Where we left off in Part 1 of the Hellman-Chang story, Dan and Eric were freshly-minted college grads with rather unlikely degrees between them: Classical Guitar Performance and Music Business Management for Dan, Finance and Marketing for Eric. But independent of their jobs in those fields, they were itching to build furniture.
Here in Part 2 they find the closest thing to a shop they can afford, then quickly discover that furniture design is too expensive a hobby to sustain. Decisions have to be made. We get to see Eric expressing some of the thinking that went into formulating the Hellman-Chang brand, and Dan figuring out how to pick up the technical skills that will advance them to the next level. There is also the writing of a fateful $175 check that ends up changing both their lives and, ultimately, a series of interiors around the world.
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Core77: Okay, so it's 2004 and the two of you are fresh out of college, back together in the same city, and eager to start making sawdust.
Dan: At this point we weren't thinking "We've got to quit our jobs and start a furniture company." It was more like, "We've got to find a space where we can build furniture, to get this creative energy out." So we started doing some research and we found a co-op.
Eric: Fortunately we were in New York, where Brooklyn is such a huge creative hub that it had a lot these co-op spaces for artists and craftsmen. So we found one in Bushwick and rented 50 square feet.
Dan: Just a 5x10 spot.
Eric: Just bench space, basically. And the co-op had a shared machine room with all of the industrial versions of the rudimentary tools we'd bought way back when at Home Depot. So now we had access to much better equipment and could do all of our major cuts in the machine room, then bring the pieces back to our little 5x10 space and work on them by hand.
And this was your first time working with that level of equipment?
Eric: Yes.
What was that like?
Eric: Totally different from the garage, right off the bat. With these better machines and tools we were able to achieve a much higher quality. At one point we considered finding a space of our own and buying this level of machinery.
Dan: But we crunched the numbers and it was astronomical, hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Eric: So the co-op was a perfect solution. It was also great because we were surrounded by these other artists and craftsmen who did it for their nine to five jobs. There was a lot that we got from watching them work and talking with them. It was a big open loft and we were a bunch of dudes hanging out and making stuff. It was a very creative Brooklyn vibe, a very communal feel. We could ask them "Hey, how would you approach this piece," and they'd give us tips. "Oh, cut it this way" or "Shape it that way." It was a good learning experience.
And at this point, Dan, you're working at a music company and Eric, you're working at your marketing firm start-up.
Eric: Yeah, we'd be at our normal day jobs, but thinking "Can't wait to get off work, head out to Brooklyn and start building stuff." And we'd meet up on nights and weekends.
Dan: We'd get together three or four nights during the week, getting to the studio at 6:30 or 7:00 and we'd stay 'til 11:00 or midnight.
Eric: And then all day Saturday and Sunday.
What were some of the things you guys were turning out at this point?
Eric: Coffee tables, side tables, benches. For our apartments in New York or for friends and family.
Dan: And after about six months, we realized how expensive it was. Let's say you want to make a coffee table: It's $300 in wood and you're spending $450 on rent, and it takes you a month to build, so right off the bat that thing costs you almost $800 to make. We were spending a lot of money to be able to make stuff. So that's really when it was like, "Hey, we've got to start selling this stuff."
Eric: Yeah. In order to make our passion sustainable, it made sense to start selling it.
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