's legal. And we all know the importance of sleep on athletic performance. You know, historically, there's been a lot of information about the quality of sleep and importance of that and how it affects your your you know recovery, injury prevention. Um, but there's all even a lot more data out there. And I've never seen, you know, outside of scientists, athletes are so knowledgeable about even the importance of the quality of sleep. So we're having conversations with um some major league baseball agents, you know, that have the some of the top pitchers, right? And you pitchers usually have like four-game rotations. And, you know, when you're in the playoffs or the World Series or whatever, you're trying to figure out they're like, can you optimize my my athlete's REM sleep? So he's getting the most REM sleep because obviously that helps with, you know, alertness, focus, many other things.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

Um, and then, you know, with the NBA and other, you know, I think with other uh the NFL, et cetera, you know, if you think about it, it's just natural as as players start to age, you know, injury becomes more of a problem. So like understanding the quality of your sleep and your deep sleep, because that's very important for, you know, body restoration and yeah, you know, injury prevention, et cetera. And all of this is there's a lot of clinical research that's out there by others and and and and and what and certainly Matt talks about it on his podcast. But um there's that part of it. And then there's also the other part, which kind of ties back into what you're saying. Um, we have athletes that every other night they're in a hotel room. Yes, and so they they design their bedrooms around quality of sleep. They'll have an eight sleep, you know, they'll have their somni, blackout currents, like you name it. They have literally everything. They have as much money as you can possibly spend on optimizing the room around sleep. But when they're in season, every other in some of the leagues, every other, you know, night can be in a hotel room. And so they're performing, you know, they have night games, you go from the west to the east. Um, so they go back to their hotel room and they're absolutely wired. Yeah, they have nothing that can help them. Well, they didn't have anything that could help them fall asleep besides a sleeping pill, which can create other problems. So now you have Sami. So they travel with SOMI, they're in the hotel room, they put it on, and it calms the brain, it helps them fall asleep and stay asleep. And so that's we're seeing a lot of interest from people that understand the science of sleep and understand the science of the brain, get the importance of what we're doing. And and there's no side effects, you know, it's not addictive. Um, there's there's you can't feel any tiggling or like well, you can feel some tiggling. Um, it's like very subtle. You know, you have to make sure that your forehead is dry because you, you know, you have electrodes on your on your forehead. There is certainly the friction that, you know, it's not like the use case of putting on a, you know, a watch or or a ring, you have to put, you know, with in our case a headband on, you have to swap out the electrode, you know, every three or four uses. Um, so there's that friction. But for many people, the idea of that's all I need to do. We have some people that have been addicted to um, you know, certain sleeping pills for like literally two decades. And in their dangerous sleeping pills, they're like, I don't need to wear this for 15 minutes and it's gonna help me. And then they go through it and it's completely changed their life.

SPEAKER_03 39:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

You know, we have CEOs like Mark Benioff. This is a funny story. Um, I worked with Mark uh at Fitbit um back in the day when we launched that. And um when I first started, I was kind of going through all of our customer support logs and just trying to understand what were the issues. And and our head of customer support reached out and said, Hey, I think we I think this is Mark Benioff from Salesforce. And I was like, No, I so I emailed them. I'm like, Mark, it's Tim. I'm now the CEO at Somni. And he's like, Holy shit, you know, Somni has changed my life. It's the only thing I use. I've tried everything to help me sleep. It's the only thing that works. And what what I found is we actually have a lot of CEOs and VCs and people in, you know, highly stressful positions that are using the product because they understand the value of quality sleep and the friction of putting on a headband and doing, you know, going through that process is worth it. You know, I think for some people that are younger, that don't have sleep issues and, you know, but might be hyper-focused on longevity and all of those things, it it's not the the value to friction equation isn't necessarily there yet.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

But listen, I mean my my son, like I said, teenager, but he's he runs track and field. And so if he has a race the next day and he's trashed because he got bad sleep, yeah, it's actually a big deal to him.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

I I think as you look at different audience segments overall, like the education that is happening now is is it's great to hear that it's influencing, you know, high school students. Um, but they're not thinking about their body, you know, they're developing, they're not necessarily thinking about sleep unless they really have a major sleep problem.

