BLUFFDALE — It's appropriate that many of AK Designs' products mimic sleek Formula One styling. Thanks in large part to video game buffs, the small, relatively new company has stuff speeding off retailer shelves and in front of TV screens across the country.
And this from a company that got into the seating business without marketing directly to the folks hunched over an Xbox or PlayStation while busting their bums on hard floors.
"The gaming thing sort of came in after the fact," said company President Scott Warner. "We knew it might be popular with gaming — it was even on the box — but we thought 'automotive,' more of a racing seat. Gamers would love it because it's a good gaming chair, but we didn't know it would start a massive trend in the gaming industry. Several retailers have basically credited us with starting this gaming furniture category."
AK Designs already has produced chairs that either rest flat on the floor or allow the user to rock backward. One of the latest products is a chair designed to be used either in office settings or by gamers.
"We're not just a furniture company, and we're not looking to just take over seating or any one aspect of seating," Warner said. "We want to be in the gaming furniture, mass-retail office chair market with anything that deals with media enhancement. Anywhere you engage media — whether it's the Internet, DVDs, games or even books and magazines, anywhere you encounter media — we want to be there to enhance that experience. Right now, that involves seating."
Styling, innovation and affordability put AK's offerings snugly between low-tech "banana" chairs and elaborate electronic chairs, decked out with speakers and leather, that sell for up to $2,000. AK's products were attractive to mass retailers like Costco and Best Buy, among others. Gamers looking for comfort and styling could find what they needed with AK Rockers, which can cost as little as $79.99.
"They (Best Buy) thought it would be great with gamers," Warner said. "They pulled it in and it blew up. They sold so many units."
Design is the key to the young company's success, he said.
"These buyers — Best Buy, Target, Wal-Mart, whoever it is — they recognize that's an intangible. Anyone who has the right design sense, that understands the customer, it's gold."
Best Buy, for example, has about a dozen products in various categories it wants AK to develop. They're not the only ones smitten by the company. Costco wanted AK to develop an office chair; Best Buy did likewise only a few weeks later. The AK Octane, for both gamers and office workers, was born.
"We have three main principles that have to be part of anything that goes out our door, whether it's a product or if it's product design or sales packet. It's got to be cool, it's got to be innovative and it's got to be intuitive. When you look at it, you get it. You know how to use it. It welcomes you to it. It's not something you have to figure out," Warner said.
It didn't take Brent Howard of Saratoga Springs any time to figure it out. The first version of the AK Rocker caught his eye while he shopped at Costco. He bought two, loved them and eventually bought two of the second generation.
"Me and my kids love to play with the PlayStation and stuff, so I got a couple at home," he said. "I'm in the home theater business myself, so that's why I brought some into my office, to sit in front of some plasmas here. People like them, including my little girl who's 5 years old and everybody up to me and my buddies and everybody who works for me."
Howard believes the AK Rocker price is a bargain. He loved the look, too — "it appealed to me as a racing seat for a tricked-out car" — and how it puts a person level with a TV screen.
"Other people have tried to make gaming chairs, but they (AK) hit it with the rocking part," Howard said. "When you're sitting there, you're slowly rocking. When we have meetings in my office upstairs, people fight after those chairs because they can slowly rock back and forth."
Warner's rocking of the video game furniture world started when he figured out the just-right design for a racing-style seat for home usage in mid-2003 while working as laboratory director at bag-maker Ogio. AK Designs was a spin-off partnership among Warner and two Ogio principals, and the two neighboring companies still share some services.
While Warner said AK's goal was to double its sales each of its first four years, it sold nearly 100,000 units in its first six months, more than tripled that the next year and is projected to more than double year-over-year sales this year.
Happy to remain a Utah-based company, AK plans to expand to offer perhaps five to 10 products in each of five product categories. Already it's working on desks, wire racks and TV stands, and Warner figures it will become a "company factory," spinning out firms as products are developed.
At its peak, he figures AK will have only 15 full-time workers.
"We want to be agile, flexible, versatile. We feel we can be a quarter-billion-dollar company with 15 employees," he said.
But those workers will have to be nimble and Formula One-quick.
"The work we do is fun, but with a healthy paranoia," Warner said. "You have to innovate or you'll die."
E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com