September 4 - The Pitch

The young man bounded into the conference room smiling. A secretary asked him if he needed a laptop for his PowerPoint.
"No laptop, no PowerPoint," he said confidently. "No need."
Then he clapped his hands once and spun around to face the table full of venture capitalists.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'll get straight to the point. The consensus within the health care industry is that adults need six to eight hours of sleep--per night!--to function optimally." He paused for effect. "Now. How many of you can honestly say you got six to eight hours of sleep last night?"
All ten of the people seated at the table raised their hands immediately.
Crap.
"Very good," he continued. "But how many of you would say that you got six to eight hours of sleep every night for the last week?"
Again, without hesitation, all ten raised their hands.
Really? Seriously? Jesus.
"Very good. Wow, I'm jealous. Ha ha. OK, but how many of you have gotten your full six to eight hours of sleep every night this mon--year?"
They looked at each other. A few of them shrugged.
"Ha ha! See, that's what I'm talking about! Everybody knows they're supposed to get a good night's sleep every night, but how many of us can honestly say that we do?"
Don't raise your hands. Don't raise your hands. Don't do it.
"Right!" he said as soon as it looked like some of them were about to raise their hands.
"And this room is not the exception, it's the rule. There have been studies." He nodded. "And what happens when you don't get enough sleep?"
He started walking around the table as he spoke. "Your productivity suffers. Your judgement, vision, and reaction time become impaired. You become sluggish, irritable. You don't perform as well as you should."
He stopped at the far end of the conference table.
"You don't get the most you can out of life."
Yeah. That's right. Have I got your attention yet?
"Now, occasional sleepless nights are inevitable. But what about prolonged stretches of time where you can't sleep a full night's sleep for weeks? For months? What then?"
The men and women at the table waited for him to tell them what then. One woman checked her watch.
"You suffer," the young man said, full of gravity. "And so does society."
Boom.
Chew on that for a while.
"But what about the times in your life when you sleep too much? What about the times when you're able to sleep nine, ten, even eleven hours a night? I'm talking college kids on summer vacation. I'm talking 20somethings on weekends. I'm talking the unemployed. I'm talking about anyone who has plenty of time to sleep. And that goes for all of us at some point. For better or for worse, there are times in all of our lives when we don't just get enough sleep. We get too much sleep. More sleep than we need."
Look at them. I've got them. I've totally got them.
"But why should those extra hours of sleep go to waste? Shouldn't you be able to save that sleep for a time when you need it?"
"Yes, my friends," he said nodding. "You should."
Then he whispered, "And you will."
He smiled.
Here comes the money shot.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said as he rested his hands dramatically on the end of the table. "I give you . . . Sleep Bank."
He didn't have a poster, no signs. Just his words. The venture capitalists waited for him to continue.
"Sleep Bank," he said again.
"Sorry," one of the men said, "but what is Sleep Bank?"
"Aha! Glad you asked, my friend!"
He marched around to the other side of the table again.
"Say you're getting a good eight hours of sleep a night. It's fantastic, super healthy, wonderful. You feel great. But! You could probably get by on seven, right? So what you can do is put one hour a night into Sleep Bank, sleep a restful and restorative seven hours a night, and then use that extra hour--or collection of extra hours--sometime later when you really need it."
The venture capitalists looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes.
Yeah, I think they're getting the picture. Reel them in, old boy. Reel them in. Nice and steady.
"Now, if we expand this to the macro level, the unemployed, the overly inactive, and the preternaturally lazy can store massive amounts of excess sleep in Sleep Bank and earn interest on it. They can even trade their sleep on the open market."
"I don't get how it works, though," said the man.
The young man smiled. "Sleep is the last great untapped commodity. Why shouldn't we be able to save it, preserve it, and use it when we need it? My wife and I got the idea when we were pregnant with our first kid and everyone was telling us how little sleep we were going to be getting once the baby arrived. Meanwhile, we were sleeping eight, nine hours a night during the pregnancy. And it seemed like such a waste to be losing all those extra hours. Why shouldn't we be able to store them up someplace--like a Sleep Bank--and use them later? Am I right?" He put his hands on his hips and nodded, smiling.
"No," the other man said. "I get the concept. It's a good one. But I don't understand how you go about saving up and trading sleep. I guess that's what I'm asking."
"Well that, my friend, is up to the research and development department."
The venture capitalists looked around the room, checked their iPhones and Blackberries, yawned.
"Hey," the young man said. "Nobody ever said Sleep Bank was going to be easy, but I've already done most of the heavy lifting here. I've come up with the idea, I've come up with the name, I've even come up with the taglines. All we have to do now is dot the t's and cross the i's, so to speak. On the science, that is. Ha ha." He distorted his voice. "She blinded me--with science! Ha ha."
Nothing.
"Thomas Dolby? Anyone? Hey, is this thing on? He he."
The investors looked at each other again. A few of them turned to the next page in their yellow legal pads.
Do something. You're losing them.
"Ha ha. So yeah, once we figure out the science--and I think you'll all agree with me that that part will totally go pretty fast--we'll all be richer than crap!"
The man who'd asked the most questions looked around the table and then nodded and said, "Thank you for your time."
"Rest assured!"
"Beg your pardon?"
"Rest assured! That's our tagline."
"Mm. Very catchy."
"A good night's sleep? You can bank on it!"
"Very good. Thank you."
"Say goodnight to sleepless nights-ness. Sleeplessness. Say goodnight to sleeplessness."
"OK."
"You'll be sleeping all the way to the bank!"
"Thanks. We'll be in touch."
The secretary escorted him out of the room. He popped his head back in. "Hey, tell you what. You can sleep on it! And tell me your answer in the morning. Ha ha. Talk to you soon!"
As the venture capitalists decided to break for lunch, they could still hear the young man singing while he waited for the elevator, "Let me sleep on it. Baby, baby, let me sleep on it. Let me sleep on it, I'll give you my answer in the morning. I gotta know right now!"