Habits and Hustle - Episode 122: Harpreet Singh Rai – CEO of Oura Health – Improving Sleeping, Productivity, & Wearables

Episode Date: June 29, 2021

Harpreet Singh Rai is the CEO of Oura Health. Harpreet’s view on sleep and its vital effect on every aspect of our lives is fascinating. Carving out a place in an already competitive field, especially for how small it is, Rai and Oura Health have solidified their position as an easy, convenient, and adaptive wearable. From getting coffee with the founder of a hemorrhaging company to becoming CEO only a year later Rai explains what he saw as important about this product he used before he ever had a stake in it, and the niche they found to grow and become one of the most successful wearables in the business. Where some may have faltered during the pandemic, Oura Health filled a unique necessity in their determination to do what they could as a company to help. Harpreet truly is inspiring and the technology they’re working with could change more than just exercise, fitness, and baseline health. It could change monitoring fertility, illness, and even help prevent a pandemic on the level we’ve seen from ever happening again. Give it a listen. Youtube Link to This Episode  Oura’s Instagram Oura’s Instagram ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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San Antonio, pressure. This is one of those interviews where you know I wear your, I wear your ororing and I really like it and it's not I that's really why kind of part of my excitement for actually speaking to you. So because a lot of these different wearables and a lot of different technology companies in the wellness space, so to speak, you use it and then it kind of like, you know, you kind of like use it for a week or two and then you kind of get like annoyed with it or bored with it and then I put it up, I do anyway.

And then I put it up, I do anyway, and then put it away. Yeah. Right. And with yours, or I forget it's there. So it's perfect. In fact, I forget it's there so much where it's like, I don't see my readings, I forget to even charge it at half the time. Well, we hear that from people all the time, like telling us they forget it's even there. And frankly, that's part of the reason we chose the Ring Form factor.

It's just so much more convenient. You know, they call them wearables, right? But I like, right, Cara Swisher, you know, she on one of her, like, early days wearables days, she called them unwearables. She's like, these things are something pain in the ass, right? Like, she's like, I never wear it with a dress. She's like, I never wear this one going out to charge it every night. And she, she also is a fan of the ring. And she's like, this is great. I charge it like once a week.

It's fantastic. And this is like the first thing to your point. It's almost the ultimate habit. Everyone's going to try to sleep tonight. And everyone, it affects how they feel and perform the next day. So that's absolutely. And like we just, yeah, so like, what I'm going to introduce who you are, and I'll do like a later one, but like basically we have Harpreet Singh, Rai, or Ray, how do you pronounce your name? Rai, I like the bread or the whiskey. Oh, Rai, or the whiskey, okay. I'm a bar of bread lover, so I'm going to say Rai, I'm going to go with that.

And you're the CEO of Aura Health, and your product is the Aura Ring, which I've been telling you about. And you're basically, I'm a big fan of it, and I love for you to kind of explain, like I didn't realize that the company has been around what's since 2013, right? Yeah. Finish company? Yeah. Yep. No, you just came on board as a CEO like in 2017. So I guess my first question really is number one, how did you get involved? What's your background? Explain to people what or a health is, what the, if you don't know what the or ring is, I mean, we're going to get into all of that.

And, you know, it's kind of like me, I feel like it's kind of like become very popular as of late, but it's been around like to my point, like what I said, like for 78 years already. Yeah. Well, look, thanks for having me on the show. So I appreciate that and everything you do. So in terms of the company, yet, we, company started, we started in 2013. We didn't, we actually, this is our second generation product to your point, the one that's, you know, getting a lot more popular

now. Our first generation product launched the end of 2015 on a kickstart. We really started shipping an earnest in 2016. And I got involved because I was one of the first thousand customers that literally bought the product, was really impressed with it. And you know, like you were sort of talking about before, I've tried probably seven or eight different wearables and you know, probably tried a hundred things for our health, right? And like, this was the first thing that actually stuck. And it was actually, you know, sleep, I guess I, you know, started to realize is the ultimate hustle, but we'll get inside later. So yeah, I actually bought the ring. It was a first ring or

wearable that really focused on sleep and recovery versus just like how many steps in a day. And I sort of just got hooked. And I happened to meet one of the co-founders at a Whole Foods. He was wearing an ordering t-shirt. The company started in Finland. They were probably like 10 people at this time. And this must have been May of 2016. So they just started shipping a kickstarter.

I don't even think all the units were shipped. And he's wearing this order t-shirt. My girlfriend goes up to him and starts talking to him. He's a little confused guy from Finland. Why is this stranger talking to me? I'm looking for my girlfriend because I'm like, where is she? I see you're talking to this guy. Then I go up to join a conversation. He's like, the ordering. That's first ororing I've seen outside the office. So first, he was like, you know, company was really early days and they were just getting started. And as you know, my background is you asked, so I studied electrical engineering.

I was a tech nerd in high school and college. I specifically studied MEMS sensors, which is like all these wearable sensors. I went to University of Michigan, big Michigan fanco-blue. And I love it. I'm Canadian and I lived in Toronto for many years. So I mean, people would come to Toronto. It's very close.

