When Will Ahmed started his own clothing technology WHOOP Company, the odds of success were not in his favor. The iconic company Nike had just entered the space with its own wearable, the FuelBand. How could Ahmed's startup compete with an international power whose name literally comes from the Greek goddess of victory?

It works out pretty well. Nike discontinued the FuelBand in 2014, while WHOOP became a $4 billion company. How did Ahmed kill the swoosh—not to mention other competitors in the space, like Microsoft, Google, Fitbit, and Jawbone? He credits his success to a combination of a well-defined strategy and a healthy dose of naivety.

“I had an idea for a product that I thought should exist in the world. And it didn't make sense to me why that product didn't exist. I thought it should be out there,” he said on my podcast. A day with Jon Bier.

Here are four highlights from our lively conversation.

Learn from the greats

Ironically, Ahmed's WHOOP strategy took a page from Nike's old playbook. Back to the days of Air Jordans and Bo Knows, Nike had “a deep obsession with creating a shoe that could make athletes run faster,” Ahmed recalls. However, Nike didn't use the same strategy for the FuelBand, which it released without consulting athletes.

“If I were Nike, I would have (asked) how do we start at the top of the pyramid? We need this to be something that LeBron wears, Serena and Tiger. Then we're going to tell that story and bring it to measurements,” he says. They just skipped that whole step. … They didn't validate it with their athletes.”

Conversely, Ahmed did extensive market research before his launch, giving him an edge over his competitors.

Connected: The Remarkable Career of Nike Founder Phil Knight – Biography

Make technology the servant, not the master

Sometimes, you want a product that whispers instead of screams. Ahmed rejects the idea that wearables should be a constant companion, always competing for our attention.

“Technology should enhance your life, not take over it,” he says.

That's why WHOOP silently collects data without requiring the user's ongoing engagement.

“We wanted to gather this background information and then say the right things at the right times,” he says. “There's a certain principle behind it, which is that the product fades into the background on your behalf.”

Don't fear failure – but don't idealize it either

Ahmed believes that fear of failure has killed many great ideas before they had a chance to become reality. But he also thinks that in today's tech culture, “failure is romanticized as some kind of convenient end state. There are a lot of these weird phrases in the tech industry, like 'test, iterate, fail.'

Instead of focusing on our failures, he says we should embrace our successes.

In building a WHOOP, there were a number of moments when we were on the brink of failure and what it took to overcome those moments was a deep level of focus, pain management, stress overcoming,” Ahmed recalls. “I have a lot of pride in that. I feel a connection to that younger self and the team around me that was able to get through that darkness when the company almost failed.”

Connected: 10 lessons about failure every entrepreneur should know

Bow in gratitude

Ahmed says many entrepreneurs chase dopamine by setting goals and achieving them. The problem is that success never feels as good as we think it will, so we keep moving the stakes until we're numb to any real happiness.

His solution is to inject some gratitude into his life.

“I know this is going to sound off to some people, but gratitude releases serotonin. That's another way to make yourself feel happy,” he says. “Gratitude means appreciating where you are, and the team you're with, and that's the kind of happiness that unlocks for the struggling entrepreneur.”

How does he practice gratitude? “I meditate first thing in the morning, and as part of that, I actively think about things I'm grateful for,” he says. “I also have a journaling practice where I write down three things I'm grateful for.”

This could be as simple as his morning cup of coffee, a loving look from his wife, or maybe even beating Nike in 2014.

Connected: Why gratitude makes leaders more effective