#222: Michael Barlow, Co-Founder & CEO at Fernish, a Los Angeles-Based Furniture Rental Startup that's Raised $45M and is Redefining an Industry

Michael Barlow is the Co-Founder & CEO of Fernish ( https://fernish.com/ ), a premium furniture rental service that turns your space into a meaningful home you love. Pick from a curated selection of furniture essentials, knick-knacks, and things that just make you feel good. Pay monthly, and decide later what you want to keep, return, or swap out.

About Our Partner

This episode is brought to you by our sponsor WeAreNoCode.

WeAreNoCode’s mission is to empower non-technical founders. The problem is that if you don’t know how to code, building your MVP or app idea is a frustrating process:

• Developers are expensive
• Looking for a perfect tech co-founder is time-consuming
• And learning how to code takes 3 years

Their program is called, “The No-Code Startup” and it’s a no-code accelerator program that teaches founders how to build, launch and monetize their startup without hiring expensive developers or waiting for a technical co-founder.

No-code is a disruptive new way of building software products that allows users to drag and drop functionalities to build powerful solutions like Uber, Airbnb, Twitter and much more.

They have founders in over 12 countries and partnerships with organizations like UCLA Accelerator, Startup Boost and Scale Health.

If you want to learn more or find out if no-code is a good fit for your startup, visit them at: www.wearenocode.com/justgogrind

Some of the Topics Covered by Michael Barlow in this Episode

• What Fernish does and how they got started
• The conversation with Michael and his Co-Founder, Lucas Dickey, around starting a company together
• The customer development process early on for Michael and Fernish
• The point at which Michael decided to quit his job and jump into Fernish full-time
• Michael's experience with his first round of fundraising for Fernish
• How Fernish acquired its first customers and what the service looked like initially
• Building the team at Fernish
• How partnerships like Crate & Barrel and IKEA have had an impact on the growth of Fernish
• Michael's experience going through the Techstars LA accelerator and what he took away from it
• The impact of COVID-19 on Fernish
• How Michael looks at implementing flywheels within Fernish
• Merchandising for Michael and Fernish today
• What Michael is focused on most today with Fernish
• The Service Economy and where Michael thinks this is going in the future
• The evolution of the tech ecosystem in Los Angeles
• Impactful books in Michael's life