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The Detroit Company That Wants to Get Away From Disposable Furniture

The Detroit Company That Wants to Get Away From Disposable Furniture

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- ① It all started with a table leg.

Floyd co-founders Kyle Hoff and Alex O’Dell marketed their first product—a leg that can be clamped onto any surface to create a table—in 2014 via a Kickstarter campaign. The hardware drew 1,395 backers who pledged a total of $256K—14 times more than what the partners sought.

The Detroit Company That Wants to Get Away From Disposable Furniture

② The duo want to reduce the disposability of furniture. The Detroit-based company’s collection comprises four “foundational” products, each modular: a bed, a table, a couch, and, the latest, a shelving system. New products are released about once a year. Add-ons for existing pieces help reduce waste.

“You can make a really great product that could be a staple in a home by designing it in a thoughtful way that encourages keeping it,” O’Dell says.

The Detroit Company That Wants to Get Away From Disposable Furniture

③ The shelves come in tall and short configurations, with several options for expanding. “Shelving is a real pain point,” Hoff says, because it’s not easy to make it elegant, and modular, and durable.

The Detroit Company That Wants to Get Away From Disposable Furniture

DESIGN
Everything is made for easy assembly, disassembly, and moving.
LOCATION
Michigan is home to major furniture companies including Herman Miller Inc. and La-Z-Boy Inc. (a Floyd investor).
MATERIALS
Every piece is made in the U.S., out of birch sourced from Poland—it looks light but is superstrong, Hoff and O’Dell say—and steel that’s made in Pennsylvania.

Shelving inventory that the company had projected would last a month sold out in 24 hours.

The repeat customer rate on the shelf when it went on sale on July 30 was 52%

The number of repeat customers has risen 140% a year since 2014.

The Detroit Company That Wants to Get Away From Disposable Furniture

Next Up

Seating will come sometime in 2020. Floyd has been collecting customer feedback as part of the first phase of creating a dining chair. And the company is two-and-a-half months into a new collaboration with West Elm (the retailer sold the table legs in 2016); stores in Austin, New York, and Santa Monica, Calif., sell the full collection. “It’s helping us to learn about creating a better retail experience for customers,” O’Dell says.

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.