We were lucky to catch up with Austin Waldo recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Austin, thanks for joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea?

The Austin School of Furniture was started through the creation of a woodworking club. In 2015, when I moved to Austin I was disappointed with the lack of community around the craft of woodworking. With a few other woodworking friends I started the Woodworking Social Club. As the name implies, it is focused on creating community, making connections, and drinking great beer while discussing woodworking.

The Woodworking Social Club grew larger and became my testing ground for new woodworking entrepreneurial ideas. It became obvious to me that woodworkers in central Texas wanted more furniture making education opportunities close to home. I began looking into the idea of a furniture making school in Austin.

I was lucky enough to connect with Philip Morley and other amazing furniture makers in Austin to come up with the idea of the Austin School of Furniture. We did lots of brainstorming, research and making test projects to develop our first four short evening classes to get us started. After I felt we had a solid plan, I started the Austin School of Furniture in January of 2018.

Since then, the school has grown steadily since opening in a hot 261 square foot room with only 4 workbenches. By taking small, incremental risks the school has expanded into a fully air conditioned 5,000 square foot warehouse in South Austin offering several classes per month to a maximum of 12 students at a time.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

My name is Austin. I grew up in Kansas and graduated from Kansas State University with a degree in Marketing. Go Wildcats! For most of my adult life I have been a professional marketer and a hobbyist woodworker. I used my business background to help me start several woodworking related businesses. The Woodworking Social Club – a local meetup group for woodworkers, the Texas Woodworking Festival – a large woodworking event, Hephli Creative – a digital marketing agency for the crafts and the Austin School of Furniture.

Although, it was always my plan to move into furniture making full-time, my timeline was expedited drastically in April of 2020 when I was laid off. I struggled to find the passion to go back to marketing full-time and decided to turn my focus to my woodworking endeavors.

Having the extra time gave me the ability to focus my efforts and grow the Austin School of Furniture. I spent the time developing new courses and curriculum, launching an online woodworking video platform and expand the physical location of the school.

The Austin School of Furniture now offers both online and in-person classes geared for beginners to advanced woodworkers. The courses run one evening to twelve weeks long and cover a wide range of topics. Our instructors are professional furniture makers and come from all over North America to share their craft.

Im most proud of launching our first full time Furniture Making Intensive in the summer of 2022. This program was created for dedicated beginners that want to make furniture professionally and involved a curriculum development committee, Board of Advisors, several volunteers, a lead instructor and eight guest instructors to run it.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Like any new business, the Austin School of Furniture social media accounts started at zero. I made a point to take a photo or video every day and share the process of starting the school even if it was just writing curriculum on my computer. We found that our students and followers love to see the behind the scenes secrets of running a woodworking business and not just the cool final projects we make.

Nowadays, consistently posting everyday has become a struggle as the time required has increased. I try to utilize our teachers’ and students’ content as much as possible along with our own posts

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

In they woodworking education industry it is all about the instructor. In the past, furniture makers would go and teach at a school to get known but that has changed with the rise of social media. Many furniture makers that also teach already have a large following and bring a lot of credibility to the school when the teach a class.

Having amazingly talented guest instructors as well as top tier staff helps to support the credibility and reputation of the Austin School of Furniture.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://austinschooloffurniture.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/austinschooloffurniture/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/austinschooloffurniture
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSFYyNDAz3Audi_JqDv4-aw