Montana Knife Firm launched in 2020 in a two-car storage close to Missoula. One co-founder is an authorized “Grasp Bladesmith” who has produced handmade knives since he was 11. The opposite, Brandon Horoho, is a seasoned digital marketer and ecommerce professional.
Mixed, the entrepreneurs show the worth of workmanship at scale marketed on to customers. Enterprise is booming, and the corporate will quickly transfer right into a 50,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility.
Brandon and I just lately spoke. He shared the corporate’s origins, tradition, “drop” promoting, and extra. Our complete audio is embedded beneath. The transcript is edited for size and readability.
Eric Bandholz: Inform us who you might be and what you do.
Brandon Horoho: I’m the co-founder, vice chairman, and chief advertising officer of Montana Knife Firm. My background is in advertising, and I’ve been concerned in ecommerce since 2010.
I’ve labored for giant complement and health manufacturers and on many ecommerce platforms, together with Magento and Shopify. One among my early accomplishments was adopting SMS advertising when it was unregulated, which helped me perceive the right way to develop companies in rising markets.
We make our knives fully in Montana, close to Missoula. We began in 2020 and are fully bootstrapped. We concentrate on creating high quality knives for essentially the most hardcore hunters, providing a product you might tackle a two-week hunt in Alaska while not having backups. We goal to make instruments that final for generations. We stand aside from the mass market, which has shifted towards cheaper, disposable merchandise.
We manufacture our knives to final. That’s what units us aside. We’re obsessive about high quality and craftsmanship, even at scale. My enterprise associate, Josh Smith, has been making knives since he was 11. At age 19, he turned the youngest Grasp Bladesmith from the American Bladesmith Society. His specialty is Damascus metal and extremely intricate, custom-made handles.
Individuals would purchase his knives to gather them, which bothered him as a result of he wished people to make use of them. That’s why we began this firm.
Bandholz: How do you stand out in a crowded trade?
Horoho: We’re completely different from conventional knife firms. We don’t do blade exhibits, and we don’t observe the standard market tendencies for knives. We concentrate on making particular instruments for particular individuals. Our model is just like the anti-knife knife firm.
We additionally differentiate by our dedication to customer support. Our guarantee is unmatched — for those who purchase a knife from us, we’ll sharpen it as usually as you want. If one thing goes incorrect, we’ll repair it. This guarantee applies to the unique proprietor and anybody who inherits the knife.
Bandholz: Have you ever had any points with knockoffs of your knives?
Horoho: We’ve seen a number of knockoffs on platforms like Temu, however we don’t lose sleep over it. We’re 100% direct-to-consumer, so for those who aren’t shopping for from our web site, you’re shopping for a pretend. Our knives are hand-finished and hand-sharpened; it’s robust for anybody to duplicate that on a big scale.
Bandholz: Your knives are sometimes out of inventory. Is {that a} success or failure?
Horoho: It relies on the way you have a look at it. After we began, we may afford to make solely 200 knives — most went to family and friends. We offered out earlier than we had the following batch prepared. That’s how our drop mannequin began — we had no product to promote for a month or two, so we determined to announce drops for particular dates.
Coming from the health and attire world, I used to be acquainted with the drop mannequin, but it surely wasn’t speculated to be our main enterprise technique. The primary time we did it, the knives offered out in 14 minutes, and we hadn’t even completed making them. It was chaos. We didn’t have sufficient packaging, and Josh was sharpening knives as quick as he may whereas I labored on the transport labels.
We continued with the drop mannequin as a result of it labored, but it surely was by no means the plan. We have been additionally launching throughout Covid, so we confronted challenges sourcing metal and discovering contractors prepared to work with a small firm like ours.
Bandholz: Have you ever stored up with demand?
Horoho: No, we nonetheless haven’t caught up. After we began, we purchased one CNC machine — Laptop Numerical Management, a producing course of — and operated out of a two-car storage. We now have a ten,000-square-foot facility on Josh’s property, however we outgrew it in lower than a 12 months. We’re constructing a 50,000-square-foot plant, which is able to embody 30,000 sq. toes of producing area.
We’re nonetheless constrained even with our expanded manufacturing capabilities. We’ve solely 5 obtainable knife fashions, and our sell-through fee is about two weeks. We drop new merchandise each Thursday, however we are able to’t make sufficient to maintain up with the demand.
Bandholz: Inform us about your advertising efforts.
Horoho: I had a few years of creating advertising errors earlier than Montana Knife. We targeted on the fundamentals first, establishing a correct information administration system from day one, particularly for Google and Fb advertisements, which I’m acquainted with from my time within the complement area.
I knew we’d be competing with firms which were round for many years, however once I checked out their digital footprints, I noticed they have been lacking alternatives. I labored with a buddy, Joel, from Fluxe Digital Advertising and marketing, to determine a robust natural search technique, even earlier than we had merchandise on the location. That’s been big.
Our focus is rising our electronic mail checklist, not simply social media platforms. Being able to succeed in clients straight has been key. Constant every day posting retains us high of thoughts, and collaborations with like-minded manufacturers are the place I see the longer term. Synthetic intelligence would possibly quickly dominate advertisements, however real model partnerships will stand out.
Bandholz: The place can individuals observe you?
Horoho: MontanaKnifeCompany.com. We’re on X, YouTube, and Instagram. Yow will discover me on LinkedIn and Instagram.
