One
Once upon a time, I made an app.
It was for women who couldn't sleep. Hypnotherapy, mostly — proper sessions, written by proper therapists. That was 2017.
A hundred and fifty thousand women found it. Forty thousand of them left a review. The Guardian put it on a list of apps every woman should own, which I have still not got over.
Two
And then I stopped using it.
Not on purpose. I just stopped reaching for my phone at night. I'd get into bed and the last thing I wanted was the bright rectangle that had been shouting at me since seven that morning. So I'd lie there instead. Awake. Thinking about emails.
Which is an odd thing to admit, when you've spent years building the thing that lives on the phone.
Then we looked at the data, and it was the same story. So we asked you about it, and so many of you said exactly the same thing back. The phone is the problem. You want it, and you don't want it.
And every session you'd ever bought lived on it.
Three
So we're going the other way.
Everyone in this industry is building another app. Another score, another streak, another notification telling you your sleep was poor — as if you hadn't noticed.
We're taking it off the screen instead. Into your hands. Something you can actually pick up and keep by your bed.
Four
So. Here's what we made.
Well — more making. It's still in progress.
Sleep headphones. Not earbuds, not a chunky headset — a soft fabric band with thin flat speakers hidden inside, so you can lie on your side and feel absolutely nothing digging in.
The idea is that your favourite Clementine sleep sessions come off the phone and into this. You tap a card, or press one button, and they just play.
It washes at 30°. I knew you'd ask.
Five
And here's the bit nobody expects.
Your Clementine sleep sessions come on cards — because we don't want you sucked into your phone at night when you're trying to unwind.
You tap one on your phone. The session starts. Then you put the phone down — in the drawer, in another room, wherever you like. And you just listen.
Six
At 3am, you don't need any of it.
It's 3.07 and you're awake, working out how much sleep you could still get if you dropped off right now.
So Get Back To Sleep is built into the band itself. Not a card, not the app, not your phone. One button in the dark, and someone kind starts talking. Seventeen minutes.
1,809 women have reviewed that session. 1,704 of them said it worked.
Seven
You buy it once, and it's yours.
The band, the cards, the sessions. All of it. No subscription. Nothing to cancel. Nothing that quietly takes money from your account while you're asleep.
And in your new app you can browse the whole library and listen to any session free, once. Not a thirty-second preview, not the first two minutes — the whole thing, all the way through, before you decide anything.
If you love it, you buy it and it's in your library permanently. If you don't, you close it and you've lost nothing, and neither of us has to pretend.
That's the opposite of how this normally works, and it's deliberate. I'd rather you heard a session and thought 'no, not for me' than paid £7.99 on a hopeful description and felt daft about it. Nobody sleeps better having been sold to.
Join the queue
There are a thousand. That's the whole run, we're not making this design again, and honestly I'd rather you lot had them than strangers.
Doors open Monday 14th September, 8pm. Stick your email in below and I'll tell you first, so you're not sat refreshing anything. £10 holds one (the set is £49.99 including VAT) — and the remaining balance isn't due till December, which if you're quietly getting Christmas sorted is quite useful.
No money today. And I won't hassle you.