Today we’d like to introduce you to Kevin Kruse.
Hi Kevin, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Well, that’s a lot, I’m closing in on 40, I turn 38 in six weeks or so. In some regards I feel like a 40 y year old man, but most days I still feel like I’m young, fresh and dont know what im doing.
Although I tweaked my back by mowing the lawn, today I feel seasoned.
I grew up with two brothers, and my mother and father. Looking back, I can see just how good of a job they did with us. Especially now that my wife and I have three boys of our own. I don’t know the right word, its like ironic, but more humorous and nostalgic.There’s got to be a word for it, Im sure if you have children you know what im speaking of. The feeling you get when you are watching them do the things you used to do. Often I see my boys making something from just junk they have scavenged across our middling yard. I remember doing the exact thing. I remember building forts in trees, or digging giant holes for no apparent reasons. Once I tried to build a creek in our back yard. I was always bent towards adventure and being outside and making something, usually a mess.
In middle school I met a friend, we complimented each other perfectly. To this day we are still involved in each other’s lives. The two of us have had hundreds of adventures since we first met. A week before I got married maybe he helped me off the Marion street bridge, as in I was harnessed into a rope swing and he spartan kicked me off the platform sending me flying over the Willamette River.
In our 11th grade year we started going to a youth group, with our other friends. I decided to follow Jesus sometime that year. Things have never looked the same.
Despite all the fun and adventures I’ve had I had a sort of vacancy, some people would call it loneliness, but it’s a bit different. I think loneliness is a desire to be with, to have. But this vacancy was a feeling of knowing there was more. I had friends and healthy relationships, but I also had a desire to be known, I didn’t know it then but when I began to look to Jesus, my trajectory would change.
I graduated highschool, by the skin of my teeth. I did fine in shop class, but I was never the best at anything. I ended up going to Chemeketea, a local community college for a while, because I didn’t have a plan. It was rough. My father worked a plan out, he said as long as I passed my classes he would pay tuition. I think he probably knew my track record with school. He paid for my first set of classes.
I got a job at a restaurant to pay for school, and made good money. Turns out, I can talk to strangers. I have always been funny, honest and a hard worker. Seems to be that that’s the ticket for accumulating tips. At some point I transfer to Corbin University, I pick a major, Criminal justice. Eight years after I finish high school I get a college degree.
During my final years at Corbin I began to court my now wife. We got married the summer we graduated 8/2/14.
I’m still at the restaurant. Things go a little sour about a year into covid. To make a long story short, I quit.
So I have no money. My wife is a private school teacher, but I have this CNC machine I was always planning on using to make money. But now that plan has been expedited. June 2021 I launch my business. My wife is awesome where I am a dreamer and it takes a lot for me to get going, she is very practical. She is so sweet, but will not sugar coat things, very direct, in a tender and loving way. When I needed to start the business it was her confidence in me that drove me to open Northwest Woodlabs.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No. Yes.
What is a smooth road, it was just life. I know how to make a thing, that’s what our goal was, to send stuff out of our home to be a part of other peoples homes for a long time.
I don’t know anything about marketing, or design, or logistics, or tax code, ( its a wonder ive never been audited) Esther, always said she is the target audience. So she marketed it to herself. Nearly all the photos were taken by her, in our kitchen or boys room. Every post was written by her, emails were getting answered during lunchbreaks.
It was a lot. I had to figure out how to use an e-commerce website. We have never made a web page. Christmas we sold over $3000 of product in a day or two. Which was cool, until I realized I had thousands of pieces to sand, by hand. There have been many more months where we just barely made it.
I have no clue how our mortgage and bills got paid. Money was super tight. Once I had to return a trash can just to make ends meet. The dude at the store wouldn’t let me return it because he thought it smelled bad. I told him it’s never been used and it smelled like plastic. He wouldn’t budge. I asked if i can find a random customer to give their opinion and they can decide. I found someone and they said I was right, just plastic. The dude still refused to let me return it. So I went to the next store. They let me return it. For 30 bucks. For a bit I did food delivery and worked at Fedex to help make ends meet,but all of it was just another way that God was providing.
Every month our finances were so tight, we would have about $70 a week for groceries. But never did we feel like God had forgotten us. He was good to use our friends and whatever he wanted to bless us. It was hard but it was really good.
Because of how much I was home. I got to spend so much time with my boys. They rarely had to go to child care, since I was working out of our house. I don’t care about the money. I will never be able to replace that amount of time I had with them, and it’s not like we made that much money anyway.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about NorthWestWoodLabs?
I make wooden toys. I want them to last a long time so I use high quality materials, it is expensive, and we don’t have huge margins. That’s not what’s important to me.
The business started out as a way to provide for my family, and for me to have the flexibility to be with them as they are young. I know that God wants fathers to be present in the lives of their children, this was a very good way for me to do that. I want the business and all things I do to point others to Jesus,
We did an easter set, we call it a resurrection set, it’s like a nativity, but celebrates the Resurrection. We want you to be able to tell the story of Easter with youth kids, using this display as something they can hold and feel. Something they can manipulate. At the very least it looks nice on your mantle and is a reminder of what happened. But I think that it could be more. Perhaps guests in your home ask about it, or children play with it and become more familiar with it.
Our bread and butter is the name puzzle, it’s very simple, literally just a name and a board to slot it into. But it’s also made with furniture grade lumber, and finished with food grade non-toxic oil. I handle every piece. I have probably made close to 750 name puzzles. I say this in the least self serving way, most of them when I am sanding them I try to pray for the kiddo getting the puzzle. Most of the time I only know their name, but I know that I want them to be healthy and grow up to know Jesus. I know that someone loves them enough to spend money on them. I suppose that’s different. Maybe other people making name puzzles on etsy are doing that, I hope so.
I’ve made several other items in the past but most of them take too much time or are needlessly complicated to make in any sort of quantity, so I’ve had to scale back. I think they are still on our webpage, if not they are definitely on instagram.
We are trying to do limited runs on some items on a monthly basis. One of my favorite items I’ve ever made is a set of cars. All three are inspired by cars I’ve owned in the past, an old Toyota pickup, a ’68 FJ40 and a Cellica.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
We are actually pretty transparent, there are no corporate secrets here. We’re pretty open about how much we didn’t know, especially in the beginning. I currently am working full time with adolescents for the state, which takes a ton of time. The benefits are awesome and I get to show these youth that they matter and that they are made in the image of God. Because of that our business has had to look different, this is why we really only offer one or two products. and our turn around is a lot slower than I would like. But this is where God has right now and we will do the best we can with what we have.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://nwwoodlabs.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nwwoodlabs
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nwwoodlabs
