Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Revah.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Recently released after my voluntary service at the Israeli Defense Forces, I came back to Los Angeles to start my life. I had a period of about 2 months without work and adapting to civilian life was difficult, to say the least. Understanding that daily urban life is slowed down and more relaxed had me in a confused state of mind. After the 2 months of adjusting, I reached out to my friend for work as he just recently opened a business for selling designer brand sunglasses online. I started to work with him to get his business organized and on its feet with a strong online presence. After about 6-8 months of working with him, I had a discussion with my father about opening up our own business together. We came to the agreement that he will fund the project and I will run it on a daily basis. My father, at the time, has been a general contractor for over 30 years which gave him an immense amount of knowledge in the field of building material. After discussing options for types of businesses, we agreed that manufacturing and distributing was the way to go. Slightly before my father took on his career to being a general contractor, he had a business for installing hardwood flooring. This gave him the idea that manufacturing and distributing high-end flooring hardwood flooring on the market in Los Angeles would be the best choice. We did not know if the business would pick up steam so we decided to engage in another line of products as well, solid stone resin bathroom fixtures.
Now that we had the funding and products, we needed to find a place to work out of. We drove down to one of the most industrial cities in the Los Angeles County, Vernon. It took us about a month to find a warehouse that was what we thought was a sufficient amount of space to start our business. We signed the lease for 3 years and began to make the showroom space presentable. My father’s crew and I ripped out the old Vegas like carpet and put in a laminate flooring. We tore down walls, bought new furniture, hung up paintings, and designed the showroom to be chic and modern. We put some stone resin bathtubs and sinks on display, made large display boards for our flooring and had them spread out over the showroom space, and assembled a racking system in the warehouse portion for storing our stock. This process took us about 1 month to complete.
The business was now ready to make sales, but how? As you can imagine, selling high-end hardwood flooring and stone resin bathroom fixtures was not my expertise. When I was working with my friend selling sunglasses, we were listing products on selling channels such as eBay, Amazon, and overstock. These selling channels would advertise and bring the customers to us. At first, my father was sending many people that he worked with to the warehouse to meet me and have me sell to them. This was a reliable source of income to keep the business afloat, but this did not make the business flourish as we had hoped. I had many hours of just sitting around, cleaning, and organizing the showroom/warehouse without any selling work to do. I had grown tired of waiting for my father to send his business colleagues to me for sales. There was a much larger market outside of the work-related connections my father had.
What better place to start making my own sales than the selling channels that I am already familiar with? Now I was ready to work. I started to take pictures of the flooring and bathroom fixtures. I wrote descriptions, took measurements, created computer drawings for them, and then started to list them on some online selling channels. This process took me about 1-2 months to complete. I worked without rest to complete this task I created for myself. I stayed up late at night and worked on my weekends to finish this as soon as possible. Not making sales of my own was upsetting to me and I knew that the quality and value of the products were great, but they did not have the right exposure. Now that I have completed listing our products online, I waited. A week went by and I did not receive even the slightest notification or message in relation to purchasing. 2 weeks went by and I started to answer general questions about the quality. Finally, after nearly a month of the products being online, I made my first sale on eBay. I sold a stone resin bathtub (still the most popular bathtub we sell today). I was ecstatic. One bathtub sale became 2 quickly. In my mind, the business has just launched. I pushed hard and made calls to retail stores for sales, began advertising online and in magazines, and started to have our own website built.
I remember my father telling me that there was no place for these items to be sold online as they were too expensive for purchasers to trust the quality without seeing or touching them. He was correct to a degree, but that made me upset to find that the product quality was great and the price was incomparable, but no one would ever know. I created a method to start cutting samples and having them shipped to customers for approval. I began a free shipping model for all items across the board. Doing this for hardwood flooring was unheard of at the time. I like to believe that I started the movement of selling hardwood flooring online. The selling process prior to that was very ancient. The retail stores would charge whatever they want and customers had no reference to compare to. Our business put it out there that high-end flooring and stone resin bathroom fixtures do not have to be paid with an arm or a leg.
After these changes and adjustments that took over months to years, the business began to turn a profit and had a strong presence in the market. Customers were referring others to us and we started to really flourish. Today, we have 3 distributions centers in Vernon. Over 30 employees, endless stock, and a strong base for future sales and expansion.
With lots of hard work, literal sleepless nights, sweat, blood, and tears, we started a business that is stable and has a great reputation for quality and value. I can remember looking back at the days where I was buying the computers, painting the walls, hiring my employees and impatiently waiting for the business to pick up. Today, I wish I had more time for my personal life so that I can live in the moment. I will not stop with the dedication to make this business run itself so that I can take the profits and make larger investments while putting less effort mentally and physically. I am proud to call our business a success and we will not stop or slow down our drive to sell and support our customers with any and all of their building needs.
ADM Flooring, Inc. – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We specialize in manufacturing wide planked engineered hardwood flooring and stone resin bathroom fixtures. What sets us apart from our competitors is having stock year-round, being self-insured, having a great reputation in person and online, and giving all homeowners and professionals of the trade the best price with complete transparency.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Achieving what men twice my age has spent decades trying to achieve. I would not be where I am today without my father assistance which gives me great pride to call him my father and mentor.
Contact Info:
- Address: 3340 Leonis Blvd. Vernon, CA 90058
- Website: www.ADMbathroomdesign.com, www.ADMflooringdesign.com
- Phone: 888.864.5853
- Email: [email protected], [email protected]
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/admbathroomdesigns/, https://www.facebook.com/admflooringdesign/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/adm-bathroom-design-vernon-2, https://www.yelp.com/biz/adm-flooring-design-vernon
- Other: https://www.houzz.com/pro/admbathroomdesign/adm-bathroom-design, https://www.houzz.com/pro/admflooring/adm-flooring-design
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
