Making your bed every day can be a pretty annoying task. Nita Gassen and Judy Schott’s Better Bedder mattress headband was made for these kinds of bedroom inconveniences. With it, you don’t have to lift the mattress to tuck in the sheets. It’s a brilliant product that Lori Greiner invested in on Shark Tank. As of 2022, Better Bedder is worth $3 million.
About the Founders
Nita and Judy are both mothers from New Orleans, Louisiana. Nita has a degree in education from the University of Southern Mississippi, and Judy has a Doctor of Law from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.
Gassen started her career as a teacher at University Montessori, while Schott landed her first job at the Cleveland Barrios Law Firm. The two ladies met when they began working for the insurance company Gilsbar.
The firm eventually promoted Nita to Divisional Sales Manager. On the other hand, Judy was initially hired as Director of Professional Liability, but she later became the CEO of Gilsbar.
Establishing the Company
It all started when Schott noticed one of her sons grumble about how his sibling was always too lazy to make his bed. On the other side of town, Gassen heard her neighbors complain about how their bedsheets always slip out.
The two empowered women talked about all these at work. They came up with one solution that could solve everything; a sizable headband that could wrap around the corners of a mattress perfectly.
It keeps the sheets in place on all sides, eliminating the need for constant bedmaking. The product simply saves time and effort. Better Bedder was officially launched in 2018, and its lifetime sales reached $476,000 by 2020.
Shark Tank Appearance
Judy Schott and Nita Gassen were losing a lot of money despite having strong sales in 2021. They appeared on season 12 of Shark Tank, asking for $150,000 for a 10% stake in their business.
Around this time, the startup was on track to make $1 million by the end of the year. Because of this, most of the Sharks bit and promised to reduce manufacturing costs.
Daymond John, Barbara Corcoran, and Lori Greiner argued over who had the better offer. Because of her QVC background, the entrepreneurs chose Lori’s offer of $150,000 for 18%.
After Shark Tank
The innovative bedroom product made $157,000 two and a half months after its episode aired on TV. This was about 40,000 units and were huge under pressure to deliver the product to customers.
Though it hasn’t yet made any QVC advertisements, Lori put a PR team on Better Bedder. This helped the company reach over 3,000 Walmart locations in the US. It is available to buy on GetBetterBedder.com and e-commerce websites such as Amazon.
On Amazon, the giant headband has an average of 3.9 stars from more than 3,700 reviews. The founders are now working on designing a new product for Airbnbs, hotels and RVs. Better Bedder has done over $6 million in lifetime sales and is expecting to hit $20 million in revenue by the end of 2022. Currently, Better Bedder is worth an estimated $3 million.
