Hey, how’s it going? This is Owen. I’m a CT and I was recently able to go on a tour of the three Z Mattress factory. All the beds from the brands Bear Lisa Brooklynn bedding, Helix, Birch and Nola are made in this pretty gigantic facility. It was fun and I learned a lot. There should be an entire recap video linked in the description if you want to check it out. I was also able to chat with some three Z leadership including Scott Paladini, who is the founder of Bear Mattress and Bear’s brand lead. I was able to learn a lot in our pretty fun conversation. So we’ll just start with our first question. How do you differentiate between so many beds within so many brands? Well, I think that’s a great question. I think first and foremost is that the company kind of came together as this collection of individual brands. And when we’re here, we still get to be that individual personality that each of the brands had. And I think all of our brands in the portfolio have sort of a unique identity, you know, when you look at them, um if you look at bear. It’s a little bit more of the the athlete focused type stuff. Noel is very like derived towards side sleepers. Um Lisa’s got this whole like uh community and giving back charitable aspect that kind of hits on it. So I think first and foremost, the brands have been able to keep our own identity. And then when we develop products, we all develop within the brands as that identity. So the nice thing is is that while we have um a factory, we’re pouring our own foam, having our own coils, uh we aren’t siloed into uh you gotta use this, you gotta use this, you gotta use this. So we’ve been able to kind of each have a different bed and I think each of the brands brings a little bit of a of a different um ethos to the products and to the to the customer that they’re, they’re looking to serve. Uh speaking of the brands, does it ever get kind of competitive between the brands in terms of like sales and stuff? Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, bear is the best but you know, the others are good too. No. Um Yeah, I think that’s part of it. I think that’s healthy that we have some competition amongst each other in terms of pushing each other and wanting each of the brands to do well, we want the whole portfolio to do really well. But I think that when we have um this competition amongst us, it, it creates, actually, it fosters more growth is what it really does. It pushes people, uh it helps people not get complacent. It helps the brands and the brand teams to want to stay a step ahead. But ultimately, we have the goal of, you know, um wanting everybody to be successful. Um He tells a little bit about the production process within each mattress. For example, you have organic mattresses and you have hybrid and all foam. Yeah, definitely. I, so I think with, with one, the first thing is, is like, what are the beds that we’re making? Right. So we have all phone beds, we have hybrid beds, we have latex beds. Um, in terms of production, I, I think it really depends on one, the customer feedback that we’re getting and, and, and that’s not just directly from us. Now, we have all these brands so we can, we can share. So while we have friendly competition, there’s a lot of sharing, there’s a lot of feedback given to what’s, what’s working, what’s not working, what do people like? What do people don’t like? So I think that is one thing that we really do. Well, when we kind of have an R and D process is that we’re getting feedback from thousands and thousands and thousands of customers that have slept on all different beds. So it’s really kind of nice to know what, what, you know, what might be better suited in terms of then like production wise when we, when we go into it, I think it really just, it, it’s the idea of being able to serve a customer, uh while also being able to, um, you know, make it work within, within the whole factory. So, you know, there’s definitely some like real outside the box uh uh discussions that we take place. We got like, uh you know, the, the, the Alaskan King at the end there. Um But, and you know, so that’s again one of those R and D things that we’re really working on here and that we’re excited about. Uh but, but overall, um production is, is pretty smooth and it’s pretty open ended in terms of how we want to uh put the beds together. Well, uh speaking of R and D, um can you describe a little bit about the process and like how you determine and test, like bringing a new mattress to the public? Yeah. So, so one, we have like an amazing team here on the production side. We have, you know, we’re pouring our own foam. II I, there’s somebody else that could speak on the chemicals and the makeup of all that, but we’re, we’re really creating some unique products. I think that um when we, when we do that, we’re gonna bring a new product to market, we’re gonna first make a whole bunch of samples, more samples than we probably need to make, but we’ll make a whole bunch of samples. And then what we’ll do is we’ll take that feedback that we’ve gotten from all the other beds, all the other products and then we’ll, we’ll try to put it out and, and take customer feedback. I mean, I think the fact that we have show rooms that are Brooklyn bedding showrooms, I think that we have hundreds of people that work right here. We can get some really good feedback. We don’t like to waste beds. So sample beds get put in to people’s houses. I always take a new sample bed like for what we’re working on. Um, my wife doesn’t love switching out the mattress all the time, but you know, we’ll, we’ll switch it up as we look to, to develop these different beds. I think the really key is that we try to marry our institutional knowledge that we collectively have at three Zs with what the feedback has been from our current beds and how we really can iterate to make them better, how we can improve them and how to bring better products to market. So I really think some beds are new. Um I think like the Helix Elite product line, it was a new development that’s been in the works for a long time. That’s a, that’s a result of customer feedback understanding of where the market is where people are looking for beds. Um And at the same time, we just will upgrade beds with better foams or things that we’re now creating. So, you know, it’s not necessarily going to change the bed a lot, but it could be a little bit, you know, improve things incrementally. One thing I