This Week in Startups

E999: ROOM CEO & Co-founder Brian Chen is building phone booths for the modern office, shares insights on maximizing open floor plans, partnering with Calm to reduce stress at work, maintaining capital efficiency as a hardware startup

Nov 8, 2019

51:33

0:53 Jason intros Brian Chen
1:15 Brian demos ROOM’s collaboration with Calm
2:42 How did ROOM get their room.com domain name?
3:49 Upside & downside of open floor plans
5:52 Why ROOM manufactures the product in Indiana (for US distribution) & Portugal (for European distribution) as opposed to China
13:47 How did Brian convince VCs to invest in his DTC furniture business
18:13 What Brian thinks about ROOM’s defensibility
21:20 ROOM’s case studies with Density
26:20 How does Brian keep ROOM so capital efficient?
31:28 How does ROOM ventilate their booths?
34:58 Will ROOM raise another round or continue building off profitability?
36:49 What will ROOM’s next products be?
40:05 What would a Jason themed booth look like?
44:01 Alternative solutions for manipulating open floor plans