Eleven years ago Hastings school furniture manufacturer Furnware was doing well, but owner Hamish Whyte could see the beginning of the end of his business.
"When Sarah and I bought the business with her family it had 18 people - it was really easy to run. Every morning tea we sat around the same table with Huntley and Palmers crackers and cheese. Someone would say if someone was sick or if a machine was broken.
"Then in 1990 I felt we had this massive amount of loyalty around the schools of New Zealand but everyone wanted more discount - can you do it cheaper, can you do it quicker.
"There was the threat of China, a manufacturing giant across the water, so we embarked upon what we call our journey and we went into the schools of New Zealand."
Furnware redesigned their chairs using a year's research with Waikato University.
"They had three classrooms in three schools in Hamilton and they had rows of old furniture and rows of our furniture and at the end of every day they videoed and interviewed the students. We reduced the off-task behaviour by over 80 per cent.
"We discovered that about 38 per cent of all New Zealand children have headache and back pain while they are in class. We found out the biggest distraction to any child learning in school was noise.
"Through our research we learned more about our customer than they knew about themselves."
"That was a two-and-a-half year journey - $2 million. I literally mortgaged everything I had to do it because every time I went to a school and sat in the back of the classroom all I got was these teachers who suddenly adored me and hugged me.
"Kids would walk out of the classroom at Havelock North High School and it was the only room in the whole school that was tidy - they put their chair back under their desk and they started caring because they had a connection with it."
Despite their school chair jumping from $30 to $130, demand broadened Furnware's horizon.
"We went from a company selling to 2000 people, as in principals, to an unbelievable target market of 7 million."
Hastings Boys' High School principal Rob Sturch says he is looking forward to completing the school's chair-replacement programme.
"We know the boys like sitting in them and they last," he said.
"They lend themselves to students sitting up straight - there is none of that rocking business."
Students at the school are unanimous in their praise of the chair, especially the larger students.
Jay Barrett is 90kg and well over six foot tall.
He said the chairs were definitely better. "They're quite comfy and they bend well when I move - I learn better in them," he said.
The older chairs had the opposite affect, he said. "You can't think because your bum hurts."
On Thursday Furnware won Hawke's Bay Today Business of the Year Award at the 2011 Westpac Hawke's Bay Chamber of Commerce Business Awards, even though the day the judges visited, staff were in a bad mood.
Furnware had just learned an export order was shipwrecked off the coast of Tauranga.
"We were pissed off," said Mr Whyte.
"We have eight containers on the Rena so we actually want the oil off and we want it to sink - we really enjoy insurance.
"Onboard there is a shipment for a big new school in Saudi Arabia that has a lot of connection in the kingdom.
"Thankfully our suppliers and our team got together and we ship to them this week, so we can make the deadline for the opening of the school."
The Bodyfurn design success has seen exports climb over two thousand per cent in two years.
In the year ending March 2010 Furnware exported 12 containers. In 2011 it was 123 and this coming year it will be over 250.
The staff of 78 will be 100 by Christmas.
While China was once a threat it is now a prime opportunity.
"China is the perfect market for us because one child - one chance. There is high pressure on every child that goes to school.
"International schools, local schools, they basically do six days a week.
"They have three hours every night of homework - study is paramount and sport becomes last on the wish list."
He said the good reputation of New Zealand and Kiwis teaching overseas was helping business.
"We are finding the international schools hear our story, they invite us in and the second question usually is, where is it made. When we say New Zealand they say, thank God."