Maker of the Month - Origin Story
/How and Why I Got Into Woodworking by Jason Bent
My name Is Jason Bent and I am an Active Duty Army Infantryman. I was a senior in high school when the tragedy on 9-11-01 happened. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when it happened. I also remember the immediate feeling that my life needed a change. That change was the Army.
I graduated from high school in 2002 and enlisted in the Army. Back then, so many people felt like I did and wanted to join the Army, that it created a backlog just to go to basic training, it was a different time. Finally, in April of 2003 I went off to basic training at Ft. Benning, GA. Since my enlistment, I have been all over the world. I was stationed in Korea, Louisiana, Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now find myself back in Georgia.
I came back to Georgia to serve as a Drill Sergeant, training young Infantrymen, in 2012. It was this job that made me realize how much I loved teaching. More importantly, having the ability to make a difference. During my three years as a Drill Sergeant, I spent most of my free time, the little that I had, bass fishing. At the time, that is what I was passionate about.
In early 2016 the time for me to leave Ft. Benning had arrived. Luckily, I was reassigned and moved to North Georgia to serve as a ROTC Instructor at the University of North Georgia in Dahlonega, so it was just a short move for me. I remember one night my wife and I were having dinner and she looks at me and says, “I would really like for you to build us a table when we move up north.” I laughed and said “well I would have to buy tools to do something like that.” “Figure out what you need and we can go get it” she replied. That is when my life changed dramatically.
I remember one day walking into a Sears to look at tools. I had a very general idea of what I needed but no idea where to even begin. My meager tool list was solely based of a twenty-three minute YouTube video made by DIYPete. I found a tutorial on how to make a farmhouse table out of pine from Home Depot. The tools I needed were a miter saw, Kreg Jig, a drill, some clamps, and a few other small items. So the shopping spree began and it became the first of many.
We finally arrived to our new home in the city of Cumming, GA in February of 2016. I was so excited to start building in my garage with my limited tools. I figured before I begin, I needed to build a workbench. I looked for a plan online, chose the one I wanted, and got to work. I was immediately hooked and couldn’t wait to get started on the table. I had thrown the table together in between watching clips from the tutorial to figure out what I needed to do next.
There are two things that I remember vividly about that first table. First, how proud I was when I looked at it. Second, I couldn’t believe how many things I had learned from building it. I knew at that point, this is what I wanted to do.
Slowly but surely, I began to build up my collection of tools by scouring Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. At the same time, building project after project to replace the furniture in my home, I was obsessed. Before too long, I found myself posting my boat for sale because I didn’t have the time to use it. If you knew me at the time, you would have known that was the tipping point.
One day, a friend of my wife approached us and asked to buy the table that I built for her new home. That sale led to two additional builds for the same friend. It was at that point that I thought I might be able to make things for people and get paid. It didn’t take too long to do just that. Not knowing where to begin, I posted an add on Facebook Marketplace and received around 100 messages over about a 48 hour period. Unfortunately, it only led to one order. But, that is all it took. Over the next few months I was routinely receiving messages from people that saw my page or talked with someone that I had built something for. Before I knew it, I had a viable business opportunity. As my name started to spread and my income had increased, I continued to upgrade the tools in my shop. This went on for about 6 months and finally in late 2016 I decided to take the plunge and register my small business with the state of Georgia.
I decided to finally do this for a few reasons. One of those reasons is because I found myself in a fortunate position. I really didn’t have much to lose, as my primary job would continue to pay the bills and support my family. The second reason this was appealing was because I figured I could learn as much about the business side over the next 5 years so that when I retire, I have already worked through all the growing pains associated with starting a small business.
I have officially been in business for 6 months now and it couldn’t be going any better unless I sacrificed my actual job, the Army. Obviously, this is not an option. However, I find myself in a position now where I am able to pick and choose the projects that I do and don’t want to do. When I was trying to grow my name, it was common that I had to undervalue myself in order to get work. Luckily, that is no longer the case.
A few months ago I decided to finally attempt to break through in other areas of social media, Instagram and YouTube. Due to my strong feelings towards teaching, I figured these would be great areas to get into. Turns out, I really enjoy these platforms, specifically YouTube. All in all, where I see myself in 5 years is primarily on YouTube. As much as I love building custom pieces of furniture and seeing a clients reaction when they receive it, I find I like the teaching through video aspect more. I would love to be in a position that I was able to build what I want to build and create content out of that while working with sponsors.
The last 2 years have flown by, and it is hard to believe that I went from an inexpensive shopping trip buying a few tools for a table, to know having a shop outfitted with over $20,000 in tools. For those of you that find yourself early on in woodworking, just know that all of this started from a simple conversation about building a table for the home 2 short years ago. Don’t ever think that it isn’t something that is possible. I assure you that it is, and it can happen almost overnight.