“Everything you do, you’ll do better with a goodnight’s sleep. ”
– Author Unknown
Today’s episode is long-awaited. For years, Quinn and Kinsley have dreamed about bringing the industry together to advance sleep as the foundation of health and wellness. They wanted to create a place where the world-changers, the action-takers, and the best and brightest minds in the sleep industry would gather together to share ideas, and brainstorm ideas on how to shake up the industry while vigorously pursuing the same goal: to ensure every human gets a better night’s sleep.
Dream Camp 2022 was held in Bentonville, Arkansas on October 3rd – 6th, 2022. Industry veterans and newbies alike gathered together for three intense days of learning and collaborating, and mountain biking and flying. Attendees said it was unlike any event that has been held before. In this episode, Kinsley and Quinn recap Dream Camp and discuss what you can expect in 2023.
FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Mark Quinn: [00:00:00] We are gonna talk today about something that has been so top secret. We have not mentioned it. We have not talked about it, and we’re gonna talk about it on this episode, and it starts right
Mark Kinsley: now.
Welcome to the Do Marco show. This is Mark Quinn. I’m Mark Kinsley. No, no,
Mark Quinn: no. Wrongly. Wrong way,
Mark Kinsley: possibly.
Mark Quinn: What wrong way? You are Mark Kinsley. I am Mark Quinn. Let’s just get it right from the beginning.
Mark Kinsley: I was introducing you though. I was saying this is Mark Quinn. And I’m Mark Kinsley. Oh, I thought
Mark Quinn: you were saying you were Mark Quinn because you’re really not.
And then, So I just wanna,
Mark Kinsley: Okay, so we’re to A, we’re off to a smashing start, considering that Quinn is already not listening to me .
Mark Quinn: No. Which is pretty episodes. You think we could get the first 30 seconds of this shit correct? Kinsley? ?
Mark Kinsley: Well, hey, I was gonna give you a compliment, but I don’t know if I should now.
I think you should please. Okay. That was an amazing. [00:01:00] Tease at the beginning of this episode because you were talking about something being incredibly top secret and it’s definitely, I mean, you have to be hooked. If you’re not hooked by now, I don’t know how you’re gonna get hooked.
Mark Quinn: Well, right. I mean, so it has been something that you and I have thought of and, and talked about, gosh, how long?
10 years maybe. And so here we are after so many conversations and actually. Ideas. So, uh, you know, Mark and I have talked about live events for a long, long time, and if we were to do one fan style, like what would that look like? Right? And we talked about a lot of different iterations of that. Who would go, what would it be like, where would it be?
All of those things. And we finally landed on a concept thanks to you, and I want you to talk about the, how the idea was born for dream. Which is what this is. And, um, you know, giving you [00:02:00] credit mark, like we’ve, we again had so many discussions about what a live event could be, but you got so inspired with this concept.
I want you to talk about where it came from and then kind of how we’ve taken it and adopted it to this category in this industry. And, and, and then we can give a little bit more detail. But, so talk about at Dream Camp, where did you first get
Mark Kinsley: the idea? Well, I can take no credit for this idea. Okay.
Because this idea first bubbled up because of the effervescent. One of a kind, big hearted, great friend to all Mark de Jarden. Yes. C3. Mark de Jarden, who works with C3, called me. He got a hold of me and we ended up having a phone call because he listens to the podcast and he, No, he noticed on one of the podcasts I was talking about Mountain.
And he, so we, we ended up getting on the phone together and we just hit it off right away. And Mark is a huge cyclist. He lives in Appleton, Wisconsin. That’s where C3 is located. And he’s been racing [00:03:00] bikes for years. He’s been an announcer at bike races, He’s worked all in the bike industry. And Mark was saying, I love getting together with people in the in.
It really is a joy to me. I hate playing golf and I hate cling glasses at cocktail parties. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just get together with other people like us who mountain bike that are in the industry, cuz there are more of us? And I said, That sounds like a phenomenal idea. And so all of that led up to me saying, I’ll host the first one here in Betonville.
And the very first, uh, our, our little anti conference we’ll call. Was Mark De Jarden and Matt Fowler from Sleep Made and myself, just three of us, and I said, Let’s go rip for a few days. Let’s drink some beer, hang out, have some great food, talk about the industry, get to know each other, and just have a good time.
So, coming into it, Mark De Jarden was saying, I wanna call this the Dirt Nap Dream Conference. So , you
Mark Quinn: know, third nap is like dying, right? [00:04:00] You take a third nap and you’re dead,
Mark Kinsley: right? Okay. Yeah, we got to that pretty quickly. I’m like, we don’t want people to think they’re gonna die when they come here, even though if you try to keep up with Deja in on, on a bike, you might die.
