The story of Beddit — or how to take a piece of consumer technology from Tapiola to Cupertino
Summary: We congratulate Beddit, our close partner and a client we have worked with since 2014 for being acquired by Apple. This is our point of view on how and what happened.
→ Our press release in Finnish
For press inquiries, we are happy to share our side of the story. See the end of the article for details.
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Beddit 3 is a sleep tracker you don’t have to wear, and the only Finnish product in global Apple Store distribution. The sensor was released to rave reviews in October 2016 and has since sold out several times. Beddit was also awarded as the most innovative digital service in Finland at Grand One 2017.
“It’s still the same product. But well executed design around it helps consumers to navigate and buy into the story”
As a company, Beddit is on a mission to Solve Sleep. They’re by no means newcomers to the scene. Based in Helsinki, Finland and since 2015 also in Santa Clara, CA the company was founded in 2006 by Aalto University and University of Helsinki PhD students Lasse Leppäkorpi, Joonas Paalasmaa, Kim Dikert and Mikko Waris.
In May 2017, their company became the first Finnish and as far as we know the second ever consumer product company acquired by Apple (The first being Beats Electronics nearly exactly three years ago in 2014)
How did it happen?
With Beddit 3, the Beddit team and Nordkapp set out to design and deliver a true world class benchmark from the complete digital and physical product experience to tiniest details in the execution. But this was just the crescendo for the journey team Beddit were on.
It actually took a few years for Beddit to mature as a startup and a company. In 2013, they raised over $500,000 with pre-orders on crowdfunding platform IndieGoGo.
Beddit uses ballistocardiography through an ultra-thin sensor that you place under your sheet, plug it in and forget about it. There is nothing to wear or charge. Every night, the sensor automatically measures your sleep, heart rate, breathing, snoring and bedroom environment, giving you a full picture of the night.
The science behind Beddit’s sleep tracking and scoring system was developed in partnership with Helsinki Sleep Clinic, VitalMed Research Center and professor Markku Partinen, MD, a leading authority on sleep research. Beddit’s data accuracy and patented sleep tracking methodology have been clinically validated and published in peer-reviewed scientific articles.
We at Nordkapp started working with Beddit in 2014, first with helping them to research concept ideas around sleep. The first major thing we did together was to facilitate the launch of the Apple Watch app in fall 2015. The rest is, as they say, history.
→ Read everything about our journey with Beddit in our case study
Design as the driving factor for success
For us, the partnership with Beddit has been an amazing learning experience on how the dynamic between modern consultancy and a client works. After a short while, we literally became Beddit’s design department and worked in tandem to push each other further and better. Through a shared vision, ambition and level of expectations we refined together every single customer touchpoint.
By moving the product and it’s purpose into the heart of the brand and experience strategy, we redesigned the app from the smallest screen up, packaged the whole experience into the launch. While we worked in effective sprints a few weeks at a time, the Beddit’s team continued to care and grow of the core of the product — technology, manufacturing and customer relationship on the day to day level.
For us, this relationship based on trust formed into a unique way of working: just a few weeks of design sprints gave Beddit things to implement for months. This nimble approach combined our knowledge and point of view on great design with Beddit’s technology, lean development and prowess with tracking sleep in an unique way into something far greater than the sum of its parts.
What really sped up the collaboration was the invention and synthesis of Beddit’s purpose as a product centric company. Together, we discovered a new vision for the company. We discovered that sleep is ambient, and an enabler for all of our activities.
Solving Sleep.
It sounds simple, but directs the future of Beddit and its users. Solving Sleep, because sleep is the bedrock of life.
What are the key takeaways here?
Here are four things you can do to build better products:
1 — Start with the purpose and everything else follows
At Nordkapp we’ve been working with the amalgamation of Simon Sinek’s “Start with why” and Guy Kawasaki’s idea of a mantra for quite some time. The purpose — a reason to believe both internally and externally — defines everything a company is and does. With Beddit, everything started with the product purpose. When building consumer products, a shared and mutually owned purpose is everything.
2—Have the stamina to become an overnight success
Behind every overnight success there are years and years of hard work and dedication. As an idea, Beddit has been around for years. The company has combined decades of hard work and deep insight in sportsmanship, software, hardware and sleep science. If your CTO writes his PhD on the core science of your product you know you have your ground well covered, not to mention the founder CEO moving to a new continent because of the company. Building successful products is not a sprint but a marathon.
3—Own the customer experience you must
Successful products are all about empathy—building an ongoing and direct relationship with your customers. Beddit uses all modern tools available to interact directly with their customers on all channels, including a closed Facebook community. Having your team interact with customers directly gives you a competitive advantage unavailable in any other way. In the end, design is a powerful enabler but maintaining a great day to day customer experience is the job of everyone on the team.
4— In today’s market, design is a necessity
Beddit 3 quickly outsold all previous models, because good design helped Beddit to communicate the value and technology behind the product. Like our client said, “It’s still the same product. But well executed design around it helps consumers to navigate and buy into the story.” To put it bluntly — in today’s market, design is the factor your product lives or dies by.
We couldn’t be more proud of Beddit joining Apple to shape the future of consumer products on a global scale. Genuine success stories like this are an inspiration to the whole industry. Meanwhile, if you have a product you’d like to take to global scale, give us a shout. Contact details are below, and on our website.
→ Read everything about our journey with Beddit in our case study
→ Building Beddit -presentation at Upgraded Life talks
For press inquiries, we are happy to share our side of the story. Please reach out to us on following channels:
→ email: sami@nordkapp.fi
→ Phone: +358 50 528 9265
