I got a personal loan and maxed out seven or eight credit cards.

and honestly, that was my finance of the company for the first.

Five years was I would, during the spring and summer, I would get as many credit

cards as I could And then in the winter, when cash was good, I would pay them

off my, My score would shoot through the roof and then I would get more credit

cards, max them out in the spring and summer, pay them off the next winter.

What does it take to turn a simple necessity like

firewood into a premium product that enhances every fireside experience?

Today on SeatGoCreate, we're excited to welcome Leroy Hite, CEO and founder

of Cutting Edge Firewood, a company that has redefined the standards for

firewood quality and customer service.

Growing up in rural Northwest Georgia, not far from where I grew up, Leroy's

early life around the woodpile and his later frustrations with subpar

firewood led him to create a business that delivers nothing but firewood.

The best, whether it's for a cozy winter fire or a backyard pizza party, or just

enjoying a quiet moment alone, possibly with a cigar whiskey cutting edge

firewood ensures every fire is perfect.

Join us as we explore Leroy's journey from a young boy to man, by managing

his family's wood pile to becoming the entrepreneur behind the leading firewood

supplier in the industry and how his commitment to quality and customer service

is lighting up lives one fire at a time.

Leroy, welcome to Seat Go Create.

Thank you so much for having me.

Glad you're here.

And you're coming to us from my old home state, right?

All right, Georgia,

What part of Georgia you in?

Metro Atlanta, Peachtree Corners specifically.

Peachtree Corners.

When I was at Georgia Tech, my first co op job was at a Georgia power

office up in Peachtree Corners.

And while I was working there, I met my beautiful bride out

at Lawrenceville, Georgia.

And so that place has, is near and dear to my heart.

And,

say so.

This is going to age me.

that was almost 40 years ago.

Peachtree Corners was a pastor then.

No, I'm just kidding.

you're no doubt.

I'm sure it

and, I'm coming to everybody from the Black Hills.

We have relocated, Theo, our RV.

I'm up in the Black Hills of South Dakota and enjoying that.

But Leroy, let's not pretend we bumped.

Let's say we're sitting on a plane and we just start chit chatting

and I say, Hey, What do you do?

What's your answer when someone asks you what you do?

I really have two answers, but the one I usually give

is I own a firewood company and I love to just see how they react.

And people from different parts of the country, depending on if they've heard

of us or not, usually react differently.

And, people used to act completely differently before we were

well known than they do now.

used to, I would say that and they would change the weather.

now if they've heard of us, they're like, Oh my goodness,

you're not, Those guys, are you?

so it's fun to see the difference.

and it's a lot of fun just to say I own a firewood company.

Cause if they haven't heard about us that, they have no interest,

Wow, you have all your teeth.

That's incredible.

kind of thing.

a lot of people would have, if they're from certain parts of the

country, there's some people that would have no thought of this, but they have

the thought of old beat up pickup trucks sitting on the side of the road, with a

load of firewood, pretty gnarly looking, but if you need firewood, you've got it.

It's from out of me a place in Virgin, Utah, that they've got a big,

pretty janky hand painted sign out front that says organic firewood and

is it spelled F I R E W O D or is it

F I R W U D?

I'm pretty sure they're

For sale.

and I love a good marketing.

I know you've done roadside signs.

We may talk about that later, but I love it.

It's intriguing to me.

And when you're in like RV world, they sell you like four or five sticks

of firewood for, 10 or 12 bucks.

it's like the margin on it

is amazing, but, I let's, before we dive in, let's talk a little bit

about big picture macro firewood.

I mean, I've heard you talk a little bit about.

What firewood leads to, I don't know

that people are looking for firewood.

I think they're looking for what firewood gives them.

What are some of those things that they give us?

And I think we're going to have a good conversation about this.

so this is a, it's the other thing I tell people if I'm

really wanting them to understand is a fire is like a beautiful sunset.

There is no one on earth that dislikes it.

It's universal.

It's unifying and it's primal.

after a stressful day, um, oh yeah, and I forgot, you can take a 95 year old

man from Ethiopia and a three year old girl from the States, they will both

sit in front of a fire and stare at it.

I actually have a, one year old, and if there's a fire in the

room, she's always looking at it.

but, after a stressful day, I can take a whiskey, sit in front of the

fire, and my stress level goes down.

I think deep thoughts.

my wife and come out the mood changes.

It's romantic.

My daughters can come out and make s'mores and memories.

They will have for a lifetime.

can, teenagers will put their phones down and talk to their parents and it

can be at the center of a wedding party.

and.

And I make incredible food with our cooking wood, whether

it's steak, pizza, or barbecue.

And, I love on one side that experience, it's all around an experience.

But then on the other side, yes, before we got into the industry standard was wood

set outside for 12 months, rot would rot.

Literally have mushrooms growing out of it.

The business strategy, the, customer service and that overall customer

experience that's so important to me.

Match the product quality of rotting wood.

I like to compare it to water partially because, I get a lot of comments like,

why would I spend that much on wood?

It literally grows on trees, which I say, why do you buy bottled water?

It literally falls from the sky and the industry was.

Um, basically, going into your backyard and getting water out of a puddle, a muddy

puddle and drinking that or using that.

And we took the industry from that level, skip getting water out of a well,

skipped, Tap water, Dasani, Aquafina, and went straight to liquid death or

whatever high end fancy smancy bottled water in a bottle, glass bottle.

Um, and so really it's, we've really come in and completely

transform the industry there.

I can't really think of another industry in the past few decades.

That was as ripe for disruption as firewood.

it's, it is fascinating to me.

And I want, and we're going to go through your leadership journey

because I do agree from looking at things and from studying you guys,

there's been a, it's one of these things where it's a disruption in an

industry that probably no one knew.

no, let me say it this way probably no one knew the industry existed.

