706 David Wolfe & Jamie Diamonstein: Co-Founders of Tiami
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I am unwilling to give up, that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Care of Golden Show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders,

We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Let's go. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to The Kira Golden Show. Super excited to have our next guests here, two guests who are two sleep industry legends, literally. I'm joined by Jamie Diamonstein and David Bolling.

Wolf, who are the co-founders of an incredible brand new luxury mattress brand called Tiami, but the company is called Tiami Sleep. So we'll go back and forth between the two of them, but let's just call it Tiami for now. But these two are no strangers to shaking up the way we rest. They co-founded Lisa Sleep, scaling it to over 100 million in just a few years, while

donating tens of thousands of mattresses along the way as well. And after stepping away from the space, they're back refreshed, recharged and living close to one another, love it, and ready to redefine what true luxury sleep looks like. With decades of experience between them, they've created one mattress that is perfect, Tiami,

that is a hybrid design engineered to work for every sleeper every night. And I got to try one myself and it is so, so, so wonderful. Theo, my husband, is also a huge, huge fan. So with Design Within Reach as their first partner to launch it, you know they're playing at the

So I can't wait to dig in to really hear what it takes to actually create a luxury brand as they are doing. Also, what it takes to really take on an industry and also just change an industry for the better with a purpose as they've done, giving back in so many ways. So

cannot wait to get into this conversation. So Jamie and David, welcome to the show. How are you? Thanks for having us. Could you be our spokesperson? Yes, absolutely. I love it. I love it. Well, you guys have done such a nice job and I'm so excited to have you here. So let's start with the very simple. So what is Tiami and how is it different from everything else out there? You should know what that sound is.

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I'll answer what is it and I'll let Jamie talk a little bit about how it's different. Tell me is the answer to a question that we got asked many times as we left Lisa and came out, which is which mattress should I buy? And getting asked this question many, many times when we were at Lisa, we would always recommend one of the mattresses we made.

And we realized that many of the people who were asking us the question now were looking for an upgrade because they were people who'd bought from us a decade ago, five years ago. And we really didn't know where to turn. You couldn't really believe the review sites because most of them are pay-to-play review sites. And so they're just not trustworthy. So that was one of the first impetuses. And then as we

started to think more and more about it. It was, what are the problems that need to be solved? And we can get into that in a moment, but it's things like sleeping hot, things like

in wanting the mattress to adjust. The fact that choice is paralyzing, there's so much choice out there. Could we come out with one mattress that would adapt to the body? So we set out as a challenge to create a mattress that would allow people to what we say is sleep differently. And so it's a luxury mattress aimed at disrupting or challenging at least the very high end of the market, $5,000, $10,000 and more, and challenging it with something which is using modern materials that makes it a lot better.

And I might have answered the part that Jamie was going to ask me. He does that. That's OK. Sorry, that's a bit my way. No, no, no problem. Yeah, I would say, Kara, for this, from my perspective, I'm very transparent when I'm doing design work. I take it very seriously. I've got 40 plus years of experience in the mattress space. And it was like having a blank canvas.

You know, starting all anew with no components, just really wanting to design the best luxury mattress that you could. And so it just gave us a fresh start. So I was able to, you know, scan the market, look for all the latest technology and new components and cut out all the fluff,

All of the things that people say about mattresses to try and get your interest, but really be transparent in what we deliver to the customer and address those issues that David was talking about.

So I've heard you say that Tiami isn't just about disrupting an industry, even though you guys have disrupted, I guess, an industry before in building not just Lisa, but some of your other ventures. Can you talk about that?

what the refining really means in this industry. Because you're right, when people are going shopping for a new mattress, you and I were talking about trying to figure out like,

How long is the right amount of time before you need a new mattress? Do you want a mattress that gets shipped to you in a box that's folded up or does that matter? Do you need the perfect box spring? I mean, what do you look for when you're actually trying to figure out what's best for you?

So that was, that was packed with a lot of things. So first, cause I really do want to address this. One of the things that people always ask is how long is a mattress going to last? And a lot of people look at warranties. It's like, Oh, this got a lifetime warranty. So, you know, I always say, does it travel with you in your next life? You know,

The bottom line is some warranties. You build a quality product. We build a very quality product using high-end materials. And you want a bed to last for at least 10 years, if not more.

I always tell people that, you know, they buy a bed and they look at the warranty. And even if they're uncomfortable on that bed, they're going to sleep on that bed to get that useful life out of it. And what I say to people is, as we all age, our bodies change, we get aches and pains. Even if it's two years after you've bought a mattress, don't suffer through what you're on. It doesn't mean that the mattress was bad. It just means that your body has changed and you need something different to support that body.

