11. Andrew Ellsworth on building material reuse

Audio Transcript:

Garr Punnett (00:07)

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to season two of the Multiusiverse podcast. I’m Garr Punnett, Chief Strategy Officer of Rheaply. We have a great season line upcoming that is really going to be focused on the path. We know about recycling. We know of the solutions of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. We know where we’re supposed to go for the circular economy of the future. The guests that we will have in the season and seasons to come all focus on how do we get to that circular economy of the future. And to lead us off, we start with Andrew Ellsworth of Doors Unhinged and all of For Reuse, which is such a fun conversation, not only because of his energy, but because it’s a simple solution. It’s focused on doors. How do we reclaim these doors? How do we sell these doors? And then how do we scale commercial reuse? I think you’re going to get a lot out of this video, a lot out of this podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. We are joined by the Andrew Ellsworth of Doors Unhinged of Offer Reuse. Are there any other things in here that I should be highlighting to our audience?

Garr Punnett (01:23)

And how would you introduce yourself?

Andrew Ellsworth (01:28)

You did it. I would say I’m not a man of titles. Excellent. I’m just a guy.

Garr Punnett (01:34)

Just a guy working on some solutions and changing really probably the commercial reuse world one door at a time. Let’s start with Doors. So this is really the solution that I love hearing about and reading about, which is as we spoke earlier so many times, we think about problems that are very complex, trying to find solutions that fit those systemic issues that are trying to go for those large changes where doors come into this. I love how simple it is. I love how to find it is as a message to, hey, don’t buy new doors. Reused doors are perfectly great and we can do more impact there. Tell me about it.

Andrew Ellsworth (02:16)

Wow. Okay. Yeah. So doors are something that everyone can relate to. I feel like everyone has a door story or a door problem or a great door like anecdote or something like that or a photo or something like that because it’s so relevant. It’s metaphorical in so many ways. But that’s not why I started the business, really. It was recognizing my previous work had been working in sustainability and green building, and we were so systemic that it was almost hard to see real action take place because you’re just living at that systems level and a lot of people couldn’t engage with that. So the idea for Doors Unhinged came really when I was a social enterprise consultant. Sustainable enterprise consultant. And looking for enterprise solutions to social and environmental problems.

 (03:25)

Right.

Andrew Ellsworth (03:26)

And so identifying all these different opportunities and local food systems and storm water and infrastructure and things like that, and then really looking at construction waste and seeing the opportunity of all this really high quality material going into landfills. And so just sat down and started to think about, like, how can you build a business around that? And after sitting for a while with it, it’s just like, okay, it’s got to be focused on one product because that’s how the industry works. That’s how the commercial sector works. And so looking at what that one product could be, that is universal. Not just universal, but commonly found. Uniform, good quality, good condition. And it’s sort of easily recovered and easily sold and has a margin. It’s something that starts out kind of expensive because you got to give a little bit of a discount, and so you still need to be able to make money. And so I went through the list, and Doors was the one that just kind of stuck with me. Little did I know, I was actually a door nerd that was just waiting to come alive. So Doors really just became, in my mind, the first step of demonstrating that something was possible.

Andrew Ellsworth (04:49)

We thought this was our best chance of success of commercial reuse where there was. So this was almost ten years ago. There was literally zero happening in commercial material reuse ten years ago. There’s a lot in residential.

 (05:05)

Right.

Garr Punnett (05:05)

Exactly.

Andrew Ellsworth (05:06)

All over the country, which is awesome. It’s great. But the commercial sector never really jived with that. And the residential customers didn’t really want those commercial materials. So there’s nothing really happening. We’re like, we got to start somewhere. And, hey, why not doors, that, I would say, is the short version of the back story.

Garr Punnett (05:32)

Again, I summarized it incorrectly there with Universal. I loved how you went into detail about uniformity, how things can then that can then equate either to measurement or cost or something that is, again, easily predictable when commercial planning is happening, can you talk more about why that’s so important in terms of providing a solution that can be so easily measured to commercial planning or architecture or whatever it might be in the process of which reuse can slip into that planning process.

