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It has been over seven months since I last shared an update on my company, its progress and its vision for the future - and in true startup fashion, we have completed much iteration on our product market fit since. Therefore, I am due to provide the community an update.
Furnishly began as a small project over a year ago, following a move that put me in a larger, nicer apartment here in Chicago. In need of some 'I'm not in college anymore' furniture, I went looking for furniture deals on various consumer marketplace sites, such as Craigslist. The creative hobbyist in me wanted something I could put my own spin on - not just antoher cardboard-box Ikea piece. After landing a couple basic pieces and successfully painting them all black (yes, I am still working to expand my refurbishing tool chest), it was apparent to me that significant value could be created by purchasing an unloved piece and adding some creativity/branding - almost always resulted in an easy resale for two to three times the original purchase price. While I was convinced that this was a great way to make some extra cash, I knew I was on to something much bigger. Humans are tool builders, and I fully recognized that the more lucrative opportunity was in building a tool to enable other to do the same exact thing in a more efficient and effective way.
The phase one product iteration was designed with consumer-to-consumer commerce in mind. The majority of the second-hand / vintage inventory is in the hands of consumers; this approach seemed to make the most sense. While the market response was positive, the consumer-focused strategy was determined economically impractical, as the more parties required on the sell-side, the more expensive the endeavor becomes. During my investigation of the consumer market, local consignment stores expressed interest in the product - these small-businesses are the necessary intermediary within the current consumer-to-consumer transaction. These stores were the perfect way to target a breadth of consumer inventory, without the mass quantities of parties required. This became the new sell-side strategy moving forward.
Getting these local stores involved was a very rewarding task. With the help of my head of business development, Katy Manatt, we quickly ramped engagement and were flooded with product-market feedback. We discovered that with the addition of these small businesses, our addressable market was significantly larger, and attractively more dynamic, than we first realized. Dealers, big and small, were showing up on our radar - we knew we were onto something significant. The transition from the individual consumer to the small business intermediary was valuable from both a cost of seller-acquisition and addressable market perspective, but the most valuable insight of all was its impact on the underlying economics of the industry.
Furniture is a locally restricted consumer market, especially for non-mass-manufactured items - this was a clear assumption we had made going in. Retail participants of this industry had always been restricted to businesses large enough to invest in the costly store-fronts required to drive sales. Until recently foot traffic and a physical sales team was the most effective local sales channel. By enabling a business to establish its brand and local presence digitally, and moving to much lower cost real estate, one is able to significantly reduce the fixed-costs within the legacy business model.
You're a creative furniture hobbyist in Wicker Park, but your hobby doesn't support a physical storefront? You're a passionate with mid-century modern collector, but are struggling to establish a digital brand and sales channel to connect to the growing mid-century market? With the right technology, there's no reason these businesses can't exist and grow.
Furnishly is about enabling local business in the vintage and hand-made interiors space. When you reduce the fixed cost requirements by establishing a digital community for people to connect and transaction, you open the floodgates of creative and passionate people able to participate.
This is the new model in local small-business commerce, and Furnishly is helping to pioneer the way.
