Whoop Founder: How I Built A $3.6 BILLION Company & BEAT Apple! Will Ahmed | E189

so two of our first hundred users were. LeBron James and Michael Phelps. [Music]. Nike and apple and a dozen other. companies were entering the space but. when it comes to health monitoring we're. the best game in town that really came. from an insane level of focus in the. beginning on what we were trying to. solve one of the reasons whoop has been. successful is there were a lot of. counter-intuitive decisions along that.

Journey one obvious one is that would be. interesting. steal that it's worth emphasizing for. your audience why that matters so. there was a phase in building Loop where. it was so much about the next Milestone. that I was running almost exclusively on. like a dopamine engine if the company. has a great day you're feeling like a. rocket ship and if whoop was failing I. was failing what's the personal toll on. you in those moments that people don't. see I was super stressed out I was.

drinking too much and I remember I was. driving my car. and I'm on the highway and all of a. sudden it's like your peripheral vision. like starts narrowing on you and you. feel your fingers and they're like numb. I actually drove myself to the hospital. and they do. um you know all these analysis on me and. like it turns out I had a. before this episode begins I just want. to say a huge thank you to all of our. new subscribers 74 of you that watch. this channel didn't subscribe before and.

we're now down to about 71 so that helps. us in a number of ways that are quite. hard to explain but simply the bigger. the channel gets the bigger the guests. get so if you haven't yet subscribed to. the Diary of a CEO if I can have any. favors from you if you've ever watched. this show and enjoyed it it's just to. please hit the Subscribe button without. further Ado I'm Stephen Butler and this. is the Diary of a CEO I hope nobody's. listening but if you are then please. keep this yourself. well.

as you look back on your your life and. you connect the dots that led you to to. do what you've done now with whoop and. your professional life. um. what are those dots. well I I grew up on uh the North Shore. of Long Island. um I was always into. Sports and exercise I was super active. kid. uh my parents are. very different my dad's an Egyptian.

immigrant a very. Street Smart charismatic came to this. country with very little Rose the ranks. and finance over time. my mom uh very analytical very. book smart and. and watching how they approached life I. think was a fascinating way to grow up. because they had very different uh tool. sets to solve problems and.

uh I was always playing sports I was. always exercising and that eventually. LED my way to Harvard and uh and so I. was a college athlete I got. um recruited to play Squash at Harvard. and over the course of my time there uh. got very fascinated by how I could. better understand my body how I could. uh understand what it meant to train. optimally how I could prevent over. training which was a problem that I had. uh how I could really uh understand the.

other 20 hours of the day when you. weren't exercising and so. that took me down this Rabbit Hole of. physiology research which we can get. into but I read hundreds of medical. papers while I was uh in school and then. ultimately wrote a paper myself around. how to continuously measure the human. body and then over the course of my time. at Harvard built up the confidence to to. start a company which was a fairly crazy. thing looking back on it and for the. last 10 years I've been building this. company called whoop we went through.

that very quickly but a lot of those. things are very very unusual one of the. first unusual things is I mean we all. train we all a lot of people train and. work out and stuff but we don't then. fall into an obsession about how to. optimize the performance of our training. and ourselves what is it about you have. you been able to figure out in hindsight. what it is about you and your makeup. that made you so obsessed with that. particular. topic well it struck me as something. that uh.

really didn't make a lot of sense like. you I was spending three or four hours a. day at Harvard exercising with no. information about what I was doing to my. body and yet that's a school also that. is totally obsessed with deeper. knowledge and so that in itself seemed. like a like a deep irony and then I also. was a pretty competitive person and I. was someone who was over training right. where you see you get fitter and fitter. and fair you sort of fall off a cliff. and you don't know why and that bothered.

me like that bothered me that I didn't I. didn't fully understand what I was doing. to my body what was what was the missing. ingredient so to speak and I just sort. of started pulling at that thread and it. really took me down a rabbit hole over. training I've heard this time never been. sure if I've believed it because I don't. really know what it is but for someone. that doesn't know what that is what what. is over training the technical. definition is it's a continued state of. overreaching that then leads to a period.

where your body is essentially in a. depressed state and what that will look. like physiologically is essentially you. your body's run down you know activities. that would normally feel somewhat easy. uh are quite difficult. um psychologically it makes you feel. kind of lousy run down symptoms similar. to being sick and depending on how over. trained you are can last you know a week.

or could last month in my case that. Norma didn't last longer than a couple. weeks but it it's kind of this ultimate. betrayal right because you're pushing. yourself so hard. to get stronger and fitter. that you actually get to a place where. you're completely. broken down. had I asked you at 14 years old say 14. 16 years old what you were going to be. when you grew up what would you have. responded I don't know that I would have. known but if you looked at the things I. was interested in so I was always. playing with technology which in.

hindsight uh was quite predictive like I. had the first I had the first iPod in my. sixth grade class I remember so we're. about the same age so you probably. remember when the iPod came out and like. how cool that thing was thick but yeah. it was really thick and it had that like. Wild Wheel a little before that I had a. Palm Pilot like a pom pilot seven it was. like the original uh Palm Pilot that. could get internet access when I was.

around 12 or 13 I had one of the first. uh voice recorders that you could speak. into and it would type for you oh wow so. it was like you know Siri but 20 years. ago uh and it didn't quite work. unfortunately but I I had this real itch. towards technology and then I think. somewhere between the ages of like 18. and 20 I I also saw this huge. convergence happening with with. smartphones with the way that computers.

to me seemed like they were sort of. seamlessly moving from being on your. desk to on your lap to in your pocket to. what I perceived to be eventually on. your body or even in your body I thought. that was a Natural Evolution so I. definitely had this pull towards. technology but I think throughout uh you. know I was overcoming this feeling of. whether I should go into Finance because. I grew up my dad was in you know in. finance in fact after my freshman year.

at Harvard to most undergrads do you. know different internships and whatnot. after my freshman year I did an. internship at a hedge fund my sophomore. year I did an internship at an. investment bank and my junior year I did. an internship at a private Equity Firm. so so like I did I was really flirting. with going into Finance but I think I. think this is what I was supposed to do. from everything I've read it's quite. clear to me that you're a very curious. person and my brother is very.

interesting my oldest brother whenever. we when we were younger he always wanted. to understand everything and when he. became interested in something he became. obsessed in it and he went like right. down into the rabbit hole as I read. through your story on multiple occasions. whether it's meditation or others or how. the business came to be or you know your. journey to trying to figure out how to. optimize the body all of these struck me. as a person that once they get. interested in something they go all the. way down into the rabbit hole to find. out the solutions is that accurate I.

think it's fair I think. it also stems from this uh. ability to throw myself out there. um. you know back to how your childhood. influences your your future uh there's. there's a story. I don't know if I ever talked about this. but uh fascinating story where I was in. fifth or sixth grade middle school. and we're doing what's called uh blue.

and gold day so I went to a school. called Greenvale the colors are blue and. gold and you have this like Fair. essentially which is all sorts of. different competitions races that sort. of thing and uh there's a captain's race. at the end of the day with like the the. four people representing their their. class so to so to speak to run the fast. race and I was a I was a captain so I. was very anxious about this final race. and right before the final race was one.

of the longer races like uh I think it. was three or four laps and so. uh you know if you were to run that. you'd be quite tired and I that wasn't a. race I ever ran but uh Timmy all of a. sudden was sick and so he didn't show up. for for this race and I remember uh. Peter zaloum who's our science teacher. he's walking around and he's yelling hey. blue we need someone to run this race we. need someone to run this race and I'm. kind of like avoiding even making eye.

contact with this teacher because I. really don't want to run this race. and it was like he zeroed in on me out. of a distance and just marched over and. he said well you should run this right. and I said no no I've got the captain's. race I got to do that and he's like well. 90 of life is showing up. the other 10 is what happens when you. get there. and like in that moment I was like okay. yeah I'm gonna go around this and I. don't even remember what happened in. that race I don't even remember the. captain's race uh which in some ways.

emphasizes his point but that whole. thread of just showing up is something I. think about all the time. why why do and this is I guess a lesson. for entrepreneurship because you saw. some. I was going to say and this is links to. Something in Your Story I was going to. say you saw an opportunity but you. didn't see an opportunity did you you. were dragged by your obsession well. interest. in building whoop yeah. I definitely saw an opportunity to. continuously measure the human body and.

I also saw an opportunity that uh. Computing was getting to a size and and. sort of sophistication where it could be. smaller and smaller. uh. but the poll that got me to building. this company and I think persevering. over years was that it also was a. personal Obsession to really understand. my own body yeah. because when people typically recite. their stories of how they became an.

entrepreneur you get this kind of like. they put I don't know a white piece of. paper there and they're like what is the. opportunity in the market and and when I. read the quote from you that said you're. an entrepreneur before you realized you. were yeah that's true that books that. narrative a little bit which I think. entrepreneurs sometimes try and sell. because it makes them seem more. intentional. I can't replicate your curiosity and. interest that made you go off in that. journey of optimizing the human body so. I just think in society and culture. generally entrepreneurs sometimes look. back and try and make their story sound.

like really really intentional when a. lot of it in your case as is the case in. mine was like I was interested in this. thing and I just kept on going because I. loved it I think that's right I also. spent a lot of time like building the. confidence to start the company like I. really didn't know what it meant to. start a company and. I mean I spent two years doing. physiology research I then took another. class that was around if you have an. idea how do you write a business plan. for it and I remember like my senior.

year I was doing like the third or. fourth iteration of this business plan. and I was meeting with the MIT Professor. a guy named Howard Anderson who taught. the class and was like a venture. capitalist and at that point I wasn't. even enrolled in the class I was just. working on this business plan and he's. like he just sort of stopped he said. well at some point you have to ask. yourself is this a paper or are you. starting a company right it sort of puts. you on the spot like why are you doing. all this work and I think I.