Andrew Ellsworth (06:07)

So you have to position your products in a way that’s recognizable to the people that are buying it. And so who are your customers? Your customers are. It’s a funny thing. It’s actually a committee. Any given project, there’s a committee of customers, and it starts with the owner. It actually really starts with the bank, too. Bank owner, developer, owner’s, representative, architect, general contractor, sub contractor, supplier. Okay. So you have this whole mismatch of people that each have a role in it, and to some extent, they each have veto power. And so you need to give them something that they can all basically use to check their own boxes. We have to just think about how we set. I think I kind of said this first. We have to look like the other products that are out there, right? We have to be a different version of new. We can’t look totally different because people are like, that doesn’t work for me. For example, the architect doesn’t carry a credit card for the project. So you can work with the architect, but they’re never going to buy from you because that’s not what they do. Right.

Andrew Ellsworth (07:29)

Understanding how the sausage is made is actually has been one of the most interesting parts that really elucidates the massive complexity that happens in the sector in that then continuing that thread.

Garr Punnett (07:45)

Where did this, what’s great. Okay, so you’ve now defined a product you’ve identified. Okay, this is the system. We’re going to kind of change here. We’re going to try to infiltrate commercial reuse. Where did you start? How did you start piecing this together? You’ve had a little bit of history coming into doors unhinged. But what was that sort of initial design, probably product design, business design, looking like when you’re like, alright, who do we target in that set of stakeholders?

Andrew Ellsworth (08:14)

So literally you just started calling developers, contractors, architects, saying, hey, we have this business. We didn’t have anything to sell yet, right? Didn’t have a warehouse, didn’t have a truck, didn’t have a single door.

Garr Punnett (08:29)

Yeah.

Andrew Ellsworth (08:30)

So he just started calling and it’s funny, I ended up calling this one developer and he’s like, yeah, we have doors, we’re getting rid of. The project starts tomorrow. And so why don’t you come out and take a look and like that the business took off. It was probably the single largest. It’s probably the second largest acquisition I’ve had to date. And it was the first one. So we literally were building the ship as we were flying.

Garr Punnett (08:58)

It’s always great. I think a lot of sustainability professionals might feel the same, but how many doors then?

Andrew Ellsworth (09:06)

It was about 120.

Garr Punnett (09:07)

Okay.

Andrew Ellsworth (09:11)

How do I take them out? How do I store them, move them, store them again, and then understand what they are with enough ability to go sell them. And so spent enough time just dealing with the inventory side of it before we started going out and trying to sell it. And every step along the way, we learned mostly by making mistakes. And so the goal is, don’t make the same mistake twice. Learn from your mistakes.

Garr Punnett (09:47)

Are there any that stand out?

Andrew Ellsworth (09:50)

That first one, I have to say, I got a big box truck with liftgate and I knew the lift gate was capable of carrying the weight, but we didn’t have a forklift. Like we don’t have anything. Right. I got a Pallet Jack. I bought a Pallet Jack and we’re rolling out of this building, going to this box truck and we get it onto the lift gate and then we’re like, oh, no, when you get to the top of the list gate and the Pallet Jack is still out the back, what are you going to do? You can’t stand this high with a 1200 pound pallet about to fall on you. And so we ended up having to lift the pallet Jack onto the palate doors and put it on the other side and pull it in and then lift the pallet. And you’re not supposed to do that with heavy. So we completely re engineered how we take materials out of buildings and get them on the trucks and stuff like that. But that was a hard lesson to learn, right?

Garr Punnett (10:51)

I’m sure. And doing it in front of your first client, technically the first, potentially. Yeah.

Andrew Ellsworth (10:59)

They ended it, too. And we’re doing it like 03:00 a really great friend who was helping me do this was like he said to me, if it flips, we’re running and we’re leaving it. Okay, let’s get out of the way. I’m like, all right, deal. Okay.

Garr Punnett (11:15)

This is what I’m loving about this, too. For those that are listening, is again, this is the building blocks of any solution, right? It is. You’ve identified the problem. You’re now trying to figure out, okay, what can I offer into solving this problem? And again, defying the status quo. But then comes the you’re sitting with doors. What does that look like in terms of probably in a lot of what our sector of commercial reuse and materials is like the market development now. Now it’s like, all right, what do we do with this? How do we now say we’ve got these doors? What was next to sort of build that back into a product? Now that you had the company had the product, now you just needed your market.

Andrew Ellsworth (12:01)

Yeah. And I would say it just really started to understand what our customers want. And I think we have a pretty good handle on that. We’re in year five.

Garr Punnett (12:14)

Yes.

Andrew Ellsworth (12:14)

And so sometimes it takes that long, especially since there’s no precedent for this. I think the market at development has said, who is your customer? What are the pain points and what can you sell them? I think it was actually probably only about a year ago, maybe a little more that I recognized that we actually sell materials, but an equal part of what we deliver as a service, which is essentially solving the problems that are associated with identifying, specifying, ordering, delivering, and servicing these materials. That is why contractors hire subs. You deal with that. That’s why I pay you. Unless I really need to be involved, I want you to take care of it. You hear the drawings, look at them. Tell me what I need. Tell me how much it’s going to cost. And if there’s anything I need to resolve with the owner of the architect, that recognition of, like, service. This is such a service based industry, and I think that’s where the mistake has always been is that we just treat it like it’s materials and it’s materials with a huge amount of service wrapped around it.

Garr Punnett (13:33)

Yes. I love that highlight because sometimes even in the tech space, and that’s what we’re providing is we’re still getting, hey, technology is great. We’ve got materials. But how are you going to help solve the logistics? How are you going to help solve the storage? How are you going to help solve not just actually the space of which you’re storing it, but then how those items are being stored? And so I think you’re exactly right. And that’s what we’ve really begun to identify at Rheaply is understanding. Okay, how are we building the service component into this to partner with local organizations, to partner with those that know how to do this? To your point on the sub, a sub knows where the problems are. The sub knows, or someone who’s specializing indoors, you’re going to know, hey, you can’t store it. This is, for lack of a better understanding, upside down. Or you can’t store the door in this capacity horizontal because this damage is going to happen or something like that, where it’s like, that’s what I love about materials and specific categories.

Andrew Ellsworth (14:33)

And so what I figured out was that next to the manufacturer, we are the most knowledgeable people about doors on the whole project.

Garr Punnett (14:45)

Cool.

Andrew Ellsworth (14:45)

Right? But you have to own that role, and you can’t wait for someone else to tell you exactly what they should do, because generally if they do, they’re wrong. And so it’s going to blow up in someone’s face and probably yours. And so with any given trade or product category or whatever, the most knowledgeable is generally the manufacturer. And then after that is the supplier, and then the subcontractor, and then the knowledge kind of ramps down from there. The architect knows a little bit about a lot of things, but can’t get into the nuance of everything. That’s kind of the nature of it, nor should they. And the owner doesn’t want to know about any of this. That’s why they hire people.

Garr Punnett (15:30)

So where did this then start to bleed into a general understanding of the lack of commercial reuse and how you all or you doors on hinge and now organization wide on all for reuse are trying to figure out, okay, how do we scale this across communities? How did that start to bleed more into the equation for you?

Andrew Ellsworth (15:55)

Yeah. And it’s funny because that’s immediately what jumped my mind about market development. But I think that was going to get too far, and that’s been the whole thing. We got to slowly take these steps. So I conceived of all for use, but whatever. When it was just in its infancy, when I was sitting at the Building Material Reuse Association conference, now called Build Reuse, and there was all this talk about deconstruction ordinances and how like, we all need everyone’s going for deconstruction ordinances. And I’m sitting there thinking I was like, we don’t want that at all in our business because we don’t have a supply problem, we have a demand problem. And so we need a totally different instrument. And we need one that is really about how do you make very visible demand that creates the market signal that allows enterprises to launch?

