In Part 4 we saw Hellman-Chang attract the interest of A. Rudin, a well-established, fourth-generation family-run showroom and furniture line serving interior designers and architects. Now Dan Hellman and Eric Chang have to step up and find the cash, time and manpower to fulfill an order far beyond what they've been able to produce thus far.
And when Dan and Eric head out to visit the flagship Los Angeles showroom, they're in for a Rudin awakening.
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A. Rudin is a discriminating showroom. What do you think they saw in Hellman-Chang, versus others, that made them say "Let's go with these guys?"
Eric: I think they were sold on the brand. They were sold on Dan and myself after sitting down with us and seeing two young creative guys that were enthusiastic and fresh to the market. I think we were able to sell them really well on what we were about as a company that made them think that it was good opportunity for them to jump on it.
They're also more of a transitional showroom, whereas we're more contemporary and they felt it would be a good fit, both for their new New York showroom and to help round out their brand a little more, too. We're at a little more of a higher price point than most of their product line. So we were also bringing a lot to the table for them, I think. All in all it's a really good mutual relationship in that respect.
And now they'd placed this relatively massive order with you. How do you guys tackle this, and what were some of the problems that you had to deal with?
Eric: In the furniture industry, at least within the United States, it's industry standard that the designer/manufacturer—in this case, Hellman-Chang—produces and ships all of those pieces at our own expense. So the showroom didn't order 32 pieces and give us a big check; instead it was "We want these pieces in three months, and then we'll start selling from that." So it was a huge upfront cost for us to start that off, just tens of thousands of dollars.