Going to the mattresses

Buying a mattress sucks. There is no other way to put it. The amount of choice is overwhelming and you really don’t know how a mattress will feel until you sleep on it for a few days – which you can’t do until after you by it.

A company called Casper is trying to change that – they have been called the Warby Parker of mattresses.  Interesting business model.  They have just one mattress available in multiple sizes.  You only buy online. If you live in New York City, you can have your mattress delivered to you same-day by Uber – elsewhere delivery is 1-5 days.  (Interestingly, the mattress comes in a box.  You just open the box and your mattress pops into shape).

And, oh yes, there is a 100-day free trial period.

Most of Casper’s advertising is via word-of-mouth and social media.  They have almost no traditional advertising budget, save for some ads on NYC subways. Casper also has hired journalists to help them create a standalone website about sleep, a content-creation approach that mirrors what a few other brands (like Red Bull and Dollar Shave Club) have done.

This is a category where, in the US, two brands account for 70% of production. And it is a staid category without a whole lot of innovation, so as the co-founder says, the bar to doing something cool is really low.  And this is pretty cool.