PranaSleep blends quality and yoga-themed branding to create luxury latex sleep systems
Over the course of the last year, PranaSleep, a manufacturer of luxury Talalay latex mattresses, has begun to evolve into the national brand that Stephen Schiller, founder and chief executive officer, envisioned almost 10 years ago. This expansion of the Bonita Springs, Florida-based company has been supported by a significant investment in new equipment, increased manufacturing space and a “program of strategic hiring,” key executives report.
Dream team Rob Sellers, chief operating officer (left), and Stephen Schiller, founder and chief executive officer, lead PranaSleep, headquartered in Bonita Springs, Florida.
Schiller seems unsurprised that the evolution has gone slowly. He has, after all, set the bar for his company extremely high.
“When I started PranaSleep, I wanted to design, develop and bring to market the best mattress on the planet,” he says. “My goal was never to be the biggest, but the best.”
Like father, like son
Schiller began learning about the link between quality and comfort at an early age. His father, Jay Schiller, founded City Mattress, a chain of 19 bedding stores in upstate New York and Florida, and he worked in the stores from the time he was 13 years old.
“My father was constantly trying to improve products that the industry was offering,” explains Schiller, who now also serves as CEO of City Mattress.
In fact, it was never Stephen Schiller’s intention to become a manufacturer. Because he believed that Talalay offered superior support and comfort, he wanted to add a line of latex beds to City Mattress stores. Since latex was then “a tiny portion of the industry,” he says, he decided in the mid-1990s to become part of a team working to develop a new line of latex beds.
“I helped them make it look better and feel better,” he explains. “When we put (the line) into the South Florida stores, it quickly became 20% of our business.”
The success of the beds among high-end consumers underscored Schiller’s belief in the superiority of Talalay. When quality-control issues with the line’s manufacturer ensued, Schiller faced a dilemma: Abandon latex or find a way to solve the problem himself.
He decided to take matters into his own hands and spent all of 2003 developing mattresses that would ultimately become the PranaSleep brand. Once again, he outsourced the manufacturing and, once again, the initial results were rewarding.
When Schiller put the beds on the City Mattress floors, “they outsold in gross dollars every other brand on the floor,” he says. “2004 and 2005 were great years.”
Committed to quality
But once again, the company ran into quality problems with its outsourced manufacturing, which brought Schiller to yet another crossroads. In 2009, “with zero manufacturing experience,” he says, he decided that the only way he could ensure that PranaSleep mattresses met the highest standards of quality was to produce them himself.
“I was supremely, naively confident,” he says.
Schiller’s confidence, coupled with an attention to detail and a commitment to creating “the best bed on the planet,” changed the tide and set the fledgling company on a path toward growth.
Schiller worked with Latex International, a Shelton, Connecticut-based supplier, to formulate a unique, natural content Talalay latex foam that, he says, “improved quality by 100%.”
“We created a new formulation of Talalay latex, (which we call) PranaSleep Performance Talalay, and a manufacturing technique to stabilize the beds,” he says.
When Schiller introduced the fourth generation of PranaSleep beds to City Mattress floors, consumers once again enthusiastically received them.
“PranaSleep represents 20% of the SKUs at City Mattress and (brings in) more than 30% of the business,” Schiller says.
Two years ago, Jordan’s Furniture, a five-store chain based in East Taunton, Massachusetts, added PranaSleep to its stores. When Jordan’s became the first retailer outside of the City Mattress network to carry the line, Schiller knew that he had planted the seeds of growth.
To nurture that growth, he also brought Rob Sellers aboard as chief operating officer. Sellers came to PranaSleep from Celestica Corp., a publicly traded, multinational electronics manufacturing company. He served as executive vice president of the Toronto, Canada-based corporation prior to joining PranaSleep.
The relationship between Schiller and Sellers goes back to their college days at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The pair had remained close friends, and Sellers had been serving on the City Mattress board of directors since 2010.
“Stephen reminded me about a conversation that we had in college about working together,” Sellers says. “He needed help in realizing his dream, and I had the background to do it. For me, it was about finding a better balance in my life and helping out my best friend.”
Schiller says: “Rob is crucial to taking what we have and raising it to the next level. We had a rocket, but didn’t have the fuel. He’s the fuel.”
