Replacing your mattress about every 10 years is a good rule, but Sven Klein dragged his feet, dreading the thought of going to a store to pick one out.
All those fancy mattress names and different retailers, but no way of knowing whether the one the longtime Santa Barbara resident chose was right until — sometimes — it was too late.
As a lifer in online marketing, Klein took his research to the Internet and found companies that sold mattresses without consumers having to lift more than a finger.
That was about a year ago, months before his November 2015 launch of Lull, a Santa Barbara-based direct-to-consumer mattress company that allows customers to try out a signature Lull mattress for 100 nights for free.
The Lull mattress — a mix, Klein said, of comfortable yet supportive — comes in six sizes ranging from twin to California King, priced between $500 and $900.
If for some reason they don’t like it, the CEO and co-founder said, the company will pick it up and return it free of charge.
“We are looking to change the mattress industry,” he said, noting more than 15 million mattresses are sold every year. “We want to change that whole mattress-buying experience by completely getting rid of the retail experience.
“It’s a pretty unpleasant experience. You really never get to try it out in a real-life setting.”
Lull customers don’t have to worry about picking up the mattress, either.
Klein said Lull uses compression technology to fit a mattress into a box about the size of a mini fridge, shipping for free via FedEx Ground to anywhere in the continental United States. The mattress re-inflates within hours of removing it, he said.
Scroll down to see the company video of product manager Robert Vaughn unboxing a mattress.
Lull’s premium memory foam mattress is manufactured in Southern California, but the company is headquartered in an Upper State Street office.
Klein has lived locally since junior high school, attending UC Santa Barbara and eventually helping to launch Bargain Network Inc. and Scalable Commerce, his own online marketing company.
While he wouldn’t share how many mattresses have been sold so far, Klein said he was confident Lull will find a niche helping consumers make an affordable, convenient decision they could sleep on for years to come.
“We really try to make it as simple and convenient as possible,” Klein said. “The reviews and feedback we’ve gotten have been great.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Gina Potthoff can be reached at gpotthoff@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook
(Lull video)