Parallel Sleep
Building A Consumer Brand From The Ground Up.
Brand Strategy · Product · DTC · Ecommerce · Marketing · Growth · Executive Leadership
After years of working with Denver Mattress, an opportunity became clear.
They knew how to make great sleep products. But digitally native brands were changing how consumers discovered, evaluated and bought them. Winning online required more than a great product. It required a clear audience, strong positioning, a differentiated brand and a direct relationship with the customer.
The opportunity wasn't simply to launch another pillow.
It was to build a new kind of business around one.
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The Opportunity
Start With The Consumer. Then Build The Product.
Rather than develop another product and figure out how to market it afterward, we started with the consumer—identifying an audience, understanding what mattered to them and finding an opportunity within an extremely crowded category.
The concept was fundamentally different from Denver Mattress's traditional business: create an independent premium consumer brand, develop a differentiated product around a specific audience, and sell it directly to them.
That idea eventually became Parallel.
Brand Director. Connector. Builder.
My Role
My role began before the brand or product existed: define the opportunity, build the strategy and assemble the team to bring it to market.
I operated as the client-side Brand Director, connecting Denver Mattress leadership and manufacturing with agencies, strategists, designers, developers, media partners, PR teams and freelancers.
Brand Strategy · Consumer Positioning · Product Development · Agency Selection · Creative Direction · Ecommerce · Marketing · Media · PR · Budgets · COGS + Margins · KPIs · Vendor Leadership
The job wasn't to personally execute every piece.
It was to establish the direction, bring together the right people and make sure everyone was building the same thing.
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Building The Team
From Agency Owner To Agency Client.
After 15 years building and running SPILLT, I was now on the other side of the table.
I researched and interviewed agency partners, developed RFPs, evaluated capabilities and costs, and selected the teams best suited to launch the business.
From there, I led and coordinated multiple agencies, internal Denver Mattress teams, freelancers, developers, manufacturing and marketing partners.
A Premium Product Built Around A Specific Customer.
Product + Positioning
In a saturated sleep category, differentiation couldn't come from another logo and another promise of better sleep.
Consumer research helped define the audience, purchase triggers, price sensitivity, use cases and lifestyle fit. The resulting premium pillow combined differentiated product features with a larger brand story around better sleep and kindness.
Product, consumer and brand were developed as one system.
Business Model + Purpose
“The World’s Kindest Pillow”
Denver Mattress already had an established relationship with The Salvation Army. We saw an opportunity to build that relationship directly into Parallel's business model.
The idea was simple: buy one, donate one.
For every Parallel pillow purchased, another would be donated through The Salvation Army to someone in need.
It gave the brand a meaningful point of difference while turning an existing partnership into something practical, scalable and central to the brand itself.
Building The DTC Business
From Manufacturer To Consumer Brand.
Parallel required an entirely new customer experience outside Denver Mattress's traditional retail model.
Working with our partners, we built the ecommerce business from scratch—Shopify, merchandising, messaging, email, landing pages, photography, video and supporting content.
We then built the system behind it: KPIs, media budgets, marketing cadence, performance reviews and accountability across the teams responsible for growth.
Paid social, search, email, PR and other channels were evaluated against inventory, COGS, margin and customer acquisition.
Brand decisions had to work as business decisions.
Building Credibility
Giving A New Brand A Reason To Be Trusted.
A completely unknown consumer brand entering the sleep category needed credibility quickly.
PR became an important part of the launch and growth strategy, with outreach designed to put Parallel in front of trusted national audiences and reviewers.
The product ultimately received coverage and recognition from outlets including The Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone, Yahoo and CNN, helping establish third-party validation for a brand that had not existed months earlier.
The Result
From An Idea To A New Consumer Business.
Parallel demonstrated how Denver Mattress's manufacturing expertise could be used in an entirely new way—connecting product development, consumer insight, brand, e-commerce and marketing within a standalone DTC brand.
After approximately 18–20 months, the systems, partnerships and brand infrastructure were established well enough to transition Parallel back to Denver Mattress's internal team.
The goal was never to make myself indispensable.
It was to build something that could keep working after I left.