A lot of people didn't And so if they didn't know it existed, they didn't

know It was right for disruption, but I want to stay High level before we

go into the journey you've been on because I think there's power in this

message When I was reading through your stuff, there's a couple of things that

jumped out at me that kind of tie in with our theme that we've been really

having quite a good bit at seek, go create here, the leadership journey.

we've been seeing this over and over again, and that is

in a highly digital world.

In a fast world, in a world with so much coming at us, things that are,

I'll use the word analog or things that are slower paced seem to be

getting quite a bit of traction.

And that's what I heard you say when you talked about fire again,

let's don't talk about firewood yet.

Let's talk about the fire for just a moment, because see that

to me is a lifestyle product that people are yearning for.

Correct.

Absolutely.

It's, and it's only going to accelerate as everything online basically becomes

fake as AI makes video and stuff.

it, people will yearn, yeah, for the analog, for the natural,

for physical experiences.

Connections with other people that aren't digital that are in person or

like around a fire and you really can't beat The only thing that comes close to

sitting around the fire with connecting people is sitting around food and

food tastes better cooked over wood.

So it's perfect.

and you can

do both.

it's the caveman TV.

Yeah, you can do both.

Exactly.

And it's the caveman TV.

And you don't have any plans to generate or create AI fires, correct?

Let's just go ahead and get that out of the way early on here.

it's funny.

So many people, and I get the, allure and, and the reason behind doing it.

People all the time might be an exaggeration, but I've had a lot of people

over the years say, you need to do a video of a fire and put it on YouTube.

That's for the hour that just loops at people.

And I'm like, no, it's nothing to do with us.

Like I'll do a video on how to start a fire, how to use our firewood.

and things like that, but I'm not, that has nothing to do with us.

so

So would you consider is your leadership style,

would you be like high energy?

do you have hustle in your makeup at all?

is absolutely in my, makeup.

I'm not, comparing myself to some leaders that I know that are high energy.

I wouldn't say I'm high energy.

I can't, I definitely can come across more high energy than your average

person, um, and I can come across as.

optimistic, other than reality analyst.

I can, but it's, I think what people, ultimately two things that really

come through, that I think people see is the passion and the perseverance,

which kind of makes up grit really.

it is people when I talk about a beautiful fire and how it's.

Like a sunset, people hear the passion.

They feel the passion.

but then when they see my story or when they work with me, they

see the grit of just, I keep going no matter what, keep going.

no matter, what happens, giving up isn't really an option.

The re, the reason I asked that question, one of the things

that I do, and we talk about it quite a bit here, are how to balance And

balance isn't even the right word.

Let's say integrate.

How to integrate, our faith, family, all that we really are, that we say sometimes

are important to us, but maybe it doesn't

line up on our calendars and things like that.

And what I found, I briefly told you a little bit about my story before we

hit record, but what I found with me is

that I was addicted to more.

Or being busy and I just kept, it was more if there was one company, we

wanted to start another one.

If there was, real estate, we needed, we didn't need 10, 50 properties.

We needed a hundred, 150, we weren't going to buy one a month.

We were going to buy five a month, all of that.

It was just more.

So here's what I believe a fire is.

let me connect some dots here because it,

let me tell you what the RV life did for me.

It forced me.

To be patient.

I cannot be in a hurry and drive this 40 foot square box of a vehicle.

My thought is, and I'm going to ask you this in a form of a question,

is that you can't be in a rush.

with fire.

Is that a correct statement?

Yeah, absolutely.

A fire.

The whole point of it is, um, to start it and sit back and relax.

And either get lost in conversation or get lost in thought, deep

thought, staring at a fire.

It's all.

And, yeah, me specifically, I am definitely that drive, drive.

And it's funny, I'm a all or nothing kind of guy.

if I'm working out, I have the hardest time not pushing myself to the limit.

if, anything I do, it's all or nothing.

And, but it's funny, I can flip a switch and a perfect example of that

is, and a lot of people have a hard time believing this, every Sunday.

I take off completely.

I check out.

I turn my work brain off.

And so it's a all or nothing.

It's a nothing.

I do leave my phone across the room so I'm not tempted to open it and look at it.

and I spend about two hours.

staring at a fire.

on the Sunday, I spent a lot of time reading books to my girls.

I read a lot of books to my daughters, spend time with my

wife, go to church in the morning.

And, so it's that.

Just flip a switch.

but when I do, flip the switch back on, I have a hard time stopping until I decide.

And in fact, in, 2022, I actually took, the month of March off

and did no work for the month.

Just flip the switch.

What is that?

What is that like?

people in the faith world will call that a Sabbath, people in just the business world

will call it a sabbatical, which obviously

has a very similar route.

do you call it that?

Or is it just you?

cause I, I do believe that.

Clearing our mind is what allows for

creativity and, being intentional and things like that.

give me a little bit more on that because I could tell you people

aren't good at that typically.

Yes.

and it took me a while to really dial it in and I've gotten better over

time, but it, yeah, flipping the switch is, It takes self control, but once

it becomes a habit, um, you love it.

And it, and it's not, it, we're just better for it.

And you get more done with that time.

And I think, a great example, of course, is Chick fil A and what they've been able

to do with being closed one day a week, but, professional athletes, and physical,

scientists have proven even your body, if you take a day off, you do better.

the, the world's leading, Experts on lifting weights advise an absolute

maximum of working out six days a week.

If you work out seven days a week, you will not get as good.

It's not that you'll get the same results.

You'll get worse results.

and it's the same thing in work is, and yeah, sometimes emergencies can come

up and really part of the habit is.

and I almost forget about it now, because I've been doing

it for so long, is on Saturday.

When you're talking about work, tomorrow is Monday.

