[Photo: courtesy Floyd]
A few years ago, Kyle Hoff moved to an apartment in Chicago and decided to bring his Ikea Malm bed with him. He took extra care to remove every bolt and screw and package them for safekeeping so he could reassemble the bed when he arrived at his new place. He was able to piece it back together again, but the bed wasn’t sturdy, felt rickety, and eventually broke down. An architect by training, Hoff knew there had to be a more structurally sound design. The average person moves 11.4 times in a lifetime. Shouldn’t their furniture be able to as well? In 2014, Hoff packed his bags again and headed to Detroit. There he, along with Alex O’Dell, founded Floyd, a direct-to-consumer furniture company targeted at urban dwellers like themselves.
The allure of affordable, easy-to-ship furniture looms large in the home design arena. A handful of young companies are trying to develop a new direct-to-consumer model, but they haven’t successfully disrupted the traditional furniture buying process. Shoppers still haul bulky pieces home from Ikea, buy from major retailers like West Elm or Crate & Barrel, and order cheap items from Wayfair and other bargain sites. Startups like Casper and Tuft & Needle have completely upended the mattress industry; the furniture industry has been slower to change. Floyd wants to be the one that cracks the code.
“The furniture industry, even the new players, aren’t considering what the shift to selling online means,” Hoff tells Co.Design. “It isn’t just about making commodity products shippable and easy to assemble; it’s about design, serviceability, and disassembly. Those are all factors that, at the end of the day, will make a difference and keep customers loyal to and excited about Floyd.”
