We were lucky to catch up with Carl Monty recently and have shared our conversation below.

Carl, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

As a retiree, and being someone who likes to work with their hands, I started “Nature’s Edge Woodworking” as a way to expand my creative endeavors.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started off by making simple birdhouses and small pieces of furniture. As demand grew for my products, I eventually took on the challenges of making more functional and larger rustic live-edge furniture such as coffee tables, desks, benches and kitchen tables.

Most of my customer base is local and grew mainly from “word-of-mouth” and occasional FaceBook Market Place listings.

Besides my love of woodworking, I also stay busy with my first and other passion which is playing guitar, and writing songs and recording original music in my small digital barn studio. I’ve taken in a few students to teach guitar to and enjoy seeing them progress and always striving to improve – it’s a good feeling to watch someone’s eyes light up when they are learning.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

I manufacture my products from my home in a small shop I’ve set up in my garage. As demand for my products has grown, I’ve been able to invest any profits into better and more professional tools required to make larger items.
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Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Most of the lessons I’ve learned along the way really come from trial and error. I treat every mistake as an opportunity to improve my process. I find that patience is imperative in improving any process and keeping my frustration level in check is key to moving forward.