Designing Hem.

Reflections on Year 1.
And, introducing Alphabeta.

It has been a long time since I wrote anything publicly about our company. We have been heads-down developing the Hem assortment, customer experience, and brand. Now, on the occasion of the 1 year anniversary of the launch of Hem, I want to share some insights into what we’ve been up to. This is a rather long post (it has really been a while!) so thanks in advance for reading through it.

Sixteen months ago, in May 2014, after several years of selling a myriad of mostly 3rd party design products online, I decided to focus all of our efforts and resources towards the part of our business I am personally most passionate about and where I see the greatest opportunity to build a meaningful and enduring design brand: designing and manufacturing our own private-label designs.

We had identified a consumer need for affordable luxury design products — exciting and innovative designs but at more affordable prices than what was typically found in high-end design stores — and I decided that reshaping the company as a full-stack design brand was the best path to meet that need. (Full-stack meaning we would manage and control everything end-to-end; from design to manufacturing to technology to marketing to distribution to logistics to customer service.)

That decision put several wheels in motion.

1. First, we acquired One Nordic of Stockholm & Helsinki in June 2014, providing us with a world-class design and R&D team, to compliment our existing experience in sourcing and e-commerce.
2. Second, we shifted our global headquarters from New York to Berlin so that we could have our product development and e-commerce teams located close together and close to our factories in eastern Europe. I relocated to Berlin in June 2014.
3. Third, we created a new brand, Hem, to house our private label designs.
4. Fourth, we sold off the other parts of our business so that we could focus entirely on Hem. (See my previous Medium post).

We began working on Hem in earnest fourteen months ago, in early July 2014, with a strong sense of purpose and a clear set of design values.

Our purpose at Hem is to create designs that inspire — original, innovative, timeless designs that occupy a special place in your life and in your heart. Designs that you are super proud to live with and even prouder to show off to your friends. Designs that become an extension of you and help tell your own unique design story.

Towards that purpose, we are guided by 6 design values:

Original. Every Hem design is new — dreamt up, designed, and manufactured exclusively for our customers.

Relevant. We design for how people live today. Design to fit right in to how we relax, host, share, and enjoy.

Quality. Hem designs are timeless. Neither trends nor wear shall make them obsolete. We obsess over details, materials, and finishes so that you don’t have to.

Accessible. We believe that great design is for everyone, and should be as easy to purchase as ordering a taxi, messaging a friend, or sharing a photo.

Factory Direct. We cut out the middlemen to ensure the highest quality at the lowest possible prices.

Proud. We only sell products that we love ourselves.

Our 6th design value, Proud, is my favorite. We know we are doing right when we create a product that the designer was proud to design, that we are proud to sell, and that our customers are proud to own and to share with their friends. Hem is a product company. We are creators. Our entire future is dependent on our creating products that inspire and excite people. As I like to say, we’re not just in the furniture business, we’re in the better lives business; we will only succeed as a company if we create products that are relevant to our customers and play a special part in their lives.

In July 2014 we gave ourselves 90 days to launch the Hem.com website simultaneously to customers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and every other country in the European Union. That was an ambitious goal and it was a huge challenge for our teams, but we felt that it was important to set a fast pace from the start and for us to get out there in front of real customers rather than just designing product in a vacuum.

The initial Hem assortment being previewed in Paris at Maison et Objet, 3 September 2014. Hem Co-Founder and Head of Design Petrus Palmer looks on.

We previewed the initial Hem collection a couple of months later, in September 2014 in Paris at Maison Objet and in London at the London Design Festival.

The initial Hem assortment being previewed in London at Design Juntion at London Design Festival, 22 September, 2014.

We flipped the switch on the Hem.com website on September 30, 2014. We went live in 31 countries with a small assortment of 85 items (including all sizes and colors) from 18 product families. Hem back then resembled more of a series of individual products than a cohesive collection; most of the products were updated variations of previous designs we had developed. But, we were live and the pressure of being live forced us to move quickly to further develop the assortment.

The Hem.com homepage.

In addition to our overarching design values, we established some key principles from the start.

• Partner with the World’s Most Relevant Designers. We have made great efforts from the start to court and work with the world’s most innovative designers. Our vision is the be the most relevant design brand and to do that we seek out the world’s most relevant designers to design original products that we can manufacture and distribute exclusively for Hem customers. We have already been fortunate to collaborate with an amazing group of internationally known design studios, including: Luca Nichetto, Max Lamb, Nendo, Form Us With Love, Lars Beller Fjetland, Sylvain Willenz, GamFratesi, Studio Irvine, Gemma Holt and Julien Renault, amongst dozens of others.
• Consumer Direct Pricing. The focus of our business model is selling direct to consumers without middlemen. This is a departure from the standard wholesale retail distributor model in the design industry and it enables us to price our products at lower prices than industry incumbents because there is no double markup from designer to distributor/retailer to consumer. We are full-stack; we are the designer, the distributor, and the retailer all in one. As an example, a typical offline design brand would make a table for $100 and then sell it to a distributor or retailer for $200 who then would sell it to consumers for $400. We make a high-quality table at the same factories for $100 and then sell it to consumers for $180, providing our customers with a high quality product at a much more affordable price point.
• Customization. We innovate on mass customization and configuration to provide consumers with more choice and convenience. Across our entire product range we explore whether it will provide consumer benefit to have personalization and customization options. This has driven us to launch custom shelving solutions, modular shelving, modular sofas, and customizable lamps. We have develop homegrown customization technology that enables consumers to design their own products on the front end, as well as connecting to our factories and warehouses on the back-end.

