
Casper Sleep S-1 - jonknee
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1598674/000104746920000166/a2240404zs-1.htm
======
commoner
Casper sued a mattress review site, Sleepopolis, for writing negative reviews
of their products. Casper then settled the lawsuit by taking over Sleepopolis.
The site now posts only positive reviews of Casper's mattresses.

[https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-
blogg...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-bloggers-
lawsuits-underside-of-the-mattress-wars)

I would take any reviews of Casper's products with a grain of salt.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
Mattress reviews are notoriously fake. I would take any mattress review with a
grain of salt.

~~~
Spivak
Not to get too meta but undermining reviews is also a tactic used by companies
to manipulate sales because if you don’t trust any reviews but still have to
make a decision you’re going to go with a “safe” “established” brand which
usually means whoever has the most mindshare.

~~~
et2o
Can you recommend an unbiased site then

~~~
commoner
Consumer Reports is non-profit and purchases all of the products it tests. Its
revenue comes from subscriptions and grants/donations, not advertising or
commissions.

[https://www.consumerreports.org](https://www.consumerreports.org)

Some U.S. public libraries offer access to Consumer Reports for free with a
library card.

~~~
fnord77
> commissions

sadly, consumer reports now gets money from purchases through amazon affiliate
links

~~~
commoner
Thanks for the correction. You're right.

I would still place more trust in Consumer Reports than in for-profit review
sites, but that trust has declined.

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skellera
Just wanted to say that working with Casper customer service was one of the
worst experiences I’ve ever had.

I bought their top of the line hybrid mattress then a few weeks later they had
a sale which could be used on any of their products if you bought a mattress.
We really wanted the lamps so we contacted customer service to see if it was
possible to get the discount since we just bought the mattress. The girl was
extremely rude making it seem like I was wasting her time. She told me that
there was no way to add anything to an existing order so I couldn’t do it. I
asked if I had to return the mattress and reorder it to get the lamps and she
said yes that’s what I would have to do but no I was out of luck because they
took too long to respond to me (called after they didn’t respond to any of my
messages) so the promotion was over. The whole time she just seemed annoyed
that I even tried to ask.

Sorry I spent $2000 on a mattress and wanted to spend more on another product.
I just returned it and got a Novosbed for half the price and it was way better
so I’m pretty glad it turned out that way. Keep in mind that Casper can’t sell
a return so they have to donate it. The whole return was a mess to deal with
as well. Glad they lost money on the return even if they get to write some of
the donation off.

Guess my point is that I don’t think Casper treats their customers well. I
wouldn’t touch them as an investment. I personally think they’re just cashing
out at this point.

~~~
alexandrerond
Do you keep track of all the things you buy in case price goes down so that
you can complain to customer support when they do?

In my case, I contacted support to see if I could get a discount _before_
making the purchase and they told me to wait two weeks for an upcoming
promotion. Also quickly exchanged a defect mattress.

Not saying they're the best, but complaining because they don't have
retroactive sales....

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tempsy
I haven't been in the market for a mattress for awhile now but went on
Casper's website and was shocked to see the price for a Queen is now $1095.

I didn't remember it being that high, and checked Wayback and sure enough it
was $850 in 2015, and $950 in 2017.

Given how many copycats are out there, many selling for much less, can someone
help me understand how Casper gets away with selling a $1095 mattress + tax to
a majority millennial crowd, who are supposedly cash strapped, and doing so
successfully?

~~~
astura
Advertising/marketing.

People often perceive a mattress as "very important," as sleep is important,
and are willing to spend a bit extra if they think the quality will be there
and they'll sleep better.

In reality I believe most of these "mattress in a box" companies are selling
the same 2-3 mattress manufactured in the same factory.

Personally, I buy mattress in the $300-$500 range. When I was in college I
just slept on a brick of foam because that was what I could afford.

~~~
xchaotic
It is important. Given how much time you spend sleeping and people complain
about spending $1000. But they don’t complain about a $30000 car they spend
less than half the time in.

~~~
astura
The same or very similar mattresses are rebranded and resold as vastly
different price points. Mattress sales is mostly marketing. When I was
researching mattresses years ago the takeaway was basically price and
satisfaction/quality of sleep are not correlated very much.

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mundo
I bought a latex mattress several years ago, and will never buy another
mattress. (Literally, they last 50+ years) Feels great, available in a range
of firmness, no weird smells, never deforms, doesn't get hot, and naturally
insect/mold resistant. I think I paid 1300 USD for a king size.

I know that's only tangentially relevant to the topic at hand, I'm just
mentioning this since I had trouble finding much info on them. Latex is not
promoted or advertised much, since they have very low markup compared to other
mattresses; the store would much rather sell you a "hybrid" (usually 1/2 latex
and 1/2 memory foam). But if you want to pay 2x as much to get something that
lasts 4x as long, what you want is simple, boring, 100% natural latex.