Just to address the disruption or refinement, I think disruption we needed to do a decade ago because we're inspired by different things. This time we feel like

inspired by our experiences of, you know, warm nights on the Mediterranean and the calming waves. And how can you recreate that in a product? How can you take a feeling and build a physical product out of a feeling? So that was the inspiration this time in terms of refinement and

Uh, in terms of disruption, you know, I took my daughter to buy a mattress at Sleepy's as it was back then, uh, in New York city. And it was a horrible experience. You know, she had to lay down on a bed in front of a man that was kind of peering down on her as a young woman. And, um,

It was just a terrible experience. And it just so happened that at that point in time, the idea of compressing a mattress and putting it in a box and shipping it, that it was much easier to buy and try at home for 100 nights and return it if you didn't like it. So the disruption back then was very much in the delivery phase. And then it took off. And so now...

um shipping in a box is is is acceptable and by the way it took jamie two years to work out how to ship a high quality spring system in a box and they did it by the gauge the the circles being slightly different so they would come together effectively and shipping a mattress in a box doesn't make it inexpensive it's just a convenient way to ship it in fact if anything

It's like pre what Jamie always says. It's like pre washing jeans because you've broken in a little bit when it arrives. No one should think of it being shipped in a box of being in any way relating to quality. Yeah. It's a part of the, I generally sees it as a positive shipping it in a box. So, so refinement is about the things that bother you in an expensive mattress. So the high end of the market has never been really challenged.

But the natural all the natural fibers that are used to make the very high and mattresses create body impressions And you know within a very short period often of buying a very expensive mattress as I did You know once him before I was in the industry your your sleeping in a sort of divot in the bed and your partners sleeping in another one and it's like you're on different continents, but you still disturb each other and and

And so, you know, we wanted to fix all of those problems at the high end. And Jamie felt that he could do it through high performance materials and new technology instead of, you know, going out and looking for the most expensive fillers and so on and so forth. In fact, we thought very hard about where we wanted to be. And then we built the mattress that we wanted.

that we felt was right to address all of these issues, cooling, natural cooling. So you're sleeping on a natural cotton surface. People want to be kind to their bodies. All of these different things are the refinements that we introduced. And only when Jamie built the bed did we say, okay, how much is this going to cost? And how much do we need to charge for it to build a company? Because there's a very big difference between having an idea and even launching a product and building a company, as you know,

you know, growth for growth's sake is not a good thing ever, certainly not a good thing anymore. And so how do we do it profitably? That addressed the price point that we were going to be at. And so, I mean, I feel like I've over-answered the question of refinement. I do have one thing to say about disruption because I do think there's a disruption again in this space. David mentioned it earlier. We've always gone with this phrase, choice is paralyzing. And I think if you look out there,

On the sea of online companies and in the stores that you go to, there's a plush, a firm, a medium firm, a bed for...

heavy duty for larger people, it's confusing. And so I think we see this as an opportunity to address the market, to take away some of that confusion that people have, whether it's online or at retail, and get back to what we believe is truly a remarkable mattress in Tiami that adjusts to every body size, shape, sleeping position, and making that choice very simple.

Definitely. So this is your second company together, correct? Correct. Yes. So you both sold Lisa. And what did you learn from having Lisa?

done a different type of mattress company, but still in this industry. What did you learn from that that you've taken to beyond the product, I guess, to actually working together and being able to maybe make things better from a go-to-market strategy? What is it that you've actually changed knowing what you know now?

You know, I think that every experience changes you a little bit. I've been starting businesses since my 20s. I've actually started a business in my 20s, my 30s, my 40s, my 50s, and now in my 60s. And I think that probably you take away lessons from every experience. So

Maybe it's easier to talk about what we're doing and how it might relate to that. So one is we're self-funded, which is an interesting lesson about taking in outside capital, maybe a valuation that was high. It puts different pressures on the business when you raise money at a high valuation because then you need to grow for the sake of growth instead of maybe, you know,

focusing on profitability, which everybody wants both, but it's very difficult when growth is so important to valuation. So one is that we're self-funded. Secondly, we're not in a hurry.

It was rush, rush, rush. At least we had our first million dollar month in our third month and we did $27 million in our first year. And then that put pressure on our second year was $78 million. And our third year was over $125 million. This time around, we're taking our time. And I think one of the things that that does, it allows you to focus on the cost of acquiring customers.

