Muun: The Mattress Startup on Sleep and Creative Crisis Management

It all started in the living room. Now they have a showroom and office in Mitte. Muun sold its first mattress in 2015, and since then, the startup has been on the rise.

Setting met with the two Muun founders, Fred and Vincent, to discuss sustainable business development, competition, and creative approaches to dealing with test reports.

SETTING: Let's start at the beginning, with your first meeting. How did you two meet?

VINCENT: I met Fred at university. We studied together at a French business school in London. After university, we both did very different things until we met again in Berlin.

FRED: We met up, had a few drinks, and then the idea was born.

SETTING: How did you come up with the idea of focusing on sleep?

VINCENT: We've always found the topic interesting. Simply because it's so intuitive. Sleep is a central aspect of life, yet it's also an area where you don't know any brands. Both of us had a lot of experience with brands in the past and thought it made very little sense that people know the brand of their washing machine and refrigerator but not their mattress. So we wondered why that was and tried to solve it.

SETTING: Did you expect so many competitors to enter the market around the same time?

FRED: Yes, we did. But from the beginning, it was important for us to have our own philosophy and not just think about the product, the mattress. People always say, "Oh yeah, I sleep a third of my life." That's very time-based, very quantifying. But what impact it actually has! Not only on the health of your back but also on how rested you are and how comfortable you feel! So it was really about rethinking the whole topic of sleep.

VINCENT: When people ask us, "Why do you sell mattresses? That's so unsexy!" I say, sure, selling a mattress nowadays may be uncool. But what's cool is that you can initiate a social trend. We want to encourage people to question what comfort means and how important good sleep is. That's what makes our work exciting. That we're pioneering and addressing socially relevant issues. That's what defines Muun.

SETTING: You manufacture in Germany. Was that always the plan?

VINCENT: In Germany, we're currently experiencing a price war. People always buy the cheapest option. The mattress is white anyway, so it can cost 100 instead of 200 euros and be bought at Lidl or Ikea. But quality is important to us. Only if you produce a product that meets this quality standard can you convey the message that "sleep is important" to people.

FRED: Production in Germany and the materials we use here, it must be said fairly, also have their price. We're not in the absolute luxury segment because we wanted to make quality accessible, but in the end, it has to be worth something to you. Similar to nutrition. A lot is about the price, but people who question things, who consider what they eat, are often also willing to pay a little more for it.

SETTING: The German consumer organization Stiftung Warentest recently tested mattresses. No manufacturer came out particularly well. What do you think of the test verdict?

VINCENT: We've dealt with it a lot. Also, publicly. You can try Muun mattresses for 100 days. That means every customer tests us and ultimately decides for themselves whether we're good enough or not. If everyone judged us like Stiftung Warentest, we wouldn't exist anymore. So if you look at it more closely, the verdict is obviously related to the evaluation criteria. Obviously, the things that Stiftung Warentest tests are not so important for people who buy Muun.

SETTING: How do you best handle such a situation?

VINCENT: Many told us the best thing to do is nothing and wait for it to blow over. Of course, you wonder what the best course of action is.SETTING: And how do you ultimately decide?VINCENT: We always decide as a team.

FRED: Sleep on it. Quite fittingly. No, we really slept on it, thought about it, exchanged ideas a lot, kept calm, and then decided. It's about communication and staying true to your basic idea and philosophy.

VINCENT: We could have changed our product, like some of our competitors did, in response to a test verdict, but that's exactly the fundamental question. I think it's wrong to bury your head in the sand, but you also have to respond confidently.

SETTING: Do you have any tips for other entrepreneurs?

FRED: I think it's always difficult to give these know-it-all recommendations. In the end, everyone has to do their own thing and gain their own experiences. We've also received a thousand tips. But also helpful ones...

SETTING: Such as?

FRED: "Don't listen to everyone and then do it that way!" Listen to different opinions, but sometimes do what people have advised against. That's a good tip.

VINCENT: I would say, what sets us apart now in this competitive situation is actually that we try to swim against the tide in many things.

SETTING: In what sense?

VINCENT: There's a certain way of building a company in Berlin. It's not written in stone, but almost. "Do it like Rocket!" But you don't have to start selling from day one, raise a million, and then another 10 million. There are other ways to build a company. I believe you can do it in a much more sustainable way. You don't necessarily have to work only with business school students. You can also work with people who have completely different backgrounds. Someone from business school may understand what a startup is, but they often don't understand many other things. It's very important to go through life with open eyes, make your own decisions, and not say, I'll do it like everyone else!

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Vincent studied mechanical engineering in Munich, worked on United Nations development projects, got into entrepreneurship, moved back to Berlin, and worked at an incubator until he co-founded Muun with Fred in 2014. Fred, after studying in Paris, London, and Berlin, focused on economics. Back in Berlin, he worked in the consumer goods sector on eyewear until Muun came into play in 2014.

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