The founders of Blu Dot talk about their company's name and identity.

Blanks: It's all in our offices right now. When you walk in the front door, there's a motorcycle made of 9,000 popsicle sticks.

Christakos: The second ugliest couch in America is here. Some of it's in our stores too.

Blanks: Then there are some things that aren't physical. Like we have somebody's mother who sends us a care package and a letter every Sunday.

Christakos: We were concerned when we did this. We created a couple of swaps just to seed the website in case nobody came. Within a couple of hours we had, I think, 200 proposals for swaps, and over the course of two weeks, I think we ended up with 2,000. It was awesome. A total productivity killer: We just kept going back to the website to see what people were proposing. It was really a blast.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Click here for a slide show of Blu Dot furniture.

Return to the profile of Blu Dot and co-founders John Christakos and Maurice Blanks.