When the pandemic hit Newport, Rhode Island, Mark Aramli knew he had to give back. BedJet, the sleep technology company he founded there, was thriving. The city he loved was not. Restaurant workers lost shifts. Hotels sat empty. The seasonal economy that Newport depends on had simply stopped. “We realized we were doing very well during a time when a lot of people were suffering,” said Aramli. “And the right thing to do was to give back.”
That decision became the Aramli Foundation. Since 2020, BedJet profits have funded more than $2.6 million in grants and endowments directed to local charities focused on food security, shelter, mental health, and education for underprivileged families and children who the Foundation describes as simply needing “a lift.” Nearly every dollar has stayed in the community surrounding BedJet’s Newport headquarters. The whole company has stood behind it, volunteering together at food kitchens and showing up for the organizations they support.
Amazon is a great place for new companies to launch a product and reach new customers at scale, cost effectively.
None of it, explained Aramli, would exist without an invention, a Kickstarter, and Amazon.
Aramli’s first job out of engineering school was working for the company that designed and built spacesuits for NASA, where he helped support the climate systems that kept astronauts comfortable in the most hostile environment in the universe. As a chronic hot sleeper, he wondered why couldn’t beds have a climate system of their own. He held onto that idea for more than a decade, then in 2013, he built the first prototype on his kitchen table cobbling together parts from a broken hand dryer and electronic parts ordered from Amazon.
A successful Kickstarter campaign in 2015 gave Mark Aramli the runway to start shipping. The same year, he built his own website and launched in Amazon’s store.
The first prototype was built on Mark Aramli’s kitchen table cobbling together parts from a broken hand dryer and electronic parts ordered from Amazon.
To get the company off the ground, Aramli emptied his life savings, maxed out his credit cards, and mortgaged his house and his mother’s house. A successful Kickstarter campaign in 2015 gave him the runway to start shipping. The same year, he built his own website and launched in Amazon’s store. Amazon, he said, was “a better cost of customer acquisition than any other sales channel.”
Many customers these days want to know more about your company and the other products you have to offer. Amazon’s Brand Store gives us a place to share that information with our customers.
Sellers in Amazon’s store can choose how they fulfill orders, and for Aramli that choice mattered. He started with Fulfillment by Merchant (FBM), which allowed his team to manage inventory and ship directly from his own warehouse. Later, he added Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), which lets him outsource order fulfillment to Amazon and offer his customers free, two-day shipping through Prime. A hybrid of the two turned out to be the right fit, using FBA for his highest-volume products and FBM for lower-volume accessories, balancing the pros of each. “We found that to be of tremendous value in terms of getting products to the customer quickly and making our logistics as a growing company much easier,” he said. Gen AI-powered A+ Content and his Brand Store page on Amazon became his storytelling tools, a place to show customers who BedJet is, at scale.
The company employs dozens of local Newport residents, each of whom holds equity in the company.
Participating in Prime Day through exclusive deals is an integrated lever he can use to bring customers to their Amazon store. Aramli said they’ve been “spectacular for the business,” exposing his company to “millions of eyeballs who wouldn’t normally be exposed to our brand.” As a result, BedJet has grown more than 20% annually for ten consecutive years, shipping over 360,000 units to bedrooms in 40 countries and developing a cult following along the way. The entire USA gymnastics team slept with BedJets at the Paris Olympics, and doctors who work with patients going through menopause say it does more for night sweats and hot flashes than any of their prescription drugs can.
Back in Newport, BedJet continues to change lives. Most people in the town know the Aramli family, and they know BedJet’s headquarters. It’s the first building visitors see when entering the island. Nearby, they’re constructing a new dedicated 10,000-square-foot facility. The company employs dozens of local Newport residents, each of whom holds equity in the company. Aramli has built a business whose success belongs to the entire team and that success directly impacts the community.
We’re not just selling a product to make money. We’re now selling a product that actually improves people’s lives.
“One of the things I’m most proud about BedJet,” Aramli said, “has been our ability to help families with children in our local community with basic human needs. There is a tremendous satisfaction that comes with creating a product that then creates a profitable growing company. But there’s an even bigger satisfaction with being able to take a piece of those profit streams and direct them to people who need them more than anyone else.”