First Year Success with Bao Loi of Design Craft Workshop

 

“Just thinking about the first couple of months of starting, it just makes me want to throw up because there’s just so much fear.”

 

• Bao Loi

 

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 Bao Loi, owner of the Houston, Texas-based furniture company Design Craft Workshop.

 

Bao is about a year into his furniture company. And although he is not new to working for himself, starting a new company, whether you’ve done it before or not, comes with a lot of new experiences, some good and some hard. But as any business owner knows, you take the good with the bad, and you grow.

 

Bao is doing just that, expanding his business based on having a solid plan in place, diversifying his income, and learning to accommodate change as just another part of growth. Follow along as they talk about expanding your client base with social media, the importance of contracts to get you paid, adding employees to your company, and much more.

 

 

 

 

From the Computer to His Own Hands

 

Like many other aspiring furniture makers, Bao originally started in the corporate world. A licensed architect, Bao intends to maintain his license even though he has transitioned into woodworking full time. He feels a sense of accomplishment and pride in having gone through intensive education to gain those qualifications.

“I’ve done a lot of woodworking in college, mainly on scale models. We had a really high-end state-of-the-art woodshop where whatever you can think of, whatever you can imagine, you can go into the woodshop, and you can make it. It had 3d printers, CNC’s, table saws, metalworking, whatever you wanted it to do. 

So my background in woodworking was mainly scale models doing scale models for college for presentations and things like that. After I graduated college in 2013, I missed the aspects that architecture school built inside me: the hands-on model-making process. In practice, we don’t build models anymore, and everything is done on the computer. We build things, 3d models, 2d plans, and we present that to the client. So that aspect of creating with my hands, I really missed it.”

 

• Bao Loi

 

Bao’s remedy was to go out and purchase a table saw for his own shop. He knew the table saw was the heart of the woodshop, so he invested in a SawStop right away and began doing cutting boards as gifts for family and friends. Soon, he started to get clients and transitioned into making things like cabinets and other products.

 

At this point, Bao was still working full time as an architect, but he knew he wanted to incorporate woodworking into his work, so he went to work for a construction company and learned that side of the trade. After a few years and many more learning experiences, Covid-19 hit, and that was the opportunity for Bao to double down on his woodworking business, which has brought him to where he is today.

 

 

 

 

Educating, Expertise, and Social Media

 

Ethan and Bao discuss the importance of educating customers on furniture and what they are buying, whether from IKEA or a showroom. Bao notes that the essential byproduct of that experience is that you, as a designer, become the expert, which establishes trust, which is vital in customer relations. That is how you get returning customers and referrals.

 

Bao believes that a great deal of his success has been due to his approach with customers and his understanding of the value of social media. He recognizes that what he posts on Instagram and YouTube allows the client to be part of the journey and the conversation. This lets the customer see that this builder is someone reliable who knows what they are doing.

 

“With social media, with advertising, or with putting your name out there, you want to be putting your best foot forward continuously. But I always like to caution people that the success of their social media is not necessarily linked directly to the success of their furniture company.

 

It’s a hard concept to wrap your mind around because you think everybody likes these pieces, then that means I’m being successful. But if you’re not selling those pieces, and if those people aren’t buying your pieces, then there’s a little bit of a disconnect. And it goes the other way, too.

 

If you’re not feeling successful on social media, that doesn’t mean you’re necessarily not successful in your own furniture business. Because maybe your social media doesn’t have a worldwide appeal; perhaps it’s staying small. But that small following is actually buying your pieces, and it goes both ways.”

 

• Ethan Abramson

 

 

 

What Do You Have to Lose?

 

“For those who are contemplating taking the leap, I would say, what do you have to lose? If you’re miserable at your job, like I was, if you’re miserable in your career, like I was, you’re already losing time, especially for those who don’t have a family, especially those who can take a little bit more of a risk.

 

Risk is subjective, and it’s up to you how much you want to risk. But for me, if I did not take that leap, if I didn’t do what I wanted to do and pursue this, at the end of my life, I would probably not be very happy with myself. So I knew that I needed to try at least, and I needed to give this a shot and see where it goes, no matter what it took.

 

So if you’re in that position where you’re not really happy with where you’re at if you’re not happy now, why are you still there? Why do you keep putting yourself in that position? Granted, I know that every single one of us has different circumstances that goes back to the risk. What steps are you taking so that you can make that leap? That’s what I would say for those who are in that position.”

 

• Bao Loi

 

Website: https://www.designcraftworkshop.com

 

Instagram: @baoloi_designcraft