Blogs

The Best Transforming Furniture in the World

Published

4 years ago

01/13/2021

Kokou Adzo

We talked to Jared Joubert of Expand Furniture on how you can revolutionize when thinking about furniture and this is what he had to say.

Table of Contents

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times?

Jared Joubert: Like many people, we are adapting to a new lifestyle and workflow. We are luckily healthy and in good spirits finding ways to entertain ourselves between work.

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded Expand Furniture?

Jared Joubert: We have always been interested in business but took different paths in school. I studied psychology and Adam Economics. Studying Bachelor of arts let us learn a wide variety of concepts and think critically, but it is mostly unrelated to what we do now. We founded this company in 2011 after seeing a necessity for better furniture design that suits modern living. When shopping for our furniture for apartment living in Vancouver, we found everything was bulky and did not provide extra functions that we wanted. We decided to create a company to fill this need.

How does Expand Furniture innovate?

Jared Joubert: We create entirely new designs that no one else has, and we also partner with outstanding companies who already make great products that let us distribute their creations. We regularly improve products from simple additions like adding magnets into extensions for an excellent click.

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?

Jared Joubert: We rapidly had to pivot a few times by investing our time in product design and innovation during slow sales periods. We had to rapidly shift again to slow down, making new designs to focus on manufacturing and logistics, and getting support staff. It has been challenging but also a good test for us to adapt and innovate.

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?

Jared Joubert: We had to invest capital at a time when everything seemed grim. These might seem like easy choices in hindsight, but at the time, they were challenging.

How do you deal with stress and anxiety?

Jared Joubert: Netflix, video games, and sports (when they are allowed) are a great stress reducer and can take our minds off of work.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Jared Joubert: Really, our biggest competitor is Amazon or Wayfair for ad spend and search volumes, which overshadow us. We focus more on high-quality products and specialized items that are difficult to deliver, hard to manufacture, and are not necessarily high volume products. It allows us to put more care into products and not worry about competition because they play a volume game with less consideration for the product quality.