We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tim Sway. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tim below.
Alright, Tim thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
“Make Worthless Things Priceless” quickly became my mantra and mission statement 14 years ago when I started a side hustle making wooden tchotchkes from discarded wood and selling them on Etsy. At the time I was still working as a performing musician so I had time in the day while the family was at work and school to mess around in the garage, making wine bottle holders and memory boxes from old pallets, barnwood, etc.
At the time this “rustic” and “upcycled” work was trending and I was an early adopter, able to grow this business into more than just a side hustle within a few years. Four or five years in I transitioned out of performing music for a living, rented a larger workshop and jump in full time as a “maker” – still focusing on sustainability and only working with locally sourced and reclaimed materials. By now I was making large dining tables, built-in libraries, custom desks and store displays.
Truth be told, I had pretty much always been one to “shop on the side of the road” and Dumpster dive. As a musician, I never had a lot of money so most of the furniture I owned was picked up from thrift stores and curbside. I’d fix, paint and remake these things to suit my needs. I didn’t become an “upcyclist” because I was an environmentalist, I did because I was broke! It was on this path that I started to really see and learn about waste, carbon footprints, etc., and became much more adamant about reducing my use even more – and spreading the word.
However I also began to realize the things I was making were being sold to people who were not particularly interested in ecology. They were merely consumers, buying the trend du-jour that I was a participant. Once I delivered a coffee table and the client literally said to me, “I can’t wait to throw my old coffee table away!”
I was failing at my mission. My work was not close to being viewed as “priceless.” I had to rethink how I could live up to my lofty goals. So I focused back on my original calling, music, and started stepping up my woodworking skills to make these more complex – and special objects – guitars. Instruments were a logical direction for me to go personally, and I saw the market for like-minded musicians to not have to sing about saving the world on guitars with high carbon footprints (most of them do!) I saw the potential to change more hearts and minds from the stage rather than a dining room, as musicians are often the spokespeople of the revolution!
This was when I added my second mission statement: Make Art That Makes Art.
Now I can view my work as functional art rather than mere commodities, and my art has the ability to pay it forward in the hands of other artists.
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.
As I mentioned, I came to this business via an arts and music path, not as a woodworking or entrepenurial experiment. As a musician who was not lucky enough to get a big break, I was quite frankly burning out on the travel/late night lifestyle as I got older and had kids. I knew I didn’t ever want to “get a job” or work for someone else, so I had to find other means of income. A key to being successfully self employed I learned long ago as a musician is MULTIPLE STREAMS OF INCOME!
Never hitch your wagon to one gig, band, product, etc. No matter how well it is doing, you must set up several revenue streams to cover when one stream dries up. As a musician, I taught lessons at two schools, played in multiple bands, was available for pickup gigs and worked on recording sessions. None of these paid the mortgage but combined became a living, and if one dried up I could still pay the bills. My current business was one of those backup revenue streams that I started to replace teaching lessons.
I brought this mentality to my woodworking business, which means not just trying to get as many clients as possible but also having products available in myriad price ranges, monetizing my YouTube channel, running a Patreon account, I had a podcast for five years, some sponsorships, etc. This is always changing and morphing as my interests change and new ideas develop.
Today, and this will certainly change as I do, my main work is creating custom, commissioned instruments for clients while developing the brand, making and selling “off the shelf” instruments, parts, accessories, DIY plans and more via www.NewPerspectivesMusic.com, my pride and joy. I really love creating custom instruments for special people – often instruments that never existed before! I truly feel very close to both my mission statements in this work.
But to subsidize the lean months, I also developed a small tool company, www.SqWAYreTools.com, where I make and sell some tools I’ve designed over the years. These designs stemmed out of flaws I found in traditional tools that are similar and also some stuff that there is really nothing like on the market. I do not advertise this heavily and is sort of an “in the know” brand, but do hope to do more with it in the future.
During the Covid lockdown I developed a product that has brought joy to so many around the world that I am very proud of and grown into another small product line. www.GuineaPigTanks.com. You really should go see it rather than have me describe it. TikTok @GuineaPigTanks.
I have other products and small business ideas in development, too. I always do. I think at my core, what sets me apart is my incessant need for change – whether developing and growing existing ideas or creating entirely new ones outside my comfort zone. Always doing and learning new things keeps me young and excited to get to work!
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Social media is so different to day than when I started, but back then, YouTube was the place to be and I started creating “creation story” videos of my builds to sort of “prove” they were made sustainably. I imagined clients searching “reclaimed wood coffee table,” finding my video, then contacting me to make one.
However, what I found was an audience of like-minded makers and woodworkers who were not watching as customers, but rather to see and learn different ways and techniques to do things. These people were not going to buy my furniture, they were going to make it themselves! So I geared my content in that direction and really fell in love with the “open source” vibe of the online woodworking community. I avoided chasing trends or trying to make “viral videos” or content for content’s sake, mostly, and I built up a small, no-nonsense following. I had occasional “viral” peaks that helped grow my numbers but honestly not in any real beneficial way. Just clicks and numbers, not sales or genuine conversations/learning opportunities.
I still make this content because I enjoy it although it earns very little income. But that’s not the point. It’s good, honest advertising – and I started tailoring some of the things I make to sell to this audience, like the tools and some DIY plans. Nowadays I have a strong backlog of work so I do sometimes find clients stumbling upon me via my online portfolio.
On occasion I have done “sponsored content” with other brands but I really shy away from that nowadays. All the content feels like advertisements for a bunch of crap no one really needs – and content creators are all too happy for the cash grab. If I do promote nowadays, I have to seriously vet the product AND parent company before I will, and I still rarely do. I want people to know if I say it in one of my videos, REALLY mean it.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
I intentionally run a very low overhead business: It fits in with my frugal lifestyle and business origins. That said, tools can be expensive and I could never afford to just buy what I needed. So in my early days, while I still worked as a musician, I would take commissions to make things I didn’t know how to make or have the tools to make and charge basically what it would cost me to buy the tool I needed! I would learn on the job, make a bunch of mistakes but by the time I was done the customer was happy, and I had a valuable learning lesson, but maybe no money to show for it…
Also no stranger to second-hand shopping, I acquired a lot of what I needed at flea markets yard sales.
Once I had developed a bit of a following on YouTube, I leveraged that with some tool companies and made videos in exchange for very expensive, hi-tech tools. This helped me tremendously but, I still heavily vetted the companies to make sure the tools – and people – were good. I still use these tools today, daily.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.newperspectivesmusic.com
- Instagram: @timsway1
- Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/timsway
- Other: http://www.youtube.com/newperspectivesmusic http://www.sqwayretools.com http://www.guineapigtanks.com tiktok: @guineapigtanks @sqwayretools @newperspectivesmusic
Image Credits
The black and white photo is by Mark Adams, the rest are by me.