We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Paul (PJ) Dufour a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Paul (PJ), thanks for joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?
I am extremely grateful that I am able to support my family handcrafting products that I truly love to build. I have been a avid angler for decades and with a professional background in the trades and educational background in fine art, crafting bamboo fly rods and wood landing nets was a natural progression for me.
Like most artists, I started making bamboo fly rods as a hobby. I found that my particular skills set led to a higher quality product than a lot of the novice bamboo rod builders were producing. I continued to learn more about the history, craft, and techniques of building bamboo fly rods which meant building a lot of rods that I found were desired amongst my local fly fishing community.
After years of crafting bamboo fly rods as a hobby, my body was ready to hang up my bags from the construction industry. I was ready to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I knew that it would be difficult to make a living building a product that has such a small audience. So, I expanded my business model to include building wood landing nets, a retail store of bamboo apparel, and a workshop to teach other how to craft their own bamboo fly rod.
In retrospect, I believe I could have made the leap into the bamboo fly rod business long before I did. However, what sets me apart from other rod builders is the quality of my products. I am grateful that I spent so many years perfecting my craft before making it my primary income. I am proud of the quality of products I produce and would not have wanted to offer a lesser quality product due to less experience. I believe the key to success in any business is to never stop learning.
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?
I handcraft bamboo fly rods, build exotic wood landing nets, and teach others how to build their own bamboo fly rod. My passion for fly fishing started in my childhood. My desire to build fly fishing related products came from a combination of a professional background in the trades, educational background in fine arts, and my love for fly fishing.
I started by learning as much as I could about building bamboo fly rods, perfecting the craft, then expanded my offerings. I have always believed that to teach others to do anything requires the highest level of understanding of the process. I am very passionate about keeping the craft of bamboo fly rod building alive and love sharing that passion with other anglers. We offer six day classes, once a month, for people to come to our workshop in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, and build their own bamboo fly rod. We limit the classes to four students to ensure that each student gets plenty of one-on-one instruction and everyone leaves with a fishing rod that they are proud to have built.
Teaching these classes is extremely gratifying for me. I know firsthand how rewarding it is to land a trout on a rod that I built, on a fly that I tied, from a cast that I made. Being able to share that with other fishing enthusiasts feels like the best gift I could give to those that share my passion. So many fly fishers fell in love with the sport when being taught how to fish by their grandparents or parents. Our classes allow them to build a rod that they can make those same memories with generations to come and have a fishing legacy rod to hand down.
For those that do not have the time or interest in building their own bamboo fly rod. We continue to build heirloom quality custom bamboo fly rods and landing nets. I take great pride in making each and every piece custom to the client they are being built for. Each client can choose each and every aspect of their build; from the practical components of the fishing equipment to the purely aesthetic aspects of the rod that are an expression of the personality of each client. I like to call it “putting their DNA” on the rod.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
After years of learning and perfecting the craft of bamboo rod and landing net building, I was ready to make it my primary business. In late 2019 my wife and I sold our prior business with the intention of making PJ’s Fine Bamboo Rods our primary business. Our business plan was to include a classroom to teach classes for others to build their own bamboo fly rods, continue to build custom products, and a retail location. Unfortunately, before we could get the doors of this business model open the pandemic hit.
We were forced to bend when the wind was blowing. We scaled back the business plan to an ecommerce website to continue to sell our custom products, research and develop new products, and building techniques. It was disappointing at the time because we were excited about our new business venture, but in retrospect everything worked out even better. The nearly two years of the pandemic gave us time to streamline our ordering and production process. Additionally, a substantially better retail location became available to us.
Once the doors of the world began opening back up we felt confident that we were ready to complete the rest of our business plan. We opened our retail location with an onsite workshop where customers can watch me build our custom orders and where I started teaching our monthly classes in downtown Pagosa Springs, Colorado in August 2022.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
My success on social media has been based on consistency and knowing my audience. I dedicate time every week to scheduling posts of my work on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I have never bothered learning the tricks of successfully posting on the “younger” platforms because my primary audience is not in the demographics that generally use Tic Toc, Snapchat or any other newer social apps.
No matter which social networks you are using, consistency is the key. If people do not see your work on a regular basis, it does not become familiar to them. Trust is built with customers by regularly interacting with them and social media is the easiest way in this day and age to interact with your customer base.
One of the most helpful resources I found when trying to build an organic social media presence were podcasts. The world of social media changes too quickly to utilize traditional educational resources. Podcasts with digital media professionals are constantly discovering new tricks and tips to improve online exposure.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.pjsfienbamboo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pjsfinebamboo
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/pjsfinebamboo
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pj-s-fine-bamboo-rods
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/pjsfinebamboo
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/pjsfinebamboo
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/pjs-fine-bamboo-rods-pagosa-springs
Image Credits
Rosanna Dufour and Dustin English