March 26, 2025 • 29 mins
What if a single Google search could transform your small business overnight? That’s exactly what happened to Paul Downs, a custom furniture maker who went from struggling to find clients to building boardroom tables for the Pentagon, Federal Reserve, and even SEAL Team 6.
In this episode, Paul shares his 38-year entrepreneurial journey, from launching his business with no formal training to navigating the highs and lows of running a company in a rapidly evolving market. His big break came in 2003 when a photo of his boardroom table unexpectedly soared to the top of Google’s search rankings. That moment of digital luck led to nearly $70 million in revenue and a client list spanning the globe. But success wasn’t always smooth—Paul opens up about the challenges of surviving the 2008 recession, a turbulent business partnership, and the evolving landscape of craftsmanship in a digital world.
Key Takeaways:
- The Power of SEO: How a single well-ranked image can change a business forever.
- Resilience Through Challenges: Lessons from nearly shutting down during the 2008 recession.
- Modern Leadership in a Traditional Industry: Why Paul is rethinking management to attract the next generation of craftspeople.
- Adapting to a Changing Market: How video conferencing and shifting client needs are shaping the future of boardroom furniture.
Paul’s story is a testament to the power of adaptation, perseverance, and digital opportunity. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a craftsperson, or a business leader, this episode is packed with insights on navigating change and seizing unexpected opportunities.
Listen now and discover how a mix of luck, strategy, and resilience can redefine your business.
About Paul Downs:
Paul Downs started making custom furniture in 1986, after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in engineering. His company employs 28 superb craftsmen, producing all of their work in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania.
Connect:
Website pauldowns.net
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/paul-downs-278bb96
Instagram instagram.com/pauldownscustom
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcer (00:01):
Entrepreneur, founder , author and financial advisor,
Marc Bernstein helpshigh-performing business owners
turn their visions into reality.
Through his innovative work andthe Forward Focus Forums, Marc
connects entrepreneurs toresources that fuel their
success.
Founders Forum is a radio showand podcast where entrepreneurs
share their journeys, revealingthe lessons they've learned and
(00:23):
the stories behind their success.
Join Marc and his guests for amix of inspiration, valuable
insights and a little fun.
Now let's dive in.
Marc Bernstein (00:33):
Good morning America.
How are you?
This morning we have, first ofall, it's a beautiful day in
Philadelphia, another beautifulfall day, and we have Jess
Hallahan in the studio with metoday from Journey to Yourself.
And good morning, jess, goodmorning.
And we have Paul Downs with us,who I'll introduce in a minute,
but this is a pre-recorded showtoday, not live on the radio.
(00:58):
So it'll be live on the radioon WWDB AM Philadelphia later,
but we just had a show and soyou can connect the dots as
you're listening to this.
The day after Election Day, wehad Joe Arcangelo on the show
and we talked about the impactof the election on people,
(01:19):
because half of the countrypretty much is not happy with
the results and we knew that wasgoing to happen one way or the
other.
And in the studio we're talking.
We make it a point not to talkpolitics and we're not going to,
but there was an issue thatcame up that is relevant to the
conversation with entrepreneursand so, jess, I'll let you
(01:39):
introduce that, and I think Paulhas some thoughts on that.
Jess Hallahan (01:42):
Yeah, of course, when we were talking offline, we
were talking about tariffs andhow they might be affecting you
know, your business and justother small businesses that are
like yours.
Do you want to put in anyinsight?
Paul Downs (01:53):
Yeah Well, first of all, thank you for having me on
this morning.
It's a real honor to be here.
Our pleasure.
And I think that before we talkabout my reaction to tariffs, it
would be useful to know what Ido.
I am a manufacturer locatedhere in Pennsylvania and we
produce a product which ismostly labor and with materials
(02:17):
mixed in, and I have a feelingthat if tariffs are imposed on
foreign imports, it's going toaffect quite a bit of my supply
chain, particularly the littlethings that you don't think of
as being subject to tariffs,like we use a lot of nuts and
bolts and screws, we use a lotof MDF that comes from Canada
(02:39):
and we use woods from all overthe world, and if those things
become more expensive because oftariffs, what do you think I'm
going to do?
Marc Bernstein (02:47):
I'm going to raise my prices.
Paul Downs (02:49):
So I don't see tariffs as being much of a
solution to existing high prices, and I'm just one little tiny
piece of our whole nationaleconomy, and everybody who's
running a business that buyssomething that becomes more
expensive is going to do thesame thing.
We're going to have to raiseprices to cover our costs, and
(03:11):
we're not going to wait aroundeither.
Our suppliers are going to needto raise their prices
immediately on what they'reselling in order to have enough
money to buy something that ismore expensive or to pay the
tariff as it's levied on them,and I think that that's
something that most people don'tunderstand about situations
(03:32):
where prices are going up thatthere's not some adjustment
period where the people you'rebuying from continue to sell to
you at the same price.
They immediately raise theirprices because, in order for
them to restock their businesses, they have to now spend more
than they might have beencharging in the past.
So I don't see tariffs as agood thing, but I've clearly
(03:57):
others have different opinionsand we'll see how it plays out.
Marc Bernstein (04:01):
The irony of all this is and you could look at
both sides of campaigns and whatthey say versus what they do
but the irony is that Americawho's very concerned about
inflation right now, even thoughthe rate of inflation is coming
down, prices are still upelected a president who, in
effect, if he does what he sayshe's going to do, will possibly
(04:24):
cause more inflation.
So it is what it is, not apolitical statement, it's just
we're looking at it aseconomists right here and saying
what could happen.
So thank you, paul, and let meintroduce Paul.
So Paul Downs started makingcustom furniture that's what
he's alluding to in 1986, aftergraduating from the University
of Pennsylvania with a degree inengineering Kind of an
(04:45):
interesting story.
And his company employs 28superb craftsmen producing all
their work in Bridgeport,pennsylvania, and you'll see
even that the kind of furniturethat he makes has evolved over
the years and that's part of hisstory.
So welcome Paul, thank you,thanks for being here.
And so let's talk about that.
(05:06):
Let's talk of his story.
So welcome Paul, thank you,thanks for being here.
And so let's talk about that.
Let's talk about your journey.