Um, and it's funny people at our business sometimes we'll do that.

and I catch it cause I want to make sure we're on the same page,

but it'll be Saturday and they'll say, I'm going to do this tomorrow.

I'll reach out to you tomorrow.

And I'm like, by tomorrow, you mean Monday, right?

And it's always yes.

so people have even just bought into it internally in the business.

but, it's amazing just coming back refreshed, and, how much more creativity

I have when you take that time off.

it just allows your, your brain to process the thoughts, and allows you to be more

creative, and on the other hand, even if you're not a creative type, it allows you.

And everybody has creativity, but even if you don't consider yourself as

the creative type, it stops burnout.

Working seven days a week is a guaranteed way to burn yourself out.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I also believe it helps us make better decisions.

It limits mistake.

There's all.

Types of benefit.

And if someone's listening in here, if they've been listening

to the 250 plus episodes, they know that message is important.

But, I want to say that our first learning point for anyone listening in is sit

by a fire more often have more fires.

And I heard two hours.

That's the,

is that a prescription?

is that what you're saying?

is that our first, the three steps of success from Leroy first sit by a

fire for two hours a week.

huh.

Yeah.

So I, yeah, a minimum of two hours.

Earlier last year I started, Sundays I do that and I actually listen to

two sermons on Sundays and then I've started a habit of during the week,

having about a two hour fire and just staring at the fire for two hours.

It's amazing just how much better I feel after that.

So one of the things for me, the reason that I'm asking

so many questions about the fire, as opposed to the firewood, we're

about to get to the firewood, but

I love it.

I, and because I think it's what's driving the passion,

it's the marketing, it's the message, it's the purpose, all of that.

we've got cars out here.

I'm interested in how they're built.

But I need them for what they do for me.

And so a couple of things I thought of when I was thinking about the

fire, there's a masterclass for those people that have masterclass.

There's one by Aaron Walker, who's the Texas barbecue specialist.

And I found myself getting frustrated with this.

Leroy, you would probably appreciate it.

But on masterclass, he has, it's about a 12 session class.

And before he even talks about barbecue, he actually

does

Franklin

Aaron Franklin.

Yeah.

So I just say that I say Walker, Aaron Franklin, sorry about that.

Thank you for correcting me, Aaron Franklin.

And, I think he does about four episodes on the fire,

the fire.

so that's pretty cool.

mention this as a pitch.

And I think it blends in well, I might need to connect you guys.

in a couple of weeks, I'm interviewing a guy named Burke Atkerson.

He's out of Colorado Springs and he's written a book called

fire nights and he's in ministry and the ministry is all about getting a

handful of guys around a fire once a week and oddly enough, or interestingly

enough, there's sometimes a cigar, there's sometimes a sip of whiskey.

And

it's really all about men connecting at a deeper level, which men

are typically not real good at.

So I'm just

mentioning that to you and also to the audience to be looking for that.

If I could time it well, I might actually put these episodes back to back and

see if we could have, the firewood and the fire nights combined there.

So anyway, Fire definitely

important and I like that it brings patience in a world

that's hurry up and go fast.

So with that, let's shift a little bit and let's talk about how

cutting, cutting edge came to be.

And I know there's a lot of story here and there's places people can go

to get a lot of it, but I think what I'd love to do is I knew, and I know

you grew up in Northwest Georgia.

I think I'm going to force you Leroy to give me one or two key

things from Leroy the early years, okay, that have impacted you.

Could be positive or negative.

something that's driven you that's gotten you where you are or something that

it's called a Scarlett O'Hara moments.

as God is my witness, I am never going to blank.

Mine is I'm never going to work corporate again.

I'm not going to work corporate.

And God is my witness,

you the reference.

just a couple of things

growing up.

obviously you're exposed to, trees and fires

and all of that, but What else?

What's come to mind when I ask, when I force you to come

up with one or two items?

Yeah, it's funny, I don't really have the, I will never

whatever, moments, when it comes to that, it's funny.

Cause, I have like, I do have goals, but they're, it's really, they're not goals,

they're visions and I'm just working in a general direction, um, with the

business and growing up, I didn't know I was going to be an entrepreneur, I,

and it's hard to, I might make it three.

I might break the rules.

I'll never was a rule follower.

I grew up Northwest Georgia, pretty poor, one of eight kids,

had a ton of chores growing up.

And, and had, I could give so many examples, but tons and tons of

chores, yard work, and, I remember one of the chores was cutting

the grass and trimming the grass.

And I remember we had these scissors, we didn't have a weed eater.

We had these scissors that I would use to cut around trees and, the phone pole.

And they were so dull that it was literally a breakeven, whether you

should use them or just pull the grass.

and so half the time you would see me out there pulling the grass up

around the trees and the poles.

and that was the kind of manual labor that I grew up in doing.

And so I think that really instilled a level of work ethic

that I'm not scared to work hard.

and.

And which I think, which I'm very thankful for.

I hated it at the time, of course.

Um, but I remember even as a teenager, going and helping other people

that had kids with yard work and they would always comment on, wow,

you have a really good work ethic.

And I didn't really think much of it at the time, but, looking back

on it, I'm like, yeah, apparently I did have a pretty good work ethic.

Um, The next one, is, and I'll talk more about her probably in the story,

but, meeting, dating, my wife met when we were 17 working at Chick fil A.

we got married spring break, junior year of college.

Um, and, And she's been incredible as an entrepreneur's wife.

Um, but in that, Oh yeah.

And then the next one would be during college at Berry college.

they had an entrepreneurial program and, and I would definitely

say that was pretty incredible.

It lodged something in my head that I could not get out of my head.

Just the entrepreneurial bug, the spark, the ember, whatever.

if you want to do a corny, puns, but it, it really did lodge in

my head and while I was there, I started a different firewood company.

