Alexandra Zatarain - Eight Sleep & The Future of Sleep Technology

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over three years and running. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Please stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. Over the past few months, I've been taking this new supplement called HRV Plus by mode and method. Over that time, I've experienced significant improvement in sleep quality, faster recovery, and an objective uptick in my average HRV. About two to three points on average. That's a big deal. HRV Plus is the world's first expert-curated, carefully sourced blend of all natural micronutrients to optimize recovery, increase performance, and boost heart rate variability. Formulated by some of the world's leading experts, HRV Plus combines their proprietary extract with omega-3 oil, magnesium, and curcumin extract to target information, improved sleep, and supercharge our endocannabinoid system. I encourage you to give it a shot. Go to modemethod.com and enter discount code ERIC15. That's modemodemethod.com and enter code Eric15 for 15% off. Go get it. All right, we are live. Alex.

Yeah, thank you for having me.

It's my pleasure. You have a great backstory. Uh you have a great product. Uh it's a very, you know, as long as you know sleep's been around, obviously, for a very long time. Uh, but we're really starting to learn a lot more about this magical thing that everyone does every day, almost every day. Right. So we're going to talk about that, of course. But in in setting the table here, if you could please just give us a little bit about your background, how'd you get to be co-founder of AIDSleep? Uh in you know, some of your career, it's been pretty impressive from what I've seen.

Thank you. Yeah, it was a bit random, honestly. Um, I grew up in Mexico in Tijuana, and I was there basically my entire life. I went to college in Mexico and then finally moved to the US after college. But um, Mateo, who's my co-founder and my husband as well, is the one that came up with this idea. And more than an idea, it was his own personal need for just he wanted to use technology to sleep better, you know, which I think is is something that maybe a lot of other people had thought about in the past, but no one had necessarily brought something to market that could achieve what he was looking for, which initially, when he started looking at the sleep space and what was out there to improve his sleep, this was maybe around 2013. Um, the the the category was sort of very basic. You had on one side companies building mattresses and bedding and pillows and all that, and you know, comfort is just one piece and probably not actually as important as people think. Uh, that sort of like, you know, body comfort to achieving good sleep. Um, and then you have companies that do pharmaceuticals, which are not good for you, and they don't give you real sleep. And then on the other hand, you had at that time uh really some companies in technology starting to pay attention to sleep. There was a company called Jawbone that had a wearable tracker that was starting to do sleep tracking, Fitbit was starting to do sleep tracking. There were some apps you would put the phone on your bed and it could do some sleep tracking, but it was a very different space from what we had today. And he had the need. He said, Well, what I'm actually looking for is technology I can just put in my bed that can do stuff for me, that can tell me how I'm sleeping, how that changes over time, um, build the trends for me. But then actually, there's probably a potential to take actions with that information because the environment can be pretty disruptive for your sleep. And that premise of what he wanted to solve for is exactly what our products still do today in 2023.

Yeah, it's it's funny, uh, so many great entrepreneurial stories start with solving your own problem. I mean, it just seems to be a common theme. And you know, I when you okay, so you he had this problem, you went out to solve it. As you started going after the solution, how how did you realize that the problem was pretty big? Like what's the scale of bad sleep as a problem for our planet?

It's huge because we're spending a third of our lives sleeping as humans. And it's not just about bad sleep, really the opportunity is to give every individual on earth the best possible recovery every single night. And whether that degree of how bad it is today is you know 90% there versus 10% there, um, each of those is an opportunity for us to get them to 100%. And that's how we think about what eight sleep is tackling. It is sleep for every human. When we frame our mission, it is about fueling human potential through optimal sleep because sleep is the fuel of our bodies. We think so often about food, but the most important pillar of health is sleep. You would die sooner of sleep deprivation than food deprivation. That's been studied in animals, it's obviously much harder to study in humans, but it is that important to us. So then we flip it to a business and it's just a tremendous opportunity.

Yeah, right on. I mean, it's sleep's everything, right? And I had Don Moxley, uh, he was on for a recent interview, and you know, he's uh one of the early uh HRV folks out there, and he talks about it, and what he what he told me just rang true is that you know, when when it's your time to leave this planet, sleep is the first thing that will that that's what to get taken away from you. Like that's the deciding factor. And I've seen it just you know in my own family is like as soon as someone's sleep starts to go, that's like the critical factor when things start to go really steeply off the precipice, right? Um when you look at like statistics within we can just talk about the United States because that's where we are. Um how are people sleeping?

