The Woodpreneur Podcast

200th Episode with Steve and Ethan “One of my favorite quotes ever that has been really a big driver for me is one by Jay-Z. He said, ‘Nine to five is how you survive; I ain’t trying to survive, I’m trying to live it to the limit and love it a lot.’ That’s been a huge motivator for me.” Steve Larosiliere Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. This is our 200th episode, and today we’re going to switch things up a little bit! Today Steve is joined by Ethan Abramson, host of the Building a Furniture Brand Podcast, the fastest-growing podcast for furniture designers and makers out right now. Ethan is also a fantastic interviewer and a great person, so for the 200th episode, Ethan will be interviewing Steve about his life and career. In episode 100, Steve had his very first guest on the podcast interview him, so episode 200 is a return to form. Check it out! “I started the podcast six years ago. My background before that was in Marketing and Entrepreneurship. I had a marketing company, my first career that I ran for three or four years, and then I started working in the nonprofit field. I did that until earlier this month, but I ran that for 18 years. So I have a lot of experience with Marketing and Entrepreneurship and starting businesses. The organization that I started mentors kids; I grew it nationally and helped over 10,000 kids. I raised lots of money, I built networks and marketed each part, so I did a lot of stuff.” Steve Larosiliere Read More

“Woodworking is very emotional; it just calms me down. We’ve been through a lot in life, and it’s the one thing where I feel focused and free. So it’s just something that I always want to be doing.” Mike Leas Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today, your host Steve Larosiliere sits down with Mike and Cindy from MikCin Creations. Recently, when Steve gets asked how to get started in the business by aspiring Woodpreneurs, he refers them to listen to the Woodpreneur Podcast, and Mike and Cindy took that advice and ran with it. While Steve was working on his woodworking projects in Michigan, Mike reached out to mention that he had been listening to the Woodpreneur Podcast and had been applying the lessons to make money. Steve immediately pulled Mike and his family into an Instagram Live conversation to talk about the process they went through to get where they are now. A Long Hard Road “It’s a long story, but the short part of it is we started doing this, just like a lot of other makers and woodworkers, out of necessity. We didn’t have a lot of money, and we moved around a lot, and we were having a hard time financially at the beginning of our marriage. So we’ve had like three cars stolen within our first four years of marriage, our house flooded, we literally had to swim out of our home, and things like that. We were always struggling financially, but we finally got ourselves to a point where we were starting to pick back up.” Mike Leas “We were living in a rental, but the lady we were renting from let us paint, so I started painting the walls. Then I started painting our furniture, and I started painting artwork. And that led to like, ‘Can you make me this? Can you make me that?’ We needed some stuff around the house like shelves built and stuff like that. I was tired of the same stuff that I had from college that I got from dumpsters or hand-me-downs, and I was just tired of the same boring gold, copper, and burgundy colors. I need something fresh, so we just painted everything that we had.” Cindy Leas Although they didn’t have a garage or a proper space to work in, Mike and Cindy used their carport to great effect with a cheap sander and a circular saw. Mike would pick up pallets from work, look on Pinterest to see how to do the projects, and start working on them. Read More

“It’s not just for resin. I didn’t want resin in the actual name because you can use it for concrete, you can use anything on it, and it doesn’t bond. So I didn’t want to restrict it to only resin or epoxy as it has multiple purposes.” Corné Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast; today, your host Steve sits down with Corné and Aaron, owners of Makers Reusable Mold (MRM). Recently the Woodpreneur community has been taken by storm by the incredible quality and usability of Corné and Aaron’s ingenious molds. Part of what makes MRM so capable of delivering quality products is that Corné and Aaron have their own maker business, Arisan Wood, as well. Corné has a long career as an artist, and Aaron has around 15 years of experience making wood products, primarily furniture. When epoxy began to take the wood industry by storm, Corné and Aaron joined in the excitement and began using epoxy almost five years ago. However, they quickly grew tired of making poor quality molds to pour the resin into their pieces, so they decided to take matters into their own hands. Read More

Brian Presnell: Indy Urban Hardwood Co. Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today your host Steve Larosiliere sits down with Brian Presnell from Indy Urban Hardwood Co. Born and raised in Indianapolis Indiana, Brian studied at the Herron School of Art and Design and studied furniture and sculpture back in the 90s. Brian worked in a variety of museum positions, building things and recycling materials for exhibits and developing his own understanding of urban wood before the term had been coined. In 2000, the museum he was working at underwent some renovations and cleared a load of trees out from the property. Brian then had the idea to bring in a Woodmizer to cut up some of the logs into usable timber. Now 20 years later, it’s an incredible story. “They were renovating the building, and when they cut some of these big trees down to make space for a new parking garage, I ran over to the horticultural people and said ‘Hey, can we recycle the logs?’ And they're like, ‘What are you talking about?’ Really, the first time I thought there might be a use for this stuff was back then I was just getting going. I had a studio, I studied furniture design, and so I mean, by virtue of being a starving artist, in a way was how I started finding reclaimed and recycling material. There was a furniture factory on the east side. And I used to dumpster dive and get maple and cherry and other stuff to make some of my early projects with.” Brian Presnell Read More

Welcome back to another episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today, we are revisiting our episode with Matt Ruben from Ruben Custom Sawmilling and Woodworks. Matt started about three years ago when he decided to buy a Woodmizer IT 40 standard. When he began, he watched many YouTube videos learning about the potential profit that he could earn from running an independent sawmill as a one-person operation. Currently, Matt is focusing primarily on portable sawmill work, selling live edge slabs, and developing the custom projects part of his company. Matt explains that he had almost no woodworking experience outside of high school woodshop, but he didn't let that stop him as he fell in love with the experience of opening up logs to see the many different types of beauty that they contain. Read More

Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today, your host Steve sits down with Brent Jarvis of Clean Cut Woodworking. Unlike most of the other guests on the podcast, Brent is a manufacturing company, not solely a woodworker. Brent is located in New Orleans, Louisiana, where woodworkers are a bit of a rare breed. Despite, or perhaps because of that fact, Brent really enjoys working and selling his products in the region. “It all started about seven or eight years ago, something like that. My daughter said she wanted a bed for Christmas. I built her a bed with a jigsaw and our palm sander basically, so that was where the woodworking pretty much started. I got the bug and went from there. I did custom orders for about two years just building a shop, getting tools, doing that. Then I thought, hey, I can make some money off of this.” Brent Jarvis Read More

Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today, your host Steve sits down with the first three-peat guest Jake Latvala from Ol Loggin Sawmill and Ol Loggin Epoxy. Jake's Woodpreneur journey has been chronicled through the podcast. During his first appearance, he was just beginning his business; he hadn't even quit his day job at the time. By his second appearance at the podcast, he was well into full-time working on his own business. At this point, Jake has been developing his business for years now. He has been creating content and building furniture and has already dug deep into branding and developing his epoxy brand as well! Read More

This week on the podcast we talk about different financing options for your wood company. Many woodpreneurs are working part-time in their wood company before they transition into being a full-time business owner. Others decide to jump right into being full-time and bet on themselves or work from their savings. In this episode, we will talk about some of the options for funding your start-up wood company. From private loans to business plans and grants, this isn't one you want to miss. Tune in and join us for another great episode! Read More

This is the last podcast episode of 2021. If I think back to this past year, this was a record-breaking year for my agency and me, and a lot of my clients. I've had three people go full time this year, like quitting their job during a pandemic to go all-in on their passion, their Woodpreneur business. I'm super proud. Some of my brand clients just had great years. And it reminded me that the outside world shouldn't dictate what happens in your inside world and your business. You only fail when you decide to give up. I've encountered a lot of Woodpreneurs that are afraid of failure. But I've found that the more risks you take, especially calculated risks, the more successful you become. Read More

