James Reed

Thank you for listening and see you next time.

Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reid, the podcast that covers everything about business, management, and leadership.

Every episode, I sit down with different guests who have bootstrapped companies, masterminded investment models, or built a business empire.

They're leaders in their field, and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture.

What happens when losing your job unexpectedly leads to building a global design business?

Today on All About Business, I'm joined by Tom Faulkner, whose company started in the early 1990s making hand-painted tables and has since evolved into an internationally recognized luxury furniture brand.

In this episode, we discuss how the business began by accident, the role of craft in a modern design company, and how a workshop in Swindon came to serve a global market.

Well, today on All About Business, I'm really delighted to welcome Tom Faulkner.

Tom is an award-winning British furniture designer and the founder of Tom Faulkner Limited, which is renowned for creating distinctive handcrafted sculptural luxury furniture.

Tom has two showrooms, one in London and one in New York.

And he has a fabrication center workshop, I should call it, in Swindon, Wiltshire.

So Tom, you're London, New York, Swindon, which I'm very pleased to celebrate.

Thank you for coming to talk to me.

I understand you're a sort of accidental entrepreneur or you started off doing something else and then changed tack.

And then I remember I stood on... Well, he made you sit there for 45 minutes before he just told you that.

So this was like what would be called these days a sort of side hustle.

That became your main thing.

And then... Who were your early customers?

So you mentioned your mother, some friends.

So you had people who you knew liked what you were doing.