Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: Feather (YC S17), painless furniture rental for people who move a lot

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 137 posts

Re: Launch HN: Feather (YC S17), painless furniture rental for people who move a lot

#51

Post by noxryan »

jayreno wrote: post #29
mixmastamyk wrote: post #20

I like to move as well. What I've found: The problem with every rental place I've seen is how expensive they are. You could just buy the furniture outright for the cost of three months rental. Doesn't exactly match the year lease does it? :-/ There is a used market for IKEA furniture, and they're swapped regularly on Craigslist for half price assembled. Sometimes you can even rent for "free" by buying used and sellin…

Thanks for the thoughts! Curious to hear what type of furniture you would be purchasing that would break even to our furniture at 3 months? The breakeven price for our customers is always longer than the total price of the rental. Wonder if we should be explicitly stating this on our site?

What about this bed in Queen Size? (First piece I priced out)

https://rentfeather.com/collections/bedroom/products/dunham-...

https://www.wayfair.com/Zipcode%E2%84%A2-Design-Colby-Uphols...

Feather 3 month rental price: $207

Wayfair purchase price (including shipping): $201

Re: Launch HN: Feather (YC S17), painless furniture rental for people who move a lot

#52

Post by toomuchtodo »

jayreno wrote: post #44
charia wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I'm reminded of Berkshire Hathaway's Cort Furniture. It's been a couple years, but when I walked into a nearby retail presence they had the prices were fairly reasonable. They also do delivery and complete setup. What does this offer that Cort and other companies don't? An online presence? https://furniture.cort.com/storefront/ Just browsing through here suggest they offer more flexible renting periods, (sta…

All great points re Feather vs Cort. To add to the conversation, we see ourselves as different from Cort in 2 key areas: 1) Price: compare our prices and, across the board, you'll find we beat them in every category, for every rental length. True, it's not a long-term strategy of ours. But the reason neither you or I are renting our furniture from CORT today is that their prices are above what we'd be willing to pay…

> Cort's main business is going after government and corporate relocation budgets. We are focused more heavily on the larger market, servicing consumers who are moving frequently (i.e. every year or so).

This might be the crux though; gov and corp relos are not cost sensitive, as they're coming out of a large org's budget. Individual consumers (your target market) are. An average relo package given to someone is ~$20k.

I'm definitely going to follow your org to see if the experiment is a success; best of luck!

Re: Launch HN: Feather (YC S17), painless furniture rental for people who move a lot

#53

Post by w00bl3ywook »

ashark wrote: post #23

> Wait a minute, you want me to rent furniture? > We get it. This is kind of new, right? We’re excited about that. But it's... not remotely new, right? [EDIT] seriously, "tiny houses" = mobile homes for well-off millennials, Feather = Rent-a-Center for well-off millennials, Soylent = Ensure for well-off millennials. I guess I should start a payday loans company marketed in such a way that using it doesn't offend the…

If you just now discovered market segmentation,you should probably start with a business class before jumping into payday loans.

Re: Launch HN: Feather (YC S17), painless furniture rental for people who move a lot

#54

Post by justboxing »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #38

> I guess I should start a payday loans company marketed in such a way that using it doesn't offend the class sensibilities and self-image of well-off millennials and say I'm doing something "new". https://www.lendup.com/

Didn't know about this. Landing page says

> Good Credit Not Required.

> Instant decision.

Wow.

Re: Launch HN: Feather (YC S17), painless furniture rental for people who move a lot

#55

Post by jayreno »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #22

This makes me feel really out of touch. I can't imagine scrapping my furniture just because I'm moving. I've moved every year for the past 4 years. I just pay some movers and they get everything in and out just fine. Some services will even handle packing and unpacking everything for you. If someone's going to be living somewhere for only 2 or 3 months, I can understand renting. But I don't think renting makes econom…

Agreed - scrapping furniture just because you're moving is not a great idea. This will, however, occur often when we buy IKEA furniture (or items of that quality level) that we often have to trash items, or are actually trashed accidentally during a move (think one of their flimsy dressers or wardrobes).

It's a wasteful practice, and an important part of our mission is to keep furniture out of the landfills. That starts by getting as many uses out of the furniture that we can, before it stops working for us, either visually or functionally.

