When launching Denver Modern, their direct-to-consumer furniture brand, in 2018, husband-and-wife team Donnie Criswell and Lindsey Price-Criswell took a strategic approach, starting with a small, curated portfolio of considered styles. Materiality was paramount, with an emphasis on top-quality leathers, textiles and woods. Comfort was crucial. And the clean, streamlined aesthetic, rendered in a palette of soothing neutrals, complemented any space. What the couple couldn’t have predicted, though, was that the viral success of a single line of seating would skyrocket their revenue from zero to $27 million in a mere seven years. Beginning with the Vail lounge chair, followed by the Vail counter stool in 2020, Denver Modern built a business that now employs a team of 25, sells to repeat customers across the country, and offers a hefty discount to the trade.
With such a stable foundation in place, the Criswells have more than earned this moment to take a beat, evaluate their trajectory, and dream for the future. While kitchen seating remains the core driver of sales, supported by dining and occasional chairs, the brand will also release its first outdoor collection at the end of February. Later this spring, all facets of Denver Modern’s business—showroom, warehouse and corporate offices—will join forces in a 50,000-square-foot space in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood. The move is the latest step up for a company that once operated out of its founders’ dining room. In conversation with Business of Home, the partners in work and life discuss how they broke into the marketplace, what compels their design decisions, the pressure to outpace cheaply made dupes, and more.
Donnie, you have a background in furniture design. Lindsey, your experience is as a business consultant. How did those skill sets combine to create Denver Modern?
Donnie Criswell: Before, I owned a custom furniture shop for 10 years out of a passion for creating new pieces, from design to material selection to marketing. I loved it so much, but it got to a point where it was hard to scale. Early in our marriage, Lindsey and I talked about industry expectations, and that’s when she joined as CEO. She excels at making the business work. And I’m outside pursuing inspiration and exploring materialities.
Lindsey Price-Criswell: We’re the balance between art and science. We each have our domain, but there’s a fluidity to how we work together. Donnie continues to be our champion of product, and I’ve loved creating an organization centered around our core principles, including the showcasing of majestic organic materials. Ultimately we’re a cohesive unit and ideate together.
Are you both native to Denver?
Lindsey: We’re actually both from Georgia, but we met out here. We’re both compelled by the West and Colorado in particular. The color palette and natural materials we feature in our furniture align with the spirit of the state and echo its natural beauty.
The juxtaposition of the urbane with the rugged is an intriguing pairing.
Donnie: The environment we live in has always impacted our thinking. We spend time in the mountains, and we want to express the experience of this beautiful landscape through our furniture. A material palette that’s authentic, enduring and timeless is the most important component. Leather and linen and brass and solid wood can adapt to any style, are nice to the touch, are comfortable to sit on, and will last.
Surveying the marketplace, what did you think was missing that Denver Modern could provide?
Donnie: That smaller, independent, unique design you might discover in a boutique in L.A. or New York, but reflecting our choice of materials. Something a bit more custom and design-forward than you’d find at a West Elm or the equivalent, but still relatable. The challenge was to apply the design piece to an operational shift, manufacturing in Asia to meet demand. We feel so much conviction about what we send people when they’ve taken a leap of faith, trusted us with their money, and placed an order on the website. We want customers to recognize that Denver Modern is the opposite of the junk e-commerce brands so many have been burnt by.
Was the idea to launch in Denver, focus on the West, then gradually radiate outward to the rest of the country?
Donnie: Radiating outward was more like the initial goal, given that what you can achieve inside the four walls of a showroom is so limited. The comparison to online is night and day. We wanted to show everyone in the United States that we had a great product.
How did you get the attention to break out?
Lindsey: Social media was a big part of our development. The brand experienced significant growth through Covid, and that’s also when we started focusing on digital advertising. People were buying furniture online for the first time, and there I was in our kitchen with our toddler, fielding customer calls.
Donnie: Pandemic aside, those early days were fun. Getting a brand off the ground is hard; it takes a lot of grassroots efforts. My days were spent either creating a product or carrying it to somebody’s office—asking Gensler if we could leave it in their lobby for a month. At the same time, we were building our digital media tech stack and email list, posting ads on Facebook and stuff. Promotion meant putting our products in front of as many people as possible. Over time, interest snowballed.
