The Trend Report

A Better Way with Katherine D'Zmura Friedman, Co-Founder of Thumbprint

July 08, 2024 • Sid Meadows, Katherine D'Zmura Friedman • Episode 145

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Can technology revolutionize the office furniture industry? Join us on the Trend Report as we explore this question with Katherine D'Zmura Friedman, Co-Founder and CEO of Thumbprint. Katherine shares her innovative vision of transforming the design and specification process for commercial furniture through a groundbreaking cloud-based platform. Get ready to discover how advancements in AI and automation are setting the stage for a seismic shift in the industry, promising to alleviate the immense stress associated with furniture design.

We also unpack the intricacies of creating a universal data model to streamline product options from myriad manufacturers, despite varying terminologies. Learn how Thumbprint's cloud-based solutions offer designers unprecedented flexibility and accessibility, even on portable devices like iPads, bridging the gap between sales and design. This integrated approach not only simplifies workflows but also enhances collaboration, allowing designers to meet tight deadlines and unrealistic client expectations with greater ease.

Finally, delve into Thumbprint’s powerful features, from photorealistic 3D room drawings to detailed bills of materials and executive summaries. Katherine passionately discusses her journey and dedication to the furniture industry, reflecting on the satisfaction of seeing a project come together flawlessly. With Thumbprint, A&D firms, dealers, and manufacturers can expect to shorten project cycles, improve client engagement, and elevate the overall design experience.

If you share a love for innovation and craftsmanship in office furniture design, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Connect with Katherine:

Thumbprint Furniture - https://www.thumbprintfurniture.com/
Email - katherine@thumbprintfurniture.com
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-d-zmura-friedman-18884962/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thumbprintfurniture/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/thumbprintfurniture/


Connect with Sid:

www.sidmeadows.com
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Sid on YouTube
Sid on Clubhouse - @sidmeadows

The Trend Report introduction music is provided by Werq by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4616-werq License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Speaker 1:

Hey friend, I'm Sid Meadows and I'm a business leader and longtime student of the office furniture industry. And welcome to the Trend Report. I'm excited that you're joining me today because we're going to have an amazing conversation with my guest, catherine Dismira Friedman, the founder and CEO of Thumbprint, and I'm confident you're going to enjoy this conversation as we explore technology and industry disruption. Is we explore technology and industry disruption? You know, my goal is simple to provide you with valuable insights, information and resources to help you grow and your business grow. So let's dive into today's conversation, catherine, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Hi, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I'm looking forward to this conversation in so many ways, because these are two of my favorite topics technology and industry disruption. So I'm going to start off straight away with the question why is it, in your opinion, that you believe that our industry is ripe and ready for disruption?

Speaker 2:

Oh, what a great question, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I think now is the perfect time I think we had to get enough past COVID, you know to realize that we're not going to be returning to the way things were and that we have instead a bigger opportunity on the horizon to build, essentially, the future and to have a hand in what that future is. Moreover, too, I think that even though we've been using AI in our daily lives for years spam filters, google Maps, image searches on the internet you know that's all AI powered. I think. When ChatGPT was released a few years ago, it gave, you know, a lot of people for the first time the ability to really up close and personally sort of understand the power that automation can have. So I think sort of the two forces that were happening, you know, in the country in general really made it a great time to think about bringing innovation to our industry.

Speaker 2:

And you know I'm a lifelong furniture person. You know I've been in the world for over a decade this is my home, you know, and I've been, you know, learning about technology and, you know, kind of trying to figure out what would be the right fit. And so Thumbprint has been in the works for a while.

Speaker 2:

And I think it's the right product for the right group of people at the right time. We have a very mindful and thoughtful approach to what we're building and I you know the goal is to build something that fits this industry like a glove. I think we're on target for that.

Speaker 1:

So I've had the opportunity to see what you're doing and learn a little bit about it, and I'm excited to share with everybody today. But one of the things I really appreciate is something that you said a second ago, which is we're not going back to the way things were, and I think in a lot of cases people are starting to really understand that and to believe it. But there's still a group of people that think we're going back. And David Stella, who was on I forget the episode number just a couple of weeks ago. Who's with Cressa?

Speaker 2:

Real.

