Non-fiction
From 1967 to 2000, the waterbed industry grew from nothing to a $2 billion industry — dominated by entrepreneurs in their early twenties who went from hippies to running corporations with hundreds of employees and sales in the tens of millions.
Synopsis
From 1967 to 2000, the waterbed industry grew from nothing to a $2 billion industry. Waterbeds constituted over 20% of the U.S. bedding market, and a substantial portion of beds sold in Europe and Japan. The industry was dominated by entrepreneurs in their early twenties, who went from hippies to people running corporations with hundreds of employees, and sales in eight figures. Well before Silicon Valley produced immense wealth in astonishingly short times, and before the internet, the waterbed industry foreshadowed the transforming power of young entrepreneurial vision and zeal.
Hippie Entrepreneurs is the definitive history of the waterbed industry, based on comprehensive interviews with 111 of the key people that built it.
The definitive history of the waterbed industry — based on comprehensive interviews with 111 of the key people that built it.
The book is monumental in scale: 1,010 pages long, in a large 10″ × 7.5″ format. It’s written in a creative non-fiction style. Although it reads like a page-turner novel, with larger-than-life characters and mind-bending plot twists, it sticks closely to the information gleaned from ten years of interviews and research.
Interviews
Ten years of research and comprehensive interviews with the key people who built an industry from the ground up — in their own words.
Industry at its peak
From nothing in 1967 to a $2 billion industry by 2000 — waterbeds held over 20% of the U.S. bedding market and reached Europe and Japan.
The Author
Kocsis owned and managed Halcyon Waterbeds, a manufacturer of heaters and mattresses, from 1971 until 2006.
