Today we’d like to introduce you to Catherine & Ben Trapskin.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
To say we were exhausted is an understatement. We had a newborn and a toddler, worked full-time jobs in the public schools and public libraries which just barely paid the bills, plus juggled multiple side-gigs to make up for Catherine’s recent unpaid maternity leave, for the therapies needed for our neurodiverse child, and to set some money away for emergencies. Additionally, Catherine’s mom was dying of cancer back in her hometown of Chicago, so we were doing a 6-hour drive between Minneapolis and Chicago twice a month on weekends.
The idea of Sleep Sherpa began when Catherine temporarily moved with the kids to Chicago to be near her mom during her final months. Upon arriving, she needed to purchase a few mattresses for her family to sleep on. Shopping in the mattress stores was a frustrating process that seemed to rely on confusing the customer and on aggressive sales tactics. Catherine ended up with an expensive, low-quality mattress and felt taken advantage of during one of the most stressful times of her life.
Ben, a librarian and true information geek, set out to replace that awful mattress with something decent. At around this time, bed-in-a-box brands were beginning to pop up on the internet. Ben conducted his research using his librarian superpowers and purchased a mattress from an online-only brand. At first, Catherine couldn’t believe that he had made such a large and personal purchase without trying it first and because boxed mattresses did not have enough credibility at the time. Although the mattress was well made, we weren’t thrilled with it and stuck it out past the return policy as we didn’t really think they would actually take it back.
Many months later we purchased a replacement mattress at a local, independently-owned shop that we were able to both read about online and try out in-store. That night, while blissfully falling in love with our new mattress, Ben turned to Catherine and said he was going to start a blog about mattresses. Catherine laughed and said, “What makes you a mattress expert?” Ben responded with, “How many people do you know who have purchased 4 or 5 mattresses in a matter of one year?” Touche. Ben, as the librarian he was, stated he wanted to connect people with information about our experience in hopes that it might guide them to avoid the headaches we went through.
So Ben got to work blogging about the pros and cons of the mattresses we tried. Eventually, companies started sending us their mattresses to test. Some nights we’d arrive home from work and there might be 5 huge mattress boxes waiting for us on our doorstep. Mattresses piled up in our entryway, living room, dining room, and bedrooms. We would sleep on and test every single one of the mattresses that came to our doorstep and then write about what we learned.
Our kids’ favorite part was the unboxing–watching the mattresses unfurl and inflate like marshmallows in a microwave. They also loved using their little legs to test how bouncy they were. As exhausted parents, our favorite part was getting to sleep on lots of great mattresses. Our whole family agrees that the least favorite part was the sheer number of mattresses piling up in every corner of our home.
We came up with the idea to showroom the online-only mattresses to let other people try them out first before they invested their hard-earned money on a mattress they might not even like when it arrived to their door. The added bonus was being able to finally move the stacks of mattresses out of our house. The concept quickly became very popular, with people even driving from several hours away to physically lay on the online brands they had been reading about. We eventually expanded our showrooms into Chicago and Austin.
The Pandemic and other changes forced us to close all our physical locations, but this past year we worked hard to open our San Diego showroom on Miramar Rd in May 2022, a few years after moving here as a family. We love serving San Diegans as well as the out-of-town customers who pop in to visit while they are here on business or on vacation. We are so proud to call San Diego home.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Starting a business is all kinds of hard. One thing that stood out is that many people, especially those closest to us, were taken off guard by our non-traditional desires and aspirations of leaving our jobs as a librarian and a speech-language pathologist to continue to build this thing that we believed in even though it was growing and sustaining us financially.
We heard things such as:
“Starting a business is hard — it probably won’t be successful.”
“I know someone that started their own business before and they failed.”
“I wouldn’t do it if I were you.”
It was all really difficult to hear and put a lot of doubt and anxiety on our shoulders.
We eventually learned that we had to trust our gut. There is no way to avoid doubters — any time you start a business (or do anything unconventional), they will come out of the shadows and make sure their opinions are heard. While they might be trying to help, they can get into your head if you don’t filter it out — self-doubt can be catastrophic and make you ignore what’s in your gut.
We’ve also learned to only listen to and value the opinions of those who have been down a similar path, have made some gutsy moves to help change their situation, and who truly want to see you succeed.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Since starting our website site in 2015, we have been able to conduct, literally, hundreds of mattress reviews; from online mattress start-ups to big-name retail brands like Tempurpedic and Serta. We have spent thousands of hours working full-time to test and compare just about every brand that has come to market over the past several years.
The website started as a way for us to learn more about what makes a quality mattress and to share our personal findings in hopes you will find the right mattress for your needs the first time around. Whether it be the best mattress for your budget or just the best mattress money can buy, we have tried them all.
But don’t just take our word for it. Over the years, we have worked with top-notch engineers to develop some proprietary tests and tools to give you even more information about how these mattresses work. But don’t take their word for it either. Our showroom gives people a place to try out some of these brands firsthand where we ask for their honest opinions and then incorporate what they’ve told us into our mattress recommendations.
All of this feedback helps us make better recommendations for our customers. Instead of buying 20 mattresses that you think may work and returning 19, we want you to get it right the first time. An unwanted outcome of the free trials that these companies offer is excessive returns that create an environmental hazard. If a used mattress can’t find a home at a charity, it will usually go straight to a landfill.
In addition to personally testing and reviewing all these mattresses and getting to know the owners of each company, our San Diego showroom offers our customers the opportunity to try these mattresses in person before buying online. Despite all our data, nothing beats how YOU actually feel while lying on the mattress yourself.
We are here to serve as your guide through the mattress-buying journey so you can feel confident you made the best choice.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
We learned to be even more grateful for our loved ones, for our health, and for our physical and financial survival.
Although we took an enormous financial hit and closed all our physical locations due to the pandemic, we are proud of our ability to keep going and never losing faith in our vision. We have emerged stronger than ever, built great relationships with amazing people to move our vision forward, and are excited for new beginnings here in San Diego.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sleepsherpa.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sleepsherpa/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesleepsherpa/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesleepsherpa
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Sleepsherpa
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/sleep-sherpa-san-diego-2
Image Credits
Carina Fleckner Photography
