The Diary of a CEOWhoop Founder: How I Built A $3.6 BILLION Company & BEAT Apple! Will Ahmed | E189
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,333 words- 0:00 – 2:02
Intro
- WAWill Ahmed
So, two of our first 100 users were Lebron James and Michael Phelps. (dramatic music)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Fucking hell.
- WAWill Ahmed
A $3.6 billion company... Wearable Health & Fitness Coach.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The founder of Whoop.
- WAWill Ahmed
Will Ahmed. You know, Nike and Apple and a dozen other companies were entering the space, but, uh, when it comes to health monitoring, we're the best game in town. That really came from an insane level of focus in the beginning on what we were trying to solve. One of the reasons Whoop has been successful is there were a lot of counterintuitive decisions along that journey. One obvious one is that-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Interesting. I shall steal that.
- WAWill Ahmed
It's worth emphasizing for your audience why that matters. So, there was a phase in building Whoop where it was so much about the next milestone that I was running almost exclusively on, like, a dopamine engine. If the company has a great day, you're feeling like a rocket ship, and if Whoop was failing, I was failing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What's the personal toll on you in those moments that people don't see?
- WAWill Ahmed
I was super stressed out, I was drinking too much, and I remember I was driving my car, and I'm on the highway, and all of a sudden, it's like your peripheral vision, like, starts narrowing on you, and you feel your fingers, and they're, like, numb. I actually drove myself to the hospital, and they do, um, you know, all these analysis on me, and, like, turns out I had a-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Before this episode begins, I just wanna say a huge thank you to all of our new subscribers. 74% of you that watch this channel didn't subscribe before, and we're now down to about 71%, so that helps us in a number of ways that are quite hard to explain, but simply, the bigger the channel gets, the bigger the guests get. So, if you haven't yet subscribed to The Diary of a CEO, if I could have any favors from you, if you've ever watched this show and enjoyed it, it's just to- to please hit the subscribe button. 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. (upbeat music)
- 2:02 – 4:00
Early years
- SBSteven Bartlett
Will, as you look back on your- your life and you connect the dots that led you to- to do what you've done now with Whoop and your professional life, um, what are those dots?
- WAWill Ahmed
Well, I- I grew up on, uh, the North Shore of Long Island. Um, I was always into sports and exercise. I was a super active kid. Uh, my parents are very different. My dad's an Egyptian immigrant, uh, very street smart, charismatic, came to this country with very little, rose the ranks in finance over time. My mom, uh, very analytical, very book smart, and- and watching how they approached life, I think, was a fascinating way to grow up 'cause they had very different, uh, tool sets to solve problems. And, uh, I was always playing sports, I was always exercising, and that eventually led my way to- to Harvard, and, uh, and so I was a college athlete. I got, um, recruited to play squash at Harvard, and over the course of my time there, uh, got very fascinated by how I could better understand my body, how I could, uh, understand what it meant to train optimally, how I could prevent overtraining, which was a- a problem that I had, uh, how I could really, uh, understand the other 20 hours of the day when you weren't exercising. And so that took me down this rabbit hole of physiology research, which- which we can get into, but I read hundreds of medical papers while I was, uh, in school, and then ultimately wrote a paper myself around how to continuously measure the human body, and then over the course of my time, uh, at Harvard, built up the confidence to- to start a company, which was a fairly crazy thing, looking back on it. And for the last 10 years, I've been building this company called Whoop.
- 4:00 – 8:26
What was it that made you obsessed with optimising performance?
- WAWill Ahmed
- SBSteven Bartlett
We went through that very quickly, but a lot of those things are very- very unusual. One of the first unusual things is, I mean, we all train, we all... you know, a lot of people train and- and work out and stuff, but we don't then fall into an obsession about how to optimize the performance of our training and ourselves. What is it about you... Have you been able to figure out in hindsight w- what it is about you and your makeup that made you so obsessed with that particular topic?
- WAWill Ahmed
Well, i- it struck me as something that, uh, really didn't make a lot of sense. Like, you're- I was spending three or four hours a day at Harvard exercising with no information about what I was doing to my body, and yet, that's a school also that is totally obsessed with deeper knowledge, and so that in itself seemed like a- like a deep irony. And then I also was a pretty competitive person, and I- I was someone who was overtraining, right, where you just... you get fitter and fitter and fitter, and you sort of fall off a cliff, and you don't know why. And that bothered me. Like, that bothered me that I didn't- I didn't fully understand what I was doing to my body, w- what was- what was the missing ingredient, so to speak. And I just sort of started pulling at that thread, and it- it really took me down a rabbit hole.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Overtraining. I've heard this term. Never been sure if I believed it (laughs) because I don't really know what it is, but for- for someone that doesn't know what that is, what- what is overtraining?
- WAWill Ahmed
The technical definition is it's a continued state of overreaching that then leads to a- a period where your body's essentially in a depressed state, and, uh, what that will look like physiologically is essentially you, uh, your body's run down, um, you know, activities that would form- normally feel somewhat easy, uh, are- are quite difficult. Um, it psychologically, it makes you feel kinda lousy, run down, symptoms similar to being sick, and depending on how overtrained you are, it can last, um, you know, a week or it could last months. I- in my case, it normally didn't last longer than a couple weeks, but it-It's kind of this ultimate betrayal, right? Because you're pushing yourself so hard to get stronger and fitter that you actually get to a place where you're completely broken down.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Had I asked you at 14 years old, say, 14, 16 years old, what you were gonna be when you grew up, what would you have responded?
- WAWill Ahmed
I don't know that I would've known, but if you looked at the things I was interested in... So, I was always playing with technology, which in hindsight, uh, was quite productive. Like, I had the first, um, I had the first iPod in my sixth grade, uh, class, I remember. So, we're about the same age.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. (laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
So, you probably remember when the iPod came out.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. All right.
- WAWill Ahmed
And like, how cool that thing was.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Circled, thick book. (laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah, it was really thick, and it had that-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. Circle.
- WAWill Ahmed
... like, wild, uh, wheel.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
A little before that, I had a PalmPilot, like a PalmPilot 7. It was, like, the original, uh, PalmPilot that could get internet access. When I was around thir- 12 or 13, I had one of the first, uh, voice recorders that you could speak into, and it would type for you.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, wow.
- WAWill Ahmed
So, it was like, you know, Siri-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Jeez.
- WAWill Ahmed
... but 20 years ago.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
Uh, and it didn't quite work, unfortunately. But I, you know, I had this real itch towards technology, and then I think somewhere between the ages of, like, um, 18 and 20, I- I also saw this huge convergence happening with- with smartphones, with the way that computers, to me, seemed like they were sort of seamlessly moving from being on your desk, to on your lap, to in your pocket, to what I perceived to be eventually on your body or even in your body. I thought that was a natural evolution. So, I definitely had this pull towards technology, but I think throughout, uh, you know, I was overcoming this, uh, feeling of, uh, whether I should go into finance. 'Cause I grew up, my dad was in, you know, in finance. In fact, after my freshman year at Harvard... So, most undergrads do, you know, different internships and whatnot. After my freshman year, I did an internship at a hedge fund. My sophomore year, I did an internship at an investment bank. And my junior year, I did an internship at a private equity firm. So, like, I did... I was really flirting with going into finance, but, uh, I think- I think this is what I was supposed to do.
- 8:26 – 15:43
Are you a curious person?
- WAWill Ahmed
- SBSteven Bartlett
From everything I've read, it's quite clear to me that you're a very curious person. And m- my brother's very interesting, my oldest brother. Whenever we were y- when we were younger, he always wanted to understand everything, and when he became interested in something, he became obsessed in it, and he went, like, right down into the rabbit hole. As I read through your story, on multiple occasions, whether it's meditation or others, or how the business came to be, or, you know, your journey to trying to fi- figure out how to optimize the body, all of these struck me as a person that once they get interested in something, they go all the way down into the rabbit hole to find out the solutions. Is that accurate?