Justin Ephraim: Reduxwood Revisited Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur podcast. It's not really a brand new episode, it's actually a repeat episode! To end off the year we're going through some of my favorite interviews. This one is with Justin from Reduxwood out in Vietnam. Talk about a big vision! He gets his stuff from the bottom of the Panama Canal, and all-over Asia. He's got a showroom in Canada, San Diego, and also the UK. So if you want to get inspired, check out Reduxwood. We'll have brand new episodes of the podcast starting in 2022. I can't believe it. I hope you all are having a good holiday season, and I'm excited to continue to serve you all next year. Read More Here

Mara Harding: Mara Designs On today’s episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast, we re-visit a favorite from our last season of the podcast, our sit down with Mara Harding. Mara began her journey into the wood industry when she was 41, because when her children began to reach the double-digit ages, she began to wonder what her purpose was on the planet. At the time, she owned and ran an advertising agency, and while she had several big clients she felt that it was not her calling, so she shut the agency down at the age of 40. After that point, Mara took about four months to decide what she wanted to, and she had an opportunity to create some Christmas designs out of wood, which led to her “aha moment.” This revelation caused her some issues as she had no training, no passport, no experience, and no access to mentors in Jamaica that could teach her woodworking.

Laura Sissoko: Atlantic Fine Woods Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast! Today, your host Steve Larosiliere sits down with Laura Sissoko from Atlantic Fine Woods. Laura's story and the story of Atlantic Fine Woods began about ten years ago. "I studied architecture in school, and I was interested in furniture design. And I had been working for a furniture designer in New York City for a while. My father saw an opportunity when Gibson Guitars was getting raided for having allegedly illegally sourced ebony and other exotic woods. The country where I was born, the Central African Republic, had recently started a managed forest system with neighboring countries, The Congo and Cameroon. So we knew that we had a single chain of custody source for exotic woods, and that's how we started. Several years into it, there was a coup d'etat in the Central African Republic, and we were no longer able to export ethically. That's when we had to switch to domestic wood, and that's when we also started hearing about urban lumber. So that was our next step, and it's thriving and doing great." Laura Sissoko Adapting and Changing From the time they started the company to now, a lot has changed. Not only have they swapped from importing exotic woods to harvesting domestic, but Atlantic Fine Woods has also been doing a lot more furniture projects over the last five years. Since they are located in the urban center of Atlanta, they recognize that not everybody has the knowledge, tools, or space to make their own tables. So they have been doing a lot of custom work for their client base. Currently, their main products are kiln-dried live edge slabs that they sell to other woodworkers and DIYers. Laura notes that the first few years of selling exotic woods were relatively slow since it was a new business. However, when they pivoted the company to selling domestic wood, they could use it as a marketing opportunity and go to all of the local papers and design blogs. Knowing their Audience As a result of pivoting their business model, Laura has found that their client base is far more interested in urban lumber than exotics. Additionally, Atlantic Fine Woods has managed to become the primary destination for people within the central area of Atlanta. "Atlanta has this ring highway around it, and it's considered inside the perimeter and outside the perimeter are the kinds of cultures of Atlanta. For the most part, our customers are inside the perimeter, sort of city people. I believe outside of the perimeter; there is access to sawmills and that kind of thing if you go maybe an hour and a half, two hours out of town. So we're mostly the city people, and our custom business has been growing beautifully. What we'd like to do is open a retail store with tops and do work with a blacksmith. So we'd like to have people just kind of choose their tops and bases and do like that in a beautiful retail setting that is not a dusty warehouse." Laura Sissoko Read More

This week on the podcast it's a note from your host Steve! As we move into the holiday season, don't forget to keep your foot on the gas pedal! Steve also catches us up on the news for Acres of Timber, Purpose Wood Co., and unveils his new Woodpreneur Mastermind and conference plans for 2022. Check it out and we hope you are going into the new year excited to keep making big moves in your wood business! Read More Here!

Hey everyone! Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur podcast. Today's guest is Zach Wicks From Wood By Wicks, based in Edmond, Oklahoma. Zach has been working for himself for thirteen years, but he describes his business as truly being realized around eight years ago. It started when Zach thought it was a great idea to harvest some cedar from his property. So he cut some cedar trees down and thought he was going to process them with a chainsaw. After one log, though, he knew the chainsaw wasn't going to cut it. "Handling the material is extremely hard, just getting it along from point A to B. That's kind of why I was thinking, "Well, maybe I should take this wood to a sawmill." So I took it to Woodmizer. As soon as I saw the Woodmizer process that log, I knew I needed to have one. It took a while to get my Woodmizer. I've been selling wood for eight years. And I was paying other sawmills to cut my wood and then taking that wood. But I was really good at selling beautiful pictures of wood that I salvaged." Zachary Wicks The Business Today Today, Zach's business is entirely based on mobility. He notes that the only reason he didn't buy a sawmill until as late as he did was that he lives in a residential setting, and there was no place for it there. He would have loved to run a mill out of his backyard, but it was just not an option in his area. "I literally keep my sawmill in a storage unit. If I need to use my sawmill, it's 100% portable, so like I never cut here, I'm going to the logs 100% of the time. It takes a lot of preparation as it's the same amount of prep work to cut for one hour as it is for 10 hours. I've cut for hundreds of people, but cutting for people has to make sense. It needs to be a minimum of half a day, including the cutting and a setup fee. I love cutting for people if they agree with the $100 an hour price and the setup fee. Then I primarily just cut for myself. All the wood I cut is pretty much for myself." Zachary Wicks Alongside his milling operation, the other half of Zach's business is his lumber sales. He explains that he wouldn't be where he is without the community and support around him. One notable element of Zach's business is that many of his buyers will buy wood from him within 12 hours of acquiring it. Since Zach's goal is to save as many trees as possible, this quick turnover helps him enormously. Most of the time, he can sell all of his white woods quickly, and he stores his walnut pieces as they move much more slowly. Read More

Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today, your host Steve Larosiliere sits down with Marc Dubac of Windwood LLC. Like many other Woodpreneurs, Marc got his start in woodworking during downtime from his primary career. “I play in the Oregon symphony. That's my full-time job. During the summertime, we don't have work, so we only have work for nine months out of the year, basically. In the summertime, generally, my musician colleagues and I would travel around the country and play in different music festivals. A lot of them are really good. And some pay really well, too. But I had young children at the time, and it was just kind of a pain to haul screaming children across the country for sometimes good pay, and sometimes not. So I kind of got into just doing handyman work for neighbors. I just wanted to be able to stay at home and work and through that process, I think I just got enamored with woodworking.” Marc Dubac Marc spent time listening to the Woodpreneur Podcast, as well as another major inspiration, the Wood Whisperer podcast, which caused him to fall in love with hardwoods. From there, he did a swan dive into woodworking and set up a home shop in his garage. Read More

Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today's guest is John Graves from City Hardwoods of Birmingham, Alabama. City Hardwoods started because of the difficulty that many hobbyist woodworkers in Birmingham had with sourcing hardwood lumber. "There used to be a few big distributors that folks would go buy from, but they kind of closed down to the public. And so, a couple of guys came up with this whole idea. We opened up a place where the hobbyist can walk in pick through every stick of lumber that we have here with no minimums or anything like that. So we've been here for about six years, and the building we're in now we've been here for about three years. It's just been a need around this place. As everybody knows, it's hard to find good hardwood lumber, live edge slabs, stuff that's actually been dried properly and essentially ready to ready to make a piece of furniture out of." John Graves Read More