Mark Quinn: Uh, I hear Baxter’s got quite the iron butt as
Mark Kinsley: well. Yeah, Mark De Jarden and Baxter man, when they get after it, they are tough to keep up with. I call Baxter the bionic Bikeman. Brian Baxter, Bionic Bikeman Bikeman. So Matt Fowler, Mark de Jarden came to Bentonville. We spent a few days talking about the industry riding bikes, having a good time.
By the end of it, we did just what you described. We decided, okay, maybe not dirt nap, because people are gonna think of dying. And really nobody likes to go to conferences, really. I mean, maybe some, but everybody loves to go to camp, and so we decided to call it the Dream Camp. So Dream Camp was born. Uh, because, you know, we’re in the sleep industry.
Dreams are all about sleep. Dreams are about making big ideas come true. And so Dream Camp was born, so that was number one in Bentonville. Fast forward, we did another [00:05:00] dream camp, uh, for mountain bikers in Sacramento, and we went up to nine people for that one. And out of that, you know, Mark, myself, you, we all started talking around this idea of people connecting through the vehicle of an activity that they love.
And it really fast tracks relationships. It allows you to struggle together. It allows you to be there for each other in a very unique way. And so it deepens those connections. And so we put together all these funny, fun, but meaningful rules for Dream Camp, and we started thinking about this idea of getting people together.
In larger numbers through the vehicle of this activity they already loved, which is cycling. And so we launched the I, I guess we could call it the first larger scale dream camp with 30 slots hosted right here in Bentonville, Arkansas. Our tagline is the mountain biking capital of the world. So please, all of mountain biking towns forgive us for that.
But mountain biking is very accessible to [00:06:00] people of all levels, not just white knuckles who wanna rip downhill. I’m
Mark Quinn: good evidence of that Kins. You
Mark Kinsley: did great on your first ride. I was gonna get you some proper pants and a shammy. Um, Oh, you have to wear pants. No, you wear pants, so That’s right. I forgot about that.
Yeah. Um, we had a lot of heads turned permanently in your direction. You weren’t blushing at all either. No, no, no, no. So all of that, you know, I, I really think of Mark de Yarden as the spark, and I, and I told him this. I go, Mark, I feel like you reached into my head and my soul. And surfaced an idea that’s been there.
That a lot of people have been thinking about and you became the spark for something to come true that maybe it was in our hearts, but nobody knew how to make it happen. And so I just, I give Mark so much love and credit and appreciation for spurring this along and allowing the fam and us. To use this little, [00:07:00] uh, you know, kind of world that we’ve, we’ve helped be a part of and build and a community that we’re a part of and bring people to it, you know, and bring people around this campfire.
And so, Dream Camp, um, uh, was born in a much bigger way. And, and it’s, and it really, you think, Okay, get together around the industry, uh, but what are you gonna do? So we, we really crystallized what was the purpose behind. It’s really this. We are on a mission and Quinn, this has been our mission forever. We are on a mission to position sleep as the foundation of health and wellness and improve people’s lives.
And we think through Dream Camp and some of the bigger events that we’re gonna launch next year that are gonna be still very ified as we call them. We can create the future of sleep together. And one of the points of this dream. And what’s gonna be called Sleep Summit in 2023. We’ll get you involved.
Don’t worry. One of the points [00:08:00] is if we create the future of sleep together, it’s not going to happen in a silo. That’s just the commercial side of this business. We need biohackers authors, sleep researchers to stars, medical technology people, people from the academic community. People from the business community that value.
Think about trucking companies. We got thousands and thousands of drivers on the road. We need to bring together all of these communities and see what happens. And I know that doesn’t sound very strategic, but I’m telling you, when you show up with other people who are inspired like you, big things happen.
And I can’t wait to report back on the big things that are happening as a result. Of this invitation only event called Dream Camp. What?
Mark Quinn: So, so when you brought this thought to me, my initial reaction was, and, and you probably sold it this way, but like, so it’s not just Dream pa, Dream Camp, Mountain [00:09:00] Bike Mark, like future concepts are idea of being smaller groups, right?
So maybe 20, 30 people, but it could be Dream Camp, Wine Country. It could be Dream Camp, Snow Skiing. It could be Dream Camp Hiking, right? It can create. Events for small groups of people, because part of this, like the real big opportunity in it is in a smaller group with 30 people, your ability to connect to other people because you’re in more intimate settings.
You’re sitting at dinners with them, right? You’re, there’s more opportunity to do that. So connection to other people is huge. But then keep going with the thought of like, you know, the, the, the cliche of rising tides lift all boats. It’s true, right? And so when you get people in a room and you start talking about this industry, And you go, Where are we really?
