Tackle insomnia with this Teddy-like Bear device instead of taking pills with Julian Jagtenberg from Somnox

But before Julian created So Knocks, he had a brief music career. In fact, one of the songs he co-produced made it to the top 40 of the Dutch Pop. Charts. That's right. He's a rockstar slash startup founder. Join me for some blast because this is a good one. As Julian shares his life journey while also talking about the hurdles he's had to overcome in growing.

. Okay. Julian, first question for you, what are one or two interesting things about you that most people don't know? Julian? Yeah. So I had little time to think about that question, but the, the first thing that comes to mind is that, I almost went into a musical career versus the path I'm on right now.

Like, I used to play guitar. I was in a, a school band, and we actually did quite well. We had, we even were in the, in the charts in the Netherlands for one week. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And that was when I was 16 or 15 years old, and I really was, okay, I'm gonna be a rockstar. And then, I found, no, not really. I, I, I don't, I don't wanna do that.

I actually want to invent things and, and like, making music is nice, but it was, I found it was so much more about marketing than it was about making proper music. So I guess that's a big fact that not a lot of people know actually. What was the song though? Was it a pop song? Was it a rock and roll? I mean, yeah, you can, you can look it up on Spotify.

It's like sort of Jason Ma meets John Mayer meets Red Hot Chili Peppers into one song. Yeah, the band was called Julian and May, and one of the, the popular songs was called Pixie Dance, which is a made up name, so it should say, Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna include that in the show notes. Okay. Yeah, yeah. You could, you could, you can hear my guitar skills when I was 15.

Yeah, absolutely. I gotta tell you, I don't think I've had a guest on the show who's had a song in, in the charts. Yeah. You know, was, was a musician, musician, serious musician. The Dutch charts, so not on, on the, on the, the, the 40th place, which is the minimum amount you need to hit for one week. So don't, don't expect it to be, To be huge, right?

Yeah. But still, but still. All right. Yeah. That is fascinating. Fascinating. Yeah. Okay. Okay, so I'm also curious to know if you are an early to bed, an early to rise type person. Oh yeah. My sweet spot is like between 10 and 10:30 PM. I wake up around 7:00 AM 6:30 AM so that really gets me into my, the, my biological circadian rhythm that works for me the best.

Like I've tried so many sleep schedules, but that one brings me to my, the most recovery. Okay. Okay. Enjoy. Why you, why you can't before you have kids? Cuz that would be a different story. Yeah, I've been told, I've been told. Okay. Now, where, where did you grow up and how did that shape your view of, of the world, Jillian?

I grew up here in the Netherlands. I as Dutch as they come. And I think how it changed my view is, you know, the Netherlands, I, I had a great youth here. I mean, I, I had friends to play with. I had proper education. Like I, I really felt like I got. I'm, I'm so privileged, so to say, to to live here. And I started realizing that when I started traveling the world, that being here in the Netherlands as a, well, not, not to get into a whole diversity conversation here, but realizing that being, you know, being a mill born in the Netherlands, you are like born in easy mode, so to say, right?

You get all the opportunities, which so many people do not get. So how it changed my view, I would say is that, Being born and raised, there is like a huge privilege in a way, and, and, and, and I always felt like I should use that fact, which I, you know, got at random. I didn't ask for it to, to do good to the world and, and let, that's that opportunity.

The fact that I can go to university, the fact that I am healthy, that I have a family and so forth is, is something to use and, and help others that do not get that from the beginning. Just because where you are born, so. That is what makes me, yeah. Yeah. There's always these annual surveys that say like, what are the happiest cities in the world?

And always in the top three are Amsterdam or, or the Netherlands for children. Like, what are the happiest places to raise a child? And I've always just thought, well, of course they're happy, kids are happy there because they're riding a bicycle all the time. Right. And who doesn't like to like to ride a bicycle?

So, yeah. Yeah. It could very well be the case. Yeah. It is lovely. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I imagine. So now I know some of the story behind this, but for the audience, can you tell us what was the inspiration behind? So knock and can you tell us also what, what does it do as well? Yeah, for sure. So with So Knocks, we helped the world sleep better with, in innovation.

