Oct 23, 2020
Michael Acton Smith, co-Founder of Calm joins us to talk about
building the #1 app for sleep, meditation and relaxation, with over
75 million downloads and over 700,000 5-star reviews.
Michael tells us about how the idea was born from his own
personal discovery of the power of meditation. In our conversation
he tells the Calm founding story, and talks about the journey to
making medication accessible to tens of millions of people while
taking on stigma around meditation and mental health long before
the recent surge in interest around the space.
In addition to being the co-founder of Calm, Michael also was
the founder of Mind Candy and creator of Moshi Monsters, the online
world for children that grew to 80 million registered users and
expanded offline into books, toys, games, magazines, music and
movies. Michael is also the founder of Firebox.com, Ping Pong Fight
Club, and Berwickstock music festival. In 2014, he was awarded an
Order of the British Empire for his service to the creative
industries.
You can connect with Michael here: LinkedIn,
Twitter, Calm Website
What If Fellowship: https://whatif.vc/fellowship
HERE ARE SOME OF THE THINGS WE TALKED
ABOUT:
- Michael Acton Smith joins us to talk about how he came to find
meditation as a resource for himself in his personal life. Michael
shares the story of how his experience in the entertainment
industry left him feeling burnt out and how meditation is the most
valuable skill he has learned in his lifetime.
- Calm origin story: With his co-founder Alex Tew, Michael wanted
to bring meditation to people through something that was
accessible, relatable, and simple. The app creation was their idea
to achieve all of these goals in their attempt to change the world
of mental health for the better.
- Michael talks about how meditation is so much more than just
sitting quietly and breathing. It is a neuroscience that helps to
rewire your brain to get out of the fight or flight mindset and how
to help your prefrontal cortex frequencies to be normalized.
- How has Covid-19 and the pandemic affected Calm?
Isolation mixed with anxiety surrounding the pandemic has caused
mental health to be on the forefront of everyone’s minds. Michael
talks about how his business was growing before this but now it has
grown dramatically. He tells about his sense of responsibility to
react to this current situation and to provide more content for
subscribers.
- Michael shares how calm has extended its reach to not only
individuals but to companies as well. Calm is being used in
businesses to learn how to manage stress, how to connect with
colleagues, and how to increase emotional intelligence within the
workplace.
Not only is this an affordable and life-changing choice for
companies, but he states that it is a no brainer. If companies
offer gym memberships to increase physical wellness, they should be
offering calm memberships to increase mental wellness too.
- How do you see the business of Calm evolving over the next few
years?
Michael talks with us about the breadth of growth opportunities in
front of the business in the coming years. He compares it to the
scale of Netflix or Spotify subscriptions. In addition to that
growth, he would like to see Calm being offered on a global scale
in multiple languages.
Michael discusses expanding calm into a lifestyle brand featuring
clothing, hotels, even a resort on an island of Calm! When asked
about what a Calm island would look like, he described it as a week
or two getaway to focus on recentering yourself with healthy food,
exercise, and meditation services.
- Advice for mental health founders:
We talked about what founders in the mental health space could do
if they are just starting to splash around in this space. Michael
recommends above all else, patience. He says to not go after the
first idea that pops into your head. He gives other tips to get
yourself into the right mindset to find the big opportunities.
To expand on this, we discussed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
that are most important to pay attention to early on as a founder.
Michael shares that finances are so key to tracking as well as
being incredibly mindful with hiring and workspace.
Additionally, Michael shares that in order to keep retention up of
your customers, you need to create new content and how you want to
keep your business on the front of your customers' minds.
- Michael talks about the importance of teaching meditation to
younger generations. He shares his excitement surrounding how we
are seeing mindfulness education in schools. He raises the
question, “what is more important than teaching the next generation
how to improve their emotional intelligence?”
- Finally, Michael shares how meditation is a skill that you can
learn, and that means you have to be taught how to utilize it. Not
only that, but you need to practice using it in your daily life in
order to get better at it. We are starting to move in a direction
where more and more people are using these skills in their life and
being more open about mental health. Michael shares how he feels
privileged to be able to be a part of this movement.
Connect with the What If Ventures and the Stigma Podcast
in the following ways: What If Fellowship, Patreon, Website, Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn,
Email
Connect with host Stephen Hays here: Stephen Hays Personal Website,
Twitter, LinkedIn,
What If Ventures (Mental Health
Venture Fund)