Daehee Park is the co-founder of Tuft & Needle, a Phoenix-based startup that is the industry pioneer of developing the world’s first universally comfortable mattress that is sold directly online. Daehee leads the marketing, finance and risk management teams at Tuft & Needle.

In 2011, his close friend from college JT Marino recruited him to join a software startup in Silicon Valley to serve as the director of ecommerce. There they worked together until being inspired to start Tuft & Needle, after JT and his wife Sarah went shopping for their first big purchase as newlyweds—a mattress.

This unfortunate mattress shopping experience led to JT’s purchase of a $3,500 overpriced and mediocre mattress. After sharing his painful story with Daehee, they commiserated on the severity of the problem. Daehee Park and JT Marino co-founded and launched Tuft & Needle in October 2012 to change the way mattresses were designed and sold.

Daehee received his bachelor’s degree in cyber security at Penn State University.