How I Built This with Guy Raz - Advice Line with Bobby Trussell of Tempur-Pedic

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Tempur-Pedic founder Bobby Trussell joins Guy on the Advice Line to answer questions from three early-stage founders. Plus, Bobby talks about his new book, The Logic That God Exists.First, Lyf from Oregon asks about how to expand his fresh seafood business. Then, Colleen from Colorado has questions about where to focus her efforts in growing her whitewater paddleboarding company. And finally, Amanda from Illinois looks for advice on fundraising for her lifejacket brand. Thank you to the founders of Flying Fish Company, Hala Gear, and Line + Cleat for being a part of our show.If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [e-mail] or call 1-800-433-1298.And be sure to listen to Tempur-Pedic’s founding story as told by Bobby on the show in 2018. This episode was produced by Chris Maccini with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Cena Loffredo.You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. I talk to entrepreneurs all the time who are looking for a way to upgrade their digital footprint. Well, whether you're just starting out or you're scaling your business, Squarespace is the easiest way to build a great website that stands out. It's an all-in-one website platform that gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your products, and get paid. Anyone can use Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools to build an online presence that truly reflects what makes your business special.

There are templates, intuitive drag-and-drop editing, and even an AI-enhanced website builder. Then, Squarespace's built-in analytics tools help you make smarter business decisions. Review website traffic, learn where to focus engagement, and track revenue all in one place. Looking to grow your business, Squarespace even offers fast, easy business financing

through Squarespace capital. Go to Squarespace.com slash built for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code built to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Loans issued by Celtic Bank and serviced by Stripe, all loans subject to credit approval. This show is in partnership with Airbnb. This past summer, I took my family to Vienna, and it was incredible. We spent our days wandering the old streets, stopping for coffee and pastries, visiting museums, and just soaking up the history of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And one of the things that made the trip so special was the home we booked on Airbnb. It had tall windows, beautiful old details, and plenty of space for all of us. And being in that home on Airbnb, right in the middle of Vienna, walking distance from so much of the city,

made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.com slash host. Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on this show who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298.

Leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you like help with. All right, let's get to it. Joining me today is Bobby Trussell, founder and former CEO of Temperpedic. Bobby, welcome back to the show. Thanks, Guy. Great to be here. It's great to have you. You were first back on the show in 2018. I love your story.

A lot of people ask me what my favorite episodes are and I can't answer, but I do cite yours often because it's such an unlikely story. You are in Kentucky. You started your career in horse racing. You were reading thoroughbreds. And when you were in your 40s, there was a recession, the money dried up, and you were about a million dollars in debt.

I mean, you were more than broke. And through an unusual connection in the horse world, you came across a product in Sweden, of all. places that we we now know is memory foam. And you thought this could make the perfect mattress. And you basically gambled everything. You brought it to America and you made mattress and you've essentially built Temporepetic from scratch. It's just an amazing story. And for those of you who haven't heard it, we will put a link to it in the show notes. This is an episode from October of 2018. It is so good. It's like a movie, Bobby. Your life is like a movie.

Yeah, it is. It is. I'm still pinching myself. It's incredible. I mean, you eventually acquired a huge rival, which was Seeley. This is in 2012. And then you stayed on as vice chairman of the board until I think just a few years ago. Right. I went off in 2022. So I've been on for at that point. We started in 92. So that's 30 years. That's enough. Yeah. Because what happened after I stepped down as CEO in 2006 was crazier than what happened before. And so I was around for all the ups and downs for that, too. Yeah.

It's an amazing product and amazing business. Bobby, you have, since you have kind of stepped away from Temporetic in that world, you have really leaned into your faith. You publish a book about the, is it the scientific proof of God? The book is called The logic that God exists. And so when all this happened to me, I just was trying to find a way to support my family. And I ended up in this mattress thing, you know, CEO of a public company in a New York Stock Exchange. I said, Lord, I said, you know, when you give, you give gratuitously. And so my goal now is just to give back for that.

