About a year and a half ago, furniture designer and fabricator Matt Muldoon started the process of expanding his business from a one-man concern to a more formal enterprise with greater production capacity and market reach.
His business, Knuckles Industries, now employs two other people and has its own line of furniture, rather than the unique custom pieces Muldoon was previously producing.
“You only learn lessons when you’re losing money,” Muldoon said, chuckling.
During the growth process, Muldoon learned the hard way that financial arrangements need to be drawn firmly in black and white. To finance the expansion, Muldoon spoke to his bank about getting a line of credit and got verbal assurance that everything would be fine – so he went ahead and spent his own money.
“I pulled the trigger,” he said. But a month and a half later, when he needed the line of credit, the bank changed its tune.
“They called and said, ‘We can’t get you this line.’ I just made the assumption. I’d never done that.”
Another lesson has been the difficulty of measuring the effect of the marketing and social media campaign that was a big part of the expansion plan.
“It’s almost impossible to directly trace marketing’s impact,” he said. “Even if you’re asking people where they heard about you, you can’t be entirely sure.”
Muldoon’s business has expanded slowly but surely, and he feels that a year from now, he’ll be able to get a better sense of whether his investment in marketing has paid off.
In the meantime, his company’s products have been gaining exposure by word of mouth and display at trade shows and through Muldoon’s contacts with interior designers.
Despite the stumbles, Muldoon is happy with the direction of his company and the outcome of his investment.
“It was worth it,” he said.
On turning an artistic passion into a business | “You can do anything in a creative endeavour but you need to be committed to doing it. When you’re up in the wee hours of the morning or the night, it’s just you by yourself, or you with someone on your team, trying to make things happen. You have to make sure you want it. It’s sort of like [getting a] tattoo.”
Has a work or life challenge taught you a key career lesson? Contact Jen St. Denis at [email protected]