In addition to navigating the pandemic, what other curveballs did you face? Or has it been smooth sailing?
Donnie: It’s both. We’ve had several years of profitability, and as our business grows internally, we’re learning how it’s not just about scale and revenue; it’s: How do you manage a team effectively? Slowing down and working together will allow us to reach new heights. I’m very much go, go, go and may want to release a bunch of designs at once, but that’s hard to do without a framework to follow.
Lindsey: We’ve been lucky. We’re a team of about 25 now, and pretty much everybody who started with us is still here: our warehouse director, the first person we officially hired; our VP of sales, the second. It’s important for them as well as our customers to understand why we select what we select. We source and purchase all our own materials to ensure their quality. Our leather comes from tanneries in Italy and New Zealand, and we also work with suppliers in Belgium, China, a few other countries. The furniture is then put together in Vietnam.
How do you release new designs? In seasonal collections or individually?
Donnie: Our approach is not so much around collections as complementary silhouettes. Certain similarities unite the pieces, but they’re not like Pottery Barn matching sets. When we release a kitchen stool, there’s typically a variation on the concept in a dining room chair. But you can buy one style of stool and a different style of dining chair, and they’ll look good together because they share a common language of materials. In an open-format plan, everything will flow. By the end of March, we’ll have released more items in the first three months of this year than we ever have before—approximately six kitchen stool designs, five dining room chairs, three occasional chairs, and a beautiful collection of outdoor products, for a total in the 20s. We know the traditional Market approach is to debut product in spring and fall, but as a direct-to-consumer business, we don’t have to live within those time frames. What matters is showing product that connects with our customers, and that could be on any day of the month and month of the year.
Lindsey: We inventory a certain amount but in a careful manner, so that we can gauge reactions to each new design without having overinvested in that stock. We may sample 10 different materials as part of the design process, but we typically narrow in on two. We want to focus our efforts on showing the products we’re most excited about and be slightly conservative in how we inventory them, but allow them to get off the ground and continue to give them visibility so that we can chase demand.
After doubling your sales volume every year since inception, what growth do you anticipate going forward?
Lindsey: It’s about managing expectations. Businesses go through periods of expansion and periods of protection, when we safeguard what we’ve built and evaluate how we built it. Right now we’re focused on who our customers are—both direct-to-consumer and trade—and what journey we want to take them on. We want to better understand the drivers of our initial growth and identify areas of opportunity and improvement—because you’re always going to have gaps, even when you’re rapidly growing. With each new design, we ask ourselves: “How is it meaningful to our customer? How can we communicate why it’s such an amazing product?” Because we’re not fast furniture. Donnie spent a year and a half with our designer considering different materials for the Vail lounge chair: the cushion fill, the upholstery fabric. It looks beautiful, and that resonated in the imagery on social media. But it also has removable slipcovers made from washable materials, a detail that supports how people use these pieces in real life.
Donnie: If you’d asked me when we were starting out, I would’ve probably told you that ideally we’d have about a dozen products, all selling successfully. We’ve learned how much you can do with just one product. But in the process, we found that dupes start filling the channels fast. Wayfair, HomeGoods, Walmart, Target, Alibaba: All will give a retailer a similar-looking product for, like, 10 bucks. So when it comes to developing our lines for 2026 and beyond, there’s this pressure to stay ahead. The volume of designs is turning out to be bigger than I realized, but it feels like a necessity, because as soon as a style becomes popular, you’re probably going to get undercut. In the biggest channel we market to, on Meta, there’s a broad range of buyers—certainly plenty who can support a higher price point. But it’s hard to ignore the junk that shows up on Dupe.com. And that sways our approach a bit. It’s been a learning curve.
With pale woods and boucle textiles, the Denver Modern portfolio does reflect some broader market trends.
Donnie: We absolutely pay attention to trends: We go to trade shows, and all I see on my Instagram feed is interior design—I don’t know about anything else besides furniture. And it’s great that we can consume so much. We’re influenced by the world we live in, one hundred percent, and we try to apply it in a way that makes sense for Denver Modern and our customer. We focus on materiality: Will it look good for a long time? Leather is the best example. A leather chair is at its worst the first day you own it. With wear, it looks cooler and cooler. Layer in white oak, brass, a pop of texture from a boucle or a flat-weave linen, and the effect is pleasant and calming.
