Bo Shepherd: Woodward Throwbacks

 

“I would say that mea and Kyle are artists before Woodworkers. And that’s the truth.”

 

• Bo Shepherd

 

Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today your host Steve Larosiliere sits down with Bo Shepherd from Woodward Throwbacks. Steve’s wife has followed Bo online, and last summer, Steve had the opportunity to go to Bo’s store when she was running a big sale.

 

Woodward Throwbacks has a phenomenal brand, exceptional content, and unique products with a distinctly Detroit feel. Check out this episode and listen to Bo talk about how she has brought this business to where it is today!

 

 

 

 

A Reclaimed Origin

 

“So Woodward Throwbacks is a sustainable design studio that focuses on designing furniture, buildings, and spaces using primary reclaimed materials. We started in 2014 organically, in a way. In Detroit, there was a lot of illegal dumping around that time, which was material that’s been discarded on the street. 

 

So being at a college, being on a budget, we’re gathering those materials while we bike around the city and making furniture for ourselves. Fast forward a couple of years, we started selling that furniture to friends and family and at the local farmer’s market. We got our big break when we started selling for Nordstrom. So we got into a couple of like, big-box companies. 

 

Then our business started to evolve, where instead of doing smaller home decor, we started doing larger scale furniture. Now we’re in our 24,000 square foot old Dodge dealership, which is our workshop, our warehouse, and our showroom. It was partly trying to clean up our neighborhood and just working on a budget and wanting to make cool things for our house.”

 

• Bo Shepherd

 

Bo and Kyle are avid bicyclists, and on weekends they love to travel all around the city limits of Detroit, where they often scout reclaimed materials for their projects. However, Bo notes that nowadays, most of their materials come from just being part of the greater Detroit and Hamtramck communities. Bo and Kyle are never short on exciting materials, whether from demo contractors, homeowners, or just finding interesting things.

 

 

 

 

The Power of Brand and Community

 

“I think the one thing about Detroit is that even though it’s a city, it feels like a small town. You’ll go out to like the market, go out to a party or a bar, and see the same people. If you’re down for Detroit and being a part of this hustle that a lot of people have, you get to be part of this inner circle of hustlers and entrepreneurs. Then like I said, it just comes naturally.

 

At the beginning of the pandemic, I started doing more how-to videos. Like, ‘this is how I refinish my pieces.’ If I found some hardware in the street, this is how I refinish the hardware. You have an old house built in the 1920s that has hardware painted 10 million times; this is how you revive it. The city has such rich architecture that I want people not to be discouraged and be like, ‘I can’t buy a house in Detroit because, you know, it needs so much work.’ No, you could do it. Let me show you how.”

 

• Bo Shepherd

 

Woodward Throwbacks is a sustainable business in the truest sense of the term. Bo and Kyle literally divert items from making their way to the dump. That dedication to reclaimed products has allowed them to make some reclaimed projects that would be impossible or challenging to achieve anywhere else in the world, let alone in the United States.

 

 

 

 

Steve’s Advice Corner

 

“I think I need to be consistent. I think consistency is the biggest thing I would need help with, even Instagram stuff. What are some of the tools I should use to stay on track?”

 

• Bo Shepherd

 

Bo and Kyle have a spectacular business in Woodward Throwbacks. They have their brand and quality content, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t refine their business. The next step is to look at solutions that will allow them to create the unique content they have become known for without eating too heavily into their actual product creation time.

 

“You’ve got a great brand, a great personality, and you do fantastic work. But I think you could be at the point where you have to hire a third person. It’s something when you’re holding the camera, but there’s another where you’re not taken away. Where you have somebody that comes in, maybe two times a week to do some filming, and then you do stories personally while they post all of the other stuff. 

 

Then you should go to your alma mater. Say, ‘I’m looking for an intern. I will pay them a stipend or give them a lump sum with credit.’ Then you can request five reels and five posts from them while you handle the stories. They shoot photos, shoot video, but you batch it so that it’s not all on you.”

 

• Steve Larosiliere

 

Website: https://www.woodwardthrowbacks.com

 

Instagram: @woodwardthrowbacks