And just in any way I can. And so the book kind of sprung out of notes I had taken over the years from various. lectures and thoughts that I had and books I've read. And what I observed in the culture out there is that there was a general weakening in the belief in God. And so, you know, as a Catholic, you know, I go to church and the priest is trying to get people to go to confession and go to this and go to that and the sacraments and all that. And I was realizing that we're trying to get people to go to step B and C in their faith.

they're still stuck on step A. Yeah. Let's focus on that niche and research it and write a book that explains how it's impossible for there not to be a God. Yeah, it's interesting because, I mean, you know, for so long, the fastest growing, quote, unquote, religion in America was no religion, right? Or no belief. And there's some anecdotal evidence, and I don't know how closely measured is that there is a little bit of a resurgence happening in the United States. around faith. And so we'll see if it's real or not, but it's interesting because I think, you know, these things happen for a variety of reasons. So it'll be interesting to see.

Yeah. I was at a leadership conference last week or two weeks ago, and we broke out in small groups, and I had a bunch of Gen Z, you know, 23 to 28-year-olds. And I asked them that question. And I said, do you see it like a revival in your age group? And they said, definitely. Interesting. Why? And this one girl said, a 23-year-old, she said that it's because we have everything at our fingertips with these phones and the technology.

We can talk to anybody in the world. We can order anything we want. We have everything in the world, but we're not happy. So they're seeking. And I think that explains it. Yeah, it's amazing. Well, let's start on the show today. Let's see if we can give some advice to some early stage founders.

Are you ready to take some calls? I'll try. I'll try. In my best, yes. Let's do it. Let's bring in our first caller. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with the legendary horse trainer, Bobby Trussell, Temperopedic founder. Please tell us your name where you're calling from and a little bit about your business.

Yeah, hi. Thank you so much for having me. This is such a pleasure to be on the show. Bobby, thank you so much for all your words and advice. guy, you're amazing. My name is Leif Gildersleave. I'm calling in from Portland, Oregon. I'm a second generation fishmonger. Nice. I own a business in Portland called Flying Fish Company, and we are a retail fish market and restaurant. Awesome. Welcome to the show. And so you come from a family of fishermen? I do. Well, from fishmongers. So my family, yes. So my family had a fish market in my

hometown over in Idaho, grown up as a kid. So my dad used to fly in fish from the coast from Seattle, fly it inland where there wasn't good seafood. And so the name of the company is flying fish company. That's awesome. And how long have you run this business? So I've had my own branch of it since the recession in 2008, 2009. And then I moved to, so here in Portland, it's been about 15 years. Yeah. And so it's a store where it's a fishmonger. You go in, you get fresh fish, but a restaurant is attached to it? That's correct, yeah. So I started my early years here in Portland.

I was just selling fish, first of all, from farmers markets. And then I had a little truck where I would park on parking lot corners and sell fresh fish from the truck. That evolved into different phases, different locations. In my early years, I had a little shack on the corner of a produce tent. And then I ended up in a high-end grocery store where I was the fishmonger. And I had a meat market in there and a cute little. oyster bar. And then, well, almost six years ago now, right before the pandemic, I moved into my own standalone brick and mortar location, which was a full sit-down seafood restaurant along

with the fish market. So it's kind of evolved over the years. That's awesome. And give us a sense of the split of you here. I mean, what part of your business, it's kind of two businesses here, right? You've got the fish market and you've got the restaurant. What generates more revenue? Well, you know, as I said in the early years, it was all fish market. So 100% of my revenue was from the fish market. I evolved that into, I started producing smoked salmon for grocery stores and I was selling fish wholesale to restaurants. And then, you know, I had enough people that kept on asking me to cook the fish because it is, in some people's eyes, challenging. So that's when I started doing more of the cook seafood and pivoting more into the restaurant component. Now the restaurant has pretty much taken over. It's over 75% of the safe. is the restaurant, whereas only 25% is the fish market. Wow. And so, okay, tell us your question, and then we will dive in further. Yeah, thank you so much.

Bobby, so similar to how you pivoted from mattress toppers to pillows and then started to see that part of the business grow, I've also pivoted, like I said, into different categories of the business. So, you know, my question is, I'm interested in growing again. I've been running the business now, like I said, for about 15 years. So my question is, is how do you really know when you're doing those pivots and you start to see some feedback? You're starting to get sales. How do you know when you've kind of landed on the one part of the business that you think that you should really put the most effort into?

