Our story

Lone Birch

The first thing I did with Lone Birch was launch an Etsy store. Etsy was the perfect platform for what I was trying to do at the beginning. I would come up with a new design, make a prototype, take some photos, and add it to my store. I did this consistently throughout the week. Then I'd run ads on them for a few weeks, see which ones sold, and remove the ones that didn't. I actually still use this technique today, and it's all because of Made to Order (MTO).

One of the things I learned early on was that being MTO almost guarantees success—it's basically a superpower. It gives you the ability to experiment and launch designs at will until you find the ones your customers want to buy. It also doesn't require inventory, and you only spend money after you make it. And the best part? I found that my customers were more than willing to wait. With a solid 5-7 day turnaround, most never even noticed the wait.

I repeated this process over and over until one day, I started seeing orders come in for a particular product that I had no expectations for—the lap desk.

The Lap Desk

In the early stages, when I was coming up with new products, I kept seeing these lap desks that seemed to be selling, but I didn't see one that I would personally buy. They either had a cheap plywood top, an ugly fabric, or bad photos. So I decided to try it out because... why not?

I went to the drawing board and designed a lap desk that I would personally buy—one that was best in class. I used Walnut for the top, added a small lip so laptops or pens wouldn't slide off, tested fabrics for the softest and nicest design, tested different fills, and materials for the handle until I came up with what I thought was the nicest lap desk on the market—one I would buy.

Once I launched it and started running ads, sales started coming in immediately. From then on, most of my time was spent in the shop making lap desks instead of designing and launching new products. When the holidays came around, I had a massive backlog of orders and found myself overwhelmed, realizing I needed help, but I never imagined how much it would cost me.

No win situation

There are two ways to grow your physical products business—outsource or hire/expand. When I looked for companies to outsource to, local shops were few and far between, and the ramp-up time would take months. Not to mention I'd be on the hook for inventory, and I didn't want to spend money on products I hadn't sold yet. I loved being made to order and wanted to stay that way, but no shop or contract manufacturer in their right mind would do that. Those kinds of companies rely on inventory runs to stay in business and keep the lights on.

The next best option was to look at garage space where employees could come and make products out of the shop. That meant I would also have to double or triple my equipment, which came with the territory if I went this route. After hearing the broker say the landlord wanted a minimum 5-year commitment, I was out. There was no way I was going to commit to that. As successful as Lone Birch was getting, it wasn't financially responsible for me to promise $150,000 to someone for a business I'd just started, especially with a baby on the way.

On top of all this, I still had issues with shipping costs. These lap desks, the largest at 34", cost an arm and a leg to ship out west. Based here in New Hampshire, shipping one to Washington or California was upwards of $70, meaning I either broke even or lost money on those orders. That's when I knew I had to get creative.

Distro is born

At this point, outsourcing or leasing a space was out of the question, and neither option solved my shipping cost issues. After talking to many people and thinking about it a lot, I knew one thing for sure: there were thousands of highly skilled woodworkers across the US, more skilled than me, who had their own equipment and could easily make my products. I thought to myself, if I could somehow tap into those people and build enough trust to make my products to the quality I expect, on time, and on a made-to-order basis, that would be ideal.

The next thing I thought was, what the heck, let's give it a shot—it definitely beats the alternatives! That's when I reached out to a former colleague to help build the software to make this process seamless. Orders could come in, get assigned to vetted makers automatically based on proximity to the customer (to save on shipping), and they could print labels and schedule pickup themselves, leaving me completely hands-off. After a couple of months, while I continued to recruit makers, our software was ready to go, and I onboarded our first makers.

After a couple weeks of being live, it hit me: "I'm sitting at my desk, not in my shop, and other people across the US are making, packing, and shipping my products for me." I felt like I hacked how to scale a business, or hacked manufacturing in some way. I accomplished exactly what I wanted—staying made to order, not having any overhead, being able to design and launch new products anytime, and not to mention saving 60% on shipping on my west coast orders, something neither of the traditional options would have given me. That's when I realized I had to turn it into a business to help others and that's why we're here today.

Just like I did, designers can come to us. We'll make you a sample, connect to your store, and we'll make, pack, and ship your products on demand. You get to focus on designing new products, and we'll handle production. No inventory. No risk.

Jarek Ostrowski

Founder, Distro

jarek@distromfg.com