Creator of viral crowdfunded products including the Gravity Blanket and Moon Pod, which together raised over $6M on Kickstarter.
John Fiorentino's Gravity Blanket Kickstarter raised $4.7M and his MoonPod beanbag Kickstarter raised $1.4M, both before manufacturing at scale.
“Gravity was $4.7 million and then MoonPod was like $1.4 million.”
Fiorentino was building a pillow when a sleep scientist mentioned in passing that sleeping under 10% of your body weight is powerful anti-anxiety relief. He dropped the pillow, made a DIY weighted blanket, and fell asleep in 10 minutes.
“And in one of the sessions with a sleep scientist, she very passively was like, oh yeah. And like after the blanket, you should look into sleeping with 10% of your body weight. And I was like, I was like, wait, what did you just say?”
Steal thisListen for the offhand remark in expert conversations — the throwaway line is often the real product.
Rather than wait for manufacturing, Fiorentino bought weighted pellets on Amazon and sewed them between two sheets to make a 10-pound blanket and test the concept on himself.
“I basically went on Amazon, bought these weighted pellets, and then sewed them into two sheets, basically.”
Steal thisPrototype the product yourself with cheap materials before raising money or manufacturing.
Fiorentino notes that pillows were arguably the bigger market opportunity, citing that the MyPillow founder makes roughly $400 million a year, but he chose the weighted blanket anyway because it excited him more.
“MyPillow guy is making like $400 million a year or whatever.”
Fiorentino picked the weighted blanket over a bigger pillow market because it passed the 'interestingness test' — he'd happily talk about it forever. Shaan argues following your gut on what's genuinely interesting is an underrated filter.
“you just did the thing that was most interesting to you, not the thing necessarily that looked like the most beautiful business on paper. It passed the interestingness test. Yeah. And I don't know what you think, but there's something to that. There's something following like your gut on what's interesting to you.”
Steal thisFilter ideas by which one you'd happily talk about forever, not just by TAM.
Broke and between companies, Fiorentino built thebermutalist.com, a curated couch-surfing list, got 500 signups, and traded promises of a future Bermuda trip for places to sleep while he developed the blanket.
“I made this website, thebermutalist.com, and I basically said like, the landing page was like, sign up. And this is a curated list of the best people. And we all let each other stay on each other's couches. And so I sent it to one friend.”
Gravity's mood board was 'Tesla for sleep': a science-forward, premium feel launched while Elon Musk was at peak cultural worship. Right branding, messaging, audience, and timing combined to make the Kickstarter explode.
“We played into this whole, like our mood board, as stupid as it sounds, was like Tesla. For sleep, right? And so we did Gravity Blanket and we gave it this whole science feel.”
Steal thisAnchor a new product's brand to a culturally beloved company as shorthand for its vibe.
Fiorentino argues that decision trees and A/B testing make you forget the gut conviction you felt the first time the product worked. Real product insight requires a vision and a bet, not just optimization.
“this is why like, you know, quant hedge funds don't, don't really work. And like why A/B testing your way to product market fit doesn't really work. There still comes a time where you have to have real product insight, confidence, and a vision. And just take that bet on your gut.”
Steal thisUse data to surface options, but make the final product call on conviction, not the A/B test.
Shaan frames every product as a promise to the customer. Gravity's winning tagline — 'a 25-pound blanket for sleep, stress, and anxiety' — packed three promises the product could reliably deliver.
“we landed on the tagline that really worked for us was a 25-pound blanket for sleep, stress, and anxiety. And it took a while to get there to find that like simple sentence.”
Steal thisDistill your product into one sentence of promises you can actually deliver on.
Fiorentino's core thesis: founders obsess over conversion rates and funnels when the real lever is a genuinely remarkable product. If people naturally want to talk about what you sell, the rest is just execution.
“It's a viral product, but this is the secret. Everyone focuses so much on other shit that doesn't matter. It's like, oh, you know, like, what's your conversion rate? Or this, or like this. It's like, wait, what are you selling?”
Steal thisBefore optimizing funnels, make sure the product itself is worth talking about.
Fiorentino's newest product is a line of 365 candles, one for each day of the year, each printed with an astrology reading of strengths and weaknesses for people born that day. You buy the candle for your birthday.
“I had this idea about what if you took this whole, you know, astrology text around what it means to be born on your birthday and we put those on candles. So we have 365 candles, one for every day of the year. You buy the one that's on your birthday and we give you basically this whole reading”
Steal thisTurn an existing body of content (like astrology) into a personalized physical product keyed to a date.
Fiorentino argues every purchase is a story you tell yourself — why SmartWater, why this shirt today. A product that lets you tell yourself a good story about who you are is what wins, regardless of whether the claim is 'true.'
“what's the most powerful thing in the world? It's a story. And it, it like, what do you do when you pick up something? You're like, okay, water. Why do you choose that water? SmartWater. Oh, this is gonna help me with this and this. It's a story that you tell yourself and it's a promise that you make to yourself.”
Steal thisSell the story a customer gets to tell themselves, not just the spec sheet.
Fiorentino says making his first million didn't feel great, echoing a Jim Carrey line. The truly freeing experience was having less than zero and learning to survive — after which money became just a scorecard that didn't change his lifestyle.
“the most valuable thing from all of this shit was having absolutely zero money, like less than zero money, and figuring out how to survive off of that. And I've, you know, zero has never felt better, and it's the most freeing thing. And now money is just this thing that exists that's sort of a scorecard”