HOTSEAT
I took regular naps when I worked for Time Warner and really saw the diff erence in my productivity as a result. I lived close to my offi ce but I thought, ‘what about people who live further away?’
hottest part of the day. I saw my father come back from the offi ce and take a nap, and we did the same from school. It was something that was really inte- grated into our lifestyles. I continued to nap when I was work- ing for Time Warner in New York. I escaped the offi ce at lunchtime, went home, ate a sandwich and had a 20 minute nap. I really saw the difference in my productivity as a result of taking a nap compared to other people who didn’t. Between 3pm and 5pm the peo- ple around me were falling apart, while I was alive and enjoying the meetings I was in. I was fortunate that I lived very close to the offi ce, but I thought, what about the people who have to com- mute or who live further away? There’s no place for people to take refuge. It made me think there must be something in our natural circadian cycle that encourages us to nap, and when I started reading the literature I realised that really was the case. Scientifi c stud- ies show that taking a nap three times a week for 20 minutes can reduce your rate of heart attack by 37 per cent. It also helps with learning and creativity. If you feel stuck and are trying to work on a problem, taking a nap is extremely effi cient – you will start making mental connections during that time.
If people book in for a nap at YeloSpa, what happens? We designed a special pod called the YeloCab, which simulates being in the womb and features chromo- therapy, aromatherapy and music and sound that customers choose. Our YeloChairs elevate the legs above the heart to slow down the heart rate and decrease body temperature. This pro- duces a relaxation response, and encourages sleep. Customers choose how long they would like to nap for (between 20 and 40 minutes), and at the end of the nap we wake them up with a simulated sunrise. The light decreases the level of melatonin in their brain through the effect on the optical nerve and they
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Boublil, and we also worked with someone with a Phd from Harvard to help us design our nap programme. We opened the fi rst YeloSpa in 2007 in midtown Manhattan, New York. The vision has changed since the
early days. The original idea was to keep the concept very simple and just offer naps and refl exology, which I thought would be cool because it would be very effi cient. The problem was that a lot of people weren’t familiar with refl exology and were a bit skittish about taking naps. For the fi rst six months we had a tremendous amount of press, but not a lot of traffi c. We started offering regular spa treatments such as mas- sage and skincare, and that’s when the business really took off.
When customers arrive at a
YeloSpa they sit down with a therapist to plan their treatments
wake up very slowly and gently. At Yelo we offer naps for two rea- sons – the fi rst is for mental and physical health. The second reason was from a spa experience standpoint. The worst time in a treatment is when the therapist comes to you at the end, gives you a glass of water, and says ‘I’ll be waiting outside, take your time’. You’re on cloud nine and suddenly you have to come back to reality. We offer the option to take a nap at the end of treatments, which really completes the whole cycle in a very nice way.
How did you get YeloSpa off the ground? My fi rst instinct was to go back to my alma mater, Time Warner, set out my vision and ask them if they thought their employees would benefi t from it. They were very enthusiastic and told me, ‘if you build it, we’ll send our employees there’. Based on that I cre- ated a business plan, then spoke to investors and started raising money. At that point, we really started work- ing properly on the business – we found a very talented designer, Stefan
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How is business now? It’s really good. The location in New York, which is on 57th Street between 5th and Madison Avenue, is fantastic, and gets a lot of customers. Our cus- tomers are different during the week and on the weekend – during the week it’s a lot of Type A guys taking naps and having refl exology, whereas on the weekend there are more women, and our customers want to take more time and really be pampered. The majority – about 65 per cent – of our custom- ers are active women in their thirties. Right now naps represent eight per cent of our revenue and around 15 per cent of the treatments we do. The fi g- ure is quite low because the rest of our treatments have grown so quickly, while naps have stayed stable.
How did the business evolve? Last year we opened our second facil- ity, which is a franchise, in Sao Paulo in Brazil. It’s a 3,000sq ft facility with 10 treatment rooms in a two storey house in a beautiful location – it’s very Yelo in terms of design but also very cozy and adapted to the Brazilian market. In May this year, we opened our third facility – another franchise – in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It’s a large 5,000sq ft facility with nine treatment
ISSUE 3 2014 © cybertrek 2014
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