Subscribe
Sign in
Feather — Modern-day furniture rentals for millennials and startups
64
Replies
Great idea. I think as this business scales, it will really resonate with people. I opened a coworking space and spent $8k+ on furniture without knowing whether or not the coworking business would survive in my town. This would have been a great option to have when starting the coworking space. But, I agree with some comments here about the prices being a little high. Best of luck!
@parkeragee - great idea, Parker. We've found that a number of growing startups and small businesses, especially with small to medium-sized offices, have benefitted tremendously by renting vs forking over thousands of dollars up front before they've found product/market fit. Hope the co-working space project went well!
This is a great idea @jay_reno! A friend of mine had this same startup idea about a year ago and worked through all the business modeling to understand it's viability. Have you solved how to capture residual value of your stock after it comes off rental? Can it be refurbished and re-rented or re-sold?
How are the delivery times calculated? Seems like a long wait when I can just go to IKEA the same day and grab a desk. I could justify the high price per month if you provided a simple mobile app experience like Uber and delivered to my apartment the same day!
@garytokman great question! Some items we have in stock and can deliver to you as soon as the next day. Other items we have to get from our furniture partners. To minimize the time to delivery for folks who might want something as quickly as possible, we've put together a quick delivery section, where everything can be delivered, fully assembled, in as little as 3 days.
This is neat. But to describe it as "new" as they do on their homepage is...misleading at best. Unless we're pretending Rent-a-Center doesn't exist, that tiny little 3 billion dollar, 40+ year old company with a nearly identical (but brick-and-mortar) biz model.
Only available in NYC and SF. Not even a whole country or state. Thanks anyway, but the rest of the world will have to stick to Craigslist and the local second-hand shops.
@oneweirdglobe - We have grand plans to be available across the country and globe. Alas, we had to pick a few places to start. If you're curious to stay in touch, let us know where you are and we'll put you on our shortlist to reach out once we've launched near you!
Came across Feather a while back on angel. Would absolutely use it as I try to live an asset-light lifestyle and hate being anchored to things. Congrats and look forward to trying it out!
@jakewesorick - really glad you brought this up, Jake. We have a couple of different types of renters: the first are people who move fairly frequently (every 3-6 months for work, are freelancers, etc.). The folks certainly don't want to buy a bunch of furniture only to have to try to sell or scrap it at the end of their stay. The economics work perfectly for this group.
The second type of renter is one who will stay in their place for 9-12 months (students, anyone with a 1 yr lease, etc). The cost model for this type of renter is a bit different as you've pointed out. Why not just buy the furniture up front? For this group, the value of the service is more in not having to deal with their furniture (going to IKEA, carting it home, assembling everything in-home yourself, moving furniture to your next apartment and/or trying to sell or scrap it). The time cost of dealing with it all adds up fast. So for this group, the value of Feather is that you never have to worry about your furniture come stressful move time. You click a few buttons and the furniture magically shows up quickly, fully assembled, and placed in the room of your liking. When you're ready to move, click a button and your furniture disappears. Does this all seem to make sense?
@jay_reno you have targeted perfect customer segment. I am from both on these categories so I understand the pain you have mentioned. But as a student,
- the price is very high.
- Students have enough time to go stores, buy stuff and assemble etc.
- Most of the students buy stuff from other students through Facebook groups and sell it again when they have to move. so it will be much cheaper.
- Many properties provide a room with furniture.
Hope this perspective will be helpful to you .
@jay_reno Take an example of chair mentioned by @jakewesorick . Let say I bought the chair in $296 for one time.
Going to sell after 12 months assume for half price $148 .
If I divide 148/12 = $12.33/month.
From Feather, it will be $27/month or $27*12 = $324
You do realise that millennial can barely afford rent let alone splash out $400 a month on a bookcase. IKEA is cheaper than renting one of these for a month!
@robjbye - you're totally right! The bookcase on there was added as a request by one of our customers, wanting to rent that particular item. It's definitely above what most (read: all) younger people would be willing to spend on a bookcase per month. We do have a number of more well-funded companies that have a bit more money to spend than you or I, so that's generally where the "premium" furniture on our site is being rented. Thanks for your note - we'll make sure our prices stay as low as they can as we grow.
I really like this, I was thinking about something similar a few days ago. However I'm not a potential customer because I don't live in USA.
For those comments that mention that the price is too high: I don't think that people would choose this to save money... they would choose it for the convenience and to not own more things.
The option for rent-to-buy could be a great addition when someone rents something and ends loving it. And it could be great for the customers that finally can afford to buy a home or choose to do it.
I really don't understand this. You're renting stuff I can buy at Ikea for the monthly price you're renting it for (or near to it). What's the benefit? If I were to swap out my furniture every few months I could see doing this, but do people ever do that? The only thing I could see this working for would be when people launch a coworking space or something to reduce the cash outlay a little bit (But really only a little bit). But then you're not going to have very long term customers (If it's working they'll just buy the furniture to cut the burn rate).
In india there is furlenco startup working on this idea. And they're growing. Hope this can be successful in US too
@pelin_ruzgar - we'd love to jump the pond to Turkey! Give us some time, and hopefully we can make it over to you.
Splitting this comment because it's too long for PH.
I think this is a great idea but missed the mark. I see a few mentions of coworking spaces as perfect clients. We own two spaces and are looking to opening a third and i wouldn't use this service (and upfront cash is always definitely an issue). I see a lot of mention of IKEA and paired with a low interest teaser rate credit and is a much better deal then the prices you guys are currently offering.
To be honest- we would (and will) just go buy our desks and chairs from Autonomous. They offer a motorized standing desk/ergo chair combo for less than $500 which they'll finance at 0% with Affirm over a 12 month period. Do the math and this is an order of magnitude cheaper AND you own the furniture.
I'll also just briefly touch on amortizing the cost depreciation of assets when running any business. Furniture is considered an asset to your business. You can also write off depreciation over a number of years on your tax returns. I'm simplifying thing for clarity but when you shift this to a rental scenario- you loose the ability to write down these "losses". This might not be completely a deal breaker but It's certainly something you should consider when deciding to go rent vs ownership.
I would love to use this- I really would - it would certainly make our lives easier but the economics just aren't there. I'd be happy to provide any more feedback for you being that we seem to be your target customer and have a lot of experience/opinions in the space.
Having just moved out of the country and started putting our home together from scratch (on a tight budget, but with somewhat high standards), a service like this would be super interesting. It does seem pricey, unless you're targeting millennials that are making real good money. It seems pricing for companies/startups and for individuals should vary.
Really resonate with the concept, and researching/designing this product sounds like a blast. Best of luck to you and your team!
Donut