DeAndre + Grant (00:00.246) It's pretty busy. Q one is usually slow for us. it it is Q one is slow. Summer is pretty busy. And then what is it, the November time frame, like October, November, is usually max Q. Like November is when everything's coming to a head before the end of the year. Gotta get everything wrapped up for annual budgets for all the corporates and like before everyone goes on vacation. So like November is just full insanity. Summer is the normal amount of busy. Sam Kang (00:03.746) Yeah, that makes sense. Sam Kang (00:19.862) Yeah. Ya DeAndre + Grant (00:30.478) But you're coming off a Q one and ramping back up into the fun stuff. Sam Kang (00:30.551) Yeah. I remember back in the day there would be a lot of activity around Q three, Q four because of like CES, and shipping in holidays. Do you guys still find that or is that not as much of a thing anymore? DeAndre + Grant (00:40.46) Mm-hmm. DeAndre + Grant (00:45.132) The nice thing is shipping for holidays is such a long lead in the heart, like in our hardware space, that like that's not that if you're busy in Q3, you're not making holiday anyways. Like that ship has sailed long before. yeah, like it's like the the manufacturing and shipping times for most things we're designing are so long that you either know that you're totally on the rails or you've totally missed holiday by by Q3. but no, it's really the CES is a big one that is a big crunch in fourth quarter to get ready for CES. Sam Kang (00:53.486) Fair enough. Yeah, that's fair enough. Yeah, yeah. Sam Kang (01:08.835) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (01:14.69) or it's fiscal budgets for the enterprise clients. That's the big one. Is like they are doing all of their end of your reporting and doing all that pull together in December and they need all the narratives ready in December to win the money for the next year is the right word. Sam Kang (01:15.052) Yeah. Sam Kang (01:24.728) Yeah. Sam Kang (01:29.998) Totally. No, it makes a ton of sense. Cool. DeAndre + Grant (01:31.256) Yep. Awesome. Are you guys ready to get get rolling? I think we've got uploads are good. Yep. I see see they're ticking away. So everyone's internet is good. Our camera is I'm gonna check that one more time just to be sure. Sam Kang (01:44.14) Okay. When people listen to your podcast yeah, no good. When people listen to your podcast, do guys usually do you find that they're watching on video or are they usually just listening to audio or is it just a mix? DeAndre + Grant (01:46.796) We may have done this before. I'm sorry. DeAndre + Grant (01:55.394) A majority of the listeners are on the streaming platforms, like Spotify, Apple, things like that. and so it has been cool to see like every month it is going up quite a bit. I'm like, wow, like quite a few listeners. So that's kind of fun. Yeah. Well, you guys. I don't know. We're we're in the hundreds finally. We're in like the what, five and six hundred? for like an individual episode, and like at a given month we might have like a couple thousand listens across the different episodes, which is kind of cool. Yeah, which is totally different than last year, which was like twenty listeners, me and my friends and my mom. This is great. Sam Kang (01:59.926) Okay, cool. Yeah. Sam Kang (02:06.126) really? W what's the kind of latest? Sam Kang (02:12.622) Yeah, that's cool. Sam Kang (02:17.736) wow. that's awesome. totally. A hundred percent. Yeah, that's when when you're first getting going, that's for sure the case. Yeah. That's awesome. DeAndre + Grant (02:28.713) Yeah. well yeah, I think this is gonna be episode number like forty fift or fifty eight for us. So we're we're getting up there. Yep. Sam Kang (02:34.631) okay, cool. Well, awesome. That's great. DeAndre + Grant (02:37.965) Cool. All right. Well, I am ready to go. I've confirmed the cameras are all little red dots are on, in our side and the internet recording looks to be going great on your side. So I think we're good to go. DeAndre, whenever you're you're ready. Sam, are you also ready to jump in? Sam Kang (02:51.244) Yeah, sounds good. Does the audio sound good on on my own? okay, cool. All right, great. Yeah, I'm good. DeAndre + Grant (02:53.067) You sound great. Sound great. DeAndre + Grant (02:57.355) And everybody, welcome back to the Heart Tech Podcast. I'm your host, DeAndre Herakus, with my usual suspect. He's back, Grant Chapman. Back in the room. Thanks for thanks for having me back. Everybody, we're again back on season three. If you haven't checked out season two already, we're going, we've had we did 42 different episodes of founders and product leaders all across the country. And today I'm super excited. If you guys have ever been hot or cold sleeping in your bed, eight sleep is solving that problem at scale and at a rate that, quite frankly, we really haven't seen the consumer technology space as of late. Sam Kang (03:04.878) Mm-hmm. DeAndre + Grant (03:26.181) everybody, this is Sam Kang, the chief product officer at Eight Sleep. Welcome to the show. Sam Kang (03:30.816) Yeah, thanks for having me guys. It's great to be here. DeAndre + Grant (03:33.483) Yeah, Sam. So I think a lot of people have at least seen an ad on YouTube, Instagram. I know that I have for for eight sleep, but would love to kind of dive into just a brief update on your background, who you are, kinda what brings you into the world of hardware. Sam Kang (03:37.47) Ha ha ha. Sam Kang (03:46.626) Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Sam Kang. I'm the chief product officer at Aidsleep. pretty much my background has always been in developing hardware products, especially early Gen One type products, often for startups. I started my career in Silicon Valley working at an engineering consulting company where we got to work with lots of early stage companies. So I worked on the first Tesla Roadster back in like two thousand five. I worked on the first job on Bluetooth headsets for those of you that you remember that, and a bunch of products along the way. and yeah, I just love building products and You know, building things that people find useful and and valuable. DeAndre + Grant (04:20.489) Absolutely. Grant, I that's near and dear to your own. I say it's what I every day still. It's it's it's it's really fun when you realize that all the big major things were almost always done with the firm. Right. Like the companies and and the the brand names that you everyone knows and loves. Yeah, they are the ones working on V fifteen and V sixteen and you know, you know, versions along down the line of this main core product line. But almost all those core true product innovations start at a firm outside of the four walls of an enterprise. and that's what Sam Kang (04:23.854) Okay. DeAndre + Grant (04:47.979) what we've seen at least is that it's always that they go outside to innovate and then inside to keep iterating. And I've I didn't know that until I got in the industry. Sam Kang (04:54.35) Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think it's for sure. With when you're a startup and you know it's often just like a founder or two. I mean, we were w these teams were super small. I when we were working with Tesla, they were forty people at the time. Job One was like a five person company at the time. So yeah, you need help anywhere you can get it. So yeah, that's we we had the good fortune of working with a lot of those companies. DeAndre + Grant (05:14.433) You know, Sam, the first question I've got for you is the opening question is like, you know, from consultancy to the bedroom. Right. I thought that was kind of funny, but more specifically around you know, there's so many things you learn as an engineer when you're working at a d development firm, like the when you worked at work, like Glassboard, for example, all these different projects, all these different problems to solve. You're kind of drinking from the fire hose, especially early on in your career. I'm curious how how is those have those learnings really carried their way into eight sleep? What sort of lessons did you learn that you're able to actually apply to Sam Kang (05:20.854) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (05:43.344) the engineering you guys are doing over there now. Sam Kang (05:46.348) Yeah, I think consulting is great because you just see so many different kinds of problems. Like, you know, I think if you're gonna master anything, it all comes down to reps, right? Like when you talk about you hear athletes talk about it, musicians, artists, like it's all comes down to to reps. And I think consulting just gives you so many of those reps. And I think the fact that you have to solve so many different kinds of problems, you know, like the products I worked on, you automotive, consumer, medical devices, You're just having to constantly learn something quickly and and try to solve it. And so I think I think that gives you such an advantage early on in terms of compounding all that experience. I think also the fact that you're always working with different teams too. So it's like you're working with client teams, you're working with different manufacturers, you're working in environments where the systems are not set up yet, especially that was my experience early on, working with these early start early startups. It's not like there were already playbooks or you know, PDPs set up. It's like we were going in and having to help. create that. And so you just saw so many different scenarios. And so you can start pattern matching like, okay, in these scenarios, this works. In these other scenarios, this doesn't work. DeAndre + Grant (06:50.805) Yep. And I think it's, you know, you you're touching like the 10,000 hours moment, right? What is your 10,000 hours and that makes