Podcast appearances and mentions of stephen kuhl

Description:Today Lee is joined by an incredibly innovative entrepreneur, the Co-founder, and CEO of Burrow, Stephen Kuhl. Burrow is a company that makes buying furniture simple with swift delivery, easy assembly, and a multitude of options. In this episode, Stephen shares his love for customer research and outlines how he was inspired to go to business school before delving into how he and his business partner came up with the idea to start Burrow. We discuss their incredible journey from rejection to massive success, their experience throughout COVID, what's in store for them in the future, Stephen's interesting leadership style, and so much more!Exclusive Deals from Our Sponsors:AWESOME CX by Transcom provides high touch, personalized customer experience services to consumer brands of any size! Email Lee at lee@stairwaytoceo.com to learn more about their award-winning services and Awesome Coffee Chats.In This Episode You'll Hear About:• [00:03:26] How Stephen's passion for skiing made him accident-prone and pushed him into a traditional career path.• [00:10:11] How the overwhelming desire to fall asleep at his bank job made Stephen realize it wasn't for him.• [00:13:17] Stephen's first business venture, the ‘true start' of his career, and his journey into investing.• [00:18:21] How being part of investment inspired Stephen to apply to business school and his experience of it.• [00:20:49] Meeting his Burrow co-founder, the start of their innovative furniture company, and Burrow's unprecedented fundraising success.• [00:27:35] Their gross margin challenges and ‘faking it' to get factories to work with them.• [00:37:55] Burrow's milestones, how COVID-19 affected them both positively and negatively, and their ‘secret sauce' to success.• [00:37:55] What's next for Burrow and why Stephen loves doing customer research the most.• [00:47:46] The importance of having a coach as an entrepreneur and Stephen's straightforward leadership style.To Find Out More:BurrowStephen Kuhl on LinkedInStephen Kuhl on XStephen Kuhl on InstagramLee Greene on LinkedInStairway to CEOStairway to CEO on InstagramQuotes:“If I didn't care about the product that the company sold, it didn't really matter what work I was doing.” [0:15:55]“I – wanted to make more money so I went into investing.” [0:17:19]“You know what's better than investing in consumer companies? Working at [those] companies!”  [0:18:57]“By second year [of college] I think half of my class [thought] I dropped out because I was living in New York [working on Burrow].” [0:26:52]“You sort of just have to pretend that something is really good even though you're not there yet.” [0:31:56]“The fake it till you make it thing is real!” [0:32:19]“Luck is huge, right? I think most people don't give enough credit into how much luck plays into [success].” [0:33:11]“If you bought furniture in 2020/2021, most companies were quoting you like six months to a year to deliver it – and for most [things] we pretty quickly got [delivery] back down to one to two weeks.” [0:43:04]“We're just scratching the surface with new products!”  [0:44:34]“Give clear feedback, set clear direction, check in with people frequently, and then – you definitely need to empower people and accept that they won't do things like you would do [them] but as long as the outcome is similar, you should not care.”   [0:50:07]

Stephen Kuhl is the Co-Founder and CEO of Burrow, a furniture company for the modern age that delivers the most convenient customer experience in the industry. They started out by making beautiful modular couches that come in easy to carry boxes that more or less snap together without tools. They have since expanded their product line to carrying all types of more intelligent furniture you can buy your entire living room on their website. It's an awesome company and Interplay is a proud investor. Stephen shared a ton of great insights into the world of manufacturing, which includes some crazy stories from the early days of Burrow. If you're building a DTC business or a company that relies on manufacturing this is worth a listen. Show Links Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/hiburrow (@hiburrow), http://twitter.com/mpd (@mpd) Guest Links: https://burrow.com/ (Burrow) Podcast Links: http://mpd.me (Website), https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCua7T3uyg6IQeSbYyNKT_Iw (YouTube), https://twitter.com/mpd (Twitter), https://www.facebook.com/innovationwithmpd (Facebook), https://www.linkedin.com/company/innovationwithmpd (LinkedIn)

Competition in the financial services sector has never been more intense. Banking boundaries, that once were defined geographically, have expanded globally as a result of digital functionality. While neighborhood financial institutions built their businesses on domestic transactions, today’s consumer and small businesses are sending and receiving funds from all around the world more frequently than ever. Our guest is Stephen Kuhl, Managing Director – Financial Institutions and Strategic Partnerships for Western Union Business Solutions. We discuss why offering international payment services can be a game-changer, how to overcome hurdles, and what action steps every community bank and credit union must take right now. Episode Sponsor Western Union Business Solutions is a global leader in international payment enablement for financial institutions. With hassle-free implementation, we offer a world-class, 24/7 digital platform where customers can send payments in 130+ currencies and receive foreign funds with only a few clicks. Each institution is offered a customized solution and dedicated support to help increase customer satisfaction and attract new business. Visit HERE to learn more about Western Union Business Solutions.

