Welcome to the second season of our podcast. Help- I started a business, now what? At the beginning, there are so many decisions to make and so many things to do. It can feel like everyone else has their business figured out. It’s also really easy to compare your brand new starter business to others that are well established. In this podcast, we will talk about all those hairy first big steps that come with starting a business. For this episode, we’ve brought on John Wright from The Wright Scraps.
Check out the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or read the transcript below. We’ve even included timestamps in case you want to zero in on one part of the show.
Episode Transcription
00:02.97
Amber Christian
Hello everyone and welcome to today’s edition of the Now What show. I have John with us today and we’ll get to his introduction in just a minute. We’re delighted to have a little bit of a different topic around some custom work and other things today. But now before we get into that with John, I would like to do a special welcome from our sponsor goimagine. We are so grateful to have them as our season sponsor this year for the season. So goimagine is focused on building the maker community through a handmade marketplace, maker business education, custom websites, and a social app designed for artists called Maker Circle.
The goimagine community includes thousands of handmade business owners throughout the United States, passionate about growing a handmade platform dedicated to quality handmade items while focusing on social good that’s helping children in need.
And you can go ahead and check them out at goimagine.com. And now without further ado, I would like to welcome John to the show. And John has even brought some props to also help explain his business. So welcome, John. And can you share a little bit more about yourself and your business?
01:12.32
John
Oh yeah thank you very much for having me. The little guy she’s referring to is what I state as gronks. Basically these are made from excess from my work. So I do agricultural engineering, a lot of work on various different farming, machinery, silos and stuff like that. Some of it does come from America. So these bolts are actually Imperial thread. Hence when I’m not working on American machinery, they’re kind of obsolete. So I do use them with liberty from some of these. These are some sprockets off some of our machines that I’ve taken apart and just a good old spanner I had, just to give it some character with a pen and a wooden base. Yeah, a little bit of character in each one of them.
01:58.20
Amber Christian
How did you get into making gronks? I mean, they’re so colorful. They’re so cute. How did you get started doing this?
02:04.45
John
It’s actually, uh, the tubing is mainly off, uh, I do some spiral staircases that go up silos so they can do the top action access of the bits of the silo. And I just had loads of basically about that length, uh, scrap. Uh, and then I was also working on some box section. Uh, so I just kind of was, uh, I think my boss has said, keep yourself busy for a bit, like, but not like basically stay on call, but stay in the workshop. So I just started messing around, made a little character as a gift.
02:35.35
John
And then one of the other family members wanted one as well, but they wanted one with an Xbox controller with the TV. So I made them one of them and then ah people said I should start maybe advertising and selling them and just kind of snowballed from there.
02:49.94
Amber Christian
Oh, that’s fabulous. Keep yourself busy and doing something while you’re on call.
02:53.81
John
Yeah.
02:54.58
Amber Christian
And here you go. OK, I’ll just create my little side business here.
02:58.82
John
yeah
03:00.84
Amber Christian
So you actually have an interesting source. So do you basically get most of your materials off of like jobs and things that you’ve done? Or or how do you go about kind of sourcing the materials that you use for your gronks?
03:13.66
John
Well, it’s, uh, it’s interesting. Um, I always ask because technically the machines I’ve taken apart and the parts I use are either my companies or other individuals, but, a lot of it,after I’ve done a job, I guess I make a good impression.
Usually they ask, oh, you know, you get small talk and that, and then I’ll show them a few. And then they usually take me around to what I call like a gold mine. They’re like, Oh, I’ve got this, some older horseshoes. I’ve got that or, uh, bits and bobs. So a lot of it. And,a lot of the people that come into the workshop sometimes to see me. They will purposely save stuff and bring it in for me, which I now have two pallets with four pallet sides high of just very random stuff. My partner’s uncle brought me an old bike engine to ship apart, so I took a lot of sprockets and pistons and stuff out of that. So a lot of it is donated, but it is laborious sometimes, getting the bits that you can use, some bits you know won’t work. But I’m always a bit of, I guess, a hoarder because I hate chucking stuff away because then I have it in the back of my head. It’ll be, I’ll have to dig it out. But I’ll find a bit like, a but I’ve never done a mosaic, but I imagine it’s, you know, the the piece that will fit is somewhere in that box. Does that make sense?
