WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM | JUNE 25 - JULY 1, 2021 | 31
LAST CALL
William Spangenberg and Louis Fiacco, winners of Holy Cross Shark Tank Veer Mudambi Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
Thinking back to your college years — one thing that may spring to mind are the uncomfortable dorm beds. It’s safe to assume they haven’t gotten much bet ter, and as a result, many students use a mattress topper for a better night’s sleep. However, these are inevitably tossed out at the end of the year, leading to excessive waste. Will Spangenberg and Louis Fiacco, seniors at the College of the Holy Cross, hope to fi x this. Win ners of the Holy Cross Shark Tank com petition, the two students have created a service, Sader Sleeps, for their class mates to rent luxury mattresses for the school year or semester, eliminating the need for a mattress topper and cutting down on waste. As members of the Eco Action club at Holy Cross, the sustain ability this off ers is a key point, but the company also plans to donate 10% of profi ts toward the Green Fund at Holy Cross, which sponsors environmental initiatives on campus. How did this idea come about? Spangenberg: We were moving out in our freshman year and looking around on moveout day and saw a huge mountain of mattress toppers touching the ceiling and said “what an incredible waste.” Fiacco: The twinsized extralong mattress toppers for the dorm beds wouldn’t fi t on most people’s beds at home. And students can’t take mattress toppers home with them if they’re from out of state, so they just get thrown away every year. S: So we connected with a luxury mattress maker, Sealy, about renting mattresses that could be reused. F: My uncle actually works with Sea ly and that’s how we got our foot in the door. S: Every year, Holy Cross does a Shark Tank competition. We won against 10 other businesses for the $3,000 prize. It’s actually usually more but with COVID, funding for the compe tition was cut.
Louie Fiacco, left, and Will Spangenberg, Holy Cross students and founders of Sader Sleeps. DYLAN AZARI
What was the timeline for the pro ject and how else did COVID aff ect it? S: COVID really hurt us because we planned to implement our mattresses during our junior year but with COVID restrictions and school closures, it got pushed back, but even without that, anyone who has tried to start a business knows there’s always fi res to put out. We tried to form the necessary connec tions during sophomore year and by the end of the year had all the pieces in place. Then we had to discuss imple mentation with Holy Cross higherups and the social justice aspect — like peo ple wouldn’t get jealous if someone else had a nice mattress and they didn’t be cause they couldn’t aff ord to rent it. We’re planning to implement a fi nancial aid plan so anyone who needs a mat tress can aff ord one. This past year we fi nalized a contract with the school —
really exciting to see the culmination of all of our eff orts pay off . Have your sanitization expenses for the mattresses increased postCO VID? S: Not really — we have a very protec tive sanitizing process of mattress en casements and we can guarantee that nobody has actually gotten through to your mattress. Even before COVID, we wanted to make sure the students didn’t have to worry about anything but sleep ing. F: We’ve actually seen rising costs in raw materials. S: There’s just huge supply chain is sues because the materials used to make mattresses were also used to make PPE. Also, they also come from China and international tensions have increased cost as well. Have you decided what you’re go
ing to do with the prize money? S: That money will go towards exist ing inventory, advertising the product on campus, particularly Holy Cross, and employees to help install mattresses — there are tons of diff erent applications. In the future, we hope to design our own luxury mattress for our brand, so we will probably need some seed fund ing to get that process started with the manufacturing company. What individual strengths do you guys bring to your partnership? S: Louis is really passionate and per severes through everything. He also created our website (www.sadersleeps.com) and fi netuned it. F: I’m a compsci major so I created the layout of the website. Will is a psy chology major so he’s better at writing and added all the text and images for the site. S: In terms of responsibilities, we’re kind of jack of all trades right now. But when we’re trying to sell our product, I’d take on most of that load. Any kind of technical questions about the process or the website, that’s what Louis will take on. We combine really well because we’re really hard working and dedicat ed. To clarify, where do things stand right now? S: We’ve done the fi rst installations for off campus students. We’re hoping to do our oncampus installations at Holy Cross on August 16. Next year, we want to take that model of a successful year at Holy Cross and expand to other schools. How big do you see your initial team getting? S: At Holy Cross, it will probably con sist of a few other students but hoping to increase exponentially when we start expanding. We’ll need some expert help but defi nitely want to set up work study positions at schools. Finally, where did you get the name Sader Sleeps? S: Holy Cross’s mascot is the Crusad er. It’s often shortened to ‘sader. We just combined those for a catchy name!