you expert in a thing? And when you do it at one company, you are the expert in that thing. I mean, you know, underwater basket weaving. If you do that in your career, you are 10,000 hours in underwater basket weaving and you're better than everyone. But when you do it in a consultancy, your 10,000 hours are actually just in problem solving. Right. It's in, you know, how do I how do I get in front of this risky thing? I know what we're working on is uncertain. What tests and where do I need to take them to go get certainty down the road? Sam Kang (06:54.668) Yeah. Yeah. Sam Kang (07:02.682) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (07:20.811) That's the muscle you build, not knowing exactly how to do that one RF circuit. Right. And I think that's the the magic of the consultancy is the the 10,000 hours are all in problem solving, not in any one vertical. But along the way, you learn nuggets of depth in certain verticals, right? I'm sure Sam, you've got some funny stories of something you never thought you'd know enough about. And now you're the expert in, you know, some weird technology. And later, three years later, you'll have a client, like, you can borrow something from that one obscure product. Sam Kang (07:25.389) Yeah. Sam Kang (07:39.12) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (07:47.285) and borrow it and use that technology or that core concept today, which is so cool. Sam Kang (07:47.714) Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. I think yeah, no, I think that's right. And I think it was particularly well like suited for early stage startups too, because then startups like that kind of ambiguity, ability to navigate ambiguity and solve different kinds of problems is is important because you never know what pivot you're gonna have to take. and you're not exactly you have a hypothesis initially, but you don't really know the form the product's gonna take or what problems you're gonna really have to tackle for consumers. So I think that's good. But I mean that's it, like you know, I have tremendous respect for people who've, you know, developed deep expertise in places, right? I think most technologies and most products, you get it started by having generalists that can solve lots of different problems. But if you're gonna really move the needle and really get to scale, then you really do need to leverage expertise too. So I think you it's definitely definitely both. DeAndre + Grant (08:34.315) Yeah. And I think it's the world couldn't exist without both. Like if you only had generalists, we would never invent new science and physics. If we only had people that were really, you know, narrowly focused, products would never ship. They'd never get out the door because they'd always be researched and iterated on. And it's it takes that yin and yang balance of like, you know, balancing the forest, the light, the dark side of the forest to push products out the door that are innovative. which is always fun. No, I I honestly completely agree on my side. Sam Kang (08:38.306) Yeah. Sam Kang (08:46.168) Toll. Sam Kang (08:53.87) Yeah, for sure. DeAndre + Grant (09:00.491) Right. I mean, I kind of come my background was a startup founder. So started a company when I was in college, ran it for a number of years. And it was in the sports technology space and I played football. But my passion, I guess, really wasn't in sport really. It was like fell in love. I fell in love with solving this core problem that the coaches were experiencing, then kicked me off on my founder journey, which then happen made me fall in love with like go to market and fundraising and you know, scaling a company. And so like that same exact experience happened for me early on, which is what which was and it sounds like you guys had a similar experience in the consultancy, which is Sam Kang (09:16.95) Mm. DeAndre + Grant (09:30.434) I'm constantly just solving problems. It's actually what I became really good at versus like any one thing. But yeah, whenever you're going to scale and to grow, and I'll ask some questions later on is like how you're thinking about that from the engineering team perspective on do we go for generalists, do we go for f for folks that are hyper specialized? I think it's a great point, right? I'm not probably the CEO you want to put into a late stage growth company. Actually I can tell you right now I'm not. But boy, if you want to go from zero to one and get your first customers and sign me up, right? I'm I'm good for that part. and maybe that'll change over time. But Sam Kang (09:58.166) Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. That's the case. DeAndre + Grant (10:00.651) that's fun. And then and then Sam, you know, how old is is Eight Sleep as a company? Like I'm trying to gauge like what is the level of, you know, how many years has the team been together? How many what versions of product are you guys on? Cause there's that transition from generalist to mature with some specialists in the background that starts happening. Where are you guys at on that journey? Sam Kang (10:19.714) Yeah, no, that's good question. I I think honestly I should know the exact year, but I think it was actually 2014 or 2015 when the company was officially founded. you know, it was like Max and Mateo started the company and then they did Y Combinator. and so you know the company's been at this for a while, right? It's like most companies that achieve a lot of things, a lot of success, it takes time. Like you're grinding in those early years, trying to find product market fit and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it's it's been a while. DeAndre + Grant (10:26.509) Mm-hmm. DeAndre + Grant (10:47.149) Yeah, but it's the ten year overnight success, of course, right? Sam Kang (10:49.268) No exactly, a hundred exactly, a hundred percent, yeah. DeAndre + Grant (10:51.925) Yeah. And so so how big's the team right now that you guys are are you know, what's the what's a product development or engineering team size? Sam Kang (10:58.178) Yeah, that's good. I think in terms of the overall company, we're probably we're still actually quite small in the grand scheme, but things about a hundred and fifty, I think, is probably somewhere around there. We are continuing to grow, so it might be a little more than that. and then the develop the hardware development team, the core of the team is about a little over 30 people. and that's split between the US and Asia. Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (11:18.039) No, that's awesome. And again, I think that's that's a really fun number because you can probably afford to have a handful of really good specialists and then a bunch of generalists that are supporting those people through the rest of the development process between concepting, design, build, test, and then production. because again, you mentioned you had some team members in Asia. It sounds like that's probably where you're manufacturing. And for those that haven't done that yet, that is so key to have someone on the ground to help push that along, get those timelines tighter. Sam Kang (11:25.741) Yeah. Sam Kang (11:36.141) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (11:46.007) catch things in real time versus the every twelve hour email, right? You know. Sam Kang (11:46.081) Absolutely. Sam Kang (11:49.814) No, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, consumer electronics, it's it's so hard to to beat Asia in terms of the supply chain and the access to manufacturing that you have over there. So and if you're building any product that has to be highly optimized and you're trying to really push bounds of performance, reliability, cost, you have to so tightly integrate to the to your suppliers and your partners over there. And so yeah, we've it's it's a critical part of our success is having great team members over there. DeAndre + Grant (12:18.455) You know, say one of the questions I have is just thinking about other kind of like elite engineers like yourself and making that decision to join a startup, right? And like kind of go all in and you know, invest your time, your effort, blood, sweat, and tears into growing that company and the products, right? I'm curious, kind of what was your what made you make that decision to join eight sleep and what was so compelling about the company that made you make the leap? Sam Kang (12:42.956) So I don't know if it's because this was my experience early on in my career or it just happened to be a good fit for my personality. It's probably a combination of both, but I've always loved working with startups. When you're in consulting, you get to work with lots of different kinds of clients. Like you worked with startups, big companies. And I mean the big companies were nice because they had a lot of infrastructure and you know they understood their products and their customers, but the startups were the ones that I always felt was the most fun because they were the ones that had the most conviction around a problem that they wanted to solve. they're the ones who were willing to take risks. On new ideas that you know maybe seem kind of crazy. but it's almost it's what you have to do to succeed as a startup, right? Like you're just not gonna succeed as a startup doing what everybody else is doing. and so I've just found that environment to be super fun. Like go into a group of people, you're really closely knit, you're trying to solve a really hard problem, and ideas can come from anywhere, right? It could come from myself when I was a you know 20-something year old, trying to work on an electric car or you know, even on our team, like it could really good ideas can come from anywhere. And I just love that aspect of it. You know, I just love being part of a small team that's trying