Arth: Sustainable Furniture Flipping
Arth is a part of the final project for my course Sustainable Business Models in my program Strategic Design & Management at Parsons School of Design. We created a platform for preloved furniture. Created sustainable business models and a startup pitch for the investors.
Timeline
8 Weeks
Region
North America
My Role
Research
Ideation
Financial Modelling
Investor Deck
Tools & Activities
Miro, Figma
Ethnographic Research
Ideation & Prototyping
Sustainable Business Models
Team
Anwesha Sengupta
Madhura Redij
Noopur Ambre
Radhika Dilip Kale
The Process
Redefining the curated landscape of furniture consumption and working towards making slow furniture the future of sustainability
The Challenge
We conducted 22 user research interviews and recruited via Facebook groups and various tenant network groups. The target segment included individuals who are 18-29-year-olds who have recently moved to NYC + people in the process of moving.
The research was conducted around their moving experience, furniture buying experience, online + offline buying experience, maintenance and product.
Research
Logistical difficulties:
There is a problem transporting furniture. Getting to furniture on the curb at the right time is an issue. Selling furniture is too much of a hassle.Curation
Bad seller-generated photography with a lack of curation makes it difficult to browse & gauge furniture.Hygiene & Verification
There is no guarantee of hygiene of the furniture, and genuineness of the buyers & sellers.
Sensemaking
After synthesizing our data we understand that there are three critical areas which need to be considered:
A no-hesitation platform:
One-stop shop marketplace for clean, authenticated and curated pre-loved furniture, delivered from home to home.
Value Proposition:
A curated marketplace platform service that enables sellers to connect with buyers and mitigates the logistics and hygiene friction points in the pre-loved furniture market, promoting circularity and sustainability.
Solution & Prototyping
No data is too less. With over 22 interviews, we still felt the need for doing deeper ethnographic research. Having more time for the project would have helped us garner some even deeper insights.
The Pitch deck is about storytelling. It should convey a single value problem and value proposition to convey clarity of thought. The product MVP or the prototype should also highlight the same, closing the narrative loop.
Unit economics and financial models are key to venture design. Both of these, including valuation, are underused tools for strategic designers. Extensive and regular use of financial models will help pivot or make timely strategic decisions for the business.
