Brands Briefing: Why the founders of Leesa are launching another mattress brand, Tiami

Tiami CEO Wolfe said when the duo started Leesa about 10 years ago, “We decided to go after the premium space for mattresses because we felt there was a gap in the market at about the $1,000 level.” This time around, Tiami will offer an “accessible luxury” price point that’s in the $2,000-$3,000 range, which the founders say is still much more affordable than traditional luxury mattresses. “Luxury mattresses in the $5,000-$15,000 category have been made the same way since Jamie was working in the factory,” Wolfe said.

Diamonstein said the mattress industry “is full of choices” when it comes to features like plush, medium and firm. “But with today’s hybrid technology, which happens to be in Tiami, we can create one product for the consumer,” he said. The new Tiami mattress is a hybrid foam-springs design, a departure from the bed-in-box wave from 10 years ago.

Diamonstein said this spring system adapts to each body shape, size, weight and sleeping position, and can accommodate two individuals sleeping on each side. “So if somebody wants a firmer feel or a plusher feel, they can get that in this bed.” In contrast, Diamonstein said, traditional luxury mattresses tend to be quilted on top for body impressions. 

“The other thing we heard a lot is that people didn’t mind what was in the mattress, but they wanted to sleep on something natural,” Wolfe said. Tiami’s sleep surface is more than 90% organic cotton. This feature offers a support system that provides 7X more airflow than traditional pocket coil support, Diamonstein explained. 

Another departure from Leesa’s model is launching in retail from the get-go, not just through a DTC website. 

That retailer ended up being Design Within Reach, also known as DWR, which until now has offered a limited range of foam mattresses. “DWR reached out to us to say they’re making a huge push into the bedroom, and asked if we could help,” Wolfe explained. “This is their first and only branded hybrid mattress.” 

Tiami will remain selective with its wholesale presence for the foreseeable future, with DWR stores set as its exclusive retail partner. Eventually, a Tiami store is planned to open in the company’s local market of Virginia to help the founders better understand the brand’s customer base.

But to launch with a retail partner, Wolfe and Diamonstein had to rethink how they structured the brand. “For this mattress, in particular, we had to build in enough margin because we knew we were going to launch with a retail partner,” Wolfe said. Tiami’s mattresses are manufactured domestically in Massachusetts, meaning the company is somewhat insulated from the China tariffs hitting many brands in the category. 

DWR was also instrumental in providing branding input along the way. “They said our initial logo was too gold and too bold, and that’s not luxury,” Wolfe said.

For Tiami’s marketing effort, Wolfe said the company is trying to approach brand awareness building differently, given the current ROI on paid social media ads. “Acquiring customers directly has all changed in the last five years, so we’re looking at different ways to reach customers,” he said. “Over the years we’ve tried everything, but where the world is right now is back to word of mouth marketing.”

To generate this organic word-of-mouth, Wolfe said, “We’re going to provide every one of our customers with unlimited opportunities to gift a discount to their friends and family. But we’re not going to be discounting on our site very much.”

The plan is to work with creators, influencers “and the right publishers,” Wolfe said, by emphasizing the DWR stamp of approval. “We’d also love to do TV, so we’re going to invest quite heavily in that,” Wolfe said. 

There are also some out-of-the-box outreach ideas in the works. “We’re considering boosting some of our personal content on LinkedIn,” Wolfe said. 

This is not the first time a mattress brand’s founders have gone back to the well. Last year, the team behind Tuft & Needle launched a new startup called Boring Mattress Co., following Tuft & Needle’s merger with Serta Simmons in 2018. At the time, Daehee Park — a co-founder of both Tuft & Needle and Boring Mattress Co — said he believed mattress shoppers today were inundated with too many choices and a “matrix of models” that, ultimately, were very similar to one another in practice. His bet, then, was that a mattress company promising to be simple and boring and offering only one type of mattress would stand out.

Despite the seemingly saturated mattress market, people remain bullish on the category. Shay Luo, a partner in the strategic operations practice of Kearney, said, “The global mattress market is growing steadily and is projected to continue this trajectory in the coming years.” Luo added that this is largely being fueled by the rise in awareness of sleep health, increased disposable incomes, and the growth in the housing and hospitality market.

“Top-tier mattress brands are customizing the products to an extent to avoid pricing comparison and being viewed as commodity products,” Luo explained. 

As for partnering with a retailer out of the gate, Luo said the strategy is in line with where many  DTC brands are headed.

“Consumers are confused,” Luo said, adding that there are too many similar designs online and many shoppers can’t decipher the difference in the features. “A partnership with a physical retailer serves the purpose of product testing and branding.” 

Tiami’s founders say their new brand’s positioning can help it tap a new customer base without the overblown mattress startup ad spend of the 2010s. “We’ll still take a sizable percentage to spend on paid advertising, but we’ll be doing it very carefully,” Wolfe said. –Gabriela Barkho

By the numbers: Beauty M&A

Mergers and acquisitions in the beauty and skin-care space are picking up after a muted 2024, which included a small handful of clean beauty buyouts. 