definitely noticed like with the Helix elite that the whole like shipping process of with the, with the coil base and then the comfort insert in the second box in the second box. You see that with lease reserve now. So you definitely share that. Exactly. Exactly. And, and that was it, but each bed is going to be made in a style that’s like good for those brands. So like the technology and the, the way it works and the shipping and the logistics that is like shared knowledge. The, the the best part though is that Lisa can then work to develop a bed knowing that those things can happen, but they can make it their own. And I love the Lisa reserve line. I think it, it, it came out wonderful and I know Jen who leads that line did a great job and then her whole team did a great job with it. I think that that example that you gave with the sharing is, is right on and what we try to do with, with all of our products. Um So are all mattresses made to order? Do you have a stock? Like how does, how does that work? You know, I am if you, as you see out in the factory, we’re making beds, we make a lot of beds every single day. So most of the beds are what I would say, made to order now made to order could be a few days prior. We, we’re on a schedule. We have a lot of, a lot of mattresses flowing through here. Not just all of our brands, but we build a lot of other mattresses. Um, in, in general, we have a lot of mattresses in stores throughout the country. Um, so we’re, we’re on a schedule with that said we don’t really stock and just keep tons of mattresses there. Our shipping times though, you know, varying, but like, it is really like 1 to 5 days for, for all of our beds. So we’re, we’re getting beds out the door extremely fast, extremely efficiently and they’re all relatively new, which is even better. So we’re really shipping within 123 business days normally for almost all of our products, but all that is relatively made within probably the last seven days. Right? Is that partially because you can’t have a mattress in a box for too long? It’s not, you can’t, it’s not that it can’t be in the box for too long. Like, that’s, that’s not, um, like too much of a concern, uh, that we have that it’s in like, yeah, like you’re getting up to like, 345 months. Like, you don’t really want to necessarily have, um, some of the beds, uh, uh, especially some of the, the, the smaller all foam beds, that sort of stuff. I mean, you wanna kind of get them out. But I think a lot of it just has to do with how this 11, uh, football field style 650,000 square foot factory works and just the efficiencies that are created through that. Um, we’ve, we’ve looked at like warehousing, we’ve looked at those things. We’re constantly evaluating, we’re constantly taking feedback on that. But what we realized is that we can, we can ship relatively fast within a couple days. Um And, and the bed be fresh. So which is really good on the, the raw material side too with some of the foam just coming off the line, like look that’s not pre compressed. We’re not buying that now from, from, from one of the farmers. So we’re, we’re, we’re, we have like some unique competitive advantages that are really exciting since this factory was first built. Has there been any like significant changes or enhancements in the production process? Because this has been around for quite a while, right? This, this factory is about um 2, 2.5 years old. So, um uh John Ceo and the Brooklyn team, they had another factory here in Arizona, uh about a third of the size of this, they, they moved it into to here and they’ve expanded out the biggest thing that we’ve done is add foam pouring. So foam pouring now takes up a we we whole section of it. The line is state of the art as well. So the, the way that the beds flow, um it’s, it’s really unique in state of the art and how they move through the factory. We’ve also added some like robot technology to help assist the the the staff. So while we’re still using a lot of uh labor in this, certain things like robots will now pick up and turn the bed. So people don’t have to necessarily pick up and turn the bed. So we have some um we continue to look and enhance the factory add new technology. Um And then obviously, the foam pouring has been a huge, huge portion of uh the the capital improvements over the last uh two years. Um Can you tell us a little bit about the logistics of shipping huge mattresses like the Alaskan King or the Sedona Blue because that can’t be shipped? Yeah, exactly. So I think when it comes to uh some of the these bigger beds, right? Even the Helix, I think the Helix elite is the prime example is that what we found is that I think with good clarity to customers, um they understand the shipping process, they understand that it might come in two boxes and that sort of thing. So what we’re, we’re finding is um that when you are, when we’re reaching thresholds on, on beds. Is there ways that we can overcome that? One of the ways is we could ship in multiple boxes on things like um the beds that are just over 100 £50 in king, those become challenging. So they have to ship on a pallet and those for the most part, um is one thing that we probably try to avoid a little bit of, but again, clear communication can help with that. And that really works with adjustable bases because they could get up to be uh very big and heavy and, or stuff and they become a really popular product for us and an important product that people should be looking more into. And we’re very excited about the growth we’ve been seeing in the adjustable market, but those create some logistical challenges. One thing we are advancing and you’ll see that’s again, shared knowledge is this idea of white glove delivery and doing more white glove delivery. So we could do um bigger, more chunky beds and, and people have a good, good experience. And, and so White Glove delivery is something that is available. I believe on almost all of our sites. And I think it will be more pushed to the forefront uh over the coming next uh coming months as we do launch more of these like uh bigger uh bigger mattresses. Uh One thing I would love some insight on uh because this is something like we, we have a pretty robust testing process that we do, I think. But the one thing that we can’t really reasonably test for and that’s like longevity of a mattress because that would take a really long time for us to figure that out. So, is there any methods that y’all