A Simpler Sofa

Like many business-school students, Stephen Kuhl and Kabeer Chopra bonded over a common anguish—in their case, buying a couch. They found cheap models that could ship right away but were flimsy and required tedious assembly. They found luxe models that were well made but couldn’t be delivered without costly fees and lengthy waits. Eventually they founded a company, Burrow, to create a middle ground. Its modular three-seat couch—the result of more than two dozen rounds of design—starts at $1,195 and ships straight to consumers in easy-to-assemble pieces; it’s also customizable, both in color and configuration. When Kuhl and Chopra first pitched the idea to manufacturers in 2016, “everyone kind of laughed at us,” Kuhl says. Now they’ve sold more than 10,000 sofas and are capable of shipping within the U.S. in as little as one week. —Katy Steinmetz