Tim Manschot: Founder & CEO of NOWATCH

Episode 742

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, we’re joined by Tim Manschot, Founder and CEO of NOWATCH — the world’s first screenless wearable reimagining how we engage with technology. Instead of pulling you into endless notifications and distractions, NOWATCH blends cutting-edge biosensing with timeless, sustainable design to help you build resilience, recover faster, and live with more intention.
In our conversation, Tim shares the personal health journey that pushed he and his co-founder to commit to building a company rooted in neuroscience, mindfulness, and meaning.
We dive into what “compassionate technology” really means, how real-time stress prediction can change daily life, and the challenges of creating a whole new category in wellness wearables. From product design to consumer behavior to the future of intentional tech, this episode is filled with insights for founders, innovators, and anyone curious about how technology can support presence instead of distraction.
Whether you’re a founder, a wellness advocate, or simply someone rethinking your relationship with tech, this episode is packed with inspiration you won’t want to miss. Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up, that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control, control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show today, I’m joined by an entrepreneur who is reimagining our relationship with technology. Tim man. Scott is the founder and CEO of NOWATCH. And if you are not familiar with this product, this company, you are going to be pleasantly surprised. So it is absolutely amazing. NOWATCH is the world’s first screenless wearable health tracker designed not to distract you, but to reconnect you. So with cutting edge bio sensing and refined sustainable design, NOWATCH reads your body stress, signals in real time, helping you build resilience, recover faster and live with more intention. So think of it as a wellness coach disguised as a watch as jewelry technology that whispers instead instead of shouts. So Tim’s journey from corporate strategist and impact investor to wellness tech founder is deeply personal, and I can’t wait to get into everything that came before now watch and today he leads this global team at the forefront of compassionate innovation, direct from Amsterdam, where he is today. So, so excited to have you here with us today. Tim, so so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for coming on.

Tim Manschot 2:15
Thank you, Kara, thank you for having me. It’s an honor, absolutely.

Kara Goldin 2:18
So let’s start with the ethos of of NOWATCH. And how do you describe it to someone who’s never tried it, never seen it?

Tim Manschot 2:29
Well, it is a health tracker with research grades technology, but designed as a piece that you really want to want to wear. So it’s in the interest of solid health breaking who have sensors on your skin as far as long as possible. But we didn’t want to make something plastic masculine on your wrist very big. We wanted to make it something very personalized that you can have it match your style, that you can fall in love with, that you feel represented with, and that’s built on a complete different ethic when it comes to your relationship with technology. So it should be a technology that does not dictate you or force you into something. It should be something that meets you where you are from the science, but also from the design.

Kara Goldin 3:18
So you had a health experience that changed your your personal path, that ended up changing your business journey as well, then inspired you to build NOWATCH. Would you mind sharing a little bit about that?

Tim Manschot 3:36
Yeah, well, actually, that is my co founder who had this so to tell you the whole story, it’s one of my best friends, and we’ve been friends for a long time, and we were running different businesses at the time. I was running other businesses that were trying to, you know, be a force for good. And he was in his own work, hard, play, hard company that has gone on to be very successful in the Netherlands, but in that period, he had a diagnosis that hit him in December 2019, I believe, and that’s called PXE. It’s a rare disease. It’s a progressive cardiovascular disease, and it basically calcifies your, calcifies your, your veins, and the first veins that it breaks already veins in the eyes, so this progressive disease ultimately will make him blind. And multiple things in our lives collided at that December 2019 I just exited one of my businesses successfully. Had some time to rethink what is important to me and his Christmas 2019 was that moment that he had to do a full reset of his lifestyle. And a couple of weeks later, covid started. So it felt for him like there was a reset in the world when he had to reset his lifestyle and being much more conscious about what to consume, how to live, how to balance his life. And that. Moment we reflected on the topics that we often reflect about. You know, what is life about? How do we make it count? How do we live presently? How do we contribute? Who are we? And it was in those conversations that he somewhat provocatively said, okay, but if we don’t start this company, what is the best time to do it? The time is now. And that’s that’s how we started. We embarked on this, on this company together.

Kara Goldin 5:28
So he was your friend, and it’s one thing to for him, I guess, to have an idea. This is what I want to do. But you actually kind of left the world that you knew to jump into something that was fairly unknown. So, so how, how do you get the courage to do that? Because it does take a lot of courage to jump into a different industry. You weren’t just jumping into an industry that was already existing, but also one that you had to, you know, definitely fail. I’m sure along the way, you had to educate consumers on this was all new.

