Furniture.com's CMO Dan Bennett and SVP Alexandra Seaman on helping consumers navigate endless choice

Summary

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The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®

Episode: Furniture.com’s CMO Dan Bennett and SVP Alexandra Seaman on Helping Consumers Navigate Endless Choice
Date: July 8, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Agile Brand explores how furniture.com is transforming furniture shopping by addressing the challenges of "endless choice" in e-commerce. Host Greg Kihlström sits down with Dan Bennett (CMO, co-founder) and Alexandra Seaman (SVP, co-founder) to discuss how their platform acts as a decision layer—helping consumers move beyond information overload to confident, personalized purchasing decisions. They delve into the interplay of AI, data, content, human expertise, and evolving consumer expectations in the furniture category, with insights highly relevant to marketers facing similar choice-based friction in other industries.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Introducing the Guests and Their Vision

• Backgrounds:
  • Alexandra Seaman: Fourth-generation in furniture retail, blending legacy understanding with a modern, digital-first approach. (03:34)

    "I kind of grew up in the furniture retail space, but much more the traditional legacy... this is, you know, sort of kind of continuation, but a very fresh approach to furniture." — Alexandra Seaman [03:38]

  • Dan Bennett: First-time furniture entrepreneur with a tech brand-building background, focusing on technology serving the modern shopper.

2. From Marketplace to Decision Layer

• Furniture.com’s Unique Positioning:
  • Not another marketplace or endless aisle but a "decision engine" built on trusted retailers and machine learning.

    "Choice is not the problem. There is a million ways to choose and a million things to choose from... people want a way to make a decision confidently." — Dan Bennett [05:03]

• Data Challenges:
  • Standardizing inconsistent product data from multiple sources took a year of machine learning and data science investment.

    "None of the feeds are the same. Sometimes what furniture is described as is not the same. So we had to spend probably 12 months... to literally standardize how that data can live in a data lake." — Dan Bennett [08:03]

3. Customer Pain Points: Decision & Confidence, Not Discovery

• Complexity of Choice:
  • Despite more options, consumers face decision paralysis and lack trust due to factors like fit, material, delivery, etc.—especially with large, tactile purchases.

    "The core problem is a lack of confidence... Is it going to fit in my apartment?... My kid's going to spill pasta sauce on it and then I'm out of luck." — Alexandra Seaman [09:55]

• The Nine-Hour Couch Search:
  • Shoppers often spend hours researching due to differing product descriptions and lack of clear, standardized info.

4. AI and Content: Building Trust and Clarity

• Content as “Decision Support”:
  • Massive investment in content: 140+ monthly pieces acting as editorial guides, akin to interior designers ("rug guides," "complete the room," mood boards).

    "We have a content group here... they put out somewhere around 140 pieces of content... That value now is starting to show up in the LLM." — Dan Bennett [13:41]

• AI Features:
  • Dottie, their proprietary AI assistant, is not just a search tool but a context-aware expert blending category knowledge and personal taste.

    "We have a AI interface we call Dottie... built specifically to understand you as a person." — Dan Bennett [21:52] "She actually understands the category, which gives much richer context to the answers and I think more confidence and also just a better outcome." — Alexandra Seaman [19:37]

• Moving Beyond Traditional Personalization:
  • Rather than endless “customers also bought” scrolls, the platform focuses on narrowing options based on nuanced, evolving inputs.

5. Measurement: Tracking Confidence, Not Just Conversion

• Beyond Standard Metrics:
  • Traditional metrics (conversion, engagement) matter, but the team emphasizes “trust/confidence scores” via behavioral data—repeat visits, content interactions, Dottie usage.

    "We have an overall... confidence score on the site that is triggered by those human behaviors." — Dan Bennett [25:05]

• Relationship with Retail Partners:
  • Success depends on strong, “white glove” partnerships with retailers, maintaining product quality and shopper experience through feedback loops and high-touch collaboration.

