Founders dream of being early to market, garnering flattering press, watching their product fly off the shelves and IPOing in record time. For Kuba Wieczorek, Co-Founder and former Chief Marketing Officer of Eve Sleep, the dream became a reality. And then the wheels came off.
Kuba founded DTC mattress company Eve Sleep in 2015 with his cousin Jas, and they quickly started experiencing explosive growth. Within just two years they’d raised £35 million and were valued at £140 million. To top it off, they IPOd in record breaking time. It was the stuff of fairytales. But the fairytale wasn’t to last.
“About six months after Jas left I hit rock bottom as well. You know, really rock bottom, I realised that it was either my health and my family, or staying at Eve, so I made the right choice. I resigned.”
In today’s episode, Kuba shares his journey with Eve, the effect it had on him and his mental health, and what he will do differently in the future.
“I’ll be stronger with myself and not be seduced by crazy growth and money and promises of IPO and riches and all of that stuff. Authenticity, be authentic. If you know who you are, and you know the brand you're building, just stick to that.”
We chat about:
The meteoric rise of eve Sleep
The fastest ever British retail float
The toll of eve on his mental health
Know what you’re building
--
Sponsors
Vorboss - get better internet: https://vorboss.com/secretleaders
Vanta - get 20% off security certifications like ISO27001 and SOC2: https://vanta.com/secretleaders
Vertice - save on your SaaS or cloud spend ($5k off or a free benchmark) using the code secretleaders: https://www.vertice.one/l/secretleaders
--
Newsletter
Sign up here: https://secretleaders.email/
You can find our historic newsletters here: https://www.secretleaders.com/episodes
