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

Hi Jonathan, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

I believe that aptitude tests should be standard in high school. To help young people to figure out what they can excel at and start training that direction. For some kids, that is college. For some it is technical schools. For others, school may not be the best thing for them, and they can develop a skill and market it with minimal training. Lawn guys and House cleaners are honest hard work, and should be seen as respectable jobs. Apprenticeships would also be a valuable option for young people.

I didn’t take any aptitude tests. I graduated from high school, and went straight to college. When I was in college, I was approached by a Real Estate Broker I knew, who asked if I wanted to go into Real Estate. I said sure. I did that for about 14 years. After that I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew I was ready for a change.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

The year was 2020.

At that point, it kind of felt like the world was collapsing. So, why not start a business?!

As I said earlier, I was ready for a change, and I heard from someone that a formerly profitable business, that manufactured artwork and mirrors, predominantly for the hotel industry, had gone into foreclosure. due to hard times other than the pandemic. The warehouse was being sold, with all of the business equipment included. So, my brother, who needed warehouse space for his own kitchen cabinet business, and I bought it. We hired the old production manager, Ken Nolder, and start Pinnacle Art and Mirror in 2021.

In the beginning it was a lot of clean up, and dividing off about 1/5 of the 5,000 square foot warehouse for my brother Philip’s cabinet shop. and calling old contacts Ken knew to see if anyone was willing to take a chance on a new company they had never heard of before. Fortunately, a few were willing and orders started slowly coming in.

Our main clients are companies that supply artwork and mirrors to hotels. They send us images and frame choices. We then print the images on either paper or canvas. The frame moulding comes in 9 ft. lengths is cut down to the custom size, nailed together, and then the artwork is framed up, then boxed to ship out to the hotel.

In 2023, we also entered the world of internet drop ship fulfillment for a company that does reproductions of classic artwork, which has been a great partnership.

I would say that the biggest problems we solve for our clients is that we are an American company, so there is no time spent in customs, and what has become a bigger advantage this year, is no tariffs either. We also have had multiple clients appreciate the level of communication through the entire process.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Before I ran a business, I believed that if you paid people well and didn’t micromanage them, you would have happy and productive employees.

The hard truth I have learned is that there are lazy people in this world, that don’t always show up for work, or tell you that they aren’t going to show up for work, and some that don’t want to work when they are at work.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

We have recently branched out into Etsy, with both framed coffee bags and a new product line of farmhouse-esque framed Burlap behind Plexiglass, that comes with chalk markers so you can have a to-do list, or menu hanging in your home and it blends well with the decor. I like Etsy over Amazon, because it allows for more of the small business story. The hard thing about any Ecommerce platform is getting the first sales, before there are reviews for the items, which is where we currently are with Etsy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://pinnacleartmirror.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pinnacleartandmirror/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pinnacleartandmirror/

Image Credits

Dina Ivory