Latest / The Growth Class with Phil Masiello / The Business of Better Sleep: Scaling a Family-Owned Mattress Brand with Gary Trudell

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The Business of Better Sleep: Scaling a Family-Owned Mattress Brand with Gary Trudell · The Growth Class with Phil Masiello

• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Growth Class.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Phil Mastiello, your host.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And when almost the entire bedding industry rushed overseas to cheap out on toxic foam, quick turnarounds, today's guest decided to do the exact opposite.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Gary Trudell is the owner of Custom Comfort Mattress, a Southern California family business that spent over 35 years refusing to cut corners.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Gary builds double-sided handcraft sleep systems using natural, American-made materials.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: In doing so, he's built a trusted concierge brand serving everyone from local families to professional athletes, luxury estate owners, top designers, hotels, resorts.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: So today we're going to dive into true product integrity, standing your ground, and a race to the bottom industry, and why better sleep starts with real craftsmanship.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Gary, thanks for taking the time and coming on the show and sharing your story.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, thank you, Phil.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: I I greatly appreciate it and love what you do with Growth Class.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I think it's uh commendable what you do.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I do appreciate the opportunity.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I appreciate that.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um so so yeah, if you could give us sort of a background into the business, into you, what you've done, how you've gotten there, and then let's talk about you know where you're heading with the business.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I happen to be uh number nine out of ten kids.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I just uh you know, I have seven brothers and two sisters, and so you know, we happened to grow up in an area um that there was a local mattress uh factory there where we lived, and just at a necessity, my older brother got a job about 15 years old.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one of them got into kind of the delivery side, and one of them got into the manufacturing side, um, and just learned how true, uh genuine handcrafted mattresses are built and just started to see the industry change.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, the the person they worked for started buying national brands because they were cheaper and they were starting to get less expensive.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: They start going materials overseas.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So um is he was kind of winding down his business, they obtained the equipment um and literally started out of the garage.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean it's we're almost 40 years now of building mattresses by hand.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: You started in the garage building mattresses.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Literally, the first mattress they built was for my aunt, um, and built kind of that I tell people in American craftsman style.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we still use American steel, we use natural cotton, we hand-tuffed them and we build them double-sided.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Our industry today is literally over 95% petrochemical, polyurethane foam.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: So when somebody says, hey, my allergies or I'm sleeping hot or my mattress is dipping, normally it's because of that polyurethane foam.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to build a healthier option and a more durable option.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is true.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the the mattress makes all the difference when when you have bad sleep.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: I never thought about it until I was having trouble about uh eight years ago, having trouble sleeping.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I I just was never I wasn't comfortable.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and my wife said, you know, we're just gonna get a new mattress.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And she found a a mattress, I don't know what brand it was, I didn't pay that much attention, but it was it was a very nice mattress.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And once she put it in, it was just it was fantastic.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and I see what you I I understand exactly what you're saying about, you know, I I run hot at night and things like that.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I stopped doing that after a while.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it just I I get a much better sleep.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then we, you know, we flip the mattress every, you know, couple of months.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: We flip it and turn it and do whatever we do.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so I think the mattress makes all the difference in the world.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell, i it truly affects your quality of life.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: When I first started, I just a mattress was a mattress.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, being number nine and ten kids, I really didn't want to be in the mattress business uh as I went through school and things evolved.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh once I learned and kind of knew that we affect people's quality of life, we affect their health and their wellness, you know, you spend a third of your life.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you're lucky to live until you're 75, I mean, it's 25 years in bed.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so whether it's the aging process, um your weight, you know, uh uh you know, and that may not I'm I probably shouldn't say this, but I'm uh big people um I thought possibly were lazy and they would sleep all the time.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: But in hindsight, when you 80% of obese people sleep six hours or less.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens is when you don't sleep, A, you probably have a bad attitude, you're not as nice to your wife as you should, you're not as productive at work.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: But when you don't sleep, you start craving carbs, caffeines, sugars, and it just becomes this vicious cycle.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: But what ultimately happens is you slow down your metabolism and then you start adding uh weight.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: So proper sleep will help you maintain your proper body mass.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, certainly we start talking about our immune system and our skin and our energy, you know, it's all sleep does, whether it's us or anybody else, and I'm glad you and your wife have success with it, it does make a massive difference in our overall health and wellness.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: A friend of mine was having trouble sleeping.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um he thought he had sleep apnea, and he went and did a sleep study at uh Johns Hopkins.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: They have this uh area and you spend the night there and you're in a room and they watch you, I guess, all night.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: They monitored you all night.