About Shanir Kol

Shanir Kol is a seasoned entrepreneur and business world revolutionary. Originally from Jerusalem, Israel, he moved to the United States in adulthood, launching a fast-growing business career. Today, Shanir is dedicated to improving the lives of consumers by giving them user-friendly access to premium products at a reasonable price.

As the CEO of SleePare, one of the web’s most trusted mattress store and sleep specialists, Shanir works to translate the needs and wants of homeowners, tenants, landlords, and other customers into a completely streamlined, expert-vetted database for simplistic shopping and ordering. On a daily basis, he uses his extensive business experience, solid professional connections, and trailblazing ideas to change the world of home goods sales from every angle.

Shanir Kol & SleePare

A long-time furniture connoisseur, Shanir Kol began his entrepreneurial career in 1999. Brimming with a combination of ideas and motivation, he longed to take his passion and turn it into a business.

“Being able to get up in the morning and do what you really like to do is probably one of the biggest gifts you can get,” Shanir said in a recent interview. “To be excited about being able to think of ideas and execute them and do things your way; it’s an amazing gift that I’ve got the chance to do that.”

Bolstered by his education at the California State University Business School in Northridge, CA, he focused his attention on consumer goods and the incorporation of fast-growing technological advances to improve the shopper experience. Specifically, he wanted to help people make more informed purchase decisions in an effort to reduce waste, prevent financial loss, and improve the overall loyalty of customers.

As an entrepreneur, Shanir has always had a thirst for innovation. Prior to founding SleePare, his passion for helping customers make smarter purchases inspired him to start 4rihut.co.il—the first company to offer high-end furniture under a “Try and Buy” business model. This unprecedented approach allowed consumers to do a ‘trial run’ of a product before making their purchase, increasing the chances of long-term satisfaction with their purchase choice.

When the “Try and Buy” concept was first introduced, the idea wasn’t well-received by investors. As with any new idea, time needed to pass before investors could feel assured that the venture wouldn’t lose them money or drive away their customers. Thankfully, Shanir’s existing experience in the business world boosted his confidence, and he chose to persist with the endeavor. Eventually, he found a business partner who was willing to put their time and money into the project. Little did either of them know, this was the start of a partnership that would span for over a decade and lead to many more innovative projects.

The inspiration for SleePare actually started in 2017, before the company was even founded. Shanir launched a U.S.-based website for mattress and bedding reviews. Bolstered by decades of experience in the furniture industry, Shanir knew that sampling products and reading reviews were important steps of a smart purchase, especially when a customer is unable to try out the product themselves.

“We know how impossible it can be to find the perfect mattress online,” Shanir says. “It’s like shopping for clothes with your eyes blindfolded. You have a chance at getting it right, but the odds are stacked against you.”

Over time, the “Try and Buy” concept was a great success, inspiring Shanir to found another company using the same business model as 4rihut, and fueled by the existing mattress shopper website. So, he assembled a team and opened his first brick-and-mortar location: a SleePare showroom in Manhattan. There, customers could select samples online and try them in person at the showroom—making them more likely to find their ‘perfect’ fit mattress.

Through the founding of SleePare, Shanir led his team toward the company’s main mission: to take the mattress industry into the modern age. In short, Shanir took an outdated practice—buying a mattress in a traditional store—and updated it with the help of the most current, top-tier technology. The result? A shopping experience that still keeps SleepPare customers coming back for more.

Now an industry giant, SleePare has become a reliable resource for customers all around the world. With a vast selection of products—and even an educational blog to help customers learn more about their future purchases—most SleePare customers say they are ‘never going back’.

Today, the “Try and Buy” concept is an increasingly popular approach in the eCommerce world, met with enthusiasm by customers shopping for mattresses. As other online mattress companies have emerged in the industry, SleePare continues to dominate the market. With an ever-improving array of options for busy shoppers, SleePare “hybrid stores” make it easy to try out mattresses in one of their customer-friendly showrooms—then order their own product online, where it can be simplistically delivered straight to their home. In a nutshell, the SleePare business model incorporates the best of both worlds: the brick-and-mortar mattress store and the online marketplace.

More about SleePare Innovations

Of course, Shanir’s success in taking a tired concept and effectively rearranging it for the modern shopper wasn’t without setbacks. When the pandemic hit in 2020, like other stores, Shanir had to essentially start from scratch—as the immense change the pandemic wrought caused massive layoffs and turnover.

After hours upon hours of overtime, and immense dedication from his remaining team, not only did Shanir manage to rebuild his company, but he also succeeded in operating profitable locations—and an online store—during the stagnated economic times of the early pandemic.

