FURNITURE.COM'S FOUNDER SPEAKS OUT ON THE REAL STORY.
HFN: The Weekly Newspaper for the Home Furnishing Network, November, 2000 by Schroeder, Angel
FRAMINGHAM, Mass.-True or false: Furniture.com was never profitable. If you quickly answered "true," you don't know the whole story.
Before the venture capital money, before George the Cat, before the snazzy Framingham headquarters -- yes, even before Andrew Brooks -- there was Steve Rothschild.
It all came to an abrupt end earlier this month. Furniture.com sent home all but 12 of its remaining employees after running through $103.7 million in funding in less than two years.
The story began in 1996, when Rothschild bought his dad's furniture store. Partially to test his other new venture, an Internet solutions provider, he put the store, Empire Furniture Showroom, on the Web.
"It was a nightmare," said Rothschild. But, after the...
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