Well, I think that the one that most of us talk about in the industry is like people are sleeping less now than ever before, on average. But to be honest, the to answer the how are people sleeping, I just don't think we really know. The reason for that is because how sleep has been studied and is still studied today is with very traditional scientific studies, right? Where you have a few subjects at a time, usually in environments that are not their own. So they're being taken to a sleep clinic, or they're at home and they're journaling about it. Now they're studying to incorporate some track like wearables and trackers into studies, thankfully, but it's still in a very reduced capacity. A lot of times women are excluded from those studies because our sleep changes so much during our cycles every month, uh, with you know our needs and our hormones, and like we we're sort of our own little thing when it comes to sleep, and uh there's not necessarily full representation for all sorts of backgrounds and ethnicities and work situations, right? There's people that have different work schedules that impact a lot of how they can actually uh prioritize their sleep. So that's still a very loaded question. We do not have a clear picture of how people are sleeping today and how that is evolving over time, which is one of the potentials of the type of database that we are able to build that aids sleep and many other companies as well that are starting to monitor sleep over the long term.

Yeah, you know, as a when I was coaching people uh for their better fitness and health, it was always, you know, there there's certain pillars that we have to stand on, and sleep is one of them. And so many times, you know, I I find myself probably more often than not, Alex, coaching people through better sleep protocols and hygiene, as we would call it, but we didn't have any data, right? Like I've done a I've done one of those sleep tests in because my dad had apnea, and I probably well, I know I have it, but it's just not bad yet. And uh I can tell you that's not a good indicator either, because you're sitting there connected to all kinds of wires, like there's no way, no way you're gonna get a good night's sleep with all that stuff going on in a foreign room and lights flashing everywhere. It's it's just not a good way to do it. It's gotta be passive, right? Which is what you guys have hit on. It's gotta be tracking passively. So that's actually a good segue. Like, tell us about the technology. Like, what exactly so I've been using the pod, right, which is the cover. Maybe we can start with that, or maybe the technology is very similar between the mattress, but how does this all work?

Yeah, so the technology that we've built at eight sleep is the pod, as you were mentioning, and that's the technology that is embedded into the cover. The cover really goes on top of any mattress, or you can buy it with our mattress, but it's the same technology. And this technology is built on a few core assumptions that are really important for us as a business. One is the belief that technology can actually help you sleep better, right? For many years, I think up until very recently, the conversation in the mainstream media was technology is terrible for you, and you should leave your phone out of your room and you shouldn't watch TV. And you but technology applied properly can actually be very impactful towards many aspects of our health, including sleep. And the other things that we believe at AIDS is that in order for you to get sleep fit, which is how we describe being healthy in your sleep, you need to be able to measure your sleep, you need to prioritize it, and you need to optimize it. That's what our product does. So the pod cover, like I said, goes on on top of any mattress, which is what you described that you're using right now. And the pod cover includes a set of sensors. These sensors are embedded into this cover, it just looks just like a mattress cover. And these sensors are tracking multiple aspects about your sleep and your health. That includes the time you spend asleep, your tussus and turns, but also your sleep faces and your heart rate variability and your heart rate of rest and respiratory rate, and all this information has been used to provide you with a report that shows you how you're sleeping today, but most importantly, how your sleep changes over time and how your health changes over time. All this happens without you wearing anything, happens for two people in the same bed at the same time. Um, but we don't just stop there. We believe that that part of measuring it, like I was mentioning, is really key. It will help you get a fit picture and like you know, you can't improve what you don't measure, and then you'll build habits. But then we take that information and the pod is creating the ideal microclimate for every sleeper in real time. So it learns what you need in terms of temperature to sleep at your best. Why we do temperature? Because temperature is the number one environmental factor that gets in the way for good night's sleep. Temperature is actually sort of this modulator that we have as humans that we require changes in our temperature, even just to fall asleep and stay asleep and to wake up as well. Our core body temperature and our skin temperature changed. That's just something that we sort of like have evolved to have. And so what we have to all realize is that the temperature in our environments and in the spaces where we're sleeping has a tremendous effect in what is what's happening with our own bodies of temperature already. So with the pod, what we're looking for is just create the perfect match, give you what your body needs. You're never too hot, you're never too cold, and you actually end up resting better. So we see with our own clinical validation that people who sleep on the pod and use these temperature controls are able to unlock more deep sleep up to 34%. They're able to improve their HRV by up to 19%. So it's just sort of what the science have proven already in these studies that have been done in few subjects, right? Uh, we're reproducing that for everyday people in their homes and giving them the benefits of getting more recovery and better recovery.

