michael barlow

On this week's episode of the Just Go Grind podcast, hear from Michael Barlow, co-founder and CEO of Fernish. Fernish is a premium furniture rental service offering flexibility for those who don't want to be weighed down by owning.

Key takeaways:

• Founded in 2017, Fernish was inspired by a pain point Barlow experienced: the drag of renting space to store furniture and decor during his multiple and frequent moves.
• Fernish raised $30 million in a seed round led by Real Estate Technology (RET) Ventures in 2019. (In May, this year, the company raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Khosla Ventures.)
• A co-founder proved critical for Barlow for many reasons, but especially for emotional support and for raising capital because potential investors see complimentary strengths in the founders.
• Participating in the program at TechStars proved extremely useful for Fernish founders to learn a lot about how to scale a business and zero in on the company's focus.
• Barlow prioritizes people operations and the personnel management side to strengthen company culture, so people are inspired to work and stay with the company.
• Barlow says Fernish is proud to be based in L.A. and hire from the growing pool of Angeleno talent.