04:26.47
Amber Christian
No, absolutely makes sense. And it’s also a fun way for other people to get in on what do I do with some of these things, right? So I was originally raised on a farm and I’m going to go into a few of these sheds out. There’s stuff. They’re just always this, right? You go around, they’re like, oh, someone can use this, they always hang on to it.
04:42.70
John
Yeah.
04:45.75
Amber Christian
Cause they’re like, maybe I’ll need that stuff someday.
04:48.78
John
Yeah,
04:48.97
Amber Christian
But then they’re like, ooh, John can use that and make a gronk out of it. Here, here’s stuff, here’s stuff.
04:53.45
John
Yeah a lot of customers after doing the job, I’ll leave them one for their office and um this HE is amongst theirs. So I guess that’s ah a kind gesture from myself to them.
05:03.75
Amber Christian
Absolutely. Absolutely. So now. You sell these at craft fairs and things as well, right?
05:10.97
John
Yeah, it’s mainly promotional. I mean, I’d love to sell. We usually take about a selection of 20 with us because we usually just have one stall space. But mainly it’s kind of like an exhibition. So we have the card and people can email. So we have like an Etsy shop and you can find us on Instagram, the wright scraps. But mainly they’ll contact us and they’ll see something they like. You can buy it as you like, but you can also say, well, My uncle used to do this. Can you make one with a hand drill? Can you make one with such a thing? So we do try and make them special for each individual. It is laborious. Again, people do choose different color schemes, but we do try to accommodate for that as best we can as well.
05:53.49
Amber Christian
And it’s interesting that you basically take them almost like you said, as a little exhibition and you’re kind of displaying what you’re doing, but you use that to seed the idea in a lot of cases of creating something custom and special um for people.
06:05.93
John
Mm hmm.
06:06.67
Amber Christian
So I think that’s a unique sales strategy, right? To say, well, I’m going to the craft fair really as a discovery. And it’s a little bit of a long game, right? Where people are like, ooh, and then they have to kind of take the card and then go follow and look at things and and think about things.
06:19.53
John
Yeah, actually, yeah.
06:22.38
Amber Christian
And yeah, yeah it’s ah it’s it’s a little bit of the sales cycle might be a little bit longer, but it’s an interesting one because it’s such a unique gift.
06:29.21
John
Mmm Hmm.
06:32.12
Amber Christian
Do you tend to find that your buyers, is it a mix of men and women?
Are there more men that buy? What can you tell us about the kind of the typical profile of who’s buying gronks?
06:43.24
John
I find men are quite more impulsive. So they’ll see one and bite. Yeah, I’ll get that one. Whereas, it seems to be a lot of partners buying gifts for the husbands and they’ll, they’ll be more, he likes this color. I want this- like a golfing one or something like that. So they seem a bit more involved. Yeah, they’re mainly the custom orders, seems to be mainly female.
07:09.30
Amber Christian
Oh, that’s so interesting. That’s a really a pretty big difference, right? Like, well, I could pick that that’s what he’s going to do, and I could pick that maybe is what she’s going to do.
07:13.20
John
Yeah. I’ve got them in a couple of shops on the shelves and then it ah seems to be a lot of males will, I think one bloke bought two – one there because there’s two fishing ones and like two on his desk. So I think they’re very impulsive buyers. They’ll be like, yep. Not seen something like this before, I’ll get that. Whereas I guess because we do have cards there saying we make ah like tailored to the person, then a lot of females seem to see, which is great. My husband does this or my son really likes this. And can you try and do that? Which I was trying to accommodate. It is a bit of a challenge and it really depends on what scrap I have available at the time, whether it’s going to suit or not.
07:54.99
Amber Christian
Sure, sure. So do you ever find that people put orders in way in advance and then let you kind of figure out if you can source it? Or do people typically, when they’re doing custom orders, they typically are like, no, I kind of have a date and it’s close in time. What are you finding as you’re developing out this custom business?
08:14.17
John
It’s very sporadic. There’s some, are like I said, birthdays where you have to have it ready in a certain amount of time.
08:20.96
Amber Christian
Mm hmm.
