Ryan Begin: KG Showroom (Ormond Beach, FL)

Meet Ryan Bégin, co-owner of KG Showroom, located in Ormond Beach, FL. Ryan and his father, Laval, own and operate KG, a brick and mortar showroom and online retail store where "you'll find a large selection of quality brands for the kitchen and bath and dedicated showroom specialists to help coordinate your projects." 

The Story

• Growing up around the extended-family businesses. (The Bégins are coming up on 50 years in the kitchen and bath industry.) (4:10, 12:05)
• Architecture school at UF.  (17:51)
• From Modern Age to Kitchen Gallery: The late 80s economy and changing from factory to storefront (24:08)
• Trading architecture for international economics (25:56)
• Looking towards the expat life in China (27:19)
• An important epiphany: “And then it dawned on me, I didn't want to do that.” (28:09)
• Commission sales: “seeing how risk affects your daily life” (30:24)
• A bookkeeper goes MIA. “She had bled our family financially dry.” (31:59)
• Finding “the place I felt I could help the most…” (42:47)
• A “short term” position change (43:44)
• From business boom to The Great Recession (47:26)
• Taking it personally: digging out of the business’ debt for 3 years (44:15)
• Becoming an owner (48:23)

Ideas and Insights

• Connect to the community: look back, not just forward (5:40)
• The trend: people want “real” again (6:20)
• Is automation a threat? What COVID taught us. (7:45)
• When technology helps: fax machines for everyone! (10:57)
• Information and access control: two-way protection (38:50)
• Not the typical entrepreneur: a methodical style (20:14)
• “If you’re willing to do something well”: the money will come, the business will come. (21:30)
• Frank Lloyd Wright: a business owner as conductor (22:34)
• The employee culture of “you don’t want to get caught” doesn’t work. (41:51)
• The “undying hope” of the entrepreneur: “There’s never a “no” in my future.” (49:37)
• One “huge hurdle”: incorporating technology (50:50)
• Trusting your gut: The ultimate tool for learning and growth (53:59)
• The review process is critical: “what decisions have we made here? What am I doing? And what am I not doing?” (59:25)
• Own the consequences. (1:03:10)
• Success: "knowing that you’re on the right path." (1:06:00)

Miscellaneous Fun Stuff

• Ormond Beach: birthplace of speed (not the movie), and playground of Hudson Hornet (1:20)
• “I thought I was going to be a meteorologist. I laugh about it now but–. I wanted to study meteors.” (15:11)
• “‘Does anyone know what that's called?’ I said, it's a heat low. And he said, ‘Who said that?’ And that was my that was my claim–that was my day of fame right there.” (18:12)
• “Sometimes…I want to go off on a homestead and build furniture.” (102:59)
• “I’m gonna bring her [sourdough] starter with a field of wheat around me.” (1:12:33)