<p><img src="https://static6.businessinsider.com/image/60832a0308610f0018b0f39d-2400/Mike Grillo.jpg" border="0" alt="Mike Grillo" data-mce-source="Gravity Blanket"></p><p></p><bi-shortcode id="summary-shortcode" data-type="summary-shortcode" class="mceNonEditable" contenteditable="false">Summary List Placement</bi-shortcode><p>Mike Grillo left his agency career in 2016 to join the digital media boom, heading to science and tech-focused Futurism as its chief operating officer.</p><p>There, he helped develop and launch Gravity Blanket Holdings, best known for its weighted blankets that claim to promote sleep. The company shot up to $22 million in revenue after three years before <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/gravity-blanket-maker-sold-to-holding-company-for-direct-commerce-brands-11612954800">selling to direct-to-consumer network Win Brands Group</a> for an undisclosed sum in February.</p><p>Grillo, now CEO of Gravity Blanket Holdings, was new to product development, but he used his ad agency experience to diversify Gravity Blanket's products and marketing and get distribution in retailers like Nordstrom and Target.</p><p>The company was starting to develop new products aimed at its users, inspired by BuzzFeed's direct-to-consumer brand Homesick Candles, which was also acquired by Win Brands in 2018. Grillo said the team noticed that some of Futurism's most-read articles concerned the science of sleep.</p><p>"Weighted blankets were something we stumbled upon," Grillo said. "They'd been used in small patient populations for kids on the autism spectrum, people with tourettes, and in psychiatric hospitals during acute moments of stress as calming blankets. But never in a consumer setting."</p><p>After raising $3 million on Kickstarter, Gravity Blanket made nearly $10 million in revenue in 2017, Grillo said. Sales exploded due to Gravity Blanket being early to mass-market weighted blankets, as well as a "Good Morning America" appearance and distribution in some Sleep Number stores.</p><p>Grillo said he leaned on his PR and advertising experience (he's a vet of VaynerMedia and Ruder Finn) to lead the launch.</p><p>"I wrote the script for the Kickstarter video and did all the initial outreach," he said. "I stole a Cision login from an agency friend and pitched [Gravity Blanket] a lot while leveraging the Futurism audience."</p><p>Grillo said he went beyond the standard ad platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon used by many DTC brands. For example, the company ran radio ads in its first year and TV ads in its second. Gravity Blanket also scored distribution deals with Target and Nordstrom in 2020 and 2021.</p><p>The company faced some early challenges when it <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2017/05/12/gravity-blanket-anxiety-fda/">had to retract</a> claims about the blankets' ability to treat anxiety. It later commissioned a study with SleepScore Labs to produce more qualified data, Grillo said.</p><p>By the end of 2017, it became clear that Gravity Blanket could serve as a standalone business.</p><p>Futurism, like other digital publishers, was affected by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-updated-news-feed-algorithm-nightmare-for-publishers-2018-1">Facebook's 2018 News Feed algorithm changes.</a> The following year it sold to Singularity University, and Gravity Blanket spun off into a separate company led by Grillo and Futurism founder Alex Klokus.</p><p>"We needed to decouple them. Gravity was a product business doing very well, and [Futurism] was at the tail end of the media wave," Grillo said.</p><p>Gravity Blanket went on to develop other products, including weighted sleep masks and bath robes, to distinguish itself from copycat blankets that quickly popped up on Amazon and other platforms.</p><p>"If you don't have a brand, you compete on price, and everyone will always be able to produce it cheaper," Grillo said.</p><p>Gravity Blanket sold to Win Brands to develop a more permanent retail footprint and expand to wholesale. Gravity Blanket is profitable, but Grillo said its ability to grow was limited, and without a big retail presence, it's hard to acquire customers.</p><p>"I was messaging buyers on Linkedin and having success, but that's by no means the same as having someone working in sales for 10 years who knows buyers personally," he said.</p><p>Grillo said he's now focused on bringing new products to market and can't imagine working for an agency again.</p><p>"Buyers are just as difficult as clients if not more so, but there's less bureaucracy and nonsense," he said.</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gravity-blanket-ceo-on-launching-selling-successful-startup-2021-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story »</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/racist-origins-marijuana-prohibition-legalization-2018-2">How racism contributed to marijuana prohibition in the US</a></p>
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