Matt Roberts & Irfan Badakshi
Bean2Bed Ltd.
www.bean2bed.com
Birmingham, England
Ages: 23 (Roberts) and 25 (Badakshi)
Back in Matt Roberts' second year at Aston University in 2002, a bunch of friends came up for a weekend birthday party. An offhand comment planted the seed of his future inspiration. “Somebody said, 'I wish I could flatten out this beanbag chair and sleep on it,' ” recalls Roberts.
Two years later, Roberts and buddy Irfan Badakshi had run with the concept. They met with designers, worked through 44 prototypes, rejected polystyrene pellets, maxed out their student loans, and unveiled Bean2Bed at a home show in July, 2005, at Earl's Court. The finished product is, in effect, a mattress filled with crumb foam that stuffs into a corduroy, denim, faux suede, or imitation fur sack the size of a beanbag chair. One minute it's a comfy chair in the corner, and then presto, it's a bed.
Thanks to publicity and word of mouth, Roberts and Badakshi have sold thousands of Bean2Beds, which cost $285 to $475. They're available on Amazon.co.uk and more than a hundred stores in Britain. The company figures to book sales of more than $570,000 this year. Not bad for the aftermath of a college party weekend.
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