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Calm App Founder: From $0 To $2 Billion By Making The World Meditate: Michael Acton Smith | E117

This weeks episode entitled 'Calm App Founder: From $0 To $2 Billion By Making The World Meditate: Michael Acton Smith' topics: 0:00 Intro 02:32 Your early years 07:04 Starting my first business - Firebox 26:11 My second business - Perplex City 36:22 My third business - Moshi monsters 43:50 The start of Calm 01:00:43 Calm helping people sleep 01:03:55 Misconceptions around sleep 01:06:54 Tough times for you this year 01:13:17 What changes are you now doing? 01:15:17 Your relationships 01:22:37 The foundations of good communication 01:25:48 How accurate is the 'hippie' stigma that comes with mindfulness? 01:27:27 Do you feel the good you've done in the world? 01:29:30 Psychedelics curing mental health 01:31:50 Our last guest question Micheal: https://www.instagram.com/michaelacton/ https://twitter.com/acton?lang=gu linkedin.com/in/michaelactonsmith/?originalSubdomain=uk Calm: https://www.calm.com/ Listen on: Apple podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-diary-of-a-ceo-by-steven-bartlett/id1291423644 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/7iQXmUT7XGuZSzAMjoNWlX FOLLOW ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steven/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/SteveBartlettSC Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-bartlett-56986834/ Sponsors: Huel - https://uk.huel.com/ Myenergi - https://bit.ly/3oeWGnl

Michael Acton SmithguestSteven Bartletthost
Jan 31, 20221h 34mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:32

    Intro

    1. MS

      Solving the global mental health crisis, it's a first order problem. One in three of us will experience depression or anxiety. And I realized that this could be one of the biggest opportunities and businesses in the world.

    2. SB

      Michael Acton Smith, he's the billionaire founder of the mindful meditation and sleep app, Calm.

    3. MS

      Everyone thought we were crazy. The bridge between the seed money we raised and getting to a series A took years and years. And then that was where the point was like, "We're taking off. It's happening." Never have we been assailed with more noise and stimulation, from social media to billboards to TV. It's coming at us constantly. One of the most valuable skills in the 21st century is to be able to decide where and how and when we put our attention. The human brain is the most complex thing in the known universe, and yet it doesn't come with an instruction manual.

    4. SB

      Quick one. Can you do me a favor if you're listening to this and hit the subscribe button, the follow button, wherever you're listening to this podcast? Thank you so much. Michael Acton Smith. He's the billionaire founder of the mindful meditation and sleep app, Calm. For the last 10 years, Michael has been one of the great UK entrepreneurial success stories. But the really staggering thing about Michael's story is how many successes he had that turned quickly into failures. And honestly, how he rose time and time and time again from those ashes to rebuild an even more successful business. Most people would give up, and you almost wouldn't blame them when you hear what Michael's been through. His most recent success, Calm app, is worth billions and billions of dollars and it helps people who are going through hard times or any pain at all reach mindfulness. It teaches them the importance of slowing down, stopping, and meditation. So one would think Michael had an easy life and he was the master of his mind. But he goes through the same battles as everyone else, and he describes this last year as the hardest of his entire life. Michael, thank you for being so honest on this podcast. Thank you for your vulnerability, because I know this conversation is going to help everybody that takes the time to listen to it. So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

  2. 2:32 – 7:04

    Your early years

    1. SB

      Michael, you've been described in the press as this, uh, this kind of like entrepreneurial rock star character.

    2. MS

      (laughs)

    3. SB

      And when I, when I read through your story, I was surprised and inspired and blown away by how early that entrepreneurial bug appeared in your life. When you look back at your younger years, are you able to pinpoint what you were good at? The thing that made you different from your peers, in terms of skill, your skill set or talent?

    4. MS

      Uh, I'm not sure. I was very impressively mediocre at school. (laughs) Like right, right in the middle. Definitely not, uh, uh, in the top set, uh, for anything. But I think I, if I had to pin down one characteristic, it would probably be curiosity. I was just fascinated by lots of different things. And my dad was a librarian. He used to bring books home for me and my sister all the time on all sorts of random subjects, and I'd just devour them. And so I think that kind of sparked, uh, this interest in, in different areas of life. And I think when you start, when you're curious, um, everything becomes interesting in life. Everyone you chat to, every magazine you pick up, every country you go to, and, uh, you start to kind of connect dots between different things. And I think that's a really important part of the entrepreneurial mindset.

    5. SB

      That inspires creativity then, right? Because if you're, if you've got so many dots to pick from, you can create new things, right? And-

    6. MS

      Exactly. Yeah, so I think, you know, along with curiosity, I think, uh, creativity is, uh, is part of it as well. I love ideas. I love taking the, the random things that are kind of rattling around my head, putting them onto a sheet of paper, playing around with them, thinking about them from different angles, and then taking the best ones and putting them out there in the world. And this is the beauty of being an entrepreneur. You know, you can talk about stuff endlessly, but only when you meet the market do you find out whether there's any merit to your ideas and you can see whether people actually resonate and use or buy or talk about whatever it is that you're creating. I just love that.

    7. SB

      Sales. Your sister said that, uh, "I had a, a little story she told about you going to car boot sales and being a really remarkable seller when you were younger at car boot sales." What role has w- Was, was that apparent when you were younger, that you were, you had a talent for selling things?

    8. MS

      I don't know if I, I've ever thought of myself as a good salesperson. I think I get very animated and energized and, and passionate about things I really, really believe in, which I think is probably a, a key part of, of being good at, at selling things. Um, yeah, we used to... (laughs) It was one of the many, many, uh, uh, endeavors when we were younger, going to car boot sales and selling things and trying to match them with the, the people that were walking by. So interesting she said that. I never knew that. (laughs)

    9. SB

      Did, uh, did you fit, did you fit in?

