Pre-sale of over 2 million yuan in the first month, American sleep brand "Vesta" reconstructs light-weight sleep products with technological product logic

 

The current global "sleep economy" market has exceeded 400 billion U.S. dollars, of which "lightweight sleep products", mainly bedding, mattresses, pillows and pajamas, account for nearly 300 billion U.S. dollars. Aiming at the upgrading opportunities of traditional sleep products, many emerging consumer brands have emerged in the industry in recent years. Among them, the American mattress brand "Casper" has been launched this year, with annual sales of nearly 500 million US dollars.

The sleep technology company "Vesta Sleep" to be introduced today wants to use the R&D logic of technology products to reconstruct lightweight sleep products.

Vesta was established in the United States in May 2020 and completed a multi-million yuan seed round of financing invested by Xianfeng Evergreen at the end of June. Founder and CEO Gu Zhenyu was a strategic consultant of McKinsey before joining Silicon Valley Robotics – Vincross Robotics as an executive; co-founder and COO Xu Kaiqiang previously served as Vincross Robotics COO and Career Dream CTO. Both of them have first-line practical experience in in-depth product development, building global brands and cross-border marketing.

Vesta

Gu Zhenyu introduced to 36 krypton that the light-weight sleep products have clear market demand and huge volume, but they have been stuck in "product supply backwardness" and "overly dependent on offline channels" for a long time, and have not cultivated a strong brand. In recent years, as young consumers pursue strong differentiated products, aesthetics and independent brand cores, sleep categories have also shown a branding trend.

Affected by the epidemic this year, European and American consumers spend longer at home, pay more attention to home comfort and further cultivate their online shopping habits. At the same time, the infrastructure of European and American e-commerce companies is gradually mature, the logistics system is more complete, and the distribution channels are more three-dimensional. Gu Zhenyu believes that now is a good time to build a sleep brand.

Vesta recently launched its new product on Kickstarter for the first time. Within 10 days of the product launch, sales exceeded RMB 1 million, and the final pre-sale in the first month reached RMB 2.2 million (US$311,000) .

In the first month's pre-sale, Vesta released a total of 3 items, namely: "vDuvet" thermal constant control velvet quilt, "vCover" breathing bamboo fiber quilt cover and "vMask" helmet-style silk eye mask. Different from traditional "multi-piece" sales, Vesta's products are all built in the form of "functional independent items."

According to Gu Zhenyu, the reason why traditional sleep products are sold in the form of "multi-piece sets" is largely because these products are the products of the traditional textile supply chain thinking-in order to improve the efficiency of the use of fabrics, small materials will also be used. Make best use of the material to make other small pieces for sale, regardless of whether the materials used match the needs of consumers.

Vesta tries to reconstruct lightweight sleep products with the team's previous logic and methods of creating robotic products in Silicon Valley : first investigate the needs and pain points of users, and then match them with the most suitable materials, technology and product design.

For example, common high-end quilt covers use silk, which is soft to the touch, breathable and constant temperature, but they have the disadvantages of fear of scratching, fear of water, and fear of drying. They are not suitable for European and American consumers who are not good at handling. Therefore, vCover chooses a new type of bamboo fiber, with independent proportioning, so that the material has both the softness of silk and the durability of fiber.

Vesta

Vesta's reconstruction of lightweight sleep products is also reflected in the design level, which can be viewed from several aspects of appearance design, industrial design and packaging design:

• In appearance, the traditional home textile industry has stagnated for decades. Vesta believes that technological elements are becoming more and more important in human life. The technological Bauhaus style represented by Apple products will become an important aesthetic direction for consumer products in the new era, and can also smoothen the aesthetic differences between regions to the greatest extent. Therefore, Vesta's products adopt a large number of design elements of technology products, including double-sided different colors, curved borders and industrial wind moldings;

• Vesta also carried out industrial design innovations based on usage requirements. For example, the team observed that changing quilt covers has always been a pain point for users, which is particularly troublesome and time-consuming. In this regard, Vesta redesigned the opening system of the quilt cover product, expanding the opening four times, and using a new type of zipper, the user can complete the cover change in 5 seconds;

• In terms of packaging design, Vesta pays attention to environmental protection. It not only uses environmentally friendly materials, but also adopts a recycling design. Product packaging can be easily transformed into storage tools for users at home for reuse. For example, the packaging of vDuvet is a cocoon-shaped corn leaf woven basket, which can be used as a laundry basket and storage basket at home; the instruction manual of vMask is a hard card, which is inserted into the card slot of the packaging and becomes a delicate storage of small objects. box.

Vesta packaging box design

Vesta's main target users are middle-class consumers aged 25-45 years old in Europe and the United States, and single products are priced between US$200-300.

In the future, Vesta will continue to fill the product line in the form of single products. There will not be many SKUs in the short term, and it is expected that it will grow to between 8-10 in the next year. In addition to the bedroom, Vesta will also gradually extend to outdoor scenes such as travel and office. The "outdoor series" products are in preparation and are expected to be launched in December this year.