Like I said, I kind of want to grow right now, but I'm figuring out whether I want to do more locations here within the Portland area or maybe even franchise it so that I can branch and expand more nationally to people that don't know about flying fish. How do you know when you've landed on that one part of the business? Yeah, that's a good question, Bobby, right? Because this is sometimes can, it can just expand and send a business on a rocket ship or can actually tank a business if you expand too quickly. Bobby, he's got a very successful restaurant and a fish market, and it would make sense to start thinking about expanding. But when do you know? Yeah, I mean, my gut reaction would be to open up another location or two. I mean, that's what restaurants. restaurants do, right? They get a template that works and they reproduce it in other locations, you know, often in the same city. But I would think that that would be the way to go. And the other thought would be as far as how do you know which one's getting legs.

What we did is we threw mud at the wall to see what would stick. And generally speaking, if it's a good one, it'll let you know early on. remember when we tried things, we got several chiropractors and we sent them these overlays, which were three-inch mattresses. And so we tried selling it at truck stops because we had to go good in the back of the cabbers for the semis. And that, we didn't sell any. And then we tried the pillow. And that, when I took it to a chiropractor, he said, oh, this is interesting. And by the way, we sell pills.

We don't sell mattresses. And I said, well, how would we distribute it? And he said, well, you could find a way to have somebody to show it to them. And I said, well, what have you mailed him one? And he said, well, it might work. And then that's what we did. We mailed them. We mailed them.

We mailed the 500 carpractors and 125 of them took up our offer of which our, which was, this pillow is yours free. if you order four. So now we have 125 distributors. So that was an example of it was like one of your fish. It hits the hook. And you go, boom. Yeah. Yeah. I got one here. And you feel it. Yeah. Yeah. I think, okay, so I think I got some thoughts here because, Leif, it sounds like you're sort of trying to figure out, right, do I franchise this thing? Do I expand or build a restaurant? And so here's what's interesting to me, right? If the restaurant is generating about 75% of the revenue, your customers have already told you where the demand is, right? It's the restaurant. But I suspect the reason why the restaurant is so successful is because of the trust and credibility of the market, right? Because they're going in there. They're saying, oh, they've got direct sourcing and they're getting really fresh fish so they could see the fish in the market.

And then they go to the restaurant and they know what they're eating. And so, I mean, to me, it seems like a fairly straightforward path, right, which is, I don't think you're ready to franchise now. I think you have to test first, right? You've got to figure out whether this is replicable first, which means if you can get the financing, open a second location. See if you can replicate the success of the first one with that model, with the market, with the restaurant. And then you start to, then you start to evaluate. You know, you need some data to figure that out. because franchising is a different business. Right now you are a restaurateur. A franchise operator, it's systems, it's documents, it's training, it's, you know, protecting your brand, it's supply chains, it's providing financing.

It's a whole different type of business, which is an interesting business. But first you have to see whether you can actually have success with this model in another location, maybe in Portland, maybe somewhere else in Oregon, maybe, you know, wherever. And that will give you the data. Yeah, you know, one of the things that came up in my thought when you were saying that is, is I do agree with that with the scalability and make sure that it works. You know, one of the problems is staffing. You know, I've got a great general manager and a chef and they really run the ship right now and all my employees. And we found ways to do profit sharing and health insurance and we do equal to share. So we've got an amazing. do that's hard i know so many restaurants that have not made it because of that right that's hard

yeah it's great and they they do a great job because there's accountability there and that so my fear is um when i go to do another location you know i don't have those same people so i'm going to have to build it again and i'm a guy with a lot of energy and i've been there boots on the ground and done all this um but it's also super complex because leaf gildersleaf is there doing eight trillion different things what I have to do is I feel like I have to pull back and make sure that for that scalability, that it's a real simple model. Because right now it kind of gets more complex as I do all these different facets of the business, because it's me involved.

But when I scale it, I've got to go backwards a little bit and make it simplified because seafood is pretty difficult just as it is. Do you have like a Bible that really out, it describes what you guys do, how to do everything, like a manual? You know, it's sort of, sort of kind of, but not really. Okay, great. That's great. That's great. That's great.