Stephen Kuhl is the Co-Founder & CEO of Burrow.Stephen grew up in upstate NY and spent the majority of his time in high school freestyle skiing - getting comfortable doing backflips at an early age. After graduating from Cornell for his undergrad, he bounced around at a few different jobs before landing in private equity and venture investing at Commonfund. He spent 2 years at Commonfund before leaving for business school at Wharton in 2015. When he got to school, he had a terrible experience buying furniture and met his now Co-Founder, Kabeer, who shared similar struggles. They took an entrepreneurship class together and thought it was the perfect place to create something new. That's how Burrow was born.Today at Burrow, Stephen and his team have created a next generation brand to improve the entire customer experience of owning furniture. After getting their start redesigning the sofa from the ground up in 2017, they've seen explosive growth and now go to market with an entire line of home furniture from seating and storage to tables, rugs and accessories. What they figured out that the rest of the industry got wrong was that consumers hated the complex, non-customized buying experience, multi-week delivery times and stress moving their furniture from one home to another. Burrow solves all of these pain points and then some. Customers can easily design their custom furniture online, have them delivered in compact boxes within a week and then assemble them in minutes without tools. Burrow has also redesigned their products to be more comfortable and durable so they can withstand the punishment that everyday life brings.Use code “Kallaway” to get 10% off all Burrow products.Tune in to hear Stephen's story!EPISODE TOPICS: (2:49) Burrow snapshot today (4:40) Background and founding story(6:33) Business school / entrepreneurship(9:16) Analyzing the opportunity & first steps(13:50) Furniture design process(18:35) Y Combinator(21:32) Early struggles(29:47) Building customer loyalty(31:50) Customer acquisition(34:55) Out of the box marketing tactics(38:12) Furniture industry outlook(42:28) Manifesting the future vision(45:40) Scarcity and limited drops(47:46) Fundraising lessons learned(50:35) What drives you?(53:35) Stephen's wellness stack(55:29) Having an executive coach(58:06) Exciting trends(1:00:50) Stephen's startup manifestoBurrow - burrow.comFollow Stephen (@sgkuhl25) on Instagram // TwitterFollow Burrow (@burrow // @hiburrow) on Instagram // TwitterStephen's content and learning recommendations The Founder - www.thefounderpod.com Follow The Founder (@founderpodcast) on Instagram // LinkedIn // Twitter // NewsletterDon't have time to listen to the full episode? Read the 5-minute version here

Stephen Kuhl, co-founder of Burrow, joins us to chat about why it’s important to prioritize purchasing sustainable pieces from your home and why we should all “forget” fast furniture. Every year, over nine million tons of furniture end up in landfills, stemming from the sheer volume of low quality, low cost furniture sold by the likes of the big box stores. These cheap products serve a short term function for budget conscious consumers, but in the long run may cost consumers more money and come at the expense of our planet. For show notes, head to https://brightly.eco/podcast

Depending on who you talk to, the startup landscape is either inspiring or confusing, glamorous or scandalous, and sometimes all of the above. Every week, Burrow co-founder and CEO, Stephen Kuhl and startup veteran and Stereotype Studio founder Phineas Ellis give their honest, irreverent take on what's happening in the world of startups.

Through this crisis, Burrow CEO Stephen Kuhl is sticking to a piece of advice he got back when the furniture store was just another startup at Y Combinator. "The advice we got then was 'just launch your first product. Get it out there into people's hands and you'll get feedback,' Kuhl said on the Modern Retail Podcast. That's what the company has done with a virtual design consultation program delivering an "in-store experience" to customers from their homes. It had been in development for a while, according to Kuhl, but the pandemic's halting effect on the economy made this the time for Burrow to see it through (Burrow has one store, now closed, in Manhattan). "Within 48 hours we stood up our V1 of this virtual design consultation program. And that was something where everybody who was involved in that dropped everything and jumped on it," Kuhl said. He added that Burrow has seen "a good amount of revenue" from the new program, especially considering it was a leap of faith. "We had no data to say this is definitely something we should spend our time and money on." Kuhl talked about Burrow's supply chains, pivoting its business and how "anybody that tells you that they know how to forecast their business in this is either lying or completely naive."

All that Stephen Kuhl wanted was a comfortable, affordable couch that he could have quickly delivered to his new apartment. That didn’t happen. Within a few months of discussing their shopping miseries, he and a partner founded Burrow, a company that would soon build high-quality, modular sofas that could be on a customer's doorstep within one week.

