Gabbert: Wasted eight years pursuing multiple side ventures before focusing Room & Board
John Gabbert · Room & Board: John Gabbert. A Broken Deal, a Family Rift, and the Birth of a Furniture Giant · May 11, 2026 · at 25:22
Room & Board founder John Gabbert reflects on diversifying into side businesses like Bedrooms for Kids instead of focusing solely on Room & Board.
0:00 / 0:19exact quote · 20.0s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“I spent those next six or eight, eight years. I did a variety of things. I started a business called bedrooms for kids. I had a wholesale showroom. I bought a design studio. So I spent, as I look at it now, I kind of wasted eight years doing things instead of building room and board.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from John Gabbert
Gabbert: Private Equity Firms Ruin More Businesses Than They Grow
“One, if you'd looked at their performance generally They've ruined more businesses that they've grown. They just don't, one, they think they're smarter than the owners of people that created the business in the first place. Second, they think they can over lev…”
Gabbert: 100% Commission Salespeople Work for Themselves, Not Their Employer
“The truth is if somebody's working for you on a hundred percent commission, they're working for themselves. They're not working for you.”
Gabbert: Father Refused to Honor Signed 1980 Buyout Agreement for Family Business
“I went, simply went to him, said, here we have the agreement, and he said, I'm not gonna do it. I said, we have a legal agreement, and he said, oh, I'm not gonna do it.”
Gabbert: Treating furniture as a fashion business is a big mistake
“Much of the industry thinks they're in the fashion business, and I think it's a big mistake. We think we're in the business of good design, so you'll be happy with it Five years from now, 20 years from now, but we're definitely not in the fashion business from…”
Gabbert: Estranged from family for at least a decade after company split
“I basically didn't see family for at least 10 years.”
Gabbert: Specialized component manufacturing cuts furniture costs and expands customer choice
“So the unique thing we bring to the process is we bring the design, and then we have these different manufacturers Make the components, which actually reduces the cost of the piece, because we got these specialists doing what they do really well. And it has th…”