How Floyd Is Using Design Innovation To Combat The High-Waste Furniture Industry
Alex O’Dell and Kyle Hoff, Floyd’s cofounders
Floyd wants consumers to stop throwing so much furniture away. Like Ikea, the Detroit-based startup lets customers build (relatively) inexpensive pieces themselves but Floyd’s furnishings are meant to last for the long run. The idea turns out to be as good for business as it is for the planet.
Launched in 2014 by Kyle Hoff and Alex O’Dell, the company began with what the founders called The Floyd Leg—a clamp stand with a chic industrial look that allowed any flat surface to be converted into a table. With four legs, a cast-off door (or, say, three legs for a yield sign) transformed from “disposable to indispensable,” as the campaign promised. The initial Kickstarter ask was $18,000. The campaign took in over $256,000.
The Floyd bed came next, followed by Floyd tables and a Floyd sofa. The distinguishing factor: Simple, long-lasting quality in an otherwise high-waste furniture industry. The EPA estimates that more than nine million tons of furniture waste goes into U.S. landfills every year, which Floyd says is the equivalent of piling the entirety of Manhattan with 2½ feet of annual waste. That’s a ton of street trash.
The Floyd Sofa in saffron
Floyd’s sofa is a good example of what the company does best. The couch, which sells for under $2,000, is fashioned from real birch, cold-rolled American steel and upholstery from a Tennessee cushion factory with a century of production experience (the plant is operated by La-Z-Boy, one of Floyd’s investment partners). Floyd offers same-day flat-pack delivery in various cities, with guaranteed 3-to-5 day delivery for all other customers. Each product comes with a ten-year warranty.
Hoff and O’Dell spoke with me recently about the company and their plans for dominating the furniture world while sitting pretty.
What was the problem with the furniture industry you set out to fix?
Kyle Hoff: We wanted to be as thoughtful as possible about creating furniture you can buy and keep. The idea that you use something for a year and then toss it, that’s just appalling to us. There’s no reason you can’t have great design that’s affordable but is also worth keeping. So we figured out a way to build products that can scale with you.
Alex O’Dell: With our sofa, for example, if part of it breaks, you don’t have to throw the whole piece away. We can replace each part. That’s the kind of versatility we didn’t see in the industry before.
Made from American birch and cold-rolled steel, Floyd’s products are built to last.
You’ve been in this for five years. What lessons have you learned?
O’Dell: We had our own ideas about what people wanted, but then our customers really shaped and sent us in new directions with those ideas. We asked in surveys–and we do a lot of surveys–if customers care more about comfort or aesthetics. It surprised us that 80 percent said those two were equal. It made us weigh comfort, and also durability. Sixty-five percent of 1500 respondents said they own a pet. So with our sofa, we had to ask, how do we make it look great but also easy to clean and long-lasting if there’s a dog sleeping on it all day.
Hoff: Or a couple binge-watching Netflix. You shift with the needs of your consumers.
La-Z-Boy is an investor and strategic partner. They’re old school. You’re new school. How does that work?
O’Dell: If you think about the design of car, you know the automaker will use the same chassis to build different models. With us, the sofa is where we start. It’s like a box with springs. By working with a manufacturer with 100 years of expertise, we make sure our base is tried and true.
Hoff: As a young furniture company we were looking for resources on how to scale and to build out our supply chain. We’re in a state that has some great furniture, and not just La-Z-Boy. Steelcase, Herman Miller, Zeeland–they’re all from Michigan, and they all shape how we think about supply.
Give me the quick pitch on how Floyd outshines the competition?
O’Dell: Way back in the beginning with the Floyd Leg, we gave our customers ownership to create a product and also offered some variability in that you can move with it and throw it in the bag. Today it’s the same. You buy something with us and you’ll move with it. It will grow with you. It’s built to last.
Hoff: From a service standpoint, we offer same-day delivery in L.A., New York, San Francisco, and Chicago. Being able to operate that domestic supply chain in an efficient manner plays into our goal of reducing emissions involved with moving products across the world. We’re also innovative in reaching customers in economical ways. We partnered with Airbnb for our Stay Floyd initiative. You can stay in our favorite Airbnbs in Joshua Tree, the Catskills and elsewhere and see what it’s like to live in a Floyd house. We’re getting a very strong response from that.
What are your favorite stories from customers about Floyd products?
O’Dell: We heard about people making a table from a 200-year-old door from a ship. Someone built a Lego tabletop with their kid. I love the surfboard table someone made with the Floyd Leg. They took off the legs when they needed to surf. Oh, and we heard about someone who carried a Floyd sofa over the US border into Canada because we don’t ship there yet. That’s rewarding to hear.
What’s next?
Hoff: There’s a lot in the pipeline. We’re being methodical. We have a new shelving system that’s launching, and some add-ons to our current products, like under-bed storage and lighting and additional seating that we’re exploring.
O’Dell: The bookshelf is our next big venture. It’s been such a huge category for the industry. Ikea’s Billy bookshelf is the bestselling furniture product in history. Another Ikea Billy sells every five seconds, or something crazy like that. We don’t want to compete with that because it means people are throwing their bookshelves away. We want people to buy bookshelves and keep them, and also never have to shop at Ikea again.
This interview has been edited and condensed.