30. Matteo Franceschetti | Eight Sleep (sleep fitness)

Matteo Franceschetti is the Co-Founder & CEO of Eight Sleep.
Matteo has always been an athlete and obsessed with recovery and performance. Growing up in Italy, he spent time as a competitive ski racer, tennis player and race car driver before jumping into the corporate world as a securities lawyer. After launching and exiting a couple of companies in the renewable energy space, his professional focus came full circle as he rediscovered his passion for optimizing performance. He explored the space and realized the massive opportunity for smarter sleep products to support the rapidly growing quantified self movement. It was at this moment that Eight Sleep was born.
Today at Eight Sleep, Matteo and his team are the pioneers of sleep fitness. Their tech enabled mattress, the Pod, has taken the industry by storm as it significantly enhances your sleep quality through thermoregulation. Over the course of the night, the Pod detects your changing body temperature via sensors built into the mattress. Then, the Hub, an external water tank connected to the Pod, uses warm and cool water to constantly adjust the temperature of the bed to keep your internal body temperature at the optimal level. This reduces disruptions throughout the night and enables more restful, higher quality sleep. Eight Sleep also has a killer app that you can use to track your vitals, sleep cycles and overall sleep performance overtime. In the last few weeks, they launched their Pod Pro Cover, which adds their patented thermoregulation technology to your existing mattress. While they’ve made incredible strides already, Eight Sleep is still in the early innings of what’s possible in the smart sleep space.
Use code "Kallaway" for 15% off all Eight Sleep products.
Tune in to hear Matteo's story!
EPISODE TOPICS: 

• (2:55) Eight Sleep snapshot today
• (3:55) Background and founding story
• (5:58) Learning from previous companies
• (7:28) Sleep basics and learnings
• (9:41) Sleep Pod evolution and thermoregulation
• (15:05) Customer acquisition & growth
• (20:37) Out-of-the-box marketing tactics
• (22:57) 10X growth
• (24:25) Competitive landscape
• (26:59) Customer data collected
• (28:52) How to maximize sleep while traveling
• (31:19) Y Combinator experience
• (35:40) Hiring
• (38:06) Investor lessons
• (41:45) Lessons to younger self
• (44:15) Matteo's wellness stack
• (50:50) Exciting trends
• (51:53) Matteo's startup manifesto
• (52:31) Matteo's founder nomination

Eight Sleep - eightsleep.com

• Follow Matteo (@m_franceschetti // @matteofranceschetti) on Twitter // Instagram // LinkedIn
• Follow Eight Sleep (@eightsleep) on Instagram // Twitter
• Matteo's content and learning recommendations 

The Founder - www.thefounderpod.com 

• Follow The Founder (@founderpodcast) on Instagram // LinkedIn // Twitter

Don't have time to listen to the full episode? Read the 5-minute version here