Like what’s the gut check here? Right? So, you know, is it Marvel Comics? Is it to, To whom much is being given? Much is expected. Is that Spider-Man? It’s one of ’em. Yeah. Spider-Man.
Mark Kinsley: That’s what his uncle said. Peter Parker.
Mark Quinn: Yeah. . And so I kind of feel like that’s where we are in this industry. [00:10:00] We’ve been given so much more in terms of our.
The benefits sleep, the impact on, on, on health and happiness and wellness, right? And so what are we doing with that? And are we leaning into it enough? And so it’s gonna be a way for us to go, Okay, let’s get a check. Each of us in our own companies, what are we doing to bring the health and wellness part of this industry to consumers?
Is it on our websites? Is it in the marketing materials? Are we training our sales people? Are we doing product development around that? And then outside of that, like what can we do to inspire the rest of the industry? What can we all do in our own companies? And then what can we do together? Because if we do that and we are all lockstep in kind of growing the idea from that, then holy cow, like what an impact it could potentially have, not just on the industry.
So we sell more stuff, that’s for sure. But what is the impact of it on humans? Because they’re not learning about sleep, they’re not being told. And educated in a way [00:11:00] about sleep that really connects it to quality life. So that’s what I love about this, the connection. Bentonville, um, Tara Kinsley, your wife.
Uh, we all got together last weekend and we went and toured the hotels and different things. And I’m telling you like when I went through all that, uh, and, and I saw it coming together, I got so excited. Here’s, here’s the best part of this story for me. And by the way, we’re not gonna get into a whole lot of detail, um, because the, the script hasn’t been written like we, like, part of the fun of this is I feel like I’m on a ski slope and I’m going down a hill, and then you have it playing out, and then you’re gonna go over the next hill and you don’t know what’s on the other side.
So you can slow down to go over that hill. Or sometimes you’re like, No. How the, with that, I’m just gonna like, you know, Geronimo over there and just like, you know, take my chances. Right. We’re kind of taking the chance. It’s a little bit of a geronimo. Because we’re gonna go on the other side of that hill and we aren’t really sure where this goes.
And that’s fun to me. And the last comment is the people, right? So here we are, a little bit of uncertain [00:12:00] times. This was not cheap for people to come to, but the hell yes, I’m in attitude from people to come. I just, it blew me away and got me really excited. And I think that is a perfect testament mark to the fact.
People are ready for this. They want this. They like to be around like-minded people. They like to be around positive energy, and that’s what this is gonna be. And I cannot wait to come out of this next week and then bring content back and like tell the stories. It’s gonna be so freaking
Mark Kinsley: cool. And I have to give a huge shout out too, um, to number one, all the dream campers that said yes.
And were basically throwing elbows in some cases to get into Dream Camp and get in there. We have CEOs from many major companies and major retailers, and just a whole host of amazing people that, that we reached out to that, you know, would want to be involved in, in mountain biking, kind of this, this fitness part of it.
And then also [00:13:00] understood the, the character, uh, of the world that we’re trying to build. And, and it, it’s been really fun to create that world together. And like you said, we’re all ger mowing over the, over that hill. Together because this is not a passive consumption get together. We ask a lot of Dream Camp attendees to co-create, to be a part of envisioning what it could be, and then to live it out with us.
And so I, I wanna give a huge shout out also to Doug Stewart. Doug is an Abso, I would call him a sevan, but I know that it’s one part. Hi, like. It’s who he is and it’s how he was raised, and it’s just his nature. So maybe that’s the Sevan portion, but the other portion is he works really hard. What he, what he did was he helped us understand that we need to make sure and do something with this information [00:14:00] in the moment, so all of our guest speakers, Um, from different parts of the sleep industry, not the, the mattress business.
We had the business community, JB Hunt’s president, uh, we had, um, the Chief Growth Officer with Gerunds, which is a health, uh, healthcare medical technology company that deals mainly with sleep products. But how often do we interact with that? What’s that? University
Mark Quinn: of Arkansas is gonna
be
Mark Kinsley: there. Dr. Ivan Vargas, University of Arkansas.
So you have all these different silo. That we wanted to break down, and I call it running figure eights. So I want us to go to adjacent industries and bring that information back to our own path, right? Cause if we keep running on this path right here, it’s just gonna get rutted deeper. Mm-hmm. . But if we run figure eights, all of a sudden we’re bringing back ideas from these adjacent industries.
And Doug helped us in the moment. Understand what it’s gonna mean to take the speech or the, the [00:15:00] content or the idea. Get in groups, get together and make meaning of it, and plan for application of those ideas. Mm-hmm. , because how, how often do you walk away and nobody asks anything of you, and how often do you walk away with maybe a few notes, but what do you do with it?