Yeah, of course. Yeah, Windsor, right? Windsor's a big one. 100% exactly. Windsor, you can see that. Everyone used to go there, right? That's right. Yeah, wait there right when there's a hundred percent exactly when you can see that everyone used to go there That's right. Yeah, it's a college before year 21 Exactly, so I met the co-founder and you know, long story short with me I I did you know electrical engineering. I was graduating 2006 from

2007 I was like halfway through my master's and I'm not finishing it at Michigan. I decided going on investment banking mainly because I had a bunch of student debt. It was a financial boom. I had some friends in the business school that are making fun of me. You're definitely more smarter than us, but you were going to make twice as much as you are. My sister was living in New York City, I grew up in New Jersey, so I was like, everyone wants to be in New York City. There was no real engineering jobs in New York City

back in mid 2000, like Facebook, Google, all these companies didn't have offices there yet. And so I go do banking. My first year, I get no sleep, I get 50 pounds. I'm like five, five, five, six with my turbine, as well as I like to tell people. And I really get into my health. So that was like 2008, I leave, I was at Morgan Sailing and M&A Group, I leave,

I joined a hedge fund actually, and they were mainly focused on tech media and telecom investing. So it was a little bit of my background with tech along with, along with obviously some new stuff I learned in banking and finance. I end up staying there long time, nine years.

I got promoted to a performance manager, and luckily got to focus and lead a lot of our tech investments at the fund. And so I knew a lot about now the business side of it, like how to make successful businesses. And I obviously knew the technology side, that's what I studied in college, and the health side. So after gaining 50 pounds, I, you know, 2009, I think is when I first went on my first

keto diet, and then intermittent fasting right after, you know, started just tracking everything. I used to weigh my food every day. Yeah. Because we all thought I was nuts. I tracked everything in the spreadsheet, every meal, every exercise I did for two years. And then I blew it about, I think it went from like 190 to 135. That was probably like peak. And that was almost a little too light for me. That's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot of weight. So I guess the keto and intermittent actually worked for you. It did.

I did hit a plateau, so I eventually went to like car, and I was working out a ton, and I eventually went to like carb and I was working out a ton, and I eventually went to like, carb cycling, but frankly, the thing that I, I still like a lot of people hit fitness plateaus, and like most of us, right? You're normally professional in something else other than sports, right?

We're a professional, right? Entrepreneurial, you know, analyst or portfolio manager at a hedge fund, right? And so what do you do? You happen to short cut out. You want to have, you want to work hard, you want to play hard, you want to have a good social life. But what was that cutting out a lot?

Still was sweet. And when I got the ororing, it was the first thing where I started realizing a holy cow, I really started then tracking my sleep, very easily through this that I started realize, the days I sleep better, I'm actually performing better in the gym, I'm getting more done at work, you know, I still do use it to do rest, I was just cranking through stuff like that, it's an in better mood.

I was a bit like, you know, dog owner, I was like, took my dog, I got more walks, I was more present with her, I was more present obviously, you know, with my loved ones, my girlfriend, and even my family, my co-workers. And so I was like, I made me a better boss, made me more productive at work, made me better at my workouts. I was like, holy cow, most people don't realize how much sleep affects us day to day and in the long term.

And so I meet the co-founder, we grab coffee the next day, long story short, I end up spending six, seven hours with them. They're trying to raise money, but this company started in Finland, really big bulky ring at the time of battery life is only a day. They're out of money that pitched 67 VCs. I personally decided to invest,

put their Series A together. I joined the board. In about like 30 days after that first board meeting, I think I was spending like 40 hours a week with them instead of my regular job. And then they asked me to join. I'm actually joined first in the board asking to join. I joined first as president and then a year later I got promoted to CEO.

So that's sort of how the journey started. That's amazing. So you're actually just one of their, like a fan of the product. And it actually helped change your life. And then you realize that's how you got up. That's an amazing story actually. And so you based, what were they doing before, by the way? You said this was not their first product.

Well, I was, or I held. No, sorry, this isn't our, you know, the ring we have today, the one that you have on. Oh, you're saying it was at the bigger bulk here. Yes, correct. That was our first product. Oh, okay, got it. Because, yeah, so you were, you were touching upon it a little bit earlier,

because we were saying about the fact that I think part of, I mean, I would say as a person who, again, is a found, the product and uses it, what's so good about it is that you forget it's there. Like most other wearables, you're wearing them on your wrist, you know, your competitor, it's very tight, it's like cumbersome, it's very uncomfortable, I probably shouldn't be saying that, but so I really do,

like you kind of forget that you're there and it tracks your data. Can you explain then now like why you guys decided to do a ring versus the other wearable? and it's a different kind of structure data. Can you explain then now like why you guys decided to do a ring versus versus the other wearable versus like a wrist or like an apple watch or Fitbit or exactly

or whoever, right? Because nobody else is I've never really, you know, anyone else is really doing that. No, a ring is hard. Yeah, yeah. So the main reason is two things, accuracy and convenience.

Convenient we all talked about, right? Like most people actually, it's not just you and me. It's most people don't like actually wearing something on the wrist all the time. The wearables, you know, they do have to be tight. The sensor's really tight. It's annoying when you type and you have your hands on a desk, it's annoying, frankly,

if you're trying to sleep with it, right? And I think like people just don't like that form factor as much. In fact, a lot of the wrist straps still break. So one of the biggest issues for returns is like wrist straps breaking in the industry. Because you know, yeah. So customers as a whole, you know, don't love wearing that all the time. And I was joking with you earlier, Cara Swishers has said this,

she's sort of called wearables, unwearables. She's never wear a Fitbit. I've never wear that out on a date. I never wear it to dinner. Like I would, if I wear a nice outfit or a dress, like if I'm in the boardroom that looks hideous and she's like, and it's annoying to wear, like on a smaller wrist and she's like,

it just, it stands out. It doesn't blend in my fashion. So the convenience part with O'Ring, it's titanium, it's waterproof, 250 meters. So, you know, if you dive on it, it'll still work. Wow. Don't go too fast, too deep. Luckily, I don't dive very often. So that's fine. Me too. Terrible, smart. But I think that convenience part is a lot of times overlooked. Right? And that's something we just hear from users all the time. You forget it's even there. Probably more important parts accuracy. So I think it may seem subtle, but if you walk into any hospital or ICU room,

