Millennial-Owned Pluto Pillow Wants to Know What You're Doing in Bed.

Pillows may not be themost exciting items ina bedroom, but Susana Saeliu, 27, wants to change that. Saeliu is the founder and CEO of Pluto Brand , Inc.,a manufacturer of high-endcustom pillows.

Buyers take an online survey that asks about their sleeping position, current mattress, heat preferences and more, and Pluto Brand builds a custom pillow based on the users information. There are currently 30 variations of pillows available, through Saeliu says that number will continue to grow based on company growth and user feedback. Saeliu, a graduate of the University of Southern California, worked in retail after college, setting up product displays and introducing new bedding-related products into high-end stores.

She was surprised that while bedding, sheets, and linens are presented with high-end options and plenty of consumer information, pillows were still bought right off the shelf with no information other than soft, medium, or firm, which can vary wildly across brands. Studies show that we choose a pillow that makes a great first impression in the store, says Saeliu, but it usually results in a terrible sleep. So we wanted to take a more scientific approach to the pillow process.

Coinciding with Saelius interest in creating a better pillowwas the fact that she wasnt sleeping well in her mid-20s, often waking up unrested and groggy. She also noticed that while direct-to-consumer mattress and bedding products had become popular, most notably Casper Sleep, there wasn't a similar model in place that focused on pillows. She began learning more about the process of how pillows are made, including the importance of using the right pillow based on one's sleeping habits, like whether or not a person sleeps on his or her back or side.

After months of research, she decided to leave her full-time job and found Pluto Brandwhen she realized she was still losing sleep at night because she was spending every night researching the industry and brainstorming the idea for the company. Because of her previous contacts in the bedding industry, she knew what suppliers and producers shed want to work with as well as what materials she wanted to incorporate, like eco-friendly foams and chemical-free fills. She learned that a proper pillow core has more technology in it than the averageperson may realize, including open- versus closed-cell foams, various options for breathable or dense fillings, fabrics that are sensitive to temperature changes, and how molded the internalcore is or isn't.

She also interviewed hundreds of consumers to learn about their pillow preferences and consulted with both a somnologist to understand the fundamentals of quality sleep and a chiropractor to learn how the wrong sleep aids can contribute to neck pain. Next, Saeliu created prototypes, a process that took nearly four months. Her team tested the density and durability of various foams and fabrics and would often take the prototypes apart to reassemble the pieces into new pillows.

We beat those pillows up in the beginning, she says, washing them with things they shouldnt be washed with and smushing them over and over to make sure they stood the test of use. She also had to source the fibers she wanted for the pillow covers internationally, which requiredadditional quality control to ensure the stitching and craftsmanship were up to her ideal standards. Next, she sent the product toselect interviewees shespoke with during theresearch process for additional feedback and testing.

While the pillows were out for testing, she spent time studying websites with similar user interfaces to make the survey and buying process as modern and easy as possible, including Care/of personalized vitamins and Curology skin care, which both use online questionnaires to recommend products. Despite the time and cost involved in the Pluto Pillows development, Saeliu made a conscious decision not to crowdfund, instead opting to self-fund the entire development process. Pluto Pillow launched in March 2018 and began advertising heavily on podcasts, Facebook, and Instagram to reach millennial women, as she thought theyd be the most likely decision maker when it came to linens and bedding.

After only a few months of sales, however, she found that men were ordering the majority of the pillows. We found were more male-skewing, says Saeliu, especially for tall men who have had a difficult time finding a pillow, or men who are athletic or need something supportive. From March to July, Pluto Pillow sold 2,500 pillows at approximately an $80 average though they hit their first-quarter goal in just 10 days of business.

Their return rate is low at about seven percent, or roughly five and a half points below the 12.52% industry average return rate for home goods. Salieu notes that 15% of customers become return customers or give additional pillows as gifts.

She estimates that theyll close 2018 with about 10,000 pillows sold and plans to introduce a king-sized option in time for holiday gift giving. Shes also hoping to introduce pop-up experiences where buyers can test the pillow options, takethe sleep survey on a tablet, and have a custom pillow manufactured while they wait. So why the name Pluto Pillow?

Like most millennials, Saeliu learned in school that Pluto was a planet, and was saddened to learn it was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. "I wanted the product to provide an out-of-this-world rest," she says. "Plus, a planet is made of matter with gas around it, like a pillow is a solid core with fibers around it.

We wanted to show the ex-planet some love."