Episode 67: Niche Market on the Big Island with Zak Jorski of Furnishings by Debi

Today Ted speaks with Zak Jorski of Furnishing by Debi, a consignment business set up on Hawaii’s Big Island. A creative endeavor, Furnishings by Debi works with well-traveled locals who are hoping to redesign their homes and need to offload their furnishings collected from all over the world.

Zak shares with us how it all began, how he keeps track of such an incredible inventory, and the finer details of imparting an object’s history to its next owner. With painstaking patience entire homes are documented, history is collected, and items are carefully packed off to his storefront or warehouses.

Listen in as Zak shares his process, how his business has grown, and how he keeps his clients happy.

Topics Discussed

• [3:05] How it all began
• [5:28] The software that keeps it organized
• [7:10] Deferring inventory
• [9:25] Stories from the beginning
• [11:30] Caretakers of history
• [12:45] Why documentation is important
• [15:45] How the store got its name

Connect with Guest

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Key Quotes from Episode

•  I just tried to bring a little bit of the mentality from the mainland, but blend it with the island, you know, because I was raised here, but I did spend a lot of time on mainland in business. So find that median where it works for both sides, which is really nice. You know, so my clients do enjoy that rapid response and you know, we take care of their needs.
• That’s what makes it so fun is to figure out the history and figure out the logistics and how to move that product and then find its next new life. Because we’re just caretakers for these pieces. Some of these pieces are already lived centuries.
• We do spend a lot of time researching the pieces just so we can know the past. So we probably spend four or five hours a day just on documentation and history and just learning ourselves, because that’s the funniest part I think about it, is knowing the product line. So you can pass on that history ambience with the piece of that documentation. And that’s what makes the piece so special too is if you lose the history on it, then you don’t have that ambiance or feeling with it, you know.