$4.7M Kickstarter
John Fiorentino's Gravity Blanket Kickstarter raised $4.7M and his MoonPod beanbag Kickstarter raised $1.4M, both before manufacturing at scale.
“Gravity was $4.7 million and then MoonPod was like $1.4 million.”
Fiorentino was building a pillow when a sleep scientist mentioned in passing that sleeping under 10% of your body weight is powerful anti-anxiety relief. He dropped the pillow, made a DIY weighted blanket, and fell asleep in 10 minutes.
“And in one of the sessions with a sleep scientist, she very passively was like, oh yeah. And like after the blanket, you should look into sleeping with 10% of your body weight. And I was like, I was like, wait, what did you just say?”
Steal thisListen for the offhand remark in expert conversations — the throwaway line is often the real product.
Gravity's mood board was 'Tesla for sleep': a science-forward, premium feel launched while Elon Musk was at peak cultural worship. Right branding, messaging, audience, and timing combined to make the Kickstarter explode.
“We played into this whole, like our mood board, as stupid as it sounds, was like Tesla. For sleep, right? And so we did Gravity Blanket and we gave it this whole science feel.”
Steal thisAnchor a new product's brand to a culturally beloved company as shorthand for its vibe.
Shaan frames every product as a promise to the customer. Gravity's winning tagline — 'a 25-pound blanket for sleep, stress, and anxiety' — packed three promises the product could reliably deliver.
“we landed on the tagline that really worked for us was a 25-pound blanket for sleep, stress, and anxiety. And it took a while to get there to find that like simple sentence.”
Steal thisDistill your product into one sentence of promises you can actually deliver on.
By the time of the episode, the Gravity Blanket had reportedly done over $15 million in sales, and was profitable from day one.
“There's done over 15 million in sales.”