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And they they he woke he was waking up like some ridiculous amount twenty-seven times a night or thirty times a night.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they did this whole study and they made him come back again and they made him sleep on a different bed.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he woke up uh only one time uh over the through the night.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And they said the the instructions were you don't have sleep apnea, get a new mattress.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he went out and bought some some mattresses in Florida, spent a lot of money on it, and uh, and so I would imagine it was a it was a good mattress, and it really has helped him.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And his wife is much happier because she you wake up 27, 30 times in a night, you're waking up your spouse too.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's one out of four couples are in opposite rooms.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so one out of four snoring, heat, and movement are the top three issues.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: In we work with a large number of sleep experts, sleep clinics, and I have a sleep clinic.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly what he went through is um they have nine rooms, uh, so they you know basically filled nine um people each, you know, seven days a week.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they run their clinics, but we put three different firmnesses because a mattress is almost like you or I get a suit, or your wife or my wife gets a beautiful dress or a great pair of shoes.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you have to fit the body type.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's really more about the client.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's the body type and the predominant sleeping position.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: For you or I, if we're side sleepers, it's gonna trigger in the shoulders.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: For my wife giving birth to the kids.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's for her, it's in the hip.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to fit people because it what in what we do, it's far more about our clients than us.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it is fitting them.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: You got to figure out the body type, you got to figure out the predominant sleeping position, um, but you got to find the pain point.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I've got a bad shoulder.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: My wife has a bad hip, uh snoring, heat, movement.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: We've been able to design and develop a concept.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: I've been with my wife 34 years now, where we have two, rather than like in a traditional king, you have two box springs, one mattress.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: My wife and I have two adjustable beds, two mattresses, but we have a single pillow top uh over the top.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: So there's no crease or seam.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: You still use a king sheet, but I could be in the zero gravity position.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: My wife could have the massage on hers, or the anti-snoring.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you have the ability to fit each individual uh and adjust the position to get them the optimum sleep or comfort.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's amazing that how how how far it's come.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, you start to see all these studies, and I think a lot of it was driven by uh athletes, the studies on on sleep and sleep performance, sleep uh relative to performance and all these things.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you I think you were talking about uh when we talked last time that you you um make custom uh custom mattresses for athletes or a lot of athletes.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're we're very, very fortunate.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, being a mattress manufacturer, we could we ultimately could build anything, um, but we do a lot of oversized mattresses.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we I do a lot for professional athletes.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: You've got these basketball guys who six are 6'11, you know, 7'1, 7'2.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: I recently did a project for a gentleman who was 7'4.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but their bodies are the, you know, that's their profit center.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's how they make money.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: We need them to get that next contract, but they have to be able to sleep.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Just let's just say you play in the NBA, you play in Memphis one night, and it's a back-to-back, and then you got to go to Dallas.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: They have to perform.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: So we, you know, if we have a lower leg injury, we could get the knee up or ankle up, but you have to be able to build it so it fits that body type in that size of a person.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we do what we call a Bel Air King, which is eight feet by eight feet.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: We do a, yeah, we we we we do all kinds of, we've got a 10-footer, we've got a 12-footer, we've got a nine-footer.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: We we do a lot of oversized mattresses because it is, again, it's about a fit.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: It has to fit the person.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, nothing against Toyota or BMW or Mercedes, but you ask them to make that car one inch shorter so it fits in the garage, the answer is no.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Being a manufacturer and building by hand, whether it's wider in width, longer in length, uh a notch corner, a round, a special radius, an antique, uh, a Euros uh size, uh, a yacht or plane or boat or whatever.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we still build everything by hand um and so we're able to build to whatever size is needed.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't just sell in your own stores, you sell to uh uh you you sell to resorts, you sell to hotels, you sell I mean you sell all over the country, right?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're very, very fortunate.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um I guess maybe the explosion of the internet and people moving about.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um we do the Four Seasons Hotel in New York.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're from New York, uh at 57th in Madison.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: We we we do the Builtmore in Santa Barbara.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: We do a lot of high-end uh hospitality uh boutique hotels.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um we we build white label products for uh uh you know companies that ship all over the United States and abroad now.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's you we end up with a lot more international clients now with people traveling in and out of you know the United States.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: So um it is we've been very, very fortunate to grow our business.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: But being a family business, it's probably 70% of what we do is referral, repeat.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that word of mouth, like you having a great experience in sleeping better, you start telling friends, and that just that momentum of the referrals um has taken us to some very unique places.