where they measure your heart rate and your SPO2 from, from your finger. And there's a reason why even those companies that those sensors are plugged into the wall, into a power outlet, they're still measuring from the finger. And the reason is, so it's not like a battery issue, the reason is that signal quality on the finger, the actual signal strength of your pulse on your finger is about 100 times stronger than your wrist. And then the veins on your wrist, where your wrist walks it. So if you look at the inside of your wrist, you've got arteries, those arteries go to the

palm of your hand, your skin is very thin, that pulse signal on your finger right is a hundred times stronger, it turns out two hours of magnitude than the vein side of the wrist. Right here you got veins, not arteries, less blood, you know, if you got dark skin like me and hair, but you also have a lot more muscle tissue, bone, and so that signal is very, very weak. And so when it comes to things like doing sleep staging, doing illness, some of the stuff we've done during the pandemic in COVID, women's health,

frankly, any future health features in this whole wearable industry, apnea, aphid, blood pressure, whatever it may be, that underlying data is just much more accurate. And so that's why we focused on the rain form factor that accuracy and that convenience. Blazing deals, balance options. It's hot grill, summer at Whole Foods Market from June 14 through July 4. Fire up the grill with quality cuts at the best prices.

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Shopblinds.com and save 40% on selected products. Get 40% off selected products right now at Blinds.com. Rules and restrictions may apply. Now, that's really good information. I didn't know that. And what I'm curious, because my next question was going to be how accurate is it compared, how much more accurate, but now you just then said it. But why are more companies then switching to that? You own a patent on it at a certain point,

or what is the reason why most people are still doing the risks? It's a really good question. We do have some IP, but I also think it's just really hard to do. Craming all that technology and all those sensors into a really, really small form factor is super hard. A lot of what you have to do is custom circuit, circuitry work.

A lot of this stuff works the way in this industry and the electronic industry as a whole, like the old PCs. I don't know if you had like a Dell or a gateway computer. Yeah. I remember that. You can like spec your parts. You could be like, oh, I picked that car. Yeah. I picked that. I don't even know. Western or C, Westman Visual or C gate hard drive. I pick that and video controller. And so you sort of get this car where you're assembling the different computer or your separate different blocks. So the wearable industry is actually pretty much the same.

Oh, you want a heart rate sensor? Go to this company. You want a temperature sensor and go to that company. And the way they sort of ship these parts is like an engine block, right? And so what ends up happening is you get these preset modules that, given the industry started with the RISPACE form factor, that the companies make these modules, that all these parts for a bigger space. And so in order to do a ring, you have to do a lot more custom hardware that takes so

much longer, so much more work, so much more engineering work, so much more research and development and patience. And then it's really hard to manufacture. So I think it just is those things. And frankly, I think a lot of the stuff out there unfortunately is gimmicks, right? So it's like most of the people, 10,000 steps was sort of just pulled from out there. It's not, it's even been shown in research studies

not to help people lose weight. I still think moving as a whole is healthy and people should do it and we do track steps too. But I think since a lot of the industry started off on sort of the step trackers, the form factor didn't matter as much But now is a wearable industry I call it wearables 1.0 steps to wearables 2.0 health is moving that way I think accuracy matters so much more. Oh

Consumers are waking up to that too. Oh absolutely. I mean, you know I wear I wear the Apple watch and I always have this and this happened with the member of those Nike bands that were really popular back When if you're a band remember that one I beat everyone on my full points I put on my neighbors job I would always compete with my friends too and like people out with with and like what's interesting is There is like something to say about the accuracy like I know this is 100% accurate because of the fact that it's counting calories when I'm stepping in moving. Which I want to ask you about, because you just said something about the steps not being accurate.

But if I'm doing something like rowing or whatever it is, it's not counting my exhaustion as accurately. But if I walk to round the block, I'm burning more calories according to my watch. So, you know, but I think what the, I think more than anything, it kind of keeps someone accountable and it keeps them curious and competitive with themselves. Like, if I burned 100 calories today,

tomorrow, whatever I'm doing or not, I need to at least make that or at least pass or pass it, right? So it keeps that, it's for that purpose, in my opinion. But what my question is, you were saying something about the importance of steps and the lack of, I should say, the lack of importance of steps. Can you tell us some stuff about that? Because I think everything now is about the 10,000 steps, 10,000 steps.

Yeah. Well, I think, look, our focus is awareable really has been sleep and recovery. So I think we're the first awareable really. When we launched the product right in 2016, Fitbit wasn't doing sleep, our Gen 1 ring, right? Garmin wasn't doing it. Apple still doesn't really do sleep. And others just weren't out there yet.

So I think our view was like sleep actually is the main focus for us. Most of our users, 95% of our users, forget that it might be 90 or 95% where they're running all day long. But we wanted to really emphasize was sleep and recovery. And hence why, you know, the writing is score.

We look both at your sleep patterns and your activity patterns and your heart rate and heart rate. We don't get to that yet. I'm gonna ask you about the reddit. Don't, just, just say why the steps you said that's been approved and that actually just counting something is not enough.

Just curious about that. Yeah, I think some of the research out there on the step side has shown that, you know, just 10,000 steps doesn't work for everyone. I think there's even been, you know, studies shown that if you, you know, most people as they start to walk more, actually feel hungrier, and hence eat more, and they actually end up not losing weight. I think the other thing it doesn't account for is like intensity, right? I think the other thing it doesn't account for is like intensity, right? At 20-minute hit workout, you know, every other day can definitely be more beneficial for a lot of people than just walking 10,000 steps.