Speaker 1:

Estate said we ain't selling panels anymore, and though I agree, I also disagree a little bit, but I do agree. But so many people think we're still going to that's going to be the floor plate, it's going to be full of workstations, and I don't think that's actually the future. I don't think we're going back to the way things were like that. But you also said something I think is also really important, which is we get to, we get to build our future, we get to step into understanding what's happening in the world, what's happening with corporate real estate, and we get to build it and do really cool things, and you're doing really cool things.

Speaker 2:

So let's start. What is Thumbprint? Yeah, what a great question. I would say.

Speaker 2:

Thumbprint is a lot of things.

Speaker 2:

I would say. At its core, it's a wild, crazy idea that you can make a difference in your own community and that you can really take an idea that you have and a dream that you have and turn it into reality. I think that's what it is at its core. What it is on a more practical level is it's a cloud-based platform that wraps its arms around the full design and specification process for commercial furniture and it automates the most tedious aspects of that process, allowing the user to really focus on the more creative and on the more high impact portions of the process. Allowing the user to really focus on the more creative and on the more high impact portions of the process, you know, in developing the perfect spec package for the client. So I would say that we are tackling a lot of big challenges, but we're the right people to do it, we have the right team and, at the end of the day, you know, we're taking on two major challenges, which is standardizing product data and moving the industry to the cloud All right.

Speaker 1:

So a crazy, wild idea. I love that. Sometimes those are the best right. And do you have the picture of you sitting in your garage like Jeff Bezos starting it like that you can share in 30 years when you're all over the place? Oh, absolutely, oh, absolutely. But I mean, when you think about wild crazy ideas, there are so many brands that exist today that started just like that, like a wild crazy idea Uber, airbnb, amazon, I mean. The list goes on and on of wild crazy ideas, and I'm excited to see how you develop this and grow it. So cloud-based platform wrapping its arms around the industry that is going to standardize data and then move us as an industry to the cloud. So we're going to dive a little bit further into that. But where did this idea come from? How did you get this wild crazy idea?

Speaker 2:

Well, I have been in the dealer world for over a decade and I started out as a coordinator and eventually worked my way into sales. I do have a design background. I studied at Parsons Interior Design at the graduate level, so I have design in my heart. But I have a sales brain and it was always like why is it so hard to do simple things?

Speaker 1:

That's a great question, by the way.

Speaker 2:

It is the question If I'm pulling a package together and I need to verify lead times, I'm calling up rep by rep or checking the corner of every single quote.

Speaker 2:

You know, I have a spread, I have a, you know, spreadsheet with discounts for every single project and I have to you know, double, triple check that for specifications. You know we have to constantly essentially do duplicative work and do it manually and you know it's very time consuming and tedious and it's like, surely if we systematize this and surely if we implement some degree of standardization this wrote every single project has to be done fully, completely, from start to finish can start to dissipate, right. We can start to automate fully, completely, from start to finish, can start to dissipate, right. We can start to automate and we can start to have the industry work more systematically so that we can automatically be getting these updates about lead time changes or making sure that all of your pricing is calculated automatically or whatnot, so that you're freed up to work on more interesting parts of the project and more interesting parts of the job. That was a big motivator.

Speaker 1:

So, when you think about, every solution starts with a problem, right, and when you think about the problems that you're solving, we could talk about industry problems for days, right, because there's all different types, some really big, some really small, and a whole lot in the middle, right? What were the problems that you said? Let's set out to solve these specific problems or questions, if you will.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, great question. I would say that the overarching kind of theme was that the job was very stressful. And it wasn't. It was I felt this. You know I felt this many times and I know my teammates did.

Speaker 2:

I know my colleagues did this sort of very intense pressure and stress for constantly being under a deadline, for constantly having to meet client expectations that were out of whack with reality. So, essentially, in order to solve the bigger problem, which was turning the furniture design and specification process into something much more satisfying and, you know, easier to navigate, we had to essentially tackle all the different steps. So we have to essentially work on solving the hardest problems first, and the hardest problem is getting the right product at the right price at the right lead time in front of the client quickly. We have to essentially constrain the options, because there are so many product options, so how do we know that we're showing the appropriate ones? So that was a big undertaking. In order to push and pull those options accurately to our users on the cloud, we had to standardize the product data and that's no small feat.