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it's not just it's not just friends, it's also family.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have five kids, and you know, when they're in college, right, you're buying those.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: My daughter, you know, she she went to college and she moves out of the dorms and she moved into a uh an apartment with her friends, and just for the sake of ease, we got one of the mattresses in a box, right?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: You pop it open, you know, she's happy with it, it's gonna get destroyed for two years.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to worry about it when it's done.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: You just get rid of it, no sense in moving it.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: But now she graduated and she's getting into real life, she's starting to adult.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: She got her first apartment.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now she wants a real mattress, so you have to you sort of upgrade.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, my son, he lives with his his girlfriend, but he got his first apartment a couple of years ago and he bought a you know, a cheap mattress and he hated it.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh now, you know, he realized that spending money on a good mattress is uh is really beneficial to him and you know his his and his girlfriend.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So like they're all they're all starting to adult.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just word of mouth to your friends and family.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Your family gets bigger, you know, you've you got a family, then then you've got a guest room, and that mattress gets old, and you've got to get another one.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you find a brand that you like and you wind up permeating the entire house.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: No, it it it is, you know, being in the mattress business, I I, you know, I don't have five kids, I have three, but the kids going off to college and sleeping on those nasty dorm beds with the vinyl, you know, it ended up costing me a lot of money.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: We do these natural pillow tops, so not only did I end up doing it, the natural pillow tops for each of my kids, but each of their friends and dormates uh through school.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: But no, absolutely.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: When we're younger or somebody's younger and leaner, um, you could do a bed in the box.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just, you know, it's a you know, it's something that UPS could deliver, you poke a hole in it, and it pops up.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: But as we start adulting, we have a little bit more weight in that center third.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it that's like a a waterbed.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: You just it allows your your buttocks or your center third to just lose that support.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: So typically, as we start adulting, you you need to get proper comfort and support, and uh you outgrow the that type of uh low-end purchase, if you would.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's great for college because then you you don't worry about it when it's time to move.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're just like, you know, forget it.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you don't want to drag it back anyways.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, you don't.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Especially not after uh a couple of years in college.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't know what's going on in that.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I remember we went to China a few years ago, uh, and um we were there for quite some time, and we were a lot in the west of China.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember we we we were in this hotel, and it it was it was like sleeping on a board.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh I don't even think there was a mattress.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was just wood.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really, really difficult sleeping.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: But that's uh you know, I I what I tell people is there are what we call, I'm gonna use the term generational things, but they're just cultural things.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, my wife was an exchange student in Japan.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Culturally, a tatami mat on the floor, uh, you know, Japanese women are predominantly back sleepers.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, like 83% of American females are side sleepers.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: So in Asian countries, they are much firmer, flatter.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're a back sleeper, it's really like that lumbar in that lower back.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: You or I get on the ground, we hire a trainer, they make us do a sit-up.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: They have you bend your knees because it flattens your back.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're a back sleeper, you could go really firm and flat.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have that real lean body type, you can get away with you know being on a harder bed.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I hate to say I'm a little bit more fluffy, but I'm a little bit more fluffy, and I, you know, I like going on my side.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: It would trigger way too much pressure in my shoulders.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my wife triggered way too much pressure in her hip.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I uh I you know, I'm unfortunately aging up and I I hear these guys, my bad hip, my bad hip, my bad hip.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: In my experience, a lot of guys they're on way too hard of a bed, their shoulders not entering the bed, it transfers their weight to their hip, and it's just aggravating or agitating that hip for seven, eight hours a night.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so you do want to be fitted and hard is hard, hard is not support.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: You want to equalize pressure.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you were lying on a bed, my wife lying on a bed, you want to be able to draw a line from the middle of the neck through the back, through the buttocks, through the ankles.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you do have to match the curves of the body.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: So harder is not better.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably one of the greatest misconceptions in in our industry.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So so the most of the industry has moved offshore, but you decided to stay and uh and keep doing it.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you're focused more on, you know, quality.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: How's that how does that uh perceive in the world?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like do consumers recognize it as being a positive?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, is that Yeah, it it it it's a great question.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, um we are I'm gonna use the word niche business.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um there have been some great heritage brands in our industry.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's a company called Stearns and Foster.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: They've been in existence since 1846.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Probably one of the greater heritage brands.