Headspace CEO Rich Pierson: ”This is my business partner, the ex-Buddhist monk.”

The Times Tech Podcast

Will Morley

Business, Unknown, Technology

4.9 • 654 Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2017

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Rich Pierson, co-founder of Headspace, the popular meditation app, to talk about how it started in London nine years ago (6:30), meeting his co-founder (8:00), quitting his job marketing deodorant (9:15), starting out with group meditation events (13:00), accidental focus groups (16:00), moving to California (16:45), going from 18 to 170 employees (19:30), layoffs and mistakes (20:00), convincing investors to put money into mindfulness (21:30), competing with 3,000 rival apps (25:00), struggling to manage people (30:00), helping nurses with “compassion fatigue’ (34:00), and signing up big companies (34:45).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The people of Britain love their fancy blenders.
0:03.2	They've bought loads of them.
0:05.5	And luckily, if they bought them with Barclay Card, they earned rewards.
0:09.4	In fact, they'll earn rewards on all their eligible purchases.
0:13.1	It's a more convenient way to consume your fruit and veg.
0:16.6	What you buy is your business.
0:18.9	Giving you rewards on purchases is ours.
0:21.7	Barclay card.
0:22.7	Make money work for you.
0:24.3	28.9% APR representative variables subject to application, financial circumstances and borrowing history,
0:29.2	T's and C's Apply.
0:32.2	Hello, hello.
0:33.3	Thank you for tuning in.
0:34.6	Before we get started this week, I just wanted to give a quick thank you
0:39.0	to all of those who have rated the podcast and given us reviews, in particular to a couple
0:45.9	listeners. One, Coxie 696 wrote recently, I have to say as a non-techie, but someone who's
0:52.5	interested in innovation and what's really going on in Silicon Valley, this hits the spot.
0:57.9	Compelling listening for anybody who cares about the future.
1:02.1	Thank you, Cawksie.
1:03.8	I'd like to think that we all care about the future, so of course, everyone should be listening.
1:10.3	Dan Fellows writes a huge reference for me in the world of marketing, digital technology, and business.
1:17.0	Danny has an incredibly disarming style, which tends to get more out of his guests.
	...

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