This week, we interviewed Jay Reno from Feather.
Let’s get to it!
Who are you and what do you do?
I’m the founder and CEO of Feather, a enterprise that is redefining home furnishings rental for the fashionable technology. In 2017, I introduced Feather as an obtainable, style and design-ahead and high-quality alternate to the developing difficulty of speedy home furniture.
As someone who moved 9 occasions in ten a long time, I observed the need to have to give better liberty and flexibility to a new generation of renters who are going commonly, transforming work opportunities and cities, and not committing to extended-expression residing predicaments.
I’m an alum of Y Combinator’s accelerator application. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Company Administration from Elon College and a Master’s diploma from Columbia College, exactly where I studied weather and environmental science.
What problem does your item/company remedy?
There are 3 essential complications that Feather solves for both equally our household and business consumers:
The very first is owning too substantially baggage when it’s time for a change— irrespective of whether that is going metropolitan areas or modifying workplaces. There aren’t lots of home furnishings options that are practical for the way we dwell and perform currently. Feather aims to give bigger liberty to a new era by using the head aches out of furnishing a space. On go-in working day, our white-glove provider will take care of all the supply, assembly and cleanup, which implies the client does not have to elevate a finger.
The second dilemma is home furniture squander. With 19.6 billion kilos added annually to landfills, furniture now accounts for about 7% of all landfill waste. As there are couple of considerate, sustainable options for versatile furnishings, most people and firms vacation resort to “fast furniture” which is inexpensive and disposable after a year or two. With our easy solutions for rental, retail, and shipping and delivery with premium products designed to past, Feather is able to combat furniture waste that arrives with moving.
Difficulty 3: Deficiency of independence and versatility. Considering the fact that March 2020, 69% of enterprises in the U.S. have completely closed some or all of their office environment areas, and almost each individual small business has confronted prolonged closures and decreased workers in the place of work. This, coupled with the ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic, has led to a developing need to have for extra flexibility and independence in their in-person business areas. Feather’s partnership with WeWork enables WeWork users to simply design and style their workplace spaces with our rental furnishings, with out the determination and investment that comes with standard place of work creating leasing and furnishing.
What are you most energized about suitable now?
I’d have to say I’m most excited about our new partnership with WeWork.
With the arrival of distant and hybrid get the job done and the uncertainty of the pandemic, our get the job done culture’s idea of what an place of work seems like has changed a large amount in a short period of time. Alongside with a growing require for flexible business office spaces, organizations are now evaluating not only where by their workers operate, but how. Long gone are the days of cubicles and standard conference rooms – in the midst of transitioning to a hybrid period of working each from home and in an office environment, when persons arrive together, they are looking to do so in new, collaborative and participating techniques.
To fulfill this have to have, Feather introduced an impressive partnership with WeWork to deliver substantial-quality place of work furnishings with white-glove supply and assembly to WeWork users in 150+ zip codes all-around the country. Responding to the special wants of each individual workplace tenant, WeWork users are now capable to curate their spaces with everything from lounge home furniture, to collaborative breakout rooms, to items that prioritize ergonomics and layout – all though leveraging Feather’s sustainable and round small business design of rental, refurbishment and reuse.
What’s future for you?
Even though Feather has served furnish business spaces on a rental basis above the past couple a long time, our partnership with WeWork is a larger step in the direction of this evolution in our business enterprise. Presented COVID-19 and the emergence of the hybrid do the job period nationwide, workers and companies are in search of versatile workplace solutions that foster collaboration and convenience. We’re excited to collaborate with WeWork, other coworking areas, and major office environment brokerages and landlords to make flexible workplace solutions out there to several additional industry experts in different markets about the nation.
Past year, we also released a new, 1-month expression duration featuring specifically for the household staging industry. The go arrived just after real estate experts progressively turned to Feather’s assortment of substantial-finish home furniture to stage houses for potential purchasers, and demand from customers for a shorter phrase length greater. We’re thrilled to proceed to give Feather expert services to a rising amount of property stagers and authentic estate specialists taking advantage of the comfort and relieve of Feather for their staging demands.
What is a lead to you are passionate about and why?
I’m most passionate about sustainability and reducing the affect of home furniture waste on the world. As observed previously, home furniture now accounts for about 7% of all landfill waste, and 19.6 billion lbs is extra yearly to landfills.
At Feather, the core of our business enterprise is our rental model— which is created around our vision of preserving furniture in properties and places of work and out of landfills. This is primarily clear in the design and style of our home furniture, which is created to final with sturdy major-high-quality elements, and a ingredient portion system for needed repairs. We also decide on clean up lines and a practical, minimalist design and style in our parts to make them simple to integrate into a range of homes, workplaces and personalized kinds.
Since founding, we have saved above 1M pounds of furniture out of landfills. We’re proud of this accomplishment, but this is just the beginning for us as we continue on to work toward acquiring our mission: remodel people’s relationship with product goods for a more healthy and happier planet.
Many thanks to Jay for sharing his tale. If you’d like to join, locate him on LinkedIn find him on LinkedIn right here.
We’re consistently wanting for excellent authentic estate tech entrepreneurs to feature. If that is you, please read this post — then drop us a line (Neighborhood @ geekestate dot com).
