A pair of entrepreneurs are hoping a Finnish tradition of putting your baby to sleep in a cardboard box can catch on in the United States, and they want to help new moms and dads be more prepared for parenthood in the process.
Shawn Bercuson, one of the first employees at Groupon, and Catherine Merritt, the founder of Chicago startup Mumzy, recently launched Finnbin, a startup that provides a cardboard box sleeper for newborns and hand-selected products for new parents.
A baby box might sound foreign to American parents, but it's a practice that's been used for decades in Finland. The tradition began in the 1930s as Finland was looking to curb its high infant mortality rate (65 out of 1,000 babies were dying). So the government began to give all new mothers the padded cardboard box--which improved safety with its four walls--and also came filled with everyday essentials to take care of their newborn. Finland today has one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates.
Finnbin takes a similar approach. Its box is double supported, has padded inserts, and comes with a water resistant cover and cotton fitted sheet. It's designed for children to sleep in for about six months, Merritt said, and helps protect against sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. The boxes allow parents to sleep in the same room as their newborn, without having their child in their same bed, Merritt said.
Baby boxes are starting to gain traction in the US, as states like Alabama, Ohio and New Jersey are making boxes free to all families of newborns.
Finnbin allows parents to buy just the box, or a "fully loaded" option with $800 worth of items for new parents, like onesies, sleep sacks, soaps, nail clippers, nursing pads and diapers. The startup's most expensive offering costs $450. The box by itself is $65.
"It's really this one stop shop," Merritt said. "It's like a baby registry in a box."
The brainchild of Bercuson, Finnbin launched last December and quickly brought on Merritt as a co-founder. Merritt had just sold Mumzy, a crowdfunding site for moms to sell their wares. She declined to name Mumzy's buyer, other than to say it was a "well known tech leader in Chicago," who absorbed Mumzy into the new company she's founding.
With Bercuson's startup experience and Merritt's familiarity with the new mom e-commerce space, the two think they have a winning combination. Finnbin is currently in discussions with major CPG brands about partnership opportunities, and they're close to exceeding their 1st year revenue projections, Merritt said.
Images via Finnbin