Speaker 1:

Sure, Can you explain what that means? Standardize the product data. So I think I understand it, but I would love to hear your definition of that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think thinking about it in its broadest sense is usually the most helpful, because we essentially have many, many manufacturers, hundreds, if not thousands 3,964 according to Perplexity AI, and I only know that because I wrote my column for Viewpoint Magazine that ran in July.

Speaker 1:

I wanted to know how many manufacturers and I went to Perplexity and said how many office furniture manufacturers are there and it said like 3,965 or whatever the number was. I was like wow, okay, wow.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that is good to know. Yeah, so, yes, there are thousands of manufacturers and they're all doing something similar, but they're doing it differently and, as a result, if you're on the other side of the fence. So if you are a designer or a dealer trying to aggregate a big package of options, you essentially have to do the same process many, many times Now. Even in our recent past that was somewhat manageable because most of the project scope would fall under the umbrella of a major manufacturer and then there might be sort of a small product offering outside of that ecosystem.

Speaker 2:

However, we found that in this sort of post COVID era that the puck has gone towards ancillary right. These very complex, large ancillary projects are very, you know, they're hard to wrap your arms around and instead of having six, 10, 12 or so vendors, you can have hundreds, so it becomes exponentially more challenging. So you know, essentially, yeah, you have to essentially have a standardized data model, so essentially a universal model that wraps its arms around the full product offering and then when specific manufacturers join the platform, their data gets bound against that, so we can push and pull those options in real time accurately and contextually appropriate, depending on the situation.

Speaker 1:

All right. So I want to simplify this. I think so I'm manufacturer A and I use platform A to house my data, then manufacturer B, I use platform B, which is completely different than platform A, and then you got another one that using another one, right. So you take the data and you bring it into your system and you standardize manufacturer A and manufacturer B so it's all in the same context, so that it's easy for it to be pulled out of your system. Is that right, correct?

Speaker 2:

So some manufacturers call it an executive chair, some people call it a civil chair, some people call it a conference chair, some people call it an executive task chair. But at the end of the day we as people recognize oh, this is appropriate to put here, this is appropriate to put there. But if everyone's using a different lexicon for essentially the same thing, you can't push and pull. So you need that universal lexicon so you can push and pull.

Speaker 1:

That chair was a great example, by the way, to help because we do. Everybody calls it something different, right and so okay, so stressful job deadlines when you start to really think about what we do into the core. When the designer gets the project for I don't talk about a dealer designer for 10,000 square feet, it's a couple of weeks worth of work. There are lots of parts and pieces that have to be laid out and specified and, by the way, each piece those of you that are in that role know that each piece has a color or a finish. It's got to be specified. And then there's typically a price associated with it.

Speaker 1:

And, in some brands, a panel, because we're picking on panel systems a panel is discounted differently than the work surface and then discounted differently than the pedestal, and then the chair is discounted differently. And then this I'm talking about the office for the actual wood furniture, laminate furniture going in the office. But so you're taking that and you're simplifying and making it easier by leveraging the cloud. So tell us about the cloud. I mean, everybody has access to the cloud. I've got Dropbox and I use Google, I mean. But from your perspective, why is it important to move us to the cloud?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I mean the world. The world has gone to the cloud. So you know, the furniture industry should probably consider being there too. You know all of the platforms and sort of online products that we use social media, whether it's other online collaboration software it's all cloud-based and essentially all you need is the internet to run it. Thumbprint, you can run on any laptop. Heck, you can even run it on an iPad. That's what we were using in Chicago to prove that, yeah, you can spec a floor plan of furniture with just an iPad.

Speaker 2:

So there's a certain amount of flexibility that being on the cloud offers and I think that the way the industry is evolving, that flexibility is going to be so important. Right, the sort of boundaries between sales and design that's starting to blur, and that's not a bad thing, you know. But we definitely need to have flexibility with how we can get the job done. You know you can be on the go, you can be in the field, you can be at a lunch meeting with your client and you can be making notes and you can be specking in real time and showing them things if you can do it on the cloud. And you know, with the way the world's going with work from home and hybrid and all this sort of asynchronous work. It's gonna just be necessary to keep up with the times.

