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Main Street Reimagined Podcast
This is a podcast for dreamers, creators, developers, and entrepreneurs to learn, share, and be inspired to change your community through small business.
Main Street Reimagined Podcast
Episode 29: Crafting Dreams—The Edgework Creative Journey
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In this week’s episode, we explore the inspiring journey of Edgework Creative, a custom fabrication shop based in Columbus, Ohio that specializes in unique furniture and architectural pieces for both residential and commercial clients nationwide. The founders, Alex and Lindsay Remley, share how their journey began with the simple need for a dining table and blossomed into a successful enterprise in just ten years. Listen in as they recount the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, shedding light on the importance of relationships, both within their team and with their customers.
Throughout this episode, we dive deep into their thoughts on trust, perseverance, and the art of saying “yes” to opportunities. With engaging stories about some of their impressive projects, listeners get a behind-the-scenes look at how innovative design becomes reality. Alex and Lindsay reflect on the growth of Edgework Creative and share the lessons learned through trials and tribulations faced as small business owners.
In a world often filled with daunting challenges, their story serves as a motivating reminder that the entrepreneurial journey is a continuous evolution of learning, growing, and adapting. So, whether you're contemplating opening your own business, feeling stuck at a plateau, or simply curious about the intricacies of small business ownership, tune in for helpful insights and a heartfelt conversation that resonates with everyone chasing their dreams.
Guest Links:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/edgeworkcreativeco
Main Street Reimagined:
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The Main Street Reimagined Podcast, Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqfkmF5bRH0od1d3iiYKs3oEn_gvMYk7N
Henry Development Group:
Facebook: facebook.com/henrydevelopmentgroup
Website: www.henrydevelopmentgroup.com
Developing News Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/33110524eb5c/developing-news
Luke Henry:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/luhenry
Facebook: facebook.com/luke.henry.148
#Entrepreneurship #SmallBusinessSuccess #EdgeworkCreative #CustomFurniture #ArchitecturalDesign #BusinessJourney #StartupStory #CreativeEntrepreneurs #HandcraftedDesign #Innovation #TrustAndPerseverance #DesignToReality #BehindTheScenes #SmallBusinessOwners #DreamChasers #ColumbusOhio #FurnitureDesign #BusinessGrowth #SayYesToOpportunities #InspiringStories
Introduction to Edgework Creative
Speaker 1It sounds so cliche, but like it really is a family. There are a lot of really important relationships. There's a lot of trust. We've all seen each other through a lot of stuff. I mean, we've been in business for 10 years and we have three people on our team who have been here for seven years of it. So you can imagine how much they've seen the business change. They've seen Alex and I change. They personally have changed.
Speaker 2This is the Main Street Reimagined podcast, a show for people ready to turn visions into realities and ideas into businesses. Hey friends, this is Luke, henry Henry, and this is the Main Street Reimagined podcast. Thanks so much for being with us today. I'm excited today to be on site, on location, at Edgework Creative, with my friends, alex andsey remley, here in columbus, ohio. Hey guys, hey, so they are uh joining me. So, um, you can't see. If you're watching on youtube, you, uh, you can see us here. We're in uh alex's office, but just a little ways behind me there's a full, uh incredible shop. How many square feet?
Speaker 327,000.
Speaker 227,000 square feet, so it's like over half an acre shop back here that is metal fabrication and paint booths and all of this woodworking stuff. It's so super cool. I've had the privilege of touring it and so we're going to talk about their business here Edgework Creative, and then some things that they've learned along their journey, and it's going to be a fun conversation. So we're going to dig in here. So thanks again for being on with me, guys.
Speaker 1Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2Yeah. So those who might be listening and have not heard of Edgework Creative, tell us a little bit about your business today and what all you do.
Speaker 3You want to start, you can go Pretty cut and dry. We're a custom fabrication shop. We build everything from furniture, millwork, cabinetry, metal fabrications, railings doors. If you can dream it, we can probably build it, as long as you can pay for it.
The Importance of Team Relationships
Speaker 2Yeah, I love in construction and any associated trades. It's like people ask, can you do this? Like, hey, anything is possible. It's just a matter of if you're willing to write the check for it right, so you can kind of hear it. You'll hear this dynamic, I think, through the conversation. I've gotten to know Alex and Lindsay really well. We're friends personally now, but Alex is like the operations guy you know, he like gets the work done and Lindsay is the marketing one and so she gets to make sure that they've got the great photos and kind of some of the flowery language. What would you add to Alex's description to describe what you guys do at Edgework?
