Instead of relaxing in bed after a hard day of study at university, two young entrepreneurs are selling them.

Now, co-founders of The FlatPack Company, Angus Syme and Cameron Leigh, are on track to sell 3000 beds and turn over more than six figures in their third year of business.

The duo created their online bed retailer, which is designed to offer tertiary students in New Zealand affordable, brand-new beds, delivered to them on the day they move into their flat.

The idea came about while studying at Otago University in 2018, where they discovered the cost of buying beds while flatting was too high.

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“One thing everyone needs is a bed, but the one thing not everyone has is money,” Syme said.

“We were broke university students ourselves, and we needed an affordable option for somewhere to sleep.”

They saw it as a project to help them and their friends out, and sourced secondhand beds in Dunedin, and then sold and delivered them to all their friends.

But after hundreds of students needed the same help, the pair decided to start the FlatPack Company, putting $5000 of their profits into sourcing mattresses from overseas.

They stayed up on the phone to bed manufactures in China and Malaysia until 2am most nights, battling the language barrier.

“After three months we finally managed to land contracts with these bed manufacturers. And what that allowed us to do is design our own mattresses and our own frames that were specific for the needs of university students across New Zealand.”

The company offers three different types of mattresses and two bed frames, which come in cardboard boxes and take 15 minutes to assemble.

In their first year of business they sold 1200 mattresses and bed bases, in their second they sold 1600 and this year they are well on track to 3000.

“The whole model is positive cash flow, so we pre-sell most of the products and then go to the manufacturer and place the order,” Leigh said.

They pair adopted an e-commerce business model and focused their marketing across social media with quirky videos.

“We were taking a new fun approach to what is such a stodgy market in New Zealand.”

The pair graduated with finance and accounting degrees in 2020 and 2021, and although they were somewhat helpful, a lot of what they’re doing has been self-taught.

They’re now moving beyond the student market, and expanding to the public as well as the Australian market, Symes said.

“What we’ve done without knowing is solved a fundamental problem in the New Zealand bed market.

“It’s a natural next step for us,” Leigh said.