Life+ Meets: Noga from Reflect (3/3)
Can a wellness company work… well?
Savs and I met Noga from Reflect Innovations to learn about her product Reflect, a relaxation aid. If you haven’t already, check out:
Part 1: How a textile designer became a neuroscience startup founder
Part 2: A suggestion for Social Dilemmas
You’re reading Part 3, but you also listen to the full interview on our Podcast!
— I’ve been able to switch modes on the screen, but my body hasn’t been able to. There seems to be a gap between what’s happening in my mind and body, that itself might be causing another hidden stress.
I had one of the participants I studied in Israel. When the first lockdown started, she didn’t lose her job, but she lost some capacity. She was very financially strained, but she was very busy walking at home all the time.
She said that she would get to these… exhaustion stages, where she had to stop everything, and just lay down, I think she said, lay down on the floor even, and try to look at her body for a second and say, what do we need right now? Eat something?
She was so stressed with her job, she kept tuning out of those emotions, and she had finally reached this point where you had to stump everything and listen to her body.
So I think what we selected promoting was remember to stop and listen to your body.
One of the things that I really like about Reflect, one of the main benefits of it being a physical product is that it’s a physical reminder to stop right now, even when you’re not holding it and using it.
Just seeing it and saying, “Oh, wait, let’s check in with me” “What am I feeling?” “Why does my body feel?” That’s a great addition to the experience that something in an app can give you.
For me, meditation apps and relaxation apps, is contradicting because the phone is a cause of stress. You don’t really disconnect when you do something. The notifications will come, and text would come and interrupt you.
I think we’re at the point where we don’t think we can. I’m pretty addicted to my phone even though I don’t want to be. I know that. I used the tracking and limiting time and all that, but still.
What I do and recommend is not going to sleep with it.
— What kind of things do you do as a team that encourage more relaxing, or minimise stress?
I don’t think we’re a typical startup in the way that you would expect. We aren’t constantly stressed and strung out and working till late hours.
At times we do obviously have some things where we need to really ramp up and continue work but I don’t want to build a toxic environment where everyone has to be overworked.
Right now, I’m just really trying to keep in mind that we’re creating a wellness company, and we’re trying to provide something good. That must extend to our lives as a team.
One of the things that I started doing when I started working on reflect is a daily meditation practice. I want to understand and learn about the market, and I wanted to engage in those practices. I don’t want to be like disconnected from customers too.
I’m very lucky to be able to do that because my investors are great, and we have a great relationship, and they don’t demand me to be stressed out. I think by projecting that to the other people who work with me, then, hey, it’s a very kind and empathetic environment.
— Is there a bit of a negative narrative around startup work culture of Israel? Do you have the burnout concept there?
I’m not sure I’ve been unlucky enough to experience burnout to be honest. I worked in another startup as an engineer before starting Reflect Innovations, and the team there had built a kind environment. We all liked each other and liked working with each other.
But I assume that Tel Aviv is like the rest of the world, startup teams work crazy hours and on the weekends.. it’s so demanding and definitely not sustainable. I hope we will be able to keep some balance in the life of my team by encouraging some working from home, being with family and setting time aside for self care. I think many companies and startups in Israel found that working from home is actually productive, and setting boundaries is actually good. It helps the employee’s well being, and that helps the company.
I don’t think we need to work long hours, and we don’t necessarily need to push ourselves beyond what’s normal and disregard every other aspect of our lives to build a successful startup. We can have friends, and we can have a work-life balance. I plan to try to prove that.
— What’s your biggest challenge right now and what would mean ‘success’ for you.
Success for me would be to get people to enjoy using Reflect and, for me, to connect with my customers. Community building is one of the things that I’m really looking forward to doing more. I am very excited to hear people talk about something that I created, and that they want to do in their lives. So, for me, success is just getting Reflect in the hands of people who need it and who would benefit from using it.
You can’t design and develop consumer products in your own bubble, and then go out to the market and hope that it sells. You have to be very attuned to what people would like, and what would help them. And it’s a very unique and difficult experience to craft products because we want to influence people’s emotions and wellbeing.
We want to create a product that not only measures you but also becomes an experience that you love and would want to come back to because it has some impact on your wellbeing. To get that right we are going to have to talk and listen to our community all the time.
People now are craving a Break. It’s important to get everyone together and say “Yes, a break is good”, “breaks are important” ”Don’t do a marathon of meetings… keep Reflect on your desk and remind you need to think about your self ”.
Especially now when everyone is working from home, and in some cases their kids go to school from home, it’s very difficult to remember that you also have to think about yourself once in a while.
We had a participant in one of the trials who is a mother, she mentioned that she liked going back to her bedroom at the end of the day and have Reflect there. It reminded her to think of herself and her needs because those are completely ignored as she is so busy being a mom, and it’s a full time job.
Remind yourself to go back to yourself and to give time to thoughts and emotions, don’t think of tasks or something to succeed at — it’s okay, let yourself just *be* for a minute and focus. Leave your cell phone and connect with other people and other things.
Being with yourself and focusing on how you’re feeling is very important. No matter if you can’t relax at this moment. No matter if you don’t completely succeed. Just the act of taking a break for yourself is super important.
— Definitely…Thank you Noga, and we look forward to reuniting in London, Tel Aviv or Tokyo!
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