Rhythm: The Sunlight Generator

Josh: Welcome to The Pitch, where startup founders raise millions and listeners can invest. I’m Josh Muccio.

Lisa: And I’m Lisa Muccio. And on the show today we have Harrison with Rhythm. He’s raising 1 million dollars.

Josh: We've never had a pitch light up the pitch room-

Lisa: Oh my gosh

Josh: ... like Rhythm. Harrison brought a sunlight generator into The Pitch Room, not one of those depressing seasonal depression lights you order online that makes you even more sad, this sunlight generator will light up your entire room, and your mood.

Lisa: Yeah, Harrison even brought these like, super cool 90s shades for the VCs to wear in the pitch room and it was like the highlight of the event for me, seeing all the VCs wearing their shades while asking Harrison questions.

Josh: It was a vibe for sure. Now, Lisa, you were, uh, hesitant to bring this one on the show.

Lisa: It's really hard for me as a person who lives in Florida to understand the need for this product. However, last fall, we did have like a week or two weeks where it was like consistently cloudy, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is the worst."

Josh: This is, this is the most Florida thing you've ever said, Lisa.

Lisa: that was my brief glimpse into like what it's like to like not see the sun.

Josh: Well, as someone who grew up in northern Indiana and didn't see the sun for about three months

Lisa: Yeah

Josh: out of the year, yeah, it's brutal. Sorry northern Indiana, that's one of the main reasons I left.

Lisa: I mean, I understood the need, but do people really have the money to spend on a light this expensive?

Josh: Can you put a price on happiness, Lisa?

Lisa: No, you cannot, Josh.

The Pitch for Rhythm is coming up after this.

But first! We’re hosting two events this November. A live show in NY, and also, our Big Pitch Event to record season 17 in San Francisco. To join us at either of those events, go to pitch.show/events

BREAK

Welcome back to the pitch for Rhythm. Let’s meet the investors.

Charles Hudson with Precursor Ventures

We have 500 companies, so, you pick it, we have it

Ellie Bahrmasel with Peranaut

Entrepreneurship is the dance between hubris and humility

Elizabeth Galbut with SoGal Ventures

Not all exits are created the same

And Jeff Cantalupo with Listen Ventures

Do you want this to be a premium brand?

Elizabeth: Let's go, Rhythm. [clap]

Charles: Rhythm is a dancer. Let’s go.

Harrison: Hello.

Jeff: Hello.

Harrison: Hi, I'm Harrison.

Jeff: Jeff. Good to meet you, Harrison.

Harrison: Nice to meet you, Jeff.

Charles: Hi, I'm Charles. Nice to meet you.

Harrison: Nice to meet you, Charles.

Elizabeth: Elizabeth.

Harrison: Elizabeth, nice to meet you, Elizabeth.

Ellie: Hi, Ellie

Harrison: Ellie. Nice to meet you, Ellie

Ellie: Nice to meet you.

Harrison: So my name's Harrison Lin, founder of Rhythm. We're the best way for you to fix your circadian rhythm. Today I'm gonna tell you that you're probably not getting enough light, and it's affecting everything from your mood to your stress levels, and even your sleep. I know this because I experienced this myself. It’s a few years ago. I'm working a remote job, spending a lot of time indoors. I'm feeling exhausted during the day, can't get good sleep at night. I'm falling asleep during my Zoom calls. Something was really off. Turns out I had seasonal affective disorder. I went and got a light meter, measured the light in my bedroom, with the lights on, and it was 1,000 times dimmer than outdoor in the sunlight. I desperately wanted to spend more time outdoors, but I was just stuck at my desk all day, and so there's no way for me to really feel better.

So I'm a mechanical engineer and product designer. so I went to the workshop, went to my garage, and started building a machine that could help me get biologically meaningful amounts of light during the day. This later became Rhythm. We build hardware that generates the light you need to feel good backed by science, and software that tracks your light intake throughout the day and gives you personalized recommendations. We're here to serve the roughly 250 million people around the world who suffer from seasonal affective disorder, just like I did, as well as anyone who wants to feel better and improve their circadian rhythm. To date, we've launched our first hardware product.

Charles: Nice.

Harrison: Made $100,000 in sales in the past six months. One of our first customers is this guy named Bryan Johnson. The man on the mission to live forever. He has two units. He uses it every day in his official protocol to get his morning dose of light when he wakes up at 5:00 AM. He loves our product, and wants to introduce our product to his millions of followers. I think there's a lot of suffering that we as a company can help with in the world that is completely unnecessary. And in the future, I see Rhythm in every indoor space where people are obligated to spend a lot of time in. Every office space, every bedroom, every hospital room, and even every classroom. We're raising $1 million pre-seed on our mission to help people get the light they need to feel happy, healthy, and well. I've also got the product here if y'all want to…

Charles: Oh, cool

Ellie: ooohhh

Harrison: demo it.

Charles: Sure.

Harrison: Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah.

Harrison: I put sunglasses in front of your seats in case it gets uncomfortable. But I'm gonna turn it on.

Charles: Okay.

Harrison: and what's on my hand right now, it might be a little glary, is 100,000 lux, which is the exact same light density as direct sunlight. In your home office, this feels as if you've just opened the blinds and there's a ray of sunshine coming in and illuminating your entire room. The science shows that what's coming off of this wall is biologically significant amounts of light. We've designed this product to make sure that you get above the threshold for your body to stop producing melatonin for you to feel more awake during the day, and for you to get the light you need.

