Assertion Not checkable as stated
Fulop: Bedding lacked a consumer brand like Warby Parker before Brooklinen
“There's no Warby Parker, there's no Nike, there's no brands that people can align with and say, I like the look, I like the value, I like the price point that, like, it speaks to me as a customer. There was just nothing out there that did that.”
Insight
Fulop: Textile manufacturing requires high MOQs due to loom and table scales
“Textiles are totally different, because if you think about how big a, like, uncut textile is, it's just not, you have to run thousands of yards of fabric through a loom to weave it in any particular color or fabrication, and then to cut and sew, you need, thin…”
Insight
Fulop: Customers ultimately pay a multiple of every supply chain cost
“At the end of the day, all those contribution costs, the customer ends up paying for them in a multiple of that. So they don't see it, but every little thing that's done, they end up footing a bill for it.”
Insight
Rich Fulop: VCs rarely say no directly, preferring soft excuses
“Well, you know, with VCs, you don't really hear no, which is the frustrating part. You hear you're too soon. You're too late. Let me think about it. Check back in with me. You know, no one really wants to tell you no, that's stupid.”
Insight
Fulop: Journalists rarely discover stories independently, relying instead on pitches
“What people don't realize, myself included, and most people, is that just, you know, journalists and writers aren't just discovering things on their own and, you know, spinning their wheels to, like, figure out something to write about. They're pitched constan…”
Insight
Fulop: Bootstrapping forces companies to build strong unit economics early
“The fact that we were trained on a shoestring with no money to fund the business from the get go, the bones of the business and the unit economics and the margins and everything were really, really good and built well because they had to be in the early days b…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Rich Fulop: Bedding industry marketing historically ignored male customers
“A key piece actually was also was I wanted something that was gender neutral because I felt like every presentation and photography and marketing only spoke to a female customer and I felt very underserved. So I really wanted to position this where it was acce…”
Insight
Framing field surveys as student projects easily disarms hesitant respondents
“A lesson we learned is easy way to disarm somebody for a quick survey is let them know it's a student project, and it very much was at the time, so.”
Disclosure
Brooklinen co-founders launched the company with $4,000 to $5,000 each
“If I remember correctly, we put in about four or 5000 dollars a person to incorporate and start the business, and that, that was it. We put it into the pot.”
Disclosure
NYU Venture Fund wrote Brooklinen's only early institutional check for $100,000
“The only investor, the only institutional investor that took a chance on us was, believe it or not, the NYU Venture Fund. So here we are, four NYU students, and NYU was willing to write us a check at some point. It wasn't pre-launch, but that was the only, lik…”
Assertion Supported
Brooklinen raised $237,000 on Kickstarter against a $50,000 goal
“237,000 dollars.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
U.S. Customs seized Brooklinen's first shipment over missing import trade bonds
“We were all set to go, but then all the goods came in, and we didn't have our import bonds in place. We didn't even know what that was to legally be able to import goods into the country, so all of our goods were seized at the ports in August.”
Insight
Fulop: Going dark during operational delays is the worst customer service strategy
“The worst thing you can do from a customer service standpoint, and we learned this lesson very early, is just say nothing, honestly, and just go dark and, you know, under-communicate. That just frustrates people and always better to over-communicate.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
An Israeli manufacturer fronted Brooklinen inventory on credit to fuel scale
“I got back on a plane alone to go back to the factory in, in Israel and talk to them, and I said, hey, we want to scale this thing up, and ultimately I convinced them to front us the inventory without paying and give us, you know, some sort of favorable terms,…”
Disclosure
An early employee's resignation allowed Vicki Fulop to draw a $50,000 salary
“And it was one of those moments that was very, very critical to the future of the business because Vicky was not pulling a salary at that point for us. So I was very, and David and I were pulling very small salaries. We had prorated 50,000 dollars or so we gav…”
Assertion Supported
Brooklinen's revenue jumped from $2 million in 2015 to $20 million
“Yeah, in terms of the growth so we did, including the Kickstarter in 2014, we did about four or 500,002 1015 was two million for the year, and then for the year of 2016 it jumped to about twenty million or so.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Brooklinen quickly fell into negative EBITDA after raising its Series A
“Oh yeah. We got on the drug really, really quickly with that. After we raised our series A and it was not a fatal mistake to the business, but it was certainly a point in time that was not one that was easy for me as the CEO. We dropped into the negative in te…”
Disclosure
Brooklinen created Spaces marketplace after customers requested photo shoot props
“Spaces, for example, was a product of our customers repeatedly asking us about props on our photo shoots that were, like, kind of secondary in the pictures. Like, ooh, where's that cool bed frame from, or that night table, or that vase? Like, it's really like,…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Brooklinen was unprofitable throughout 2017 and early 2018
“We actually, 2017 and half of 2018 were not profitable. And then we turned that ship in the second half of 2018 towards a focus on profitability, kind of back to our roots.”
Disclosure
Rich Fulop pursued puppy portraits and vertical hot dog ventures before Brooklinen
“I had a puppy portraits business that I was trying to pursue. And I was also I was really passionate about these European style hot dogs that you eat vertically in like a baguette that I experienced when I traveled. And I wanted to really start like the next, …”
Assertion Supported
The Wynn Las Vegas charged nearly $1,000 for a complete bedding set
“When we took a look at the sheets, and the sheet set was 450 dollars, the duvet cover was about 350 dollars, and the pillowcases to match were about a 150 bucks. So, we put that all together, you know, we're just under a thousand dollars for that set of sheets…”
Opinion
Allowing Kickstarter backers to mix and match sheet patterns was a mistake
“We, you know, we wanted to just please the customer, so we had six patterns with our Kickstarter. We said, mix and match, do whatever you want, kind of, and tell us what you want. Huge mistake.”
