334. Why This Alarm Clock Has Only One Setting (and Why Its Competitors Charge a Subscription) - Emily Byrne, Rise Centered

Emily Byrne tried three sunrise alarm clocks before she built her own. Every one of them needed her phone to work, which defeated the entire point of a product meant to help people put their phone down.

Byrne is founder of Rise Centered, a brand making intentional home products designed to help people take breaks from their phones. Its hero product is a sunrise alarm clock made from Himalayan salt and wood that works entirely on its own, with no app, no wifi and no subscription. Her background is in art and design, and she spent most of her career in the boutique wine industry before starting the company.

One setting, decided for you

Rise Centered's clock ships with one alarm sound and one sunrise simulation time already chosen, with no way to customise either. Byrne says that is deliberate.

"I think a lot of the messaging out there is that you need more self-discipline around your phone. Our take is that you don't. The smartest people in the world built this device to capture your attention. What you need is really simple routines and products that make it easy and natural to put your phone down and take that break."
Emily Byrne

A 2.0 version launching next year will add a small number of wake up and sleep sounds based on customer feedback, but it will stay intentionally limited. Customers cannot choose the sunrise simulation time or the colour of the light. Byrne says that restraint is the whole appeal for the audience she is building for.

The subscription fee hiding inside an alarm clock

Byrne's two biggest competitors, both similarly priced and more polished looking, require a subscription to use. She sees genuine fatigue in customers who are tired of paying recurring fees for products that should just work on their own, and Rise Centered's no subscription, no wifi positioning is a direct response to that frustration.

The ad with no persuasion, just a feature list

Rise Centered's biggest source of traffic is Meta ads, and its best performing ad is a simple static image laying out the product's features next to a major competitor's, with no persuasive copy at all. Byrne says most of her audience already feels the exact frustration the ad is describing before they ever see it, so the ad's job is simply to show them there is an alternative.

Founder led beats polished and anonymous

Byrne handles most customer communication herself and stays visible across the brand's marketing, rather than presenting Rise Centered as a faceless storefront. She believes that visibility builds more trust than a slicker but anonymous site, especially as customers grow warier of sites that turn out not to be genuine.

Real bedrooms convert better than styled photography

The brand incentivises customers to include photos in their reviews, specifically so shoppers can see the product in real, imperfect bedrooms rather than professional styling. Byrne says this makes it far easier for a new customer to picture the clock working in their own space, and a 30 day trial removes any remaining hesitation.

"At lower price points, the more you de-risk and incentivise the purchase, the less consideration people really give the product, and they're more likely to just buy it because they think, well, if I don't like it, I'll just return it. Whereas with higher price products, someone's not going to spend that money if they're not actually pretty keen on the product, they just want that safeguard in case it isn't quite what they thought they were buying."
Will Laurenson

Heavy and handmade is the point, not the problem

Each clock weighs around 11 pounds and is shaped from salt and wood largely by hand, which makes it slower and more expensive to produce and ship than an injection moulded alternative. Byrne treats that weight and lead time as part of what makes the product feel premium, rather than something to engineer away. It is also why Rise Centered, still a two person team, produces in small batches and has to fund manufacturing, inventory and freight well before any of it turns into revenue.

Key takeaways

• Deliberately limiting product options can be the selling point itself, not a compromise, for an audience that wants something to just work
• A simple, honest feature comparison ad can outperform persuasive copy when your audience already feels the problem you are solving
• Being visibly founder led builds more trust than a polished but anonymous storefront
• Incentivise real, unstyled customer photos in reviews so shoppers can picture the product in their own imperfect space
• A generous trial period reduces hesitation differently at different price points, so match the safeguard to how much consideration the purchase actually needs
• Treat the real cost of your production process, whether that is materials, weight or lead time, as part of the product story rather than something to hide

Byrne says the company's biggest challenge right now is simply deciding where two people and limited capital will have the greatest effect. Listen to the full episode to hear how she is thinking about that as Rise Centered heads into its busiest season.

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