I think I did a ton of work to feel as. prepared as possible to like have the. confidence to take the leap. and I'm so glad I did but you know when. I meet young people I try to encourage. them to do as much work as they can to. build up that confidence and also to. understand that. there's a lot of things you aren't going. to know in the process of building a. company but once you make that. commitment the learnings come in fast. right and I'm sure you've experienced.

that yeah yeah yeah and I see it all the. time especially in young people who um. they're using perfectionism as a way to. procrastinate. because they're they don't feel. competent already yet to so you'll have. people that you know come come up to you. and say I've been working on this idea. for two years three years and they're. making all these assumptions which they. could quite probably figure out in a. week if they just went to Market to but. it's a guys for fear I think sometimes. to guys have like I actually don't feel.

ready or I don't know I don't have the. answers so I'm just preparing more I'm. waiting for that perfect moment yeah I. think overcoming a fear of failure. is a really critical step in life and. there's a lot of methods to think about. for that. I think for me it was doing a lot of. work I think it was following. my passion in some ways the reason I. feel like I became an entrepreneur. before I knew what an entrepreneur was. it was that it almost became an.

inevitability that I was starting the. company unless so a choice because it. was like all I was thinking about in my. free time you know the things you do the. things you think about before bed or in. a shower you know the Quiet Moments. throughout life I think those are pretty. telling. and what role has that played that. obsession with that with solving the. problem and solving that challenge and. your general interest in it what role. has that played in your hardest times. as in when things get really [ __ ].

difficult and it's easy to quit. if you're someone that's authentically. driven and authentically curious about. that thing. must make it somewhat easier. to carry on I think for sure. it pulls you through like the the. obsession of solving a problem pulls you. through. I mean I struggled though for years uh. with building whoop it was it was really. really painful and I think an important.

thing for any entrepreneur but. especially was for me was to. disassociate my own identity from that. of the companies. if you're and you you've been a young. entrepreneur so you know this. like as a young entrepreneur. I think a lot of your identity all of a. sudden gets tied up in that thing you're. creating and for me that meant. if woop was having a good day I was. having a good day if whoop was having a. bad day I was having a bad day.

um and if whoop was failing I was. failing. and that's a very unhealthy Association. but it's also not true like literally. you can be taking great steps to improve. as a leader or as a manager or even as a. recruiter and certain things will happen. that may put your business sideways. and conversely I'm sure you and I have. both met Founders entrepreneurs who have. watched their company go like this but. meanwhile they're spinning out of. control right and I think the faster.

that I could separate those two. identities my own and whoop the easier. it actually became to build a successful. company. is part of the reason you also our. identity becomes attached to the company. because I was thinking about why that. was that was definitely the case for me. and the answer was because my entire net. worth was was this thing as well so. coming from a background where I didn't. have money my family didn't have money. my entire net worth was this thing that.

was going well so you can see how if the. company starts to struggle it's like. Steve's actually broken well I had that. too for auditory then some in some. respects I still have it today just like. given the nature of the yeah of the. value of the business the key uh the key. at least for me in building the business. was Finding ways for myself. to manage stress to manage uh the. difficulties that come with building a. company without finding myself on that.

yoyo of the company's performance right. it can't be that uh if the company has a. great day you're feeling like a rocket. ship and if the company's having a bad. day you're feeling down and so a lot of. my. I think growth as an entrepreneur has. been figuring out how to have a steady. hand and how to you know sort of stay. calm through the chaos chaos yeah how. have you done that a few different. things. um. I think the first uh and probably the.

most profound for me in general has been. learning how to meditate. so in 2014 so I was about 24 years old. the company was maybe I don't know 30 or. 40 people. um I think I'd raised maybe 20 million. dollars something like that which. certainly felt like a lot of money and. uh. and I felt like I was really failing. like as a leader I was super stressed. out I was drinking too much and uh and I.

remember having what I would later learn. was a panic attack. um you know and I was driving my car. and I'm on the highway and all of a. sudden it's like your peripheral vision. like starts narrowing on you and you. feel your fingers and they like are a. little bit numb you have this taste in. your mouth I actually thought I'd been. food poisoned because of the feeling was. so. unusual outrageous and uh and so I drove. I actually drove myself to the hospital.

and I checked into the hospital and they. do. um you know all these analysis on me and. like it turns out I just had a panic. attack. but the fact that I end up in the. hospital from panic attack I was like. all right wait a sec like I gotta really. reset how I'm building this company and. growing and uh two days later I signed. up for this meditation course. Transit on meditation and uh I've been. doing it like every single day since. then about.

yeah about eight and a half years later. when I sit here with CEOs who many of. which have had panic attacks yeah funny. funny enough um and they'd talk to me. about meditation I always seem to get a. similar response which I can't meditate. my head's too busy for that. well I think the busier your mind is the. more you need to meditate. I. so I learned how to meditate in 2014 and. I think there's different stages of the. way you understand meditation as well.

um there's sort of a four-week check. mark. I think there's like a four month or. maybe a one-year check mark and then. there's four years plus which is. fortunately where I am today. and the fascinating thing is. what you first observe in meditating. um and I should just sort of clarify. what kind of meditation I'm doing so I. spend about 22 minutes every morning. doing this and you literally are. um you're breathing but then you start. repeating a mantra. and the idea of the Mantra is to start.

clearing your mind out and you're just. focusing on the Mantra but what. inevitably happens is thoughts start to. drift in as you're saying the mantra and. you get to have this moment where you. get to decide. do I want to think about the thought or. do I want to pass it along by going back. to the mantra. so just right there in that moment you. start to realize that you can filter. your thoughts. you also get to choose to sit with. certain thoughts right think how often.

in your life you might have thoughts. coming in you feel like you can't really. control what you're thinking about right. you almost like don't have that Focus. so that's the immediate benefit that you. get that you feel while you're. meditating. the more powerful benefit and this is. what I meant about feeling certain. stages of having done it is at least for. me it started to feel like I had a third. person. you know sort of watching me and I would. hear this voice in my head suddenly like.

when I was about to get angry or when I. was about to be upset or and it was sort. of uh all of a sudden you're able to. sense what you're about to do or say. before you do it so the immature version. of me as an entrepreneur might find. himself saying things and being angry. and reacting. um and then sort of almost catching up. to the emotional state that I was in and. trying to reel it back whereas the the. more meditated version of me.

I think has has been able to recognize. what I'm about to say something before I. say it or feel something before I feel. it and and that. it feels like a superpower. did not grow over time that third person. ability with your Transcendental. Meditation practice. I think so I mean it's I imagine that. learning how to breathe and meditate is. like any other skill and if you refine. it for weeks versus months versus years. it it gets better and it's it's.

basically becoming conscious isn't it of. what's going on in your mind you're. becoming more conscious of your thoughts. and that their choices and you're not. them yeah exactly I think it it's at. least helped me stay more in control of. of my actions my feelings decisions I'm. making. and and I really recommend it to anyone. like I think it's I think it's a game. changer. 2014 you cite um in a few things you've. you've spoken on um as being a very.

difficult year that's when you had as. you said 20 to 30 employees you'd raise. 20 million things were pretty crazy in. those early years. um did you have doubt because when I. think about the whoop story. it's competitor set are all massive. [ __ ] Juggernauts and I've I've like. from afar obviously when I got I got my. week two months ago I remember thinking. how the [ __ ] have they done that. in an environment where you've got these. big you know Steve Jobs founded. companies and this company and they've.

all got billions and 200 billion in the. kitty yeah I'm like how did they get on. my wrist how did they pierce and get. you went into an incredibly competitive. market. when you did that when you raised that. 20 million did you have doubts about. yourself. I think I developed doubts. um in managing the company like I always. believed in the vision uh of what we set. out to build I mean dating to 2011 or. 2012 when I was doing all the research.

like it was almost a straight shot from. 2011 or 12 to today the paper I wrote In. 2011 was titled the feedback tool. measuring intensity recovery and sleep. and like literally today our three main. metrics are strain recovery and sleep so. in terms of having a strong perspective. on what the world should look like when. the technology is built and actually. measuring all the things it needs to. Super accurately.