Speaker 1:

All right, so let's break it down, because I have an advantage over our listeners, most of our listeners. I've seen it twice. I watched you demo it, so we haven't really actually talked about exactly what it is and we don't have the benefit of sharing screens or anything like that at the moment. But give us the basics of what actually is Thumbprint and what does it do.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I would say definitely go to our website. We have a short video that walks you through the platform. We also have a free version up right now. That's like a sandbox, if you will, that you can play with for free. So I would encourage everyone just to Yep.

Speaker 1:

And we're going to make sure that the link to the website is in the show notes for you guys to click on, so you don't have to go search for it. But go ahead, catherine.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so essentially, thumbprint walks you through the design process. The first thing you do is you create a project and then you upload your floor plan and then you know right now we're accepting JPEG files, so you can just take a screenshot of a clean partition plan and then you scale it and then essentially, from there you enter your project requirements and again it's like solving for that holy trinity the right product at the right price at the right lead time, quickly. So there's a slider of a per square foot budget and essentially you just dictate what the maximum per square foot budget is. The budgeting calculations are much more nuanced and sophisticated than the UI. Lets on, we wanted to create something that was very simple and easy to use and that a client can wrap their heads around.

Speaker 2:

But the math in the back end and I credit my co-founder and CTO, sasha Parabakovsky, for quarterbacking this is actually very sophisticated and nuanced. So you might say my budget is $40 a square foot and meanwhile you've uploaded your floor plan and we are reading it with our machine learning algorithms. We understand the usable square feet in the floor plan. We know you have 10,000 usable and we have a 40 dollar square foot budget, so we know the max you're trying to spend, right? And so, as a result, if you have a 40 dollar square foot budget, the computer understands the full range of pricing for every single item in our database, so every single combination of every single bell and whistle, of every single fabric grade. So it's essentially going to pull like it would in a bell curve, right, remember, from class. Most of the items that it's going to at first recommend will be from that general price range.

Speaker 1:

With $40, you'll probably be starting in a mid-grade for example, general price range With $40, you'll probably be starting in a mid-grade, for example. Okay, I was going to ask you that question because people like me that are young school let's call it rather than old school, we didn't grow up talking about price per square foot and I know I interviewed CBRE and a lot of other people they want us to talk in price per square foot, but generally, as a furniture industry, we don't. So when you do the slider scale for the price per square foot, do you have little icons that say good, better, best on it or like really great that. So we kind of understand what it means, because I conceptually have no idea what $40 a square foot looks like versus $100 a square foot.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, great question. So we have it right now in per square foot, because that's what the A&D community is probably going to be thinking in, and essentially, once you get to the layout step, you're going to see a dollar amount, a dollar total. So essentially, it's going to be pulling from most of those items within the per budget square foot. It's going to balance it, though, with kind of either side of the budget spectrum to create sort of this like more holistic package, that so you might have some more higher end and some more cost-effective options mixed in there as well, and it's optimizing all of those combinations. We are planning to implement a feature where you can just say don't spend more than $400,000, right, and that's really probably for more for the furniture minded people, you know I can't spend more than this, but we started out using the dollar per square foot, you know, because that's going to be helpful for the A&D community.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's, so you can input the floor plan. And you said you can put a JPEG in and then it'll scale it for you.

Speaker 2:

Well, so you'll implement the scale. So whether there's a scale bar on the drawing or if you want to do three feet for a standard doorway, you can always use a cheap one. Okay, got it.

Speaker 1:

So the AI reads that, even though my screenshot of my phone is not scaled, I can put it in and say the door is three feet, and then it'll figure out the rest and it'll give me a usable floor plan, okay. Or I can upload an AutoCAD file and then I go in and say I want this much per square foot, and then you answer some other questions, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So essentially we now need to understand the lead time threshold. So when we work with manufacturers, we're working to have weekly lead time updates from them and essentially, if their production, for example, if their production lead time is six to eight weeks, we'll go with the higher side of that estimate and then we'll add another two weeks for transit and receiving. So according to us, that would be a 10 week lead time. Here at Thumbprint we are cowgirls. We round up, that's great, but yeah, it gives cowgirls, we round up.

Speaker 1:

That's great.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, it gives a little bit of breathing room there. And then for the manufacturers, we default to mix and match with everyone on our platform. This is great for designers and dealers because it gives you exposure to lots of brands. It gives you exposure to the latest and greatest offerings. However, if you do want to select only certain manufacturers, you do have that ability.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so they can pick and choose if they want. Okay, so then you pick the, then the, the aesthetic that you're after, right?

