Dear members—
How’d you sleep last night? Whatever your answer, there are hundreds of startups out there promising to help you sleep more and better.
In this week’s presentation for members, Dasia Moore breaks down the growing sleep-aid industry: mattresses, sleep trackers and bedtime apps, and luxury sleep products. Probably the best known company in this space is mattress seller Casper, which laid out the premise of its industry in its IPO prospectus: “We believe sleep is rapidly becoming the third pillar of wellness and is poised to undergo the same massive transformation that fitness and nutrition have as they became major consumer categories.”
The presentation covers the companies competing in this category as well as the economic and productivity-related effects of sleep loss. Dasia also tallied up the cost of some of these sleep aids; you can easily drop $5,000 on a combination of mattresses, lamps, sleep masks, apps, and more. (A lamp that wakes you up gradually does sound pretty nice.)
You can view all of our presentations, which we produce exclusively for members, here. They’re designed to give you a quick read on a topic, which you can reformat and edit as you wish.
SPEAKING OF SLEEP…
Some people don’t have the same limitations as the rest of us—they can thrive on next-to-no sleep, perfectly remember nearly every moment in their lives, or live in mindful silence for years. In our members-only video series, Exceptional Humans, Quartz searches the world for these people and the scientists studying them to understand what makes them so exceptional.
I’ve shared the episodes with you as they came out, but you can now view all of Season 1 here.
THE SOUL OF OUR NEWSROOM
Earlier this week, Quartz lost a brilliant colleague who was, as Kira Bindrim, our managing editor, wrote, “a mentor to just about everyone she met.” Xana Antunes, our executive editor and my boss, passed away Monday at age 55, three years after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
Many of you know Xana from these emails, which she wrote for much of the last year. No one had a bigger role in shaping Quartz membership than she did. I encourage you to read these beautiful tributes from Kira and Kevin Delaney, our former editor-in-chief. On a personal note, Xana hired me and taught me an almost inconceivable amount in just a few months. It was a true privilege to work with and for her, and I, along with everyone else at Quartz, will miss her. Many of you have shared your condolences with us in contributions and by email—thank you, we appreciate your thoughts.
With best wishes for the weekend,
Walter Frick
Membership editor, Quartz