Oura rings, which track biometrics from sleep to heart rate, are everywhere, on the fingers of folks from Kim Kardashian to Mark Zuckerberg. And part of how the company broke through the crowded wearable tracker market, according CEO Tom Hale, is because the conversation around sleep had begun to shift right around the company’s 2015 launch.
“It was like, ‘I don’t need sleep. I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’” Hale said this week on Fortune’s Leadership Next podcast of the now-dated “macho” viewpoint on sleep—something he believes is still having a moment.
“The understanding of sleep has really come around, where people realize that if you want to perform at the highest level, you want to be as cognitively able as you can possibly be,” he said. “You want to improve your mood. You want to live long. Sleep is one of the foundational elements of your health regime, and that awareness, I think, has been rising.”
But another key to Oura’s success has been generational. It has come, he says, with the people thinking, “Hey, I need to be in charge of my health. I’m not going to just trust the doctor in the white coat to take care of me.”
That mentality, Hale says, is “a boomer thing.”
Because while baby boomers are “used to the doctors telling them what to do," he says, “young folks are thinking about it” and realizing, “I’ve got to have some agency on this.”
That’s where Oura comes in.
“It’s like the doctor’s note that isn’t a doctor’s note. It’s in your pocket. It’s on your cell phone,” Hale says. “It’s a substance of conversation between husbands and wives, you know? ‘How was your sleep last night, honey? How’s your day going to go?’… We see this kind of cultural relevance. It’s a shorthand for caring about your health.”
Those at Oura call it “giving your body a voice,” he says. “And the thing is, that’s not just celebrities who are interested in that. Everybody’s interested in that.”
Especially, as it turns out, women, who make up the majority of customers as of the past two years, according to Hale.
“Women’s health has been a place where we expanded in the last couple of years, and it’s been phenomenal. It’s been an incredible success for the company,” he said, explaining that the company has optimized a whole set of biomarkers related to fertility and menopause. “These are all needs that weren’t really met, and I think by meeting them, we’ve had an incredible response from women.”
More on biohacking:
- Dr. Peter Attia’s $7,500 a year biohacking clinic attracted Silicon Valley. Now he’s betting on the wealthy elite of New York City
- 3 signs you have a toxic relationship with your fitness tracker, according to experts
- People are ditching their Apple Watches after feeling bullied to burn calories and ‘close their rings’