Speaker 1Yeah, I think we just build cool things. I shared with someone recently and it was the first time I'd said it that we say yes to projects. So we don't scare easily. We're definitely like a figure it out kind of group of people and we've assembled and created a really talented team that likes to figure it out.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. And again I mean maybe you're hearing like oh, you know fabrication, you know furniture. Like that does not do justice to what you guys do. You know you've got to stumble over to their their Facebook, instagram, linkedin feeds and like see truly, the kinds of stuff that these guys are building, like it is so cool. Talk a little bit about the kinds of customers that you work with and you know what those projects entail.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean we work with a lot of architect and design firms, contractors, business owners and even direct to customers, so like a homeowner or a small business owner who needs to get a conference table or whatever. So we're really flexible as far as like who our client is. But we also, I think more specifically like an industry. We do high-end residential, we do office furniture fixtures, we do restaurant and hospitality, we do multifamily and amenity space and lots of other things. Those seem to be like the big buckets of places where we find that we're doing a lot of our work.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. So you know, I've, I know, when we toured recently, uh, you had just done like a whole bunch of tables for a condado, right, that was opening, so it was, I mean literally everything. I mean. So you were building the bases, custom the tops, painting all the the funky stuff.
Speaker 3You know all of that right yeah, yeah, the condado is a brand. We've done some work with doing tabletops for them. Um yeah, I mean, I would say probably the simplest thing we do is tables.
Speaker 2Right, yeah, yeah, and lots, all shapes and sizes, every kind of table right.
Speaker 3Yeah, they don't get me all that excited anymore. Happy to do them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, some of the other wild and crazy things that, uh, we do get me a little more excited. We're, we do a decent amount of work for um rise brands and pins, mechanical. We're currently um or we have out there we haven't shipped it yet um, building what might be the world's biggest light bright, supposedly okay okay so okay things like that. You know it's like nobody else is doing that?
Speaker 2yeah, I hadn't heard about that project, but I saw the, the life, the regular life size, light, bright, sitting out in your showroom. So that must have been the prototype, right?
Speaker 1to give you a sense of how big it is. They are scaling the outlet on the wall and the cord for it and the cord for it, and the cord is made of a fire hose. Wow.
Speaker 2So Okay, and like, what are the pegs?
Speaker 3The pegs are like three quarter or one inch acrylic rod. Okay, different colors. Yeah. Yeah. It's enormous.
Speaker 1It sounds like they're submitting it for the Guinness Book of World Records. So, it might actually be the world's biggest you get to be part of that project. So yeah, so again.
Trust and Growth Over a Decade
Speaker 2like you know, for those listening, it's just like, yes, wild and crazy projects all the way down to dining room tables, and you know I mean everything in between. So, interestingly, that whole conversation around tables kind of parlays into two stories. One is our origin story. I met you guys about a year ago. We were in the process of furnishing our co-working space in downtown Marion, connect Co-Works, and needed some fun and funky tables and stumbled across you guys on the internet and bought some of the hive tables that you make, which, for folks that don't know, those are like a trapezoid table, five-sided.
Speaker 1Right, yeah, it's four-sided.
Speaker 2Oh yeah four-sided and so trapezoid, thank you, is the correct geometric term. But they can be configured in all these different ways, and so they're. They're cool. So we wanted some of those and so we ordered them. And Lindsay said why don't you come by and see our place? And so I said, great, that sounds fun. I've never been inside of a furniture manufacturing place before, and so I visited and got to see all of the things that I described and it's super cool. And then we spent an hour talking about small business and the challenges of that, and family and family and business and kids around business and all of that. And then that led to us having dinner together as couples and then hanging out as families, and the rest is history here, so, hard to believe.
Speaker 2that's all kind of happened within a year, but it's been a really fun journey with you all and just started with the table. And then my understanding is that the whole origin story for Edgework started with a table, so let's trace that back and tell folks the whole story of how this all started.
Speaker 1Yeah, we started the business because we built ourselves. I say we.
Speaker 2We the operations guy, yeah, exactly the figurative.
Speaker 1We uh uh needed a dining table for our home and I asked Alex to build one if I came up with a design or a inspiration for it, and he said sure, which I think sort of full circle is, like we just say yes to things um, I think it's our nature and um, he built us a table.
Speaker 1There was no purpose or intention or anything behind it, except that we were broke and we needed a table and so we built our own table and as we started having like kids birthday parties or friends over for a barbecue or hosting Christmas, people were like I can't believe you built this table. People would like pay you and buy these things. It was like a foreign idea to us. We hadn't thought about it and, you know, over time I can't even really remember how long it was maybe six months, a year or something People just kept saying it and I was weeding in our backyard and just decided you know what? I'm going to start an Instagram and see what comes of it. And we got an order, like that day or something. So it just sort of started slowly as a way to make a little bit extra money when we didn't have any. And it just has grown and grown and grown and next month we're celebrating 10 years of business which is crazy and yeah, I always joke that we're accidental entrepreneurs, like we didn't set out to start a business.