- WAWill Ahmed
I think it's fair. I think it also stems from this, uh, ability to throw myself out there. Um, you know, back to how your childhood influences your- your future, uh, there's- there's this story. I don't know if I've ever talked about this, but, uh, fascinating story where I was in fif- fifth or sixth grade, middle school.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
And we're doing what's called a blue and gold day. So, I went to a school called Greenvale. The colors are blue and gold. And you have this, like, fair, essentially, which is all sorts of different competitions, races, that sort of thing. And, uh, there's a captain's race at the end of the day with, like, the- the four people representing their- their class, so to sort of speak, the f- the... to run the- the fast race. And I was a- I was a captain, so I was very anxious about this final race. And right before the final race was one of the longer races, like, uh, I think it was three or four laps. And so, uh, you know, if you were to run that, you'd be quite tired.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
And- and I... That wasn't a race I ever ran. But, uh, Timmy all of a sudden was sick, and so he didn't show up for- for this race. And I remember, uh, Peter Zaloom, who was our science teacher, he's walking around, and he's yelling, "Hey, blue, we need someone to run this race. We need someone to run this race." And I'm kind of, like, avoiding even making eye contact with this teacher 'cause I really don't wanna run this race. And it was like he zeroed in on me out of a distance and just marched over, and he said, "Will, you should run this race." And I said, "No, no, no, I've got the captain's race. I gotta do that." And he's like, "Will, 90% of life is showing up. The other 10% is what happens when you get there." And, like, in that moment, I was like, "Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna go run this." And I don't even remember what happened in that race. I don't even remember the captain's race, uh, which in some ways emphasizes his point, but that whole thread of just showing up is something I think about all the time.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wh- why, why do... And this is, I guess, a, a lesson for entrepreneurship, 'cause you saw some... (sighs) I was gonna say, and this, uh, links to something in your story. I was gonna say you saw an opportunity, and you... But you didn't see an opportunity, did you? You were dragged by your obsession-
- WAWill Ahmed
(clears throat) Well-
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and interest.
- WAWill Ahmed
In building Whoop?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WAWill Ahmed
I definitely saw an opportunity to continuously measure the human body, and I also saw an opportunity that, uh, computing was getting to a size, and- and sort of sophistication, where it could be smaller and smaller. Uh, but the pull that got me to building this company, and I think persevering over years, was that it also was a personal obsession to really understand my own body. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
'Cause when people t- typically recite their stories of how they became an entrepreneur, you- you get this kind of like... They put, I don't know, white piece of paper there, and they're like, "What is the opportunity in the market?" And- and when I read the quote from you that said, "You're an entrepreneur before you realized you were..."
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah. That's true.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... that bucks that narrative a little bit, which I think entrepreneurs sometimes try and sell because it makes them seem more intentional. I can't replicate your curiosity and interest that made you go off in that journey of optimizing the human body. So, I just think in, in society and culture generally, entrepreneurs sometimes look back and try and make their story sound, like, really, really intentional, when a lot of it, in your case, a- as is the case in mine, was like, "I was interested in this thing, and I just kept on going 'cause I loved it." (laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
I think that's right. (clears throat) I also spent a lot of time, like, building the confidence to start the company. Like, I really didn't know what it meant to start a company. And I mean, I, I spent two years doing physiology research. I then took another class that was around, if you have an idea, how do you write a business plan for it? Um, and I remember, like, my senior year, I was doing, like, the third or fourth iteration of this business plan, and I was meeting with the MIT professor, a guy named Howard Anderson, who taught the class and was, like, a venture capitalist. And at that point, I wasn't even enrolled in the class. I was just working on this business plan. And he's like, he just sort of stopped, and he said, "Will, at some point you have to ask yourself, is this a paper or are you starting a company?" Right? It sort of puts you on the spot. Like, why are you doing all this work? And I think I, I think I did a ton of work to feel as prepared as possible-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
... to, like, have the confidence to take the leap. And I'm so glad I did. But I... You know, when I meet young people, I try to encourage them to do as much work as they can to build up that confidence, and also to understand that there's a lot of things you aren't gonna know in the process of building a company. But once you make that commitment, the, the learnings come in fast, right? And I'm sure you've experienced that.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I see it all, all the time, especially in young people who, um... They're using perfectionism as a way to procrastinate because they're... they don't feel competent or ready yet to... So you'll have people-
- WAWill Ahmed
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... that, you know, come, come up to you and say, "I've been working on this idea (laughs) for, for two years, three years." And they're making all these assumptions, which they could quite probably figure out in a week if they just went to market to... But it's a guise for fear, I think, sometimes. It's a guise of like, "I actually don't feel ready," or, "I don't, I don't have the answers, so I'm just preparing more-
- WAWill Ahmed
(sighs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
... waiting for that perfect moment."
- WAWill Ahmed
Uh, yeah, I think o- overcoming a fear of failure is a really critical step in life, and there's a lot of m- methods to think about for that. Uh, I think for me, it was doing a lot of work. I think it was, uh, following my passion. In some ways, the, the reason I feel like I became an entrepreneur before I knew what an entrepreneur was, it was that it almost became an inevitability that I was starting the company, and less so a choice, because it was like all I was thinking about in my free time, you know? The things you do, th- the things you think about before bed or in the shower, you know, the quiet moments throughout life, I think those are pretty telling.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And what role has that played, that obsession with the, with solving the problem and solving that challenge, and your general interest in it? What role has that played in your hardest times? As in, when things get really fucking difficult and it's easy to quit, if you're someone that's authentically driven and authentically curious about that thing, must make it somewhat easier to carry
- 15:43 – 18:19
Your business becoming your identity
- SBSteven Bartlett
on.
- WAWill Ahmed
I think for sure. It pulls you through, like the, the obsession of solving a problem pulls you through. I mean, I struggled, though, for years, uh, with building Whoop. It was, it was really, really painful. And I think an important thing for any entrepreneur, but especially it was for me, was to disassociate my own identity from that of the company's. If you're a y- And you, you, you've been a young entrepreneur, so you know this. Like, as a young entrepreneur, I think a lot of your identity all of a sudden gets tied up in that thing you're creating. And for me, that meant if Whoop was having a good day, I was having a good day. If Whoop was having a bad day, I was having a bad day. Um, and if Whoop was failing, I was failing. And that's a very unhealthy association, but it's also not true. Like, literally, you can be taking great steps to improve as a leader or as a manager or even as a recruiter, and certain things will happen that may put your business sideways. And conversely, I'm sure you and I have both met founders, entrepreneurs who have watched their company go like this, but meanwhile they're spinning out of control.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
Right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
And I think the faster, uh, that I could separate those two identities, my own and Whoop, the easier it actually became to build a successful company.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is part of the reason you're so... our identity becomes attached to the company? 'Cause I was thinking about why that was, that was definitely the case for me.
- WAWill Ahmed
(clears throat)
- SBSteven Bartlett
And the answer was because my entire net worth was, was this thing as well. So, coming from a background where I didn't have money, my family didn't have money, my entire net worth was this thing that was going well. So, you can see how if the company starts to struggle, it's like, "Steve's actually poor again." (laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
Well, I had that too, for what it's worth. In some, in some respects, I still have it today, just, like, given the nature of the-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WAWill Ahmed
... of the value of the business. The, the key, uh, the key, at least for me, in, in building the business was finding ways for myself to, uh, manage stress, to manage, uh, the difficulties that come with building a company without finding myself on that yo-yo of the company's performance, right? It can't be that, uh, if the company has a great day, you're feeling like a rocket ship. And if the company's having a bad day, you're feeling down. And so a lot of my...I think growth as an entrepreneur has been figuring out how to have a steady hand, and how to,
- 18:19 – 23:26
How to stay calm in the chaos
- WAWill Ahmed
you know, sort of stay calm through the-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Chaos.