    10. MS

      Not really. No, if I, if I'm honest, I was a little bit of a, um, a square peg in a round hole at, at school. Um, was quite small for my age and, uh, just didn't quite... ah, it's hard to describe, but didn't quite click or understand the, the cool kids and, and kind of what was going on. I think maybe that sort of forced me to kind of retreat into myself a little bit. I became very passionate about reading, as I mentioned. Kind of went down the path more of, um, uh, sort of social pursuits rather than going to parties and events, and I was pretty introverted and, and shy, uh, until I got to university.

    11. SB

      Were you ever bullied in school? Did you ever...

    12. MS

      I wouldn't, (sighs) I wouldn't describe it as bullied, but I- I would certainly not class myself as one of the kind of, um, the cool kids, sort of on the, on the periphery, looking in, rather than, uh, in the center of, of-

    13. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    14. MS

      ... everything that was going on.

    15. SB

      And then at university, that changed somehow?

    16. MS

      It did. I kind of, you know, the beauty about university is you can reinvent yourself and, and you leave all the kind of, uh, sort of perceptions and, and views that people have of you when, when you get there. And, uh, so I met some amazing friends, and I just decided to kind of lean into everything, joined every club, going, chatted to everyone I could. It was a big kind of flip, and some of my best friends now, you know, I met, uh, at university during that period.

    17. SB

      And on that point of, um, identity, when you got to university, you could, you could finally start, I guess, exploring your, who you, who you actually were, and you shed that identity from school, shed a lot of the maybe limiting beliefs about public perceptions of who you were, and, um,

  3. 7:04 – 26:11

    Starting my first business - Firebox

    1. SB

      at some point, that went on to starting Firebox later in-

    2. MS

      Firebox.

    3. SB

      ... this was a bit later on, right? 1998?

    4. MS

      Exactly, yeah. So, um, Tom, who I met at, at university, and I, uh, were always talking about business ideas, but when we left university, we both got sensible jobs, you know, we were in debt, uh, and needed to, um, make some money. And so my passion at that time was I wanted to become a trader, uh, in an investment bank. I'd watch Wall Street and thought it was the most interesting world ever, you know, snapping the red braces and just kind of buying and selling and dealing. And I lived in a little town called Marlow, and I saw in the newspaper that there was a job ad, uh, for a leasing company, uh, company cars, and it, it said, "You will be working with, uh, investment banks in London." And I didn't know anyone that worked in the City. Um, I did a geography degree, so there wasn't, I couldn't go in through the front door to get a job in a bank, so I thought this could be my route in. So I got the job, and, uh, just, uh, worked as hard as I could, tried to get noticed, and I got put on the Goldman Sachs account and I thought, "This is amazing." Uh, I traveled up to London two days a week and got to work in their offices in the HR department. And, uh, I remember reading, um, the FT and The Economist, and, and when I'd meet the traders, I'd, like, throw in kind of random tips about things I'd read (laughs) , um, hoping I'd get noticed and invited to, to join the company. Of course, that, that never happened. And what I realized was that this probably wasn't the, the world for me. It, it didn't kind of click. It was great to kind of try on that, uh, that, uh, jacket for size to see what it was like, but it, it just, it didn't kind of speak to my soul. It just felt, uh, a bit false. There was no creativity to it. And so, um, after, uh, about six months or so, uh, stepped away from that, and Tom had left to, he was programming breathalyzers in Wales, uh, (laughs) -

    5. SB

      (laughs)

    6. MS

      ... uh, which was quite a entertaining job. He'd have to drink cans of Stella to calibrate these breathalyzers-

    7. SB

      (laughs)

    8. MS

      ... he was working on. They were used by the police. Um, but we both weren't, uh, we both weren't clicking with what we had, and, you know, we'd meet up and talk about business ideas, and the internet was just starting to kind of really gain momentum sort of around '97, '98, and, uh, it was during one of our chats in the pub that the light bulb went on and we, we realized, uh, maybe we should leave and set up our own business.

    9. SB

      So take me through that journey. So you, you hand in your resignation at some point or did you start while you were still at that company?

    10. MS

      So it was a little bit of crossover-

    11. SB

      Okay.

    12. MS

      ... as there usually is kind of, um, thinking about the, the idea. But, um, once the idea that Tom and I were chatting about just became so all-consuming, that was the moment when we were like, "Right, let's dive into the unknown, leap out of the airplane, and figure this out as we, uh, plummet-"

    13. SB

      Yeah.

    14. MS

      "... to Earth." And, uh, Tom was living just outside of Cardiff, and, uh, I remember we were again walking around town chatting. We went into a bookshop, and we saw this book, uh, that was called, um, Doing Business on the Internet, and we knew, we were both aware, Tom did AI and Computer Science at university, so we knew something was going on in this, in this world. But we clubbed together. We put 10 pounds in each to buy this book, which was, uh, a lot of money for us- (laughs)

    15. SB

      (laughs) .

    16. MS

      ... living pretty much hand-to-mouth, and I just remember reading it and just having my mind blown by, you know, what felt like what was coming. This was gonna change everything, how we did commerce, how we connected with each other, how we were entertained, and Tom was just fascinated by this book as well. So that was kind of the, became our bible (laughs) -

    17. SB

      Hmm.

    18. MS

      ... to create, um, what was HotBox, which then became Firebox, the, uh, the gadget, the games, the sort of, uh, online retailer.

    19. SB

      Hmm. And so that was like, kind of like an obscure gift, um, gadget re- online retailer.