to solve a problem. And just you know, one of my favorite experiences is sitting in a sitting in a conference room like or or in the factory trying to brainstorm a problem. And you know, it's something you're like, you can't figure out, but through the course of you know riffing on ideas and post-it notes and all that kind of stuff, you come to a solution. And the best ideas are the ones where someone's like, Well that seems crazy, but it could it might actually work And then you go try it, and then it actually does work. Like to me, that's just the most fun part of developing products and engineering. And so to me, I've always gravitated towards startups. I think the thing about Eatsleep, when I found found out about it and you know, was started talking to our team here was the mission and the impact. I've always been interested in health. even in school, I did biomedical device design as like one of my specializations. Sam Kang (14:43.636) To me, like I mean. if you want to have impact and improve people's lives, like it it's it's pretty direct, right? It's like okay, somebody's you know having some health issues and you can try to to try to improve it. But just day to day, so much of our life is colored by our ability to be healthy and you know show up for our families and you know to do with the things, pursue what you want to pursue. And so when I stumbled upon cron it's like the fact that you know we had this mission of really trying to improve people's lives. And I think the insight that the that we had is and that the the founding team of MTAo have is know really the the key to sleep it's it's about that it's there is a line he had that we had for a long time which is fulfilling human potential right it's like how do we or sorry fueling human potential so really the the goal of sleep is to be able to have people show up and do extraordinary things in their lives and to me that mission like absolutely resonated and you know when you really peel back the layers sleep is one of the most underrated aspects of sleep I think or sorry of health and I think that's changing now right like people are starting to realize that sleep is really important. And if you really think of the pillars of health, it's it's diet, exercise, and sleep. but if you think of just how much time, money, energy is spent on diet and exercise, and how little is spent in terms of managing and optimizing sleep, like it just clicked for me like, there's a huge opportunity here. And this is something that I, you know, I could probably spend the 20, 30 years of my life trying to help. improve. and so yeah, that's why I always excited to join. DeAndre + Grant (16:14.037) No, that's awesome. And it's one of those things like you don't realize how many hours of your life you sleep and how important that actually is to get right. you know, we everyone that, you know, is an athlete and works out is maybe two hours a day, right? Three if they're absolutely killing it. That is still less than half of what you should be sleeping a day. And we optimize every ounce of what we work out or every time we eat. And and Sam, I think that delivery was really good of like sleep is this underrated thing that affects us holistically and no one pays attention to it. Sam Kang (16:18.638) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (16:41.965) Other than, maybe I am sleeping less than I should and I should sleep more. That is, you know, the extent of what most people think about when they're trying to improve their sleep. That's super cool. So as on your side, Sam, so it sounds like in terms of like kind of making that decision to join eight sleep, it was about, hey, I I I actually do really enjoy solving problems as startups. I think that it's innovative, it's fun, unique ways to solve problems. We're in, you know, brooms and we get to just throw stuff at a whiteboard, maybe this crazy idea works and it works out. Sam Kang (16:45.954) Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (17:09.217) But also it sounds like a huge part of it was just the vision and the overall mission of the company and actually believing in what the founders were talking about. I think obviously they've been incredible at raising capital and so on, but that that story arc of kind of zooming out a bit beyond just, hey, this product you know warms and cools your bed, more on like this is going to make you more productive and show up more presently in your day to day life. That's a much broader mission. And so would you say like those things combined is really ultimately what made you make that decision? Like, hey, This is where I want to go for the next like you mentioned, twenty, thirty years of my life. Sam Kang (17:40.63) Absolutely. Yeah. No, that that that's that's right on. I mean, I'm someone that I really do enjoy problem solving. And to me, one of the toughest things about in consulting, or but I mean honestly in any job is like you're working super hard on something and then the product doesn't go anywhere, right? Be either because like the concept was wrong, or there's just bigger force, you're yeah, yeah, the cli helped the client ran out of money, or you know, just like political stuff at the company to where it's like maybe this became doesn't not a strategic priority. Like the number of projects I worked on where DeAndre + Grant (17:59.088) You run out of money. Sam Kang (18:09.326) We had executive sponsors, but then the CEO or somebody like you know leaves and then now the you know the product basically like dies on the bind. Like you know, those experiences were super frustrating for me. And so coming to a place where I'm like, there are really ambitious goals and products that we want to build, and like the the the the ability to actually if I work on it, I can bring these things into the world and that people can actually benefit from it. Like to me, that's that's that's awesome. I'll say actually the well the one other thing too is. I really like the other thing that really jumped out at me as I started really digging into our products was how hardware is such a critical portion of the of the solution. Like ultimately all of our products are about interacting either with the person or the environment. And so they're highly hardware, but also highly mechanical. And that's my background. It's I've always worked on my math the undergrad was in mechanical engineering, but always working on electromechanical systems. And even in the hardware world, there's lots of products that don't have like super meaty mechanical problems. And for me, the the the problems here were super interesting. It's like, we're doing with things around thermals, around biometric sensing, around mechanisms, you know, like there's audio, so many things. Yeah, exactly. Like aeroacoustics. Like there's just so many different elements of mechanical engineering. my friends always joke, like I'm the only person they know in in our friend group that actually uses, you know, what I learned in school, like every single day. And it's like, yeah, it's but you know to me that's so fun. And DeAndre + Grant (19:18.431) and audio and fluid control. Sam Kang (19:37.71) that that's another thing that just really jumped out at me. And usually in order to solve those kinds of complex electromechanical problems, you usually have to work on products that are much more complex, like think cars, right? And a lot of our team come from places like Tesla because it's like that's usually the kind of places you to go to have that breadth of problems. But I I I love what we're doing at ASL because it's like it actually can be worked on a team that's, you know, like a handful of people driving these, right? And so that's pretty rare. Like you actually don't usually find that in a in many places. DeAndre + Grant (20:08.011) Right. Well, and it's it's one of those things that coming from someone who was in the consultancy world like you like I am and you came from, we would get really bored working on one very narrow problem. Right. We we kind of need that variety to stay happy and healthy and engaged. And again, I've had the the pleasure of work meeting you and some of the rest of your team out in San Francisco and we were out there a couple weeks ago. And it's like, man, they are solving a two dozen different physics domains problems to make this one product launch between, you know. Sam Kang (20:18.285) Yeah. Sam Kang (20:22.658) Yeah. Sam Kang (20:30.942) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (20:34.261) Embedded software and electronics and then thermals and fluid control and how do you manufacture fluid pathways that are flexible but don't leak and do all this stuff. And, you know, it's it's these challenges stack up and it's the same, you know, we were swapping the same stories at, you know, on the the show floor of what I'm doing for all of the various amounts of clients that we have, but you're doing it all in one house. So you get this like the double benefit of all the exposure to the the variety that we all are A D D craves, but in one product line that you can drive shipping, right? Your team can be a hundred percent aligned behind. So I think that's Sam Kang (20:40.854) Exactly. Sam Kang (20:51.074) Ha ha ha ha ha. Sam Kang (20:57.208) Totally. Totally. DeAndre + Grant (21:03.073) Sam, you got a pretty magical place that you've been able to to find that blends those two worlds together. Sam Kang (21:07.254) No, absolutely. And actually the other thing that is also super cool about what we're doing, I I don't know if you guys feel the same way, but some of the c projects and consulting that I know myself and our teams really loved. With the things that directly touch the end user, right? It becomes a little bit more abstract when it's like a business process