36Kr Exclusive Interview | The Next Stop for Wang Teng, Former Xiaomi Executive: Seize the Once-in-a-Decade Startup Window in AI Hardware by Focusing on Sleep
Author: Ou Xue
Editor: Yuan Silai
Wang Teng, the founder of Today Is a Good Day to Rest, feels very lucky to have caught up with the best time for AI hardware startups at the age of 39.
For many years in the past, Wang Teng's schedule was divided into hourly segments, and every day seemed to be in a state of combat readiness. When this stage of his career came to an end, most people chose to take a rest. But Wang Teng didn't stop.
When he first left his job, Wang Teng wasn't sure where he was going next after more than a decade in the consumer electronics industry. He met with investors and old friends intensively and gradually found that he was at a fleeting turning point. "This is a once-in-a-decade window of opportunity for AI hardware startups," Wang Teng told Hard Krypton.
After more than half a month of high-intensity communication, Wang Teng immediately started preparing for a hardware startup. He had studied AI glasses and new energy vehicles, but finally entered the "sleep" track where he seemingly had no experience accumulation.
Although he has a certain aura, Wang Teng can't escape the hardships of starting a business. He has to convince his friends with stable and high incomes to join a startup company willingly. He has also encountered the coldness of the supply chain and the rather impolite doubts of investors.
Except for a few initial moments, Wang Teng has reconciled with this gap.
Different from many young founders, he behaves quite maturely. Wang Teng only took a few months to assemble the core team, conceive the short, medium, and long-term product matrix and rhythm plan. He told Hard Krypton that he defines Today Is a Good Day to Rest as an "energy asset management ecosystem" company with sleep as the entry point - a rather grand concept.
The market is also in a season of abundant resources as Wang Teng judged. Hard Krypton exclusively learned that after receiving additional investments from Hillhouse and Zhipu, Today Is a Good Day to Rest quickly locked in a new round of financing, with old shareholders continuing to increase their stakes, and the cumulative financing scale exceeded 100 million yuan.
In Wang Teng's view, in the past, the wearable devices of large companies could tell users about their sleep quality last night, but couldn't provide solutions; traditional home furnishing brands make mattresses and pillows, each sticking to their own niche and unable to cross the category boundary. He hopes to provide users with a closed-loop service from monitoring to intervention after integrating software and hardware.
According to Wang Teng's plan, Today Is a Good Day to Rest will launch relevant different hardware products one after another in 2 - 3 years. AI algorithms and APPs will run on the upper layer, and the underlying hardware IoT devices will be connected.
In the interview, we can clearly feel Wang Teng's sense of urgency. He has been in the mobile phone industry for more than a decade and knows better than anyone how cruel the survival battle of hardware products is. Once the production line starts, there is no turning back. Only after passing through the "production capacity hell" can a hardware company truly cross the dangerous shoal.
It can be said that for a startup company based on hardware, the success or failure of the first product may determine its future fate.
Wang Teng is not an arrogant and blindly optimistic person. In the two-hour communication, we can feel his sincerity. The most common thing Wang Teng says is, "We are still in the early stage, and I can't answer many things at present." Obviously, he knows his advantages but won't deny his ability boundaries.
The following is the edited content of the conversation between Hard Krypton and Wang Teng:
Starting a business at the best time of life
Hard Krypton: After you left Xiaomi, did you really take a break for some time? What did you do during this period?
Wang Teng: Yes, for about half a month to a month. I mainly had meals, chats, and catch-ups with different friends.
Hard Krypton: When did you start to have the idea of starting a new company? How did you think about it at that time?
Wang Teng: I probably decided on the direction between October and December last year (2025). After I left Xiaomi, some companies were looking for me, and I also met several investor friends. We chatted and discussed some direction issues.
There were mainly two aspects: First, after talking with many large companies, I felt there wasn't much of a challenge because it was basically similar to what I did at Xiaomi before; Second, in the current AI wave, the startup of AI intelligent hardware is a once-in-a-decade window of opportunity. I originally wanted to take a break for a while, but considering the development of the industry, this time point is very suitable for starting a business. So in late October, I decided to try starting a business on my own. It took me more than a month to two months, until November and December, to decide on the current direction.
