Building a brand today is more important than ever and countless companies are refining their brand to try and connect to with their customers and followers. But what if you could engage consumers to help you to create the brand before launch? arfa is the new brand production studio that reimagines how products are launched and built by building direct-to-consumer brands by partnering with people who will provide actionable feedback on the brand’s development. Leveraging what arfa refers to as its Collective, arfa is not only building a loyal following but also incentivizing these groups as 5% of its profits are allocated to the Collective. Presently, arfa is working on the launch of its first brand in the personal care space using this unique model with plans to launch several brands that are able all able to utilize the company’s core infrastructure.
AlleyWatch chatted with arfa Cofounder and CEO Henry Davis (ex-Glossier) to learn more about the inspiration behind arfa, the company’s future plans, and recent launch. arfa was founded in 2019 and is backed by notable investors that include Thrive Capital, Forerunner Ventures, and Index Ventures
AlleyWatch: Tell us about the product or service that arfa offers.
Henry Davis, arfa: arfa is a new consumer goods company that develops personal care brands based on close relationships with the people who use them.
How is arfa different?
arfa is founded on the belief that if you’re going to put something onto your body, you deserve to have input on what it does and how it’s made. And if you are willing to engage emotionally in co-piloting the development of one of our brands, we think you deserve to benefit as a stakeholder too. That’s why arfa gives 5% of our profits to these co-pilots, called The Collective, in recognition of their active involvement and vital contribution. This collaborative relationship with The Collective allows arfa to create the products that people really want and need, so the rest of us benefit from their insight.
What market does arfa target and how big is it?
We don’t think about customers in terms of a demographic. Each brand will serve any group of people who share similar body experiences.
What is the business model?
Unlike the typical D2C model, we’re finding products for our customers, not customers for our products.
By leveraging this unique Collective model, we’re redefining the way in which products and brands are put into the world and by co-creating with the very customers we seek to serve.
We’re giving people the power by making them partners in the process of creating and developing the products they use on their bodies every day. So arfa acts not as a company, but as a friend or family member, providing the space necessary for people to speak up. To share the truth about our needs—however intimate, however, overlooked they may be. Those truths become the foundation for new products and brands that better reflect the narratives of who we are.
What inspired the start of arfa?
I first met my cofounder Ariel Wengroff at a dinner at Cannes focused on a conversation around the future of commerce and media. She was the Publisher at VICE’s Broadly publication at the time. We sat next to each other, and by the end of the dinner it was clear that we weren’t going to settle with the way commerce is today, and we knew it could be better.
I spent a lot of time in my career thinking about the future of retail and customer connection.
People think media and commerce are different worlds, but they’re both all about creating meaningful relationships with people that reflect what they want to see in the world today. From there, Ari and I realized there was no other choice, we couldn’t work for other companies, we couldn’t do other things. This was the only thing that made sense for the human connections we wanted to build.
We brought on our other cofounders Bryan Mahoney, arfa’s CTO, and Shabdha Chigurupati, arfa’s VP of Business Development and Finance who I worked with while at Glossier.
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Can you tell us about the first brand that you are launching?
We’re not sharing specific details yet, but they will be brands addressing topics around personal care that are largely underserved by the current market.
What are the milestones that you plan to achieve within six months?
In the next six months, we’ll be heavily focused on nurturing our Collective and further innovating the brands and products we have identified via our Collective. In the long-term, we want to herald a revolution in consumer products that is akin to what happened in the 1920s with the onset of self-serve retail, which was the birth of the modern brand. It is no longer enough to have choice at the point of sale, people will increasingly demand agency at the point of brand inception. arfa is designed to deliver that.
It is no longer enough to have choice at the point of sale, people will increasingly demand agency at the point of brand inception. arfa is designed to deliver that.
What is the one piece of startup advice that you never got?
Worry less about making good decisions – worry more about making your decisions good. Once I learned this, I have said it daily to myself and anyone around me!
If you could be put in touch with anyone in the New York community who would it be and why?
Jay-Z
Why did you launch in New York?
We are a band of mostly adoptive New Yorkers who all thrive on the energy of the city along with the humanity that confronts you everywhere and every day. Our team comprises people from diverse backgrounds like branding, tech, beauty, media, and politics. There aren’t many places you find all those different kinds of people at the top of their game outside of New York.
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
King.
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