How Eliza Twist turned a personal health challenge into a hardware startup designed to help people rest better
Some founders start with a market gap. Others start with lived experience.
For Eliza Twist, founder of Zebble, the business emerged from a period where sleep stopped feeling safe, predictable, or even possible.
Today, Zebble is building a bedside device designed to help people disconnect from their phones while still remaining reachable by chosen contacts. Zebble replaces your phone at night and acts as an alarm and a safety net. Zebble users also have access to a library of content designed to help them get to sleep, curated and created by doctors and experts including some of the world’s most respected names in sleep. No scrolling. No notifications. Just a clearer boundary between rest and interruption.
But the journey to building Zebble was far from linear.
Ambition Was Never in Question
Eliza describes ambition as something that arrived early and stayed.
“When I was little, I’d draw myself and the idea was that of a businesswoman. That’s all I knew. I knew I wanted to wear the nice outfits and do business.”
By her early twenties, she had mapped out a clear future at an investment bank, with an internship in New York lined up before COVID disrupted the plan entirely.
“I was supposed to move to New York, and I had an internship in finance, but it fell through because of COVID.”
Like many ambitious people navigating that period, Eliza tried to force her way back onto the path she had originally planned.
“I wanted to get back to the investment bank plan desperately. That was always what my route was meant to be.”
But after a life-changing event in London led to PTSD related insomnia, the pace and pressure began to show up physically.
Sleep became inconsistent, then increasingly difficult altogether.
When Rest Stops Feeling Possible
Following a traumatic incident in London, Eliza began experiencing PTSD-related insomnia.
“I was struggling with PTSD-related insomnia at the time.”
She continued working and maintaining routine externally, while internally, things became increasingly unsustainable.
“I was still working, still showing up, but I’d get home and be terrified to go to sleep.”
The exhaustion escalated quickly.
“I’d had three days back-to-back of not sleeping, and I thought I was going to lose my mind.”
What stands out in the way Eliza talks about this period is the absence of drama. Instead, she speaks with clarity about recognising that the solutions available to her often demanded more mental effort, more discipline, more pushing through.
Instead, she started changing the environment around her.
The first shift was deceptively simple.
“I stopped sleeping with my phone, and it made a massive difference.”
Then she refined it further.
“I made my bedroom a safe space again. My mum did the same and started sleeping through the night again, but after a break-in at my apartment, she refused to ever not be reachable by her children again”
What began as a personal workaround gradually became the foundation for a much larger idea.
Building the First Version of Zebble
Eliza realised she did not want another app competing for attention inside the same device already disrupting sleep.
The solution needed to be physical.
Something designed specifically for rest.
“This was my MVP,” she said, describing how she redirected calls from family and clients to an old number, allowing urgent calls through while filtering everything else.
“If it’s an emergency, call me. Otherwise, after ten, I’m not seeing anything.”
The impact was immediate.
“It changed everything. I was happier. I had energy again.”
That early experiment became the starting point for Zebble.
A bedside hardware device designed to preserve healthy boundaries with technology while still allowing people to remain contactable when genuinely needed.
Building Hardware Properly
From the beginning, Eliza was deliberate about how Zebble would be developed.
Rather than rushing towards launch or layering another digital solution into people’s lives, she focused on building something intentionally simple, credible and grounded in behavioural science.
She sought out clinicians, neuroscientists, and specialists in sleep and the nervous system to help shape the thinking behind the product.
The goal was never to ask people to completely change who they are.
It was to create something that naturally supports better rest within modern life.
Building hardware also brought a very different set of startup realities: manufacturing complexity, cost pressures, product development timelines and operational discipline.
Rather than putting her off, those challenges reinforced her belief that the product needed to be done properly.
Every feature had to earn its place.
Every decision had to serve the same core question:
Does this genuinely help people rest better?
Making the Most of the Accelerator
By the time Eliza joined the Barclays Eagle Labs Female Founder Accelerator, powered by AccelerateHER, she already had conviction in both the problem and the opportunity.
What she wanted next was momentum, network access and practical leverage.
“You get out what you put in.”
That mindset shaped how she approached the programme.
She showed up consistently, followed through on opportunities and treated introductions, sessions and relationships seriously.
“I threw myself into everything.”
The result was a network that actively opened doors around her business.
“I can’t even tell you what Barclays and AccelerateHER have done for me. It’s been unbelievable,”
“They invite me to everything. Any possible connection they can make, they do it.”
Her story reflects something we hear often from founders across the accelerator community:
The programme works best for founders who actively engage with the ecosystem around them.
Structure, Routine and Sustainability
Eliza speaks openly about how much routine and structure matter to her now.
“I’ve always been incredibly focused,” she said. “If I decide I want something, it’s done.”
But unlike the earlier version of success she had imagined in her twenties, her idea of ambition now includes sustainability alongside achievement.
Routine is no longer restrictive. It is supportive.
Exercise, boundaries and protecting space to reset are now non-negotiables that help her operate at a high level consistently.
“I live alone. I love my routine. I love what I’m doing.”
That self-awareness feels deeply connected to the product she is building.
Zebble is not about rejecting technology altogether.
It is about creating healthier relationships with it.
Building Something Designed to Last
When Eliza talks about the future of Zebble, she does so carefully and deliberately.
She understands that products connected to sleep, wellbeing and human behaviour require trust.
Adoption takes time.
Hardware requires patience.
Products placed beside someone’s bed need to feel dependable.
What comes through most clearly is her long-term commitment to the work itself.
Not just the startup momentum.
Not just the founder identity.
But the responsibility of building something people genuinely rely on.
And perhaps that is what makes her story resonate so strongly within the AccelerateHER community.
It is not simply a story about ambition.
It is a story about redirection, self-awareness, discipline and building from lived experience.
What Other Founders Can Learn From Eliza’s Story
Eliza’s journey is a reminder that founder stories do not always begin with polished business plans or perfect timing.
Sometimes they begin with frustration.
Sometimes with exhaustion.
Sometimes with recognising a problem in your own life that nobody seems to be solving properly.
What matters is what happens next.
For Eliza, that meant paying attention to what was no longer working, building a solution around real human behaviour, and fully committing to the opportunities and ecosystem around her.
And that momentum continues to build.
Applications are currently open for the 2026 Barclays Eagle Labs Female Founder Accelerator, powered by AccelerateHER, until Friday 12 June 2026.
If you are a female founder building an ambitious business and looking for practical support, expert guidance and a powerful founder community around you, this could be the right next step.