Hi there,
Welcome to the 18th edition of "State of anew sleep".
Every month I share snippets of what I (and the team) at anew sleep are working on.
Here's what happened.
New launch: Summer cooling blanket
Our store was built on selling weighted blankets.
That works great until summer rolls around.
Heavy blankets are assumed to be hot.
Even if ours breathe well, heavy equals hot to most people.
We always wanted to sell summer products. Especially to "even" out our sales during the year, so we could sell all year round.
I remember being in Shanghai in February 2024. We found a product that looked perfect for summer.
A cooling summer duvet, very light and breathable.
But we quickly realized we couldn’t design, produce and ship it in time for summer 2024. Wild, right?
Since Q1 2024 we’ve been iterating on a summer duvet and in June we launched it.
Finally.
Our launch was strong. I already expect this to be one of our winning products in the future. But the biggest problem is that our revenue window is short.
It’s summer only, but we’ve already locked in our first B2B order, so it's not just us excited for this product.
If you're curious you can see it here.
Deep creative research
Most of the time when I talk about zero party data, it’s post-purchase forms or exit surveys.
This month, it was Reddit.
We started a handful of threads in subreddits where parents hang out. Not to promote anything. Just to ask questions like “What’s actually hard about getting your kid to wind down after school?” or “Have you ever tried a weighted stuffed animal instead of a blanket?”
Real founder curiosity. No brand voice, no pitch, no fake “insight gathering.”
It worked better than expected. People were open. They shared stuff we wouldn’t get from a normal survey.
We didn’t have to ask 20 questions. We just listened. And because they chose to answer, in their own words, it counts as zero-party data.
Some of the answers directly shaped what we launched. Others changed how we talked about it.
A few things that came up:
- Most parents don’t want another thing to remember at bedtime. But if it’s something the kid grabs themselves, that’s different.
- The word “calming” is too vague. Parents talk about “getting a moment to reset” or “making transitions easier.” That language is more useful to us.
- People are burned out on stuff that overpromises. They’d rather hear “this helps sometimes” than “this fixes everything.”
Reddit is a huge part of our research stack.
Not just for product ideas, but for creative too.
It’s fast, honest, and close to how people actually think.
We’ll keep using it.
Quietly.
No gimmicks.
Just questions and pattern recognition.
New design incoming
We’ve brought on a designer to help us "level up" some elements for anew sleep.
Up until now, most of the site has been built in pieces, and while the product pages are strong, the rest could use work.
The focus right now is on the front page, collection pages and just general navigation.
As we release more products, it’s important the site makes sense.
It should be easy to browse, clear to move around, and not feel like every new thing is duct-taped on top of the last.
While the design is in progress, we’re looking for a Shopify developer to help us get it live and working smoothly.
Someone who’s good with performance, responsive layouts and can make things feel tight without overengineering it.
If that’s you, or you know someone good, let me know.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading so far. I will be doing this every month. If there's something specific you want to hear about in these updates: shoot me a message on LinkedIn.
See you in a month.
