The Founder's Story:

From Healthcare Innovation to Sleep Revolution

Win Hansen's journey to founding Sleep Fitter began with decades at the forefront of patient care innovation, particularly in pressure and temperature regulation within healthcare settings. His deep understanding of how temperature affects patient comfort and recovery in hospitals became the foundation for what would eventually transform into a consumer sleep enterprise.

The Healthcare Foundation

During his years as a senior healthcare executive, Win specialized in hospital bed technology and patient sleep protocols. He witnessed firsthand how proper temperature regulation could dramatically improve patient outcomes and comfort. This experience gave him unique insights into the science of thermal management and its critical role in quality sleep - knowledge that most consumer sleep companies simply don't possess.

A Personal Mission Born from Crisis

The original idea to bring this technology to consumers was born out of a deeply personal experience. When Win's wife was diagnosed with cancer, she struggled to regulate her body temperature during treatments - a common challenge for patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. Win's employer at the time owned sophisticated temperature regulation technology designed for hospital settings, and Win made the decision to bring this technology home to help his wife.

The results were remarkable. The hospital-grade thermal management system provided her with the comfort and temperature control she desperately needed during her treatment and recovery. Seeing how dramatically this technology improved her quality of life during such a challenging time, Win realized that this solution shouldn't be limited to hospital patients - millions of people struggling with temperature regulation during sleep could benefit from this same technology.

The Consumer Vision

This personal experience sparked Win's mission to make hospital-grade thermal management accessible to consumers. He understood that the sophisticated airflow and temperature control systems that helped hospital patients could transform sleep quality for anyone dealing with night sweats, hot flashes, or temperature-related sleep disruption.

However, bringing medical-grade technology to the consumer market required more than just good intentions. In 2023, Win achieved a crucial milestone: he secured the exclusive license to the patented technology that now exists in Rairflow® products. This licensing agreement allowed him to adapt the proven hospital technology for home use while maintaining the effectiveness that had made such a difference in his wife's comfort.

The Platform Vision

As Win brought this technology to market, he realized something crucial: poor sleep is often a symptom of multiple underlying factors that the sleep industry wasn't addressing systematically. This insight, combined with his personal experience of seeing how proper assessment and targeted solutions could transform someone's comfort, led to the creation of the Sleep Fitter Method.

"We realized that before you can solve someone's sleep problems, you need to understand what's actually causing them," Win explains. "The industry was treating everyone the same when sleep challenges are deeply personal - something I learned firsthand during my wife's cancer journey."

Innovation Recognition

Win's vision has gained significant recognition in the Kansas City innovation ecosystem. Sleep Fitter was selected for the prestigious Digital Sandbox KC program in 2025, earning project funding, mentoring, and connections as part of the Digital Health KC initiative. The company was recognized for "leading individuals to wellbeing through improved sleep by identifying problems that can be improved through fitted sleep equipment."

The Healthcare Connection

What sets Win apart is his unique ability to bridge healthcare expertise with consumer accessibility, born from both professional experience and personal necessity. Under his leadership, Sleep Fitter has achieved something unprecedented - Rairflow® is the only sleep product approved for dry eye treatment under FSA/HSA eligible spending, providing medical validation for the connection between sleep environment and health. Rairflow® is also eligible for 11 other conditions, including menopause, sleep apnea and cancer.

Healthcare professionals have embraced this approach. As Dr. Dalton Brothers, a dry eye specialist, notes: "Dry Eye is an environmental issue. Fans running at night is a primary cause. We ask all our dry eye patients to stop bedside and ceiling fans at night. Good eye health starts with better sleep."

Beyond Products: Systemic Solutions

Today, Win leads Sleep Fitter as a comprehensive sleep health company operating across multiple channels - direct consumer, retail partnerships and healthcare specific networks.

Located in Lenexa, Kansas, Sleep Fitter represents Win's vision of transforming how people understand and improve their sleep - at home, at work, and in care settings. His background as a certified sleep science coach, combined with his healthcare innovation experience and deeply personal understanding of how temperature regulation can impact quality of life, positions him uniquely to lead this systematic approach to sleep health improvement.

Win Hansen didn't set out to disrupt the sleep industry - he set out to help his wife and discovered that millions of others needed the same solution. The exclusive licensing of proven hospital technology in 2023 allowed him to fulfill a promise: making medical-grade comfort accessible to everyone who needs it.