Eight Sleep – the world’s first sleep fitness company
Alexandra Zatarain is the Co-Founder and VP of Brand and Marketing at Eight Sleep, the world’s first sleep fitness company. A marketer and brand-builder, Alexandra has built the Eight Sleep brand and scaled the company’s revenue from $0 to nine figures annually. She has done this by redefining a once dormant category, changing the narrative around sleep through the creation of the sleep fitness movement.
In 2017, Alexandra was named by Forbes to the 30 Under 30 list in Consumer Technology, and in 2020 she was named by Inc as one of the top 100 Female Founders. Alexandra is also an angel investor in female-founded companies as a scout for Cleo Capital. She was raised in Tijuana, Mexico, and now lives in Miami.
Comments from Alex
“Whilst there’s been a lot of innovation around how people exercise or eat, very little has been done around sleep. When we started the company there was not much out there to support the sleep of athletes and the general population, so we spent years researching and piloting the best of what technology can offer. The result is the Pod, which works with any bed and creates a truly extraordinary sleep experience.”
“At Eight Sleep we’re on a mission to fuel human potential through optimal sleep, and we’re excited that the Pod has become a competitive advantage for so many high performers in sport, business and life. Today over 300 elite athletes are using the Pod to up their recovery game and unlock new levels of performance.”
Who Uses Eight Sleep?
From tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to professional athletes such as Lewis Hamilton and Aaron Judge, to health experts like Matthew Walker and Andrew Huberman, to everyday high performers. The Pod is for anyone seeking to improve their quality of sleep and recovery, and nowadays almost everyone can benefit from that.
How Does the Pod 3 Deliver Superior Sleep?
By personalising the temperature of your bed according to your precise needs. We know temperature is the #1 determinant in sleep quality. The Pod can be added to any bed to create the ultimate sleep experience with heating & cooling and smart temperature adjustments for you and your partner.
The Pod is powered by the intelligence of Autopilot. As your body temperature changes overnight, Autopilot heats and cools your Pod to match your body’s natural rhythm, keeping you in deep sleep for longer. Autopilot takes into account your personal preferences, environmental temperature, and sleep and health metrics to automatically adjust your temperature dynamically each night, resulting in better sleep.
The Pod detects when each person falls asleep, automatically adjusts temperature through the night, and turns on and off based on your individual schedules. The Pod measures your heart rate whilst you sleep with 99% accuracy. No wearable is required.
With the perfect temperature, resulting in better sleep, you have more energy to do what you love. Your sleep quality improves, increasing your daily energy, enhancing your mood and unlocking clearer focus.
How Does the Pod 3 Track Sleep and Biometrics?
We strive to provide our members with not only an optimal sleep experience but also highly accurate biometric data during sleep. Our sensing technology, embedded in the Pod’s Active Grid Cover, is designed to monitor a variety of biometrics without any wearable and for up to two people on the same bed.
For that, we use over 3,000 invisible sensors on the cover. This design presents a set of technical challenges, but it is also a better experience for our members who don’t have to wear a device to bed to monitor their sleep and health.
We’re particularly proud of the Pod’s heart rate and heart rate variability algorithms, which were validated against gold-standard electrocardiograms and achieved up to 99% accuracy.
How Improved Sleep Enhances Physical Fitness and Performance
Eight Sleep’s research shows that people experience significant improvements in sleep and cardiovascular health after using the Pod. Through better sleep quality, users saw increased HRV and reduced heart rate during sleep. HRV improved by 6% on average, with gains persisting after one month. Those with below-average HRV experienced the largest increases (up to 19%).
Sleeping heart rate (HR) is linked to longevity; lower resting HR indicates better health. On average, subjects’ sleeping HR decreased by ~1 bpm after using the Pod—a 1.6% reduction in mortality risk. Those with higher baseline HR (>70 bpm) saw 2 bpm decreases, equivalent to a 3.2% risk reduction.
Research confirms a strong link between sleep quality and physical activity. Pod users exercised harder, completing 8% more moderate-intensity and 65% more high-intensity exercise. Those least active beforehand showed the biggest gains, creating a virtuous cycle of better sleep and fitness.
About Eight Sleep
Eight Sleep, founded in 2014 in San Francisco by Matteo Franceschetti, Massimo Andreasi Bassi, Andrea Ballarini, and Alexandra Zatarain, is the world’s first sleep fitness company. At the core of their innovation is the hero product, the Pod – a perfect blend of luxury and technology designed to give you the best sleep you’ve ever had by leveraging innovation, technology and personal biometrics to solve sleep’s biggest problems. The Pod is the perfect upgrade that can be added to any mattress. The Pod optimises your sleep through automatic temperature adjustments based on your sleep stages and other factors.
