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Q&A: Jason Atkins

The founder of Tui Lifestyle talks about how his company will furnish your home in 72 hours–and why interior decorators should be worried.

There aren’t many entrepreneurs who’ve moved from the Special Forces to the world of style and design, but the founder and CEO of Tui Lifestyle, 38-year-old Jason Atkins, has done just that. After finding a dearth of rental furniture options for an apartment he was considering renting in January 2008, Atkins, who had made his fortune starting two previous companies, founded Tui Lifestyle, which designs, manufactures and sells packages of high-end furniture. The company promises to furnish a client’s home in three days or less—but will high-end clients really abandon their interior decorators?

What is Tui Lifestyle and how does it work?

Tui Lifestyle sells luxury furniture packages, created by designer Tui Pranage, for every room in the home. The price starts at $12,995 for the most basic package—the living room, kitchen and first bedroom. From there you can add bathrooms, electronics, turnkey service, all the options. It’s about $90,000 to $100,000 for a fully-furnished three bedroom home—about a third the cost of an interior designer—and you can purchase in our retail stores or through authorized dealers.

What made you think there was a market for instant high-end home furnishing?

I realized that the furniture industry has a gap between highend furniture, with an archaic customer relations system, and cheap furniture with great service. There was nothing that had elements of both. I felt that if we could launch this business and come in with big money, we could make a big impact.

What was your entrepreneurial experience before Tui Lifestyle?

After leaving the Marines, I got certified as a private investigator, and I worked in Florida and New York City before going out on my own. My first company was Greentree Investigations, in 1997, and by the end of 1999 it was the largest private investigation company in the Southeast. In 2000 I sold it to Crawford and Company in Atlanta and became their director of investigations. Towards the end of 2002, when I was 30, I started ZoneCare USA out of Delray Beach, providing ancillary services to insurance companies. We did $50 million a year across the United States before I sold the firm in 2008.

Private eye to interior design—what’s the connection?

I used to beat up on the ex-cop with a pension who became a P.I. Now we’re competing with the small furniture maker who doesn’t understand business and marketing, the one-lady interior design company. I don’t want to develop a faster microchip, I want to compete against the guy who’s a little easier to beat up on.

Tell me about starting Tui.

We launched the company in September 2008 as a rental business—$1,000 a month for our furniture. By December it had failed horribly.

What was going wrong?

The consumers who would rent these things are high net worth individuals, and they think long-term. They did the math—it’s not [mass-market chain] Rent-a-Center for $27 a week. We decided we could either shut the business down or keep moving until we found a groove that works.

Obviously, you chose the latter. How did Tui evolve?

We decided to align with real-estate developers, giving them our model home packages or letting them buy at a discount, to help us sell our packages in their buildings. The Icon South Brickell in Miami was just launching—we got in under the wire with them. Every developer in the city went through there, and they started calling.

Why is working with Tui better than working with an interior designer?

People don’t furnish their home in one sitting, so the designer slowly spoon-feeds you the invoices. We state all the pricing up front. And it’s done in 72 hours.

You’re expanding?

We’re creating four packages specific to New York. We’ve also finalized in Toronto—we’ll be opening there in February.

How goes New York?

We’ve only been there since October 2010 and we’re already profitable. We’re on track for $5 million annual revenues.

For more information, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , call 877.548.3884 or visit tuilifestyle.com