I think building whoop was was more of a. straight line than than the average. company. where it was all kinds of zigs and zags. and chaos is uh learning one how to be a. CEO and run the company to your point. learning how to navigate competition and. we can talk more about that we've had. some interesting experiences in that. category a big theme was actually being. able to raise capital. in part because of the competition right. like it was hard.

first of all for a number of years we. were building the technology before we. ever were really generating Revenue. and that's that's just a hard business. to build and it also took us a lot. longer to get the product to Market than. we thought it would right and so. you're in the scenario where. you know you're you're saying to. investors well we're getting there we're. getting there we're getting there and so. the you know the first seven years of. the company I would say or enormously.

hard from just a technology development. standpoint from a capital raising. standpoint in from a business generation. standpoint because we you know we were. seven years in and then completely. changed our business model on its head. which was a bet the company moment you. know and uh and so there were just a lot. it was a lot yeah and I told you at 22. the next was 22 when you founded the. company yeah if I told you at 22 the. next seven years would look like that.

do you think you would have done it. I think I would have done it yeah I mean. it was painful but I knew I was doing. the right thing like I knew I was I knew. I was in the right storm you know what I. mean like. um there were a lot of feelings of being. like my back against the wall. um there were a lot of feelings of. uh doubt. what were those feelings of doubt. you know are we going to get this thing. to Market soon enough do are we going to.

figure out what the right way is to sell. it are we maturing as a as a team are we. going to be able to attract more capital. I mean again back to raising capital. we've raised about 400 million. dollars in capital day but that's still. sense when you look at the companies. we've been competing against to get to. this stage and so I was I was nervous. about that piece of it and especially. again as a young entrepreneur who's who. is Raising capital for the first time. you said team and we there co-founders.

yeah. how important is that in hindsight. because I feel like you don't find out. the answer to how well you've chosen. your co-founders until a couple of years. in. yeah look I I had a great. um CTO I had a great lead mechanical. engineer we've we've built the business. together for 10 years or my CTO just. just uh transitioned to new projects. but it's been an amazing ride and I. think the.

the fact that we've been able to build. this technology that has you know. through a variety of different uh third. parties been credited as being the most. accurate wearable in the market speaks. to the the technical chops of of the. founding team and I I don't take credit. for that uh so I think it's uh it's a. remarkable accomplishment and I think. it's also important when you're building. a founding team to have a a fairly clear. set of responsibilities I get a little.

nervous when I hear of a founding team. and they're both like the business guy. or they're both like the technical guy. and kind of the same thing you know the. the advantage that we had in starting. the company was each category of thing. that we were trying to do was so hard. like inventing a wearable that could. measure uh hurry variability as. accurately as an electrocardiogram or. raise Capital at a time that you know.

Nike e and apple and you know a dozen. other companies were entering the space. like. if I struggled with raising Capital like. I wasn't gonna have a partner giving me. a hard time if he struggled with. building the technology I wasn't going. to give him a hard time like we just. knew it was hard uh and we also knew. that the other wasn't going to be better. at it so I think that there was an. element of complementary uh skill sets. that's helpful. if you were giving someone advice on how. to pick a co-founder in terms of the.

character traits that you look for in. that person what would you suggest that. they look for because it's a question I. get asked all the time our co-founders. it's probably some combination of. commitment intensity and humility. um. the commitment piece is really important. because. you're going to have a lot of very. difficult things happen in the first. six months let alone the first six years. and so you want to know that this. person's committed to doing this and.

it's going to be hardcore and no matter. what happens we're going to get through. it you know I I think startups really. only fail if the founders quit or you. run out of money so like if you can. overcome those two things. you've got a pretty good shot. and and so commitment's critical and. then intensity and humility that's what. I just generally look for in anyone that. that I work for or work with you want. hard driving people you want people who. recognize that it's going to take an. enormous amount of work and discipline.

to develop whatever product or service. it is that you're creating for the first. time. but you also want along the way. um to have people who recognize that. with that intensity and with that. intelligence with that depth. they have the humility to recognize that. they may not have all the answers. and in particular when you're building a. company and a small company at that that. has a lot of different departments that. intersect and then in the case of whoop.

I mean Hardware software analytics data. regulatory design marketing whatever you. could have a meeting with four different. departments and it's really just four. people and all of a sudden there's this. massive Collision around how we're going. to send data from a whoop strap to an. iPhone. and like the product person has their. own perspective the iOS engineer has his. own perspective you know the the. Bluetooth expert has their perspective. the engineer has the mechanical.

engineer's own perspective and so. there's this natural Collision of how. should we solve this problem and I think. when you build teams with high humility. they tend to come out with the answer. that's best for the company not like I. came up with it. so that would I think that's a pretty. good starting point commitment intensity. humility. when you think about the the most. difficult times so I know that you would. have been through many many difficult. times but when you when when I say that. when I say the most difficult time.

maybe a day maybe a piece of news you. got. an email. is there something that comes to mind as. the most difficult day time moment well. there is a period of time of about 18. months where whoop never had more than. three months of Runway. of cash in the bank yeah wow so picture. that right because. um you know so much of building a. business is having the runway to. strategize and grow and recruit and and.

I had the company had gotten into a. weird moment where. we were still doing Innovative things. but we hadn't found the next investor to. sort of carry the company through to the. to the Future uh to a future round or. you know give us two years of Runway. which is sort of what you'd want for any. Capital injection and. we were making some deals happen there. were there were compelling things. happening in the business and so we were.

able to stitch along a number of uh. Investments but never enough capital and. so I just felt this enormous weight on. my shoulders man like it was it was so. intense and uh and it also was it was a. company size that you know it's one. thing to say okay 18 months and you. never have more than three months of. Runway something you said when you're. like a 10 person team like we were like. a 50 70 person team something like that.

so you know that you feel a lot of. responsibility as well when you're. operating through a period and. essentially it got to the point where. um if we didn't get uh essentially a. term sheet signed uh on a Wednesday. uh we were gonna go bankrupt on that. Friday or file for bankruptcy on that. Friday so imagine like two days from. from it all going away and I remember.

writing uh like even writing a note to. all of our investors about what a. journey it had been and thank you like I. felt all the feelings of the company had. failed without the company having failed. and fortunately was able to get the deal. done on that day and uh. yeah I'm so glad I did I've been there. I've been there for multiple payrolls I. told this funny story about it being. Payday on that day in the bank not our. bank at the time not releasing the funds. we have 200 people.

um and them saying they'll only release. the funds on that Friday when everyone's. expecting payment if I get a contract. signed by one of our clients. so I'm in London having drinks with this. client and we get to like you know a. certain point at lunch but I'm like you. wouldn't mind signing this contract send. it off but multiple times especially. running a B2B agency business that was. growing cash is always 60 days away. you've got to pay your bills today but. what's the personal toll on you in those. moments. that people don't see.

well I look back on that whole period. with like immense gratitude because it. being able to overcome that and being. able to. essentially pull through in a. circumstance where I think almost uh any. other business would have failed. it just it reframed for me going. forwards what it means to be facing a. challenge. like that was a real existential. challenge like this whole thing's going. away we're all going home the technology. is worth nothing right that's a that's.

like poof. and so now it's like. okay the sales were lower this month in. the last month or this great person on. our team got poached by that company or. this epic competitor came out with this. product like. there's there's some level of. perspective that comes with all of those. you know big challenges because I just. remember. being able to work through the what I. deemed to be one of the biggest.

challenges did you get anxiety through. that period. totally but I I also like I was able to. build a whole lifestyle and process to. approach. um stress and I do think that success. may come for people when they overcome a. level of stress that would break most. people. and so. I'm a little critical of how. um pop culture likes to talk about. stress which is if you're stressed you.

know take on way less of it right and. that that may be true in small doses but. what we really want to learn is how to. cope with stress and how to manage. through it and how to overcome it and I. think also if you're stressed about. something it's also a signal that it. matters to you and it's important right. so. uh look it was that period of time was. uh.

enormously stressful painful. um I felt like I had to keep some of it. to myself versus burden like a larger. team with it you know so that there's. certain burdens I do think that. um CEOs or leaders or entrepreneurs. carry or you're almost. compartmentalizing something and you. know you're gonna have to. to feel it. I'm sure you know what that feels like. yeah of course I think you know I did.

that for my entire career and then I. think the shift I've seen in in culture. with leaders was covid when a lot of. companies the facts were clear like we. have to close down if you're a High. Street brand for example we have to. close the doors so that's when I think a. lot of CEOs started being more honest. with the state of play with their team. members and would say things like listen. we're gonna have to let half the team go. and this is how much money we have in. the bank if we don't get here then we're. gonna have to close down I I saw a big. shift then and it inspired me a lot. about. being transparent with my teams but I.

mean for the whole of my professional. career yeah I just come I just Brave. face it was like you would have no idea. if it was the best day or the worst day. because my face was the same so you got. good at holding it in 100 but my. business partner didn't and he became an. alcoholic so he as he's talked about. many times he turned to alcohol us we. lived in the same house together sure. and he would I there were times when I. went downstairs at 3am and went into the. laundry room and he was there drinking. yeah and you know so we were we were. both coping in different ways I was kind. of compartmentalizing and kind of just. I called it a video game mindset where.

it's what you've talked about I was I. was holding the controller I think my. business partner was inside the game. yeah you know what I mean as in like. there was a a chord between me and what. was going on did you develop any like. lifestyle hacks. um. I've got to be honest no not at the time. and now I think I have more. but at the time no I was just. trying to get to the next day and I. think I have a natural sort of.

predisposition to in the worst moments. ever just purely focusing on what I can. control. part of me which bother is a big deal. yeah yeah I I only know this in. hindsight because I wonder why in honor. if I told you about the worst day we. ever had in the business. years later my business partner says why. were you so calm on that day well well I. had very few choices. so not the worst day we ever had in the. company my choices were so small. and they were so obvious as they often. are it's like if the room's on fire like. the doors over there and the buttons.