    "We really also, you know, measure by the quality of the furniture. Like they need to have good quality furniture. They need to have great customer service, good logistics and delivery." — Alexandra Seaman [27:16] "When we get on a call with our head of data science, who’s a PhD, you can’t fail... to think, holy mackerel, they’re building something impressive here." — Dan Bennett [29:50]

6. Omnichannel & the Future of Furniture Shopping

• Role of Physical Stores Persists:
  • Despite digital evolution, most consumers still visit stores due to the tactile nature of furniture—digital aids complement, not replace, in-store experiences.

    "I think stores will always be a crucial part, as they should be, probably... but I think that helping people around the store experience [is key]." — Alexandra Seaman [31:12]

• AI Adoption & Future Path:
  • Five years out, expect AI to be ubiquitous in search and decision, with furniture.com positioned as the “first stop” for non-brand-loyal shoppers, akin to Kayak or Zillow for their categories.

    "If you're not shopping by brand, I think in five years time people will be going to furniture.com first." — Dan Bennett [32:54]

7. Staying Agile: What Keeps Them Adaptive

• Constant Context Switching:
  • Adapting focus frequently keeps Alexandra agile, whether on product, tech, marketing, or partnerships.

    "Context switching depending what the most important thing is that month or week or day or hour... I think it keeps me hopefully pretty agile." — Alexandra Seaman [34:07]

• Learning from Other Industries:
  • Dan and the team regularly look outside the furniture world—drawing learning from how other industries shape evolving consumer behavior.

    "We spend less time looking at what furniture... does from a behavioral point of view because we're building something... that reflects consumer behavior as it is evolving." — Dan Bennett [34:41]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Decision Overload:

  "Whoever thought up the endless aisle... I think it's a horrible way of thinking about shopping. It's like a nightmare. My favorite stores are the ones where someone's taken the time to curate or think about who I am as a shopper." — Dan Bennett [21:52]

• On AI's Human Element:

  "Furniture is a very creative business... Creativity and design and color and texture... almost immune to technology. It's such a human characteristic that you have to trust what you're being told." — Dan Bennett [19:02]

• On Editorial Content and AI:

  "Content... helps you decide. It gives you confidence. So, you know, in the marketing realm and editorial realm, it's content. And then on the product side, we, we of course have lots of different features... our AI assistant chat Dottie... mood boards... complete the room." — Alexandra Seaman [15:25]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro: Defining “Decision Layer” – [05:03]
• Customer Pain Points/Lack of Confidence – [09:55]
• Role of Content & AI Assistant (Dottie) – [13:41], [21:52]
• Data Challenges & Platform Building – [08:03]
• How Platform Empowers Partners – [27:16]
• Measuring Trust & Confidence – [25:05]
• Future of Category, Ubiquity of AI – [31:12], [32:54]
• Staying Agile & Industry Cross-Pollination – [34:07], [34:41]

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Conclusion

Furniture.com isn’t just digitizing furniture shopping—they’re making it less overwhelming and more confidence-driven, blending deep industry knowledge, high-touch partnerships, expert-level content, and innovative AI. Their approach is both art and science, balancing the “human” in experience with robust technological support. The lessons—from prioritizing decision guidance over selection, to measuring trust as much as transactions—offer a rich playbook for any brand facing consumer choice friction in the digital era.

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Transcript

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[Dan Bennett]

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[Greg Kilstrom]

hi, I'm Gregg Kilstrom, host of the Agile brand, and here's a question for you. What if the infinite shelf of E commerce hasn't made customers more confident but has instead created a new kind of friction? The paralysis of endless choice agility requires brands to shift their focus from simply providing more options to actively helping customers navigate them. Today we're going to talk about understanding the modern customer journey when discovery is no longer the primary problem, building value as a decision layer that sits on top of commerce rather than competing with it, and using AI not just for personalization, but for simplification and decision support. Welcome to season eight of the Agile Brand Podcast. This season we're going all in on Expert Mode, MarTech, AI and Customer Experience, talking with the people and platforms behind the brands you know and love. Again, I'm your host Greg Kilstrom and I help Fortune 1000 companies make sense