    20. MS

      Yes. Yeah, we felt that, you know, again, this is the early days of, of the internet. It was, um, predominantly, uh, young, youngish people who were on it who were sort of figuring out how to, um, uh, connect. It, it wasn't the easiest thing in the world. AOL was just kind of getting going. The search engines weren't fully developed. Um, it was a lot more men than, than women on the internet at this time, and we thought, "What if we could sell unusual toys and gadgets and games, kind of quirky stuff?" Um, and, uh, it was sort of inspired by the Innovations Catalogue and Sharper Image in America, and so that was the idea. And we would find products that we thought were quite cool, we would list them online, and then when someone bought them, we (laughs) would then go and buy the product, uh, from whoever was selling it 'cause we didn't have the cash flow to, you know, hold anything in stock, and then, um, send it out to the individual. It certainly wasn't Amazon next day delivery. (laughs)

    21. SB

      Yeah.

    22. MS

      It was pretty clunky.

    23. SB

      And the payment systems, I mean-

    24. MS

      Oh, boy.

    25. SB

      ... at the time?

    26. MS

      Well, this is really interesting 'cause, you know, around this time when we told people we were gonna set up a business online, we got a few different reactions. One was that, uh, eye-rolling. People would tell us, "No one is gonna buy anything online. You know, you have to put your credit card in line and, you know, who's gonna do that? Far too risky and dangerous." So that was the prevailing wisdom. The second feedback we got was that, "The only people making money online are kind of porn barons." (laughs)

    27. SB

      Uh-huh.

    28. MS

      So, um, uh, but we were like, "No, we think there's a revolution happening here. We think, look at all the mail order catalogs, look at the money being made, the internet is a much more efficient way of doing this." And this is long before Shopify, long before Stripe. So, Tom was the technical genius, he kind of, uh, built, uh, a website and, uh, we couldn't figure out how to take payments online. So, what we had to do was, um, if you wanted to order anything from our site, you had to find the product you wanted, then you had to print out a, an order form (laughs) .

    29. SB

      Wow.

    30. MS

      Uh, then you had to fill it in with all your details, then you had to write down your credit card details, then you had to fax that to us using JFax. I would print it out, type all the details in, we had a PDQ machine from the bank that I would manually type in and then that would, uh, take the money, and then I would put the product, uh, once it arrived in a package and, and send it out. It was incredibly inefficient and fortunately we only had about one order a month, so it was-

  4. 26:11 – 36:22

    My second business - Perplex City

    1. SB

      So after FireVox, you, you, you went on to Mind Candy.

    2. MS

      Yes.

    3. SB

      Mind Candy.

    4. MS

      Yeah.

    5. SB

      And Perplex City?

    6. MS

      Perplex City, indeed.

    7. SB

      Where does that fit? (laughs)

    8. MS

      Oh, wow. All right, this is going back, uh, (laughs) back, uh, a fair old way. The reason why I stepped away from, from FireVox, and the idea that I couldn't stop thinking about, was around games. And I've always loved games. You know, I mentioned chess. I love Scrabble and backgammon, video games like Dungeons & Dragons, created all my own games.

    9. SB

      Hm.

    10. MS

      But I saw something really interesting happening just after the, the, the new millennium, and it was, could the internet revolutionize how we play games? Instead of games being, you know, uh, just you and your mate playing on a Nintendo or, or whatever, could games be for three or four people, or 10 people, or hundreds? What if games could be played by millions of people? You know, the, the massively multiplayer online gaming boom that, that was just getting going there with World of Warcraft and some of the ones coming out of the Far East. So that was what I, I couldn't stop thinking about. And so Perplex City was this idea, what if we could create a game that didn't just live online, it lived offline as well? That it would, it would be all around you. It would be... You would be a hero in sort of part game, part story, part movie. Um, I'd watched, uh, there's an interesting theme here, watched a movie that I couldn't stop thinking about called The Game with Michael Douglas, where this person doesn't know whether it's real life or a game that they're part of, and I, I just wanted to, to bring that to the, the world. So that was the starting point of Perplex City. Um, we raised some money. We buried a treasure somewhere in the world that was worth, uh, £100,000 reward for the first person-

    11. SB

      Where is that? Is it still there?

    12. MS

      ... that found it. It- (laughs)

    13. SB

      (laughs)

    14. MS

      It was found a couple of years later-

    15. SB

      Yeah.

    16. MS

      ... um, by the very passionate audience and community that was playing this game. But we released clues, uh, we hid clues in classified sections of newspapers. We had skywriting. Uh, we, um, uh, you'd get messages on your phone. Uh, it was... We had helicopters at live events. I mean, it was just this extraordinary experience, very, very expensive to do, and it was called an alternate reality game. Uh, and so basically that was, uh, Perplex City, and it was probably one of the most creative things I've ever worked on. We had a, an incredible team and a very passionate audience playing it. Unfortunately, it was one of the most commercially disastrous- (laughs)

    17. SB

      (laughs)

    18. MS

      ... things I've worked on. And my goodness, I, I learned some really valuable lessons building that.

    19. SB

      So I, I read that it cost $9 million.

    20. MS

      About 9 million, yeah. We raised, um, roughly 10 million, and we'd burnt through almost all of it, uh, about 9 million. And, uh, I was going back to waking up in the middle of the night. This time, was I was waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat thinking, "This is not working. This is not right." And the problem was the outside world was saying what a brilliant idea this was. We were winning awards. We were in the press all the time. It looked like we were geniuses. But in reality, deep in my kind of pit of my stomach, I was like, "Oh my goodness, we are heading towards a cliff very, very fast and, uh, I need to do something urgently."

    21. SB

      Because you hadn't figured out the bus- the underlying business model?

