Seatability Case Study

Seatability Business Description

Seatability works together with Asian manufacturers to distribute office chairs through a national distribution channel. The main product is the Seatability Idealchair™. The initial product was invented and designed by the managing engineer of a manufacturing facility in Taiwan. Seatability is unique because of the materials used to construct the office chairs. All Seatability products use a flat elastic band on the lumbar seating portion of the chair.

Industry and Market

Seatability provides mid-level office seating to the North American market.  Seatability’s target market demographic is people who want office furniture that will set them a part. These are the “younger, ‘techy’, unique and hip” working professionals. According to Seatability representatives, everyone possesses some of these qualities. People that may not fit the demographic exactly are still using the product. For example, lawyers still feel like they are trendy and forward thinking. Seatability appeals to those who have this type of mindset.

Target large markets: Retail outlets in major US cities.

Business Challenge/ Objective

Interest in learning more about the funding world drove Seatability team to FundingUniverse. The team was not actively looking for capital at the time. The management team knew they may need capital in the future to increase inventor in response to growth so they thought it would be important to learn about what it took to obtain funding.

FundingUniverse Strategy

Two mentors referred the Seatability team to FundingUniverse. After careful review of the Seatability plan posted on the FundingUniverse website, it became apparent to the FundingUniverse team that Seatability was ready to pitch to investors. Seatability was invited to pitch at the August 2006 SpeedPitching Event at Thanksgiving Point.

Results

According to Jason Barber, Seatability COO, the company has received funding from several avenues.

“The event helped us immensely to realize what people wanted to hear,” Barber explained. “We had a very good presentation. The investors seemed to react well to what we said. After the event, we had numerous offers to meet with different angel firms to discuss funding.”

Barber said the SpeedPitching event helped the team when they met with investors.
We learned what investors wanted to hear,” Barber explained. “We did get investment. The event helped us a lot in putting together our proposal for the investor. Basically, the event helped us realize what people want to hear.”

Seatability Update

When we first met with FundingUniverse we were in a pre rapid growth stage I would say we are in a rapid growth stage right now.

“Since Dec. of 2006 to the present has been a sprint. It is this stage of our business we thought we might need funding to expanding our product line or expand our reach into different markets.”

And expand they have. With a name like Seatability the company has continued to focus on chairs. However the Seatability product line has grown from 14 different products with about 30 skews to introducing three new office chairs in 34 different colors. In addition, the team has created a lower budget offering to the market so they can reach a larger audience. A higher end product line will be available in early 2008.

“The best thing about SpeedPitching event was the advice we got from potential investors,” Barber said. “We had six people ask us to have meetings with us. They were all very honest with us. They said don’t take funding if you don’t need it. You may not need it, yet. It was like free consulting. Investors who heard our pitch saw the bare bones basics of our company and operations of the past couple of years. They provided professional feedback. This helped us a lot.”