Do you feel drowsy even after 6-8 hours of sleep at night? Are you suffering from back pain, weak immune system or obesity? Do you have fine lines or dark circles? If you are saying yes to any of these, then maybe it’s time to change your mattress. Good sleep depends a lot on the sleep environment and a good mattress is a very important part of the sleep environment. Sleeping on a comfy mattress leaves you rested, relaxed and rejuvenated when you wake up and helps you to be more productive at work.
To help you sleep better, Sunday Mattress, a Bangalore based startup has come up with scientifically designed mattresses which ensure that you enjoy your daily quota of rest.
- Startup Name-Sunday Mattresses
- Headquarter-Bangalore
- Founder-Alphonse Reddy
- Sector-Lifestyle
- Founded-2015
Sunday Mattresses - About
Sunday Mattresses is a Bangalore based startup, founded in the year 2015. It is India’s first sleep-focused online startup.
The company’s aim is to offer internationally certified products such as mattresses and pillows that have been developed after extensive research. Sunday Mattress makes internationally certified sleep related products. The company manufactures mattresses, pillows, mattress topper and mattress cover.
Currently, Sunday Mattress has three types of mattress-
Sunday Latex Plus 4 Mattress.
Its features are-
- Firmness score is 5/10
- Good Balance of firmness, support and comfort
- For people who weight up to 140 kilos
- Supports all sleeping postures
- Sunday Ortho Plus 4 Mattress.
Its features are-
- Firness score is 6/10
- Middle ground with some plushness and limited sink
- For people who weight up to 100 kilos
- Supports all sleeping postures
- Sunday Memory Plus 4 Mattress.
Its features are-
- Firmness score of 7/10
- Best firmness for chronic back pain
- For people who weight up to 80 kilos
- Budget-friendly
Sunday Mattresses - USP
It is made of 100% organic cotton top with no chemicals and finest certified foam from Belgium.
Raw materials used are certified by European agencies (Euro Latex, Oeko Tek 100).
Sunday mattresses are designed to isolate movements. So you don't feel when your partner moves - and you don't wake up.
Breathable material is used which keeps the mattress cool even during summers.
All mattresses come with washable cover for easy maintenance.
Sunday’s three-zone design is the perfect combination of comfort and therapeutic support. It is proven to reduce pain and stiffness.
Sunday Mattress provides free shipping and returns, 100 nights free trial, and comes with 10 years warranty.
Having founded and run Fabmart- a dedicated sleep marketplace for 3 years, the Sunday mattress team realized that the current mattress-buying experience is broken for a consumer. They have to choose from a number of models minutely different from each other and with hi-tech buzzwords of little value, they are left being completely confused. Sunday mattress wanted to improve the whole mattress-buying experience for consumers.
The Sunday Mattress team carried out extensive research to build its mattress as per customer requirement. They noticed that there is much confusion in the market about different types of materials used in mattresses. Essentially there are four types of raw materials: Latex Foam, Memory Foam, Spring and Coir. There are typically three layers to a mattress — Comfort Layer, Support Layer and Base Layer. If you do the math and make some obvious exclusions, you end up with about 30 different combinations. Sunday mattress built a modular bed where they could quickly create a prototype mattress from any of the 30 combinations.
They tried these different combinations for 2 weeks each and made notes. Once they narrowed down to the best combinations, they engaged test customers in Hyderabad and Bangalore in the winter of 2014 and the summer of 2015 and tried these mattresses with different types of personalities: gender, weight, height, back conditions, pregnancy, etc.
So basically, we ended up doing the hard work on behalf of the customer and built a great product that suits most people. The design aspect for us is not just about how the product looks but also how the product functions. For example, more rugged woven fabric is used on the side so that the wear and tear of the mattress is minimized.
Hiroko Shiratori from Tokyo who is an acclaimed designer has won several awards across the globe including Australia and London has been instrumental in the design of Sunday Mattress.
Mattresses Industry in India
The mattress industry in India is expected to reach INR 14,000 crore by 2021. The online mattress market is expected to reach INR 290 crore by 2020.
According to 'India Mattress Market Overview, 2016-2022' the mattress market is expected to become more organized in the coming years. The market share of unorganized players is expected to drop drastically. The reason for this shift is the increase in demand for good quality branded mattresses among Indian consumers.
As said by Sunday Mattress founder Alphonse Reddy, the addressable market for Sunday Mattress is about $3.5 billion which is growing at a healthy rate of 20% y-o-y.
Sunday Mattresses - Founders & Team
Mr. Alphonse Reddy is the founder of Sunday Mattress.
Alphonse Reddy
Alphonse Reddy is an engineer from BITS, Pilani and an MBA from INSEAD France. He is also the founder and CEO of Fabmart, an online marketplace for sleep-related products.
The Sunday Mattress team currently has 10 members.
We are a lean company in every sense of the word. We are probably the only e-commerce company that doesn’t have a single technical professional on board. Within our team of 10, we are organized by critical functions. Most of the support functions have been outsourced to able partners. At work, we share mutual respect and empathy towards each other. During weekends and days off, we don’t disturb someone on their time off. When we have some free time, all the employees discuss our future plans on our office terrace.
