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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

#31

How did you identify the mattress industry as needing disruption? Did you have any personal experience in this space before?

No previous experience. It was sort of random how we came to mattresses. It came out of a discussion we were having on a lunch break in downtown Palo Alto. I was raging about a bed I had just bought for $3,000+ and wasn't satisfied with the comfort.

It started from there.

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

#33
post #20
post #15

I'm ALL for online shopping and the removal of brick-and-mortar stores where they're clearly not needed. I rarely shop anywhere but Amazon Prime these days. But. A mattress isn't a trivial purchase (not just in cost, which is what you're disrupting, but in what it does for you). You use a mattress for a large period of your life and it has a great effect on your health (either good or bad). Being able to physically l…

You're definitely right about that. We estimate that 90%+ of our potential customers wouldn't buy our bed unless they were able to touch it and lay down on it. We setup some really good policies to make it super easy to return without much risk. We'll have it picked up by a 3rd party before having you ship it back to us as an example. We see ourselves moving offline in the future for sure but to bootstrap, it wasn't…

Kudos for bootstrapping and being lean about this. Even cooler that you think 90% of people won't buy it without physically touching it and you STILL started online!

Site looks great, photos are excellent, product looks great based on all that. Having bought 2 new mattresses in the past 2 years, I know how shitty the mattress buying experience is.

Good luck to you, definitely rooting for ya!

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

#34
post #28

Congratulations on your success. I really enjoy reading your story and looking at the web site. Are you guys self-funded? I'm curious about the first few mattresses and orders. Would love to read a longer and detailed article if not a little to the text. Thank you. -V.

Maybe we'll do a more in depth blog post about that. We are self funded entirely.

Thank you for the kind words.

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

#35
post #26
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We recommend a platform bed frame without a boxspring for the best feel. The frame that we have in our photos is of our design but we're not really able to move into hard goods yet. Maybe once we grow a bit more. West Elm has some nice simple designs that we like.

Great, will probably be buying a new new mattress next month. Great timing :)

That's great. If you have any other questions feel free to shoot them to me direct jt at tuftandneedle

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

#36
post #13

I have to find that HN thread. When some post on Warby Parker was here in the homepage, someone commented that the next "too big margin" industry to disrupt should be the mattress one. Nice going! One question - did you guys come from a pure technical background? or did you also have significant experience with the mattress industry before? well done!

Daehee and I are both bay area software guys. Breaking into a new industry that we had zero domain knowledge definitely wasn't easy. It took us quite a while to break in. Most suppliers wouldn't return our phone calls and the ones who did just laughed us out of the room. We had to just keep searching until we found the right people who believed in us.

"Most suppliers wouldn't return our phone calls and the ones who did just laughed us out of the room. We had to just keep searching until we found the right people who believed in us."

Would LOVE to see a blog post detailing your experience here with what you learned (you know, in the time you have in between building mattresses, heh). The experience of being rejected multiple times is applicable across so many entrepreneurs journeys.

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

#37
post #33
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're definitely right about that. We estimate that 90%+ of our potential customers wouldn't buy our bed unless they were able to touch it and lay down on it. We setup some really good policies to make it super easy to return without much risk. We'll have it picked up by a 3rd party before having you ship it back to us as an example. We see ourselves moving offline in the future for sure but to bootstrap, it wasn't…

Kudos for bootstrapping and being lean about this. Even cooler that you think 90% of people won't buy it without physically touching it and you STILL started online! Site looks great, photos are excellent, product looks great based on all that. Having bought 2 new mattresses in the past 2 years, I know how shitty the mattress buying experience is. Good luck to you, definitely rooting for ya!

Thank you!

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

#38
post #34
post #28

Congratulations on your success. I really enjoy reading your story and looking at the web site. Are you guys self-funded? I'm curious about the first few mattresses and orders. Would love to read a longer and detailed article if not a little to the text. Thank you. -V.

Maybe we'll do a more in depth blog post about that. We are self funded entirely. Thank you for the kind words.

Please do. I'd be very interested to read it. I've always been interested in doing a physical-product type company, but I don't want to take outside investment, and it would be excellent to hear a successful bootstrapping story.
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