Right. I think Dave Aspery talks about that. Like, you need enough stimulus and stress, even if it's not that frequent to sort of trigger response and a change from your body and your mitochondria and his, you know, is an area that he's gone really deep on. And so I think, you know, it's pretty clear that just a 10,000 blanket steps, right? 10,000 steps doesn't work for everyone. Health itself, right? There isn't like one diet that works for every single person or 100%. 100%. It's a piece of it. It's a piece of it. And that's interesting. I agree with

that 10,000 step thing. But like what I was saying a little bit just before is that at least it keeps somebody not just moving, but it keeps them like competitive with themselves. Like if they see themselves doing at least something, then the next day or whatever, they're going to want to maintain that, right? That accountability aspect. But what you were saying, and obviously, you're focusing on the sleep

and recovery, let's talk about that. Because why don't you tell, I mean, I talk about sleep a lot because I think it's so important for someone's like, in terms of success, but you're cognitive functioning, you're being alert, you're focused, I mean, having good sleep, it's extremely important at the foundation. Besides that, though, can you also explain why sleep is so much more, like why is sleep so important? And well, you can come, please. I think Matthew Walker probably says at the best, he wrote this book called Why We Sleep, it's the best-selling book on Sleep Out There Period. He said, you know, head of Sleep Science at Berkeley. And he said, Sleep is, you know, the world's best legal performance enhancing drugs, something like that. He said

it way better. But I think if you look at sort of any aspect of the human body and health and performance, sleep's really your magical drug to get there. So all your muscle repair, all your natural growth hormone, how literally your muscles are formed, all of that actually is released and happens in your sleep. If you look at, you know, collagen is another example of that, your skin, right? All your collagen, all your skin is rebuilt and repaired in your sleep, hence the term beauty sleep.

If you look at long-term health things like cancer, your natural killer T cells that fight cancer are all produced and made in your sleep. And your own immune system has been shown that people that have lack of sleep actually are twice or three times as likely to pick up, you know, common cold versus someone else. Your memory, it's a big one. There's been a direct correlation between lack of sleep in your grades. But I think even sort of short of term and how you perform the next day on a test, but longer term, I think if you look at some of the things like Alzheimer's, there's been really good groundbreaking

research over the last two, three years reported in a couple different journals, mainly nature, showing that in deep sleep in particular, is when your brain washes away this toxin every night that builds up during the day called beta amyloid or tau. And so that a lack of sleep and even potentially a lack of specifically deep sleep can lead to an early onset of dementia and Alzheimer's. So whether it's how you, you know, remember things long-term, how you perform on a test the next day short-term, how you, you know,

your workout goes, right? And frankly, I think we all notice too, personally, everyone's sort of experiences, that even just your own emotions, right? Like your mood, like you're tired, you're grumpy, or you're short with people when you don't have enough sleep. Oh no, I agree with you. And now we can talk what you're mentioning yet. Like the three daily scores that you guys do,

you do sleep, you do activity and readiness. What is readiness? Like how do you, what is that? You know, I think the reason we came up with readiness was to give people a more holistic view at their health and how ready they are to tackle and perform, you know, during the day. And that can be, you know, perform,

I don't wanna think just physical performance also mental, just whatever you're trying to get done, whatever you have to do. So what the readiness score actually looks at is both your sleep and activity patterns over the prior day and prior few weeks. And then we look at a couple of physiological signals as well. And those are, what was your resting heart rate compared to your average? When did your resting heart rate,

your lowest resting heart rate actually occurred during the night? Your heart rate variability changes in your temperature and also changes in your respiratory rate. So we look at those physiological signals from the prior night. And then we look at sort of the both short term and long term sleep and activity patterns. And we use all of that to sort of give you an overall score, which we call the rating of scores. So whether you're an athlete or whether you're a CEO, like Jack Dorsey or Mark Benioff,

who use the ordering in both our investors in our company. I was gonna say aren't they both investors in your company, pretty nice going to say aren't they both investors in your company? Pretty nice investor to have. Yeah. And so I think you use that data and you're able to see like, hey, how much energy do I have today? How on point am I going to be?

Hey, today I have a really high writing is I should really push myself further and harder in that workout. I recovered really high writing is I should really push myself further and harder in that workout. I recovered really well today is the data try hitting a PR. So I think not a press release, but a press release. Yeah, I do. For a slow record, right?

Exactly. Not so, not so wild and blind. Yeah. No, no, I think. So then what do you do with all this? What does someone to do? So they have all this data now. This is where it becomes a little bit, right?

So we're doing all these things to optimize our health and optimize our life, right? And we get all this data, then what? Like what are we supposed to do with all the data, to really? I look, so there's two things we focus on in this industry as a company that we think consumers ask themselves, is this data accurate, and then what do they do with the data?

Right. And so I think in terms of what they do, what we created was, there's a couple of things. One, one actually, you were talking about it. You sort of said, hey, you look at your personal, what you normally do, and then you want to exceed it. So I do think there's a sense of, this has been said before, but what gets measured gets mastered. So if you start to see data on yourself, and then you start to see, hey, certain days,

my data was better, you ask yourself, you reflect, why is that? Oh, well, I slept like crap, you said, wait, what did I do? I ate like crap, I had a bunch of alcohol, or I was up till 2am working, or maybe I just had a really stressful day, got a fight with someone, and you start to realize and put patterns together. And we found people tell us that just by looking at the data

and thinking about my own lifestyle choices every day, I realized that if I work out in the morning, I actually sleep in a recover way better than working out the evening. Or if I eat earlier, if I have dinner for hours before I go to bed versus just one or two hours, my heart rate variability is so much better and I sleep so much better. We found people that really just are able to by looking at the data start to gain their own insights. Now, what we also do is we created something called an insight engine.