[laughter]

Don’t worry, no one’s laughing at Harrison, the audience is laughing at a row of VCs all wearing 90s shades.

Elizabeth: It definitely feels like the sun's shining a little bit. I am known as a vampire. I like very dark rooms, so it's uncomfortable to me. But I don't think I'm your target demo.

Charles: I use Time Shifter for a lot of my international travel, and a big part of it is light exposure.

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Charles: And I've noticed that when I travel, the circadian reset stuff does make a big difference in my ability to land in my new location and feel like a human being. I like light. For those in the audience, it's quite bright. It is almost as if there, uh, you did raise the shades in here, but with no filter, no blinds, no slats, just, like, full-on sunlight in your face. I like it. I don't need the sunglasses. I like it.

Ellie: I was born with broken circadian rhythms, and we've spent the past few decades trying to fix it to no avail. And I am a lizard. Stick me in dry heat and the sun. So I feel very, very connected to this value prop. when you turned on the light, it was like stepping out of a basement into the brightest sunlight, and it was- It's like, oh wait, I need to do a … also I wouldn’t wear these sunnies

Elizabeth: I don’t know if it’s a totally fair analysis because we have all the studio lights

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ellie: Yeah, that's true.

Charles: Can I ask a naive question?

Harrison: Yeah.

Charles: how does this compare to the impact you'd get from just a normal seasonal affective disorder, like a tabletop seasonal affective disorder light that… When I went to London to visit a bunch of my friends, they all had them, and I mocked them for about 10 minutes and then I realized you actually do need them in the winter.

Harrison: Yeah. ta-da.

Charles: Yeah.

Harrison: So I brought one. Uh, this is the first thing I tried when I was looking for solutions. I'll turn it on for you. This is the effect

Charles: Okay. So for those who are listening, this is about a large Kindle-sized device that puts out incredibly harsh, white light that doesn't have any of the softness of

Jeff: Yeah

Charles: the Rhythm device.

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Ellie: That's like dentist waiting room light.

Jeff: I'm curious just on the science of the actual device is it actually about how bright the light is to mimic the sun, or is it actually about, wavelengths of the light as it goes into your skin as it relates to your circadian rhythm?

Harrison: It's both. To replicate sunlight you need the intensity. Sunlight is about 100,000 lux, which is lumens per square meter. And then the second is the spectrum. So there's something called color rendering index in the LED space, which is, compares the spectrum of your light to the spectrum of true sunlight. So if you get those two things right, you will perfectly reproduce the feeling of sunlight.

Elizabeth: What about the actual, like, biological effects of sunlight? I was recently hospitalized for about four weeks while I was pregnant, and I wasn't allowed outside. The window looked to, like, a very dark area. And my biggest concern was, like, vitamin D is very, very important for health, and obviously when you're pregnant, and I'm like, "I'm not getting any." How do you think about, like, the types of light you're putting out of, like, helping with your circadian rhythm versus, like, also helping on a biological standpoint?

Harrison: Yeah. that's something I've spent a lot of time looking through papers trying to learn about. turns out light affects so many hormones in our body. The obvious one

Elizabeth: Yeah

Harrison: is melatonin. So if you don't get

Elizabeth: Right

Harrison: enough light, your body just doesn't think it's daytime, starts producing melatonin at the wrong time. If you don't get enough light, you'll over-produce melatonin during the day and under-produce it at night. Light also influences, uh, hormones like cortisol, which manage stress. if listeners take one thing away from this podcast, it's, get outside first thing in the morning. First 15 minutes of your day should be outside or in intense light so that you can spike your cortisol levels and start your day right.

Elizabeth: And does this light replace that? Like, if you can't actually get outside, does it actually kind of have that same cortisol-inducing effect?

Harrison: It does. Yeah. I use mine every day in the morning. I don't use an alarm clock anymore. This thing turns on, it shines through my eyelids, and I- and I just feel amazing.

Elizabeth: And before I even knew what your company was, when I met you outside, I thought, "Wow, he's so joyful."

Harrison: Thank you. Yeah.

Elizabeth: Nobody can see if you're just listening on the podcast how big a smile and how much energy you're bringing to this, but it's quite unique and nice.

Harrison: Thank you.

Charles: How much does the device cost?

Harrison: It is expensive right now. We make them in low volumes.

Charles: Okay.

Harrison: We're trying to cost down which is part of our raise. Right now we're selling for 2,400 MSRP. Our underlying cost is 1,400. Hand-built in our San Francisco workshop. I just got back from Shenzhen, where we visited contract manufacturers, got some quotes, and they can produce it at half the cost. when we invest in tooling, when we invest in volume, we can slash that cost in half again for a mass market product.

Elizabeth: And so s- at your current price point, that means to get $100,000 revenue, you've probably sold 26, 27 of them, right? How did you find those people, or how did they find you?

Harrison: it's all organic, uh, word of mouth. I posted about my product on LinkedIn, it went viral. I had about 50,000 impressions and, close to 1,000 likes. and just purely from that one post, We have about actually 40 customers right now.

