Startup Spotlight: Local firewood delivery service Llamawood aims to be the ‘Uber for firewood’ | Business News

When he and his spouse moved from Washington, D.C., to the Richmond area in 2020, they obtained a dwelling with a hearth and an out of doors fireplace pit. A mechanical engineer by training, Hunter Guerin even developed a wooden-fired pizza oven at their household.

“I am obsessed with fire, which is just one reason I started a firewood company,” Guerin reported. “I was seeking to get firewood, but it can be tricky to come across a trusted offer.”

“It was just so tricky to obtain consistent suppliers who could deliver dried, seasoned or kiln-dried wood,” he stated. “I have lived in Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia and D.C., and that dilemma has adopted me all around all over the place.”

“I desired to make buying superior firewood definitely uncomplicated,” he mentioned.

So Guerin founded Llamawood, an on the internet marketplace at llamawood.com exactly where home owners and business house owners can get kiln-dried firewood for shipping and delivery on demand, alongside with mulch.

“It is form of like Uber for firewood,” Guerin reported.

“Llamawood is a two-sided marketplace,” he mentioned. “We have suppliers, and we have shoppers. We simply call it a managed market mainly because customers buy from Llamawood and then individuals work opportunities get posted out to a provider board, and the suppliers in essence select which ones they want to do.”

Due to the fact Guerin founded the startup corporation past year, shoppers employing the Llamawood marketplace have involved homeowners in the Richmond area as effectively as companies that use firewood for cooking.

Just one customer is Cocodrilo, a Latin-themed restaurant on Grove Avenue that uses wooden-fired ovens to prepare dinner these kinds of dishes as citrus chicken, lobster enchilada, steak and duck.

“We need to have good quality wooden every day listed here,” stated co-owner and chef Brandon MacConnell. “Without high-quality wood, we are up the creek in advance of we start.”

By working with the Llamawood support, the cafe has been capable to ensure it receives a dependable supply of high quality wooden, he reported. The cafe goes by about 2,000 pounds of wood a week.

“We are predominantly employing white oak now, but sometimes we get different blends in. It is entertaining to experiment and get unique flavors,” MacConnell said.

Cocodrilo obtained a supply just lately from Five Star Firewood, a family-owned firewood provider that has a wood processing yard in Midland that produces kiln-dried and packaged firewood.

“Llamawood offers us a good deal of means to get additional orders and not have to do a whole lot of promoting,” claimed Daniel Papuga, who manages functions for the company owned by his loved ones. “It requires on a large amount of the administrative do the job we would otherwise have to do speaking with shoppers. It facilitates that approach for us at very little cost. We distribute a lot in this article in Richmond and also in the Washington, D.C., spot.”

Guerin mentioned he has 15 suppliers in the network now.

“One of my main applications was to support clients obtain dried firewood, but once I started out constructing up this community and performing with these modest-organization entrepreneurs, I became equally passionate about assisting these firms expand,” he said. “The market wants assist on both equally sides, so I hope Llamawood is ready to enable a good deal of small companies in Virginia.”

Fire pit and wooden-fired oven product sales have enhanced for the duration of the pandemic, Guerin stated.

“We have witnessed an uptick in sales because the commence of the pandemic,” said Miles Clarkson, founder and proprietor of Burly Hearth Pits, a community fireplace pit maker. “Many of our suppliers noticed their fire pit and grill small business double or even triple above the earlier few years.

“Everyone begun spending additional time closer to house and put in their time enjoying their outside residing house with family and buddies — quite often, about a fire pit,” Clarkson claimed.

Guerin has a diploma in mechanical engineering, and he labored as an engineer for 10 many years prior to joining a startup company in Washington, D.C., that gives on-need producing for suppliers. “I observed how much performance it brought to that field,” he reported.

“We seriously just fell in like with Richmond,” Guerin reported of his family’s go. “My wife and I were being the two doing the job remotely for providers in D.C. It was a lifetime choice and nothing else, and it has been a blessing.”

“I was conversing to some folks below in Richmond about how I could use the competencies I made operating in engineering and online marketplaces together with my passion for firewood,” he mentioned.

“I grew to become ingrained in the Richmond startup DNA,” he said.

Llamawood was a member of the spring 2022 cohort of Lighthouse Labs, a Richmond-dependent nonprofit that provides mentoring, business enterprise improvement training, and fairness-no cost hard cash investments to startup providers.

“It was thrilling to function with Hunter for the duration of his time with Lighthouse Labs. His passion for Llamawood and the Richmond neighborhood is contagious,” reported Glenna Croy, one of his mentors at Lighthouse Labs. “It was wonderful to see Hunter’s commitment to the consumer practical experience, irrespective of whether it was a cafe purchasing various cords of wood or a modest spouse and children stocking up on firewood for the summer months, he would normally make confident they experienced the maximum caliber of wood sent exactly on time … even if that meant him running out and offering the wood himself.”

At Lighthouse Labs Demo Day, nine companies pitched their concepts to an viewers of 150, and Llamawood won the supporter favourite.

As element of the prize, “I obtained to toss the very first pitch at a Flying Squirrels recreation towards the Altoona Curves,” Guerin reported. “I [had] my daughter in the Ergo baby provider. It was super fun.”

With Llamawood delivering to dining places, campgrounds and folks in Richmond and regions throughout the point out, Guerin explained, the organization is continuing to prosper.