    22. MS

      Correct.

    23. SB

      Or-

    24. MS

      So we had a model. So, w- you would buy these trading cards, a bit like Pokemon cards. You'd get a random collection of six in a pack for a few pounds, and, uh, these puzzles then played into a, a larger puzzle. There were 256 of them to collect. There were all sorts of hidden clues within them. And we sold a fair few. We made a, a bit of money, but it was nowhere near enough to cover the costs of this very expensive game we were running. So the, just the, the, the economics and the bid- business model didn't make sense. And so yeah, as I say, we were running out of money fast. I didn't think we'd be able to raise another round, and I was just very stressed, extremely worried about what to, what to do.

    25. SB

      When, when you say... So two points I wanna pick up on there. When you say, "I was extremely stressed," give me a, a clear picture of what that means in real terms on a day-to-day basis.

    26. MS

      So just sitting there... (laughs) I, I still can remember sitting at the office in Battersea, just looking at the, the team kind of working away, um, everyone happy and smiling, and me staring at my screen knowing where our bank balance was and how fast we were burning money, and thinking that in a couple of months this whole thing is gonna be have to shut down. We'll be declared bankrupt. I may never be allowed to be a director again. You know, it was quite terrifying, and not, almost being paralyzed and frozen with fear, not knowing what to do next. Like, "How do I solve this? Who do I speak to about it?" Um, I was the sole founder in that business, so it was kind of tricky. I had a, an amazing COO, uh, slash CFO, slash ev- C everything O, (laughs) Davinia Knowles, who worked closely with me. But, um, yeah, I, I just didn't really know how to solve this conundrum we were in, and it manifested in...... high blood pressure, sleepless nights, uh, not eating well, um, just, yeah, all the classic signs of, um, stress and, and burnout.

    27. SB

      A- and was there a day where you had to make that tough decision to wind the company down and to bring it to an end? And how was that? What was that moment like?

    28. MS

      There was, and I, I kept putting it off. Uh, you know, tha- that was a horrible thing to do. But one morning, I, um, invited the whole team, there was about 25 of us, into our conference room, sat everyone down. I was shaking like a leaf. Um, and, uh, you know, these people had believed me. They, they followed me to this company, this big vision that I'd painted for them all, and I basically just had to say, "This is not working. We're running out of cash. We're gonna have to stop and, and kill this game." And it was partway through the second season, and there were just gasps of shock and horror. (sighs) And, um, I had been thinking of a new idea. (laughs) So it was very different to the current idea, and so this was what I thought was the best thing we should do. We had, as I say, less than a million dollars left. We had two options. We can continue down the path we're on and hit the brick wall and just end, or we can pivot, do this dramatic pivot to this new idea with the cash we've got left, and, and see if we can save the company. And, uh, we were going from this very complex, fascinating, um, game, Perplex City, to a kids' game. (laughs) And I tried to explain it to people, and there were, there were people shaking their heads and scratching their heads and not knowing what I was talking about. Amazingly, a couple of people got it, and, uh, wanted to stay on. Uh, we had to let many people go. Many self-selected out. Um, it was also quite a stressful board meeting, uh, telling my board that we were gonna do this almighty pivot. And to be fair, and to give my board credit back then, they were like, "Fair enough, Michael. You know, we, we, we... Let's do it. You know, there, there isn't really another option." This, I described it as a, a final roll of the dice. And, uh, they all got on board. And so yeah, we kind of, (sighs) oh, took a very different new direction. And we had some cards, some, some of the puzzles in Perplex City, um, we created these little characters called Puzzle Monsters. And the story of Perplex City was, one of the many stories, was that, um, uh, it was this world of mystery and puzzles. Parents would tell their kids if they didn't do their homework and their puzzles, the Puzzle Monsters would get them in the middle of the night. It's quite, quite serious thinking about it now.

    29. SB

      (laughs)

    30. MS

      Terrifying kids, giving them nightmares. But I just loved this concept. And, and so we were gonna create this new idea, this spinup called Puzzle Monsters for Kids. Stealth education, help them learn, play games, while being educated. And so that then, uh, we changed the name to Moshi Monsters because it just sounded a bit more cool and alliterative.

  5. 36:22 – 43:50

    My third business - Moshi monsters

    1. MS

    2. SB

      Um, I, I was well aware of Mos- Moshi Monsters for a variety of different reasons. Um, tell me about the, the, the growth in trajectory at the start of... I heard it was very slow for the first sort of two years, 18 months.

    3. MS

      It was, yeah. You know, everyone thinks businesses that are successful just happen overnight. They don't. There's a, there's a lot, (laughs) a lot of grind and, and hustle getting to that point. Um, but, you know, the idea felt very strong. This, uh, the, the idea of creating these little monsters that would live online that kids could adopt and look after. And, um, I didn't know much about the kids' entertainment space, but I'd seen Tamagotchi a few years before, and I thought, "Wow, what a business. Tens of millions of those little beeping-

    4. SB

      (laughs)

    5. MS

      ... like, characters were sold. I thought, "There's something here. Could we take that concept..." And before that, there'd been the Pet Rock, which I don't know if you ever came across that? Um-

    6. SB

      Yes, and Neopets. I was-

    7. MS

      Neo- Neopets was another great, great business.

    8. SB

      I loved Neopets. Yeah. (laughs)

    9. MS

      I think there's something kids... In fact, most of us love nurturing and, and looking after things. And so I thought in the era of Flash and, uh, the, the web, could we create these little monsters? And so that was the idea. We didn't really know how we were gonna monetize it and, um, we decided, uh, to create these little phone charms that we would sell in shops. And you bought a phone charm for about 10 pounds and then inside would be a code that you type into our website to adopt your monster.

