LumberStash finds the right tool in Elevate Hennepin

LumberStash finds the right tool in Elevate Hennepin

A pry bar and a seat with wheels is all Jeremy Marshik needs for a lot of his day-to-day work at LumberStash, a sustainable salvage company based in South Minneapolis. But he looked to Elevate Hennepin consulting for guidance on finding the right digital tools to help his business grow.

LumberStash fills a unique niche in the construction world: salvaged lumber. Jeremy, the founder, saves lumber from the landfill from all sorts of places: homes that will be demolished, decks getting replaced, major renovations. He carefully removes high-quality lumber and sells it to builders, remodelers, and woodworkers.

"We shouldn’t throw this stuff away," said Jeremy. "My mission is to earn money by saving materials from the landfill and help enable others to do the same."

While the company is unique, the founding story was not.

"I was burnt out and depressed and stressed out when I quit my sales job," said Jeremy. "And I wasn't qualified for anything but sales."

He found a flexible sales job to bide his time, and spent a lot of time biking around Minneapolis, thinking about what to do with the next phase of his work life.

"On bike rides, I found beautiful old growth lumber and new stuff too—all kinds of materials," said Jeremy.

He started pulling discarded lumber from dumpsters and posting about the problem of wasted lumber on social media and quickly grew a substantial following. That lead to people working with him on more sustainable salvage, and he now works with contractors and homeowners to carefully remove cedar decks, hardwood flooring, equipment, any anything else that would typically go straight into a dumpster.

He also found many people eager to buy salvaged lumber, lighting, and other hardware saved from the dumpster or demolition site.

Since founding the company in 2022, he’s developed a knack for finding high-quality, in-demand salvage. In the photo above, he’s holding wood paneling known as beadboard, a prized and pricey find for remodelers.

New tools for scale

As the business grew, Jeremy said he started to outgrow social media sales tools like Facebook Marketplace. He wanted to polish his "crappy" website and figure out a better sales process to keep growing sustainably.

He leaned on Elevate Hennepin for support and worked with branding and marketing consultant. He said his marketing advisor improved his website dramatically and also found the right process for his unique business. Because LumberStash rarely sells the same thing twice and buyers need to see the lumber or other goods in person, a traditional ecommerce website didn’t make a lot of sense.

"I needed a lot of flexibility of what you put on the website, so they figured all that out. It's not a standard shop that we're doing and then figured out a workaround and the process and they even made a step-by-step guide on how to post them," said Jeremy.

He said his Elevate Hennepin advisor made the website look "really nice" and advised Jeremy on how to make his email list a central sales tool. Today, Jeremy sends newsletters to more than 1,400 subscribers who get his salvaged items right in their inbox.

"Rather than a traditional shop setup, we focused on optimizing email outreach for salvage opportunities, ensuring a seamless and efficient way to connect with customers. It was a great collaboration, and we’re proud to have helped refine a system that works for his business," said Mateo Peralta, a communications and digital media specialist at NewPublica.

Today, Jeremy is busy with a long list of salvage opportunities and helping others adopt the salvage-business model themselves. His advice when Hennepin County entrepreneurs are looking for the right tools for their business: "Take advantage of the Elevate Hennepin advising," said Jeremy.