How I did it: Sleeping on the job
The key to building a better mattress business: wake up an old product.
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| Michael Rothbard, Sleep Studio |
- NAME: Michael Rothbard
- AGE: 45
- BUSINESS: Sleep Studio, a manufacturer of foam beds and accessories, New York City
- STARTED: 2006
- START-UP COSTS: $150,000
- ANNUAL REVENUE: $10 Million
HOW I GOT THE IDEA: My family was in the foam-manufacturing business, so I grew up in the industry.
But I'd been out of it for a while - more than a decade - when a friend called to tell me that someone we knew had just sold a foam-mattress business to a private equity firm for $300 million.
My jaw dropped. No investor could understand the industry as well as I did. I knew there'd be room for innovation in the market.
MY CHALLENGE: Bedding is a fashion industry; consumers are always desperate for a better night's sleep. So you have to keep introducing new products.
And I was sure I could make something that would move the category forward. But what?
HOW I OVERCAME IT: I looked at Web sites where consumers shared complaints about their mattresses: They got too hot, they smelled or they took 24 hours to expand to full size because of the way they were packaged.
I started working with a chemist, and we came up with a product that allows air to circulate five times faster. We were lucky enough to pick up a few regional chains early on.
And we've done well online. Our next step is to persuade the big national chains to stock our line.
ADVICE TO OTHERS: No matter how much history you have in an industry, you have to study it before you try to innovate. Intuition alone isn't enough.
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