London-based Dan, a former city executive, launched a ground-breaking health and wellness brand, TEN PM, dedicated to transforming the way people experience sleep. TEN PM introduces a range of beverages and snacks carefully crafted with natural ingredients that promote restfulness. Beyond the physical benefits, Dan firmly believes that quality sleep plays a pivotal role in overall health, fuelling his passion for improving people’s wellbeing. We learn more about Dan’s experiences and how he launched a global wellness brand.

Dan, tell us more about your new business venture, Ten PM.

We are a company that solely focuses on sleep and helping our community improve the quality of their sleep. Sleep is one of the major pillars of our overall health and is vitally important for our physical and mental health.

At Ten PM, we focus on creating an enjoyable evening routine so that people prioritise sleep and help relax the body and mind to improve overall sleep quality. Our product range includes enjoyable drinks and snacks that contain natural vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and adaptogens.

Sleep is one of the most important parts of living. How does your business improve the living standards of your customers?

We believe that one of the main causes of sleep issues is the lack of prioritisation of sleep in our daily lives. It’s fascinating how many of us have a morning routine involving a cup of tea or coffee, a shower, and a healthy breakfast to set ourselves up for the day. However, only a few of us have an evening routine. By evening routine, I mean signalling to our body and mind that it’s nearing bedtime and aiding the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone, to enhance sleep quality. We have created products to prioritise your evening routine in an enjoyable way while naturally increasing your melatonin levels with vitamins, minerals, amino acids, adaptogens, and nootropics.

Good-quality sleep is when the body recovers and repairs, leading to better physical and mental health. Good sleep improves brain performance, mood, and overall health, and the opposite occurs if you don’t get enough quality sleep. Not getting enough sleep on a regular basis actually raises the risk of many serious diseases and disorders.

What gave you the motivation to launch a business in this sector?

As someone who has personally suffered from poor sleep for many years, I set myself the mission of helping millions of others just like me. I feel that a lot of people don’t realise and don’t prioritise sleep with the importance it needs, and they also don’t realise that there are amazing natural ingredients that can help. That’s why Ten PM exists today.

The traditional approach to disturbed sleep is medication; why should this be avoided?

While in certain situations, prescribed medication is required and may be recommended by a health professional, we offer a natural and pill-free solution to deeper and more restful sleep. Natural alternatives allow you to not become reliant on medication and avoid its possible side effects, giving people control over their health and wellbeing.

The unique aspect of Ten PM is that we have combined these natural alternatives into great-tasting products that you can actually look forward to each evening.

How did your impressive corporate background help you when launching your business?

While overseeing an asset management company demanded significant skills, experience, and expertise, venturing into entrepreneurship, building a brand, and creating physical products for the first time has been an exhilarating experience. Setting up Ten PM has been an absolute joy for me, collaborating with talented creative individuals to design the brand, working with product development teams to transform ideas into tangible products, and engaging with marketing and PR teams to disseminate our message and reach a wider market.

As with any business venture, I have encountered setbacks along the way, including manufacturing challenges and high demand resulting in temporary stock shortages. My experience managing people and working in the city has helped me adapt and navigate obstacles along the way.

How do you promote your products online? What social media platforms do you use, and which ones have been the most effective?

We are a DTC brand, and as such, we have focused mainly on paid social advertising to increase brand awareness and promote our products. We advertise on Facebook, Instagram, and Google, and so far, we have found Facebook to be the most effective for us. Our focus for the rest of 2024 is to further build brand awareness and spread the word about focusing on improving sleep with positive evening routines.

What are the benefits of the ingredients in your products?

There are four stages of the sleep cycle, and all play an important role in the recovery and repair of the body while we sleep. When developing our Night Drink, it was critical to include ingredients that support all four of these stages, ensuring that the user falls asleep quickly and gets the deep sleep needed.

Firstly, to provide the feeling of calmness and relaxation, ingredients such as L-theanine, passionflower, and vitamin B6 help improve mood, regulate cortisol levels, and relax the body, all of which help the body deal with stress.

To help you fall asleep quicker and get a deeper sleep, our Night Drink includes L-glycine, magnesium, and zinc, which help to increase the levels of serotonin and melatonin (hormones that are critical for quality sleep) and regulate GABA levels, calming the nervous system.

All of the ingredients help to promote healthier sleep patterns by calming the nervous system and promoting deep restorative sleep, ensuring that you don’t feel groggy when waking up.

We have also just launched our new oat and cherry bars, which are designed to be enjoyed as an afternoon or late-night snack that will help you feel calmer and more relaxed. These contain Ashwagandha, Magnesium, Chamomile, Tart Cherries, Vitamin C, and B6, and are the perfect and tasty way to relax and unwind at the end of your day. With stress being the leading factor in poor sleep, these stress-relieving ingredients are clinically proven to lower stress levels and calm the nervous system. The perfect and tasty way to end your day that actually helps you unwind and relax.

How many hours of sleep should a person get each night?

This really varies by age group and also by person, but on average, an adult (18 years of age and older) should be getting between 7-8 hours of quality sleep. However, while getting the right amount of sleep is a key part of our health and how we feel and function, remember that it is not just about sleep quantity; sleep quality matters enormously as well. If you are sleeping for 7 hours a night but still wake up tired and don’t feel refreshed, it could be that your sleep is fragmented or non-restorative.

Are there any tips you can provide for getting a good night’s sleep?