Yeah. So, you know, just per uh personally from my experience, I think I told you it's been about two, three weeks we've been on uh using it. And first night was a little iffy because we were kind of figuring things out. Um and I think what you alluded to earlier is my wife has different physiology than me, obviously. And uh she so far, like I can't even kill this, but she would wake up with night sweats every once in a while, like just you know, I don't know, hormone issues, I presume.

Yeah.

Um she hasn't had that in the last three weeks. So she's sleeping definitely more thoroughly. Uh she fought it a little bit. She didn't like the technology in the bedroom, and then now I think she's pretty accepting. I have technology everywhere, I'm like two wearables, that's a joke. Um but since then I have noticed like um, you know, more consistent sleep. Now I track my HRV religiously and have for five years. And I have seen an uptick. Now I can't say because there's a lot of different factors of why since the new year my my HRV's improved, probably because all of our friends left and we're drinking less alcohol. That probably helps a lot too, is the holidays. But I have seen an improvement on it. And I'm I'm just curious, like when you're doing something like HRV is an interesting metric, right? Because how do you track it? Is it continuously being monitored? Do you pick certain types, types, and then times in the night where it's it's taken, or is it like how how do you track that?

It's a great question. Um, and I can probably get more detail than I'm what I'm about to do if I catch up with our engineering team that's actually working on building this. But what I do know is that the best time, the best moment to measure it is right around that time when you're like about to wake up and have woken up. Um so that is like an important moment to capture it. Um, and and it's a key moment to really focus on. But we do have continuous monitoring of your heart rate signal through the entire night. Um, so we can expand the window of the moments of the night when we're actually grabbing this information because it's there, the data is there for every single second of the night. Um, and so that's what has allowed us over time to improve the accuracy of our metrics as well. We can also add more sensors into the surface of the bed than you can in a wearable. So if we want duplicity of the information, if we want to add other types of signals, right, you have more space in the bed to be able to capture all of that. Um, but what you're mentioning of your experience and sort of, you know, what it's like night one versus three weeks in is pretty normal because you're bringing technology into your bedroom, you're putting it on your bed, it's something new, right? And it's a big part of what we do at eight sleep, which is how do you get people comfortable with the idea of it? And a big part of that is to make that promise if it is going to improve your sleep. And if it doesn't, you can send it back. It may not work for everyone. We don't say we're the solution for everyone today. We hope to be one day. Um, but when people bring it in, it does take around like the first seven days to calibrate it. There's actually an in our app mobile application that'll take you through a calibration period so that by day seven, it can actually create a blueprint of who you are as a sleeper, what do you need? And the more feedback that you give it, very similar to a smart thermostat at home, you know, as you dial it up or down, it learns what are those patterns, what is the temperature that you like in the day versus the night. The pod does exactly the same. And the the point you're mentioning about you and your partner and your wife's like, yeah, it's very common to see people with different preferences. And so couples love the product at the end, because it helps them create their individual microclimates. And for us women, it is much more complex. It's actually very common for us to have night sweats uh during certain times of our cycle because there's uh certain moments in the cycle where there's a big difference and sort of shift in our hormones level, hormone levels that cause these night sweats that are very common in perimenopause or menopause, they actually happen even to younger women that are not going through those phases. Um, so for a lot of my friends, when I've talked to them about this, it's like, oh yes, it's true. I maybe one or two nights in a month I'll wake up with night sweats. I it happens to me sometimes as well. Um, but the ability to then like control the temperature changes in your bed when you know and you can anticipate when those could happen can definitely improve your sleep on those nights.

Yeah, interesting. So with the the sensoring, is it so like uh your resting heart rate? Is it is it looking for particular parts of your body to measure that off? Like, is it trying to get like my wrist? Is it trying to get like how that dumbfounded? I'm so curious. Like, how is it getting that? Where is it getting it from? Because it's pretty accurate. I mean, like I said, I wear a couple different wearables just to test things out over different time. And it it's it's pretty contiguous with with everything that I have.