So, every day in the app, along with the three scores, will give you a little bit of guidance. And that's personalized based on your data. And so, we start to look at things that are happening in the data and give you a little bit of recommendations every day. We also have actually put together just a really comprehensive blog now called The Pulse. And on our website where you can actually go and learn what people have done with the data and things ways they've actually found and made improvements by looking at certain things that you may be able to find. So I think we're doing more and more there as a company. We're still focused on those two things. And frankly, I do think, though, what's more interesting about sleep is it's more

comprehensive than just your workout. And so when people start to look at their sleep data, they actually start to analyze their life and like what really was causing stress, what wasn't. So I think it's, it's actually ironically, you know, someone on our team came up with this saying, which is great, like the night is the mirror of your day. Sleep is actually when your body recovers from all the stress of the day, whether it's mental stress, emotional stress, physical stress, dietary stress, whatever it may be. And so by analyzing that data, you actually start to get better insights about how you can do healthier things during the day, and what things really work for you,

and what other things don't. No, I think that's actually super accurate. And you can just tweak and tweak until, and it gives, basically, so there's so much data there. And it's also very easy to understand. You know, I mean, the, it's very user friendly, right? So you don't have to be a tech genius, so to speak, right? To kind of figure out what, what kind of,

what the information is so you can integrate in and apply it. And by the way, this is not a commercial for you, I really do believe this, because like I said, I use so many of these devices just out of curiosity. And I've been wearing this for months longer than any other one I've ever wore. So I appreciate that. And luckily for a business in the company wise, we've just found out to do the case. So many people just tell us that like, this is the longest I've actually ever kept the

wearable. It's something that I keep using every single day. You know, we just see people check it every single morning. It just becomes part of the morning routine. It's part of your routine, that's exactly. It's very, it's easy to build habits with this. Very easy to build a routine, a healthy habit. It's like I said, super user friendly.

Well, how much of the market you have in this space? so wearable units as a whole were roughly about 200 million units shipped and 2020 I think I can see probably puts out the best numbers and the wearable industry is accelerating actually Yeah, I know I'm going to ask you about that. Yeah, and, you know, I think we've publicly said we've shipped over half a million. And so I think, you know, we still have a tiny part of the industry. And luckily, I think the industry is growing. And there's a lot more use cases and consumers as they look to manage their own health and understand it are turning, turning to new technology like this. So did you guys kind of, I know that

when with the pan with COVID hitting, what I think that you guys, did you guys kind of, I know that when, with the pan with COVID hitting, what I think that you guys, did you guys really spike because it's at the NBA by a ton of thousands of different of pieces of, of or rings because of the temperature piece, correct? Exactly. Yeah. So we're actually one of the only wearables, you know, to have temperature sensors in there since day one, even since, you Even since 2015 generation one or a ring, we've had three temperature sensors in the ring.

So, yeah, during when COVID hit, we're asking ourselves like every other person in companies' us and so how can we help? And frankly, the writing is score, right? What we have found is every single year, users reach out to us during flu season. They'll be like, I thought my data was wrong because my writing of score just dropped.

And then at day or two later, I was sick. Like we've heard this literally since 2016, every flu season, thousands of people email us and write to us. And it turns out because what do you know, we're one of the only wearables at track's temperature, Fitbit, Apple, Garmin, Woop, none of those devices track temperature. Again, because you're on the finger.

So we sort of notice, right? When you go outside and it's cold, your fingers and your toes get cold first. So it turns out that your extremities are a really good way to see what's happening with your core body temperature, which is your body sort of releases and controls your heat right through your extremities, right through your head fingers and toes. And so I think that's something that we've just known and we've seen it and so

much user data. And so we just felt like that means so much more during COVID during the pandemic when it was starting to hit. So we were the first wearable to actually partner with a research institution globally. You know, when COVID hit its own early March, we actually, you know, worked with UCSF to launch a study called Tempredict. In the beginning, we were, you know, we actually donated 2,000 rings to frontline healthcare workers at many different hospitals, UCS, I think. And actually got the rings on people who were in the COVID wars right on the front lines, mainly because they wanted to obviously, they're worried about being in a hospital with so many people in the COVID. So we thought that would be a good way to help the community and also, obviously, collect potentially very valuable data and

research. I could help us predict future pandemics. But then we decided to open up to our whole audience. So we opened it up, the Temporative Study 2, anyone who had an or ring at that time, and we had over some of the thousand people enroll. And then UCSF published their first early findings in December, even though the study was started in March, and they have a second set of findings coming in. What they showed was that certain signals in the aura ring are actually changing significantly

up to three days before people report symptoms. So in the app, we track all the aura ring data, but we're also tracking symptom data. And then if you did say you were feeling like you were getting sick, UCSF, and part of the protocol sent COVID tests, and what ended up resulting was a fascinating data set on the best that really any wearables looked during COVID. And so I think the NBA, they were trying to figure out how to reopen during the bubble. They had heard about that research study, and they actually had talked to many different researchers. And they were just blown away by the early results.

So they wanted to have the bubble in Orlando last year. They got rings to players, but also even more importantly staff. People working the staff, there's over 2,000 people there. There's only 450 pro NBA players. I forgot, I think it was like 23 of the 28 teams in the bubble, something like that. So, you know, but then, you know, we also partnered with the WNBA, right after that, when their bubble started.

And then USC, NASCAR, Red Bull Racing, a couple of baseball teams, a saddle, Mariners, you know, was one that was public. A bunch of NFL teams, you know, which we haven't, you know, I've been private, but I think, you know, in Las Vegas, Sans and a couple, it was frontline casino workers were getting back out there when they're trying to reopen Vegas.