There are a number of reasons why people suffer from poor sleep, with one of the main ones being stress and anxiety, often because of work. I believe that one of the main causes of sleep issues is the lack of prioritisation of sleep in our daily lives. So for anyone having sleepless nights because of their business or work, I’d encourage them to prioritise time in their day to wind down before bed and maintain a regular sleep cycle.

It’s fascinating how many of us have a morning routine that may involve having a cup of tea or coffee, taking a shower, and eating a healthy breakfast to set ourselves up for the day. However, only a small proportion of us have an evening routine to help relax and calm down, ready for deep, quality sleep.

The main top tips to improve your evening routine and, therefore, your sleep are:

Relax before bed; it is much easier to fall asleep if your mind isn’t racing. Reading, listening to soothing music, taking a bath, practicing meditation, or doing breathing exercises are all good ways to help calm the mind before bed.

Maintain a regular sleep schedule: in order to have your circadian rhythm working effectively, it’s important to keep your sleep/wake body clock regular. Pick a wake time and stick to it, even on weekends.

Stay off electronics before bed; these devices will keep your brain wired, making it hard to wind down. The blue light emitted from devices also suppresses the body’s release of melatonin (the sleep hormone).

Limit caffeine in the afternoons: caffeine can stay in your bloodstream for over 6 hours, so it’s important to stop having that afternoon coffee hit at work as it will impact your sleep later that night.

Bedroom environment: keep your sleeping environment comfortable, quiet, cool and calming

In addition to improving overall sleep hygiene, there are some amazing natural supplements which are scientifically proven to improve the quality of your sleep, such as magnesium, glycine and l-theanine.

How do you keep a good work-life balance?

As a business owner, especially for a young brand, I’m not entirely sure you can separate work and life as it is very hard to switch off and not think about the business. It’s not like a 9 to 5 where I can just turn off my laptop for the evening and not think about it until the morning.  But the way I manage this is to make sure I use time during the day to switch off and focus on other things outside of work, including spending time with my family.

With health and fitness being very important to me, I will always try to go to the gym and/or go for a long walk or run each day. This is my therapy and provides me with the downtime I need. From 9 p.m. on, I start thinking about winding down, so I will try (!) to avoid watching Netflix (which I love!) past this time and instead go for a shower and do things to help me relax. I try to be in bed by 10 p.m. (funny that!) with the aim of getting at least 7 hours of sleep. My previous career was in the corporate world, where I worked long hours, had high stress and anxiety levels, and had a terrible diet with both food and alcohol. I never prioritised my sleep and really struggled as a consequence, both physically and mentally. I’m now the absolute opposite of this, and I see looking after my physical and mental health as an absolute priority.

Where do you see the business developing over the next 5 years? 15. Are there any plans for brand expansion?

With an estimated 40% of adults struggling with poor sleep, the potential for Ten PM in the market is huge. While our current focus is on the UK market, we envision global expansion within the next few years, with my overall aim being the leading brand for improving sleep worldwide.

What were some of the aspects you considered when designing the packaging for your products?

I wanted the packaging to reinforce the brand’s identity and communicate the brand story perfectly from the get-go. Packaging can often influence a purchasing decision, so I was aware of how important visually appealing and well-thought-out packaging can be. Our products are for everyone, so the design needed to appeal to both men and women of all ages. Wherever possible, we use recycled packaging, as it’s important to do what we can to look after the environment.

What advice would you give to anyone in the corporate rat race dreaming of starting a business?

As with everything, there are positives and negatives, and the same is true when comparing being a business owner to working in a corporate environment. While it is important to ensure you can financially support yourself and your family if you have one, I am a big believer that you should do something that you actually enjoy and get fulfilment from. I enjoyed my previous employment and got a huge amount of fulfilment from it, but I also always had an entrepreneurial spirit and would have been disappointed in not starting my own company.

It is extremely scary and daunting to leave a corporate job to start out on your own, and if you have financial responsibilities (such as children, a mortgage, etc.), I would recommend starting a business in your spare time while still working for someone else to bring in an income. It can take a long time for a business to actually generate profit, let alone positive cash flow, so always make sure that you have a clear financial plan for how to execute on any business idea you may have. While you don’t want to be in a situation of analysis paralysis on a business idea and therefore never taking that step to starting something, I would recommend thoroughly researching the market you want to go into, seeking advice and speaking to as many people as you can who have done or are doing what you want to do, and planning for as many of the obstacles that you may encounter.

As an e-commerce business, what was your approach when planning your website design?

Our website is the first thing a potential customer sees when hearing about Ten PM. It is critical to quickly and informatively get across what we do and what we stand for. A website is also an ongoing task that is developed and optimised on a regular basis. We have worked with a number of different website designers and marketing professionals to improve conversion rates and make the site as quick and easy to use as possible. Being in the health space and selling health products, I knew I wanted to keep it simple and user-friendly, but also clearly communicate the brand message and instill trust in a potential customer to try our products.

What have been some challenges in pursuing an alternative therapeutic business model?

Our products use natural ingredients that have been scientifically researched, tested, and proven over many years of studies, so while they don’t need to be prescribed by a doctor, they are also not really alternative therapeutic remedies. However, the biggest challenge I feel we have faced and will continue to face is the lack of knowledge and understanding that there are ingredients that exist that can help with relieving stress and improving the quality of sleep (until a few years ago, I wasn’t aware either!). The majority of adults supplement their diets every single day with vitamins, minerals, collagen, protein products, etc., but very few realise you can do the same with sleep. And ironically, improving sleep can have the largest positive impact on overall health.