Edmonton, Alberta, July 21, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ernst & Young LLP (Canada) announced that Sam Prochazka, CEO and Founder of GoodMorning.com, Canada’s largest independent online mattress retailer, is a regional winner in the EY Entrepreneur of the Year® 2021 Prairies Program. After a rigorous months-long judging process, just seven regional winners were selected from a list of 33 finalists.
Prochazka was evaluated on six main criteria: entrepreneurial spirit, strategic direction, innovation, national and global impact, value creation, and purpose-driven leadership. As an early global adopter of the direct-to-consumer business model and a serial entrepreneur with two decades of experience, Prochazka changed the future of the multi-billion dollar mattress industry when he launched one of the first online bed-in-a-box brands in the world and invented the in-home sleep trial. Since 2009, he’s grown GoodMorning.com into a $66M business. In 2020, GoodMorning.com was named one of Canada’s Top Growing Companies by The Globe & Mail and one of Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies by Canadian Business and Maclean’s.
“I am humbled to be recognized by EY in their Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 program alongside so many other successful Canadian entrepreneurs,” says Prochazka. “On the surface, GoodMorning.com aims to help people get the best sleep possible; at the heart of it, we aim to design elegant solutions to hard problems and, by doing so, improve people’s lives. An award like this is an affirmation that staying focused on that objective will keep us moving in an upwards trajectory.”
EY Entrepreneur Of The Year is the world’s most prestigious business awards program, now operating in more than 145 cities in over 60 countries. Persevering through the ups and downs of the last 16 months, in particular, is cause for celebration: “These entrepreneurs are capitalizing on opportunities in a way that others haven’t — using new breakthroughs and business models, while putting the customer at the heart to drive with purpose,” says Shane Dunn, EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Prairies Program Co-Director. “This year’s winners are trailblazers, putting obstacles behind them to chart new paths forward.”
Sam Prochazka is also a director and one of four co-founders of Article, a DTC e-commerce furniture company that started in 2013. Article has topped the Canadian Business GROWTH list twice.
View the full list of EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2021 Prairies winners
What’s next?
Prochazka and the six other Prairies winners will move forward to compete with winners from the Pacific, Ontario, Québec and Atlantic regions at the national awards celebration in November 2021, where 10 national winners will be named, including Canada’s EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2021 Award winner. The overall Canadian winner will go on to compete with national winners from across the globe for the title of EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year in June 2022.
About GoodMorning.com
GoodMorning.com is Canada’s largest independent online mattress retailer and was one of the first online mattress-in-a-box companies in the world. With seven mattresses brands to choose from—including Douglas, Logan & Cove, Brunswick, Recore, Juno, and Apollo—GoodMorning.com designed and shipped its first memory foam mattress, Novosbed, in 2009, after Founder and CEO Sam Prochazka had a negative in-store mattress shopping experience. At the time, buying a mattress online without being able to try it first was an unthinkable idea. So, GoodMorning.com created the mattress world's first risk-free home sleep trial and set up a continent-wide network of charities to ensure returned mattresses don’t go to waste. Soon GoodMorning.com’s ideas and inventions were adopted as the new standard around the world. Using the same premium materials as any luxury store mattress—but for substantially less—over 175,000 GoodMorning.com mattresses have been sold to Canadians nationwide. And that number grows daily.
For more information visit GoodMorning.com, or on social media:
Facebook facebook.com/goodmorning
Instagram @goodmorning
Twitter @goodmorning
LinkedIn @goodmorning-com
About EY Entrepreneur Of The Year®
EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® is the world’s most prestigious business awards program for unstoppable entrepreneurs. These visionary leaders deliver innovation, growth and prosperity that transform our world. The program engages entrepreneurs with insights and experiences that foster growth. It connects them with their peers to strengthen entrepreneurship around the world. EY Entrepreneur Of The Year is the first and only truly global awards program of its kind. It celebrates entrepreneurs through regional and national awards programs in more than 145 cities in over 60 countries. Winners go on to compete for the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year title. ey.com/eoy
The 2021 Prairies independent judging panel consists of Brenda Nowakowski, President of Brelin Holdings Ltd.; Mike Fata, CEO of Fata & Associates, Inc.; Linda McCurdy, President & CEO of K-Bro Linen Systems Inc.; James Boettcher, Chief Idea Officer, Custodian of Culture & CEO of Righteous Gelato; Desirée Bombenon, CEO & Chief Disruption Officer of SureCall; Ashif Mawji, Venture Partner and Angel Investor of Rising Tide; and Laura Kilcrease, CEO of Alberta Innovates.
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