#112 - The Rise of The Baby Sleep Apps
Atif Majeed scribbled on the notepad in front of him and then forcibly hit the notepad with the tip of his pen - as if to emphasise the exclamation mark he just wrote.
“One million” he said to Mark Bruce who was sitting next to him.
Mark turned to me and said “Alright then. Let’s do it!”
It was May 2016 and this conversation started after the simple introductory question “How things?”. For me, I was over the media frenzy wave after publishing a trial about the treatment of baby sleep problems.
Both Atif and Mark worked at Flinders Partners - the commercialisation arm of Flinders University. This means their job was to identify ideas stemming from researchers, and turn them into products in the real-world.
They asked me if my research could be turned into a Baby Sleep App to help tired parents. I said “Yes”.
As an academic, you’re continually learning. And I learned a lot in the following month by dipping my toe into …
The World Of Business
Atif was assigned as the Project Manager for what was to be ‘Babywink’ - an app that tracked a baby’s sleep and then provided parents with 3 ways to help their baby sleep better within a week.
So we needed a company to build the app. Which meant that we needed 6 figures of funding to pay an app company.
Atif did a great job connecting with various companies. One of the early contenders was a company called Plum, who made sleeping bags for babies. Although Plum wasn’t going to entirely fund the app, they had connections - like Jessica’s Suitcase (the daughter of a former Australian Prime Minister whose business is to promote quality Australian goods to middle-class China), and, wait for it - Toys R Us (they were big back then).
One of the early lessons I learned venturing into the business world was that things happened quickly. Way faster than the pace of University - which I liked. But the other edge of the sword was that the business world could be ‘hot and cold’. You could get off one phone call where the other party were “excited” about the project and they want to schedule a call next week - to the next week where you cannot get hold of them … or the week after … or the week after that … was it something I said? (the Celebs at the time were calling this ‘ghosting’).
But then came a breakthrough …
NDA
Another thing I learned is that there’s a language in the business world that I didn’t understand.
For example, researchers have to write a term in its entirety before providing the acronym. None of this WTF and FFS first, we have to write in full, World Taekwondo Federation and Flinders Fatigue Scale.
So when I was on a call with the CEO (that’s Chief Executive Officer) of an app company in Helsinki (that’s in Finland), and he said that he wanted me to sign an NDA before they began discussing things in detail - I just nodded (I found out NDA means ‘non-disclosure agreement’ - meaning, we’re about to talk about ideas we’ve got and you’re not allowed to steal them).
The Finnish tech company was called Nordicomm. They were willing to build the app - but we still needed funding. But after months of being ghosted by potential funders, Nordicomm came up with a plan.
“Michael. We think this idea is really good. We believe in it. So we want to go ahead and start building it. But it’s a big risk to us to start doing this without funding. So we want a big cut of the profits.”
In October 2016, Atif formalised an agreement with Nordicomm - 55% of the profits to Flinders; 45% of the profits to Nordicomm.
As they say in the Thunderbirds …
We Are Go!
“Michael, this is Robert. We’re looking at taking part of the Babywink app’s algorithms and using it for Robert’s engineering projects.” Atif said to me as we were waiting outside of Flinders Partners for the fire drill to stop.
It was February 2017. In the space of a few months, there was a team of people working on the Babywink app. We were aiming for a May 2017 release. And all things considered - we were going to hit that target.
And hitting that target was important. When we started exploring the baby sleep app space, there wasn’t anyone in it. But soon after, there was a big competitor.
Johnson & Johnson were developing an app. And it happened to be driven by one of the world’s best baby sleep gurus - Prof Jodi Mindell. Who also happens to be a dear friend.
So now it was a race. Who could get their baby sleep app first to the market?
Restructure Is Not A 4-Letter Word
There were rumours flying around that when Flinders’ new Vice-Chancellor was going to take the top spot in 2015, that he’d shake up the place. He’d done so at his former university by getting everyone to apply for their jobs again.
Looking back, he should have done that at Flinders.
Instead, he embarked on major restructures of Flinders’ professional and academic staff - and how they communicated with each other.
It’s been the most destructive idea I’ve seen to Flinders Uni in the 30 years I was there.
