Viktor – The Stump Shop

Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today Steve is joined by Viktor from the Stump Shop. Viktor is one of the very first repeat guests on the podcast, and in the time since his last appearance, he has grown and accomplished a lot.   Viktor was originally on the podcast when it was still the Sawmill Business Podcast. Since that time, Steve has transitioned it from purely being about sawmills, to having a focus on many different woodworking aspects. He adds that since Viktor works outside of sawmills specifically, he was one of the people that sparked the name and subject change for Steve.   Steve calls Viktor the Stump King of North America, a title that he has earned over the years of doing incredibly creative work with stumps. Viktor laughs, and notes that he doesn’t know if he’s been called that specifically before, but he does do a ton of work with stumps and he loves doing it so much.

The Stump Shop 

“To this date, I’d say probably 60 to 70% of the stuff that I sell or work on are stumps, like actual pieces of the log, not just the bottom part of a tree, but really any usable portion of a tree, I reclaim it. Now I’ve grown to the point where I work with a lot of arborists that will bring me different types of stumps.    I’m you know, focusing more on hardwood, and then I just dry it all myself. We all know that wood takes forever to dry if you’re not using a kiln, so I’ve kind of perfected that art. And then I just turn the tree into some cool furniture.”

• Viktor

  Viktor adds that anyone listening to the podcast knows that wood takes forever to dry, and while not every single piece of furniture he makes is built out of stumps specifically, he estimates that 60-70% of the pieces he creates are stump related. He adds that most of the other woodworking he does is either based on the flavor of the day or whatever his customers request.   Steve notes that Viktor has really managed to hone down entirely on his brand and he doesn’t really deviate from that. Then asking how Viktor has managed to focus his attention so effectively. Viktor responds that he learned a long time ago that it’s vital to develop a niche to succeed in the woodworking industry, and has just recently been reminded of that. Since woodworking is such a broad category, it’s essential to have something that sets you apart from the rest.   Viktor adds that over the last several years, he has placed a larger emphasis on social media and Instagram in particular. Due to the unique nature of his particular niche in the woodworking ecosystem, he makes cool stuff out of wood and then makes videos of that process.

Patience is Key

“The truth is, people might not want to hear this, but everyone out there that’s listening, it’s your lack of patience that allows me to excel in the stump game because no one’s willing to wait two to three years for a stump to dry. I’ll wait, and because I’ve started so long ago, I always have ones that are ready. So a lot of people reach out now like, hey, how do I work specifically with stumps? And I’m like, well start drying and send me a DM in like two years, and we’ll chat.”

• Viktor

  Steve notes that the stuff Viktor uses is an often overlooked part of the process, and that he has shown an enormous range of creativity that stumps can be used for. He then asks how Viktor has grown his business over the years since they spoke on the podcast previously.   Viktor reflects that his business really took a turn from exclusively woodworking into the social media sphere over the last two to four years. He’s been able to change from being the guy in his garage making stuff and posting a photo once a week to the guy bringing along his followers, both old and new, along with him for his journey.   He adds that his success in the social media world has given him the opportunity to work with more brands and companies so he can focus on more than just catering to customers, which has been one of the major shifts in his business over the last few years. 

Involving Instagram

Steve notes that brand partnerships and sponsorships are a huge part of scaling a business, and asks Viktor whether one came before the other, and how he started to shift his usage of Instagram when he began to recognize the capabilities of the platform.   “I mean, Instagram, I’ve been on it since probably 2014. I really started focusing on Instagram as a business in the last two to three years. I’ll tell you right now, if you’re not hitting viral videos, you’re not growing. I’ll tell you straight up, it’s so hard to grow through the old school way of, word of mouth references. People begin by just posting too, but it’s got to be the right type of content.”

• Viktor

  Viktor adds that it can be really challenging to stay focused and dedicated when you hit periods where you don’t experience any growth for weeks or months. He notes that you can’t give up in these moments, and you have to keep pumping out more and more content.   He believes that social media is both terrible and amazing at the same time, because it can be the thing that grows a business up to a huge success, but it can also be an enormous drain on top of all the other elements like handling client interactions and physically building the furniture.   Balancing all of these aspects of his business is difficult, and Viktor explains that in addition to his entire Stump Shop business, he also has a full time job, and kids as well that consume most of his remaining free time. He overcomes this by simply saying no to some of the part-time work he does through the Stump Shop, and he adds that it feels really good because he doesn’t want to disappoint customers, and that mentality transfers over to his method for handling brands as well.

Steve’s Advice Corner

After some discussion about the regional and global impact that his work has had, Steve brings Viktor over to the marketing advice segment of the podcast, and asks what he can offer. Viktor responds that he’s always been in the mindset of being a business guy, but that he struggles the most with back-end work related to accounting and other back office aspects.   “I would say make a list of this stuff that you have to do, and only you can do. And then outsource everything else. Literally outsource everything else. If there’s like a college kid, if there is like a kid that’s a babysitter or high school kid, and they can like take pictures of receipts and enter them into a spreadsheet.    You can go to Upwork and do remote, so maybe you just take a picture, and then they upload it to a Google Drive folder. And somebody balances the receipts. Like it’s not worth it to do things beneath your paygrade when there’s somebody that can do it cheaper, faster and better than yourself.”

• Steve Larosiliere

  This method can be especially effective because this kind of work is an exceptional opportunity for many of the people who are interested in working for a small and developing company. The best kind of business relationships are the ones that benefit all parties involved, and it allows everyone involved to grow and scale into the future by simply delegating tasks to people whose skill sets are best suited to those tasks.   Steve explains that this mentality can be applied to many different parts of a wood business. Many business owners have this feeling that they need to do everything themselves, while that is simply not the case. All the time that would otherwise be spent on boring back-office tasks can be put into creating the products and the content that defines a business.    Instagram: @thestumpshop Etsy: TheStumpShopCanada