[Podcast Producer / Host Assistant]

of martech AI and marketing ops.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Hit, subscribe or follow to make sure you always get the latest episodes and

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leave us a rating so others can

[Greg Kilstrom]

find us as well. And make sure you check out our sponsor, TechSystems, an industry leader in full stack technology services, talent services and real world adoption. For more information, go to techsystems.com now let's dive in. Tell me to discuss this topic, I visited the furniture.com headquarters here in New York and I'd like to welcome Dan Bennett, CMO and Alexandra Seaman, co founder and SVP of, of furniture.com Dan and Alexandra, welcome to the show.

[Alexandra Seaman]

Thank you.

[Dan Bennett]

Thanks for having us.

[Alexandra Seaman]

For having us.

[Podcast Producer / Host Assistant]

Yeah.

[Greg Kilstrom]

And great to be here in your offices.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

Yeah.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Welcome. Yeah, yeah, I mean I, I was expecting good furniture and I was, you know, pleasantly not surprised. Not surprised.

[Dan Bennett]

Yeah, yeah, it's a priority for us.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[Podcast Producer / Host Assistant]

Great.

[Greg Kilstrom]

So before we dive in, why don't you both introduce yourselves.

[Alexandra Seaman]

Madam, I'm Alex. I'm the co founder of furniture.com and I have been here since the beginning. Employee number one. Employee number two, my family actually I kind of grew up in the furniture retail space, but much more the traditional legacy furniture retail space. Actually fourth generation in the furniture business. And so this is, you know, sort of kind of continuation, but very fresh approach to furniture. Really for the shopper in 2026.

[Dan Bennett]

Yeah, that was good. I'm Dan Bennett. I am co founder and cmo. As Alex mentioned. Go back to slightly after. I had the most beautiful thick hair when we started.

[Alexandra Seaman]

You wouldn't believe it, it was longer than mine.

[Dan Bennett]

It was sensational. And then so I'm first generation. This is my first foray into furniture as a category. But I've spent my career building technology brands. So the other, very much the other side of our business, which Alex also has experience in, is, is really that we're a technology business in service of the furniture shopper.

[Greg Kilstrom]

But a few things today and what I teed up in the intro, but why don't we start with just giving the audience a little background on furniture.com itself. You know, it's described as a decision layer rather than a traditional marketplace. So, you know, what does that mean? Who's the primary customer you're building for?

[Dan Bennett]

You know, a little stat. First, furniture as a category, a retail category is giant. It's actually bigger than movies, music and video games combined. It's a large category. So it has a large shopper base. What we realized, and I think part of your sort of supposition around this business or this conversation is that Choice is not the problem. There is a million ways to choose and a million things to choose from. And there are lots of platforms that give you an endless aisle, that give you endless choice. What we realized in the genesis of this business and speaking with consumers, we did probably six months worth of diligence on this industry from a digital point of view, is that people want a way to make a decision confidently. They want a tool that helps them make a decision, not that throws them another 200 sofa options. So furniture.com as a business has always been set up to do that. First and foremost, we work with, you know, the most trusted retailers in the country. All right, so there's a, there's a little decision made to start with. Okay, I know I can trust this brand. It isn't just a product from overseas I'm not familiar with. And then we have a. Then we always built from the very beginning, even from before it was Derrigo. Machine learning is a foundation of the business. So when you come in and you want to talk to the platform semantically, we can get you very quickly to a product that answers what you're looking for. And so you start to combine those types of things. And that's what we mean when we say a decision engine. We genuinely help people get to a decision. We truncate that journey.