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Today, they're owned.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Seely originally bought them, which has been a big brand for many, many years, and both of those brands at one time built natural materials, hand-tufted, double-sided.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Temper Pedic is kind of the greatest or the largest chemical company or foam mattress, because that's just adding petroleum to make it a slow-reacting foam.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Temper Pedic bought both Sealy and Sturms and Foster, and now they've gone through another transition where they're owning a large component company, and they're they now own the largest uh brand out there, retail brand uh mattress firm.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's been kind of ongoing for the past couple years of all these transactions and you know, gobbling up big companies.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: But it really has benefited us because we are an alternative.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: We still do it the right way, we still concentrate on the quality and the durability.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you could spend eight grand on a mattress today.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: The average life of a mass-produced bed today is four and a half years.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: The average life of the bed in a box, and a lot of these bed in the boxes, they're three thousand dollars.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like it was cheap like when your kids were in college and my kids were in college.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're three thousand dollars.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: The average life of the bed in the box is less than two years.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so um the our ability to build a quality product and make it last.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Ours, you again, you could build it, we build them on both sides, so you could flip and rotate it.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's healthier, it's more supportive, it lasts longer, but ultimately it's it's better for the environment, it's better for the landfills.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you know, you just take grandma's sofa, grandma's dining room table.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: You could refinish that, you could re-upholster it.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was quality.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I don't want to throw a uh a nut at Amazon or IKEA or whatever, but you can't refinish that furniture.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's throwaway stuff.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a styrofo- yeah, it's a styrofoam cup um that you're gonna throw away.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And um we are dealing with something that affects people's quality of life and health and wellness.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: It it has to be built right to last.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, is otherwise it you know, you're gonna get the big old dips in it and that hump or island up the middle.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I I I think it was it was funny how um I guess a couple of years ago, um but uh I guess a couple of years ago there was like this big push of all these new mattress brands that came out, like Tuft and Needle, Satva, Casper.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden everybody just started wanting to be in the mattress business.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've got some that are great and some that, you know, aren't so great.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think I think it's brought aware, in my opinion, it's brought awareness to the sleep category in a lot of ways, because people started writing about it and doctors started writing about it, and you know, all kinds of people saying, you know, you don't want to buy this, it's just cheap, and this you want to buy this brand, or you want to buy, you want to focus on this.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think in a lot of ways, some of that competition um uh is sort of has I guess helped the category, maybe?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: It it has um clients are getting smarter and smarter, um and they're seeing through some of it.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um 32 of those brands are made by one company.
• 21:33
  unknown: Yeah.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so 32 of those brands are made, and it may be 33.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: I could be off by one.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but again, the they're sourcing the raw materials from overseas.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're shipping them in these big containers.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: We saw what happened through COVID and uh all these containers, and there was a large portion of those, you know, mattresses were stuck over there.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh And coming across and in and you know, but um yeah, it is it w it ultimately will help us because of the fluff that is going on.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're putting quote unquote one percent organic material in a a mattress and calling it organic.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so people are do do doing their due diligence and you know in and doing a little bit more research and um in, you know, people want quality.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: I people are more and more buying quality and paying attention to what is real and not real.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: So getting away from the fluff, and unfortunately, the mattress industry uh you know has a little bit of fluff when it comes to the marketing side of it.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um we are very fortunate that when clients do do their due diligence, and I I tell people the three common denominators and premium mattresses natural materials, hand-tufted, double-sided.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: There are some very expensive brands.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: There's some very expensive brands out of New York and out of London and you know, Sweden.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: You look at the most premium product, natural, hand-tufted, double-sided.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: The greatest ripoff is a no-flip mattress, and you know, you want to minimize the synthetics in a in a mattress, whether my name's on it or somebody else's.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: So people are seeing through it now uh because they're, you know, they've had three mattresses in seven years.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Tired of wasting money.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's true.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I always wondered um about when you put like your product into a high-end resort or hotel like you're in the four seasons.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I always wonder if people go sleep on it and and say, you know, what mattress is this?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's great, and then look at it and find the brand or whatever, and and then, you know, buy it for their house.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because I do know some people who have done that with other things in in hotels.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: I w I I always wondered if if that would if if that's almost like a product placement advertising.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it when I was a kid, hotels wanted the cheapest, hardest mattress because they wanted the durability.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: That hotel could have the best restaurant, the best view, the best location, but if the the if the client doesn't sleep well, they don't come back.