And it's been remarkable to hear, I mean, honestly, the stuff that really moves us internally is when people tell us like, hey, found out I was getting sick, I was able to actually get a test, even though I didn't feel sick, figure out that I was positive and stop the spread. We had a user reach out to us that was like, I was going to go see my dad and he's been compromised during the holidays. And he was like, you know, all of a sudden my

writing a score dropped down to like 50s. And he was like, I didn't feel sick, but I was like, you know what, I'd heard about the research when I go get a COVID test. Founder is positive and you know, put off his trip till New Year's disease family after he had recovered. So I just think it's, you know, that was, that was so cool for us as a company to see. And I still think there's a lot more

that we can do in that area. Not just COVID, it's any influenza like illness. So I think every flu season, you know, it spreads mainly in the workplace. And so hopefully that's something, not So I think every flu season, you know, it spreads mainly in the workplace And so hopefully that's something not just for a regular flu season, but even the next pandemic that we can even help more with So what do you think of for lunch? I can't I'm getting new window treatments So I got to go home and wait around all afternoon for a design consultation just to get a quote It's gonna totally mess up my workday.

Why don't you just go to Blinds.com? Because I need custom products. Blinds.com products are made to order and totally customizable. And you get upfront pricing right on their website to easily get your quote online. But I want to see the products in person. Blinds.com ships samples to you fast and free. They can even verify your measurements and handle the installation.

Wow. How convenient. Tell me more. Blinds.com also has a huge selection of stylish shutters, shades, curtains, and options for motorization. Even for your patio. Plus, they're 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Well, you've convinced me. Let's go eat. I've got time now. Shopblinds.com and save 40% on selected products. Get 40% off selected products right now at Blinds.com. Rules and restrictions may apply. So, what do you think of for lunch? Ugh, I can't. I'm getting new window treatments.

So I got to go home and wait around all afternoon for a design consultation just to get a quote. It's going to totally mess up my workday. Why don't you just go to blinds.com? Because I need custom products. Blinds.com products are made to order and totally customizable. And you get upfront pricing right on their website

to easily get your quote online. But I wanna see the products in person. Blinds.com ships samples to you fast and free. They can even verify your measurements and handle the installation. Wow, how to you fast and free. They can even verify your measurements and handle the installation. Wow. How convenient. Tell me more. Blinds.com also has a huge selection of stylish shutters, shades, curtains, and options for motorization. Even for your patio. Plus, they're 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Well, you've convinced me. Let's go eat. I've got time now. Shop Blinds.com and save 40% on selected products. Get 40% off selected products right now at Blinds.com. Rules and restrictions may apply. No, absolutely. So how much did your business grow just from the pandemic alone? We've said we've doubled every year since inception. So since 2015, we've been growing more than doubling every single year. So we haven't

commented publicly on like exact growth rates. But I think for us, the whole wearable industry accelerated. I think if you look at some of the numbers out there, it's sort of one from like 10, 15% growth to like 20% plus percent growth. Obviously we're a smaller company growing faster than the industry. But yeah, luckily, we were able to act really quickly as our team to put a lot of pretty cool research and science effort. And then also, frankly, software efforts. We introduced a feature in the app called REST mode now. So if it looks like you're coming down with something, we'll actually send you a message that looks like, hey, it looks like you're maybe getting sick.

And you should try to rest today and you want to turn on rest mode. And what happens is if you do that, we get rid of all the activity scores and things like that and try to give you messaging more focused on helping you rest and recovering guidance around that. Wow. So you're constantly just updating the software to be better, really? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, because I was gonna ask you, because now, like we were saying, it's such a massive business, right? There's like everybody's doing it. Facebook, Google, is an Amazon getting into it. There's like trillion dollar companies. How do you plan? And I know you don't want to tell me all the secrets here,

but maybe one secret. But okay, how do you guys like, how are you guys gonna stay competitive? And yeah, in a market that's so growing, and everyone's like putting, they're all kind of jumping in the ring. Yeah, excuse the pie.

No, look, first of all, I'd say rising tide lifts old boats, right? Right. So I think it's a growing industry. You know, it's really unfortunate, but consumer health as we know it, right? There's more BC than ever, there's more depression, there's more insomnia than ever, there's more apnea than ever. So consumers are looking for answers. So I think that is for all companies in health and wellness, there's obviously underlying

good, positive momentum with that consumer demand. I think the second thing is really just focusing on those two things I mentioned. Both is this data accurate, and then what do you do with it? Right? I think being the first wearable, you know, consumer wearable really, you know, focused on sleep, you know, there's more people now that understand that than ever on how important this is, right? Whether it's Chris Paul on the NBA playoffs, who's wearing an order ring too? Pretty Terry, right? Yeah. To, you know, Jack Dorsey or whoever it may be. So I think like just that importance of sleep is a really good tailwind as well.

But I think that accuracy piece is gonna matter more. As more and more features come out in this space that are more focused on health, I think, you know, versus just steps. I think, you know, consumers are really gonna want the best and the most accurate thing, because this technology is new. It does have shortfalls too. And I think focusing on creating the most accurate,

wearable, and then also more and more personalized insights and information that it's usable for the consumer, I think if we do those two things well, I think we can at least have one percent of the market, if not a lot more. Yeah, no, absolutely. So then, basically then, you know, I know you guys just raised a couple months ago, maybe a month ago, another hundred million dollars. So what do you plan on doing with that money? What are you going to put it into? I know all the trade secrets.

A plane now, I'm just kidding. No, I mean, look, we're hiring people, you know, things don't make themselves, things don't make things, it's people that make things. And so I just think building and hiring the right team, everyone from research scientists to data scientists, to hardware engineers, to software engineers, to, you know, people that can make really compelling content that know how to explain sort of the health. What is heart rate variability? How do you break that down to the average consumer?