You know what you grew up, yourinterests, you went to school
for engineering and how youended up in the furniture
business.
Paul Downs (05:14):
Well, I've always been someone who liked to make
things and long before I got tocollege I was building all kinds
of things with my hands.
But I'm also someone who'sacademically qualified to go to
a fancy school and that's whereI ended up.
And a couple of years in, as Iwas studying engineering, I
realized that oh my goodness,engineers just sit behind a desk
(05:37):
all day and do calculus andthat sounds like hell to me.
So when I graduated, I decidedthat I might go on and be an
architect and preparatory tothat, I got a job on a
construction site and wasworking as a helper for a
Finnish carpenter and this guywas always going on about how
cool it was to make furnitureand how you have your shop and
(06:00):
you just make things and peoplecome in and it's fine
craftsmanship and I was likethat sounds great, that's what
I'm doing.
So I happened to have a smallamount of money inherited from
my grandmother and I rented anempty row house shell in Manioc
and bought some tools and juststarted making stuff.
Marc Bernstein (06:18):
So you went right into entrepreneurship,
which is pretty interesting.
Paul Downs (06:22):
Yeah, and this being the mid, mid 80s, it was
actually probably a huge mistake, because it meant that I was
now a businessman without accessto any training, knowledge or
experience in how to be abusiness person, and back then
it was much, much harder to getyour hands on basic information,
because this is pre-internet onbasic information, because this
(06:45):
is pre-internet and also justat the point in sort of the
economic history whereentrepreneurship was beginning
to be a thing.
But it wasn't really a thing,and so I spent a lot of time
struggling to master basicbusiness processes.
And what was good for me wasthat I'm actually really good at
(07:06):
selling and designing and was apretty good furniture maker,
taught myself and turned out Icould do it.
So I was able to get thebusiness going and we ended up
specializing in custom diningtables and chairs, because
that's a product that peoplewould spend money on, something
that I could make in my smallshop successfully, and we
(07:27):
developed a local market, mostlylower mainline Philadelphia
area.
Marc Bernstein (07:33):
Paul, at that time not to interrupt, but at
that time, how many employeesdid you have?
Paul Downs (07:37):
Got to about five or six employees and eventually
took a partnership with one ofmy customers, and that allowed
us to expand our operation a bitand move into a bigger shop,
and we were still thinking thatwe would be making dining room
furniture but try to reach outto a national market.
Now, at the same time that washappening this was 2002, 2003,
(08:01):
something that I'd done fouryears earlier sort of dropped
out of the sky into my lap,which was in 1998, I had one
client who wanted a boardroomtable, and we made one for him
and put a picture of it up onour first website, and then, in
2003, google decided that thatpicture was going to be the top
organic search result foranybody searching for a
(08:24):
boardroom table.
I had nothing to do with this,it just happened one day, and so
I get a phone call from a guyin South Dakota.
He's like can you make me oneof these boardroom tables?
And I'm staring at the phonelike who the hell are you and
how did you find me?
Two days later, I'm on thephone with someone in Kyrgyzstan
who's putting up an oil companyheadquarters, and ever since
(08:47):
that day in 2003, every day weget somewhere between 3 and 15
calls and emails from somebodysomewhere who's looking for a
custom boardroom table, and itturned out to be a pretty good
business because there's notthat many people who know how to
do it.
Marc Bernstein (09:02):
TGFG right.
Paul Downs (09:04):
Yeah, thank God for Google.
Yeah, I mean, it's reallyworked out for me.
Marc Bernstein (09:14):
Since that day, we've had revenues of about
almost 70 million bucks fromthat one.
Paul Downs (09:17):
That's unbelievable.
Yeah, completely transformed mybusiness, and so the business
was there and it took me a whilefor my management skills to
catch up.
But at this point we're awell-established company and
we're doing business with prettymuch everybody everywhere,
because everybody needs aboardroom table, it seems like.
(09:38):
So we do business with smallschool boards in Kansas and the
military and big manufacturers,and you name it.
We're in every state, we're inevery Canadian province, we're
in Alaska, we're in Hawaii,panama, caribbean Basin this is
just from Google searches peoplecalling us and saying, hey, we
(10:00):
need this thing and we don'tknow where to get it.
And we say, okay, we're goingto help.
Marc Bernstein (10:05):
Do you distribute and ship yourselves?
Yes, we do.
Paul Downs (10:10):
I mean, one of the amazing things about the modern
world is the logistics chainthat's available to even the
smallest businesses.
So we're not a huge corporation.
We don't have the resources ofsome of our clients, but we can
call up a truck and getsomething on it and have it
delivered to Alaska in threedays, and it's not a huge hassle
(10:31):
.
It's just the way the worldworks.
Marc Bernstein (10:33):
Well, you mentioned a couple of times you
struggled with the businessissues and then I think you got
to a point where you had somehelp with that, correct?
Paul Downs (10:40):
I did and the first help I had was just having a
partner, because before then Ihad done nothing.
You know, like I really didn'tknow what I was doing.
Marc Bernstein (10:48):
Partner meaning this was a company partner,
right, or this was an individualpartner.
Paul Downs (10:52):
This was an individual partner, a guy named
Larry Ballin who bought into thecompany in 2003.
Right, and he was, in my mind,going to be the.
He was a successfulmanufacturer and he was going to
show me how to fix my companyand how to make it work, and his
wife was a CPA, so the two ofthem had been a team running his
(11:17):
previous companies, and Larrybeing the big ideas guy, the
sales guy, very nice guy,inspiring guy, and his wife,
mary, being the one who wouldactually sort of get down and
dirty in the books and make surethey were making money.
And so I was really lookingforward to this partnership.
And we had a piece of bad luck,which is about a month after we
(11:38):
formed the partnership and Maryhad come in and started fixing
up my books.
She actually just died in hersleep at age 54.
And so all of a sudden now Ihave a partner who's missing the
sort of the operational piecethat has led to his previous
success, and neither of usreally saw what was missing for
(12:00):
a number of years.
So we floundered around, we losta lot of money and then the
recession came of 2008.
And we were already in troublewhen that happened and it was
just a disaster.
But we scraped through in 2009and 2010.
And I went from 22 people in2008 to six by the end of 2009
(12:22):
and came within about two daysof running out of cash.