SPEAKER_03 41:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

Um, and so uh, but yeah, it's been it's been awesome to work again at a company, you know. I think I learned about Fitbit is like my own mission after spending like a decade in the video game industry at, you know, 2K Sports and EA Sports and ESPN video games is which was great and it was awesome. But with Fitbit, putting a product in the world that is innovative, um, that also helps you is I love that. That's what I I realized was my calling. And so to work at another company that yet, again, is on the cutting edge of creating new technologies that help people is is something you know I'm really excited about. It's still early days and really new.

SPEAKER_03 42:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

Um, and we have a lot. I mean, you know, right now I'm in fundraising mode. And that's, you know, it's uh that's like non-stop while you're trying to run and operate a startup business and you know, you know, changing the world. So there's there's a lot there.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

I can only imagine, you know, the future firmware updates and software updates on this thing. Uh you know, have you guys started to think about like the what's possible with this? Because right, you know, right now you're solving important problems. It takes 15 minutes. Maybe in the future it takes less, or maybe it becomes more comprehensive and you can accomplish more. But like I think about things like um, you know, I don't even know the science behind why I have brain fogs sometimes, or um, you know, uh there's Alzheimer's, which is a huge problem to solve at some point. Like, are you guys thinking about the future of that? Like what's happening under the dome? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

So um frontal cortex doesn't just manage sleep, it's um focus, it's cognition, it's anxiety and depression. There are a number number of uh neurological um health uh areas that we can explore with our technology. Um and so that's absolutely on our radar, and our IP is developed around be going beyond sleep. But what I've said to the team, because again, we're a small team, we have to hyperfocus. If we can solve sleep and build this category around sleep, the door is wide open. Yeah. And our scientists at, you know, at UC Berkeley, Bob Knight, is you know, he's a pioneer in Alzheimer's. And Parkinson's and early onset dementia, understanding brain health. So, you know, we're right now, I'm meeting with a lot of venture capitalists at very high profile firms. And some of the feedback we get is, you know, essentially you can brain build the brain OS and through what you're building and mapping the brain and understanding the brain and then applying, you know, AI to the types of interventions that you do. So to answer your question right now, we're focused on sleep, but we can also do the opposite of sleep. We can also think of it as like digital caffeine, um, where we put you to sleep, but we can also get you hyper-focused. We, you know, can start to think about um, you know, sleep obviously affects a lot of different things, but you know, the anxiety, depression, I mean, I'm not going to get into it all, but absolutely we can go beyond that. Well, ultimately, at the end of the day, we're talking about sleep, but really it's understanding the brain. It's brain health.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

So I I as you're saying that, because my mind works in uh visuals, I'm imagining, you know, there's um you're taking an important test or you know, you're trying to remember something you don't want to forget. I'm imagining maybe putting on the somni while you're, you know, while you're doing it so that it optimizes your performance. You know, whether it's remembering the things that you already studied, focus, or not to stress out, or, you know, uh basically just to help you calm down.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

In fact, um our the form of tech the form of neurostim that we utilize has actually already been FDA approved um for other neurological health conditions. So anxiety and depression, um, that's one area. Uh and so we'll eventually go down the FDA path um around sleep and and certainly some other conditions. Um, but but yeah, our our right now our focus is sleep, but it's it's very much, you know, the brain is the last frontier of the body, and there's a lot of investment happening right now in brain health technology.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

So well, again, it you know, from a personal standpoint, that makes sense because sleep has become the gateway, especially non-invasive.

SPEAKER_02 46:20

Non-invasive is, you know, is it because that literally can aff can can affect everyone, right? Versus invasive where they have to go and operate and get a sensor on your brain, you know, which is for like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's or things like that.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

Or for people you've been paralyzed. So the others were more extreme cases where you don't mind the invasive uh because it's sort of like your last option. Uh let's talk about the business of this a little bit. Is this expensive?