Jeff: Is there any relationship with the customer post-purchase? How do you think about building the brand and the loyalty with the consumer. If it's upfront, large transaction, eventually high margin when you get the cost down. Where does this company go as it relates to building a long-term relationship with the customer?

Harrison: I love people. I love talking to people. Right now, I have super high touch with every customer. If they're within driving distance, I'll drop the unit off at their house, shake their hand, help them set it up. Of course, that's not scalable. But in the long run, the way I think about this company is we're building Eight Sleep for daytime. So you have the hardware that is actually able to make a true difference in your life. And the software that gives you the information and the insights to allow you to take action. And so I see our continued relationship with customers on the software side.

Eight sleep for daytime. Ah! Sometimes all it takes is a little comparison to a billion dollar company for the VC lightbulb to turn on. We’ll be right back.

Ellie: I'm really curious, Harrison. You also painted a picture for us of the commercial use cases here, and your personal story-

Elizabeth: You're always stealing exactly what's on my mind.

Ellie: That's because we're a hive mind. Um, but you told us about these beautiful use cases. And Elizabeth, in your own story, it's like, God, if that hospital would've had one of these in her room, what would that have done? So as you're thinking about how you're prioritizing go-to-market right now, how are you triaging between going direct to consumer and focusing on a B2B sales motion?

Harrison: That's a great question. Uh, you bring up hospitals. I just wanna put in a quick point. in my early testing, I actually got one of our units into Stanford Hospital for the residents, medical residents to-

Charles: Oh.

Ellie: Yeah

Harrison: who are flipping their circadian rhythms. They're staying up 8pm to 8am. and I got a ton of great feedback. There's so many places where this product could be of a huge benefit. I want to get this in the hands of the people who are most excited about it, as well as the people who experience the greatest pain. those two categories are optimizers, biohackers like Bryan Johnson, Andrew Huberman

Charles: Yeah

Harrison: and their audiences. And then the second is people who suffer from seasonal affective disorder just like I did. These people are looking everywhere and anywhere for a solution. The best thing that's on the market is the thing I showed you. Has bad user experience. Most people use it for a few weeks and get sick of it, 'cause you actually have to be in front of that light panel for an hour every morning. The instruction manual says, "Have it placed one foot from your face."

Ellie: Ugh.

Jeff: So let's take those two audiences, 'cause I like that breakdown. Obviously biohackers are the start of a lot of companies' strategy. Um, how that extends out to the mass audience is always a question for me, In terms of the other side of that coin, which are people that actually have these disorders. If I have that, I start using your product, what's the feelability? What's the immediate thing I notice? Am I sleeping better at night? Am I, more awake during the day? How feelable is it? And how much am I associating that with Rhythm the brand?

Harrison: if you've ever walked outside after being indoors all day, you'll feel actually a rush of adrenaline. You'll feel this, elation after getting a lot of light input after not getting any at all. and so the initial experience of first contact with a customer when they turn this on to full is this feeling of excitement. And you feel that it's making a change in your life. Some quantitative data, I've sent out, like, an MPS score, and we've scored 94 across the whole survey. The second thing is in my surveys, I'll ask, "Anything else you wanna share?" And the thing I was really happy to see was my customer in London, he's big optimizer tech founder, and he said, "This is my… one of my top favorite devices right next to my Eight Sleep." So he spent 3 to $5,000 on a smart mattress, spent $2,000 on my device, and he perceives the value-add to his life to be on the same level.

Ellie: I wanna push on something here. I love that you've got two distinct ICPs that you say that you're going after, but I'm gonna tell you where I'm feeling a little challenged. When you talk about biohackers, yes, to your point, Jeff, like, lots of great ambitions have started with that community. But then the second audience that you talk about is a much broader pool of people, the people who experience seasonal affective disorder. And the number of people who experience that disorder versus the ones who can actually afford to integrate this unit right now, I imagine is a very small slice of the pie. And so when I think about how do you access people who are experiencing it, I'm curious why maybe you're not looking at the B2B motion, right? Like, how do you get Gensler, every time they're building an office, to have this on every floor of every office? Because that, to me, is a more scalable approach if you're worried about that second consumer.

Harrison: That's something I'm really excited about. This project started with me being dissatisfied with my work environment, and actually half of our customers buy it for an office space of some sort. A lot of people complain about being stuck in offices with no windows, being stuck in the middle of a floor, even if there's a lot of windows. people just like light, and they like being around light. And the reception's been p- positive. they like it. They keep it. They use it every day.

Ellie: I'll just share transparently where I'm at right now, Harrison. I love you, I love this light, and I love the mission. Where I can't get to a yes today is that I don't hear enough clarity on your next GTM motions. I think that there's so much more for you to dig into here, both in terms of your understanding of the competitive and market forces in a data-driven way, but then also telling us a little bit more about hypotheses. If you're gonna A/B test a D2C motion versus a B2B motion, like, I think that's where I would encourage you to spend some more time here. And I think you're at a very exciting stage of the journey, and I wanna keep following along and, hearing about the progress, but if I have to get to a clear yes or no today, it has to be a not right now.

Harrison: Thank you.

Ellie: Thank you.

Charles: Could I just ask one other question. I feel like we went through a revolution with water, and people are like, "Oh, your water isn't so great." I feel like we're in the middle of a revolution on air-

Elizabeth: Air. Mm-hmm ...

