Hasta La Ideas

In Part 2 of the Hellman-Chang story we saw Dan Hellman and Eric Chang scoop up their first design award. But the bottom line is, there are dozens if not hundreds of design award ceremonies each year, meaning dozens if not hundreds of designers win them. Some of you reading this have won some. So the question is, what do you do next, and how do you stay at the front of the pack? If you’re in charge of a start-up furniture line that’s not making any real money yet, what’s your next move?

Here the then-fledgling designers describe how they reaped one benefit of the award, then took a bold risk shaped like a huge pile of money. We also see some of the careful business thinking that helped Hellman-Chang hit that next level.

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So it’s the end of 2006, Hellman-Chang’s office is basically Dan’s apartment and your shop is a 5×10 in a Brooklyn co-op. And you’ve just won the Interior Design Best of Year Award.
Eric: After that event we were like “Wow, we’ve got something here. We’ve actually built something.”

Dan: We’d received a form of recognition from the design industry.

And at this point, you’ve both still got your day jobs?
Eric: Yes, I was still with the marketing company.

Dan: But at this point I was not working for the custom furniture guy anymore. So I was building during the day, working on the prototypes of our pieces in the co-op.

Okay. And what happens after the award?
Dan: About a week after it was published, we were in my basement apartment on the Upper West Side, working on the website, the marketing collateral and sketching new prototypes, when we got a phone call.

Eric: It was from the design firm working for the Four Seasons. They were making a new hotel in Seattle. They saw the Z-pedestal in the magazine, and they wanted us to redesign it as a dining table for the restaurant-bar area. They had also seen another coffee table on our website, and they wanted that for the Presidential Suite.

Dan: We got that call and it was like “Oh my God” and high-fives.

Eric: They wanted 15 tables and we were like “Yeah, no problem.” After we hung up we realized it took us one month to make a small little side table. Now we were like “Wow, how are we going to do this?” Thankfully we had a long lead time, they hadn’t even broken ground on the new hotel at that point. But it was another sign that we might have something here. Like, not only are we recognized, now we have people wanting to specify this for their projects.

I just want to zero in on that moment for a second, after you hung up the phone. Had you guys ever had to crank out 15 of anything?
Eric: No.

Dan: Nope.

And when they asked for 15, was there any doubt you could get it done?
Eric: [Laughter] Well, we wouldn’t let anybody know that, but sure.

Dan: Even to this day, sometimes we’ll take projects on or try prototypes and there’s a second where we’re like “We might be in over our heads, but whatever, let’s go for it.”
Eric: We’ve always had that attitude and I think that’s important. I think if you’re going to be an entrepreneur, if you’re going to try to have your own business, whether it’s creative or more business-focused, you’ve got to be willing to take risks. You’ve got to be willing to step over the ledge and see where it takes you. Fortunately, we both had that drive. Where you say “yes” and then figure it out and learn from that.

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