SPEAKER_02 46:49

It's basically less than an Apple Watch. Um, and so the the idea is Is it running a subscription model? How's it? Yeah, yeah. So basically it's $389, and then you have a subscription model. Um, and it's unlike I I just want to say this because I think everyone, including myself, we all have membership fatigue. The reality is, in order for us to develop a quality product, we use um hydrogel. We've we basically uh, which is the same technology if you go to a sleep lab or um the same, it's the same material at a at a hospital. We created a proprietary band, think of it as like a band-aid that attaches to the device. That has to be replaced because the gel ultimately starts to dry out. So after three sessions, you have to replace it. It touches your skin. Yeah. And so the the way to think about it is um to get quality data, especially through EEG, you need to have adherence. You have to have good skin contact. So there are a lot of new devices that are out there that are used, that use what's called dry electrodes. If you're doing meditation and you're sitting still, I think that's great. But no matter where you are on the head, whether it's the ear or the head, dry electrodes are going to have a lot more um noise within the data set. So for us, it's really important that not only do you have quality sensors, but even the way that you adhere to the skin is incredibly important to get the best quality data. So um that's something unique. So that is we charge for those electrodes on a monthly basis because you have to replace them, you know, every month.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

Um I I put a filter in my my pool too.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

Yeah. Because it keeps it clean.

SPEAKER_02 48:30

Yeah. But I think people are used to this idea of, you know, I have a wearable and I pay for a device and I just want it's my data, and that absolutely makes sense 100%. But we're a little bit different in that we also have a consumable that has to be replaced. Um, and it costs us money. And the other thing is we are uh on a nightly basis, we're like 50 times the amount of data that you're wearable on your finger or your wrist is tracking. So as we're measuring so much brain data on a nightly basis, um, it's a lot to process and store in the cloud and then, you know, understand. So yeah, it's expensive to do what we're doing, but to think about it this way, for you know, the cost of the electro, the the membership, it's like 40 cents a day for quality sleep.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

Um it's basically 400 bucks to get in the game with the hardware. You get the you get the what are we calling it? The headband? The headband, yeah. And then this the subscription per month is it depends.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

Like we have a $20 monthly, or you can do six months or you can do uh a full year. So it varies on what you're looking for.

SPEAKER_01 49:41

Okay, so it's it's it's a $400 headband and it's your uh monthly netfit subscription to fix your sleep. I mean, seems kind of worth it. Uh no no brainer, pardon the pun. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Huh. Okay, and so uh digging more into the business part of it. And I do appreciate you um price anchoring with me and and and justifying, you know, okay, we have more costs. But it's like Tim, I'll if if I'm getting the result that I want, I'm literally willing to pay any seek for it, especially if I feel like sleep is killing or lack of sleep is killing me. Yeah. I mean, hell, uh how much I spend on running shoes that I'm not really even a runner.

SPEAKER_02 50:23

Yeah, that's the thing. Like it's it's understanding the value. And some people are so emotionally attached to, you know, the their the lack of sleep or you know, they're price sensitive or whatever. And I'm like, it's this is a lot less than a smartwatch, and it actually fixes the most important thing is we're fixing your sleep. Um so but it, but it's a new category, right? It's it's a new category of products. So there's education, there's validation, you know, it's not a perfect user experience yet. So it's early days.

SPEAKER_01 50:57

Um, but it's early days, but if you have sleep issues, yeah, you're feeling wrecked, and all you want is just to feel better. Yeah. And if you don't have your health, you're you're like, you got nothing. Yeah. And you're willing to pay whatever it takes. Like I said, I did this whole laundry list of all the doctors. How much did that cost? That whole visit. I wasted thousands of dollars on and on needless tests. And it was, you know, turns out a lot of it was sleep related. Again, it started with sleep.