And, and so there's lots of business things that we've learned, but I think that the reason we're at it again is that we just had an awful lot of fun together building Lisa and, and we were at it again because we want to, we want to get back.

to those fun times of really just enjoying it. And, you know, I've had many partners over the years and my partnership with Jamie was, was, you know, I'm not saying anything against my prior partners because I've always had fun and I've always managed to hire 20 somethings to do, to bring newness to everything we do. And every, every decade I've got older, but it seems that the teams have stayed the same age and, and,

And so, yeah, so there's just so many lessons. And I'm sure you'll ask us about some of the reasons why we enjoy working together. But someone told me once that second time around in the same industry, founders do extremely well. And I'm just, you know, I'm buoyed by that kind of knowledge and that truism. And so we'll get it right. And we're taking our time and we're working with the best people that we know.

And we're embracing AI, whichever we want. We're doing the 2025 version of what we did in 2015. And Kara, I would say to you too, on the lessons learned on my side, because I came from a different background than David. I grew up in a family business, mattress business, but I learned a lot at Lisa in my time there. And when I look back, not only have I learned how to work with David, I think after we finished Lisa, we both talked about the things we did right

the things we may not have done so right, and what we can do to make our relationship better. And so I think because I, you know, I think I really learned a lot from that. And I cherish and value the relationship we had. And also for personal growth, you know, being in a family business is a whole different dynamic than being in a startup in that culture with all these young people, and especially with somebody like David, with the skills that he has. So I learned quite a bit during my tenure at Lisa.

So how did you two get into this industry? I think you touched on it a bit, Jamie, but I'd love to hear how both of you came together and how did you pick the mattress industry overall? Well, I think that, so obviously I was in the mattress industry and

From my perspective, I saw a lot of change in the industry at that time. So your family was? Yeah, my family. Okay. And so I was looking at a world where retailers were consolidating, manufacturers were consolidating, and there needed to be a different way to get out to consumers. Being in a business and selling direct when you're a tertiary brand,

You can't have your cake and eat it too. And I really didn't know how to do it. And so I had had some experience with David helping him with one of his other businesses, sort of related. And then, David, why don't you pick up that story? So, I mean, for me, it was looking for opportunity. And a decade before I had done memory foam mattress pads,

well, not even compressed, sort of squashed together and shipped in boxes in a different business I had that was more of a media company. And I met Jamie, you know, I knew Jamie. And right when my team was considering

what next? We were an innovation studio. We were looking at a number of different businesses, but we were looking at mattresses specifically because I'd always wanted to get there. And I needed a supplier. I bumped into Jamie in a restaurant randomly and said, you know, I've got something

that I'd love to talk to you about. And, uh, and that, that's how, that's how it all began initially. Um, looking at potentially whether Jamie's family business could make the mattress and ultimately Jamie made the decision to leave the family business and join me. It was a, it was a different kind of mattress, different kind of process. And we went, we went elsewhere with it. So,

I love it. So let's get back to Tiami. So the mattress is, I've heard you say it's like a tech system hidden inside a cloud. How did you choose to use what you did and really what to leave out? So the first thing I explored, like the foundation, just like the foundation of home is the spring system.

And so given the years being in the industry, I went out to look and see, is there new technology? Because the mattress industry is relatively slow on introducing new technology. They may change a few things. But when I went out to look, I found this amazing spring system that had combined springs with mattresses.

of Energex, which is a really high resilient foam. And they created this amazing pocketed spring system that felt and accomplished so many things that we were trying to accomplish in this mattress. High airflow, which helps with a much cooler sleeping surface. It reduces motion transfer. It's just an amazing, it had enhanced edge support. So I found a spring system that

It was incredible. And then I've always believed a lot of the industry puts memory foam as a top layer. I've always used it as a second layer. And I put a high performance layer on top called Energex. And then we used an organic cotton surface cover to make the bed. So we used a lot of the latest technology and always very high quality products.

And the one thing that Dave and I truly believe in is, I said it earlier, we're very transparent in what we show. So Energex is produced by a company called Leggett & Platt. We call it Energex. Many will change the names of those foams so that they appear to have a proprietary foam on their product.