Charles: with air purification. Where do you think we are with awareness about light?

Elizabeth: Hmm, that's such a good way of looking at it.

Charles: I had a lot of time to think about it, yeah

Harrison: I think about the poem, This Is Water. Not the poem, the David Foster Wallace speech, This is Water

Charles: Yeah yeah yeah.

Harrison: and to me, light is water.

Charles: Mm-hmm.

Harrison: It's all around us. It envelopes us. It defines our reality, and it affects how we feel.

Charles: Yeah.

Harrison: But since we live in it, we don't really notice how. And so I think there is gonna be a huge wave of people that come to this realization. I've been sitting at my desk in the dark all day. I feel terrible, right? Some of my favorite podcasters, influencers all talk about this. Huberman, Bryan Johnson. A lot of doctors are starting to talk about it too. so I truly feel like the next five years everyone will start paying attention to this and seeking solutions to help.

Jeff: I have a question m- more about brand and positioning. Do you want this to be a premium brand? Or do you want to do everything you can to get this down to a mass product that can compete with the 20,000 that are sold on Amazon every day?

Harrison: I want this to be a premium brand. how I think about it is with Tesla, they started with the Roadster, found their niche adopters who loved it, and then went mass market based off of their existing technology. And so I wanna do something similar. I'd say this is the flagship product. It, almost produces too much light and so I want to win over those people who are just completely passionate about this problem before moving on to broader market with the same technology.

Charles: what's the... I feel like with air quality, I noticed an almost immediate impact when I put a high-quality air purifier in my home- Like, it was like, oh, wow- all the sniffling, all the all that [sniff sniff] all that was all gone almost immediately. What, what have most of your consumers reported as, like, the, the lag effect of, like, when they start doing this to when they start to feel the impacts?

Harrison: It's almost immediate. I'm tempted to just turn this on again. Is it okay, can I turn it on again?

Charles: I don't mind.

Harrison: Yeah.

Ellie: Let's go.

Elizabeth: Oh it's not on?

Harrison: It's on low.

Charles: It's on low. It's on low. You really do like, you really are like a dark-

Elizabeth: I'm like, "Please, no."

Harrison: So again, you'll see. You'll even notice, like

Charles: You can feel

Harrison: My face looks better

Charles: yeah, yeah.

Harrison: Your food looks better. your keyboard looks better. light kind of defines everything around us, and I want the best possible experience for every human.

Charles: I am in for 25K. I have a bunch of questions, but I think the Eight Sleep for the daytime- I think, like, Eight Sleep has never gotten cheaper. It aspires to be a premium brand and it, it's something that I've... I was initially very skeptical of. But it is one of these products that I've, I've never personally met an unhappy Eight Sleep owner. And I think, um, Part of the reason I went back to working in a real office was to actually force myself to get outside during the day, in transit, and to also use the downtime when I'm in the office to actually go outside, and it has had a, like, significant and material impact on my mood and productivity.

Ellie: Hm

Charles: So I have, like, a million questions about the business model. But I'm in for 25K, and I, I have a bunch of questions that I'm sure we'll check out when we can hang out back in San Francisco and figure it out.

Harrison: Perfect. Thank you.

Jeff: I have one more question Is there a replenishable aspect to the business model? Like, do I need to replace the bulbs? or is this thing, you buy it once, it's high price, you got it for a long time, try to engage them with the app usage or some sort of a mechanism around that?

Harrison: The bulbs last a long time, not forever. In future versions I want a hot-swappable bulb. So there's that potential recurring cost. the main recurring cost is, repeat sales, as well as a paid premium tier on the app. The free tier will give you the data, and then the paid tier will give you the insights.

Jeff: What kind of insights am I getting?

Harrison: estimated melatonin production throughout the day, estimated cortisol levels throughout the day. One fun fact is I hopped on a call with Bryan Johnson, and the first thing he showed me was, "Here's my saliva cortisol levels." You know? He's like, "Your product really works. I've tried everything." And, hopefully we'll be able to provide insights on- basically the interior state of your body hormonally based off of what light intake you've had throughout the day.

Jeff: / /Is this round, you said you're raising a million? What, is there a price on it? Do you have a lead or whatever?

Harrison: So right now raising $1 million pre-seed, eight mil cap . We have 300K in commitments at the moment from early angels.

Jeff: 325.

Harrison: 325. Yes. And, hoping to close the round soon.

Jeff: Okay I'm super interested. I'd like to spend more time with you. I'm in for at least 25, we have a thesis on, health and wellness in your environment and in the home. We're investors in a shower head company called Jolie.

Charles: Oh, yeah.

Elizabeth: I have about 20 of those.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, and what, what they did, and this is where my questions were for you around positioning, which is they created a hardware product, but they sold it as a beauty company. And they said, "Step one in your beauty routine is water."

Elizabeth: Mm.

Jeff: You spend all this money on these beauty products, but if your water is bad, it's really impacting your hair and your beauty quality and-

Elizabeth: Skin, too.

Jeff: Yeah. and why I asked about the replenishment model is it's got SaaS economics, but it's a consumer hardware company, and it's because every quarter you have to rechange the filter. And so I'm quite interested in this. I think light is huge. I agree with your, hey, water, air nexus, is light and circadian rhythm. So I'm super curious to dive deeper.