Today we talk to Josh Clarkweiss from Full Circle Forest Products and discuss sustainability, creative business practices, grants, and more. In this episode, we explore how the focus on sustainable forestry has changed consumer habits and we discuss the perspective that folks hold about urban lumber. We also dive into an incredibly important aspect of running a wood company, delegation. As we've touched on before, you need to be using your time for the highest value tasks and remember that just because you can do everything, doesn't necessarily mean you should. Josh also participated in the Woodpreneur Mentorship program and discusses what he learned in terms of branding as well as the valuable connection with other wood businesses. Check out this episode for a great story and some killer marketing advice on "stale" products. Check out our Website

Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today's guest is Randall Williams from Fireside Farm and Sawmill. Randall explains that the farm side of the business started first when he and his wife moved to a nine-acre homestead together. They were both teachers and wanted to live a life around growing food, raising livestock, and tending to their community. When they first moved, Randall had some difficulty with some giant pine trees right behind the house. So he called a forester to come and look at them, and then a logger who said the only option was to clear cut the area. That option horrified Randall, so he decided to fell and mill the trees himself. One of his neighbors who owned a sawmill came by to consult with Randall, and he said that it was possible, but it would take a long time. So he sold Randall his old sawmill, which Randall then used to start milling all of that lumber for use around his property. "At that point, people started bullying me to mill their lumber. At the time, I was teaching at a Quaker school in Durham, and on the weekends, I was milling lumber for other people. That kind of started the process where I started selling lumber and then coming up with a fee structure to mill for other people. In 2017, my wife and I left our jobs teaching and went all-in on the farm. And at that point, I ramped up the sawmill operation, which has been going full time for the last four years. Nowadays, I run the farm operation, and my wife grows cut flowers mainly for weddings." Randall Williams Read more here!

Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today, Steve sits down with Alma Rosa Villalobos of Pink Soul Studios. Like many woodworkers, Alma's first influences came from her family. Her grandfather was a woodworker, and her mother provided a super creative effect on her as well. Alma bought her first house in Detroit when she was 24, and because she couldn't afford much at the time, she started building things as she needed them. Soon after, Alma started making things for her family and friends and slightly further afield. She moved away from woodworking for several years as her interest in engines grew, especially those for smaller motorcycles and vintage scooters. However, after her son was born and they moved to Chicago, she wanted to make his toys and furniture, and the woodworking passion reignited. "I was just self-taught! I wanted a vintage Becka in my 20s, and I met a cool bunch of kids my age, and we had a club called the Jedi Knight scooter club. We were super nerds. We did the whole knighting with the lightsaber type thing. We would get together as often as we could and teach each other how to work on bikes and small engines and things like that. It was just something to do, and I wanted to ride, but I couldn't find anyone to really work on those bikes. That just grew from there, and I started getting into bigger bikes and things like that." Alma Rosa Villalobos Understanding Branding Steve notes that Alma has an exceptional sense of self and her branding is already on point. She believes that Instagram was the most significant part of the growth she has experienced in her business so far. Alma describes herself as a terrible hype man for herself. Although she can hype up her friends and family, she struggles with advertising for herself, and Instagram (especially early on) provided a relatively easy place to grow and find community. "I just posted what I was doing, and anything that I was proud of, and people would start to DM me and ask me, "Hey do you do this? Can you make this?" I'm fortunate enough to be able to kind of say yes or no to certain jobs, but I'd say just Instagram is where I got a lot of my clients in the beginning. Once I got into CNC work, I was making templates for other makers or things like that. I got really into making push sticks once I got my CNC, and so the majority of my sales were from other makers, so it was cool to see that." Alma Rosa Villalobos Alma considers herself very fortunate to pick and choose the jobs and projects that she wants to do. Since she doesn't make her living from these projects, she considers all of the money she makes as extra. This freedom means that Alma can put her heart and soul into whatever she works on and not lock her into working with only one style. Originally, Alma intended to be a graphic design artist, and she considers herself pretty artistic, which has aided her in branding her business. She notes that she's not the biggest fan of pink, but when people scroll through social media for woodworking, the color makes her profile stand out in a sea of brown, green, black, and white. Read More

Steve Larosiliere: Season Recap Today we have a recap episode of the podcast, we’re going to talk about some of the awesome guests we’ve had, and dive into some current trends happening in the wood business. First off I want to give a shout-out to my partner Ethan at the Building a Furniture Brand Podcast, he has been absolutely crushing it. It’s been amazing watching him grow that podcast. You can check it out on Woodpreneurlife.com or any other podcast platform. Looking back at the podcast, it has been about four months since we’ve taken a break, so this is a good time to check-in and recap. I feel grateful that the podcast continues to grow and I love the community that's been building around it, it is absolutely amazing. I wanted to talk about a couple of things today. First off, I'd love some feedback. What do you all think about the advice that I give? I'm getting good feedback, but I'd love to hear more about that. The other thing that I want to talk about is: who else do you want to see on the podcast moving forward? I feel like that's an even more important question. Who do you want to see? Who are the Woodpreneurs out there that inspire you and motivate you when you look at them on social media and you see what they're doing? Looking Back at Everything we’ve Accomplished I ended up moving back to Chicago. My house is semi-finished but we got the flooring and I'll post that to Instagram when the house is completely done. We also ended up making some butcher block countertops for our island. My time in Michigan was amazing. I feel like I further connected to the wood and sawmill industry and got an even better sense of what you all need. When I look back at the past couple of months, there have been a few people that I want to highlight. Ryan Cochrane: We talked about building community. Mat Makin Things: He approaches it from pure organic content, a sort of generalist’s perspective. If you listen to Pete Parisi’s episode, I walk everybody through what it takes to start a business from scratch. Matt Ruben: He quit his job. He was also a client, I worked with him, built his website, coached him, and now he’s full-time in his business. Kyle Kidwell: An amazing furniture maker. If you want to talk about what it takes to build a furniture line, that's a good one to listen to. Matt Morgan: Another incredible episode worth giving a listen to. Christian and Lauren: They started a business with just an iDRY and then expanded into the urban lumber and slub industry. Danny Torres: Another incredible woodworker with an amazing business. There are so many amazing people on the podcast, and the downloads just keep going up. I also want to talk about some trends that I'm seeing. One is, I'm seeing more and more stories out there, I'm seeing more people talk to the camera. This is great, because what it does is it allows you to connect more with your audience. I'm also seeing a lot more videos. Video is great because that's what the social media platforms want, they want more video, no more stills. You kind of need to see the behind-the-scenes of how things are being done. The day and age of just having finished product shots are done. You just need to show more videos. The brands that are winning more are the ones that connect more to their audience. So they're telling more of the story of the product and highlighting the customer. I've talked before about making your customer the hero. This is what I mean. Another underutilized resource is tapping into urban lumber. In many ways, if you're buying lumber that isn't mass-produced, you have a story to tell. Read More

