AUSTIN HOME FURNISHINGS COMPANY GOES GLOBAL
You won’t find furniture from Four Hands only in Central Texas homes.
The fast-growing business has gone global, signing deals with a number of well-known retailers, including Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware and West Elm.
Revenue is on track to hit $160 million this year, CEO Matthew Briggs said – double what it was five years ago.
Acquisitions are helping fuel some of that growth. Four Hands, which has its central offices and a showroom at 2090 Woodward St. in South Austin, has bought two Austin-based firms in the past year: artisan framemaker Wonderwall and technology firm Adaptdev.
Briggs sat down with the American-Statesman recently to discuss the growth of Four Hands and what the future holds for the company.
American-Statesman: How did Four Hands get its start?
Briggs: It was started in 1996. I was a customer at the time and had an import business of my own in Colorado. In 2001, I sold that business. Four Hands was bringing people on, and I was looking to move somewhere warmer and get more involved on the business side of things.
You were promoted to CEO in 2009, during the recession. What was that like?
The recession really cleaned out a lot of the smaller players. It created opportunities. We’ve evolved from mostly being an importer. With our in-house design capabilities, these days we don’t really buy anything off the shelf anymore.
Why do you believe Four Hands has excelled?
What’s selling in Italy isn’t necessarily going to translate here. That’s where our product team comes in. We’re also offering a more retail experience to our wholesale customers. And we’ve gone much wider. Earlier, we were mostly wood. We’ve added full upholstery, wall art, pillows, rugs, lighting. A lot of people in the wholesale space would just do sofas or just do rugs. There’s a tremendous amount of power in having that put-together look.
How many employees do you have right now?
We have about 200 people in Austin with another 90 or so in Asia – Vietnam, China and India – handling vendor relations, product development and things like that.
What’s your sales mix? How much is retail versus wholesale?
Four Hands has a somewhat
cult-like following. We’re about 5 percent retail and 95 percent wholesale. In addition to Austin, we have big showrooms in North Carolina and Las Vegas. We do lots of work with the design trade.
Online sales are big business for Four Hands, and not just with consumers. How have you focused on e-commerce?
Wholesale used to be clunky. We have an amazing website at fourhands. com that offers a lot of features that appeal to wholesale clients such as interior designers. It’s a close-to-retail experience. There are multiple product shots, you can have three different shopping carts if you’re working on three different projects, you name it. We view our technology as a never-ending process. You’re always working on improving your tech processes.
That focus on technology played a big part in the decision to acquire Adaptdev, right?
Absolutely. The thought was ... how do we boost our manpower? You don’t have to just buy furniture companies. We’ve had amazing luck hiring tech people in Austin. We basically tripled our development team with Adaptdev. By bringing them in house, we get their undivided attention. They’re amazing, talented, creative and inspired.
What does the future hold for Four Hands?
We’ve recently leased 200,000 square feet of warehouse space near our offices, which will allow us to con- tinue to expand. The goal is to hit $250 million in revenue within five years. The path forward for us is pretty clear. We’re going to keep growing upholstery and case goods. With wall art, the thesis we had proved to be spot on, with clients such as West Elm and TJ Maxx. We’ve always been a product company. We always will be a product company. We’re always going to focus on new materials, new trends, to make people happy and make their homes look better.