Today we’d like to introduce you to Carlton Lieberman.
Hi Carlton, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Back in 2020 my brother Liam had a video production business. Then Covid came and business dried up pretty quickly.
What he did have was a two car garage and a decent amount of free time.
Around then Facebook Marketplace was really taking off. And since everyone was cooped up in their own home. They were also trying to change their furniture out, which meant there were a lot of couches on Facebook Marketplace. At the time my dad had a cargo van for his business and lent it to Liam to pick up couches.
Now, I’m the youngest. At the time I had just finished high school early, I was fifteen, and I was working as a bookkeeper with my dad and grandfather’s company.
In 2021 I started my own couch business. Completely separate from Liam and in my parents garage.
Then a few things happened at once.
Liam had his first kid. And selling any used furniture is a very time intensive activity.
So in 2023 he changed how he bought. Instead of picking up one couch at a time, he started buying liquidation. That’s when a big furniture retailer needs to clear out customer returns, overstock, or floor models, and they sell it all off at a much more reasonable price in bulk.
Meanwhile I quit my job and rented a large RV storage unit that was around 1000sqft to store more couches.
In 2024 after thinking about it for some time, Liam and I joined forces.
We named our business Kindred Couches. It fit because we’re obviously brothers, but the bigger reason was how we wanted it to feel for the customer. We wanted people to feel like they were buying from your own Kin instead of from a store that only wants to sell you the most expensive product.
Beginning of 2025 we brought in our middle brother, Nathaniel. We told him if he hit certain goals over three years, he’d become a full partner. He hit them in one. So now there are three of us and we all own it together.
At the beginning of this year we moved into a larger consolidated warehouse. We’d been in a 6,000 square foot space that was spread out in multiple different units (still the same storage facility I had originally rented in 2023). Now we’re in one consolidated 10,000 square foot building. Everything under a single roof. That means all our inventory sits in one place, we can get couches out to people faster, and customers have a real showroom where they can sit on things before they buy. We also have heat, air conditioning, and running water now. I know that sounds like a low bar. If you’d seen the old place you’d understand why we bring it up.
The biggest change though is what we actually sell. We stopped doing liquidation completely. Everything is brand new now. We figured out how to could source couches just as good as what we were pulling out of liquidation, order them new, and still keep the price really competitive. It’s simpler on our end, and it’s better for the customer, because you’re not getting somebody else’s return. You’re getting a new couch.
Our motto is “saving hardworking people thousands on quality couches.”
It really comes down to three things.
Quality. We only sell couches we’d want put in our own living rooms. Most of what we carry is made in the USA by manufacturers who care about how it’s built as much as we do.
Price. Furniture has gotten expensive like everything else. We come in around 20-50% under what you’d pay at a big box furniture store for something comparable.
Service. There’s a line we repeat constantly around here. The mother of all frustration is unmet expectation. So we over communicate. We would rather tell you the same thing twice than leave you sitting at home wondering where your couch is. That’s where our five star reviews come from, all 350+ of them.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Nope! The biggest hurdle would be those storage and working in the literal freezing cold for years. That and at the end of our time at the storage facility we were so filled with space that we would have to take couches out of the hallways during the day and put it all back at night, which would be very time intensive and frustrating. Also with used couches and liquidation, it is a highly personal item and there are a lot of touch points so managing an outflow of 100+ liquidation couches can be a lot! It is much simpler with new couches but still of course frustrating in its own way at times!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We specialize in modular couches that offer a high degree of customization for different spaces. Also because modular couches are much simpler than the alternative, it means that we can buy in bulk easier, which saves money on our backend, which we reflect onto our customers on the frontend. It also ensures that we are able to have our main best sellers in stock since we are buying them in bulk. The obvious other part that separates us from our competitors is our outstanding customer service. We currently have 350+ glowing five-star reviews from locals in the Philadelphia and surrounding areas. And every customer that comes into our store to purchase a sectional always leaves saying the same thing, “That was so easy.” Buying a piece of furniture, specifically couches, can genuinely be such a nightmare to deal with but we try to make it as simple and as easy of a process as possible. That simplicity is also carried over to our delivery service. We do all our own deliveries with our own trucks and our own employees, which means that we are able to manage the delivery schedule for customers. Which means that we can tailor the experience to be in service of the customer which is a huge reason for our glowing five-star reviews.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
We would like to open up multiple locations in different areas of Pennsylvania in the next five years. that and increasing our selection of couches so that we can offer more options to customers that don’t find something that works for their space. Since we are a smaller company, it also allows us to shift to trends in the furniture market when it comes to colors and styles.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kindredcouches.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kindred.couches/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555871363795
- Other: https://share.google/0go42j1s0dicxARaJ
