"Why was it a success? The main reason I suppose was because it was innovative, new.

New because the beds are wooden: when I set out nearly all the antique-style beds you could get hold of were brass.

New because I used cherrywood, which has since become much more commonplace, but in those days was rarely found in England. We've now built up a large collection of different wood beds, including rosewood which as far as I'm aware is still not something used by anyone else in the entire western world.

And new because the designs were French: people were aware of these beds, they were somehow there in their consciousness, but they just weren't available.

And, especially at first, because I had the luck most businesses need to succeed.

I started the company in 1982, but I'd first become involved in furniture the previous year. I was commodity broking at the time, and we happened to own a window looking out onto Beauchamp Place.

One of my partners observed that this window had been empty for a year and looked a bit shabby, so I stuck some rather nasty veneered yew furniture in it, then carried on concentrating on pork bellies or whatever it was.

And lo and behold a Canadian chap came in and asked if it was for sale. I thought, "My God, I hope he doesn't ask any questions", but he bought four thousand pounds worth, and I decided it might be worth taking a bit more interest.

So I went to the East End, which in those days was still the best place for these things, and started trawling round exhibitions and sale rooms, and in the course of this had two important encounters. The first of these was a Frenchman I met at an exhibition looking rather neglected and sorry for himself, but whose furniture was incredibly solidly made, built like a tank. Quite different from many of the English reproductions I'd been looking at up until then, which were soft and damaged easily. Unfortunately his stuff was all Louis XV, aggressively French, not at all to the English taste, which probably explained his rather forlorn appearance.

My next stroke of luck was that, during my broking days, I'd been able to do a good turn for a Smithfield man who, partly with my help, managed for a good few months to corner the market in imported turkeys. This set him up very nicely, and when he found out I was interested in furniture he introduced me to all the best craftsmen in the East End. "You set me up in turkeys, I'll set you up in furniture. One good turn deserves another." Through them I learned in three months what might have taken ten years.

Then by pure chance - again - I found out that Liberty's were having problems with their furniture department, and managed to land 600 square feet of the shop. I could call it Simon Horn Furniture, and all I had to do was give them 25% of my sales, a wonderful way to set up a company, no overheads and a built-in footfall. The first year's turnover was £47.000,-, which we've taken on a Saturday here before now, but the next year it doubled, and then the next. But most importantly it taught me two things. Firstly it taught me about furniture, but the main thing I learned was that there are significant numbers of people who will pay good money for good quality copies.

That's where I learned the trade: the people who made things and the public that bought them. While I was there I got to know a lady in the linen department, and suggested to her that displaying her bedlinen on my French beds might improve sales. Which it did, but mainly of the beds; as fast as I was putting them out on the floor, the public were buying them. At this point I suddenly realised I'd hit a void in the market.

Because of that the original beds are much too small for us. The French have a great tradition of bed-making, a different style for every epoch, but all with the same standard of craftsmanship.

I took the elements I needed from that tradition, and as I say realised I'd found a niche.

So when I moved here in 1984 I knew I had the right formula: to find something unusual, in design and in material, and to build it to the highest quality. It went on succeeding because more and more people became aware of it, partly by word of mouth, but much of the credit is due to the work put in by Sheila FitzJones and her people. I'd had a succession of PR companies, who all seemed to work on the same lines. They'd charge me a monthly fee, then after about six months apologise that they hadn't got me into anything and the relationship would end.

Then one evening a lady came in - I was all on my own, the lights were off to save on bills - and said "Mr Horn, no-one knows about your lovely beds. You really must tell them". So I shared my opinion on the benefits of PR, and assumed that would be the last I'd see of her. A few weeks later she again came in, and once more insisted that the world should know about my beds and that she could bring this about, and once again I gave her the brush-off.

When she turned up a third time it finally dawned on me that she wasn't just trying to get another account, she actually believed she could do me some good. So I asked who she represented, and she reeled off a great list of some of the biggest names in interiors.

What I didn't know was that Sheila had practically invented PR for design and interiors, was incredibly successful, and only took on clients she believed in. She and her team have been doing a fantastic job for me ever since, and we've become great friends.

Of course, if you've got a PR company, the danger is that you'll start to believe all the nice things they keep saying about you. But success is never achieved single-handedly: the trick is to surround yourself with people you like and respect, so that when they disagree with you, you are prepared to listen. People like Prue, my wife, who has seen me through some pretty tough times, and the staff who work with me here and in France, many of whom have been with me throughout.

You also need vision. In order to help Sheila help me, I've got to keep giving her something to write about. What was new at first was quickly copied, but we're continually trying to come up with new ideas, and we've had some great successes and a lot of fun.

Like the nursery furniture we created in 1993, which was many years in the making, completely unique and struck an immediate chord. Or our pull-out beds, everyone was making two single beds that become a double, but none of them really worked. We therefore designed a completely unique mechanism, with a 'proper' comfortable double bed mattress.

Then a few years ago the magazines decided they didn't want to show traditional furniture, the trend was for 'contemporary' designs. So the challenge was to come up with something that met this change without compromising the standards that mark us out. The Florence blond maple lit bateau emerged from that process; and as far as I know no-one else in England is making one.

All these were great PR instruments. You hope a magazine will pick that up, and if it interests a reader he or she will visit the showroom and find plenty of other pieces to look at.

I've also had to bear in mind that a whole new generation of potential customers has emerged in the eighteen years since I started. Things change, and I've had to change as well to stay ahead.

My latest project is what I'm currently calling the 'e-bed'; a bed packed with electronic gizmos - tv, cd, dvd, what have you. You can ring it from a dinner party and ask it to warm itself up, and it will be ready for you when you get home. The biggest difficulty with this one has been keeping up with all the changes in technology, but it should be launched in April next year.

I'm an entrepreneur - some might call me an inventor - and have never really liked working for other people. And I've always enjoyed taking calculated risks. The business would never have succeeded if I hadn't been a risk-taker, hadn't tried to do something new all the time. What really gives me a kick is the thrill of creation, of coming up with an idea or an article that hadn't existed before."