About Simbly
We believe great design and environmental sustainability can come together to improve our lifestyles and create balance with nature.
We manufacture well-designed, minimalist furniture made of sustainably harvested, FSC certified wood. Our factory is located in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina.
While we are a mission-based company with deeply held values about protecting the planet and supporting our local economy, we also believe in delivering great products at an attractive value.
That's why we developed our direct-to-consumer business model. There are no hidden wholesale or distributor markups in our prices.
Instead, we ship our products directly to you straight from our factory, cutting out the middle man, and passing you the savings.
The world doesn’t have to be people vs planet, when it can be people and planet.
Simbly Co-Founder & CEO
Above: Co-Founder Josh Dorfman at Simbly's furniture factory
Josh Dorfman is an award-winning environmental entepreneur, author, and media personality. He is perhaps best known as the Creator and Host of The Lazy Environmentalist reality TV show on Sundance Channel, radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio, and book series helping consumers discover easy, stylish, and convenient ways to live sustainably.
Josh also launched and led Vine.com, a natural and organic product e-commerce retailer backed by Amazon. He was Vice-President of Marketing for GoodGuide, a "Fast Company 50" tech company creating radical transparency in consumer products to illuminate their health, environmental, and ethical performance. He developed the green product standards for other major e-commerce retailers including Diapers.com, Soap.com, and Wag.com.
Josh's first eco-friendly furniture company, Vivavi, was named to Inc. Magazine's first-ever "Green 50" as a pioneer accelerating the green economy. For his work over the course of his sustainability career, Josh was inducted into the inaugural class of the International Green Industry Hall of Fame.
As a sustainable lifestyle expert, Josh has appeared on numerous television and radio shows including Morning Joe, Fox & Friends, and NPR's All Things Considered. Fun fact: Josh is the only guest to have ever ridden bicycle onto the set of the Martha Stewart Show.
Our Origin Story
Above: Christopher Douglas's award-winning dining table from 2006, now reintroduced as the Simbly Dining Table (new Simbly version is the top image on this page).
In 2013, Josh moved to Asheville, North Carolina to launch a new sustainable venture. But soon after arriving, he was recruited by Asheville’s economic development people to grow the city’s entrepreneurial startup community.
A few years later, Josh and a local entrepreneur were discussing furniture-making possibilities in Western North Carolina, a region with a proud heritage of world-class furniture manufacturing.
That conversation sparked the inkling of an idea that prompted Josh to reach out to Christopher Douglas, an award-winning, multidisciplinary designer.
Above: Christopher Douglas, Co-Founder and Creative Director
Like Josh, Christopher also founded a modern sustainable furniture company (Material Furniture) in the mid-2000s. His designs proved so innovative and popular, the Cooper Hewitt selected them for inclusion in its prestigious National Design Triennial.
Time Magazine named to Christopher to its Style & Design 100 list of the most of the most imaginative and influential designers in the world.
Though Josh and Christopher hadn't spoken in years, they realized they still shared the same urgency and passion for timeless, well-designed, eco-friendly furniture.
They created a plan to relaunch several of the Knock-Down Drag-Out collection's products (see the dining table, bench, and coffee table) as the foundation for a new furniture company.
The result is Simbly.