A 2020 conversation with Startup Virginia’s executive director led Hunter Guerin to apply to the Idea Factory, a program the organization designed to help entrepreneurs flesh out a concept into a business. At the time, Guerin had recently moved to Richmond and wanted become active in the startup ecosystem.
He had multiple business concepts, so he applied with several. Leaders at the Startup Virginia selected a two-sided marketplace called Llamawood, which connects buyers and sellers of firewood.
The company has grown from its humble beginnings. Guerin finished the Idea Factory and was invited to participate in local accelerator Lighthouse Labs. He recently finalized a $500,000 fundraise for Llamawood and was awarded a $75,000 grant from the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp.’s Commonwealth Commercialization Fund.
The company has grown from supplying firewood to individuals to becoming a reliable supplier to restaurants and other businesses that cook with wood.
“My wife and I joke that I basically applied to the Idea Factory with all these ideas, and they chose that one,” Guerin said. “They obviously found it the most interesting one. The first day of the Idea Factory, I introduce myself with ‘Hi, I'm Hunter Guerin, and I founded the company that's going to be an on-demand firewood delivery marketplace.’ I’d never been called a founder before.”
Before starting Llamawood, Guerin worked as a mechanical engineer and eventually took a job as a product manager at a startup that focused on engineering products. The company was a two-sided marketplace between companies that need something manufactured and companies that had the ability to perform the work.
“Llamawood is similar in that it is a managed marketplace,” Guerin said. “We connect the buyer with a distributed network of sellers who then can deliver firewood directly.”
Guerin saw a problem in the marketplace from firsthand experience. He had ordered firewood when he lived in Northern Virginia, Richmond and other places. Each time, he said the wood was inferior and had not been dried properly. He figured people might want a marketplace where wood vendors are vetted. They would know that the wood has been properly treated and classified.
“Being a product manager, I saw the value that this marketplace was bringing to both the buyer and the seller,” Guerin said.
The company started slowly. Guerin built a Shopify website and vetted a few wood suppliers. He did deliveries himself. He used a spreadsheet to connect buyers and sellers and has kept the operation low-tech. Guerin wants to fully understand the business before he decides to put huge amounts of money into building out the technology.
A big change for Llamawood came when an amateur chef asked for cherrywood, something used in wood-fired ovens and smokers. Guerin located the material and delivered it to the client. He now supplies wood to several well-known restaurants across the region, including Hardywood, Crusty House and Crustworthy Pizza.
While he did not divulge sales numbers, Guerin said the company did around 300 orders in October.
“It is our busy season right now,” he noted.
Guerin said the company has enough transactional data that it is starting to automate the process of matching buyers and sellers. The process is slow, because Guerin is being conservative.
“We've leveraged a lot of low-code and no-code solutions in order to be as agile as possible and respond to buyer and seller needs,” Guerin said.
The goal over the next 24 months is to expand. The company currently serves people in Richmond, Charlottesville, Petersburg and into North Virginia. Guerin sees the delivery radius expanding into other areas as more wood suppliers are vetted.
