A Chat With November’s Profile, Mark Desrochers, co-founder/marketing director, Classic Designs by Matthew Burak (Text & Audio)

CS: How many SKUs do you offer overall?
MD: Maybe 1,400 or so.

CS: How did you get your start in the catalog business?
MD: Everybody has a few lives, and I had a life as a landscape architect. Then I traded that for 10 years as a private yacht captain. And then I traded that for my first foray into direct marketing, which is this business. My partner’s [Matthew Burak] somewhat similar. He’s had a career in woodworking. That’s what he brings to the table — the woodworking knowledge. He’s been a boat builder and an architectural woodworker, and he’s designed his own line of furniture. And now he concentrates on designing the table legs themselves, the different wood turnings themselves. So together, we get through it. But direct marketing was new to us.
We were introduced to direct marketing through a customer in Matt’s furniture store who bought some furniture from us. We struck up a conversation with this character out there, she’s rather nefarious, Amy Africa. She was working for this guy that bought a bunch furniture from Matt, and that’s how we got introduced to direct marketing. And we’ve ended up consulting with her for years.