Barbora Samieian Left the UN and Started Furniture Brand Sundays
Numerous entrepreneurs will tell you that what they’re doing now is not what they in the beginning established out to do. Making big expert changes—even mid- to late-career—can frequently guide to much more fulfilling and thriving outcomes. That is what our sequence The Pivot is all about. Every single thirty day period, we talk to founders, company leaders and entrepreneurs about how—and why—they modified course and identified success in an entirely different industry. In this article, we speak to Barbora Samieian, the co-founder of Vancouver-based mostly furniture model Sundays.
For 3 a long time, Barbora Samieian experienced her “dream job” as an affiliate evaluation officer at the United Nations in New York Town, undertaking everything from conducting application assessments of world-wide initiatives to gathering information and drafting reports. But just after acquiring her 1st little one, she and her spouse Moe returned to their residence of Vancouver in 2016 so they could be closer to their households. Being aware of that the city was not a hub for worldwide organizations and NGOs (most are in Toronto or Ottawa), Samieian viewed as what she could do rather.
Getting recognized the ubiquitousness of salad bars in Manhattan, she noticed a gap in the neighborhood sector: Vancouver—a well being-obsessed city—didn’t still have the identical offerings. So she partnered with an old substantial college mate, a restaurant owner, to start Area & Social, an eatery centered on entire-sized, vibrant and sturdy salads in the downtown space.
Inside three decades of opening the initially spot, Samieian opened a several additional spots in the city’s monetary district and Mount Nice neighbourhood. The working experience of working a little business enterprise was a finding out curve for Samieian, who suddenly had to appear up with seasonal menus, cultivate crew culture to make improvements to team retention and master the ins-and-outs of internet marketing. Immediately after four yrs, she no lengthier preferred to be the day by day operator of Field & Social, and was seeking for a new business enterprise enterprise. While chatting with her partner Moe, whose household was in the wholesale home furnishings enterprise, they came up with an strategy: a furniture manufacturer that had a pretty slim, significant-high quality products supplying, related to a capsule selection in manner. This concept resonated with Samieian who had constantly uncovered home furniture searching frustrating. She needed to curate parts that get the job done effectively together—not overwhelm shoppers with alternative.
“I experienced no disgrace in messaging all people on LinkedIn”
They introduced on two others—Moe’s sister Sara, who experienced encounter in the market, and Noah, Samieian’s close friend from significant faculty who had a design background—and commenced meeting on Sundays to speak enterprise, for the reason that they all had other complete-time jobs at the time. When it came time to launch the model, the word “Sundays” stuck. “It also felt like that’s the working day when you come to feel most at house,” states Samieian.
Moe and Sara dealt with sourcing, Noah led products enhancement, and Samieian had the generate to develop a manufacturer from the ground up. They launched Sundays online in November 2019 with living area home furniture like sofas, sideboards and espresso tables. Mainly because they did not know considerably about electronic promotion, marketing Sundays was done mainly by phrase of mouth at first. “It was really gritty,” states Samieian. “I experienced no shame in messaging every person on LinkedIn.”
Then Covid hit.
The pandemic introduced quite a few challenges for the younger enterprise, these as pricey freight prices, shut factories and offer chain difficulties. To begin with, Sundays’ design was to promote in-inventory products from its warehouse, which was just one of its competitive advantages, claims Samieian. “We experienced to let go of that thought quite swiftly and start out accepting pre-orders in just limited timelines.” Following about eight months, and with access to an vacant storefront from Industry & Social (it was leased as a new location but the opening was delayed thanks to the pandemic), they staged a Sundays pop-up shop in Vancouver’s Yaletown neighbourhood. “We uncovered that when prospects are acquiring a $5,000 sofa, they appreciate the opportunity to sit on it and see its sturdiness,” Samieian says. Which is when the founders’ way of thinking shifted they understood they could not just be an e-commerce brand name. “We pride ourselves on our excellent, and that is tricky to connect on a internet site by itself.”
By September 2020, after focusing on specific markets this sort of as Vancouver and Toronto with a “triple threat” of pop-ups, digital promoting and partnerships with area influencers to gain model recognition, Samieian started out to see a dependable month-in excess of-month increase in revenue. That advancement, paired with the achievements of that year’s Black Friday sale, meant they could at last grow and retain the services of extra employees. Sundays now has two showrooms, one in Vancouver and 1 in Toronto, and will open up one in Calgary this 12 months.
There are designs to expand into the U.S., also. Sundays staged pop-ups in New York and Los Angeles final year, and desires to open a showroom in a single of those people vital marketplaces. And whilst the company’s eyesight is to give parts that “are beautiful, comfy and livable,” Samieian’s final target is to make the home furniture browsing encounter seamless. Delivery is absolutely free no issue how considerably a customer spends, and for massive merchandise like beds and eating tables (classes Sundays has considering the fact that expanded into), the piece is assembled in the customer’s home at no additional price. “We want to make it effortless and satisfying to build a area you enjoy,” suggests Samieian.