Speaker 1But here we are and I think that that rings true for a lot of small business owners. You start doing something that you're excited about or interested in or talented at, or sometimes you're just interested in it and you figure out how to be talented at it, and that's sort of how we started and just sort of slow and steady.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, I mean you say that, you know, but even as an outsider looking in, like 10 years like doesn't seem that long for what you've built. I mean I think it's super cool and it's impressive and hopefully inspirational to people out there that are thinking like, oh gosh, I have this thing. I have this thing that I do, this thing that I love, this thing that people have told me might make some money, I could turn it into a business, and you're living proof that that really can happen. Yeah, so I mean, let's kind of dig into that a little bit more in terms of just you know, first of all, when did you take, you know, the real leap to you know say, okay, this seems like this could be a legitimate business.
Speaker 3At what point would you say that when I was nine months pregnant with our third child, which is probably not great timing, but that's the honest truth I was like swollen feet and enormous and about to give birth and we, uh, we worked out of our garage for about a year and a half doing one off here, one off there. We would go to the farmer's markets and take our cutting boards and our coasters and a little, you know, a couple of small little tables or furniture pieces. Yeah, we did that for about a year and a half and you know it got to the point cause I was also working a full-time job at the time doing nights and weekends.
Speaker 3It got to the point where we need to make a decision here and that means we're going to really try to do this and that means getting out of the garage, getting some help, upgrading tools, et cetera. Some friends of ours, another um entrepreneur she was considering moving her shop at the time.
Business Evolution: 10 Years in the Making
Speaker 3She has a small jewelry boutique um and asked us if we were interested in potentially sharing a space with her okay and and yeah, I guess really, at that point we hadn't at least I certainly had not made the decision that we were going to like do this, and Lindsay was pushing and pushing and she's like come on, let's go look at the space. Let's go look at the space and, um, you know, it was, I don't know four or 500 bucks a month in rent. There's no way, right, we can't afford it. What are you talking? About.
Speaker 3Right and, um, we ended up going to look at that space with them and like, really, as soon as I saw the space, I was like, oh, okay, I could do that.
Speaker 1That piece of equipment.
Speaker 3Like and um and that's like, I think, when it clicked for me um, that space didn't end up happening. Oh, okay. We were, it was, it was pretty like just the timing and everything was like it had. It was like all these things had to come together really quickly. I don't remember exactly why, but it didn't. It didn't end up happening and like we're talking about like, like, how do we fund this? And blah, blah, blah, and we had come up with.
Speaker 3One of our options was to do a kickstarter campaign okay, back in the heyday of kickstarter I assume it's still thriving right, yeah, yeah, I mean, I've heard of some recently and during yeah, during that you know a couple of weeks where we're talking about this lease and trying to figure kind of everything out very rapidly um decided to do that we could do a kickstarter campaign and then, when the lease didn't happen, we're like, okay, we can just kind of take a breath, really kind of plan this the right way, do it the right way. And so we took our time and planned a Kickstarter campaign and executed that, raised a little bit of money, which then propelled us to be able to find a space higher. We hired two people part-time, upgraded some tools, got into a lease on a I think it was 2,000 square feet, which again seemed like going from a two-car garage 400 square feet two-car garage.
Speaker 3We're like man, this is great. And then we got in there pretty quickly and realized, all right, so wood shop, finish metal shop, showroom, break room, office, bathroom, storage, okay, two thousand, great stop very much right, yeah but yeah, we made it work and we're we're there for about a year and a half. Before we started, we need more space because things were, yeah, stuff was just growing pretty quickly and getting bigger projects, more projects yeah, it just kind of went from there, yeah yeah, um yeah, it just kind of went from there.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. So when you did the Kickstarter campaign, you moved into this first real facility. That was when you quit your job and you went in and you would say that was the leap Like six months. Yeah, about six months into that. Yeah, okay. Yeah.
Speaker 3And we knew, like we knew, that was the trajectory. Yeah, um, and I was super fortunate. I was working for a small family-owned business in wholesale wine distribution, just doing outside sales, and they were extremely accommodating and flexible with me. The last six or so months I worked there and kind of let me go out on my own terms when I was ready, yeah, so there's a lot there Kind of, let me, let me go out on my own terms and when I was ready, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2So there's a lot there. I mean, I think, first of all, being able to have that level of transparency and communication with an employer and, you know, kudos to them for being supportive, but also kudos to you for saying like, hey, here's a trajectory, I'd like to go on. I'd like to, you know, honor you and help as much as I can to make a, you know, a smooth transition as an employer. I know we appreciate those conversations and always encourage that as much as possible. But also, just, you know, I mean, those six months were, I'm sure that was a super hectic time for your family. I mean, again, this is eight or nine years ago, so it's probably hard to remember but I mean to be working a full-time job, doing this full-time trying to get this place set up. You're hiring employees for the first time new baby.
Speaker 1Yeah, the number of images I have of the car seat, baby carrier, at the shop or whatever. I feel like our kids have grown up in a shop and, um, yeah, it's wild to you know, get those um facebook memory pop-ups that just really punch in the gut with uh, memories and it's. It's just wild to yeah to think about and um, try and remember how we felt or how okay, or like we didn't know what we didn't know.
