This Chicago online mattress startup isn't afraid of Casper

Written by Andreas Rekdal
Published on Jan. 18, 2016
This Chicago online mattress startup isn't afraid of Casper

Did you have a hard time getting out of bed this morning? Chicago entrepreneur Robert Taglianetti wants to make your favorite piece of furniture even harder to leave behind.

The mattress industry veteran’s company,

, is the latest entrant into the online mattress retail space until now dominated by companies like YogaBed and Casper. Shooting for a similar price point to the aforementioned companies, Taglianetti is thrilled about the challenge of taking on his more established competitors.

“For me, the bed in a box has been around for a long time,” said Taglianetti (pictured right). “It’s more on the consumer front now because companies like Casper and Yoga are focusing on millennial advertising and bringing it to the forefront. I want to just bring a high-end showroom type mattress to market that can compete against big companies like Tempur-Pedic, and where consumers don’t feel like they’re missing out because they got their mattress delivered in the mail.”

He believes the competition is ultimately great for consumers, and that Sleep6’s focus on quality will make it stand out in the field. After all, he said, you do actually have to sleep on the mattress after the unboxing party is over.

Sleep6’s mattresses were designed at the company’s Chicago headquarters, and are built in (and shipped out of) California where the company’s foam supplier is located. A number of the fabrics used are sourced in Chicago, which is also home to the company’s 11 person team of developers, designers and support personnel. The end product is manufactured entirely within the United States.

The company is named after the six key mattress features Taglianetti heard customers talk about most often while working in the mattress retail space: temperature control, comfort support core, dual motion isolation, washable covers, pressure relief and durability. Strong support cores and motion isolation are particularly important for couples, keeping them from waking each other up when shifting around in bed.

Taglianetti went into the mattress business at 23 at the urging of a friend’s father. Working as a middleman between manufacturers and consumers, he developed a good feel for how people felt about their mattresses and what manufacturers could do to improve customers’ quality of sleep. Now, over 25 years later, the technology has finally caught up to where affordable quality mattresses can be delivered directly to consumers, said Taglianetti.

In addition to mattresses, which can be ordered on the company’s website starting today, Sleep6 also has a line of pillows — based on many of the same materials used in its line of mattresses — as well as a bed protection kit in the works. The pillows should be available later this month, with the bed protection kit still a few months out.

Images via Sleep6.

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