Two For Two with Brian Chu and Conor Coghlan of Hoek Home & A05 Studio

 

“No one is going to do it by themselves. It’s always a team effort, and the more people you can enlist onto your team, the better and more successful you’re going to be.”

 

• Conor Coghlan

 

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 Conor Coghlan and Brian Chu, owners of the Brooklyn New York-based furniture company Hoek Home & A05 Studio.

 

Running one successful furniture business is hard, I mean really hard, but running two? Come on. Yet, that’s just what Brian and Conor are doing. Their fabrication studio, A05, has been turning out custom creations for years now, with ten plus employees, an impressive client list, and an even more impressive portfolio of builds.

 

They also have their other company Hoek Home, a flat pack, no tool assembly, sustainable furniture line, which burst onto the scene in a big way. Follow along as Ethan, Brian, and Conor talk about how they started their businesses, how they deal with sourcing employees and growth, why being authentic is a company’s best foundation, and much more.

 

 

 

 

Finding their Start in School

 

 

“Brian and I both come from an architecture background. We met in grad school doing a master’s in architecture, and we were both very creatively oriented. Brian was always into metalwork and fabrication, he was the TA in the metal shop, and he got me into making things physically.

 

Before that, we were just focused on architecture, drawings, digital models, all that kind of stuff. Then I caught the bug when we both took a furniture class in grad school. That’s where my furniture journey began.”

 

• Conor Coghlan

 

“Yeah, as Conor was saying, I went to undergrad at Pratt studying architecture. I worked at all the different types of shops, the 3d printing shop, the laser shop, woodshop, metal shop, so I was always involved in the fabrication aspect of things. It was never really about the furniture; It was just always about making something.

 

Then in grad school, Conor and I started to develop our own style of design. We worked together on various studio projects, competitions, and things like that. We were always down in the shop making things, and like Conor was saying, we took a class at MIT, a furniture course.

 

As a lot of designers probably know, most of the iconic chairs are actually designed by architects, so when we took that furniture course, we got into a little bit more of the furniture side of it as well.”

 

• Brain Chu

 

The furniture-making course that Brian and Conor attended opened up their eyes to a lot of possibilities. They explain that, because the course took place at MIT, there was a bevy of incredible machinery and state-of-the-art equipment. Brian and Conor liken the furniture course to spending time in the workshop of a mad scientist; they could do anything with very few restrictions.

 

After school, they both went to work in architecture firms in New York. At the time, Conor was making furniture on the side and creating YouTube videos about the process. One day he received a request about building a reception desk for a building in the city, so he reached out to Brian to build it together. This single build reconnected the two men and signaled the beginning of many more projects to come.

 

 

 

 

Keeping Pace with the Old and Beginning Something New

 

Brian and Conor’s custom design and build company A05 Studio started about five years ago, and they consider themselves lucky with the clients and jobs they have taken on over the years. However, during the pandemic, they had a sudden downturn in traffic. They had ten jobs going on at the time, and nine of them left. Simultaneously, they had ten employees with only one job to share between them.

 

“It was a very trying time for a young business. I think both Brian and I were super interested in furniture, and making a home furnishing line was something we always wanted to do. All of a sudden, we have a lot of free time on our hands, a very expensive workshop, and employees and people at the ready to do work, so we’re like, “Okay, let’s shift our focus to seeing what we can create in the next couple of months seen as this is a very rare opportunity that we’re presented with.”

 

• Conor Coghlan

 

This experimentation period worked well, as Brian and Conor wanted to create more flexible items that could benefit people working from home during the pandemic with limited space available. They started their design process with the idea of a system that made assembling furniture easier and geared toward smaller apartments in a metropolitan area.

 

“Even though our bread and butter is really custom work, we wanted to come up with a product that was accessible to as many people as possible. What we tried to do at first was find a problem that we could solve within the furniture industry.

 

We found that even IKEA, which advertises itself as cheap, easy to put together furniture, is actually not that easy to put together. At the end of the checkout, you can go and sign up for someone to come over to your house to assemble the furniture. So it was kind of like an easy answer for us to try to make a system that you don’t need any tools, any hardware, and you can put it together in seconds.”

 

• Brain Chu

 

 

 

 

Passing on Years of Experience

 

Brian and Conor took an existing company that was thrown off by a global pandemic and used their knowledge and understanding of engineering and architecture to create a revolutionary new company to run alongside the first. With that time spent, they have learned an enormous amount about how to pivot an existing business and spin adversity into gold.

 

“We’ve always been pretty good at designing and building things and sharing it and showing people the passion behind what we do. I think people really connect with other people’s authentic, passionate stories.

 

Both Brian and I have always been super interested in fabricating and making furniture, and we just put it out there for the world to see. More often than not, people reach out and help you, and one thing leads to another. So, I would say, share what you’re passionate about and tell your story, and good things tend to happen from there.”

 

• Conor Coghlan

 

“Don’t be afraid to take that leap. We’re always striving to look for the next thing to move us forward. Whether it be a five-hour custom installation company or Hoek, we’re always striving to go further. We’re cautious, but I don’t think we’re afraid to take that leap to see where we can go.

 

The most important thing for me is to reach out to people that you may know for help. I think many people are kind of a little reserved; I guess they don’t want to ask for help, or they don’t want to admit their weaknesses. But I would say if there is someone that can help you ask them for help, build up that support structure. I think the support structure is probably one of the main things that have helped us as we’ve come so far.”

 

• Brian Chu

 

Website: https://a05studio.com

 

Instagram: @a05studio

 

Website: https://www.hoekhome.com

 

Instagram: @hoekhome