Harrison: Thank you. Excited to chat.

Elizabeth: I'm gonna let it go on a good note.

Charles: Alright.

Harrison: Perfect.

Ellie: I think I meet two types of founders, founders who are very in and of this moment. Here's what the zeitgeist is today, and then founders who can see 20 years out into the future and who are planting the seeds today to paddle out and ride that wave, and I think you fall into the camp of the latter. And that requires a certain type of openness to the world and the human condition that I think is incredibly special, and I just want you to know that I see that, and I value it so deeply, even though I couldn't get to a yes in this moment today, and I'm really looking forward to seeing all the ways that our two friends here and you change the world together.

Harrison: Thank you. That's very touching. Thank you very much. Really appreciate your time. Good job.

Ellie: Thank you.

Jeff: Look forward to chatting more.

Josh: Go ahead, leave that on. You can just leave that on.

Harrison: Leave it on? Okay

Elizabeth: If I ever need a speechwriter, I'm hiring you.

Harrison: Thank you.

Ellie: The FOMO is so acute right now. I said no, and then I was like, did I mean that, now?

Elizabeth: You can still get in.

Ellie: Yeah. I know, I know. I should sleep on this

Charles: Asher!

Ellie: Oh!

Josh: Asher has questions for you guys. I don't know what his questions are.

Ellie: Do you need some sunglasses while you ask them?

Asher: No, I like this light.

Ellie: Okay.

Asher: I know exactly why you invested in this. And I wanna know what is the, like, best thing that you like about this company?

Jeff: For me, there's an efficacious aspect to the science around having light. We're spending 90% of our time these days indoors which is horrible for our health. And so I'm a big believer that optimizing your environment is gonna be a huge area for health and wellness in the future. And so while hardware's hard this is the first device I've seen from a circadian rhythm perspective that seems like it actually replicates sunlight. So I think the science is there. The product, the initial product's interesting. I'm really curious to learn how this becomes different form factors and, and different price points as he builds, but I think the vision is exciting.

Charles: I just feel like sometimes you have to... Like, I remember when I first heard about Eight Sleep, I was like, " what a wacky idea."

Jeff: Yeah.

Charles: But the people I know who really used it early were really passionate. A lot of them were biohackers, but a lot of them were also people who just had sleep problems. And I was like, well, I don't think there will be 10 companies doing this. There'll be maybe more than one, but this just feels like one of these ideas where most people are like, Well, it's, like, not obviously… All of the holes you could poke in it, it's really expensive, and does it work? If it turns out that he's mostly right, he has a chance to build, like, the category-defining company, and I think light is the next frontier of indoor environmental optimization.

Elizabeth: I once heard, though, this really good investor, Charles Hudson, say hardware takes $8 to $10 million dollars.

Charles: Yeah. No, it does. It does.

Elizabeth: To build.

Charles: and I think the-

Elizabeth: He's only raising one. How is this different?

Charles: Yeah. You know what I think is different is, I think he will be able to rally people to get the 8 to 10 in an easier path than the other company we saw. It is much more straightforward to me about how we will... it has fewer dependencies than other technol- it has, it has a bunch of other attributes that are different. I was thinking about that when I said yes. I'm like, "I know someone's gonna ask me, wait a minute, you said… you didn't say yes to the..." But this one to me has a much clearer path to, market evidence, and, like, its own lane and its own journey. I have no concerns about TAM. There's just a bunch of attributes about it that are different.

Elizabeth: And I think this is a good reminder to the listeners

Asher: Okay

Elizabeth: that often VCs, our intellectual consistency

Charles: Oh

Elizabeth: is nonexistent.

Charles: Nonexistent

Josh: so I don't know if you guys felt it, but I noticed you guys had so much more energy this pitch. Was that just because Harrison is a beam of light?

Charles: The light.

Josh: Do you think it was the light?

Charles: He had the light on.

Ellie: ¿Porqué no los dos?

Charles: Yeah.

Ellie: I mean, like, it was really a confluence of factors here.

Josh: Yeah. I think maybe we should have this in every pitch.

Charles: It's an, but it's also, it's an engaging product to think about. Some other things are, like, I already have, like... I didn't have a perspective on light.

Josh: Yeah.

Charles: So my brain was active, like, thinking it through

Elizabeth: And I think the thesis you came up with

Charles: Yeah.

Elizabeth: first water, then air, now light.

Charles: Yeah.

Elizabeth: Like, at that point I was like, "Hmm, maybe I could get to a yes on this." Like, I think that's an interesting thesis as an investor.

Ellie: Yeah.

Josh: So you let us end on a high note, but the founder's gone. What's the low note, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth: I think a lot about, like, how technology and everything is just taking us further and further away from, like, natural humanness.

Charles: Yeah.

Josh: Right.

Elizabeth: So whether it's like, okay, we're supplementing with vitamins because our food doesn't have the right nutrients in it anymore, or we're filtering our air because we haven't had great regulations in place so that our air isn't polluted, or we're filtering our water because there's pharmaceutical contaminants in our water. And this again felt to me like, okay, now we're going to create more artificial light just because we've created a society where we don't go outside. And I'm like, what actually gets us to go outside? And what actually gets us to, like, want good air all around us? Not just when we can afford, you know, a $1,000 filter

Charles: Yeah

Elizabeth: or a $2,500 light.

