Ryden Rizzo

How did Allied Maker get its start?

I started the business in 2012 as an independent project while I was at the Parsons School of Design. I was pursuing a Design & Technology degree but along the way, I realized that the Product Design major would have been a better choice. I went to my professor and told him, “Listen – I just want to make things in my garage.” This was coming at a time when I was experimenting with new projects – I had become really interested in woodworking specifically. My idea was to make one new product every week and offer it at the end of the week for sale. That lasted a few weeks until I started making lighting. I made one lamp that was a block of wood with a brass socket on it and submitted it to GearPatrol. Eric wrote an article about me; next thing I knew, I had 70 orders for this lamp. I had made three of them until this point.

I told myself, I’m going to do this. I was working alone in my parents’ garage which I had taken over, as well as the living room for shipping and the basement for wiring. I pumped out 70 lamps – it was insane. Tons of late nights, and lots of sanding. But that snowballed into a few other blog posts and after that, I started gaining a ton of exposure via Pinterest.

And what happened after that?

I got my big break in 2013 when a very prominent French interior designer, Dorothee Meilichzon, placed an order for 120 lights for a hotel buildout. These weren’t the mini lamps either – she was ordering this brass articulating arm lamp that I prototyped. I thought to myself, shit, I’ve got to hire someone. A big problem was that I didn’t even know how to train anybody at this point, since I was still figuring everything out for myself. I remember eating a burrito at Tex-Mex with my friend who told me was looking for a job at the time – and I simply asked him, “Why don’t you work for me instead?”

I spent most of 2013 working on this order for Dorothee, and experienced the same scaling difficulties as I had with the little lamps since I had only made a few until then. I wasn’t traditionally trained as a designer, so I never thought to draw the fixture out and have a manufacturer produce them in bulk. No, I fucking hand turned every piece of wood that went into it. It was insane. I actually had to hire two more friends along the way, and they came in and we churned every single lamp out ourselves. When we were ready to ship, we didn’t even crate them. Three post office trucks showed up at my house and we filled them all to the brim. It was an insane time and a pivotal learning experience for me. There was never an advisor or investor to tell me what to do. I made a lot of mistakes, but looking back I was fortunate that I designed products that were easily replicable – meaning, I never prototyped anything that was so ambitious that I couldn’t actually produce.

Allied Maker fixtures feel warm and inviting when I look at them.

I recognize that there have been tons of designers before me who have laid the roots for this sort of style, but I feel like I played a part in reintroducing a certain aesthetic into the lighting world. Now you scour Etsy and you see it all the time. In fact, some of the companies we order parts from have started offering the parts we designed to others because it’s in such high demand.

Overall, though, I am thankful that we have a unique look that no one else can fully mimic. I’ve always considered our aesthetic as being really playful and naive. Our dome and glass signature look came about when I was checking out molds from a metal spinner. I felt that the simplicity of a hemisphere would lend it a certain ease with which it could be worked into a space. It’s a shape that hasn’t really existed before; I found one or two examples from the 1920’s that had a similar idea, but that was it. The collection expanded from there; I kept adding joinery methods and that led to the arc collection. As soon as the basic shapes and materials were set, it expanded.

Everything comes from the same basic playful roots and geometry. I always hated decorative touches people tend to add, like scrolls and all that superfluous stuff. It’s all about the line – I don’t want anything to screw that up. Our customers always say it’s hard to find someone who just strips it down to the bare essentials. Sometimes I feel like it’s easier to just over-decorate something.

I feel like any person working on a DIY project at home hopes for it to turn into something bigger.

My dad used to say, “If it was easy, everyone would do it.”  The reality is that it has proven to be incredibly difficult. You are responsible for every person that works for you, from their jobs to their well-being. Growing each department has produced its own unique challenges. There’s so much as an independent entrepreneur that is going against you; everything is trying to take you down. I am so thankful that we have incredible employees who pour everything into their work. They’ve been critical in growing the business.

I’ve heard from friends that one of the biggest challenges in-house manufacturers face as they grow is effective management of their employees. Have you found that to be the case?

This is where my wife Lanette came in. Before she joined us, I was very excited about the company and everyone who worked here and I was very generous – and people were taking advantage of that. Instead of managing the business and the employees, I just wanted to hang out and be friends and make things together. It sounds good in theory but it doesn’t actually work; my employees started getting demanding. Lanette came in and instantly saw that flaw. Right away, she set some basic parameters like giving advance notice when requesting vacation time, conducting work reviews, and even implementing basic standards of cleanliness and safety. The original five people who worked here all ended up quitting.

You grew up here in Sea Cliff. Did you give any thought to opening up a workshop closer to NYC?

I enjoy reminiscing on the days when we were first working out of my parents’ garage. It was so serene. When I was scoping out larger spaces a few years ago, I wanted something similar that was quiet, low key, and insular, but I figured that I should consider some spaces in NYC – so I drove in to check out some spots in Brooklyn and Industry City. I found them to be so cold and uninviting. I remember the amount of traffic I sat in just to get to the space and the lack of parking once I arrived. Everything just didn’t want me there, and I was just so frustrated. I felt like I didn’t need all that.

I’m not someone who goes out or networks, so being here in Sea Cliff suits me well. I feel like it’s really important for me to be here, working in a quieter space because I feel a strong duty to make new work. It’s more than a business for me. It’s a love for the work.

You and Lanette became parents a year ago, and that happened during a crazy period of growth.  

I remember finishing the last sample for ICFF and Lanette called me saying, “I think my water just broke.”  And we just went with it. Landen was two weeks old and he was at ICFF with us. He was born on a Saturday and Lanette was back at work on that Tuesday. At first she thought she could just answer emails from home, but it turned out that she couldn’t. There’s even a photo of her on the phone with a computer in labor.  Nobody was telling her she had to do that either. I kept telling her to put it away!

Landen’s just been with us through it all, and what he’s brought to our family has been amazing. Nothing is more fun than going to grandma and grandpas and hanging out and playing on the weekends. It’s given us that family dynamic that we’ve always wanted.

What are some adjustments you’ve made as parents?

We quit smoking.  We were intense chainsmokers at one point and it had become part of my process. But aside from that, honestly, it’s just a little more challenging to manage our time here. We have to schedule his care. And in a lot of ways, it makes us healthier. We used to work through the weekends but we take them off now. It’s been critical to add some balance to our lives.

We have amazing family though too which helps.  My parents are great and our niece is essentially our full time nanny. It’s super manageable for us now. I credit that to him being an easy baby.

Any mistakes you look back upon?

To be honest, we grew a lot last year. I was recently looking back on things and found that I missed the simplicity of how it all used to be. I would wake up, have a coffee and a cigarette, hang in the garage and play with a few things. My friend who worked for me would come over and tell me about the problems he was having as we worked and we would hang out. It was a really nice flow that obviously wasn’t sustainable, but it was super romantic.

Now it feels like I blinked and we have this big company, a ton of employees we are responsible for, this huge space we’re paying rent on, tens of thousands of parts in inventory, and a baby. I feel like we added so much so quickly. But I don’t think that was a mistake; it was what I wanted and what we as a company wanted. It just happened faster than I thought. Sometimes I feel like giving into the pressure but I have to be stronger and snap myself out of it. I have a duty to keep moving forward because there are a lot of people that count on us.