Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Chadd Beverlin. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Chadd, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

Scaling up in the woodworking industry is somewhat complex. There is an ancient history to the craft that must be learned, it takes years to learn all the while you need to be placing adequate amounts of money into the tools and machines required to create furniture that is of top-notch quality. I began that process by slowly taking small percentages from each profitable sale and placing it into upgrading the shop, equipment and material. I would also allow for profits to be spent on traveling, and studying the different forms of woodworking, along with studying types of trees, and the history of the trees and lumber in our country. Attempting to grow a business based on any type of art or functional art is something that is most likely going to take 3 to 5 years before you really get any sense of if it is going to work

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.

I got in the woodworking industry early on by building houses and doing general construction work. I slowly moved into finish carpentry, and then into general cabinetry making. From there, I was able to mix my love of the arts, and found fine Woodworking to create my own style.

I’m very proud to have created a brand which takes an important part of our history whether it be barns from the 1800s or old structures around the country and we reuse them, giving them a new life either by creating furniture from them or installing them in homes by building things, such as staircases, sliding doors, or general home, decor and furniture.

This allows us to use old growth lumber which can be found in these facilities, and bring it back to life, and give it a new functional existence in someone’s home, rather than the furniture or just sprucing up a home interior.

We’d appreciate any insights you can share with us about selling a business.

Prior to moving into the furniture building/ fine woodworking trade I owned a modest construction company which built and remodeled houses. This company allowed for me to live a somewhat financially stable life, but was very unsettling as the designer an artist inside of me had very little opportunity. About 10 years after starting my business, I was given the opportunity to sell it and become the production manager of a woodworking shop in southern Ohio at an Amish furniture making facility.
It was definitely nerve-racking as I was very familiar with the home building trade, and how to make it work financially. Long story short, I sold my construction company and went out on a limb and hopes of finding my footing somewhere in the woodworking field. It’s very nerve-racking as there aren’t really, many opportunities at all in that field and very few people who teach that field thoroughly. But I followed my dreams in my heart, and now another 6 years later, I have a Woodworking company that sells itself and its products it took me about seven years to really get a clientele based behind that .

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I spent years after selling my construction business working in a cabinet shop for another company, and also doing construction jobs on the side when I had time. I would also sell paintings. I would take to finances from all three of these endeavors, and slowly put it into what I needed to begin the woodworking trade properly. Generally speaking things like this don’t end up going far and unfortunately a lot of people end up spending money in this field and it goes nowhere. I didn’t really except that as an option and just kept pushing and pushing until finally I was able to use my name as an artist to get my Woodworking out there. But the premise of what I’m saying is that I had to find money and two or three other areas to fund this project for years.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/akros_woodworking
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Akroswoodworking
• Other: _.Mogwai_ on IG