Uph. source Richter eyes East Coast for growth push
By Gary Evans -- Furniture Today, July 12, 2004
Vernon, Calif. — Reverse Horace Greeley's advice about going west for opportunity and you have the strategy of contemporary upholstery producer Richter Furniture.
Only six years old, the Los Angeles-area company is looking to the East for growth.
Richter has hired industry veteran Bob Eller, formerly of Cochrane and Alexvale, to spearhead the expansion.
"We're experiencing huge leaps on a weekly basis," says the company's 36-year-old president and founder, Braden Richter. "It's fun."
Although the company has no formal sales force, it sells to 500 accounts in the West and does "a lot" of business with national companies based in California — Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware and Z Gallerie.
"That can only go so far," said Richter. Eller's job is to bring in new business from the rest of the country.
The contemporary specialist ships to New York, Chicago and other metro areas but has left the rest of the East virtually untapped.
"We're learning as we go. We feel that if people see our product they'll like it," said Richter.
He jokes with Eller about how much pressure his new vice president of sales and marketing is under.
But, he adds, "So far, in a pretty short period of time, I've been impressed and pleasantly surprised at the people he's been able to bring in. We've picked up several large accounts and, in the next 12 months, we'll probably do $30 million."
Besides selling to Top 100 accounts, Richter's strategy is to build a strong network of independents, eventually establishing an eastern factory to serve them.
"Obviously, we don't want shipping to impact what we can do on the East Coast. Part of our plan is (to open) one in the next 12 months," he said.
A classic West Coast entrepreneur, Braden Richter started with a skateboard business at 13, then opened an upholstery shop with a couple of friends in a 1,000-square foot space in south-central L.A. He also worked for a time at Shabby Chic, known for its slipcovered upholstery.
Now, his company has a modern 150,000-square-foot factory 10 minutes from downtown Los Angeles.
Besides expanding eastward, the company also expects to grow by opening a series of Richter Studios, offering custom furniture for the design trade. The first, which opened 18 months ago with 3,500 square feet in San Francisco's Design Center, offers eight-way, hand-tied, spring-down custom sofas and chairs in 300 fabrics. A 4,000-square-foot studio in Chicago and a 5,000-square-foot facility in Las Vegas are set to follow.
When the company hit $20 million in sales two years ago but saw its growth stall, Richter sold part of the company to an investor group in return for an infusion of cash.
"It was kind of an interesting time for me and the company while we watched a bigger entity try to run the business," Richter said. The plan didn't work, and Richter bought the company back 10 months ago. The partnership experience "gave me a lot of insight," he says.
Besides hiring Eller, the company has beefed up its management team by promoting Jeff Goldman, hired a year ago, to chief operating officer. Braden Richter says he wants to devote more time to design, which he loves, and working with key customers.
The Richter look is a straightforward casual contemporary/transitional style that is a little edgy and a little hip, but not too much of either. The product is aimed at the same 30-something customer attracted to Pottery Barn.
Richter says that the company doesn't design for price points, so its retail range for a sofa stretches from $749 to $3,500.
"I do feel we have our finger on the pulse of what this generation's looking for," he said.
"If you look at what's going on in shelter magazines like Elle Décor and Metro Home, you'll see a lot of this look," added Richter. "When I flip through those pages, we've made a lot of the product that's in there. It definitely shows me we're heading in the right direction."
He said some companies put a new cover on an old frame and call it a new design. Richter, which shows in a loft-like sitting on Main Street at High Point, has a dozen or so new frames each market.
"The design to me is absolutely 100% everything," he said. "I try to be original. I strongly feel that if I emphasize that and work hard, then the rest will follow."