Re: Launch HN: Feather (YC S17), painless furniture rental for people who move a lot

#56

Post by dragonwriter »

ashark wrote: post #23

> Wait a minute, you want me to rent furniture? > We get it. This is kind of new, right? We’re excited about that. But it's... not remotely new, right? [EDIT] seriously, "tiny houses" = mobile homes for well-off millennials, Feather = Rent-a-Center for well-off millennials, Soylent = Ensure for well-off millennials. I guess I should start a payday loans company marketed in such a way that using it doesn't offend the…

> Feather = Rent-a-Center for well-off millennials,

RAC is focussed on rent to own rather than (planned) term-and-return rentals. (Which is why they don't advertise convenient pickup, though they do advertise most of the other feature Feather highlights.)

There are plenty of existing traditional furniture rental firms, though, that do target rentals with expected returns and do highlight easy pickup as a selling point.

Re: Launch HN: Feather (YC S17), painless furniture rental for people who move a lot

#57

Post by jayreno »

dragonwriter wrote: post #33
anilshanbhag wrote: post #14

A lot of students end up moving places due to 1) lease change 2) internships. Might be useful to them. However, the pricing is insanely expensive. 3 month rental for a dresser is $210; same for a AC unit. You can buy new ones for the same price.

> A lot of students end up moving places due to 1) lease change 2) internships. Might be useful to them. True, then again, established furniture rental firms [0] target them; what's Feather's distinct advantage here? [0] e.g., https://www.cort.com/student

We plan to differentiate ourselves by offering better quality items, a more modern storefront/interface, a superior customer experience with top notch support, and most importantly, better pricing (we know it's not perfect for every item yet, but our prices are getting better as we grow).

Re: Launch HN: Feather (YC S17), painless furniture rental for people who move a lot

#58

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #33
anilshanbhag wrote: post #14

A lot of students end up moving places due to 1) lease change 2) internships. Might be useful to them. However, the pricing is insanely expensive. 3 month rental for a dresser is $210; same for a AC unit. You can buy new ones for the same price.

> A lot of students end up moving places due to 1) lease change 2) internships. Might be useful to them. True, then again, established furniture rental firms [0] target them; what's Feather's distinct advantage here? [0] e.g., https://www.cort.com/student

[deleted]

Re: Launch HN: Feather (YC S17), painless furniture rental for people who move a lot

#59

Post by canadian_voter »

ashark wrote: post #23

> Wait a minute, you want me to rent furniture? > We get it. This is kind of new, right? We’re excited about that. But it's... not remotely new, right? [EDIT] seriously, "tiny houses" = mobile homes for well-off millennials, Feather = Rent-a-Center for well-off millennials, Soylent = Ensure for well-off millennials. I guess I should start a payday loans company marketed in such a way that using it doesn't offend the…

I have this great idea for printing out the top news stories for reading offline. You could print them off early morning and have them waiting for people at train stations, coffee shops, hotels, etc. If it really takes off, people might even be willing to pay for them to be delivered each week or even each morning. And of course you could sell advertising to subsidize the cost!

We're totally going to disrupt the online news business!

Edit: I should mention I love the idea of renting and returning furniture. I very much identify with the pain points mentioned and would prefer to rent high-quality furniture instead of buying and disposing of particle board crap every year or two.

Re: Launch HN: Feather (YC S17), painless furniture rental for people who move a lot

#60

Post by dragonwriter »

jayreno wrote: post #55
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #22

This makes me feel really out of touch. I can't imagine scrapping my furniture just because I'm moving. I've moved every year for the past 4 years. I just pay some movers and they get everything in and out just fine. Some services will even handle packing and unpacking everything for you. If someone's going to be living somewhere for only 2 or 3 months, I can understand renting. But I don't think renting makes econom…

Agreed - scrapping furniture just because you're moving is not a great idea. This will, however, occur often when we buy IKEA furniture (or items of that quality level) that we often have to trash items, or are actually trashed accidentally during a move (think one of their flimsy dressers or wardrobes). It's a wasteful practice, and an important part of our mission is to keep furniture out of the landfills. That sta…

> This will, however, occur often when we buy IKEA furniture (or items of that quality level) that we often have to trash items, or are actually trashed accidentally during a move (think one of their flimsy dressers or wardrobes).

My last move, moving a house almost completely furnished with IKEA furniture, most of which had been around for a decade, only one item (that was inconveniently sized to remove intact, not because of structural failure) didn't make the move.

Post reply on HN