Khaliah O. Guillory Left A VP Role At A Fortune 100 Financial Services Company To Focus On Building Her Own Tech Startup – AfroTech
Khaliah O. Guillory launched a company to encourage people to rest.
It was during Guillory’s 14-year career at a Fortune 100 financial services company and a couple of years into running KOG & Co., her speaking boutique, that the idea to creatively encourage rest emerged.
Guillory was carpooling to Houston with her best friend at the time for a speaking engagement for KOG & Co., which sits at the intersection of leadership, performance, sales, culture, innovation, and wellness. And she needed a nap. Her friend suggested she find a nearby place she could drop by for a short rest, but Guillory was unable to find one after a quick Google search. The friend then suggested she create a solution.
“That night, I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m gonna quit my corporate job with stability, and people are gonna pay me to take naps,’” Guillory told AFROTECH™ in an interview.
However, Guillory did end up leaving a “cushy corporate job” at Wells Fargo in 2018 to launch a company around naps.
She received further grounding after reading a 1995 NASA study that found pilots who took a 26-minute nap experienced up to a 54% increase in alertness and 34% increase in job performance compared with those who didn’t, according to the Sleep Foundation.
Nap Bar
Guillory told AFROTECH™ she conducted a poll on Facebook and learned 97.5% of respondents were taking naps during their lunch breaks. They also revealed that if there was a place they could take a nap, they would want aromatherapy and a massage, a turnkey solution. Their feedback informed Nap Bar’s approach: an eco-friendly, tech-enabled rest suite for people on the go.
“I am a former VP at a Fortune 100 company. I’m an entrepreneur, a serial entrepreneur. I’m a founder,” Guillory shared with AFROTECH™. “So, especially in our community, it’s been instilled in us that we have to go, go, go. It’s the grind culture. I’ll sleep when I’m dead. ‘Team No Sleep.’ The reality of it is that’s enslaved mentality, and we have to undo 400-plus years of that enslaved mentality. So where it starts, the starting line for us is to not believe we have to deserve rest, or our rest is something or naps are something that we deserve. It’s our right… our birthright.”
She continued, “And the people who made the sacrifice are our ancestors because they were told when they could rest. Our generation, we can rest on demand… When we uncondition ourselves, then it opens up a whole new era of what’s possible for our creativity, for our decision-making, for our health.”
The concept has evolved since its launch in January 2019 by Guillory, who also became a certified sleep coach. She started with beta testing for five months beginning in March at a mattress store in Houston’s Rice Village, she shared. It was followed by three rounds of minimum viable products (MVPs) before its first storefront opened at The Galleria mall in November 2019, where customers were charged $1 per minute for a minimum of 30 minutes, with an option for a membership tier.
Due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Nap Bar’s storefront closed, and its business model pivoted to pop-ups for corporations and to locations such as Houston’s United terminal, college campuses, festivals, and events, including AFROTECH™ Conference, the Grammy Awards, and, most recently, Soho House Austin, Guillory said. An exclusive virtual reality experience using a Meta Quest (formerly Oculus Quest) headset was also integrated.
“We use them as a vessel to upload our [intellectual property], ’cause we own the IP for the software, and we just use the headsets as basically the vessel, so people can see it in the immersive setting that it’s in,” Guillory clarified.
The VR headset presents nappers with views and natural sounds of space, waterfalls, sunsets, even the coast of Mauritius in East Africa. The headset debuted at AFROTECH™ Conference2025, coupled with a zero-gravity mattress made in partnership with Casper.
“Your head [and] your legs are elevated. The reason why you [want to] do this is because the lumbar support protects your back. It helps your body really rest. And then you pair it with the VR experience — we refer to it as rest tech for Nap Bar. That experience is going to help your brain rest. It’s gonna reduce your anxiety if you suffer from depression,” Guillory said.
Funding
Nap Bar has received nearly $40,000 in pitch competitions, including from 50 Cent’s Hustle Tank, raised $119,250 from a crowdfunding campaign, and Guillory has invested $200,000 of her own money, according to information shared with AFROTECH™. She aspires to open Nap Bar storefronts worldwide in airports, hospitals, college campuses, and more.
Napchella
Guillory invites the Houston community to try the technology for themselves and take part in the full wellness experience at the inaugural Napchella. The indoor event will be held 1-4 p.m., Sunday, June 14, at MATCH (Midtown Arts and Theatre Center). Attendees can enjoy brunch, lush greenery, a plant activation by The Plant Project, and chair massages by Body Spoils. Expect a tie-dye station powered by Tai Dyed Apparel, signature cocktails by The Good Lounge, an affirmation mixtape listening party, and more.
The already sold-out event is free. You can join the waitlist here.
