Between the Lines
Casper’s S-1 Is the Story of a Good Company in a Bad Business
Casper will only win if its IPO goes so badly that it drives its competitors out of the marketplace forever
Another venture-funded company is going public, so it’s time for another round of extremely value-added commentary like “This company is not making money” or “They grew a lot faster a few years ago when they were one-tenth as big” or “I looked at their related-parties transactions and accounting issues and found something I don’t strictly understand that sounds bad.”
Thanks for your efforts, everyone!
Let’s take a deep dive into the S-1: What kind of business is Casper? What kind of business does it want to be? And how will it get there?
The market
Casper is a mattress company. It sells pretty nice mattresses, mostly direct-to-consumer online. But that’s not especially exciting. Mattresses are an $81 billion business globally and about a $30 billion business in the U.S. So Casper is branding itself as a leader in the “sleep economy”—mattresses, sure, but also bedroom furniture, bedding, pajamas, pillows, lights, supplements, quantified-self stuff, etc. It even mentions CPAPs.