thing where you're like building this backend thing that's gonna eventually, you know, like improve operational efficiency. It's like we're using products that people use every single day, right? And it's very high touch. And so the trying to understand users, all the industrial design, but then like when the product ships, you see people using it, like ourselves and our friends are using it. And so there's such an intense like personal human connection there on our products as well, that I think is just like finding the combination. DeAndre + Grant (21:18.298) yeah. Sam Kang (21:45.732) of all those things, it's like incredibly rare. So to find it one place I was like, that this is the place I want to be. DeAndre + Grant (21:51.372) Absolutely, man. And the other thing I would add is also everyone kinda wanna works wants to work at a consumer company 'cause you get like popular. Like to say the quiet part out loud, like Yeah, it it Sam Kang (21:57.262) That's true. If you have success, but consumer is hard. Yeah, yeah, that's true. But it's just like yeah, it's hard to break through. DeAndre + Grant (22:07.309) Exactly. It's very hard to break through. But once you do, like, you work at Eight Sleep, right? You know, or you work at Airbnb, right? Like those consumer products, you get kind of popular and that that's a benefit as well versus being like the biggest of this one category and B to B, what have you, and people are like, I've never heard of it. It's like, we're like we're nine figure business, like, that's cool. You know, like You you help logistics company do logistics more logistically. And you're like, Yep, that's what we do. Sam Kang (22:12.662) Yeah, yeah. That's true. Yeah. Sam Kang (22:21.206) Ha ha ha. Yeah. Yeah, no, it is that is definitely a fun part of it, yeah. DeAndre + Grant (22:34.749) Absolutely. I guess the next question we've kind of been been kinda inching towards it is just really around the product, right? So we kind of started talking about, you know, the engineering components and how you get to kind of wrap everything out everything that you were really passionate about into this one box, right? and I'm curious what was like a the iteration and journey of, you know, the first iteration of the product to now? What sort of evolution have you guys gone through as you continue to get in front of customers and things like that and kind of early on feedback and and so on? Sam Kang (23:03.906) Yeah, I think the when the product first launched, it was just sensing and heating. and the insight there was okay, you want information about sleep. This is very early on when you know I think Fitchip Fitbit existed, but it the sleep tracking space wasn't nearly what it looks like today. and so there was insights there in terms of like can we get sleep tracking and insights for people? And then heating because temperature control seemed important, but heating was like the easier thing to tackle, right? Like cooling, especially the kinds that we do today is very challenging. So it's like, okay, start with something MVP. And so that was launched. And there was, I think, a lot of excitement. This is before my time. So you know I'm mostly going off of the stuff that I've heard from Mateo and other co-founders here. But the there was definitely interest. And so we did Indiegogo campaign, you know, it sold out. And there was a good learning there. But really, like one thing that people just kept asking for was cooling. Right? It's like, okay, the heating side is cool, but can you build a product that cools because know you're too hot you could take off your blanket but then you know that that's kind of it right maybe you do AC but you know heating is an easier problem a lot more solutions with electric blankets and just more blankets and whatnot and so then we did a raise and built the the team to actually go tackle cooling and that was the really the first pod and that's really where the sales started to take off right it's like that was a pretty differentiated product and I think still for a lot of people they underestimate the benefit that actually controlling temperature both cooling and eating can have. But I think especially early on for folks who always chronically are hot. you know, it's it's like if you're just, you know, like myself, my partner, you know, she's usually like in sweats with the comforter on. I'm usually just in like a t-shirt with a sheet on and still sweating. Right. So for anyone who like really struggles with temperature, I think it's just like it became a real game changer and I, you know, started seeing a a lot of success there. And then over the years we've continued to to to improve on it. you know, I think DeAndre + Grant (24:51.275) Ha ha ha. Sam Kang (25:03.922) Whenever you work on a product you always see all the things that can be better about it. So Yeah, yeah. No, exactly. DeAndre + Grant (25:08.83) all the scratches in the car that you just cleaned are out in the parking lot, but only you can see them. Like this is this is what engineers live every day is like this thing has got great reviews and everyone loves it and you're like, but the inside looks horrible, that thing looked terrible and like, you know Sam Kang (25:21.368) It's like every time we exactly every time you launch something, we're like, if we could actually just like you have the next architecture in your mind. It's like if we could just redesign everything again, you know, like we could solve all these problems. and so we've continued to to to improve on it and you know, continue to to to to push that. like the some of the things that we definitely found in terms of noise is a factor, so you want it to be quiet. So we've continued to make the product quieter. DeAndre + Grant (25:29.549) We get Sam Kang (25:46.124) comfort. the initial product was pretty comfortable, but we've continued to push that to where you know I think we have that like really the goal is to make your bed feel like your bed. Like yeah actually for those people that don't know it's the the product goes on top of it's like a cover that goes over your mattress. And so it's you what you don't want to do is change the underlying feeling of the mattress for a user, right? People pick their mattresses for a reason. And so we spent a lot of effort on that, you know, continue to make thermal performance better so you can get quicker heating and cooling. So all these things we just continue to continue to improve. DeAndre + Grant (26:14.861) Yeah, and and cooling is so hard. I know that Sam, you mentioned like, yeah, heating's easy, electric blankets and more blankets. And you know, from the engineering side, I have built products that needed to cool. Cooling is so hard. I mean, I had that kitchen appliance that had cooling in it, and it was like still impossible to get right in the right price, at the right size, the right noise, the right energy efficiency. cooling for for all of you engineers that are listening, don't be afraid of heating. That's quite easy. That's heating is a hundred percent efficient with a resistor. cooling is not quite Sam Kang (26:20.492) Ha ha. Sam Kang (26:28.174) Yeah. Sam Kang (26:34.716) Exactly. Sam Kang (26:40.02) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (26:44.435) near that good most of the time. great can can I ask you why? W it's because it's when you're heating things, you take electrons and you rub them together and it makes friction and that makes heat and that's super easy. when you want to cool something, you have to physically take the heat, package it up and move it somewhere else. It's like taking the trash out. and you have to shuttle that heat through something that's not a wire. You can't transfer heat through a cable, right? Like electrons can't move heat. You have to move it through a medium. Sam, you guys use fluid, I think some kind Sam Kang (26:54.611) Ha ha ha. Sam Kang (27:12.78) Yeah, we use water, exactly. Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (27:14.027) Yep. And you have to make sure the fluid flows the right way and touch at the heat sink in the right way. And then you have to once you do that, you still have to throw the heat overboard. so the same word, you guys throw your heat into the air, are you an air air to air exchange? Yep. Yep. So yeah, so you're throwing the heat to the air, which means you have to have a fan, which may be loud and horrible and heat the room up. And I've had to heat a kitchen up and a kitchen appliance, and that was also bad. And it's you know, it's this stack on effect of product. Sam Kang (27:25.216) Yeah. Yeah, it's a w exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Water air exchange. Yeah. Sam Kang (27:36.008) Ha ha ha ha ha. DeAndre + Grant (27:40.974) problems that are fun engineering problems. Like exam, you and I probably love this space because it's challenging, but the electronics team has to have enough power for you to play with. The mechanical engineers have to make the fluid not leak. They have to make the heat sink big enough. The airflow has to be good. And then the user has to put the box somewhere where there's airflow. Right. They if they shove it in a corner or underneath their bed, it will eventually stop working well. And so yeah, thermals are hard. Sam Kang (27:45.323) Yeah. Sam Kang (27:58.572) Yeah. Sam Kang (28:03.788) No, totally. No, it is hard. And and I mean we came to this because you know we explored other options, right? This wasn't the like the first design that we came up with because it the doing it this way is hard. But if you just go back to the physics of like what Grant is talking about, like that's why we came to the system, like even using water. That's like you could use air and it has it's much easier. But if you just think of the amount