#13 - He Made Millions From... Blankets, Bean Bags & Candles?

**John Fiorentino** (0:02)
This is the secret, everyone focuses other shit. It doesn't matter.
What's your conversion rate or this or like this? It's like, wait, what are you selling?
And whenever I sit down, I always talk about the product because that shit is the most exciting. That's why we're here, that's what we're selling. I'm not selling some arbitrage on Facebook or like access to an email list or some sale. It's like, no, no, no, it's so fucking simple. I make the best bean bag ever. That's it. That's why we're here.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:34)
Thank you for coming. I appreciate it.

**John Fiorentino** (0:35)
Yeah, I know, thanks for having me.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:36)
I got a message from my friend, Zach, who's over at Founders Fund. And the good thing is when I started the podcast, it was just my friends.
So I was like, okay, I know I can have like these 10 guests on. These are my friends. I know they have good stories. And I was like, I don't know what I'll do after that. But the good thing was that Zach and others basically, once they heard a few episodes, they're like, oh, you gotta have this person on the podcast. And so he sent me one of those emails. Oh, you've gotta have John on the podcast. So you are the founder of, I don't know what the company is actually called, but the product I've seen for years called the Gravity Blanket. What's the actual company called?

**John Fiorentino** (1:07)
Yeah, so basically there's Gravity Blanket, Moon Pod and then this new one called Birthdate Candle. So I guess I have my John Holdco thing. And I'll spin up these companies and kind of do a product by product and put a team around them and then sort of walk away or grow it or whatever. So Gravity is its own beast and monster with a partner, Moon Pod. I have a team running that one and then this new one, Birthdate Candle, also a team on that one.
And it's all of these little things and they're spinning them up, running them, doubling down on what's working and then continuing to iterate and launch and double down.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:45)
Awesome, so I'm excited because I have a few different business fantasies.
People have sexual fantasies. They wanna role play, they wanna do whatever. I have these business fantasies. One of my business fantasies is to do a mega successful Kickstarter, which you've done. So you've did a Kickstarter, I think raised almost five million bucks. Is that right? Five?
Close to five.

**John Fiorentino** (2:03)
Gravity was 4.7 and then Moon Pod was like 1.4.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:07)
Okay, so even higher than five total. But one of my fantasies is to do a super successful Kickstarter. The other is to create this like a viral product. Basically, when I saw the Snuggie, I was like, wow, this is genius. This guy, somebody made a comfortable blanket, essentially. I remember having several brainstorms with friends being like, what's another Snuggie? What's another Snuggie? And you kind of, not to make a joke of it, but you kind of did another Snuggie.

**John Fiorentino** (2:31)
That was the joke. That was the joke with the team that we were doing this. We would take breaks and I would walk around with my partner and we'd be like, how hysterical is this gonna be if we actually make the next Snuggie?
And you know, because one of our manufacturers, their big claim to fame was that they made the Snuggie and we were like, oh shit, like what if, wouldn't it be crazy if this thing caught on? And like, you know, and now it's like, you know, you hear weighted blankets and Gravity Blankets all over the place and it's like, I caught up with my partner in LA a couple of weeks ago and we were kind of just like, yeah, like, we're not gonna say it's on the level of Snuggie, but it was like, yeah, we kind of, kind of did it.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:09)
Yeah, it smells a little bit like it, it tastes a little bit like it, it might be.

**John Fiorentino** (3:12)
What we joked about, yeah.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:14)
Okay, so for those who don't know, what is the Gravity Blanket in sort of a couple sentences?

**John Fiorentino** (3:18)
Yeah, so these sentences, it is basically a weighted heavy blanket. We have a 25 pound blanket, we have a 20 pound blanket and a 15 pound blanket. And basically, the line is that sleeping with 10% of your body weight on top of you is an incredible anti-anxiety relief tool.
So you have better sleep, de-stress, and it sort of feels like this hugging sensation on your body that has like some pretty real effects on your body and mind.