Oct 30, 2018

Five Years

By

Cara Hunt

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It’s been two-and-a-half years since I wrote a blog post.
Back in March 2016, we’d built on our appearance on Dragons’ Den, broken into the US market with sales growing 1200% to 40,000 in the course of a year and taken our revolutionary travel pillow to the Oscars and the Golden Globes.

Things were going in the right direction, and all from our headquarters in the centre of Glasgow.

Trtl Update

What’s happened since?

We’ve just sold our one-millionth unit.
Our Trtl Pillow is on sale in 90 countries.
Our team has grown from two people with an idea to 26 people across two continents.
We now have strong manufacturing links in China and Scotland.
    We’re pretty pleased.

    Laurels?

    However, at Trtl, we're not ones to rest on our laurels; we’re all about encouraging people to live their best lives. In addition, we are passionate about design. Not for design’s sake alone, we favour design that works.
    In line with this ethos, today I can reveal something we’ve been designing, testing and perfecting for the last...Five Years
    …something we’ve sweated blood and tears over.
    Something we’ve been working on in secret for the best part of 2,000 days.
    Something that, we think, is going to revolutionise business and leisure travel throughout the world

    World First

    Today we launch a 30-day Kickstarter campaign for TRTL Pillow Plus, the world’s first fully-adjustable, ergonomic and breathable travel pillow.
    Allow me to explain what it’s all about...
    "Traditional travel pillows have never been effective, they don’t provide adequate support, strain the neck, are an awkward size, get hot and sweaty, and are often bulky and convenient."

     Building on Success

    Building on the success of the original Trtl Pillow – the world’s first wrappable neck pillow for travel – The New Trtl Pillow Plus features a brand new, patented internal neck support, which allows you to adjust it to your height, is super adaptable and fully customisable to your head and neck.

    It even has twisty toggles and comes in a range of cool two-tone colours, which’ll be the envy of your rubber-ringed, nodding dog, fellow travellers.

    Plush foam padding means our new neck pillow is so much more comfortable than the plane headrest. Breathable materials help to regulate temperature. Hell, it even comes with a water-resistent travel bag so you can keep your pillow clean on the go.

    Machine washable (a must for frequent flyers), you really can take it anywhere.

    Check out the video below for full spec: 

    Research and Development

    Back to the painstaking bit.

    We developed the Trtl Pillow Plus through five years (yes, five years) of research and development.

    Designing an adaptable travel pillow that looks and feels great was a really exciting challenge for our product design team. With the original Trtl Pillow as our starting point, we created created hundreds (yes, hundreds…) of prototype pillows before we perfected the form and function. We even worked with Scotland’s leading Centre for Motional Analysis & Research to help us undertake an independent study into the adjustability, support and temperature regulation of the Trtl Pillow Plus.

    Into Production

    Now, we’re ready to go into production. And we’re giving the millions of fans of Trtl’s original travel pillow – and the hundreds of millions of business and leisure travellers who’ve yet to discover us – the chance to get in at the ground level by supporting the 30-day Kickstarter campaign we’re launching today.

    There are four options to suit every budget, ranging from £1 to £128 (around $166). You can check them out here. From a jet lag guide to four Trtl Pillow Pluses, two Trtl travel wallets and four Trtl travel tags at 40% off RRP.

    What We Stand For

    Last, a word on our company philosophy: what we’re all about at Trtl.

    I’ve been determined to solve the problem of sleeping on the go since travelling around Europe as a student.

    At Trtl (pronounced “turtle”) our mission is to create the optimum sleeping solutions for the traveller on economy class, globally. 

    Sleep is a fundamental part of life and if you sleep well, you put yourself in the position to be your best. Having a great night’s sleep has been shown to improve your productivity, creativity and even your happiness. If you're a regular traveller, then you might feel the effects of sleep deprivation more than most.

    Exciting Times

    These are exciting times at our Glasgow-based company: this year alone, Trtl customers have taken our products on over 800,000 journeys, and now we can’t wait to share our brand new sleep solution with them.

     

    A Favour?

    If you know a friend who travels and believes, like me, that getting a good sleep is key to putting your best foot forward in life, do me a favour: please share this post.

    Michael Corrigan is CEO of Trtl. If you have a comment on anything he's written in this post, he'd love to hear from you.

    Michael passionately believes that life is an adventure and that a good night’s sleep is essential to pursuing your dreams, however ambitious or prosaic they may be.