Yes. So what we have is essentially, you can imagine, like a film. They're called PSR electric sensors, and they're sensors that are health grade, they're already used in medical applications and hospitals and other types of devices. So these sensors just look like film, look exactly like if you're looking at a piece of film, and they're embedded into our pod cover, and they're sort of placed around chest level. It's a really long sensor strip with PS electric sensors and other types of sensors, and that's why it's able to grab two people at the same time. So they're more or less placed around that chest level, which means that just like a stutoscope, it's grabbing the signals of all of these micro vibrations of movements that are already happening in your body. You know, a stethoscope, when you put it close to the chest, you'll be able to hear so many wonderful things happening inside your body. These sensors do the same thing. Now, the maybe more valuable part of our technology that we've built over the years are these algorithms, the ability to filter all of these different signals that come in at different frequencies, and then be able to label them and say, this is presence, this is movement, this is heart rate, this is the respiratory rate, right? And then from there extract even more things like you see from the heart rate signal, then you can say, well, this is the heart rate versus what's happening with HRV.

Yeah, it's an impressive amount of data that you guys are getting.

It is, yes. It's just wonderful when you when you really see the power of technology, because in the long-term vision for us, it we see the potential of turning our beds into real health platforms. It should be a place where you're able to get a health checkup. Every night you go there, you sleep. You're getting all this information by your body over time more than what we are able to provide today. You know, there's more sensors, there's more there's imaging, there's so many other things that could be added. And you could wake up to notifications of maybe you should go see a doctor or hey, everything is good, right? And just thinking about that sort of sounds like the Jetsons, but it's not that far out.

I mean, the Jetsons were living in that already. Like so I saw some meme and it was like, you know, uh basically they the Jetsons had Zoom meetings, they had uh, you know, FaceTime, they had all these things already that we're living in. Uh well, that's interesting. Can we unpack that a little bit? Because you know, for the vision for that, does that mean you guys are gonna need more data inputs, like different metrics to get that type of prediction or that type of notification within the technology, or can you do it, do you think, with the current sets that you're working with now?

It depends what is the say condition and you know, medical condition or not that we would be trying to monitor or diagnose. Today, ATSleep is not a health device or medical device. Um, we're not diagnosing people, but the technology that we're using has the potential to measure, identify it, and and diagnose, measure a lot of things over time. If you think about heart rate tracking, it could already detect atrial fibrillation. If you think about respiratory rate tracking and those heart rate uh metrics as well and how they correlate, it could show you sleep apnea. Right? So it there are already so many things we could do with what we have. It's not the use case that we've built it for yet. And you know, we haven't gone through the proper approvals to do it, but one day we probably will. And eventually we can add more sensors to it. So there aren't a lot of companies out there already working on contactless ultrasounds or save imaging that would be safer than getting an MRI. Um, so it's just a matter of time until when we can bring those into a bedroom and make them optional. Some people may decide to have a basic tracking experience, people may decide to have something a little bit more complex. Um, but that's the way we're thinking about it. It's really about saving lives through better sleep every night, but also the ability to tell you more about what's happening in your body.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. Well, sign me up for the full menu. I want the whole thing when it comes out. Uh the sleep score, the sleep fitness score, right? I I love when companies and uh technology give us like a single metric to work off of. Like obviously, Whoop has a recovery score, Garmin has a uh body battery, um, inner insight tracker has their you know inner age score, things that we can kind of you know put all this data together. And for most people who aren't geeking out as much as I would, and definitely you do, is like what how does it how do we get to that sleep fitness score? What is that an amalgamation of?

Yeah, the sleep fitness score came about because we realized that a lot of the scoring at the time when we started working on this was based on factors that people couldn't control. So a lot of these sort of early apps and wearables were just giving you, well, you spent enough time on deep sleep, or you know, you um got this amount of REM and they'll give you a score. But users would feel frustrated because they just didn't know if they could actually have an effect on these sort of sub-output metrics. Um, then there's been companies like the ones you mentioned that have done a much better job at bringing in scores that the user can influence, and so they drive habit change. And that's how we think about the sleep fitness score. It's all based on, or really, for the most part, weighted around metrics that you can influence. So, what is your schedule like? Are you being consistent, right? This whole sort of sleep hygiene. Um, are you being consistent? Are you sleeping enough? Are you making enough time for sleep when you go to bed? Do you fall asleep fast or are Do you just you know, like adopting habits where you're just tossing and turning or maybe like watching TV in bed? When you wake up, do you get out of bed quickly or are you lingering in bed? Sleep hygiene factors, and then there's other factors around overall sleep quality that actually the the latest version for sleep fitness score is starting to take more into consideration as well. So, you know, how are you feeling? And like, are you restful? Are you getting enough of the good type of sleep? Um, but it's a combination. So we want to make sure that people still feel like sleep fitness is a lifestyle they can build, they can adopt those habits, and they're gonna see those scores go up.

