Sit On The Floor More! With Greg Klein, creator of floor-sitting-to-standing desk

✍️ Show Notes

While working from home during COVID, Greg Klein wanted to sit on the floor. But he couldn't find a desk that actually allowed for that. So, he scratched his own itch and brought to life the world's first electric floor-sitting to standing desk. Listen to Greg's entrepreneurship journey as well as his advice for those looking to build and sell their own hardware products.

🔗 Check out uppealdesign.com

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• Get validation as early as you can by talking to everyone around you. Don't hide your product idea behind polished design and marketing - get true validation!
• It's lonely being a founder, and even more so in consumer hardware, so if you don't have a co-founder, find mentors and other founders in a similar space - most are happy to give advice!
• Unforseen costs are always going to come up, especially in hardware dev, so give yourself some buffer.

💬 Full Transcript

Vigs (00:00) All right, we're live. Greg from Uppeal Design is joining me today. Greg, how are you doing this Friday? Greg (00:06) I'm great. Thanks for having me. Vigs (00:08) Yeah, looking forward to this just because you're in a space, and I'll let you get into a little bit more, you're in the space of mobility and wellbeing in the workspace, which I think is really under -tapped. And it's something that me as a former athlete, someone that's in touch with my health and fitness side, really appeals to me. So why don't you start off and give us kind of the 30 second pitch for what Uppeal design is. Greg (00:33) Sure. So at Uppeal, we're just trying to add mobility to the workspace. So we build the only floor sitting to standing electric adjustable high desk. And we're just trying to allow people a third domain of work. So we like to say we're as different to a standing desk as a standing desk is to a fixed desk. So just trying to add mobility, add different positions for your body throughout the day. Vigs (00:59) so what about your kind of career journey, you know, because you started out as a mechanical engineer, did a couple of stints in the design, defense industry, talk a little bit about your journey getting to where you are today as a founder of Uppeal design. Greg (01:13) Sure. So I graduated with a degree in aerospace engineering. And when I graduated, there weren't a ton of aerospace companies. It was kind of work in defense or, you know, do something else. So I started in defense and it's a great sort of jumping off point for young engineers to learn from. It's not as fast paced as the startup industry. You can learn at your own pace and kind of work as hard as, you know, get your hands in as many pies as you want. You can work in... different aspects of engineering. You can do software or the mechanical side. And I started off as a software engineer. I was doing acceptance testing for radar warning receiver algorithms. But I found that doing the mechanical aspect of aerospace was just way more interesting, way more fun. The design aspects are a lot more freeing. So I did that for... about eight years and then I started my own sort of e -commerce brand focusing on everyday carry products. It was a very small niche brand, just trying to get my understanding of how a company works by starting a company, just kind of dove in. And I did that. Yes, exactly. So. Vigs (02:25) Interesting. So that was your first foray into entrepreneurship. What was, tell us a little bit about that company. Greg (02:33) So very small. And I did it kind of, I quit my job as an aerospace engineer and just did that to sort of fund traveling. So I would travel and have this e -commerce brand and have it fulfilled with a third party fulfillment. So all the design work that I did, it was very sort of basic products like pens and key chains and that sort of thing. And our manufacturers would ship directly to our fulfillment centers and we fulfilled using. only third party, so I didn't have any, you know, warehouse overhead or anything like that. It was just the third party that was sort of fulfilling that stuff. And it was a great learning experience, you know, just diving in and just going for it on my own. So I did that for... Vigs (03:19) What was the key lessons you learned from that? Greg (03:24) different, honestly, the biggest thing that I learned was differentiation is so valuable. So the products I was making was, were very similar to things that already existed. And, you know, it's so hard to sort of compete with existing brands and compete with existing products. It's, it's kind of a losing battle unless you're very, you know, an excellent marketer or, you know, just have a great. ability to sell. So for me, I think focusing on being a differentiator, having a difference and a uniqueness to your product is so, so valuable. So that's kind of, it's kind of jumping ahead, but that's kind of what Uppeal is about is we want to have that differentiator. We want to be unique and add value by being a little bit different than what the other. Vigs (04:18) Yeah. I love that. So after that company, you went to another defense firm, I believe, right? Greg (04:24) Yep. So I sold the tin mill. That was the name of the company. Very modestly, you know, just kind of got out of it and sold some of the rights to some of the products. And I started working in defense again and trying to plan kind of my next, how I'd like to, you know, my next move in my career. I always, I knew I wanted to do entrepreneurship, but I wanted to, you know, have a, have a safety net while I was figuring that out. Vigs (04:55) Yeah. So then I understand like, you know, you just sold the Tin Mill and you're back at this day job and in the back of