Last week, sanitizer brand Touchland was acquired by Church & Dwight for a whopping $880 million. The move is the positive sign beauty industry watchers were waiting for. At least at the beginning of the year, many expected that 2025 would be a busy year for M&A activity. The theory is that, after a clogged pipeline over the past year, strategic buyers like L’Oréal and Unilever could be ready to pull the trigger on buzzy brands that are still in high-growth mode. Tariffs and economic uncertainty have put some M&A conversations on pause, but the Touchland acquisition proved there are still deals to be done in beauty. Here are some more details on the beauty M&A landscape, by the numbers.

$810.32: Dollars per buyer spent on beauty in 2024 in the U.S., according to NIQ data. The growth was largely driven by Gen Z and millennials, with the spending rate growing by 9.3% between 2023 and 2024.

57: The number of transactions made in the beauty and skin-care category by the end of 2024, according to data from investment firm Capstone Partners. That figure is an improvement on the 43 deals done in 2023, with Capstone Partners predicting this year will continue the healthy M&A streak.

$240 million: The amount Helen of Troy, the parent company of Hydroflask, spent to acquire nail-care brand Olive & June in late 2024. The brand found major growth over the past few years, thanks to the at-home gel nail craze. –Gabriela Barkho

3 questions with Kane Footwear CMO Mark Tarnuzzer

This month, recovery footwear brand Kane brought on a new CMO, Mark Tarnuzzer. Previously with Universal Music Group, Samsung and Apple, Tarnuzzer is tasked with overseeing Kane’s brand campaigns, reaching out to new customers, and deepening its relationships with partners like colleges and universities.

Recovery shoes like Kane’s differ from traditional performance shoes. They are to be used after — but not during — a workout, and they have extra cushioning to support feet and ankles. They are popular among athletes like runners and basketball players, but are increasingly used for everyday activities like going to the beach. Now, more brands in the space, like Kane, want to reach a wider group of consumers.

Modern Retail caught up with Tarnuzzer a few weeks into the job and asked him about his plans for Kane. The following answers are edited for length and clarity.

What’s your approach to working with athletes and sports teams?
“There are a lot of athletes that have shown interest [in working with Kane], and it’s about: How do we engage with them? And how do we operate within the brand guidelines? [The athletes] have to fit the mold of our mission statement. We try to focus on premium environments and a premium audience.

We’re not always as focused on revenue drivers as much as we are on getting our messages across and making sure it resonates with the consumer and the athlete. … We’ll lean into people like [Ironman champion] Eric Hinman or brands like 24.7Hunt, which is a hunting and fishing brand. … What’s very exciting for me is exploring new channels and sports that aren’t necessarily team sports. We work with a lot of NFL, MLB and NHL [athletes], you name it. Going after these secondary focuses opens your eyes to a whole new audience.

Typically, when we work with [an athlete], it’s around a collab. They’ll co-design a shoe, and we’ll try to sequence them in a way that makes sense for the seasonality of our colorways that are being introduced or products that are coming out. … We’re also big believers in branding, and we have a campaign coming out that’s a ‘love letter to your legs.’ It’s something that will not just capture attention, but is also tongue-in-cheek enough that it will resonate with almost every athlete.”

What marketing platforms are you hoping to experiment with this year?
“We’re going to be leaning into TikTok a lot this summer. Authenticity is everything to this brand, so we feel it’s going to speak really well to TikTok loyalists. … We’re going to be doing a lot of trial and error because we want to make sure things are resonating.

We’re not just going to jump at every trend. We want to make sure that we stay core to our character and our roots … One of the core tenets of what I was brought in to do is [to figure out]: Where are the customers? How do we find them? How do we engage with them in the right way? Again, it’s not about going down the path of anything that feels off-brand, but I’m sure there are going to be other extensions, … whether that’s running forums or apps. Partnerships along those lines will likely emerge.”

What else is coming up for the brand?
“We’re in the throes of implementing a lot of internal tools, and we’re also doing a lot of site enhancements. We did an integration with [the military e-commerce site] Gov X. We have FSA and HSA [spending] coming. We’re a recovery shoe, so we’re seen as something that improves your health. We’re also going to be introducing a loyalty program  because we have very loyal customers. How do we reward them? How do we lean in? How do we grow the retention? We have also worked with affiliates in the past, and we see there’s potential there to enhance that [offering].” –Julia Waldow 

What we’re reading

• Klarna’s losses widened during the most recent quarter after more consumers failed to repay their loans.
• Accessories brand Fossil saw a 24% decline in its DTC channel during its first quarter, according to its latest earnings, reported on Wednesday. It plans to shutter 50 locations this year as part of its plan to rightsize the DTC part of its business.
• Bath & Body Works has named Daniel Heaf, a former Nike vp, as its new CEO, effective immediately. You can read more from our past interviews with Heaf, and the approach he took at Nike, here.

What we’ve covered

• Chobani announced on Friday that it has acquired Daily Harvest, roughly a year and a half after acquiring La Colombe.
• After a pullback on China tariffs, Amazon sellers are recommitting to participating in Prime Day this year.
• Fine jewelry brand Michael M is one brand that’s committing to not raising prices in the face of tariffs this year.