Speaker 1You know, we were just moving forward. And now I look back and I say it all the time, like my parents must have thought we were crazy um, yeah but yeah, it was, it's been wild. Yeah, I mean at least yeah.
Speaker 2I mean, as you put yourself back, I mean do you, do you? It kind of takes a little time, you know, to the conversation like this. But, you know, do you feel some of those emotions again, like you know, was it excitement, was it fear? You know, were you guys like totally aligned on, hey, we're going to do this come like hell or high water, or was it, you know, like gosh, I hope we don't flop, you know? I mean, what were some of those conversations?
Speaker 1I don't remember feeling scared. I remember feeling like really motivated and like um, excited, and not that it isn't now, but like definitely a grinding time in our life, right, but I would I would also say we're still in a grinding time of our life maybe for different reasons, or on a different scale, but um, yeah, I don't remember feeling scared.
Speaker 2I I remember feeling really like motivated and yeah, I'm just ready enthusiastic yeah yeah, yeah well, I think that, and enthusiastic, yeah Well, I think that does come to a point where you're doing this on the side and it's a grind then too, and it's just like, hey, are we going to jump in here or not? And then when you make that decision, I think it can be very freeing to say, okay, let's go, let's do it.
Speaker 2So, again, I'm thinking about those people out there that are considering taking the leap and they just need some inspiration, some motivation, you know, and and maybe some real talk about. Hey, it's hard, it is really hard, it is a lot of work. You know, this is not a 40 hour a week a job. Uh, hour a week job, probably not 50, probably not 60. I mean, like for a while, like it's, it's all consuming sun, sundown, six, seven days a week. You're just trying to get it off the ground.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean. I guess what I would say is there's never a perfect time, you're never going to be ready, you're never going to have it all figured out, so just do it.
Speaker 3But know it will be the hardest thing you ever do.
Speaker 1Yeah, it will be the hardest thing you ever do. I say all the time that I think running a business is harder than being a parent.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, I mean, I could see that for sure as well, although there's a lot of parallels to parenting as well. Oh, 100% With the business as the child and sometimes team members as children, you know having to kind of lead them.
Speaker 1The skills are transferable, for sure. But yeah, it will be the hardest thing you ever do and you will want to quit and you will doubt yourself and you will be scared and excited. You will feel every range of emotion like so intensely.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, I, I totally agree with that. So, yeah, thanks for for walking us through kind of what that felt like looked like as a family and kind of going in and it was a family affair, you know, I mean you mentioned, you know, the kids being part of it and you know I have some of those memories with our kids and businesses as well, and you know, I think it's defined who you are as a family and you know.
Speaker 1I think it's defined who you are as a family and certainly you know. What do you think are some of the lessons that your kids have either learned directly or indirectly through growing up in a small business.
Speaker 3That would be really interesting to have your kids on a podcast.
Speaker 1Yeah, I agree, like yeah maybe we've got dinner conversations for tonight.
Speaker 3Just the hard work you know, and what. What is hard work really look like? Yeah. You know, what do you have to sacrifice sometimes to, to, you know, make it all work. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3There's also big rewards, you know that come with it. You know, I think we live a pretty comfortable life and we've been fortunate enough to work. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's also big rewards, you know that come with it. You know, I mean, I think we live a pretty comfortable life and we've been fortunate enough to take our kids to lots of places. It comes at a cost. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, and I mean I think you know, as parents, it's our opportunity to have those conversations. I know you guys have and we have, and we've even had them together with you guys and our kids, you know to to be talking about. Just, you know, there there are differences in the way that we live. There are trade-offs that come with with the small business lifestyle. It's certainly not as glamorous as many on the outside might think, but you know, these are again some of the conversations where we talk about and I think it's important to have friendships with people that can relate to that level of commitment and sacrifice that you've made to get where you are today.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think it changes your whole life. And to your point about having relationships with other small business owners, as we have moved through this business, we, our circle, has just become more and more people who have small businesses, because you just can't it's sort of like trying to explain to someone what it will be like to be a parent, like until you've like lived it and doing it. Um, small business owners are some of the hardest working um risk takers, boundary pushers, and um, it's hard to spend your time.
Speaker 2That's so valuable and uh, limited and it just becomes so natural to spend it with other people who are living that same lifestyle and telling their stories and um seeking advice or support or whatever yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely so, uh, so, continuing the the deep dive in the story here, so you're in this 2,000-square-foot place and you're bumping elbows very quickly with your couple of team members that you brought on there and you're building stuff, and at that point you've moved on past coasters and cutting boards. But what kinds of projects are you doing at that stage in the game?
Speaker 3cutting boards. But what kinds of projects are you doing? At that stage in the game we did a handful of restaurants. You know there are tables, benches, other you know just kind of wild architectural details. I remember I think the first was the first restaurant project.
