Engineering the perfect night's sleep, one view at a time.

Strategy | UI/UX Design | iOS & Android development

The Challenge

Simba has been manufacturing in the sleep industry for over 40 years and has since sold over 50 million mattresses. They’re UK market-leaders, having flipped the sleep industry on its head with their innovative products.

But instead of sitting back and watching the sales continue to roll in, Simba wanted to do something different. Something new and unexpected. They wanted to go beyond sleep products and into a holistic sleep service.

Our Approach

From concept to research, build to launch, we worked closely with the Simba team to create the Simba Sleep app that is now an integral part of their customer experience.

A great mattress is a huge part of a good night’s sleep, we know that. But it isn’t the only factor. There are so many things that can disrupt your slumber, from light levels to diet and even how much time you spend on your phone before getting off to sleep. What if Simba could go beyond their amazing sleep products and become their customers’ own personal sleep coach?

Research

Being such a widely-loved brand, Simba already had a receptive customer base we could tap into for research and feedback. First, we needed to figure out what issues people have with their sleep. How could we start to solve sleep problems before finding out what problems we’re trying to solve? Do people have trouble falling asleep? Do they wake up in the middle of the night? How many suffer from specific sleep health issues like insomnia? When we finished our initial research, it became clear that the core functionality of the app would need to be tracking sleep.

Build, test, launch, improve

Once we’d established the concept, we quickly moved into creating wireframes, user journies and app flows.

We tested these at every stage to make sure we were solving real sleep problems identified by real people. We didn’t want to work on something for months without ever testing it, only to find we've solved a problem no-one had and built something no-one actually wanted. After the successful MVP and a few further iterations, we launched version 1 of the app on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Achievements

The App has had over 15k downloads in the first 3 months with 50% of all active users using the app daily. Featured in publications like GQ and the Evening Standard and increased the lifetime value of existing Simba customers.

Saracens Rubgy Club & Maro Itoje

The success of the app along with Simba’s solid brand reputation led to them partnering with Europe’s leading rugby union club, Saracens. They’re now also working closely with star player Maro Itoje to improve his sleep performance. Together we followed him on his journey to the rugby World Cup 2019 in Japan where he won player of the match in England’s win against the All Blacks. Is that down to him getting a better night’s sleep? We certainly think so.

Measuring Success

After the successful MVP and a few further iterations, we launched version 1 of the app on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. In just 6 weeks, the app made it into the top 20 in the health & fitness category with a 4.8/5 score and over 10K downloads.

Results in numbers

  • 15,000

    Monthly App Downloads

  • 10,000

    Monthly Active Sessions

  • 46%

    Track their sleep every night

  • 52%

    Daily retention rate

  • 32%

    All of users took the TryFor8 Challenge

👏

Fortnight just got us. They quickly understood our business and were able to deliver great designs that translated effortlessly into an app and did it creatively and quickly! Nothing was too much and they’re actually fun to work with.

– Steve Reid, Co-founder & CEO, Simba Sleep

Deliverables

  • Strategy

  • Visual Identity

  • Project Management

  • UI/UX designs

  • Native app development

Collaborations

  • Illustrations -> Jack Bedford

  • Advert -> BBH London

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