Tim Manschot 6:18
It was all new. And I think often people say, if you know, then what you know now, would you have done it? You know? But I think it speaks to both our personalities, or at least our passion, that we were all in on the purpose of what we wanted to do. It was, on the one hand, to bring presence into the world. We were seeing mental health epidemic, and a lot of people, you know, increasingly being addicted to their screens. And we felt that, you know, especially in what hilka has experienced, and I had fair share in my life of people running into burnout or into difficulties in their lives. We felt that it was time to bring the attention to the present moment and how a quality life is lived. But that shouldn’t just be some kind of spiritual story. So we wanted to start with the science, and that’s why I think our company is best described as, sometimes referred to as a research institute. You know, we have all these researchers working here passionately about the forefront of stress response research, and we have some of the best designers, because we also believe that if you want to make something desirable and add Joy to the world, it needs to be extremely nice contribution to people’s lives. So it’s a research grade device disguised as a design piece that brings contribution to people’s health. And of course, it starts small, and eventually we, you know, step over step, we discovered how the industry works and how to best unfold from that.

Kara Goldin 7:56
How did you decide to do the watch? What was the moment that you said? Yeah, this is the one I would imagine. There were other things that were on the chopping block, so to speak, where you were looking at other alternatives. But what, what was, what was the thinking behind the watch? Is really where it’s at?

Tim Manschot 8:21
I love that question, because we aren’t necessarily watch experts. You know, we became passionate about watches, but the wrist is the best place to measure and people have been wearing watches for 200 years more or less. So it was somewhat of an obvious choice for us to do a watch, but it started out with as a more of a piece of jewelry without a watch screen. Even so, as you know, our product doesn’t have a screen. So often people think about health trackers as screen devices, but we believe that screens are destructive and take you away from a qualitative life. So we wanted to make a watch piece without a screen, so it’s an analog watch, but the first edition, you could lift that watch face out and replace it with a piece of jewelry, so it’s actually magnetically interchangeable watch. And as fascinating as it sounds, that’s really also what we wanted to do, because we wanted to, you know, come out with a very bold brand, defining provocative product that confronts you with the tyranny of time. Sometimes we all are lived by our calendars, and we are we feel that, you know, we have to squeeze productivity out of life, and then you want to remind yourself that it’s actually everything happens in the present moment. And so that watch without a watch face, even just a piece of jewelry on your wrist with research grade sensors, was what we came out as a first product. And then we added time and time in the form of a classic watch piece. Yes, that play is also in the name NOWATCH. Watch now watch. And for us, it’s even more philosophical. We don’t really advertise with this, but I like that background story that, you know, in the Greeks had this experience of time called Chronos, and it’s where chronology comes from, and that’s how we experience, how we organize society, how we look at the time ticking. But there’s also another word for time, or another notion of time. It’s called Kairos, and it’s in some way, it’s the antonym. It’s life experienced in the present moment, in the moment where the impact happens. So for us, quite literally, we have Chronos on your wrist, and you can take time out literally and then live in Kairos with more presence. So that’s the design part of the watch.

Kara Goldin 10:51
So when I’d love to have you explain how NOWATCH reads the stress signals and in real time, and what does that data look like for the consumer?

Tim Manschot 11:06
So it starts with for us, the principle that wearables should not dictate how you feel. If we look at the consumer wearables landscape at the moment, and we’ve been roughly 15 years in this industry. In the beginning, it was fitness tracking 30 minutes a day 15 years ago, and then sensors got better, and now we are these sort of mini computers on the wrist that follow you 24/7, but if I look around and see how people interact with technology, of course, we have technology helping us with, you know, as a calculator or as a navigation tool Google Maps, but I don’t think you should have wearable telling you how you feel. You know, sometimes, if you ask someone, how do I feel, and then they say, Oh, let me look how I slept. Well, that’s something we don’t want to do. We don’t want technology to dictate you how you feel, to push you into another 5000 steps to make your targets. So for us, what it looks like is there’s a corresponding app, and you see, very granularly, a complete picture of your physiology. We measure every two seconds with continuous monitoring. It’s very important because you see the app flows in the physiology. And it’s there where you see the effects of your lifestyle on your health. You see the trending overview. You see all your vitals, all your metrics, so you can see it all, but in a cohesive picture. And it’s not designed to gamify you or to lure you back into the app, or to, you know, confront you with new data all the time. It’s more of a set and forget type of design where, you know, it captures all the vitals, but the data will come to you when there’s a relevant insight, and that’s AI triggered.