And I just realized.

This is completely undisrupted.

It's a backwards thing.

Like me just sitting down for 30 minutes and thinking about it.

I could come up with new ideas to innovate the industry.

and, so it was a comparison.

It was a completely undisrupted forest that nobody had really

gone through, to disrupt it.

There were no paths.

and that was absolutely a turning point that I can look back at and be like,

that was a defining moment of my career.

you think, was there any clues to that entrepreneur

spirit, entrepreneurism prior?

it's a very odd story for someone to say they took, they

were in a program or a class.

Our daughter actually, she went to High Point University up in North

Carolina and they had an entrepreneur program, which I thought it was an

oxymoron for someone to be in college.

And studying entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, you

get it.

you understand that.

or, but I guess it can help unlock it.

We're looking back.

Were there any clues growing up that you may have had it other than the

work ethic and we'll, I may come back to that later, but other than that,

something that you said, you know what, I need to make me some money and I'm

going to figure out a way to do it.

I think it's work ethic and looking back.

And I even knew it at the time ish.

I've always looked at things differently than other people.

Even in college, I played a lot of Halo.

and a lot of Halo and I miss it.

It was a lot of fun.

Had it, that was a flipping a switch that when I started this business and had a

daughter, I was like, Oh, that's gone.

That's over.

Gave my X Box to my, nephew, nephews.

And, even in that, like I wasn't particularly skilled.

Like in reflexes and being able to, but I, there were other people way more

skilled than me, but my strategy and it was just really um, my, gut strategy.

Um, I played differently than anybody else that I ever met.

And, and that and like, when I think about rules, I always go to the, people

think I'm, There's people think there's either rule followers or rebels.

There's a third option.

And that is you look at the reason behind the rules.

And I did that as I, I look at the reason behind the rules and I try and follow.

when I agree with them, the spirit of the rule versus the letter of the rule.

and so I think those are some kind of, instances.

it's funny, I, when I worked at a, enterprise, we took

this, personality test.

I think it was.

And, and I, when it happened, I was like, Oh, that is interesting.

one of the question and I don't remember what the question was.

I just, it was, ranking your level of independence.

And I think it was like one to 50.

it was when I was an assistant manager and everybody, all the

assistant managers were single digit.

I want to say they were like seven to nine.

Maybe there was one that had an 11.

All the area managers were, which were our boss's boss.

the highest was like a 23, if I remember correctly, I was like a 47.

So

looked and they all looked at you like dude, they

said dude, why are you here?

Yeah.

So I think that, that was, and obviously I'd already, I had The entrepreneurial

spirit lodged into me at that point.

But, so those were some looking back.

It is funny though.

now think of me as like extreme, creative type.

Growing up, nobody thought of me as a creative and even some of my college

buddies have over the last few years commented, you came up with that.

I can't believe that kind of thing, but,

one thing related to one thing related to creativity i'm

going to ask this before we leave

the early years I'm gonna

ask a little bit about your faith because i've heard your story and I know

that later it's significant There's a,

I think a significant thing that you did as you started your business.

But I don't think that those

things are just, you wake up one morning and say, Oh, I'm going to

do something that shows my faith.

And then I'm a follower of Christ or something that I know.

But, and

listen, truthfully, there are clues when someone says they

work for Chick fil A.

It's like immediately, Truett Cathy spoke at my wife's

graduation.

that, yeah, he was a, yeah, tell me a little bit about, there's two things that

I want to frame before we dive into some leadership styles and things like that.

And that is, tell me a little bit about.

your faith growing up, where you were your family of

faith, where you, were you a Christian coming out of the womb or,

or was there a decision later on?

I've talked to people

that

what you call uh, The ultra reformed.

that, yeah, I'm not saying that's good theology, but I'm

telling you, I've had people that have said something like, I've been

Christian as long as I could remember.

In

You can call me John the Baptist, Jr.

yeah,

Yeah,

cause you

know that story with them and the womb.

listen, you mentioned a couple of things that were significant.

you big family, eight kids, Northwest Georgia.

So you're in the Bible belt.

You work for Chick

fil A and you said you were poor.

so I'm sitting here going, man, this is like a

solid.

Christian.

Christian kid.

Homeschool.

Did I get, can I get a homeschool out of

it was public school.

although ironically, my daughters had been in a, private school, but, my wife.

Led this decision, but, we're actually going to homeschool him next year,

which I'm pretty excited about.

But, but I was at no public school.

and I thought I was going to send my kids to public school.

but the world's an interesting place now, and especially with, four daughters,

very quickly that just dissolved.

It wasn't even like a decision.

It was just, with, but, public school.

And I think a lot of, actually that, that could be another, clue

to being an entrepreneur is I was really like self educated.

Um, I, give, credit to where credit's due, I had a fourth grade teacher that

introduced me to the Hardy Boys books.

And in the fifth grade, it might still be the all time record, but I.

Crushed the all time record in number of books I read because I basically read all

the Hardy Boys books in the fifth grade and But that kind of started my love of

learning and being self taught and Like in school, I got to where I would just ignore

the teacher and I would read history books and read through the science book.

And, and so I was really stealth taught, even though I was sitting in class, I

would use that time to teach myself.

Um, and on the, yeah, I grew up in a Christian family, solid Christian parents.

I'm very thankful for that.

and so with that, With my love of reading, at an early age, I started reading through

the Bible, read through it multiple times.

And, I have a, very useful skill set.

I'm not the best at memorizing, but I have a phenomenal skill to

remember the gist, the summary of what I heard, how that played out in

college is I could sit in classes, not take notes, not study for the test.