What Sellers saw when he came to PranaSleep was “the essence of a great company” and a culture “that stems from Stephen’s passion for the product.”
He adds: “This is not a ‘good enough’ culture. We don’t really care if something is cheaper or easier. It’s not about saving money or time. We’re here to produce the best possible product.”
Sustainable, strategic
Bringing the brand to a larger market required putting new systems in place, strategic hiring, the expansion of manufacturing, and the broadening of PranaSleep’s dealer network.
The pair has approached each of these efforts with the same thoughtful attention that they bring to their product. Sustainable and strategic are words that crop up frequently as they describe their efforts.
“Expansion requires new customers, but we want those relationships to last a long, long time,” Sellers says. “Our growth is tied to how we bring those retailers on and how we nurture those relationships. We want to make sure that every single one of our customers can’t imagine doing business without us.”
In the last year, PranaSleep’s manufacturing facility expanded from 20,000 square feet to almost 50,000. Sellers has also almost doubled the size of the company’s workforce.
“We have a build-to-order environment and currently produce an average of 75 beds a day with a capacity to build 175 to 200 daily,” Sellers says. “People don’t get paid by how much they produce. Whether it’s one or 100, I want it to be perfect.”
Machinery also has been upgraded.
“We added the latest generation of quilting equipment from Gribetz but had to have it customized,” Sellers says. “Most manufacturers want fast machines. We want the opposite. Our direction is to quilt materials that were thought to be impossible to quilt.”
Good karma The PranaSleep line includes three collections. Prices open at $1,499.
PranaSleep currently quilts Talalay latex into the ticking of its Om collection. “This is a process that is unique to us,” Schiller says. “The extra layer of Talalay not only adds to its luxurious appearance, but to the performance of the mattress as well.”
Schiller drew the names of all of PranaSleep’s collections—and indeed the name of the company itself—from his practice of Ashtanga yoga.
“I wanted the names to convey the sense of benefit that you get from the product, and I began to realize that yoga and mattresses have a lot in common,” he says. “Yoga is all about the spine and health, and mattresses are about spinal alignment and sleep.”
Prana, the Sanskrit word for life force, “goes hand-in-hand with our product and the ethics of our company,” Schiller says.
Lotus positions
The PranaSleep line currently includes three collections. Prices open at $1,499 for the Namaste 5.0, which is part of the six-model Lotus collection. Beds in this collection, which targets younger buyers, feature Everlast cores and PranaSleep Performance Talalay comfort layers.
Prices top out with the five-model Om collection, with prices that range from $4,899 for a queen flat set to $14,497 for the top model king size with adjustable bases. Beds feature 100% natural Talalay cores, comfort layers and 100% natural Talalay in the quilt.
PranaSleep also offers six foundations, some that have components imported from Germany, featuring bowed, beechwood slats that follow the body’s curves. Slats at the hip area also are adjustable.
The company introduced a patented spring foundation last year. “This is a new design of an old idea, the box spring,” Schiller says. “(It) offers real edge support and a contouring surface. We’re proud to have been awarded our first U.S. patent.”
PranaSleep began a wider marketing campaign when it opened its first Zen-like showroom at the Las Vegas Market in January.
“We were able to test the waters and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive,” Sellers says.
The company added 12 stores from the Denver-based Urban Mattress chain to its customer base as a result of exposure at that market. To mitigate growing pains, Sellers says, “we are looking for just one more good retailer this year.”
Schiller trains retail sales associates himself. “Because we grew up with retail in our genes, we can offer that experience to our retailers,” he says.
He also has developed TV and Web commercials to build brand recognition. All feature the company’s spokesman, Rodney Yee, who is a nationally recognized yoga instructor.
Schiller and Sellers believe their most important challenge is to manage growth.
“It’s imperative not to lose the recipe,” Sellers says. “We can’t dilute the culture or the aspiration for perfection with which we approach the product.”
Ten years from now, Sellers believes that PranaSleep will be a widely distributed national brand that is “recognized to have the best feeling and performing product on the market.”
He is less certain about a move into the international arena. “Bigger isn’t better. Better is better,” he says. “When you expand onto another continent it’s too easy to do it the way everyone else wants it done.” ■