Thanks to Shanir’s tenacity and drive to help others make informed and beneficial purchasing decisions, SleePare is thriving. Shanir hopes to continue expanding SleePare to new markets to help even more people find their perfect mattress, reduce mattress waste, and provide customers with a one-of-a-kind mattress shopping experience they won’t find anywhere else.

With the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic moving into our rearview mirror, people are eager to get back to the way things were in many respects. Thankfully, the many changes the pandemic wrought were not without their share of benefits—one of which was the rapid advancement of technology to accommodate home-based work, socialization, and shopping.

At this point, it’s pretty obvious that online shopping isn’t going anywhere—and customers are more than happy with that. However, as online shopping has become more mainstream—and, in some cases, the only option for purchasing certain items in certain locations—people have started to miss the in-person shopping experience. In addition, there are some purchase decisions that are easier to make if you can experience the product firsthand: such as with items like clothing, fabrics, home renovation supplies, and—you guessed it—mattresses. As many consumers will tell you: there’s nothing so disappointing as purchasing a new mattress and then finding out it feels too firm or too soft for your particular taste.

Thankfully, SleepPare customers can get the in-person shopping experience they crave—and the online convenience they want and need. All they have to do is walk into a SleePare showroom and start trying things out.

“Our mission is to help people save money without compromising the ability to match the right mattress to their unique body type,” Shanir says. “Even the newest technologies used to virtually describe these mattresses can’t replace the in-person test at a showroom.”

All of this is possible thanks to the comprehensive nature of SleePare’s proprietary website software, shoppers can receive informed recommendations, fueled by top-tier AI technology. This program gathers feedback from various sites all across the web, analyzing a vast range of data to calculate average quality scores for every single mattress. Using authentic data science to analyze market statistics and real customer reviews, the SleePare directory offers visitors unbiased quality ratings of mattresses from hundreds of top brands. The site’s comparison tool surveys customer preferences in terms of price, durability, and comfort level—so that each customer can quickly and effectively find a sample that fits their needs and preferences. In fact, SleePare customers are also able to vote for their favorite mattresses, prompting the team to rotate their products based on customer needs and interests.

We must have gone through 300-400 different models already,” Shanir explains. “As a result, we always have the very best selection of online mattresses ready on the floor, by customers’ votes.”

This unique community model allows customers to truly influence SleePare’s selection—similar to a social networking platform. It also allows shoppers to see first-hand accounts of how well each mattress worked for others, and why.

“People can share opinions with each other through commenting and relaying experiences online. Samples that people find interesting and valuable become on-trend.”

The convenient web search and review tool also includes dozens of custom filters that customers can use to refine their search—including budget, firmness level, type of filler, zone of support, and the presence of active cooling systems. Then, once they choose their ideal mattress options, the customer can meet a specialist at the showroom to make their final decision. At this point, SleePare showroom guests are welcomed into an easy-going no-pressure environment.

For decades, mattress stores and other showrooms have garnered a bad reputation for harboring sleazy salespeople with pushy—sometimes even shady—business tactics. However, SleePare is changing that stereotype, one customer at a time. In SleePare showrooms, you will never find salespeople hassling shoppers or attempting to get them to make a purchase that isn’t ideal for their preferences, budget, or lifestyle. Instead, every guest is welcomed warmly and allowed to test out showroom mattresses without interruption.

But, of course, SleePare experts are just around the corner to answer any questions or address any concerns—supported with the help of the company’s proprietary product selection software. They help pair each guest with a specific mattress based on their preferred sleeping position, sleep challenges (temperature regulation, sleep disorders, weight, injuries, chronic health conditions, and more) and other lifestyle preferences—taking the time to educate them based on their needs. This part of the store model brings in that human connection customers often love about a traditional, in-person shopping experience. When asked about this aspect of the SleePare experience, Shanir confirmed that it has been a main focus of the business since the very beginning. He wanted customers to leave the showroom feeling like they had just had an unforgettable, even life-changing, experience—one that made them feel empowered, satisfied, and cared-for.

“Communicating with clients and listening to their needs has always been an essential part of my work. Now, it’s part of what SleePare does best,” Shanir says.

“Finding the perfect mattress has always been the second worst experience of my life after visiting the dentist,” said one customer. And it’s no wonder; sleep is a crucial part of the human condition—and a poor-quality mattress can make or break a person’s experience.

“We spend up to a third of our lives asleep. It’s an important part of being healthy; it affects our moods, immune system, hormones, and even our ability to cope with pain.”

And this isn’t just a mattress showroom giant talking; these are cold, hard facts. “Sleep affects almost every tissue in our bodies,” says Dr. Michael Twery, a sleep expert at NIH. “It affects growth and stress hormones, our immune system, appetite, breathing, blood pressure and cardiovascular health.” So, of course, it stands to reason that—with the wrong mattress in your home—your entire life can go downhill fast. Alternatively, getting the right mattress can change your life forever. It can even help ease certain health issues, such as chronic pain, GERD, and sleep apnea.