And I would make an A or a B usually.

and, but so I read through the Bible many times and, and got

a good understanding of it.

and yeah, and, I um, put my, my faith officially it, as I grew up, it became

official, you leave your parents faith and it becomes your faith at some point,

high school and into college, that definitely happened to me officially.

but there's never a time as long as I can remember that I wouldn't

have called myself a Christian.

or, that you wouldn't have looked at my wife and thought,

yeah, he's probably a Christian.

Along those lines with the business, something that is cool that are along

those lines are is we've had a couple, a few customers ask our customer

service department, are y'all are Christian business solely because

of our level of customer service.

Um, which I take as a big compliment.

Yeah.

technically a company cannot be saved.

There cannot be salvation for a S corp, C corp.

I, again, theological stuff here, but the leader, the founder of the company

can run with principles and it's, when we share love, I'm doing a deep dive

study on the kingdom of God right now.

And a lot of it's going to spill over into business.

What does that mean for business standpoint?

do you think that cutting edge would exist if your faith wasn't what it was?

there were, and we can dive into this however you want, but, but

between the time when I had the previous firewood company and when I

started cutting edge firewood, looking back on it, I wouldn't have called it

this at the time, but looking back on it, it was a loud and clear hauling.

but I was way too afraid, um, to lean into that.

cause had the theological truth, but I didn't have the experience, of that

theological truth of, of really leaning into what you think God's calling

you to do, stepping out in faith.

and that played.

and it's, when I started the business, we'll get into this, but

I started it basically fasting and praying and listening to sermons.

And there's been so many times when I've been in the fetal position and

I've gone back to different biblical truths over and over again, listening

to sermons on faith, listening to people in the Bible, exercising

their faith and, and really seeing.

It's been really comforting looking at Biblical figures and seeing

my story in many ways reflect their story of Just like them.

I'm far from perfect made a lot of mistakes, but God uses Both the

good things I do, the intelligent things I do and the dumb mistakes

I've made, to, to teach me and to make me into who I've become.

and ultimately When you wash everything away or if you burned everything away,

the foundation is ultimately on the, on my faith of that's what I lay the business

and my future on is, is that rock.

and the verse, of course, that if you build the house on the rock, and it

doesn't, it of course doesn't promise, financial, it's not that the Bible

promises that you're going to be rich, or that your life's going to be easy.

And in fact, my life has not been easy.

but, at the core, that's what I base everything

So what's interesting, this is what I've heard along the way.

with this conversation.

and I would agree faith is in all likelihood the foundation because the

faith probably fed a lot of the growing up, the work ethic, things like that.

I'm guessing that the faith probably led to your, was it Michaela?

what's.

Yeah, led

to your wife, which is an, a lot of people will say who you choose or

who God chooses for you or however people look at it to be your spouse

is a significant factor in whether or

not someone succeeds.

And I'm sure you could tell story after story.

We may not have time for it here.

if I could with my wife, it's my goodness, why did she stick around with me?

And the things that I asked

her to go through, and I'm sure you've got the same story.

And

all of those things built up and then we're going to hit through this real

quick Yeah, I mean i've heard, chick fil a you were considering being

an owner operator you worked at.

the car

enterprise.

enterprise.

Yeah, which probably

that was cool.

I don't want to go there though and then I think I saw it's

a different type firewood.

Were you a georgia pacific?

Where are you like big corporation?

That's a

firewood company.

they, they hope the wood doesn't burn there, but, yeah.

Okay.

Sorry.

But I think everything, I do believe the path that God leads us on as a

preparation for getting to a place.

And it's not as if we arrive, it continues.

It's why we call this the leadership journey.

That's part of the journey.

so that, and then the two things I heard there, these are kind

of church words we're using.

And so called and that you fasted and prayed.

And it led to this business starting and things like that.

And some people have trouble understanding that called.

Let's don't get into the fasting and praying.

It's just a, I think it's just a way of clearing our head.

Let's, can we leave it at that and move on for maybe someone

listening going, how does that work now?

We're not

going to do a teaching on fasting and praying here.

Yeah.

And for the record, that was the first time that I'd ever done it.

And it was spur of the moment.

It wasn't even planned.

Um,

It was spur of the moment for you.

It was probably not spur of the moment for God.

yeah, probably.

I think that's the, uh, that's theologically correct for sure.

So what year did cutting edge get started?

Let's tell a little bit about that story in the time we've got left here.

So cutting it, this was you were, you went through a

lot of, a lot of items that were probably preparing you truthfully

for starting this company,

this business, you had done the thing in college and all of that.

So what year are we at with cutting edge and the fasting and the prayer that you

did, and then bam, let's start a business.

2013.

Yeah.

2013.

So now we're talking about 10 or 11 years and you started

the business and it was money in the bank And everything was just

super duper right out of the gate.

You've been living the dream life ever since right

Yeah.

I was, his name?

My mind's called blank.

the, cut up your credit cards guy.

dave

yeah, Dave.

yeah, I was Dave Ramsey's worst, nightmare.

are you the

I, uh.

against?

Yeah, we did that with real estate, too Did you build your company on credit card?

So

yeah, absolutely.

That was my, I got a personal loan and maxed out seven or eight credit cards.

and honestly, that was my finance of the company for the first.

Five years was I would, during the spring and summer, I would get as

many credit cards as I could that way.

Sorry.

And during that, so I got as many credit cards as I could.

And then in the winter, when cash was good, I would pay them off my,

My score would shoot through the roof and then I would get more credit

cards, max them out in the spring and summer, pay them off the next winter.

And so my credit score would go from 300 to 800 a couple times a year.

And it was just a rollercoaster, but I would go higher and

higher with my credit score.

And that's how I, financed the business for the first few years.

until I got to the level that I

got my first SBA.

Cause originally it was firewood.

You were in the South in an area that has about a, has a three or

four month winter, and sometimes they don't have a winter, right?