there I think about that all the time as. like are you controlling all the. controllables and. often if you are or even just you know. setting sitting down in your mind or. even putting on paper hey what are all. the things I control about the situation. what are things I don't. that can be a very calming exercise it's. very focusing yeah even talk about that. day we made the cash flow problem I knew. what my objective was get this guy to. sign this piece of paper yeah what's. there to worry about I have no time to. worry so.

um so yeah that was a but you developed. lifestyle hacks to help you. we talked about meditation which was a. big one. um. exercise big one uh. I got into hot cold transitions. gratitude's a big one. so take me through your day then because. I think this will reveal a lot of your. habits. sure so. let's take a a given day in Boston yeah.

the day actually starts for me a little. bit the night before because I'm getting. into a a framework for you know the next. day. um. a few days a week I work out with a. trainer early in the morning so I'll. actually pack everything up for that. well I've got my my workout clothes out. I'll have the what I'm gonna wear to. work the next day. um I'll I'll probably have written down. like two or three things that I'm gonna.

focus on the next day. and. and then like sleep because you know. building whoop you think a lot about. sleep. I uh you know I sleep in a really cold. bedroom uh really dark bedroom why cold. and dark. it's just shown to give you higher. quality sleep. yeah and I try to go to bed at a. somewhat consistent time this is a. little trickier because my wife's kind. of a night owl and I like to go to bed a.

little earlier but uh so I'll probably. go to bed between I don't know 11 30 and. midnight and then I'll wake up at around. 6 30 and controversial question about. your wife then does your sleep. deteriorate with your wife in the bed it. doesn't because we have uh we've got. good intimacy like we've got good bad. cuddle habits you know it's like a. cuddling ton yeah yeah we we. we've done a good job co-existing in a.

bedroom environment although that's an. interesting thing you can track on whoop. so if people really want to know whether. or not they sleep better or worse with a. partner you can literally record that in. the whoop journal in the app uh so in a. second I want to hear what's in your. movement. well you probably check while you're. chagging against uh so. cold room a consistent bedtime. um. yeah and then I wake up and I'm like out.

the door really quick shower workout. clothes got my stuff I always give my. wife kisses before I leave that's like a. nice relationship hack uh while she's. while she's sleeping and then uh I work. out for an hour with my trainer I'll do. uh steam room after that freezing cold. shower I do a breakfast that's mostly. like egg whites it's mostly proteins. like egg whites like avocado bacon that.

kind of stuff two points there so the. first was working out in the morning. yeah is there any like dates where. science around that being advantageous. so back to being able to control the. controllables I like to work out in the. morning in large part because it means I. can then stay at work later if I need to. okay what I hate is when I go to work. without having worked out in the morning. and I'm supposed to pill I like squash. that evening and then a couple things. come up around 6 p.m and all of a sudden.

I realize I'm not gonna get out the door. and so then you know you know you don't. exercise so the nice thing about working. out first is like okay I've checked that. box and then the other thing was this. the cold water. cold water yeah talk to me about why you. do that and how that helps. so. there's something I think to be said for. doing things that naturally make you. happy. even if in the moment they're a little. painful and uh for me being in the cold. is one of those things like I feel a. huge jolt of adrenaline from it uh it.

also forces me to breathe properly and I. think anything you can do that helps you. breathe properly or forces You to. Breathe properly is good for you uh and. then I feel kind of happy after doing it. like like this little injection of. happiness and so I end a hundred percent. of showers that I take cold and as cold. as possible the colder the better. and then the the steam room aspect or.

the sauna aspect depending on where I am. is uh. I mean there's a fair amount of research. that shows if you do a steam room or a. sauna a few days a week it is likely to. increase longevity. I would say I like the cold more than. the hot but anyway. all right Sam the opposite. my my girlfriend is a breath. practitioner oh okay Coach so obviously. you understand what comes with that and. cold water is a big part of what she um. encourages on me so she jumps in these.

ice baths and I'm like I'm trying not to. feel amazing I might put my toe in and. I'm like coming up with reasons but now. she's got me into it so so what kind of. breath work do you do. um I didn't even know the name of it. she's got her own method she teaches. classes she's doing classes in London at. the moment big groups one-on-one. sessions she's doing. um she does sessions with lots of people. that come on this podcast in fact oh. cool because they end up getting getting. to know her so but. yeah I don't know what type of breath. work it is but it's an hour in a room.

like the. yeah the double inhale yeah Game Changer. just yeah I think they're cool I think. it's amazing yeah that's a huge industry. that's that's feels like a wave coming. into Shore because this word breath work. showed up like 18 24 months ago over. here and now it's everywhere with like. Wim Hof that's a good point I mean Wim. Hof yeah I think Wim Hoff pushed a lot. of it especially around the cold and. I look I think it's taking off for a. good reason in part because again back.

to controlling things you can control. you can literally control your breath in. a second. and there's an interesting whoop hook to. all this because one of the core things. that. led me to starting the company was. discovering this statistic called heart. rate variability and heart rate. variability is essentially this lens. into your autonomic nervous system it's. the amount of time between successive. beats of the heart so it's a little. confusing but if your heart beats at 60.

beats per minute it's not beating every. second like it might be 0.7 seconds and. then 1.3 seconds and then 0.6 seconds. and 1.4 seconds and it turns out that. variability of time between successive. beats is actually a good thing. because it's a sign that your body is. able to regulate in its environment. and your autonomic nervous system. literally consists of sympathetic and. parasympathetic activity now sympathetic. is activation.

so that's heart rate up blood pressure. up respiration up. um often it's what's happening when. you're feeling a little bit of stress or. you're exercising right now parasympic. is all the opposite hurry down blood. pressure down respiration down. it's what helps you fall asleep. but where this all comes back to breath. work. is literally inhaling. that's sympathetic. that's parasympathetic. so just by controlling your breathing.

you can decide whether you want to be. sympathetic dominant parasympic dominant. you can increase your heart rate. variability you can decrease it and. that's something that's in your control. and heart rate variability is one of the. core statistics that we look at as a. lens into how restored your body is. I noticed that because my friend Logan. said he went up for a night out he got. drunk it was a yeah yeah and then he. screenshotted his his whoop dashboard. the next day and was and put it into our.

chat and went [ __ ] because everything. was red and and he was trying to explain. to me heart rate variability and why it. was important but I couldn't quite. understand. um and I remember trying to trying to. read about why it was important but I. knew you were coming here so I thought. I'd ask you myself because you I've. heard you talk about the importance of. heart rate variability I understand now. what it is but why is it such an. important indicator and what are the. things that we do that make it plummet. so the fascinating thing about hard. variability is it's been measured since.

like roughly the the 80s and. the physiology research that I was. reading in college was showing that uh. Olympic power lifters were using heart. rate variability to determine how much. they should lift So based on whether. they had a low or high heart rate. variability in the morning and they'd. get hooked up to an electrocardiogram. like this is an intense thing and then. they would go decide how much they were. going to lift based on what their. reading was I think that's kind of. interesting turned out cyclists were. doing it in the 80s the CIA was using.

heart rate variability for lie detection. tests. doctors cardiologists were using heart. rate variability to predict whether. former heart failure patients were going. to have a heart attack again. so I'm thinking about myself this is a. pretty powerful statistic that I've. never heard of that feels like everyone. should be measuring and uh and so that's. really. that was one of the core insights in. building whoop was that you need to be. able to measure heart rate variability. continuously and in particular it's. going to play a huge role in helping us.

understand the status of your body's. Readiness and uh how well you're. sleeping so those are two ways that. whoop is primarily using heart rate. variability. uh you know things that decrease heart. rate variability uh dehydration bad diet. we just talked about alcohol. um heavy exercise uh you know heavy uh. psychological stress. often people are surprised how just.

The Wrong conversation with their. partner the night before bed. can totally throw their sleep out of. whack or their heart rate variability. out of whack. so it's a very powerful statistic it's a. fascinating statistic and I'm mostly got. like a lot more people are measuring it. it seems to know us before we know. ourselves to know how to describe it one. of the things I would say in building. whoop is. uh. feelings are overrated there are things. happening in your body that you can't.

feel and I think heart rate variability. is one of those one of those key. indicators where for most people it'd be. very hard to know what their heart rate. variability was saying in any given. moment. but uh it has turned out to be a good. embodiment of what whoop does which is. that feelings are overrated I say that. because I remember looking at my heart. rate variability and seeing it was. orange or red I can't remember and then. asking myself why and I go oh yeah I. know why because I was really I think I. was really stressed that day I hadn't.

slept and then I hadn't slept because we. had a back to back to back schedule so I. was going to sleep at 4am and waking up. at 8am for like three days in a row and. my heart rate variability just seemed to. plummet and that was when I speak to my. sister and I go listen we need to no. meetings before 11 because I need to. sleep. um and it knew me before I and it's. funny because it yeah it it changed my. life by telling me something that maybe. I wasn't listening to. it changed my routine by telling me. something that was clear maybe from a. subjective objective standpoint but I.

clearly was ignoring thinking that I was. invincible I think covid-19 was a big. wake-up call for people in that category. right of. um of feelings are overrated because. here you have a virus that you can get. that you don't feel. you're not even sick and yet you give it. to someone else and they get deathly ill. we had a fascinating relationship with. covid-19 in being able to measure it.

