We were lucky to catch up with Robert Berger recently and have shared our conversation below.

Robert , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

My business has grown significantly since the beginning. The keys are/were persistence, education and the pandemic! Finding great pieces for my shop means you are on a continual treasure hunt. Scanning the internet, going to estate sales, garage sales, abandoned buildings…whatever it takes 7 days a week. The flow of new merchandise needs to keep coming whether business is strong or slow.

When I first started, I had a good eye for design after being an architectural photographer for almost 30 years, but I was leery of spending more than $50 on anything. After continually educating myself on mid century designers and what the market will bear, I now have confidence spending $500 or more knowing a tidy profit is coming.

When the pandemic shut down occurred I was panicked. The first month was awful but then, with everybody working from home, they all wanted/needed more furniture or a new look. Couldn’t buy enough desks at the time. It ended up tripling my business and it has been going strong ever since.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I sell mid century and industrial furniture and accessories. I have a small brick and mortar on Washington Bl near Fairfax.

Previously, I had been involved in the design industry for close to 30 years as an architectural photographer, shooting hotels, restaurants and luxury residential properties. During that time, I also worked on furniture catalogs and produced two books about historic buildings in LA. Along with the books came museum and gallery shows. Then came the recession of 2008-9. Business slowed to a crawl and on the upswing, everything went digital. I didn’t transition well and became a stay at home dad, buying furniture on the weekends for my 1930’s Spanish style home. My selections were often rejected by my wife at the time, and I sold them for a tidy profit. It became an obsession and divorce made it a new career.

My collection is some of the usual classic mid century and Danish Modern pieces along with some unusual finds and oddities.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

Early on I was buying furniture at online public auctions. An auction lot of 250 bentwood auditorium chairs became available. Probably from the 1950’s, they had beautiful bentwood seats with cast iron bases and numbers painted on the seat backs. When the auction ended I was the proud owner of 250 seats for a total of $4.54! The excitement wore off quickly when I had to rent a giant cube truck and remove them from the site. I then had to figure out where to store them. A friend of a friend said I could store them in the back of his shop. I unloaded 1/2 of them in 90 degree heat only to have my friend’s friend change his mind the next day and want them out. A lot of sweat equity and frustration but I actually made about $10,000 on the deal and that aided in financing the start of my business.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://vintagevisions.weebly.com/
• Instagram: vintagevisions_la
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/profile/100000144966529

Image Credits
Robert Berger