u/Even-Gain3965

I started a small business when I was 25 in one of Canadas major cities. I made furniture from pallets and solid it on Craigslist as a side hustle. I was already working full time at a bank. I loved working with my hands and my best friend happened to be a carpenter. We had a little wait list and the jobs kept getting bigger. Soon we took the plunge and quit our day jobs, we landed a vintage workshop that hadn’t been up for lease in 20+ years and the rent was cheap. This was 2012. It all seemed to line up, we invested everything back into the business/ bought machines one at a time. Built furniture for cheap to build a portfolio, the clients were lined up. We regularly worked 80 hour weeks and the housing marketing was also booming. We hired staff, landed big jobs ( commercial and residential ) and newspapers and other media did stories on us. My business partner went to get his red seal and I took some business classes as I run the entire front end, client relations marketing etc and I do work in the shop when needed.

We absolutely took off in 2018/2019. Selling $500 k a year. Refining our craft worked, we had 3 full time carpenters and we started to do high end fine furniture/ millwork/ joinery. Business debt was being paid off as when we started we just used a personal credit line and credit cards to fund things as we could not get a small business loan. I was able to get a business loan at this time( 2019) and we added a small photo studio and built a showroom when the building next store came up for lease. We had started on plans to open a second workshop for the metal working part so we could scale up our capacity and build everything in house. Everything we do is custom made to order, we only use Canadian timber and materials. It’s all made in our workshops right here in Canada. We maintained a 8-10 week wait list. Clients who would visit us in person, see the shop and discuss their projects , all were in aw as this was a true craftsman shop. The kind of place your great grandfather worked at.

Then 2020 Covid happened, it all changed. The furniture industry changed over night. Clients put projects on hold, two of my red seal joiners decided to head home, both were from Europe and they were worried their visas were in danger. Clients walked away from projects even their deposits. Covid shook everyone. Then the CEBA loan came out and of course we took it, it was easy to get and the times were uncertain. They dropped it in our bank account next day no payments. That loan from 2019? They let us put those payments on hold. Things moved online fast, it was honestly a race to get online. We had a regular website but no online shop with a collection to buy shipped to your door. We had to build this online store from scratch but all of our carpenters had left. It was up to us to build our custom furniture in the shop and luckily we could. But we now had to work in the shop 10 hours a day and that left minimal time to get to work on the online shop. Rent needed to be paid. Some orders resumed, it was not like before. We looked for local Canadian carpenters and hired someone, they weren’t that good but they were available and we needed the help, we had job postings up for months. We figured we could train him to be great. My business partner and I couldn’t make all the furniture ourselves, we were too big and we needed to get online. We used the $40k ceba loan to hire a Shopify expert to build our online store and create the content. Our clients usually came to us for ideas/ collaboration so we used our custom clients to build a furniture collection and hired a photographer to shoot it all in the studio we built. This took two years and orders were steady enough we ended up hiring another junior carpenter. At this time we still kept the showroom open and the metal shop was almost complete. At the same time we were also training our new carpenters on our processes a lot was going on.

We finally got online, professional photos not renderings. We thought this would make us stand out. A full collection you can order shipped to your door plus custom. I also invested in a marketing firm to help market us to the right clients. This was the $40k. It seemed like a great investment. We also spent money on google ads and meta ads. I cold emailed every designer we had worked with and some new ones talking about our new online shop and trade rebate program. We have a pretty big instagram following and I was creating reels weekly. Big box stores and over seas manufactures started to open furniture Shopify stores too. They all had clever furniture renderings, some “similar” products shipped to your door at 1/2 the price of us. Tricky marketing like “ solid wood legs “ when the table top is full mdf or veneer. We noticed since the client were mostly shopping online now, they were shocked at our prices. They no longer could tell the difference between our products. ( in person they are night and day )They rarely wanted to visit in person as it was still covid times. Sales were slow at this time we were just clearing $200k a year in sales. I started asking our clients who visited why they chose us, everyone was educated and did their research, purposely seeking us out for our quality heirloom pieces built to last. I took this feedback and added photos of us working in the shop. I changed the
Marketing reels to this so everyone could see we build it right here in Canada. “ built by real craftspeople just for you “

Then 2023 hit and we had to start making our loan payments again totaling $2,200 a month. It was tight, our one carpenter found it so expensive to live in the city he ended up leaving. We were again down to one carpenter, he was making simple mistakes again and again. Cash flow was now tight, I emptied our savings to pay for rent. We let go of our final carpenter this year as his production was not good, slow and quality was low. He was costing us money. We pride ourselves in a quality craftsman made product and have never cut corners. We started to build it all ourselves again while juggling the business day to day. 2024 we received a rent increase of 7%. We could no longer afford the showroom building so we let it go. Most sales were online anyway and we needed to reduce our overhead cost as sales were still low.