Right.

moving?

Do you ever consider going somewhere else?

Go farther north.

Sorry, man.

But

You know, not, not, yeah, no, not initially.

I've thought a lot about it, in the last few years.

Um, but then now that we shipped to 48 states, there's less of a reason.

but I still think about it and debate it.

it'd be interesting to have a location in Boston or New

York, any other northeast city.

Um, Dallas, Texas is pretty interesting too,

it is

so you started and it was still pretty much firewood seasonal, people

don't want it March through November ish and, so you're on an

up and down.

Tell

me when was the time that this went from a, just a firewood for people's fireplaces

or outdoors to something bigger?

Give me if it's a multiple step along the way, or if it's a point in time,

because to me, that's where creativity and to me that those are divine type

moments in my opinion for company.

So tell me

more about that.

Yeah, there are really two super critical points.

One was, in 2017 when I went to my wife and said, Hey, we've got

to take this to the next level.

I know we have two little girls at home and you're eight

months pregnant with our third.

I got this wonderful idea of let's sell our house and invest it in the business.

And we did that.

I took that money, redid the branding, hired our first delivery

artisan, hired the first person employee that was taking care of

customer service, got our warehouse.

And, reinvented again, how to do deliveries and what that led to

it was we would just stack all the firewood to we included the

rack and have a patent on that.

And that took the deliveries from approximately 2 hours.

Once I arrived at the house.

To about 15 minutes once our delivery artisan arrives at the house, it made

it way safer and it made it where it was efficient enough that we could make money.

before that it was way too dangerous.

There's no way I could have paid somebody else to do it.

Um, and, so it was like, it would take eight, it would take about 18

hours to do eight deliveries the first four years when I was doing it.

and then it went down to, where now you can do about 16 deliveries and 7.

5, 8 hours kind of thing.

Um, and, so that was hugely important.

And, and then in 2019, we started putting up yard signs around town and they were

just our logo, um, and put them, hundreds and hundreds of them out, and eventually

we started putting them in our customers yards, but, And we started leaning into

cooking wood and pizza wood, and then we made our first dollar outside of Georgia.

And all those things added up to talking about divine timing

that was at the end of 2019.

And in 2020, obviously COVID happened.

And, and we just immediately forexed year over year.

which is hard when you have to have the employees and the raw materials in

advance and the systems and the SOPs.

That was hard scaling like that, but, we, massive growth, but, and so the

cooking wood and firewood, the cooking wood and pizza wood went from essentially

probably half of a percent of our revenue to 20 percent of our revenue

while our overall revenue forexed.

And, our, we made our first dollar.

outside of Georgia, where now it's the majority of our revenue,

um, is outside of Georgia.

did some of that level out the seasonal aspect of the business?

It did to a large degree.

do in our best month compared to our worst month, three,

three and a half times as much.

Um, whereas, um, it used to be, it was about 15 times as much.

In our best month versus our worst month, so it's still quite seasonal.

but it's a lot better, than it used to be.

Yeah, I love the, the industrial engineer, industrial

and systems engineer at Georgia tech is getting excited in me.

You talking about that process and delivery improvement

was that.

The same delivery that you do outside of the Georgia market, or are you

just shipping or have you, what have

you done to me?

Cause it's not as if, wood, firewood, cooking wood is a light.

a light

product, tell me a little bit more about

that, what that looks like.

Yeah.

really, we build it into the business model.

We build it into the price.

and it's, yeah, it's not cheap, shipping it.

but because it's the best, that want the best are willing to pay a premium

price for, for a better experience.

And really.

Um, if you look at it and you're like, why are people paying that much more for wood?

You'll never understand unless you make the leap to, Oh,

they're not paying for wood.

They're paying for an experience and people will pay a premium for experiences.

They're paying for that experience we talked

about at the beginning,

Yes,

that peace, that relaxation and things like that.

and really at the end of the day, like having a fire,

the whole reason you do it is enjoy it to have an experience.

So, why go somewhere else and spend half or even a fourth of the money?

To have a terrible experience where you can't get it started.

Or you have it stored in your home and bugs are crawling out of it.

Or it smokes and everybody smells terrible afterwards.

it's really, ours burns hotter.

You want the heat.

You want it to burn longer.

you want the ambiance.

You want the lively flame.

You want the amazing aroma.

and, you want, yeah, less smoke.

You want it to start easy.

There's, it's miserable to try and start bad firewood.

You're sitting there playing with it for an hour and then you just have to

continually go and attend it when you should be sitting back and enjoying it.

right.

There are some companies, That, that I've interacted with it.

Their goal is to be the lowest cost on the market.

some companies, they want to scale and address the masses and everything that

I'm hearing from you is I'll throw out some words and then you could just respond

in whatever way you want to quality.

Not just the experience of the product.

Yeah, not just the experience of the product, but as I understand it, it seems

like the customer Service experience.

I think I see that terry bradshaw is a big fan of you guys and

a big customer and all of that Which is cool And so lowest cost Is Not your goal.

I'm guessing you're, I'm guessing the product is pricey relative, but, and then

I also want to throw in here competition.

I

think I've heard you saying, correct me if I'm wrong, that you

really don't have competition.

is that correct?

So whatever

you want to address with all those words.

Yeah.

On, quality, what I always say is any product we release, I

want it to be the best in class.

In quality and I break up quality into aesthetic and functional and

I want us to be the best in both.

So when it comes to the firewood, our firewood is beautiful.

You can use it to decorate.

And the racks of firewood that are on our website, every single rack that

leaves our facility looks that good.

we have an internal mantra of, pretend that every rack or every

product that's leaving our facility is going to Terry Bradshaw or that

it's going to a photo video shoot.

And when Terry Bradshaw places an order, there's no internal memo that

says this is going to Terry Bradshaw.