[Alexandra Seaman]

I think even if you think about other industries, you know, real estate, homes, cars, et cetera, like all these other big giant ticket purchases that somebody will make and you know, the research and, or buying phase online, there's a platform to help you do that, to help you compare, to help you sort of tell, guide you along your decision through lots of different options, lots of different companies, lots of different brands. You think of Zillow, you think of Auto Trader. And so when we initially came in four or five years ago, we sort of had that kind of idea like there's. That doesn't exist in furniture. Why, you know, with all these amazing trusted retailers, the answer is it's expensive and difficult to build. It's really hard, but it has. And then of course, in the last couple years, especially given the technological evolution and AI, the platform has evolved a lot. We actually relaunched six months ago. It's evolved a lot to kind of really be a better version of that now, I think.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Well, and I mean, aren't those always the best ideas or the things that it seems? So, like, why didn't someone do this first? But I mean, obviously you've realized that it's not easy to do. But, you know, the fact that it was. It was kind of a natural progression. Makes it, you know, it makes it an interesting business. Right?

[Dan Bennett]

Yeah. You know, it's. There are many reasons why it's difficult. First and foremost, you know, we have been able to develop great relationships with our partners, and that takes time from a technical point of view. I've said this in a few other articles, so I'll repeat it again. The standard of data in furniture is extremely diverse. None of the feeds are the same. Sometimes what furniture is described as is not the same. So we had to spend probably 12 months of machine learning time with our data. We have a big data science team with that team to literally standardize how that data can live in a data lake that allows us to build AI on top of it, because without that, it would be garbage. So that was a heavy lift and it's time consuming and it's expensive. But again, the category, the payoff in the category we believe is worth it. And perhaps more importantly, developing a consumer experience that's better, especially in furniture, which Alex obviously is very close to, I am now very close to, is, you know, it's why we do it.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I mean that. The fact that the data is so inconsistent from the manufacturers, that also trickles down to the customers. Right. I mean, you know, there's a stat here. You know, consumers spend an average of nine hours researching a couch. It's some of that, I would imagine, is the apples and oranges and, you know, things like that. As far as, you know, people calling their products different and even, you know, what we talked about earlier, just the vast amount of choice in this era of infinite choice. You know, what does it tell you about the core problem that consumers are facing? And why has E Commerce generally made this even more complex?

[Alexandra Seaman]

I think, you know, people, the core problem is probably a lack of confidence when you're buying a piece of furniture. It's a. It's first of all big, like you, you know, it's expensive, it's big. Buying it online. So your question about E commerce is even more difficult because now I'm buying without seeing it. I'm buying without sitting on it. Is it comfortable? Is it going to fit in my apartment? Is it going to fit through my door when it gets delivered? Like, what is the state of it going to be when it gets delivered? And, you know, anyone who's ever bought a sofa, you know, you really don't want to have to return it. It's really quite a hassle. And so I think that people certainly have A lot of choice. And you have, I mean, you think about all the channels serving you choice, right? You have everything coming through your phone, your laptop, your tv, whatever. And then you think about all of the different brands on all of those channels. It's really like, it's infinite and it's overwhelming. But how do you know I can trust this? I'm not going to get this and it's not going to fit fit or it's not going to be comfortable or my kid's going to spill pasta sauce on it and then I'm, you know, I'm out of luck. So like, I think really helping give them confidence. And a lot of that is the data piece, right? Like, you know, giving all of the relevant information about size, dimensions, fitting, about, you know, is it performance fabric? Does it work for my family with three kids and a dog, Is it, you know, all those things is really important. Can I see a bunch of books, photos, Is there a video?

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[Greg Kilstrom]

And so you know, given again given infinite choice and the, this becomes a decision problem. Right? It's, it's, we can probably find lots of products that slide seem right but making the right choice, having, having the confidence is really what it comes down to. Right. So you know, so many and, and in so many other industries the, the goal seems to still be to just be found. But you know what you're talking about here, I'm sure it translates to other industries as well. Are we moving, Obviously you need to be found but you know, are we also moving past that towards providing just better clarity, better confidence?