SPEAKER_02 51:29

Well, think about insurance companies, right? You know, when I when we were at Fitbit, we did the United Health Motion program. United subsidized the cost of the Fitbit and paid you up to $1,500 a year if you hit your your basically your daily health goals. Yeah. Um, so we talked about the importance of sleep on and its effect on like, you know, everything your physical health, your mental health, your performance, et cetera. So as an insurance company, you know, uh, and we're just starting to have some of those conversations. It's early days for us, but Fitbit, we weren't an FDA approved product and we were working with pretty much every single insurance company. They're subsidizing the Fitbit. And you're gonna see the same thing happening with this category, especially around sleep, because it's so it's it's absolutely critical. And getting good quality sleep and developing those habit habits and behaviors early in earlier in your life. Because if you don't address it, you're gonna start developing other chronic conditions, you know, as you were experiencing and and learning about. So I think you're gonna see it's a new category, but you're gonna see a lot of movement in the very near future with you know other companies, bigger companies getting into this space. You're gonna see um more employers because it's you know, sleep affects everything. You know, whether you're an executive, middle management, um, you know, showing up to work on time consistently, performing your best. You don't have to be an you know an all-star athlete. I mean, you could be a middle management employee at Google. And so um, it's really powerful. And so I think you're gonna start to see some changes. Now that you're seeing acceptance, you're seeing more innovation. I think what AI has provided to completely, you know, open things up. Um, and for us, it's great because, you know, before now that we're in a time of AI, and and I think people see this, AI is taking different data sets, it's processing it and it's providing you something or like either information or some kind of intervention. The scary thing for me is you think about healthcare and sort of like these consumer, the consumer wellness category, which we right now are in because we don't yet have FDA approval, um, is if you're using data that isn't accurate or isn't the most accurate data sets, and the AI models pulling that data and giving you a holistic view of your overall health, but you have three data sets that are wrong, that can be really dangerous for someone. Yeah. And so false positive. I I actually feel like there needs to be some kind of coalition that looks at the type of sensor, the certification of the sensor, even for, I mean, this is a whole can of worms, we probably shouldn't get into on this, but I do think there are consumer wearables where the data sets are actually really good depending on the placement. And so there needs to be more information about how you utilize that data and what gets ingested into some of these platforms, especially as you start uploading that to, you know, these different AI models and thinking that um the intervention or the solution that they're that it's telling you is is really truly accurate.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Let's talk about um privacy. So this is the first place our brains go, like, hey, is my personal medical brain wave data going to be leaked? Yeah, are you handling that? Um, because I can also see a huge benefit to having a huge sample size to be able to sort of analyze and have AI crunch the numbers or whatever's magic is happening in the cloud of biomarkers. Um so that you could start, you know, getting an edge on some of these other bigger problems like Alzheimer and whatnot. How do you handle the privacy?

SPEAKER_02 55:24

So basically security um right from the start, even though we're we're early, you know, we're a tiny company, being HIPAA compliant, you know, right out of the gate is something that's really important. Um, you know, when I was at Fitbit, I actually really pushed for um privacy. Like for us, the mentality was buy the people for the people. It's your data. So I actually brought on um the Electronic Frontier Foundation. We ended up hiring a lawyer from there, which is a um consumer advocacy group around um privacy and data. Um, and so we, you know, I think that is all personal biometric data, it needs to be protected. I think it should be your data. You should be able to take it wherever you want um and use it however you want. It's your decision, your your body, your decision. So it's the same thing. Um, to the second part of your question around the data set. So again, to bring it back to Fitbit, when you have population health level data sets, you know, 140 million people. Um, we every year, I was like, we should, you know, the University of Michigan publishes, you know, different indexes and whatnot, which I'm sure you're familiar with. We, I was like, we should publish the an annual health and and fitness index, um, where we take different cohorts of uh data depending on cities, states, um, genders, ages, activities. So we published that every year. The New York Times would write about it. We had USA, we had a lot of outlets. Um, we created a website, it was public where people could go in, they could look. It was never at the individual level, but it was really fascinating to see what was happening, especially as I was the head of growth and marketing at Fitbit, to see how many people in Minneapolis, Minnesota were using Fitbit and so active, especially in a place that is like horribly cold and miserable in January and February. Yeah. And it was really interesting to see what's happening. But the point is, as it relates to what we're doing, at a certain point. In fact, I just spoke to Stanford yesterday about this. You know, once we hit a critical mass, um, you know, the idea is we're gonna have a pretty large database of brain health data. Yeah. Um what is that? Is it a million users? Is it a good idea? I mean, I think even getting to like a hundred thousand, you know, users is is that's that's great information. And and but, you know, again, at Fitbit, we're you know, uh over a hundred million people. And so um, but the point is, is the brain is it's hard to get a lot of, you know, being on the wrist or the finger or whatever, even the chest, that's one thing. Getting people to wear a product that's accurately tracking your your brain data and what's happening is far more complex. Um, you know, you have headphones, you you have things that are, but even then they're wearing them while you're working out, or you know, you're not wearing headphones all day. Yeah. Sleep, you spend a majority of your life doing it. And so if you can wear, you know, it's we're already improving our form factor and getting it smaller. Um, that level of data around sleep uh is incredibly valuable. I think um the sleep FM AI study from Stanford came out, you know, a couple of months ago now at this point, where through one night of high quality sleep, they're able to predict 130 different medical conditions. It's absolutely fascinating. And so again, having a large um database of this data is brain health data is going to be important. And I think, you know, like Dr. Knight as an example, he's really excited about what are the biomarkers? Like, what are we seeing in in different um people to understand, you know, the early onset dementia and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's? What kind of breakthroughs can we determine? Because now you're getting sample sizes that are are are massive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