Thankfully, when you purchase a mattress at a SleePare showroom, the entire staff is dedicated to helping you find the best-possible mattress for you. After all, a mattress can affect a person’s entire life, from the decor they choose to the sleep they get to how they go about their day after an especially good (or especially bad) night’s rest. In short, at SleePare, a mattress isn’t just a place to sleep; it’s a contribution to your lifestyle.

SleePare experts are so committed to the health and well-being of their guests, they have even gone so far as to provide chiropractic referrals for customers with spinal, joint, and alignment issues. This heartfelt care for customers, paired with the superior knowledge of the SleePare staff, has effectively cemented the brand’s reputation amongst its clientele. As a result, the company has been able to improve the sleep quality of tens of thousands of satisfied customers—and counting.

“We’ve had customers drive for hours—cover over a hundred miles and even cross state lines—just to come see us,” Shanir says. “I see people visiting us from two states over and take the full day to drive here and then drive back home the full 3,4,5 hours away which is really overwhelming which I didn’t see happening. But people are really concerned with sleeping well and their health so they take the effort and it’s great to see.”

As successful as the company’s endeavors have been, there is more benefit to be found here. While SleePare’s “Try and Buy” business model was originally designed to improve a customer’s shopping experience—the innovation has also had an unexpected, yet profoundly positive, impact on a greater level.

SleePare’s Carbon Footprint (or lack thereof)

Just as SleePare is so much more than a mattress store, Shanirl is much more than a company CEO. As an entrepreneur, his mission to match customers with their perfect mattress has another goal: to diminish returns and—in turn—save thousands upon thousands of mattresses from going straight into landfills. This strategy has already made a tremendous positive impact in the counteraction of worldwide waste, contributing to the lowering of the carbon footprint of the global mattress industry.

In traditional mattress stores, the mattress disposal process goes like this: when a mattress is purchased online and then subsequently returned by the customer, it is typically discarded and left in a landfill—where it could remain for generations. While this procedure has a good intention—since used mattresses are difficult to clean and, therefore, to disinfect for safe use by a later customer—it also leaves a lot of non-biodegradable materials in landfills. This type of waste accumulates dramatically, often leeching dangerous chemicals into the earth and, in turn, harming our environment overall. Plus, whether customers dispose of the mattress themselves or end up returning it to the store, this result also increases the amount of air pollution caused by transporting the mattress to the landfill.

In comparison, the SleePare model has resulted in a dramatic reduction in mattress waste. Because customers are given the opportunity to test out their mattress of interest before purchasing it, they are more likely to be satisfied with their ultimate purchase. Despite a very accommodating “100 Satisfaction” Guarantee (100% satisfaction within 100 days, or 100% return), very few customers end up returning their purchases. This lessens the waste disposed by each customer and reduces SleePare’s carbon footprint—and the costs of shipping the return to where it needs to go. Overall, SleePare and their partnered brands have reduced their rate of return to about 5%. That’s more than 70% of the typical online mattress shopping return rate.

This approach has been so successful, many other mattress sellers have followed suit—implementing the “Try Before You Buy” model for their showrooms. As a result, thousands upon thousands of mattresses have stayed out of landfills and in the homes of satisfied customers. So, in a way, you could say that SleePare has made an even greater environmental impact, since these competitors likely would not have adopted this practice if not for SleePare’s innovation.

Of course, even with a return and exchange rate of 20% or lower, around one million mattresses end up in landfills each year. This number is just a fraction of the number of mattresses sold online—over six million in the United States alone (and around 20 million worldwide)—but Shanir and his team are determined to make that number much smaller. After all, with each product occupying about 40 cubic feet of space, that’s the equivalent of about 150 UPS trucks filled, top-to-bottom with mattresses. That sort of impact can add up quickly.

“Mattresses are huge. There’s a lot of materials and resources that are needed to make one mattress and I don’t think people are fully aware of that,” Shanir says. “A lot of C02 is involved in the packing and the transporting process and the numbers are so big when you think of all of those mattresses that are manufactured and almost immediately going to the landfill.”

Even biodegradable mattresses don’t decompose nearly as quickly as they need to, due to their immense size, and they cannot be compressed as efficiently as other trash. Such a massive landfill occupancy significantly contributes to negative ecological and environmental effects and hazardous working conditions on a global level.

The issue of climate impact in the mattress industry has only intensified with the use of more convenient, cost-effective shopping concepts such as the “bed in a box”. These mattresses are specifically created to roll and compress into a shippable box—making shipping, delivery, and installation faster and easier.