So we want to crystallize people’s thinking in the moment, create community, and then also be able to have the support system after the fact so people can walk away and be like, I got my dog, my dogs are here. Right? Like we, we got this.
Mark Quinn: Well, so yes, I’m with you and I, I just wanna like keep building on that.
Doug Stewart’s phenomenal, would love him, and we’ve been inspired really by so many people. There’s like so many people’s influence, I think on you and I that have imprinted themselves on us that we’re being inspired by, that we probably couldn’t even name. Honestly, a lot of ’em are coming to this. But if you’re listening to this, you’re like, Hey man, why didn’t I get a call?
Like, I wanna come. Um, it’s, it, it’s not, Look, we, we had to really keep a tight circle around it [00:16:00] and the people that have reached out to us a lot over. The years and maybe from the beginning, um, we went to the low hanging fruit. Right? So those guys that we knew were gonna be all in those people. Uh, and, and so that’s kind of how that part of it evolved.
Mark Kinsley: And there’s, there’s the cycling component to it because the dream camp huge was born out of mountain biking a hundred percent. So a lot of cyclings, right. And like you said, you know, we, we, we kind of have like, it was almost the Arthur Ash moment. Mm-hmm. begin where you are. Do what you can, use what you have.
You know, that’s where everybody is. And so we were just like, Okay, we’ll start here. Do people mountain, bike or cycle in this community? Strangely enough, there are a lot more of us than we realized. And okay, great, let’s, let’s go with that. And from there we know we can grow, we can make. Pieces of Dream camp and future state, the future state, um, summit that we’re working on more accessible.
So a hundred percent and,
Mark Quinn: and there’s more coming. So that’s good news. And, and, and we’ll be updating people. I wanna like build on the, the [00:17:00] comment too that like when, um, when we’re building it, like most conferences Mark, like you leave and it’s like fine, like maybe someone said something or whatever. But that’s not actionable.
Like you go back and you may be inspired, but like it’s not implemented because you get back and life takes over and you’re in your business, not on your bi. Like so we’re we, We’ve got some ways to like make sure that doesn’t happen. But I also wanna give a shout out to my company, Matt Firm. Mattress from when I told them about this, they were like, uh, and, and actually something really big came up and landed right in the middle of Dream Camp.
And I’m like, Guys, I know you’re gonna want me there. But, and, and when I talked to them about this and, and they realized what we were doing, they’re like, No, go do that. Right? They’re like, No, go do that because we, we have to be good citizens inside the category. And, And that’s exactly what this is, right?
It’s bringing people together as a fam and inside the industry. We’re all in the same boat on this one, [00:18:00] Kinsley. And it’s gonna be so fun to see what comes out of it. But hey, listen, if you guys are listening to this, you wanna see updates coming out of it, my recommendation is for sure make sure you’re subscribed to the.
Because when we do come out of it, we’re gonna have clips and tons of video and lots of great content that comes out of it. So we’ll be sharing it. If you text us at our podium number, which is Mr. Kinsley, you probably have it right there.
Mark Kinsley: Okay, I got it pulled up right now. Okay, so it is Marcos two. I know that, yeah.
Yeah. 8 43. Um, Marcos two, but I’ll give you the number here. So jot it down, get your phone out or a little pad of paper. I’ll give you to you twice. 8 4 3 6 2 7 26 72 8 4 3 6 2 7 26 72. And the reason I want you to jot down 8 4 3 6 2 7 26 72 is. We are first going to make announcements about Dream Camp and [00:19:00] any other FAM events through text message first, well before anybody else.
So if you are not signed up to get our text messages, we don’t send out a bunch of texts. We notify you about really good content. We note, and like I said, we’re gonna notify you about events. Uh, that we think are gonna be relevant to this community. I know they are. Um, first, so make sure and sign up for our text messages.
That’s the way to go.
Mark Quinn: Well, I’m, I’m so excited. I’m glad that you guys, uh, went out and just said yes and did the first one, and now here we are, uh, gonna do another one with a little bit more of an expanded group and we’re gonna build on it. So I love it, man. Um, thanks for everyone who was involved in the original.
So more to come on that. If you’re listening to this, no matter where you’re at, treadmill walking your dog, you’re in a car. Uh, we so appreciate you giving us time. Um, we hope, uh, from the bottom of our hearts that your time invested in us, uh, inspires you [00:20:00] in some way or gives you information that maybe you like to get.
We love hearing from all of you. Hey man, we were listening to a show. Like that stuff means a lot to us, so thanks for. And most importantly, go to iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to the show, give us a rating. And more importantly than that probably is shared with people inside the category. And let’s build the fan together.
It is a campfire. Let’s get warm and cozy at that campfire.