So the things that I left out are the bells and whistles that people may put on or, you know, materials that they put into the foam that don't really serve a purpose. They sound like they serve a purpose, but they don't. And to David's discussion earlier about body impressions, I'm not a believer in quilting the mattress. The most common

Problem, problematic area in a mattress is that quilted surface because it's bound to compress. And so, you know, everybody on a King or a queen says they've got these indentations in the bed. So we've left quilting out and, you know,

Simplicity is luxury. That's really what we believe. And we don't have to shout with all these bells and whistles on there and so buttons on it and fancy stuff. We just want to give you a good night's sleep in a really high quality mattress. And that's really what I've created.

That's true. It's really, really great. So you partnered with Design Within Reach right out of the gate. It says a lot. How did that come about? And what do you feel that signals about where Tiami fits?

Well, I think there's a kind of multiple, again, every question has multiple facets, but we knew the impact that partnering with a retailer could have on our brand in terms of the validation of the brand. We did it at Lisa.

which is an interesting story of itself. And Lisa continues to have a great relationship with West Elm. By the way, we're incredibly proud of the brand we created at Lisa and it's doing amazingly well. So we wouldn't, we would never knock the company or the product because we love, we love, we love what we created and we're proud of it. And particularly proud of the impact that we have. So that relationship continues.

And I always, I mean, I was saying design within reach to Jamie as soon as we started talking about higher mattress. And it just so happened that the very individual who was responsible for the mattress category at West Elm

is now at Design Within Reach in a very senior role. And we started a conversation about their mattress needs. They do not have a hybrid mattress currently. They didn't have all of their mattresses are foam mattresses. And so they're missing, you know, the fastest growing and really the luxury end of the mattress with putting, um,

coils and foam together in a very high-end mattress. And the reason why it's a multifaceted answer is that when we first-- we have a third partner who comes from a design background, is a world-class designer.

And then we have a team that includes a creative director and a head of marketing. And so when we first started, we built our brand. We're brand builders. And basically,

the brand color was gold and it was fairly bold on the front. And when we showed it to design within reach, it was literally too bold and too gold. And so we went back to the drawing board. We went black, we went smaller, we went more discreet. We went, as Jamie said, I think the hardest thing to create is the simplicity and luxury. Most luxury products do have a simplicity to them. And we, so we, we redesigned so that the mattress would look great.

as part of the Design Within Reach collection. So it's more than just a partnership. And we've actually, although we've been live,

on our website for a couple of months we've been waiting to start communicating because we just think that the partnership with design within reach is such a huge part of the validation of our brand that we just couldn't be more excited and right now we're spending time reaching out to the stores that we're going to be in setting up days when we're going to go in and do mattress days for their customers and we've already done a big training session for them and so um

Our goal is to make Design Within Reach incredibly successful at selling Tiamat mattresses. And if we do that, we know that we'll build a huge brand out of it. And so they win, we win. And then ultimately, obviously, the customer wins because hopefully we believe and we're getting the feedback that people love it and it's making a huge difference in people's lives. And Keir, from my perspective on Design Within Reach personally, their design ethic is

And just the way they are is very detail oriented, beautiful furniture. Every detail is important. And that's how I feel about my mattresses. So it's a great fit.

Definitely. So sleep equity and mental health are, I've heard, big pillars within your brand. And I guess for you two personally, how have you approached that from a purpose and impact? I know you gave a lot of mattresses when you were at Lisa before, but how have you, I guess, woven those aspects into your brand?

Yeah. So, you know, I had a, went through a long period of my life where whenever I had anybody, I would ask them, what was the first time you saw social injustice in your life? How did it make you feel? And what did you do about it? And then I would ask them who inspires them. Cause I only wanted to hire people who shared, you know, my value, my value set. And when Jamie and I started doing business for the first time, um, I said to him, he goes, what's that?

I think it was $13. What's that budget line item every time we sell a mattress? And I said, oh, that's so that we can give back. That's so that we can have an impact. And he goes, what are we going to do? I said, well, I know how much of... I asked him how much a mattress would cost to put a twin XL or a twin into a shelter. And so by capturing $130 from 10 mattresses, we would have enough not just to put it in, but to go and...

volunteer there and that they would tell our story. But we didn't tell that story at the beginning because we hadn't done anything. We didn't know if we were going to be successful. So all I can tell you right now is what our intent is.

and why we've shifted. First of all, Lisa continues to donate mattresses. Now well over 40,000 mattresses across America. Every major city in the US, in San Francisco, I think it's called 16th Street Shelter and Larkin Street Youth, we replaced all their mattresses. But every major city we're connected to through the shelters. And it changed my life much more so than I ever imagined.