We came up with in my time at the University of Technology in Delt. Which is sort of like the m i t of the Netherlands, if you will. And I was a, well, I was always fascinated by robotics. So you know, star Wars, transformers, I would have C three PO and R two D two as pop star posters in my bedroom rather than, you know, the big movie stars.

So actually during the time building robotics in university, my family member was heavily suffering from sleep deprivation, taking sleeping pills, and I could really see. The significant impact it had on the quality of her life, like her mental health and, and, and physical health would be in a decline as a result of a lack of sleep.

So as a, as a robotics engineer, I started looking for answers in science and technology, if there could be some sleep aid that is able to cope with insomnia, and that's where Soak was founded, where we found the power of breathing or breath work to influence the autonomic nervous system. Where many people that suffer from insomnia are always on, like they're in this anxious red race within their heads and they can't fall asleep.

And our device basically slows down your breathing pace, which calms down your nerves and making it easier to flow into sleep. And, and that's, yeah, what we came up with, what we have been creating, prototyping and developing over the years into what it is today, a consumer sleep company helping thousands of people.

Achieve sleep naturally. Okay, so Julian, I went to the website and I was expecting to find, you know, maybe it's this fancy pillow or this nice mattress that has all of this technology, but I was very shocked to see what I saw because it is something that's very different than I think that's on the marketplace.

And so we'll get into that in just a second. But based on the research that you did, how, how, how many people are affected by insomnia or just bad sleep? Is there like a, a percentage, like worldwide, like for adults? I, I have no idea, but I'm guessing maybe 10 to 20% or do you have any idea? Well, you, you, you guess quite accurately, so it depends.

Per country, actually, like sleep is very cultural. If you look at the United States, for example, it's one out of three people that reports sleep issues. So that's 33% of the population. And it's, you know, especially Women in their menopause period. That's like statistically speaking, the worst sleeper from an age perspective, but it's, it's a huge part of society that is suffering from sleep deprivation, at least one out of three.

In the US here in Europe, it's one out of five, so apparently we do sleep a little better. That's, that explains why my wife sleeps much better. She's European, and I'm American. I, we have this app that we once did years ago and it, it. Basically track the sleep pattern and she gets much deeper sleep. Yeah.

Over longer periods than I do. And it was something absurd. Like 80% of her sleep is really good or deep sleep. I can't recall exactly. And for me it was just around 55 or 60%, and I suffered from insomnia about 10 years ago and had to take this pill, this medication called melatonin. Yep. I'm not sure if they have it in Europe.

And it was the worst experience because even though I was able to fall asleep into a deep sleep, I had these really awful nightmares. Yeah. And so I think I only took the pill for about a week because every night was just a really bad nightmare. And I, I did it when I experienced that anymore. Finally I got over insomnia.

It was basically a, a job that I had. Particularly my, my direct supervisor who was just giving me hell and once I left the company, I was able to start sleeping better. But you're, you're probably accurate there. One in three Americans probably do suffer from sleep. And I imagine that trend is going to continue, especially that we're bombarded with all the, the electronics, like our smartphone we're laying down and we've got it like this 10 inches from our head and.

We just don't know how to turn things off sometimes and really prepare ourselves for a good night's sleep. And so, so you, you, your mom is suffering from insomnia. Instead of thinking about medication, you thought, I'm an industrial engineer, right? I'm gonna combine hardware and technology. But there must have been like an aha moment for you, Julian, where you thought, yeah, let, let me, let me try something here.

What do you recall that moment when it was. So I was very much inspired by Soft Robotics, in particular when I saw the movie Big Hero Six from Disney's Pixar. I'm not sure if you familiar with that one. Yes. Like there's this robot called Baymax and it's a marshmallow. Yeah. Nursing robotic. It's very huggable and very snugly and you know, the snuggle is real.

