Social Impact Heroes Helping Our Planet: Why & How Phantila Phataraprasit Of Sabai Is Helping To Change Our World
An Interview With Martita Mestey
Talk and listen to your customers — We actually did receive this advice early on and took it to heart, always putting our customers at the forefront of our decision making. I believe this has been crucial to our success and has been in the form of everything from customer interviews, surveys, Instagram polls, to focus groups.
As part of my series about “individuals and organizations making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Phantila Phataraprasit.
Phantila Phataraprasit is the CEO and co-founder of Sabai Design, a furniture company with a mission to make sustainable living accessible. Phantila attended Columbia University and NYU School of Law (’20) before launching Sabai in 2019 with its first line of seating products. In 2021, Phantila was recognized as one of Inc. Magazine’s 100 Female Founders for how she’s revolutionizing the home furnishing industry and has since joined the Board of the Sustainable Furnishings Council as its youngest member.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?
I grew up in Bangkok, Thailand but would frequently travel to northern Thailand for my mother’s eco-lodge work. From quite a young age, this instilled in me an intense love and appreciation for the natural world. The tourism industry in Thailand is an enormous contributor to our economy, and I witnessed the compounded effect on the country resulting from businesses that didn’t consider both the environment and people involved in their operations. Conversely, I saw how my mother, through great care and intentionality, create experiences that were fulfilling and exciting for visitors while being mindful of the environment and people around her. These experiences created a framework for how I think, and problem solve, whatever the industry.
You are currently leading a social impact organization that is making a difference for our planet. Can you tell us a bit about what you and your organization are trying to change in our world today?
Sabai’s mission is to make sustainable living accessible, allowing people to furnish their homes in a way that aligns with their values. Every year 12 million+ lbs of furniture waste end up in landfills, 3 billion+ lbs of flame retardants are used in consumer products, and the U.S. is the world’s largest importer of furniture. We are committed to pushing the furniture industry towards a more responsible future and pioneering solutions that reduce environmental impact.
Sabai’s offerings are ethically and domestically manufactured. Items are made-to-order with non-toxic materials — 90% of which are sourced within 100 miles of our family-owned factory. No greenwashing, no chemicals, no sacrificing values. Our sofa retails for $1,395 and can be assembled in 20 minutes — allowing consumers to reflect their values within their home in an easy and affordable way.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
As I mentioned before, the value of sustainable living was instilled in me from early childhood, but after moving to the US my passion for environmental protection only grew. During my time in college specifically I began prioritizing sustainability in my personal life more, and after graduating, I struggled to find low-impact, ethically sourced, and affordable furniture for my first post-grad apartment. Once I started doing more research and really looked into the industry, I realized there was a large gap in the marketplace that I felt inspired to fill.
Many of us have ideas, dreams, and passions, but never manifest them. They don’t get up and just do it. But you did. Was there an “Aha Moment” that made you decide that you were actually going to step up and do it? What was that final trigger?
I’ve always been someone who enjoys thinking of ideas and solutions to problems I encounter — this isn’t limited to the furniture industry but is often associated with impact.
With Sabai specifically, I went through the experience personally of trying to furnish my apartment in a way that aligned with my values while also prioritizing things such as budget, convenience, and flexibility. I found the process incredibly difficult, and I knew that I wasn’t alone. Younger generations are typically the ones most passionate about and willing to pay a premium for sustainable products, but sustainable furniture products were far out of reach in terms of price point and accessibility. My “Aha Moment” came in two waves — the first was the decision to actually pursue this idea, which really hit me when I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I would lie awake at night or wake up thinking about it, which was extremely uncharacteristic for an easy sleeper like myself. The second was during the research process, when we were interviewing people and running A/B tests online and found that people really did resonate with and prioritize sustainability when it came to their purchases.
Many people don’t know the steps to take to start a new organization. What are some of the things or steps you took to get your project started?
Probably a bit of naivete coupled with a lot of passion — had we known how difficult it was to start a furniture company, we just might not have done it. There were so many rejections — manufacturers, suppliers, wholesale partners, etc. that didn’t see the vision or didn’t believe in what we were doing. But we were very excited about solving the problem that we went through with it anyways.
In terms of initial steps — we did a LOT of market and customer research and really sought to understand the problem. I would strongly encourage anyone to go through the process of talking to potential customers. Identify who you think is your customer base, interview them, if you’re wrong and they don’t actually care about the things you think they care about, adapt to that. Either identify a new target demographic, or change the theory regarding their pain point.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
We’ve found ourselves in countless hilarious and interesting situations over the years. Everything from approaching strangers in Washington Square Park and questioning them on their sofas, showing up to countless manufacturers in North Carolina to pitch them, spending hours in storage units rearranging furniture, or driving sofas around NYC in a moving van to photograph them on the street. One piece of advice that I received early on and wish I had executed more is to take as many pictures as you can. These experiences can be exhausting and scrappy, but they are also from a unique and very special time in the company’s life.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson or take away you learned from that?
There are so many to choose from…
One of the first photoshoots we did early on was at a house in Upstate NY. At this point, our budget for photoshoots was limited to say the least. My co-founder and I rented a moving truck, packed a few disassembled sofas in the back, and made our way north from NYC. The photoshoot actually went very smoothly — it wasn’t until we were leaving, and the truck kept sliding backwards down the hill that we realized we hadn’t accounted for the snow and roads. We ultimately had to leave the moving truck behind and hire someone in the area to drive it back to the city the next day. It turned out to be a funny story to look back on but also a lesson in the importance of paying careful attention to logistics, especially when dealing with such large pieces.
