1973: Riding the Pony Express

During a sick leave from Chrysler in the autumn of 1973, Massey, whose father was in the meat and provisions business, came across a high margin product that he began selling from the trunk of his car and later from his first retail store. The product was pony skins.

"I would have the ten dollar skins cured, a hundred at a time, for another ten dollars each and then sell the better ones for $300 to $400," he said. The store was called Pony-Express Mtl. and it was on the fashionable Crescent Street in Montréal. During this time period Massey also began working on a new version of his sling back chair. The retail space, which had previously been a fashionable women's clothing store, sported three dressing rooms made from a high-end birch plywood. Massey used the wood to create some chairs and table frames. "I covered the chairs with the smaller pony skins and got some glass tops for the tables. Before I knew it people wanted to buy the grouping so I began to manufacture furniture for sale in my store. Everything was what we now call 'RTA' or 'Ready to Assemble'. Then it was called, as the Europeans named it, 'nomadic' furniture," he said. Massey was soon selling his furniture wholesale too.

1974 was a benchmark year for Massey and for futon history. "In 1974 I met two guys in the wood and molding business. Verner Amschwand, a wood buyer with General Wood and Veneer of Montréal, and Gus Gorsky, who was with Montréal Molding Products, introduced me to imbuia wood, better known as Brazilian iron wood. I would soon be looking to Brazil for the simple wooden parts for my chairs," he said. Massey met 'Wernie', as he calls Amschwand, in his retail store. Amschwand commissioned him to create a room full of furniture for his apartment. Massey created furniture for every room. A bed with incorporated night tables, a dinning room table and chairs with a serving trolley, and a huge L-shaped sofa with end tables and coffee tables. Massey's experience with Gorsky's molding operation led to his using dimensioned lumber with specs that he still uses, in part, to this day. It also acquainted him with Brazilian woodworkers. "Wernie set me up with several parts manufacturers who were making parts for the likes of Winchester rifles and Stanley tools. Big factories," he added.

Massey went to Brazil and began doing business with a factory owned by Dr. Mario Britto. "I was able to get all the cut pieces for a chair for $3.25 each. We would finish the pieces and shrink wrap a complete set (of chair pieces) on to a printed cardboard backing for sale at retail," he said. During this time Massey had also hooked up with two investors and through a series of unfortunate circumstances, during the next two years, even this apparent success ended in disaster. "We were flirting with a major piece of business, but things just didn't work out. In late August of 1976 I was locked out of my factory and my business was gone," he said.