So what I found was I wanted to have a soft robotic deal with insomnia, and when I read a paper, About holding onto a baby on your chest and the so-called mirroring effect. So if you feel a breathing pace, you will subconsciously adjust your own breathing pace accordingly. And in that way, you can basically magically influence one's breathing.

So what if I could make, I actually have it right here, sort of a baby that's gently breathing on your chest up and down. And then slowing down your breathing pace to get you to calm down. Where first is being anxious and stressed and the things that so often keep us awake. We made prototypes based on those two concepts, so having a soft robotic that would breathe like a baby, and we tested it with my family members, but also with other sleep deprive people, and that's where we really found Wow.

It's something that's actually working. People are appreciating it and asking if they can buy it. And it was just a prototype, just a university project. But that's when we were like, aha, okay. We really have something here. We got a, a patent. And, and that's when we started the business to say, okay, we need to bring this to the market and not leave it to collect dust in a university basement.

Okay. This was about seven years ago, more or less. Julian? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about how you went to the market, your go-to market plan. What was that first like? Did you just concentrate regionally or did you focus on a website? Yeah, so we tried so many things because as you can imagine, the product is so strange and new.

It's a new product in a new market. So we didn't know what channels like sales channels or marketing channels were appropriate, and at first we thought, okay, it might be. Mattress stores or Amazon or big retail, like electronic retail stores. We've been in all of them, and we found actually none of it really worked.

So our growth to market strategy initially was to launch a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to accept pre-orders from all the people that have been sending their interests, saying, Hey, I wanna buy this. I want to get rid of my sleeping pills. And, and use basically their interest into the first financing and sales of of the product.

And that was a success. We raised around 300 k I believe at the time. And that's, yeah. Enabled us to go from a prototype into a product we could manufacture over the years by testing and adapting marketing and sales channels. We found that actually a direct to consumer method is probably the only way to properly educate potential customers about the story, how it works, why it works.

To provide quality customer support. Like it's not an incremental innovation here. It's really a zero to one type of company. So we need to build the product from zero to one, but also the sales and distribution side. It needs to be in our own. Yeah, our control. Yeah. But that's super hard, so that's why taking a lot of time to.

To to get it to the proper growth that we anticipate. After a quick break, Julian talks about how they burned a lot of cash with the wrong advertisements in the US and the future of their company. Hey, in case you didn't know, the Innovators Can Laugh. Newsletter comes out every Thursday. You find out which startup founders are coming on the show, along with links to posts I found interesting on the web.

My best Dad jokes. Quotes from Napoleon to Chris Rock and my thoughts and strategies on what I am doing to live a rich life filled with happiness as a Texas expat living in Europe. Sign up for the newsletter@innovatorscanlaugh.com. Welcome back to my conversation with Julian. I wanted to learn more about how he's been able to grow, so Knock.

So I asked him how they have been able to get traction. I saw one of the strategies that currently you guys are trying is a 30 day free trial. Is that something new or is that something that you guys have been using now for, for a while and it seems to be working with, with prospects and con customers?

Yeah, I think you have to, right? You need to have a guarantee. That is so good. People, yeah. Feel stupid saying no. So indeed we offer a 30 night trial, so if it doesn't work, you don't pay. You only pay if you actually improve your sleep. But we're actually already onto a new business model here in the Netherlands, so maybe you haven't seen that yet.

But we're, we're transitioning into a sleep as a surface model. So you're not buying our product, you're actually like renting the product for a monthly fee of 30 bucks a month. And that enables better sleep. So we wanna make it much more accessible. So not just buying a product that's 500 euros or dollars and then having a 30 night trial, but renting it for the period that you need it.

If it doesn't work, you can send it back. So that's a, a model where we as a company win, but the customer wins as well. Like we get recurring revenue and the customer gets to get started with premium technology for a low amount per month. So, That's where we are envisioning the future of the company.

We're still tweaking around with the go-to market. Yeah. Yeah. Sign me up for that. I definitely wanna try this because sleep is something good. Sleep is something that I've always had difficulty with, so I definitely wanna try this 30 day, you know, experience it and if you like it, continue it. Type model and, okay.