because we detected a statistic called. respiratory rate being super elevated. but I can't tell you how many. screenshots and messages I've gotten. over the last two years if people seeing. this huge spike in their respiratory. rate you know two three days before. ultimately testing positive for covid. and. it reaffirmed in a lot of ways the. founding story of the company although. in a different direction it wasn't about. not knowing that you should train today. or rest today it was about not knowing.

that you were sick it speaks to the. potential of Health monitoring and why. it's so exciting. another conversation I've been having. recently with a friend is about. blocking out certain types of light I. heard you do that yeah so uh blue light. essentially what emits from a cell phone. a television set an iPad I mean blue. lights frankly all around us and blue. light essentially tells your brain to. stay awake. and so. one way to offset that is to not be on.

devices into the evening but you know. I'm still I think largely optimizing my. life around being a great entrepreneur. or or uh CEO so for me that doesn't. quite feel like an option yet or I. haven't quite built that level of. maturity. but what I do do is I I wear these blue. light blocking glasses which have a red. tint to them and uh it's like a get out. of jail free card for using devices into. the evening and uh and then they start. to make you sleepy.

it's probably the single biggest thing. that's boosted my REM and slow wave. sleep on woop is is wearing blue light. blocking glasses. it's worth emphasizing for a second like. for your audience why that matters so if. you spend. like seven hours in bed. you're not actually getting seven hours. of sleep right and if you think about. the seven hours you spent in bed it's. divided up of time in which you're awake.

you're in light sleep you're in slow. wave sleep or you're in REM sleep. and awake and light sleep as stages go. really are kind of irrelevant like they. don't do much for your body. physiologically they're not restorative. but REM and slow wave sleep that's like. where all the magic happens so REM sleep. is when your mind is repairing. cognitively it's when you'll have uh. deep dreams so people who say they don't. remember their dreams or they don't. dream they probably aren't getting. enough REM sleep so for human beings REM.

sleep is like critical right because. that's cognitive repair slow wave sleep. that's when your body produces about. like 95 of its human growth hormone is. that deep sleep on woop yeah yeah and so. you know people think they're getting. stronger going to the gym right really. you're just breaking down your muscles. when you go to the gym you actually get. stronger when you go to bed during slow. wave sleep because you're producing all. your human growth hormone. so just to zoom out if you're someone. who's spending seven hours in bed. it might be that you get a total of 30.

minutes of REM and slow wave sleep of. those seven hours. it could also be that you get like five. and a half hours. out of those seven hours and often when. you talk to people about sleep they're. like I just don't have time blah blah. blah we're not even talking about more. time we're just saying how do you take. the seven hours that you're in bed and. make them way better. and uh and so for me blue light blocking. classes was one of those things there's. a couple others but yeah this was the.

thing that made me fall in love with my. whoop I remember getting eight hours. sleep waking up and feeling great. looking at my whoop and it said you'd. had three hours REM sleep and be going. yeah smashed it that's nice yeah and. then a couple of days later or the next. day getting eight hours sleep waking up. and feeling like [ __ ] looking at my. whooping it said oh you've got 30. minutes or something and me going ah. there is it because you think oh I spent. eight hours in bed so I must have had. yeah as you say like eight hours sleep. but it's j when you once you see that. you can't unsee it it's like this whole.

29 years of my life I've been like I've. misunderstood something so foundational. about my entire life and the fun thing. is you can optimize it like once you. measure it you can manage it yeah I kept. my girlfriend at the bed I said goodbye. well you don't have to go yeah you don't. have to be that extreme but it's uh yeah. I do think it's empowering and like. sweeps about a third of your life. be good to take care of that third too. but just the the difference I see on a.

on a day where I've just had bad REM. sleep or bad deep sleep versus the days. when I've had good like my performance. my mood everything is so different it's. a completely different human being. also there's a fascinating phenomenon. too as it relates to stress. so research shows that the more REM. sleep you get the less heightened your. amygdala response is Right amygdala is. like fight or flight right and so if you. get a ton of REM sleep it essentially. softens your amygdala um it it makes it.

less active. uh funny enough I did a a podcast with. Alex Honnold do you know who that is so. Alex honnold's the famous uh rock. climber who did free solo Oh you know. that documentary yeah yeah so he scales. this crazy uh you know slab of of. mountain without a without a rope and he. also happened to wear a whoop and so I. was talking to him about. uh risk and fear and all these sort of.

different concepts stress but uh it. turns out that he gets like four and a. half to five hours of REM sleep a night. on woop. and I was thinking like how perfect is. it that a guy who literally can rock. climb and risk dying every single day. has this like unbelievable uh outlier. also ability to get REM sleep of course. and could those two things be related. the other time that I wasn't familiar. with until I got away was this idea of.

strain I I'm gonna be honest I we talked. a little bit before we started recording. about my little fitness group yeah the. way the fitness group is designed is. that it's but you get it's like a league. table it's rewarded on consistency we. call it the fitness blockchain so. there's 10 of us in it if you lose you. get kicked out of the group and someone. who gets put in every month. it's quite vicious you get put into. another group you have to wait for three. months before you get one chance of. getting back in if you don't you go into. what we call chump hell story it's like. a hardcore like fantasy football yeah. it's crazy um we track it we track a lot. of things you have to submit your.

workouts every day as well and then. someone verifies Etc. um strain currently in that group you're. rewarded for working out every day. is that a good thing. well. the way that we think about strain is to. balance it alongside recovery. so. the average amateur.

uh exerciser let's call it the weekend. warrior. uh probably has workouts that look too. consistent in terms of intensity or too. consistent in terms of strain so whoop. has a scale from 0 to 21 on whoop that. might look like a 12. or like a 13. like. so every time they work out it's a 13. and the reality is when your body's run. down. maybe you don't want to do anything or. maybe you should go for a walk like just.

let your body recover give yourself the. permission to catch a breather. but if your body's peaking. like go crush it right take on a 16 or a. 17 or an 18. and I should also say that you know. strain is essentially looking at. the amount of time that your body is in. an elevated heart rate zone. so we're talking about a primarily. cardiovascular measurement of stress. that you're putting on your body for any. period of time.

but back to your question like you. probably don't want to do. a high strain every single day unless. your body's freakishly recovering and. there are people who do that but they're. mostly like professional triathletes or. whatever. and you also want to try to vary the in. the The Strain level. so if you're at a 50 recovery maybe. you're doing a 10 if you're at a 75. recovery you're doing a 16 or 17 or an. 18. and a lot of this goes back to. in building the product we wanted to.

make it actionable. a lot of wearables maybe V1 wearables. sort of told you what happened. we were very focused on telling you what. to do next and how you can. uh get better on that point of recovery. then how if I if I'm training a lot. um how can I improve my recovery outside. of sleep. a lot of it would be diet and hydration. uh potentially supplements if you're. taking them making sure you're taking. the right ones.

um because if you're taking the wrong. supplements that's actually a lot worse. for you than taking none uh. you know. I think some type of mindfulness or. meditation or breath work speeds up. recovery that's that's my own bias uh we. certainly see uh sleep consistency so. that's less about what you're doing. during sleep but actually more just. routine so going to bed and waking up at. similar times. even exercising at a similar time may.

help you recover faster because your. body's getting used to it. of all the of all the metrics that. attract on the whoop is heart rate. variability the one you love. the most well on a personal level it was. the thing that jumped off the page to me. you know. 10 years before it became even. remotely mainstream so I feel some. relationship with it in the sense that.

like I saw there was a lot of potential. for this thing. on a on a whoop level. the product does now measure a lot of. different things very well so I don't. want to say that any one statistic is. the Silver Bullet I think a lot of it is. collecting all of this information in a. form fact in a format by the way that. you're willing to wear 24 7 which has. its own challenges we can talk about uh. and then creating scores or creating.

messaging to an end user that that gets. them to change Behavior gets them to. improve health that to me is the if you. think about the Pyramid of you know sort. of challenging things the tip of the. pyramid is a product that is changing. your behavior and improving your health. quick one some of you may know we've got. a brand new sponsor on this podcast. American Express and you've got a brand. new exclusive offer for a limited time. only which I can't wait to tell you. about from the 18th of October to the. 16th of November American Express is.

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labor the point but if you haven't tried. he'll give it a try and if you do tag me. Instagram wherever you try it give me a. tag anyway back to the podcast your. company. um the business you've built. I heard that your employees that would. get a bonus if their sleep is considered. to be good on their whoop how much truth. is there to that it's a fun uh it's a. fun employee perk that we came up with. so. everyone on woop is on a team together.

and you can opt into What's called the. Sleep bonus and if you get 85 percent uh. sleep performance on average throughout. the month uh you get a hundred dollar. bonus like on your pay stock and so it's. it's mostly uh it's mostly a fun thing. but it does speak to our culture which. is. using the data we have in front of us uh. promoting uh sleep and good habits.

actually during covid we also came up. with the red recovery policy which was. because we had a lot of people actually. coming into the office during even. during the peaks of covid because we. built Hardware accessories supply chain. things that you kind of have to do in. person very physical things and so the. red recovery policy was that if you had. a red recovery. you actually uh needed to stay home. because either you are getting sick or. you are at risk of getting sick because.

your body was run down so again fun fun. ways to use the data in an actionable. way and and you know build it into the. culture. when you talk about why your company has. done so well and it has one you talk. about there being a more Scrappy kind of. nature to the team. which sounds more like innovation. how does one go about as your company. grows keeping that Innovation that's so. Central to you winning because with.

growth often cut becomes like I don't. know things move slower you know. bureaucracy before being for Jenny's. come back from annual leave. what are you doing from a culture. standpoint. I think one of the reasons whoop has. been successful is we had a pretty clear. perspective on what we were building and. why. and the consequence of that is also what. you're not building. right like whoop is graded all the. things that it does for all the things. that it doesn't do. we are.

not a smart watch. we don't allow you to download a bunch. of apps we don't receive phone calls. you can't flag an Uber with your whoop. right but when it comes to health. monitoring we're the best game in town. and that. really came from an insane level of. focus in the beginning on what we were. trying to solve. and it carried us through to today. there were a lot of counter-intuitive. decisions along that like along that.