Garr Punnett (16:54)

Well, that’s actually finished the thought. Yeah.

Andrew Ellsworth (16:57)

And so you have to understand the nuance of the market to understand what your instrument would do. Frankly, a deconstructing ordinance would probably kill our sector before it even got started because it would push a lot of material to someone company like Mine, a government agency, a nonprofit, and then it doesn’t go anywhere. So piles up. It’s like recycling in the 90s. Right. Recycling, the commodities piled up, and there’s nowhere for them to go. So offer Use was really a clear attempt to say, like, what’s happened with things like commitment to buying green power, for example. Those are the types of signals that say there’s a lot of demand out there for green power. Let’s start building solar farms. Let’s start building wind farms. But if you didn’t have that signal, it’s a lot more risky.

 (17:53)

Yes.

Andrew Ellsworth (17:54)

And so what we’re looking for is to basically dial down that risk by increasing the demand and making the demand apparent for something that actually wasn’t there yet. And so that’s been kind of the Genesis of all for you is like, how do we build this whole ecosystem? It isn’t just about demand. It’s about the demand and then all the infrastructure in between. So the organizations, the physical infrastructure, the buildings of this that the technologies of how you get material, how you know, where materials are, get them out of the buildings, do whatever processes need to be done to them and sell them back.

Garr Punnett (18:36)

Yes. Maintain the high value in that secondary market movement. Exactly. Yeah.

Andrew Ellsworth (18:43)

But if you don’t have demand, the likelihood of having other businesses like Mine Start is really Rheaply low. They must be delusional. Like, I am all of us. Yes, that’s right. Yes. And so that’s really the essence of Offer Use. And I want to give a shout out to all my collaborators in all for Use, for really kind of going along with something that was really experimental and being Champions of it, being helping to drive it forward and recognizing that it’s going to take all of us. And so I’m not trying to say this is like my initiative. This is really all of our initiatives.

Garr Punnett (19:31)

Yes. And I think that’s super important on that front, too, because we continue to even at Rheaply, build on the solutions of others, too, before us. And there’s so much, too that we’ve been able to learn from. You mentioned build reuse. We’ve been able to learn from good work. I’ll mention Francis sort of in the Bay Area and then also in the West Coast. So Francis being one of your collaborators, I think Francis Francis with arrows.

Andrew Ellsworth (20:01)

Again, I got to reiterate that the collaborators and the collaboration is what made this happen.

Garr Punnett (20:07)

Yes.

Andrew Ellsworth (20:08)

That’s hands down, there was no way it was going to move forward without such great partners.

Garr Punnett (20:19)

We’re not men of barriers, but let’s talk about some of these a little bit, because I think it’s interesting to get into some of the details and how I was reading an article recently. What is it, in retrofit, the online magazine, online website where I think you are quoted, someone was quoted by saying how overblown these barriers actually are, whether we’re talking about risk, whether we’re talking about insurance, whether we’re talking about some of these barriers that get brought up when it comes to reuse. Can you speak more about how those surface and then how overblown they are?

Andrew Ellsworth (20:59)

Sure. I heard people say that’s a liability to put a used material into a building, and to me, that is overblown, because I think it’s a sort of legal hysteria that somehow you’re going to get damaged and someone’s going to get hurt and you’re going to get sued. And I have yet to see any evidence of that in our work or in other cases.

Garr Punnett (21:34)

Five years and going though that’s assumption.

Andrew Ellsworth (21:37)

Exactly. I think those become foils for people to not have to change. So liability is one of them. I think others include perceptions of inferiority. Those are based on certain realities that people have seen crappy doors in some review center somewhere and thinking that that’s what they’re getting, whereas what we strive to deliver is a door that you wouldn’t tell if there’s anything wrong with it.

Garr Punnett (22:19)

That’s our goal and probably a better door than most of the doors we see around us. I mean, we take doors for granted so often anyway. It’s like, what priority are we really putting on it sometimes when you pass through these all the time without noticing their slight imperfections?

