We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses • Hacker News Board

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#11

Post by nchlswu » Fri, Sep 14, 2012, 5:42 PM UTC

Zombieball wrote: post #5

streptomycin wrote: post #2

FWIW, Warby Parker was not the first web-based retailer to undercut traditional eyewear sales, nor are they the cheapest. They do seem to have the best PR, though.

Excuse my ignorance, I haven't even heard about Warby Parker until this article. How long have they been around (my quick Google searches have failed me)? I have heard of ClearlyContacts.ca (I am Canadian), is Warby Parker comparable?

They're comparable in that they send glasses online, but Warby's differentiator is that they manufacture frames (so they handle the whole process end to end) and offer a home try on kit. You can order X amount of glasses to try on at home.

They basically started a very customer friendly model that other online glasses retailers didn't offer at the time of founding.

EDIT: Basically, customer experience.

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#12

Post by markerdmann » Fri, Sep 14, 2012, 5:43 PM UTC

I just bought a mattress a few months ago, and I agree whole-heartedly with this post. My solution was to buy a foam mattress from bedinabox.com, which I would say is the Warby Parker for mattresses.

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#13

Post by medell » Fri, Sep 14, 2012, 5:44 PM UTC

100% agree. But if you must buy a mattress go to SleepCountry, they price match anything.

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#14

Post by Fluxx » Fri, Sep 14, 2012, 5:45 PM UTC

I'm not sure if you can count this as a startup, but I bought my King-sized Sleep Innovations (memory foam) mattress with Amazon Prime for $530. And if I wanted the less-think 10" one, it would be $400.

http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Innovations-12-inch-Memory-Mattr...

The damn thing was ~100lbs in a giant box, and I got it shipped to me free. It's super comfortable and well worth the money - remember you sleep for like 25% of your life.

Mattresses seem like less of a specialty-item than eye glasses, so I wonder if big online retailers like Amazon can just cut out the middle man and service 80-90% of customers?

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#15

Post by rscale » Fri, Sep 14, 2012, 5:48 PM UTC

I believe that entrepreneurs could do well, generally, by looking for opportunities in industries that are dominated by private-equity players.

If an industry is overweight PE, you can bet that the market analysis looks fantastically attractive (competition isn't too fierce, suppliers have little power, buyers have little power, not many substitutes, and little perceived threat from new entrants). If a clever entrepreneur can render that last condition false and enter that market, that entrepreneur has the opportunity to shrink and consolidate a $huge market that's owned by PE players into a $smaller market that is owned by the entrepreneur.

PE controlled competitors will, generally, not be particularly agile, because PE tends to capture value by leveraging the heck out of a currently viable business model. It's a model that works really well as long as base assumptions hold true, but startups can ruin that for them.

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#16

Post by qq66 » Fri, Sep 14, 2012, 5:49 PM UTC

startupfounder wrote: post #10

We need a Warby Parker for Diamonds! 1. Oligopoly market structure CHECK 2. Insane gross margins CHECK 3. Opaque and misleading product naming CHECK 4. Expensive distribution through unpleasant channels CHECK CHECK CHECK

The problem is that a diamond is inherently a basically worthless rock, so its retail value is already a figment of the public's imagination. Blue Nile is the closest that exists today, but they are not that disruptive since the retail channels already have lots of competition -- it's the supply (De Beers) that's monopolized.

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#17

Post by bryanlarsen » Fri, Sep 14, 2012, 5:49 PM UTC

medell wrote: post #13

100% agree. But if you must buy a mattress go to SleepCountry, they price match anything.

How does price matching work? One of the major problems with mattress stores is that everybody sells different mattresses -- they're 99% identical, but tiny changes are made to justify a different name and prevent comparison shopping and price matching.

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#18

Post by mattmiller » Fri, Sep 14, 2012, 5:51 PM UTC

rscale wrote: post #15

I believe that entrepreneurs could do well, generally, by looking for opportunities in industries that are dominated by private-equity players. If an industry is overweight PE, you can bet that the market analysis looks fantastically attractive (competition isn't too fierce, suppliers have little power, buyers have little power, not many substitutes, and little perceived threat from new entrants). If a clever entrepr…

How do you find industries dominated by PE?

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#19

Post by techcofounder » Fri, Sep 14, 2012, 5:53 PM UTC

I completely agree! I recently went shopping for a mattress at Sleep Train and they admitted that they mask the model numbers of their mattresses so you can't find them online for cheaper. Someone please build this.

Re: We Need a Warby Parker for Mattresses

#20

Post by ktsmith » Fri, Sep 14, 2012, 5:53 PM UTC

Fluxx wrote: post #14

I'm not sure if you can count this as a startup, but I bought my King-sized Sleep Innovations (memory foam) mattress with Amazon Prime for $530. And if I wanted the less-think 10" one, it would be $400. http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Innovations-12-inch-Memory-Mattr... The damn thing was ~100lbs in a giant box, and I got it shipped to me free. It's super comfortable and well worth the money - remember you sleep for like…

I got my last mattress from Silver State Industries (nevada prison manufacturing) for under $500 (Cal King). It is more comfortable than the Serta that I had originally spent around $1,500 on.