Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Eck.
Andrew, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
That’s a great question, and not what you’d expect, I think! I went to school at Mercer University for Electrical Engineering—not exactly the typical backstory for a furniture company. I was good at it, but not great. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, day-in day-out, for the rest of my life, and I hated the thought of being a one-trick pony of sorts, only being able to solve problems in one box. So, while still pursuing my degree, I also started looking elsewhere for my career.
I caught the ‘entrepreneur bug’ during my third year in college. At that point, I’d been heavily involved in developing the Mercer athletic fan program, and I loved seeing my plans come to fruition. I then developed a business plan to launch a concert series that would host concerts in a vacant abandoned building in downtown Macon. I created a company to do it, and eventually ended up creating a spin-off company that ran audio production for live events, which still exists today. Simultaneously, I started building coffee tables out of wood pallets with a friend, just as a passion project. We simply built tables that we thought looked good and listed them on Etsy, not really knowing what would happen. That was in 2015, and here we are today.
Has luck or circumstance played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I guess so. Certainly being in Macon has had a huge impact on what I’ve been able to do and the ideas I’ve had. Even when I wasn’t expecting it, things sort of had a way of working out how they should. For example, at a business plan competition, I was voted down by the judges and was the last one out before funding. One of the judges who voted it down came up to me and gave me his card. I hated him. But as luck would have it, I ran into him a few months later and we got another chance to interact. Outside of the competition setting, we hit it off and Rob’s been one of the biggest mentors in my professional life. We co-started a makerspace, the one Georgia Artisan ran out of initially. Without Rob, I’m not sure I would be where I am and know what I know. I would at least be 1-2 years behind where I am now. So I don’t think luck is a huge factor in our success, but I think it’s important to keep an open mind. Sometimes things don’t work out how you think they will!
On the internet, we’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, chase your dreams, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I think that’s an important question for us to get honest answers to. You’re right, there’s always some new Buzzfeed post about following your dreams in your “side-hustle” to make some extra cash. It all sounds so simple! I’ve been lucky enough that my passion project has turned into a fully-fledged job for not only me, but now several employees. For me, there’s always a challenge, but that’s why I do what I do. I love solving problems, and so the intense energy and focus towards solving customers’ problems at startups was a natural draw for me. It’s not for everyone, but the challenges have led me to push for bigger and better things.
One big split in the road came when my co-founder Mollie deiced to move on to law school. This was about 3 years in. It was the right move for her, and she’s very happy with what she’s doing now, but I knew that I still wanted to pursue the company. So, I decided to take it to the next level. By that time we had started making bigger and better furniture, and I could see the potential in kicking production up a notch, but there were a lot of risks as well. With the help from the Velocity Accelerator program, I hired my first, second and third full-time employee. We got to work. We finalized an arrangement to acquire reclaimed wood, we redesigned everything to match the customer’s needs, we designed stylish beds and chairs, too. We found best practices, increased our quality dramatically, and the list goes on and on. To be honest, oftentimes it was scary, and there were weeks where there wasn’t enough in the bank to fill payroll. We were renting 400 square feet of shared space in a makerspace in downtown—it was on the second floor, with no elevator. We had to carry countless pounds of wood up the stairs, and a few days later carefully carry 10+ foot long tables down the stairs again. We would pallet our freight shipments on the back of a standard pickup truck, drive to FedEx, and have them pick it up with a forklift off the bed. It was painful but it was all we could afford. But we did it, we pushed on, and we’re in a really good place now with over 10,000 square feet of real estate (on the ground floor!) and our own loading bay. It’s never going to be easy, but we’re learning a lot and each day gets a little easier than the last.
That must have been so difficult! Can you tell us a little more about how you went from such a small scale to where you are now?
Plain and simple–the team stuck with it and, slowly, it started paying off. We’d gotten better and better feedback from our customers, and we decreased our costs in every way. Sales picked up and stayed up! We launched our website, added some new items to our lines, and sales picked up even more. At that point, we were able to hired a few more people to help round out our team. Now, we are 9 team members and we’re shipping goods off to 30+ customers a month. We’ve doubled in sales in the past 6 months, but even more astoundingly, we’re now selling 20 times more than we were selling a year ago.
Tell me about the products. Obviously, you guys wouldn’t have the success that you’ve found without a great product. What do you all offer?
Thank you! I can say that we build one of the best reclaimed furniture pieces you can find in the US. We specialize in farmhouse tables, chairs, and benches, along with modern-styled bedframes. While most of what we do is entirely made out of reclaimed materials from blighted houses that we source locally, we’re dabbling in some metalwork and able to offer that as an option. We sell and ship directly to customers, and we are able to modify almost every order to the customer’s needs. And we’re having a blast doing it. We all love coming to work. I know that sounds like a line, but it’s really true for us. We have family-style meals for lunch every day and team members or their family will bring dinner when we work late. We have bonfires at each other’s houses almost every week, and have really created a strong sense of community and trust between one another. We’re all ages and backgrounds, so I think it’s pretty special that we’ve been able to be so close. It definitely shows in the work we do.
Pricing:
- 6′ FarmHouse Table – 1200
- 10′ FarmHouse Table and 10 Chairs – 2999
- Queen sized bedframe – 1299
Contact Info:
- Address:790 Fulton St Macon GA 31201
- Website: GeorgiaArtisan.com
- Phone:478-227-3892
- Email:Info@GeorgiaArtisan.com
- Instagram:@GaArtisan
- Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/georgia.artisan/
- Twitter: @GeorgiaArtisan
- Yelp:https://www.yelp.com/biz/georgia-artisan-macon?osq=georgia+artisan
Image Credit:
Aissam Alma
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
