How an American Grandchild Leads Taiwan’s Oldest Spring Mattress Maker

This article is by Laura Kang, translated by Susanne Ganz, and edited by TC Lin. Originally published by CommonWealth Magazine. Used with permission.

“It was a hard decision to make,” Johnson Yen, CEO of Teh Tai/France Bed Company Ltd., explains as the 37-year-old entrepreneur recalls the feelings he had when deciding to get involved in the family business ten years ago.

Responding to a cry for help from his mother, Yen, who was born and raised in the United States, abandoned the company that he had just started there and came to Taiwan to lead the company that was his grandfather’s lifetime achievement. “I didn’t ‘return’ to Taiwan, I came to Taiwan, because I grew up in the United States. I knew nothing at all about the family business in Taiwan,” says Yen.

Seventy years ago, Yen Teh-hong built his business from scratch,  mats, he combined different techniques such as fabric quilting, sewing and bed frame making to put together a spring mattress bed. He went on to establish Teh Tai Spring Bed (Mattress) Co. Ltd. in Tainan with his younger brother Yen Teh-an, becoming Taiwan’s first spring mattress manufacturer.

However, when the brothers subsequently divided up the family property, Yen Teh-an obtained the original company, while Yen Teh-hong set up a new company called France Bed. Yet while the business lived on in two separately managed companies, both used Teh Tai as their brand, unleashing a 40-year-long trademark dispute. “For sure, consumers get confused when there are two similar brands in the market. We could only try our best to differentiate ourselves,” explains Yen’s mother Nancy Hsu, who serves as general manager.

(Source: Chien-Tong Wang)

Mother’s Phone Call Triggers Career Change

While the first and second generations of the Yen family navigated the vicissitudes of life, grandchild Johnson had only set foot in Taiwan only twice – the first time for the wedding of a relative and the second time for the funeral of his grandfather Yen Teh-hong.

The idea of working in Taiwan had never even crossed his mind. Instead, he followed his plan of entering the hospitality industry, which had appealed to him from childhood on, upon graduation from university. Teaming up with friends, he launched a company that specialized in mystery shopper audits, mainly working for hotels.

Little did he know that a phone call from his mother would set his life on a different course. “Mom asked me, would you consider ‘returning’ to Taiwan to help us out?

“We could not permit failure; we could only succeed,”  says Hsu in recalling the situation at the time.

Pondering the heavy burden awaiting him, Yen realized that his parents were aging and that they could not find a suitable successor within the company. On top of that, the company faced tough challenges in the market, competing with established international brands in the high-end segment and mattresses made in China at cut-throat prices in the low-end market.

(Source: Chien-Tong Wang)

“International brands such as Simmons are traditional ones with a long history, but since grandpa had already done the groundwork in Taiwan, we also had a good foundation to build on. I felt it (the brand) had the potential to make further progress and improve,” recalls Yen.

The familial bond made him throw caution to the wind, mustering the resolve to take over the family business despite the numerous challenges lying ahead.

Ten years later, France Bed has become the leading mattress brand in Taiwan’s hospitality industry. The company counts among its customers 15 out of the 25 hotels that made it onto the Travelers Choice’ 2020 Top 25 Hotels in Taiwan on travel platform Tripadvisor, including the Regent Taipei and Eslite Hotel. In terms of market share, it is the top mattress brand in Taiwan.

Using Gestures to Communicate with Master Craftsmen

How did Yen manage to steer the tradition-steeped company onto a new course, given that he had lived most of his life abroad and could not even read Chinese?

Just after arriving in Taiwan, Yen would usually go to work at the factory and learn about the techniques from master craftsmen, often by getting under the machines to get a good look. Since he did not understand Taiwanese Hokkien, the language spoken by the workers, and could not read Chinese characters, he had to communicate using gestures and hand signs.

(Source: Chien-Tong Wang)

“I learned everything from scratch, beginning with springs, how a steel wire is coiled into a spring, using a sewing machine, cutting fabric, quilting, nailing wood together…. I learned every single step, spending about two years before I felt confident that I could make a bed,” says Yen.

However, since Yen had been educated in the United States and started a company there, he came up with a competitive strategy that differed from what home-grown manufacturers were pursuing, in that it focused on demonstrating brand quality and brand positioning.

International Certification to Set the Brand Apart

On its official website, the company proudly lists a whole array of certifications and quality marks such as ISO, the MIT (made in TAIWAN) smile logo, the German ecolabel Blue Angel, and the CNS Mark. “Having certifications shows that a system is in place to standardize quality. This is also what sets us apart from other brands,” notes Yen.

For instance, the company spent three whole years to obtain the ecolabel that is granted for products that can be recycled and do not harm the environment. As part of the certification process, the raw materials that go into a mattress, such as springs, fabric, foam material and cotton padding, all need to be sent to an analysis laboratory for testing to see whether they meet standards for chemical substances, formaldehyde, heavy metals and fluorescent substances.

Only after all of the raw materials have been certified can they be used to assemble them into a mattress. The finished product is then sent to the Graduate School of Architecture at National Cheng Kung University for final testing. Testing a mattress model costs around NT$200,000.

Aside from the ecolabel, each mattress needs to pass 80,000 cycles in a compression testing machine at the Tainan factory before they are considered fit for shipping.

While it is hard to quantify the overall cost of testing and quality assurance, the time-honored brand has become the favorite of Taiwan’s hotel industry thanks to its long history and certified quality. Last year, about half of the company’s NT$200 million revenue came from hotels. In terms of the number of mattresses sold, the hotel industry accounted even for 70 percent of overall sales, making it the major customer segment.

(Source: Chien-Tong Wang)

Customization to Meet Hotel Needs

In order to secure business from hotels, the ability to customize is essential, as well as lowering production costs, given that hotels order large quantities. Aside from that, special customer requirements must often be met. “Some hotels demand that your fabric be fire-resistant, and then you need to conduct various tests. Not every company knows how to do all this,” remarks the operator of a mattress brand that is sold online.

Before selling mattresses to hotels, the company first researches where its guests come from to identify the most suitable models, as sleeping habits vary from nation to nation. Chinese and Japanese travelers, for instance, prefer a firmer bed, whereas European and American tourists feel more comfortable sleeping on softer pocket spring mattresses.

A more detailed analysis is then done to establish the share by nationality of the different customer groups. The company also developed a type of bed that allows to combine two single beds into a double bed to give hotels greater flexibility in making sleeping arrangements for different room types.

But Yen admits that, although Teh Tai is an established trademark in Taiwan, and various international luxury hotel chains have opened hotels in Taiwan in recent years, making inroads in this segment is not easy since these international operators tend to buy from familiar brands, such as Simmons and Serta.

“After all, these are brands that they are familiar with and their headquarters follow a consistent procurement strategy,” Yen points out.

“We are still trying to figure out how to sell to international hotels,” he explains. Presently, France Bed manufactures about 50,000 mattresses per year.

Yen notes that he will continue to pitch his mattresses to the international hotel business, and that he plans to set up sales points in department stores to become Taiwan’s largest mattress brand. “I hope that consumers will think of us as Taiwan’s largest and best brand,” he says.

To achieve that goal, the third-generation family business leader has his work cut out for him, given that up-and-coming mattress brands sold online have proven popular with younger customers.

Keeping a brand that is much older than its potential buyers, relevant, generating interest and expanding into new markets amid fierce competition is going to be a difficult task.

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(Feature photo by Chien-Tong Wang for CommonWealth Magazine)