Recounting how “change happens,” City Furniture president Keith Koenig shared the story and time-proven lessons behind the success of his family’s 45-year-old business as he spoke to guests at the Distinguished Lecture Series hosted by H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship.
Calling his talk “Lessons Learned from a Waterbed Salesman,” Koenig told students, faculty, staff, and guests how the company began when his late brother, Kevin Koenig, opened Waterbed City in Fort Lauderdale in 1971 after earning an M.B.A. degree. After hours, Koenig hand-made wood frames for the beds himself.
The business was a success. By 1989, however, with waterbed popularity in decline, business dropped for the first time and eventually the stores closed.
In 1994, the company took a new direction and re-emerged with the opening of the first City Furniture store.
“Back then, we’d go visit the furniture companies that we wanted to buy from. And they’d say, ‘you’re a waterbed company, you’re not going to make it. You’ll get eaten alive,’” Koenig recalled.
Instead, sales increased about 15 percent every year until 2005–an 800 percent revenue growth over a 12-year period. Today, the retail furniture company based in Tamarac has 26 showrooms in Florida. In 2014, the trade publication Furniture Today ranked City Furniture No. 30 on its Top 100 list of U.S. retailers.
“Nobody in the industry, nobody in the country had done that,” Koenig said. “Change happens…in life, in business, to everyone. Nobody gets out alive. It’s all about dealing with change. We were stars in the waterbed industry in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
“A lot of time, an entrepreneur is going to take risks, do something that’s going against the grain. It’s not the safe path.”
More recently, the company weathered the housing crisis and economic downturn that began in 2005. Weathering more changes and the loss of some employees, the company continues to grow, applying the lessons learned along the way.
“Every business, every organization, it’s all about the people,” Koenig said. “Within the people, it’s all about the culture within the organization, creating a place where people feel empowered and valued and appreciated sincerely. If you do that, you’ve got a shot.”
Keith and Kevin Koenig grew up in South Florida “on the lower side of middle class,” said Koenig, whose working parents made clear “if you want something, go out and work for it. They were also pretty smart to say, ‘you’re going to get an education.’ [Not going to college] was not an option.”
Koenig emphasized the importance of education to “build a foundation” that’s necessary to build a business.
“There are no unrealistic goals. There are only unrealistic timelines,” he told students. “If you don’t like what you’re doing, do something else. Whether it’s growing petunias, it doesn’t matter. What’s most important is that you find a job or an opportunity that you really enjoy. You have to fall in love with what you’re doing.
“I love what I’m doing, and that’s what I would wish for everybody here.”