Anna Gudmundson, CEO and co-founder of Sensate
Anna Gudmundson is the CEO and co-founder of Sensate, a device that emits infrasonic waves that are synchronised to resonate with the specially composed hemispheric audio in the app. This patented technology is designed to gently soothe your nervous system from the first session and improve stress resiliency over time.
Anna is a senior technology business leader in the international high-growth scene with 15+ years of experience including CEO, VP Product and interim executive roles. Previously a turn-around CEO, Anna has also helped executives in the technology sector optimise and deliver product, brand and business strategies.
Her passion for the intersection between personal and human potential and the leaps of opportunities offered by fast evolving technology as well as new, expansive fields of science was a key reason behind her co-founding Sensate, where she focuses on bringing effective product to the market that help people destress and relax, using innovative technology.
What were you doing before launching Sensate?
My whole career has been in tech. Most recently I worked at VP/C-level both as a consultant and in permanent roles, including CEO and CPO, and I have gravitated towards health, fitness and wellbeing tech in recent years, as well as data/AI in which I have a great interest.
Although the last project I did within academia, a long time ago, was developing a 3D programming language (a large and rather qualifying job), I didn’t land a programming job in the early 2000s although I applied for entry-level positions. I didn’t fit the profile and in hindsight, I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that I didn’t look like a stereotypical programmer. Later on, people who interviewed me at the time admitted they doubted the content of my CV! (the content of the CV was 100% accurate).
These circumstances took me quickly into management roles and I excelled at Lucent-Technologies given my (apparently surprising) level of technical knowledge, combined with my people, negotiation, and organisational skills. I was interested in the emerging mobile industry and ended up delivering systems and services for Vodafone, Metro PCS, T-Mobile and other key players. I moved to a mobile marketing early-stage company and had the privilege to be at the heart of the evolving mobile industry, which no one believed in for a long time. In the early days, we all knew each other. It's hard to believe now that the mobile is completely ubiquitous and now we’re battling with teens having a mobile addiction that’s ruining their youth… I certainly didn’t envision that, and of course, the smartphone is also an amazing tool helping in so many other ways.
Getting involved in Tech is still a hot topic for women, what was the motivation for you?
My top subjects in school were in the arts as well as maths and physics. I never heard that STEM subjects were for ‘certain people’ or inherited some fear of those subjects growing up. I think that really mattered and is one of the reasons why women have a significantly higher representation in certain countries or cultures. I didn’t have any role models in my family (they are in the arts) so it’s a little bit of a mystery that I was the first person to buy a second-hand computer from the university in town when I was still in school. I just played around with it and had no thoughts around what type of person would be into computers. A thread in my life is that I’ve gravitated towards macro trends and shifts, and I guess that inclination was there already, I just had no idea. Curiosity pulled me there, and role models were key to keeping me going. We shouldn’t underestimate the importance of role models, especially for young people. They need to be able to see themselves in the role in the future. I was fortunate enough to come across interesting women working in tech industries growing up in Sweden.
How have you found your journey so far and what has been your greatest accomplishment?
My greatest accomplishment, I would say, is the person I have become after years devoted to my professional and personal development. The rest is simply business. Of course, I’m proud of many things in my career but my biggest achievements are still in front of me, and what truly makes both work and life more fun has more to do with who I am and how I see the world than an actual event. Right now, I’m so proud of our whole team for pulling together a big crowdfunding campaign on top of all their other work, to allow our users to invest as well as many other people who otherwise would not be able to take part in our growth.
What has been the most challenging thing so far?
Running a tech startup is extremely challenging. In most cases, in order to build technology so that you can get to revenues, you depend on other people’s money. You’re constantly trying to do everything; building product, raising money, running a team, structuring marketing plans, etc. while having too little time, funds, people or resources. I think the biggest challenge is to manage your energy. The early stage of a startup is like a sprint and a marathon at the same time. It’s absolutely critical to look after your health to have the productivity you need, and at the same time, there’s no time. So one has to be smart – fit in micro exercise throughout the day if a 2h slot to the gym isn’t going to work. And super-charge relaxation on breaks with a Sensate session! So it’s the juggling of a million things while making sure that you’re in your best possible mental shape to do the job. Body included. Many burn out and I’d rather someone quit than get to that point – I’ve been there myself a couple of times in previous jobs.