So you, you, you started this seven years ago and. Tell us about like where are the customers coming from right now is are you getting customers from one particular region or are you global right now, Julian? So we are available in Europe and North America, yet all our marketing efforts currently are here in the Netherlands and Belgium, simply because of the capital markets.

You know, we really wanna be a profitable company and grow very steadily in a sustainable way. So the majority, I would say 70% of our customers are here in the Netherlands, and then 30% is divided across Europe and the United States of America. Yep. Okay. What challenges, obviously, I'm sure there were many, yeah.

But what are the ones that stick out in memory that when you were guys were launching som knocks, what were they and, and how did you overcome them? Oh, there are so many, right? That there's, there's a, there's a thousand. I would say one of the things that really stood out was. Underestimating how hard it is to actually bring a product to the market.

Like it's very easy to create a prototype and, and show like, all right, this seems to work. But then bringing it to a replicable quality product that you can ship all over the world with all the regulations, certifications, customer expectations is so hard. Like there were so many moments where, for example, You know, certification issues.

Certification issues came up and we had to change some parts of the product from the beginning, whereas we were supposed to start shipping. In a week from now. So there was a huge delay on shipping our pre-orders for almost a year. So customers were complaining we were running outta cash and that was just, ugh, that that was running off a cliff it felt like.

Yeah. And there, there's all these other challenges, right? Like going internationally, we haven't heavily underestimated the importance of cultural nuances like, Think global, but act local is something I, I, I learned the hard way, the way we need to market the product is so much different in the US than we need to market it here in the Netherlands.

And you can, how, how, how so? Like what is the different value proposition or messaging? Just the whole positioning of the products I suppose. So, you know, in the US you really wanna be, have bold, big claims, be straight to the point and have like, This device will help you sleep within eight minutes. And here's this famous athlete using it in his morning routine.

Like seven minute abs. Yeah. Like seven minute abs, you know? Yeah. And the, yeah, it, it, that is what, because you, you're competing with a very noisy advertisement market where it's in the Netherlands, it's, it's much more down to earth and just saying, okay, this device may help you sleep better. Here's a real ger sharing a sort of Okay story.

And that's what's credible. So you know what works here or what, what got you here doesn't get you there. And that's, we burned a lot of cash with the wrong advertisements and, and, and, and, and that sort of stuff. Yeah. Okay. And I'm laughing Julian because I'm a little bit of aware of the guests on the show because, you know, I speak to founders from Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Dutch, French, and and I.

There's always a little bit of difference in the cultural nuances. Okay, so this is quite fascinating. Now, how long does it take for somebody can expect to see a noticeable difference in their sleep? I mean, there's a 30 day free trial, so I'm imagining it's happening within 30 days. Yeah, you should see an improvement within two weeks.

You know, most people expect a magic bullet, like a one night wonder. It's definitely not like that. Everything when it comes to health takes time and everything that claims to be instant, you should be skeptical, like, or it's chemical and then it's artificially putting you to sleep. So, We say 14 nights are required to really adapt to this device, right?

Yeah. It's something you need to get used to, to hold onto it. It is sort of like a pillow or teddy, be teddy bear that you're hugging and that's different. So, Just like going to the gym and if you wanna, you know, build muscle, you need to go to the gym at least six weeks to start seeing a little difference.

And the same goes for sleep. It's, it's about habit forming and, and taking the time to, to get there. Yeah, and for those listening catch the video, you'll see Julian hugging the so knock pillow and or just go to the website and you can see it as well. Yeah. Okay. So what are you excited about for the next year?

Do you have any big plans? Yeah, so as I already sort of tapped into is the rollout of this sleep as a surface. Like I really feel that is the future of our company. So not selling product, but selling sleep and then not just having the device as part of the subscription, but also having, focusing on the app itself.

So we created an app that connects with the device and then you can see your sleep data. You can get coaching during the day. And we're actually partnering up with insurance companies to also partly reimburse the product so it becomes more accessible. And I think that's truly exciting because we move away from being a purely direct sales model, consumer gadget, towards a serious sleep solution that's more complete and more accessible than ever through authorities like insurance companies.