I’ll share one more — when we were searching for a designer to work with for our first seating line, we talked to many different people. One in particular impressed and awed us — he was very put together, confident, had a great background, etc. We had many conversations with this person about our vision and scope of the project. When it came time to talk numbers, the quote that he provided far exceeded our budget, with an alternative option to be paid in equity that accounted for up to 30% of the company. We really wanted to work with this person and had countless conversations going over options again and again. Ultimately, we couldn’t come to an agreement regarding the fee and the process pushed our timeline back for a month. The lesson here is really just that your time is valuable. If you have the feeling something is off or that you are trying to make something work that just doesn’t fit, don’t force it.
None of us can be successful without some help along the way. Did you have mentors or cheerleaders who helped you to succeed? Can you tell us a story about their influence?
I was in law school at NYU when we started Sabai and worked closely with the NYU Entrepreneurial Institute. They were the ones who really pushed us to conduct extensive customer research and interviews to confirm or disprove our hypotheses, which ultimately de-risks your decisions and puts you in the best position to succeed.
Are there three things the community, society, or politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
Slowing consumption — I think with the growing rise of ecommerce, it’s so easy to think that goods are just magically dropped from the sky. We don’t see the people and resources that take to make these products nor the people and resources it takes to get them to our doors.
Reducing toxins — 3 billion+ lbs of flame retardants are used in consumer products annually. It’s difficult to see the health effects that the products you buy and own can have, but it is far more effective and cheaper to work to limit chemicals put into products from the onset than addressing the health effects that they have. Politicians can enact policies, such as the state of California has done, to regulate the chemicals that go into consumer products.
Designing for circularity — I would encourage both businesses to design with end-of-life solutions in mind, and customers to question businesses about their thinking and practices when it comes to circularity. I really see every day how much of an impact our customers have on us. The questions they ask, the things they buy, the comments they make — these are all incredibly informative things for us to understand what our community cares about.
How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?
Well, this is at the core of what we do. We like to say we are sustainable by design — meaning we lead with sustainability and that guides the way we design and build our products. We don’t have the comparison point of being non-sustainable to compare it against, but we started Sabai with the trust that consumers will choose the sustainable option when presented.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
- Work hard but don’t shy away from asking for help & delegating — In my experience, you’ll rarely get the timing of delegating and hiring exactly right but taking on too much yourself and not doing so can actually hinder the growth of the company. Whether that’s because you’re wearing yourself out, or because it’s just not possible for you to do everything the company needs well. Bringing on that extra person or incurring that extra cost, while initially painful, can help propel the business forward in a way that you could never have done on your own.
- Keep tabs on what gives you energy and what drains you — This is tied to the concept of delegating, but the importance of it became apparent to me when I suddenly became aware that I was not bringing a level of energy to motivate and inspire the rest of our team that I wanted to. I looked more closely at this and realized that a large part of the work I was doing consisted of things that didn’t excite or energize me, but actually drained me. I think this is incredibly important to be aware of, because as the leader your energy greatly affects the rest of your team.
- Talk and listen to your customers — We actually did receive this advice early on and took it to heart, always putting our customers at the forefront of our decision making. I believe this has been crucial to our success and has been in the form of everything from customer interviews, surveys, Instagram polls, to focus groups.
- Find out what matters to your customers and invest in those things — For Sabai specifically, we learned that with respect to making the purchasing decision and building trust, our customers did a lot of research. A sofa is often the most substantial and expensive piece in their home, and our customers read a lot of reviews and articles to feel confident in their decision. This led us to invest in a PR team early on, which can take a bit of time to reap the benefits of but paid off immensely in building trust with our community.
- Be focused in your execution and planning — When starting out, we had so many ideas for things we wanted to achieve and launch with. We quickly came to realize that not only would it not be possible to do it all, but it would also require a large investment without validation, which is risky when you are such a young company. While our approach to sustainability is comprehensive and includes considering each aspect of our products’ lifecycle (materials, manufacturing, resale, etc.), we ultimately decided to focus on the initial phases when first launching. After gaining some traction we launched our Repair Don’t Replace and Revive programs a year and a half later.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
I think the reasons to consider making a positive impact on the environment or society are a bit obvious, but the reasons not to do so can often overwhelm or overshadow. The impact of climate change and pollution can be staggering and seem insurmountable to the point where one doesn’t think they can make an impact. I would point to concrete examples in history where people have identified environmental problems and been able to enact change through focus, effort, and community action. In the 50s and 60s, New York City had some of the worst air pollution in the country. The 1955 Air Pollution Control Act was passed and provided funding for air pollution research, and although it’s taken time and hard work, pollution levels have decreased dramatically from those levels to where we are today.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Be prepared to fail.” You will face rejection more often than you hear the word “yes” — whether it’s from potential investors, manufacturers, suppliers, partners, etc., this is the path of the entrepreneur. In the early days of Sabai, we had the hardest time finding a manufacturing partner that was willing to take us on as a vendor. It is your ability to creatively problem solve post rejection where you will really find success!
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Rihanna — there is something so special about the way she connects and speaks to her audience — an unparalleled ability to connect.
How can our readers follow you online?
Twitter Handle: sabai_design
Instagram Handle: sabai.design
TikTok Handle: sabai.design
Website: https://sabai.design/
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Social Impact Heroes Helping Our Planet: Why & How Phantila Phataraprasit Of Sabai Is Helping To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.