Andrew Ellsworth (22:32)

That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. I also am going to put in sort of the perceived barriers is this idea about rigidity? That’s my word for it. But really it’s people thinking it’s like, no, it has to be like this, right.

Garr Punnett (22:51)

Putting it in a box, some sort of like.

Andrew Ellsworth (22:54)

It’s a very specific like, no, that’s how I wrote it, whether that’s an architect thing or an owner thing. And the point of that is like someone came up with those standards and someone decided what you’re going to buy. There are lots of things out there to buy, but someone said, this is it. And to say that we can’t revisit that, I think is, erroneous, I think those are some of the perceived barriers from the sort of the customer side. We have real barriers on our side, which mostly have to do with the customers themselves. But I think people have this underlying fear in the commercial sector that they’re going to be judged if something is not looks absolutely, perfectly new, be judged by their customer, be judged by their customers, customers, their customers, investors. And it gets people’s blood pressure up. They’re like, oh, my God, what if it’s not perfect. What if they say something and that visual appeal is kind of what especially architects live on. They need their projects to look a certain way, and that’s how they get more work.

Garr Punnett (24:27)

Right.

Andrew Ellsworth (24:28)

It kind of strikes a little bit of fear in certain people that they’re not sure exactly what it’s that kind of lack of sense of predictability that I think, really concerns people, and that kind of comes out in a lot of different ways. And whether it’s about risk and it’s about this and how do I know if it’s going to look like that and things like that?

Garr Punnett (24:46)

So one of the anecdotes probably to that fear, then is good storytelling and heritage to items and materials or resources that we have. What have you found in that way that’s been powerful to communicate about Doris and telling the story about Doris? Have you had any interaction with that of people caring about provenance or heritage in that way?

Andrew Ellsworth (25:12)

A little bit. I think some people just love the notion of doors being having a previous life that isn’t for everyone.

Garr Punnett (25:20)

Right.

Andrew Ellsworth (25:26)

Some people are just enamored with that. Right. Some people love the idea of something being reused and not having to buy new. I’ve had customers seeking out for that very specific thing. I didn’t want to buy that new stuff. The provenance thing, I think, gets more toward vintage, though.

Garr Punnett (25:45)

Good.

Andrew Ellsworth (25:46)

And that’s not really our market. We’re not in the sort of antiquities. Excuse me. That’s a tricky space to be in.

Garr Punnett (26:00)

Yes.

Andrew Ellsworth (26:00)

Because you’re trying to do a lot of things at once, and people, when they’re looking for that, have a very specific idea in mind. I think that’s a fair door looks old and cool. It’s like, I want this one to match that other one or I was selling over this door I saw in France 40 years ago. I’m looking for that door. Do you have it?

Garr Punnett (26:20)

And I think the size this way in this color and then in 200 of them or whatever. Yes. Now it’s a great point because again, it gets that sort of box of people thinking in uniformity maybe too, and then it breaks down where people like, oh, but you don’t have this and that. And this. That’s really interesting to think about. Go ahead.

Andrew Ellsworth (26:42)

I was just going to say one of the things that jumped to mind is that architects really think about this a lot. Right. This is their job. This is what they do all day. I find owners to be far more pragmatic unless they’re the Steve Jobs of the world that are so obsessed with good design. They tend to just be like, they hire the architects and they want the architects to do that work. But the end of the day is like, well, this thinks this could work really well, too. And I think sometimes that’s to our benefit. Other times the architects overrule them or they’re not going to express that strongly enough that it sways anyone else’s opinion. And that kind of goes to this whole idea of, like, veto power. Right. So it’s just one of those nuances about how you kind of navigate those waters.

Garr Punnett (27:43)

No, that’s great to hear. Again, I love the Pragmatism Note, because, again, I’m sure you’ve dealt with the right owners where they’re like, you know what? I’m all about it because, again, it probably saved me a couple of Bucks and they’re perfectly good. And why make something so precious about something being new? So I actually grew up with a mother who was remodeling homes. And so I have a certain appreciation for quality doors, because as we would go into other homes that maybe were constructed with newer materials, you’d get not as quality doors. I’ve lived in some apartments that are quickly constructed and they are hollow, and they might even literally be made of some sort of almost cardboard like material.

