We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brad Borkowski a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Brad, 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

I was teaching woodworking in Colorado and my girlfriend at the time had just moved in from Iowa and didn’t have a job yet. We were really struggling because my salary was not enough for both of us to live off of. At that time, Etsy was just starting to become popular and I had a lot of family and friends telling me I should look into it. I am not the most tech savvy person, so the idea of not having to build my own website was very appealing. So I created my Etsy account and then got permission from my superintendent to start building projects at my school shop. It started really slow but started to build things that I thought might sell. I built picture frames, cutting boards, bowls, but none of those items really took off. Then my dad, a former shop teacher, suggested I build chessboards. I figured out the best method for building them and I started to post them on Etsy. They started selling pretty quickly but what really helped them take off was letting customers customize the boards. Once I started doing that, my business started to really take off.

Brad, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Brad Borkowski and I run the shop Colorado Wood Worker where I specialize in making solid wood chessboards. I get ask a lot “why don’t you make the pieces too?” The answer is because I want to focus my energy on making the best quality chessboards I can and if I were to start building the pieces, my attention would be fractured too much. Over 95% of my sales come from custom orders where I am building a customers board from scratch. The biggest challenge to that is knowing what the customer wants but that is also what I find so appealing about this work. Ever board I make is different. The designs might be the same but with how much wood can vary, no two boards of mine are the same. It is a fun process working with clients and showing them in real time how their board is different. That can cause me problems if there are some “flaws” in the lumber but that is where I get to have conversations with my customers to figure out what they want in their board. That is what sets me apart from my competition. When people work with me, they are talking to a real person that genuinely cares that they are getting what they are paying for. Not just going to a website where some person in a factory on the other side of the planet is making them a generic chessboard.

How did you build your audience on social media?

When I started on Etsy the biggest thing I read was to get people to favorite your shop. So I spent a lot of time on there favoriting other shops and hoping to have them return the favor. That worked and then slowly getting order with positive reviews, helped me gain traction. What has helped me the most is just talking to my customers on social media. People what to know that you are a real person and not just and empty website. My advice to anyone starting off is to have those conversations with your customers or potential customers online. Find a post on Instragram or on Facebook about things related to your product and start engaging.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

For me, I try to keep up on chess websites. The forums on chess.com has a lot of posts on their about equipment and where to get chessboards to match specific pieces. I try to add comments on there without spamming the site. The same goes for Reddit and Facebook. There is a fine line between trying to show off your work on those sites and just trying to sell your merch on there. I find it is really important that you don’t come off as someone just trying to move a product because that is not why they are on those sites. But I have gained a lot of customers on there by showing off my work and just having good discussions on there about my chessboards and how to do certain things in my shop.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://coloradowoodworker.etsy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coloradowoodworker/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Coloradowoodworker
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brad-borkowski-3b0727284/

Image Credits
Photos taken by Erin Gocinski