In this interview, we explore the story behind Movêu, a startup company in the Brazilian furniture industry that is transforming the way customers experience and purchase customized furniture. Guilherme, Rodrigo, and Eduardo, the founders of Movêu, share their diverse backgrounds and how their unique experiences have contributed to the company's mission of delivering personalized, affordable furniture with flawless customer service. They discuss the inspiration behind starting Movêu, their challenges, and how they overcame these obstacles with tools like Grasshopper and ShapeDiver.

Throughout the conversation, we explore how Movêu stands out in a competitive market by offering true customization options catering to individual needs and styles. The founders highlight the advantages of their online configurators, the impact of recent funding on their growth, and their vision for the future of the furniture industry. Additionally, they provide valuable insights for other entrepreneurs looking to leverage digital tools to enhance customer experience and satisfaction. Join us as we uncover the journey of Moveis Moveu and its ambitious plans to become Latin America's most beloved custom furniture brand.

1. Can you introduce yourself and your team? What diverse backgrounds do you bring to Movêu?

Movêu has 3 partners, each with a distinct background that adds value to our operation. Our CEO, Guilherme, has worked in the furniture sector for over seven years and has always been dissatisfied with the buying experience. Rodrigo, our COO, has experience in finance and operations, has been working with startups for 5 years, and joined the team to ensure that operations are flawless. Eduardo, our CPO, has worked in the furniture sector for 5 years, always in technology and digital products. He joined the team to ensure that the online experience for Movêu customers is seamless and easy.

2. What inspired you to start Movêu, and how/when did your journey begin?

The experience of buying customized furniture in Brazil has been the same forever. Deadlines not met, prices accessible only to a small minority, and service levels that leave much to be desired. Movêu was born to ensure that Brazilians can have personalized furniture without worrying about receiving it on time and at a fair price, providing the individuality everyone wants for their homes, with furniture made especially for their needs and style.

3. How does Movêu stand out in the competitive furniture industry?

We are the first company in Latin America where the customer can truly customize furniture. The solutions available in the market are either expensive or false customization, where the customer can only customize according to some available blocks. Movêu is the only affordable option with impeccable service quality for customers to customize all aspects of their furniture.

4. Can you explain how customization in the furniture industry can improve customer experience and satisfaction?

People's homes are unique; each has a specific space to place their furniture. Every centimeter, style, and color matters when it comes to having the perfect piece of furniture to make the house just the way customers dream. The Brazilian furniture market is practically 100% based on one size fits all, and the companies that truly offer customization are offline and have unsatisfactory service levels and prices or are exclusive to a minority. Because of these factors, customers cannot buy the furniture they dream of for their homes, having to adapt to what the market delivers.

5. What were some of your biggest challenges while starting and scaling your business?

At first, our main challenge was to deliver to our customers a fully digital customization experience, where not only would the furniture be customized in real-time, but they could also have their budget available instantly. With the help of tools like Grasshopper, ShapeDiver and a highly engaged team committed to solving our customers' pain points, we managed to overcome these barriers and today deliver what no other company in Latin America has been able to achieve.

6. What advantages does Grasshopper offer to your developers and designers that other programming environments might not provide?

Besides the possibility of integrating with ShapeDiver, the ability to generate DXF files to ensure customization is viable for our customers. Our industry needs DXF files to cut all parts according to each customer's orders. For our developers and designers, the tool perfectly meets the technical requirements, ensuring perfect parameterization of the furniture and all design aspects that were visualized by our team at the beginning of the project.

7. In what ways has ShapeDiver been critical to your success with online configurators?

Without ShapeDiver, the journey would have been much longer and harder. In other words, without this platform, Movêu would not have been able to achieve its dream of delivering personalized customization at scale to Brazilians so quickly.

8. Can you describe the different configuration options your online configurators provide?

With Movêu's furniture configurator, our customers can customize the furniture measurements (height, width, and depth), style, and colors.

9. You recently got funding; how has this changed the course of your company’s growth?

Our latest investment round has provided Movêu with the necessary funds to improve the digital customization experience, expand our team to ensure more expertise in essential areas, and pursue margin optimization projects. Now, our customers have a much faster website, and the journey has been completely revamped. This has ensured that more customers choose Movêu to purchase personalized pieces of furniture for their homes. Additionally, we are greatly improving our margin, ensuring that we offer the best service in the market and are a healthy and long-lasting company.

10. How will the furniture industry evolve over the next five years?

We believe that the industry will focus on the individuality of each customer, placing much more emphasis on delivering an individual experience rather than mass-produced. This ensures that companies that are able to do this will see increased sales and loyalty. Today, the market has a very low LTV, which we believe is because no company can deliver an experience worthy of being remembered for decades. This is exactly where Movêu comes in, delivering the best products, personalized for each customer and with an experience worthy of a beloved brand.

11. Finally, what is the ultimate vision for Moveis Moveu, and how do you plan to achieve it?

Movêu will be Latin America's largest and most beloved custom furniture brand in the next 10 years. We will achieve this by ensuring that customers in the locations where we are present know the brand and experience the feeling of buying furniture in a completely revamped way.

We believe that the more customers have an experience they have never seen in the market, they won't hesitate to talk about Movêu with others and help spread the word. Additionally, we are not limited by operational aspects; we can utilize the existing industry throughout Latin America to produce our furniture. We have considered this since the beginning to ensure that scalability is not a problem and that everyone can have the Movêu experience.

12. What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs who want to start businesses using Grasshopper and ShapeDiver?

With ShapeDiver, using parameterization as a strategic differential is quick and easy, ensuring an excellent final customer experience.

- Thank you very much for your time!

Thank you as well for this chance to share our story.

That's it for this new edition of Getting to know... Don't forget to visit Movêus's website and Instagram page.

Would you like to get featured in this space? Please email us at contact@shapediver.com and tell us about your project or brand! We'd love to start a conversation.