Ash Read didn't launch a review website about household products because of some lifelong interest in home decor; instead, his interest came about simply because he was moving into a new house and needed to furnish it.

While it was easy to search for products listed on retailers like Amazon and Walmart, he realized that there wasn't a good directory for the direct-to-consumer goods that are sold directly through a company's website. So he created a database of direct-to-consumer companies and published it to the web. The audience feedback was so strong that he decided to build out an entire website dedicated to covering and reviewing D2C home products.

Ash launched Living Cozy in 2020, and over the next few years he scaled the site to over 350,000 monthly pageviews. What started out as simple product curation soon led to an in-depth review process and him hiring a network of freelance writers to review items like sofas and beds.

How did Ash manage to break into such a saturated market category that was already dominated by much larger websites? In an interview, we talked about his introduction to direct-to-consumer products, his clever use of search keywords, and how he coordinated the shipment of large pieces of furniture to reviewers all over the world.