An interview with Burrow CEO Stephen Kuhl. Plus, how direct-to-consumer brands are trading FB ads for TV ads, Barney's foray into CBD, and Eero's Amazon acquisition.

At the start of the fall semester in 2015, Wharton classmates Kabeer Chopra and Stephen Kuhl were trying to come up with business idea for their entrepreneurship class. After failing to settle on anything, the two went for a drink and began to lament the high cost and painful moving process of sofas they had each bought for their new apartments. Suddenly their business idea was clear, Burrow was born. After getting rejected by nearly every grant and competition on campus (not to mention their entrepreneurship classmates) Burrow has grown into a VC-backed, multi-million dollar company. Now in their second year of full operations, Burrow shows no signs of slowing down.

Produced by Foundersuite.com, "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders who have raised capital. This episode is with Stephen Kuhl, CEO of Burrow (www.burrow.com), a "couch in a box" company. Burrow went through Y Combinator, then then raised a $4.3 million seed round in a deal led by Red & Blue Ventures on December 8, 2017. Winklevoss Capital Management, FundersClub and Robin Hood Ventures, Interplay Ventures, Justin Kan, Michael Seibel, Ken Pilot, Social Starts, Team in Residence, Rough Draft Ventures, Alrai Capital and Chestnut Street Ventures. Recorded on January 22, 2018.

On Episode 30 of The Retail Pilot, Ken Pilot interviews Stephen Kuhl, Co-Founder and CEO of Burrow, a furniture design brand that's making it radically easier for people to feel at home through innovative, award winning, furniture and unparalleled customer experience. Launched in 2017, Burrow is one of the fastest growing furniture brands in the world and has raised venture capital from leading venture firms including New Enterprise Associates, Y Combinator, Parkway VC, and Red & Blue Ventures. Mr. Kuhl is an investor and advisor to several startups including Commerce Bear, Suite Plants, and Desk View. Prior to Burrow, Mr. Kuhl was a growth investor at Commonfund Capital and worked in Accenture's Global Strategy group, specializing in operating model design. Mr. Kuhl earned a B.S. with honors from Cornell University and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.1.    Inception of Burrow: Stephen Kuhl, the CEO and co-founder of Burrow, shared how the idea for the company originated during an entrepreneurship class at Wharton. The inspiration came from the success of mattress-in-a-box companies like Casper, and the vision was to apply a similar concept to furniture.2.    Revolutionizing Furniture Retail: Burrow's innovative approach involves modular, easy-to-ship furniture that can be assembled without the need for tools. This concept was developed strategically to optimize the supply chain for e-commerce, allowing for quick delivery and a wide range of customizable options.3.    Strategic Branding with Red Antler: Kuhl highlighted the importance of branding in communicating Burrow's value proposition. The company collaborated with Red Antler for naming, visual identity, and storytelling, which played a crucial role in establishing Burrow as a distinctive D2C furniture brand.4.    Business Growth and Model: Burrow has seen significant growth, with over 100 million in top-line sales. The company's primary focus is direct-to-consumer sales, with about 90% of their business conducted online. They also operate showrooms where customers can experience the products in person.5.    Competing with Established Brands: Burrow competes directly with well-known brands like West Elm and Crate and Barrel. The key differentiators for Burrow are the quality, durability, convenience, and speed of delivery they offer compared to their competitors in a similar price range.6.    Transition to Sole CEO: Stephen Kuhl discusses the transition from being co-CEO with Kabir to becoming the sole CEO of their company, Burrow. He explains that early on, they were co-CEOs, but Y Combinator advised against it, leading them to drop the title and become co-founders. Ultimately, they decided on their roles, with Stephen as the CEO and Kabir as the CTO.7.    Importance of Co-Founders: Kuhl emphasizes the significance of the co-founder role, stating that no matter the titles, they both remained co-founders, and the success of the company depended on both.8.    Tech Stack and SaaS Tools: Kuhl shares some details about their tech stack, mentioning that they use BigCommerce for their e-commerce site and NetSuite for ERP. He highlights the importance of leveraging technology throughout their business, including marketing technology, and the potential role of AI in future marketing.9.    Marketing Strategies: The discussion touches on the challenges of marketing, particularly in the post-iOS changes era. Kuhl talks about diversifying their marketing channels, adapting to platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Reels, and exploring content that resonates with their target audience.10.    Path to Profitability: Kuhl talks about Burrow's path to profitability, mentioning that they achieved profitability in the second half of 2020 but faced supply chain challenges, particularly soaring container costs. He mentions that they are now poised for profitability, with the expectation of a full year of profitability in the next year.