We love camping, travelling, having friends round to stay… but most of all, we love a good night’s sleep. We were frustrated that portable beds were either uncomfortable or too bulky, and involved a hunt for spare bedding and fiddly equipment that took ages to set up. We set out to change this by creating the Bundle Bed. Here’s our story…
Braving the less-than-luxurious Australian outback, Lucy found that she slept surprisingly well out there. Why? Because of her camping swag.
Lucy loved the fact that these roll-out beds were cosy and comfortable, felt like her bed at home and were super easy to set up – wherever she happened to end up. The only problem was that it was flipping huge. Nobody in London has a car big enough to transport it, nor space to store it. If only you could sling it over your shoulder…
Once back in Blighty, and working as a nanny, she then faced an even bigger challenge: how to make five beds for five kids fit in one room for the monthly sleepover. It was a time consuming and exhausting process, followed by the painful pack-down the next morning in the presence of five, over-tired children, frazzled by a night of low-quality sleep. ‘There must be a better way of doing this?’.
The final straw came whilst on a camping trip in Wales. Four adults, one VW polo…WAY too much stuff! The main culprit being – as usual – the bedding. The airbeds of course deflated overnight and, whilst being painstakingly re-inflated, this precious bedding lay festering in a damp and murky puddle, leaving it cold, wet and less than inviting.
Enough was enough. It was time for a good night’s sleep!
At a dinner party, sitting next to her husband’s good friend from school (James), conversation turned to their travels and business ideas. One thing led to another, Lucy showed James the concept using a paper napkin: James had an abundance of ingenious suggestions for the design and the partnership between the two of them was born.
They had never used a sewing machine before, but they managed to cobble together the first ‘Bundle Bed’ prototype in James’ living room in London, having scoured the markets in West London for the right materials (looking back, it was fairly shoddy, but they were incredibly proud of it at the time!). Tweak after tweak, prototype after prototype… followed by a surprise move to Asia and a meeting with ‘The So Family’ their awesome production team), and the Bundle Bed as we now know it, became a reality. They founded a great partnership and produced a final, market-ready version of the product of which they were truly proud.
Excited to share their idea with the world, they ran a highly successful Kickstarter campaign, reaching their target within 48 hours and ending the campaign with almost three times their goal amount. This enabled them to make an initial run of beds and soft launch their brand. Hundreds of people are now unclipping, unrolling, unzipping and sleeping soundly in their Bundle Beds all over the world. They used the feedback to improve their design even further, for the next run of products which officially launched Bundle Beds in the Summer of 2017.
Busy mum? Weekend camper? Or simply hosting a guest? We’re very proud to be the creators of The Bundle Bed, with the mission to provide a great night’s sleep, anywhere. Check out our product here: Bundle Beds
