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

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, so I threw it out.

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 is really beautiful. Well done. It almost makes you feel I have to buy this!!! I think that's the key point.

Because apart from that... well... there's a rule in business that is you get what you pay for. Even if mattress retailers are making a fortune on margins, well you guys also have margins too. And a retail price of $299..to..$499-king tells me that your mattresses are very low end.

So the website is beautiful but very misleading. Like the infographic about the cost of making a mattress. It probably should title it "Here is how a cheap mattress is marked up". Because there is mattresses and mattresses. Tons of variations, fabrics and qualities. And well.. you're not even selling mattresses or at least we don't call that a mattress here ( Spain ) but a mat instead. It is just too thin. Less than half the thickness of a regular mattress. Then of course, the fact that is made of foam only makes it worse as with that thickness it will unavoidable deform with usage. Who tells otherwise is lying or just very new to the business plainly because all foam mattresses deform to some degree.

Then there is the foam density, that I can't see anywhere in the specs. And as you can guess when you import materials the bigger the density the more expensive the foam sheets are. But hey, people today demand cheap prices. But anyways, mattresses these days tend to have lesser foam densities as people want cheaper prices. But of course that comes with the cost of deformability and that's why mattresses these days don't last that much as they used to in the past.

One thing that tells how good your marketing efforts are is that the mattress is foldable. Someone not used to mattress would think: AWESOME. Some used would think, oh no another crappy sofa-bed mat. I'd never recommend anyone to buy a foldable bed unless for an apartment with very low space and of course... for a sofa-bed!

So my summary would be: really well done making attractive a low-end product. The marketing is excellent and you definitely found a market out there. The website is beautiful but well.... you sell what you sell, tons of half-truths on it.

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 mattresses at the time, but they were an expensive niche. About the only viable alternative to the traditional mattress industry were the foam mattresses being produced overseas.

That renamed-same-mattress-from-store-to-store BS was actually my favorite part of purchasing my bed, but this product is awesome and next time I need a bed it will more than likely be this one.

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 reviews. Why would I need to try it myself when I can read tons of reviews online of people who bought the product? Surely a review will actually be more helpful than trying it myself since it could delineate facts that I may not of considered.