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We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

priceonomics.com

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Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#131

Post by muraiki »

eru wrote: post #122
muraiki wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I almost got a Sleep Innovations mattress, but in the end we felt that we couldn't buy a mattress that we hadn't had a chance to try out. We both like a very firm mattress, which can be difficult to find. While it's true that lying on a mattress for a few minutes won't tell you whether it's the best one or not, it sure did help us rule out many mattresses. We ended up getting an Ikea mattress, which turne…

Ikea also seems to be the only place in the UK that sells decent slatted frames to put under your mattress. I guess British people aren't familiar with the concept.

Ah yes, we previously had a box spring but opted for the slatted frame. I like it a lot, and I like having the bed lower to the ground (although the best my back ever was when I slept on tatami for a semester in Japan)

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#132

Post by eru »

stcredzero wrote: post #125
eru wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried putting a slatted frame underneath your mattress? In Germany you usually put the slatted frame in a bed, but I found you can also just put that on the floor (plus mattress) to have a very low bedstead.

> Have you ever tried putting a slatted frame underneath your mattress? No, but I know people who really like slats and none who dislike them. (I wanted to write that I know people who swear by slats and none who swear at them, but that would be an exaggeration.) I can't have my bed on the floor, because I have my platform bed on risers and 10 big plastic bins underneath so I have a storage bed.

Yeah, putting the slatted frame directly on the floor is just a spleen of mine. Also I didn't want to spend any money on, what people call a "bed", because it doesn't improve comfort. (But can indeed be useful for storage.)

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#133

Post by mnicole »

stevesearer wrote: post #40
MartinCron wrote: post #23

While you're disrupting the mattress industry, please consider re-thinking the King form factor. Changing the aspect ratio by just a few inches would make it perfectly square, which allows for you to rotate 90 degrees as well as flip, so the whole thing would wear out more evenly. As an extra bonus, this would make putting sheets on easier as there's no wrong way (short of inside-out, I guess).

Your comment has inspired me to make a 'sheet disruption' company called Who Gives A Sheet. Sheets will be reversible and for every set of sheets purchased, we'll give a sheet to someone that needs one.

Love the visual of a crowd of happy customers, children included, shouting "We gave a sheet!"

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#134

Post by MatthewB »

stcredzero wrote: post #126
tptacek wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private equity firms buy companies to make them more profitable and then flip them. They are essentially committing themselves to the incumbent role in Christiansen's "Innovator's Dilemma". When a market is dominated by risk-averse incumbents, it is probably ripe for disruption.

> When a market is dominated by risk-averse incumbents, it is probably ripe for disruption. Who originally formulated this idea? Was it you? This sentence is fantastic.

Agreed. I was thinking the same thing.

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#135

Post by CamperBob2 »

mmanfrin wrote: post #97
ktsmith wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to actually know what you are talking about before commenting. Inmates earn an hourly wage (not great), training on how to do the work, etc. The money they earn gets split up in a few different ways such as going to restitution if applicable and some is available for the inmates to spend at the canteen or save for when they get out.

In Nevada they earn 13 cents an hour. http://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/prison-labor-and-t... That's slave labor.

Whether a job is "slave labor" has absolutely nothing to do with what the job pays. If you are not forced to do the job, you are not a slave.

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#136

Post by 001sky »

stcredzero wrote: post #127
notJim wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh, very cool. That makes a lot of sense to me. Basically you're using PE as a proxy for a measurement of attractiveness.

> Basically you're using PE as a proxy for a measurement of attractiveness. How about PE as a proxy for "incumbency?" That is to say, you're looking at companies who figured out a formula to "print money" then let themselves get complacent and fat, thereby becoming targets for PE. This would explain why they tend to be not so agile. I just had an image of a cabal of attractive young women, somewhat resembling James B…

Freudian slip? free-cash-flow is attractive to pe (=$$$), even for plane-jane business =D tech is a counter-example.

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#137

Post by Dove »

brigade wrote: post #91
MartinCron wrote: post #23

While you're disrupting the mattress industry, please consider re-thinking the King form factor. Changing the aspect ratio by just a few inches would make it perfectly square, which allows for you to rotate 90 degrees as well as flip, so the whole thing would wear out more evenly. As an extra bonus, this would make putting sheets on easier as there's no wrong way (short of inside-out, I guess).

Even before that, start making mattresses flippable again. But a flippable + rotatable mattress means it could last decades, so of course it won't happen.

That's pretty cynical. High-end mattresses are generally intended to last decades--and whether they need to be rotated depends on the material.

The mattress I own now is non-flippable, and came with a 20 year warranty.

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#138

Post by Dove »

Spooky23 wrote: post #42

There are all sorts of outlets for reasonably priced, what you see is what you get mattresses: Sam's Club. Costco. Ikea. You can get a decent name brand mainstream mattress for ~$500. The problem with mattresses is that it's a product where you need a salesman. There's a bunch of different products that look similar, but have significant differences. You want to match the customer with what they want (or tell them wh…

it's a product where you need a salesman.

I found the articles at http://www.us-mattress.com to be helpful enough that I could make an informed decision.

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#139

Post by IsaacL »

stcredzero wrote: post #126
tptacek wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private equity firms buy companies to make them more profitable and then flip them. They are essentially committing themselves to the incumbent role in Christiansen's "Innovator's Dilemma". When a market is dominated by risk-averse incumbents, it is probably ripe for disruption.

> When a market is dominated by risk-averse incumbents, it is probably ripe for disruption. Who originally formulated this idea? Was it you? This sentence is fantastic.

As GP said, read Christensen's "Innovator's Dilemma". He's the guy who first came up with the term "disruptive innovation", and it's more than just a TechCrunch buzzword -- there's a whole theory behind how disruption actually works.

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#140

Post by milesskorpen »

hapless wrote: post #121
MartinCron wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Westin makes a lot of fuss about how great their beds are and how you can buy the whole kit for your home. http://www.westin-hotelsathome.com/bed.aspx I was a little disappointed when I stayed in a Westin a few years ago, the bed was nice, but didn't live up to the high expectations.

Westin and 'W' hotels are the #2 and #1 "tier" hotels in the same company, Starwood. And it seems that the 'W' bed costs about $500 more than the "Westin" version. Fitting.

Le Meridien and St. Regis are both higher-end than W hotels, and are also part of SPG.
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