- WAWill Ahmed
... chaos, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How've you done that?
- WAWill Ahmed
A few different things. Um, I think the first, uh, and probably the most profound for me in general has been learning how to meditate. So, in 2014, so I was about 24 years old, the company was maybe, I don't know, 30 or 40 people, um, I think I had raised maybe $20 million, something like that, which certainly felt like a lot of money, and, um, and I felt like I was really failing, like, as a leader. I was super stressed out, I was drinking too much. And, uh, and I remember having, um, what I would later learn was a panic attack.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
Um, you know, and I was driving my car, and I'm on the highway, and all of a sudden it's like your peripheral vision, like, starts narrowing on you, and you feel your fingers, and they, like, are a little bit numb, and you have this taste in your mouth. I actually thought I had been food poisoned, because the, the feeling was so unusual and outrageous. And, uh, and so I drove, I actually d- drove myself to the hospital. And I checked into the hospital, and they do, um, you know, all these analysis on me, and, like, turns out I just had a panic attack. But the fact that I ended up in the hospital from a panic attack, I was like, "All right, wait a- wait a second, like, I gotta really reset how I'm building this company and growing." And, uh, two days later, I signed up for this meditation course, transcendental meditation, and, uh, I've been doing it, like, every single day since then, about, yeah, about eight and a half years later.
- SBSteven Bartlett
When I sit here with CEOs who, many of which have had panic attacks-
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... funnily, funnily enough, um, and they t- talk to me about meditation, I always seem to get a similar response, which is, "Oh, I can't meditate, my head's too busy for that."
- WAWill Ahmed
Well, I think the busier your mind is, the more you need to meditate. I ... So, I learned how to meditate in 2014, and I think there's different stages of the way you understand meditation as well. Um, there's sort of a four-week check mark, I think there's, like, a four-month y- or maybe a one-year check mark, and then there's four years plus, which is fortunately where I am today. And the fascinating thing is, what you first observe in meditating, um ... And I should just sort of clarify what kind of meditation I'm doing. So I, I spend about 22 minutes every morning doing this, and you literally are, um, you're, you're breathing, but then you start repeating a mantra. And the idea of the mantra is to start clearing your mind out, and you're just focusing on the mantra. But what inevitably happens is thoughts start to drift in as you're saying the mantra, and you get to have this moment where you get to decide, "Do I wanna think about the thought, or do I wanna pass it along by going back to the mantra?" So just right there in that moment, you start to realize that you can filter your thoughts. You also get to choose to sit with certain thoughts, right? Think how often in your life you might have thoughts coming in, you, you feel like, uh, y- you can't really control what you're thinking about, right? You almost, like, don't have that focus. So, that's the immediate benefit that you get, y- that you feel while you're meditating. The more powerful benefit, and this is what I meant about feeling certain stages of having done it, is it, at least for me, it started to feel like I had a third person, you know, sort of watching me. And I would hear this voice in my head suddenly, like when I was about to get angry, or when I was about to be upset, or ... And it was sort of a, uh, all of a sudden you're able to sense wh- what you're about to do or say before you do it. So, the immature version of me as an entrepreneur might find himself saying things and being angry and reacting, um, and then sort of almost catching up to the emotional state that I was in and trying to reel it back. Whereas the, the more meditated version, uh, of me, I think has, has been able to recognize when I'm about to say something before I say it, or feel something before I feel it. And then, and that, it feels like a superpower.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Did that grow over time, that third-person ability, with your m- transcendental meditation practice?
- WAWill Ahmed
I think so. I mean, it's, uh, I imagine that learning how to breathe and meditate is like any other skill, and if you refine it for weeks versus months versus years, it, it gets better.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And it's, it's b- it's basically c- becoming conscious, isn't it, of what's going on in your mind? You're becoming more conscious of your thoughts and that they're choices, and y- you're not them? (laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah, exactly. I, I think it, it's at least helped me stay more in control of, of my actions, my feelings, decisions I'm making, and, and I really recommend it to anyone. Like, I think it's, I think it's a game changer.
- 23:26 – 27:28
Did you have doubt in the early days?
- SBSteven Bartlett
2014, y- you cite, um, and a few things you've, you've spoken on, um, as being a very difficult year. That's when you had, as you said, 20 to 30 employees, you'd raised $20 million, things were pretty crazy. In those early years, um, did you have doubt? Because when I think about the Whoop story, its competitor set are all massive fucking juggernauts.
- WAWill Ahmed
(laughs) Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I've, I've, like, from afar, obviously, when I got, I got my Whoop two months ago, I remember thinking, "How the fuck have they done that?" In a, in a, in an environment where you've got these big, you know, Steve Jobs founded companies, and this company, and they've all got billions and $200 billion in the kitty-
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... I'm like, "How did they get on my wrist? Uh, how did they pierce and get p-" You went into an incredibly competitive market. When you did that, when you raised that $20 million, did you have doubts about yourself?
- WAWill Ahmed
I think I developed doubts, um, in managing the company. Like, I always believed in the vision, uh, of what we set out to build, I mean, dating to 2011 or 2012 when I was doing all the research. Like, it, it was almost a straight shot from 2011 or '12 to today. The paper I wrote in 2011 was titled The Feedback Tool: Measuring Intensity, Recovery, and Sleep. And, like, literally today, our three main metrics are strain, recovery, and sleep. So, in terms of having a strong perspective on what the world should look like when the technology is built and actually measuring all the things it needs to super accurately, I think building Whoop was, was more of a straight line than, than the average company. Where it was all kinds of zigs and zags and chaos is, uh, learning, one, how to be a CEO and run the company. Um, to your point, learning how to navigate competition, and we can talk more about that. We've had some interesting experiences in that category. A big theme was actually being able to raise capital, in part because of the competition, right? Like, it was hard... First of all, for a number of years, we were building the technology before we ever were really generating revenue, and that's, that's just a hard business to build, and it also took us a lot longer to get the product to market than we thought it would.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
Right? And so, you're in this scenario where, you know, you're, you're saying to investors, "Well, we're, we're getting there, we're getting there, we're getting there." And so, the, you know, the first seven years of the company, I would say, were enormously hard from just a technology development standpoint, from a capital-raising standpoint, even from a business generation standpoint, because we, you know, we were seven years in, and then completely changed our business model on its head, which was bet-the-company moment, you know? And, uh, and so there, there were just a lot... It was a lot. Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Had I told you at 22 th- the next... Was 22 when you founded the company?
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If I told you at 22 the next seven years would look like that, (laughs) do you think you would've done it?
- WAWill Ahmed
I, I think I would've done it. Yeah. I mean, it was painful, but I knew I was doing the right thing. Like, I knew I was, I knew I was in the right storm. You know what I mean?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
Like, um, there were a lot of feelings of being, like, my back against the wall. Um, there were a lot of feelings of, uh, doubt.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What were those feelings of doubt?
- WAWill Ahmed
You know, are we gonna get this thing to market soon enough? Do... Are we gonna figure out what the right way is to sell it? Are we maturing as a, as a team? Are we gonna be able to attract more capital? I mean, again, back to raising capital. W- w- we've raised about $400 million in capital to date, but that's still cents when you look at the companies we've been competing against to get to this stage. And so I was, I was nervous about that piece of it. A- and especially, again, as a young entrepreneur who's, who was raising capital for the first time.