Would you ever work with, say, a red fabric? Can you imagine upholstery in pink?
Lindsey: I’m the one who loves color!
Donnie: I truly do believe in the timelessness of neutrals. I get tempted to throw out a bright blue velvet for spring, but then I reel myself in. Because even if there is a customer for that colorway, it doesn’t mean we have to extend ourselves beyond the classics. We want our designs to feel at home in any environment. What if you move? Will blue fit the new scheme? When I think about color, I think tan. Light browns and dark browns. Mocha Mousse! Maybe a green velvet might live with the woods and the leathers.
Because it’s been so successful, is the Vail your favorite style? Or do you each have your own personal preferences?
Donnie: In January we released what I think is a very special piece, the Durango lounge chair. We source the leather from a family in Italy that has been in business for seven generations. It’s intended for the consumer who wants a silhouette that stands out while still being comfortable.
Lindsey: It has a cantilevered frame and a bolstered sling seat that stop you in your tracks. It’s stunning.
Donnie: Our outdoor collection is debuting at the end of this month. It’s teak and metal constructed in a modern, clean and thoughtful way, where there’s no visible hardware. I think the market will respond to the Strata series, which includes a cool rocker.
Lindsey: The Avon line is close to my heart: We have the dining chairs in our home, in white oak with a saddle leather backrest and oat-white woven cushion fabric that’s washable. We work in that chair, our kids sit in that chair, our friends do when we entertain. I love how comfortable and beautiful the materials are.
Occasionally you must have a customer who says, “I love this wood, but with that upholstery instead—can you change it just for me?”
Donnie: It’s less of a demand from the average consumer, who’s not interested in waiting or doesn’t have two yards of fabric to use. But for B2B clients, we’re always willing to make customizations.
Was a showroom always in the plans, or did the need become apparent once you started selling to the trade?
Lindsey: We knew pretty early on. We got our first lease in 2018, but the area was under construction, and we weren’t able to move in until 2020. The whole team worked out of that space.
Donnie: It also served as our warehouse. We would receive containers of raw materials and stack them up. The team would be working at their desks surrounded by 11-foot-high piles of cushions while customers came in to look at our floor models. It was actually hilarious. What we learned, though, was that having a showroom made us a more trustworthy brand: more than pretty photos on a website. People visiting from out of state—maybe to go to the mountains or see their kid at college—would stop by just to confirm that we were a real company. Then they’d fly home and place an order. The next big step for us is opening a new showroom in the spring.
What does your trade program offer to introduce more interior designers to Denver Modern?
Donnie: There’s a great incentive: a 35 percent discount. We used to offer 20 percent and thought it could help distance our trade sales from the direct-to-consumer business. And the most interesting thing happened: We saw that even with an increase in the discount, average order values were higher, returning purchases were higher, and that led to a better gross margin than smaller discounts at a higher volume. It’s given us ammunition to grow the trade segment. We have a sales team dedicated exclusively to members, so communication is easy, and there’s also a separate online portal where they can place orders. Plus, trade members learn about new product intros first.
Have you ever thought about collaborating on a collection with another designer?
Donnie: We’d love to. A collaboration would not only commingle audiences but provide an opportunity to observe a different design perspective and process. It’s just a matter of finding the right partner to help create an authentic, approachable collection. We’re open to suggestions.
A new outdoor collection, a new showroom, a call for collaborations: There’s a lot on the slate for Denver Modern in 2025.
Donnie: There are many examples of husband-and-wife-run businesses where both the company and the marriage fail because of the stress. We’ve had our ups and downs, but through our years of building Denver Modern, I admire and love Lindsey more. Our relationship has only grown stronger.
Lindsey: We’re incredibly grateful for the response we’ve had to our products, and appreciative of our customers. It’s not always easy to be entrepreneurial with your spouse, day in and day out; to be committed to your family as well as your business. We don’t take it for granted. With our growing team, new materials and releases, and continued development of the Vail series we launched with, we’re optimistic about what this next chapter will bring.
This story is a paid promotion and was created in partnership with Denver Modern
Homepage image: In Sunflower leather that becomes more beautiful as it ages, Denver Modern’s Vail lounge chair and ottoman complement classic and contemporary interiors alike | Ian Warren