[Dan Bennett]

Yeah, I think from a marketing point of view being found is one of our ambitions and there are levels to that for sure. We're not immune to the fact that we know we need to be found in the LLMs. And in fact we are showing up well in the LLMs. Actually the anecdote there candidly is about two years ago we decided to invest very heavily in content creation internally. So we have a content group here, if you think about it like sort of almost a magazine editorial group and what that team does month to month is they put out somewhere around 140 pieces of content and that can vary from social to long form, how tos you name it. That in the early days doesn't pay, it doesn't pay dividends because it doesn't really drive volume. It makes the site look beautiful. It means that when you come to the site you're looking for a rug and there's a couple of rug guides that look like they were designed by, you know, a high end publisher, that was the value to start with. That value now is starting to show up in the LLM. So because we have this, like I said, it goes back to confidence and trust. Because we have this content developed, we're able to appear in those places and certainly there are places we buy our way into it, you know, through Google. And but in that environment we're starting to show up because the content is right and it's expert and it's trusted and people use it. And then most importantly, people that come from that content check out at a much higher rate than even our organic traffic, which has very good conversion rate to start with. So I think the authenticity that has to go along with these new channels can't be underestimated.

[Alexandra Seaman]

And if you think about, you know, sort of that content, the different types of content and editorial type content, and helping someone make A decision. You can almost think about it similar to like if I have an interior designer, right, who's helping me merchandise a room when I know I like this green sofa, okay, how do I put the rest of the room together? And you think about content that helps you do that. It's like a designer helps you decide, it helps, it gives you confidence to make a decision. And so, you know, in the marketing realm and editorial realm, it's content. And then on the product side, we, we of course have lots of different features that lend themselves to this, like help people decide. The obvious ones like very advanced kind of semantic based searching or you know, our AI, AI assistant chat Dottie, which in herself is a mini LLM. But then things like mood boards, things like complete the room, which is kind of what I just described, that really do help people guide people in decision, help them get to relevant product quickly, but then help them kind of go a step beyond.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, so I mean, I use the word traditionally lightly, I guess, but you know, traditionally we would say the decision layer would be something solely like AI, and certainly you're using plenty of those technologies. But it sounds like it's a broader play than that, right? I mean, there's a lot of everything from the guides, which are more content, but still helping people make decisions. So is all of that kind of that decision layer?

[Dan Bennett]

Yeah, I think the descriptor for decision would be about confidence. So it's about confident decisions and in parallel worlds. For example, if you use the LLMs right now to help you find a car, for example, they'll do a great job if it's a new car they do. They might do a good job of giving you pricing. Maybe they can collate reviews. But you know, a house and a car or furniture are the three most expensive things anyone ever buys. What I don't think they do well yet. And maybe you're talking about more than just the top three here in terms of expensive items or important items. I don't think those LLMs give you confidence yet because the answer might be different if you ask it again immediately after. It might be different if you prompt it slightly differently. What we want to do is be a partner with the LLMs. You know, we certainly want to be in the conversation with them. I do think down the road it's going to be less frequent that people are even going to sites. Candidly, I think the experience may well be in a sort of super app, if you will. But again, you're still going to rely on expertise in the domain to ensure that you have confidence in your decisions. And we want furniture.com we expect furniture.com to be that brand. And it's a lot of what we're doing right now in marketing is to ensure that that's understood. So, yeah, I want them to come to the site. But ultimately, if they're going to check out in the future on an LLM or wherever it might be, it doesn't matter, so long as we are the arbiter or the supporter of that decision, I think.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah, well. And the LLMs are. They're always very agreeable.

[Podcast Producer / Host Assistant]

Right.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Which is nice and depends which one you talk to.

[Dan Bennett]

You get different levels, different levels of signals.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Fair enough, fair enough. But, but yeah, to your, to your point, I mean, the context becomes important then too. You know, they're doing their best. The LLMs are. They're predictive models. So they're doing their best to predict, but they don't know everything about. They don't know unless you feed your floor plan of your house to them or something. They don't know all of those kinds of, or taste. Right.