- 27:28 – 31:50
Co-founders
- WAWill Ahmed
- SBSteven Bartlett
You said team and we there. Co-founders.
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How important is that in hindsight? 'Cause I feel like you don't find out the answer to h- how well you've s- s- chosen your co-founders until a couple of years in.
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah. Look, I, I had a great, um, CTO. I had a great lead mechanical engineer. We, we built the business together for 10 years. Our, my CTO just, just, uh, transitioned to new projects. Um, but it's been an amazing ride, and I think the, the fact that we've been able to build this technology that has, you know, through a variety of different, uh, third parties, been credited as being most accurate wearable on the market, speaks to the, the technical chops of, of the founding team. And I, I, I don't take credit for that. Uh, so I think it's, uh, it's a remarkable accomplishment, and I think it's also important when you're building a founding team to have a, a, a fairly clear, um, set of responsibilities. I get a little nervous when I hear of a founding team and they're both, like, the business guy, or they're both, like, the technical guy and kinda do the same thing, you know? The, the advantage that we had in starting the company was each category of thing that we were trying to do was so hard, like inventing a wearable that could measure, um, heart rate variability as accurately as an electrocardiogram, or raise capital at a time that, you know, Nike and Apple and, you know, a dozen other companies were entering the space. Like, I- i- if I struggled with raising capital, like, I wasn't gonna have a partner giving me a hard time. If he struggled with building the technology, I wasn't gonna give him a hard time. Like, we just knew it was hard. Uh, and we also knew that the other wasn't gonna be better at it. So, I think that there is an element of complementary, uh, skill sets that's helpful.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If you were giving someone advice on how to pick a co-founder, in terms of the character traits that you look for in that person, what would you suggest that they look for? 'Cause it's a question I get asked all the time about co-founders.
- WAWill Ahmed
It's probably some combination of commitment, intensity, and humility. Um, the commitment piece is really important, because you're gonna have a lot of very difficult things happen in the first six months, let alone the first six years, and so you wanna know that this person's committed to doing this, and it's gonna be hardcore, and no matter what happens, we're gonna get through it. You know, I, I, I think startups really only fail if the founders quit or you run outta money.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
So, like, if you can overcome those two things, y- you've got a pretty good shot. And, uh, and so commitment's critical. And then intensity and humility, that's what I just generally look for in anyone that, that I work for, uh, work with.You want hard-driving people. You want people who recognize that it's gonna take an enormous amount of work and discipline to develop whatever product or service it is that you're creating for the first time. But you also want, along the way, um, to have people who recognize that with that intensity and with that intelligence, with that depth, they have the humility to recognize that they may not have all the answers. And in particular, when you're building a company, and a small company at that, that has a lot of different departments that intersect, and in, uh, in the case of Whoop, I mean, hardware, software, analytics, data, regulatory, design, marketing, whatever, it... You could have a meeting with four different departments, and it's really just four people, and all of a sudden, there's this massive collision around, "How are we gonna send data from a Whoop strap to an iPhone?" And, like, the product person has their own perspective, the iOS engineer has his own perspective, you know, the, the Bluetooth expert has their perspective, the engineer has, uh, the mechanical engineer has his own perspective. And so there's this natural collision of, "How should we solve this problem?" And I think when you build teams with high humility, they tend to come out with the answer that's best for the company, not like, "I came up with it." So, that, that would... I think that's a pretty good starting point, commitment, intensity, humility.
- 31:50 – 40:05
The most difficult time for you
- WAWill Ahmed
- SBSteven Bartlett
When you think about the, the diff- the most difficult time... So I know that you would've been through many, many difficult times, but when you, when I, when I say that, when I say, "The most difficult time," maybe a day, maybe a piece of news you got, an email. Is there something that comes to mind as the most difficult day, time, moment?
- WAWill Ahmed
Well, there was a period of time of about 18 months where Whoop never had more than three months of runway.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Of cash in the bank?
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Wow.
- WAWill Ahmed
So picture that, right? Because, um, you know, so much of building a business is having the runway to strategize and grow and recruit and, and I had... The company had gotten into a, a, a weird moment where we were still doing innovative things, but we hadn't found the next investor to sort of carry the company through to the, to the future, uh, to a future round, or, you know, give us two years of runway, which is sort of what you'd want for any capital injection. And we were making some deals happen. There were, there were compelling things happening in the business, and so we were able to stitch along a number of, uh, investments, but never enough capital.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hm, that's a lot.
- WAWill Ahmed
And so I just felt this enormous weight on my shoulders, man. Like, it was, it was-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Right.
- WAWill Ahmed
... so intense. And, uh, and it also was a s- it was a company size that... You know, it's one thing to say, okay, 18 months, and you never have more than three months of runway. It's one thing to say that when you're like a 10-person team. Like, we were like a 50, 70-person team, something like that. So, you know, the... You feel a lot of responsibility as well when you're operating through a period. And essentially, it got to the point where, um, if we didn't get, uh, a, essentially a term sheet signed, uh, on a Wednesday, uh, we were gonna go bankrupt on that Friday, or file for bankruptcy on that Friday. So imagine, like two days from, from it all going away. And I remember writing, uh, like even writing a note to all of our investors about what a journey it had been, and thank you. Like, I felt all the feelings of the company had failed without the company having failed, and fortunately was able to get the deal done on that day. And, uh, and, you know, so glad I did.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I've been there. I've been there for multiple payrolls.
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I tell this funny story about it being payday on that day, and the bank not, our bank at the time, not releasing the, the funds. We have 200 people, um, and them saying they'll only release the funds on that Friday when everyone's expecting payment if I get a contract signed by one of our clients. So I'm in London having drinks with this client (laughs) and we get to like, you know, a certain point at lunch where I'm like, "You wouldn't mind signing this contract? Send it after..." But multiple times, especially running a B2B agency business that was growing. Cash is always-
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah, right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... 60 days away. You've gotta pay your bills today.
- WAWill Ahmed
Right.
- SBSteven Bartlett
But what's the personal toll on you in those moments that people don't see?
- WAWill Ahmed
Well, I look back on that whole period with, like, immense gratitude, because it... Being able to overcome that and being able to e- essentially pull through in a circumstance where I think almost, uh, any other business would've failed, it, it just, it, it reframed for me going forwards what it means to be facing a challenge. Like, that was a real existential challenge. Like, this whole thing's going away. We're all going home. The technology's worth nothing, right? That's an, that's like, poof. And so now, it's like, "Okay, the sales were lower this month than the last month," or, "This great person on our team got poached by that company," or, "This epic competitor came out with this product." Like, there's, there's some level of perspective that comes with all of those, you know, big challenges, because I just remember being able to work through the... What I deemed to be one of the biggest challenges.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Did you get anxiety through that period?
- WAWill Ahmed
Totally, but I, I also, like, I was able to build a whole lifestyle and process to approach, um, stress. And I do think that success may come for people when they overcome a level of stress that would break most people. And so, I'm a little critical of how, um, pop culture likes to talk about stress, which is, if you're stressed-... you know, take on way less of it, right? And that, that may be true in small doses, but what we really want to learn is how to cope with stress and how to manage through it and how to overcome it. And I think also if you're stressed about something, it's also a signal that it matters to you and it's important, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
So, uh, it, it... Look, it was... That period of time was, uh, enormously stressful, painful. Um, I felt like I had to keep some of it to myself versus burden, like, a larger team with it, you know? So that... There's certain burdens I do think that, um, CEOs or leaders or entrepreneurs carry, where you're, you're almost compartmentalizing something, and you know you're gonna have to, to feel it. (smacks lips) I'm sure you know what that feels like.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, of course. I think, you know... I, I did that for my entire career, and then I think the, the shift I've seen in, in culture with leaders was COVID, when a lot of companies, the facts were clear. Like, we have to close down. If you're a high street brand, for example, we have to close the doors. So that's when I think a lot of CEOs started being more honest with the state of play with their team members, and would say things like, "Listen, we're gonna have to let-"
- WAWill Ahmed
(clears throat)
- SBSteven Bartlett
"... half the team go, and this is how much money we have in the bank. If we don't get here, then we're gonna have to close down." I, I saw a big shift then, and it inspired me a lot about being transparent with my teams. But I mean, for the whole of my professional career, yeah, I just com-... I just brave face. It was like... You would have no idea if it was the best day or the worst day, because my face was the same. (laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
So you got good at holding it in.
