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Casper, Mattress Maker, Raises $170M and Plans I.P.O

nytimes.com

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Re: Casper, Mattress Maker, Raises $170M and Plans I.P.O

#21

Post by joshuamcginnis »

DrJokepu wrote: post #7
smaili wrote: post #5

Any owners here care to share what Casper's "killer app" is?

Their products are more affordable than much of their competition, they are very comfortable and easy to assemble. They only have online retail presence, no physical retail locations. The only thing I dislike about my Casper mattress is that sitting on the edge of the bed is a bit uncomfortable.

Lookup "Zinus Memory Foam 12 Inch Green Tea Mattress" on Amazon. It's an incredible mail-order memory foam mattress for under $200. 7000+ 4+ reviews.

Re: Casper, Mattress Maker, Raises $170M and Plans I.P.O

#23

Post by interfixus »

Yet another little corner of life where I'm left wondering out in the dark. Absolutely not denigrating anyone's preferences - it's just that I simply don't get it: Give me a slab of foam rubber - and maybe give me a new one after five or ten years - and I couldn't be happier. Fancy mattresses range - in my limited view - from quite on a level with foam down to way too squishy.

Re: Casper, Mattress Maker, Raises $170M and Plans I.P.O

#24

Post by colmvp »

DrJokepu wrote: post #7
smaili wrote: post #5

Any owners here care to share what Casper's "killer app" is?

Their products are more affordable than much of their competition, they are very comfortable and easy to assemble. They only have online retail presence, no physical retail locations. The only thing I dislike about my Casper mattress is that sitting on the edge of the bed is a bit uncomfortable.

Your dislike is unfortunately a common flaw with Casper like foam mattresses which largely just have a number of layers of foam on top of one another. You can reinforce or line the edges with firmer foam/material so that sitting on the edge is more comfortable and robust, but I think a lot of mass manufacturers avoid that to keep their costs low.

I recall seeing the difference by going to a custom foam mattress store.

Re: Casper, Mattress Maker, Raises $170M and Plans I.P.O

#25

Post by jseliger »

vidoc wrote: post #10
DrJokepu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their products are more affordable than much of their competition, they are very comfortable and easy to assemble. They only have online retail presence, no physical retail locations. The only thing I dislike about my Casper mattress is that sitting on the edge of the bed is a bit uncomfortable.

Plus they surf the 'ethical marketing' wave very big time. e.g: If you buy a mattress from us, we'll donate one to someone in need. TLDR -> You can only buy 2 mattresses from us and we will only give one to you, cash in the moral benefit of being 'good', possibly get tax exemption on your dollar. And btw, by doing this we don't just insult your intelligence, we also kill the competition as there are people competing…

Which is interesting, given this: https://sleepopolis.com/blog/casper-sues-sleepopolis-with-fe... . Someone else posted it in this thread.

Re: Casper, Mattress Maker, Raises $170M and Plans I.P.O

#26

Post by ojbyrne »

beager wrote: post #9
02thoeva wrote: post #3

In the UK, Eve, a rival maker also just (around a month ago) IPO'd here in the UK. Their figures are scary at the moment, with a CPA hovering around £250-£300 and returns of 15% on the mattresses with the 100-night trial. All that with an average order value was only £450, on a product people buy every 10 years! They lost £11.3m last year on earnings of £12m, so no wonder their shares have been on the decline since I…

That is a staggering CPA vis a vis product cost. Is that just based on the congestion of keyword bidding? Or does CPA actually mean conversion/sale and the path to close is very difficult? I feel like Amazon could swoop in with a competitive offering and obliterate the competition, if marketing and acquisition were the only barriers to success. They've also got a lot of distribution infrastructure they can leverage,…

Or Ikea.

Re: Casper, Mattress Maker, Raises $170M and Plans I.P.O

#28

Post by JumpCrisscross »

interfixus wrote: post #23

Yet another little corner of life where I'm left wondering out in the dark. Absolutely not denigrating anyone's preferences - it's just that I simply don't get it: Give me a slab of foam rubber - and maybe give me a new one after five or ten years - and I couldn't be happier. Fancy mattresses range - in my limited view - from quite on a level with foam down to way too squishy .

> I simply don't get it...give me a slab of foam rubber

I drink my coffee black and my espresso unadorned. I'm not "wondering out in the dark" why some prefer a cappuccino or venti frappé whatever-the-crap. People have different preferences.

Re: Casper, Mattress Maker, Raises $170M and Plans I.P.O

#29

Post by ekianjo »

tdeck wrote: post #14

Worth listening to this story from Marketplace: Why are there so many mattress stores? https://www.marketplace.org/2016/05/02/world/why-are-there-s... Basically, mattresses in the US are sold at a very high markup (couple hundred times the cost) so it's an easy way to make money.

> Basically, mattresses in the US are sold at a very high markup (couple hundred times the cost) so it's an easy way to make money.

then, is there any reason why no-one disrupts the market with cheaper mattresses?

Re: Casper, Mattress Maker, Raises $170M and Plans I.P.O

#30

Post by adamnemecek »

Pulcinella wrote: post #13
peterkshultz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's exceptionally rare for startups to be killed by competitors—so rare that you can almost discount the possibility." - Paul Graham ( http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html )

Yes we all remember when Facebook failed to defeat MySpace...

The quote is right. The only enemy of your startup is yourself. MySpace fucked up in so many ways that it's surprising that they managed to remain somewhat relevant until around ~2010 or so.
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