Speaker 2:

Correct, yeah, so essentially we have well. How much? How much background do you want on the?

Speaker 1:

style level as much as you'd like to give, but don't go too deep where we get lost. How's that?

Speaker 2:

Okay, sounds good. I'll try not to get lost, but essentially there was a French chef in the 1800s named Auguste Escoffier and he invented the theory of mother sauces. So in French cuisine there's all these different sauces, right, but in the late 1800s it was at this critical juncture in French history where they were starting to institutionalize fine dining and also culinary education. So how do they create this vast catalog of sauces that seem like? Oh, all these individual palates and tastes, but in a systematic way that can scale so that each customer in dinner service can get the same taste?

Speaker 2:

so that every student can graduate with the same. You know taste. So he invented the mother sauces. There were five bechamel velouté, sauce tomate Hollandaise and the last one I always forget.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, I'm learning.

Speaker 2:

But basically you could make a modification to one. For instance, if you add tarragon to Hollandaise sauce, you get Bearnaise sauce. So essentially it became a scalable way to wrap your arms around something that seemed vast and infinite and very subjective. So I took that same framework to interior design right. If you look at the political, economic and social factors that shape society, it shows and is reflected in our design. The bent plywood furniture that was very iconic in the mid-century modern aesthetic. It all came from the Eames. Charles and Ray Eames cultivated it for military application, for splints in the war, and then they said, hey, this actually looks really good. Why don't we apply it to furniture now that the war's over?

Speaker 2:

So essentially what we did was we created four kind of mother sauces for interior design, which was modern, mid-century, contemporary, traditional, eclectic. And maybe I need more coffee too.

Speaker 1:

We just talked about. Before we record, we talk about needing more coffee.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so you got four mother sauces. And then, essentially, we created some more sort of like sub variants. So, essentially, you have nine different options to choose from, and so, essentially, what we're doing is it doesn't discriminate against the furniture options on the platform, it's only curating a subset of finishes to apply to the floor plans that get regenerated right. Because when you go to the next slide, essentially you're programming the space. So each space you can go through and say is this private office? Is this conference? Is this open work? Is this lounge?

Speaker 1:

I want to simplify this. So the floor plan is there in front of me, I've picked my price per square foot, I've picked the aesthetic that I'm after, and then I go into a room and I say this is a conference room, this is it. I click on it, say tag it conference room, tag it private office, tag it you know a collaboration, tag it cafe or whatever, and so you tag the space and then you pretty much hit the go button right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what happens when you hit the go button?

Speaker 2:

Well, a lot happens in the backend. So we're basically like the heartbeat of the databases is activated, so it's basically starting to figure out what are the best options that fit the criteria, and then essentially it populates within a matter of seconds a fully specified furniture floor plan that is within budget, that meets the lead times, that comes from the manufacturers that you want to see. It meets the program that you've selected. It's a full 3D model of that exact furniture item, down to the part and piece, and it is fully specified, including finishes based off of the palette Based on what you selected.

Speaker 1:

Right, the palette you selected, okay, and it's interactive.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah. So all the things you would expect to be able to do in a specification software, you can do. You can add chairs, delete chairs, move chairs, rearrange them all to your heart's content.

Speaker 1:

Change the color. You can change the size of the table or the desk. All live on the floor plan.

Speaker 2:

Oh, absolutely. So all the, all those things that you would expect to be able to do and that you need to have, to have that granular level of control. Again, we're wrapping our arms around the full design process, so we can't just be up here in the conceptual schematic. We have to have the data from manufacturers to get to the nitty gritty so we can fully specify and get to that final bill of materials. So essentially, there's a couple of differentiators between thumbprint and anything else that I've seen to date. You are able to apply changes, spec changes, across an entire floor plan, right? So if you have guest chairs across the entire floor plan and the client says this blue is too dark, I want something with pop, you can reselect the fabric and boom, you can apply it to like the entire floor plan and you can see that change instantly. So again, it's like helping drive decisions, helping the client visualize, and also save time and increase accuracy, because no one likes making last minute finish changes.