    10. SB

      Hm.

    11. MS

      Disastrous idea. I think we've still got thousands of these phone charms sitting in a warehouse somewhere. And it was just too much friction. It was just too, too many steps, too complicated. Um, and so after about a, a year of trying to make that work, we decided, "Do you know what? Let's just make it free." Forget the physical product. Forget trying to monetize it at the start. Any child could come along and just adopt a monster, give it a name, start to kind of, um, tickling it and feeding it, and, uh, customizing its room. And instantly, it was just like, "Wow." That was the, the trigger point. Took away all the friction and we were away. So suddenly, we went from one or two sign-ups a day to dozens of sign-ups a day, then hundreds of sign-ups a day, then thousands. Um, I think, you know, our peak days were over 100,000, um, children around the world were adopting a monster. It was, it was-

    12. SB

      Wow.

    13. MS

      ... it was breathtaking.

    14. SB

      So the business rose, right? And then obviously there was a... It, it struggled-

    15. MS

      Yep.

    16. SB

      ... because of-

    17. MS

      It-

    18. SB

      The world changed.

    19. MS

      That's a understatement. Uh-

    20. SB

      Yeah.

    21. MS

      ... it struggled. (laughs)

    22. SB

      Okay. T- tell me about that.

    23. MS

      Well, we thought we could do no wrong. We were now just the usual curve of slow growth and then rocket ship. And we thought, uh, we were gonna be the next Disney. (laughs) And, uh, we had off- opportunities to sell the business for hundreds of millions of dollars, and I was like, "No, thank you." You know, "We are taking this all the way to the moon." Uh, and everything was just compounding. Almost everything we did seemed to just get bigger and bigger, until it suddenly didn't. (laughs) And the summer of 2012 was when things just suddenly stopped, and I was like, "What on earth is going on? This is probably just an aberration." And we thought, "Oh, it's 'cause it's a hot summer or because of X, Y, Z." You know, you kind of make excuses. But what, what had happened was that there was a, a shift, a platform shift taking place. And kids were moving from, uh, using the web as their primary place of kind of playing games and-

    24. SB

      Desktop, right?

    25. MS

      Yeah, desktop web. Playing Moshi or Club Penguin or Stardoll or Neopets or all these other games, to iPads and the mobile revolution. And we kind of had our head in the sand for a little bit and thought, "You know, this, this isn't really gonna take off in a, in a huge way." And then we started to lean into it and figure out how we could adapt Moshi for this new world. But it was very, very difficult. And the, just the, the economics and the way kids would play with devices and, and it was much harder to create a monthly subscription service. It just started to, to unravel. And as fast as we'd grown, the revenue started to, to come down and kids were playing all these new free games, uh, through the App Store. And, uh, we, uh, yeah, spent several years trying to kind of right the, the ship and keep things going but, um, weren't, weren't able to, sadly. So that was a- an incredibly stressful, uh, period as well.

    26. SB

      Another stressful period.

    27. MS

      Another. There's been quite a few. It's why I've got so many gray hairs.

    28. SB

      (laughs)

    29. MS

      But, uh, again, learnt, learnt a lot during that period, but that was a, that was a tough time.

    30. SB

      Tough time as in letting people go, having to scale down the business, trying to find new product-market fit and-

  6. 43:50 – 1:00:43

    The start of Calm

    1. SB

      There's two questions I wanted to ask you, which was about when you were going through those stressful moments, and at a time when men in particular didn't really understand the concept of mental health, did you find yourself turning to escapes or medica- like medicating yourself with some kind of escape? And the secondary question was about the topic of men's health broadly. When did you discover that it was a thing?

    2. MS

      So wow, yeah. I, um, I think when we are struggling in life, we (laughs) instead of addressing the issue, uh, we mask it, don't we? We, we seek things that avoid whatever the challenge is. And for some people, it's drugs. For some people, it's alcohol. For me, I just... I became distant from the business. I, I just couldn't face going into the office every day. I'd take myself off to coffee shops. I suppose caffeine is, is not as serious a, a kind of drug as some, some other ones. But, um, I also used to take, um, uh, painkillers every morning just 'cause I woke up with such a headache and my body ached. I felt like I was hit by a truck every morning, so these painkillers would kind of help me get started in the day. It was a very tricky time. So not addressing the fundamental issues with the business or trying to but not doing a, a very good job, for me, this is what led to Calm because I could see it so clearly, having been through it, you know? One of the best businesses to ever set up is one where you're scratching your own itch and you understood. And I didn't know what meditation was or, or mindfulness, but my very dear friend, Alex Chu, had been meditating with CD-ROMs he bought when he was a teenager, a very unusual teenager. And he would often say to me, "Look, dude, you need to, to try meditation." And I'd be like, "You need to try F-ing off." (laughs)

    3. SB

      Yeah. (laughs)

    4. MS

      That's the last thing I need. Look-

    5. SB

      Yeah.