of airflow you need to move sp some a specific amount of of heat of heat, and then you think of like how much airflow that is, the noise that would be generated with that kind of airflow, like you kind of come back. DeAndre + Grant (28:11.581) Yeah. Sam Kang (28:35.08) To water as just such a better medium for doing heat exchange. So yeah, it's this is what we came to. But as Grant said, there's a huge knock-on effects of what happens if you decide to do that. And you know, it's like this is the kind of concept too, where I think in a consulting, if was at my consulting company and somebody proposed this, we'd be like, Yeah, that seems like that's gonna have a lot of problems. Like, I would really recommend you try to figure out a different way first of approaching this before you go that direction. DeAndre + Grant (28:45.581) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (29:01.645) Well, and it's and it's one of those things though, but it's all about the user experience. And sometimes the user experience demands that the engineers must suffer. Right. I think that's the the the the thing is in the d challenge of trying to come a the challenge of bringing a great product to market is almost always in the first five percent. Have we determined what the product should be, why is it important and why do users want it? And then defined a good enough path to get there with engineering. Right. It's the if you have enough conviction in Sam Kang (29:09.236) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (29:30.721) What the product has to hold to be true, the engineers will find a way. I mean, you guys chose a few very difficult engineering paths to make your your product happen, Sam, but you did that because it made it a wonderful product experience. And I think that's the the hallmark of an of really good hardware companies is having conviction about what it should do and then letting the engineers have enough freedom to explore to make that delivery happen. Sam Kang (29:37.206) Yeah. Sam Kang (29:53.73) Yeah. Yeah. I what do you said about, you know, the a lot of the work is in that early part. I think that's true in terms of the product definition. Like if you get the product definition right, there's or wrong for then there's no amount of implementation that's gonna make up for that. and yeah, that of a product that just somebody doesn't want. But yeah, it's funny because it's just the the the execution, there's just so much that you have to get right. And especially if you're trying to build products at scale that meet these the the bar that we have, it's like DeAndre + Grant (30:06.335) Right. Yeah, there's no engineering that can undo that problem. Sam Kang (30:22.316) Just the the long tail of work that you have to do. is yeah. Anyone who's been in this space knows, right? That's what makes hardwood. DeAndre + Grant (30:28.321) Well, you you mean you can't do a software update to, you know, stop the leak or get it colder or, you know, clean the filter. it's it's and it it is I think that that's actually like a really good topic is how hardware companies are held to such a high bar because when we ship, it has to work every time or mostly every time, right? Like there is no ship it and then approve it over time. and that is that is the difference in tact of a hardware product versus a pure software product. Sam Kang (30:30.83) Yeah, exactly. man, I wish. Sam Kang (30:47.19) Mm-hmm. Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (30:56.181) in their development cycle, in how they think about development and testing. I mean, you guys probably have some amazing verification validation tests written now on your next generation products because you've, you know, touched the stove and gotten burned along the way. Sam Kang (30:56.652) Absolutely. Sam Kang (31:00.279) Absolutely. Sam Kang (31:04.749) yeah. Sam Kang (31:08.554) yeah. exactly. Like we have huge batteries of tests and automated test systems that we've built out to be able to to qualify news designs. That's a huge part of what we do. Yeah. And actually to your point of, you know, why the hardware's hard, like I think the other thing that makes it particularly tough for startups, especially doing early products, is the bar you have is to compare your gen one product to the mature, you know, 20 year Rev of a herbal product that's now gone down the full experience curve, right? And it's been ops fully optimized. Like whenever I look at things like a fridge or or even cars like gas combustion cars, it's like insane the amount of engineering that's gone into that, right? And it's like, but it's because those products have been around for like, you know, a hundred years. And so they've been so fully optimized. And but you know, the the average person's not gonna think about that. They're gonna look at your product and you know, have the same bar. It's like, well, my iPhone can do this. You know, I bought a you know, $200 d But you know, microwave that can you know do this. Why can't you know your your your product meet the same level of reliability? Yeah. No, exactly. DeAndre + Grant (32:06.775) Yeah, why can't your very expensive, very niche new thing meet this level that I have you know, for all the other things in my life? Well and and I think this hilarious moment of what you brought up, like appliances, this is one of my favorite things. Because we've gotten better at engineering them, appliance have gotten significantly worse. because engineers can now measure exactly how long it's gonna take to fail, we engineer to the limit of the warranty. We no longer have to have twice as thick of a casting or a bigger piece or a bigger motor. Sam Kang (32:23.201) Mm. Sam Kang (32:29.403) yeah, yeah, yeah. Rare. Yeah, yeah. DeAndre + Grant (32:35.821) 'Cause we didn't know we you know, we you had to overbuild it back in the day to make sure it lasts more than the warranty period, which is why your grandmother's refrigerator from the the seventies and eighties is cranking away. And the new Samsung you bought seven years ago like fails tomorrow. And it's this crazy dichotomy of like the better we've gotten at engineering, the closer to the sun we can fly in engineering like design to bring costs down. And it's great. We've actually go look at TVs today. You can buy a TV basically for free. Sam Kang (32:39.126) Mm. Sam Kang (32:44.334) Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sam Kang (32:57.142) Mm, mm. DeAndre + Grant (33:03.425) compared to what they used to cost. And it's because we've gotten so good at building TVs. but on the flip side, we've also gotten so good at cost optimizing the motor in your washing machine, the pump in your, you know, in your refrigerator. And they don't last as long because we didn't need to build as much, you know, margin in. so I think it's this crazy dichotomy in the space. I mean, Sam, have you seen that over the years in the consulting space where you because the tools were bad, we had we had to guess and you know, overshoot things. And now with simulation and design history, we can really tighten all that up. Sam Kang (33:03.906) Hmm. Yeah. Sam Kang (33:17.475) Yeah. Sam Kang (33:23.82) Well, I was Sam Kang (33:29.486) No, a actually it's funny, I I joke with my friends because there's so I went to business school and I worked at management consulting and I do think there's this management cons consultification of just the world, I think that that happened that it speaks to what you're talking about, right? Like you're talking about it from an engineer perspective, but you it's like it's everything, right? It's like search pricing, revenue optimization, and it c it all makes sense i in in terms of its specific like DeAndre + Grant (33:54.795) It's function for the business. Sam Kang (33:55.57) What they're to, yeah, folkship for the business or what they're trying to optimize. And you you can argue that you know it delivers better value for for folks because of price differentiation, all that kind stuff. But it there does come a point where you're like, but the like the craftsmanship and you know, like really like the the kind of connection and relationship that people have to companies and businesses, like that definitely like the has suffered as things become more spreadsheeted, right? Like and everything is getting fully cost optimized. Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (34:23.829) Yeah, absolutely. I mean, let's think about the door the the doorman in front of the hotel is like the prime example of that. Right. You had the concierge, you'd pull up to the hotel, he'd come out, he'd grab your bags, you showed up, you get this warm feeling, you feel like it was nice, safe, and secure, an elevated experience. Management consultant comes in the room and says, Hey, if we could remove the remove the doorman, we can save insert this much money. We put revolving doors, and now no one comes back to the hotel because you know, Bob's no longer there to welcome you with a with warm arms. Sam Kang (34:25.559) Mm-hmm. Sam Kang (34:43.433) Ha ha ha. DeAndre + Grant (34:51.279) into your shop. So I think it's another example of like kind of that exact situation where sometimes over optimizing just for like the business case versus what it sounds like for you guys, you guys actually went down a harder engineering path because you built it with the conser with the customer in mind from the from the beginning and were willing to bear all that brunt in the effort to get to that point. Right. Sam Kang (35:12.194) Yeah. Yeah, no, I think f for sure. And you know, don't get me wrong, like we want to make prudent financial decisions as a company. Like that's how you operate as a get you know, like half a company at at all. And so we definitely do care about that and we're disciplined. But at the same time, we're a group of people, and especially with the kind of products we build, like we use the product, like we care deeply about these products. Like yeah, everyone on our team, like we're constantly thinking about how to make it better, or like we're using it at home and we're like, man, this part of the thing is not good. Let's like definitely fix this. And so for us, it's also wanting to really build great products, right? At the end of the day, it doesn't come down to just the the dollars and cents. It's like we want to build something that that people love, that it's like we're trying to create a category and like, you know, really put something out there that will resonate with people and that people will really, you know, find awesome, right? That's like what we're trying to do. It's not just trying to make a successful company, it's like we want to make amazing products that people love. DeAndre + Grant (36:08.577) Well, and I can double click that your team is obsessed with what you're building. Cause when I met them all in person, there was nothing else they would ever talk about. They're they are fully obsessed. I don't know what you're doing in the culture or what you're putting the coffee over there, but it's it's working really, really well. but I I think the you brought up an awesome topic of balance between like shareholder value, pun intended, and like making it right for the customer and engineering perfection or optimization or all these things. Hyper fixating on any one of those outcomes is bad. Sam Kang (36:11.938) Yeah, yeah. DeAndre + Grant (36:38.251) You will drop the ball on the other two. And it's the role of a good executive team and a good product leader team to fight each other in the in the boardroom and conference room over these choices until you find the right balance. Cause I think that what you guys have struck in the business is you were very uncompromising on what you were gonna do for the customer. We're gonna make health better, we're going to control these things and measure this stuff. And at some point you had to ship a product. So I'm sure there are things inside the product that the product team is cringing on, right? The engineer like, I wish I had more time to fix this. But it's ship or die. And you ship, make enough revenue to hire more engineers, get better test equipment to make the the gen two better than the gen one. And you this goes on for infinity. The first iPhone had no app store, guys. The first iPhone sucked. and watch where we are today. And it's it's building enough, you know, shareholder value or corporate revenue to grow the team and the tools and the and the the culture. Sam Kang (37:10.254) Yeah, of course. Yeah. Sam Kang (37:23.51) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (37:33.655) to continue that V two makes even better, V three is better, and maybe V four and five is actively saving lives at scale because people are getting more sleep, they're they're having less stress in their life. And I think this is this balance of mission most people forget about in hardware, that you actually have to make enough choices to live long enough to have the impact you'd like to have. Sam Kang (37:44.075) Absolutely. Sam Kang (37:51.522) Yeah, absolutely. No, I think I think that's well said. I think that's well said. With products, I always think about it from three dimensions, which is there's there's three things you have to solve. And if you get any one of those wrong, your product fails, your company fails. And so first is desirability. Like people have to want your product. If you don't have that, you have no company. the second is viability. So you have to have a business case and fundamentals around the company that actually make the company survive. Because you can have a great product, company fails, there's no more product in the world, right? And then there's the technical viability, right? It's like you can have a great idea, but you actually need to be able to deliver it. so it's really the triangulation of those three things that you have to get you have to get right. But you lose any of those, and then that's where you know companies I feel like lose their way. DeAndre + Grant (38:31.787) I'm stealing that. That is going right in the dictionary. Well, w one of the other things that Sam mentioned when we first got together and we were talking about doing the podcast together, was this idea of latent demand, right? And that it was kind of clear early on, or something that you kind of match too. I have another question. I'll just put the two together of kinda like the art of the MVP of not undershooting or overshooting, but also identifying those three kind of stools and one of those he kind of mentioned on the first one, which is kind of just like latent demand. Like if you actually want this thing. Sam Kang (38:58.157) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (38:58.359) Could you kind of pick that apart a bit? Kind of those three those three stools, maybe the first one being around late and demand and kind of understanding what you mean by that and what people should be looking for before they invest eighteen months into trying to grow and build something? Sam Kang (39:08.012) Yeah. I think the thing that I've consistently seen throughout my experience and I saw this with my startup, I saw it in consulting, is when you have products that are gonna succeed, you will see the signal from users somewhere. Like there will be people you run across that are like, my God, this is awesome. Like I want this. It's like the take my money thing, right? It's like well, and you should and you should see that signal. Like if you see lukewarm signal, which is 90% of the time what you're gonna find is you talk to people and they're like, that's a cool idea, and they're interested and they wanna test it and they wanna beta it. Because you know, likely if you're you know, if you're a smart person and you've done research, you're not gonna pick a concept that makes no sense, right? So you're gonna get people to resonate with you. But the key is how do you get there's to beyond that to where people are like, my God, that is amazing. Like I need that. Here's my money. Take my money. If you can deliver that, like I will buy it. And I think that kind of signal needs to be there. and you know it's it's the If you don't have that, it becomes such a push. And the the times where it's possible that you don't see that is because you're not talking to the right people, right? It is possible that you've got the audience wrong. And so maybe your product is really good, but you just haven't talked to the right people who have the right acute need. so th that that would be the one case where, especially with startups like when you hear of startups pivoting, it could be that you're trying to pivot your product to different markets, right? And so you need to keep hunting. But you will see that signal. And so if that signal is not there, I think that's that's that's a really bad sign. And this is something we've seen. and i see and consulting and even at a slip now like you know we run lots of different kinds of trials where we have different product concepts and so we'll create MVPs we'll create prototypes and make sure you guys are doing this all the time for clients and we show those different the to different people and for in consumer you we have the benefit that you know a lot of times like we are the target demographic as well and so we can do an initial gauge and say like am I excited for this but you know even internally we see product concepts where if this happened last year we had one product concept where DeAndre + Grant (40:56.962) Mm-hmm. Sam Kang (41:15.338) On paper, we thought it would be awesome. and it made a ton of sense. And the science backed it, you know, just like it's when you brainstorm with people, this product concept seemed great. So we actually built a prototype, started testing with it, was getting fairly lukewarm responses. You know, like we asked questions about, you know, how disappointed would you be if you couldn't have this? You know, it's a question that superhuman uses. as well as like, you know, just you know, how like how much how would you rate this product on a scale of one to five? Like all these. And it was doing okay, but it wasn't nothing with jumping off the ch off the page. There was another product concept we were testing. Sorry, I can't get into all the details because these are things that were on that. we were launched at some point. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. and we didn't like it was kind of an idea that we thought was interesting, but we weren't going like all in on it. And it started like there were DeAndre + Grant (41:51.297) That's no worries, no worries. But you'll tell me later, right, after we're done recording, Sam. Sam Kang (42:05.72) groups of users that didn't want to return the prototype after we gave it to them. No, exactly. DeAndre + Grant (42:07.947) I was just gonna I was just gonna ask, you know you nailed it when they're not nailing the beta back. You're like, no, no, like I literally only have two of those. I need to do this for the next study next week. Like, uh-uh, this is mine now. Sam Kang (42:17.078) Yeah, exactly. No, and when we launched we launched a a thermo regulating blanket last year, and that's actually how that started as well. Like we had tried some other ones that were on the market and we were like, this is like didn't seem that great. But then one of our engineers actually created a prototype that he thought could be interesting. And so then he made it. I went and slept on it, and I was like, this is actually pretty good. And then we started sharing with some other people. And the the aha moment for me was one of our engineers' partners basically asked for it back. Right. And I was like, okay, this is signal. Like that person, you know, like she just wants a good product. Right. It's not part of the development team. And the fact that she's asking for it back after a test, like that was like, okay, this they were on something with this. Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (42:54.465) No, that's always incredible. And I want to share the story of the opposite of this that is so terrifying. When you have an amazing CEO founder that is the world's best salesperson, they cannot be the one that does these tests. You can get so much up into the right single if the CEO is the one showing potential clients this, letting them take the survey, and they will woo users into wanting to buy this product, but you can't scale that CEO. That actually isn't demand. That is that CEO could, you know, sell, you know. Sam Kang (43:04.56) yeah. Sam Kang (43:18.464) Mm, yeah. Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (43:23.337) Anything to anybody. And it's so important to do your market research right. we did a podcast with Smari, their market research firm here, and hearing how they have to how they have to put the language and the questions right to remove bias when you're trying to actually figure out is this the feature that makes the people want the product or not, is such a science that I wish I understood. I'm glad there's people out there like Smari, so I don't have to know how to do this. Sam Kang (43:27.683) Yeah. Sam Kang (43:36.79) Mm. Sam Kang (43:43.822) Yeah, yeah, no totally. I mean ultimately it's getting people to pay for your product. Yeah. There's one thing that I've always thought about and we actually debate here, which is like when Kickstarter came along, I thought that was such a brilliant like just concept and and platform to be able to test these concepts and get them out to market. It's like I would love to be able to just like do every product and try to do a Kickstarter campaign or something around it, just to get people to like actually buy, you know. It's like it's such a good signal. DeAndre + Grant (43:49.164) Mm. DeAndre + Grant (44:11.615) Mm-hmm. It's I met a startup the other week that is doing some automations that basically you give it your product and it goes AIFIs it so it doesn't quite look just like yours, but it does the same feature set and things and it builds websites and it buys Google ads for you for these websites it built and it and it pivots features on and off and gets market single about what you should be building. And I'm like, if this works, this is magic. Sam Kang (44:29.718) that's cool. Sam Kang (44:34.094) Interesting. DeAndre + Grant (44:38.35) and I'm I'm very hopeful to to to see this thing come to market. Sam Kang (44:38.728) Yeah. No, yeah, that's that's super cool. Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (44:44.983) The la last point on this on my side, guys, is absolutely. I mean, the Y commentator quote from Mike Seibel that I always like to tell founders when I have conversations with them is imagine someone's hair is on fire and you handed them a brick. They would be hitting their head they would with a brick to put out the fire on their head because their hair is literally on fire. Like it doesn't matter what you handed them because their hair is on fire. They want to solve this problem more than they want to solve anything else ever. Sam Kang (45:01.527) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (45:12.937) It's that's kind of the visceral reaction you probably want to see when you're having a conversation of like, here, take my money. Like I don't care what it is, because kind of going to your idea, and I'd love to dive into it a bit, Sam, on either overshooting or undershooting an MVP, assuming you haven't completely undershot it, even if your your product is like a brick, but it's like you it solves the problem. It could eventually be, you know, a fire extinguisher or whatever it would need to be, it at least solves the problem, the core issue the person had, right? Their hair is on fire. Sam Kang (45:26.766) Mm. Sam Kang (45:34.348) Yeah, yeah. DeAndre + Grant (45:40.587) I so I guess it kind of leads me into my next question for you. How do you either not overshoot or undershoot an MVP? Like what is the art of the MVP from your perspective? Sam Kang (45:49.452) Yeah, no, it's it's a it's a great it's a great question. The I find with engineers we probably usually overshoot because it it's very common. And from a founder perspective, I think it's very common to overshoot. And basically just the my the thing around undershooting, overshooting. So with an MVP, if you undershoot and you just make it so that like the features are too bare bones or the product the prototype is just so bad that you can't actually evaluate the the proper the experience, then yeah, the the you're gonna get really bad feedback and people are not gonna want it. Right. The overshooting is you're spending a lot of time polishing a prototype or a concept. It's probably and you could have probably done less. And in fact, like you you might have gotten the product concept wrong and yet you're you know building all these bells and features around it. And then as a result, you're taking too long. And you if you're a startup, you run out of funding, or you're just taking too much time, and so then some other competitor comes along and you know basically has built the a better version for you. So you want to get that right. I find usually with engineers, and this is certainly the case when I was doing my own startup too, it's like overshooting was the more common failure mode, especially for people who can create products. DeAndre + Grant (46:58.647) Mm-hmm. Sam Kang (47:01.008) Products and create the thing yourself, like you know you can always add more things. It's just like back to what we were talking about before. It's every time we're launching a product, it's like, there's like 15 things I wish I could fix about this. and you end up having the exact same thing when you're launching that prototype, and you can kind of rationalize, like, the the reason people are not resonating with it is because this this feature that's missing. And like if I just add that, or it's because the website has a little too much latency, and that's why like people don't want this. And if I could just fix that latency, then like it'll be better. And you can it becomes very easy to do that, whereas if If the product concept ultimately does resonate, you know, it's the this is exactly what you said about like the break with the fire. It's like it that thing doesn't have to be perfect. Like if there's late demand, like a pretty ugly, yeah, it will it will be there. And then they will work with the bugs and then ask you to like fix the bugs, and then you can go through and you know, like got iterate from there. And so, especially if you know the folks listening are the engineering types of people who create, like, I do think the the bias is to overshoot. So undershooting and DeAndre + Grant (47:40.365) Don't let you know. Sam Kang (47:58.082) G really get that thing out there, right? And and see what the signal is. you know, like use a picture, right? Then instead of building a full physical prototype if you have like there's so many things you could do to get signal initially on whether or not something is resonating. And I think that's that's the that's the right way to do it. Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (48:14.226) I could not agree more. This is a crawl walk run like statement I say all the time. But in this case, test your idea with AI generated images and ads somewhere, then go to make a 3D print and paint it and pretend that it works and take better photos and run ads. And then do what we call the wizard of odd t Oz test. This is my favorite thing that we do for clients, is we go like let's say this is a that something's got a touch screen on it. We will literally buy a dev kit, put it inside of the housing. Sam Kang (48:23.767) Yeah, totally. Sam Kang (48:31.459) Yeah. yeah. DeAndre + Grant (48:42.539) And then run cables through the table to a computer throwing images to that screen that is not running on the right hardware. We are making up like the temperature measurements or the force measurements to put on the screen. Like it's all simulated. And there's some engineers sweating in the conference room, like typing stuff into the app to get it to show up on screen. Sam Kang (48:45.056) Yeah, totally. Yeah. Sam Kang (48:54.677) Absolutely. Sam Kang (48:58.498) That is a hundred percent that is a hundred percent the right way to do things. Like I I think, yeah, like DoorDash, they talk about this, where initially when you ordered, I think it was like email and then somebody just like read the email and drove to the restaurant to to fulfill it. Like yeah, yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, exactly. DeAndre + Grant (49:09.707) They literally did that. And then it was Google Sheets. I I still love the middle, like the the what is the pitch? The do things that don't scale. They had the first one was literally like emails or text messages. And then they had some girl that was in a dorm room somewhere running a live Google Sheet and all the drivers had their laptops open in the passenger seat the car getting orders on a hotspot from their iPhone, which is the funniest thing. Sam Kang (49:26.656) Yeah. Sam Kang (49:30.36) You know, so one one thing actually that I found interesting here is this is certainly the case for me, and I think probably for a lot of people who create, is you have pride in In terms of craftsmanship with the thing you create. And so for a lot