Speaker 1:

I just go back to my dealer days and I'm thinking about how long all these processes took and meeting with the client, taking all the programming notes, coming back and meeting with the designer, go through all the programming notes, the designer, the designer doing all the work, specifying, giving back to me. I look at it, give her my changes back. Then we go to the customer and we get all these changes from the customer. Oh, this panel had to be this and I want this chair to be this. Then we go back to the designer and he or she updates it all and we go back to the end user and what you're now talking about is like this is all like almost instantaneous. You can do it in front of the customer. You can make quick decisions so faster to market right Speed to market is one of the things.

Speaker 1:

So when it's all done, let's say we got through it and everybody's happy, the customer's happy, I'm happy as a dealer, salesperson. What's the output? So can I print out, like a room by room, 3d drawings of each that show the colors and finishes that are photorealistic, like?

Speaker 2:

tell me what that output looks like. Yeah, great question. So you are able to access a bill of materials? So you can. The output is essentially the BOM, so the full specifications with the pricing and everything there. We also have an executive summary with pricing. Because clients, you know, they just always ask those types of questions, you need to be able to answer them quickly.

Speaker 2:

The BOM is organized two ways. Automatically it's organized by space type, by, you know, going room by room, and then also by manufacturer. So if you want to see how much am I spending on this manufacturer versus that one, or if I want to see it space by space, depending on how the client's thinking, we've already done that work for you. We are going to be deploying, you know, by the end of the summer, additional documents. So being able to export a floor plan is absolutely going to be one. We are also going to be implementing the high res rendering window very soon. That's coming. And then also we're working to automate specification sheets. Dealers are making those one by one, by hand. I personally have made thousands of spec sheets and there's no reason to do them one by one by hand if you have that data in your database and there's no reason to do them one by one, by hand if you have that data in your database.

Speaker 2:

So essentially, we're going to be helping save a lot of time with that sort of tedium, so that you're running the ball faster and harder with the client. Additionally, we're also looking at the lookbook, because that's very critical, and also a little Gantt chart making sure all your lead times are organized.

Speaker 1:

That's really cool. So the lookbook would basically recap everything the customer had in a really quick thing and a PDF I can email it to you. Then I got a Gantt chart that shows me the full timeline and the scope of the project. So the bill of materials is that something that can be uploaded into CET or worksheet by Syncly that can then be imported into the dealer's operating system?

Speaker 2:

Sure, yeah, the goal is to be able just to directly import it into the dealer's ERP, so that way again, we're not touching the order entry process. That stays the same. So that would still flow through the dealer as it is today and everything else subsequently stays the same as well Order management, delivery installation. So that's the goal there.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I thinking back to my dealer days and I absolutely know that this is a product that a dealer salesperson or a dealer designer would want to use. But who really is the ideal customer or customers for Thumbprint?

Speaker 2:

We all know, furniture is a team sport.

Speaker 1:

At least some of us think that. Not everybody thinks that, but I agree with you. Yes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, furniture is a team sport. So we wanted to create a win-win-win solution for the A&D community, the dealer community and then manufacturers and their sales reps. So we've thought through a lot of the nuances and details of this platform to create a win-win-win solution for those three parties. Because oftentimes the project starts in an A&D designer's hands and they, you know, work through some of the schematic and programmatic questions with the client. They start to shape the direction of the specification and the budget, you know, and really kind of queuing it up for bringing in a dealer to start fine tuning and hammering out some of those questions, double checking the feasibility of everything, and then of course, they basically prepare it to go to production with the manufacturer.

Speaker 2:

So you can't go it alone. So Thumbprint is different in that it is very simple to use, there's a very quick learning curve for the software, it's as intuitive as I think furniture software can be and it's very robust and very powerful as well. So it's a win-win-win solution. And then later this year I think this is also going to be a game changer we're launching collaboration. So, because we're cloud-based, we'll be able to have the designer from the design firm, representatives from the dealer and potentially also manufacturers and their sales reps all on the project together, being able to leave comments and leave notes for each other in real time, so that real-time team communication where everyone's on the same page looking at the same thing. I think it's going to be so helpful for ultimately delivering a really world-class experience for your client.

