How to Build a Delightful Experience for Your Customers

Be the End Customer

When Tim took the helm at Somnee, he set out to rebuild the company from the ground up—revamping everything from the brand to the product itself. For Tim, brand isn’t just about marketing; it’s the core of business strategy, and it influences everything—product development, team recruitment, decision-making, and every touchpoint along the customer journey. 

“There's definitely no silver bullet when it comes to giving a company a complete makeover,” he explains. “For me, I become the end customer.” Tim emphasizes, “No matter what industry you’re in—whether it’s consumer, enterprise, or healthcare—you need to understand who your end customer is and what their experience is like.” 

He emphasizes, “It’s about understanding your friction points, eliminating them, and bringing delight and joy to the user experience. Sometimes it's as simple as beautiful design, communicating things in a way that's very easy to understand, and adding more in layers because obviously, you're going to have people that want more information.”

When Tim joined Somnee, he saw that the team was talented, but there was a lot of friction—especially in how they communicated the service. He knew that in healthcare, simplicity, accessibility, and clarity were essential. So, his first goal was to make the user experience simple and intuitive while explaining complex technology in a way that everyday consumers could easily follow, understand, and internalize. “I told them, ‘Look, my mom in Michigan needs to understand what we’re talking about.’ That’s the bar. It’s about communicating to everyday consumers without diminishing the science behind it,” he explains.

So, how do you become the end customer? Tim starts by analyzing data, identifying points of frustration, and then building a product roadmap to address these issues. With his OTC device experience, he immerses himself in customer feedback—reading forums, customer support logs, and other sources of user-generated information.

Tim stresses the importance of truly understanding the end customer as a foundation for any successful business. Whether you're an executive, a scientist, or in another role, it’s crucial to know your audience—whether that's a consumer, an employer, or another stakeholder. 

It’s not enough to have groundbreaking technology; you need to marry it with brand and product experience to make a real impact. Tim believes that achieving this balance is what ultimately separates game-changing products from those that fall short. As he puts it, “You need to win hearts and minds.”

Win Customers Over with a Holistic Brand

A brand’s purpose is to build an emotional connection with customers. Tim’s experience at Fitbit only serves to illustrate this important lesson—the company perfected the device’s user experience, which ended up driving word-of-mouth marketing and helped them build a loyal community. 

Fitbit owes its success to the team’s decision to make the user experience simple and relatable. By focusing on featuring the simple and familiar goal of taking 10,000 steps a day, they created an easy-to-understand and motivating message. This approach helped them stand out against competitors like Nike, whose FuelBand used the less intuitive concept of "fuel points," which many consumers didn’t understand. As Tim puts it, the clarity and simplicity of Fitbit’s message gave them a strong advantage in the market.

To build a strong brand and business, Tim advises entrepreneurs to start thinking about PR early and to plan strategically. “I plan in three-year cycles,” he says. “Anything beyond that is just guessing.” He believes that having a clear vision and a structured timeline is crucial for building momentum and achieving long-term goals.

For Tim, brand is the foundation of all decision-making, from product development and engineering choices to recruiting a team and eventual go-to-market commercialization approaches. It’s important to make your brand the focus from the beginning, so that it guides all aspects of growth.

To win the hearts and minds of your customers, it’s essential to follow trends in evolving customer behavior. The shift has accelerated, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic. One unexpected positive outcome for OCT devices was how it opened people’s minds to science and the validation of technology. In healthcare, there’s now a growing trend of empowered consumers taking control of their health. With the popularity of long-form health content and influencers like Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia, it’s clear there’s a strong demand for scientific information—provided it’s presented in an accessible way. This means companies must prioritize educating consumers with validated, accurate information that aligns with their health needs and experiences. Tim says, "I'm working to change how people think about neurotech and neuroscience because there's so much more education and research available now."

“The shift in healthcare is now focusing on the consumer. It used to be about securing deals with employers or healthcare providers, but today, you need the end consumer or employee to use and benefit from your product,” Tim explains. This consumer-centric approach is why he puts the brand at the center of everything.

When Tim took the helm at Somnee, he relocated the manufacturing. He reasoned that, from a business perspective, having manufacturing close to the U.S. offers advantages in speed, cost, and development, and allows teams to be on-site quickly. This decision also benefits Somnee’s image. Tim says, “Personally, if I’m putting something on my head, I prefer it not to be made in China—it’s just my preference. I believe the quality of working with contract manufacturers outside of China is noticeably different.”