Hard Krypton: What was the real opportunity that made you decide on the "sleep + big health" direction? What needs did you see?
Wang Teng: First, in the era of AI, intelligent hardware is in a major window of opportunity for upgrading. Second, when choosing a specific industry, I had several major ideas: Try not to touch traditional industries and the tracks that large companies are already competing in, such as mobile phones and new energy vehicles, which are already in a state of full competition and saturation; look for tracks with continuous future growth. In addition, in this track, the existing players are either large companies but this isn't their main battlefield, or startup teams or traditional brands, and they don't have particularly deep accumulation and first-mover advantages in this wave of AI intelligent hardware. Everyone is basically on the same starting line.
Hard Krypton: So how did you come up with the idea of the sleep track?
Wang Teng: Considering these points, I ruled out mobile phones, cars, and home appliances. And the competition in fields like robots and glasses is also very fierce, and the technological maturity hasn't reached the explosive point yet. After communicating with friends in various industries, I thought the "sleep + big health" direction was quite good.
On the one hand, as people's living standards continue to improve, the attention and consumption investment in this area will be higher and higher, and the future growth potential of this track is very good. On the other hand, health and sleep are very complex systematic projects, involving many dimensions, and there are also many product angles to cut in.
Although there are many players in this field, large companies like Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi mainly focus on health monitoring products and don't do much in terms of intervention and improvement; traditional health or home furnishing brands have been deeply involved in their own niches for many years, but their expansion ability is relatively weak. Moreover, in the wave of AI, the innovation and vitality of these enterprises in transformation and development may be inferior to that of our startup company. So I think this is a very good opportunity.
Hard Krypton: You mentioned that you met many investors. Did one or two of them particularly impress you?
Wang Teng: At the end of September and in October, I talked with an investor friend. At that time, I had other direction options and asked for their opinions. The response and advice I got were that with the maturity of AI large models, intelligent hardware is definitely a major track and a hot spot. This helped me decide to start a business and choose the direction related to ToC intelligent hardware.
Hard Krypton: Your background is related to mobile phones and consumer electronics. Do you think your past experience is wasted when you choose the sleep track now?
Wang Teng: No. My experience in the past more than 10 years can be divided into several aspects: First, related to products, I understand user needs, the industry, and competitors, do product definition, and evaluate feasibility, cost, R & D time, etc. All of these can be well transferred because we are still doing ToC consumer hardware, and the APP line also matches completely. Moreover, the complexity of these products is a bit lower than that of mobile phones, so I'm more confident that we can succeed.
Second, in terms of market sales and operation, the future marketing, sales, and channel layout of these ToC products can also be well matched. I often tell investors that the experience I've accumulated in the mobile phone industry is still quite competitive compared with that in other industries.
The most difficult thing at the beginning of starting a business is "recruiting people"
Hard Krypton: This is your first time starting a business. What are the special differences between working in a large company and starting your own business for the first time?
Wang Teng: There are definitely many differences. In starting a business, you have to do all kinds of hard, dirty, and tiring work by yourself. In a large company before, you only needed to put forward requirements, and there would be a very strong support team to help you. For example, business registration, recruiting people, negotiating financing, and even something as small as renting an office space, all have to be done personally. I've also stepped into many pits that I've never encountered before.
Hard Krypton: What is the most difficult aspect for you in starting a business?
Wang Teng: From a business perspective, the most difficult thing is recruiting people. Although I'm somewhat well - known in the tech circle, even so, recruiting people for a startup still involves talking to many people and being rejected many times. Each rejection is a huge psychological blow, but it's also a matter of tempering one's mind - being constantly rejected and beaten, then self - repairing after being beaten, and then setting off again. It's quite interesting.
Hard Krypton: What are your criteria for selecting core team members?
Wang Teng: For the first seven or eight people I recruited, the criteria were: First, they have worked on successful projects in large companies and have proven performance and job ranks. This is the ability dimension; Second, from the mindset dimension, they can accept the way of low monthly salary and high equity. These two points are combined.