Speaker 1We did Watershed or was it Veronica Watershed Watershed which we did?
Speaker 3Yeah, All their tabletops, and yeah, I mean we were doing residential. I mean we still do residential.
Speaker 1We were doing a lot more just like free floating furniture, so like dining tables or coffee tables or a media credenza or, um, like mirrors. We did a lot of mirrors for a while. Yeah, um. And then, yeah, we got our first commercial project, which was the watershed tables.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I mean, how were those types of opportunities coming in?
Speaker 1Uh, word of mouth referral.
Speaker 3Yeah, all referral.
Speaker 2Yeah, you didn't have outside sales at that point. At that stage, lindsay, I mean, I know today you head up all the social media and all of that. Were you doing that in those days as well? What was your involvement?
Speaker 1Yes, I've been running it from the very beginning. Running it from the very beginning, I did have a little bit of help for, um, maybe like a year or so, but I was still heavily involved.
Speaker 2I just wasn't always the one pressing post, Um, but today you are yes, still am.
Speaker 1It's still me behind every post on LinkedIn or every blog post or email newsletter. It's me.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, which, again I I think there's a lot to be learned from from that work that you do. I think you do a fantastic job and if, if folks go to Edgework, Creative social media and you see what I'm talking about, all these fantastic photos and everything that they do, be sure that you encourage Lindsay you can comment on there, like this is the bomb.
Speaker 1Great job, keep going so yes, so, anyway.
Speaker 2So you move past the, the 2 000 square foot place. What was the next jump? What was the next leap, that that you took?
Speaker 3to get the next jump was. We went in about 10 000 feet super cool building, 32 foot high ceilings. You would love it. Oh, I'm sure it was incredibly inefficient from a heating it was beautiful but, um details. Yes, we're in about 10 000 square feet.
Speaker 2Um grew in that space over about five years and um now we're in 27 yeah, so this was the next jump so at that point I mean you went from 400 square feet in the garage, 2 000 square feet first place, then to 10 000 and to 27 000. So those are, I mean, big jumps, uh. But you know, with the amount of stuff you've got to move and set up and outfit and everything, you didn't want to have to do it very many times. I'm sure that was a painful process in and of itself making those moves.
Speaker 1I don't think we have any plans of moving out of this place.
Speaker 3No, I don't think so. We've kind of toyed with it a little bit, but I've toyed with it, I've thought better.
Speaker 1We have a lot of space still. We're very fortunate to be spread out and have a lot of extra space, but we have plenty of room to grow in this building. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2So, speaking of growing, you know we're talking about growing your footprint with the business. You know, something we've talked about some before is just how you've had to grow as leaders. You know this is probably one of the most challenging parts of growing a business. Everyone's like oh you know you need sales and you need, you know, equipment and, yes, you need all those things. But ultimately I know we've talked it's like you've got to grow yourself. You've got to grow as a leader to be able to lead people and kind of continue to go to elevations that you've never been before. What has that journey looked like? What resources have you used to elevate your mindsets and education and leadership abilities?
Speaker 1I think one of the things that naturally happens in any business, especially when you're growing a small business, is you're going to make a lot of mistakes and you've got to learn the lesson, improve upon it, make a change, see it coming down the road sooner next time, all of those things. So I think that's one of the things that naturally happens as you're growing a business, as you're building all these schools and building all these tools and collecting all these experiences and connecting with other small businesses who have been through it. I think having the strong community of small business owners is paramount to anyone.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think also then surrounding yourself with people that are maybe a little bit smarter than you or know how to do something a little bit better than you so you don't have to do it Like I mean, for the longest time. And I mean, let's say, most business owners can probably relate to.
Speaker 1this is like you do everything Right right, Not because you're good at it, but because you have to Right exactly.
Speaker 3Yeah, and at some point, like that becomes unsustainable and unfeasible and the only way you can grow is by you know, finding people that are good at doing those things. Yeah, hopefully better than you.
Speaker 2Yes, yeah, that is such a big part of it, and I think, lindsay, what you said just made me think, like you're going. Every business owner is going to make mistakes, and I think that the difference between the companies that fail and those that continue to grow and succeed are what you do with those mistakes. Are they something that hurts you and holds you back, or is it something that you can say hey, we're going to learn from that. We're going to improve a process. We're going to hire a person. We're going to improve a process. We're going to hire a person. We're going to do something to get better.
Speaker 1And maybe both of those things happen in the same mistake.
Speaker 2It could be a bit of a setback, but then how are we going to grow through it and use that as fuel or motivation to get to that next level?
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2That definitely is the difference maker, it seems. So We've talked, you know, kind of in generalities, I mean, about some of the different challenges that come with with growing a business and and some of that, but I mean anything that comes to mind. That was like really when you first started out, like what did what has become a challenge or been a challenge through the years that you didn't expect to be a challenge when you were, when you were starting out.