It better look perfect because that's that's the internal.

Everybody knows that for everything that leaves.

Um, so that's the quality piece.

competition.

Um, I kinda as a visual, I say when we act like this is the floor,

this is where the competition was.

Or when I entered the market, I entered the market probably about

right here and I've moved up to here and it's are we a lifestyle business?

So even when you say we're a firewood business kind of thing, and.

We've, I've had a lot of, maybe as many as 50 like imitators

enter the market right here.

if you asked me if I was honest and, what I wish that they weren't there,

the answer would be yes, but it's more of just competing for Google search

terms, um, and things like that.

But.

they're not as good as, they're worse than we've ever been.

And really, they're like an off brand, and by that brand,

slightly stale version of us.

You'll see a lot of logos that have an act in it.

They have similar colors.

Their website just so happens to be, exactly laid out like ours.

And when we update our layout, it seems like several other websites update

theirs within about six months after us.

Um, there's a firewood company.

I know of that.

Their tagline is we edge off the competition.

And then there's another we offer racks of firewood and we're the only firewood.

I own the patent.

Um, and that, a, another one that their tagline is Unwrapped Firewood.

And I'm like, have a little bit of originality, like they, it's

like they're looking at us when they come up with their branding

and their taglines and everything.

and really.

It's a, it's hard to look at it this way, but in reality, it,

whether they definitely don't mean it this way, but it is a compliment

because it's the whole, imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

Um, and.

I, if they're going to do it, imitating us is the best way because that means

they're always behind us and they don't have the same passion or grit and they

don't have the same quality standards.

They just want to imitate without putting the effort in.

they're not going to be successful.

And once again, we're up here and there's.

40, 50 down here.

They're still Some of the ones down here, but they're right here.

Um, and the other thing is, it's interesting is none of them

imitate us in our full lineup.

you, mentioned that we would talk about the fire pit later.

Not even like that aside, there's some that'll ship some wood, there's some

that'll do cooking wood, and then there's some that'll do a local firewood delivery.

None of them deliver firewood like we do because we own a patent and,

and we have our own custom software and, and we spend too much money

on the trucks and, and our delivery artisans are salaried employees that

get paid well, and they can't do that.

They can't imitate that.

But yeah, that's the competition.

just the fact that you call your people delivery artisans

should tell people something yeah, our guy with the truck.

He'll be there.

When's he going to be there next week?

I, I got a lot of funny stories on that.

Mostly from what customers have told us.

Like I've, I had a guy tell me that, That he, went with the quote unquote

competition and the guy forgot to put the brake, on his truck when he

parked in the driveway and it came out of gear and hit his Mercedes

and the guy didn't have insurance.

Um, there's the bug infestation stories.

There's stories that I almost feel bad talking about like pregnant

women delivering firewood where the people feel so bad that they do the.

The delivery and then, but my favorite is one time a firewood, owner company,

and this was many years ago, invited me to come and meet with them and they were

just nonchalantly talking about how.

Their delivery guy was in jail and they're like, the firewood industry.

And I was like, Oh my gosh, none of our delivery artisans

have ever been in jail before.

they're basically sending like a convict in other people's

homes and deliver firewood.

That's a

interesting.

appreciate the, the disruption you've done in raising the bar.

I had a client years ago, not far from where you're located there that was in the

pool maintenance and cleaning business.

and there was some similar thoughts.

There we I mean there was so many things we had to do to get that business cleaned

up with Delivery people that were smoking dope and just all kinds of stuff So I

like what you're doing how many what's the size of the organization with people now?

Where are you at?

Not that people is a great measurement, but I got just a couple questions here

I want to ask related to that and then we'll talk about product and be done

So we're at about 30 people now.

Excellent.

And tell me about your current leadership style, whatever you can

tell me about it, because I'm sure it's grown from, zero to now 30.

That's a great sweet spot.

A lot of the clients I work

I'm just a guy that started a firewood company.

Yeah.

Now, yeah, my leadership style, I'm, I have strong standards that

I hold employees to, but I'm definitely a, I'm a hands off leader that will from

time to time check in if that makes sense to make sure everything's good and strong.

Um, so some of it, yeah, that, employees have gotten used to.

Just me being like, coming in and critiquing a random response to a

customer or being like, Oh my gosh, I love that message from so and so talking

about how much they love the product.

like that customer just sent an email, saying that he tried out all the other.

cooking wood suppliers over a six month period, and he's donating 3, 000 worth of

it to a barbecue competition and a bunch of professionals are going to be there.

Did you see that message?

And I'm like the first one that saw it because I just, yeah, exactly.

and so it's either that or That was a pretty good response

to that upset customer.

This is how I would do it slightly differently.

And, but they're used to it.

whereas, if some business leaders did that, their employees would either

get really defensive because they would think you were attacking them,

or they might have a heart attack that they actually care that much.

so it, but I hate micromanaging.

And I've over the past few years actually struggled a little bit and it's been

a learning time for sure that I've always wanted to just hand off things

as soon as they say, I've got it.

But in reality, most people, when they say I've got it, they don't quite got it.

and you need to stay involved.

and give them additional feedback for a little while longer and

make sure they've really got it.

And then you slowly back away.

whereas I want to be like, here, catch this.

I'm going to do this new idea kind of thing.

are you starting to see some leaders in a leadership

team develop with 30 people?

You're probably starting to identify that.

Yes, yeah, we, yeah, and we, yeah, we have a leadership team and, and

it's grown definitely over the past years.

and, and we have our director of operations, to be a great people's

leader, and with me, can I step in?

Thank you.

and coach and lead people.

Yes, but it's not what drives me.

And, I want to be more of I want to come in and give people high fives and

tell them great job and, get people excited and then come in and then

think about which of my 50 ideas in my head I want to prioritize and do next.