And this time around, because we've both got children that are having children and we've seen the importance of sleep on young women and their children, and two of our – we both have daughters who are child therapists –

we see very, very closely the relationship between sleep and mental health, particularly amongst young women and families and children. So our goal is to, again, set aside money for every mattress that we sell, perhaps a little more this time because we'll probably sell fewer mattresses. They're much more expensive. But certainly set aside money, and then we're going to work –

to find the right partners to work with where we can donate mattresses or give money. But we don't talk about what we're going to do. We ask the people if they feel like talking about our brand once we've done something to talk about it and the impact it's had on them. So we have nothing really to talk about yet other than a desire that goes right back to my childhood of,

and a passion of mine to make sure that when we go to work every day we're not going to measure our success just by the numbers but equally by our impact that we have on other people and on the world that's our mission that's part of our value set and when we've done it we'll start talking about it but until then when we haven't done anything yet we just we just that's that's

who we are, how we work, and we are setting a budget aside. And hopefully if we have this conversation a year from now, two years from now, we'll be able to articulate it more clearly, but we know where we're heading. We know the people we're talking to. We know where we're going to have an impact. I love that. So launching anything new is super hard. Getting the brand name out there. What was the hardest part so far about getting Tiami off the ground?

Yeah. I mean, that's my area really. I've got Jamie's relying on me. Um, so we're not there yet, you know, I mean, um, where, um, as, as I said, we're very focused on, we believe if we get things right with design within reach and they sell a lot of mattresses that will give us the platform, but, um,

as you know, cause I, you know, I know your background. There's something quite unbelievable about sitting down around the table, this very table we're at now in my home and thinking about let's, let's build a mattress company. And a year later, people are sleeping on them. Like,

And in the case of our story so far, hundreds of thousands of people sleep on mattresses that we built. So there's something extraordinary about bringing a new idea to life in a product that

that we're driven by how we reach people and how we get the brand out there is first and foremost giving an incredible experience this time around looking at all the different ways to grow a brand i think the old school word of mouth has always been the most powerful always been the most important so what we're doing this time is we're trying to avoid heavy discounting

unless it's through a recommendation, personal recommendation. So you have our mattress now. If you said to me, and we may even say to you, we have a mattress,

a link for you to share with your friends with that, they're going to get 15% off, um, off the mattress. So we're going to use word of mouth and we're going to do that the old fashioned way using new technology and the new ways as well. So we're looking for people that live a luxury lifestyle that have huge followings that create incredible content. Um,

And we're going to try to avoid the trap of the downward cycle, the race to the bottom of discounting. So that's why we have to be patient because we've got to use...

new methods, and of course we're embracing all the new technologies, what's available with hyper personalization in terms of channels as well as messaging through the use of AI and so on. So no one's ever going to talk to an AI bot with us. We answer our phones. We're going to talk to customers. We're actually going to open a local store here so that we can embrace AI

so we can talk to customers every day and understand where we're going. But building a brand in 2025 is incredibly different from the way it was in 2015. And I think so far I'm really encouraged by where we are, the inquiries that we're getting, the people that are interested in talking about us, just like you, and quite honestly,

This is talking to you and doing this podcast is exactly what we what what Jamie said, how are you going to grow the company? I said, people are going to want to talk to us and help us share our story. And we're grateful for that.

I totally agree. I think storytelling and people hearing your why, it really helps them. Actually, two things. I think figure out that your brand is out there, but also once they might have, maybe they walked into Design Within Reach and saw the mattress there and just to really understand that there's people behind it and there's a lot of thought and there's

many trials and errors that went on and then the best surface to the top. There's years of experience in some cases, and that experience could be from a consumer perspective and many industries as well. But I think it's getting to know the people that are behind these brands is, is,

definitely something today that consumers are more and more gravitating towards for sure. Well, thank you, Jamie and David, for coming on. You have created an incredible, incredible product and company in Tiami.

and definitely is a masterclass in figuring out how to work with entrepreneurs together, co-founders, I should say, because I think it's clear that you guys definitely have synergy together. And for anyone listening, the website is tiami.com, but also you can check them out at Design Within Reach.

They are in many of the stores, but also go to the Design Within Reach website. And definitely, this is a brand to watch. And if you love today's episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend who needs better rest or a big entrepreneurial inspiration. And Tiami is...

really, really going somewhere. So it's definitely, I'm very excited that you both joined me here today. So thank you so much, David and Jamie. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Yep. Thank you. Thanks again for listening to the Kara Golden Show. If you would, please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode of our podcast.

Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Golden. I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me. And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building Hint.com.

We are here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Thanks for listening and goodbye for now.