Adam Tishman, cofounder of Helix Sleep. His company gives every customer a custom-made mattress that is even more affordable then retail brands. With several options, customers can come up with hundreds of different combinations to build their perfect, individualized mattress. Learn about Helix Sleep’s goals to continue expanding and to provide the best customer experience.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – Made to Stick
What CEO do you follow? — Jeff Gross
Favorite online tool? — Moat.com

Do you get 8 hours of sleep?—About 7.
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? — Learn about customer lifetime value and customer acquisition. Take risks earlier.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:25 – Nathan introduces Adam
01:45 – Helix Sleep
01:55 – Custom-made mattresses
02:20 – The price is always the same for the consumer
02:50 – Costs to produce are up to $500 in the mattress industry
03:50 – Net margin
04:20 – Growth of the business
04:35 – Founded a year ago
04:45 – Thousands of mattresses already sold
05:10 – Acquisition
05:40 – Podcasts and radio
- 06:30 – Really successful in the mattress industry
07:05 – A business model that they can scale
08:10 – A simple game, with one product
08:30 – They use their revenue to fuel growth
09:50 – Capital
- 10:10 – Seed round just under $1M
10:45 – Team of 16
11:00 – First year revenue was lower than their monthly revenue now
11:55 – The technology
- 12:10 – An algorithm to make the customized mattresses
- 12:25 – Coding is outsourced
13:10 – The process for finding a developer on Toptal
- 14:25 – Everyone is pre-screened
- 14:50 – Legally, you still own the code
- 15:20 – More affordable
16:10 – Why they chose Toptal
17:00 – Churn is not a focus for this type of business
17:40 – Focus on building the brand
17:55 – The customer experience
18:14 – Hundreds of skews
19:35 – Goals for 2016
20:35 – helixsleep.com, blog.helixsleep.com, and Adam Tishman on LinkedIn or adam@helixsleep.com
23:00 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Find a way to provide high-quality products at a more affordable price.
Take risks earlier, and jump up the business ladder.
Come up with a business model that can be scaled.

Resources Mentioned:

Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
Moat.com – Adam’s favorite online tool to see how he compares to his competitors
Toptal – A platform for finding freelancers
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 399: $1m+ Mattresses Sold using Toptal.com with Adam Tishman of HelixSleep

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders