[People in Asleep] Meet Paul Lee: Connector and Initiator in Sleep Medicine, AI, and Business
”Paul is a young sleep tech business leader from South Korea who has passion and experience in connecting interdisciplinary areas in sleep healthcare to bring business innovation in with sleep AI and IoT technology.”
It was his initiation and drive that contributed to Asleep becoming the first Korean start-up to be selected as the Amazon Alexa startup company. In recent years, he is working on setting up a US Silicon Valley branch office in for U.S. GTM (Go-To-Market) initiatives to enter the global market. I met Paul, who is responsible for the global strategic initiatives at Asleep.
Q. Can you please briefly introduce yourself.
A. Hello, I’m Paul. I’m the global business lead at Asleep. My job is to oversee and manage global business development & strategic initiatives in the Global Division at Asleep.
Q. I heard you are the first employee at ASleep
A. Yes, I joined Asleep in November 2020, and at that time, there were only 6 people in the team all of whom were co-founders. I was the first employee to be hired which was less than six months after Asleep was founded. Now there are more than 75 employees (March 2023). The company didn’t even have a website or logo at the time when I came across the Asleep page on a recruitment site just before I joined.I contacted CEO David Lee and we met for a coffee chat. When I heard David’s vision of the company, “ We’ll use IoT and AI tech to solve people’s sleep problems.” it drew me in to sleep tech world, and certainly triggered my interest to learn more which now, thankfully, I’m privileged to be working with a talented team of doctors, engineers, and business professions
Q. Was Asleep your first job?
A. I had some internship experience both in US and Korea being exposed to various domains and companies such as big tech, startups, media and even Korean government congress. But this is the first time I have started working full-time. In fact, when I was 10, I moved to Wisconsin, US, and lived there for 12+ years. Born in Korea, but raised in Wisconsin. (laughter). But I often came to Korea and tried to be involved to find my passion in career, so before Asleep, I interned at Kakao Ground X, a Kakao (Korea’s №1 messaging giant) blockchain subsidiary. Prior to Asleep, he was a part of Kakao’s CEO Strategy team and worked on MZ Generation targeted NFT (Non-Fungible Token) marketing strategies and on B2B collaboration campaigns. In particular, he spearheaded collaborative project management between companies and university blockchain clubs. After internship, it became difficult to return to the U.S. for various reasons, such as Covid, I decided that I wanted to continue my career. I wanted to work in an exciting start-up that would be more interesting to me than a working for a large corporation.
Q. I heard that you oversee and manage all of global strategic initiatives at Asleep.
A. That’s right. As a global business lead, I am responsible for global business at AISLIP. He promotes global B2B, B2G, and B2H strategy and planning within the company and is responsible for a variety of projects.
I can summarize my work into four main areas: Hospital Relations (HR), Investor Relations (IR), Business Relations (BR), and Public Relations (PR). For Hospital Relations (HR), I initiated a collaborative research project with Stanford Sleep Medicine and National Sleep Foundation (NSF) to write IRB and design clinical research with our AI engineers. In terms of Investor Relations (IR), I work closely with CEO David on Asleep’s global corporate development & financial round strategy for fundraising. My Business Relations (BR) job is creating new business models and initiating strategic partnership to create new value applying sleep tech. including the Amazon Alexa collaboration project that I’m currently working on. In Public Relations (PR) work, we are working hard to ensure that Asleep is exposed to more global press. We will actively promote the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in 2022. Asleep is recognized in the global market. In April, we were selected as the only collaboration partner among domestic healthcare companies at the Artificial Intelligence(AI) Technology Competition held at Facebook headquarters, and also participated in CES and MWC in 2021 to present our technology from the global market. He has also participated in IR demo days and startup conferences with Google, Apple, Airbnb, HealthTech Capital, Legend Ventures, and 500 Global, and is also promoting the establishment of a Silicon Valley branch in the United States in 2022.
In fact, Asleep is relatively exposed in the domestic press, but it still needs a lot of publicity abroad. Last year, ahead of the Mobile World Congress (MWC)Barcelona, I contacted Euronews reporter, one of Europe’s largest press by circulation, in person to reporters in the healthcare sector. One of them thanked us for reviewing our press release, right at the MWC Barcelona scene Euronews Asleep Exclusive Company Article. Creating new pathway and “Zero to One” is what motivates me.
Q. How did Amazon Alexa collaboration project start?
A. I contacted Amazon at CES this year(2021). I wanted to make good use of this opportunity, so I cold messaged Amazon, which they were also exhibiting at CES at the time, to propose partnership opportunities in combining VUI (Voice User Interface) and sleeptrack API (Application Programming Interface). I sent a “LinkedIn cold message” to a number of Amazon Alexa employees with corporate introduction texts and IR materials about Asleep, and after hundreds of rejection messages, one day, thankfully, I connected with a person who was in charge of business development on the Amazon Alexa startup team. Since the kick-off meeting in February this year, we were able to closely work on IR, BR, and PR-related collaboration projects with Amazon through virtual meetings with Amazon at its headquarters in Seattle, USA.
Q. What does the Amazon Collaboration Project mean for Asleep?
A. With the completion of this project, Asleep was officially selected as the first Amazon Alexa collaboration start-up in Korea, The first milestone in Asleep’s global expansion began with this project. This is because even if only one Amazon project is done well, the IR, BR, and PR can be achieved. At CES next year(2022), we are the first domestic start-up to be selected as an Amazon CES partner, and we will showcase our Asleep products at the Amazon booth. I’m looking forward to the global promotion effect of this opportunity. Amazon has a lot of global partner media/press, such as TIME and the New York Times, and Amazon’s headquarters channel, as well as Alexa Science sites and blogs, so we’ve collaborated on Asleep PR. We are actively using these Amazon headquarters channels to do global PR. With this CES collaboration, we are currently discussing a partnership with Asleep sleep measurement and analysis API for Alexa smart home speakers.
Without my great team members, the project would have been difficult to complete. Mel, the team leader of the Product team, and Aaron, the team leader of the Technical Product team, contributed greatly to the progress of the “Skill(Amazon Alexa-powered app)” project, which can collaborate with Amazon. It’s a team of three people from different fields, including me, but I’m always grateful to work together, to have good teamwork, to be very agile, cross-functional, and, above all, to be happy with each other. It’s especially rewarding to be able to create synergies together. It is the most valuable project in many ways.
Q. I’ve heard you enjoy a variety of hobbies, including soccer, basketball, guitar, and drums.
A. I spent my school days in the United States, so I had more opportunities to engage in a variety of non-academic activities. In fact, I love working out, an go on fields to play soccer. These days, I continue to work out at the gym, weights and sometimes climbing. I also love playing the guitar, so I play it often. It’s an acoustic guitar, and every week in church, I play lead the worship team with guitar and vocal.
Q. Do you have a career goal you want to achieve at Asleep?
A. My ultimate career goal is to contribute to Asleep becoming a global sleep tech company and making a positive social impact on the world. Currently, the establishment of Asleep Silicon Valley U.S. office is almost finished, and we want to drive our global expansion.
Q. Finally, any words to your colleagues who will be working with you at Asleep?
A. I would like to work with a colleague who has a global mindset that “ Asleep can create positive impact in this world.” In order to achieve and perform at the high level, we need to be able to learn to work together and collaborate cross-functionally. I hope that companies and individuals can grow together while also not missing out on the fun which is very important for motivation.