your mind, your entrepreneurial spirit is still kind of thinking like, Hey, what should I do next? And definitely, definitely with you there, like you don't want to just be sitting idle. it's good to have that safety net while you figure out your next move. so then, I think come 2021, what was the, the moment where you got inspired to start Uppeal design? Greg (05:20) Yeah, so it started kind of in 2020. You know, everyone started working from home. So I worked from home for the first time kind of in my career as a, you know, as an engineer. And I would work at my standing desk all day, but I also found myself often, you know, taking my laptop, bringing it over to my coffee table and sitting on the floor and kind of working, sitting on the floor just to mix it up a bit. And, you know, looking online, I figured there'd be some sort of product that had this range, but there weren't any available. So just built my own kind of very rough, very not even an MVP, like a barely workable solution. But I started to think like, if I have this problem, maybe some other people have this problem. I think that's a common way that people kind of start companies. So. Vigs (06:10) Yeah. So let me pause right there. So you had this, this problem and like any entrepreneur does you went and like found a solution for it. The only thing is that the solution here is kind of like to the ordinary person. It's like you made your own standing desk. Like talk a little bit about what was that like? Like, did you go to Home Depot to get some wood? Like tell us a little bit about that. Cause I'm sure people are curious. Greg (06:31) Yeah, exactly. So it was very rough. It didn't involve electrical components or anything like that. Just very rough sort of locking work surface that you could raise and lower by yourself. I just had a monitor in my laptop on the desk, so very easy to move. But of course, building a product that actually functions day to day and it allows for this ease of change is kind of what you need to do to make this a workable product and a usable product for a long -term prospect. So I eventually just started tinkering around and designing one from scratch. And yeah, I started working with manufacturers and built our first go at the product. Vigs (07:23) That is awesome. I love the story of scratching your own itch, solving your own problem. And that initial prototype, did you notice a difference in your day -to -day life of that mobility coming into play? Greg (07:34) Yeah, so I found myself not sitting in a chair. I found myself sitting in a chair for a minority of the day. So I'd spend most of my time sitting on the floor or standing. And I would probably break that up between about 80 % of the day. So like 40 % on the floor, 40 % standing. And overall, it's just been, you know, it's just been a noticeable difference in terms of how I feel throughout the day. And yeah, it's kind of, it kind of made me a believer in the product. Vigs (08:05) Yeah. Okay. So, so far the journey is you had this problem. You found yourself going to the coffee table to floor, sit, no existing solutions on the market. And so you built your own. Now you're feeling pretty comfortable. like it's serving its need. It kind of solves your own problem for you. What was that next leap of faith? Cause I, were there some more steps before you started reaching out to manufacturers? What happened in between? Greg (08:25) Yeah, so I had reached out to manufacturers and built some early prototypes. But it's really important for me to validate the product before I kind of dive completely in this time. I spent some more time in the planning stages, and I gave myself some metrics to validate that it's worth going all in on. So I ended up building a website and put it on the website for pre -order. And I had sort of a budget for advertising and a target sales goal that I needed to achieve in order to go all in. So I gave myself a $500 ad budget for Facebook ads and spent about three or four days building a rough website out. And... put the ads up and put the website up and kind of cross my fingers and hope that I would, cause I kind of wanted to dive in, but yeah, I just hoped I met that target and I got some great feedback from potential customers and even some pre -orders. So ended up going all in. Yeah. Vigs (09:35) And that's awesome. So I'm curious about how you have this prototype that works for your needs. How did you sell that to the customer? Because from what I can tell, you don't have true marketing or ad experience, but you had a successful ad campaign to prove out your idea. How did you go from prototype to selling the end product before it even existed? Greg (09:50) Mm -hmm. So a lot of it's to do with renderings and just putting up a landing page that I felt it was less about selling than it was about were people interested. So it wasn't a perfect website by any means. The renderings weren't perfect. The ads definitely weren't perfect. It was more just to prove that there was an interest there despite all these sort of hurdles like poor renderings and. and imperfect website. And to me, that's kind of added to the validation is just the idea that people were more interested in the idea as opposed to the marketing behind the idea. Vigs (10:35) Absolutely. Absolutely. It's so easy sometimes to mistake validation with just like really good design, like, you know, fonts, brands, like sometimes you hire a whole team for that. And if you can prove that something is so bare bones as, you know, something you threw up in a couple of days and people are still interested, that kind of makes it true to the idea. I feel like so yeah. So kudos for figuring that out. how Greg (11:03) Yeah, I think it's so important. Honestly, I think that's how we've been operating