of us, it becomes very hard to put something out there that feels unpolished. It almost it like feels wrong because so much of your like identity and your just pride really, I think, is wrapped up in the in the thing you create. I think this is where having a co-founder who's non-technical who can push and be the yin to that yang is super helpful. I did not have that in my startup. And I think that was like that. I remember just thinking at the end that was one of my big takeaways. And I think one of the really strengths that we have at Aidsleep we have folks DeAndre + Grant (49:51.777) Mm-hmm. Sam Kang (50:09.42) who can really balance that kind of perspective. and especially our CEO, like you know really cares from a product perspective, from a user perspective, and you know, as less skin of the game from a from a technical perspective, right? And so it's like that I I think that is super helpful. And oftentimes it requires someone else doing because it is really hard to do that yourself when you're the person creating the prototype. DeAndre + Grant (50:32.639) Absolutely. I mean the the advice that I would give to folks also listening to kinda add what Sam is saying is, you know, leave your ego at the door. Sam Kang (50:38.272) sorry, you know what? I think I just lost audio. DeAndre + Grant (50:41.055) we hear you. We can. Yeah. let's see. Our mics are working. So I can see that our mics are working. Sam Kang (50:43.15) Can you guys hear me? you can hear me? I cannot hear you. I don't know what just happened. DeAndre + Grant (50:53.581) That's right, we'll be able clip it all together. Let's see here. He's on headphones. Yeah. Sam's I'd imagine those are his headphones. Yep. Sam's Pixel Buds. Yep. We got your Pixel we we can see your Pixel Buds. Sam Kang (51:05.367) that works. Can you hear me? I still can't hear you guys. Sorry. So fail right at that here. this? No what I think it is? My phone rang just now and somehow it kicked my. DeAndre + Grant (51:12.717) It's okay. It's okay. We almost made it. It's so good. It's all good. It's all be an easy edit. DeAndre + Grant (51:22.721) Pixel Bud's out. Sam Kang (51:25.038) wait, let me Okay, I'm back. All right, there it goes. All right, sorry about that. DeAndre + Grant (51:27.243) Test test. Yep. Okay, okay, cool. All good. no worries. That's what Sam is for in post processing on our side. Our our one of our our team members that edits this is Sam Wilson. He'll he'll he'll clip that right out. And so what we we were on the topic of no, your Sam was just wrapping up that their CEO is so passionate about the user and the product that you can't you can't grade yourself. Never we were so Sam Kang (51:35.274) Ha ha ha. Sam Kang (51:51.683) Exactly. DeAndre + Grant (51:52.942) Yeah, it's kind of picking back up from what Sam and Grant were saying there. I think that especially if you're a founder listening to this, or even like an engineer like looking to get something out the door, you really have to leave your ego at the door. because to your point, Sam, like so much of a product that you make to not to put it out into the world feels weird. Like, would you walk out would you go to a job interview, like dress very poorly? Like that's the same kind of neural pathway you're using when you're deciding whether or not to put a product out there. Like, I wouldn't walk outside looking not as good as I could for no reason. I want this thing look very, very good. but especially like I think some of the business minds that are in startups kind of can like put the ego aside and say, hey, like we just need to get it out there and then we'll we'll iterate from there. But I completely agree with your with your perspective there, Sam. No, and I I love the that that notion that you need someone else to to tell you when it's ready because you'll never stop. Right. You'll never stop polishing your craft, making this thing better. And when someone says it's good enough, you need to take them at their word. Cause the worst thing that could happen Is you find out that the market says, mm mm, it's not good enough. And then you get to go fix it, but you know exactly how to fix it now. Right. I think that's that that ego ego thing that when engineers finally get to the point where their ego is fully in the trash can outside behind the door and no longer in their body, they become phenomenally good at doing product because they're chasing the user's happiness, not their pride. Sam Kang (52:58.382) Yeah, exactly. Sam Kang (53:05.612) Ha ha ha. Sam Kang (53:14.264) Yeah, yeah, well said. DeAndre + Grant (53:16.441) you know, Sam, to make sure we we account for your time because I know we had an hour here. the question I always love to ask at the end is just, you know, j you've given so much incredible advice for folks that are listening on both your journey, eight sleep, how to do it right, how to do it wrong, et cetera, or what not to do wrong, I should say. and I'm curious, just like general advice you would you you would have given to yourself if you were to go back and talk to a previous, you know, earlier version of you. Right. What would you have said to yourself maybe you know three or four years ago that you've learned today, or younger you? Sam Kang (53:48.696) Yeah. Yeah. it's funny because the thing I would tell myself, I actually think people did tell me at the time I didn't listen. And now it's much more ingrained in my bones. No, I think the biggest thing is one is the thing we talked about of if the world wants your product, like you will see the signal. And so really keep hunting. Like don't just keep polishing what you have, but keep hunting because either you need to pivot the product or you need to find a body audience. Right. that's you just haven't found the right audience yet. and so that that's that's a huge one. and I would definitely like that that is that lesson is seared in my brain. The other is around this partner. You know, I know everyone talks about this where really the best companies and best teams, it's because you have complementary skills. And you know trying to do it as a solo founder was really hard for me. And there are people who do it. I mean I have tremendous respect for people who are able to embody all those things into one brain because it was for sure difficult. And especially for your technical person, you know, and I I felt this and especially towards the end I this acutely is you know if I had somebody who was more from the marketing perspective, but really they were willing to try and just do experiments and just get stuff out there and help balance that for me, like that, that like those two things have really stand out the most. there was a third thing, which I mean, I this is not it's it's tough and I don't know if I even have a fully resolved perspective on this, but When I started my company, I had two small kids and there was kind of a clicking, ticking clock in my mind. It's like I gave myself kind of a timeline to do something. And I think deadlines are good, but I also think with startups like Sam Kang (55:25.558) If you have just too short a time to pursue it, like that's tough because startups just if they take forever. I mean, just like what we talked about at the beginning of this, like these these ideas and companies take so long, so much longer than you would think. And there's so many issues that are gonna come up along the way that just having like in my mind, it was like a two year window. It's like that's just way too short. Like that's just not that like I think I would have tried to get myself to the place where it's like I could kind of pursue it more without without feeling that kind of limitation. DeAndre + Grant (55:50.923) Yep. No, the the ten year overnight success, right? It's it's the funniest story how those always happen. And again, I just for everyone listening, I have a co founder, Drew Westrick, that has been with me ride or die through we joined a startup that failed and then we we consulted for a bit and before we started a glass board and then started glassboard, and have been through a few startups earlier together. and I couldn't have done it alone. Like my personality type is so strong in one direction. I need his balance to bring me into center. Sam Kang (55:53.619) Yeah. DeAndre + Grant (56:16.905) And everyone that works here will see us bickering in the hallways like a married couple. And it is like the ultimate cheat code because the more we fight about something, the more we end up with the the correct answer instead of whichever answer one of our egos wanted pick. so everyone listening, like do just try and find the yin deer yang, the balance to the force, the light, the dark. Like that is such a superpower in the early stage stuff. And it's really cool that you don't have to cry alone when things are hard. So it's you know, added benefit. Sam Kang (56:17.229) Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Sam Kang (56:29.303) Yeah. Sam Kang (56:40.718) Always ba yeah, always nice. DeAndre + Grant (56:44.693) No, but Sam, this has been so much fun. it has been really cool to have someone on the podcast that is deeply technical but has also ridden through the fire and flames of, you know, doing the founder game, launching the company and and doing that. So really appreciate all the perspective you've had today, man. Sam Kang (57:00.204) Yeah, awesome. Yeah, no, thank guys. I mean, thanks for creating this kind content. and thanks for having me on. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. DeAndre + Grant (57:05.982) Absolutely, Sam. Everybody, this is the Hard Tech Podcast. We will see you guys next week. Awesome. We'll cut the recording and hit the right red button. That's not the leave button, the stop button, so we make sure they all upload.