Journey. um one obvious one is that whoop is not. a watch. uh and I can't tell you how many people. have asked for whoop to be a watch and. the reason it's not a watch is is. there's a few different reasons but just. by putting the time on it all of a. sudden you've created this enormous. competitive landscape. and competing with watches is hard like. there's a lot of beautiful watches. there's also a lot of watches that serve. different functions. watch also says a lot about your. identity.

the other thing about a watch and you'll. notice this from every technology. company is the second there's a screen. there's this enormous scope creep that. occurs for what the product's actually. meant to do. and very quickly you're in a product. meeting where you're talking about email. notifications and different screen. colors and various ways to tell the time. and whether or not you're going to be. able to give it voice memos and and all. of a sudden you're talking nothing about. health monitoring. and so if I look back and.

um you know over the last 10 years. we made these decisions so like we made. a decision to not be a watch uh and not. have a screen on it. we made a decision on the flip side. though to invent a modular charger. where you could charge your move without. ever taking it off. and that was super expensive and took. you made the product take way longer and. cost a bunch of hundred dollars but. again it was back to that identity of. Health monitoring needs to be 24 7 to be.

the most effective and if you take it. off all of a sudden it's not 24 7 you. might not put it back on. so that was something we did that other. people didn't do right. um everyone was measuring steps. we didn't think steps was. physiologically relevant. so we we tried to stay true to our. identity and I think that helped us. navigate a competitive landscape where a. lot of people were copying each other or. where companies may have had even too. much resources and those resources got.

them down you know into this very. expansive place without being great at. anything. focus and first principles is what I. heard throughout that that what you said. there the first principles point about. 24 7 monitoring yeah that's like a. totally first principles thought because. you said well health is a 24 7 thing so. we have to create a solution we don't. take the watch off convention says no. just get charged and you take it off at. night you put it by your bed and you. signal so. that approach and that conviction.

towards like thinking for yourself about. this problem. is much easier said than done for. companies like t i I feel like peop one. of the you know in all facets of our. life whether it's our relationships or. intimacy or friendships or building. companies or how we construct teams. thinking for yourself is what I heard. there. um you say it so easily but it's wise. it's impossible for people to do. especially when they're thinking about. innovation.

because you know you had all those. moments where why doesn't this have a. screen on it so also why I love it it's. probably also why the battery lasts. longer it's also why I'm so committed to. it as you've identified but those are. all like. first principles that came from whoop I. think what. what's different about your product is. also what makes it special and I think. that true Innovation often comes from a. level of focus or discipline that's. really uncomfortable. like having said everything I just said. I still think about whoop as a watch on.

a near daily basis because. it's it's something that pulls at me you. know because. I can see a world in which it is a watch. but it's not a watch and I'm not. building it as a watch you know what I. mean so there is this uh. you know sort of painful level of. discipline that has to occur I think to. be able to continue marching forwards. and we actually went a different. direction where.

uh We've looked at invisible as a more. compelling landscape so obviously you. can wear it on your wrist but you can. actually you know take it apart and. depending on what garments you're. wearing right so you take this clasp off. you can now put this sensor into. different places on your body so really. so yeah so we've come out with shorts uh. boxers bras underwear uh uh shirts that. have it in your arm sleeve and so you. can just tuck this into a little pocket.

that allows you to wear it in different. areas of the body. I didn't know that so I could put up my. boxer shorts lining yeah oh nice dope. yeah now also kind of crazy to start a. wearables company and realize you're. designing boxers but that goes back to. your first principal's point I suppose. right yeah exactly why would you design. boxers well because you need to create a. way for them to wear it 24 7. something else you said which I've never. had anybody say before but it's so.

unbelievably true is when people have. bigger budgets when six like with. success comes greater temptation to be. and do everything and become everyone. and that's often when companies lose. their way. is because of their success everyone. goes well why don't we do we've got. these customers now so why don't we do. this and that and this and why don't we. do it five of them. have you felt that temptation. yeah absolutely I mean uh I think it's. that's probably the biggest way that. success.

uh is a bad teacher is the degree to. which it makes you think you can go into. a bunch of things and abandon the level. of intensity or Focus. that you took in building the original. thing to be successful. so. but you know that doesn't stop me from. dreaming of ways that the company can go. in totally different directions. you just you have to check yourself like. you really do have to check yourself and. make sure.

uh. you've got the right level of focus if. you're going to go into it that's been. one of my biggest mistakes is we become. successful I then come up without new. ideas I then think more about the reward. of the new ideas versus the actual cost. the cost of like mental time for the. whole team the cost of like everyone. waking up and being in the shine. thinking about a different problem. and then we had a recent incidents where. we spent I'm going to say nine months. planning something big big new thing in.

one of my companies. offered someone a job to be the CEO of. this this new company and then I don't. know what it was something in my gut. says you're doing it again Steve you're. losing focus. cancel it all and it's funny because my. team was so excited Jack was so excited. we're all so excited about but when I. had that conversation with everybody. about why we were canceling this because. I know we should be focusing there was. this weird jack because you know what I. was so excited but I'm relieved and we. all knew we all knew we'd got carried. away with.

thinking more about the reward of this. Focus than the cost of this Focus I. think this focus is a thing but has that. happened to you when you've like ran too. far down a path with a new idea. and then range yourself back in because. you realize the cost of focus. yeah I think there's there's been. certain aspects of. product development you know go to. market strategies where. you know it's the right thing even.

but you you're again you're not. dedicating the right level of focus to. it or the team doesn't have the. bandwidth for it or uh the timing's not. quite right like. yeah I mean Focus I think is probably. one of the most underrated. uh skills for any leader and not and I. don't mean that just for them. it's more important that they create an. environment of focus. how does one do that if I if I join. whoop how am I going to learn.

on the day before I join the day I. joined and thereafter every day why I'm. here this this Vision the focus how are. you how are you teaching me that well a. lot of it comes back to the core mission. of the company right which is to unlock. Human Performance to improve health a. lot of it comes back to being really. deliberate about the hardware that we. build and why the accessories we build. and why a lot of it comes back to.

the fact that whoop is a subscription. right we haven't touched too much on. the business model but. transitioning the whole company and the. whole business model to being a. subscription versus a one-time Hardware. sale changed a lot for the company uh. but one thing that it it really changed. uh for the better is the DNA around. launching new features launching new. Analytics. you're no longer trying to get a. customer on an 18-month cycle where you.

come out with the new widget or 12-month. cycle where you come out with a new. widget you're trying to keep your. customers every day right because every. day they have a choice to cancel. and. what in turn that does is it makes you. very focused on releasing new features. that are adding value now. you could have a like a conversation. that's two or three depths deeper than. this which is around well should we go. down the path of releasing these. features or those features do those.

features feel less focused than these. features right but all of a sudden at. least we're two or three levels down in. terms of focus and uh and so that's. where a lot of the debates are taking. place is within the lens of our already. focused Mission and and areas of. innovation should we pursue different. categories or different features and I. do I think like to think it's it's very. customer-centric because. uh because we have this deep. relationship with our members where. they're wearing the product 24 7. and.

I think rightfully so we have to earn. their their subscription every month. competition. you've got some big competitors I mean I. saw the I saw Apple's recent. announcement that sleep is now going to. be part of the Apple watch one of the. new Apple watches maybe on the Apple. watch hate or something. how do you think about competition and. what role is that that played in. motivating you terrifying you all of. these things. yeah so when whoop was starting. uh.

Nike which is a company I looked up to. with great admiration I was just coming. out with the Nike fuel band. uh Adidas was coming out with the me. coach. uh. Under Armor about a year or two later. was going to spend a billion dollars. spends a billion dollars. acquiring three different companies in. the space they were coming out their own. wearable they bought a a Running Company.

um. a company called Endomondo a company. called MyFitnessPal so they had a whole. strategy around Health tracking. there was a company called uh Fitbit. which was about to go public for you. know many billions of dollars a company. called Jawbone which had raised a. billion dollars. uh it was rumored Apple was entering the. space it was rumored. um Microsoft was entering the space.

so. competition was always in this backdrop. but I I found I never found myself that. um swayed by what the competition was. doing. in fact if there's any company I'm most. critical of their strategy in the. wearable space it was Nike. because Nike is. I think one of the best brands in the. world and they built that brand have you. read the book Shoe dog I haven't I. haven't it's a great book anyway it's.

