Dear OPUS friends,
Adam here, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at OPUS.
Every time I lie down on SoundBed I’m reminded that it’s worth doing really hard things and feel even more resolved to get SoundBed into production and into your home as soon as possible. Thank you for your incredible patience and enduring enthusiasm.
While we don't have shipping dates just yet, I’m writing to give you a window into the process - what makes SoundBed such an innovative product, and celebrate a few of our team members for a major accomplishment on this last stretch on the road to production.
With SoundBed, we set out to do several very hard things: create an effortless self-care experience that reliably helps you feel better in as little as 7 minutes AND design an iconic piece of furniture that fits beautifully into any home AND engineer the most technologically advanced device of its kind AND design it to be manufactured at scale at the most accessible price-point of any sound healing bed on the market.
In previous emails, you may have heard us refer to supply chain issues as a cause for production delays. Finalizing the design for production has also been a formidable challenge and surprisingly the mattress was the last major hurdle.
In order for SoundBed to roll up (i.e. be stowable and portable) its mattress needs to stretch and change shape but look like it doesn’t, all while feeling like a cloud when you lay on it and translating vibration perfectly. These are things that physical matter doesn’t like to do, let alone all at the same time and repeatedly.
It was one thing to accomplish this feat with a lovingly handmade prototype, it’s been quite another to refine the design to be produced by the thousands.
Fortunately, we have superhero sisters Estrella and Angie Tadeo on the team. The Tadeo sisters are renowned soft goods designers with a specialty in unconventional materials and construction. They bring their unique expertise to OPUS, helping us push the boundaries of what's possible.
After many different approaches and revisions, I recently met with Estrella at her studio in San Francisco to evaluate the final mattress design.
With 25 years of industry experience, Estrella is known for her mastery of materials and design for manufacturing. She got her start working with small, luxury clothing brands, perfected her tailoring and construction skills, and then began applying her talents to industrial design, developing a passion for making functional art out of objects we see and use every day.
I asked Estrella about the most challenging projects of her career and to rate the design of SoundBed’s mattress on a scale of 1 to 10.
Without pause, she said “It’s an 11! But that’s what’s made the journey so fulfilling.”
I'm ecstatic to report Estrella and Angie have nailed it: The final mattress feels luxuriously comfortable and solves for the need to expand and contract repeatedly with an elegant design that is ready for production.
I can’t wait for us to practice feeling better, together, everyday. Thank you again for your patience as the journey unfolds. I know it hasn’t been easy, but believe whole-heartedly it will be worth the wait.
Warmly,
Adam
Adam Schlender
Opus Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer
P.S. Please keep the questions and feedback coming - We love hearing from all of you! If you missed the August production update, you can check it out here.