Andrew Ellsworth (28:31)

That is actually.

Garr Punnett (28:34)

What have you found, though? I mean, how does that not translate into the commercial space where these are still from what I was seeing high quality woods, high quality glass. Have you seen any slide of quality? Are there materials to where you’re like? You know what? We really don’t deal with that because they don’t stand the test of time. What have you seen in that industry when it actually comes two doors?

Andrew Ellsworth (29:06)

The sector, I would say, like all sectors has evolved in terms of its efficient use of materials, I would say. And so maybe back in the 60s, all doors were made of solid wood. I mean, it was set up like a Butcher block, right. And so you didn’t have to have one giant panel of like a tree, but you kind of made it up a Butch block, and then you’d put a veneer over it. And so in the 70s and 80s, they moved to particle board, which that was the core. And then they still had veneer on the outside. And over time, the veneer has gotten thinner and thinner. So it’s pretty thin now. It’s like a 40th of an inch of top veneer, and it’s kind of enough to make it look good and work well. So it’s still a solid door. It’s a little tricky to deal with that. The veneer is by far the most expensive piece out of all of it. And so if that gets damaged, sometimes that can just undermine the whole value of the door. For some people, I think there are quality materials, and they’re not quality materials out there.

Andrew Ellsworth (30:18)

And that’s just kind of the nature of it. It’s all about what people were willing to pay the first time around. There is Halo core out there. We don’t touch it because most people don’t want to buy that. And so we don’t want to be taking on things that people don’t want to buy. That’s again, part of your customer discovery. Yeah, we’ll stop there at five years.

Garr Punnett (30:48)

Have you had a return door? Like, have you had a door come through out of a place that you’ve put it into.

Andrew Ellsworth (31:04)

Like, once it’s been installed and dealt with?

Garr Punnett (31:07)

No, not yet. Okay.

Andrew Ellsworth (31:09)

Hardware.

Garr Punnett (31:09)

Yeah, hardware, though.

Andrew Ellsworth (31:11)

Okay.

Garr Punnett (31:11)

I was really curious about that because I’d be fascinated by the actual circularity of this as you start to, as the organization continues to grow, like, when are you going to see doors come back through from buildings that you placed in?

Andrew Ellsworth (31:27)

That’s a really good question. And people have asked me that before, and I actually misunderstood your question the first time.

Garr Punnett (31:39)

It was terribly phrased.

Andrew Ellsworth (31:41)

Like a building gets torn out and then doors remodeled something.

Garr Punnett (31:46)

Yes.

Andrew Ellsworth (31:47)

I was thinking doors that failed.

Garr Punnett (31:49)

Oh, no, sorry.

Andrew Ellsworth (31:51)

Return to us because it’s like this one didn’t work.

Garr Punnett (31:54)

No, that would not be great to talk about. No, I did it on the podcast anyway. No, this is purely circularity of doors, but, yeah, through remodels. And I’m also curious, when it comes to circularity, I mean, what are the conversations that you’ve had? What’s the relationship like with original manufacturers in the door industry? What’s the future of that look like? What have you thought about how you actually sort of bridge that gap between originally produced and now reused?

Andrew Ellsworth (32:28)

See, so as a green Dold in October, November and a nice sustainability director for a manufacturer, I think made a point to say, well, we can’t deal with these materials. And I was like, listen, if I can sell your materials to your customers, why can’t you? And I think the answer is they don’t have the will to because it’s cheaper and easier for them to sell their new product. It’s just like the machine is like one direction for them. Right. And they’re not going to retool without significant forces from the market to change that. We’re hoping that we can help to drive again those market signals. But I would say we are dealing with the negative externalities that the manufacturers have created. Our relationship to them is basically nonexistent. We’ve had conversations with maybe a couple, but they generally like what we do. But it’s not that to any extent that we’re going to work together. I would say that the dirty underbelly of doors and hinge, that is not really a secret, but it’s the fact that we often have to buy new materials to supplement the package. So again, as a service, we have to deliver all the materials required with doors, frames and hardware to a project.