People at Flinders Partners saw the devastation coming in July 2017 - so half of them left before it hit. This virtually doubled the workload of those remaining - including Atif.
Progress on Babywink went from 5th gear to 2nd gear.
When the Restructure finally hit Flinders Partners in September 2017, it hit Babywink’s Project Manager - Atif. His position was named another non-4-letter word - ‘disestablished’.
Flinders Partners had gone from a thriving team of 11 - down to 2 people (and stayed at this number for too long).
Nordicomm heard of this news, and immediately saw that Flinders could not uphold their end of the app agreement. This meant more of the work would fall onto Nordicomm’s shoulders, so they wanted more of the profits.
A new contract was negotiated - Flinders’ profits fell from 55% to 5.5%.
Around this time, Johnson & Johnson’s baby sleep app was going through a clinical trial - and showing very promising results.
Over the next 2 years, some big ‘services not rendered’ (that is, Nordicomm provided about 80,000 Euros worth of work to other companies - and such companies did not pay), which saw Nordicomm go under.
In a rush, Babywink was thrown up on Apple’s App Store and Android’s Google Play Store. And received only a handful of reviews - that were awful.
So awful that I requested that my name be taken down from the Babywink website and the app.
Conclusion: Connection to People Matters
When a client goes through the positive journey of healing themselves, only to hit a roadblock and encounter a failure, we as psychologists will often reframe this ‘failure’ as a ‘learning opportunity’.
What can you learn from this experience that will mean you’re more likely to succeed next time?
Perhaps it was naïve of me to think that a highly successful baby sleep trial would result in a highly successful baby sleep app.
Whilst Vice-Chancellors can be enamoured with their erections (ie, making pretty buildings), a lesson learned over the last 5 years is that functionality matters.
And a core feature of functionality is working with talented people - collaboratively.
Right now - without going into any detail - I believe I have found a place that does this - and more.
As at the time of me writing this blog, there are several baby sleep apps that have sprouted during 2019 to 2020. Interestingly, they don’t seem to have been built from a University (although some of them are built on the research led by myself and Prof Jodi Mindell).
If I stand back and look at the forest, great things can be achieved when researchers combine with tech companies. They don’t need the dysfunctionality of the Universities.
Thus, I’m happy to announce the line-up of speakers and sleep tech for the 3rd WINK Sleep Conference.
We’ve got speakers who have worked with Apple, Philips, and Samsung.
Researchers who have tested sleep tech via the rigours of clinical trials.
Sleep tech that you can wear on your finger, wrist or face. One that you can even hug in bed (I’ll let your imagination run with that one …)!
Together, they’re gonna open your mind to a range of sleep tech that you didn’t know about. They’ll tell you how their passion for sleep has turned into helping thousands of people across the world.
Indeed - collectively - they’re set to help millions of people around the world sleep better.
And for the month of February, you can receive this blog in an email - and it will come along with a very special discount code. One that will get you 50% off the price of the Early Bird Conference Tickets.
We hope to see you there …
Prof MG
LEFT: Dr Fallon Cook; RIGHT: Dr Laura Conway.
Member Spotlight
Every now and then we’re gonna put the spotlight on some of the awesome women and men who make up the WINK Sleep Members - and this week it’s Drs Fallon Cook and Laura Conway from Melbourne, Australia.
Fallon and Laura have both completed PhDs in infant sleep - and then added some postdoctoral research on top of that. Their scientific publications stand out by informing us about how infant sleep changes alongside a host of other factors (eg, mental health) as children age.
These gals have been WINK members pretty much since its inception - so were stoked with their contributions and expertise. As such, I asked them two questions (well, I think it was three):
What are the services you offer - and how can people get in touch with you?
At Infant Sleep Australia we work with babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers (0-5 years), helping them to fall asleep more easily, wake less often overnight, and feel more refreshed during the day. We tailor our approach to the needs of the parent and child, which sometimes means breaking down an evidence based approach in to manageable steps that parents feel comfortable with. We also offer comprehensive support options – in the home, in our clinic, and via telehealth right across Australia. Get in touch via our website: www.infantsleep.com.au
What was the biggest thing that you get from the WINK Membership?
Community. It’s great to know that when we get a complex case we can talk it through with other sleep practitioners. The training opportunities are fantastic too.