John Mahoney: Mahoney Woodworks Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. In today's episode, your host Steve Larosiliere speaks with John Mahoney, owner of Mahoney Woodworks. John owns his own contracting business, and he's been doing woodworking on the side for about fifteen years. Much of John's career has been focused on general contracting, including everything from electrical to custom cabinetry and carpentry. One advantage of his career is that he has used many of his contracting tools to help create projects on the side. Over the last eight years, in particular, he has been honing his woodworking craft to make a more marketable product. Currently, John is in the process of transitioning away from his contracting business so that he can take his woodworking passion to the next level. A central turning point happened at the start of the pandemic when his contracting work began to slow down. "I had an assistant working with me, and I wasn't able to really support him in the way that I wanted to. So we parted ways, and I said, "I really want you to blossom, and this is not the time for you with me." During that transition, I was able to work from my home and focus on my woodworking, and I started on Instagram and met a lot of people in the community. My page took off pretty well. I got a lot of followers, I've had some transactions, and my wife and my family have given me the opportunity to focus on this. Over the next few months, I'm going to work exclusively on doing some woodworking from my house and trying to turn it into a means of income and reach out to the community and make it a lifestyle." John Mahoney Building an Audience Compared to many fledgling businesses, John considers himself very fortunate compared to other people woodworking from home. The combination of a garage workshop (with no cars allowed!) and the numerous tools that John has picked up through his career as a contractor has given him a leg up when it comes to initial investments. Additionally, people have already been very receptive to John's designs in the early stages of his business. As such, his current focus is on creating a customer base, developing word-of-mouth advertising, and getting specifically commissioned pieces from that expanding customer base. Over the last several months, John has been focused on doing craft shows to give people the opportunity to feel and handle his products in person. He believes that those who aren't woodworkers can't get a good sense of scale through a photo, so these events give him the ability to provide context for people to experience his work. Although the Philadelphia area is full of craft shows and other trade events, John finds that their prevalence means that the spots are often very full, preventing him from gaining access. "Many of the shows are completely full. I'm talking like the Oaks Convention Center, which can hold thousands of vendors, and they have a craft show coming up. Actually, they have three of them coming up, and they're all indoor, which is really nice because I'd like to have my products indoors. But they're full, and I've also had a few issues getting contacted back about signing up for vendors. A lot of these places seem to be grandfathered in, with people getting annual spots. So that's one of the hurdles that I'm working on, but I think that would be one of the best things, as opposed to a social media platform, to really get out there, interact with the community and get a local customer base." John Mahoney Read More Here

James Matthius: Pocono Table Company Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today, your host Steve is joined by James Matthius, owner of Pocono Table Company. James’ father always had a woodshop in the basement of their family home, so James was always around woodworking from a young age. His father often made cabinets, tables, and other furniture for their family, and he would teach James whenever he felt like learning. As James grew older, his interest in woodworking went on the back burner for several years until he married and lived in his own house. He decided then that he wanted to start making things for his family and before long, friends would ask for something, which got the ball rolling for him. James began making decor items like wooden flags and cutting boards and soon decided to give woodworking a shot, so he started an Etsy account. “I completely got demolished on Etsy for a pretty good time because I didn’t have any understanding of SEO, and how to take proper product photos, and how to word things to catch people’s attention. So I decided, “Okay, I gotta, I gotta learn this; this is something I really need to learn.” I went to YouTube, and I basically taught myself how to do all that. I’m still not good at it, but once I started applying those techniques, I saw sales coming in. And I said, “Oh, boy, alright, awesome.” That kind of lit a fire under me.” James Matthius Read More

Austin Keenan: Keenan Slabworks Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today, your host Steve sits down with Austin Keenan of Keenan Slabworks. Austin started his company back in February of 2017 with his father who had been looking to retire from his job as an attorney and had always enjoyed dabbling in woodworking. Originally, the project was only supposed to be a hobby, it was never supposed to grow into a business. However, they started to get paid to mill for people, dry their wood, or build things for them, which turned that plan around. When they were hired to do their first log removal, which was a large black walnut from a nearby town, they realized that they did not have the equipment needed to do any urban log removals. “We didn't even have a mill. We were renting a chainsaw from a rental facility nearby and trying to hack our way through some of these logs. Getting started, we had no idea the differences in chainsaw chains or anything so we kind of butchered a couple of the initial first logs.” Austin Keenan Started as a Hobby and Grew from there Since Austin and his father jumped into woodworking intending for it to be a hobby, they ended up doing some things inefficiently early on, but their enthusiasm for the process and learning new things kept the excitement going strong. One realization that hit the pair quickly was the need for a bandsaw mill, and after researching many different options they purchased one, which fulfilled their desire to learn new skills. The bandsaw mill ended up becoming part of the attraction for their business early on. People would come by because they had never seen a bandsaw mill before and they wanted to try to use it. Austin and his father happily demonstrated by tossing a log on the mill to showcase what it could do, and then people started asking to buy material from the pair of them for their own projects. Though Austin had no intention of developing it into a business, he thought it was a really cool project and his friends thought so as well. Whenever he would post photos to his personal Facebook account of a project they worked on, it would get a lot of interest, and one of his customers ended up providing Austin with advice that wound up turning his hobby into the business it is today. “I was speaking with a customer, he was a woodturner and he said, “Hey, you should try selling some of your slabs on Facebook marketplace.” At the time, I had no idea what that was and I didn't know how to use it. So of course it was something new to learn, and we made a listing. We milled 60 or 70, black walnut slabs and put them on Facebook Marketplace, and those got 20,000 views in less than a day. I realized that this is incredible! This is free marketing right here. I was getting messages sent to me like every three to five minutes, I had to put my phone on silent when I went to bed at night and I woke up and I had like 100 messages that I had to respond to. All from this tool that I didn't even know existed.” Austin Keenan Read More

Welcome to another episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast! Today we have Danny Torres from Deadwood Revival Design joining the "Two Timers Club" and coming back for a second episode! A lot has changed since the last time we talked to Danny and we are so excited for you to hear all the incredible moves this company has been making. From giving back to the community to environmentally-focused incentives this episode is an incredible look at passion. We hope you enjoy this episode! Check out more from Deadwood Revival Design at the links below! Instagram: @deadwoodrevivaldesign Website: https://www.deadwoodrevivaldesign.com/

Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast with Steve Larosiliere. Today’s guest is Damon Barron, the founder of Carolina Urban Lumber based out of North Carolina. Damon has been in the bulk commercial lumber space for over twenty years, and Carolina Urban Lumber is very much a natural extension of that career. Damon describes himself as being intrigued by unique specialty wood especially in the latter part of his career, and although he isn’t a sawyer, he intrinsically understands that there is a real story behind urban trees. A major shift occurred when he was on an otherwise run-of-the-mill sales call, and heard an unusual story. A man called Damon explaining that he was building a coffin from the wood of a tree he planted when he was five years old. For the rest of the day, all Damon could think about was the customer’s story, and he explains that he had an epiphany moment that led him back to Charlotte, North Carolina to make some changes in his life. “I started learning what happened to urban logs through going to trade services and just asking questions. And that was a two year kind of exploratory mission while I was still working. I learned and I developed a plan of action to build a business and go to market by selling urban logs. The next thing I know, I quit my job, and boy, my wife was pregnant. All perfect timing, like anybody starting a business right?” Damon Barron Read more here

Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today’s guest is Brian Ciciora the founder and CEO of Truewerk. Brian and his company Truewerk are the first apparel brand to be featured on the Woodpreneur Podcast, and while he has a very unique story to share, it is rooted in the same journey as so many other Woodpreneurs. He wanted to solve a problem, and work with and support the trades. Brian’s story begins at the start of the recession in 2008. At the time, he was working for a tech startup and got laid off when the recession hit. Despite the layoff, he was good friends with the company’s CEO, who sat Brian down and told him that while he was doing sales at the time, he had the skills and the heart to make it in the tech industry, and he should “build a house or something.” “I kind of laughed and then took it to heart and realized that, to a certain extent, I’d been playing in a game that I was set up to play. Go to college, get a job behind a desk, try and make money. But my heart was in building, it was in the trades. I was ultimately just going to keep getting set up for failure in desk jobs. It was a leap of faith, it was a jump to leave the security of a desk job, and to ultimately do something that I often felt like society was telling me was in some way beneath me. But in my heart, it felt like the right journey.” Brian Ciciora Photo Credit: @truewerk Starting it as a Test One of the things that inspired Brian was a company that was selling simple steel-framed tables with wooden tops, but they charged high prices for their products. Brian wondered if he could make something just as nice and charge around the same for them, so he put an ad out on Craigslist to sell a table of that style. At the time he put out the ad, he hadn’t built one yet, but he was gauging interest. Immediately he was inundated with replies from people wanting to buy the table that he had posted about. Brian responded that the one he had posted was gone, but he would be happy to make another one for that person. This test speaks to the entrepreneurial mindset, and Steve notes that Brian just went ahead and said he could build the product to see if the market wanted it, which gave him the certainty that his fledgling business would have an audience. Around this time, Brian began to develop relationships with several people in the Denver, Colorado area as he had just moved up to the mountain town of Winter Park. Originally, Brain was making one or hour-and-a-half drives to Denver to pick up steel from a fabricator there, but after a while, he struck a bargain with a local fabricator who, as he puts it, “suckered him” into welding for them doing spiral staircases, ornamental railings, and structural work. “I think there’s a lesson here for people who are looking at opportunities in the skilled trades. There’s this narrative that life in the skilled trades is kind of like this sentence that at 18, you sign up for the skilled trades, and you’re going to forever be a plumber if that’s where you start out. But it’s just this journey that you can move around. And there’s so much opportunity, that it’s anything but a closed door. The journey through all of these different skilled trades often culminates in doing something that combines a bunch of them in a way that that really works for you.” Brian Ciciora Read more here: https://www.woodpreneurlife.com/brian-ciciora-truewerk/

Welcome to another episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast! Today, we have a recent repeat guest Christian and Lauren from Big Sky Wood Company. They used to be called Big Sky Dry but they've rebranded! The last time the pair were on the show they realized that they were expanding quickly and wanted a name to reflect the new products and services they were offering. Steve helped out with the name suggestion, Christian and Lauren loved it and felt it would create a brand that encapsulated everything they were doing. The pair has also moved from the little garage they started in, to a real location with a warehouse, showroom, and a brewery across the street! Lauren and Christian talk a bit about community and how moving to their new location has given them the means to expand their community even further. “We were already trying to get involved in the woodworking community through social media, but we were in a pretty remote location before. Now we're in this neighborhood where all the businesses are locally owned businesses that are trying hard to work together and help each other out.” -Lauren, Big Sky Wood Co. To See more from Christian and Lauren, check out the links below! Big Sky Wood Company @bigskywoodcompany Read the rest of the blog on our website!

Today on the podcast our guest is Frank from Frank Does it. Frank Does It is primarily a media company, Frank doesn’t focus on making commissions anymore. He recalls that the origins started all the way back in High School woodshop. Then Frank and his wife went nine years in their marriage without having an actual bed with a headboard and footboard vs. just a mattress and metal frame. Frank’s wife really wanted a nice bed frame, so Frank looked into the cost and then thought, “I can make that.” Frank went and bought a miter-saw and some impact drivers and he fell back in love with woodworking. Then Frank put some photos of the bed on Craigslist and got a ton of engagement. People wanted to commission him and he did that for a while, but he has a full-time job as a journeyman lineman with a wife and four kids so he is too busy for much commission work. “I work scheduled 40 hours a week, but with power outages and anything like that, you know, I end up working a crazy amount. I have my wife and four kids, and I live busy. I work 4/10’s at my normal job, so I spend pretty much a full day, one day a week on that three-day weekend that I get in the shop. What everybody sees is what I do on that one day, and then I trickle it out throughout the week.” Frank Instagram: @therealfrankdoesit YouTube: Frank Does It

Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today's guest is Nick Mooers from Maverick Sawmill. This is Nick’s second time on the podcast, and he and Steve discuss the changes that have happened since his last appearance. Nick notes that he was certainly burning the candle at both ends when he was on the podcast last time. He was working his day job, taking care of his family, and building the wood business simultaneously. In the year that has passed between podcast appearances, Nick has successfully transitioned to full time work with the wood business, and notes that he is in love with his work. He adds that it was a carefully made decision, as they waited until they had a good backlog and consistent sales as well as enough work in the pipeline for about six or eight months before making the change. Since then, Nick and his family have had more time during the day to meet with commercial clients and other important people, which has been an incredible transition. Website: www.mavericksawmill.com Instagram: @mavericksawmill

Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today Steve is joined by Viktor from the Stump Shop. Viktor is one of the very first repeat guests on the podcast, and in the time since his last appearance, he has grown and accomplished a lot.Viktor was originally on the podcast when it was still the Sawmill Business Podcast. Since that time, Steve has transitioned it from purely being about sawmills, to having a focus on many different woodworking aspects. He adds that since Viktor works outside of sawmills specifically, he was one of the people that sparked the name and subject change for Steve.Steve calls Viktor the Stump King of North America, a title that he has earned over the years of doing incredibly creative work with stumps. Viktor laughs, and notes that he doesn’t know if he’s been called that specifically before, but he does do a ton of work with stumps and he loves doing it so much. Instagram: @thestumpshop Etsy: TheStumpShopCanada

Hello Woodpreneurs! On the show today our guest is Matt from M2 Lumber. M2 Lumber is a sawmill and lumber yard that specializes in salvaging local trees that come down from storms or new development. They mill those into slabs and dimensional lumber but mostly live edge slabs, then dry those in one of their two kilns. M2 Lumber has a solar kiln that they built two years ago based on Virginia Tech's design and also a new iDRY Standard vacuum kiln that came in February. M2 sells directly to the public, to other woodworkers, construction companies, contractors, interior designers, and even retail sales through that avenue. They also do a little bit of furniture building but that's more of a guilty pleasure Matt says as he loves to build furniture. The Origin Story of M2 Lumber Matt says it was not on purpose for sure. It was more of an accident. He grew up surrounded by woodworking as his dad is a very talented woodworker. Matt clarifies that his father isn’t a woodworker by trade, but just as a hobby, he has built almost everything. Everything that is extremely challenging you can imagine in the woodworking world, he's built. Beautiful furniture, secretary desk, dining tables, corner cabinets, Matt recalls he built a grandfather clock, and even a violin once! In Matt’s college years, he naturally gravitated back to woodworking as a hobby. This continued after college. Looking to make some extra money on the side while also doing something he enjoyed, he started to do woodworking as a side business. Matt was building tables and small furniture as well as cutting boards trying to make a little extra money. Then, in 2015, he moved out to the country, as they discuss. “We have about five acres of land where we live now. My neighbor and I were talking one day, and we had a tree come down and I was like, “Well I don't know what we're gonna do with this. I guess I'll burn it or whatever.” And he said, “Well, why don't you take it over to the sawmill?” and my ears perked up when I was like “Sawmill what?” I didn't know there was a sawmill around here and sure enough, there's a sawmill run by name a guy named Terry Ellison, about two miles down the road. He milled it up for me and charged me like $60 or something ridiculously cheap. I was really hooked at that point because that was the first experience taking a tree getting it milled into lumber and then being able to do something with it.” To see more from M2 Lumber check out the links below! M2Lumber.com @m2lumber

Hey everyone, welcome to another awesome episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast, today's guest is Kyle Kidwell from Kidwell Fabrications. Kidwell Fabrications started in Fall 2017 and recently the focus has been more on fine furniture, custom designs, and small-batch signature collections. Go to www.Woodpreneurlife.com to read the full blog post! To see more from Kidwell Fabrications, check out the socials below! Kidwell Fabrications @kidwellfabrications

Today’s episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast features Steve Larosiliere sitting down with Pete of PeteSquared who is based in San Jose, California. Steve starts out the show by asking Pete how he became a Woodpreneur. “So I've always been making things. I was an artist A long time ago, I guess I still am. But my dad is a crazy woodworker guy. And he's done it pretty much all his life. And just seeing his tools and seeing his process and the things he's built around the house. When I got older, I kind of needed a release from working in tech. About two years ago, I left Apple and just needed something to do and needed something to feel good about, you know. So I just started you know, tinkering around in the garage working on stuff, building stuff for around the house. And it's evolved into doing this.” Pete Parisi Pete spent about 20 years in video games as a 3d artist building environments and characters special effects for games like Age of Empires and Halo Wars. He explains that 3d modeling in 3d Studio Max or Maya has inspired the style he’s doing now. Steve notes that Pete’s style is very intricate, and asks why he’s picked plywood to work with in particular. Pete explains that he’s not tied to that particular medium, but it has many advantages in that it’s easy to make small and big parts due to its versatility and strength. This episode of The Woodpreneur Podcast is proudly sponsored by Uneedainc, go to https://www.sandpaper.com for more info.