So that's what we're moving toward and I'm very excited about that because yeah. Yeah, we can help so much more people than selling a premium device only. So yeah, that's what, what is exciting me? All right. Crazy idea here. I don't know why it popped into my head, but it would be so cool if airlines offered their first class passengers the opportunity to use a SOX during their, their flight home.

Yeah. I would, well, we, we might be, be in, in, in the meetings that are about that topic, so. Okay. Okay. It's not a crazy idea. It's not a crazy idea. No, no. It's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs that are looking to break into an entirely. What would you call this? I mean, a, an a new, a new market, like you said, you're going from zero to one.

It's an entirely new product out there. Don't plan, you know, just, just go out there and, and execute. I think one of the hardest things as a entrepreneur is to be predictable in an unpredictable market. And you know, that's something with an existing market and an existing proven product, but especially with a new market and a new.

Products, which is the most riskiest type of business you can have, just don't expect. You can predict or plan anything. So I would say if I were like having a time machine and, and go to me six years ago, it would be, yeah, go with the flow and don't be so strict on yourself on saying, okay, I need to be there in one year, and set that as a strict goal because you just can't, there will be so many roadblocks and you, it's much more powerful to be super agile.

Being able to be dynamic and move quickly and, and listen to the market and get that feedback from actual users holding the product in their hand, then thinking you can predict the future because you can't. Yeah, yeah. And because your background is an engineering, was there a key hire, a key person that you hired on your team that really played a key role in, in getting traction for the, for the business?

Yeah, I would definitely say the commercial rules. So, you know, as a founding team, we are all engineers and we love to think in systems and one plus one is two, and that's great for building products and doing finance and so on. But it's not so great for marketing. And I dare to say that marketing is more important than, than products.

Like in the end, marketing is, is what drives sales, and sales is what makes a company run. And obviously you need a good product to, to make money, but. A great product doesn't sell itself. And I always thought it would, like, if you make great products, you don't need advertisements. People will just tell it to one another.

That doesn't work that way. Like you have to be cra, you need to be there every day, every minute telling the story. And you know, having these marketing people come in that truly understood that and were able to, to craft the right messaging and position the product in such a way that it resonated with our target audience.

That was the moment we started to become an actual business versus a couple of nerds building robots. Shut up. Yeah, for sure. What is the marketing team focusing on? Which channels has worked well for them? Is it something specific like Facebook ads or maybe CO or, or something else? Yeah, we tested so many channels, but I suppose in the end, paid advertisements on Google and Facebook are the most predictable.

Right? Because Okay. You know, sale and organic marketing and social media selling it, it's all nice, but it's just, you can't really build a company on it. It feels like it's too, it brings you boosts and peaks and seals, but it doesn't really build over time. So, so far indeed, we've been on doing online marketing funnels with paid ads.

Yeah. Okay. Great. All right, Julian, now time for the rapid fire question. So here we go. Just gimme the first answer that comes to your to mind here. First one is $25,000 cash or dinner with Tony Robbins. I would say dinner with Tony Robbins. Okay. Yeah. All right, next, next question. What is the number one strategy you use to prioritize your time?

I have a calendar that I am very strict in building in time blocks. So just like putting in meetings, I'm putting in focus time so that I can actually work and I, people can't book anything. And that's like sort of my navigator during the day. And only when I can say like, hell yeah, that's when I do it.

And all the maybe or mediocre things, I try to cancel as much as possible. All right. Hey, I'm glad you came on the podcast then. I, I, I've thought hell yeah. This, this seems cool. So let's do it. Yeah. All right. The most interesting thing you did in the last 26 days, Julia. I gave a keynote to an audience of around 4,000 people last week in, in one of the biggest stages here in the Netherlands.

And that was like, it was really, I was quite scared to go on stage, but it was so cool, Eric. There was this light show and there were a lot of big CEOs from the Netherlands in Belgium, and I got to pitch my products for the, the crowdfunding campaign we're actually doing right now. So, yeah, that was really exciting.

