Mr. v. d. Leyen, Foxxbee is a startup that offers digital furnishing advice. How did you come up with the idea?
Due to our jobs, we have moved several times in the last few years and always had to spend a lot of time and money looking for furniture and furnishings. In addition, we were often unsure when choosing furniture whether the new furniture would fit together as a harmonious overall design or whether it would fit in the room at all.
The solution to these problems were trained and experienced furnishing consultants or interior designers, who nowadays already take on these tasks as a service. Unfortunately, access to interior designers is analogue, time-consuming and above all expensive.
What do you do better/differently than your competitors? In your opinion, what offer has been missing in the market so far?
Today, furniture is mainly marketed individually. There are first approaches where complete furnishing designs are presented. However, these give the customer the furnishing style, price range and furniture placement. With Foxxbee, we want to make interior design accessible and affordable for everyone.
Our mission is to make shopping for interior designs more personal, more digital and above all easier. In just a few steps, everyone should be able to get a personalised interior design to suit their taste, room dimensions and budget.
Who is your target group and what distinguishes your customers from traditional furniture buyers?
Our customers come to us with different questions that every classic furniture buyer also asks: Where can I find beautiful furniture to fit my budget? Does the furniture fit in my flat and also as an overall design with my existing furniture? Will I get the desired feeling of space with the selected furniture?
We believe that many furniture buyers would gladly do without hours of visits to furniture stores at the weekend and extensive research on furniture websites. Until now, there was no simple and affordable alternative. We want to change that with Foxxbee and make interior design accessible to everyone.
With your technological approach, you can automate manual process steps that are unimportant for design. What can our readers imagine by that?
Numerous manual steps happen in the background until an individual design is created for a customer. This includes, for example, the evaluation of the customer meeting, the detailed furniture search or the creation of the presentation documents.
With our solution, we have managed to automate these steps so that our interior designers can focus on the most important thing: creating an individual design concept based on customer requirements such as taste, budget and room dimensions.
A few insights please: How do you finance yourself? How do you promote your brand and your offer?
We have a strong investor on our side who actively supports us in realising our vision. At the moment, we are growing strongly through our online marketing channels. In the coming year, we are also planning cooperations and offline marketing campaigns.
Keyword digitalisation: What potential do you see in general for furniture manufacturers and retailers as well as interior designers to offer digital services?
Since we integrate furniture from our partners in our furnishing designs, we already work with numerous furniture partners. We believe that today's furniture buyer expects more support when buying furniture - furnishing advice and individual suggestions on their existing furniture stock will be some of them.
Those who are faster to meet this trend will gain a significant competitive advantage. We can support furniture manufacturers and retailers in this development with our digital service. Be it as a cooperation partner or through a more in-depth collaboration.
Foxxbee founder Ramin v. d. Leyen believes that interior design advice should not be an exclusive commodity and should be a standard part of every room set-up in the future. The 38-year-old has international professional experience and expertise in the areas of business and product strategy. He acquired both during his many years of work at the Volkswagen Group and in the development of start-ups.
Author: Katja Ollech