Kara Goldin 12:55
So building a first of its kind hardware is, I’ve never done that, but I would imagine is quite tough. What’s been the biggest challenge, or I should say, technical challenge, so far, and building NOWATCH,

Tim Manschot 13:10
well, we build it. We build everything. So we do the firmware and the hardware and the software and, you know, the apps. And so it’s really keeping all of these doses in mind and seeing how it works together, all the limiting factors and the design choices and how they affect, you know, what you actually eventually want to be able to deliver to the people. This is, think, this is the hardest part. It’s almost like an orchestra that you have to, you know, play, together in a beautiful symphony, not only to deliver the best product, but also to, of course, reach this productivity that we need to have together in our team to to get this, yeah, to keep the speed that we need for us. It’s obvious that wearables and health are going to be fully integrated in the future, but it’s also super important to think about how we are going to do it. And think the hardest part is to work with that responsibility of what role is technology going to play in the future, and how can it really play a role in predictive and preventative health without dictating our lives and taking over and making humans more, you know, sometimes I say jokingly, the hands and feet of algorithms. That’s not what we want. You know, we don’t want to gamify your health. It’s not a game. It is much more, meeting you where you are, building trust, helping you to connect, you know, not to the app, but to your body, and to learn to recognize the physiology that you are, that you’re experiencing, to live more fully.

Kara Goldin 14:48
How long did it take you to actually get your first prototype and then ultimately, the product that was for sale?

Tim Manschot 14:58
So the idea started to. Late 2020, and it took us two and a half years to get to the first model. And that first model, then even, you know, evolved. So, yeah, it’s just not your average, let’s say, online tool that you iterate forward. You know, there’s, there’s this threshold. I think it’s also explaining why there’s such a high barrier in the market for newcomers. You need to have a lot of stamina and a lot of organizational power to come to that starting point, because the consumer is going to compare you to, you know, the big players out there. So from the start, you have to come out with very strongly. And for us, it was, of course, the design aspect that I feel we can differentiate ourselves with. But it’s also very principled the science, because there’s already so much noise, and I feel that in the future, in order to be relevant, we have to be extremely scientific on what we do, and we have to come out with this compelling we call it, sometimes the health card that is there, looking over you, but not interfering with your experience or gamifying you to, yeah, to have things that you don’t really need.

Kara Goldin 16:16
So you’re building a product and that doesn’t just track habits, but is helping people try to change them. How do you design for that? I mean, it’s just, I, I can only imagine what your your vision board or, you know, business plan, sort of looked at like, how do you how would you even design for for that from day one, that’s

Tim Manschot 16:42
a really good question. So sometimes I see myself, you know, my role is to work with the best people out there, to find them, to motivate them, and to and I think being in this business as a force for good category helps tremendously with finding people that are intrinsically motivated. So we found a great designer. Actually found him on Instagram because he had some amazing drawings, and that’s the person with whom, Daniel akert, he’s the one that we work with from the start to very thoroughly go through all the product design, but our design is twofold. It’s not only to make the product look astonishingly attractive on the wrist, but also to design the whole experience of what position does a health tracker take in your life? How can it be your health card, your doctor in your pocket, whilst you know, not intrusively, but very credibly. You know, being a partner with which you understand the effects of your lifestyle on your health, and that part of the design is as important as the physical design.

Kara Goldin 17:51
So consumer feedback is not just helpful, I should say, for for companies, but also motivating right for that founding team to keep going, especially on those really hard days, and any founder in any industry can attest to that. Can you share any stories from maybe a consumer? I call them love letters that came in that kind of helped you to say, Okay, we’re on the right track. We might need to change something a little bit. But, I mean, nobody would have taken the time to write this if it didn’t really change their life in some way. Yeah.

