Meet the co-founders of Furniturebox UK
Furniturebox UK was founded by friends and business partners Monty George and Dan Beckles at the age of just 17 whilst still completing their A Levels. The duo grew up together, attending the same school and playing in several sports teams together at an academy level.
Dan: Having grown up together at the same school, as well as playing in multiple sports teams together, Monty and I know each other extremely well. Throughout school we both had a passion for business and aspirations to run successful businesses. For Monty this started at an early age selling items through eBay, whilst for myself I worked multiple jobs through school before joining forces with Monty to start Furniturebox. We share the same passion for success and strive to be the best we can, something that we also carried with us into the sports teams we played at. The competitive nature in us has driven us forward and we are always looking to do something different, innovate and create a special company culture that we’re proud of. We’re certainly proud of what we’ve achieved thus far, however this is only just the start.
There’s always a lightbulb moment before the beginning of a new venture. What was that moment for you:
Monty: The light bulb moment was when I was 12 and sold my first few items online. My eyes were opened to the realisation that I had a virtually unlimited market at my fingertips. Furniturebox has been a product of this passion that ensued after this moment. The Furniture sector is not only large but also allows you to be innovative and creative - this really excited me.
What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal:
Dan: Not many people have the opportunity to launch a business with their best friend, let alone a business that you both truly believe can be a huge success. We saw a gap in the market at the time and worked tirelessly to exploit this. Seeing the potential of where the business could grow and how hard we were both working acted as a constant source of inspiration for us.
Monty: We want to take the business global, be a household name, recognised for quality, value and service. Also, we want to push the boundaries in the ecommerce world by providing faster delivery and an exceptional customer experience. We're also moving towards making our products and business more sustainable as this is an area that’s important to us, our team members and our customers.
What does your business offer its target audience:
Monty: We’re all about inspiration! We pay a lot of attention to our product photography to create a look that our customers will aspire to achieve in their own homes. We encourage them to take their own photos and share with us on social media, especially Instagram. We’ve been successful at creating a community of people who love interiors and showing them off on social media.
We’ve worked hard to make sure every product we launch is on trend, high quality and at an affordable price. We combine that with exceptional support from our customer service team and free next day delivery which is key to our continued success.
What plans do you have for Furniturebox UK over the next two years:
Dan: We’re excited to be moving to a new, custom built warehouse which will give us the ability to increase our current storage capacity by about 5x. This will enable us to expand our product ranges to provide more options for our ever-growing customer base and will future proof the business for years to come.
We are also planning to launch some of our ranges in the US in Q1 of 2022. Once again this is extremely exciting for us, with the US online market being about 6.5x bigger than the UK online market. We want to become a globally recognised brand one day and this is certainly a step in the right direction. A new website is also being built and should be rolled out over the coming months, needless to say that our plans over the next two years are not to slow down!
Keeping an eye on the numbers in any business is important. How do you ensure that you’re always up to date:
Dan: We’ve got some really good tools for monitoring different areas of the business so we can get a snapshot view of our performance and what different departments are up to. But we can also get more detailed reports which allow us to deep-dive into important business data to help us make strategic decisions. It’s well worth investing in the tech to have easy access to all of this and ensuring that it can scale with us as we grow. A business cannot sustain rapid growth without profitability and this is always at the forefront of our discussions.
What’s the most important question entrepreneurs should be asking themselves:
Monty: I think there’s a few questions worth asking: “Do I enjoy this?” and “Is this going to make money (if so how)?”. If you don’t enjoy doing something it is going to be far, far harder to succeed. If you want to do something you will work harder, longer and faster. If your business isn’t going to make any money or you don’t have a clear plan about how it will, it will ultimately fail.
Dan: “Am I prepared to make the sacrifices needed to make this business successful?” This draws similar conclusions to Monty’s answer in the sense that if you enjoy what you do, can see the business is going to be profitable and have a good work ethic? If yes, then will you be prepared to make the sacrifices required to make the business successful?
For us we have made many sacrifices along the way but we were fully prepared to do this and we would not be where we are today if we had not made these sacrifices. Much like a professional sportsman, in order to make it to the top you have to (almost) sacrifice your whole life to focus on your working goals. You see a lot of good businesses fail as the owners aren’t willing to put in the hard hours or make the sacrifices required.
What routines have you got in place to ensure that you don’t ignore your mental health:
Monty: I am someone that finds it impossible to relax. I go to the gym and swim a few times a week whilst listening to history podcasts – I use it as a time to relax and unwind.
Dan: I’ve got a fantastic network of friends and for me it’s spending time with those friends. Living with some of your best friends is great as often I’ll get back in after a long, stressful day but will be having a laugh with my housemates in no time. I know that I have a lot of people who are there for me and we’re open about our mental health together. If someone is struggling we can all turn to each other and know that we’ve got the support we need. I feel extremely grateful to have such a great group of friends.
Hiring the right team is vital in any business. What are your top three tips for hiring and developing engineering talent:
Let people make their own mistakes. Give people the power and freedom to try new things. If they don’t work then you can learn from the mistakes and develop further. Always listen to your team and don’t be arrogant enough to think that you’re always right.
Share knowledge with your team. The more they know about other areas of the business, the more informed decisions they are able to make.
Do not ignore personality. You may find someone who ticks all of the boxes but if they do not fit in with your company culture then this could cause issues for your entire company. We’ve created a family feel to our business and this is something we will never change. We want all staff to be there for each other and to love the jobs they do.
How do you believe the evolution of tech will impact your industry over the next 10 years:
Dan: eCommerce sales have seen huge growth since Covid-19 began, particularly in our industry, and we can see how that is pushing businesses to make their online experience better and more profitable. It’s important for us to invest in technology which makes the customer experience of shopping with us tailored to their needs, relevant, engaging and pleasant. We want to be at the forefront of eCommerce tech to give us a competitive advantage.
