Building Sollos
3 min read
Product, Partnerships, Research, Wellness, Audio, Launches, Apple Music, Venture Building, Startups, Sollos
Sollos started as a flawed idea and became a research-backed wellness product launched in partnership with Apple Music. This is the practical story of how it got built, and what it taught me.
Building something new that needs proper validation?
Building Sollos
Sollos started as a flawed idea.
In late 2017, I was shown a deck claiming music tuned to specific frequencies could treat sleep apnoea. Most of it didn’t stand up to scrutiny. A lot of it bordered on pseudoscience. But buried in the noise was a more interesting question: could sound meaningfully influence brain state, and could that effect be proven properly?
What followed was a multi-year journey through scientific research, product design, algorithm development, brand building, venture modelling, and ultimately launch. Along the way, Sollos moved from an internal exploration at Universal Music Group to a standalone venture, backed by research conducted with Goldsmiths, University of London, supported by patented audio technology, and eventually launched globally in partnership with Apple Music.
This isn’t a highlight reel.
It’s a practical account of how one idea moved from curiosity to credible product inside a large organisation, what it took to validate it properly, where things went wrong, and what I’d do differently next time.
The work on Sollos directly shaped how Diverge operates today. Many of the principles we apply with clients, around validation, venture structure, product focus, brand clarity, and knowing when to let go, were forged during this build.
What follows is a breakdown of that journey, chapter by chapter. No hype. No shortcuts. Just the reality of building something new, carefully.