~~~
uwuhn
Which brand? I've never considered a latex mattress, and I need to replace my
current one soon.

~~~
ericd
I really like our SleepOnLatex mattresses
([https://sleeponlatex.com](https://sleeponlatex.com)). They're yet another
mattress-in-a-box company, and the name is kind of bad, but the mattresses are
very high quality AFAICT - UL Greenguard Gold/Oekotex certified for low
emissions, organic wool covers rather than chemical retardants to meet fire
standards. And they're extremely reasonably priced to boot ($800 for a queen).

No affiliation, just a very happy customer. Never tested their customer
service/returns/etc, so I don't know how good they are there.

------
umeshunni
For the last 9 months of 2019 (all in USD)

Revenue - 312M COGS - 157M Sales & Marketing - 113M General & Administrative -
106M

Net profit (loss) - (67M)

First thought: How on earth are they spending $11M/month on G&A expenses?

On further reading -

Casper Labs, our over 25,000 square foot advanced research facility in San
Francisco.

Ah, ok then...

Second thought: Why isn't R&D broken out as a separate line item?

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0zymandias
Many engineers would benefit from spending a year in sales and a year in
marketing.

There is a whole other way to look at products like this that is often missed
if you haven’t done the time.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
Many engineers focus on sales and marketing all the time as a normal course of
jobs that involve product management. Many engineers already take into account
sales and marketing perspectives in very effective ways, especially
quantitative ways that are underused by employees whose sole jobs are
exclusively in sales or marketing.

It’s very tiring to see engineers be tacitly assumed to need remedial time in
other fields to gain sufficient appreciation for them, especially when the
reciprocal deficiency of experience in engineering is virtually never raised
for sales, marketing, etc. while engineers often do self-learn quite effective
product and business skills.

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codingslave
The trick is that there are a bunch of mattress companies on Amazon selling
really cheap foam mattresses (~200$) that are basically the same as Casper.
But Casper jammed a ton of money into branding and marketing, so probably has
great margins on their products. Foam mattresses as a product are getting
extremely cheap and the quality is really not bad. I have a cheap one and
honestly like sleeping on it more than 1200$ spring bed I had.

~~~
discardable_dan
Can you recommend any of these cheap Amazon alternatives?

~~~
ryana
We bought a Zinus mattress recently. $260 for a queen size and pretty great so
far.

~~~
m0zg
My kid sleeps on one, while I sleep on a Casper, so I can compare side by
side. They're more or less the same thing for all intents and purposes, except
Zinus is 1/4th the price.

------
xivzgrev
Great business story. They quickly capitalized on a trend (tuft and needle
started 2 years before), pumped it up with great marketing and distribution,
and now are making their exit before a recession.

Would. Not. Buy.

~~~
Apocryphon
Feels like in all of these booming startup segments there's always an Uber.

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opportune
Interesting that they want to explore medical devices, “sleep services”, and
sleep supplements. Guess they are marketing themselves as the Amazon of sleep?
Because right now all I know about them is that they sell overpriced
mattresses

~~~
cmdshiftf4
Though my initial response to the title was to laugh, upon further thought I
think they're actually making a smart play here.

They're essentially betting on "optimizing wellness" being a huge fad this
decade, which I believe many others are predicting, and are using their
current position to get more cash to get ahead of that.

I don't associate Casper with "a quality night of sleep", probably because I'm
happy with my current mattress and have no need of their product, but at the
same time I couldn't name a single one of the current applications that exist
to track + "optimize" sleep / circadian cycles, and I'm sure I'm not alone in
that, so who knows? Maybe in 2030 we'll all be moaning about Casper putting up
their Nighty Night subscription another $7 for "HD dreams" and reluctantly
acquiescing to it.

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tesmar2
We tried the memory-foam-in-a-box mattresses and they were not good (leesa - I
suspect Casper is similar.). We just ordered and received a latex mattress
from Arizona ([https://www.mattresses.net](https://www.mattresses.net)) and
it's so much better. I don't work for or have any affiliation with them, I
just hope this helps someone else.

------
root_axis
Just want to shout out to the Casper Glow Lights, those things are awesome.
Interesting to see a mattress company expand into other cool products.

~~~
Humdeee
I've been using 2 of them now for well over a year and they've been excellent.
I fall asleep with them every night. It's a well engineered product. The only
minor criticism I could give is the dimming functionality by spinning while in
the charging platform could work a little better.

------
someonehere
Casper’s return policy is wasteful.

100 nights or your money back. After two days we didn’t like the mattress.
Emailed support and told them we weren’t happy with it. The next day 1800 Junk
truck came out and trashed the mattress. So essentially their returned
mattresses go into the landfill and become waste if you’re not happy with it.

~~~
johnpowell
Maybe they don't want a bedbug invasion in their warehouse.

I bought a cushion for my desk chair from Amazon and it turned out to be
garbage so I tried to return it. They said they could only give me a refund if
I sent them a picture of the cut up cushion. I didn't have to send it back,
just send a picture of it with a big gash down the middle.