Speaker 1:

So I certainly see, like an A&D firm, how they could say okay, Mr Customer is trying to figure out what they want Within a day. A design firm could utilize Thumbprint, potentially specify the entire 10,000, 20,000 square foot. Give them a realistic budget and a realistic timeframe, with finishes, mind you, that the client can look at and say this is great, I like it. We need to make some final changes. Let's get my dealer involved in this, and then the designer shares with the dealer and says this is what we've done, Need some fine tuning. Feel free to swap out some of the products that are similar, that maybe you work closer with than some of the ones that are here, but then let's so that you get you shortening this whole cycle time that sometimes can take months and months and months to get done.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it's like you know the reality is. You know, if you have a more, if the sort of tedious part of the process is more efficient, you can spend your time, you know, doing the things that you probably wish you had more time to do. You know there's so much interesting research coming out that you can be diving into with your client doing, you know, studies of client spaces, of the workforce. That's so critical. Also, just opening your connection with the end user and spending more time with them doing material presentations that's always so important. That sort of showroom tours, all this type of stuff, you know, all this in-person tactile experience really needs to be first and foremost, I think, the computer. I think can help us keep track of lead time changes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they can. Yes, they can. So the idea came up about three years ago. You guys have been working behind the scenes kind of getting all this put together. You got a whole team of people most of which are programmers right in the background kind of doing things. But you came to Neocon and said we are launching Officially. Has a few people in on your pre-launch. So how was Neocon 2024 for you and Thumbprint?

Speaker 2:

pre-launch so how was Neocon 2024 for you? And Thumbprint, oh yeah? Well, I have to definitely say we have such an amazing team. I mean really, it's a really wonderful group of people. You know, again, my co-founder and CTO, sasha. She works with the technical team to deliver, you know, building the technical aspects of the product, and they've done a really fantastic job. And I have to say we have a really wonderful product manager, shane. He brings, you know, big tech polish and we're really grateful to have him.

Speaker 2:

You know, we've also welcomed Julie Dillon into the circle as well, helping with, you know, front facing matters and brand ambassadorship, and she's really off to the races and it's really been like a labor of love, I think, because this started out, as you know, just me in this room, by myself, you know, with a piece of trace paper like gosh, you know, during COVID gosh, if I could, if I could really make something different and make it easier for everyone, how can I do it? You know, so it really wasn't. We didn't start building the platform until a year ago, so it took a year to get from basically no lines of code to launch. So we're moving at an incredible velocity. We have a very ambitious roadmap for the end of the calendar year, pushing out some major key features that I think are going to make a lot of people really happy.

Speaker 2:

I would say launch was almost surreal, because I've been to Neocon plenty of times, bringing designers and clients around to showroom tours and hosting people, but this was like a whole different animal. I mean, I came in on Thursday, thursday morning and as a devout, as someone who used to be a devout, you knowout Sunday to Tuesday. It was very interesting seeing behind the scenes. So we worked with our manufacturers to do trainings for their reps to make sure that they understood how the platform worked. We were posted up at various showrooms doing demos, which got a lot of traction and attention, and we're also talking, of course, to many manufacturers as well and to some other industry organizations for some future planning.

Speaker 1:

So I got to walk around a little bit, not you know every day, but a little bit. I walk around and every now and then I'd walk around to look over at somebody. I'd see you in a conference room with a whole bunch of people presenting. I'm like, there she is, she's out spreading the word. So it was a great show for you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was really fantastic. I mean, it went better than we could have hoped for. You know, I think the response was very positive. I think, again, now is just the right time to be introducing positive change and bringing something really thoughtful and high impact to the industry.

Speaker 1:

So a long time ago probably in 2021, I had Amanda Schneider, with the founder and president of ThinkLab on the show, and Amanda has said this and I've heard her say it over and over again, but she said something that has just stuck with me Our industry will be transformed and disrupted, not by product, but by processes, and what you're bringing out with Thumbprint, what you've launched with Thumbprint, is a dramatic process change that saves time, creates efficiency, saves money, gets us to the close of the closing the sale faster. I think it's fascinating, so I'm excited to explore more about it. But how many users do you have signed up right now? Or have you launched to people to actually use it beside the free version?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, we're launched and we have users already.

Speaker 1:

So it's exciting.

Speaker 2:

It's every day more and more signing up, so it's very exciting. It's exciting. It's every day more and more signing up, so it's very exciting. Yeah, I would say Amanda's observation is definitely spot on. I would probably take it to the next level and say it's also disrupted by people. It just takes one person with a dream and a wild idea.

