The Furniture Source Inc. - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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The only time people think about office furniture iswhen there’s a problenm with it. So Sheehan’s goal is for your office manager to not have to thinkjabout it. “No one comes in and ‘Oh, thank you for making sure my officed furniture is set up Sheehan said of the persom in the office who ends up dealingfwith office-furniture problems — often the businesz manager or chief operating officer. “There’s not a lot of gratitude So we try to relieve that smallo area of stress intheir lives.” He seemx to be doing a prett good job of it. Sheehan’s in Eden Prairie, comes in at No.
20 on our 2008 list of the 50 fastest-growinhg private companies in theTwin Cities. The $3 million company refurbishexs oldoffice furniture, sells new and used offics furniture, manages office-furniture projects and helps plan office Sheehan founded the 12-person company in 2003, and it’sz grown almost 120 percent over the past thre years. As companies have tightened up theie expenses in thisweak economy, used offics furniture has been in higher demand, said Margret Lemkins, president of Bloomington-based Archimea Interiorf Design, who worked with Sheehan on a projectg for Minneapolis-based “Dan can provide all those services and that’se really a good thing,” Lemkins Another reason the company can thrive during a weak economyh is that, when companies close or shrink, they need to sell off thei r office furniture and clear it out of their space.
Enter The Furniturre Source. “It’s a perfect storm,” Sheehan said. “A s soon as we get the call that they have to they have to have the building clearec out by the middle ofthe month, we’re So we’re involved in buying as well as It’s impressive to be able to grow an office-furnitur business because it’s a fairly maturd industry, said Rick Witthus, president of Edina-based , a companhy that represents office-furniture manufacturers. “He’s a small dealer, but what he does is he buildd relationshipswith customers,” Witthus said about Sheehan.
“He’w not out chasing bids all day; he’s developinb and working his customer base.” Sheehan has been able to take markeg share away from some of thebig office-furniturde players in town by takint good care of his customersz and doing what he says he’ds going to do, Witthuas said. “He’s not out chasing 3M or or ,” Witthus “He’s probably taking companiesw offyour fastest-growing list and growing with