When thinking about how he got started Mat muses that he didn’t even actually consider himself a business, he considered himself a hobby woodworker. How it really took off was when the local CrossFit gym wanted a CrossFit pile of blocks. Mat took on the project and then requests just kept coming in. Eventually the offerings expanded as requests for tables and benches came in. That’s how it really spiraled, as Mat says, it all started from a box. When Mat first started, he didn't have a brand, but he had a connection through his social media and got a branding iron shipped out to him. In terms of growth Mat says that he feels his story is similar to a lot of wood businesses as he’s just been scaling as the work comes in. If someone wants something and he has the tools to do it, he takes on the job, or if it’s time to invest in a certain tool he hasn’t worked with or when he takes on something he’s never done but has the capacity for, he’ll take the project and then do some trial and error prototypes before the finished product goes to the customer. This episode of The Woodpreneur Podcast is proudly sponsored by Uneedainc, go to https://www.sandpaper.com for more info.

On this episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast we have Ryan Cochrane here with us. Ryan had a different path than most to get into the wood industry. He was an Olympic athlete who went to two Olympic Games, competed at the World Championships for many years, and was on the Canadian national team for sprint kayaking for 14 years. His time kayaking on lakes and rivers spurred on a curiosity about trees that he has had since childhood, and he had always intended to get into the wood industry after he retired from being an athlete. After some more discussion, Steve asks about Ryan’s current wood business. Ryan explains that originally he was making charcuterie and epoxy boards and selling them through Etsy on the side. Now he works with his team at his new workshop making dining tables, benches, and many other types of furniture. Currently his role is the director of production which means a combination of directing the products to be built as well as researching and developing new ways to improve the business. To see more from Ryan Cochrane, check out his socials below! Instagram: @cochranekayak Etsy: RPCWoodWorks This episode of The Woodpreneur Podcast is proudly sponsored by Uneedainc, go to https://www.sandpaper.com for more info.

Hey everyone, we don’t have a guest for this week, instead I’m going to update you on what's been going on in the Woodpreneur and Acres of Timber Universe. Overall, it's been really, really exciting! I'm so pumped up right now with all of the progress happening in the wood business community. Website Launch & Woodpreneur Vision Later this month in June, we're going to do a website launch party for Woodpreneur Life! The idea is to have something like a zoom call where everybody can hop in. There are going to be some giveaways, we’ll hear from some people, and it's going to be a really good time! We would definitely like some folks to check out the website because we put in a lot of work and it has come out really well. The vision we have for Woodpreneur Life is to be like the Forbes, Business Week or Entrepreneur Magazine for Woodpreneurs and the wood business community. We have articles, all of our podcasts, links to our courses, resources, and we even have our shop on there. It is honestly something I'm very proud of, so go to www.woodpreneurlife.com to check that out and get a first look before the launch party! Our blogs focus on everything from how to produce good, consistent content to how to prioritize your business and everything in between. We also feature videos from other collaborators in the industry as well as Woodpreneur of the Week Spotlights. On the networking side of things we have a Facebook Group called Woodpreneur Life, a Facebook Page, a YouTube channel and a couple of really cool IG accounts: @acresoftimber @woodpreneurlife. Some people wonder, what is a Woodpreneur? It means a lot of different things but to me at the core, it is a new generation of wood business owners. We're makers, we're creators, we're entrepreneurs and we're also community leaders. We are people that are constantly putting ourselves out there, who have pride in our community and pride in our work. There's no competition, we like to cooperate with other people, we collaborate. We're inventive and sustainable, and we are members of this incredibly rich community. That’s a Woodpreneur. This episode of The Woodpreneur Podcast is proudly sponsored by Uneedainc, go to https://www.sandpaper.com for more info.

Today on the podcast we are so excited to welcome Daniel Levin from GL Veneer. At its core, GL Veneer is a plywood manufacturing company. They got their start in 1977 when Daniel’s grandpa started the company, originally he was making cut to size furniture components for the furniture markets that were big in LA at that time. A short time later Daniel’s dad joined the family business and spent a few decades servicing the plywood markets. Fast forward another 10 years or so and Daniel’s dad fell in love with California walnut. Not too long after that he turned his eyes towards the live edge product line. The Shift From Plywood to Live Edge Steve notes that as the company that has existed since the 70’s they must have been exceptional with adapting. Steve wonders if the shift to live edge was a gut feeling or if they noticed the trend moving that way early on. Daniel recalls that the market for slabs in the early 2000s was a lot smaller, more of a niche product line at that time. However it wasn’t fully instinct or trends that called for the move toward live-edge furniture for the company. At that time, Daniel wasn’t part of the company yet and his grandfather had recently passed away, so Daniel’s dad went back to his roots. He used to make live edge tables when he was younger back in the 60’s and 70’s and he loved celebrating the rustic and natural characteristics of trees as opposed to plywood and veneer which celebrates perfection. It was a perfect marriage of ideas though. The live edge slabs are the complete opposite side of the spectrum in terms of grade to the veneer and plywood. It’s nice to be able to offer the full spectrum of products from rustic and full of character to polished perfection. To see more from GL Veneer check out their social media below! Website: glveneer.com Instagram: @gl_veneer This episode of The Woodpreneur Podcast is proudly sponsored by Uneedainc, go to https://www.sandpaper.com for more info.

Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast, today we are pleased to welcome Cameron Porter of Cammie’s Garage! Cammie’s garage started back in 2017 when Cameron and his wife bought their home. Previous to that Cameron had graduated from the University of South Carolina with an art degree, and had a 20 year career in the animation business before he started doing woodwork. Cameron considers himself an artist primarily and it just so happens that wood is his preferred medium at the moment. Camerons wife saw that he really enjoyed woodworking and he himself had realized there was a passion for it when he was doing his art degree. So when they bought their house, one of the reasons behind their choice was that there was a two and a half car garage Cameron could turn into a workshop. Preferred Equipment and Pieces Cameron makes mostly unique art pieces with the lathe as his primary tool. He also will occasionally do commissions. People ask him to do certain things and he considers himself very lucky to be able to create unique art pieces to be enjoyed by art lovers. When Cameron first started, he was using reclaimed material. Really just stuff that he would find in the neighborhood. His neighbors would be doing renovation projects to their homes and Cameron would literally get wood out of the dumpsters. If someone was having a tree cut down in his neighborhood, they'd leave logs by the street and Cameron would pick up a log here and there and use the greenwood. Now he purchases lumber from a local sawmill. Cameron notes that he’s also gotten many scraps from friends, and local woodworkers. Cameron is really concerned about the environment, and his wife is a climate scientist, so those are the types of things that are on his mind when he uses reclaimed material. Cameron hates to generate waste, and likes to keep things out of the landfill if possible. To see more from Cammie’s garage check out the links below! Instagram: @CammiesGarage YouTube: Cammie’s Garage Thank you Uneedainc for sponsoring this episode of The Woodpreneur Podcast.

