In this week’s Human Discussions talk, our founder has chatted with Rob Bridgman, founder of Snug – Europe’s first Sofa in a Box Company. Rob is a truly inspirational person and in this week’s talk he shared with us his journey of creating not only a product and a brand but also a whole new category for the UK market. 

Rob has always had a great passion for furniture and design and he has worked in the furniture industry for more than ten years, following in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps. When moving house, Rob needed to buy a new sofa. However, his experience was terribly frustrating.  The delivery of the product took more than two months, bringing the sofa up to his flat became a strenuous experience only to find out it won’t fit through the door. Since he had already chosen a special colour, he could not send it back. This experience gave him an inspiration to create a whole new product that could satisfy the consumers and make the whole process of buying a sofa far easier. 

In creating the product, Rob wanted to fully acknowledge the needs and desires of the consumers but at the core there was the willingness to create a sofa so comfortable that people could sit on it, restfully, for six or more hours. Moreover, he wanted a sofa that could be moved and assembled differently depending on the room in which it was set. A further prerogative for the founder of Snug, was the ability to deliver the product quickly (Snug now delivers within 3 days!).  

As Rob also stated, during this journey, the most surprising thing he learnt from his customers was that they did not have actual competitors. In the market, there were already self-assembly sofas, but the quality was not even nearly comparable with Snug’s one, and above all, it couldn’t be disassembled and rebuilt repeatedly. 

Rob was able to create an amazing product that comes in ‘little’ boxes that easily fit through the door and, above all, a product which is super easy to assemble (3min usually). The quality is unbelievable, and the product is kept in stock. Due to this, the product arrives in a few days rather than a couple of months. At the beginning, to consumers it sounded “too good to be true” but after the initial disbelief, they were pleasantly surprised by the new, easy way, to buy quality sofas.  

The company has grown exponentially in just one and half years from the launch. They have doubled their team and during lockdown they kept working, obviously following the right guidelines, to provide consumers their desired product.  As Rob says, “it has been an exciting but challenging time”. 

Rob’s journey is truly fascinating and certainly had some obstacles to overcome. It is the story of a man who wants to make things easier for those who are just trying to happily buy their new sofa. We encourage you to watch the full talk right now to discover Rob’s story.

Watch the full talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcMaji2sC5U

Listen to the talk here: