Zach Pontz is a writer. He takes words and builds stuff, like paragraphs and articles. Andrew David Watson is a film director. Carving stories from fragments of images.”Skip” Brack runs some stores.
What they have in common is that Zach told Andrew about Skip, and now we can watch a powerful story about a guy who buys and sells used tools. A ton a week, maybe, according to Zach. A ton of used tools, the kind that my grandfather had in the barn-shaped garage on the Wisconsin land his dad homesteaded. The kind that ended up in my dad’s toolbox, the one he made while he was building camp fifty years ago in Minnesota. The kind of tools, handled by both of them, hanging 10 feet from my keyboard, out in the garage.
Skip says that since he opened the Liberty Tool Company in 1976, maybe 20,000 people have come. That’s a couple customers a day. But when you read Zach and when you listen to Skip, you discover that these aren’t customers that visit. These are creators, these are people who need good tools at reasonable prices so they can build chairs and cupboards and tables. Which other people use to build relationships and homes and the future.
Zach and Andrew and Skip are just small business people doing their work. Like you.
(Can’t see the video? Click through to Small Biz Survival.)
There’s No Place Like Here: Liberty Tool from Etsy on Vimeo.
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I love this on so many levels.
1. It’s a great business, with a huge community building aspect. It’s an economic development project in disguise.
2. Any community could start a business and education project around recycling quality used tools and teaching people how to use them.
3. I love that Etsy shared their story. It doesn’t advertise Etsy directly at all. But I think Etsy benefits nonetheless.
I love this video. The passion that this man has for his business is fantastic.