Phil Knight's book but they built that. brand by. uh. storytelling and authenticity and the. authenticity being the people who wore. their shoes ran faster and jumped higher. and so that was the company I was the. most nervous about because I was afraid. if they could build a wearable that. their world's best athletes actually. wore. they could then tell that story to the. masses and be successful. but they took a huge shortcut.

and that shortcut was they just built a. product they thought the mass Market. would like. and so it wasn't a product that LeBron. James was going to wear or Serena. Williams or Tiger Woods I mean they had. all the best athletes in the world. and so the clue to me that that product. was going to fail was that. it didn't stick to their identity they. didn't have the story at the top they. didn't have any of their top athletes. wearing it. and on the flip side the opportunity I. saw. was if we could get the world's best.

athletes to wear whoop we could in turn. build our own brand around performance. and around an aspirational product. and. if you go back and like looking back on. it that was a that was a very stubborn. perspective again and. um you know even a little bit arrogant. to say uh that. now we're going to build this technology. and the world's best athletes are going. to pay us for it because it's going to. be that good. I also though think it was a fairly.

rational perspective. because if you build a product that. someone needs to wear 24 7. and they don't love it there's no amount. of money you're going to be able to give. them to keep that thing on their body. let's be honest and in many ways I saw. that with the fuel band. on the flip side if. if you can really deliver value around. sleep or recovery or you know these. measurements that at the time a. professional athlete had never had.

uh they're very very likely to pay for. it because that's a huge value add in. their overall performance so that was. our very early go to market strategy and. it was also part of the way that we. differentiated ourselves from other. products. the last thing I'll say about this is. and again inspired by Nike. the idea that you could build a brand or. a product that says something about your. identity like the difference between a. cotton shirt that's plain versus a.

cotton shirt with a swish on it like the. person who's wearing the switch feels. something different the person who. observes the person wearing the swoosh. thinks something different that was a. phenomenon that resonated for me at a. very young age. but when I looked at the health. monitoring landscape uh. to me it felt like Health monitoring was. actually definitively not cool. and wearing a health monitor there was. almost a stigma associated with it. unfortunately. so how can you build a technology that.

people wear 24 7. that has a positive. identity associated with it. and that goes again back to the. professional athlete strategy if we can. get the world's best athletes to. authentically wear it then we can tell a. story about how health monitoring is. aspirational. it's interesting because I sat here with. Scott Galloway earlier on and Scott. talked to me about how once upon a time. maybe 30 years ago. um because of the way we learned about. products and the lack of. trip advisors and review sites and. Amazon reviews. the big the big companies could could.

sell a fairly mediocre product based on. just pumping advertising at like. traditional advertising like TV and. stuff so you'd go out and buy the. Procter and Gamble soap or whatever just. because you'd been overwhelmed with. advertising from it in the modern era. when we're all we have social media. accounts and we have you know ways to. broadcast from the palm of our hands and. we have WhatsApp so we can speak to our. friends about ideas and products and. stuff it's he was saying to me it's. become more about. the product and actually being great.

then the advertising dollars spent so he. said it's no it's no um surprise that. the biggest companies in the world like. the Teslas. they don't they don't advertise it's. about you telling me about how much you. love your Tesla and the way that I came. to learn about my whoop was my friend. Ash a year ago raving about it like. you'd paid him I think you paid him. the way he was going on about it was. like you had paid him personally that's. great and then obviously you know and. then he eventually gets me into it and. we have a fitness group so we start.

talking about it you can't pay for that. it's a better product and I think now. more than ever that's become much more. important to the consumer I think that's. right I think there's a certain. authenticity that consumers gravitate to. whether they're intentionally. recognizing it or not. and yeah for us that's been core to our. identity we've had very unusual. relationships with athletes and uh I. think in large part because we've been. able to build the technology that.

they get value out of LeBron James is. one of them that's often cited as being. a whoop wearer that must have been. pretty surreal to see him wearing it so. two of our first hundred users were. LeBron James and Michael Phelps [ __ ] you. know and this was in like end of 2014. early 2015 and uh it was also a very. difficult time for the business as we. talked about earlier. but I remember I was sitting at home. with my parents uh. at this point I think the jury was out. in their mind whether me starting this.

company was a good idea or not like a. couple years in like I had raised money. but you know uh was there a business. and this amazing thing happened where a. commercial came on and it was LeBron. James in a Kia commercial wearing a. whoop strap. and I thought isn't that the coolest. thing like you wouldn't even take it off. for a Kia commercial and uh and it also. made me feel good in front of my parents. did they accept that it's a real. business from that point onwards I think.

it helped marginally if they accepted it. yet but interestingly it was uh. it was something that for a couple years. did buy us time for for like building a. real business was the fact that we could. get all these really. high profile athletes to wear the. product without endorsing them it. demonstrated I think to investors or. others that okay there's something real. about this technology that's different. on that point of investors. you've raised 400 million in capital. roughly yeah 100 million dollars in.

capital how important is it when it. comes to picking your investors to pick. the right ones because I've seen this. kind of make and break companies. I think it's really important that. you're aligned with the investors on. what the purpose of the company is and. you know as a consequence also what the. purpose of the capital is we certainly. had investors along the way who. wanted to put money into the business. but wanted it to go in a different. direction than what I thought was the. right direction and so I'm grateful that. I never took that capital.

I think. it gets more complicated when you've got. a Believer and that believer invests in. you and your business and then whatever. you're building takes longer or the. revenue hasn't quite come in yet and all. of a sudden the believer starts to. become a non-believer. that's where you start to learn. who your investors really are you know I. think that's when you start to learn how. a functional a board of directors is. like when things are when things are bad.

how's everyone behaving and so. it's super important in the selection. process certainly with with investors. and I think reference checks are really. important and I think alignment on what. you're trying to do with the capital. what your identity is as a company. but I think equally important is. learning how to manage your board and. your group of investors when stuff isn't. going well we have something in common. which is you don't like networking it's. my idea how that's good research that's.

how I know you're good at this I [ __ ]. hate networking and then when I read you. didn't like networking I thought ah. that makes two of us. yeah I think it's overrated it's often. advice too that's given to. young people I I think if you uh. find a particular problem industry like. fill in the blank something you want to. solve a passion of yours. it pulls you into meeting the right.

people and that's where showing up is. really important that's where going to. the thing that you're half invited to. you need to go you know what I mean. versus being invited to something that. you're not sure about or whatever. pulling yourself into those environments. is critical. another piece of advice you gave to CEOs. was this which I found fascinating which. is there's a difference between hearing. and listening. what did you mean by that. so back to some of the earlier stages of. the company.

um. I mentioned it was hard to raise capital. for the business and. you know I heard no a lot like I was. rejected a lot in building this company. and. the coping mechanism for that especially. when I was I would say I was a slightly. more immature leader the coping. mechanism for that was to kind of put up. a wall to negativity. to the point where. I wasn't listening to it and I wasn't. hearing it right it was like it wasn't.

there. and that was an effective and highly it. was an effective coping magic mechanism. for a very short term period that would. not at all have allowed me to scale a. business. and I had a. uh an advisor and and really Mentor at. the time who said to me you know well. you don't have to listen to what people. say but you should just hear it. and that was a helpful and very simple. way for me to just reframe. the way that I thought about negative.

feedback like. okay this person disagrees with me I'm. going to absorb that I'm going to sit. with it I'm gonna wrestle with it. and interestingly now over the course of. 10 years you know disagreement's almost. a source of excitement for me because it. allows me to ask myself this question of. how do I. know what I know why do I feel so. strongly about something and it really. makes you again wrestle with it and. hopefully debate it with someone who's. smarter than you is going to prove you.

wrong I mean that I think is what's so. exciting about building a dynamic team. and you know taking on whatever. challenge you've got that speaks to the. importance of humidity again doesn't it. and why that's such an integral thing. when you're hiring or picking. co-founders you know I've also heard you. say that um customers are really great. at telling you what's wrong but not very. good at telling you the solution to. what's wrong. I think that's important I think it's a. very helpful framework I mean. back to starting the company I went out. and met with all these coaches and.

athletes and asked them okay if you. could have any technology improve your. performance what would it be and they. were all super focused on exercise type. equipment could be measuring stress. could be GPS analysis could be video. analysis form analysis it was it was. hyper focused on the thing the sport the. exercise but when I asked them what like. what are your biggest problems managing. a team or being an athlete it almost.

always came back to some form of. availability so injury or over training. like not being optimal on the day you. needed to be optimal. and so I thought there was a huge. mismatch between. the solutions they were asking for and. the problems they were describing and. for me that's that's something I just. try to think about. when I'm listening to customers or when. I'm thinking about products is. am I do I clearly understand what the. problem is or am I focused too much on.

what a solution could be. am I hearing too much of the solution or. am I hearing the problem and if you hear. the problem. then all of a sudden you're building. something pretty different. interesting. you hear the problem and then you can. kind of first principles up to solve the. problems accepting probably conventional. orientated solution I thought the best. way to solve problems around. Athlete Performance was measuring the. other 20 hours of the day. and at the time that was super.

counter-intuitive. but that again that word. counter-intuitive seems to be come up. over and over again when I read your. story about being a contrarian and being. counter-intuitive and this goes back to. the point about Innovation and thinking. for yourself because when you don't. think for yourself you just accept. convention that seems to be a really. consistent thread throughout your whole. journey not easy to do. not easy to do especially when things. get tough and everyone goes see. convention was right will. important to develop a process for.