And then the business startedto revive in 2010.
And at the same time that washappening, something else sort
of weird happened to me, whichis I got the opportunity to
write for the New York Timesabout my business struggles.
So I started writing regularlyin their business section and
(12:47):
they had a blog called You'rethe Boss and for the first time,
because this was an onlinething, I started getting a lot
of feedback from the people whoread about all the stupid things
I was doing.
They were like oh, you shoulddo these other things.
Marc Bernstein (13:06):
And I had always relied on advice from Larry but
nobody else.
It was like reverse, dear Abbyfor a business, kind of thing.
Paul Downs (13:09):
Yeah, it really was, and so all of a sudden I'm
being exposed to different waysof thinking about how to run a
business, and eventually thatled me to join Vistage, which
was also extremely helpful inintroducing me to sets of ideas
about how to run a business thatwere more up to date than what
(13:29):
Larry could bring to the table.
I mean, god bless him.
He was a wonderful guy.
He passed away a couple ofyears ago, but he just was more
equipped for the world of the80s and the 90s.
That world is gone.
You know, like the world that Istarted in may as well have
been 1750.
It was closer to that than whatwe do today.
Marc Bernstein (13:50):
In your business .
Paul Downs (13:51):
You can say that because they were building
tables back then like you'rebuilding them today, I guess,
right.
Well, not quite, I understandbut, not that much different.
Not that much different, noRight right, right.
Marc Bernstein (14:03):
So was Larry in the business with you all the
way until he passed away.
Paul Downs (14:07):
He was in the business until 2010.
With you all the way until hepassed away.
He was in the business till2010.
And at that point we had somedisagreements about how to move
forward, because the businesswas not doing well and he had
invested a fair amount in it andlost it all.
Basically, um, fortunately, Iwas able to get some help from
my father and brother.
They bought him out and so nowmy brother is my partner.
(14:28):
He's a minority partner and,with the help of Vistage and the
New York Times readership andjust all of a sudden like
starting to look outside thecompany for ideas about how to
be a boss and how to build acompany culture I was able to
implement a lot of these thingsthat I knew nothing about when I
(14:51):
started, and we're in a prettygood position today.
Marc Bernstein (14:55):
Well, that is actually a great opportunity to
take a quick break, commercialbreak, and thanks for sharing
your story, Paul, but we've gota lot more questions to ask you
right after the break.
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Marc Bernstein (16:07):
We are back on Founders Forum.
Jess, I know you have aquestion for Paul.
Jess Hallahan (16:10):
Yeah, of course.
So you mentioned 2008, right,the recession.
Then we also had another one,you know, an issue with COVID,
the pandemic.
How did that affect thebusiness?
Paul Downs (16:19):
Well, that was surprisingly not a huge problem
for us.
When I first realized in Marchof 2020 that COVID was a thing
and that everybody was going togo home, I was like, well,
that's that who's going to wanta conference table?
And it turned out to that inthe short term in the spring of
2020, we had been on our way tohaving our best year ever, and
(16:43):
quite a bit of our businesscomes from all over the country.
We're not just a liberalnortheast bubble kind of company
.
So, to my surprise most of myclients, they were just like we
don't care, we don't evenbelieve in COVID, and so I mean
literally, and so we neverreally had to shut down for any
(17:04):
extended period.
We shut down for three weeks.
And in Pennsylvania, there wasthis guidance given that if you
were a furniture factory, youwere supposed to shut down, but
if you were a wood productsfactory, you were supposed to
stay open.
And I'm like, well, if you'regoing to leave it up to me to
make the decision, and I've gotall these people all over the
country like where's my table?
(17:26):
We're going to stay open.
So we did stay open.
Like, where's my table?
We're going to stay open.
So we did stay open and we weregiven quite a bit of money from
the government in PPP and EIDLloans, and so with that influx
of cash it allowed me to retireall the debt that I'd amassed in
all those decades before thenwhen we?
weren't particularly profitableand we were able to get through
(17:49):
the year without having to doany layoffs or any, and the next
year we had a great year, andso I would not want to go
through a recession again, but Idid not mind having the
government actually do the rightthing and keep the economy
going.
So a happy pandemic story.
Marc Bernstein (18:07):
I love to hear that.
Paul Downs (18:09):
Well, the other thing that was surprising was
that the market for conferencetables did not disappear at all.
It's actually grown quite a bit.
Marc Bernstein (18:17):
And it may be interesting With all the remote
work, you would think that mightchange a little.
Paul Downs (18:21):
You would, but we saw that a lot of people want a
different kind of table, onethat's more suited towards video
conferencing.
We also saw some of ourtraditional market of the
Northeast hedge fund banking.
What have you slowed way down?
But that local government andmilitary work and sort of red
(18:41):
states.
They were thriving and so ourbusiness has been expanding ever
since.
Marc Bernstein (18:47):
By the way, you have a couple kind of famous
tables, don't you?
Or at least tables in famousconference rooms.
Paul Downs (18:53):
We do, and one of the interesting things about
being in the conference roombusiness is that everybody needs
a conference table and so wedeal with a huge variety of
different people and that justkeeps it interesting.
So from a small company out inthe middle of Kansas or
something all the way up towe've done tables for the
Federal Reserve Bank and I'vebeen in the senior leadership
(19:18):
rooms at the NSA, at thePentagon, we did two Joint
Chiefs of Staff boardrooms.
I was just at the headquartersof SEAL Team 6 a couple of days
ago and yeah, I mean I'm inrooms that once we're done with
it, you know like nobody normalever goes in there again.
Literally war rooms.
(19:38):
Yeah.
Marc Bernstein (19:39):
Or leadership rooms.
Paul Downs (19:41):
It's a surprisingly interesting business, because
you never know who you're goingto deal with and the product
itself has to be tailored to allthese different situations, and
so it keeps us, as a company,focused in touch with pretty
much whatever is happening inthe wider economy, because
people want our product whenthey're in the process of
(20:02):
expanding their facility ormoving, and so we sort of see
which sectors of the economy arefeeling flush at any given
moment and which are not, and soa couple of years ago it was a
lot of health care and now it'sa lot of defense, and you know,
it just comes and goes,depending on what parts of the
economy are doing better.
Marc Bernstein (20:24):
So I mentioned before a happy pandemic story.
A lot of stories actually arehappy because of resilience that
people had to use andreinventing themselves and
things like that.
You fortunately didn't have todo that, which is kind of nice,
but you paid the price early on.
Paul Downs (20:40):
I did, but you know, like my sister who ran a
restaurant in Boston for 28years, it just killed it.
There was no coming back fromthe pandemic.
Announcer (20:50):
So a lot of my story has been luck, honestly the
Google thing.
Paul Downs (20:55):
My partner was actually a stroke of luck.
Yeah, it didn't go great, buthe brought a lot to the business
that I never would have beenable to accomplish and that was
a big stepping stone for usgetting to where we are today.
And then other pieces of luckare just the people who work for
me, woodworking not being oneof the sexier segments of the
(21:17):
economy, we just attractordinary people.
But they're all good craftsmen,they're dedicated to doing
really good work and gettingalong with each other, and it's
a pleasure to run a company withsuch a wonderful group of
employees.
Jess Hallahan (21:30):
Off-air you kind of mentioned with your employees
following that segment is thatyou said a lot of them are on
the younger side, under 25.
Why do you feel that you havesuch a range of younger crowd
and employees?
Paul Downs (21:42):
Well, I've made a conscious effort to attract them
because the industry as a wholewoodworking industry is
probably the average age is inthe upper 50s, and when I go to
shops many of the shops,particularly my competitors I
see nothing but gray hair on theshop floor, which is good for
us because 10 years from nowwe're going to be the only one
standing.
But it wouldn't help me if Icouldn't attract the next
(22:06):
generation of craftsmen andcreate an atmosphere where
people who want to do somethingbut all of the ordinary venues
that you used to have shopclasses you used to have
somebody down the street who washandy a lot of those
disappearing.
So we have to attract peopleand then commit to training them
, and so that's how we'vesucceeded in making our
(22:28):
workforce attractive, byoffering, first of all, when you
walk in you don't just see60-year-old people, and then we
make sure that our companyculture is up to date, that
there's no hazing, there's noneof these sort of old-style craft
shop floor nonsense that wouldbe quite off-putting to today's
(22:49):
workers.
Marc Bernstein (22:50):
Did that happen originally by accident that you
discovered that, or was that?
Paul Downs (22:54):
intentional from the beginning?
No, I could see it coming.
I could absolutely see itcoming.
Marc Bernstein (22:58):
So this is why, when you talked about I want to
give you credit where you're notgiving yourself credit.
Luck, you know there's thatexpression that you work real
hard and then you get lucky.
You know kind of it's not exactwords, I'm trying to think how
it is often said, but I mean,you did go through a period in
the Great Recession where youalmost ran out of money, right.
So there's been resiliencethroughout and I think that
(23:21):
caused you to think about justhaving heard your story a couple
times.
Now.
You know how do we stay current, how do we look forward, how do
we make this, you know, alegacy business.
I don't know if that's yourgoal or not, but in essence,
you've been able to build it tothat.
Paul Downs (23:37):
Yeah, I mean I'm 62, so obviously I have to figure
out now what's going to happenwhen I'm not around, because
it's not going to be that long,and so I'm trying to position
the company to be in a positionto be a sellable asset, but also
one where it's clear to whoevercomes in to buy it that the way
(24:00):
we operate is actually the bestway to operate, because I could
, and with the people, that you,with the people treating them
the way we do, that that isgoing to produce consistent
profits and give you a stableworkforce and give you the
ability to grow the business byattracting the people.
You need to do it, becausethere's no way that robots are
ever going to make our product.
(24:21):
It cannot happen and so we needto attract people.
Marc Bernstein (24:26):
Well, you know, in my business as a financial
planner for entrepreneurs, Ispend a lot of my being in my
60s myself and many of myclients in 50s and 60s and
sometimes 70s.
You know they're thinking abouttheir legacy and often the
extra strategy is to sell.
Sometimes it's to sell to theemployees, sometimes it's to
(24:46):
sell or sometimes it's tocontinue it.
Our last guest that we had lastweek, which was actually
recorded this morning, his goalis to always stay involved in it
and his legacy is for it to goon beyond him, but to stay
involved as long as he can.
(25:06):
And so it's all over the map.
But it's an interestingconversation.
It's an interesting thoughtprocess to think about what
happens next.
Paul Downs (25:15):
Yeah, I mean, I don't have any illusions about
trying to be in this business in20 years.
I just that would be what youmight call the Biden approach,
too Interesting.
Marc Bernstein (25:28):
We just saw how that works out, or the Trump
approach, since we're talkingwith non-political.
Paul Downs (25:34):
Either way, I think that everybody has a sell-by
date, and if you have a fantasythat you can somehow be in
control of it until the momentyou're dropped into a coffin,
that's not actually good foranybody, and my experience in
Vistage sort of showed meexamples of what happens when
people hang on too long.
And so I don't want to be thatguy Gotcha, but I do love going
(25:58):
to work and I love the work wedo and I love my people, so I'm
going to miss it and I don'tknow.
Marc Bernstein (26:04):
Let's talk about the shorter term for a second,
because if you were looking outin three years from today, so
November of 2027, and we'relooking back on the last three
years, paul what would have tohappen for you to feel that that
was a successful period in yourlife business-wise,
professionally and personally?
Paul Downs (26:24):
Well, I'd like to never experience any of my dicey
moments ever again.
That's a good one and thatwould be success.
Marc Bernstein (26:33):
But we know that may or may not happen.
Paul Downs (26:35):
No, I think that the trajectory the company is on
the clients that we're workingwith, it all looks pretty good
Three years from now.
I anticipate that I'll be sortof actively moving into a let's
try to figure out what happensnext when Paul Downs isn't
running this company.
Marc Bernstein (26:55):
And I'm in the preparatory phase for that right
now that leads to a questionthat I know Jess wants to ask
you.
Jess Hallahan (27:02):
Yeah, what are your thoughts about your legacy?
Paul Downs (27:07):
Well, the funny thing is that we're craftsmen,
so that there's one aspect ofour legacy which is just, you
make stuff, you do it well, yousend it out into the world and
it's out there.
Yesterday I went down to see aclient I hadn't talked to in 22
years, who had bought some stufffor me and was moving into a
(27:27):
new office and turns out she'sused it every day since then.
She loves it.
One of her partners turned downthe big corner office because
the furniture I made for himwouldn't work there, and so
we're leaving a legacy of justartifacts.
That's very satisfying To me.
(27:48):
The bigger legacy is can webuild a company that's got a
culture that's self-sustaining,in other words, where people are
treated well and they treateach other well and it makes
money?
People are treated well andthey treat each other well and
it makes money?
And someone who is maybe like ayounger person, who's looking
(28:22):
for an opportunity to run acompany and build real wealth
and share operate the way we'reoperating now, I would be very
happy to say, yeah, Iaccomplished something,
considering where I started fromand where I'm exiting.
Yes, we've accomplished atremendous amount.
Marc Bernstein (28:32):
Well, that's a wonderful stepping off point for
us today as we're out of time.
But, paul, thanks so much forbeing here today.
Jess thanks for being here,thank you.
Thank all of you for listeningand we look forward to talking
to you next week on FoundersForum.
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Marc Bernstein (00:33):
Good morning America.
How are you?
This morning we have, first ofall, it's a beautiful day in
Philadelphia, another beautifulfall day, and we have Jess
Hallahan in the studio with metoday from Journey to Yourself.
And good morning, jess, goodmorning.
And we have Paul Downs with us,who I'll introduce in a minute,
but this is a pre-recorded showtoday, not live on the radio.
(00:58):
So it'll be live on the radioon WWDB AM Philadelphia later,
but we just had a show and soyou can connect the dots as
you're listening to this.
The day after Election Day, wehad Joe Arcangelo on the show
and we talked about the impactof the election on people,
(01:19):
because half of the countrypretty much is not happy with
the results and we knew that wasgoing to happen one way or the
other.
And in the studio we're talking.
We make it a point not to talkpolitics and we're not going to,
but there was an issue thatcame up that is relevant to the
conversation with entrepreneursand so, jess, I'll let you
(01:39):
introduce that, and I think Paulhas some thoughts on that.
Jess Hallahan (01:42):
Yeah, of course, when we were talking offline, we
were talking about tariffs andhow they might be affecting you
know, your business and justother small businesses that are
like yours.
Do you want to put in anyinsight?
Paul Downs (01:53):
Yeah Well, first of all, thank you for having me on
this morning.
It's a real honor to be here.
Our pleasure.
And I think that before we talkabout my reaction to tariffs, it
would be useful to know what Ido.
I am a manufacturer locatedhere in Pennsylvania and we
produce a product which ismostly labor and with materials
(02:17):
mixed in, and I have a feelingthat if tariffs are imposed on
foreign imports, it's going toaffect quite a bit of my supply
chain, particularly the littlethings that you don't think of
as being subject to tariffs,like we use a lot of nuts and
bolts and screws, we use a lotof MDF that comes from Canada
(02:39):
and we use woods from all overthe world, and if those things
become more expensive because oftariffs, what do you think I'm
going to do?
Marc Bernstein (02:47):
I'm going to raise my prices.
Paul Downs (02:49):
So I don't see tariffs as being much of a
solution to existing high prices, and I'm just one little tiny
piece of our whole nationaleconomy, and everybody who's
running a business that buyssomething that becomes more
expensive is going to do thesame thing.
We're going to have to raiseprices to cover our costs, and
(03:11):
we're not going to wait aroundeither.
Our suppliers are going to needto raise their prices
immediately on what they'reselling in order to have enough
money to buy something that ismore expensive or to pay the
tariff as it's levied on them,and I think that that's
something that most people don'tunderstand about situations
(03:32):
where prices are going up thatthere's not some adjustment
period where the people you'rebuying from continue to sell to
you at the same price.
They immediately raise theirprices because, in order for
them to restock their businesses, they have to now spend more
than they might have beencharging in the past.
So I don't see tariffs as agood thing, but I've clearly
(03:57):
others have different opinionsand we'll see how it plays out.
Marc Bernstein (04:01):
The irony of all this is and you could look at
both sides of campaigns and whatthey say versus what they do
but the irony is that Americawho's very concerned about
inflation right now, even thoughthe rate of inflation is coming
down, prices are still upelected a president who, in
effect, if he does what he sayshe's going to do, will possibly
(04:24):
cause more inflation.
So it is what it is, not apolitical statement, it's just
we're looking at it aseconomists right here and saying
what could happen.
So thank you, paul, and let meintroduce Paul.
So Paul Downs started makingcustom furniture that's what
he's alluding to in 1986, aftergraduating from the University
of Pennsylvania with a degree inengineering Kind of an
(04:45):
interesting story.
And his company employs 28superb craftsmen producing all
their work in Bridgeport,pennsylvania, and you'll see
even that the kind of furniturethat he makes has evolved over
the years and that's part of hisstory.
So welcome Paul, thank you,thanks for being here.
And so let's talk about that.
(05:06):
Let's talk of his story.
So welcome Paul, thank you,thanks for being here.
And so let's talk about that.
Let's talk about your journey.
You know what you grew up, yourinterests, you went to school
for engineering and how youended up in the furniture
business.
Paul Downs (05:14):
Well, I've always been someone who liked to make
things and long before I got tocollege I was building all kinds
of things with my hands.
But I'm also someone who'sacademically qualified to go to
a fancy school and that's whereI ended up.
And a couple of years in, as Iwas studying engineering, I
realized that oh my goodness,engineers just sit behind a desk
(05:37):
all day and do calculus andthat sounds like hell to me.
So when I graduated, I decidedthat I might go on and be an
architect and preparatory tothat, I got a job on a
construction site and wasworking as a helper for a
Finnish carpenter and this guywas always going on about how
cool it was to make furnitureand how you have your shop and
(06:00):
you just make things and peoplecome in and it's fine
craftsmanship and I was likethat sounds great, that's what
I'm doing.
So I happened to have a smallamount of money inherited from
my grandmother and I rented anempty row house shell in Manioc
and bought some tools and juststarted making stuff.
Marc Bernstein (06:18):
So you went right into entrepreneurship,
which is pretty interesting.
Paul Downs (06:22):
Yeah, and this being the mid, mid 80s, it was
actually probably a huge mistake, because it meant that I was
now a businessman without accessto any training, knowledge or
experience in how to be abusiness person, and back then
it was much, much harder to getyour hands on basic information,
because this is pre-internet onbasic information, because this
(06:45):
is pre-internet and also justat the point in sort of the
economic history whereentrepreneurship was beginning
to be a thing.
But it wasn't really a thing,and so I spent a lot of time
struggling to master basicbusiness processes.
And what was good for me wasthat I'm actually really good at
(07:06):
selling and designing and was apretty good furniture maker,
taught myself and turned out Icould do it.
So I was able to get thebusiness going and we ended up
specializing in custom diningtables and chairs, because
that's a product that peoplewould spend money on, something
that I could make in my smallshop successfully, and we
(07:27):
developed a local market, mostlylower mainline Philadelphia
area.
Marc Bernstein (07:33):
Paul, at that time not to interrupt, but at
that time, how many employeesdid you have?
Paul Downs (07:37):
Got to about five or six employees and eventually
took a partnership with one ofmy customers, and that allowed
us to expand our operation a bitand move into a bigger shop,
and we were still thinking thatwe would be making dining room
furniture but try to reach outto a national market.
Now, at the same time that washappening this was 2002, 2003,
(08:01):
something that I'd done fouryears earlier sort of dropped
out of the sky into my lap,which was in 1998, I had one
client who wanted a boardroomtable, and we made one for him
and put a picture of it up onour first website, and then, in
2003, google decided that thatpicture was going to be the top
organic search result foranybody searching for a
(08:24):
boardroom table.
I had nothing to do with this,it just happened one day, and so
I get a phone call from a guyin South Dakota.
He's like can you make me oneof these boardroom tables?
And I'm staring at the phonelike who the hell are you and
how did you find me?
Two days later, I'm on thephone with someone in Kyrgyzstan
who's putting up an oil companyheadquarters, and ever since
(08:47):
that day in 2003, every day weget somewhere between 3 and 15
calls and emails from somebodysomewhere who's looking for a
custom boardroom table, and itturned out to be a pretty good
business because there's notthat many people who know how to
do it.
Marc Bernstein (09:02):
TGFG right.
Paul Downs (09:04):
Yeah, thank God for Google.
Yeah, I mean, it's reallyworked out for me.
Marc Bernstein (09:14):
Since that day, we've had revenues of about
almost 70 million bucks fromthat one.
Paul Downs (09:17):
That's unbelievable.
Yeah, completely transformed mybusiness, and so the business
was there and it took me a whilefor my management skills to
catch up.
But at this point we're awell-established company and
we're doing business with prettymuch everybody everywhere,
because everybody needs aboardroom table, it seems like.
(09:38):
So we do business with smallschool boards in Kansas and the
military and big manufacturers,and you name it.
We're in every state, we're inevery Canadian province, we're
in Alaska, we're in Hawaii,panama, caribbean Basin this is
just from Google searches peoplecalling us and saying, hey, we
(10:00):
need this thing and we don'tknow where to get it.
And we say, okay, we're goingto help.
Marc Bernstein (10:05):
Do you distribute and ship yourselves?
Yes, we do.
Paul Downs (10:10):
I mean, one of the amazing things about the modern
world is the logistics chainthat's available to even the
smallest businesses.
So we're not a huge corporation.
We don't have the resources ofsome of our clients, but we can
call up a truck and getsomething on it and have it
delivered to Alaska in threedays, and it's not a huge hassle
(10:31):
.
It's just the way the worldworks.
Marc Bernstein (10:33):
Well, you mentioned a couple of times you
struggled with the businessissues and then I think you got
to a point where you had somehelp with that, correct?
Paul Downs (10:40):
I did and the first help I had was just having a
partner, because before then Ihad done nothing.
You know, like I really didn'tknow what I was doing.
Marc Bernstein (10:48):
Partner meaning this was a company partner,
right, or this was an individualpartner.
Paul Downs (10:52):
This was an individual partner, a guy named
Larry Ballin who bought into thecompany in 2003.
Right, and he was, in my mind,going to be the.
He was a successfulmanufacturer and he was going to
show me how to fix my companyand how to make it work, and his
wife was a CPA, so the two ofthem had been a team running his
(11:17):
previous companies, and Larrybeing the big ideas guy, the
sales guy, very nice guy,inspiring guy, and his wife,
mary, being the one who wouldactually sort of get down and
dirty in the books and make surethey were making money.
And so I was really lookingforward to this partnership.
And we had a piece of bad luck,which is about a month after we
(11:38):
formed the partnership and Maryhad come in and started fixing
up my books.
She actually just died in hersleep at age 54.
And so all of a sudden now Ihave a partner who's missing the
sort of the operational piecethat has led to his previous
success, and neither of usreally saw what was missing for
(12:00):
a number of years.
So we floundered around, we losta lot of money and then the
recession came of 2008.
And we were already in troublewhen that happened and it was
just a disaster.
But we scraped through in 2009and 2010.
And I went from 22 people in2008 to six by the end of 2009
(12:22):
and came within about two daysof running out of cash.
And then the business startedto revive in 2010.
And at the same time that washappening, something else sort
of weird happened to me, whichis I got the opportunity to
write for the New York Timesabout my business struggles.
So I started writing regularlyin their business section and
(12:47):
they had a blog called You'rethe Boss and for the first time,
because this was an onlinething, I started getting a lot
of feedback from the people whoread about all the stupid things
I was doing.
They were like oh, you shoulddo these other things.
Marc Bernstein (13:06):
And I had always relied on advice from Larry but
nobody else.
It was like reverse, dear Abbyfor a business, kind of thing.
Paul Downs (13:09):
Yeah, it really was, and so all of a sudden I'm
being exposed to different waysof thinking about how to run a
business, and eventually thatled me to join Vistage, which
was also extremely helpful inintroducing me to sets of ideas
about how to run a business thatwere more up to date than what
(13:29):
Larry could bring to the table.
I mean, god bless him.
He was a wonderful guy.
He passed away a couple ofyears ago, but he just was more
equipped for the world of the80s and the 90s.
That world is gone.
You know, like the world that Istarted in may as well have
been 1750.
It was closer to that than whatwe do today.
Marc Bernstein (13:50):
In your business .
Paul Downs (13:51):
You can say that because they were building
tables back then like you'rebuilding them today, I guess,
right.
Well, not quite, I understandbut, not that much different.
Not that much different, noRight right, right.
Marc Bernstein (14:03):
So was Larry in the business with you all the
way until he passed away.
Paul Downs (14:07):
He was in the business until 2010.
With you all the way until hepassed away.
He was in the business till2010.
And at that point we had somedisagreements about how to move
forward, because the businesswas not doing well and he had
invested a fair amount in it andlost it all.
Basically, um, fortunately, Iwas able to get some help from
my father and brother.
They bought him out and so nowmy brother is my partner.
(14:28):
He's a minority partner and,with the help of Vistage and the
New York Times readership andjust all of a sudden like
starting to look outside thecompany for ideas about how to
be a boss and how to build acompany culture I was able to
implement a lot of these thingsthat I knew nothing about when I
(14:51):
started, and we're in a prettygood position today.
Marc Bernstein (14:55):
Well, that is actually a great opportunity to
take a quick break, commercialbreak, and thanks for sharing
your story, Paul, but we've gota lot more questions to ask you
right after the break.
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Marc Bernstein (16:07):
We are back on Founders Forum.
Jess, I know you have aquestion for Paul.
Jess Hallahan (16:10):
Yeah, of course.
So you mentioned 2008, right,the recession.
Then we also had another one,you know, an issue with COVID,
the pandemic.
How did that affect thebusiness?
Paul Downs (16:19):
Well, that was surprisingly not a huge problem
for us.
When I first realized in Marchof 2020 that COVID was a thing
and that everybody was going togo home, I was like, well,
that's that who's going to wanta conference table?
And it turned out to that inthe short term in the spring of
2020, we had been on our way tohaving our best year ever, and
(16:43):
quite a bit of our businesscomes from all over the country.
We're not just a liberalnortheast bubble kind of company
.
So, to my surprise most of myclients, they were just like we
don't care, we don't evenbelieve in COVID, and so I mean
literally, and so we neverreally had to shut down for any
(17:04):
extended period.
We shut down for three weeks.
And in Pennsylvania, there wasthis guidance given that if you
were a furniture factory, youwere supposed to shut down, but
if you were a wood productsfactory, you were supposed to
stay open.
And I'm like, well, if you'regoing to leave it up to me to
make the decision, and I've gotall these people all over the
country like where's my table?
(17:26):
We're going to stay open.
So we did stay open.
Like, where's my table?
We're going to stay open.
So we did stay open and we weregiven quite a bit of money from
the government in PPP and EIDLloans, and so with that influx
of cash it allowed me to retireall the debt that I'd amassed in
all those decades before thenwhen we?
weren't particularly profitableand we were able to get through
(17:49):
the year without having to doany layoffs or any, and the next
year we had a great year, andso I would not want to go
through a recession again, but Idid not mind having the
government actually do the rightthing and keep the economy
going.
So a happy pandemic story.
Marc Bernstein (18:07):
I love to hear that.
Paul Downs (18:09):
Well, the other thing that was surprising was
that the market for conferencetables did not disappear at all.
It's actually grown quite a bit.
Marc Bernstein (18:17):
And it may be interesting With all the remote
work, you would think that mightchange a little.
Paul Downs (18:21):
You would, but we saw that a lot of people want a
different kind of table, onethat's more suited towards video
conferencing.
We also saw some of ourtraditional market of the
Northeast hedge fund banking.
What have you slowed way down?
But that local government andmilitary work and sort of red
(18:41):
states.
They were thriving and so ourbusiness has been expanding ever
since.
Marc Bernstein (18:47):
By the way, you have a couple kind of famous
tables, don't you?
Or at least tables in famousconference rooms.
Paul Downs (18:53):
We do, and one of the interesting things about
being in the conference roombusiness is that everybody needs
a conference table and so wedeal with a huge variety of
different people and that justkeeps it interesting.
So from a small company out inthe middle of Kansas or
something all the way up towe've done tables for the
Federal Reserve Bank and I'vebeen in the senior leadership
(19:18):
rooms at the NSA, at thePentagon, we did two Joint
Chiefs of Staff boardrooms.
I was just at the headquartersof SEAL Team 6 a couple of days
ago and yeah, I mean I'm inrooms that once we're done with
it, you know like nobody normalever goes in there again.
Literally war rooms.
(19:38):
Yeah.
Marc Bernstein (19:39):
Or leadership rooms.
Paul Downs (19:41):
It's a surprisingly interesting business, because
you never know who you're goingto deal with and the product
itself has to be tailored to allthese different situations, and
so it keeps us, as a company,focused in touch with pretty
much whatever is happening inthe wider economy, because
people want our product whenthey're in the process of
(20:02):
expanding their facility ormoving, and so we sort of see
which sectors of the economy arefeeling flush at any given
moment and which are not, and soa couple of years ago it was a
lot of health care and now it'sa lot of defense, and you know,
it just comes and goes,depending on what parts of the
economy are doing better.
Marc Bernstein (20:24):
So I mentioned before a happy pandemic story.
A lot of stories actually arehappy because of resilience that
people had to use andreinventing themselves and
things like that.
You fortunately didn't have todo that, which is kind of nice,
but you paid the price early on.
Paul Downs (20:40):
I did, but you know, like my sister who ran a
restaurant in Boston for 28years, it just killed it.
There was no coming back fromthe pandemic.
Announcer (20:50):
So a lot of my story has been luck, honestly the
Google thing.
Paul Downs (20:55):
My partner was actually a stroke of luck.
Yeah, it didn't go great, buthe brought a lot to the business
that I never would have beenable to accomplish and that was
a big stepping stone for usgetting to where we are today.
And then other pieces of luckare just the people who work for
me, woodworking not being oneof the sexier segments of the
(21:17):
economy, we just attractordinary people.
But they're all good craftsmen,they're dedicated to doing
really good work and gettingalong with each other, and it's
a pleasure to run a company withsuch a wonderful group of
employees.