The challenging part of a startup is the pace and the pressure. It’s just not for everyone. The typical tech startup journey is tough. Given that you, in most cases, need capital to build the tech before you start generating revenues and it can take years to get to profitability, at scale, the setup is that you try to build a new amazing product, raise money, figure out your marketing, raise money and build a team, with way too little resources, money, people or hours in the day.
You have created a business that is adaptable and progressive. What has that process been like for you?
In all honesty, our organisational structure is still embryonic. We’re certainly in that new generation of organisations in terms of remote work, which offers a lot of flexibility but comes with responsibility, a flat team structure and purpose at the heart of what we do. We also try to walk the walk by genuinely using the product (that’s self care!), start our All Hands and board meetings with meditation or breathwork, which we know is proven to improve productivity and presence in meetings.
In terms of the process, I find that the most successful path over time is to involve the team deeply in any process. Given that most organisations are still rather traditionally hierarchical, many people can be uncomfortable when they’re invited to participate in the process. We both crave autonomy, and yet, there’s a comfort in having a ‘boss’ telling you what to do. I’m incredibly motivated to change this. Once people feel safe enough to take ownership, and collaborate and share with the team, it is so much more motivating. It also helps us grow as individuals these skills are valuable in the organisation as well as at home. I’m part of this growth and process and I look forward to having more space to focus on the team.
Who is your target audience?
Our target audience are people experiencing stress and anxiety and struggle to find ways to self-regulate. They are typically urban and have to own a smartphone. We’ve also had extremely positive early traction with self-optimisers and ‘biohackers’, well familiar with the benefits and able to measure those themselves. It has been both humbling and so energising to read the deeply personal ‘love letters’ we get from some of our customers with more serious stress related conditions. I want to point out that we make no medical claims as we’re currently focused on just bringing that critical extra calm that so many people need. Our mission is to serve the estimated 75% of populations around the world that are extremely stressed, anxious and suffering seriously reduced quality of life as a result of both mental and physical poor health. We are here to have global impact and move the needle for as many people as we can. Current trends around stress – and current solutions – are unsustainable.
What advice would you give to fellow entrepreneurs stuck on mapping out a strong business model?
Assumptions and validation! What are your assumptions about your target audience? How can you research, test and validate those? What are your assumptions about technology? Is this a ‘mission to Mars’ type project or something where you can cobble together an MVP with existing web tools? What are your assumptions about business processes, external events like the market and -super important - what are your assumptions about the economics? Build a model and move the variables around to see what needs to happen for the numbers to add up, given the market you want to tackle. Having that visibility early on is gold.
What plans do you have for Sensate over the next two years?
Scale. What we have ahead of us is an incredibly exciting time where we’ll have to reinvest how we work several times over. We’ll deliver new products, research, reach many many more people around the world, and also progress our Impact roadmap. The science around frequency and acoustic therapies is evolving rapidly. Sonic waves are part of our nature, so it’s a combination of discovery and innovation which is fascinating and exciting. We want to work with people in this field and collaborate to accelerate the progress in research, somacoustic therapies, and other ways we can help the population relax, destress and have a better vagal nerve tone. The power of the vagus nerve is pure magic when it comes to stress resilience, wellbeing, longevity and so much more.
Over the next two years I also hope that we build a strong and motivated team; as passionate about the mission of the company as the path by which we get there.
How exactly does Sensate work and what problems does it help solve?
Our mission is to bring stress resilience and wellbeing to hundreds of millions people from all walks of life, using powerful methods and groundbreaking technology. Five years in development, Sensate is based on my co-founder Stefan Chmelik’s decades of experience successfully treating people with stress and trauma-related conditions. The breakthrough in miniaturising the delivery of vibroacoustic therapy and bringing the tech out of his Harley Street clinic was a game changer.
How it works...the Sensate device is placed on the chest bone while you also listen to the specially composed soundscapes via the app. The Sensate uses the phenomenon of bone conduction to create resonance through your chest. It’s designed to send a powerful, stress-alleviating signal directly to your vagus nerve. The idea is to gently downregulate our stress response and bring people out of a fight-flight-freeze state and into ‘rest and digest’
We believe if anything is a ‘holy grail’ for addressing many of the root dysregulations in our physiology, it is toning the vagus nerve. Because the vagus nerve – often known as the gut-brain superhighway – travels through major organs of the body, healthy vagal nerve tone can empower people to improve their ability to recover from stressful daily events and build up their wellbeing with consistent use. If ever there was a time to reduce anxiety, get better sleep, strengthen our immune systems and increase our mental and physical health, it is certainly now.
