johmas
Joined 16 years ago
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Member since
Aug 9
JT Marino
Co-founder of Tuft & Needle.
[email protected]
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Comment · 5 years ago
If you’d email me (jt@tn), I’d love to send you our newest iteration. We’ve progressively improved customer sat since founding so I wonder if this was potentially a defect. There were a few seasons where our manufacturing struggled with capacity and quality suffered for a while. I’m hoping that’s what happened here. Pls email me, would love to try one more time if you are open to it.
JT
Comment · 5 years ago
Back in 2013 I posted a Show HN (was changed to Tell HN) for our one year old mattress startup Tuft & Needle. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6900625
The post resulted in a Fortune article (https://fortune.com/2014/01/22/meet-the-warby-parker-of-matt...) which helped to catalyze hockey stick growth and triggered a wave of vc money into the industry, we turned the interest down. The vc money resulted in new competitors for us (Casper/Purple/+200 others as barriers fell). This collectively caused massive change.
We grew to 250mm arr before we merged with serta simmons in 2018.. to disrupt within their brand portfolio. We’ve been working on their brands to mimic our model.
Our growth was 100% bootstrapped with no more than $6k. My co-founder and I seriously attribute our show HN as one of the reasons we were able to build our company the way we did and for spurring interest in our competitors to enter the market. The competition also accelerated our growth without the need of funding, their VC money fueled advertising raising awareness.
Anyways, one data point for you. Super grateful for this community.
Comment · 11 years ago
JT from Tuft & Needle here. I met with Andrea and the team last year. They are solid. The big difference with this tech is that it can actually impact the way you sleep as opposed to just reporting data points.
When you sleep badly you usually know it in the morning. A wristband telling me isn’t that useful. A tool that actually helps you fall asleep and stay asleep provides significantly more value.
Comment · 12 years ago
We added a btc option at Tuft & Needle last November and up until about Feb was about 5% of our sales. btc purchases have been steadily dropping and are now around .01%
Comment · 12 years ago
That's a fantastic idea. I like the transparency around each stage and what's happening.
Comment · 12 years ago
We make mattresses. Every member on our team sleeps on them each night. It's absolutely critical for us to have this first hand experience, especially as our team becomes larger with varying body types and personal preferences.
We iterate on our own internal feedback in addition to our customer's.
Comment · 13 years ago
That's a good question. We don't exactly view it as an ethical issue. Anyone on the team can opt-in to whatever percentage of their compensation they'd like to be paid in bitcoin. Currently no one is taking 100%.
We do educate how the currency functions and the risks there may be.
Comment · 13 years ago
We began accepting bitcoin last month and aren't converting all of our bitcoin to dollars. We have several employees who accept their pay in bitcoin.
Taking things a bit further, we are optimistic about bitcoin as a payment form with our suppliers as the volatility stabilises. As an example, one of our suppliers is Belgium based and we'd be able to save on the currency exchange with those payments. We've discussed it and they didn't turn their nose up to the idea.
Comment · 13 years ago
Kindmatt, thanks for the reply. There are many points here and I'll do my best to address your concerns below.
> Your pricing is completely off. You can buy organic cotton fabric for as low as $6 that is 100% organic cotton certified by GOTS and you buy can knit fabrics for $12.
I wouldn't disagree with you about being able to get it for $6 or even for nearly free when a fabric supplier has material they are getting rid of. There are varying attributes that makeup a cost other than just raw material. The numbers I was using was based on averages found in research we collected from suppliers' prices within the USA.
> Tuft and Needle buys from a manufacturer and resells it just like Sit 'n Sleep, Mattress Firm, Sleepy's, etc.
We are the manufacturer of the mattress, so the comparison to other resellers is quite misleading. With that being said, we certainly have partnered with 3rd party suppliers for the individual ingredients. As an example, we don't have our own foam pouring machines or fabric knitting machines yet.
> Why do you say “about 2 pounds” as the density? This sounds like cop out. You are probably using 1.8 and some 2 pound. Be open and honest so people can make an educated buying decision.
I'm being honest with you when stating our foam is "about 2lbs." The reason I say "about" is because foam in general has a slight variance, it's never exact. It's not abnormal for foam to be .1% more or less dense but, on average, ours is 2lbs. We don't hide that fact from competitors. For skeptics we encourage them to purchase and test the foam with lab equipment.
> You don't agree that those are good comps. How about these? A queen Ikea is $329 for 2.2 pound foam and a ½” thicker. (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00139813/) Where Tuft and Needle is $399 for a supposedly 2 pound foam. Surprisingly, most IKEA mattresses are made in the US so don’t give the made in China routine on this.
That is definitely a better comparison. Our intention is not to undercut Ikea prices and even if we tried it probably would not be possible for a while. They are a mega billion dollar company and can leverage their economy of scale. We respect them for their pricing and what we offer our customers is a different experience than simply price alone.
> Serta at Sleepy's is $299.99. Even if they were using a lower density, how could they be marking this 1,000% as Tuft and Needle states. Sealy has one that is 5 ¾” thick for $299.99 at Sleepy’s
The markup certainly depends on which product you're talking about and which retailer is selling it. If that specific Serta mattress is actually priced in a more fair manner, that would be great. There are also other smaller companies taking a similar approach as we are, which we are really excited to see. Mattress Underground has done a pretty good job of discussing companies like this.
> Why is Tuft and Needle $100 more than the name brands which are made in the USA, too? Don’t give me the density because like Sealy and Serta, Tuft and Needle won’t disclose density. For sake of argument, let’s say Sealy uses a 1.2 pound and Tuft and Needle uses 2 pound foam. There is 200 board feet in a queen mattress and the cost per board foot between 1.2 and 2 pound is 25 cents. The added cost would be $50 in raw material.
We do disclose our density but will not disclose the other specs you're wanting because those are our secret sauce. You're giving some examples of foam board foot costs but to be fair, not all foam is priced on its density. A 1.2 pound foam, as you say, may cost 25 cents but if you pour with a different ILD, compression modulas, different chemical makeup, dye, or other attributes of many, it will certainly affect the cost. It isn't black and white. This is why you find quite a few foam companies inventing new mixtures and formulas and charging different amounts for the same density. Our foam makeup is unique.
> This is untrue; “Tuft & Needle was founded to offer boutique-quality beds at a fraction of the cost. You shouldn't have to overpay for a good night's sleep.” Tuft and Needle is nowhere close to a boutique bed.
Boutique is certainly a subjective term. For some clarity as to why we use that word, we're a small team and we're offering something, that we believe, is specialised.
> Finally, prove to me that mattress stores markup the mattresses 500%. If you look at Mattress Firm's 10K Report, you will see that there GM is nowhere near that. In 2012, they had sales of $1,007,337,000 with a COGS of 614,572,000. That is a 64% markup. No, sales and marketing are not included in this. They spent 245,555,000 on sales and marketing. Tuft and Needle needs to get the facts straight.
The 500% statement I made above was based on the product you linked. I explained how I arrived at that number above. But as far as Mattress Firm, we never singled that company out or have ever looked into them. I don't know what their markup is but it's certainly an interesting question.
I see you just made a fresh HN account and are not exposing your identity in the profile. If you'd like to have a deeper conversation it'd be great to jump on a call or meet face to face if you'd like. I'd even be willing to show you around our facility if you're in the area.