- SBSteven Bartlett
100%, but my business partner didn't, and he became an alcoholic. So he... As he's talked about many times, he turned to alcohol as we lived in the same house together.
- WAWill Ahmed
Sure.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And he would... I... There were times when I went downstairs at 3:00 AM and went into the laundry room, and he was there drinking.
- 40:05 – 47:28
Like style hacks - your day to day routines
- SBSteven Bartlett
disassociate, or-
- WAWill Ahmed
Well, we talked about meditation, which was a big one.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WAWill Ahmed
Um, (smacks lips) exercise, big one. Uh, I got into hot/cold-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, yeah.
- WAWill Ahmed
... transitions. Gratitude's a big one.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(smacks lips) So take me through your day, then, because I think this will re- reveal a lot of your habits.
- WAWill Ahmed
Sure. So let's take a, a given day in Boston.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WAWill Ahmed
The day actually starts for me a little bit the night before, because I'm getting into a f-... uh, a framework for, you know, the next day. Um, a few days a week, I work out with a trainer early in the morning. So I'll actually pack everything up for that while I've got my, my workout clothes out. I'll have the what I'm gonna wear to work the next day. Uh, I'll, I'll probably have written down, like, two or three things that I'm gonna focus on the next day. And, and then, like, sleep, because, you know, building Whoop, you think a lot about sleep. I, uh, you know, I sleep in a really cold bedroom, a really dark-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- WAWill Ahmed
... bedroom.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why cold and dark?
- WAWill Ahmed
It's just shown to give you higher quality sleep. Yeah. And I try to go to bed at a f-... a somewhat consistent time. This is a little trickier because my wife's kind of a night owl, and I like to go to bed a little earlier.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
But, uh, so I'll probably go to bed between, I don't know, 11:30 and midnight, and then I'll wake up at around 6:30. And-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Co- controversial question about your wife, then. Does your sleep deteriorate with your wife in the bed?
- WAWill Ahmed
It doesn't, because we have, uh... We've got good intimacy. Like, we've got good bed cuddle habits, you know? It's like a-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Cuddling time. (laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah, yeah. We, we, uh... We've done a good job coexisting in a, in a bedroom environment. Although that's an interesting thing you can track on Whoop. So if people really want to know whether or not they sleep better or worse with a partner, you can literally record that in the Whoop journal-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
... in the app. Uh, so in a second, I want to hear what's in your Whoop journal-
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
(laughs) ... and what you track, what-
- SBSteven Bartlett
No comment. You can probably check. (laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
... what you're tracking against. Uh, so cold room, a consistent bedtime. Um, (smacks lips) yeah, and then I wake up, and I'm, I'm, like, out the door-... really quick shower, workout clothes, got my stuff. I always give my wife kisses before I leave, that's, like, a nice relationship hack, uh, while she's, while she's sleeping. And then, uh, I work out for an hour with my trainer. I'll do a steam room after that, freezing cold shower, um, I do a breakfast that's mostly, like, egg whites, it's mostly proteins, like egg whites, like avocado, bacon, that kind of stuff.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Two points there. So, the first was working out in the morning.
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is there any, like, data or science around that being advantageous?
- WAWill Ahmed
So back to being able to control the controllables, I like to work out in the morning in large part because it means I can then stay at work later if I need to.
- 47:28 – 52:36
Heart rate variability
- WAWill Ahmed
So just by controlling your breathing, you can decide whether you wanna be sympathetic dominant, parasympathetic dominant. You can increase your heart rate variability, you can decrease it, and that's something that's in your control. And heart rate variability is one of the core statistics that we look at as a lens into how restored your body is.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I notice that because my friend Logan s- he went out for a night out, he got drunk, it was a-
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah, that'll-
- SBSteven Bartlett
... wedding.
- WAWill Ahmed
... that'll do it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And then he screenshotted his, his Whoop dashboard the next day, and w- and put it into our chat, and went, "Fuck."
- WAWill Ahmed
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
'Cause everything was red. (laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And, and he was trying to explain to me heart rate variability and why it was important, but I couldn't quite understand, um, and I remember trying to, trying to read about why it was important, but I, I knew you were coming here, so I thought I would ask you myself. 'Cause you, I've heard you talk about the importance of heart rate variability. I understand now what it is, but why is it such an important indicator, and what are the things that we do that make it plummet?
- WAWill Ahmed
So the fascinating thing about heart rate variability is it's been measured since, like, roughly the, the 80s, and...The physiology research that I was reading in college was showing that, uh, Olympic powerlifters were using heart rate variability to determine how much they should lift, so based on whether they had a low or a high heart rate variability in the morning. And they'd get hooked up to an electrocardiogram, like, this is an intense thing, and then they would go decide how much they were gonna lift based on what their reading was. I was like, "That's kind of interesting." Turned out, um, cyclists were doing it in the '80s. The CIA was using heart rate variability for lie detection tests. Uh, doctors, uh, cardiologists were using heart rate variability to predict whether, um, former heart failure patients were gonna have a heart attack again. So, I'm thinking to myself, "This is a pretty powerful statistic that I've never heard of that feels like everyone should be measuring." And, uh, and so that's really... That was one of the core insights in building Whoop, was that you need to be able to measure heart rate variability continuously, and in particular, it's gonna play a huge role in helping, uh, us understand the status of your body's readiness, and, uh, how well you're sleeping. So, those are two ways that Whoop is primarily using heart rate variability. Uh, you know, things that decrease heart rate variability, uh, dehydration, bad diet, al- we just talked about alcohol, um, heavy exercise, uh, you know, heavy, um, psychological stress. Often, people are surprised how just the wrong conversation with their partner the night before bed can totally throw their sleep out of whack, or their heart rate variability out of whack. So, it's a very powerful statistic, it's a fascinating statistic, and I'm mostly glad, like, a lot more people are measuring it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It seems to know us before we know ourselves.
- WAWill Ahmed
That's a nice way to describe it. Uh, one of the things I would say in building Whoop is, uh, feelings are overrated. There are things happening in your body that you can't feel, and I think heart rate variability is one of those, one of those key indicators, where for most people it would be very hard to know what their heart rate variability was saying in any given moment. But, uh, it- it has turned out to be a good embodiment of what Whoop does, which is that feelings are overrated.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I, I say that because I remember looking at my heart rate variability and seeing it was orange or red, I can't remember, and then asking myself why, and I go, "Oh, yeah, I know why." 'Cause I was really, I think I was really stressed that day.
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I hadn't slept, and then I hadn't slept because we had a back to back to back schedule, so I was going to sleep at 4:00 AM and waking up at 8:00 AM for, like, three days in a row, and my heart rate variability just seemed to plummet. And that was when I speaked to my assistant, I go, "Listen, we need to (laughs) no meetings before 11:00, 'cause I need to sleep." Um, and it knew me before I... And, uh, it's funny because it- it, yeah, it- it changed my life by telling me something that maybe I wasn't listening to. It changed my routine by telling me something that was clear maybe from an- a subjective, uh, objective standpoint, but I clearly was ignoring, thinking that I was invi- invincible.
