Sawmill Business Podcast

“I never intended to go down this path. If you’d have told me five years ago that I’d quit a six-figure government job and a desk and work for myself, I’d have said you were crazy.”   Brendan Vande Kamp   Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today your host Steve Larosiliere sits down with Brendan Vande Kamp from Log to Lumber. Steve and Brian met initially on Facebook about three years ago while Brendan was still working for the government and he had just purchased his sawmill.   Brendan never meant to go down the woodworking path. Five years ago, he never would have believed that he would leave his six-figure government job to pursue a career in woodworking, where he owned his own business. At this point, Brendan has just recently ordered his fourth sawmill and has purchased a debarker and edger, and he loves what he does every day. Read More

"Finding the right people. You can find people that are capable and talented, but finding people that are passionate and loyal, especially with woodworking, that's why we have a cooperative model." Megan Offner Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today your host Steve sits down with Megan Offner from New York Heartwoods! Megan was one of the first ten podcast guests ever and the first female Woodpreneur to join the podcast guest list.  When the Woodpreneur Podcast was called the Sawmill Business Podcast, Megan was primarily a milling business. However, in the six years since her first appearance, her business has grown exponentially. She has diversified her company's focus, and an enormous amount of change has occurred.  Who They are Today "Today, we are a fabricator of sustainable wood furniture. As you know, we started off milling and selling lumber and slabs, and very early on, people started asking for furniture. So initially, I was subbing that out and then gradually put

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 c

“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

“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

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 a

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

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 th

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

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