since the get -go. And now we're at a stage, not to jump too far ahead, we're at a stage that we'd like to scale and we have this great validation from the past couple of years. And it really gives us confidence that there is a need for this and that people will find value in this sort of product. Vigs (11:28) Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so now you've got a couple pre -orders under your belt. You've got, you know, the idea is valid. You're still working at your day job at Lockheed Martin. So what's next now? Greg (11:41) So for me, it was kind of balancing my day job with how I'm trying to scale the company, trying to line up manufacturers and kind of figure out the web aspect and social aspect and that sort of thing. So I did set a deadline where I wanted to quit my job and go on this full time. And for me, I had to line up alone to sort of... make sure that I had the proper amount of funding to start the company, as well as, you know, in addition to my savings. That's kind of one of the challenges with hardware startups is they're incredibly expensive. Everything's more than you think it will be, honestly. You can do all the planning in the world, but there's always going to be these, you know, unforeseen costs. So lining up the, what I thought the proper amount of funding was, was absolutely crucial. And, Eventually, I decided to go all in and quit my job and focus full time on this in April of 2021. So after about four months of running the company. And yeah, it's hard to know when the right time is, but I think at that moment it was the right time. Vigs (12:56) It sounds like for you it was a combination of getting that idea validated and then making sure that you had that funding lined up. You set savings and you took out a loan. For the funding, what made you choose to take out that loan as opposed to a lot of hardware startups that are immediately going into venture trying to raise capital? What was that decision making for you? Greg (13:04) Mm -hmm. Yeah, venture is great. And I think it's something that probably every hard- most hardware startups should do in my opinion, just because it costs someone so much money to develop and to produce inventory. And there's a lot of money that's kind of tied up while you're waiting for your inventory to hit your shelves and while you're waiting to sell through that inventory. So for me, it was more an immediacy. I was, I, believed I could scale a lot slower, grow a lot slower using the loan and my savings. And I think if I were to go back and do it again, I probably would have moved, I probably would have gone with VC funding because it's just such an easier route. And it's also nice to have a reliable partner that's kind of in it with you, even if they're just providing funding. So my advice to... To hardware people would be to definitely secure that funding when you're starting out. But there are options. You can do it both ways. It's just much harder, I think, with the self -funding and with the loan. Vigs (14:25) Yeah, I think the way that kind of makes the most sense to me, just having seen a couple of these companies go through it is like try to get funding, not at the earliest stage where it's just an idea, but like just a little bit into that journey where maybe you've got some pre -orders, you've got some validation and you kind of have a stronger case to present. Cause then you're diluting yourself less too, right? And I feel like at that point you're not using the money. Greg (14:46) Definitely. Yeah, I think going with funding is not risk free because you do have to put that time in and that effort in to pitching and creating the pitch deck and that sort of thing. So it's not risk free and yeah, you just got to find what's right for you and make sure you plan and think it through for sure. Vigs (15:12) Let's move on to some of the logistics of kind of building and shipping a standing desk, which, you know, unlike a lot of other wearables and sensors, this is a pretty big item physically. So what was some of your first discussions with manufacturers and like tell us some of the lessons that you learned going through that. Greg (15:30) Yeah, so there's a lot of things that I assumed going into it that were wrong and a lot of things that I learned along the way, specific components of the desk, I assumed that they would be common and they wouldn't require new tooling, they wouldn't require specialized tooling, but there are some... things that you encounter as you're going through the design process that you have to constrain yourself a little bit, or unless you have like a ton of money to build all this, you know, an enormous volume or, you know, a brand new tooling or that sort of thing. So just going through the design process and finding the proper manufacturers, it's great to do that as early as possible and make sure every aspect of your design is as... sort of lined up as possible. And yeah, planning out how your inventory comes in is very, very important as well. The timing of things and how you plan to sort of integrate everything if it's, you know, complex assembly is really important as well. We currently work with four separate factories and that's because not all of our components kind of rely on specific capabilities of specific factories. We're looking to consolidate into one, but yeah, it just requires a ton of planning and forethought and making sure you have everything lined up and you have your design very, very well thought out. Vigs (17:11) Yeah, and how did you kickstart that process? So when you were reaching out to manufacturers, did you use a website like Alibaba? How did you vet out different manufacturers and kind of make a decision? Greg (17:22) Yeah, Alibaba was fantastic. Also, you know, looking