Louisiana inventors Nita Gassen and Judy Schott will pitch t0 investors on ABC’s business reality show Shark Tank on Friday, February 26, at 7 p.m. Central. (WGNO-TV) The moms turned entrepreneurs, who tried dozens of innovations to save time-making beds, invented the Better Bedder sheet fastener in 2018.
“We were pinching ourselves the whole time we were on set pitching these billionaire Sharks,” Gassen said about their time on ‘Shark Tank’. “We still can’t believe they picked us to go on the show.”
The entrepreneurs from Mandeville have been hard at work for years after Schott, a New Orleans native and attorney by trade who serves as COO of a Northshore insurance company, searched every conceivable way to revolutionize and simplify making the bed – the morning chore everyone faces. Feeling determined, she called Gassen, a longtime friend, and Luling native, who immediately went to work on this new invention.
“I told Nita that we have to create something. This is a daily task, and it’s such a hassle,” Schott told her friend. “It just shouldn’t be so difficult to make a bed.”
While continuing to work full-time jobs, they used their nights and weekends to pursue this new endeavor. First, they wandered around a Home Depot together looking for inspiration, and then Gassen had an idea. She bought a sewing machine, and she taught herself how to sew.
Gassen, who quit her job selling liability insurance to lawyers six months ago to pursue this new endeavor on a full-time basis, intricately pieced together the first Better Bedder in 2018, which they describe as a giant headband that wraps around the sides of a mattress to keep both the fitted and flat sheets in place and then consider it a part of your mattress.
“Once the invention was created, we immediately realized this product could dramatically change the morning routine of millions of people who usually resist making the bed,” Gassen said.
But Gassen, hardly a seamstress, was not up to the task of churning out Better Bedders. Instead, the pair embarked on a search to find a manufacturer. After visiting facilities all over the region, they found the perfect sew shop in Algiers.
Before long, Gassen and Schott were selling Better Bedders at local markets and online. Their adult children began to help them, taking shifts at the sales booths and ramping up their online presence. As their hobby turned into a family affair, the positive customer reviews poured in, and they realized they were indeed really helping people.
Gassen and Schott are tightlipped about discussing the outcome of the ‘Shark Tank’ show or whether any of the five host equity investors agreed to bankroll the expansion of the Better Bedder fastener company’s production, marketing, and distribution. “You will just have to tune in on February 26 and find out,” said Gassen.
