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I live and work in a lovely, warm mountain valley in southeast British Columbia with a total population of 12,000. No complaints there, (the fishing is good) but the local people, even those with lots of dough, are notoriously spendthrift.
In the past, I’ve done whatever work people asked me to do, accumulating machines and skills along the way as I made everything from craft products to cabinets, from doors to timbers. I’ve focussed the offerings down to wood flooring manufacturing operation, with band mill, kiln, and small molder, and a reputation for a carefully-made product.
I’ve always been looking outward to other markets, even as I keep ending up with local work, despite never having done any marketing in town. Word of mouth is far more important here than advertising anyway and, with the sales and administration and whatever taking away from making sawdust, it seems to be catching up with the production bottlenecks of a small, vertically-integrated operation. And, frankly, I’m sick of all the little things that get in the way of production.
The next level in the scale of production exceeds the needs of the local market by far, and is also the scale of production that allows economy of transportation too (US$1900 for 3600 pounds to Colorado?!!). And the higher volumes are clearly required in order to afford a new truck and braces for the kids. But with the growth comes all kinds of other issues: financing, employees, cut to middlemen, collections grief, no time for fishing, and so on.
Some specialty builders have indicated to me that there is a cachet in having a floor made from unique wood entirely by a guy alone in the woods, but I’m sure that those qualities are transparent to most buyers. I’m working out the details on a collaboration with another local fellow to ship custom log home packages to a builder in Texas, for which I’d supply flooring, panelling and neat interior doors. That would solve the LTL shipping issue, but I’d have all my production going to one buyer, a condition I’m leery of.
I’d like to hear the thoughts of you good folks. Beyond economies of scale, product positioning and customer perception the issues certainly involve personal choice and values too. The cottage industry life: idyllic tranquility or blue-collar indenture?
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I live and work in a lovely, warm mountain valley in southeast British Columbia with a total population of 12,000. No complaints there, (the fishing is good) but the local people, even those with lots of dough, are notoriously spendthrift.
In the past, I've done whatever work people asked me to do, accumulating machines and skills along the way as I made everything from craft products to cabinets, from doors to timbers. I've focussed the offerings down to wood flooring manufacturing operation, with band mill, kiln, and small molder, and a reputation for a carefully-made product.
I've always been looking outward to other markets, even as I keep ending up with local work, despite never having done any marketing in town. Word of mouth is far more important here than advertising anyway and, with the sales and administration and whatever taking away from making sawdust, it seems to be catching up with the production bottlenecks of a small, vertically-integrated operation. And, frankly, I'm sick of all the little things that get in the way of production.
The next level in the scale of production exceeds the needs of the local market by far, and is also the scale of production that allows economy of transportation too (US$1900 for 3600 pounds to Colorado?!!). And the higher volumes are clearly required in order to afford a new truck and braces for the kids. But with the growth comes all kinds of other issues: financing, employees, cut to middlemen, collections grief, no time for fishing, and so on.
Some specialty builders have indicated to me that there is a cachet in having a floor made from unique wood entirely by a guy alone in the woods, but I'm sure that those qualities are transparent to most buyers. I'm working out the details on a collaboration with another local fellow to ship custom log home packages to a builder in Texas, for which I'd supply flooring, panelling and neat interior doors. That would solve the LTL shipping issue, but I'd have all my production going to one buyer, a condition I'm leery of.
I'd like to hear the thoughts of you good folks. Beyond economies of scale, product positioning and customer perception the issues certainly involve personal choice and values too. The cottage industry life: idyllic tranquility or blue-collar indenture?