[Dan Bennett]

Furniture is a very, it's a very creative business. Yeah. I mean, Alex knows this extremely well. But creativity and design and color and texture and character of furniture, it's almost, it's almost immune to technology. It's such a human characteristic that you really have to trust what you're being told, I think. And so that's beyond just the price point. If a sofa's $2,000, that's a big ticket item by anyone's standards. So we have to. Our deep, deep, deep furniture expertise really is what latter is up to all of this.

[Alexandra Seaman]

And I think, you know, like, if you think about furniture.com, how does it go beyond like technology AI predictive to help you make a decision. And by the way, there's a lot of AI sort of driven components that do that, do help you do that. But I think it's like it's sort of in this category. It's an art and a science. Science would be the technology side. But then the art side is like the, you know, furniture is visual, furniture is design, it's merchandising. You know what I mean? And so you think about just the foundation of furniture.com, the fact that we're working with 90 trusted top retailers, you know, nationally, and the fact that we are focused in this one core category and our team comprises lots of technologists and marketers, but also a lot of people who do come from like the furniture space. From lots of different brands, both online and brick and mortar, and come with those expertise in thinking about, okay, how do we train the AI, how do we train our Dottie, our, you know, our chat, our LLM, so that she's a design expert and a merchant and, you know, your stylish best friend, that, that's what I sort of say about her. Beyond just like an LLM who sort of has good answers to everything, she actually understands the category what. Which gives much richer context to the answers and I think more confidence and also just a better outcome.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, well, yeah. Cause I think another big challenge with just that endless aisle or just the unlimited choice is there's the customers also bought this or there's all those recommendations that, I mean, you could just keep scrolling all day, right. And not all of them are necessarily relevant. If you go to a large retailer, whatever, you know, not all of those, those elements are relevant. And also, you know, my definition of if I say I like modern furniture, what is, you know, right. What does modern mean to Greg versus you and you? You know, so I think we get into a challenge of, you know, how, how do you solve for that individual taste in this kind of search?

[Dan Bennett]

We have a pretty good solution to it. We have a, as Alex has alluded to, we have a AI interface we call Dottie. And that product has been built specifically to understand you as a person. And so you might say, you know, Greg wants a 92 inch modern leather sofa. Now, you're a man of taste, you probably know what a modern sofa is. But there are some people that think they want modern. And that sofa pops up in the Dottie search and they realize, you know what? I want a tufted arm and I want to, I want a walnut leg. And so suddenly they, we help take them to a place where actually this is your style. And so it doesn't almost need a name at that point because it's just Greg's taste. And ultimately that's what we're there to do. Again, confident decisions. How do we help you do that? And whoever thought up the endless aisle. I mean, that's an insane idea. I think it's a horrible way of thinking about shopping for anything. It's like a nightmare. My favorite stores are the ones where someone's taken the time to curate or think about who I am as a shopper. And so I don't have to scroll through a thousand things, I can get straight to the heart of it.

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[Greg Kilstrom]

So let's talk a little bit about measurement here. And you know, certainly there's going to be some traditional. I mean you're trying to make sales of furniture.

[Dan Bennett]

We do all the boring stuff as well.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, but what else is a measure that may be, you know, either non traditional or you know, how do you measure that decision layer and know that you're giving people the right recommendations?

[Dan Bennett]

Yeah, it's the multi, multi million dollar question to some extent. So yes, we do all the standard stuff you would imagine, especially from a site and a marketing point of view in terms of understanding the quality and health of our audience or audience health, the level below that for us, which it gets a little bit more into the art piece that Alex was referencing is we want to know from a journey point of view. Yes, I want my performance marketing to drive a shopper to a PDP and get them checked out. I want to be able to service that, of course, but at a deeper layer. I want to know if we're not doing that, are people spending time on the site, are they interacting with content? How many pages are they interacting with, are they returning to the site, are they utilizing reviews, how many prompts are they putting into Dottie? And we Matrix, all those things. So we have an overall, I guess you could call sort of trust score or confidence score on the site that is triggered by those human behaviors on the platform. There are businesses I've been familiar with in the past where they'd be looking to shorten all of those things because truncating that gets into a sale more quickly. It isn't that we want people to spend more time than they need to. It's that we want them to ensure that they're building that confidence. And honestly, spending time with us is how we think they do that. Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Because that, I mean if, if they're able to do that, then I assume they come back for more, they come

