Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand

Helping makers build profitable companies. Tools, numbers, and stories from the people building things with their own hands. Profit keeps the stand open.

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

The mission of Big Lemonade Stand is simple:

Help business owners build profitable companies.

Celebrate American Makers.

Tell the truth about what it takes to build a business that works.

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

I think this is their old plant, and they recently moved to a new site.

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

A surprising number of really big plastic products all start the same way.

They're slowly spun in giant molds until they take shape.

This is Revolv Manufacturing in Maple Plain, Minnesota. They build everything from fuel tanks to kayaks for companies across the country.

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

A customer brought a costly failure.

A South Dakota engineer found a better way.

Thirty-three years later, the same family business is still building, testing and improving.

From a five-gallon bucket to a powered factory.

https://t.co/A57vXioOnB

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

The company also found a way to compete with steel and concrete.

Its treated glulam bridges can serve roads, parks and recreational trails, especially where corrosion from road salt creates long-term problems.

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

Gruen-Wald did not stop at improving the product.

It improved the process.
Then the machinery.
Then the factory.
Then the power behind the factory.

That is what serious makers do.

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

Gruen-Wald now makes beams, columns, trusses and timber bridges for agricultural, residential, commercial and public projects.

The product is wood.

The work is engineering, chemistry, precision and manufacturing.

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

The company kept improving the process.

Today it pairs engineering with CNC milling, radio-frequency presses and skilled craftspeople.

The plant can produce about 40,000 board feet per day.

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

So Duane and Lois Boice started Gruen-Wald Engineered Laminates.

At first, production was simple.

Glue mixed by hand.
Boards assembled in a garage.
A structural engineer turning a field problem into a product.

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

A South Dakota engineer started a manufacturing company in an unheated garage, mixing glue in a five-gallon bucket.

Today, that company makes massive wood beams and bridges in a 90,000-square-foot plant.

This is Gruen-Wald. 🧵

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

The story began in 1993 with a customer problem.

Large treated-wood columns were drying, twisting and splitting.

Returns were high.

Duane Boice believed glued laminated timber could solve it.

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

@lennysan @AnthropicAI Who signs off matters more than who wrote it. That line applies to every invoice too, not just the memo

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

@Forbes Net worth on paper and cash in the bank are not cousins. They barely speak

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

@StartupArchive_ Eight hours of reference checks sounds excessive until the wrong hire costs you eight months

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

@minchoi Free per prompt is not free. Somebody still paid for that laptop and the power to run it

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

@chrisbosh Which team hardly matters. Whether you made the people around you better does

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

@dhh Refusing a blog post translation is a strange hill to build caution on

[Greg :: Big Lemonade Stand @LemonProfits]

@Forbes Posting through it is not a succession plan