- WAWill Ahmed
Well, I think COVID-19 was a big wake-up call for people in that category, right? Of, um, of feelings are overrated, because here you have a virus that you can get that you don't feel, you're not even sick, and yet you give it to someone else and they get deathly ill.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
We had a fascinating relationship with COVID-19 in, in, uh, being able to measure it, because we detected a statistic called respiratory rate being super elevated. But I can't tell you how many screenshots and messages I've gotten over the last two years of people seeing this huge spike in their respiratory rate, you know, two, three days before ultimately testing positive for COVID. And it reaffirmed, in a lot of ways, the founding story of the company, although in a different direction. It wasn't about not knowing that you should train today or rest today, it was about not knowing that you were sick.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
It speaks to the potential of health monitoring and why it's so exciting.
- 52:36 – 57:57
Blue light blocking
- WAWill Ahmed
- SBSteven Bartlett
Another conversation I've been having recently with a friend is about blocking out certain types of light. I heard you do that.
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah. So, uh, blue light, um, essentially what emits from a cellphone, a television set, an iPad. I mean, blue light's frankly all around us, and blue light essentially tells your brain to stay awake. And so, one way to offset that is to not be on devices into the evening, but, you know, I'm still, I think, largely optimizing my life around being a great entrepreneur or, or, uh, CEO, so for me, that doesn't quite feel like an option yet, or I haven't quite built that level of maturity. But what I do do is I- I wear these blue light-blocking glasses, which have a red tint to them.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
And, uh, it's like a get-out-of-jail-free card for using devices into the evening. And, uh, and they start to make you sleepy. It's probably the single biggest thing that's boosted my REM and slow wave sleep on Whoop, is- is wearing blue light-blocking glasses. It's worth emphasizing for a second, like, for your audience why that matters. So, if you spend, like, seven hours in bed, you're not actually getting seven hours of sleep, right? And if you think about the seven hours you spent in bed, it's divided up of time in which you're awake, you're in light sleep, you're in slow wave sleep, or you're in REM sleep. And awake and light sleep, as stages go, really are kind of irrelevant. Like, they don't do much for your body physiologically, they're not restorative. But REM and slow wave sleep, that's, like, where all the magic happens. So, REM sleep is when your mind is repairing cognitively, it's when you'll have, uh, deep dreams. So, people who say they don't remember their dreams or they don't dream, they probably aren't getting enough REM sleep. So, for human beings, REM sleep is, like, critical, right? 'Cause that's cognitive repair. Slow wave sleep, that's when your body produces about, like, 95% of its human growth hormone.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Is that deep sleep, on Whoop?
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- WAWill Ahmed
And so, you know, people think they, they're getting stronger going to the gym, right? Really, you're just breaking down your muscles when you go to the gym. You actually get stronger when you go to bed during slow wave sleep because you're producing all your human growth hormone. So, just to zoom out, if you're someone who's spending seven hours in bed, it might be that you get a total of 30 minutes of REM and slow wave sleep, of those seven hours. It could also be that you get, like, five and a half hours-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
... out of those seven hours. And often when you talk to people about sleep, they're like, "Oh, I just don't have time," blah, blah, blah. We're not even talking about more time. We're just saying, how do you take the seven hours that you're in bed and make them way better? And, uh, and so for me, blue light-blocking glasses was one of those things. There's a couple others, but yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That, this was the thing that made me fall in love with my Whoop. I remember getting eight hours sleep, waking up and feeling great, looking at my Whoop and it said you'd had three hours REM sleep, and me going, "Man, I smashed it."
- WAWill Ahmed
That's nice.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah. And then, th- a couple of days later, or the next day, getting eight hours sleep, waking up and feeling like shit, looking at my Whoop and it said, "Oh, you've got 30 minutes," or something. (laughs) And me going, "Aha." There is a... 'Cause you think, "Oh, I spent eight hours in bed, so I must have had," yeah, as you say, like eight hours sleep. But it's ju- uh, y- when you, once you see that, you can't unsee it. (laughs) It's like, this whole 29 years of my life, I've been like, I've misunderstood something so foundational about my entire life.
- WAWill Ahmed
And the fun thing is, you can optimize it. Like, once you measure it, you can manage it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, I kicked my girlfriend out of the bed. I said goodbye. (laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
(laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm joking, I'm joking.
- WAWill Ahmed
Well, you don't have to go-
- SBSteven Bartlett
I'm joking.
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah, you don't have to be that extreme.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
But it's, uh, yeah, I do think it's empowering, and like, sleep's about a third of your life. Be good to take care of that third, too.
- SBSteven Bartlett
It just, uh, the difference I see on a, on a day where I've just had bad REM sleep or bad deep sleep, versus the days when I've had good... like, my performance, my mood, everything is so different. It's a completely different human being.
- WAWill Ahmed
Well, so, th- there's a fascinating phenomenon too as it relates to stress. So, research shows that the more REM sleep you get, the less heightened your amygdala response is. Right? Amygdala's like, um, fight or flight, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
And so, if you get a ton of REM sleep, it essentially softens your amygdala.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm.
- WAWill Ahmed
It, it, and it makes it less active. Uh, funny enough, I did a, a w- a podcast with Alex Honnold. Do you know who that is?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I don't, no.
- 57:57 – 1:04:41
Strain on the body
- WAWill Ahmed
- SBSteven Bartlett
The other term that I wasn't familiar with until I got a Whoop was this idea of strain.
- WAWill Ahmed
Mm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I, I'm gonna be honest, I... We talked a little bit before we started recording about my little fitness group.
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The way the fitness group is designed is that it's ba- you get, it's like a league table, it's rewarded on consistency. We call it the fitness blockchain. So there's 10 of us in it. If you lose, you get kicked out of the group-
- WAWill Ahmed
Wow.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and someone new gets put in every month. It's quite vicious. You get put into another group, you have to wait for three months before you get one chance of getting back in. If you don't, you go into what we call chump hell. Long story. (laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
It's like a hardcore-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Big game, yeah.
- WAWill Ahmed
... like fantasy football.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, it's crazy. Um, we track, we track a lot of things. You have to submit your workouts every day as well, and then someone verifies it, et cetera. Um, strain. Currently in that group, you're rewarded for working out every day. Is that a good thing?
- WAWill Ahmed
(sighs) Well, the way that we think about strain is to balance it alongside recovery. So, the average amateur, uh, exerciser, let's call it, the weekend warrior, uh, probably has workouts that look too consistent in terms of intensity, or too consistent in terms of strain. So Whoop has a scale from 0 to 21. On Whoop, that might look like a 12.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm.
- WAWill Ahmed
Or like, a 13. Like, so every time they work out, it's a 13.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
And the reality is, when your body's run down, maybe you don't wanna do anything, or maybe you should go for a walk. Like, just let your body recover. Give yourself the permission to catch a breather. But if your body's peaking, like, go crush it, right? Take on a 16 or a 17 or an 18. And I should also say, you know, strain is essentially looking at the am- the amount of time that your body is in an elevated heart rate zone. So we're talking about a primarily cardiovascular measurement of stress that you're putting on your body for any period of time. Uh, but back to your question, like, you probably don't wanna do s- a high strain every single day unless your body's freakishly recovering. And there are people who, who do that, but they're mostly like professional triathletes or whatever.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
Um, and you also wanna try to vary the in- the, the strain level. So, if you're at a 50% recovery, maybe you're doing a 10. If you're at a 75% recovery, you're doing a 16 or a 17 or an 18. And a lot of this goes back to, in building the Whoop product, we wanted to make it actionable. A lot of wearables, maybe V1 wearables, sort of told you what happened. We were very focused on telling you what to do next, and how you can-... uh, get better.