Hard Krypton: Do people have psychological concerns when being recruited as partners?
Wang Teng: Definitely. People are risk - averse. Starting a business is a high - risk endeavor with a relatively low probability of success. We require the way of low cash and high equity, and many people reject it based on risk considerations. Moreover, the conditions offered by large companies today are very good. The key talents we want to recruit are also in important positions in large companies, and they have good incomes and platforms. They will have more concerns about our newly - established team.
Hard Krypton: How did you convince the people in the team to join you in the sleep track?
Wang Teng: First, I talked about the big picture: This era is a once - in - a - lifetime golden window of opportunity. Most of the core leaders I'm recruiting now are about the same age as me. We have all accumulated rich experience, developed many good products, and have a mature understanding of product development and business. I told them a few points:
First, the opportunity is here. If we continue to work in large companies, the growth potential is predictable and there won't be a big leap. After more than a decade of work experience, it's the best time in our lives to try starting a business. Second, this is ToC consumer hardware, and it doesn't require a very long verification time. If we can succeed in about three to five years, we will achieve good results; if not, with our abilities, we can still find jobs in large companies.
I told them, "Follow Brother Teng. The capital market still recognizes us, and we have enough cash to start the business; with my accumulation in the industry, the supply chain and industrial resources will support us in the early stage."
The overall combat effectiveness of our team is very strong. After the first two or three people joined, they thought it was reliable when they saw each other, and it became a positive cycle. The products we make will be relatively competitive. Finally, I'm probably the founder who understands the market best among the current startup teams, and I can be responsible for promoting the products to achieve a higher success rate. These advantages impressed many people.
Hard Krypton: As the founder, what main work contents do you focus on?
Wang Teng: I mainly focus on two major modules: product and market sales. At the front - end, it's about product definition, competitor analysis, core selling points, cost expectations, etc.; at the other end, it's about marketing and sales channel construction. I focus my main energy on these two aspects.
In other aspects, such as the core leaders of the hardware, software, algorithm, and APP teams, as long as they have the ability, we align our understanding and key milestone nodes periodically.
Targeting the "high - education, high - income, high - pressure" group
Hard Krypton: You used the term "energy assets" in the business plan, which is quite rare. How did you come up with this term?
Wang Teng: I think for a startup company, the founder and the core team should preferably be the core target users. Take me as an example. I used to have a very high work intensity. For core middle - and high - level executives, it was normal to get off work at 10 p.m., and there was also overtime on holidays. When the work density is very high in a day, if you didn't rest well the previous day, your whole state will be very bad.
I came up with this term when thinking about the startup direction. Today, in first - tier, second - tier, and even third - tier cities, there are a large number of white - collar workers in the workplace. They are the post - 80s and post - 90s who have received higher education, and in the future, the post - 00s will also face such challenges. Around the age of 30, this group of people, which we later summarized as the "high - three" group: high education, high income, and high pressure. After more than five years of work, they have a certain accumulation, but at the same time, they face various pressures such as starting a family, getting married, career promotion, and buying a house. When having a physical examination, one or two abnormal indicators start to appear in their bodies. This is the first high - point of people's attention to health.
If we can provide products and services based on scientific methodology and combined with personal physical health, we have a chance to impress these people. Moreover, in the AI era, the ability of large models is very strong. As long as we have a deeper understanding of users, we can make good use of these data.
Hard Krypton: What time do you go to bed now? How is your sleep quality?
Wang Teng: Now I usually go to bed around 12 o'clock and can sleep until around 7 or 8 a.m. When I sleep well, I can sleep for 8 hours, usually 7 hours. My average Oura score is a little over 80, which is okay. After starting this business, I've read many books about sleep and know some relatively small improvements that can make my sleep quality better. For an adult, sleeping for more than 7 hours should be considered good.
Hard Krypton: The popularity of common sleep products in the market is relatively low. What do you think the difficulties are?
Wang Teng: The biggest difficulty is that the value provided by a single product to users and its ability to solve pain points are relatively weak. It's not like a mobile phone