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: So um it has been a blessing that the hotels are putting better quality.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you look at Steve Wynn or some of these people in the four seasons, they sell a lot of the product, whether it's the bedding or the robe or the slippers or the mattress.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, we're very, very fortunate.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably part of what takes us to different places and unique places.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you do stay there and you sleep well, and your wife on Tuesday calls and says, Hey, I slept so well.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: What is that?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: The concierge can take the order, and then we could just drop ship it directly to the client wherever the client lives, you know.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, but yeah, we are been, you know, we have a number of boutique hotels in um Palm Springs that we do.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm working on a um a care, I don't want to call it a care, it's an aftercare for you know somebody who goes and gets a facelift or uh enhancement surgery.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's kind of a VIP concierge in Santa Monica that we're putting quality mattresses in it because the bodies are healing, they're recovering, and they want the the patient to be as comfortable as possible.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: So you are seeing it more and more in hotels and even in the cruise lines.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um that they they're putting, you know, some of these cruise lines, you know, you're on that boat for 30 days, you know, luxury cruises.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so they are investing more.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but it's all about the investment.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: The initial investment, you gotta buy quality to get that return.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know my wife has done that a couple of times when we stayed at places and there's things that she liked, and she's gone and got them and brought them home and or ordered them to come and get get delivered.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: You were talking about furniture before, you know, your grandmother, and you know, she had bought quality furniture and this and that.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: My grandmother was an old Italian woman, and uh and she was one of those, she was one of those people that covered her furniture in plastic.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: My grandma did that too.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: She bought, I remember she bought this living room set.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: The whole thing was just covered in plastic, right?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: So when we used to go over there, especially in the summer, you know, you get stuck to this plastic.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: But she had that for about 10 years.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, and then she says, you know, I'm gonna get new furniture.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, if you took the plastic off, you'd have new furniture here, you know?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and but she was like, No, and she gave it to my sister, and you know, my sister took the plastic off, and I was like, you know, it's it was really beautiful furniture.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: I said, you know, she didn't skimp on the furniture, but it's really never been used.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing that was ever used was the plastic on the no, my my my my grandmother was the same way.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: You the the plastic over it.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, it's I and it just you brought something to my, you know, it triggered me.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: But my father used to say two men and a boy to move like old furniture, two men and a boy.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, grandma's, your grandma, my grandma that it was real hard, eight-way hand tie, real hardwood, natural materials.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And again, those things lasted.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: They were quality, they were durable.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's still that way today.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I it is it is still that way today.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta build quality to get that return on investment.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I agree with you 100%.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh, you know, and it and it shows in in everything that you do really when you you know when you invest in something, whether it's a piece of furniture or you know, a bed or or anything, even the bed frame, uh you know, you you want something that's gonna last, that you're gonna have for like the kids make the kids make uh make fun of us because we have this dining room table, and they say, you know, that's my childhood, you can't get rid of it.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, as as things get older, uh but it but it's quality enough that we just had it totally refinished because even doing that was better than buying like we were looking at new dining room tables going, you know, it just doesn't look as good.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: But we just took it to a guy who refinished it, now it looks as as good as new, and the kids are all happy because it's like that's our childhood, you can't take it away.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there's there's always the not only the quality, but the sentimentality of having a great piece of furniture that's in your house.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: I and you know, I hate going back to our kids, but you know, you take the kids in the that when they were in the dorms or into the apartments or into the house.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: My my youngest is a senior in college.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, his desk that we took us forever to put together, it's a thousand pieces.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way there's no way you're gonna take that darn thing apart and go put it back together.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the quality.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: You can't refinish it.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: It you know, uh it it it is completely and it wasn't cheap, uh, but it is, you know, um, you're absolutely right.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: It is quality.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I don't care if it's quality food, it's uh it's quality vitamins or quality sleep or quality mattresses.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: You you you're you want quality over quantity.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's fun I I always think it's funny, just go real quick, going back to the kids for a second.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whenever they all went to college, like one daughter went to UCLA and like they sleep four girls to a room in the dorms, you know, their bunk beds, and you know, then I we had another one in Boston and another one in uh Rhode Island, and you know, and it was funny whenever they came home for short times, there are two things that they loved.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: One was getting in bed and the other was taking a long shower because you know, California has water restrictions, so they had to be in and out and the water never got hot enough.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when you're in the dorms, everybody's trying to get in and out.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: But those were the two things.