And so well, it's exciting, but we've also had these huge mistakes made by like 23andMe, for example, when you had the data breach. And so I was just again chuckling at this idea if I'm wearing a somni and uh somehow uh the sensors understand that I'm hungry and I get a little Uber Eats uh notification. It's like it seems like you're hungry, bro. Oh, all we're trying to do is help you sleep. Yeah. So you're not gonna be uh it's not like sharing with third party that like that. That's not our that's not on our roadmap now. Like I know your thoughts. Uh for some people who maybe have bad thoughts, that's uh that's a a a fear, but that's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:15

I mean, it absolutely could happen. Um, you know, like I said, there the you can use EEG to understand your emotions and feelings, um, to to clearly articulate your thoughts. I I don't I don't there's there's certainly some interesting things happening in in you know with in the neuroscience community in that area, but again, as far as what we're our focus is on just helping you sleep.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

I love that. And and you you guys went through a rebrand too. Can you talk about the business of that a little bit? Like so where where you were and why you rebranded.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:48

Yeah. So the company was started by scientists and engineers. Um, my background is in building, you know, brands and and marketing and driving growth. And I felt like for this category, when I looked at it, it was very sci-fi nerd, like a Star Trek episode. Like some of these products. Yeah, it was. I just, you know, it's in the fiction. Like when I think about, you know, I sort of sit between, I even though I'm the CEO, I sit between being the business guy and being the creative director, like understanding like winning hearts and winning minds. And right, you need to understand how do you build a business with that, but then how do you seduce people and get them excited? If you are immediately creating a product that doesn't look good or it seems intimidating or um whatnot, at least from a form factor perspective, you're creating a friction point. Well new behavior, yeah. Yeah. And so the idea that I had was I want to rebrand the company so it feels like a lifestyle brand in some way where it's really cool. Um it's a you see the product, you're like, I want to try that. You know, if Apple was to move into the category, this is how they would design a product. And um, you know, and certainly with experience is really important right now. We can only do so much as a startup. I mean, there's so much that I want to do and we could be doing and should be doing. But so where were you? And then what um we had a different product, it had multiple pieces. Yeah. Uh it was a whole, you know, so you changed the form factor, the look of it, the form. Yeah, in fact, we just won uh uh has it's being announced next month. We just won won the uh the prestigious Red Dot Award, which is one of the most prestigious uh product design awards in the world. Um, so we just won that. So I'm kind of breaking that. But um uh so that's exciting. Nice. Uh and the point is this, you know, at Fitbit, I used to say we to the team, our job is to make very complex things simple. We're doing a lot. We have, you know, a lot of sensors and algorithms and information. Sometimes the simpler you can do that, and still being like elevated in terms of design is better. And so um, it's the same idea. Like, I don't want to just build a product for people in San Francisco or what I call the smile region, San Francisco, LA, Miami, New York. Yeah. Yeah. And so I want to build products that eventually middle America is also gonna want to use. And that's how you you drive scale. Yeah. And so understanding what it takes, um, how you build a brand, how do you build this the story, how do you build credibility, you know, having the top scientists is one thing. But, you know, uh my mom in Michigan, Michigan is not gonna republish clinical studies, but she may see someone in the MBA or some high profile woman or whatever wearing and talking about the product. Um, and that is gonna create some sense of credibility and and validation. Um, and so that's basically what we're trying to do is build the brand um and create all the pieces and touch points around that brand so it's consistent and it feels elevated.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:58

