We talk with people who are shaping the future. A show about technology in business, research, and art.
http://www.ycombinator.com
#139 - Jay Reno
Jay Reno is the CEO and founder of Feather. Feather is a furniture subscription service. They were in the Summer 2017 batch of YC.
You can check out their furniture at LiveFeather.com and if you live in LA, SF, or New York you can try out the service.
Jay is on Twitter @jayjreno.
The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon.
Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year.
Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/
***
Topics
00:00 - Intro
00:49 - Opting out of owning furniture
6:29 - Feather's prototype
9:19 - How much did he make from his MVP?
9:59 - How many products did they have?
12:14 - Legacy competitors
14:04 - Changing branding from RentFeather.com to LiveFeather.com
15:59 - Customer interviews and learnings
18:29 - Scaling a company with physical products
21:29 - Why expand to other markets vs focus on one?
23:59 - Who to hire and when in a logistics-heavy business
26:09 - Unexpected learnings from scaling Feather
27:54 - Feeling his role change over time
29:44 - Counterintuitive advice
35:19 - Advice for YC founders after Demo Day