Today on the podcast we are thrilled to have Justin Larson of JML Woodcraft as our guest. Justin is a one man show and a garage workshop warrior who specializes in highlighting the natural beauty of live-edge slabs. In fact, technically Justin only does woodworking part time about 15 to 20 hours a week, but he says if you ask his wife, she'll say he’s out there a lot more than that! The Creative Focus and Origins of JML Woodcraft Right now the focus of Justin’s company is unique serving boards and live edge slab desks and tables, but the history behind the company has been in the making for over ten years now. JML Woodcraft actually all started back in 2011, when Justin and his family bought their house and needed some furniture. As Justin says, he had the thought process, like most woodworkers, that he could just build everything they needed so that they could save some money. First he built a farm table and some shelves, then he started getting more advanced. For the first few years he was just building things at home for his family, but then after a while friends and family started wanting the things that Justin was building for their own houses too. Justin started building furniture for friends and family, and then some of his business minded friends told him that he should start an LLC and start building a fully realized brand and legitimate business. In 2016 Justin started the LLC and opened up his business to go neighborhood wide. The savvy woodpreneur explains how he used Facebook to get the word out and start attracting customers, and once he did, he did everything they requested, he didn't say no to any projects which really got the ball rolling. Then, once he started the LLC, Justin’s wife encouraged him to turn their garage into a woodshop. With the work space complete, JML Woodcraft was then able to take on more complicated custom projects. The Motivation Behind the Business Steve and Justin talk a bit about the fact Justin has accomplished so much, and even has a 3-month backlog of customers, all while being part-time. For Justin, he says it comes down to the fact he just loves building. The business growing has been incredible for this exact reason. As Justin sees it, the more projects he can do, and the wider of a variety the better. Justin also talks about how building isn’t just a creative process, it’s also a learning process, each project he does he feels that he learns valuable lessons for the next one. Another learning experience for Justin has been learning not to get burnt out, and setting rules for himself about what kind of projects he works on. He even let go of some pieces of equipment with the understanding that not having the capability for certain things will allow him more projects he truly is passionate about. He says it’s all about learning, and finding your way. To see more from JML Woodcraft check out the links below! Instagram: @jmlwoodcraft Facebook: JML Woodcraft Thank you Uneedainc for sponsoring this episode of The Woodpreneur Podcast.

From Humble Beginnings When asked how 731 Woodworks got started, Matt says that the first question he always gets is where the number 731 came from. He explains that July 31st is his wife and his anniversary, and they named their business after that date in March of 2017. Matt explains that they started it out as a side business, so he took $100 and invested in some two-by-fours after watching a YouTube video by Jay Bates on building chairs. He started building and selling chairs and slowly built his business up from there all the while posting videos on the 731 Woodworks YouTube channel. The Power of Etsy Steve asks Matt about what kind of niche he’s developed for himself. Matt mentions that right from the start, farmhouse furniture took off for them and the YouTube channel is very farmhouse focused. He goes on to say that his clientele was very local until they managed to get their Etsy store started in late 2018 or early 2019. They didn’t start the store immediately because they were getting plenty of local orders, and they needed to decide on well-sized products for sale on Etsy because it costs significantly more to ship the larger furniture pieces. One of the items that Matt sold the most was stove covers. These items exploded into 20,000 sales on their Etsy store, which he eventually needed to stop offering because they were taking up all of his time. When asked about where Matt sources his product from, he mentions that he buys primarily from Barton’s which is a local chain in Arkansas. Matt mentions that they have kept their income separate because he has a full-time job as a state trooper which has allowed them to do more with the income that they’ve earned through woodworking. He mentions that he is now able to take his wife out to eat without hurting their bill money, and they were paycheck to paycheck before starting the woodworking business. He goes on to say that the table saw was one of the most important tools he purchased, but a miter saw allowed him to make consistent angle cuts more easily, which was a pivotal tool early in the development of 731 Woodworks. Things started to take off with the company after the first year when they started to see returning customers. Matt believes that this delay was primarily because he was not doing any advertising beyond just posting on Facebook. Website: www.731woodworks.com Instagram: @731woodworks YouTube: 731 Woodworks

Today on the Podcast we have Vic Tesolin of Vic Tesolin Woodworks! Vic has been making furniture for a number of years, he studied at Rosewood studio in Ontario, Canada, where he focused on furniture design and making while building furniture. However, Vic found it was very difficult to make a living making the type of high-end furniture that he was making originally. Vic has always had jobs that support his woodworking. He was the editor of Canadian woodworking magazine, and also worked for the research and development department at Veritas for Lee Valley for about 10 years. This all afforded Vic the ability to travel all over the world and meet woodworkers from different walks of life, which he describes as pretty fantastic! Eventually he decided it was time to be his own boss and do his own thing. Vic describes it as something that sort of just happened. In addition to his woodworking business he also has written two books besides his publication writing. “This is it, this is what I do.” Vic says he’s always felt extremely fortunate to have gotten the education that he did. His goal has always been to pass on knowledge and information, however he can. Whether those are two hour webinars, or private teaching, that's what he’s all about. Vic just wants to get the information out there. He wants people woodworking. He wants people working with their hands. I mean, this pandemic has showed us that, you know, people are loving working with their hands, because, The business started as a side hustle, as Vic suspects a lot of businesses do, because it takes a lot of guts to just say, “Okay, to heck with this paycheck, I'm not using that anymore.” So Vic did it as a side hustle and started by writing articles for magazines, and then he got asked by a publisher to write a book, and then another book. Once you start, once you get published, then people start seeking you out for classes and other things Vic says. Vic has taught in Europe, England, Australia, China, and his life and business partner Andrea takes care of the things that Vic’s not good at. Andrea is really good at marketing, and she's excellent at the customer service aspect of it. Vic notes that he is fortunate that they work really well together. The Books and The Marketing Corner Join us for this awesome podcast where we discuss mailers, Vic’s two books, minimalist woodworking and Tik Tok! To learn more about Vic Tesolin Woodworks check out the links below: Website: www.victesolin.com Instagram: @vic_tesolin

Welcome to another incredible episode of the Woopdreneur Podcast with your host Steve Larsoliere, and today's guest, Nathan Logsdon of Logsdon Woodworking. This episode is brought to you by Uneeda - the leading abrasive company for Woodpreneurs. Go to www.uneeda.com and use promo code Woodpreneur15 to save 15% of any order! Currently, Nathan is on active duty in the Coast Guard and started his woodworking journey when he was stationed in North Carolina. At that point, he was separated from his wife and kids as Nathan’s daughter attended a school in Maryland that she couldn’t move from and Nathan was pretty bored as he was only able to visit on the weekends. So with the newfound free time, Nathan stumbled into woodworking. His first project was a reclaimed cooler. One thing led to another and Nathan sold the cooler and started making all sorts of great projects, now it’s an entire side business. Nathan's day job in the coast guard is as an aircraft maintenance technician working on everything from helicopters to cargo planes. While Logsdon Woodworking is technically a side-business for Nathan, while he was in North Carolina, he was working 40 hours a week at work, and then he was also working 40 to 60 hours a week in the shop. Since moving to Jacksonville, things cut down a lot in the shop because the family time was able to increase, and now Nathan’s wife is working in the shop with him. She’s working on scroll saw art and other projects that keep her busy in the down-time too and lets them spend more time together. Steves Marketing Corner Nathan says he just hit 5000 followers, which means people have started slipping into his DMS and so it becomes a question of, who do you work with, what opportunities are good and where is the line and balance between sponsorship and being too much of a salesman or annoying the community he’s cultivated. Steve says that really between 10,000 to 50,000 is considered a micro-influencer and below is more of a micro-micro, but that there is nothing at all wrong with that. A lot of people seem to think that you need a lot of followers to have a good business, but you don't, you just need an engaged following of the right types of people. So it becomes a question of who you want your customer base to be, and then a commitment of building out the brand, providing consistent content, giving more personality, and then building that trust with your audience before you start bringing on a lot of partners or sponsors. Nathan’s advice to the Woodpreneur community is to not get comfortable. Stepping out of your comfort zone and learning something new is invaluable. Steve also points out that another great inadvertent piece of advice Nathan offered was that $15 investment of a product book or catalog for craft fairs. Nathan says that one book landed him about 15 jobs, so the power of that extra step, that conversation starter is key. To see more from Nathan, check out the links below! Instagram: @logsdonwoodworking Link Tree: Logsdon Woodworking

