Groovystuff: The Lean Years
Partners Singleton and Bruning celebrate a decade in the furniture business
Heath E. Combs -- Furniture Today, July 28, 2008
DALLAS, Tex. – Groovystuff co-founder Jeff Singleton proudly proclaims that no one’s written him a paycheck since 1993.
Since then he has written his own, a sensation that he greatly enjoys but sometimes has trouble putting into words.
“Being an entrepreneur, when you wake up in the morning and go to bed at night all you do is think about Groovystuff. That’s what I do. How do I explain what that feels like?” Singleton said.
Singleton and long-time friend, designer and co-founder Chris Bruning met at Texas A&M and later became the founders of Groovystuff. The company celebrates a decade in the furniture business this year and shows in World Market Center space A642.
 Part of a Chris Bruning Signature program being introduced here, the Rocky Mountain Collection Ranch House Bar Table and Husker Bar Chairs with wagon spoke-accented backs. |
| Part of a Chris Bruning Signature program being introduced here, the Rocky Mountain Collection Ranch House Bar Table and Husker Bar Chairs with wagon spoke-accented backs. |
 Groovystuff celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. Founded by Texans Jeff Singleton and Chris Bruning; the two are pioneers of a rustic western-style furniture made of teak. |
| Groovystuff celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. Founded by Texans Jeff Singleton and Chris Bruning; the two are pioneers of a rustic western-style furniture made of teak. |
The two appear almost predestined to be in business together. They each serve as a counterbalance to the other.
In their twenties both separately became expatriates to Asia after becoming disenfranchised with big money energy trading careers.
From 1987 to 1993, Singleton, a petroleum engineer, worked in the newly deregulated Texas energy markets while taking classes at night and earning an MBA in international marketing. An incident in 1993 soured Singleton on some of the people in the business and he turned in his resignation.
“When you deal with big money you attract big liars,” Singleton said.
He and his wife left the U.S. for three years, returning sporadically, selling jewelry made with stones bought along the way.
They would travel first to New Zealand, up through Australia from Melbourne to Sydney and in the north to Darwin. They traveled through Indonesia, hop-scotching from Flores to Lombok and to Java, then later from Singapore, to Malaysia to Thailand to Nepal and through out Europe before settling in again back home.
“Asia was more pristine and less commercialized. There was more culture and you were hard pressed to spend more than $5 in one day. We’d go back to States every once in a while to keep financing,” Singleton said.
Singleton began a company, Adventures in Paradise, selling odd items out of Asia. By 1996, the line would include wooden and metal Buddas, velvet crazy hats and other items.
“We were selling the velvet crazy hats out of Katmandu, Nepal, buying stones in Hong Kong, flying them to Bali and having silver jewelry made and flown back to U.S. then having it sold at various locations like Whole Foods and other local jewelry stores in the Dallas area,” Singleton said.
Meanwhile, back in 1994, his friend Bruning decided happiness was not to be found in trading with Texas natural gas distributor Tristar. Bruning said he “got the bug.”
“I was 29, was about to turn 30. I sold the house, dumped the girlfriend, the cat and the dog and sold everything I owned into the size of a backpack and was off,” Bruning said.
He left Texas with a one way ticket to Bankok.
Bruning arrived, unable to decipher signs or understand language and describes the trip as both an “immersion in weirdness” and the best decision he’s ever made. It was unlike the warnings he’d heard from friends who pressed him to be careful or end up drugged in an alley missing a kidney.
For about three years he would not step foot in the U.S., traveling throughout Asia-Pacific. A brief re-telling of his adventures included guiding weeklong shark diving boat trips, chuming water and filming divers in the midst of frenzy. He also worked in a bar frequented mostly by Australian aborigines.
“It was all jungle tracking and boat riding and being on the beach. I had made some money in the oil and gas biz and I ended up coming back with about the same amount of money as when I left,” he said.
Along the way through those years, he and Singleton would meet up. By 1996, Bruning was in Oahu, Hawaii, working at a Methodist summer camp for kids and living out of a shipping container.
“I had three busloads of kids and a budget to do whatever we wanted. We went to the beach, Sea World. We had lots of fun,” Bruning said.
Then he heard from Singleton, who wanted him to join his import business. Singleton and his wife/traveling partner had separated, so he gave his friend a call.
“We had kept in touch; he’d tried to get me into the business,” Bruning said. “I flew to Dallas at the behest of Jeff and his wife because their business was growing. Jeff said you’ve got to check it out. He wanted to do business. But I’d left that stuff, the commodity business,” Bruning said.
Bruning agreed to check it out and when he walked into Adventures in Paradise’s 800-square-foot office, the magic hit. He looked at the wooden small handicrafts, some crazy hats and jester hats. He decided to travel to Asia as a purchasing agent for the company.