Speaker 1:

Correct. It just takes one idea, yep.

Speaker 2:

You know, to really just really think, think big for the industry. You know, I think this is a wonderful industry with so many wonderful people and I think, contrary to popular belief, I don't think we're resistant to change or technology. I think we're usually so, so under the gun with a deadline and just the stress and pressure of getting things out the door that unless you're really solving the problem we ain't got time for it. So I think with furniture you've got to come correct. I think you need to really think things through and if you're able to do that, I think there's a lot of opportunity. But it really takes understanding the people you're building for. It really takes a lot of care and effort to understand the idiosyncrasies of this industry and if that's your passion, then great.

Speaker 1:

You know, I think there's a big ocean for you. The fact that you've been in the industry as long as you've been in the industry gives you a unique insight, as a founder of a tech company, of what we go through on a daily basis and all the little idiosyncrasies that are involved around furniture. So, catherine, I want to ask you one final question, and it was something you said in our pre-call. Most of you know, I have a pre-call with every guest just kind of talk about the show, make sure they're okay with coming on the show and random questions from a podcaster. But you said something that I just think is great. You said the tragedy of loving furniture, as a furniture lover, let's talk about that for a minute. What does that actually mean? The tragedy of loving furniture?

Speaker 2:

Oh man, it's like a contradiction in a way, because it's like I love furniture, I studied furniture, I collect furniture, I am 100% a furniture person. There's no getting out for Catherine furniture person. There's no getting out for Catherine, but it's like, it's like, but also too, it's, you know, because of the extremely detailed nature of the work. You know it's, you're, oh, it's like a, you're like a ballerina. You know, one little slip and you see it, one little slip of the finger with a finish code colorway one, two, three versus colorway132.

Speaker 1:

And then you have a disaster on your sheet. You have a disaster.

Speaker 2:

So it's like it's funny because it's like you have to really love it and you have to be dedicated to wanting to do it right. But that being said, you know it's like once you're in it, like it's hard to get out of it, you know, and the stress and the pressure to get everything right on time always is definitely real. So it's a trade-off, you know, because when everything clicks and comes together, gosh, nothing feels better in the world. Back when I was a dealer salesperson, I always told my team other dealers take their clients on punchless walkthroughs. We take ours on victory laps. We had a very meticulous process. It was very, you know it was. It was a lot of work, but you know we were able to catch things before they became problems, and so we would. We would, you know, take victory laps with the client at the end of projects and nothing felt better than seeing it all come together.

Speaker 1:

So I got to tell you, I mean, that's always been one of my favorite things was being able to see at the end what it looked like and be able to stand back and go, hey, favorite things was being able to see at the end what it looked like and be able to stand back and go, hey, I did that or we did that right. I mean, look how cool the space looks. But I'm with you when you get into the furniture business, you either love it or you're like what the heck is this? And I honestly, 30 plus years of a career in this and a variety of different roles, could not imagine doing anything else. And I love still today turning chairs over in a lobby somewhere to look at the chair, to like see who made it, because that's really cool.

Speaker 1:

And so, yeah, it's a tragedy of loving furniture Once it gets in your blood, it's not getting out. So, catherine, I'm so excited for you and Thumbprint and all your team members and our industry about the product and the service, if you will, the tool you're bringing to us, and I really look forward to watching next Neocon, watching you take your victory lap around the mart with all the success that you've been able to create with this really cool product. So if our community would like to get in touch with you, what is the best way for them to do that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, great question. You can always email me, catherine, at ThumbprintFurniturecom. There's a contact us on our website as well, thumbprintfurniturecom. We are very, you know, communicative with people that reach out to us. You know I'm always happy to talk, so come find us. You know we're nice.

Speaker 1:

We will put all of that information, as well as Catherine's LinkedIn profile link, down into the show notes. Be sure to click on all that. If you do reach out to her, please let her know that you heard her here on the Trend Report and that you're coming with some questions. Catherine, it's been a pleasure to meet you, so excited to have you on the show today, and I look forward to catching up with you again soon. So thank you very much and for all of you listening today. Thanks for being here. Go out there and make today great, and we'll see you again in a couple of weeks. Take care everyone.