Speaker 1Well, I'm not sure, unless you're starting an HR business and anybody gets into small business to deal with all the HR stuff and not necessarily even like people behaving poorly. But just like I don't know, I need an employee handbook. I don't know what an employee handbook looks like. We need a PTO policy and we need, you know, workers comp and all of these things that, like no small business owner thinks about and.
Speaker 1I mean, maybe you think about like, oh, I need to do that, but like it just takes a lot of time and energy and you know hiring and coaching and you know letting people go, and all of those things are really hard because that's like a human thing and we're a small business, so the team is very close and tight and so I think anytime, um, you have to deal with like HR related things, that's really really hard and um, yeah, turnover and team and stuff like that, which we've been very, very fortunate of having like little
Speaker 1very little turnover and we have great tenure with our team and we're very, very proud of that. But we, you know, last year had incredible, uh like very intense small amount of time, a significant amount of turnover for a whole host of reasons. It wasn't one thing and four people, it was just four people, all sort of in a very close amount of time for four different reasons. But it's really hard because, as a small business owner, when there's a gap in the business you do it.
Speaker 2Fill the gap, yep.
Speaker 1So that's a recent, like real hard struggle that I can think of.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think just the people like the good, the bad and the ugly. That's the thing that I think didn't really think about or anticipate. Yeah, All the good stuff that comes with it, but yeah, there's some really hard things too. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2And just continuing to have to figure it out. Yeah, you know all those things that you mentioned. You know it's funny, as we think back, we take it for granted now, once we've developed HR policies and PTO policies and set up a payroll company and set up our BWC and all that Like it doesn't seem like as big a deal, but back then it was.
Speaker 1It's hard and it's stressful and it's like one more thing you have to do.
Speaker 2Yeah yeah, and we still in our various businesses, are bumping up against things all the time that it's like, well, never dealt with this one before and I guess we got to figure it out. You know, that's that's kind of just the the. The mantra of the small business owner is we'll figure it out. Yeah, we'll figure it out, whatever.
Speaker 3It is One way or another, one way or another, one way or another.
Speaker 2We're going to figure it out. So, yeah, that's great. What about unexpected joys? You know I mean some things that maybe you didn't expect, that you look back and you're like man, that's really been a gratifying part of this business that you didn't necessarily expect. I give the same answer, Me too.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, Like we have an incredible team. I never thought that you know it sounds so cliche, but like it really is a family. There are a lot of really important relationships. There's a lot of trust. We've all seen each other through a lot of stuff. I mean, we've been in business for 10 years and we have three people on our team who have been here for seven years of it, so you can imagine how much they've seen the business change. They've seen Alex and I change. They personally have changed. And you know like I get so excited when I hear that four guys are going on a motorcycle camping trip for the weekend, that all work here, Cause I think, gosh, how wonderful it is to like love the people you work with, yeah, and to know that you know people are giving their best effort and doing their best with what they have and taking care of the people around them. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3Yeah, hands down Same thing People, yeah, yeah. Yeah, hands down Same thing People, yeah yeah. Best part about it.
Speaker 2It is very humbling, isn't it, when you, when you look around and you think, like gosh, like we're all working towards the same goal and, yes, we're taking a lot of risk and, yes, we're casting the vision, but a lot of people are putting their trust in, in us as the business leaders, to to make this all happen and and make sure that they get paid every two weeks that's a lot of pressure, man, it's a lot of pressure it is, isn't it?
Speaker 2I mean, you know, and yet, uh, here we are doing it, but, uh, but those good things, you know, when we look around and we have those you of aha realizations, that is what makes it worthwhile.
Speaker 1Yeah, and some of our best friends in our entire life we have met because of our business, like family friends and personal friends, and new friends and reconnected with old friends in a new way. And yeah, I think it's, it's a, it's a powerful experience.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, so, uh, we talked some about the, the kids element of you know, doing business together. What about the, the spousal, uh joys and challenges with working together? Uh, again, it it's kind of been that way all along and there's for sure been some highs and lows.
Speaker 1I mean, do you mind sharing about some of those? Well, I mean, I always say that the best part about working with my husband is that I trust him implicitly and I know that he's making all of the best decisions for us, for our family, for the business. Um, and some of the hard things, I think is it's really, you know, we're getting better, and I definitely think we go through waves where we do this better than other times. But, like leaving work at work and trying to transition home, um is really hard on a good day, and then, when you have a bad day, um, even harder. Um, and I think what has um generally been great about the hard days is we aren't typically always having hard days on the same day we definitely balance ourselves fairly well yeah or, you know, maybe we'll both have a hard day.
Speaker 3Um like, I think today is probably a pretty good example. Yeah, you know, today's not been a great day this morning wasn't very great for you, no, but got through that. Yeah, my afternoon has not been great, with the exception of this, thank you. But we yes, we definitely balance each other out pretty well and bring each other up when we need to. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah I think I've heard that theme with other spouses that work together consistently, you know is that they can separate the the work and the personal you know, or family members in general, you know, I mean brothers and sisters, or parents and kids that work together.
