Building Together with Marina Mazza and Rocky Cappelletti of B.A. Furniture

 

“It wasn’t planned like if he would have told me ten years ago, you can have a furniture-making company, I would have said, no way. But here we are.”

 

• Marina Mazza

 

Welcome to Building a Furniture Brand with Ethan Abramson, the show that talks about the business behind the furniture business. In this episode, Ethan sits down with Marina Mazza, co-owner of the Melbourne Australia-based furniture company, B.A. Furniture. 

 

Now B.A. Furniture is run by both Marina and her co-owner Rocky. But in a situation well known to busy furniture companies, Rocky got called away at the last minute to deal with a project and Marina seamlessly filled in to share both of their stories. That right there is a perfect snapshot of Marina and Rocky’s business, both of them working together to turn their company from what started as a simple pastime into the incredibly successful business you see today. 

 

Follow along as they talk about why customer service should be the core of your business, how to balance sustainable building practices in your pricing, the importance of support between co-owners, and much more. 

 

 

 

 

Across the World

 

“Rocky and I were initially from Argentina, and we came to Australia together in 2011. Our furniture-making encounter was a bit by chance, and I call it a serendipitous event that happened here in Australia, although it seems like it was meant to happen sometimes. 

 

In Argentina, Rocky, straight out of school, worked for like four or five years at a shop where they built custom windows, doors, and frames. He learned a lot of the basics of the trade there and got exposure to the tools and the machinery. I guess that was the foundation, probably. After that, he moved on to corporate, so a totally different job, nothing to do with furniture. 

 

In my case, I’m a qualified dietician. So I worked in health care over there. And then, we both moved to Australia because I was pursuing some more studies in public health. So I did a Master’s here, nothing to do with furniture. It didn’t cross our minds.”

 

• Marina Mazza 

 

Marina has always been a very crafty person, and she enjoys doing things with her hands, regardless of the discipline. Whether she was doing pottery, cooking, baking, furniture, or anything else, Marina was happy to make things with her hands.

 

After completing her Master’s in Australia, Rocky and Marina continued with their lives. Since Rocky’s English experience was somewhat limited at the time, he found himself working many jobs along the lines of factory work. Three or four years after they arrived in the country, Marina decided to take a short furniture-making course with a friend.

 

The objective of the course was to build a bedside table, and Marina loved the process. After completing it, she and Rocky purchased some tools and developed their understanding of the terminology of furniture making before diving into the process even deeper.

 

 

 

 

Getting in Deeper

 

“After that, Rocky started to get more into it as well. He was working at the time at a factory doing shift work. He was doing the afternoon shift, so he had the mornings completely free. By that time, I was already working in health, so I was working a nine to five job. He started doing more with timber in the mornings, so we began buying planks that were already dressed and ready to use because we didn’t have the machinery. 

 

We built a table for ourselves with the legs that we bought, or made and painted and everything. I think we had for a while, but then we weren’t super happy with it or how some things looked. So we were like, ‘Let’s build another one.’ I put it on Gumtree, which is like the eBay equivalent in Australia, and it sold straight away. 

 

Now, I forgot to remove it from Gumtree, so I started getting inquiries about, ‘Oh, can I have these in these dimensions? In this size?’ And I’m like, ‘What if we do another one?’ So we would just say, ‘Yeah, you can have it, and we’ll make it, and we’ll sell it again.’ So we did that, and more people started inquiring.”

 

•  Marina Mazza

 

Marina and Rocky kept up with demand as the inquiries kept pouring in, but they were building these tables without any complex or significant machinery. They were working from the balcony of their apartment, which was admittedly very large but still not suitable for their burgeoning enterprise.

 

Eventually, they had been building and selling tables for long enough that the decision was made for Rocky to leave his job and focus entirely on building furniture. Marina would continue to work her day job, which allowed the pair to take a calculated and effective risk.

 

 

 

 

Following in their Footsteps

 

“I think the best advice I can give is, don’t be scared of following your passion. If it is something that you’re passionate about, and it’s what you want to do, it’ll show in your work, and it’ll work out. I was scared at the start; as I said, I’m risk-averse, and I am scared of just taking the plunge and saying, alright, let’s drop everything to do it. 

 

Rocky pushed me into that; he is so passionate. He is the primary furniture maker. I make furniture sometimes, but I primarily help with all the admin side of things. So I see his passion. He works who knows how many hours per week sometimes, and he’s still so happy. We went on holiday three weeks ago or so, and he was like, ‘Oh, I think I’m ready to go back to work.’ Who says that?

 

But it shows in his work and his interactions with our customers, and I think that’s our strength. On the flip side, you have to have a lot of resilience when starting your own business because it’s not easy. It’s not that you go into a job nine to five, you finish, you close your laptop or your computer, and you’re done for the day. It just never ends.”

 

• Marina Mazza

 

As she and Ethan were speaking for this podcast, Marina was managing her children, and she and Rocky were still working at any given moment. Whether building furniture, answering emails, fixing their website, or making social media posts, they are always busy. Martina explains that you don’t get a break, but it is gratifying because you are doing what you want and succeeding and progressing in doing what you love.

 

Website: https://bafurniture.com.au

 

Instagram: @b.afurniture