Venture Concept No. 2

Opportunity

One of the most annoying and uncomfortable things is when I wake up hot and sweaty in the middle of the night.  I have learned that a lot of other people experience this too.  Some people can’t afford to keep their A/C at 68 degrees and others have issues of other people not being comfortable with the air so cold.  But when you get under all your sheets at night your body warmth can make it very hot and you end up waking up sweating.  This isn’t necessarily limited to certain geographic locations, but it definitely is more of an issue in the south with the hotter exterior temperatures.  Right now there are some gel products on the market that help to keep the mattress cool but they don’t always work great and a lot of people aren’t happy with them.  I believe this opens the door for a big opportunity to design the right type of mattress to fight the issue of becoming too hot while you sleep.  This opportunity will be open until the competitors can come up with something better than the gel mattress.

Innovation

My product is a mattress that incorporates venting channels throughout the mattress with cooling fans underneath to allow the circulation of air under your sheets.  Most people sleep with the fan in their room on, and while this does help circulate the air and keep it cool, it doesn’t solve the problem of the warm air stuck underneath our sheets from our body temperature.  We sleep better while we are fully covered with sheets because it provides a sense of security and it more comfortable.  So the solution is to simply allow channels throughout the mattress, underneath the top pillow sheet, to give a cooling sensation so the mattress doesn’t heat up so much.  One of the biggest types of mattresses this is a problem in, is memory foam.  Due to the density of the mattress, it holds heat extremely well.  And we hate giving up memory foam because it is so comfortable.  These mattresses would sell competitively at 300-600 dollars. 

Venture Concept

The mattress will solve customers’ problems by allowing the air underneath their sheets to circulate and also keep the mattress cool. Customers will switch when they learn that there is finally a good solution to their problem.  Everyone cares about how good they sleep and no one wants to wake up or get a bad night’s sleep from being too hot.  Other mattress companies are the competitors and they have the gel product but nothing similar to this.  Packaging doesn’t really effect this much because of what it is.  What would help are good displays showing how the mattress works and what exactly it does.  I would have a manufacturing facility with probably 10-20 employees on the floor with the manufacturing process and another 10 senior employees working on sales and distribution. 

 

2.    Pretty much all of the feedback that I received was positive.  It appears that the majority of people in Florida experience this problem.  Some of the people had the problem because their roommate likes it warmer, so they get stuck being hot and waking up sweating at night.  Others have the problem because they can't afford to keep their entire house and 68 degrees at night.  But regardless of the reason, the problem is still the same and the need is still the same.  No one gave me any negative feedback to base more comments off of.

3.     I have not really changed the concept because I have not really received negative feedback to base a change off of.  I believe that it is a much needed innovation and the majority of people see a use for it.