How can you make that more relatable and relevant and understandable to an audience? So I think we're just hiring across all functions. And that's probably most of that fun raising will go into building the team. And then, so also so also have another question. Well, I know we're going to probably wrap it up since I know you have another meeting or interview to get to. But then in terms of the company it's called ORA Health, are you guys going to stick with the ring or are you going to be kind of

expanding into other products or? Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think the bigger picture obviously is health, right? Would better health, right? You're going to have a better life and be a better version of yourself, right? In matter what your your focus is or what your why is.

I think we wanted to keep that health side there to realize like it's the focus on health as a company. And the ring just happens to be the best form factor for us now, but we're also not limiting ourselves. So maybe in five or 10 years, everyone wants these things and plantables, right? Or maybe you're on muskis saying a chip in your brain. We eat and don't think that time is here yet.

But I think ultimately our focus is on health. Yeah, I mean, it's great. And like I said, I am a big fan of it. And like you see, I'm wearing it. So how do people find out more about it? You said you have a letter, a newsletter. It's called the pulse or a blog. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, go up in your email. But you can go to all of that and just see it on a website, just a ora-ring.com that's O-U-R-A-R-I-N-G.com. I should also say so basically besides the hardware cost, like what's it about 300 bucks to 300? Yeah, 300 dollars, 299 to 399 depending on the finish. And we do have like a matte black and a gold version of the ring that we charge 399 for. You do. And then besides that, what are the other costs

that are you gonna make? That's the thing like how is it just a hardware? Because you're not charging hardware. Yeah. Everyone wants us to, they're like, shouldn't you charge me more? But no, I can't. Is there like a monthly subscription model? No, no, no. I think for us, we want to make sure that consumers are

understanding relative value. I think some of the other stuff out there now that, if you pay $30 a month, then you do that for 24 months. It's like $720. It's a lot. So I think the Apple Watch still is $400. I think a lot of the Garmin devices are more than that. And so I think we felt like 300 is sort of,

we've spent a lot more money on R&D. A lot of the stuff is pretty custom, a lot of the research we do does cost real money. And so I think we felt like $300 is the right price point where the market's at and for the value that we're delivering. So no consumer subscription. Necessary, right?

One more question. I see I have a few more minutes. You know, so on my Apple watch, why I like it is because I can press indoor running and I can be growing and whatever else. I mean, even though it may not be as you know, as accurate of course as your stuff, but at least it gives me like a, you know, a benchmark. Totally.

Are you guys gonna be able to get into that stuff more more than I can like run? And I don't have to be wearing this and wearing that and doing all that? A hundred percent. So we actually a couple things. If you do use another device or app or, you know, we actually

pull data from HealthKit and Google Fit, so if you Apple HealthKit and Google Fit, so if you actually do a workout on something else, we'll actually import that data automatically if you give access to it. The other thing we just introduced is something really cool feature that our team I think thought of really well called

automatic activity detection. So what happens now is if you tag something in the ordering, we actually after a couple of times, you'd be tag a certain type of work out like you did rowing. Well, I just start to automatically recognize it and add it to your data next time. So in now we're even starting to prompt users and ask them, like did you just do this? So I know during the snow season this year,

there was a couple of people that are like, oh my god, I just went snowboarding. My ordering just asked me, were you just snowboarding? So I think we're making that stuff a lot easier. And I think activity, again, getting back to the name or a health is appointed. We started in sleep, but I think we're going to come full circle on all of your health.

And then how do you sleep? Because you're the CEO of a very, an emerging growing company. And the irony always is, you're probably like sleep terribly. I mean, how do you sleep now? That's not that you are the CEO. Yeah, no, the last few weeks have been pretty good.

I think like anything in life it changes, right? So I think last week, I probably averaged, I can actually tell you, I can look into data anything in life it changes. I think last week I probably averaged, I can actually tell you, I can look into data here and pull it up. But I think my weekly trend last week was average readiness score of 87, which is pretty good. Pretty good. I didn't mind. My sleep scores were probably closer into 80s. Today's, I had 78 readiness and 72 sleep last night, but frankly, here's how I use the product. All right, I slept for the last night.

I was up late doing work. Right. You know, I had a lot to get done and I was working until 11 p.m. And so, what am I going to do tonight? Like, I'm already planning to wind out a lot earlier and catch up on it. And so I think, you know, for me, it's like just like everything I left, it adds and flows, it changes, your life is going to, you know, keep changing day to day week, you know, right now we have some pretty cool stuff that I'm excited about, that, you know, it's

spent a little bit more time. You want to tell me? Yeah, I'm all ears. I'm, that's why you're here. I want to hear something that you haven't said a hundred times before. Step on me one thing. Oh, and actually, all right. Give's why you're here. I want to hear something that you haven't said a hundred times before. I mean one thing. I actually, all right, give me some breaking news.

Yeah, really an overlooked thing. Super cool. So women's health, we think women's health is going to be a big new area for wearables and specifically us because we measure temperature. We put out a study would research her in Berkeley in December. And most people, we haven't done a lot of press on this yet, and we're working on a feature, but what we showed is, this researcher showed at Berkeley Dr. Grant, that you could actually see a woman's LH surge, glutenizing hormone surge, one of the key hormones, it's sort of like 90% plus,

you know, R squared or accuracy. Even a day or two before, she was using both saliva and a urine test for LH and that. And so I think, if you think about that application, part of the problem in that fertile period, by the time these tests tell you that you're like urine test or saliva test, it's actually miss about a third or half of the fur to window.

And so I think for us being able to see some of that stuff in advance can be super helpful in the future. So that is. Yeah, women's health is a really cool area. And the research study did come out, so it's public. We'll link it. We'll shoot you the link.