Yeah. And from what I've seen, like the controllables for people are essentially the regularity of when you go to sleep, when you wake up. Um, what else? What are some of the controllables that people can can handle on their end?

Yeah, consistency is the number one. And it's the one I always tell people when they ask, well, what's the first thing I can do to sleep better? Um, just one habit you can change is to be very consistent with your sleep. Go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time every single day, including the weekends. Just try it for a period of time. You're gonna feel so much better. Um, so that consistency you're mentioning is number one. Build the schedule around it, give yourself enough time to sleep as well. So when you're building that schedule, um, you do need to give your body enough time. So if you're trying to aim for eight hours, like have around eight and a half hours of space for you to sleep, right? And if you're right now sleeping five, don't try to go directly to eight, make that a progression, right? Don't be too hard on yourself. You need to get your body used to it as well. Like it's just like training a baby, I think is what we forget as adults that we for the most part now parents think about baby sleep training, right? And there's a lot of education about it, and they build all these routines and they put them to bed at the same time. And I don't have kids, but I've heard and I've informed myself working in a sleep company that that's a big thing. Well, why don't we do the same thing for adults, right? Why don't we do the same thing for us? Um, so it would be exactly those same things. The environment is the other bit controllable. So you do have a control over what's the temperature like in your room, what's the temperature in your bed. That also includes what pajamas you're wearing, and if you're wearing socks, right? You need to let your body do its own natural work. So lighter pajamas, no socks, try to instead create a microclimate through the use of technology like the pod or through the temperature control in your room, the amount of light, the amount of noise, the air quality, making sure it's not too dry. Um, so all of these little things, just that you would control if you were trying to get a newborn to fall asleep, you should do for yourself too.

Yeah, right on. And one of the things I love, just anecdotally again, is that I get into bed and it's warm and it's it's very cozy. And then I read, and then I fall asleep and it goes, the temperature goes down. My my my only concern is that when I go, you know, camping, uh traveling in a hotel room and I don't have something like this, that it's gonna ruin that for me. Like I already have when I there it is. That's a downside, right? Uh everything's got trade-offs. So I I'm curious who's who's buying this? I mean, we kind of talked the price point, you know. I'm sure you guys are working on getting that, you know, uh, it's I think it was 2500, right? For the the pod. Um, who who so far has been like the not early adopters, but kind of like the main wave of adopters that you've had so far is there a particular like avatar of person?

Yeah, we think about it first and foremost in terms of the relationship that this person has with their sleep. So we're still talking to a person who understands that sleep is important and is already doing something about it. So they're adopting different habits, they're measuring it maybe with a wearable, they're investing in it, they're you know, not buying like a cheap mattress from Amazon. Like they're thinking about like, well, like what's my setup like? So they're taking some action. That is our customer today, but we know that because everyone sleeps in the world, we eventually want to get to everyone, right? We're not yet speaking to the mass consumer. Um, so the next step for us will be to start talking to people who know sleep's important, they're not yet doing anything about it, and then ultimately people who don't even think about sleep in their day-to-day, they don't know how important it is, right? Um, so our company or marketing, our messaging will have to evolve as we go more mass market.

And do you have plans as the technology evolves? I mean, uh just generally the trend is it's it gets more um gets less expensive over time. It it's able to kind of democratize. Do you see a path forward that way? So it's you know, this is available in more people's bedrooms.

We definitely want to make it available in more people's bedrooms. I think we measure our success and our ability to make the world sleep fit and help more people achieve sleep fitness. Um, we don't know if that's gonna be necessarily a pod that is cheaper or other types of products, right? Um, I don't think every successful company that builds consumer goods has dropped prices over time. Uh there's companies that actually just take them up, you know, look at Dyson, look at Apple, like there's a lot of them. So I don't think the path is always dropping prices when the value is there. We're focused right now at this stage of the company in building value, demonstrating that our products can actually be successful sleep interventions, that they're not just measuring, um, which is, I think, something that more and more people are gonna get tired of of just like measuring for measuring and companies charging them every month to measure tons of things. People want actual interventions. Help me be healthier, help me sleep better, help me eat better, help me lose weight, you know, whatever that is, but like actually using technology to influence what is happening with their health. That's what we're focused on building now. And that requires a lot of development, a lot of research, right? Hiring the best talents. But yeah, maybe 10, 20 years from now, our product line is going to look very different. And we do want to make sure that it gets to a point where we can take it everywhere in the world and where everyone could afford something that is gonna help them sleep better.