through your competitors products and learning how how certain things are built, that's very, very helpful. But you can also find, you know, manufacturers kind of, you know, through another way, which is just learning from where other people manufacture things and talking to, you know, similar kind of companies that make similar kind of products, like they can advise you as well. But a lot of it was found through Alibaba and then finding other components through different customers that have, that have, we're able to recommend that for us. Vigs (18:06) That's great. I really want to highlight the point you made about kind of learning from your competitors. It's easy for people to kind of see competition and get discouraged, but competition shows that there's a market and it shows that there's a precedent and there's a lot of learnings there. So, fast forward to today, how are you kind of maintaining your awareness of your competitors in the space? Greg (18:27) Yeah, it's really important. I think what how we operate is we're just trying to make the best product possible. We do we do keep an eye on competitors, of course, but I think moving forward, we're just trying to build kind of from first principles and kind of scratch our own itch, as you mentioned before, like something that we enjoy using we're- we're kind of our target market as well. So I think as long as we make a great product and continue. working from first principles, that's kind of what's important for us. Vigs (18:59) Yeah, I love that. When it comes to kind of shipping and like getting this to customers' doors, tell me about that. Did you learn something new? Was it surprising the challenges that you faced? Greg (19:11) Yeah, so a huge, super huge task for us. Because our product is so large, so much of our so much of the cost to operate the business comes from fulfillment. So it's really critical for us to kind of understand and execute properly. We're very small early on, we had just had a warehouse in we're based in New York City, we just had a small warehouse in New York City. We'd stock everything there, assemble everything there, and fulfill there. And so it was a bit of a challenge, but it also kind of makes you very lean, and it makes you really understand how to fulfill as efficiently as possible. But there's a ton of lessons along the way. Shipping insurance, very critical, very important. Making sure you're... your product is packaged properly is enormously important. Doing some test runs and understanding that could have saved us a lot of money early on. Just minor things involved with shipping insurance as well. There's some products that don't qualify for insurance if they have the logo or the title on the packaging, outside packaging. So kind of things that are obvious in retrospect maybe, but you know. Vigs (20:32) interesting. Greg (20:39) lessons we had to learn along the way. Vigs (20:41) Yeah, that's super interesting. Like I would have never thought of the logo needing to be on the packaging, but now you mentioned it. Like I've definitely seen packages where some will have a logo and some won't have a logo and I'm sure there's some nuances there. cool. And you mentioned kind of, you're at the stage now where you're starting to scale, starting to grow and get more customers. so I want to just share how you and I met, which was through a user interview that you were doing. so you and Jack, you were looking at. Greg (20:50) Yep. Yep. Vigs (21:09) kind of some of your potential customers and scheduling these user interviews with them, which in my opinion, it's so refreshing to see that you're just not operating in like isolation, you're going and you're talking to your potential users. So what prompted that and how has that been going? Have you had any interesting learnings? Greg (21:27) Yeah, so Jack coming on has been fantastic. He's, he kind of has a better background or a more professional background in startups than I do. I come from sort of the defense industry and learning through kind of on my own. So him coming on and understanding how to talk to the customers, how to best understand what our customers needs are has been fantastic. And I think we're going to, as we scale, that's gonna be such a huge focus for us is just learning from our customer, understanding what they need from our product and making a better product that way. So that's been super important, but as we scale, we're just planning to grow organically and understand that the product we're trying to make has an end result in terms of it's... meant to be used all day, every day for someone who's working at their desk. Vigs (22:32) Yeah, and I think that it just shows the wanting to grow organically, I think is the way to build a long -term sustainable company. Cause like virality, it's great cause it gives you that initial exposure, but you want to be able to maintain it long -term with the right product that has the right benefits for the user. So kind of what advice would you give now for someone that has an idea kind of like you did in the hardware space? let's say they're working a full -time job and they just have this problem that they think they can solve, what would be like the three most important things you would tell that person before they can go execute? Greg (23:09) I would say talk to people about it. Talk to your friends, talk to your family, use Reddit, talk to people, get advice from other past founders. I think people are more than willing to offer advice, at least in a brief email. So reach out to people and kind of understand, kind of get feedback. That's super important. Validation is incredibly important. You never know if kind of you're not, if you're diluting yourself, you know, you could just be in love with this sort of idea