That's great. That's something that you should really lean into because if you want to train people, like people might be coming to sea leaf. They might be coming to see you, right? But you can't scale yourself, but you also need people who are going to care about the quality and the standards like you do, but they need the, you need to codify it. not only in how to do things, but why you do it. You guys had a brand Bible, I'm sure, at Temporepetic, Bobby? Yeah, it took us a while, but we did, yeah. This is what we learned when spreading into other countries.

We had this mattress operation here, but they made me CEO of the group, which included 26 countries. So all of a sudden, under my purview was, you know, Spain and France and China. and Japan. And what I learned there is you're only as good as the guy you got there. If you have a good guy in Spain, Spain's going to do great. If you have a marginal guy, Spain's not going to do well. So if you can get comfortable with the guy and then have the handbook and have the rules and what to do, but it's mainly getting that guy and make it worth as well, pay them whatever

it takes. Because what you're trying to do is reproduce you. And I think that's the best advice I could give. Yep. Awesome. Leif, thanks so much for calling in. Leif Gildersleave. You've got one of the best names in the fish business.

Beef Gildersleave from the Flying Fish Company. Good luck, man. Thanks for calling in. Thank you very, very much. I appreciate you guys. Stay, leave. Awesome, man. Thank you.

Stay with us because after the break, we'll talk to another founder working to take their business to the next level. It's after the break. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Bobby Trussell, founder of Temperpedic, and we are taking your calls today. And let's bring in our next caller. Welcome to the advice line.

You're on with Bobby Trussell, founder of Temperpedic. Welcome to the show. Tell us your name where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business. Hi, I'm, hi, Guy. Hi, hi, Bobby. My name's Colleen King. I'm based at a steamboat springs, Colorado. and my business is Hala Gear.

So we manufacture specialty inflatable stand-up paddle boards with a focus on river performance through unique and patented features. People use our boards on a lot of different waterways from flatwater to their local river all the way to pushing the upper limits of whitewater. All right, cool. Welcome to the show, Colleen. So paddle boarding, people know a lot of people know that you go to the ocean. You got a big paddle board and you paddle.

But this is, these are, you make paddle boards for river. for like whitewater rivers? Yes. So it's a different kind of paddle board. Yes, exactly. Yeah, we really focus on design that allows for performance on the river specifically. Of course, we have boards that can go in flatwaters and lakes,

but our specialty is the river market. Okay, so you stand on this thing. You're not like locked in, right? It's not like a snowboard. You stand on it with a paddle, and you go on a whitewater river and you somehow manage to stay on it? Yes, that's correct.

We even have some folks primarily in Scotland that are dropping waterfalls, not locked in, standing on the board. This is a, I love this call because this is a niche product, okay? And I don't mean that in the most respectful way. And I love those kinds of products. And they can be great businesses. How did you just get into this business? What's the story? So I'm actually recently the owner.

We switched ownership two years ago. I worked for the company for about six and a half years. And when you say company, was it a bunch of people? What was it? We had about 20 employees. And we owned Hala and then we also owned an online whitewater retail store called CKS Online. Okay. And you are now the owner? And I'm now the owner. How did that happen? Yeah. So after COVID, there was kind of the boom and bust of the outdoor industry. We got put in a position where we had canceled orders, a bunch of financial strain. And I was able to put in an offer to our founder who's still very involved. He's our lead designer amongst many other hats he wears. And, yeah, took over the business last May.

All right. So you sell these boards, and I'm assuming mainly online, or do you sell them in shops? We started out in 2011, primarily B2B. And now we're about 85% direct to consumer online and then 15% to shops. And what do you expect? Give me a sense of what you expect to do this year in sales. We're forecasted to finish at about 850,000. 850,000 this year?

Mm-hmm. Wow, that's great. Yeah. That's awesome. It'll be our second year in a row of being profitable. That's great. And before we dive in further, what's your question for us? Yeah, so my question is, after switching ownership and clarifying our identity as Premium River, S-U-P, how do we grow our revenue from here?