Again, uh about what did you spend on that rebrand? And I asked it with context so that because some people fall into sunk cost fallacy. They're like, oh, you know, we already made the thing, we designed the packaging and we trademarked the name and we it doesn't have to sunk all this into it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:15

I'm just gonna say that even if it's wrong, it doesn't have to cost here's the thing. And in and like I've been here for two years. Within the last, I would say six to twelve months, the amount of change that has happened through AI and what we're capable of doing, you know, I can do brands and I can create ads, I can I mean, literally every single thing that you would do, like a, you know, at a big brand that took you hundreds of thousands of dollars and literally months to create, I can do in hours. Yeah. And the great benefit of that is you can throw a lot out there and test it. And in, you know, as long as you have the research to understand, okay, what is our strategy, who we're trying to speak to, yeah, what works, what doesn't, what is the right message, what isn't? Like you can test all that in real time right now so quickly and then iterate. So, like it's absolutely critical to be agile as an organization and as a team, and being having an sort of AI first mentality. So to answer your question, you don't have to spend a lot of much anymore, a lot of money anymore on brand to get something that feels elevated, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:29

Okay, I'm buying that. So let me ask it a different way. Yeah. Did you spend six figures? Did you was it seven figures? Again, I want to get people again who who maybe are down this path. Yeah, yeah. No, that's good. They think I send I sent some money.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:42

So I'll I'll be I'll be fully transparent. So we um got very lucky. We one of the top um design uh studios in the country, they work with all the top consumer brands. They actually started an investment group um looking for companies like ours where. They will invest, they'll literally give you cash if they believe in your product, they understand the brand, they understand the team, we had to go through a process, but they will literally give you cash that helps fund the development. They'll obviously have a take an equity position on that company's called Meta Labs. So we work with them, and they are some of the best designers we've ever worked with, um, world renowned. And uh um so that's how we structured it. So it didn't cost me anything to develop the brand strategy, the ID, the prototyping of the initial phase, the website, the structure. Yeah. Um, and then obviously I have internal teams. Um, you know, I have an art director, I have a copywriter.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

Um, how did that go over internally? Was there a pushback? Or was every like, Tim, you're absolutely right. This is a this is a redo, hit the redo hit.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:53

Well, when you're a tiny company, like you're anything, when you have the the the ability to have world-class talent thinking about your brand and your product and your experiences, um, you know, anyone, any smart creative, you know, whether you're a designer, a writer, um, producer, whatever, would want to have access to that. So people were very, very excited.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

Yeah, but you also had worked with a bunch of really smart nerds. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:17

So it was did they it would just be like we trust you it was amazing. It was honestly, it was one of the best experiences. In fact, I just I I think I've turned on two other companies uh to to work with them. Uh, I know one of them just signed with them, top scientists. Yeah. So uh yeah, it's it's uh we got very lucky, but I also understood that dynamic. You know, I've pretty much hired every ad agency, every brand agency, every PR agency. You know, I've been doing this for like two decades at this point. So you understand who's good, what things cost, what's out there, but again, what's worth doing and what's worth doing. Yeah, but uh in a time of AI, and like I feel like every week there's some new innovation that we can tap into. Um, you don't have to spend a lot of money anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