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and because of that, like my my youngest daughter, when she she's the last one to start adulting, when she got her apartment, she was like, you know, I have to get I have to get a mattress like the one I have at home because, you know, I can't I don't want to take the one I have at home because when I come home I want to sleep in it, but it has to be that good.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, you wind up saying, Okay, but just understand this is coming with you for a long time because this isn't a cheap, you know, it's not a cheap throwaway.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like you're uh, you know, mattress in a box.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: So Yeah.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: No, it it is um again, we use the term adulting, but it's my kids were the same way is is they they w they they they they wanted that sleep.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: They wanted that better sleep at home, and you know, obviously the same thing with the showers and things of that nature.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: But my younger daughter, her roommate, four years in college, was from Boston.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so when they moved out together, we did a topper, and then I ended up doing a natural pillow, and then they've now graduated and she lives in San Francisco, and she called my daughter and said, Hey, is there a way your dad could get me a topper and another pillow?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to ship a topper pillow to her, and she's like, you know, she it it it it makes a difference.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean quality sleep makes a difference in the how we feel and perform.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I, you know, I ultimately want people to be healthy and well.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you gotta sleep well to do that.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta, you know, it's it it makes a massive difference.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And one last discussion point.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: How how do you scale this bigger?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how do you you know how do you get that message out and scale it bigger?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Are there obstacles to scaling?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because of obviously you're building quality.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I would imagine your pricing structure's got to reflect the quality, which is probably a little bit higher than the stuff coming in from overseas that's synthetic.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: So Yeah, I mean, um we never wanted to be the biggest.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um we never, you know, we didn't, you know, we had no desire to be Taco Bell or McDonald's.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: I obviously that's not our business model to be the biggest.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um we are only as good as the people we surround ourselves with.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: So um we are in a great position of I use the term going, you know, even though it's almost 40 years, we're in the transition of going from a mom and pop business to trying to scale it uh to going to a much bigger um business.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: And um we're in the stage right now to strategize of what is the best way to do that.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: We have eight locations.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: We obviously have the white label and the hospitality and the design work and the athlete, you know, for the athletes and for the sports team's work.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we're just in the process of whether we want to open more of our own stores or potentially go to dealers um and have dealers with what's going on in the industry and all of the ma national brands merging together.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we just kind of really got into starting to strategize.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: We had a meeting yesterday talking about some of the things that are potential and just kind of get it on paper first and foremost and figure out what's best for our business.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because um we never want to lose control of our brand.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, uh we didn't you know, we purposely don't pay our salespeople commission because we don't want them to sell them something, we want them to fit them.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, uh my wife and I don't sleep on our most expensive mattress.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that the our most expensive mattress wasn't the perfect fit for my wife.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so we want our staff to fit the client based off of their body type, based off their predominant sleeping position, off of their pain point.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: So um to scale the business is how do we do it within a a way that we stay on brand with who we are, with our integrity, our you know, our our business model that's made us uh successful for almost 40 years.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: So um it it is, you know, going into tw the new year, it will be, you know, either opening a couple more stores or uh dealers, because I would love to get or we would love to get to other states.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Get, you know, there's a lot of people who move to North Carolina, South Carolina, sure, uh uh Tennessee, you know, uh Florida, Texas, you know, through uh all the transitions of what's gone on in the world since COVID and post-COVID and um, you know, people are moving about um and you know, we we would love to figure out our business model to service our clients in Park City, Utah and Aspen, Colorado and and things of that nature.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it it's kind of exciting kind of going from mom and pop to a much bigger business.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we'll we don't know exactly where yet, but we it's in the works.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: The plans are just getting started.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: And how do people find you?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: They you've got a website, how do they find you?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: B Best Way is Custom Comfort Mattress.com.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: So custom comfortmattress.com gets you directly to our website.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: It will go through the collections and um certainly um you could reach me directly.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: My email is my first name, Gary at Custom Comfort Mattress.com.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you taking the time.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: We uh it was a great discussion.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: I really enjoy what you're doing, and uh it's really a fascinating business.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad you're different than what other people are doing.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: I really love when a brand differentiates itself and and you know sets a different kind of course.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's great.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we're gonna stay in our lane and we're gonna stay the alternative brand.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Phil.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: I I greatly appreciate it and uh uh keep up the great work.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I appreciate it.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Great discussion.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.