and you don't know whether it's going to, you know, do well. So however you get validation, whether you start a website, start pre -orders, do a Kickstarter campaign, however that, however validation looks to you, set some metrics and kind of figure that out. And then I think get a co -founder. It's so important. It's, it's really tough to do on your own. I think that's why a lot of accelerators kind of, require like Y Combinator and other ones kind of require a team is because they know what they're talking about and because it's so hard to do on your own. so I think I can't overstate how important that is. I think doing stuff on your own, it's great, but as Jack said, it's he, and the cold email he sent to me after he received our, my product, he was like, If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. And I think that's such a great, you know, a great point as having someone else to bounce ideas off of, even if it's just someone who's, you know, even a part -time co -founder, I think that's absolutely so helpful and so great. Vigs (24:52) Yeah. And I think you mentioned too, kind of being a solo founder for so long, like it gets lonely and it's hard, especially with hardware. Cause what I found is like software and SaaS, like they get talked about a lot on the internet. and there's like people who are going viral all the time with their new tools, but I don't feel that same community with hardware yet. I think it's growing, it's building. and I think in -person events and things like happy hours and stuff, definitely in New York, would be a great way to. have that community if you are a solo founder. But as you said, it's probably better to have someone with you to like ride that storm the whole way through. Greg (25:31) Definitely, I think it's so important and there's just so many intangible benefits like you were saying, just having someone to share the stress, I think it helps so much. Vigs (25:42) Yeah. Okay. Last question for you. We talked about where Uppeal design is today, trying to grow, trying to scale. Where do you see you and your company in the next 10 years? Greg (25:54) I think we are going to change the workspace in general for the better. It hasn't changed very much throughout the history of desk work. I think there's just so many potential benefits to, potential changes to our workspace, with VR and all this sort of stuff coming down the line. There's just so, right now is the perfect time to change how we work. But focusing on health, and movement and encouraging people to use all the positions of our body, which is floor sitting, standing and everything in between. I think that's so critical. In 10 years, I hope we have changed and made people healthier, made desk work so much healthier. There's just so many negative things that come with sitting at your desk all day. And I think if we've made the workspace, a healthier place, I think I'll consider that a success. Vigs (26:56) Yeah, definitely. I think if you're solving this massive kind of global problem with a, you know, in someone's mind, it's a simple idea, hard to execute, which you've done a great job of. But the idea itself is like just going back to our roots of, yeah, sit on the floor more. And I think you're giving a really great path for people to get there. The other thing that I see for you is kind of a community around this, right? We talked about a little bit about the early, the people that are early adopters for things. Greg (27:12) In a second. Vigs (27:25) So for example, even standing desks, I don't know the full history, but I'm sure the first couple of standing desks, people were like, why would you want to stand? And then slowly that caught on. And I think you've created this new wave here of floor sitting where right now people might be questioning like, why would I want to sit on the floor? But there's health benefits and there's long -term benefits. And over time that will become more and more popular. And you'll have kind of a community of people who are part of the better mobility in the workspace kind of. ethos and that's where I think Uppeal design can really grow beyond just offering a product and being a brand but build that whole community around wellness in the workspace. Greg (28:02) Definitely. Yeah. Our first few customers were so passionate. We had so many emails about people who have been looking for this desk forever. It's kind of like how I, how I sort of created the product is, you know, scratching your own itch, but there's so many people who just typically sit and work, work on the floor and they've been so passionate. our early adopters were super passionate and super great and super patient waiting for us to ship our first product. been absolutely amazing. I owe our first customers so much. They've just been fantastic. But yeah, I totally believe in creating a community around this. And I think, you know, once people try it, I think, I think when people start to sort of adopt it, it'll be like how standing desk sort of took over the workplace. It's it really is beneficial and it is sort of the way we're meant to, to sit to work to kind of relax. So yeah, I definitely believe in it. Vigs (29:00) Absolutely. Well, all the best to you, Greg. And lastly, where should listeners go if they want to learn more about your product, learn more about the benefits of floor sitting and buy their own desk? Greg (29:10) Yeah, so you can visit us at uppealdesign .com. So it's Uppeal, but with a U, U -P -P -E -A -L. And you can check us out on Instagram at uppealdesign and Facebook at Uppeal. Vigs (29:22) Cool. Thanks so much for sharing some of your thoughts here with us, Greg. I really appreciate it. Greg (29:27) Thanks so much for having us.

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