Headspace had a monk. We had a rainstorm. Turns out people just want to fall asleep. That insight was worth a billion dollars.
We almost ran out of money in 2015. Nobody wanted to fund a meditation app. Then the world had a collective anxiety attack and suddenly everyone wanted in.
My first company was the Million Dollar Homepage. I sold pixels on a webpage for a dollar each. It worked. Calm is slightly more sophisticated.
We got Matthew McConaughey to read bedtime stories. LeBron James to talk about mental fitness. Harry Styles to narrate sleep music. Content is the moat.
Mental health is not a feature. It's not a tab in a fitness app. It deserves its own company, its own brand, its own category. That's what Calm is.
We're a British guy who sold pixels and a British guy who made video games, running America's biggest mental health app. Nobody saw that coming, least of all us.