Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Studdard.
Hi Mark, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
What was supposed to be an “in-between” job five years ago has blossomed into a full-blown business that has allowed us to continue to follow our passions. We started our business so that we could live our lives in an unusual way. Having grown up overseas and then worked overseas as adults, we wanted to keep traveling while we were based in the States.
Our passions are an ever-changing picture for us, and so is our business. What started in the downstairs bedroom of our home in Iraq as a hobby, watching woodworking on Youtube, has turned into a full-fledged business where we offer high-end custom furniture.
As our business has evolved from a pottery and wood decor business into furniture and laser engraving, we have seen that our business has not grown necessarily because we had the best business plan, but because we were following our dreams. When we started this business, we didn’t know much about business, we were just pursuing a dream.
Shortly after we started our business, I was able to travel to Nepal and work for two months in the Himalayas helping rebuild a village after an earthquake. Recently I was able to take time away from the business to work on the film set of The Chosen. My dream is to continue telling stories with my hands, whether that’s in business or in another part of the world.
My wife Kristen works part-time in the counseling realm and currently works in the area of staff care for an international humanitarian organization. She travels multiple times per year to disaster zones and cares for staff as they work in devastating and strenuous circumstances.
Just recently she spent a month in Moldova, helping people caring for refugees from the Ukrainian war learn about how to care for people with trauma. Her dream is to work with refugees in some way, whether that’s through supporting the staff who work with them or working with them directly.
We didn’t know what our business would look like now and we don’t know what it will look like in the future, but it’s imperative for us not to give up on our dreams, no matter the chaos we live our lives in.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Our idea when we started the business is that we would build stuff and people would buy it. If you know anything about business you know that selling your product is the most challenging part. So even though I’m constantly developing skill-wise in my furniture building, by far the most challenging part of the business has been learning how to sell our product. Learning to meet the desires of our customers was also a learning curve, as custom furniture can be tricky.
One particular dining table was returned to us two times as the customer’s expectations and our understanding of what they wanted didn’t match. As the circular table slowly morphed, we ended up cutting about a foot-wide circle off the outside of the table to decrease its circumference. That 6’ outer ring of the table now hangs on the side of the shop like a large wheel with our motto painted on it, “Success rides on the wheels of failure.”
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
We build heirloom-quality high-end custom furniture. Our furniture is made exclusively of hardwood and carefully crafted with traditional joinery. Each of our pieces is designed exclusively by us and made to fit our clients’ unique spaces and decor. I design, build, and deliver the furniture and Kristen does customer service, photography, and finance, as well as helping in the shop with designs and finishes. It is truly a family business.
The piece I am most proud of is our Yara chair. It is a mid-century modern chair that took me over 6 months and multiple renditions to get just right. Customers who test it out often comment on how comfortable it is. I am proud of its beautiful functionality.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up.
Some of our favorite childhood memories are from traveling. Travel continues to inspire us. Marks’ favorite travel memory was crossing the Sahara in the back of a pickup truck and Kristen’s favorite travel memory is canoeing in the South Pacific Ocean with her siblings in a dug-out canoe.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://makaridesigns.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/makaridesigns/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/makaridesigns/
Image Credits
Kristen Studdard