    6. MS

      ... um, give me something practical. But slowly but surely, the, the penny started to, to drop, and I kind of got it. And the key breakthrough w- for me was when I did something I'd never done before. I took myself off on a solo holiday. I went away to the Austrian Alps, to this kind of, um, resort where I played tennis in the morning, I scribbled in my notebook, I read books, and I, I started to try to meditate 'cause I'd, I'd heard about it. And, uh, it was just incredible. The fog started to clear. I'd been... had my face pushed up against the, the cliff and couldn't see a way out of this problem that I was facing with my business. And just taking a step back and getting perspective was hugely valuable. And I read a bunch of books and research papers, and, and I realized that, you know, this is science. Mindfulness is a way of rewiring the human brain. What if we could make this simple and relatable and accessible to everyone? This could be one of the biggest opportunities and businesses in the world. And I came back, I remember chatting to Alex about it, and he's like, "Right, dude, you finally get it, let's go." (laughs)

    7. SB

      (laughs)

    8. MS

      'Cause he'd been... he kind of knew this. And this was all around the, the time where we'd been talking about, um, creating a, a new business. Um, he found a person that owned calm.com, the domain. And I remember we were playing video games in our house in Soho and he said, "This domain, calm.com, is available." And I said, "Oh my God, what a great domain. What a business we could build there, helping the world become more calm." And I said, "How much is the domain?" And he said, um, "It's about a million pounds." And I said, "Right." (laughs)

    9. SB

      (laughs)

    10. MS

      "Right."

    11. SB

      Fuck off. (laughs)

    12. MS

      Uh, yeah, we don't have money, uh, to, uh, to buy that. But about a year later, we're playing video games again, uh, a consistent theme here-

    13. SB

      (laughs)

    14. MS

      ... and he said, "The guy that has calm.com wants to, to sell it, and he's willing to, to do a deal." We were able to buy it for much, much less.

    15. SB

      Hmm.

    16. MS

      I'd earmarked this money to put a deposit down on a house, um, but thought buying calm.com might be a more sensible thing to do, even though my parents (laughs)

    17. NA

      (laughs)

    18. MS

      ... and I thought it was the silliest idea. Uh, but, um, yeah, so we bought calm.com.

    19. SB

      Wow.

    20. MS

      And that was, uh, that was kind of the starting acorn that was planted for, for that business.

    21. SB

      So here is where mine and Alex's paths kinda crossed.

    22. MS

      (laughs)

    23. SB

      So I had left my company, Woolpack, the one I described there, um, and this was in the transition of me starting Social Chain. So I knew... I had this thesis about social media. I moved out to San Francisco to work at a place called Monkey Inferno, and I was helping them with growth using social media. I still had like millions and millions of followers online, maybe 10, 20, 30 million, uh, followers across multiple Facebook, Instagram, like Twitter pages, whatever.

    24. MS

      Wow.

    25. SB

      And I was helping them scale their products using social media. And as I landed, ph- um, Sean, who is the CEO there, said to me, "Oh, a kid just left called Alex."

    26. MS

      (laughs)

    27. SB

      He said, "He's gone to do this meditation app." And I swear to God, I thought, "What a fucking hippie."

    28. MS

      (laughs)

    29. SB

      I thought like, (laughs) "What a... what a weird guy." He left here to go do med-... 'cause at the ti-... it's different now. At the time, meditation was like, "Pfft-

    30. MS

      So true.

  7. 1:00:43 – 1:03:55

    Calm helping people sleep

    1. MS

    2. SB

      And when I looked at the App Store, you now have the word sleep in the title as well-

    3. MS

      Mm-hmm.

    4. SB

      ... of Calm. So it started with predominantly meditation and now you've kind of branched out into sleep and I'm sure that's just another step in many steps. So sleep. Why- why is sleep important? Where does that fit?

    5. MS

      Yeah. Well, we'd seen something interesting in the data about 11:00 every night all around the world we saw this big spike in usage and we realized that people were listening to Tamara's voice to help them fall asleep. And we were like, "What? Don't do that. That's not what a..." (laughs) "That's not how you meditate." And, uh, we were like, "Well, hang on. Maybe there's something here." And so that led to sleep stories. We took this age-old...... thing of, uh, a bedtime story, which we all love (laughs) . Um, and we kind of modernized it and we created a sleep story, and it's a mix of a, a beautiful soothing voice with sound effects, with music. And it starts in a really sort of interesting, engaging way, and then gradually becomes more soporific. So instead of your traditional three arc, uh, structure of a story, we call it a story slope. Um, Chris, who runs our sleep stories, kind of, uh, has pioneered this. And so before you know it, you're listening, your, your brain is engaged. Instead of wondering about your to-do list or what someone said to you (laughs) at work that day-

    6. SB

      Yeah.

    7. MS

      ... you're engaged in the story, and then before you know it, we've taken you into a, a state where you're half awake, half asleep, that liminal mode, and then you're fast asleep. And very few people get to e- hear the end of the story. And this was just huge. Hundreds of millions of them have been listened to. We've had massive amounts of press. Lots of celebrities have reached out to us wanting to read them. And, uh, uh, the final thing I'll say on this is, the great thing about sleep is what a market. 7.8 billion people go to sleep-

    8. SB

      (laughs)

    9. MS

      ... every single night of their life.

    10. SB

      Or try.

    11. MS

      Whew. Or try (laughs) . Exactly.

    12. SB

      (laughs)

    13. MS

      Um, so if you can create something new, if you can create a new habit around bedtime, if you can make your evening routine a little more interesting and entertaining, um, and help solve a problem, oh my goodness, you can build something huge. And that's what sleep stories has been for Calm. So that was the next massive, massive growth area.

    14. SB

      There's a lot of misconceptions around sleep and m- s- insomnia, and I've, I've seen you talk about some of them online. What are some of the big misconceptions that you've discovered during your work with sleep and insomnia that people tend to believe about sleep that are most harmful or least conducive with being a successful sleeper?

