![]() That feeling quickly faded the following month when I found out that our supplier in China had sold us an entire lot of defective product. We ended up selling about $50,000 worth of furniture in our first month in business and were completely elated. Our first few months in business were a whirlwind of highs and lows. This process was completely worth it – our reviews have been through the roof. We ended up going through about 15 prototypes with our supplier before we figured out the perfect fill ratio. So, we became determined to fix this flaw and create the best quality and most comfortable outdoor cushions on the market. Some of these corrections to the traditional outdoor styles were extremely easy to fix in production and some ended up being much more difficult than we thought.įor example, one of the most common customer complaints was about the sofa cushions being either too stiff, uncomfortable, or flimsy to the point they blew away in the wind. To our surprise, we found a ton of (what we thought were completely obvious) consumer complaints about what was already being offered online. We did so by reading customer reviews, thousands of them, to figure out what our competitors were doing right, what they were doing wrong, and how we could design our products accordingly. Since our plan was to target e-commerce first, we needed to find the best way to stand out in that space. The furniture industry is highly competitive, so we knew that our only chance at success was to bring to market products that were truly superior to what the competition was already offering. We read thousands of customer reviews just to figure out what our competitors were doing right, and what they were doing wrong, and how we could design our products accordingly. When I first ventured into the furniture industry with my previous business partner, the two of us did about two months of research before we merchandised our first several collections of furniture. Describe the process of building the initial product. ![]() In June of 2017, I created SunHaven as a solo venture. Although our partnership amicably parted ways earlier this year, the lessons I learned from him and our time together was a wonderful experience. To get ideas and a feel for the business, I started going to discount stores, buying random trinkets and selling them for a profit on Amazon - something I would highly recommend for anyone wanting to test the waters with e-commerce.ĭuring this time, I bumped into an old family friend who was already involved in furniture importing and together we decided to start our own business. Initially, I had no clue what products I wanted to focus on, nor did I have any knowledge about consumer goods production or importing. ![]() Instead, since I always wanted to get involved in designing some sort of consumer product and always dreamed of building my own business, I decided to just go for it. For me, after three years of law school and different experiences and internships in the legal field, I knew that being a lawyer was not in the cards for me. That loss forced me to take a step back to think hard about the direction I wanted my life to take. In my last year of law school, my best friend suddenly passed away. I also attended and graduated from Loyola Law School. Throughout college and briefly after, I worked as an agent at a commercial real estate firm where I negotiated office leases on behalf of office tenants throughout Los Angeles. And, I can assure you, that if you can learn to sell a heating pad to a complete stranger in the middle of a mall, you can sell just about anything to anyone. When I was 16, I sold heating pads at a mall kiosk. I’ve always loved sales and have worked in a variety of sales positions throughout my career. ![]() My road to starting SunHaven was interesting, to say the least. What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea? ![]()
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