Building a scalable solution for commercial furniture reuse
We partnered with Kriss Kokoefer, a veteran of the commercial furniture industry, to help launch her newest venture: TwentyEighty Reuse. Motivated to change a system where quality commercial furniture is too often discarded in favor of new, we worked alongside her to turn the vision for scalable furniture reuse into a pilot-tested platform.
My role
Research & insights lead
Prototyping & Validation
Category
0 → 1 Product Design & Innovation
Team
Cortland Moore
Ana Soto
Yves Louise
Lynn Lin
Christina Valdivia
01. Discover: (Weeks 1-3)
Market Research
Research Assumptions
Interview Guide
User Interviews
02. Define: (Weeks 4-6)
Affinity Mapping Synthesis
Big Market Insight
JTBD & Value Proposition
Customer Profiles
Concept Ideation
Customer Journey Map
03. Develop: (Weeks 7-8)
Brand Development
Service Blueprint
Business Model Canvas
MVP Prototype
04. Deliver: (Weeks 9-16)
Prototype Testing & Iteration
Brand Refinement
Pricing Strategy
Every year, the U.S. generates more than 12 million tons of furniture waste. “There is a disturbing practice in corporate interiors to throw out everything after seven to ten years and buy all-new furniture”
Jason F. McLennan, Perkins&Will’s Chief Sustainability Officer.
01. Discover.
Market & user research
As the research and insights lead, I kicked off the project by defining our research goals and methodologies. The research plan included a competitive and cultural scan, using tools like Porter’s Five Forces to map the market landscape and and a SWOT to identify where new entrants could create value.
In addition, ever eight weeks, our team conducted 30 stakeholder interviews which included interior designers, facility managers, furniture dealers, sustainability leads, and manufacturers, and upholstery studios. These conversations offered a 360° view of the system: who drives decisions, where budgets live, and what makes reuse so hard to execute.
Mapping the ecosystem
To make sense of this complexity, we built system and journey maps that traced how a project moves from initial design to installation.
The patterns revealed two big findings:
Most projects never reach an upholsterer. Instead, they stall early in the procurement process.
We used the systems map to identify the primary decision makers around reuse. These customers were identified as the facility managers and furniture dealers.
Synthesizing our interviews with affinity mapping we uncovered the following key insights.
02. Define
Consumer pain points
Jobs to be done
01.
“Reuse” has a perception problem
It’s seen as messy, slow, and unreliable.
Reframing: Elevate reuse to feel as easy and premium as buying new.
02.
Cost & Timeline Pressure
Even companies with strong sustainability goals struggle when reuse is harder to scope or is more expensive than new.
Transparency: Offer clear pricing and predictable timelines.
03.
Lack of Trust
Clients don’t know who to call, what it will cost, or how to guarantee quality.
Confidence: Build a trusted, seamless sourcing process.
04.
Fragmented Workflow
Designers, dealers, upholsterers, and facility managers operate in silos—no one owns the full process.
Integration: Connect the process into the system that end users are a part of.
05.
Weak Sustainability Advocacy
Only companies with strong internal champions have the ability to drive change.
Empowerment: Provide data and tools to support ESG and sustainability goals.
Final Problem Statement
How might we make furniture reuse as affordable and seamless as buying new?
Concept Ideation
The team pitched TwentyEighty Reuse, a two-sided platform that connects commercial clients to vetted upholstery studios, while managing the entire process from scoping to delivery, simplifying sourcing, procurement, and project management.
At this point, the question remained - would this be a software that users would use to manage the process on their own, or would it be a system where that provided project management?
Secondhand marketplace
A digital platform for buying and selling pre-owned commercial furniture.
Project management software
A centralized platform to manage furniture reuse projects from quote to delivery.
Slipcovers
A modular slipcover system that refreshes existing furniture without reupholstery.
Comparing product offerings
03. Develop
We mapped out a service blueprint to understand how a project management software offering would tackle the jobs to be done in the context of the current system.
Phase 1: MVP Development
Our initial MVP was built to test for desirability. We mapped the jobs to be done to the service requirements from our service blueprint. We used a MoSCoW to prioritize what jobs needed to be done first. We connected the service requirements to tasks that would need to be accomplished and used those to decide the MVP features we would build first.
It was at this point that project hand-off occurred and the contract was completed. In light of the work we had created, we were asked to stay on for another 8 week sprint to run the pilot, collect feedback. Both Ash and myself signed back on - my role moved from research and insights, to having a hand in each piece of the pie - branding, validation, and product strategy.
Phase 2: Pilot Testing and Brand Refinement
The team ran a pilot with both clients and upholstery studios, testing the service flow end-to-end — from intake to estimate, quote, and delivery. We had a Dealer run a project through a paired upholstery shop to collect an initial round of learnings.
Scroll right for iteration highlights
Brand Evolution
In Phase 2, we reimagined the brand identity to feel credible, warm, and crafted — elevating the perception of reuse.
Through market research, we saw a clear gap: upholstery shops often looked dated, while furniture dealers leaned on playful color and simplicity. Our goal was to bridge those worlds — combining craft with modernity.
The result: a refreshed logo (“20R80”) that balances infinite reuse with simplicity and continuity. A salmon-pink palette and lighter visual system bring warmth and approachability, aligning with our mission to make reuse feel timeless, not trendy.
We made a plan to ensure we are delivering value by testing our riskiest assumptions, beginning with our biggest risk - will user get enough value from the offering to make a purchase?
We mapped a way to test our launch removing as much risk as we could to keep the costs down before investing into building the App.
Project Learnings & Impact
01.
In prototyping there is a lot of value in creating low-fideility work to begin. First, because it is fast to create and validate. Second, because when you test low-fidelity work people feel comfortable giving their opinions. As soon as the work starts to look high-fideility, its harder to get user feedback, because what you are showing them looks closer to a finished product.
02.
Validating the riskiest assumptions such as finding out that caregivers would not switch from their current organizational systems once they had enough momentum, saved us from including them in our target audience.
03.
The team used feature prioritization based on impact vs. effort, ensuring that essential tools like task templates and visibility settings were built first, while encryption and security were future builds.