074: How Saatva Scaled Their $400M DTC Luxury Mattress Brand with Ricky Joshi

Ricky Joshi is the co-founder and chief strategy officer of Saatva, a direct-to-consumer luxury mattress and bedroom company that earns more than $400M in revenue and has been named to the Forbes Top 100 Most Promising Companies list.

While going mattress shopping for himself one day, Ricky noticed a few shortcomings from mattress retailers. Confusing messaging. Bad customer service. No core values. Ricky thought he could do better, and in 2011, Saatva became one of the world’s first DTC brands.

In this episode, Ricky shares Saatva’s success secrets, including effective marketing strategies, key metrics to focus on, and brand awareness tips for entrepreneurs in the DTC space.

You’ll also hear about how Saatva created an in-store experience that leads to greater than 50% conversions, how competition helped Saatva 3x its sales in one year, and how companies can decide when it’s time to branch out and launch new product offerings.

Ricky Joshi Tweetables

• “When you’re building a direct-to-consumer brand, the product has to speak for itself.” – Ricky Joshi

• “I think a lot of other direct-to-consumer brands kind of forget about the value part of the equation. We never have and I think that’s been core to who we are.” – Ricky Joshi

• “Successful companies get that you can be nimble, throw some stuff out there, test it, see if it works, and if it works, scale it upwards.” – Ricky Joshi

• “Growing at some of these businesses is almost like rock climbing. You kind of need your hand to lift your foot. And that then raises your other hand.” – Ricky Joshi

• “As an entrepreneur if you throw everything at the wall all at once, you’re not leaving much for tomorrow and you’re not leaving a lot of room to learn from it because you’re doing too much.” – Ricky Joshi

• “Better customer service is synonymous with a good product.” – Ricky Joshi

✔️ How increased competition helped Saatva grow from sales of $9.5M to $28.7M in one year.

✔️ What are the best and worst things Saatva has done in marketing?

✔️ How Saatva’s brick-and-mortar retail stores have a conversion rate higher than 50%.

✔️ How selling a product with a high AOV can lead to a better customer experience.

✔️ Two core components to building growth and success.

✔️ How Saatva has branched out to having more than 42% of its buyers coming from a non-mattress product.

✔️ The major advantage small companies have over big companies when it comes to marketing.

✔️ How is AI impacting marketing right now?

✔️ Why established brands and large companies often struggle in the DTC space.

✔️ How to weigh investing in brand awareness with the growth trajectory of your company.

✔️ When do you know if it’s time to branch out and start selling new items alongside your flagship product?

✔️ Balancing your consumer’s awareness level when choosing which platform —like TikTok, Facebook or Google Ad Words — to market on.

✔️ How entrepreneurs can analyze SEO traffic to determine alternative revenue streams.