zPods: Build Your Sleep, Made in USA

Tell Us About Your Proposal

No sleep company has ever achieved meaningful brand recognition among children and teenagers. Although the sleep aids market is projected to reach $118.31 billion by 2030, up from $64.08 billion in 2021 (according to Polaris Market Research), sleep aids companies primarily focus their appeal on adults and pass over the 73 million children in the United States (approximately 22% of the population, according to the 2020 U.S. Census). Moreover, given that the American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that 25% to 50% of children and 40% of adolescents face challenges with their sleep, there's a substantial opportunity for a sleep aids company to establish dominance by appealing directly to kids with a message on sleep that resonates with their tastes. zPods is going to be that company.

A 2018 Viacom survey emphasizes the influence children have over consumer behavior. For instance, more than three out of four parents say their children affect their purchasing choices. In addition, given that 87% of children remember the commercials they see on TV, 77% of parents are asked by their children to purchase those same products, and 73% of parents say they've purchased what they're children are asking for, any company that successfully establishes itself as the preferred sleep brand among children will see tremendous growth. Founder Group Worldwide has the opportunity to participate in that growth.

zPods is starting with a flagship product, its capsule bed with environment control capability, that has a substantial "coolness" factor among children. Wherever we have advertised the Gen 1 and Gen 2 zPods beds, children in and out of the special needs community have flocked to our product and echoed our brand name. Due to their extraordinary "coolness" factor, our zPods capsule beds set the stage for us to extend our reach to other sleep products—no child has ever asked for a specific brand of pillow, blanket, or white noise machine—and promote sleep health to kids. Our beds are also modular, setting us apart from all other makers of capsule beds, which creates additional revenue streams for us as children build out their own individual sleep environment.

And all of our solutions will be integrated with the latest in blockchain, AI, and IoT technologies—with components of these technologies currently in development.

Beginning with the autism and special needs communities gives us an edge by allowing us to bolster research and development funding with government and other research institution support—something we are testing as we work on our first SBIR federal grant application, clinical trials through Autism Support Now, and product development with the assistance of researchers at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Our origin also gives us a compelling story to tell that none of our competitors have managed to do. And the downstream effects of our research will benefit all children, not just those we initially started out with. Technologies we develop will allow us to measure sleep performance and to sell that information to parents, doctors, and other professionals who wish to help with the improved health and sleep performance of the children they care for while honoring privacy needs. That data will also allow us to build an AI-backed system in which one's sleep environment adapts to one's unique sleep profile.

What is Your Proposal Plan

Although we initially sold directly to special needs parents, zPods is now selling its flagship product primarily to providers of durable medical equipment (DME). Our strategic shift is due to these providers’ state-by-state and country-specific (referring to our Southeast Asia and Latin America distributors) expertise in funding solutions for families. Our work on clinical research will bolster DME providers’ ability to obtain state funding and insurance coverage. We’ll continue to advertise directly to parents and children through social media, directing them to DME providers to purchase. We’re also approaching health, educational, and tourism institutions that use our pods as calming spaces. Our profit margin is approximately 53.1%, and we’ll be raising that margin to above 60% in the next three years by eliminating already-identified inefficiencies in our COGS that are common to all manufactured products.

We’re developing two other direct-to-consumer revenue streams over the next three years. The first is a monthly subscription plan that will allow users to access our app. The app will include sleep music, health resources, sleep data access, and unique “sleepscapes” (i.e., sleep environment combos). The second revenue stream is a marketplace for zAccesories (component upgrades to beds that customers have already purchased, made possible by our modular bed design) and other sleep products. Profit margins will vary by zAccessory and sleep product.

As we grow our sales, the final stage will be to create a sleek brand that appeals to high-performance and high-energy children of all ages, in and out of the special needs community, the bed being the main draw. The original brand will continue to service special needs children whose conditions justify insurance coverage and state funding, made possible by the partnership we're currently establishing with the Autism Support Now ABA clinic network.