"We have three main principles that have to be part of anything that goes out our door, whether it's a product or if it's product design or sales packet. It's got to be cool, it's got to be innovative and it's got to be intuitive. When you look at it, you get it. You know how to use it. It welcomes you to it. It's not something you have to figure out," Warner said.

It didn't take Brent Howard of Saratoga Springs any time to figure it out. The first version of the AK Rocker caught his eye while he shopped at Costco. He bought two, loved them and eventually bought two of the second generation.

"Me and my kids love to play with the PlayStation and stuff, so I got a couple at home," he said. "I'm in the home theater business myself, so that's why I brought some into my office, to sit in front of some plasmas here. People like them, including my little girl who's 5 years old and everybody up to me and my buddies and everybody who works for me."

Howard believes the AK Rocker price is a bargain. He loved the look, too — "it appealed to me as a racing seat for a tricked-out car" — and how it puts a person level with a TV screen.

"Other people have tried to make gaming chairs, but they (AK) hit it with the rocking part," Howard said. "When you're sitting there, you're slowly rocking. When we have meetings in my office upstairs, people fight after those chairs because they can slowly rock back and forth."

Warner's rocking of the video game furniture world started when he figured out the just-right design for a racing-style seat for home usage in mid-2003 while working as laboratory director at bag-maker Ogio. AK Designs was a spin-off partnership among Warner and two Ogio principals, and the two neighboring companies still share some services.

While Warner said AK's goal was to double its sales each of its first four years, it sold nearly 100,000 units in its first six months, more than tripled that the next year and is projected to more than double year-over-year sales this year.

Happy to remain a Utah-based company, AK plans to expand to offer perhaps five to 10 products in each of five product categories. Already it's working on desks, wire racks and TV stands, and Warner figures it will become a "company factory," spinning out firms as products are developed.

At its peak, he figures AK will have only 15 full-time workers.

"We want to be agile, flexible, versatile. We feel we can be a quarter-billion-dollar company with 15 employees," he said.

But those workers will have to be nimble and Formula One-quick.

"The work we do is fun, but with a healthy paranoia," Warner said. "You have to innovate or you'll die."

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E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com