And yeah, well, maybe uh you know, just put the other side of the coin. And I I love talking about AI as much as everyone else. It is is also a little bit gross to talk so much about AI. Yeah. Although it is like the future is now. Yeah. Uh we have to embrace it and accept it. I love AI, it's helping me in my production work and more efficient. That said, it's maybe less about dollars and cents and more about again, going back to the sun cost fallacy of like it's kind of a pain in the ass. Uh unless you know, unless it's worth it. And so this is the tough decision, I think, uh that I'm trying to work out through you that you've had been successful at navigating, is that some things are just worth doing, yeah, regardless of you know the cost. Of course, you've got to measure, but like when it's the right thing to do, it's the right thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:52

So I'll say this everything depends on the situation. This is the way life works. And so if you're a startup and you have no resources, AI is it's an incredible tool. Yeah. But as you start to scale and you build up the business, like I don't want to use AI photos. Like I hire photographers for certain, but there are certain things where I actually will use AI to go, like where we have a campaign for like Mother's Day. Like I want to go and test a measure, uh, a message. I want to, I have got um, you know, different ages that we're looking at. Yeah, you know, I can quickly go in and like literally within hours, create that, get out, test it, get information in real time, and then figure out what we want to focus on, and then hire, you know, professional photographer to go do the shoot, knowing like, okay, this is the kind of person, this is the sequence, this is the messaging, this is the setting. It's all been tested and we we've learned from that. And so, you know, not every startup is gonna have the benefit of having, you know, top investors behind them, right? So you got to think about that. But I I do think it's really it's it's awesome for testing, learning, iterating, and then figure out where you want to make your investments.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:07

What's really gonna move the needle for your business? Um, learning that is is uh I mean, you know, from as a mark from a marketing standpoint, it it's absolutely incredible. Uh because you can validate and test within 24 hours. Yeah. Um, and that kind of information is is is really important.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:28

This is the other thing that I'm just reminded of, and uh maybe remind the audience too, that uh Tib is basically a CMO that's become a CEO, and I think that was very rare. Usually those lanes are very separate and siloed. I think people who you know have been CMOs, basically thinking all about the marketing, that's their path basically forever. And they're the you know, the right-hand man of the CEO who is doing more managerial stuff or uh financial management or PL responsibility or stock price management. Here you are as a CEO now with a CMO, you know, uh track record and responsibility. That's a very interesting point of view. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:12

Honestly, it's been great. I didn't think it was possible like, you know, 15 years ago. Um, but you know, for me, Fitbit was like a Harvard MBA and going through that experience and going from startup to having 120 people just in the US and owning, I wasn't like a traditional CMO. I've never been like in a box because I was dry owned the e-commerce business. I was driving growth, I was driving corporate partnerships, I was building the brand. I had, you know, pretty much owned a lot of the touch points. Um, and that's something I'm deeply passionate about is those experiences. But having a PL structure around an e-commerce business, understanding how to operate, you know, a business, understanding how to manage people. And absolutely, I have weaknesses and gaps, but I'm I'm humble enough to know that about myself. Um, you have to, you have to be humble. You have to know your strengths and weaknesses. And it's critical that when you know what your weaknesses are, you surround yourself with great people that can tell you what's happening and you can still use your knowledge, your experience, in some cases your instincts to make a decision based on the data you're being provided. Um, so it's it's been great. And I think honestly, you're gonna see a lot more of this happening because the importance of brand, you know, everyone's always talked about brand, but more so than ever, I think it's absolutely critical. Understanding how you build those systems and processes can really help you as a CEO, um, you know, and and moving into that position. Obviously, having some kind of PL responsibility, I think is is critical, understanding operations. Um, you know, in our case, I'm running a hardware business and a software and services business. Um, you know, fortunately, we did a lot of that at Fitbit. So, you know, I had a, you know, the insight into that. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's it's it's not for everyone. And I think different, I've always sort of sat between the brand and creative and the emotion of building and storytelling and the strategy, the business strategy that drives that. Who do you go after? Who are you trying to do? What does success look like? What are the data sets? Like, how do you build a business that is sustainable at gross margins that makes sense? So I've I've always kind of had that. So it's I'm a little bit unique in that I kind of sit in the middle. Um, and I think that there is this opportunity for more CMOs to move into the the you know CEO role for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:54