Charles: Yeah.

Elizabeth: And so it sounds like a Band-Aid solution to me to a much, much larger, very existential sort of set of problems.

Josh: Yeah.

Elizabeth: And yeah, I think a lot of these are really good businesses because these are such

Josh: Yeah

Elizabeth: problems we're all dealing with because of, like, how the world has evolved.

Charles: You, you made me think about something though. Like, you asked the why this one. I just have had a much more personal experience with light. So I was also primed to like this because of my life experience in a way, maybe with the other products we've seen, I didn't have the same personal experience.

Elizabeth: Yeah. But for me, I'm kind of like the alt- best alternative is free. It's going outside and being in the sun like nature intended

Charles: Yeah, that's right.

Elizabeth: verse a very, very expensive product.

Charles: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: And it's sort of like, I don't know, I think there obviously there is people that are going to buy it, But do we need to just alter how we do business, how we conduct our lives with other people-

Josh: Yeah, but this-

Elizabeth: how we design physical spaces?

Josh: Yeah. But this is just easier. Just flip a switch.

Asher: So much easier

Elizabeth: It is easier.

Josh: I'm not saying it’s better, I’m saying it’s easier

Elizabeth: But I guess for me, I'm like, I don't know if that's the future world I wanna live in

Charles: That's right

Elizabeth: where we design windowless rooms that have artificial light as its main source of making us happy.

Josh: Well, this is great. I kinda wanna keep this light around.

Asher: It's nice.

Charles: For the low, low price.

Josh: Well, and if we have to force you guys to sit in a room all day long, like, you know, the least we could do is provide you with some sunlight.

Charles: For some of us. Not for all of us.

Elizabeth: I’m never coming back. It's too bright.

Asher: They should have it in school.

Harrison walked out of The Pitch Room with commitments from Charles and Jeff and a smile on his face. SUNS OUT FUNDS OUT. But when the VCs go back to their dark offices for diligence, will they still have the same conviction to invest? That’s coming up.

BREAK

Welcome back. A few months after his pitch, we caught up with Mr. Sunshine himself

Josh: Harrison, the light of my life. How was your experience pitching on the show?

Harrison: It was really amazing. To be honest, I was so nervous going in. I really had to get my pitch together.

Josh: Yeah.

Harrison: And never done it live in front of VCs, but it really was a kick in the butt to, uh, get out there and put Rhythm out into the public sphere.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. So here's what I saw in your pitch. You, Harrison, just like exude happiness. You came in the pitch room with the biggest smile, and it never left your face. And I feel like no matter what would've happened in the pitch room, like you were just gonna have a good time. And whether it was the light emanating from you or the light that you turned on in The Pitch Room, all the VCs came to your level and matched your vibe.

Harrison: I'm so happy to hear. I do feel that way. I was kind of there to have a good time. I personally feel like if I'm the best version of myself, then people will get it.

Lisa: Do you feel like your light changes the vibe of meetings when you show it to VCs?

Harrison: 100%. Yeah. And that's why I always opt for an in-person demo, otherwise it's hard to fully get.

Josh: Yeah, it's hard to show how truly bright this light is.

Lisa: Has anyone ever invested without seeing the light in real life?

Harrison: Oh, that's a good question. Let's see. Da, da, da, da, da. All of my biggest checks were people who have seen the light.

Lisa: [laughter]

Josh: So you got two commitments in the room, from Jeff and Charles. And then Charles went full Avatar: fire, air, light. What happened with him after the show?

Harrison: Yeah, I, I really appreciated the things that Charles said on the show that I hadn't deeply thought of. So the interesting thing was I had not truly begun fundraising when I went on the pitch.

Josh; Oh, I see.

Harrison: That was maybe the very beginning. The very, very beginning. And so I followed up with Charles after the show and told him, "Hey, I'm really early on in this process." Charles did not end up investing, and I feel like he might have n- at that time, way back in April or May, needed more evidence to feel good about investing into Rhythm, both from a fundraising perspective and perhaps from a traction perspective.

Josh: So Charles's biggest fear with hardware companies is that they won't be able to raise enough money to last. According to him, the magic number is eight to 10 million, to be able to go through all of the hardware iterations to truly bring a product to market that's ready to scale. So if I had to guess where things went wrong with Charles, there is a particular moment during your call with him where I think you lost him.

Harrison: I am very much a product nerd. I'm an introvert, so I actually don't like putting myself out there. So to be totally honest with you, fundraising is a weak point for me. If I had any choice at all, I would love to keep it short and just focus on building the company. So to that end, I haven't done any cold outreach. It's all been organic, word of mouth. That's how I like doing things. Um- kind of feels more authentic to me. But, uh, it also is a big limiting factor for me right now building this company.

Harrison: Yeah. Yep. Yep. I remember thinking about saying that, and I was just being completely honest with Charles with, like, who I am and, you know, I will never be the, like, snake oily, like, salesy, like- ... will lie to your face type of person. That's kind of on the other extreme.

Lisa: Yeah.

Josh: I cannot imagine Harrison doing that.

Lisa: We appreciate that you don't do that.

