My First Million: Rob Bridgman, founder of sofa maker Snug

Rob Bridgman, 33, disrupted the traditional sofa market when he founded Snug in 2018, offering fast delivery of modular sofas, assembled in minutes with no tools.

He joined the industry 12 years ago, working in his father’s furniture business. The catalyst to start Snug was the entrepreneur’s own disastrous experience of ordering a sofa.

Bridgman’s Enfield-based company has increased turnover from £470,000 in 2019, to £31.6mn in 2021. There are 72 employees, up from 18 last year, while customers have increased 50-fold since 2018. Eighty per cent of the company’s sales are online, with the rest from a pop-up store in Leeds and five concessions in Bridgman stores.

Did you think you would get to where you are today?
Yes, I think I did, because I was passionate, determined and had lots of ideas.

When I was seven, I wanted to be an inventor. My older brother told me inventing was not a job, but I think being an entrepreneur is as close as you can get. Then I wanted to be an actor because I just loved being on the stage, but during the A-level psychology course I became interested in consumer psychology. That was my first real introduction to marketing and business strategy.

My grandfather, who died when I was in my early 20s, had owned furniture factories since the 1940s. My father was an accountant, but after he had qualified and worked for a year, he set up a factory making cabinets for audiovisual hi-fi units. I liked working for my father. I enjoyed understanding how things were made, how systems were assembled and how people worked together.

How has the coronavirus pandemic affected your business?
As a mainly ecommerce business, we were in a good position in March 2020. People decided to make their homes more comfortable, and searches for sofas online shot up 50 per cent overnight.

Initially, the lockdown was overwhelming. Everyone looked to me to know the answers, while I was trying to figure out how to proceed myself. I was juggling increased demand, disrupted supplies and keeping our staff physically and mentally safe.

The first thing was to send everyone home and find new ways of working remotely. At the time we were sourcing products from Asia, and everything was stored in Enfield, in my father’s warehouse. Once Covid hit, we realised there was going to be supply chain disruption, and in three months we ran out of stock three times.

It took us a year of research and development to bring manufacturing to the UK, near Liverpool. Our bricks and mortar competitors had to shut for four months. We had five concessions in Bridgman showrooms but no standalone stores because sales shifted online.

Previously, customers did not understand the benefits of buying a sofa online, but we had to change the way we did business. We extended our trial period from 30 to 100 days, so if you were not satisfied, we would collect the furniture and issue a refund. We redeployed our eight retail staff to set up online video consultations with customers.

Luckily, we were able to offer a one-person delivery service. As you can assemble the product yourself, we could leave it outside a front door, because at the time two-person deliveries were not allowed.

Was your first £1mn a major milestone?
Yes, it was. In December 2020 we made just under £2mn profit, up from £18,000 the year before. My wife Lauren gave me a personalised bottle of rum as a keepsake. I felt happy, but money does not drive me.

What excites me is continuing to disrupt this industry, in which I am the third generation in my family. I have read that it is the third generation who have been known to mess up the business, so I do have a point to prove.

We reinvested everything back into Snug. There were so many restrictions that year, we had a virtual Christmas party for our team. I hired a magician and sent a cocktail gift box to everyone.

What was the most challenging period of your career?
It was getting the reverse engineering right for the three-seater sofa, which I designed in collaboration with a furniture technician.

We had to work out how we could make it self-assembly, so that it could fit together and be taken apart in minutes without any tools. It was a huge headache. The design and ergonomics were easy. The engineering to put it together without needing any tools was very challenging, and took about nine months, from May 2018 to February 2019. (The company registered in May 2018 and started trading in March 2019.)

On my part it was a labour of love. I had two jobs. I was working at Bridgman as a marketing director and in my free time I was trying to launch Snug. Simultaneously we were designing the product, creating a company, and a new category, “sofa in a box”. The product comes in 12 pieces — four frames, four cushions and four legs. It slots together, like pieces of Lego, in five minutes.

What did you sacrifice to start the business?
Time, my savings and the ability to secure a mortgage easily. I had worked day and night, seven days a week, for four years. As banks don’t particularly back entrepreneurs, it took me almost a year to get a mortgage offer, finally from Handelsbanken, the Swedish bank. I must have approached 10 banks. Despite being a limited business, with 70 employees, I was still deemed to be self-employed.

To start Snug I used £15,000 of my savings. My father put in another £15,000, as he is a shareholder. I purchased 100 sofas and in the first month we sold just one. Then we found a way to sell them through Instagram. Six months later we were selling about 100 sofas a month. Today they retail for around £1,200.

What is the secret of your success?
People buy from us for speed and convenience. Traditional furniture companies have long delivery times, two to three months, due to made-to-order business models. Snug designs, manufactures and stocks products in the UK, so we can deliver as quickly as the next day.

We have built a strong community around our brand, with more than 250,000 followers on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, which is unusual for a furniture company. On Black Friday last year we worked with comedian Katherine Ryan to stream a live show on Instagram. The event filled Wembley Arena and as a result we had record sofa sales.

What was your best preparation for business?
As employee number 12 at Bridgman, I was left to figure out most things for myself. I was 21 and I did not have a direct manager. I learned about marketing, ecommerce and retailing through trial and error, reading and seeing how other businesses outside the industry did it. My father could not help me so much, as his strengths are in finance, and the legal and operations side.

In 2010 I set up Bridgman’s first ecommerce site with a web development agency. It took several months, with many challenges and mistakes along the way. It was difficult then because few furniture companies were selling online. Retailers were predominantly garden centres, and going down-market, choosing cheaper products for increased turnover.

We did not want to reduce the quality of our products, so we sold direct to consumers through the website, and one retail outlet in Enfield. We were a £2mn business when I joined. By the time I left it was about £6mn.

What is your basic business philosophy?
I see Snug as a vehicle for good and a vehicle for change. We try to make it fun and exciting to work here and are flexible with where and how people work. For us, one of the main benefits of working remotely means we can tap into national talent pools. Many apply to us for roles through social media channels.

Do you want to carry on till you drop?
Other people have hobbies like sports or art. Business is my hobby. I see myself working for a very long time, with no plans for retiring. What excites me is working towards building a global brand. I hope to start expansion into Europe later this year.

Have you made any pension provision?
I started a self-invested personal pension [Sipp] when I was 30. I discuss the investment strategy and risk profile with my pension adviser. As I have an appetite for measured risk, I’ve chosen high-growth companies in the venture capital and private equity markets. I’ve been paying a couple of thousand a month into the Sipp. I closely follow the cryptocurrency and NFT [non-fungible token] markets, but I have not invested into either yet.

Do you believe in giving something back to the community?
For the past three years we have worked with Crisis, the national homeless charity, and donated over £25,000. Through Snug’s Christmas campaigns we have helped to raise awareness, and enough funds to keep 1,200 homeless people off the streets.

We support Eden Reforestation Projects and have so far gifted 100,000 trees in Indonesia and Madagascar. At certain milestones on social media, we pay for more trees. When we hit 100,000 followers, our donation allowed the planting of 20,000 trees. Every April, for World Earth Month, we run competitions with our employees and social media community, to promote Eden Reforestation Projects.