We were lucky to catch up with Garrett Derr recently and have shared our conversation below.

Garrett, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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.

This is kind of a funny story. It was about seven years ago when my wife, Hannah, and I were looking for furniture for our home at the time. It was a large dining room space and she really wanted a large farmhouse table. We looked online and everything she liked was outside of our budget. She told me I should make one. At the time, I had no workshop, no garage, yet alone the tools to even build one. But, I decided why not? About a week later, we had our very own farmhouse table. She posted it on Facebook and after a few days, friends were asking me to build them a table. She encouraged me to open an Etsy shop. I didn’t even know what Etsy was at the time. Even still, I decided to take her advice and open a shop. A few days later we were sitting around our table and we heard a “cha-ching” sound come from my phone. We’d never heard that sound before so I decided to look at my phone. My first table sale. I started to panic a little inside. How would I be able to do this well? How would I ship them? A million questions raced through my mind. But, we decided to take it on full steam. I had a close friend make a logo, I set up social media pages and began to learn the ins and outs of marketing. It was a wild ride. Initially, I did it all myself. I’d buy the lumber, make the cuts, stain the tables, assemble the tables, finish the tables, and even deliver them myself. It rapidly became early morning, late nights, and weekends of building. I would get up at 4 AM on Saturday mornings and drive from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to Long Island, New York to deliver a table. When I returned home, I would deliver a local table. Sunday, I’d be back on the road, headed to Virginia for another delivery. In the process we had three little girls – Ava( 6) and twin girls, Ella and Hadley (5). Seven years later, we have an established brand. Thankfully, I no longer do it all on my own. We also rely on third-party shippers to do the vast majority of our deliveries. We’ve now built close to a thousand tables and have shipped to the lower 48 states!

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

We specifically do custom furniture builds for clients across the country. When I say “custom”, that is in the truest sense of the word, as every order is different and specifically built uniquely for a space and customer. When we initially started our business, we offered a variety of items. Three years into business, we began to specialize in table builds, along with accompanying pieces like matching benches and coffee tables. Almost immediately after narrowing our focus, our business took off. We are most proud of our established relationships with our customers and businesses. We have tables featured in several businesses and restaurants across the country. We’ve had our tables featured in TV series such known as ‘Pretty Little Liars’ and AMC’s ‘Dietland’

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

This is something else that we are extremely proud of — we’ve never had to raise any money, not even a dime. Initially, I purchased second-hand tools to build our first table. As orders started to come in, we put all of the money back into the business. So, as you can expect, in the first few months to a year, we invested in the business by buying all of the tools we needed in order to be successful. Eventually, we moved to a larger home with more space which allowed me to accelerate our business. We own 100% of our business and never had to have an investor.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

While this may not be directly related to woodworking, when my wife and I first got married, we were adamant about getting out of debt. We did the debt snowball and paid off all of our student loans and debt almost immediately.Some books that were extremely valuable for us were ‘The Millionaire Next Door’ by Thomas Stanley, ‘The Simple Path to Wealth’ by J.L. Collins, and ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’, by Robert Kiyoaski. We took a lot of what we learned and began investing in the market and also in real estate.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheFarmhouseFinds
• Instagram: @thefarmhousefinds
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheFarmhouseFindsPA

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