Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Shaun Beall. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Shaun , appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I picked up woodworking around 10 years ago with the singular purpose of making myself a record cabinet. I inherited my parents’ collection of classic rock albums and wanted a cabinet that didn’t exist, so I decided to buy some tools, watch a lot of YouTube, and try building what I had envisioned.

I’ve always found so much satisfaction in the rituals of playing physical records with family and friends: carefully handling the vinyl, poring over album cover artwork.

The perfect record cabinet was something that I know could really elevate the experience of enjoying music.

That first build blossomed into what’s turned into a while new career for me. At the time, I still had an unrelated corporate day job, and building furniture was still a hobby and side hustle. But in 2019, the timing felt right and my wife and I decided to give it a go full-time, and thus Tactile Audio Furniture was born.

I enjoy learning and having agency over the things around me. I cherish the process of translating my imagination into the physical world. Coupling all of that with my love for music is such a natural fit.

I haven’t looked back.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Tactile Audio Furniture is a local Denver-based company that specializes in custom furniture for music lovers and collectors. We make record cabinets and HiFi storage solutions that marry form and function.

Tactile was inspired by our obsession with music – reveling in the rituals of playing music for family & friends, soaking up album cover artwork, and the magic of a new discovery. Our mission is to design functional furniture that makes your music look as good as it sounds.

What makes us particularly unique is that we offer customization and creative collaboration for all of our customers. While we have a robust product catalog featuring bestsellers, various sizes and storage capacities, and a range of wood types and colors, we work directly with every customer from beginning to end to ensure they receive the perfect piece for their own unique taste and collection.

Any advice for managing a team?

Finding and retaining talented staff has always been one of our biggest challenges and also one of our biggest strengths. A lot of this is attributed to the fact that we live in a very mountainous rural area, so there simply aren’t as many candidates.
We’ve had some great folks come up from Denver, but that drive straight into the mountains gets real old, especially when winter hits and they need 4WD and have to contend with terrible road conditions.

Another factor is that we are a small family-owned business and are simply limited by what we can afford to pay. That said, we work hard to make the culture and environment up here as fun and fulfilling as possible. We have a fantastic workspace with state-of-the-art tools in a forest with a skyline view of the Rockies. We listen to music all day that runs the gamut of any genre under the sun and offer flexibility and autonomy in terms of work life balance. Tactile really does have an warm. fun, and intimate vibe and we’ve all become very close friends. There’s also a ton of opportunity for staff who want to help us grow and drive the business.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Initially much of our business came from Etsy, which of course is a platform that millions of people use. We still get some customers through Etsy, but in more recent years, it’s very much shifted to direct sales, word-of-mouth, and social. Organic traffic continues to dominate our site metrics.

Social Media, Instagram specifically, drives a lot of customers who have been following our channel and seeing what kind of products we create, and who then oftentimes, months after first discovering us, reach out to either order something directly or collaborate creatively on a dream piece from scratch.

Many times customers have inherited a record collection from their parents, or just bought a record player, and that’s the impetus for them to look for a storage solution, when they find us.

And we have some amazing partners who’ve been invaluable to our growth – ListenUp has sold our furniture almost from day-one and AuralHiFi in Denver showcases a number of our pieces in their gorgeous retail space. We’ve worked with many folks who buy some of the most incredible stereo equipment on the planet from Aural and then need something worthy of holding and displaying it. Enter Tactile.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tactileaudiofurniture.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tactileaudiofurniture
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tactileaudiofurniture
• Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/1229574899?si=e350cc3a65864aff

  Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/tactilewoodshop/

Image Credits

Voyager Studios LLC