[Dan Bennett]

back for the next piece. We also do, you know, we, we do ongoing NPS studies, we do awareness brand list studies, we do a lot of questionnaires and we do a lot of in person consumer work. So we do speak to individuals, but we can see it in the data. If you're, if you come through a piece of content, you viewed the content, you click to another object, you have a few prompts by the time you get to a checkout. At that point, I think you're pretty bought into the platform. And that I think shows trust and we have to protect that. We're very, we're very careful with that.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah. Well, and part of that I, I know is the partners that you work with as well, right? I mean you're, you're careful about the partners you work with. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, how do you maintain that relationship and you know, are, you know, what kind of, what kind of things do you share that, help build that relationship?

[Alexandra Seaman]

Yeah, I think, you know, I help, I help lead our partnerships and sales side. And I think there, there is a part of it. Furniture is an interesting industry in that like out of any other big category, there's the most like the highest magnitude of family, multigenerational family businesses. And so in a way like kind of all feels very familial, very friendly. And so when we started furniture.com, we, we, some of the other retailers we sort of knew just like through the industry or I, or like, you know, my, my brothers knew or whatever and we met them and we said this is the platform, by the way. It wasn't live. So this is a platform we are going to, basically we're building and we're going to launch. And would you guys be interested in something like this? Do you think it would add value to you? Do you Think it would add value to the shopper who. You guys know better than anybody, buddy, right? Like, and, and how could we add more value? And so we established with sort of what we call our launch partners about 10, 15 retailers, like a true feedback loop because they really know this industry decades and so millions of shoppers. And, and so then we, we really, I think, launched and have continued to iterate on a better platform. And then we have a very kind of white glove relationship with the retailers that we work with. I mean, of course as we've gotten bigger, it's expanded a lot. But like we have a partnerships team in house. They're amazing. They speak to these retailers all the time. Like they're always on calls with them. And I think we really also, you know, measure by the quality of the furniture. Like they need to have good quality furniture. They need to have great customer service, good logistics and delivery. Because of course on furniture.com, we facilitate this. Like a shopper checks out on furniture.com, but because it's an agentic cart, it's then the rest is up to the retailer. And so we want to make sure that that shopper experience that we deliver, which is a great one, is going to continue. And so we, you know, we evaluate partnerships based on those things.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean that partnership, it goes both ways, right. So, you know, they need to deliver great product. But also, and I would imagine, you know, given your description of the industry, there might be a little skepticism on some Internet startup that comes along. But I think it sounds like you've been able to mitigate that with not only your ties to the industry, but also just building a product. I mean, it sounds like it gets the industry. Right. I mean, it was built for purpose. Right.

[Dan Bennett]

I think we identified early that there was real white space for it. We've said before the reason the whites bet exists is because it's very difficult and it's expensive. Probably the first thing we did right outside of, as Alex said, having great conversations with amazing retailers. We're about 85 people now and they are completely world class. We have a data science team and an engineering team and a PM team and a partnerships team and a brand team that have come from some of the biggest brands in technology and furniture and the broader brand world. And so when we get on a call, especially even in the early days, we get on a call with our head of data science, who's a PhD, and you can't fail if you're one of these retailers to sit and Speak with Yassel in this case and think, holy mackerel, they're building something impressive here. So I think we're lucky enough to have a killer team, and it's led to an amazing product. And I think what will now be the. The defining brand in furniture.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah. Love it. Love it. So let's talk a little bit about the future here. You know, take this out five years or so. You know, what's the. What's the typical furniture shopping experience like for, you know, for a consumer? And. And maybe the. What's. How does furniture.com differ from that?

