Hello, My name is Miha, I’m 31 years old from a small town located in Slovenia.

I enjoy working with wood and materials alike. I design and manufacture unique jewelry and home decor, made from a combination of wood and man-made materials such as resins. I started small at Etsy, where I grew my business entirely based on organic traffic.

I’m happy to live in a time where this was possible, as I did not have any investors I could rely on. The start was slow, but thanks to social media the business grew into what it is today in a time span of just a couple of years. At Wood all Good we focus on creating unique pieces from sustainably sourced wood & resin. We strive to be as unique as possible, with products that you just can’t find anywhere else on the market. The products we make are one of a kind, made with a lot of care, dedication, love, sweat and tears. We believe it is important to give back, which is why we have recently decided to donate a portion of our earnings to the preservation of nature.

I’ve never thought myself having a job in this line of work. I’ve always figured I would have a career in computer science. However, life had a different plan for me.

It all started in a tiny garage, with nothing but a rusty old pair of tools and a good pair of hands. This whole endeavour started as a cute past-time hobby. I’ve always loved playing around with different materials, which is how I stumbled upon the combination of wood and resin. It turns out that the combination of glass-like resin and uniquely shaped wood works together beautifully.

I can’t speak for other companies, but we truly love what we do. When designing and creating our products we take special attention to the tiniest of details. I believe that quality and passion are the two main differences between us and our competition.

The design starts in my head along with a million other ideas. First, a rough sketch is drawn. Based on this sketch we usually create a dozen of possible design alternatives. We test and test until we are happy with our final result. In short: A lot of trial and error.

When we first started selling on Etsy, one of our biggest problems was getting consistent sales. There were weeks when our work got shared on a large social media site and we just couldn’t get a breather for a couple of weeks. And just when we thought we’re doing great, then came the weeks when we just didn’t get enough orders to keep us by. You could say that there were a lot of ups and downs.

Recreating the unique designs is another challenge we face, even after years of practice. The materials are hard to work with and require an artistic touch. You could say that each produced piece is a small work of art.

I started selling online on Etsy, just a couple of years ago.

I believe we sold only one $15 item in our first month. The month after we sold 5 items. With each new month we received a couple of more orders and by the end of our first year, we reached about 500 total items sold. The growth has been slow, but steady. It was frustrating at times, but also incredibly fulfilling as soon as a couple of orders came in!

We still sell primarily on Etsy, but we are mostly working on getting our own website running.

Over the years I have always accepted custom order requests. The most memorable stories have always come from these custom requests. I would love to share a story or two, but I don’t think that it would be appropriate. Let's just say - you would not believe what kind of stuff people want to preserve in clear resin. 😀

I firmly believe that it is important to give back. In the next couple of years one of our main goals is to reduce the effect our company has on the enviroment. We would like to make our company carbon neutral/positive within 2-4 years.

We plan to achieve this by planting trees and by optimizing our entire production process (by using eco-friendlier materials and work methods). We also hope for a slow and steady growth, while maintaining our core values.

Up until a year ago we worked entirely on a "free-to-play" basis. We did not spend any money on paid ads, social media influencers or any other form of paid advertising.

We worked with the platform that Etsy provides us and we used social media to drive some much needed traffic. Social media has played a huge part in our growth. In the first year we've managed to get about 50k followers on Instagram trough organic growth, which helped drive a large portion of traffic to our shop. In the recent year social media played a much smaller role in our growth, as we've started looking more into paid advertising such as Etsy promotions and Google ads.

I would advise myself to get into this line of work at an earlier age. Although I have made a lot of mistakes during the past few years, I would still not change anything. Mistakes helped me build character and without them I would not be where I am today.

To others who are just starting out I would advise to simply put yourself out there. Start small, work on it daily, try to have fun. And if you want to make a business out of it, work hard and don’t give up. Long term success comes only with perseverance.

Over the years I’ve read a lot of material, most of it I found for free online. For Etsy a good source of information are Etsy themselves. Other then that, I can’t recommend anything specific, I can just recommend to read as much material as you can from different sources.