The Sofa King with Edgar Blazona of BenchMade Modern

 

“We were Best Online SoFa by New York Times Wire Cutter. I mean, that is spectacular, and it drove a ton of traffic to our site.”

 

• Edgar Blazona

 

Hello, and 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 Edgar Blazona, founder of the furniture company Bench Made Modern. It is an understatement to say that Edgar, with his 25 years of furniture industry experience, knows a thing or two about selling furniture.

 

Having worked in the industry as a founder of multiple companies, including Bench Made Modern, a pioneering sofa brand with revenue of 10 plus million dollars in 2020, as well as designer for many large brands and as a hands on builder of his own furniture, Edgar has the full view of what it takes to be successful in the furniture business.

 

Follow along as we talk about how to get the right kind of press, the pains of shipping furniture, what you need to know to start your company today, and much more.

 

 

 

 

From Graffiti to Greatness

 

“When I started my very first furniture company, I was going to an arts high school, and I was studying graphic design. I had a little graffiti company called graffiti graphics. I was pretty much this little punk kid that thought I knew everything, and I moved out of my parents’ home when I was 16 or 17 or something like that.

 

I had this tiny apartment, so I decided to make some furniture. I didn’t have enough money to buy anything. My family had a small construction company, so I was pretty handy with my hands.

 

I ended up getting a welder, and I welded up a dining table and chairs, and I ended up showing this to a local gallery, and they were like, ‘We could sell that for you.’ It sold, I made like 400 bucks, which seemed like more money than I’ve ever seen in my life, and suddenly I was like, ‘Man, this is my business, it’s my job’ So I’ve been building furniture ever since.”

 

• Edgar Blazona

 

This marked the beginning of a new obsession for Edgar, who devoted his energy and attention to furniture making. He worked for a small furniture shop behind the table saw for a long time, but he realized it would be a long time before he could make enough money to have all the things he wanted in life at that shop, so he kept moving on.

 

Over his many years working for established companies, Edgar has designed for everyone from Pottery Barn to Target and Walmart. He learned a lot during that time, but once he started Bench Made Modern, everything changed, and he could take things into his own hands.

 

 

 

 

Money led to Passion

 

“When I was kind of young and dumb. It was money that made me want to do it, frankly. It was a creative outlet for me, but it was really just all about that $400. Later on in life, probably after my Pottery Barn years, I realized this was what I would be doing for the rest of my life.

 

Suddenly, I’m 50 now, but I am still the youngest in the room because furniture people are so old, but I also have the most experience. Because I’ve been in the furniture industry since I was 16 or 17 years old, it’s a thing that kind of just captured me and took me in later on in life.

 

Now I just happened to live in the Bay Area all my life, and suddenly this weird gold rush came through with this tech industry, and there was all this money. So I thought, how can I start a business and get involved in this kind of 2000-2008 era that kind of all just passed me by. I didn’t really have the right business, but then, later in 2014, I decided I would raise money, and I was going to build a business that could be venture capital friendly. Still, along with that, you’ve got to build this giant business, and boy, that has certainly turned into this behemoth in itself.”

 

• Edgar Blazona

 

Nowadays, designing furniture is only about 3% of Edgar’s job, which people don’t immediately understand. To be a successful furniture designer, or any other creative field, at a certain point, it becomes essential to promote, build, and stabilize the business to grow it right.

 

Although marketing is not something that Edgar really enjoys, he finds that he has to be a master marketer. He has to understand Google AdWords, Facebook, and all currently popular mediums. Though it doesn’t necessarily have the glamor that many people picture when they imagine the furniture design industry, it is necessary to build a company.

 

 

 

 

We Create our Own Luck

 

“A lot of people around me say, ‘Man, you’re so lucky.’ I don’t think I’m lucky; I think we create our own luck. If I were to really give someone advice, I would say be prepared for the long run. Be prepared for this to take forever. Make your own luck, do some things throughout the day that will accelerate your business.

 

It’s not just about spreadsheets and documents and plans and all this; it’s actually doing something that will trigger a reaction for your customer. How do you do that? You have to think of a way that might bring a few more eyes to your business. In our case, it was at the time making sofas by the inch.

 

Now it turns out you don’t need sofas by the inch, and it turns out you don’t need them in 24 hours. That said, we did those things very purposely because it was a signal that we were something different, which helped build our success. I think if you consistently spend just a little bit of your time thinking about those sorts of things, those are the brands, and those are the companies that will make a name for themselves.”

 

• Edgar Blazona

 

Website: https://benchmademodern.com

 

Instagram: @benchmademodern