Sunday Mattresses - How It All Started?
The Idea for starting Sunday Mattress was formed in 2011, due to some bitter experiences that Alphonse had to face while finding a good mattress.
Sleep is one of the most important things in everyone’s life and my personal experience showed me the difference between a good mattress and a bad mattress. I faced great difficulty in finding the right mattress. I ended up changing three mattresses within a span of six months.
He noticed that there was not much information about mattresses in the market and they were exorbitantly priced. Even the post-sales experience was bad, without a returns policy. The idea of a sleep startup germinated in 2011. However, until 2014, Alphonse was running Fabmart, which is a sleep-related marketplace. In mid-2014, he started working on Sunday. The Sunday mattress team took more than 12 months of extensive research in developing the product range that it is currently offering.
Sunday Mattresses - Name & Logo
A nap on a relaxed Sunday afternoon, lead to the name ‘Sunday’.
After deciding to build a mattress that was highly comfortable, safe and honestly priced, the Sunday team wanted to choose a name that best represented the product. They wanted a name that evokes curiosity, sounds cool and trendy and that had a great recall value.
We commissioned an agency from London, who are known for their talent in the industry and credited for coming up with some familiar household names. However, the names suggested did not sound right and I felt it was a bit complicated and confusing. One fine afternoon in April, I fell asleep on the couch watching TV. I was sleep thinking. That’s when my eureka moment happened! Boom there it was, Sunday!
Sunday is cool, easy to remember, it’s a day that stands for rest in most cultures and brings pleasant memories to mind. Alphonse ran a quick internet search to make certain it was not used to shop for mattresses online or other related products. The next morning, he bounced this name off my colleagues and existing investors and it was unanimously loved by all!
Sunday Mattresses - Revenue Model
Sunday mattress has a well-planned revenue model. They maintain a healthy margin by aggressively cutting wastage and middlemen. Maintaining fewer SKUs and economical shipping etc also helps Sunday Mattress to keep a good margin.
The Sunday team wants to build customer confidence in its pricing strategy and offers products at reasonable rates. For example, A latex mattress (even an uncertified one) in the market costs about INR 75,000 to INR 80,000, whereas Sunday’s Latex plus mattress is priced at INR 40,000.
Sunday Mattresses - Funding and Investors
Sunday Mattresses raised a funding of $250K in seed round in November 2015 and is in the middle of raising a $1M pre-Series A round. Current shareholders of Sunday Mattresses comprise of the founder and a few investors. Sunday Mattresses' has got major investment from Anand Morzaria and team, who recently sold their venture to WPP (Ogilvy & Mather).
We are following a slow and steady approach to fundraising. We will seek a bigger round of funding once we are confident of meaningfully deploying those funds. This would also protect our current and future investor interests. says Alphonse Reddy.
Sunday Mattresses - Startup Challenges
According To Alphonse, Sunday Mattress also went through the same journey as most startups do. It faced challenges with hiring, managing vendors, product development and marketing, etc. Surviving and competing with well-funded startups with limited capital is also a challenge for the startup.
Luckily, we have a great team and made some smart decisions along the way that have helped us grow our business in a very competitive space.
Sunday Mattresses - Future Plans
- Sunday Mattress wants to grow as a one-stop destination for all sleep-related products.
- It aims to gain 10% of the $3.5 billion market until 2022.
- Sunday Mattress currently has an experience center in Bangalore that supports its online sales. The company wants to start more such experience centers in different parts of the country.
- It sees great potential in the rest of the Indian sub-continent, Middle East and Australia, and have plans to expand in those parts of the world.
Sunday Mattresses - FAQ's
What is Sunday Mattresses?
Sunday Mattress makes internationally certified sleep-related products. The company manufactures mattresses, pillows, mattress topper, and mattress cover.
Who is the founder of Sunday Mattresses?
Mr. Alphonse Reddy is the founder of Sunday Mattress.
Is there a minimum period for the trial?
When you purchase the Sunday mattress online or from one of our sleep lounges, you are eligible for the 100 Nights trial. You can return the mattress on the same day or return it after using it for 99 Nights.
How does the 100 Nights Trial work?
Physiologically speaking, the human spine takes about a month to get used to a new mattress. Unfortunately, the 10 minutes that one gets to try a mattress in retail showrooms is not at all sufficient to make an informed decision. So, one needs to try the mattress for about a month before knowing whether the mattress is the right fit or not.
What happens to returned mattresses?
We only have a small percentage of returns. As a policy, we do not sell opened and used mattresses to customers. Instead, we use these mattresses as display in our Sunday Sleep Lounges or for customer demonstrations.
Sunday Mattresses - Conclusion
Sunday Mattresses company has made a mission to design products that help us to sleep better. By using their mattresses and bedding we can be relaxed, mattresses that make our body feel like it's resting more naturally. The company believes that good sleep is extremely important for people, especially those who are 30 years and above. A good mattress and pillows make a huge difference to someone’s sleep experience. The company wanted to be the new age sleep startup that combines transparency and product innovation to provide better sleep to Indians at an affordable price.
