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One question about the economics. You are going to get a lot of cases where people stop subscribing after the furnishing, and then decide they don't really want it / don't think it's worth it (think good faith - not abuse).
Would you be able to handle that without too much of a dent in your costs? Would you offer refunds / cancellation, and then own the costs to take the furniture back etc?
This is actually really cool, and something I would seriously consider for my house. One question about the economics. You are going to get a lot of cases where people stop subscribing after the furnishing, and then decide they don't really want it / don't think it's worth it (think good faith - not abuse). Would you be able to handle that without too much of a dent in your costs? Would you offer refunds / cancellati…
Thanks so much! Excited to serve you!
> Would you be able to handle that without too much of a dent in your costs?
Since we fully insure the furniture and depreciate it over a longer time, our goal is to refurbish and reuse most items after your subscription is completed. If you cancel sooner, chances are that the furniture is in an even better quality so we can probably use more of it. So it shouldn't be too bad if people start to cancel early, but of course, we wouldn't want too many people to do this.
> Would you offer refunds / cancellation, and then own the costs to take the furniture back etc?
Yes, we allow for monthly cancellation. We're still trying to figure out exactly how this would work because the prices are lower for longer contracts and we're not fully sure how much of a "penalty" we will charge for early cancellation. For now, we've decided that people will only have to pay an administrative fee of $1k-$3k depending on how soon they cancel it, and then we'll take all the furniture back, refurbish it, and put it in a new apartment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of workers are suffering from PTSD from abusive managers who were "uncool" and micromanaging the living hell out of them. I wouldn't call that funny. Not saying that's what's happening at Pabio but that was the first thought in my mind.
You won't find any abusive managers at Pabio... I'm just not very cool, that's it, I promise!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For example, apartments in my building are roughly the same price whether furnished or unfurnished. I would question that statement. :) That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense economically. The only two reasons that come to mind why this may be true are a) the furniture in the furnished apartments is super cheap or b) the furnished apartments are located subpar in one way or another. But I may be wrong.
Just a quick follow-up to provide an example, where furnished is cheaper than unfurnished, despite being identical: same building, same floorplan. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/110025968 https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/110204747
A while back I came across Feather, which seems to be a startup trying to do the same thing:
They were part of the YC S17 batch. Even the styles of the websites are quite similar. What differentiates your services from Feather apart from geographic location?
Hi Carlo, A while back I came across Feather, which seems to be a startup trying to do the same thing: https://www.livefeather.com/ They were part of the YC S17 batch. Even the styles of the websites are quite similar. What differentiates your services from Feather apart from geographic location?
> ...Feather (YC S17) which is ecommerce + rental furniture. For us, the interior design aspect is a large part of our offering because you don't have to imagine what your apartment will look like with all of these items. Plus, we can offer better prices and spend more on acquisition since we have a large ticket (an apartment or at least a room worth of furniture rather than renting a single chair).
Hi Carlo, A while back I came across Feather, which seems to be a startup trying to do the same thing: https://www.livefeather.com/ They were part of the YC S17 batch. Even the styles of the websites are quite similar. What differentiates your services from Feather apart from geographic location?
Feather is only for rental furniture (you can rent individual items) but doesn't offer interior design. Here's an excerpt from a previous comment: > ...Feather (YC S17) which is ecommerce + rental furniture. For us, the interior design aspect is a large part of our offering because you don't have to imagine what your apartment will look like with all of these items. Plus, we can offer better prices and spend more on…
Also note that there are several competitors from the other-side that provide whole furnished apartments for rent such as Blueground. You seem to be in between the “rent single pieces of furniture” and “rent a whole apartment” spaces and need to ensure that the space is carved out enough and the market is there.
Congrats for being accepted into YC! You now have a large journey ahead of you!