conviction and then to to really sit. with something that you're convinced. about and pressure test it and bat it. around and even let other people. pressure test it. but if you have a track record of that. conviction. working out then it you really have to. you have to stick to it because it's. ultimately what's going to make you. successful. sometimes I worry about that. that you know you can you can be you can. win so many times in a row that you.

might stop listening and you might you. know. oh it's worth noting that. the level of conviction that we've. talked about on certain things yeah. is not a level of conviction that I feel. like all the time about a lot of things. you know what I mean. and. and I think it's worth it's really worth. emphasizing that like in building this. company I've had doubts about an. enormous number of things.

so. it's important not to look at any. entrepreneur and think that person has. all the answers like I haven't met that. person yet. I I just think it's. it's a really useful process to figure. out what are the things that you feel. the most strongly about. in the product or service that you're. building. because when you figure those specific. things out and then you dig your heels. in on them. a lot of magic can happen around that.

what's something you think you're wrong. about with whoop. or you might be wrong about if you've. got a creeping suspicion that there. might be something fun fundamental to. whoop that you might have been wrong. about in terms of your hypothesis. well. I think a lot of the answers to that are. also things that we're actively working. on and building so it's a little bit. sort of a little bit closer to the. secret sauce if you will then then maybe. your your question intended I'm more.

than happy for Secret Sauce there's a. natural tension that occurs when you. grow as fast as woop has over the last. call it. three years four years. and where your Market goes from being a. certain level of elite athletes to. Fitness enthusiasts to everyone where. you have to ask yourself how much are. you designing the product. for everyone versus one of these. segments. and so.

there's there's certain aspects of the. the rate at which we would help. someone who's trying to lose weight. versus someone who's trying to improve. sleep versus someone who's trying to run. a marathon versus someone who's training. for the World Cup. like the rate at which were. curating the whole experience to that. individual experience. I think is it that's an aspect that I. asked myself a lot about how are you. thinking about that at the moment I. believe it should get much more.

personalized and even the degree to. which certain statistics that you see or. don't see May evolve depending on your. core goal. um so that would be an example of. you know an area that we're working. through and. wrestling with I have no doubt that. people have approached you to buy whoop. no comment. so. I'll tell you a story. in 2000 and.

we talked a lot about competition in. 2000 and I want to say like 1718 it was. around that time that up had clearly. built great technology but we hadn't. quite figured out the distribution side. of the business or even the business. model. we were approached by Amazon. and. Amazon was interested in. first investing in the company but then. they also got interested in potentially.

acquiring the company and we weren't. interested in selling the business at. the time but in the process of. evaluating an investment. we shared a fair amount about the. company right and certainly information. that you wouldn't want to share to. Amazon a potential competitor Amazon and. fast forward two years later they came. out with a product that was a direct. knockoff of a whoop strap that's not. like Amazon yeah well you know you feel.

it differently when it happens to you. that's for sure. but. look it goes back to some of the resolve. of the of the company and the I think. that the culture at whoop where we do. feel kind of David versus Goliath. we are comfortable with people coming. after us and we're not threatened by. competition because the day they. announced that it was almost like a. running joke within the office it wasn't. okay we're screwed it was.

that's gonna fail you know and we're. gonna we're gonna see to it that we. succeed so in any way it was like almost. energizing that uh that they did it and. of course it's nice now to to see that. the product I think hasn't quite been as. successful as they would have liked or. maybe um. I don't think they're releasing a future. version of it when your team said that's. going to fail what gives you that that. conviction what is it about what you see.

in your walls and knowing about what's. going on in their walls that makes you. go you're not we're still going to win. I mean I don't want to be critical of. them I think Amazon. is a pretty amazing company and I'm sure. has an enormous number of amazing people. I think what. what's inspired what inspired whoop in. that moment is the same thing that. inspired us for 10 years which is that. we see things a little differently if if. someone is going to try to copy. everything that we've done before. they're still not going to have the.

special sauce for what we're going to do. next. and even when we created our uh whoop4. on the circuit boards we wrote. um don't bother copying us we will win. and it was this great it was this great. like call out to the engineering team. and in fact every single engineer who. worked on who before their initials are. on the circuit board oh really so real. sense of ownership and the funny thing.

of course about putting a line like that. on a circuit board is the only person. who's ever going to see that circuit. board is someone who's trying to copy. you. so you know I think there's I think. there's ways to roll with these things. and. um you know challenges ultimately are. what help you find your identity what is. the end then what is the end goal for. you. you're an entrepreneur you've done this. for more than a decade now entrepreneurs. start thinking about taking money off. the table about selling about you know. going and working on some other. challenge in the world where is your.

brain I know this is a difficult. question to answer and I know what it is. for you on team members and investors. and but where are you at what can you. tell me I think one thing that's. potentially unique for whoop versus. other businesses that that I could have. started or or an entrepreneur might. start is that it's actually gotten. exponentially exciting as it's grown. like I'm as energized today running the. company as I've ever been running the. company. and and I've met Founders who for you. know no fault of their own are actually.

just in a different place with that like. they're 10 years in or even six years in. and they kind of feel like they've hit. their peak of the mountain and it's time. to bring someone else in and. they'll stay involved as a chairman or. maybe it's the right time to sell it for. me it's uh. it's it's really as energizing a time as. I can remember building it as you have. more and more people on the product as. well it creates I think more and more. momentum for it. it's also a product that you see people.

wearing all the time so. like everywhere I go I now see whoop. which is pretty like pretty amazing just. given that uh once upon a time it was an. idea on a piece of paper. and and so that you know that's still I. still find that energizing. I've got an amazing team. and the future for health monitoring I. think is really to be able to. predict something about your health that.

you otherwise couldn't feel that is. either going to improve your life or. it's going to save your life like I. think Health the potential of Health. monitoring is so profound. that uh you know it determines a. full-time my full-time attention for now. we have a um tradition here where the. previous guest asks a question for the. next guest. um they don't know who they're asking. the question for. and I don't know what the question until.

I open the book the question that's been. left for you is. this is kind of funny. um. they maybe didn't realize your age when. they wrote this but they said what would. you tell your 25 year old self. I'm going to change this to what would. you tell your 22 year old self. keep going you know it's going to work. out. I think. learn to separate.

gratitude from complacency. I think. I think there was a phase in building. Loop where it was so much or even just. growing as an entrepreneur where it was. so much about. the next. Milestone and getting to that next. Milestone that I was running almost. exclusively on like a dopamine engine. right and you tell yourself. okay getting to this milestone's really. big deal.

and you're going to be really happy when. you get to this milestone. and that has a that has a an important. physiological effect in that it. literally creates dopamine because. you're anticipating this thing. um. but then when you get to that thing. if it's not the thing that you thought. it was going to be there's this huge. letdown. and so. in the process of living on that sort of. dopamine wheel. I learned that you really need to.

um introduce gratitude and be. appreciative of all the steps and people. and products that are happening along. the way. and I think there's a misperception for. entrepreneurs at least I think there was. slightly a misperception for me which is. like okay if I stop too much to. appreciate. where I am or this moment or what's. happened. I'm not gonna have the drive to get to. the next thing that's actually not true. at all like you can be very appreciative. of where you are today and still.

entirely driven to get to the next. milestone in your in your mind. so as opposed to to re-answer the. question it'd be learning how to uh to. balance. gratitude with Drive. and that makes the whole journey. sustainable totally yeah. that's how you can go for like. multi-decades and still and not get. burnt out or that's how you sprint the. marathon. well thank you thank you for your time. thank you for making a product which is.

just exceptional and you know it. probably sounds like I'm kissing us or. I'm like making this up because you're. here but I genuinely I mean you can. check my account. by the way we don't check accounts I. know previously is like number one for. you guys. so thank you for being on Loop and I. appreciate the way you do this you do a. nice job no I'm so unbelievably curious. and. um it was such amazing timing that we we. got to have this conversation shortly. after I became obsessed with my week. because I have so much to ask you not. just about the watch but about building. a company that is taking on these.

incumbents and done such an unbelievable. job of it and I think now I know I. finished this conversation understanding. why and it's about that that focus on. the vision it's about having really. um clear principles that are driven from. a real real sense of like authentic. curiosity obviously hard work and all of. these things and great people are huge. factors resilience grit and all those. things and then it's again about the. Innovation that's behind me which comes. from those principles which has allowed. you to continually think from first. principles because the whip is very.

different. and so that that for me is clear like a. like a book like Harry Potter it means. it's come from a very singular vision of. the world it couldn't have been this is. not the byproduct of. huge amounts of um. consensus. that's fair yeah see what I mean because. a group of people would not have thought. of this that's right they would have put. a screen on it with the thing and but so. it's really remarkable to meet you and I. have no doubt that you know this company. is going to continue to go from strength.

to strength so thank you for being here. thank you Stephen quick one I have some. exciting news this episode is brought to. you by Mercedes-Benz who recently got in. touch to support the Diary of a CEO. thank you I've been quite the fan of. their cars for some time now so I jumped. at the chance to work with them as one. of the most well-known luxury Brands out. there and through getting to know their. brand on a much deeper level I came to. learn about our shared values on. Innovation striving to create a better. tomorrow some of you may know if you. follow me on Instagram that this year we. invested in a Mercedes-Benz of our own. and honestly it's transformed my life.

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