Two Recent College Grads Create TikTok Viral Human Dog Bed

Have you ever felt envious or envious of your dog sleeping soundly in a soft and fluffy dog ​​bed when you were exhausted or having trouble falling asleep? Noah Silverman must not be the only one who has thought about lying on a dog's comfortable plush bed.

Under the link of a dog house on Taobao, many people asked sincere questions… Do you think these days, people want to compete with dogs to sleep in their houses?

The pace of modern life is accelerating, and people are always highly stressed. Especially for busy migrant workers, they are unable to sleep well after falling into anxiety. This is also the opportunity and reason why Plufl Human Dog Bed was originally born, providing a comfortable human-sized dog bed to help those with sleep or anxiety problems sleep better.

In March 2022, 22-year-old Noah Silverman and Yuki Kinoshita established the company Plufl. In May, a month before graduating from the University of British Columbia, they created the world's first prototype of a human dog bed. What started as a project in a dorm room quickly became popular through TikTok and has now generated more than $1 million in revenue.

A wonderful idea inspired the fighting spirit of these good partners

The idea for the "human dog bed" came from co-founder Noah Silverman, who as a student at the University of British Columbia often saw a Great Dane in the coffee shop where he worked. Dozing off in the corner. "I was in the middle of finals, working and studying, and this dog was sleeping and napping on a huge plush bed, and I was jealous of how comfortable and relaxed he was while I was working," Silverman said.

“Sometimes I really want to lie down in a dog bed and take a nap.” “Why isn’t a product like this available for humans?” “When you work like a dog, why can’t you relax like a dog.” Thoughts like these inspire Silverman fighting spirit.

Silverman found his good friend Kinoshita to share his ideas, and the two avid nap enthusiasts hit it off immediately. They discussed prototypes together in the dormitory, went to find designers to cooperate with, purchased materials, and looked for manufacturers together. After going through more than 10 different prototypes and planning After adjustments, the product takes on its original appearance.

This human-sized, oval-shaped dog bed is built with four inches of orthopedic memory foam covered in fluffy faux fur, and a thick, pillowy frame that allows users to tuck their hands and feet under the frame for an added level of comfort. COMFORTABLE; Faux fur is made from an antibacterial fabric blend of natural cotton and polyfiber and is removable and machine washable; Comes with handles and large enough side pockets for easy on-the-go carry and storage.

With help from TikTok and SharkTank

Plufl is booming

People were skeptical about Plufl at first, questioning whether there was enough market demand for the product. To find out if the design could be mass-produced, Silverman and Kinoshita decided to try TikTok. The two created the account @weareplufl without much experience using the platform at first, except that they knew it was a great place to promote their products.

On March 9, 2022, weareplufl released its first video showing the prototype of a human dog bed product. Soon, the potential of the product was released, and Plufl also became famous through the popular TikTok.

“The business really started to take off when we started using TikTok.” “Our fifth video went viral in March, hitting 3 million views in a week (it’s currently at 10 million views), and we All we had was a prototype of the product we made, but we didn’t expect it to gain such momentum,” Kinoshita said in an interview.

"We get unsolicited messages every day from people saying they've been looking for something like this," Silverman said.

Plufl gained a lot of attention online thanks to a viral TikTok video, and the pair decided to seize the momentum of their social media success and quickly launched a Kickstarter campaign in April to fund production of the first batch of Plufl. While their original goal was to raise $25,000, they ended up raising $290,657.

After making waves on TikTok, the Plufl team was invited by the production team of "Shark Tank" to appear on the show, seeking $200,000 to purchase 10% of Plufl's equity. Like most entrepreneurs, Plufl Human Dog Bed gained visibility through the show. Although they had not even delivered the finished product of the dog bed to consumers when recording in July 2022, they still received investment, and the addition of this investment also allowed the Plufl team to flourish and increase production.

On July 20, the account @weareplufl kept up with the popularity of the "Shark Tank" program and made the experience of being on the show into a TikTok video. It also took advantage of the trend to advertise its own products. In the end, the number of views of the video reached 1,410 Thousands of times.

