The Folden Lane Story & The Problem We're Solving
Born into four generations of basket makers, our founder Ben Spivack spent his entire life immersed in storage and organization products. He learned the ins and outs of the industry at his family’s business, RGI Home, and over time came to recognize problems in the way storage was manufactured and shipped.
For one, consumers were overwhelmed with choice. Without any recognizable brands or market leaders, one undifferentiated product after another was built, marketed, and sold.
But more importantly, over 90% of storage baskets are made from harmful metals, single use plastics, or woods contributing to deforestation. Packaging and shipping processes are even worse—inefficient methods, CO2 emissions, and packaging waste.
With the average homeowner replacing their storage products about once every year and a half, home furnishings waste (including storage) has increased 2.5x the rate of household growth since 2019. That translates to more than 9 million tons of furniture ending up in landfills each year. And packaging is no better: waste from packaging of home storage products adds up to 800 million square feet, weighing roughly 39,000 tons per year.
This “innovation” at the expense of our environment—or lack thereof—was the inspiration for starting Folden Lane. For something so commonplace and functional in our everyday lives, why was there no environmentally-friendly, beautiful, and functional home storage solution? Surely we must have missed something?
So, we came up with a solution: a one-stop shop that sells sustainable, premium home storage products with an effortless shopping experience and an assortment offering only what you truly need.
“Once I accepted where I was in my journey, I was able to unlock the power of learning from others. Respecting everyone and everything around you, their intellect, and viewpoints accelerated this process exponentially.”
–Ben Spivack, founder & CEO
Early on, Ben’s father taught him lessons on entrepreneurship and how to do well in business. Things like the importance of partnerships, our collective social impact, and pushing for game-changing innovation inspired the core values at Folden Lane. These values include radical inclusion, humility & empathy, do good, and wabi sabi.
A house can be designed and calculated, but a home should embody the spirit of those who live in it. We celebrate and showcase a home's imperfections—round edges, asymmetry, and uniqueness. This is the principle behind wabi sabi, a design approach in Japanese culture that centers on accepting incompleteness and impermanence in aesthetics—just as we do in the world around us.
Folden Lane aspires to leave our mark on the world—or more accurately, leave as little mark as possible. For example, our products' industrial design helps reduce packaging waste by 55% and CO2 emissions by up to 84%.
As we introduce Folden Lane to the world, we expect to constantly learn, test, and fail before we succeed. This is how most of us live our lives, and we strive to reflect these experiences in our business.
We’re just getting started, and we hope you’ll join us along for the ride. Thank you for being here.
