Bird & Bear

From 2015-2018 I had a small side business called Bird & Bear. I focused my artistic efforts into learning the craft of tobacco pipemaking. I honed this skillset over that time and sold my pipes exclusively through a pipe subscription list. This list consisted of a few hundred subscribers who were interested in purchasing one of my pipes. Because pipemaking was an intensive and slow process, people toward the end of the list. might never have an opportunity to purchase a pipe. So I decided to try a new business model. The way it would work is that I would finish a pipe and then I would send an email to the subscription list. The first person to respond had first dibs to buy the pipe. This created a sense of anticipation and excitement as well as equal opportunity for everyone to potentially buy a pipe. Most of my pipes sold within minutes of me sending the email.

Another aspect of Bird & Bear was the desire to build community. We focused on a return to manhood, honing skills and taking pride in our work. We hosted a men's night at my workshop once a month. On any given month we would have 50 men show up. We would smoke pipes, drink craft beer, and each month I would feature someone from the community to come and teach about something that they were interested in. These topics would range from artisan coffee roasting to fly fishing casting lessons to tanning leather. It was a wonderful time of community and everybody felt valued.