Success in sofas.

STARLING WITH $10,000 IN SAVINGS, FRANCISO PINEDO TURNED CISCO BROS. FURNITURE INTO AN $8 MILLION BUSINESS

In 1989, Francisco Pinedo was a 27-year-old, out-of-work upholsterer with $10,000 in savings and a dream he had held onto since childhood - to create the finest chairs and sofas possible and sell them to L.A.'s most famous shoppers.

And they say dreams can't come true.

The company he founded seven years ago with his wife and three brothers, Cisco Bros. Corp., is thriving, with a bustling 78,000-square-foot factory in South Central Los Angeles and 115 employees. This year, the firm expects about $8 million in sales - up from just $600,000 five years ago.

As for selling to the rich and famous, Cisco Bros.' couches, chairs and love seats make regular appearances on the sets of more than a dozen network and cable television shows, including NBC's hit sitcom "Friends" and MTV's "The Real World."

Furniture retailers credit the company's success to its unusually fashion-forward design sense. Specifically, Cisco Bros. helped pioneer a nationwide trend of leather and washable slip-covered furniture, in which funky, original fabrics and unusual designs in removable slip covers give sofas and chairs a heightened sense of artistry - and grant consumers an almost infinite array of choices when it comes to furnishing their living rooms.

"It's very high-quality," said Steve Melendrez, manager of Civilization, a specialty shop in Culver City that gave Pinedo his first big order in 1991 and is a favorite haunt of Hollywood's art director and set designers. "They were doing slip-covered pieces before anyone else."

Strolling along his noisy factory floor, Pinedo, a diminutive 34-year old with a wispy goatee, admitted that his success was a bit overwhelming - especially considering Cisco Bros.' humble beginnings.

The son of Mexican immigrants, Pinedo got his start in the furniture business as a junior high school student, when he took a job at a nearby upholstery shop in South Central L.A.

After graduating from high school, he moved on to the local plant of Virginia-based furniture giant Bassett Furniture Industries, where he remained for a decade before deciding to spend his savings on some sewing machines, a cutting board and upholstery tools, and leasing a small factory.

He called the company Cisco Bros. because his nickname is Cisco (short for FranciSco) and because he started it with his three brothers - Jose, Martin and Chavo.

The early days were tough. Pinedo had no credit, so each time he ordered fabric, he had to send a cashier's check before the mill would ship to him. L.A.'s high-end furniture stores, meanwhile, were wary of placing orders with such an unknown youngster.

So Pinedo started knocking on the doors of Hollywood's movie studios, where he had better luck. An executive at 20th Century Fox was impressed enough to order some chairs for his office. He went back to his Huntington Park workshop, worked all night and delivered the pieces the next day.

"They kind of liked that," Pinedo recalled. "They liked the service, so they started giving us more and more business."

Suddenly, the ball was rolling. "It got a little bit easier," Pinedo said. "Once you tell people that you're dealing with 20th Century Fox, they know at least that you can deliver the goods."

Things really picked up in 1991, when Pinedo met with the owners of Civilization, one of L.A.'s premier furniture stores. The store ordered 20 pieces on the spot.

With that volume, Pinedo could get fabric on 30-day credit from the mills. The items proved popular and Civilization started funneling more orders their way - as well as alerting other high-end retailers and designers around the country to the hot new kid on the block.

Not only did Cisco Bros.' work feature cutting edge designs, it also was less expensive than that of competitors - largely because of Pinedo's experience as a price-conscious textile buyer for Bassett.

A Cisco Bros. couch, it turned out, was something of a bargain. A sofa that another manufacturer would retail for $4,000, for example, Pinedo was able to sell for $3,000.

And in the early 1990s, with the country in recession, even furniture connoisseurs were looking for bargains.

Indeed, despite the economic downturn, demand for Cisco Bros. furniture surged, and the company began growing at rate of 200 to 300 percent.

Pinedo said he accommodated that growth by constantly reinvesting into the company and by keeping a close eye on his ability to deliver orders on time. "For a while, there were 10 or 15 (retailers) calling a day who wanted to carry our line," he said. "But we knew how much we could build. And we could not sell more than we could build."

The company has been better able to meet the growing demand since moving two years ago to its new home in South Central L.A.

Cisco Bros. now has more than 160 retailers around the country - mostly high-end specialty shops - and ships about 1,200 pieces a month.

Spotlight

Cisco Bros. Corp.

Year founded: 1989 Core Business: Design and manufacture high-end upholstered furniture. Top executive: Francisco Pinedo Sales in 1991: $600,000 Sales in 1996: $8 million Employees in 1991: 10 Employees in 1996: 115 Goal: To be the best company in the furniture industry. Driving force: Growing demand for attractive, casual, functional furniture.