How B Corp-certified Eva mattresses grew by 693% and reached 70,000 customers

In 2017, Ken Lau and Amanda Niu launched a premium mattress-in-a-box company called Eva. Over the next five years, Eva grew by 693% and serviced over 70,000 customers. Eva also branched into furniture design, achieved B Corp certification for its focus on ethical manufacturing, and won a swag of design awards.

In a recent interview with SmartCompany Plus, Amanda Niu chatted about the importance of a brand story, values and quality products.

The beginnings of Eva

Before Eva, Ken Lau was an electrical engineer who sold mattresses and bikes as a side hustle on eBay. However, he eventually became frustrated with the limitations of eBay. He couldn’t tell a brand story on the platform or build customer loyalty, so he decided to pivot. He quit his job and focused entirely on creating premium quality mattresses through his new brand, Eva. 

At this time, his partner – Amanda Niu – had just graduated with her master’s in clinical neuropsychology and was waiting for her registration to come through before she could begin practising. With time up her sleeve, she started to help Lau out with his new business. With Niu onboard, Lau could focus on the operational side of the business while Niu dealt with marketing and customers.

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To get started, the two spent entire days in the library learning as much as they could about business and marketing, getting “kicked out” at closing time. They ran Eva from a self-storage facility in Melbourne, “stealing the WiFi” until its managers caught on. Their family and friends became the test subjects for their mattress prototypes as they experimented with design, and customer feedback helped them refine their product.

“We always get customer feedback on all our products, and about a year into selling Eva mattresses, we realised that people prefer firmer mattresses over softer ones. The returns for one versus the other were lower,” Niu says. “So, we kept making it 10-15% firmer until we were happy.”

Listening to all the feedback paid off for the brand founders. Within six months of launching in 2017, Eva was awarded the Best Mattress in a Box – a title they retained in 2018.

The awards helped promote Eva, enabling Niu and Lau to hire their first employee, a marketer, and for Niu to join the brand full-time.

Sustainable development

As a certified B Corp, Eva is a brand that prioritises sustainability. But this wasn’t always the primary focus of the brand. 

“Initially, we were just trying to build this premium brand, and we were donating our returned mattresses to charity,” Niu says. “But after a couple of years, we realised these charities no longer need mattresses – at least not the ones we kept offering. So, we switched our focus to sustainability because we still wanted to do good and give back somehow.”

Niu and Lau took this new focus into their furniture design and manufacturing approach when they launched the Eva bed frame in 2019. “We hired a furniture designer who brought 20 years of industry experience to our brand, and he really opened our eyes to what it means to make good quality furniture with a purpose,” Niu says. 

The bed frame won a Good Design Award in 2020, creating a “turning point” for Eva. “We realised customers wanted to be able to purchase the mattress and the bed together, which increased our average order value,” Niu explains. “Things sort of snowballed from there.”

Since 2017, Eva has launched new products almost every year. Each product takes 12-18 months to design, involving several prototypes, testing and feedback. Their furniture range now includes sofas, coffee tables, dining tables and chairs, as well as the original bed frame. All the furniture is flat-packed for shipping, but no tools are required for assembly. 

“For us, it was never about making products for the sake of it. Creating products that end up in landfills wastes resources, time, effort and expertise. So, we bring longevity into mind when designing,” Niu says. “We also wanted assembly to be easy enough for your grandmother to do, so each design is very thoughtfully designed.”

To further minimise waste, Eva re-sells returned furniture that is in “pristine” condition within Melbourne. 

The evolution of the Eva brand

Because Eva launched with a single production offering, Niu says targeting their marketing was initially quite easy. “We focused on the middle and bottom of the funnel, only targeting people already in the market for a mattress so that our performance marketing could be as efficient as ever.”

But as the product offering expanded, Niu says they had to change how they told their brand story and marketed it. “We did two significant rebrands, changing the focus from mattresses to the home. And we just completed a brand refresh that we started 10 months ago,” she says. “We’ve had to look at ourselves again, the feedback we have from repeat customers, and iterate that into our mission and vision, the how and why of what we do, our taglines and so on. It was a tricky process that required a lot of deep thinking within ourselves and consideration of customer feedback.”

Securing a B Corp certification in 2022 added to the brand’s creditability and story – especially when it comes to conveying their values to their customers. To achieve B Corporation status, a company’s entire environmental and social impact is measured and rated. The process is known to be rigorous and time-consuming, and each successful company is reassessed every three years to retain certification. 

Niu says that being a B corp contributes to Eva’s high customer retention and also helps to “keep us accountable.”

“At the end of the day, values are incredibly important for your brand,” Niu says. “I would tell any inspiring entrepreneur that they should be clear on their values right from the start and stay true to them.”