use here to sort of determine how long a mattress is gonna last, how durable it is over the course of like the life of a mattress, which is at least like 10, 7 to 10 years. Yeah. So we have have a durability roller here. So you can um hopefully get to check that out a little bit, but basically, it simulates uh sleeps and so we can have the beds tested by um them being rolled and it just simulates thousands of nights of sleep in that wear and tear. So most of the beds will go through the roller at some point in their production and research and development standpoint to get an idea of how it is. A lot of the times we’re also checking uh coils and foams and seeing like, hey, we know that these are working, right? So it’s not even always the mattress, but understanding that the raw materials are gonna last as well is a really key component to it. So that’s number one, number two, we obviously back up what we’re we’re doing here. So I think that’s really important is that, you know, we want you to feel great about your purchase. We don’t wanna have this to be like something where in 3 to 5 years you’re calling us. That’s not really a great customer experience for us as well. And then, and then finally, we are getting that data because um, uh Brooklyn Bedding, Bear Helix, we’re all now 10 plus years into our life cycle that we’re seeing that the, the beds have, um, have already withstood that kind of test of time and we’ve only made them better since we started as companies. Um, and they’ve gotten better. So I think um, longevity is super important. I do recommend that people take care of the mattress, put a mattress protector on it, rotate your bed, um Make sure you’re using it like as a mattress and properly and like that sort of thing. But we, we feel very confident with, with what, you know, we’re putting out into the, the consumer as a, as a dirt, like it’s gonna be durable and last, but we, we do have the testing to, to back it up. Do you use that roller on every mattress before it goes in the box or it’s not before it goes in the, but it is during the process. So we really want to know is that making sure that the components are add up to something that, that works? So like you don’t wanna put like, uh uh maybe like a, a too many lower density foam, like a lower density foam somewhere that, that could sag so like, but it’s good to know where it does or what it might be because there is a price point and a time period for, for everything. And so I think that’s part of it. So we wanna make, but we do wanna make sure that we’re not missing something in the R and D process when we’re building a bed and putting it together. So the roller is there to just kind of simulate that longevity. So we can have a new bed, put it on the roller. Hey, you know, we didn’t, we didn’t miss something here in the, in the process. You got a machine that will go back and forth forever, you know, and that sort of thing. Um because that, that, you know, that can happen when you’re doing, pouring new foam, for example, we have a lot of new foam we’re trying to create here and be unique to the market. Um But we gotta put that kind of to test on a, on a mattress and see how it works, you know. So that’s what the the roller then is. Uh good for. Um how does like how do returns work? Do you recycle the mattress? Donate it, take out the materials? So, so it varies, right? All states have different laws around what you can actually do with an older mattress. Um Same thing with like charities especially like we would love to donate every mattress to somebody, somebody. Yeah, exactly. That somebody that, that can, that wants it. Um, unfortunately, there are some laws that we have to comply by. So depending on what we can do, the majority of the time we are trying to find, um, a donation for that mattress as best as we, we can. Um, if, if there’s, uh, challenges with that donation, um, we may even come to the customer and just be like, can you donate it? Um And then finally, if you know, some customers just want it gone and then we, we can remove it. Um We have um uh you know, depending on where we are and depending on what state, there’s different services and different people. We have a pre that’s a good cross sharing network that we’ve all built over the years that now we, we could basically find a charity or somebody we know and almost, you know, any sort of populated area uh in the country to, to, to donate it. I think the only question I have for you now is which mattress are you sleeping on right now? Yeah. Well, right now, I, that’s a great question. So I’ve um, slept on all of the bear mattresses for, for the last 10 years and it started with the original and then as we created a hybrid, I went to that and for the longest time I was sleeping on uh the Bear Elite um in the firm version. Uh but our recently launched Bear Natural with natural latex is now the new uh choice in the household. Um My wife and I have been sleeping on that for about six months and we’re loving that. So, uh the elite is, you know, true to my heart. It’s one of my favorite mattresses. But as you know, product tester, number one for, for most of the beds, uh we went with the, the natural and I am torn whether I’m gonna go back to the Elite or not. So, uh, right now it’s, uh, it’s the natural, but, um, you can’t go wrong with either the, with any of our beds. But, um, the elite with three choi comfort choices and then, uh, is really great in our new natural with latex. If you like latex, if you like a little bit more of a bounce and, uh, buoyancy to it. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a really nice feeling bud. Well, you might just swap it out when you come up with a new mattress. I know, I know I will, I will have, I’m gonna have to change again. That will lead to some discussions in the household about switching mattresses again. Yeah, I, I have that problem. All right. I just want to give a quick thank you to Scott for chatting with us. It was a very informative conversation. I learned a lot and if you want to learn more about bear mattress, look down below. In the description, we should have some pretty detailed, full reviews of all their beds down there and more information about our whole three Z factory tour experience. If you found this video h or interesting, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. We’d appreciate it a lot, but it’s gonna do it for me. This is Owen. I’ll see you the next one.
