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

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

#151

Post by mindslight »

cmbaus wrote: post #55

At one point I almost went crazy researching mattresses. I like to know what I am buying, but the industry is non-transparent. The same product can have different names depending on where it is sold. BTW, another product like this is range hoods. I'm impressed that you tried to break into this business. I thought the existing companies would have it tied up because of their distribution channels. I did look at latex…

> same product can have different names

No, the same product will have different names and feature descriptions, to hinder your comparison shopping. Frankly, this kind of behavior should invalidate one's trademarks.

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

#153

Post by bjeanes »

I'm not in the market for a new mattress just yet, but probably will be when I (eventually) move back to Australia since shipping my current mattress just seems crazy.

Do you guys ship overseas? If not, would introducing international distributors force you to introduce middlemen that significantly drive up the price or leave marketing out of your hands? Is there another way or will it just be US-only for the foreseeable future?

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

#154

Post by bhudman »

Amazing. I just spent $440 on a king futon mattress. Nice execution. Furniture has the similar issues to the mattress industry. Expensive, and cheap quality. So many dining tables in a furniture store, but just 1 in 10 did not wobble. (yes assembly could be an issue, but mechanically not a sound design in my opinion)

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

#155

Post by kposehn »

Very, very cool. I've known several people that have taken a similar approach to their business to great success.

I do have one question though: do you rely on Amazon for most of your business? I've known several people who are extremely cautious of that dependency.

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

#156

Post by daehee »

tieTYT wrote: post #148

> Our primary success factor was starting with a rough draft. We didn't like our v1 much—an all cotton tufted mattress—but that didn't keep us from launching with it. This gave us a chance to experiment with problem/solution and to start collecting feedback right away. We had to do quite a few returns at first but we iterated constantly until our customer satisfaction was high enough for us to start getting referrals…

That's a great point. We didn't put our product on Amazon until we reached a high level of customer satisfaction. In the early days when we first started, we had to hustle when we had upset customers. We fixed the problems really fast to avoid them writing about a negative experience. As an example, we've provided complimentary upgrades to our new versions of the bed to previous customers.

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

#157

Post by johmas »

bjeanes wrote: post #153

I'm not in the market for a new mattress just yet, but probably will be when I (eventually) move back to Australia since shipping my current mattress just seems crazy. Do you guys ship overseas? If not, would introducing international distributors force you to introduce middlemen that significantly drive up the price or leave marketing out of your hands? Is there another way or will it just be US-only for the foresee…

We don't ship overseas yet. We have to do some more growing first but it's something we'd like to provide.

The primary issue we see with expanding is that we want to provide excellent service and if we were to just ship it and have no presence there then we may not be able to execute on that.

We may need to actually have a presence in the country to follow through on the experience we're building in the USA.

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

#159

Post by tieTYT »

daehee wrote: post #156
tieTYT wrote: post #148

> Our primary success factor was starting with a rough draft. We didn't like our v1 much—an all cotton tufted mattress—but that didn't keep us from launching with it. This gave us a chance to experiment with problem/solution and to start collecting feedback right away. We had to do quite a few returns at first but we iterated constantly until our customer satisfaction was high enough for us to start getting referrals…

That's a great point. We didn't put our product on Amazon until we reached a high level of customer satisfaction. In the early days when we first started, we had to hustle when we had upset customers. We fixed the problems really fast to avoid them writing about a negative experience. As an example, we've provided complimentary upgrades to our new versions of the bed to previous customers.

If you avoided amazon, didn't this severely limit the feedback you could get? How did those initial customers discover your product?

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

#160

Post by johmas »

[deleted] wrote: post #158

[deleted]

Here is a direct link to our specifications: https://www.tuftandneedle.com/bed/specs

We sourced all of our own materials from the outside fabric to our foam mixtures. We've also iterated on the design roughly 130 times since we first launched it. We try to keep a tight feedback loop on its design.

As an example, when we changed from a cotton bed to a foam bed we built our first prototype by sourcing a ton of different foams from different foam pourers and putting them all in a single room. We locked ourselves in there for a few days layering all kinds of densities and compositions until we found a feel we thought was really great.

We have done similar things with the fabric, stitching, and our policies.

We have a manufacturing license and hope to vertically integrate more of our supply production as we grow.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

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