How Bear Beds Got Started: Our Story

We started as an e-commerce company before the internet was even viable as a marketplace.  We were pre-Google, pre-Y2K, pre-Yahoo as a search engine, pre a lot of things.  Back then, our business model would be called “mail order,” kind of a Sears and Roebuck idea, except with only one product instead of a giant catalogue.  We didn’t even have a web site and only decided to build one because we wanted to see what would happen.  Our expectations were low.

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There are a lot of details to our story, a lot of ups and downs and sideways.  The beginning was exciting! So exciting!!  We made a little homemade video that we sent out to prospective customers.  My wife was the star of that video, and in it she was obviously pregnant with our first child.  Our customer base was small and personal, and many would check in to see how the baby was doing.  It felt more like an extended family than a business.  It’s really hard to explain how exciting that time was, those first few years.  That little video led to a new life for us, one we never saw coming.

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Another thing we didn’t see coming was 2008.  If our story is about ups and downs, 2008 was the downiest down of them all.  We struggled. But we weren’t the only ones.  Many, many of our friends struggled too.  As much as it’s hard to explain the joy of our first few years, it’s hard to explain the darkness of 2008 and the years just after.  But that’s how life is, so what can you do?  We kept on keeping on and we kept the business afloat, but rather than being on full boil as it had been for over a decade, it was on simmer for a while.

But despite the frustration of those years, we were committed to the business, and as the economy came back, so did our customers.  The site has changed some since we first started – it’s bigger and more diversified than it used to be.  But one thing that hasn’t changed is the way we do business.  Our mission statement is very real to us.  In fact, it’s not only how we grew our business, it’s why.  Our products are great, but what really sets us apart is that we will never forget how we started: the joy, the excitement, and all of those customers calling to check up on the baby.

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Chris Anderson, Founder