08:22.01
John
We’ve been quite lucky with ah but two to three weeks to do it, ah which can be a bit of a struggle because I work away a lot during the week. So Monday to Friday, I can be eight hours drive away. I can be Belfast or Scotland or something like that. I’ll leave at, you know, five in the morning, Monday, they get back at eight at night on Friday. And then I’ve got catch up with family duties and then hopefully get welding at some point. Then you’ve got to spray paint it. And it’s, yeah, I enjoy doing it. Otherwise I don’t think there’d be much, much point.
08:55.20
Amber Christian
Yeah, if you didn’t love doing it, if it wasn’t a great creative outlet, you wouldn’t do it because you got to fit in around the rest of life, right?
09:02.48
John
Yeah. Yeah.
09:03.34
Amber Christian
So as you have kind of, how did you take that first leap from, hey, I made these cute little ones and I made this one from a friend to, yeah, let’s make enough to do a craft fair. Tell me a little bit more about how you end up? Because that’s a big next step. How did that happen for you?
09:21.08
John
I guess it mainly snowballed with the custom orders and they were getting a lot of interest. I mean, Instagram’s got nearly 3000 people following it now. So it’s, I guess that gives us a bit of confidence in a way. And it can be a nice day out at the craft fair.
09:36.48
Amber Christian
Mm hmm.
09:39.26
John
I don’t know if many of your listeners have done one, but it is, you engage with people, you get to talk about your craft. And it can be quite a nice day. I do suggest to take your own lunch with you because you do end up spending most of your profits on a coffee and donuts.
09:57.12
Amber Christian
That that’s truth. Having done that myself, you’re like, wait a second, I should maybe brought my own food.
10:03.00
John
Yeah.
10:05.14
Amber Christian
But it’s still so fun to see what other people bring and make and the creativity that kind of goes into that whole process.
10:08.98
John
Yeah.
10:12.31
Amber Christian
So if you were to describe what, you know, so now you’ve started building out the craft fairs, you started selling some online, and you’ve talked about that, where are you thinking you want to go with this business?
10:23.54
John
We do have a few exciting concepts. We’ve had a company that makes game boards that are interested in having them as figurines, and which is very exciting.
10:34.39
Amber Christian
Cool.
10:37.02
John
I’m also tempted to write a little kids book about them. This that I guess promoting recycling and the concept and little characters and stuff. But, I just enjoy them. There’s like something I enjoy doing, they all have their own little, I do sometimes struggle selling some of them because I do like them. My partner’s granddad, he’s probably got about six of these. I make whenever I bring them back and he sees them. He’s like, can I have that one? I was like, of course you can.
11:07.49
Amber Christian
He’s gonna have his own little exhibition pretty soon of gronks.
11:09.79
John
He’s pretty much does to be honest, cause I’ve made him quite a few, um, garden planters out of augers, grain augers and stuff like that. So they’re very unique and Dave, he loves them. He’s got three of these garden at the moment and I’ve made him a few like birds out of stuff and things like that. Yeah. I just like, hopefully brings a bit of joy to people.
11:30.26
Amber Christian
Tell me about The okay, you got to tell me about the grain augers. How did you do that?
11:40.17
John
Well, basically the, the In a grain style or two, condition the grain. So they ah they can be 10 meters, 20 meters high.
11:46.66
Amber Christian
Yep.
11:52.06
John
The American ones are incredible how high they go.
11:52.54
Amber Christian
Oh, yeah.
11:54.97
John
But they do snap sometimes, which makes them obsolete. So some of the excess ones is a basically because it’s quite an intricate spiraled effect anyway.
11:59.21
Amber Christian
Sure.
12:05.28
John
And then I just make stuff to hold the planter on top. And then I try and get a bit creative with the legs using sometimes convey a chain or something. So it looks like routes are coming out, if that makes sense. um ah So I’ve got them in a couple of shops.
12:18.92
Amber Christian
Yep, yep.
12:23.21
John
They don’t sell that often, sadly, ah because they’re quite, I don’t know, I guess, a statement piece.
12:27.49
Amber Christian
Yes. Your custom garden grain auger is not not going to go in everybody’s yard.
12:36.02
John
No, no, exactly.
12:39.47
Amber Christian
So it really sounds like kind of you’re really into recycling at a whole bunch of levels, not just the little guys, but even and into creating the bigger things. Where do you think that came from? Is it always been something that’s just kind of been part of you or was it an awareness that came at some point?
Talk about that a little bit more.
