There’s a reason the name is familiar. DuuDuu—that gentle childhood chime that signaled bedtime—laid the foundation for something much more purposeful. A chat with Perth-based DuuDuu Quokka mattress founder Elaine Ho about the personal frustration that led to the sleep brand being based on one simple question: ‘Why isn’t there a mattress that actually does what it promises?‘
Can you talk about how DuuDuu came to be?
DuuDuu started with one phrase: “Time to go duuduu”. It was a tender call from our parents telling us it was time to go to dreamland. It was so warm and caring, and as adults dealing with sleep issues, we realized how much we missed the feeling of actually being taken care of while sleeping.
My dad, who just moved into a new house and bought expensive mattresses (over $5,000 each), thought we had good mattresses ourselves because of the price. Over the course of three years, my father fell out of bed several times and the mattress began to sag. It turns out that the mattress had no side support, which is essential to ensure that you don’t roll the mattress. The quality of the mattress was so bad that it sank and the store wouldn’t even replace the mattress for us. Within three years, we bought another mattress and the same thing happened.
The real catalyst was a simple question: Why isn’t there a mattress that delivers on its promise? It supports your body properly, uses material that won’t overheat you and doesn’t add value to your arms and legs. We couldn’t find a good answer, so we decided to make it ourselves.
DuuDuu started in Perth because it’s home and we wanted to create something really useful for our community first. That childhood phrase “DuuDuu” became our north star. We wanted Australians to think of DuuDuu when they had a good night’s rest. We are not a furniture company; we want to be known as a product that supports good sleep for good health.
As we know, sleep is very important for our health. What does truly restorative sleep mean to you?
Truly restorative sleep isn’t just about hours in bed. It’s about waking up and feeling that your body has been restored. It’s the difference between dragging yourself out of bed and naturally waking up with a clear and ready head.
For me personally, restorative sleep means three things: waking up without pain, waking up without brain fog, and waking up with full energy for the day ahead. When I slept on a lousy bed, I would wake up with back stiffness that took an hour to shake, mental fog that required cutting two coffees, and this underlying fatigue that no amount of sleep seemed to fix.
For me restorative sleep is sleep that restores. It wakes up at 6:30 and thinks “I feel good” instead of “I need a coffee now”. Your back is better than yesterday, not worse. This is your brain clear enough to make decisions, not just survive the morning.
Because we built DuuDuu to actually restore sleep, not just sleep comfortably, I got to experience what sleep feels like. And honestly, it completely changed the way I thought about health. Sleep isn’t just a pillar of well-being; it is the foundation on which everything else is built. When your sleep is restored, everything improves – mood, concentration, physical recovery, stamina. When it’s not, everything suffers, no matter how well you eat or exercise.
What’s next for DuuDuu?
We are focused on two big areas: expanding the meaning of ‘restorative sleep’ beyond mattresses and making truly good sleep accessible to more Australians.
The bigger vision is to change the way Australians think about sleep as an investment in health. Today, people spend $200 for a massage or $150 for extras, but are hesitant about the $1,520 mattress they’ve been using for 10 years and 2,920 nights. We want to reinvent quality sleep as a preventative treatment, not a luxury purchase. That means education, content, and community building—not just selling mattresses.
Finally, we are committed to increasing our impact on the environment. We currently recycle or donate 73 percent of the mattresses we sell, but we want that number to be closer to 90 percent. We are exploring partnerships with more recycling facilities, exploring mattress material recycling and circular economy models where old DuuDuu mattresses can be broken down and the components used in new ones. The mattress industry’s waste problem is solvable; it just requires companies to prioritize solutions.
Visit for more information DuuDuu.com.au
