Eight Sleep Co-Founder Alexandra Zatarain on Having Difficult Conversations and Being Throw Into The Leadership Fire

The Failure Factor

Alexandra Zatarain is the co-founder and VP of Brand and Marketing of Eight Sleep, the world's first sleep fitness company. With accolades like being named to Forbes 30 Under 30 and Inc’s 100 female founders lists, Alexandra is the marketing genius that helped put Eight Sleep on the map.

Starting Eight Sleep with minimal marketing experience, she managed to redefine their product category through a long process of trial and error. Alexandra shares her thoughts about the importance of feedback, effective communication, humility, and long-term planning while emphasizing the need to embrace challenges, learn from failures, and maintain a growth mindset.

Listen to her insights on navigating the complexities of entrepreneurship and innovation, particularly in the tech space.

Key takeaways:

• The journey of entrepreneurship is often messy and filled with failures.
• Understanding customer needs is crucial for product development.
• Feedback from early users can guide product improvements.
• Positioning is critical for startup success.
• Growth comes from learning through challenges and failures.
• Embracing feedback as a learning opportunity can lead to growth.
• Humility is a key trait for effective leadership.
• Scaling a business introduces new complexities and challenges.
• Long-term planning is necessary for sustainable growth.
• Feedback should be immediate and constructive, not just negative.
• Assuming good intentions helps in receiving feedback positively.
• Continuous learning is vital in entrepreneurship.
• Building a supportive community can alleviate the fear of failure.

The Failure Factor Podcast was brought to you by Off The Field Coaching. Explore working with one of our coaches at http://offthefieldcoaching.com

Hosted by Megan Bruneau: therapist, executive coach, speaker, Forbes contributor and host of The Failure Factor. For more info visit https://meganbruneau.com

Learn more about Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com Ig: https://www.instagram.com/eightsleep In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eight--

Follow Alexandra Ig: https://www.instagram.com/alexzatarainj In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandrazatarain

Follow Megan Ig: https://www.instagram.com/meganjbruneau In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-j-bruneau-m-a-rcc

Subscribe to the podcast newsletter at https://thefailurefactorpodcast.com

Themes: entrepreneurship, sleep technology, Eight Sleep, failure, innovation, marketing, crowdfunding, product development, difficult conversations, leadership, entrepreneurship, feedback, leadership, scaling, business growth, humility, team dynamics