Do we invest in increasing participation and education around the sport? Do we focus on expanding our presence in specialty shops and river communities, or do we work to develop adjacent product lines for core river paddlers? Got it. Okay. S-U-P stand-up paddle boarding? Correct. Right. Okay. I just want to clarify that. Okay. I don't always great with acronyms. Okay. Let me bring in Bobby Trussell. Bobby, you started with a very obscure, weird product that people were like, what is this? This is, of course, a niche sports product. First of all, thoughts, questions, answers for. Colleen? Question, I guess, is this a market that you created, or is it an established market that you're a small part of? Yeah, excellent question. We were the first company to design a board specifically for Whitewater.

So from the beginning, we've been pioneering the sport. And now there's some competition in the space, but we still are the go-to river paddle board company. Well, I can just tell you from my experience, we were at a kind of a crossroads. We were about 10 years in, and we did some research from Bain Capital. And we had been branching out into chairs because the material was so cool. We thought, my Swedish partners thought that, oh, well, they didn't think of us as a mattress company. they thought of us as a innovation company where we have this wonderful material.

Yeah, we can put it in mattresses, we can put it in shares, we can put it in insoles in your shoes, we can put it in hospitals and nursing homes and wheelchair cushions and all this stuff. And so we were kind of going every witch away. And these guys at Bain Capital, and I was really kind of against this. It cost $200,000.

I said, are you kidding me? We're going to spend $200 grand to get an opinion about our business. Well, they called 500 of our stores that we were in. And when they got done, they knew more about us than we did. And they came back and they said, you are a very small part of a very big niche. At the time, we were positioned the mattress is kind of like, if you have back pain, you need this. You need temperatech. And so they said you should not be branching out into all these other places.

because you don't want to take your eye off the ball, off your core business, especially if you have a niche that there's no competition. I mean, we were a revolutionary point of difference compared to the kind of the old interspring industry. I mean, that's for 100 years it had been just intersprings. We come out with this fancy foam thing that had actual tangible and measurable benefits. and they said, you need to stop doing all this, focus on them. You are a mattress company.

And that changed everything. And I went back to my Swedish partners. I said, well, this is what they said. I agree. And so we got rid of all the other stuff. And so that's when the thing took off, when we focused on our core business. And the fact that competition comes in, that can be a positive thing. because what you want is your niche to get bigger, right?

You don't want to be the only fish in the pond. So what happened with us is people copied us or tried to, but they didn't do it as well. But it made the niche more acceptable, which we dominated. I totally agree. I think that right now, it sounds like you are the brand, right, in River Standup, paddleboarding. And so you really want to lean into that role, right? And even though this is kind of a niche sport, right, and paddleboarding is bigger, but river paddleboarding in particular is niche. It still has a, it sounds like a really committed fan base.

So you want to make your brand aspirational, right? Like almost like how Patagonia really began with like rock climbers, right? And that was a niche sport back in the day. day, right? And you really want to double down this idea that your customers are part of a culture. Like when I look at, and you may be doing that, I don't know when I look at your website. It's clear. You've got, you know, you've got your shop and everything. But I think that there's an opportunity to really lean into the people who are using your products and to see if you can start to generate, you know, photos, videos, content that really builds a community.

Right? Because this is this is a group of people who are, I mean, how many people do you meet who are like, I stand up paddleboard in rivers and, you know, whitewater? So, I mean, that's a community of people that you really want to cultivate and own. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's good advice. We definitely struggle to have people visualize themselves doing this because it seems there's a barrier to entry in a bit. But once people try it, they feel that sense of community. They understand what we're all about. They understand the adventure and the connection to themselves and the environment and other people in an expedition way. You know, we're pretty limited in resources. We're very small.

So it's hard for us to know, do we invest that in going to shows and river events? Or once someone buys one of our $1,400 boards, we have our customer retention rate. has increased by 60%. So we have a loyal following. We just have such limited funding to know which way to focus our attention on the river community. Have you experimented with ads? Yeah, I was just going to say we were in a similar situation early on selling through chiropractors, and we went to all the shows and everything.

It was really a waste of money. You know, we go to a show and we'd spend $5,000 or something, and we get, you know, 10 chiropractors. It just wasn't cost-efficient. And so my advice is advertise, advertise, what guy just said. Advertise, advertise, advertise it. Okay. Yeah, we only spent about $10,000 on advertising last year.

We were a bit inventory constrained, so I think that's great advice. Thank you. A rule of thumb is 10% of sales. Okay. See, she should be spending 80. Yeah. It's hard. I'm sure that sounds hard.