While this idea seems great in theory, and many customers have already invested in purchases of their own, it subsequently created more problems. With this option, customers were able to impulsively purchase a mattress without researching to determine whether or not the product would actually be a good fit for them. In addition, the increase of resources used to design, source, produce, pack, and ship these new, more convenient products has resulted in a significant increase in worldwide carbon emissions—with no reduction in overall return rates. This means that 20% of these mattresses are still returned and thrown into landfills. In the end, this booming market creates more problems than it solves—contributing to the global waste pandemic in spades.

Thankfully, while not all mattress retail companies seem to be as concerned about the health of the planet, waste-reducing strategies, such as the “Try and Buy” model, are demonstrating to market-hungry companies that materials and resources saved through environmental initiatives means more money in their pockets.

In comparison: since the very beginning, Shanir has been dedicated to making SleePare the best it can possibly be—including its environmental efforts. With the increasing dangers of climate change looming over all of us, incorporating more efforts to lower the carbon footprint is more important to him than ever.

Because of this, SleePare has already implemented ongoing planet care initiatives dedicated to further reducing the company’s environmental impact for generations to come. In addition to helping tens of thousands of people improve their health and sleep quality with an informed mattress purchase—and putting their revenue to work nurturing the U.S. economy—the company has already formed initiatives to help clean, sanitize, and donate used mattresses to those in need. In this way, they’re hoping to help even more people and reduce waste at the same time.

SleePare’s Showroom Success

From helping customers find their perfect mattress to reducing environmental impact to giving consumers the ultimate shopping experience, the SleePare team has transformed the mattress industry from a high-pressure, high-waste endeavor into a streamlined, human-centric business model. The company has effortlessly immersed itself into the U.S economy, partnering with top mattress brands such as Nectar, Helix, Winkbeds, Puffy, Brooklyn Bedding, Dreamcloud, and more. Such mutually beneficial partnerships allow these companies to serve more customers—while the SleePare business model encourages brands to pull focus away from profit and toward giving each guest a VIP experience.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without Shanir Kol—the source of SleePare’s genius. And yet, Shanir seems to maintain the perfect balance of proud and humble:

“The thousands of positive reviews from our customers, the stats rolling in about our planetary impact, the dedication and satisfaction of our dedicated team—those are the things that inspire me every day. They motivate me to keep going—to keep building SleePare into the ultimate mattress resource for customers all around the world.”

Within these aspirations, it is not difficult to see one of Kol’s greatest strengths as an entrepreneur: his motivation to consistently progress and advance.

“Obviously when you are operating in over five states there are constantly challenges,” Shanir says. “You need to have that internal strength to keep going and not let yourself get tired or slow down with all of those challenges that you face every day.”

With their recent span of metrics rolling in, it is clear that Shanir doesn’t intend to let adversity slow him down one bit. Since the initial concept was born in 2017, all the way through its official founding in the next year, SleePare has been exponentially growing. Starting with a single physical location in downtown Manhattan, the absolute flood of positive public feedback led to the opening of a second showroom (Washington, D.C.) the very next year. The company’s momentum has only increased as they established a showroom in midtown Miami (2020) and another in Boston metro (2021). After only five years in business and over 10,000 mattress sales nationwide, they opened a 5,000-square-foot showroom in mid-city Los Angeles. As of today, SleePare has built two additional showrooms—one in New York City (New York) and another in Tysons Corner (Virginia)—and has generated over ten million dollars through a combination of direct and affiliate sales. Shanir’s five-year plan for the company includes over 30 total locations, spanning across the United States and Canada.

Seeing the company’s success, and the immense satisfaction of their customers, has been especially gratifying to Shanir. Not only has he been able to help nurture the U.S. economy and support hundreds of American workers, he has been able to be of greater service to the public by helping them improve a function that is so vital to their mood and overall health.

“I’m being told by people how happy they are just to be able to use our services and I don’t think a lot of businesses get that reaction from customers on a daily basis, so that’s really rewarding every time,” Shanir says. “Meeting people in the store and seeing how happy they are just to learn that we exist makes me happy every single time. When I meet people in the stores and the first sentence out of their mouths is ‘oh my god I’m so happy you guys exist I’ve been going crazy for so long looking for a mattress’.”

Keeping all of this in mind, it’s clear that a visit to a SleePare showroom is not going to be your average mattress shopping experience. In fact, thanks to Shanir’s innovation, you’ll probably never go back to your old way of shopping again. Gone are the days when you had to choose between spending the day being pestered by sales clerks or purchasing a less-than-ideal mattress online. Now, you can really, truly have both.

Shanir says it’s all in a day’s work for him and his team. But, with such a vast, positive impact already in the works, we believe that it is so much more than that.