Dan Golden: Art Beneath Your Feet

You can see Dan Golden’s artwork on the walls of galleries and under your feet. Through a unique collaboration with interior designer Ford Lininger, Golden invigorated the world of rug-making with a sophisticated artistic vision. Dan Golden rugs have become fun and highly sought-after pieces of interior design. Behance caught up with Golden to discuss the ingredients for a successful collaboration and a productive business.

Like most entrepreneurs, Golden and Lininger started their collaboration prior to quitting their full-time jobs. Constant communication was critical, and the duo made use of Google’s free suite of products to stay in touch. As Golden recalls, "We worked on the project for nearly 9 months while working full-time jobs, so it was necessary to stay in touch but not always possible to speak face to face or on the phone.  We found Gmail's Documents and shared Calendar to be very useful so we could both update our 'To Do' list when we could."

While Business 101 might teach the importance of business plans, many entrepreneurs find the effort unnecessary or, in the process of idea generation, simply premature. Golden and Lininger ultimately never wrote one. As Golden explains, "It was on our ‘To Do’ list for months, but it was not entirely clear what it was we were setting out to do.  We are still open to taking our project in many different directions- from working on an art installation for a futuristic living model, to opening a store in Dubai. We want to grow organically and cannot pen down a specific goal other than having fun doing what we're doing. And we're doing that."

As for the frustrations faced along the way, Golden struggled with patience and the discipline to focus on the right audience. One of Golden’s first challenges was the production and outsourcing process. As he recalls, "We could not control lead times for our prototypes. We had hoped to launch our rug collection in Fall of 2006, but were not able to do so until Summer 2007. There was a lot of down time waiting for samples to be made. We learned that we needed a lot of patience." Golden also learned to hone in on a particular audience. "We knew we would be speaking to a small audience with a unique product, so it was very important for us to remember to keep searching for this audience and not be aiming to please a crowd."

Golden and Lininger are motivated by the desire to be "self-employed and have fun working in a creative, independent way." They are making it happen.