Custom Wooden Logos

Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes and 37 seconds

In the early days of Neighbor, the founding team built a display to take to events and trade shows.

The design was already there from the company logo, all it took was some wood, paint, screws, and a dream to put it together.

The founder of Trace ordered a similar set up for the annual RootsTech event in Salt Lake City. He was expecting something really nice but got back flimsy styrofoam letters.

Anytime you see well funded startups like these DIYing things or that are unhappy with the results they got, there is a huge opportunity there.

The Easy Part

Marketing this service would be insanely easy. It’s so photogenic and begs to have pictures taken and posted to LinkedIn or Instagram.

“Today everything exists to end in a photograph.” ― Susan Sontag

With a simple website, a few LinkedIn posts and cold outreach, it would be super easy to land the first few custom logos.

Small ones like Neighbor could be sold for $250 each, and barely cost you $50 in materials.

Big ones like Trace would be a little more ambitious, and would need some more brainstorming and skill. Look I never told you that this would be easy, you’ll probably have to learn some things along the way.

You know your grandpa or old neighbor has been dying to teach you some woodworking skills for ages.

The Hard Part

Scaling this business would be pretty difficult. While it is a local business, it’s easy to keep costs low and customers happy.

Trying to scale nationwide would be tricky. Shipping would be expensive and difficult to keep things from breaking. Helping the customer have a good experience would be the hardest part.

But this is a good sign. Too often we see businesses that have a great product and processes, but struggle with customer acquisition.

When the customer acquisition is easy, that’s one of the hard parts of building a business already taken care of.

Franchising

Instead of trying to scale this thing nationwide and take on all of these issues in the hard part, you could expand using a franchising model. When starting the business it will be so important to track everything, build set processes, and stay organized.

For more on this, I recommend the book The E-Myth Revisited.

“The system isn’t something you bring to the business. It’s something you derive from the process of building the business.”
― Michael E. Gerber

Cool Perks

A boss' salary isn't just about money. It is about perks.

-Michael Gary Scott

With this business, you could qualify for Home Depot Pro status, which is a bucket list item of mine.

This would be a fantastic way for a young and hungry entrepreneur to get in and build a lot of great connections, expand their personal network, and add a lot of value.

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