Yeah, yeah, I like that answer. So and you just alluded to what I call the now what problem, which is what wearables have had for, you know, really since their inception is like you get all this data, and unless you really know what you're doing with it, you're like, okay, well, now what? Like, what do I do with that? And I think that's probably to my imagination, the next next gen wearable, right? Um, is not only just will the devices and the technology continue to evolve, but it's going to have more intuition and more actionable insights for people. I mean, when you look at the market at large, um, I guess, you know, it's sleep science, or if you want to add just total wearable market, like what what do you see for next gen wearables?

Yeah, I think that wearables are probably going to get more segmented because there are a lot of people, myself included, that find value in them, right? But there is the need to be focusing on a certain niche, to be able to build the solutions and the right tracking, the right dashboards, the right reporting for those individuals. So we may see a bit of that split or companies introducing multiple different versions just to be able to be valuable to different individuals. Um, companies that are better capitalized are probably going to start investing in other sensing technologies that they can introduce into wearables. Wearables have the challenge of the space. They're very small. People are not going to be wearing like a huge watch or a huge piece of sensor on their clothing. Um, that's why it's going to require much more investment to actually develop these capabilities, right? But there's talks about how could you measure blood pressure successfully and you know, measurements that are like pretty critical even to our health system, and they're like very important indicators of how people are doing in their health. Um, so we're probably gonna see more of that. And the reason is the more healthy you go, it's either you go very niche and you get consumers that have a particular interest to buy you, or you go more into the health side and you start seeing insurance companies buying them for people or reimbursing them because of the value that it can bring for their cost savings, too.

Yeah, interesting. And you know, obviously uh we talked about this before recording, so I want to touch on it, but you know, sleep is a fundamental pillar of this emerging bohemoth of an industry called longevity, right? Um so I guess give us your insights on where that industry is now, where aid sleep stands within that industry and where you think it's going uh over, you know, I don't know, time horizon, 20 years.

Yeah, you know, it's funny because longevity is something like you don't hear maybe people outside of certain industries talk about. Um my mom's a physician, and I uh never in her career and never in my life have heard her talk about longevity and it outstands me, right? Because she has masters, she has a PhD, and it's like doctors are not necessarily thinking about that um in that way or their practice in the way of like extending your health span. Um, so I I think first and foremost, what's probably has hopefully to happen is to find the right way to introduce this as a concept to people. People right now are still very averse to the idea of like, well, why do I want to just live longer, right? Like this idea of just like living longer and then I have to do all these sacrifices in order to live longer. Let me just live my life. So it needs a bit of a rebranding and it needs some repositioning there. Um, but on the other hand, there is going to be probably a lot of success if we're able to create interventions that people can adopt in their life a bit more easily. Um, so if we can facilitate the adoption of healthy habits for that longevity outcome. And you know, I usually think of longevity as like health span, it doesn't matter how long you live for, but like just living healthier for most of your life. Um, and there are a lot of things that people can adopt today, but similar to the challenge that we were just discussing, that our products may have in adoption when they are a $2,500 product, a lot of those interventions that exist for health span um are still quite expensive or inaccessible or not covered by insurance, not covered by FSA or HSA dollars. Um, so they're not within the reach of people. The last piece that I think, which is a part that we play in the Eat Sleep, is the research is um pretty complex to digest for most individuals. Um and so there's many individuals out there who are doing a great job of trying to digest that and bring it to the average uh consumer, whether that's through podcasts or books or newsletters or websites, right? But um that is probably the part that is going to help accelerate the adoption of a lot of these um lifestyles, is that there's people out there who are really trying to push the message and make it easy for all of us to understand, well, what do I really need to do if I want to live healthier for longer?

Yeah, it's it's a fascinating topic. And I think you described it well. I mean, health span is essentially longevity. Longevity is kind of a confusing term to me because um or misleading perhaps, because like you said, that's just like, well, how long am I on this planet? And hell span is well, how many of those years are actually enjoyable? Really? I mean, that's you know to the to the point. I had Eric uh Casabury on the show, he's the founder of uh Serotonin Centers, which is a new franchise on anti-aging. And I asked him at the end of show, I'm like, hey, you and I are roughly the same age, you know, how long if we if we do things relatively right, how long do you think we can live? And he said 140. He's like, I believe we can do 140. Like, well, of course that means I'm gonna have to change my investment retirement plan because I'm not set up for that long yet. So I'll probably be working long. But I mean, if you if just you know, for fun, if you think, you know, science continues to move forward and healthcare continues to improve and people come over aware, how for the savvy person, how long do you think we can live?

