This was an interesting postmortem, but nearly the first thought that struck me as it proceeded into the closure reasons was that many of the factors (to be fair, not all) seem to be industry knowledge easily gained through the market research about the industry.
This gives the appearance that Walnut founders either didn't perform this research (seems unlikely given the research-heavy approach they displayed) or had a large blind spot when deciding to move forward, a bit of blind optimism that somehow it might work out.
I don't really believe this postmortem. Moving does suck, it's difficult to know who to trust, and there is no modern trusted brand in the space. There is a need for a product like this.
Case study is Casper, which is not much else other than a beautifully branded old school product. There is definitely potential for a company in this space. But like most companies based largely on branding, they would need to drop a good chunk of change on advertising to get a running start, may be difficult to convince a VC to invest in that.
There is definitely a potential a company in this space, we'll wait for the next one.
This gives the appearance that Walnut founders either didn't perform this research (seems unlikely given the research-heavy approach they displayed) or had a large blind spot when deciding to move forward, a bit of blind optimism that somehow it might work out.