12:56.64
John
I lived in Australia for nine years and I used to work in some quite remote areas ah in different workshops or stuff like that. And I think one of my first jobs there when I was 22, I was still backpacking, but I lived in an actual steel yard. I lived in a little caravan in a steel yard. That’s where I was working. So some of my time, because I didn’t really know anyone, I just spend it in the workshop and I get bits of chain and make like little sheep and stuff like that and just give them as gifts to people. Cause I never, I never thought they’d really, you never really thought of selling them, but it’s like, Oh, I made this when I was bored.
13:25.33
Amber Christian
Okay.
13:30.29
John
Do you want that sort of thing? I’ve made like butterflies of people to put on people’s graves and,just, I guess that’s how it started. And then people have always told me to sell them, but I just never really until recently, started like, well, last year really least was to get the confidence to do it again.
13:50.92
Amber Christian
Yeah, it isn’t it amazing how for so many of us and myself as an artisan food maker, and I do a few pop ups a year with that, there were many years of people saying you should sell this before I was like, oh, I don’t know if I could do that. I don’t know, right? It takes you a while and you hear it enough times and then eventually you’re like, yeah, maybe I should do that.
14:12.82
John
Yeah.
14:13.82
Amber Christian
Try that. You run out of people to give things to, frankly.
14:19.78
John
I guess the farming background, like me and my dad used to have sheep and I’ve worked, I used to work on a dairy part-time when I was in high school, but I guess it’s like making, like men that do make that sort of thing, concepts. And I do that a lot with work because um when we import stuff from America or from Europe, sometimes things are missing, sometimes, ah like the you know, I guess stuff you can’t foresee happens. And like this week I made a platform just out of three other platforms, kind of like,
14:50.60
John
put them all together and then made it work, but it looks the part. I know it’s a platform because I know it’s structurally sound and the farmers are saying, well, you saved me a lot of money sort of thing. So, but yeah, as long as the job gets done and I guess it’s the same for the gronks, you can repurpose anything really within reason.
15:10.93
Amber Christian
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you’re also right of some of that ag background and, you know, coming from a farm and things too. You just have to sort of figure out how to do things. And so interestingly, I spent a lot of time in Australia. I was just there last year. I had done some artisan interviews over the holidays and things. And that really struck me about Australia as how self-sufficient people have to be because, you know, especially once you get out of Sydney, Melbourne, some of the other areas, there’s nobody coming to rescue you.
I’m So yeah you really have to make do with things, right?
15:44.25
John
I think that was one place I worked. I was 12 hours from the nearest shop or anything like that. It could be a bit daunting, really.
15:53.83
Amber Christian
Yep, that it can be quite remote. Well, this has been a ton of fun. So why don’t you tell our audience, where can they find you to learn more? How do they follow you on all the socials so they can like all your cute little gronks that you make?
16:05.90
John
right so ah my last name’s wright. So the wright scraps, so the, and then WRGHT scraps. and We’re on Instagram, Facebook.
We do have an Etsy account as well, ah but we do list stuff, but feel free to message. If you’ve got an idea, we will try and accommodate. So um yeah, I think friends are smashing me. They want a gronk next to a windmill because he ah does like ah work in the flower industry. Um, so yeah, any concepts, uh, if you want to have a look, um, recently started making lamps out of all hand drills and stuff. So yeah, so have a look at the Instagram. That’s probably the best place to have a look.
16:46.37
Amber Christian
Wonderful. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us, John. And thank you, everyone listening in. And a special thank you to our sponsor goimagine. And we will see you next time.
16:57.05
John
Thanks very much guys.
We hope you enjoyed this episode!
Want more of the Now What Show? Check out these previous episodes:
Episode 10: How goimagine is championing shop local initiatives
Episode 9: How I’m fusing jewelry craft, culture and education with Doug Napier
Episode 8: A financial management system for your business you won’t hate
Episode 7: How I’m iterating and learning to refine my target market with Megha Mundandishe
Episode 6: Creating marketing strategy through brand collaborations with Elaine Kinney
Episode 5: Getting Ready for your first craft fair with Nicole Stevenson
Episode 4: How my first wholesale order happened with Livvy Ramos of Fera Fox
Episode 3: Getting your first PR with Stephanie Blanchard
Episode 2: Establishing a web presence with Erica Martin
Episode 1: How I got my first large custom order with Lindy of apothecary 19