    15. MS

      Well, sleep has gone through a similar kind of metamorphosis in society as mindfulness has. You know, just a few years ago, uh, it used to be a badge of honor to show off how little sleep you got (laughs) . For something we spend a third of our life doing, people gave it very little thought and, and respect, and, uh, that shifted. You know, Matthew Walker's book, Why We Sleep, has, has played a huge part in that. Hopefully Calm has, has played some part in, of that as well. So I think the biggest thing is people just recognizing how important it is. Everyone needs a, a sort of different amount of sleep depending on our genes. Somewhere between seven and nine hours sleep

  8. 1:03:55 – 1:06:54

    Misconceptions around sleep

    1. MS

      every night. Uh, for me, I need about eight and a, a quarter, uh, to feel good. I don't know if you know your level-

    2. SB

      Yeah. (laughs)

    3. MS

      ... you can probably cope on about three hours, I imagine-

    4. SB

      (laughs)

    5. MS

      ... given how much you do, but (laughs) .

    6. SB

      (laughs) I need to f- figure that out. But I've, I've, I mean, I've, yeah. It's g- I was thinking about something you said earlier about how in your toughest times you, you know, when, uh, Mind Candy was struggling, you started to neg- neglect like the fundamentals of being a human being.

    7. MS

      Yeah.

    8. SB

      Like nutrition and water and sleep. These, these, these things have become like, as you said, I mean, it's changing slowly now, but they became like disregarded as, as being important things. It's like we got further from being human beings-

    9. MS

      Yeah.

    10. SB

      ... and it's like, I, I, I write about it in my book as well that it's so, it's so, um, inspiring and amazing that a lot of the cures to the ailments or the mental health ailments in our lives or the problems we encounter are just like going back to being a human being. Like drink water instead of Coke. Like try not to drink too much caffeine. Sleep.

    11. MS

      Yeah.

    12. SB

      Talk to your friends (laughs) . It's like there's no like pre- there's no like pre- And but the problem is as well, there is a culture of trying to make the solutions feel complex so I can sell you some shit, whereas really they appear to be so simple.

    13. MS

      Well said. We always look for the overcomplicated solution, don't we?

    14. SB

      Yeah.

    15. MS

      We, we think it has to be, but fundamentally those are the basics that you just mentioned.

    16. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    17. MS

      Johann Hari talks about it in his book. Lost Connections is one of my favorite books where we're disconnected from what made us human as our brains and bodies evolved over 100,000 plus years, and it's so basic. So sleep is one of those key things, and if we're not getting enough good sleep, if we're disrespecting it, if we're drinking alcohol before we go to bed, it affects every aspect of our life and-

    18. SB

      Yeah.

    19. MS

      ... we're more irritable, we're less creative, our memory gets shot. We, we just go into a negative compounding situation. And, uh, so yeah, treating tr- sleep with respect I think is one of the most important things we can do.

    20. SB

      Quick one. As many of you know, I've been trying to make my life a little bit more sustainable as it relates to energy ever since I sold my Range Rover Sport and bought an electric bicycle. And MyEnergy as a sponsor of this podcast is one of the brands that make that transition much, much easier. They are at the forefront of British renewable eco smart technology and their products are really, really changing the game. If you're on YouTube, you can see what I'm holding in my hand. This is called the eddi, right? It's the UK's number one solar powered diverter. So what is a solar diverter? It's a device for people like you and me. That means you can divert your excess energy back into your home rather than back into the grid, which will save you power and money. It's super user friendly and easy to install, and you can control it using the MyEnergy app on your phone. To find out more about this product and more products like it that will help you make that sustainable transition, head over to myenergy.com and, um, I highly recommend you check out the eddi. It's, um, it's a real game changer of a product and one that I'm gonna be installing in my home soon.

  9. 1:06:54 – 1:13:17

    Tough times for you this year

    1. SB

      Tough times, sleepless nights. Let's talk about that then. This year-

    2. MS

      Hmm.

    3. SB

      ... difficult for everybody.

    4. MS

      Yes.

    5. SB

      Um, f- for everyone's own reasons. Some people lost their jobs, some people lost family members, some people lost their, I guess their purpose in life generally. And, and a lot of people because we're all now, you know, we were pushed to live our lives through glass screens more than ever before, lost a lot of other things. And, um, how was this, how has this last year and this tumultuous pandemic been for you?

    6. MS

      It's been a...... very challenging time. Uh, the pandemic, as you say, has affected everybody (laughs) on Earth in, in many, many different ways. It, it has been extraordinarily difficult. So, my perspective is, is more, you know, a, a personal, (laughs) uh, perspective. But, I think, stepping back a little bit, if we go back to 2020, you know, when this first hit, it was all unknown. There, there was a lot of anxiety, uh, but this was, uh, we were in this together and there was a lot of, uh, intrigue about what was going on. We didn't have to commute into the office anymore. We could work from home. Zoom was this incredible opportunity, and so 2020 for, for myself, uh, and the whole company, I think generally was, was, um, not too bad.

    7. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    8. MS

      You know, it was, it was, uh, it was all bearable. 2021 for myself, personally, has been pretty challenging. I think months and months and months of staring into a tiny little screen, hunched over my laptop like everybody else, has taken its toll. And I didn't treat my posture with respect. I didn't, I didn't look after my mental health the way I should, and I started to... this started to compound, and I, I had quite a serious back problem. I had a, a, a herniated disc, um, because of all the hunching, and that pushed on a nerve which meant I couldn't walk, and I had very serious pain every day. Um, which meant, (laughs) uh, uh, I couldn't sleep very well. Um, I saw multiple physios. I started to take painkillers which stopped the pain, but then filled my head with cotton wool. And so... but I still had to work and I still had to kind of, um, communicate with my team and lead the company, and I couldn't do exercise. And so for many, many months, I was not in a great place. It was a, a very, very difficult, uh, summer and beyond this year. Um, so yeah, 2021 has been tricky. Uh, I'm in a much better place now but it, it, it has been very, very challenging, and I'm very fortunate in that, you know, I haven't lost any loved ones and it, it's... we've got to put things in perspective. But from a health and, and work, uh, angle, uh, this has, I think, been one of the, the toughest, if not the toughest years that, that I've, I've personally been through.

