How Small is Small?
Regular readers - Hey, you two! - know that we inadvisably took some early advice from YouTubers about how to start a small woodworking business (where else do you turn for advice on how to do anything?). One BIG takeaway was that furniture and other non-handheld stuff are fun and challenging and all, but you should focus on “smalls.” Smalls are quick and easy to make, cheap to sell, and more people can afford them. Don’t overthink it. Smalls make sense. So we made smalls.
A small sample of our early smalls: coasters, duh, along with cheese slicers, cutting boards, apartment-sized cutting boards (quite small), even smaller picnic-sized cutting boards, phone stands, serving trays, small boxes, smaller boxes, even smaller boxes, and tealight holders. The first one I made held six tealights. After that, we got an order for a bunch of two-tealight holders. That’s pretty small. Even the furniture we made was about as small as they come: stools. All of which would fit in the back of our little Honda HRV, as we envisioned toting them to craft fairs to cash in on that huge YouTube-inspired windfall. To more sensible folk, this is obvious clickbait nonsense. We clicked, inhaled the bait like we inhale KFC deliveries too late at night and deeply regret it, and made the smalls.
We weren’t all wrong about the smalls, but the reasons are a little complicated.
The actual point of this post is that today, 1/30/2026, at 2 pm, we (with me being skeptical) met with a small business advisor. Faith came across a program offered jointly by UConn and the state of Connecticut that basically provides conversion therapy for the YouTube-afflicted minds of small startup businesses. His name was Dean. He was once a small-business owner, now in marketing. I’m now extra skeptical. Oh, but he read our “business plan” (me failing to follow the provided template and instead going on about our “philosophy”), and he looked at our website and what we make. Dean turns out to own an Eero Saarinen Womb Chair (see my nerdy post about chairs) and some Jens Risom pieces (see this). I’m listeningggg (you both know why).
Dean asked a few questions. What led you to want to do this? “We have maker backgrounds. We have space for it now. Plus, it’s something we enjoy doing together.” Dean: It’s good for couples to have shared hobbies. But those are hobbies. That’s what he said. My skepticism was being confirmed. He’s telling us we’re amateurs (which we are). The point being, though, that UConn and the State of Connecticut don’t really have time for small-timers like us.
But let me break down the other 45 minutes of the meeting for you.
Dean: What you make is beautiful. These aren’t typical craft products. What you guys are making is art.
Me: Oh.
Dean: In these times, most people can’t afford what you should be earning for what you make. Your market is New Canaan (read: wealthy, disposable-income-type people).
Me: Oh.
Dean: You need a focus. Focus on high-end pieces. Don’t sell direct. Sell through other businesses. And don’t make coasters.
Me: Oh.
Dean: The stools. That’s your ticket.
Me: Oh. Well, the stools are supposed to become a series. Stools, benches, chairs, ottomans, all in the same style. We call it the Rhizome Series. Maybe one or two styles. That was the idea behind working on the Rhizome Stools.
Dean: Even better. So, forget the smalls. Also, make the series flat-packable for national distribution. And again, forget the smalls. Craft fairs are miserable. Let someone else deal with selling, taxes, all that. Specialize. Be efficient and focused. Think about scale.
Me: Ohhh.
I was wrong about Dean. He took us seriously, and his advice was illuminating, but also a tad unsettling for some reason. He said we were making art. He saw a promising business model. He saw high returns. He had thoughts, and he wanted to work with us. But ECW started with a philosophy, one about our community. Can you flat-pack a community?
Here’s the run-down on the post-Dean decompression conversation between Faith and me:
His advice was invaluable, and YouTube’s sucked. What he told us was that we needed more focus, to recognize our uniqueness, to be efficient, and to double down on that. What began as “You’re a hobbyist couple, that’s so cute” (I’m paraphrasing) ended as “You have something special here. Go bigger.” He called us artists, and he knew a thing or two about the art we’re trying to make. It was validating, and we suddenly had a roadmap.
Next in our post-convo small-biz conversation was the question of focus. Would it instead be foci, or just the one thing? What else are we making that might be scalable, and is scalability the sole thing we care about? At issue was our philosophy. Who and what is ECW? What, in essence, is so wrong with smalls?
For us, we discovered, the “smalls” are not some YouTube lore to cash in on. They’re about locality and accessibility, and about coasters. One of our first product concepts was to make coasters laser-etched and resin-inlaid with New Haven-themed spots. A series of coasters, some with extinct and once-beloved dive bars, others with still-existing and longstanding pizza places, iconic New Haven architecture, and the like. A single set of NHC (New Haven Concept) coasters can go cheaply to friends and friends of friends in our community. They’re fun and accessible. Yale parents and their legacy Yalies will love them. We can also take Dean’s advice and sell them through local shops and bookstores. It’s a limited market, more local than national, but it’s consistent with our philosophy. If you went to Harvard and live in Massachusetts or somewhere else, you won’t want them. So be it. Our coasters are a New Haven thing, and we’re good with that. It may be small, but we’re good with that. Small doesn’t mean it’s not scalable. There are luxury hotels in New Haven that might want them. A set in every room would far surpass the YouTube windfall. Small is relative, is all I’m saying.
We’ll take most of Dean’s advice. We’re developing the Rhizome stool into a series, figuring out how to redesign it for… flatpackability? Stools, benches, chairs, and ottomans. He thinks we’re onto something. So do we. We’ll see. But ECW will never diss the small, so long as small means our community, our people, our shared places and spaces. Big respect for Dean, UConn, and the State of Connecticut, but our respect, love, and commitment will always also be for New Haven, our friends and family, our neighbors, and our people.