So how how do you define what a brand is? And then it's kind of a two-party like, what is this Omni brand?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:02

Yeah, so the definition of uh uh of a brand for me as it relates to products is how do you feel when you see a product? How do you feel when you touch it? How do you feel when you experience it? That really is the foundation of the brand. Do you do you do you feel a certain way from that experience and what that product is telling you it does? Um and so I you know, there are a number of different ways that you can do that. Brand is not a logo, brand is not a design, brand is literally everything. Um, so it's the kind of people you hire, it's the the way that you talk about yourself. It's it's literally everything. And so the thing that most people don't uh understand or realize when they're thinking about building a brand and is the, you know, I've always leaned into good design because product design or user experience design or whatever, it can either work for you or work against you. So no matter what, especially these days, you know, within like a second, people are processing and making a decision whether or not they want to put that shoe on or they wanna, you know, try your product or whatever. And so it's really important that you get the foundation of the strategy and the story and the way all the pieces fit together. Um, you got to get that right. And it's it, that is the roadmap. And you can architect that, absolutely. Um, but it also takes the right kind of people that also have the right kind of passion and understanding for what it is you're trying to do and the experience of creating that, right? And so the people behind the brand, not just, you know, I think brands are certainly reflective of the leaders, but the people, the culture, you know, that the kinds of partners. You know, we we have, you know, strategy for brands that, you know, work for us and don't work for us. If Fitbit, you know, everyone wanted to work for us. We literally had a a brand um guidebook on uh the kinds of partnerships that we would do and what we wouldn't do.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:15

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:15

Um, because, you know, we're at that at that time we're trying to democratize, you know, fitness. We're the anti-Nike, we're anti-alpha. We're about the world is your gym. We're trying to bring inclusivity of genders, of people, of sizes, shapes. And so that was really important. In in the we had certain star athletes that wanted to work with us that we wouldn't work with because their own brand and personality didn't align with ours. And so understanding what that is and who you are and how you architect that into a playbook is incredibly important because it just reinforces the what I call the brand bank. It's like building equity in the brand bank of people's minds. And so that consistency is incredibly important. Um, it's it's hard to do, it's like one of the hardest things to execute. But if you have enough understanding in the early, the onset of what you're trying to build and create, you can do it um the right way. But I always say like you gotta win hearts and minds. Um, those are the best brands. So, what's the Somni brand then? For us, Somni is about innovation and um it's really about trying to take something that I think for many years, which is neuroscience and neurostimulation, and make it feel appealing and approachable and something that you're gonna want to do on a regular basis. Um, and so for us, you know, having good product design, having a good simple experience is absolutely critical to the success of the brand that we're trying to create. You know, you know, as I said earlier, um it's really trying to be almost like a lifestyle brand. It's the almost the complete opposite of what everyone else is doing. When you look at the sleep category, there's so much noise. When you look at neurotech and neuroscience, there's a way that people were doing things. I like to zig when others zag. And so trying to take a different approach to that is has been critical.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:20

I mean, we were just sitting back, you know, chopping it up, reminiscing about the good old days and all that. You know, tracking my roots, where I came from and where I'm going. But like I say, man, I say, man, I say, man, always said it, it's not about the destination. It's all about the journey. It's all about the journey, but ain't nothing changed with the weather. The day when carrying it paid from the river. Your dreams in the past, they know what it is. Back street drivers got nothing but two cents. Shock gun riders, two bias, they all liar. To get an A forever, I'm too tired. But I'm never giving up this one kinda in my eyes. A role model, like it or not, I gotta play it. Should I cut the rhyme sometimes, but still stay off the stead? I was quitting at 40, it's just a fear of still a kid for wiping the food off of my bill. Whoever wanted something so bad that you can taste it. I cried over every opportunity worst thing. Good and bad news, which one you want first? Either way, you pick the best, still gonna hurt you the worst. I never got the fast in the fruits of the label. And I never got the cash from that dude from the label. I'm just thinking about thinking about it, go back, wait, wait, wait, wait.