Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 277 posts

Re: Tell HN: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com

#81

Post by minutetominute »

Great work so far!

Your bed solved a very specific problem for me, and it may be a valuable market for you to target. My job requires me to travel to different locations for long periods of time, and I needed to find a bed that was very comfortable and portable. Cots and air mattresses are poor long term solutions. Your shikibutons came up during my research as one of the best values. I purchased your mattress and a futon from shop4futons.com. When broken down, the whole arrangement packs down to a very small size. Now I sleep comfortably every night knowing that no matter where my job/life takes me I can always find a good night's rest.

Thanks and keep up the good work!

Re: Tell HN: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com

#82

Post by unoti »

I can't tell whether there's a frame in my cart or not. I'm interested in pricing with and without a frame. It's not clear to me whether the pricing and the cart includes the frame or not, and whether there's an option to do frame or not.

We just purchased a bed for our daughter a few days ago on Amazon, and totally would have purchased yours if we had realized there was a startup making beds here in the USA with a no-nonsense style. I'm honestly not sure how we missed you during that process. We had to search hard to avoid things with smelly chemicals and cheap construction like particle board, too.

Re: Tell HN: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com

#83

Post by koralatov »

johmas wrote: post #16
resu wrote: post #10

I’m trying to understand what the difference is between your mattresses and say a regular mattress you buy from IKEA. Are these mattresses more like the futons laid on the floor that are very common in Japan and Korea? Congratulations with the success on Amazon, and thanks for sharing and not posting blog spam!

Well our current mattress is more in line with a traditional mattress. We designed it to be compatible with the floor in addition to a frame, this is how we sort of broke into the market. With a niche angle. Comparing to Ikea, our prices are only comparable because we cut our margins almost all the way down but the quality of material is very different. In other words, our bed won't sag after just 12 months. Thank yo…

Are you saying that an Ikea mattress will sag after just 12 months, or are you actually just saying that yours won't and leaving it up to the reader to infer that an Ikea one will?

Re: Tell HN: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com

#84

Post by Zelphyr »

bernardom wrote: post #78

Hi guys, Love the idea, quick point of feedback: it is unclear, from a cursory glance, whether your prices refer to bed or bed+mattress. The floor vs. frame view is great, but the price doesn't change- so are you just selling a mattress? Should you say mattress instead? Are you calling a "bed" a mattress and the rest is a "frame?" (Not being a jerk, actually confused!)

Just the mattress. Though your confusion is valid. I wondered the same thing before I bought mine.

Re: Tell HN: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com

#85

Post by mpermar »

codegeek wrote: post #73
mpermar wrote: post #53

Being someone that considers himself literate in the mattress industry, as my wife runs a humble mattress storage and distribution firm I totally agree that the prices I could see visiting on the US are way over the top. If I lived there, well, making/selling mattresses must be a profitable business from the retail pricing I could see. Mind you I was on Silicon Valley which I imagine must be very pricy. The website i…

"well you guys also have margins too." of course. How can a business succeed without any margins ? The point they are making is that the margins are ridiculously high that these stores charge. They are claiming to reduce those margins. "Here is how a cheap mattress is marked up" I browsed through their website. They don't claim to be a luxury mattress and their point is more about a reasonable mattress for a reasonab…

You're right, I also thought after having posted it that I was too harsh. I think it was due to the fact that I partially live this business on a daily basis and found some of the facts not trustful. Specially bearing in mind the product being sold is closer to a mat than to a reasonable mattress.

I think that harshness prevented me from making clear the two points I was trying to make:

1. A warn that everything has its price. Some people will mark up expensive, some people will mark up way cheaper, but at the end there is normally no such thing as free lunch and on average you get what you pay for.

And more importantly,

2. That I believe that these guys made an awesome work around marketing. But not from a bad point but the opposite. A great website, great picutres, great pictures on Amazon too like for example showing the customer how the mattress looks like when folded and when shipped! Pretty infographics. Tons of facts about their mattress. Great choice of payments methods, etc..

Re: Tell HN: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com

#86

Post by johmas »

bernardom wrote: post #78

Hi guys, Love the idea, quick point of feedback: it is unclear, from a cursory glance, whether your prices refer to bed or bed+mattress. The floor vs. frame view is great, but the price doesn't change- so are you just selling a mattress? Should you say mattress instead? Are you calling a "bed" a mattress and the rest is a "frame?" (Not being a jerk, actually confused!)

That's a really good point. We should do a better job at communicating that.

For clarification, we only sell a mattress at the moment. It is designed to be comfortable placed directly on the floor as it is on a bed frame.

Thank you.

Re: Tell HN: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com

#87

Post by koralatov »

infinitone wrote: post #58
dcaunt wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely want to try a mattress and see how it feels before I buy it. Especially if it's going to cost a lot of money.

I'm reading this sentiment a lot on this thread. But it seems these guys are surely not the first to go against this trend and achieve success. Another example is Indochino (suits for men). Apple sold Macs strictly through their site way before they launched their stores. The line of trying it in real life is getting spread pretty thin and soon will diminish against the power of social media and online customer revie…

Really? I see that sentiment quite a lot, but I don't really think it holds. A mattress is definitely something I'd want to try before buying --- comfort, like taste, is such a subjective thing that no number of online reviews could really replace just lying on one for ten minutes.

Re: Tell HN: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com

#88

Post by j45 »

daehee wrote: post #50
nakovet wrote: post #40

Do you guys have any plans for Canada?

We are available in the US only at the moment, but Canada would be the next logical expansion for distribution. That being said, we don't have a specific date on this yet as we don't want to overextend ourselves and risk the quality of our service.

Sent you a message - I like a mattress in Canada but don't want to have to order it to the US and bring it home myself :)

Re: Tell HN: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com

#89

Post by cmbaus »

mpermar wrote: post #53

Being someone that considers himself literate in the mattress industry, as my wife runs a humble mattress storage and distribution firm I totally agree that the prices I could see visiting on the US are way over the top. If I lived there, well, making/selling mattresses must be a profitable business from the retail pricing I could see. Mind you I was on Silicon Valley which I imagine must be very pricy. The website i…

There are some fair points here. The product is more of a futon than a true mattress. It would be interesting if they offered a higher end latex model.

Re: Tell HN: How we bootstrapped to the #1 rated mattress on Amazon.com

#90

Post by johmas »

steven2012 wrote: post #51

What type of foam do you use? My concern has always been that not enough testing has been done on the foam, and the chemicals used could leech into the both, especially if you like to sleep naked on the bed. I used to sleep on a memory foam mattress, but after a couple of years, I noticed a distinct discoloration of where I slept, and it suggested to me there was some sort of interaction between my body and the foam,…

Our foam is a polyurethane foam like most other foam and memory foam mattresses. We use 3 different mixtures of foam in our bed, all of which have been offgas tested and meets the strict standards of the CertiPUR certification.

We definitely wouldn't sell something that we wouldn't want to sleep on ourselves but I can understand your concern with sleeping on something that isn't 100% natural.

If you're concerned about sleeping on foam then you might want to take a look at a more alternative option. Look for 95% natural latex foam (there is no such thing as 100% because they use glues) or for all organic cotton/wool tufted cores.

Post reply on HN