But he's right. That's right. It's a rule of thumb. All right. Colleen, the brand is called Halle Gear, stand-up paddleboards. Thanks for calling in. Good luck. Great. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and advice. Thanks, Colleen. Good to meet you. You too. Yeah. I mean, have you ever done stand-up paddleboarding, like in the ocean? No, my wife has. I'm 6'6, and my center of gravity does not conduct conducive. Yes. Yeah, right, because you got, I can imagine that. Yeah. Right. But it's great. It's great exercise, actually.

It's really terrific exercise. Is it? I see them out there all the time. Yeah, it's great. Great for your shoulders. Awesome. So this just, I think it's amazing to imagine somebody, you know, in flat water in the ocean, I'm barely, you know, able to stay on top of it.

But man, doing this in like white water, that's intense. Yeah, that takes some skill, I would think. Yeah. All right. We're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here. on how I built this lab.

Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and I'm taking your calls with Bobby Truzzle, the founder of Temper Piedek. All right, let's bring in our next caller. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with Bobby Truzzle. Welcome. Tell us your name, what you're calling from and just a little bit about your business. Hi, I'm Amanda Horan, co-founder and CEO of Lining Cleet, the only women-owned

U.S. Coast Guard approved Life Jacket brand in the U.S. based just outside of Chicago. we're redefining how modern families experience safety on the water. Awesome. Well, thanks for calling Amanda. So this is a life jacket brand, right? Yes. Is that right?

Okay. And tell me what is it. What do you guys do? I mean, I know life jackets. I've been on fairies and on boats and you put on a life jacket. It's usually orange. Right. And probably not attractive, right?

Yeah. I mean, I just put it on, right? And so what, tell me about what you're doing here. Absolutely. So my husband and I, he's my other co-founder. We started the business, launched the collection in 2023. And so we design with elevation and like an elevated lifestyle in mind. And so we are bringing subtle colorways to the life jacket game. The industry has been stagnant for decades. Just like you said,

a utilitarian kind of not so attractive life jacket is the first thing that people think of when they think of life jackets. And it dawned on us that this is a huge blind spot in this industry and in in this market. And so when we launched the collection, we really wanted to speak to those leisure boaters and water enthusiasts that are not looking to go jet skiing and not looking for that like intense water sport, but really looking to carry on those family traditions and just enjoy time together out on the water. And these are life jackets for kids. We started with our kids collections. So that was our first launch. So zero through 90 pounds infant child and youth. But we are launching universal adult sizing for spring 2026.

Got it. Okay. And how did you get into life? I mean, this is just, did you come from a family of people going on boats? My husband did. Yeah. So my husband grew up on the Mississippi River in Iowa. And his father passed down all of, you know, his boating traditions to my husband.

And so when we got married, you know, we started boating. And we have two daughters. And so when we started taking them out, it really dawned on me as a parent that there isn't much choice, as much as you think you have all these brands to choose from, a lot of them read very one note. And if you look deeper into the industry, a lot of them are under only five larger umbrella companies. And I didn't love the way they looked. I felt like it was kind of an eyesore in the middle of this beautiful family moment. And we saw that there was an opportunity here. And very quickly, after launching the first collection, we had rapid sales. And it's been growing.

I feel lucky to say, you know, very quickly since then. And you're selling direct-to-consumer through your website? Yes, 90% direct-consumer. We'd love to push wholesale to. All right. Let's dive in. What's your question for us? So my question is we recently opened our pre-seed round to bring on strategic partners in

raise capital to meet the growing customer demand. But we're not from the traditional startup world. So I'd love some advice around breaking through that cold email phase and getting in front of VCs and angel investors with not. having those established relationships. So any advice around that. How much you look in a raise, by the way? Our precede right now is 400. We've secured 50. It's all a safe note with a $2 million cap right now. Okay. I have a lot of thoughts for you. I want to ring in Bobby. Questions for Amanda before we dive into her question?

