Meet The Real Estate Tech Entrepreneur: Jay Reno from Feather

This 7 days, we interviewed Jay Reno from Feather.

Let us get to it!

Who are you and what do you do?

I’m the founder and CEO of Feather, a company that is redefining home furnishings rental for the modern generation. In 2017, I released Feather as an accessible, style and design-forward and high quality option to the escalating issue of quick home furniture.

As anyone who moved nine times in ten a long time, I observed the want to supply better flexibility and versatility to a new era of renters who are transferring routinely, altering positions and cities, and not committing to long-phrase living conditions.

I’m an alum of Y Combinator’s accelerator program. I have a Bachelor’s diploma in Company Administration from Elon University and a Master’s diploma from Columbia College, the place I researched weather and environmental science.

What trouble does your merchandise/company resolve?

There are three crucial issues that Feather solves for both our household and enterprise prospects:

The very first is possessing way too a lot baggage when it’s time for a change— whether that’s going metropolitan areas or changing offices. There aren’t lots of home furniture choices that are handy for the way we stay and function nowadays. Feather aims to give larger flexibility to a new era by using the head aches out of furnishing a place. On move-in working day, our white-glove assistance will manage all the shipping and delivery, assembly and cleanup, which suggests the customer doesn’t have to lift a finger.

The 2nd issue is household furniture waste. With 19.6 billion lbs . included yearly to landfills, home furniture currently accounts for about 7% of all landfill waste. As there are handful of thoughtful, sustainable possibilities for adaptable furnishings, most men and women and organizations vacation resort to “fast furniture” which is inexpensive and disposable just after a year or two. With our effortless choices for rental, retail, and shipping with high quality goods made to past, Feather is in a position to overcome home furniture waste that comes with moving.

Trouble 3: Lack of flexibility and overall flexibility. Because March 2020, 69% of enterprises in the U.S. have completely closed some or all of their business spaces, and approximately just about every enterprise has confronted prolonged closures and decreased staff in the office. This, coupled with the continued uncertainty of the pandemic, has led to a developing want for extra adaptability and flexibility in their in-human being office environment spaces. Feather’s partnership with WeWork permits WeWork customers to very easily layout their office environment areas with our rental home furniture, without having the dedication and financial commitment that will come with regular office creating leasing and furnishing.

What are you most energized about appropriate now?

I’d have to say I’m most enthusiastic about our new partnership with WeWork.

With the introduction of distant and hybrid function and the uncertainty of the pandemic, our perform culture’s notion of what an business office appears to be like has adjusted a lot in a short period of time. Along with a rising need for flexible workplace spaces, providers are now evaluating not only where by their workforce function, but how. Gone are the times of cubicles and typical meeting rooms – in the midst of transitioning to a hybrid period of doing the job both from residence and in an business, when folks come jointly, they are seeking to do so in new, collaborative and partaking techniques.

To meet up with this have to have, Feather introduced an modern partnership with WeWork to present high-quality business office home furnishings with white-glove delivery and assembly to WeWork users in 150+ zip codes around the region. Responding to the distinctive requirements of every single office tenant, WeWork members are now able to curate their spaces with all the things from lounge home furniture, to collaborative breakout rooms, to objects that prioritize ergonomics and design – all whilst leveraging Feather’s sustainable and circular enterprise product of rental, refurbishment and reuse.

What is future for you?

Even though Feather has assisted furnish office areas on a rental foundation over the past few a long time, our partnership with WeWork is a larger step in direction of this evolution in our company. Offered COVID-19 and the emergence of the hybrid do the job period nationwide, workforce and businesses are trying to get flexible office solutions that foster collaboration and consolation. We’re fired up to collaborate with WeWork, other coworking areas, and major place of work brokerages and landlords to make flexible workplace alternatives obtainable to many more pros in distinctive marketplaces all-around the country.

Past calendar year, we also released a new, 1-month phrase size offering precisely for the home staging field. The move arrived after genuine estate pros significantly turned to Feather’s assortment of substantial-conclude furniture to stage properties for prospective prospective buyers, and demand from customers for a shorter phrase size increased. We’re thrilled to keep on to offer you Feather providers to a expanding range of house stagers and serious estate experts taking advantage of the ease and simplicity of Feather for their staging wants.

What’s a bring about you’re passionate about and why?

I’m most passionate about sustainability and decreasing the impact of household furniture squander on the earth. As noted previously, furniture at the moment accounts for about 7% of all landfill squander, and 19.6 billion lbs . is additional annually to landfills.

At Feather, the core of our small business is our rental model— which is crafted all-around our eyesight of keeping household furniture in houses and workplaces and out of landfills. This is primarily evident in the design and style of our household furniture, which is created to very last with durable top rated-quality resources, and a ingredient aspect program for essential repairs. We also choose thoroughly clean lines and a useful, minimalist design in our items to make them very simple to include into a range of homes, offices and personal types.

Given that founding, we have retained over 1M lbs . of home furniture out of landfills. We’re proud of this accomplishment, but this is just the starting for us as we keep on to operate towards achieving our mission: renovate people’s connection with materials products for a much healthier and happier world.

Many thanks to Jay for sharing his story. If you’d like to link, locate him on LinkedIn obtain him on LinkedIn listed here.

We’re consistently seeking for wonderful serious estate tech entrepreneurs to aspect. If which is you, please go through this post — then drop us a line (Group @ geekestate dot com).