Tuft & Needle

Tuft & Needle started as an e-commerce and manufacturing company founded on July 19, 2012 by Daehee Park and John-Thomas Marino.[3] Both met via the entrepreneur program at Pennsylvania State University.[4] After Marino and his wife overpaid for a substandard mattress, the two friends had the idea of creating a vertically-integrated e-commerce mattress company that optimized the cost of a mattress and simplified the buying experience.[5] The company was co-founded on July 19, 2012 by Park and Marino with $3,000 each of their personal savings.

Park and Marino grew the company to over $100 million in annual revenue with no venture funding. Within its first full year in business, the company generated $1 million in sales at the end of 2013.[6] On April 2014, Park spoke about founding a start-up and achieving success at IST Start-Up Week, which was hosted by Pennsylvania State University.[7] The company also opened its first "brick-and-mortar" showroom in the company's Phoenix HQ in December,[8] which was made as "an experiment" and was available by appointment only.[9]

Tuft & Needle acquired the premium 2-letter domain name TN.com in September 2015 for an undisclosed sum. The company established its headquarters at the historical O.S. Stapley Hardware buildings at Grand Avenue in Phoenix in December 2015, after a city grant of $300,000 was used to improve and repair the buildings by a real estate developer.[10] In 2015, Tuft & Needle grew to over 100 employees and earned over $100 million in revenue.

After turning down investment offers from venture capital investors, Park and Marino instead took out a $500,000 loan from Bond Street in 2016.[11][12] In 2016, the company launched a national billboard campaign entitled "Mattress Stores Are Greedy".[13]

In 2017, the company had $170 million in sales.[1] Tuft & Needle spent over $14 million in media during the same year.[14]

On Sept. 28, 2018, Tuft and Needle closed a merger with mattresses manufacturer Serta Simmons Bedding.[15][1] In November 2018, they also announced a partnership with Amazon to release an Amazon-exclusive mattress called "The Nod."[16][17]

The company's products include mattresses, bedding and bed furniture.[1]

On their website, the company currently offers 2 models of foam mattress: the T&N Mattress and the Mint Mattress.[18] Ranging in size from twin to California King, both mattress models are shipped direct-to-consumer in small box (a maximum box size of 18 in x 18 in x 44 in or 46 cm x 46 cm x 112 cm). The foam used for mattress construction is a custom-made, in-house polyurethane foam called T&N Adaptive Foam.[19] It is density proprietary, as it has 7" of 1.8 lbs/ft of the foam support.[20] The mattresses come with a 100-night sleep trial and are donated to a local charity or nonprofit if customers decide to return the product within that timeframe. The mattresses are all covered by a 10-year warranty.[21] In 2017, the company released a contour-cut foam pillow and percale cotton sheets. In 2018, Airstream announced a collaboration with the company in the Globetrotter RV model to feature a co-branded mattress manufactured by Tuft & Needle.[22]

As of January, Tuft & Needle operates seven retail stores in Scottsdale, Gilbert, Seattle, Kansas City, Raleigh, Portland, and Dallas.[23] Their products are also stocked at select Lowe's, Crate & Barrel[1] and Walmart locations across the United States.[23][24]

The company has received press from Business Insider,[25] Marketing Land,[26] The Arizona Republic,[27] Consumer Reports,[28] Forbes,[12] Phoenix Business Journal,[29] Bloomberg,[30] and Wired.[31]

• Official website