ONE CLOCK 

Boulder

FOUNDED: 2021

WEBSITE: www.oneclock.co

INITIAL LIGHTBULB

“My wife and I committed to getting our phones out of the bedroom,” he says of the inspiration for OneClock. “We’d been using them, keeping them plugged in on our nightstands, using them as our alarm clock. We were both ready to commit to trying to get better sleep.” 

After failing to find an alarm clock that he wanted, Kripke teamed with co-founder Lon McGowan, a serial entrepreneur with manufacturing experience, and started working on a design in earnest in 2020, enlisting the help of Denver-based Link Product Development in the process. 

OneClock launched the $299 product on Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms in early 2021. The company shipped about 4,000 clocks to customers in 30 countries as a result, then pivoted to a direct-to-consumer model.

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IN A NUTSHELL

OneClock takes a science-based approach to rousing its users from slumber. “It’s an analog clock that wakes you up with really nice music that is designed to help you create a tech-free bedroom,” Kripke says.

The company works with a contract manufacturer in China to make the OneClock. “We tried everything we could to make them here in the States,” says Kripke. “It just wasn’t possible for us.”

The company hires artists to create original music for the clock. Multi-instrumentalist Jon Natchez, a member of the band The War on Drugs, composed the music on the first OneClocks, and Captain Planet is working on forthcoming tracks for the product. “His music is completed and we’re just finalizing the tool that will allow you to change the music on your clock,” Kripke says.

Marc Hanchak of Link Product Development (now part of ERI Group) helped design the OneClock — and is now a dedicated user. “Smart design for manufacturing had to marry with the unique sound science behind OneClock to culminate in something that everyone would want on their bedside table,” Hanchak says of the design.

As a user, his first experience sold him on the product: “I recall soft music building slowly in my dream, then this uninterrupted transition from sleep to being awake that I wasn’t even aware of. I opened my eyes and said to myself, ‘Wow, now that’s the right way to wake up.’”

THE MARKET

While the sun all but set on the alarm clock market with the advent of the smartphone, a growing backlash to always-on connectivity is fueling demand for OneClock, says Kripke.

“Millennials are starting to bounce the other direction, because I think they see the negative effects of being on their phones all the time,” he notes. “I really believe that sleep and our bedrooms are going to become the only real place to recover and recharge from a day that’s increasingly packed with technology and screens.”

FINANCING 

The company raised $1.2 million on Kickstarter and Indiegogo to launch the product in 2021. Kripke says he is “open to conversations” with outside investors. “We were approached recently by a VC firm in New York that liked our business just because it’s of the moment, with people trying to cut down on their tech addictions,” he adds.

 

Denver-based writer Eric Peterson is the author of Frommer’s Colorado, Frommer’s Montana & Wyoming, Frommer’s Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks and the Ramble series of guidebooks, featuring first-person travelogues covering everything from atomic landmarks in New Mexico to celebrity gone wrong in Hollywood. Peterson has also recently written about backpacking in Yosemite, cross-country skiing in Yellowstone and downhill skiing in Colorado for such publications as Denver’s Westword and The New York Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected]