Tycoons Row

   While at the MIT Enterprise Forum held at Miami University,  I had the chance to meet an inspiring entrepreneur who is achieving small-business success right from his dorm room.  Matt Byrd, of Select Foam, a 1.5 year old start-up aims to be the #1 online memory-foam matress retailer, and he is on his way to doing it. Byrd's first online business, Collegebeds.com did not pan out the way he wanted, due to branding & having a formal strategic layout of the company.  Learning from failure, he was able to launch Select Foam, with initiatives to provide a great product, apply a successful business process, and cater to customers more effectively.  The interesting thing is that Select Foam is currently generating revenues of $2K to $13,000 per week!  This is currently a $100,000 business on the low end.  Matt's philosophy is one of providing a quality prodcut and provides a 90-day gurantee as well as fast shipping.  This is compared to some of the big competitors in the playing field, which include: Tempurpedic, Angel Beds, & Healthy Foundations to name a few.  Select Foam sells luxury mattresses, a retailer of fine memory foam & latex foam mattresses, pillows, & toppers (pads).  They are in the middle of coming out with a new product which is a super-mattress which will be unique & innovative within the mattress marketplace.  Matt has an interesting story of how he got started.  He had evolved working on his own, mowing lawns, taking on internships and had a mentor who gave him advice to build lofts and sell products that interest the parents. My only question to Matt now is, how do you compete against the big dawgs, such as Sealy, Tempurpedic, the other online matress retailers?  Do you have a specific strategy to take their market share?  This is where I see the greatest opportunity lies, gaining strategic intelligence on these comparable online retailers, finding out what they do best & developing a strategy that will take at least 60% to 80% of their market share in a significant period of time.  Overall, hats off to your success thus far in establishing yourself as the #1 online retailer with Select Foam.