Speaker 1it's being able to kind of separate some of that and then, to the extent extent possible I don't think there's anybody out there that's perfect at it but to to try to be intentional about leaving work at work I think the other thing too is people are like oh my gosh, you work together and you live together like you never get a break from each other and it's not as if we're like sitting at the same desk together all day either I mean we'll have days where we're both here in the building all day and I talk to him and see him for 90 seconds, you know.
Speaker 1So it's. We do very different things in the business, so by nature our days are very different and you know we might be under the same roof but we're not necessarily like working hand in hand all day. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2And I think that you guys have a good relationship that you work at, you know, I mean, I mean that is a foundational thing too, that you know maybe some of the people that make that comment there, you know, maybe not on a firm foundation relationally, and then to to layer work on top of a weak foundation of relationship would be very challenging. Yes, you know, and so there still has to be that element, For sure, Right when you know we were just talking.
Speaker 1You guys recently took a trip, just the two of you and you know doing those types of things, even though it was mostly work, and I was going to say that's like a perfect example of like work and life integration. You know, our work took us out of town for three days and we, well, we were out of town for three days, it took us away for two days and then we just extended for one day and we were out of town and we should have been like whooping it up in the city, but we were just so tired. We stayed in our hotel room all day, never left the hotel, and so, yeah, but it was nice to just have like a quiet day. Sitting around in our robes, we went down to the gym and walked on the treadmills together and then we had coffee in bed and just laid around and then we went to dinner. So I mean, it was, it was nice, but yeah, it was, it's nice to spend time just the two of us, two, away from everything. Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, I love that. Uh, work and life integration.
Speaker 1And work made us so tired we couldn't even have go out and have fun.
Speaker 3Work life balance as a as a family business is, is that? Non-existent. Yeah, it's integration for sure.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and and seasonally I mean, do you? You find yourself, you know, kind of like, looking at each other and saying like, hey, we've got a sprint here a little bit, and then we're going to, you know lay back, and then you know sprint, and then we'll walk, and then we're going to, you know lay back, and then you know sprint, and then we'll walk and then we'll jog, then we'll, you know, relax and like, does it feel that way for you guys? Or, you know, is it fairly steady or how do you manage that kind of work life?
Speaker 1You know again, three kids, activities, travel, I think it feels like fairly steady for the most part and consistent, and then there's always like intense periods for any number of reasons, right, Everything comes together all at once. Yeah.
Speaker 3You don't plan that, but just ultimately it seems like that's how it works.
Speaker 1When it rains, it pours, as they say.
Speaker 3I think the summer's always a little slower.
Speaker 2Work-wise.
Speaker 3Not necessarily work-wise. Just like I think we have less going on, Our kids go to camp for a little bit in the summer.
Speaker 1Well, and there's like no sports and there's no school and all of those other like life just feels a little gentler, um yeah yeah, yeah and and finding those rhythms that that work with your family, your business yeah your, your rhythms right, and there's.
Speaker 1You know, I know people who have seasonal businesses, who from may or april to october nove, it's like the most intense and then the other time of the year that they are slower or have more time. And I know people who have opposite schedules. You know where they're, like a teacher, but their spouse has their busy time in the summer and they have their slow time in the summer, and that presents its own set of challenges.
Speaker 2And yeah, so, yeah, yeah, time in the summer and they have their slow time in the summer, and that presents its own set of challenges and yeah, so, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would posit that, uh, most small businesses uh, become family businesses in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 2even if you know both spouses are not involved, you know, there's still always that overflow and support that's needed, and we've had a lot of podcast episodes pretty much all of them actually where we've talked about what it takes to make a successful small business, and it's almost always a supportive family.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2Whether or not they're directly involved or not. That is so critical. I've seen that theme time after time, so obviously you guys are in full agreement with that and the circles that you run in with other small business owners.
Speaker 2I imagine have some of those same themes. So, as we kind of wind things down here, I mean it's been fun taking this, this journey back memory lane with you guys and hearing the whole story. What are I always like to ask like, I kind of asked this before, but some specific educational or inspirational resources that you've tapped into, anything come to mind, a particular you know book that changed your thinking, or Anything. Come to mind a particular book that changed your thinking, or podcast, or something that was really transformational.
Speaker 3I subscribe to James Clear's 321 newsletter. Simple email blast every week. It's amazing how broad his audience is and every single week there is at least one thing in there that I'm like man, he's inside my head.
Speaker 1Yeah, talking. And I've started like I hang.
Speaker 3I hang them up around the shop. I like that. I pass them out to team. You know, something that's just resonates with me for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1I like listening. I've long loved the podcast how I built this hearing. Yeah, yeah, I like listening. I've long loved the podcast how I Built this hearing. Yes, and you know those aren't exactly small business owners, but you know, you're typically a household name brand who's? Like built a multimillion or billions dollar business, but no business just starts like that right, like there's so many lessons.
