🧠 Inside the mind of Calm’s Michael Acton Smith
Founders Factory Startup Bulletin #31
Welcome to the Founders Factory Startup Bulletin—“Created for founders, by founders”.
We bring you a round-up of startup and investment stories, key learnings from founders, and insights from the Founders Factory team.
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The book Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg outlines a very simple process to enacting change in your life. Implement small changes into your routine, nurture their growth, and see the impact it has.
Michael Acton Smith has done this in the conversation around mental health. Once a taboo topic, by creating a platform to allow anyone to implement tiny meditation and mindfulness habits into their routine, they’ve assumed a pivotal role in driving the conversation around mental health. And in the process, he’s built a multi-billion dollar business with hundreds of millions of users.
In today’s Startup Bulletin, Michael has shared some of the most valuable lessons he’s learned along the way, including insights on hype, hiring, and addressing wants vs needs.
Also in today’s Startup Bulletin:
Our Tweet/X of the Month
Our top podcasts to listen to
Opportunities in our ecosystem
💡 Calm founder Michael Acton Smith on…
In July, we hosted Calm co-founder and serial entrepreneur Michael Acton Smith for a fireside chat, where he shared his advice and learnings from three decades of entrepreneurship.
Placing bets
There’s a lot of risk taking involved in starting a business. You never really know what is going to come off. One way of countering this is by starting lots of small experiments—like small bets—across different areas of the business to increase your chances of something coming off.
You shouldn’t just leave these to chance. Monitor them closely, analyse what is working and what isn’t, and double down on the things that are working. You need to have a fast metabolism in startup life.
Wants vs needs
Building something people want versus something they need—it’s like the difference between vitamins and painkillers. Everyone knows vitamins are good for you, you know they’ll benefit you, but you’re not necessarily willing to pay for them consistently. Painkillers, on the other hand, answer an immediate and pressing problem, and they will keep you coming back time and time again.
Tech is just like this too. Figure out what is just a vitamin, and what is your painkiller that can build and sustain your demand.
The secret to hiring
Hiring is one of the most important things you have to do as a founder. Back when we started Calm in Silicon Valley, the landscape was incredibly competitive in tech. How could we compete with the likes of Google, Facebook, and the mammoth salaries they could offer?
The answer was in storytelling. We had to not just sell ourselves as founders you’d want to work for, but we had to paint a compelling vision about where we saw Calm going. There are numerous benefits to go work at a startup over a large tech company, so it falls to you to identify what these are in your specific circumstance.
Hype
It’s always nice to feel “hyped”—to receive praise, positive feedback, good press coverage, even some awards. At Moshi Monsters (my previous business), a combination of all these things made our success feel inevitable.
The danger with hype is it means you can lose track of the flaws or weaknesses in your business. While everyone loved Moshi Monsters, we struggled to manage the transition from web to mobile, as well as failing to establish more IP.
So enjoy positive press and general excitement—but make sure you also follow your gut instinct, listen to your advisors, and keep watchful of macro trends that are going on outside of your business.
🐦 Tweet/X of the Month
We enjoyed this announcement from Lower Carbon Capital…
🎧 Best podcasts to subscribe to
Nothing Ventured—candid interviews with experienced tech operators (founders, investors, etc), with a real emphasis on less well-known stories and real world challenges
11:FS Fintech Insider—an essential roundup of fintech news featuring some of the sector’s brightest minds
Land of the Giants—each series dives into the story behind the world’s biggest tech companies, from Tesla to Google to Facebook
Crazy Until It’s Not—this podcast from firstminute capital gets founders and investors to stake their wildest predictions about the next five to ten years
Masters of Scale—Reid Hoffman asks founders and CEOs to share the secrets behind their startup’s success, as well as their failures, setbacks, and learnings
Opportunities
📆 Events
Planet Positive Lab Demo Day (September 21st, London)—our 10-week climate tech programme wraps up this Thursday as our cohort pitches to a room full of investors. Interested in joining? Join the waitlist here
💼 Jobs
Technical Co-Founder, Project Ogma (AI speech therapy platform)—hiring a technical individual to lead build of our latest Mission Studio business
See you next month 👋
Interested in reading more of the same insights? Check out the Founders Factory blog, and previous newsletters.
I use Calm, and I often think about the process that must have gone into creating it. It's such a smart idea, that managed to win in a sea of meditation apps. Love learning more about it. I liked the emphasis on hiring - so many founders don't understand that in your early team, every player can make or break you.