“I didn’t like the product yet, but I saw the freedom it allowed them and the potential. I saw a business model I liked and I’d be doing this with my best friend from college,” Bruning said.
Singleton, a self-proclaimed systems person with an innate ability to see everything as a whole or as a single piece, could not sell. Bruning came on board to do what he could not.
“He had tools I didn’t have and there were things I knew he could do better than I have,” Singleton said. “I knew Chris from college and knew he was pretty clever and said ‘hey, work with us.’ Chris and I took over.”
The idea of what the company would become came in 1998. On a buying trip in Thailand, Bruning was purchasing handicrafts and saw some items stacked on a wagon wheel shelf. This was something different.
He asked the merchant where the wheel came from and chased down its source. The family that made the shelves took him to a teak graveyard full of wagon wheels, yokes and plows. A wholesaler had stockpiled acres of teak into a collection station in the countryside.
 Groovystuff co-founder Chris Bruning realized that graveyards for scrap teak parts like the one shown here, could provide an earth-friendly wood source and a design niche for the company’s furnishings. |
| Groovystuff co-founder Chris Bruning realized that graveyards for scrap teak parts like the one shown here, could provide an earth-friendly wood source and a design niche for the company’s furnishings. |
 This first container-load of Groovystuff benches display a signature look that would soon come into its own. |
| This first container-load of Groovystuff benches display a signature look that would soon come into its own. |
This could be something big, he thought. The items immediately appealed to the Texan in him. He could Americanize them, come up with new designs and take the style in new directions. Bruning bought the teak stockpile and, soon, a factory with an infantile product line churned out a few SKUs made from the wheels.
“I just had the idea that nobody was doing this right in America. That’s why we were first to market going out,” Bruning said.
He shared the ideas with to Singleton, who saw furniture as a better business fit since the larger items would yield more returns than the smaller less pricey items he was selling.
“I would rather sell one thing for $500 than 500 things for $1 each. That just makes better sense, it’s a faster turnaround on your investment,” Singleton said.
A year later, Singleton and Bruning would take over the company, christening it Groovystuff, after the assortment of, “groovy” items they’d been selling.
“Without his influence this style of furniture would not exist,” Singleton said of Bruning.
In 1998, the wagon wheel benches would land them a contract with their first customer, The Arrangement chain based in Dallas owned by Jeff Hiller, who later served as vice president of marketing for Four Hands.
Hiller now serves as leasing director for World Market Center’s Green Pavilion and is a board member of the Sustainable Furniture Council.
“(They were) one of the first to do anything remotely similar to what they do and pioneered an entire look that many others have followed. But they still do it better than anyone else,” Hiller said.
Bruning and Singleton then hit the road and the trade show circuit. Bruning took a sales trip through the Texas hill country and eventually through the Rocky Mountains and on to the Canadian border.
“It was a complete success. Every store he went into wrote an order,” Singleton said.
They began showing at major gift markets across the country — Portland, Dallas, Denver and Atlanta. In 2000, they landed at the top floor of High Point’s Suites at Market Square in a 270-square-foot space.
“We’d never written orders that big. One advantage was that we were completely ignorant on how the business worked, and I think that’s what our blessing was — we were kind of known as an out of the box company. We did what we thought we should do and it turned out to be right for us,” Singleton said.
They now have a 2,700-square-foot showroom on the ground floor of Market Square.
This Las Vegas Market, Groovystuff is launching the Chris Bruning Signature Collection. Each piece is personally designed by Bruning.
Bruning said having a signature line is something he was prodded to do over the years because of his love for product design.
“I believe in making new product and that makes us innovative,” Bruning said. “I have a continuous supply of new ideas going to Thailand now. When we started I was based there 100% R&D. I look for new ideas to innovate product.”
Among the debut signature pieces is a Rocky Mountain Collection Ranch House Bar Table and Husker Bar Chairs that seat six. A Trail Boss Bar features swinging wagon wheel doors in old saloon style with a wine rack below serving areas.
 Asian associates behind one of Groovystuff’s rustic western bars. |
| Asian associates behind one of Groovystuff’s rustic western bars. |
The company also offers free freight on 20 foot and 40 foot container orders.
Groovystuff is a member of the Sustainable Furniture Council, the American Home Furnishings
Alliance and the International Casual Furnishings Association.
The company is working with the American Home Furnishings Alliance and The University of Texas at Dallas, School of Management, to study the transformation of the furniture industry from a green viewpoint.
-
Student design winner joins Groovystuff staff
Sep 2, 2011 -
Co-founder Jeff Singleton to leave Groovystuff
Mar 25, 2011 -
Groovystuff Helps Student Designers
Dec 23, 2010
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