Speaker 1Or the people that started those businesses had five, six, seven failed businesses before they figured out the right one. And, um, I think it's always just remarkable to hear stories about how people figured it out, or when everyone told them not to do something, they pushed forward anyways. Um, I listened to a really good um episode a couple weeks ago about uh, american giant the sweatshirt brand okay and, uh, their founder.
Speaker 1His name is escaping me right now, but was just committed to making a high quality. All American made like American fabrics and zippers know he sells $130 sweatshirts or whatever and he's like that's just what it costs. So I like hearing stories about other business owners who have built things. Yes. All the different. You know they might be a makeup business, but so many of the lessons are transferable across whatever industry you are and um yeah, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2Um, yeah, I love both those resources. So, if folks don't know, james Clear wrote the book Atomic Habits and which is fantastic. So many great lessons. And then, yeah, he just goes on to continue to add value through this weekly newsletter that extends beyond just habits, but there's definitely that component in there as well. So I love your, you know, taking those snippets and sharing them, and hanging them up around the office.
Speaker 1Yeah, there's one there. There's one at the water cooler in our break room. Sometimes we just put them on a door that a lot of people walk through, just taped up I mean, it's not like framed or anything and change them out when a new one resonates.
Speaker 2And just taped up. I mean it's not like framed or anything and change them out when a new one resonates, and just I don't know yeah, that's really good. And then how I built this.
Speaker 2That's our like family road trip time passer. So if we need like break from screens and you know, kind of like all come around, a common thing to talk about and listen to, we'll listen to an episode and then we'll chat about it, you know. So, again, this is like how our kids grow up in small business and learn it, you know, and we talk about what resonates with us and what applies, and you know, I think just every you know I love that too, just as a resource for everyone, just because I think that, as small business owners, we need that shot of inspiration sometimes. Just because I think that, as small business owners.
Speaker 2We need that shot of inspiration, sometimes just because business is hard.
Speaker 1Yeah, resiliency or like okay, just got to keep going.
Speaker 2Just have to know that other people have done it, we can do it. We're going to overcome this challenge. Sometimes it seems insurmountable, but we'll figure it out, as they did. So those are great resources. Thanks for sharing those. So we've mentioned how folks can kind of follow you. Share all those once again, your website, or, if you would, you know, if they're looking for something unique and see something that resonates you, you know how they might find you physically or whatever.
Behind the Scenes at Edgework Creative
Speaker 1So yeah, so our website is just edgeworkcreativeco and on our website we have so much content and photos of projects we've done and a wide range. We try and really showcase the like breadth of our work and um, and you can read blog posts about specific projects, deep dives, you can go through galleries of residential dining tables or whatnot, and you can email us or contact us through our website to get started on a project or even just to ask us a question. And then we're on almost all of the socials. We're on LinkedIn, we are on Facebook and Instagram and we're also on Pinterest and it's just Edgework Creative.
Speaker 1We have a newsletter that you can subscribe to. I write it, so, if you're lucky, you get one every other month. You're not going to get bombarded in your inbox, but we generally share, you know, a deep dive into a project or a range of projects we've recently completed or an interview with someone we find really interesting, all sorts of stuff. So, yeah, okay, I think. And then you know we're located at 71 in Hudson and the like Clintonville campus area, right across the street from the historic cruise stadium, and you know we take appointments or we take yeah, we take, make appointments yeah.
Speaker 1My brain's fried. It's the end of the day, yeah, but you can come in and visit and we'll give people a tour of the shop, and that's by appointment. Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, if you know what you're looking for, you can see him from I 71. Yeah, long silver drive.
Speaker 2Yeah, so, yeah, okay. Well, I encourage folks. I mean, if you're in the market at all, check out their work. It's absolutely incredible and you'll be absolutely happy that you did so. Thank you again for sharing some of your stories, some of the highs and lows and just having some real talk. Again, I hope that to our listeners this has been educational, inspirational and just gives you a little shot of encouragement.
Speaker 2If you're considering opening a business, you're challenged by the growth of your current business or, where you're at, you're hitting a plateau. These are the things that happen to all of us. So take heart, continue to work forward and continue to tune in. We hope to host some more conversations like this in coming weeks. Be sure to like and subscribe here and we'll hopefully catch you the next time around. Thanks again. Thanks for listening to the Main Street Reimagined podcast. To learn more about Main Street Reimagined Henry Development Group or our work in downtown Marion, ohio, please visit MainStreetReimagined henry development group or our work in downtown marion, ohio. Please visit mainstreet reimaginecom if you want to connect or if you know someone who we need to interview. Shoot us an email at info at mainstreetreimaginecom. Until next time, keep dreaming and don't be afraid to take the leap.