jan-2018

110 111 Ackerman: “The company was founded in 2009 a year after I graduated college. After I graduated, I went towork for our parents. Theyowned two furniture stores in Dutchess County, in upstateNew York.I was work- ing in customer service,and I wasn’t overly thrilled about the posi- tion; it was just to fill time at that moment inmy life, while figuring out what I wanted to do.2008was not a terrificyear to graduate because of the crash,and our parents’furniture stores,as well as the rest of the furniture industry,were on the decline.Theyeventually had to shut down in 2011. “In early2009, I started re- searching online e-commerce sites. We had a lot of contacts in the furniture business, already; we had a lot of suppliers we could reach out to.Myuncle had been importing cabinetry for the past fewdecades; he’s awholesaler and he ships themout to various retailers in the U.S. I approached Samanthawith an idea of putting all of our ready-to-assemble products–beds,tables,chairs, and the cabinets–online. “We began to build out the site in Januaryof 2009 THE RTA STORE TYLER ACKERMAN, CEO SAMANTHA ROUGEUX, PRESIDENT AND CO-OWNER For us, our business (and the industry in general) is con- stantly evolving. If we’re not con- sistently making upgrades to our platform, website, and our processes, we’re falling behind. TYLER ACKERMAN, CEO and launched it inApril 2009.We both had jobs and it was somethingwewereworking onwhenwe had time.But things started to take off a fewmonths later andwe quickly realized that the onlyproducts getting any tractionwere the kitchen cabinetry.So,byearly 2010,we had taken off all furniture from the site and strictly focused on cabinetry.Wewere flooding Craig- slist in different areas of the country to let customers knowabout us,and it tookoff. “We hired our first employee,Marie Bai,who is now in a topmanagement position,in 2010.Alittle be- forewe hiredMarie,we had stoppedworking for our parents and began runningThe RTAStore,fulltime.The rest of our siblings-there are five of us-began slowly coming into the business and now,our parents are in the business as well.We’ve been fortunate enough to continue to growyear over year since our inception, and have learned a lot of hard lessons: what to do and more importantly,what not to do.“ Rougeux: “We have 49 employees and one central location inHopewell Junction,NY for our customer service,claims and door sample departments.We also have a showroomat that location,but other than that, we’re strictlyonline.We service the entire countryand also regularly ship to Canada and various areas in the Caribbean. AT A GLANCE THE RTA STORE WHAT: An online retailer of ready-to-assemble cabinets WHERE: Hopewell Junction, New York WEBSITE: www.thertastore.com