On today’s episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast we are joined by Mara Harding. Mara began her journey into the wood industry when she was 41, because when her children began to reach the double-digit ages, she began to wonder what her purpose was on the planet. At the time, she owned and ran an advertising agency, and while she had several big clients she felt that it was not her calling, so she shut the agency down at the age of 40. After that point, Mara took about four months to decide what she wanted to, and she had an opportunity to create some Christmas designs out of wood, which led to her “aha moment.” This revelation caused her some issues as she had no training, no passport, no experience, and no access to mentors in Jamaica that could teach her woodworking. Personal Journey Instagram: @mara.harding Finished Products Instagram: @maramadedesigns

The thing that put Jesse on Steve’s radar was actually an Instagram post, specifically a time-lapse of a table, and the music in the background was “KOTA the friend” and it was so cool it demanded immediate attention. After becoming mutual friends and supporting each other's businesses they finally connected and now there’s an amazing story for you all to follow here on the podcast! Burnt Brydges is based in Stratford, Ontario, Canada and has an incredible origin story. Jesse actually had a garage fire where his workshop was based. One day he woke up at 4:30am thanks to his dog sounding the alarm and he realized there was a big problem. Fortunately Jesse was able to rebuild and he used the incident as great inspiration, given he lived on Brydges street, there you have the name. Steve loves the idea of how burning bridges in business isn’t necessarily a good thing but burnt bridges in the sense of letting go of the past and moving forward and committing to the passion is an amazing double meaning. Committing to Being a Woodpreneur The moment for Jesse was profound, his father was in the lumber industry and went bankrupt because of import issues. Jesse was woodworking on the side out of his Burnt Brydges garage from earlier in this tale while working full time at a carpentry job and then the orders started stacking up and he decided to bet on himself. Jesse made sure to have some savings before he quit, but having work lined up helped him feel more secure as well. When Jesse had a year's worth of work lined up, he knew that he had outgrown the namesake garage and so he moved to a bigger shop outside of town. Only 6 or 7 months after he quit his 9-5 he was able to move to a bigger shop with a lot of great investments and intellectual investments in his company including amazing business and marketing plans. Jesse now has two part-time employees and feels like the business became real to him when he moved into his bigger shop. Steve points out that it’s no surprise Jesse blew up and outgrew his shop, he hired someone part-time while he was still working full-time. Jesse’s bread and butter products are everything from coffee tables, to boardroom tables and even charcuterie boards, actually, a lot of charcuterie boards. Burnt Brydges sold 200 charcuterie boards this last Christmas alone. Next up he has a job for a hotel and a restaurant in town. To secure the jobs he would offer a sample and reach out, creating the right relationships. Steves Marketing Corner Jesse wonders how valuable word of mouth is in this day and age, and Steve firmly believes that it definitely still travels. There are certain careers where reputation is everything, reputation and referrals. Steve considers word of mouth to be like referrals, always valuable. With the growing importance of social proof in our digital world word of mouth is still a critical aspect to focus on. Steve also offers further advice on reaching out to repeat customers and letting them know when you have spots open to ask if they have any family or friends who might want a table, and that you’ll prioritize them because they are existing customers. That’s how you do word of mouth in 2021. The table is the heart of the home, and it’s important to make sure you forge relationships with the people who are trusting you to make this beautiful piece for them. Jesse’s advice to the Woodpreneur community is that you need to work hard, don’t expect anything to come over night, work hard, be honest with yourself, have some self awareness of when you’re wearing too many hats. If it’s within your means to hire somebody, do so, stay positive and put yourself out there. Instagram: @BurntBrydges Website: www.BurntBrydges.com

Today we're pleased to welcome James Ruij from Salvage Europe to the show! James has been in the wood business for quite some time now, and we consider him an OG Woodpreneur! From online supply hubs to dreams of the biggest lumber company in the world, you can't help but feel inspired when listening to James talk about his time in the industry. Adapting to the Changing World With this iteration of the business through Covid, the most significant change has been the lack of regular travel to Europe. Typically James spends two months a year in Europe and has a company in Australasia, so the lack of travel has been very different. Between his other business ventures Chene Oak and Acorn Road, James had done an incredible job diversifying his business, but even with so much on the go, he keeps a lean team. James explains we used to have fifty to sixty employees, but being an Australian in America, it isn't always the easiest to craft your way, so he liked to stay very personal and involved in the business. It seems to be working well with his approach! James discusses some of the projects he's most proud of, including the Foo Fighters Studio, Dr. Dre's house, and his current project, The Beverly Hillbillies Mansion. James explains that he tends to build connections by going out and meeting people one-on-one. He focuses on engaging specific companies and customers he knows he can answer a problem for. Like a Fine Wine James is highly passionate about his product and is unquestionably a French Oak specialist. He explains that his product is like wine, sure you can get generic European Oak, but that's the equivalent of a $10 bottle of wine. With high-quality French Oak, you're getting wood from a two-hundred-year-old tree sourced from a specific region, all of a single origin. The consistency and beauty of which are easily distinguishable, like a fine wine. James applies this high-quality approach to every aspect of his business. James touches a little bit on how he sends samples to customers and potential clients when discussing marketing systems. They are sent in a handmade box, beautifully organized, and shipped in reclaimed cardboard. As for the furniture-making side of things, James is currently in eight stores but is looking for closer to twenty or thirty. One of James' full circle dreams is to create the biggest reclaimed wood company in the world where he hopes to make enough profit to start buying up land to sustainably harvest trees in a mindful way. Steve's Marketing Advice Corner: The cost of wood has increased 38% in Australia because of the supply and demand. So the question is, how do we work together to use the resource to its maximum benefit? Steve gives some incredible advice about a summit that James could host in 2022 to launch his dreams and expand his network in his area as well as bring more visibility to his company. On a final note, James leaves off with this! "Don't do what everyone else is doing, think of the future, look broadly at the world, get out and about, see what everyone else is doing and then find something for yourself that is different!" - James Ruij Salvage Europe Website @SavageEuropeUSA

Our guests for today’s podcast are Christian and Lauren of Big Sky Dry located in Missoula, Montana. Currently, Lauren works full time in advertising as a copywriter, which she says helps their new business a lot, while Christian works at Big Sky Dry full time as they grow their company. When asked how they started their business, Christian mentioned how three years ago, he was working with his dad brokering financing for logging equipment and people within that industry. At that time, one of his customers came up to him and inquired about financing an iDRY kiln, which neither Christian or his dad had heard of. His father then got in touch with Jim Parker of iDRY, and they began helping customers with financing. This was their first real exposure to wood drying, and after conversations with Jim, they went to Vermont and saw how the kilns were made. Lauren recognized that people kept wanting to get more and more of these kilns and needed financing for their second and third ones. By that point, with each financing sale, Christian ended up selling themselves on the idea and they realized that a kiln might work well for them. Instagram: @bigskydry Facebook: @bigskydry Website: bigskydry.com Read the full article at: https://www.woodpreneurlife.com/