    9. SB

      So many people, as you've described there, staring at the screen every day, end up burning themselves out. What's your experience with burnout as a topic? And is that what you're describing happened this year?

    10. MS

      I think it was a combination of things. I think it was burnout connected to chronic stress, connected to the back pain and, um, again, all these things start to negatively compound. The lack of exercise. Uh, I was living on my own and, and didn't have, uh, much, kind of, uh, human connection. Um, all these things kind of came together and, and created a, a perfect storm. And we have over 300 people at, at Calm now, and the team were going through their own versions of, of that. It certainly-

    11. SB

      (laughs) .

    12. MS

      ... wasn't just me struggling. And we do this survey every six months called Culture Amp, where the whole team kind of answers a bunch of questions and they can leave anonymous comments. We had thousands of anonymous comments in the last one we just did. And we've never seen anything like it in, in the data. The, the, the, the number of people talking about stress and burnout is way beyond anything I've ever seen in my career. And so I think it is just now we've been in this situation for 18 months, and it has just gone on and on and on. It's, it's really affected everyone, and we're seeing this now across pretty much every company. At the start of the, the lockdown, going back, I think what companies were seeing was a real surprise. Instead of people bunking off and taking it easy and putting their feet up and watching Netflix all day, people were working harder. We saw this at Calm. Um, and I think many companies have. I think there was a Harvard study done recently showing that the average work day has increased by almost an hour when people are working from home. So, people are working harder, they, they can't really switch off. There's no boundary between work and, and non-work, and it's creating this, this compounding, um, toll on the minds and, and bodies of, of everybody. So, it's a crisis. It, it's a very, very serious, uh, issue. We are taking this very seriously at Calm. Obviously, we are. Uh, we want to support, uh, our own team and other companies around the world, and just a few things that we've tried to do. We're still figuring this out ourselves, figuring out what the best way to work and support our teams are. So one thing is we have, you know, unlimited holiday but teams don't take them-

    13. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    14. MS

      ... 'cause (laughs) it's very hard to do. I've taken a few breaks, uh, during the pandemic, but I don't think I've had a single break where I wasn't on at least one Zoom call (laughs) , or I didn't check Slack or email at least once or twice a, a day. And we made the decision back in October to do a mental health week. We've done a few mental health days where everyone sort of steps away, and previously, I'd have said, "What a ridiculous idea. Who on earth gives the whole company a, a week off? You know, we are in such a competitive space. We can't afford to do that." And we did it, and we agreed it would be the right thing to do, and I think it's one of the smartest decisions we've, we've made in the, in the history of the company because it gave the whole company a chance to properly step away and recharge their batteries knowing that there wasn't any calls they were missing or any important things going on. And you know what? We came back a week later and everything was fine. The business was still there. We... fortunately, we had a few colleagues that stayed to make sure everything stayed up and could support our audience. But yeah, that was one of the smartest things, uh, we did to support the mental health of the team.

    15. SB

      What

  10. 1:13:17 – 1:15:17

    What changes are you now doing?

    1. SB

      changes have you made now in your life based on the last year, which you describe as being the hardest of your, your life, um, to make sure that you are taking better care of yourself as you've, as you've alluded to?

    2. MS

      Yes, and so there were a few other reasons why it was a very hard year, sort of beyond work, which, um, uh...... were compounding all, all the different challenges. I just think I've learnt a lot about being, uh, a better leader by developing kind of a meditation practice and, and being more mindful of so many different things. One is just not getting sucked into the, the highs and lows of the entrepreneurial journey, you know. Nothing is ever amazing or as disastrous as it seems, and I think teams want to follow calm leaders who are stable and, you know, celebrate the wins, but, but don't get sucked into the vortex of, of neg- negativity when things go wrong. I don't go to bed anymore doing emails- (laughs)

    3. SB

      (laughs)

    4. MS

      ... and waking up in the middle of the night with a phone glued to my face. I don't reach for my phone first thing in the morning anymore, as something like 60% of people do. Because suddenly, uh, instead of gently coming into the day and letting your mind kinda calibrate with the, the world, you're, you're throwing yourself into Twitter and Instagram and the news cycle and everything else. I think that's been a, a really, really important thing. Um, four areas that I, that I really think about that are the foundations to, uh, being healthy and looking after yourself, which then enables you to look after your friends and family and your, your company and employees. Um, one is nutrition, what you put into your body. Number two is exercise, how you move your body. Um, uh, so important, number three is your mind, taking care of that, you know, developing a, a practice that works for you. And number four is sleep and making sure you get that right. Sounds very simple, but you keep those things in balance, you respect them, and again, going back to this idea of a foundation, that is a very powerful foundation to stand on to, to do everything else you want to do in life.

  11. 1:15:17 – 1:22:37

    Your relationships

    1. MS

    2. SB

      Amazing. I couldn't agree more.

    3. MS

      (laughs)

    4. SB

      That, that philosophy, again, about being, being a little bit more human. One of the things that, um, wasn't on that list is in- like, meaningful connections.

    5. MS

      Mm-hmm.

    6. SB

      And one... It's interesting 'cause when I was reading through your story... And if I'm being nosy here, just tell me to fuck off. Like I'm feeling like- (laughs)

    7. MS

      Uh-oh.

    8. SB

      I couldn't see-

    9. MS

      Here we go. (laughs)

    10. SB

      Yeah, yeah. I couldn't, I couldn't, um, I couldn't see you speak openly much about your, your relationships and your like-

Episode duration: 1:34:16

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