2024/2025 Inflation started to happen, real-estate sales were slow. Our clients were spending less. Interior designers were starting to spec Wayfair / over seas mass produced products instead of fine furniture. Clients were being hampered with home building costs and no longer had extra cash to invest in heirloom furniture. Building or renovating a home costed 20-30% more.Designers told us their clients were in an upgrade later mind set. People were not going into the office so office furniture was not needed or upgraded .Restaurants were not ordering solid wood furniture as they were also ordering cheap for now. Food inflation was hitting them hard and they were suffering too. Our clientele completely changed. Some competitors closed.

Still we hung on as some months the sales were good and others were slow. We also had to pay down our debt. This business worked before so it has to bounce back, right !?

Then trump got into Power, the tariffs scared people. Oil shortage issues with the war and inflation have everyone strapped spending wise or clamping down. However summer 2025 we got super busy. We ended up hiring a local carpenter in October 2025. In the last two quarters of 2025 we did the highest sales since 2019. $350,000. Not bad. The future looked bright, maybe we made it over the hump.

2026 has been another roller coaster. Some months we are doing $30,000 in sales. Some months not even a single sale. Cash flow is tight because of this. My landlord just increased our rent $650 a month starting September 1. We didn’t make one sale in July. We do have an 8 week wait list and our carpenter is doing a fantastic job. The best we have ever had. I used all of our cash to pay PST snd GST as they have high penalties. This was July 31. I used our business credit card to pay $7k in rent for August 1. It’s mid August and we have not had a single sale. This card is now full paying suppliers as well. We get inquires all the time and people are shocked at our pricing half the time these days.Expecting us to be Wayfair priced. Most don’t even understand solid wood or why craftsman made furniture locally made would cost more. A lot of them don’t really research our site. I have been following up and trying to wheel and deal. But since we are a true local handmade product, we can’t go on sale. We are already well priced and there isn’t any way to cut the cost. Even with all of our costs going up we can’t really increase our prices as clients won’t pay more. Even the wealthy ones are price conscious. Our profit margin is about 20% per order. To be comfortable we need to do about $30,000 + in sales a month steadily. This hasn’t happened this year. We have been spending $300 on different Meta marketing a month and $400 on google ads. $700.00 a month in marketing total. The feed back we get is beautiful products it’s just out of our budget. I’ve started to really push Canadian made and make sure we are showing production shots with us building so we stand out from the big box stores. I’ve talked to other small business owners and our industry is slow. Small businesses are down sizing and closing often. Even the ones around longer.

I’m at my wits end, my business partner and I haven’t paid ourselves this year. We have even tapped into our personal credit lines to get by due to those months with zero orders / no cash flow.

I’m now going to be 40 next year, I haven’t been able to save / contribute to my RRSP since 2019. I have friends talking about their retirement financial planning…..We have been hustling this entire time to stay alive. Did I make the wrong choice at 25 ?

We have $106,000 in debt, two fully equipped workshops. A nice portfolio, people just don’t seem to have the money ?

Part of me has thought about getting a job and just doing my business jobs after hours. We still need to pay down this debt regardless and I’m worried next month I’ll have to pay rent on my personal credit card. This is not how I thought our business would be 14 years later….

Our two loans are paid off in two more years and that’s a total of $40,000. They are low interest at this time. Financially it doesn’t make sense to close as we are still on the hook for the $100k. I just don’t know anymore, will we ever get back to 2019 sales ? Something keeps happening in the world. It also seems like a shame to close as our client feedback is always 5 star, they love our products and some save up to return years later for more. However we have noticed even they are holding off.

I have been racking my brain on what product we can build ? We can make anything from scratch out of wood and metal. Even if it’s a boring product I’m open. We need some sort of bread and butter.

I’m also open to different marketing ideas. I’ve cold emailed deign firms and architects. I’ve had meetings with meta business and good ads business and constantly run different campaigns. Making sure it’s all correct. The last two things I can think of is getting flyers made and have Canada post deliver them there is a service. Perhaps also approaching stores to carry our furniture pieces ? But we can’t do wholesale pricing as there is no room. Also we would have to build stock for their showroom displays. Clients are sold when they see our high quality products in person. I just don’t have the cash flow to do this.

Now trump wants to put 50% tariffs on all Canadian made products crossing the boarder. We had a few Americans reach out this summer hoping to order, with the exchange rate they actually save 30% ordering from us. That’s another potential client lost.

Open to tips/ feedback/ suggestions.

Thanks for reading, apologies for the length.