Tim Manschot 18:37
I mean, we have almost categories of love letters. Obviously, we get a lot of praise for the esthetics of the product. And again, it is, I think, because wearables, health trackers are often so similar, looking, black plastic, very much data computers, and we did something completely opposite. So we wanted to make something beautiful, something personalizable, something with gemstones and something with all kinds of watch designs that you can interchange. Something elegant because of the adaptability. It’s in your interest to have it, to wear it day and night or as much as you want. So a lot of the customer feedback was on the esthetics. Finally, now there’s something that I want to wear, and then the other category is, I think to keep the team motivated, is in the first say, 1000 fans, you get these people that forgive you, the Yeah, the glitches or the app experience that you are building over time. And it’s very important for us to find this balance between long term thinking, eyes on the North Star whilst really listening to our computer. Community, what are they missing? What are they not understanding? And how can we focus on that and also showing that we’ve heard them and that we are building for them.

Kara Goldin 20:10
So I would imagine you also are hearing, you know, stories of people’s lives right along the way too. So how does that impact you, personally, and your co founder as well, that I think anytime we can kind of help other, other humans, it’s, it’s a good thing, right? And I would imagine, with a product like NOWATCH, you’ve, you’ve had those moments

Tim Manschot 20:40
Absolutely, I mean, of course, it’s if you can change someone life, someone’s life, for the better. It’s remarkably fulfilling, you know, and it’s something that is really rewarding. And I believe that our larger vision is that we believe that something like this is missing, and if that’s confirmed by people wearing it, and that’s really, really great. And oftentimes it’s people that have been with us from the start, actually, that have seen the journey and that, you know, testify to, to how they are still, you know, yeah, wearing it every day, for example, and how it’s live them gain insight in in the stress response. One thing I think good to understand is, you know, stress and daily stress and stress response is linked to nine out of 10 diseases modern lives, diseases that we can actually do something about. And learning about your own stress response is extremely important, but it’s also good to know that it’s a response that is subjective. So we go through life, and then we are in what they call with the technical word, sympathetic overdrive. So fight or flight when we are exposed to a stimuli that we perceive as uncontrollable or, you know, something that we cannot overcome, and that’s when your hard rate goes up, when your HRV can go down, when you can be more alert, or you get sweaty hands, you know. And it’s perfectly normal, you know. It keeps us engaged and alive. But what’s interesting for all of us to show are the people wearing our technology is that the recovery time of such a stimuli is mostly predicted by your effective relationship to the events. So if you’re very positively, if you think very positively, for example, about a job interview or about a podcast recording or about something that you’re about to entertain, to undertake, that stress response will be much shorter. So you return to calm, to the homeostasis in your body, much quicker than if you think about, oh, I’m I know I have a job interview. Is very stressful for me. I’m not sure I’m going to do you know, then the bill is the same event. But for people with that type of approach to the event, the stress response, the recovery time is much longer. Now, this is something that we really specialize in, and this is something that’s all in the mindset, and people can train that. And I think this is such a liberating thought that a lot of what’s happening to us in our lives, we have the capacity to develop more of an internal locus of control, the ability to cope with this, and we have the technology to help you see those patterns. And I think that’s, yeah, that’s great. If that lands, that insight lands in the lives of people, it can be life changing,

Kara Goldin 23:34
definitely, and especially if you do it earlier, before you’ve had, you know, some impact from stress. So I think that it’s it’s such an needed product to be able to do that with ease and with beauty, so that you’ve really put a beautifully designed product that is accessible to consumers, too. So finally, when you take off your NOWATCH at the end of the day, what’s the biggest reminder it gives you personally?

Tim Manschot 24:16
Well, you know, I have a wonderful wife, but also three lovely kids, and it’s something that they remind me every day. It’s, you know, they’re the best reminders for me to live in in the moment. Nothing happens in the future, you know, and we it all happens in in the now. And I think that’s what an experience of life that we want to give people that they can achieve most if they trust themselves in the present moment, and they can learn that they are in a body, and they need to take the body with them to that moment. So I think that’s it’s a really, really special journey to to be on and to to work with in this Yeah. Yeah, in this day and age,

Kara Goldin 25:01
I love it Well, Tim Van Scott, founder and CEO of NOWATCH. So such a fascinating conversation, an incredible product for everyone listening. Head to NOWATCH.com to learn more and explore all about this wearable and watch what Tim is doing and NOWATCH is doing on social too. And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it and subscribe, leave a review all of that, and I’ll see you next time on the Kara Goldin show, Tim, thank you so much for your time and for your story and for developing this incredible

Tim Manschot 25:39
product. Thank you, Kara. It was it was a pleasure.

Kara Goldin 25:42
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And, of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about My journey, including founding and building hint, we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now.

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