Yeah, Mateo, my husband and co founder, and I talk about that often, and he thinks it's like 120, uh, which is funny when he said the 140. Um, but I definitely think that the 100 age is an age that we should be reaching pretty comfortably. Um, we already see it in a lot of countries, right? Mateo, my co-founder is from Italy, and that's where he grew up. Um, and giving their lifestyles and many things that have been studied for from by many people, right, they tend to live to much, much older age in a much more healthy state as well. It's very common to see people in Italy of you know 75 years old cycling around Tuscany, right? And like just kicking the ass of a young person from the US because just the way they live, how they eat, their environment, uh pollution, chemicals, just everything is so different. So these people are living many more years in in full health than in than what's happening right now in in the US. So hopefully we're able to reverse the course here, and many of us adopt a different approach to our lives and our health. Uh, we'll be easily hitting hundreds um much better and sooner than we think.

Yeah, it's it's uh it's an interesting thing to talk about because my family, my dad's side of the family is from Italy and uh they live on the Amalfi coast. And I visited about 10 years ago, and I was just so impressed, uh impressed, more jealous, really, of like they just seemed to have it figured out, you know, like they worked in the morning and the same thing. I had an uncle who was like 68 years old. He was still, you know, wasn't the the fisherman of the town, right? He went out every morning at four in the morning and brought fish back and people didn't. And it was just this low stress. I think that was the biggest thing. And it was almost like I joke about it's like almost like Italy looks and they're like, nah, we did the world domination thing back in the Rome days. We're good. That's you can have that now. We're just gonna relax and drink wine and have, you know, take siestas. Um, but it is you know very much a cultural thing where we just work hard and it's just ingrained, and uh, we just I don't know, I don't know what it is, but uh it's it's a it's definitely a trend. Um I want to shift a little bit and just talk about the business and because you know that's one of the things we talk about here. Um so you guys, and you share with what you can. I mean, I know you guys have done a great job at fundraising. Um I mean, last time I checked, it was 65 million in in funds raised and investments taken in. What about some of the other business things like how big is your team? You know, what whatever you can share as far as business metrics, and we'll love to hear.

Yes, um, we've raised over in total, maybe over 160 something million dollars over time. Um, but we're still a pretty small team to what we for what we do, honestly. We have a very, very talented team of um people that do basically everything in-house from our research to product development to customer support, customer acquisition, operations, logistics, software, backend, machine learning, everything that it takes to build a product as complex as this and distribute it direct to consumer. Um I think maybe around 100 people, less than that. Um, so we're really, really um efficient. And and I think the reason why we're able to achieve that is because people who join our company are joining it because of the mission. Like they're, you know, they could be working anywhere, but it's the idea that they can work on a product that is impacting people's lives in a positive way. We get a lot of stories from our members basically every day on Twitter, and you know, they DM us or they email us, and whether it's people going through uh chemotherapy and having a lot of issues to maintain their body temperature and struggling with sleep, and so how they're using the pod to people who identified issues with um there maybe a heart condition just because of the trends that the pod provides, even though we don't diagnose anything, but because they've been sleeping on it for so long, they're able to see when something changes and they go to the hospital and they get the right intervention done. And you know, you just see that and you think, wow, like this is incredible that we get a chance to work on something like this. Um we are primarily based in the US, but now we have really people around the world with remote work, right? That's allowed it to happen, especially in the last three years, and we also distribute globally. So we sell our products in the US, but also Canada, the UK, six countries in Europe and Australia. And um that's new for us. Those markets are just starting to grow, but we're seeing a lot of success and many of them, especially those where people are very interested in like that healthy lifestyle. Australia's market we launched last year, and we're seeing it grow faster than most other international markets because you know, people in Australia tend to live the very active lifestyle, very much into their health, their well-being. So it's definitely being correlating with what we're seeing in our own business performance.