Jess Hallahan (21:30):
Off-air you kind of mentioned with your employees
following that segment is thatyou said a lot of them are on
the younger side, under 25.
Why do you feel that you havesuch a range of younger crowd
and employees?
Paul Downs (21:42):
Well, I've made a conscious effort to attract them
because the industry as a wholewoodworking industry is
probably the average age is inthe upper 50s, and when I go to
shops many of the shops,particularly my competitors I
see nothing but gray hair on theshop floor, which is good for
us because 10 years from nowwe're going to be the only one
standing.
But it wouldn't help me if Icouldn't attract the next
(22:06):
generation of craftsmen andcreate an atmosphere where
people who want to do somethingbut all of the ordinary venues
that you used to have shopclasses you used to have
somebody down the street who washandy a lot of those
disappearing.
So we have to attract peopleand then commit to training them
, and so that's how we'vesucceeded in making our
(22:28):
workforce attractive, byoffering, first of all, when you
walk in you don't just see60-year-old people, and then we
make sure that our companyculture is up to date, that
there's no hazing, there's noneof these sort of old-style craft
shop floor nonsense that wouldbe quite off-putting to today's
(22:49):
workers.
Marc Bernstein (22:50):
Did that happen originally by accident that you
discovered that, or was that?
Paul Downs (22:54):
intentional from the beginning?
No, I could see it coming.
I could absolutely see itcoming.
Marc Bernstein (22:58):
So this is why, when you talked about I want to
give you credit where you're notgiving yourself credit.
Luck, you know there's thatexpression that you work real
hard and then you get lucky.
You know kind of it's not exactwords, I'm trying to think how
it is often said, but I mean,you did go through a period in
the Great Recession where youalmost ran out of money, right.
So there's been resiliencethroughout and I think that
(23:21):
caused you to think about justhaving heard your story a couple
times.
Now.
You know how do we stay current, how do we look forward, how do
we make this, you know, alegacy business.
I don't know if that's yourgoal or not, but in essence,
you've been able to build it tothat.
Paul Downs (23:37):
Yeah, I mean I'm 62, so obviously I have to figure
out now what's going to happenwhen I'm not around, because
it's not going to be that long,and so I'm trying to position
the company to be in a positionto be a sellable asset, but also
one where it's clear to whoevercomes in to buy it that the way
(24:00):
we operate is actually the bestway to operate, because I could
, and with the people, that you,with the people treating them
the way we do, that that isgoing to produce consistent
profits and give you a stableworkforce and give you the
ability to grow the business byattracting the people.
You need to do it, becausethere's no way that robots are
ever going to make our product.
(24:21):
It cannot happen and so we needto attract people.
Marc Bernstein (24:26):
Well, you know, in my business as a financial
planner for entrepreneurs, Ispend a lot of my being in my
60s myself and many of myclients in 50s and 60s and
sometimes 70s.
You know they're thinking abouttheir legacy and often the
extra strategy is to sell.
Sometimes it's to sell to theemployees, sometimes it's to
(24:46):
sell or sometimes it's tocontinue it.
Our last guest that we had lastweek, which was actually
recorded this morning, his goalis to always stay involved in it
and his legacy is for it to goon beyond him, but to stay
involved as long as he can.
(25:06):
And so it's all over the map.
But it's an interestingconversation.
It's an interesting thoughtprocess to think about what
happens next.
Paul Downs (25:15):
Yeah, I mean, I don't have any illusions about
trying to be in this business in20 years.
I just that would be what youmight call the Biden approach,
too Interesting.
Marc Bernstein (25:28):
We just saw how that works out, or the Trump
approach, since we're talkingwith non-political.
Paul Downs (25:34):
Either way, I think that everybody has a sell-by
date, and if you have a fantasythat you can somehow be in
control of it until the momentyou're dropped into a coffin,
that's not actually good foranybody, and my experience in
Vistage sort of showed meexamples of what happens when
people hang on too long.
And so I don't want to be thatguy Gotcha, but I do love going
(25:58):
to work and I love the work wedo and I love my people, so I'm
going to miss it and I don'tknow.
Marc Bernstein (26:04):
Let's talk about the shorter term for a second,
because if you were looking outin three years from today, so
November of 2027, and we'relooking back on the last three
years, paul what would have tohappen for you to feel that that
was a successful period in yourlife business-wise,
professionally and personally?
Paul Downs (26:24):
Well, I'd like to never experience any of my dicey
moments ever again.
That's a good one and thatwould be success.
Marc Bernstein (26:33):
But we know that may or may not happen.
Paul Downs (26:35):
No, I think that the trajectory the company is on
the clients that we're workingwith, it all looks pretty good
Three years from now.
I anticipate that I'll be sortof actively moving into a let's
try to figure out what happensnext when Paul Downs isn't
running this company.
Marc Bernstein (26:55):
And I'm in the preparatory phase for that right
now that leads to a questionthat I know Jess wants to ask
you.
Jess Hallahan (27:02):
Yeah, what are your thoughts about your legacy?
Paul Downs (27:07):
Well, the funny thing is that we're craftsmen,
so that there's one aspect ofour legacy which is just, you
make stuff, you do it well, yousend it out into the world and
it's out there.
Yesterday I went down to see aclient I hadn't talked to in 22
years, who had bought some stufffor me and was moving into a
(27:27):
new office and turns out she'sused it every day since then.
She loves it.
One of her partners turned downthe big corner office because
the furniture I made for himwouldn't work there, and so
we're leaving a legacy of justartifacts.
That's very satisfying To me.
(27:48):
The bigger legacy is can webuild a company that's got a
culture that's self-sustaining,in other words, where people are
treated well and they treateach other well and it makes
money?
People are treated well andthey treat each other well and
it makes money?
And someone who is maybe like ayounger person, who's looking
(28:22):
for an opportunity to run acompany and build real wealth
and share operate the way we'reoperating now, I would be very
happy to say, yeah, Iaccomplished something,
considering where I started fromand where I'm exiting.
Yes, we've accomplished atremendous amount.
Marc Bernstein (28:32):
Well, that's a wonderful stepping off point for
us today as we're out of time.
But, paul, thanks so much forbeing here today.
Jess thanks for being here,thank you.
Thank all of you for listeningand we look forward to talking
to you next week on FoundersForum.
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