I guess on the product itself, is there a functional part of it that's a point of difference or is it just the designs. Great question. So most of life jackets out there are made with a very tough ripstop nylon that's a little bit uncomfortable. We use a softer neoprene fabric that wears more like a swimsuit. And even on our nylon option, it's a much lighter weight nylon so kids are less cranky when they're out there for a long time out on the water with their family. And how big is the market? So it's a $1.3 billion market. And then we're hoping to move into boating accessories, which is even larger at 16 billion. Yeah.

Well, that's important because so many people are used to looking at the downside of a business and fail to look at the upside. So how big can it be if it works? Right. Not how much can I lose if it goes wrong. And so it's important to have a upside in the market in a niche that you're in. And apparently you have that. Yeah, I hope so.

I believe so. Amanda, let me ask you a question. Yeah. What do you want to do with the cash that you raise? So the majority of it is going to go to scaling inventory because we do have, right now, we have a waiting list, for example, for some of our bestsellers. We get a lot of inquiries around wholesale accounts and we want to push to like luxury hotels and different avenues, but we are constrained on our inventory because we've been bootstrapped

this entire time. So it's really time for us to scale it. we, this would open up more collaborations for us. We've had a lot of interest around there. But as the brand, we want to be able to support that, you know, product. And so that's the majority. And then also making sure that once we get the inventory, we have the proper marketing to push it out to the proper channels to move that inventory through. So it sounds like, I mean, can you do part of this without raising capital? We can. It's tight. We did recently create a partnership for some inventory financing. That's a little bit more unique, not your traditional

bank financing, which has been a blessing. But we've put everything we personally can into it. And so we're also really looking from a strategy standpoint to maybe work with someone that has done outdoor products or children products or things that can kind of help us take this to the next level. And the feedback that we've gotten from VCs is we absolutely love what you're doing. Call us you're bigger. You know, we love, we see potential here. We want you to hit that million dollar. So we've done about a quarter of a million so far, but I know we can hit it if we have the inventory. It's, I'm going to, so I'm going to give you my take on this. And I, and it's based on, you know, the people we talk to in the interviews we've done, having a quarter million sales is

hard to raise venture money. It's just hard, especially a consumer product. It's really where you want to go to anyone you know, right? And so you, you're a question. was like, how do we raise money when we don't have the connections and contacts? And the reality is it's not about connections and contacts. It's about what the data shows, what you can prove. Because investors don't make investments because they know they met somebody. They make investments because they're going to make money back. Right. And they need that assurance. And so I wonder whether, I mean, you said you're outside of Chicago, right? Yeah. And you said you've raised about 50,000. Correct. Right. So far. And so. And so.

So I think that in order to attract, you know, significant capital, they are going to want to see data. For example, you know, if you were to get a distribution partner that, you know, where you're, I don't know, like, is there like a national chain of marinas or, or, you know, I don't know, yacht clubs chain. I mean, something that shows that you can actually scale. Right, right. No, that's a great point. And we have just partnered with a national e-com distributor. So I think that that will really push. I have a pitch next week.

So I'm going to include that in my pitch deck. And then there's, you know, a prospect from the marina side that I'm hoping comes to fruition in 2026. But I think that's a great point to really drive that point home of the future. Bobby, how did you guys finance the first runs of the mattresses? We raised about $500,000, the first year. year in 1992, and we were in the same boat. We had very little sales at that point, but we had a good story, and we thought that we could show people that there could be a high degree of a big success. But who gave you that money, Bobby? Was it professional investors, or was it people that

you just kind of knew friends of a friend of a friend? Friends and friends of a friend, my college roommate, my mom gave 50, my dad gave 50, and the famous story about my uncle Bill, who gave me $50,000. I listened to that on the podcast. I remember, you lost the check. I lost the check at a Burger King. But he sent you another one, right? He sent me overnight to me.

And he had just lost a bunch of money with me in the horse business. That's right. And I thought, man, he's never going to have. But he did. And I told the story that that $50,000 end up paying for the college of all 28 of his grandkids. It just takes one. Happy story. We did, here's what we did.

We didn't want to give up equity, right? But we were okay with giving up some. So we gave for, if you give me $50,000, you'll get, either one or two percent equity in the company and a four to one payback on your money. So you give me 50. I'll give you $200 plus 1% or 2%, whatever it was. So we raised money on those terms. That's what was Uncle Bill's terms.