- SBSteven Bartlett
On that point of recovery, then, how, if I, if I'm training a lot, um, how can I improve my recovery outside of sleep?
- WAWill Ahmed
Well, a lot of it would be diet, hydration, uh, potentially supplements if you're taking them, making sure you're taking the right ones.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
Um, because if you're taking the wrong supplements, that's actually a lot worse for you than taking none. Uh, you know, I think some type of mindfulness or meditation or breath work speeds up recovery. That's, that's my own bias.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
Uh, we certainly see, uh, sleep consistency, so that's less about what you're doing during sleep, but actually more just routine.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
So going to bed and waking up at similar times. Even exercising at a similar time may help you recover faster, because your body's getting used to it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Of all the, of all the metrics that are tracked on the Whoop, is heart rate variability the one you love the most?
- WAWill Ahmed
Well, (laughs) on a personal level, it was the thing that jumped off the page to me.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- 1:04:41 – 1:06:10
Employee sleep bonus
- SBSteven Bartlett
Your company, um, the business you've built, I heard that your employees at Whoop get a bonus if their sleep is considered to be good on their Whoop. How much truth is there to that?
- WAWill Ahmed
It's a fun, uh, it's a fun employee perk that we came up with. So, everyone on Whoop is on a team together.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
Uh, and you can opt into what's called the sleep bonus.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
And if you get 85%, uh, sleep performance on average throughout the month, uh, you get a $100 bonus, like on your pay stub.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Okay. (laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
And so, it's, it's mostly, uh, it's mostly a fun thing.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
But it does speak to our culture, which is using the data we have in front of us, uh, promoting, uh, sleep and good habits. Actually, during COVID, we also came up with the red recovery policy, which was... 'Cause we had a lot of people actually coming into the office during, even during the peaks of COVID, because we built hardware, accessories, supply chain, things that you kind of have to do in person, very physical things. And so the red recovery policy was that if you had a red recovery, you actually, uh, needed to stay home, because either you were getting sick or you were at risk of getting sick, 'cause your body was run down.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh.
- WAWill Ahmed
So again-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Interesting.
- WAWill Ahmed
... fun, fun ways to use the data in an actionable way, and, and, you know, build it into the culture.
- 1:06:10 – 1:09:37
How do you keep your innovative nature when growing
- WAWill Ahmed
- SBSteven Bartlett
When you talk about why your company has done so well, and it has won, you talk about there being a more scrappy kind of nature to the team, which sounds more like innovation. How does one go about, as your company grows, keeping that innovation that's so central to you winning? Because with growth often b- becomes, like, I don't know, things move slower, bureaucracy, people-
- WAWill Ahmed
Sure.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... waiting for Jennie to come back from annual leave. What are you doing from a culture standpoint?
- WAWill Ahmed
I think one of the reasons Whoop has been successful is we had a, a pretty clear perspective on what we were building and why.And the consequence of that is also what you're not building. Right? Like, Whoop is great at all the things that it does for all the things that it doesn't do. We are not a smartwatch. We don't allow you to download a bunch of apps. We don't receive phone calls. You can't flag an Uber with your Whoop, right? But, uh, when it comes to health monitoring, uh, we're the best game in town. And that really came from an insane level of focus in the beginning on what we were trying to solve, and it's carried us through to today. It... there's, there were a lot of counterintuitive decisions along that, like, along that journey. Um, one obvious one is that Whoop is not a watch. Uh, and I can't tell you how many people have asked for Whoop to be a watch. And the reason it's not a watch is, is, there's a few different reasons, but just by putting the time on it, all of a sudden you've created this enormous competitive landscape, and competing with watches is hard. Like, there's a lot of beautiful watches. There's also a lot of watches that serve different functions. A watch also says a lot about your identity. The other thing about, uh, a watch, and you'll notice this from every technology company, is the second there's a screen, there's this enormous scope creep that occurs for what the product's actually meant to do, and very quickly, you're in a product meeting where you're talking about email notifications and different screen colors and various ways to tell the time and, um, whether or not you're gonna be able to give it voice memos, and, and all of a sudden, you're talking nothing about health monitoring. And so if I look back and, um, you know, over the last 10 years, we made these decisions, like, we made a decision to not be a watch, uh, and not have a screen on it. W- we made a decision, on the flip side though, to, to invent a modular charger where you could charge Your Whoop without ever taking it off. Um, and that was super expensive and took... it made the product take way longer and cost a bunch of venture dollars, uh, but again, it was back to that identity of health monitoring needs to be 24/7 to be the most effective, and if you take it off, all of a sudden, it's not 24/7, you might not put it back on. So that was something we did that other people didn't do, right? Um, everyone was measuring steps. We didn't think steps was physiologically relevant, so w- w- we, we tried to stay true to our identity, and I think that helped us navigate a competitive landscape where a lot of people were copying each other or where companies may have had even too much resources, and those resources got them down, you know, into this very expansive place without being great at anything.
- 1:09:37 – 1:17:35
Focusing
- WAWill Ahmed
- SBSteven Bartlett
Focus and first principles is what I heard throughout that. That... what you said there, esp- the, the first principle's point about 24/7 monitoring.
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's, like, a totally first principles thought because you said, "Well, hea- health is a 24/7 thing, so we have to create a solution where you don't take the watch off." Convention says, "No, you just get it charged and you take it off at night, you put it by your bed and you tick it off." So that approach and that conviction towards, like, thinking for yourself about this problem is much easier said than done for companies. Like T- I, I feel like pe- one of the... you know, in all facets of our life, whether it's our relationships or intimacy or, or friendships or building companies or how we construct teams, thinking for yourself is what I heard there. Um, you s- you say it so easily, but it's... why is it it's impossible for people to do? Especially when they're thinking about innovation. Because, you know, you had all those moments where... why doesn't this have a screen on it? It's also why I love it. It's probably also why the battery lasts longer. It's also why I'm so committed to it, as you've identified. But those are all, like, first principles that came from Whoop.
- WAWill Ahmed
I, I think what, what's different about your product is also what makes it special, and I think that true innovation often comes from a, a level of focus or discipline that's really uncomfortable. Like, having said everything I just said, I still think about Whoop as a watch on a near-daily basis because it's, it's something that pulls at me, you know? Because I can see a world in which it is a watch, but it's not a watch.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
And I'm not building it as a watch. You know what I mean? So there is this, uh, you know, sort of painful level of discipline that has to occur, I think, to, um, be able to continue marching forwards, and we actually went a different direction where, uh, w- we've looked at invisible as a more compelling landscape. So obviously, you can wear it on your wrist, but you can actually, you know, take it apart and depending on what garments you're wearing, right? So you take this clasp off. You can now put this sensor into different places on your body. So-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, really?
- WAWill Ahmed
So, yeah. So we've come out with shorts, b- uh, boxers, bras, underwear, uh, sh- uh, sh- shirts that have it in your arm sleeve, and so you can just tuck this into a little pocket that allows you to wear it in different areas of the body.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I didn't know that.
- WAWill Ahmed
So-
- SBSteven Bartlett
So I could put it in my boxer shorts lining?
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Oh, that's, that's dope.
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah. Now, also kind of crazy to start a wearables company and realize you're designing boxers.