I guess, at least with 1800 Junk there is a good chance a employee will pluck
the mattress out and put it up on Craigslist.

------
samcampbell
Disaggregated Revenue Data (Nine months ended September 30) Direct to
Consumer: 2018- $239M; 2019- $259M [13% YoY growth]

Wholesale: 2018- $31M; 2019- $54M [75% YoY growth] "20.3% year-over-year net
revenue growth for the nine months ended September 30, 2019"

"We have also expanded our gross margin from 42.8% in 2016 to 44.1% in 2018
and to 50.7% for the three months ended September 30, 2019"

~~~
whoisjuan
It seems that they already saturated their Direct to Consumer channel and all
their growth is now dependent on their wholesale efforts. It seems risky to
me, especially with a slow-cycle business like mattresses. Also what happens
if retailers create their own premium brands and/or secure exclusivity deals
with other manufacturers?

~~~
blackearl
No better time to dump the business on the market and run

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0xADEADBEE
A genuinely enjoyable long-form post I read a while back involved Casper [0].
Not sure how germane it is but perhaps someone will enjoy it.

[0] - [https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-
blogg...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-bloggers-
lawsuits-underside-of-the-mattress-wars)

------
seldonnn
It’s a tech company guys

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xwdv
The product I like from Casper isn’t their mattress – It’s their lights.
They’re god damn incredible, I sleep peacefully thanks to those. They should
just focus on stuff like that.

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cm2012
They could be making better Facebook ads to get that acquisition cost down.
The text on the image for a lot of their ads is way too small!

[https://mobile.twitter.com/kevinwlordbarry/status/1215786907...](https://mobile.twitter.com/kevinwlordbarry/status/1215786907784941570/photo/1)

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jelliclesfarm
I bought a Casper off shelf two days ago. It was the only one on the shelf in
Target and it was 9.45 PM. It was pricier than I had expected and didn’t
understand why it was so expensive. But I needed one pronto and it wasn’t
worth my time to go looking for something else that late at night.

But I did wonder why it was so expensive..

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raverbashing
I think this is who put it more succinctly:

"Casper is a very inefficient wealth transfer from venture capitalists to
prestige podcast makers"

[https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1215734138981928960](https://twitter.com/kevinroose/status/1215734138981928960)

~~~
speedplane
> "Casper is a very inefficient wealth transfer from venture capitalists to
> prestige podcast makers"

___[Big Well Known Consumer Products Company]___ is a very inefficient wealth
transfer from ___[Blue Chip Stock Investors]___ to prestige ___[Traditional
Media Companies]___

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sfblah
When I was 23 and doing startups full time, I slept on a hardwood floor with
just a blanket and a pillow. Helped me to get up in the morning and do work,
did nothing bad for my body as far as I can tell.

~~~
AJ007
That's ridiculous that you were down voted. My brother slept on a rock hard
bed as a kid and is able to sleep on the floor, without a pillow, all night no
problem. The soft bed thing is more of a cultural issue than a biological
necessity.

~~~
xenospn
Anyone who has ever been to bootcamp can tell you that it really doesn't
matter where you sleep if you're REALLY tired. I would sleep on the ground if
they let me. I would fall asleep sitting down, then stand up and fall asleep
again. And when I did finally go back to my tent to sleep on my 50 year old
army bed in a used sleeping bag, it was the best sleep I ever had.

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sb057
Unsolicited advice: buy the cheapest mattress (that doesn't squeal) that you
can find and slap a $50 memory foam topper on top of it. That maxes out my
comfort level.

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b0tch7
I did an insane amount of research when buying my mattress a couple years
back, there are _so_ many bed-in-a-box companies now. Decided on Helix Sleep
because they offer a level of customisation, and their customer support is
rated incredibly highly (which I decided very important if you're going to buy
a mattress without trying it).

I _love_ my Helix so much so that I convinced my parents to buy one. They
didn't love theirs and sure enough, customer service was hassle-free with the
return. So my n=2 recommendation: Helix is the way to go

That said those Glow Lights do seem pretty awesome

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rtny4821
Casper should buy calm.com

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Ohn0
I'm so tired of this

~~~
atyppo
IPOs have precipitously declined since the 90s. In 1999, there were 486 IPOs.
There are now approximately 190 per year. [1]

[1] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/270290/number-of-ipos-
in...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/270290/number-of-ipos-in-the-us-
since-1999/)

~~~
awalton
You're going to go with the dot-com bubble era for a comparison here?

~~~
atyppo
I didn't mention whether I thought the increase in IPOs was worrying. (In
fact, I do think we may be reaching/reached saturation.) IPOs per year is a
highly volatile number [1], based upon lots of factors, such as perceived
market conditions (sometimes by the underwriters, not the company IPO'ing).
[2]

[1] [https://theweek.com/articles/770020/americas-disappearing-
ip...](https://theweek.com/articles/770020/americas-disappearing-ipos)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC7ht0CAQsk&feature=emb_titl...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC7ht0CAQsk&feature=emb_title)