Andrew Ellsworth (34:13)

They don’t want half, right. They don’t want three quarters. They want all of it. And so the likelihood of us having all the doors, all the frames and all the right hardware is kind of low. I mean, we aim for projects where we have 75, 85, 90% of it. That’s both achieving the impact and it’s profitable. But it’s that remaining bit that we have to buy new. And so we had this really unusual situation where we actually buy from our competitors. So the people that we bid on project against the other suppliers in our region end up being the ones that actually sell us materials to go into the project. So I think it’s also a testament to collaboration in that I would never imagine two manufacturers working together. But subcontractors and suppliers are like, if you’re buying my stuff and I’m making money, who cares, right? I can get a cut on the deal. I don’t know what the future is going to look like for that other than we hope to just I don’t think it would take a whole lot for manufacturers to start paying attention and figuring out how they can get in on the game.

Andrew Ellsworth (35:30)

If they see it as a growing share of the market, that’s where they go.

Garr Punnett (35:36)

Well, that’s to your earlier point, that’s probably either going to be policy or it’s going to be market development. And it’s like with the popularity, hopefully going on the market development route, that’s where we can see a lot more action for sure.

Andrew Ellsworth (35:49)

That’s right. And at the very least, it’s market development. Hopefully it’s both. But personally, it’s not going to happen just on policy.

Garr Punnett (35:58)

Yes.

Andrew Ellsworth (35:59)

I don’t think you’re going to be able to tweak the dials of that economy just with policy.

Garr Punnett (36:04)

Right. Well, we get to round this out with what the future looks like for Doors Unhinged and all for reuse. What’s the call to action for anyone listening here, or what’s the call to action in general that you all are going for.

Andrew Ellsworth (36:21)

Buy reclaimed. If you are a believer in zero waste, zero carbon, you need to look at buying reclaimed. I find a lot of people are really trying to contact us to have like a responsible way of getting rid of their materials. And I say if you really want to do that, you need to buy reclaimed because you are creating an outlet and you’re closing the loop on the circle without that. If I sell 500 doors a year, maybe I’ll take 1000. If I sell $5,000 a year, I’ll take $10,000. And if that’s our goal, we got to buy more so we can recover more. And that’s the essence of the market development for all for use. Really. It’s the same thing. It’s like, how do we develop this market? How do we develop this ecosystem? How do we encourage awesome companies like Rheaply and all sorts of other people that are handling stuff and deconstructing stuff and moving stuff to get in the game and to be a part of this? And I think to that end, what we’re trying to accomplish at Doors Unhinged is in alignment with offer use. We want to see more companies like us.

Andrew Ellsworth (37:42)

That way we can sell an approach. We’re not just selling one material. We can be one item within that approach. But right now we’re it so I can’t go in and say architects, you should look at reclaimed materials. It’s the greatest thing and here are your choices and you can pick what you want. We got to get there and so our measure of success is how many companies like ours start?

Garr Punnett (38:06)

Excellent. Where can people head to find all for reuse? Is this all for reuse.org?

Andrew Ellsworth (38:13)

That is yeah, that’s a great place to start. There’s a LinkedIn group if you want to join that if you also want to see what’s happening on doors, unhinged LinkedIn is a great place for that as well. We do have a blog on doorsunhinghinched.com that you can check out and you can call and talk about doors.

Garr Punnett (38:34)

Love that. Andrew you have been the burst of energy that I had heard and that we needed on this podcast. Thanks for joining us on the second season.

Andrew Ellsworth (38:44)

It’s been my pleasure. Thanks so much, Gar for having us and looking forward to seeing more of this and seeing Rheaply kind of playing a bigger role in this space.

Garr Punnett (38:54)

We’re going to do it right there with you.

Andrew Ellsworth (38:58)

Awesome.

Garr Punnett (38:58)

Thank you.