Campsites Aren’t Flat. A Denver Inventor Spent Three Years Building a Chair That Doesn’t Care.

Nicholas Van Raalte’s Furnigami ships in early 2027. The hard lessons of getting a physical product made are going into a book for would-be founders.

The Furnigami OG-C chair standing level on a sloped rock face

More than 52 million North American households went camping in 2025, according to KOA’s annual outdoor hospitality report, and 31% of campers say they plan to spend more nights outdoors in 2026. Most of the chairs and tables they pack are built for a level floor. Campsites rarely offer one.

Nicholas Van Raalte thought that was a problem worth three years of his life.

The Denver inventor is the founder and CEO of Furnigami Inc., which makes camping furniture engineered for uneven ground. Its OG-C chair uses a patented leg system called ROCKSTEADY: each leg extends independently to correct for up to 14 degrees of slope, and pivoting feet grip rock and dirt. The chair supports up to 500 pounds, weighs 21 pounds and folds flat to carry.

A ROCKSTEADY leg: each one extends on its own, and the pivoting foot grips the ground

The feedback that cut 40% of the weight

Van Raalte started Furnigami in 2023. The first samples arrived in June 2026, after nearly three years of design, prototyping and factory work. That month he drove them 14 hours to Reno for the Grassroots Outdoor Alliance Discovery Marketplace, then on to New Orleans for the Switchback trade show.

At Switchback, the CEO of an overseas outdoor gear brand tested the samples and told Van Raalte two things he did not want to hear. The chair was too heavy, and the table wobbled.

He took both notes straight to his factory. The chair lost about 40% of its weight, and a newly engineered leg-locking mechanism all but removed the wobble. “Sometimes your haters can be your biggest ally,” he wrote afterward.

It is the kind of fix that only happens when a product is in front of real people, and it is why Van Raalte wants Furnigami tested hard. He has lined up professional athletes to put the products through tests he says no other camping furniture brand has attempted. “Nature isn’t curated – it’s chaos,” he said. “Whether it breaks or survives, we’ll film it. Either way, you can expect some epic content of what went down.”

Furnigami products are on pre-order at furnigami.com and are scheduled to ship in early 2027.

What three years of building taught him

A software startup can ship a fix overnight. A chair cannot. Every change Van Raalte made to Furnigami ran through prototypes, factory revisions and another round of samples, and that is the education he is now writing down. His book, Surgical Entrepreneurship, due in late 2027, is a guide to invention, hardware startups and global manufacturing for people who want to build something real.

The first lesson is that there is no halfway version of starting a company. “Once you decide to start a business, there will be no going back, as the process will change you,” he said. “It will change how you solve problems, view the world, and tackle risk. Despite this, I promise you will come out more capable, prepared, and skilled.”

No going back does not mean jumping blind. For anyone holding an idea and a paycheck, Van Raalte recommends what he calls the Tarzan Approach, borrowed from his friend Blake. Picture yourself swinging through the jungle on a sturdy vine, your current job, with the next vine, your startup, hanging ahead. You can let go and hope to catch it mid-air, or you can wait until the new vine is “securely in your hand before releasing the old one.”

“This represents keeping your current job until your business is generating enough revenue to support you and the business, and is the safest route,” he said.

Whichever way founders make the leap, Van Raalte says what waits on the other side is worth it. “For me, becoming an entrepreneur was like spraying a dirty windshield and wiping away the grime,” he said. “I found clarity in my purpose, and I know you will too.”

Company Details

Organization: Furnigami Inc.

Contact Person Name: Nicholas Van Raalte

Website: https://furnigami.com/

Email: [email protected]

City: Denver

State: CO

Country: United States