And that worked because we gave up a small part of the company, you know, 10% or something. Sure. And so equity is your currency. And you don't want to give it all up, but you've got to be prepared to give some of it up. And when we hit 45% where they own 45% of our company now, and I'm going, man, this is going the wrong way. But then we stopped. And it works. And they said, years later, they told me that if they had gone, if they had gone,

going over 50, they would have felt like they had to run it. They didn't want to go over 50 either, so it all worked out. Yeah, they don't want to take it on. No, that's great. Yeah, I think that you want to start, and you probably are doing this, but you may have to double down on it. It's, it's friends of a friends of a friends, ask any conversation you have. And I remember getting this vice 30 years ago when I started as a journalist. They said, you know, I was trying to figure how to break into this business. And people said, hey, call this person, but don't let, but when make sure you walk out of that with another number or with another person to contact. It's very simple advice and it works.

So you're going to have to concurrently run this business, try to sell them, but also make the pitch to people that you know because those are the ones who are going to get this initial round. I think it's going to be harder to get it from professional investors, VCs. They're going to want to see the data. They're going to want to see some traction. Sure. No, absolutely. I think that's like I have to find my uncle Bill. You got a final.

I got a final bill. I thank you. And do a three-year pro forma projection. I know you're pulling numbers out of thin air, but it's really important. And people like to see it that, okay, here's what the company's worth now. X, it can be worth 5x or 10x. And therefore, my investment could be worth that much. We have that now.

We've been consistently two and a half year over year since just launching in a short amount of time. so but I see what you're saying like really paint the picture for them so that way they can see it. Show them the pot at the end of the rainbow. Right. Absolutely. Then why do it for them? Exactly. Yeah.

There's a pot. I believe. I have faith, there's a pot. Yeah. Good. Amanda, thank you so much for calling in. The brand's called Line and Cleet. Good luck.

Thank you. Very nice to meet you. All right. Nice to meet you. Bye, bye. Yeah. I mean,

I just, what I love is when you take a category that's just boring or you just, no one knows or thinks about it, you know, and you, And you reimagined it, right? You sort of, you say, well, why does everybody accept that life jackets are orange with reflective tape on it? And let's make them a little more interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. Bobby, before I let you go, and it's been great having you on as usual. You're just so great. If you could go back to, you know, to where you were when you were really in dire straits and not just trying to figure out what, you know, when you were starting out this thing, this became Temperpita. and you could give yourself advice now that you now know, what would have been helpful for you to know back then? Yeah, because we didn't know anything about our business. We didn't know anything about mattresses.

But it turned out to be that that was a good thing. So, you know, we did everything the opposite of how our competition was doing it. We had one size, everyone else had like 15. We had one price. Everyone else had a bunch of different prices. We never discounted. Everybody else discounted. We advertised nationally and everybody else advertised locally,

which turned out to be a huge advantage because national ads are much cheaper per capita than local ads. And so, I mean, that was something that would have been nice if they had told me that. And the other thing is we had some interoper. questions in the company of how big we wanted to be. Because when we were selling to Brookstone, that was one of our big breakthroughs. They were a major retailer and we became their number one product and we were starting to

really coin it. And so the question is, do you want to be a niche player or do you want to be big? And my instincts were we got to think big. and that's also what was a huge part of our success was just that mentality that we got something no one else has and we want to exploit that advantage. Bobby Trussell, founder of Temperpedic. By the way, if you haven't heard Bobby's original episode

of the Temporetic story, go back and check it out. It's incredible. It's such a fun story. It's amazing. And here's one of my favorite moments from that episode. How did you raise the money to start this venture at all? Well, that's a really good question because I had to go back to all my basic same people who had invested with me in my other horse ventures.

That failed, right? Yeah, that had failed and gone broke. So I had to convince them that even though we lost money in something that I knew a lot about, that we were going to make money in something that I knew nothing about. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show, this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyraz.com or on Substack. And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us a little bit about your business

and the questions or issues that you're currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at ID.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-4-33-129. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Chris Messini with music composed by Ramtinara Blui. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Sina LaFredo. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Catherine Seifer, Casey Herman,

J.C. Howard, Carrie Thompson, Ramele Wood, Sam Paulson, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I've Bellow. this.