In December 2022, after receiving the first batch of products, Silverman and Kinoshita decided to hand-deliver the products to their first batch of more than 3,000 customers. The pair rented a U-Haul and trailer and documented a "Plufl Road Trip" on TikTok. During the delivery, they captured the positive reactions and experiences from customers who were testing human dog beds for the first time. Judging by the smiles on their faces, it was obvious that they loved the dog bed.

From last year to now, the brand continues to gain attention on TikTok. So far, the account @weareplufl has accumulated 283,800 fans and 8.9 million likes.

Most of the time, Silverman and Kinoshita answer questions directly from consumers via video. When it was first launched, Plufl was priced at US$400. Some netizens questioned the price of this product, thinking that this dog bed did not need such a high price. In this regard, Kinoshita took the trouble to explain the rationality of the price to netizens in terms of product quality, product cost, and product experience.

A video posted on July 6 has been viewed more than 2 million times. Regarding the price suggestion of $299 from netizens in the comment area, Kinoshita used a video on July 13 to tell everyone that this is impossible.

Then the plot took a turn. Kinoshita said that it was not impossible, just click into the TikTokShop store to purchase, but the discount is only for one week. As a result, people in the comment area became restless and started shouting prices. After repeated interactions, the number of views of the video once again exceeded one million and reached 3.1 million.

In addition, there are many bloggers on TikTok who spontaneously praise this dog bed. They lie down on it themselves, lie down with dogs or cats, and children roll and play in it. These alone are enough to attract attention.

"This is better than I expected," TikTok blogger @allioseco shared in the video. Another influencer, @thekalenallen, shared his Plufl video showing how he and his two large dogs are having fun inside. The addition of more content creators has further boosted product popularity.

So far, the product-related hashtag #plufl has been viewed more than 70 million times on TikTok.

In their store, you can see that the human dog bed is available in four colors: gray, black, yellow and pink. The current price of the product has been adjusted to US$339. They previously revealed in the show that the cost of the product is US$140.

It is the end of the year promotion. In order to attract new users to place orders, Plufl also specially released large coupons, hoping to obtain more sales during Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday.

What’s impressive is that of the 304 reviews on their website, 284 of them are five-star reviews. It can be seen that users are generally satisfied with this product, and these reviews also provide good reviews for this product. The "word of mouth" prompts other consumers to make purchasing decisions.

When we search for "human dog bed" on Amazon, we can find a lot of products similar to Plufl, with prices generally ranging from $150 to $250. Judging from the price alone, it is indeed more affordable than Plufl, and these products are basically They were produced in the second half of 2022 or this year, and most of them have achieved good sales, so there will always be people imitating hot-selling products.

There are many similar products on 1688, with prices ranging from 250 to 360 yuan. If you sell them overseas, the profit is quite considerable.

There will be products only when there is demand. As people pay more attention to sleep problems, people begin to look for various alternative products to help them get a good sleep. Their strong desire has also led to the emergence and sales growth of various sleep aid products, such as sleep pillows, Sleep aid aromatherapy, white noise sleep aid machine, bedtime drinks and more.

Because of this, the human dog bed with unique functions will receive a large number of reservations before the finished product is officially launched. "Plufl is committed to bringing more comfort, ease and joy to people's lives, providing products and solutions that people need," Silverman said of the brand's mission.

As of now, Kinoshita and Noah Silverman own two manufacturers in Asia and are still working to expand their business and explore more products to improve sleep and rest. To achieve this goal, they also spent three weeks in China. "As if human dog beds are not crazy enough, we will have more crazy ideas in the future." In July this year, their next project Hugl, a huge U-shaped pillow, has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. It is planned to go online in December.

As the two young people said in the interview, "As long as you do something interesting and meaningful, it will take you somewhere." Similarly, for sellers, how to gain insights into consumer needs based on Selecting products on the Internet, or carrying out product innovation to create differentiated selling points, and using TikTok marketing to stimulate users' desire to buy is also a lesson that needs to be learned carefully.