This mattress company that started with just 2.5 lacs stands to close the year at around 25 crores in revenue

How did it all begin?

3 year old start-up, Flo Mattress, is Gaurav Zatakia’s brainchild. Gaurav spent close to a decade at Hush, a premium bedding brand that his family owned. Hush at the time was a b2b supplier of mattresses to a lot of hotels and resorts across the country. Back then, says Gaurav, “a lot of people that had stayed at one of these nice hotels would reach out to tell us that they had just had the best night’s sleep on one of our mattresses, and ask where they could buy one for their homes. That’s how I got interested in the whole b2c side of things and helped set up retail distribution for Hush across major Indian cities.”

But the B2C channel at Hush posed its challenges. Gaurav soon realized that the offline distribution model in India was broken. Retailers refused to work with brands unless they offered margins or commissions north of 50%. The margins seemed too high and were driving up the MRPs, which made the mattresses un-affordable for most Indian families. So he set out to resolve this vicious cycle by launching Flo, which ran on a Direct-to-Consumer or d2c model. The purpose was to make it easy for consumers to find a mattress online, thereby saving them both time and money, while also making the whole experience fun.

The first few years

Although the ideation was in place for Flo, the start was pretty challenging. Flo began its operations with only 2.5 lacs in capital. They were bootstrapped, and there was no external funding. However, the team at Flo was determined and persistent. Like any new product launch, people were unaware of the brand and wary of this one. The reason is that there were other established brands in the category. The wariness came despite the significantly lower price points and richer features compared to other established bigwigs in the market.

When the tides had turned

While the first hundred orders took a lot of effort to bring in, things got significantly easier as these orders started to get shipped and delivered. Customers fell in love with their new Flo mattresses and reviews started pouring in. The brand went viral almost overnight and demand shot up exponentially. The team then struggled to keep up with promised delivery timelines (production was outsourced at the time) until the team decided to set up their manufacturing faciity in Mumbai so that they would then have greater control over their supply chain. According to their website, most orders are now shipped out within 72 hours.

Unique selling proposition

Flo understands that a mattress is an experiential product, of which support and comfort are its two concomitants. These two parameters or pillars, so to speak, cannot be communicated or articulated visually. So, a solution came about - the 100 nights’ policy.

The 100 nights’ policy allows consumers to try the mattress for 100 nights (as expected). The three-month period enables them to decide whether they want to continue or return it.

The model has been a success with millennials who have a predisposition to online shopping and are tech-savvy. With the older folks, not so much. Nonetheless, it has been touted as a game-changer in an otherwise no-return market.

The pieces of the puzzle

Flo begins with the basics of understanding the audience and their pain points. Once done, products are built to cater to the issues and then communicated to the target audience.

Selling a mattress online requires logistics and a stellar supply chain. Fo fulfilment, Flo has set up warehouses in prominent Indian cities. These account for a bulk of the revenues and help bring down costs and delivery SLAs. Also, the brand ensures safe and secure delivery by innovatively packaging the mattress in a neat box. Lastly, the re-engineered supply chain cuts out middlemen for absolute seamlessness.

Innovation is the core at Flo, which is evident from the premium features available in the mattress online. From the Aloe Vera gel infused into the fabrics to the 3D air-flo technology that keeps the mattresses cool and comfy, out-of-the-box solutions keep the product a step ahead of the curve.

Future Outlook

The world today is increasingly becoming more data-driven with solutions such as Fitbit. Essentially, watches and mobiles are transforming into tracking devices. Flo aspires to do the same with their mattresses and make them into ‘smart’ sleep solutions. The plan is to enable their products to extract valuable data about customers, such as quality of sleep. Such data then shall be used to offer personalized solutions. In the end, it’s safe to say that the people at Flo have not been sleeping around when it comes to giving their customers the best rest of their lives.

For more information or to check out the entire product range of Flo Mattress, please log on to https://www.flomattress.com/collections/mattress