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- WAWill Ahmed
But that goes back to your first principle's point, I suppose, right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah, exactly. The, the-
- WAWill Ahmed
Why, why would you design boxers? Well, because you need to create a way for them to wear it 24/7.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Something else you said, which I've never had anybody say before but it's so unbelievably true, is when people have bigger budgets, when suc- like, with success comes greater temptation to be and do every bit, thing-
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... and become everyone, and that's often when companies lose their way, is because of their success, everyone goes, "Well, why don't we do... we've got these customers now, so why don't we do a this and a that and a this, and why don't we do a da-da-da-da and a... five of them?"Have you felt that temptation?
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, uh, I think it's, th- that's probably the biggest way that success, uh, is a bad teacher, is the degree to which it makes you think you can go into a bunch of things and abandon the level of intensity or focus that you took in building the original thing to be successful. So, but I, you know, that doesn't stop me from dreaming of ways that the company can go in totally different directions. You just, you have to check yourself. Like, you really do have to check yourself and make sure, uh, y- you've got the right level of focus if you're gonna go into it.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That's been one of my biggest mistakes, is we become successful, I then come up with, uh, new ideas. I then think more about the reward of the new ideas versus the actual cost, the cost of, like, mental time for the whole team, the cost of, like, everyone waking up a- and being in the shower and thinking about a different problem. And then we had a recent incidence where we spent, I'm gonna say nine months, planning something, big, big new thing in one of my companies. Offered someone a job to be the CEO of this, this new company, and then I don't know what it was, something in my gut says, "You're doing it again, Steve. You're losing focus. Cancel it all." And it's funny because my team were so excited, Jack was so excited, we were all so excited about it, but when I had that conversation with everybody about why we were canceling this, because I know we should be focusing, there was this weird... Jack goes, "Oh, do you know what? I was so excited, but now I'm relieved." And we all knew, we all knew we'd got carried away with thinking more about the reward of disfocus than the cost of disfocus. I don't even think disfocus is a thing. But has that happened to you, when you've, like, ran too f- far down a path with a new idea and then reined yourself back in because you realized the cost of focus?
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah, I think there's, there's been certain aspects of (sighs) product development, you know, go-to-market strategies where you know it's the right thing, even, but you, you're, again, you're not dedicating the right level of focus to it, or the team doesn't have the bandwidth for it, or, uh, the timing's not quite right. Like, yeah, I mean, focus, I think, is probably one of the most underrated, uh, skills for any leader. And not... and I don't mean that just for them. I- it's more important that they create an environment of focus.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How does one do that? If I, if I join Whoop, how am I gonna learn on the day before I join, the day I join, and thereafter every day, why I'm here, this, this vision, the focus? W- how are you, how are you teaching me that?
- WAWill Ahmed
Well, a lot of it comes back to the core mission of the company, right, which is to unlock human performance, to improve health. A lot of it comes back to being really deliberate about the hardware that we build and why, the accessories we build and why. A lot of it comes back to the fact that Whoop is a subscription, right? We haven't touched too much on the business model, but transitioning the whole company and the whole business model to being a subscription versus a one-time hardware sale changed a lot for the company. Uh, but one thing that it, it really changed, uh, for the better is the DNA around launching new features, launching new analytics. You're no longer trying to get a customer on an 18-month cycle where you come out with a new widget, or it's 12-month cycle where you come out with a new widget. You're trying to keep your customers every day, right? 'Cause every day they have a choice to cancel. And what, what in turn that does is it makes you very focused on releasing new features that are adding value. Now, you could have a, a, like, a, a conversation that's two or three depths deeper than this, which is around, well, should we go down the path of releasing these features or those features? Do those features feel less focused than these features, right? But all of a sudden, at least we're two or three levels down in terms of focus.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
And, uh, and so that's where a lot of the debates are taking place, is within the lens of our already focused mission and, and areas of innovation, should we pursue different categories or different features? And I d- I th- like to think it's, it's very customer-centric because, uh, because we have this deep relationship with our members where they're wearing the product 24/7.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- 1:17:35 – 1:25:55
Competition
- WAWill Ahmed
month.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Competition. You've got some big (laughs) competitors. I mean, I saw the, I saw Apple's recent announcement that Sleep is now gonna be part of the Apple Watch, one of the new Apple Watches, maybe, I don't know, Apple Watch 8 or something. How do you think about competition, and what role has that, that played in motivating you, terrifying you, all of these things?
- WAWill Ahmed
Yeah, so when Whoop was starting, uh, Nike, which is a company I looked up to with great admiration, uh, was just coming out with the Nike FuelBand. Uh, Adidas was coming out with the Mi Coach. Uh, Under Armour about a year or two later was going to spend a billion dollars, spends a billion dollars acquiring three different companies in the space. They were coming out with their own wearable, they bought, uh, a, a running company, um, a company called Endomondo, a company called My Fitness Pal, so they had a whole strategy around health tracking. There was a company called, uh, Fitbit which was about to go public for, you know, many billions of dollars, a company called Jawbone which had raised a billion dollars.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- WAWill Ahmed
Uh, it was rumored Apple was entering the space. It was rumored, um, Microsoft was entering the space.So, competition was always in this backdrop, but I, I found, I never found myself that, um, swayed by what the competition was doing. In fact, if there's any company I'm most critical of their strategy in the wearable space, it was Nike. Because Nike is, I think, one of the best brands in the world, and they built that brand... Have you read the book Shoe Dog?
- SBSteven Bartlett
I haven't. I haven't. I need to, yeah.
- WAWill Ahmed
It's a great book. Anyway, it's Phil Knight's book. But they built that brand by, uh, storytelling and authenticity. And the authenticity being the people who wore their shoes ran faster and jumped higher. And so, that was the company I was the most nervous about, 'cause I was afraid if they could build a wearable that their world's best athletes actually wore, they could then tell that story to the masses and be successful. But they took a huge shortcut, and that shortcut was they just built a product they thought the mass market would like. And so, it wasn't a product that LeBron James was gonna wear or Serena Williams or Tiger Woods. I mean, they had all the best athletes in the world, and so the clue to me that that product was gonna fail was that it didn't stick to their identity. They didn't have the story at the top. They didn't have any of their top athletes wearing it. And, on the flip side, the opportunity I saw was if we could get the world's best athletes to wear Whoop, we could, in turn, build our own brand around performance and around an aspirational product. And i- if you go back and... Like, looking back on it, that was a, that was a very stubborn perspective, like, and, um... And, you know, even a little bit arrogant to say, uh, that, "No, we're gonna build this technology, and the world's best athletes are gonna pay us for it because it's gonna be that good." I also, though, think it was a fairly rational perspective, because if you build a product that someone needs to wear 24/7, and they don't love it, there's no amount of money you're gonna be able to give them to keep that thing on their body. Let's be honest. Uh, and in many ways, I saw that with the FuelBand. On the flip side, if, if you can really deliver value around sleep or recovery or, uh, you know, these measurements that, um, at the time, a professional athlete had never had, uh, they're ver- very likely to pay for it, because that's a huge value-add in their overall performance. So, that was our very early go-to-market strategy, and it was also part of the way that we differentiated ourselves from other products. The last thing I'll say about this is... And again, inspired by Nike, the idea that you could build, uh, a brand or a product that says something about your identity, like the difference between a cotton shirt that's plain versus a cotton shirt with a Swoosh on it. Like, the person who's wearing the Swoosh feels something different. The person who observes the person wearing the Swoosh thinks something different. That was a phenomenon that resonated for me at a very young age. But when I looked at the health monitoring landscape, uh, to me, it felt like health monitoring was actually definitively not cool, and wearing a health monitor, there was almost a stigma associated with it, unfortunately. So, how can you build a technology that people wear 24/7 that has a positive identity associated with it? And that goes, again, back to the professional athlete strategy. If we can get the world's best athletes to authentically wear it, then we can tell a story about how health monitoring's aspirational.
Episode duration: 1:47:35
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