The Hem custom shelving configurator.

• Easy Assembly. Where possible we innovate on easy assembly solutions. The goal here is two-fold: (1) Make it more efficient and less costly to warehouse and ship products for e-commerce (2) Make it easier for consumers to put together our products without fussing with hardware and tools, and to easily take them apart and bring them with you when you move.

Nearly all of our efforts in the first year went towards building up the Hem assortment into a cohesive collection of high quality designs that inspire and resonate with our customers.

At the end of August 2015, our collection stood at 330 product variations (SKUs) from 51 product families, up from 85 SKUs and 18 families one year ago.

We had already sold tens of thousands of units to consumers and to restaurants, cafes, hotels, airport lounges, and corporate offices.

We were ready for year 2.

This autumn and winter we are taking a giant step forward as we start to really see the fruits of our 1st year of product development take hold.

Our talented team of designers, craftsmen, and factory machinists have been hard at work this year creating dozens of exciting new product families as we get set to more than double our collection between now and the end of 2015.

Today we unveil Alphabeta, the world’s first online-customisable pendant lamp with more than 10 billion possible combinations, all of which are in-stock and ship immediately and for free. Alphabeta was designed by Luca Nichetto for Hem.

The idea for Alphabeta came 1 year ago when we were brainstorming with Luca about designing a modular configurable lighting system that showcased Hem technology and our ability to marry high quality design and manufacturing with exceptional user experiences. The result is Alphabeta, a bi-directional lighting source with interchangeable metal shades in 8 unique shapes and 3 colors per shade. Any shape shade can be a top or a bottom and thus for a single pendant there are 576 possible combinations and more then 10 billion possibilities in a 4 pendant system over your dining table or conference table.

Alphabeta is a great example of the promise of Hem because we operate at the nexus of design and technology. A traditional design company would not be able to achieve our 10 billion in-stock configurations of Alphabeta because they would have to distribute set-configurations to their retailers. Hem technology, however, enables us to stock components rather than set-configurations in our warehouses and then directly link end-customer configurations to our warehouse teams to pick and pack and send off to our customers.

You can customize your own Alphabeta lamp starting today. I can’t wait to see what you’ll create!

Next week we launch our modular Chain shelving system that, like Alphabeta, is in-stock and ships fast and free, and can be customised online with endless possibilities. Chain was designed with Nendo design studio for Hem.

Hem Chain Shelving, Last Stool, Touchwood Chair.

Hem Chain Shelving, Koti Sofa, Key Tables.

Later this month we will also present our second sofa family, Koti (shown above with the Chain Shelving) which truly hits our “affordable luxury” target with high-end fabrics and premium construction at very reasonable prices. Koti was designed with Form Us With Love for Hem. (As an aside, sofas are our #3 highest grossing product category, dispelling the myth that people won’t buy sofas online).

We’ll also be launching the Dusk lamp, a stunning glass-blown ambient pendant lamp. Dusk was designed with Sylvain Willenz for Hem.

The Hem Dusk Lamp, Last Stools, Custom Table.

What else? New home accents, coat hooks, cushions, desktop objects, stools, chairs, side tables, throws, rugs and much much more. Here’s a sneak peek at some of the textiles we are launching later this year.

1 year old, Hem.com is already the only original design brand in the world that sells and ships directly to customers in 35 counties.

We also operate a Hem physical retail store in Berlin that blends the physical and digital experience.

On the 19th of September we will open our first Hem Experience Store in London in the Covent Garden area situated at 9 Earlham Street during London Design Festival.

We are also thrilled to be one of 10 designers selected to exhibit at the Somerset House during LDF. To bring Alphabeta to life during LDF, Hem and Luca Nichetto have created an immersive and interactive environment as part of the ’10 Designers in the West Wing’ exhibition in London’s major cultural centre Somerset House. The theatrical installation will take over one of the iconic building’s West Wing Galleries and features a grand piano connected to 44 Alphabeta pendants. Each of the lamps will illuminate at the touch of the piano keys. To bring the installation to life, a pianist will be playing daily at 1pm and 6pm during the Somerset House exhibition. At other times, visitors are welcome to play the piano and experience the distinct combinations of lights glowing above their heads.

THE OBSERVER, London, 6 September 2015 LDF Preview.

On a personal level, the past year of building Hem has been the most rewarding and inspiring experience of my professional career. It has been great to hunker down and focus on building a great team, a great culture, and great products. The Hem team is truly extraordinary and we are making beautiful high quality products at superb price points. We are making fast inroads into the design industry and we are enjoying shaking things up a bit in the name of creating more value for consumers. I could not be more proud of our Hem team and more optimistic about the Hem future.

Thank you so much for taking a few minutes to read this note and for making Hem a part of your busy life. The world today is filled with uncertainty and stress; we hope we can be a small part of your joy.

Hem.

We create designs that inspire.

-jason goldberg

CEO