Startup Spotlight #72: Outer

Outer is a direct-to-consumer outdoor furniture brand with a novel Neighborhood Showroom concept.

Jan 13, 2021

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I got the chance to speak with Jiake Liu, co-founder and CEO of Outer, about what he’s working on at his startup, and any advice he has for emerging entrepreneurs.

Liu is the Co-Founder and CEO of Outer, a forward-thinking, community-driven brand redefining outdoor furniture through comfortable, durable, innovative, and eco-friendly products.

Along with his co-founder, Liu launched Outer in 2019 as a way to redefine the approach to outdoor furniture – both the shopping experience and product offering itself through eco-friendly practices and materials paired with the ability to make both beautiful and durable furniture. Liu’s vision for Outer is for each customer to live more of life outside and make the experience of being outdoors effortless and more enjoyable. Coming from a tech and software background, he admires the magic of the design industry, specifically the ways in which creating a beautiful piece of furniture can make everyday life more comfortable and pleasant.

Prior to launching Outer, Liu co-founded ProspectWise, a venture-backed startup company with the mission of helping main street small businesses adopt modern software solutions. At ProspectWise, Liu and his team mobilized thousands of local consultants across the country to physically step foot into neighborhood businesses to help them understand, select, and integrate solutions with a genuine human touch. His experience across the software and tech industries lead him to realize the importance of human touch and the need for various skill sets and backgrounds in a team, which is how he imagined Neighborhood Showrooms, a new type of retail experience that brings the showroom home; Neighborhood Showroom allows potential consumers to experience the Outer Sofa in-person at a real customer’s backyard prior to purchasing.

Liu holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and currently lives in Santa Monica, California.

Startup Spotlight: Outer

Outer cofounder and CEO Jiake Liu.

Problem: Outdoor furniture is hard to shop for. Cheaper options deteriorate easily outdoors and are not comfortable, premium options are out of reach for most and cumbersome to maintain.

Market: Outdoor furniture is a rapidly growing $9B US market.

Solution: Premium yet affordable outdoor furniture with the highest quality, eco-friendly materials that are comfortable, durable, and patented maintenance-free design for easy year-round daily use.

Team: I'm a computer engineer turned second-time founder with the family business in furniture manufacturing.

Recent Success:

Liu: Shopping for furniture is a painful experience. Online shopping does not allow "see, touch, feel" that's crucial to choose the right furniture. Offline shopping means fluorescent-lit, stuffy showrooms, and pushy salespeople. Neither experience is conducive to buying the right outdoor furniture. We successfully built out a crowdsourced "Airbnb for retail" showroom footprint, Neighborhood Showroom, in over a hundred loyal customers' backyards, in order to showcase our products in authentic environments. We are on track to expand to 1000 locations in the US in 2021 and change how people shop for home goods.

Recent Struggle:

Liu: Running a physical goods business is always challenging. In the beginning, it took us over a year to develop our own outdoor performance fabrics that are soft, durable, and eco-friendly. Despite having a family relationship with our manufacturer, coordinating R&D in different time zones has made things even more difficult. And we struggled with the supply chain keeping up with the rapidly rising demand during the onset of the pandemic.

Founder Advice:

Liu: 1. Don't ever cold pitch investors. Instead, get introductions to investors via other founders. 2. Share your business idea, because no one will steal your idea, but it's important to attract other people to invest in you or join you, which is impossible if you keep it secretive. 3. Try to join an accelerator/incubator, because it's the best environment to build your network and learn to be a better founder. 4. Pick the right investor partner over high valuation, always.

Three Cool Founders You Should Know About:

Liu: Here are three founders you should check out next!

Adelle Archer, Founder of Eternva: Eterneva celebrates remarkable people and pets by turning their ashes into diamonds.
Jesse Solomon, Founder of Mickey: Mickey is a global commodity marketplace and provider of logistics services.
Hao Rone, Founder of State Cashmere: State Cashmere works to offer exceptional cashmere directly to consumers at a revolutionary price with sustainable practices.

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