Harrison: Yeah. I, I will never, like, tell people things that I don't truly believe in, and so I understand that that might not be the profile of someone Charles might want to put money behind. Given his concerns about the need to raise large amounts of capital. The way I see it is if I'm the most authentic and honest version of myself, I will attract investors that like that. And so far, yeah, not to skip ahead, but I have. Uh, which is great. But at the time talking to Charles, I'd raised pretty much zero dollars.

Josh: Yeah.

Harrison: Um, and so very unproven. Yeah.

Josh: Wasn't one of your first angel investors Peter, our deal sourcing venture partner at The Pitch?

Harrison: That's right. You know, so funny, Peter called me after and was like, "Hey, you know, I listened to your talk with Charles, and, you know, maybe you're, like, more of a Steve Wozniak, like, and less of a Steve Jobs. Like "Should you find a co-founder to, like, raise with you?" You know, something like that. "And maybe you're just, like, too shy for this." And I-

Josh: Oh, wow

Josh: Did that piss you off that he said that?

Harrison: I wouldn't say it pissed me off. You know the term, like, rage bait? It, it, you know- It was... Peter kind of, in the most loving way-

Lisa: Yes

Harrison: Rage baited me into fundraising.

Lisa: Yes.

Harrison: And I'm so grateful for him for that.

Lisa: That's hilarious.

Harrison: Yeah. I love Peter. I really respect him, and I think he had amazing intentions. That conversation was pivotal for me personally-

Lisa: Mm

Harrison: 'cause I was like, "Oh, yeah, I have to. Like, if I want Rhythm to thrive and succeed, I have to raise. I have to step up to the plate." And I can't just be perceived as a product nerd, like I just said. because that's not all I am. I'm more than that. I am a product nerd, and I have huge dreams. I need to demonstrate and prove that I can raise money, I can sell the vision. And so- I'm grateful to Peter for kind of pointing that out at, at an important time.

Lisa: So Charles passed, but you still had Jeff. How was your call with him?

Harrison: Yeah, my call with Jeff was great. I really appreciated his curiosity about the technical elements.

Lisa: Mm.

Harrison: Most of our, our time on the call was spent on him trying to understand the technology and the physiology and, like, whether or not this product is able to l- deliver on its promises. At the end of the day, Rhythm's mission is to help people get healthy light, and if we can't prove that scientifically- then, you know we're not a company, right? And so I appreciated his, like, technical due diligence.

Lisa: So did Jeff end up investing?

Harrison: Jeff did end up investing. He invested what he said on the show, so he wrote a 25K check into Rhythm as an angel. Excited to learn from him, from his experience working in consumer, and yeah, glad to have him on the, on the team.

Lisa: That's awesome. How did the rest of your round go? You were trying to raise a million on the show. Did you reach your goal?

Harrison: I did, yes.

Lisa: Yeah!

Harrison: Yes, I did. Yeah.

Lisa: Congrats.

Harrison: Very happy. Thank you. Thank you.

Josh: How much did you raise?

Harrison: I raised a million.

Josh: Exactly. Really?

Harrison: Exactly a million. Uh, just a little bit over a million, yeah.

Josh: Okay, yeah. It’s always, it's never round numbers.

Harrison: I feel super lucky. Within less than a week of announcing my fundraise publicly, I got a commitment from our lead, Molly Milke from Moth Fund.

Josh: You know, it's funny though, 'cause aren't moths nocturnal?

Harrison: Yeah. And moths are drawn to light ...

Lisa: They're drawn to light, though.

Josh: But they're drawn to light.

Lisa: Yep.

Harrison: They're drawn to light because they've- they, they orient with the sun.

Lisa: Perfect. Wow.

Harrison: Yeah. Kinda beautiful, huh?

Lisa: So all of this explains why we got an email out of nowhere that said, "We have a lead. We're closing the round tomorrow." We were like, "What?" Like, that is a bold move.

Josh: I thought you were BS-ing.

Lisa: I did too.

Josh: I was like- Harrison's trying to, like, create FOMO-

Lisa: Yeah

Josh: and show everyone that he knows how to run a process.

Harrison: I can... I understand why you thought, might have thought that, but no. Like, we had the checks in the door, and I was just like, "I wanna get back to building the product. Like, please just give me yes or no. I'd like to wrap this up. you've been honestly ignoring my emails for weeks and weeks, you know, so, like, please." I need to hear back.

Lisa: Well, that hard sell worked on us because The Pitch Fund invested too.

Josh: We're in.

Lisa: For 50K.

Harrison: Oh, amazing. Okay.

Josh: If you'll have us. I know we're a little late.

Harrison: I'd love to have y'all. Yes, yes.

Josh: Yes.

Harrison: I had such an amazing experience. You are the reason I kicked off my fundraise, and I would be super proud to have y'all on the cap table. Aw.

Lisa: Aw.

Josh: Amazing.

Lisa: Thanks, Harrison.

Josh: This is so cool.

Lisa: Well, so then the story is not even finished here because then later we heard that Rohit also invested. And he wasn't even on the-

Harrison: That's right

Lisa: panel the day that you pitched.

Josh: Yeah, what happened?

Harrison: That's right. Amazing guy. I hadn't met him on the show, but I'd heard great things about him.

