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BLUFFDALE - Persistence paid off for Scott Warner. Not to mention his ability to be both optimistic and, at times, annoying.

Just three years ago, Warner was working at Ogio International, a Utah-based maker of gear bags for sport equipment, when the company's president Mike Pratt suggested he think about designing a racecar-style seat for use in the home.

Warner, who was heading Ogio's design team at the time, took that idea one step further and sketched out a concept for what he describes as a "Formula 1-type racing chair" that would allow video game players to remain comfortable for long periods of time.

"We realized pretty quickly that this was going to be something that really wouldn't fit in well with Ogio's gear bag business," Warner said. "We decided we were going to need another company."

So Pratt, Warner and a third partner, David Wunderli, launched AK Designs to introduce what they dubbed the AK Rocker. Still, the pair were a long way from getting the chair into stores with only a prototype and a few pictures.

But Warner, president of AK Designs, was unfazed.

"As soon as I found out who the [company] buyers were at Costco and Best Buy I started calling them seven or eight times a week," Warner said. "And when I finally spoke to the buyer at Costco he said I was one of the most annoying and persistent people he'd ever run across."

It paid off.

Costco almost immediately put in an order for 120 chairs. They sold out within two weeks and the store ordered 10,000 more. Best Buy was AK Designs' second major customer, and was soon followed by Wal-Mart.

Warner conceded he was surprised by AK Designs' quick success. In its first six months, the company had sold thousands of units and had orders in hand for thousands more. To date, it has sold more than 400,000 of its chairs.

"I was able to leverage the fact that Ogio had done business with them before and was familiar with the way they wanted things done," Warner said. "So even though I was dealing with different buyers in different divisions, I think that helped."

Buyers who purchase inventory to fill Best Buy's stores end up acquiring a small percentage of the products they review, Best Buy spokesman Brian Lucas said.

"What is most important is that the supplier offers us something unique and then demonstrates they can meet demand and help drive growth of the product," Lucas said. "AK Designs showed us right up front with their product that they understood gamers and what they wanted in a chair."

Jim Depersia, president of the American Society of Furniture Designers, said it is unusual for new designers to see such quick success.

"There is a lot to learn," he said. "It isn't just a matter of drawing something on a napkin. Designers have to be able to identify their target market and be familiar with materials and the manufacturing process. And a lot serve apprenticeships where they get stain under their fingernails and sawdust in their hair."

Warner, a graduate of the Industrial Design Department at Brigham Young University, attributes the market acceptance of AK Designs' products to their simplicity. "They [AK Rockers] weren't trying to be anything more than a chair. There were no rumble packs in it, no stereos. It primarily was just comfortable to sit in."

AK Designs has followed that philosophy as it expanded its product line.

The company, at the request of two of its retail partners, has designed and is overseeing the manufacturing of a line of office chairs. Last month the company introduced its AK Creature line, which it describes as furry "skin" covered chairs that are designed to provide buyers interested in the "low-to-the-ground soft furniture category" an alternative to bean-bag style chairs.

AK Designs' early success, though, has been accompanied by what Warner describes as a healthy dose of paranoia.

"This is an industry where you have to innovate or die," he said. "There are so many new products that are being shown to retailers all the time that you can never be comfortable."