[Alexandra Seaman]

Yeah, I mean, I think the typical. I mean, even still today, even with, you know, technology and E commerce and AI, the typical shopper largely still goes into a store at some point. At least, you know, more than three quarters of people will go into a store at some point. And it makes sense. It's very tactile, very visual product. And I think that stores, unlike maybe other retail categories, I think stores will always be a crucial part, as they should be, probably. And so that's something that I. I mean, some people say it'll get totally disrupted. I actually don't think it will at all. But I think that helping people around the store experience. Right. Of course, there's a large chunk of people who just want to buy online, and that's growing and growing and growing with, you know, the group of consumers that's aging up to. To the buyer right now. But I think it's like, okay, I need to discover, then I need help guide being, like, guided towards my decision. And then maybe I pop into a store and see it, or then I get back on and then I want to, like, look at different price ranges. And maybe I need help merchandising the room. And so I think the shopper, in five years, the overall, like, mass shopper, will be much more comfortable with it. Like, I think AI will be ingrained in how they search. Not just a subset, everybody. And I think we're sort of on the cutting edge of that in the category. It'll probably become more widespread. And I think my ambition, our ambition is that we continue to kind of lead that for that furniture shopper. It's not every furniture shopper, but for. For our segment of shoppers, like, we want to remain on the cutting edge, remain kind of the best.

[Dan Bennett]

I think if you don't know which brand you're looking for. And we. This is what we say to our partners all the time. If you're looking for a Lulu and Georgia or Bloomingdale's or rooms to go. If you're looking for those brands, we want you to go to those brands. Most shoppers don't search by brand in furniture. They shop by attribute. If you're not shopping by brand, I think in five years time people will be going to furniture.com first because if I'm looking for a flight right now, I go to kayak. If I'm looking for car, I go to autotrader. If I want to stay in a hotel, probably go to hotels.com. i think in furniture people will go to furniture.com first. I think the caveat on that is that it might be that they're interacting with us in an LLM environment, but I think the confidence our brand and expertise gives them will be present whether it's on the site and social and LLM or whatever. But I think we'll be the first star.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah.

[Podcast Producer / Host Assistant]

Love it.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Well, thanks again both for joining today. One last question for you before we wrap up here. I'll ask it to each of you. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently besides running?

[Alexandra Seaman]

I'm just kidding. I think for me it's sort of the context switching depending what the most important thing is that month or week or day, day or hour. That's what I really try to like zone into and, and work on. And so sometimes it's product, sometimes it's like technology way beyond. I'm, I'm, you know, way beyond what I can really do as well as my colleagues. But. And then sometimes it's marketing and sometimes it's partnership. So I think it keeps me hopefully pretty agile.

[Dan Bennett]

You know, honestly, I was thinking about this question. What I realized, I think we all do as a business, but I think I do particularly or in answer to this question is we spend a lot of time looking at what other industries do and how other consumers behave in those industries. We spend less time looking at what furniture, the furniture industry does from a behavioral point of view because we're building something we think that reflects consumer behavior as it is evolving. So I think we pay a lot of attention to those other industries and we have folks that come from technology industries adjacent to folks furniture and that when you bring that back into furniture, it helps us stay massively agile. I mean, it's kind of intimidating sometimes, but it does help us stay, I think in a mode that means we're building something that's compelling.

[Podcast Producer / Host Assistant]

Yeah. Love it.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Well, thanks again.

[Dan Bennett]

Thank you.

[Greg Kilstrom]

I'd like to thank Dan Bennett, CMO and Alexandra Simon, co founder and svpurniture.com for joining the show. You can learn more about Dan alexandfurniture.com by following the links in the show notes. This episode is brought to you by Tech Systems. They're leaders in full stack, tech services, talent solutions and helping companies put it all in action. You can learn [e-mail] that's teksystems.com and thanks again for listening to the Agile Brand podcast. If you liked the episode, hit subscribe

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[Greg Kilstrom]

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Just visit GregKilstrom.com that's G R E G K I H L S t r o m.com the Agile brand is

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