How can I reinvent something that's already been reinvented?

I constantly go through the business and I'm like, I know I reinvented

how to do a local delivery.

Are there any other things that I can, and I have ideas how to reinvent it again.

but, should I focus on that or should I focus on this other idea?

That's one of the most difficult things that organizations

moving from the entrepreneur, the person that's task, get it done to

now moving in a strategic type mode.

That's, that's primarily the work that I do now and also, and one of the cool

new things you came up with, and this is where we're going to transition.

We're right up at the end of our time here.

I want you to Tell us a little bit about the wood because we didn't talk a lot

about what we've talked about the fire, which to me is the most important thing.

However, I want to

finish up because I, I know you could probably tell us about the

breadth of the type wood that you've got, and then I want you to

lead into this new, cool thing that I'm looking at on your website right now,

which will include links everywhere to this fire pit that is like.

some kind of space age deal that looks cool.

So tell us about the wood and then the fire pit.

And then I've got one more question before we finish up.

on the firewood side, we have premium oak, we have,

artisanal hickory, wild cherry, orchard apple, and redolent on the,

and we have that in premium, really luxury boxes that ship to 48 states.

We have it locally in several cities in the Southeast and what our firewood

racks, our delivery artisans deliver.

And then we have our ultimate package, which are 5 of those racks.

Um, that come and they come with a hand truck so that you can easily

move it around and some other goodies.

and then that's of course what Terry Bradshaw buys are the ultimate packages.

And, in the cooking wood, we have, post oak, we have, hickory, cherry, Apple,

maple, pecan, and then we have sabanaheat.

Sabanaheat, everybody's what is that?

It's a wood that comes from Africa.

it's an invasive species, so it's actually good for, baby

cheetahs and rhinos if you use it.

So just, you can just buy it and burn it just to help the environment.

Um, and, and then we have wood for different size pizza ovens and everything

when it's fresh is cut down and, put into a big oven where it's dried out

and then it's stored inside and then it is literally hand selected and

by that every single person that is either stacking the racks or the boxes.

it's trained to, know the difference between if something is rotten, if it has.

Um, any imperfections, or if it's not quite dry enough,

they're all trained in that.

And our quality control is without a doubt the highest in the world.

and, yeah, so those are the different firewood and cooking wood and

pizza wood species that we have.

Um, and what that does is it's is it comes back to ultimately is it's the product

quality, which goes to the experience.

for listening.

On the fire pit, so, around a lot of fire pits in my time, um, the number

two most common complaint that I always heard was the firewood smokes.

So we fixed that with higher quality firewood.

Um, and they do, they have the, of course, the smokeless

fire pits that also help some.

and, but the number one complaint I always heard is my feet freeze.

You can hold your hands over the fire for your hands to be warm, but

my lower body or my feet freeze.

Or even, my kids put their feet up on the fire pit and

melt the bottom of their soles.

So we.

have start started taking pre orders and are launching the world's

first thermoelectric fire pit.

What that is smokeless fire pits have two layers.

This has a third layer.

And in the third layer, it circulates the air and, it converts some of the heat into

electricity that powers four fans on the bottom of the fire pit, which blows out,

that air that's circulating warm air.

In a 360 degree area around the fire pit, month and a half, two months

ago, we were outside and it was in the mid fifties on my back deck.

And my wife jokingly, you can't do this.

People, said, I'm trying to figure out how we can bring this fire pit inside

because of the ambience, the warmth around the fire pit, basically the

whole fire, the whole deck, which is a pretty good size one warmed up a bit.

but particularly six to eight feet around it.

It's just this envelope bubble of warmth, cause it goes down

first and then heat rises.

So really like your whole area is warm.

Um, so I'm pretty excited about it.

Very cool.

probably don't need to bring it in the RV either outside.

Yes, not inside.

Yeah.

we don't recommend that.

Folks.

man, that's awesome.

that's like some cool stuff, but, and I'd love to go into that a

little bit more, but let's just tell people to check it out.

We'll include links below so people can check all

that out.

The website phenomenal, the experience and all that you stand for.

Leroy, it's so beautiful.

I love

it.

I know there's a lot more to the story, but I think I caught the essence of what

you and the company are trying to create.

and I do want to mention the website, which is go and tell us the website.

And I think LinkedIn is the best place for people to find you, right?

What's the website

Yeah.

If you want to connect with me, Leroy Height on LinkedIn, on the

website, it is cuttingedgefirewood.

com.

Very good.

We'll include that down below.

Leroy, we're seek, go create.

I'll let you pick one of those words just means more to you or

resonates or jumps out at you.

Seek, go, or create.

Which one and why is my last question.

Create, um, even though growing up, nobody thought I was

a creative, as an entrepreneur.

I love creating new ideas, thinking outside the box.

And, And building upon it.

So just building something.

so that's what I really enjoy doing.

Awesome.

Says the guy who just invented and could be disrupting the fire pit.

Industry now is a creator.

And I definitely agree with that.

Thanks for joining us, Leroy.

We're Seek, Go Create.

We have new episodes here every Monday.

Continue supporting us.

You could go to seek, go create.

com forward slash support, and you can buy me a coffee or a whiskey,

or you can contribute some funds and I could get me some high end

firewood and maybe that fire pit we just talked about when it's released.

So anyway, you could leave as little as a buck or all the way up.

To, whatever you would like and leave comments there.

So listen, I appreciate you being here.

Check out everything that Leroy talked about.

That is a phenomenal business.

We'll include some links also to some other episodes where he's gone in deeper

detail on the business and things.

I just wanted to catch some of the high level things that he's doing.

And I think we did a great job of that.

Thanks again, until next time, continue being all that you were created to be.