If you are obsessed with the health and fitness industry like I am, then you'll love FitInsider. It's a free newsletter packed with industry trends, news, tech, startups, and much more. I've been a subscriber for over four years now, and it's my go-to, trusted source for staying informed and getting the in-depth information that I need. Anthony, Joe, and the team do great work, from wearable to health optimization to the latest updates from companies like BlueFit Drapa. FitInsider is one of the few newsletters that I actually look forward to seeing in my inbox. Plus, the platform also includes a weekly podcast, jobs board, investment fund, and resources for health tech operators. Check out the latest issues, subscribe at fitinsider.com. That's F-I-D-T Insider.com. Yeah, in Australia, it's generally hot. So nice cool match of that. I'm excited for when it gets really hot here for like the three weeks in northwest Montana where it actually goes above 90. Uh, it's just such a significant change. Uh yeah, I'm excited for that. What what about um competition in this space? I mean, no, I know like my neighbors down the street, they have an Ouler and they raved about it for years before, you know, now I can rave back because I haven't had sleep right. Um but the mattress kind of like mattress, the mattress business is big business. Like they they do extremely well. So when you look at competition in this market, I mean imagine like who who is your competition that you would say at this point, and then how do you see maybe some of these big mattress companies coming in and maybe trying to get in on what you're doing?

Yeah, well, anyone that tries to get in, we welcome them. It's definitely very hard to do what we do. So it'll take time because building algorithms takes a lot of data just to train them. So, you know, that's why it's it's a bit of a moat, being that we've been in this business for eight years. Um, but for us, um, we compete with any product that could help you sleep better, right? When we think about it, really in the long term, eight sleep should be taking out of business those sleep drugs because not only the cream product that we have today that is doing this temperature regulation, but all the other things that we want to be able to control and help you with should be able to give you ideal sleep every night. You shouldn't need those sleep pills. So that is who we are fighting. These terrible drugs that are not good for you and you shouldn't be using, but we need to be able to give individuals the other tools to be able to give them that good night's sleep. So those are our real competitors, and those are the companies that um we want to take our business, right? I always joke to the fact that we we have a lot of athletes who sleep on our product. Um, and I say, well, all these athletes that work with Red Bull, do they really drink that stuff? That terrible stuff doesn't make any sense, right? You know what's actually powering athletes? A good night's sleep. So that's what's actually gonna give you the energy that you need to go perform. Not that drink that no one's actually drinking before they go down the ski slope in a competition.

Yeah, I mean, sleep is the ultimate performance-enhancing drug. I mean, it's just it is. And I mean, I And it's free. And it's free, yeah, right. It's free. I mean, I there's such a noticeable difference. And I everyone I talk to is the same thing as like just my attitude, my perception towards life, my ability to conduct an interview, if I sleep well, it's all way better, right? Um, than if not. And like if I get five hours or six hours of sleep, I'm just not I don't even like to be around myself, you know, at that point. So it is uh it's a pretty it's a pretty amazing thing. Um last question I generally ask, Alex is and this is you know, in the spirit of collaboration within the industry, but what do you need right now? What's uh what's a problem that our audience can help you solve through, you know, are you ramping up staff? Do you need certain connections? Do you want influencers? What do you need?

I think the common challenge of any company that's trying to grow is getting our story out there, awareness, getting people to know about eight sleep, because there are a lot of us looking for a good night's sleep every single night. So, how can we just get others in the industry to help us evangelize for a sleep fit life, um, talk about our story, and then hopefully people who hear our story and our vision are going to want to try our product.

Yeah, right on. And uh if you want to send people somewhere online, either to reach out to you or obviously ATSleep website, where where would you like people to go?

Sure, you can find me on Twitter. Um, as an individual, if you want to connect with me, that's a great place. Um, or just go to a sleep.com, check out our products, read about our story, see the stories of all the amazing people who are using our products every day as well.

Right on. Well, Alex, thank you so much. It's been really interesting. And I'm so excited for this space. Uh, you know, if if it can start to do all the things that we talked about, like the the future of health can be done in the bed. Um, man, that's huge. And and then then the price point doesn't matter anymore, right? If this is like a product where it can tell me, you know, heart issues ahead of time and predictive analytics, all that stuff, it's it's well worth it. So I'm excited for it. That's your life.

Exactly. It's gonna be it's gonna be worth it for sure if you can do that for your own health and even your own peace of mind.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, keep up the great work, Alex. And it was an absolute pleasure having you on the show. And ladies and gentlemen, Alex, is that terrain? Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This was your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Futurist Minutes. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it. iTunes, Spotify, Catbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it and want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the feature of fitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I'd love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the Feature of Fitness. Have a great day.