Yeah. Yeah. Now you do a lot of speaking. At least that's what I saw from your LinkedIn profile, so Yeah. But four, 4,000 audience is a bit different than, you know, speaking in, you know, in front of dozens or hundreds of people every time. So I can imagine, yeah, there's probably my biggest audience yet. And also the most high profile audience, like the, the, the stakes were high.

Yeah. But luckily it went well and it's, it's something I wanna do more. All right, good for you. Biggest mistake you won't make again in regards to building sum nuts growing too fast and burning too much cash, like focus on profitability sooner and, and stay away from vanity metrics like amount of employees or awards won, or VC money raised like that doesn't matter at all.

In the end, it's all about helping a customer. And being profitable in a sustainable way without getting distracted. It's like, you know, I think there's quote like comparison is the, the, the kiss of death or something. And, and I feel like you startup founder, you are always looking around like, oh, I need to have more employees.

Oh, I want to have that award. Oh, I need to raise, raise 10 million. No, you don't. That's not cool. What's much cooler is having a company that is sustainable and is helping actual people with actual problems. And I feel like I have been distracted by these other things because that's just what the public sort of appreciates more.

Yeah. But don't, don't get fooled. Yeah. Yeah. This is so good. I mean, everything that you're saying here is so applicable, I think to anybody, to any entrepreneur out there, because we do see. The shiny object syndrome, whether that's, you know, a new, a new tour, like you said, I wanna have more employees, or I wanna get that award or that recognition when at the end of the day, you know, your job is not to play startup.

Your job is to grow a healthy business. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. Last question for you. Instead of stock options and bonuses for your employees, you now give new hires, blank. Hmm. Well, in our case, we like focus very much on quality sleep. So first of all, everyone gets their own, some knocks, but we also get to start our day, like later in the morning to appreciate the, whether you are a morning or an evening person.

So we get to have a sleep as a priority company culture. So we do not expect you to send emails at 11:00 PM like we, we were actually telling you not to do that because it ruins the quality of sleep. So I would say that is definitely something and a occasion like going on a holiday with the team and, and, and, and going abroad.

Being creative once a year is definitely something that is much more appreciated I found over the years than having a bonus or, yeah. Yeah. That sort of stuff. All right. Very cool. Thank you Julian, for being on innovators. Can laugh. Where can people learn more about you, Julian? Yeah. So they can learn more about me by.

Pretty much Googling Julian Jacksonburg or follow me on social media. LinkedIn is probably the, the channel I'm most active on and for the company is, so knocks.com, so that's S O M N O x.com. And yeah, you can follow us on social media for sleep improvement tips as well. Hey, don't forget Spotify. You gotta send me the link so I can include it in the show notes for everybody who wants to hear your, your Yeah.

Top 40, your top 40 hit. For sure, for sure. I will. I will. All right. And for those listening, before you get on with the rest of your day, I want you to hear something. You are awesome. Yes, you Now you may be saying, come on Eric, you just had Julian on the show. He's a rockstar. Literally. In addition, he's created something that helps improve the wellbeing and sleep for thousands of people all over the world.

And while that may be true, If you're an entrepreneur, a business owner, a startup, whatever you wanna call yourself, you are one of a very small percentage of human beings that have the courage and envision to go out and create something new. Taking an idea and trying to make it a reality, and that is pretty amazing, which makes you awesome.

All right, have a wonderful day and I'll see you on the next episode. I had a wonderful time chatting with Julian. I find it fascinating that he wasn't tempted to go down a path that I think 99% of other people would've followed. Having experienced some success, and I'm talking about trying to make it in the music industry.

And instead he created something that could help his mom who was suffering for what Many people, including myself, suffer on a daily basis. So hats off to him. If you wanna learn more about, so Knocks go to, so knocks.com links to all of this are in the show notes. Thank you to Julian for being on the show, and I look forward to seeing you this summer in the Netherlands and actually trying out one of your devices.

If you like this episode, send me a note on LinkedIn. Let me know that you're listening and su