WEBVTT - Oura CEO Tom Hale Talks Wearable Rings 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:07.240 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:09.560 All Right, we want to go back to health and 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.200 wellness for a moment and turn to our health. The 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:14.840 company is on a mission to help wearers of their 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:18.200 smart ring live healthier and longer lives by providing personalized 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.919 health data. And in fact, the company's latest funding round 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:23.640 has or a value at five point two billion dollars. 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:25.840 We're pleased to say joining us right now is the 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:28.960 CEO of or Health, Tom Hale. Tom, great to have 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:32.560 you on Bloomberg Television. I want to start with connecting 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.960 the dot between the weight less loss drugs that JLP 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.839 one drugs and what you provide to your users. Have 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:44.360 you seen the popularity of those obesity drugs. I'm curious 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.239 what kind of impact or spillover it has to the 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:48.839 market that you are serving. 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:49.960 Yeah. 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.199 So we started in sleep and you know, for everyone's information, 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.959 we make a wearable ring that tracts your biometrics and. 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:58.440 Gives you insights and data. 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:00.320 And of course one of the things that are stomers 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.960 are extremely interested in is metabolic health. One of the 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:07.279 things that we did last year was start to enable 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.399 people to track their meals by taking a photograph and 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.319 seeing the results of what they had eaten and then 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:16.720 start to map that to their metabolic impact. We signed 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.680 a partnership with dex Comm and also received investment from 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.920 Dexcom and Dexcom is the maker of continuous glucose monitors, 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:27.080 which is a way you understand your metabolic health through data. 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.680 So in Aura, what we see now. 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.720 Is that people who are generally trying to monitor and 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:36.319 manage their health and improve their and optimize their health 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.520 are really focused on their metabolic health. 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.480 And GLP ones basically affect your metabolic health. 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:46.360 Now here's a little known fact metabolic health and GLP ones. 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:48.760 They act on your body in a way very similar 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:50.800 to sleep. So the more sleep you get, the better 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:53.600 off you are. It helps reduce it helps reduce your 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.560 appetite at midnight. Snacking is a real thing. If you 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:58.960 don't sleep, you want to eat, and it also helps 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:00.880 you feel more satisfied. So one of the things we 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.440 do is we help people understand the impacts of their 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:06.320 behaviors on all sorts of their health, including. 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:08.480 Metabolic got it, got it, thank you for explaining that. 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.959 So the ring itself can cost about three hundred dollars, 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:14.480 and then there's a membership fee as well a monthly 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.880 fee of about six US dollars a month. Do consumers 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:21.760 have subscription fatigue? And I ask that because your monthly 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:25.160 fee is pretty low relative to a lot of other 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.359 subscriptions out there, and I'm just wondering how you arrived 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:28.640 at that. 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:30.480 Yeah, it's interesting. 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.079 I think people do have subscription fatigue, particularly for things 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:36.080 that don't provide value. Of course, your health is priceless, 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:38.080 and so for people who get the value out of 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.240 managing and monitoring their health, actually they're willing to pay 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:43.960 quite a lot more than the modest subscription fee that 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:46.520 we charge. The thing that I find most interesting, as 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:49.480 somebody who's been in subscription businesses for most of my life, 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:51.840 is that the retention rates. 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:53.760 For Aura are literally off the charts. 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:56.520 We are better than best in class than consumer subscription 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.600 products like Netflix or Spotify. It's really sunning, and I 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.160 think that goes to the fact that if you've invested 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:04.440 in a piece of hardware, which people do, they buy 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.200 the ring first before they pay the subscription, and you 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.600 care about your health, you will retain really, really well. 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:13.600 And so our subscription business is both large and very 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:14.160 very stable. 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:15.440 So we're very pleased with the outcome. 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.920 I am curious, Tom, where's the competition? And when this 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:21.320 ring first started to become popular, there was this idea 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:23.040 that you know, you were going to be knocked off 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:24.280 in a big way. And I know there's been a 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:26.040 few entrants in this space that have kind of come 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:28.600 and gone or certainly didn't get traction. Well, I mean, 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:31.600 what are you doing that? I guess these other companies can, 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:33.920 and particularly the larger companies, you know, the Apples and 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:35.040 Samsungs of the world. 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:35.920 Yeah. 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:37.960 I think the most important thing is that we've been 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:41.200 doing this for a long time. As you probably know, 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:45.200 the power of AI and machine learning really depends on data, 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.040 and we've been collecting not just data from our users, 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:52.120 but scientific research data to really inform our algorithms and 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.360 inform our product. We're a science first company. We depend 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.280 always on the research and always on the differentiation that. 0:03:58.200 --> 0:03:59.320 Science can provide. 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:01.680 The other thing that's really important to recognize is that 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.120 as people come to this market, many of them come 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:06.680 to it thinking about the problem that they're solving is fitness. 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.000 This is sort of a classic use case for wearables, 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:11.800 So the fitbit, that's how people think about it. Whereas 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:13.680 I think our approach has been to think much more 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:17.000 broadly about health. So, for example, we started in sleep, 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.279 we expanded into women's health. Now we're looking at cardiovascular 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.080 health and metabolic health. As we started this conversation and 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.320 the breadth of that offering, people don't necessarily just want 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:27.760 to think about one dimension of their health. 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:29.920 They want to think about all of them. So what's 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:30.679 next for this company? 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:32.800 We talk about a company that's more than ten years 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:36.520 old right now, it's at phenomenal growth, phenomenal revenue. And obviously, Tom, 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.440 your appointment a few years ago a CEO raised a 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:42.320 lot of speculation that they would be ready to go public. 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.039 That was twenty twenty two. Is twenty twenty five? Are 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:46.039 you going public this year? 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:48.400 You know, I don't think we have any plans to 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:50.839 go public, and quite frankly, as someone who's operated public 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.360 companies my entire life, I'm really enjoying. 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:54.560 Operating a private company. 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:56.440 Yeah, and so I don't think we've got a lot 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.280 of ambition to go public anytime soon, and if we do, 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:01.120 we will definitely let you guys know. 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:05.279 Yes, let's make sure that that happens. Tom final question 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.560 to you, what is your fastest growing customer. Is it 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.240 the young people or is it someone who is on 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:14.640 a new fitness kick because of something like GLP one. 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:15.760 Are they seniors? 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:17.719 Well, this is stunning. 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:20.240 So we have customers across the entire spectrum, you know, 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:24.760 from CEOs to moms, to busy dads to teenagers and 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.040 college kids who are managing their health. The interesting thing 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:30.400 to me is that two big changes in our demographic 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.919 in the last twelve months have been one women. We 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:37.160 actually used to be majority men and we've slipped to 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:38.400 majority women. 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:40.440 And that's on the back of our like. 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:45.080 FDA approof features like fertile window or just basically the 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.119 ability to predict when you're going to have your cycle, 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:48.960 which by the way, the ring can do very accurately 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:51.520 because it's using temperature to predict it. The other side 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:54.360 of it, of course, is young people have been really, 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.520 really into health and really into being proactive about their health, 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:02.240 and we've seen that group, basically kids and young adults 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:05.839 from from eighteen to twenty five is the fastest growing 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.880 demographic and is about a couple percentage points from being 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:11.880 the largest demographic for AURA. Really interesting to see how 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:15.640 important health is to the youth and the young people 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:16.279 around the world. 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:18.760 All right, Tom, I appreciate you taking time for us. 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.480 Tom Hale CEO, thanks for making really hell or a 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:22.599 health for now.