And I think there's a lot there that can be really exciting for us and for customers. And I think the cool thing about that it could be everything from understanding when you're pregnant. We just launched a pregnancy study in the app with UCSD about a month ago. And so I think that looks really interesting. The data that happens when you find out you're pregnant

and same thing, people are finding out from the ordering data before a saliva or urine test. And so I think the other one is obviously your period, right? I think there could be some pretty cool applications where we actually inform users just like we did with illness, right? Like, hey, your data is changing. This could be one of the reasons why. I think there's some pretty cool stuff there that we can do.

Yeah, that's going groundbreaking. Yeah. Yeah. So I think we're pretty excited about a lot more to do, and I think you'll see a lot more coming from us in our app on that as well. This is so exciting. My gosh, you guys are doing so many great things.

It's amazing. I appreciate great things. It's amazing. I appreciate it again. It's a team. So it takes the village, as I say, and thankfully we have an awesome team. How many employees you guys have now? I think 300. I think we probably just hit 300 this week or last week. Wow. And where's your main, what's the head office? So, yeah, San Francisco is where we have most of our US employees, but we did go remote during COVID. And half of our team is actually still in Finland. So we've been growing our offices in Finland. We have two locations there, Health Synchia and also Northern Finland city called Olu.

But decent bit, you know, I'd say half the teams in the US, half the teams in Finland, a decent bit now in San Francisco. But we've also, you know, I think we have started to realize that like more offices, you know, making it sort of optional to come back to a physical officer how many times we have to use. So we now have people in New York and Boston and Texas, like all over the place in Diego. So I think, you know, I think luckily,, luckily, we're just growing through the pandemic,

which recruiting and all that, and importing people virtually has definitely been the thing we've had to learn. So what are you thinking for lunch? I can't. I'm getting new window treatments. So I got to go home and wait around all afternoon for a design consultation just to get a quote.

It's gonna totally mess up my work day. Why don't you just go to blinds.com? Because I need custom products. Blinds.com products are made to order and totally customizable. And you get upfront pricing right on their website to easily get your quote online. But I wanna see the products in person.

Blinds.com ships samples to you fast and free. They can even verify your measurements and handle the installation. Wow, how convenient. Tell me more. Blinds.com also has a huge selection of stylish shutters, shades, curtains, and options for motorization, even for your patio.

Plus, they're 100% satisfaction guarantee. Well, you've convinced me. Let's go eat. I've got time now. Shopblinds.com and save 40% on selected products. Get 40% off selected products right now at Blinds.com. Rules and restrictions may apply. No, absolutely.

I mean, listen, I really am really happy you came on this podcast. I don't want to keep you. I know you go to run, but I actually learned some very valuable things. I didn't even know. I didn't know you got to run. But I actually learned the very valuable things. I didn't even know. I didn't know about the fact that you could put, it's much more accurate on your finger and versus your wrist.

And now I'm just shocked that most people are more people are not doing it. But, oh, just, what is the percentage of accuracy you said? So when I'm reading data or anybody's reading the data from you, what's the percentage of accuracy? Yeah, we put out data on this, on the pulse, on our website, and also in third party independent academic research.

That's actually the meeting I'm late for right now. Sorry. No, all good. But I think we were the only consumer wearable that's shown, even our heart rate and heart rate variability overnight is 99 and 98% correlated to EKG sleep staging. We were actually one of the first wearables to put out independent sleep study.

That was done back on our Gen 1 ring, our Gen 2 ring. I think you'll see some exciting stuff coming on that on the accuracy there. So I can't talk about it yet, but I think it'll be out there soon. The women's health side, I think we talked about that paper's public, that paper indicated that looks like there's 90% type accuracy on being able to see, in this case, I think it was LH that they were looking at illness.

I think there's some really good data out there showing that essentially it was 76% of the participants were able to see that signals and changes in their data three days before they felt symptoms, but it was actually 90% of people are able to see it at least a day before they felt symptoms, which is pretty shocking. So I think all this stuff we're trying to validate and put out there for consumers. So we're, again, the whole reason we chose the RANDFORFactor was accuracy. And so, you know, it does take time, it does take, you know, a village, as I say, to work with the community and independent researchers and academics to get that stuff out there,

and we're going to keep doing more and more of it. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I didn't ask you a chunk of little, another chunk of questions, but that's okay. You'll have, now you'll have to come back and we'll go over those another time because I know you've got to run and I appreciate you like being polite about the fact that you're the rest. Oh, okay. I try to be polite, but I just feel like I'm being rude. You know, yeah, I want you to go, go, go. Can people find you? Do you do anything if people have

a question for you? I'm on LinkedIn. That's probably the place I'm most active. Perfect. Yeah, so it's just Harprey, Rye. Actually, my middle name is O2Sync, SIN and G-H. I think I'm LinkedIn. I got a check. Sure it is. We have a hashtag or a ring on Instagram. We have an awesome CX team that gets to people's questions and answers. They are pretty fast. We have an awesome CX team that gets people's questions and answers there pretty fast. We also have the website. And if you send in an email or question, our team will get back to people.

We do thousands of those every day. Perfect. We'll go. I don't want you to be any later. So I appreciate you. I appreciate your time. Have a great day. Thanks so much, Jennifer.

Look forward to connecting you. This episode is brought to you by the YAP Media Podcast Network. I'm Holla Taha, CEO of the award-winning Digital Media Empire YAP Media, and host of YAP Young & Profiting Podcast, a number one entrepreneurship and self-improvement podcast where you can listen, learn, and profit. On Young & Profiting Podcast, I interview the brightest minds in the world and I turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. Each week, we dive into a new topic like the Art of Side Hustles, how to level up your influence and persuasion and goal setting.

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