Hipster Mattresses: Why?
tedium.co
tedium.co
Hipster here seems to be a cliched way of saying "annoying to me".
https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brooks-bobos.html This book takes a relatively comical approach to the subject but there is a real way to categorize these people other than "annoying to me"
Which is to say, even if it is truly a hipster mattress, the term is still being used derisively.
Hipster in this article is a different usage. It's based on the hipster type prominent 5-7 years ago (before they gave up on new tech and discovered their local farmers market [merging in with the folk punks and much less fashion interested community social worker types]).
These were people who needed to know that the mattress industry is interesting and kind of a rip off before the rest of their social group did.
Both types are annoying in different ways. The older nerd type is ultimately superior because although they are projecting superiority at least it's with novel factoids and saving money instead of a status play born out of morally superior consumption.
For what it's worth, I bought a Tuft and Needle mattress and have been very happy with it. It's 1/2 the price of what I'd pay in the store, I didn't have to leave the house, and it's basically risk-free, as they've got a pretty fantastic return policy.
The mattress itself has been great, but at the time they only sold 5" thick mattresses. I eventually found that 5" was too thin for me and finding a mattress frame I liked was quite difficult. Being so low to the ground just felt more uncomfortable than anything when I woke up in the morning. About a month after I got my mattress, T&N came out with a 10" version (Which they exclusively sell now), which was only $100 more at the time for a King. It seems they now sell for about $750 (compared to $600 before)
I'm still using my 5" Tuft & Needle but I'm going to be purchasing a new mattress in the near future and will most likely try out Leesa, though I'm not totally committed to it yet. It's been interesting watching all these mattress companies enter the market but with more options I'm finding it difficult to make a choice.
When the box arrived, I was convinced they had sent me a twin sized mattress because of how small it was. They don't just roll the mattress, but the compress it from the sides as well.
I was skeptical about buying a mattress without trying it first, but this time it worked out.
I believe T&N was the first one to start with this concept. And I have feeling several of the new ones that are similar, but also expensive, are probably some of the incumbent S brand mattress companies.
I like the firmness of T&N. I guess if you are in the market for a 10" thick mattress, this is an ideal choice
Um, what? Not the couch, or the bureau, or the dining room table? Maybe this is true of furnished apartments, but for me, even the boxspring beats the mattress in terms of "this is so large how the heck am I going to get it from point A to point B". Mattress is pretty far down that list.
Not that this matters much for foam mattresses, since, once unrolled, a foam mattress is nearly impossible to roll back up and is just as difficult to move.
That said, the author's point about the initial ship of foam mattresses is a good one. Going with a foam mattress was the only reason I was able to drive it home in the back of my 2-seater to a very dense part of Boston and fit it into the lofted bed of a tiny studio apartment.
But when it came time to move? I sold it to the next tenant. No way that was making the journey out as easily.
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|_|btw I'm not saying that higher priced goods always have better designers.. sometimes its all just markup.
Edit: Nevermind. It works fine so long as you turn the mattress on its side like everyone does when they actually move a mattress. The diagram made me think of carrying it flat, which really only happens when assembling the bed.
In fairness, I've not moved my current mattress (a memory foam mattress), so maybe that one would work? It's a bit more rigid. But of course no handles at all.
Edit: Nevermind. You're going to turn the mattress on it's side when you actually carry it, and then it will be rigid enough. Handles on the ends work fine for this case, just not the nonexistent case where someone inexplicably tries to carry the mattress flat for more than a few feet.
Eight years ago, I moved into an apartment with a very narrow staircase with a 90 degree bend in it. I purchased a new mattress, and couldn't fit the boxspring in it. The delivery guys took the boxspring back, and got me a boxspring that comes in two pieces, called a "split boxspring". It's basically two twin boxsprings that you put side by side. You can see one here: http://www.raymourflanigan.com/beautyrest-recharge-high-prof...
You don't notice anything different when you're on the bed. I've kept the boxspring through various moves, and I'll never buy a non-split one again. Moving the two pieces is so much easier; they're not unwieldy or heavy at all.
If you have a pillow top queen mattress or, especially, a king sized pillow top, it is huge.
I thought by hipster, they were implying that for once someone was selling a good, cheap, portable mattress. Turns out this isn't any of the three.
I recently read an article on these and the reviewer said it came compressed and wound up in a hexagon tube, like a giant sleeping bag and weighed 70lbs.
The Helix arrives on your doorstep in a hexagonal tube. While the tightly-packed tube makes maneuvering the box into your door and across your home fairly easy, it weighs a hefty 70 pounds—which feels even heavier when making your way along three flights of stairs. Good luck to anyone in an apartment walk-up.
Plus you've got the cost of storage, marketing, etc. None of this definitively answers whether the company is massively overcharging, but it's certainly not open-and-shut.
If you're lucky to live long enough it'll happen to you too :-)
"But buying mattresses shouldn’t be fun. It should be work, something you do once or twice in your life and forget about after you’ve gotten over the frustration of getting the mattress into your bedroom."
But ignores the one of the key features all these new-fangled mattresses have which is 100 nights to try it free. If you're in the market for a mattress right now, there is zero reason not to take one of the offers to test out the bed. Keep shopping around and trying beds locally, but between Casper, T&N, Leesa, Noomi, etc... you can effectively have brand new mattresses for the next year and pick the one you like best or revert back to a traditional mattress if they don't suit you.
You can found your own drop-shipped mattress company with less startup capital than a Subway franchise.
So why does Casper have $70MM in funding? What does that $70MM buy for investors?
A brand. They're building a brand that is synonymous with "mattresses by mail".
Many internet companies find success just by helping young-ish customers avoid the awkward interactions associated with traditional commerce. That's fine, but you are still paying for that "experience." Rarely do you get a better product.
As for a better product, I'd argue yes. It's very well made, and very comfortable.
And that's where I stopped reading. Yes, there are many things more annoying than people starting businesses and trying to do well for themselves.