Today we’d like to introduce you to David Bach.
Hi David, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I first caught the woodworking bug while I was still working as a chef. My kitchen at home needed some shelves and I had a random board in my garage that I cut down into all of the pieces to make a chunky, rustic looking dual shelf. The process came easy to me and it was like a new world of creativity opened its door. In 2014, as I started acquiring more tools and building more in my 120 sq ft garage, I quit the restaurant industry to work for a teak furniture maker in Milford where I learned how to produce furniture pieces from raw materials. That shop closed shortly after I started working there and I started forming the plan for my own business.
I started by selling cutting boards and magnetic knife blocks, mainly to my chef friends who supported me, and I bought more and more tools until I outgrew my garage.
In 2015, I established Cincinnati Wood Collaborative and moved into a 2,000 sq ft shop in Forest Park. During the 3.5 years we inhabited this space, the team grew to 4 and we once again outgrew our space.
We moved to our current location in the West End, just bordering downtown and Over-the-Rhine, into an 8,000 sq ft shop that we hope to call home for a long time!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
The entrepreneurship road is inherently difficult. I started the business with only a small loan from a friend and we’ve grown organically from there, scraping by to reinvest, hit payroll, and to pay bills. I only had experience running a portion of a business in a different industry so I had a lot of growing pains along the way to understand how to price my work, negotiate contracts, and to innovate production.
I definitely could not have done this if I had not been a chef in my previous career. Being a chef is still the most grueling position I’ve held and it was the crucible that prepared me for the roller coaster of business ownership.
One of the best moves I made was to hire a business coach to help change the business to its own living entity rather than an extension of my brain, which is often rather haywire! He helped streamline our systems and helped task the right people with the right work. I started working with him in Jan of 2020 and I fully believe we would not have survived 2020 without his guidance.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Cincinnati Wood Collaborative?
In short, CWC offers commercial and residential custom furniture, cabinetry, and millwork. We are the equivalent of a farm-to-table, fine dining restaurant. Our lumber is all Ohio-grown sustainably-harvested from a Certified Master Logging Company, our finishes and tools are all made in the USA as much as they possibly can be, and we use local companies in Cincinnati for other components such as metal and glass.
We are very excited to be adding to our brand in 2022. We will be adding a retail showroom where we will offer our own lines of semi-customizable furniture including dining tables, chairs, and other furniture for every room in your house! We just started looking for a retail space so please follow us to watch our new showroom come to life!
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
As one of my chef friends once said, “You gotta risk it for the biscuit” (thanks Christian Gill!) This means to me that if you’re not taking the risk, you won’t get the reward. Leaving my position as a chef and jumping into furniture making was a huge risk.
When I quit everything to start my business, I had little more than a vision of what I wanted my life to look like and a man-crush on Nick Offerman.
I was used to a daily grind of manual labor so that came easy, but figuring out how to grow and monetize my craft was extremely challenging.
What if no one bought what I made? What if it was too expensive, too cheap, too ugly, not designed well enough, etc.? I had a lot of self doubt because I had no formal education when it came to design or business. My intrinsic independent spirit superseded that doubt though. I had to give it a shot or I would never forgive myself for not trying.
Contact Info:
- Email: design@cincinnatiwoodcollaborative.com
- Website: www.cincinnatiwoodcollaborative.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/cincinnatiwoodco
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/cincinnatiwoodcollaborative
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/cinciwood
Image Credits
David Bach
