With sports stadiums shuttered and restaurant patios closed, homeowners are beginning to make big investments in their own outdoor spaces. At least, that's what Yardbird has observed.
The New Hope-based company, which makes outdoor furniture from recycled, ocean-bound plastic, has reported at least $1 million in sales each week for nearly a month.
"Right now, people can't go to sporting events or dinner," CEO Jay Dillon told Minne Inno. "So if they have disposable income, they're investing in patios."
Big sales aren't the only recent win for Yardbird. The company landed a $4.4 million Series A round of funding. Dillon said the round was led by a private family office that did not want to be named. Yardbird previously raised $1 million about 18 months ago from family and friends.
The company plans to use the new funding to expand its inventory and continue building new showrooms.
So far, it has a location in St. Louis Park, which opened in 2018. Originally, Yardbird hoped to open three additional showrooms this year, but the Covid-19 pandemic changed some of its plans. A store slotted for the north side of Detroit has been delayed until next year. But other plans are moving forward.
Yardbird recently opened a showroom in Kansas City. And as Dillon spoke to Minne Inno, he was walking up the side of a mountain near Denver, where the company had just opened a store the week before.
Unsurprisingly, most people have purchased Yardbird's products through its website, especially in recent months. But the company hopes to reopen its brick-and-mortar locations as soon as it's safe to do so.
"We know the majority of people won't spend $2,000 or $3,000 on a piece of furniture unless they sit in it," Dillon said.
Dillon came up with the idea for Yardbird while living in Hong Kong. On weekends, he and his wife would go to the beach and see huge nets in the water catching debris. He later learned that a lot of this was coming from neighboring countries without formal waste management systems.
"If you live in the Philippines or Indonesia, that just doesn't exist," he explained. "So people put all their garbage on the beaches and it gets taken out with the tide. It sounds awful, and it is, but there isn't a good alternative."
Burning garbage would affect air quality in the area, and putting it in a landfill brings its own health repercussions.
Yardbird pays 25 people to collect garbage from these islands. This waste is then brought to Manila, where it's recycled. This company then sells it back to Yardbird, which uses 60% recycled plastic and 40% virgin plastic to make its furniture.
"But producing a product in Asia and shipping it to the U.S. is wildly not cool for the environment," Dillon said. "They use the lowest grade petroleum in these ships and they pollute a ton."
To offset its carbon footprint, Yardbird works with a nonprofit called CarbonFund. At the end of the year, the company calculates how much carbon it emitted and CarbonFund helps Yardbird offset this through different initiatives like funding wind farms or planting trees.
"We care about the environment, and I know our customers do too," Dillon said.