Lisa: Yeah.

Harrison: And we just sat. Me, I was right here, and he was right, you know, two feet that way, and we just chatted for about an hour. I shared sort of the big vision of Rhythm and I think he, he got it. Wrote a check immediately. I was like, Great. That... I was like so happy that you get it.

Josh: Any other company updates? Has Bryan Johnson posted his Rhythm morning routine yet?

Harrison: So we're gonna be featured on Bryan Johnson's Protocol Marketplace-

Lisa: Oh

Harrison: on November 1st, Daylight Savings.

Josh: Nice.

Harrison: I'm super excited. And we're gonna be right next to Eight Sleep and Plunge. It puts a really nice aunch date for our team too, so.

Lisa: Yeah.

Harrison: That's why I wanted to keep fundraising short, so I could, uh hit this date.

Josh: Yeah. Heck yeah.

Harrison: You know, before my raise, I was paying for everything out of my own pocket, and it was really painful. I knew it was the way, but it was like every decision, every business decision was also a personal finance decision.

Josh: Yeah.

Harrison: Like, fundamentally.

Lisa: Yep.

Harrison: And now I'm like so grateful for my investors because now every business decision is just a business decision. I can make the best possible decisions for the company without having my own world get mixed into it.

Josh: Well, this episode is publishing just days before your launch, so anywhere you wanna send people?

Harrison: Yeah. Yes. Go to www.betterwithrhythm.com. R-H-Y-T-H-M.

Josh: All right, I'll leave you with this, Harrison. How much are you looking forward to raising 8 to 10 million in the next few years?

Harrison: Super excited, to be honest. You know why?

Josh: Why?

Harrison: I'm gonna prove Charles wrong.

Lisa: Ah!

Josh: Let's go.

Josh: Oh man, that moment when Harrison told Charles that fundraising was a weak point for him, I knew it. I knew it was all over the moment he said that.

Lisa: Yeah. The person that believes you need to raise $8 to $10 million for a hardware company.

Josh: You just can't say that to him. Never ever.

Lisa: Yeah. I think there are a lot of founders who mistakenly believe that when you say, "All of this is happening organically, I have inbound," it's a good sign to VCs. But what it actually says is you have no process. Whether it's for fundraising or go to market, that is not a great answer.

Josh: Yeah.

Lisa: I need to know that what you're doing is repeatable.

Josh: That's true. I mean, maybe that's a hot take. I think that a lot of VCs are just automatically... Like, that's a red flag for them. I think you're right.

Lisa: Yeah. Overall, I'm excited for Harrison. I am coming around on the need for this product.

Josh: Oh, yeah. Okay, good.

Lisa: But I really could also relate to, like, Elizabeth's thoughts about it, that, like, I don't want us to need this product.

Josh: Right. This is another problem that is created by technology, created by all of us sitting around all day in front of screens.

Lisa: Right. But I do think also humans will always take the path of least resistance. Unfortunately, I think that means we might all end up being like characters in WALL-E one day.

Josh: The cartoon WALL-E? WALL-E.

Lisa: We'll just have our little sunlight generators, like, shining on our faces as we float around on our screens.

Josh: We float around, lose bone density.

Lisa: But our vitamin D will be great, and our cortisol will be in balance.

Josh: While we float through space looking for a new home 'cause we ruined-

Lisa: And AI has taken over the world. Wow, that movie's scary accurate.

Josh: It's prescient I'm afraid. But to your thought, prediction, I think that when you turn on sunlight generators in an indoor space, I think it will improve people's overall mood, [00:02:00] make them more likely to actually stand up, leave their desks, and walk outside.

Lisa: Ooh.

Josh: That's my prediction.

Lisa: All right. Let's see.

Josh: Lisa's sold.

No offer to invest in Rhythm is being made to the listening audience on today’s show. But we have a venture fund where we invest alongside the VCs on the show.

When you invest in The Pitch Fund you get ownership in all the companies that we invest in on the show. We’re open to new investors through the end of the year! To learn more, go to thepitch.fund

Next week on The Pitch…

Nate: We know more about how to be well than any generation in history, but we're doing worse than ever. So we're building the engagement layer for institutional wellness.

Ellie: what's conversion rate looking like? What's seven-day retention, and then where are we at 30 days?

Nate: we actually are not trying, to become something you use forever. We just aren't. And I know that that might not appeal to some people, and I frankly do not care. we're trying to help people change their life.

That’s next week! Subscribe to The Pitch on your favorite podcast player so you don’t miss future episodes. You can watch full length versions of every pitch over on our Patreon at The Pitch Uncut.

And if you’re a founder raising a pre-seed or seed round, apply to pitch at our next event! It only takes a couple minutes to apply. Go to pitch.show/apply

We’ll see you next week, in a very, very bright pitch room.

–

This episode was made by Josh Muccio, Lisa Muccio, Anna Ladd, and Enoch Kim. With deal sourcing by Peter Liu, John Alvarez, and Phoebe Sun.

Music in this episode is by The Muse Maker, Breakmaster Cylinder, The Firmware Rebels, Boxwood Orchestra, Imagined Nostalgia, Different Angle, Cosette, Spatial Relations, and Peter Jean & The Runaway Queen.

The Pitch is made in partnership with the Vox Media Podcast Network.