Matt Eich knew he wanted to be a guitar maker. 

After attending guitar-making school, he worked various factory and manufacturing jobs for 10 years before he was able to start Mule Resophonic Guitars, a custom handmade resonator guitar business based in Saginaw, Michigan.

Everyday, for 5 years, he started work at 6:30am. Get up, do the work, learn, rinse and repeat.

He had to make a lot of mistakes along the way and have incredible discipline to get to where Mule is today with a 12-month customer backlog.

For him, building a guitar for someone is a personal experience. The customer is involved in every step along the way. People who buy a Mule aren't simply purchasing a thing, Matt and his team are putting their soul into the guitar's creation and connecting the consumer with their art.

This is their passion and their story. This and more on the latest episode of Small Business War Stories.

There are a ton of benefits to urban farming. 

Local food, farm to table, 100 mile diet, all of this is possible with urban agriculture. Further, urban gardens are often built over abandoned spaces in cities, converting them into green space, helping increase the beauty and value of the neighborhood.

However, there are also many challenges with urban farming. There's potential contaminants from city water runoff, zoning laws that must be overcome, laws about owning chickens, bees, and other farm animals, as well as major space constraints.

We get into all this and more on the latest episode of Small Business War Stories featuring Mel Millsap of Urban Roots Farm.

CD and digital sales are declining as music lovers turn to streaming services like Pandora and Spotify, yet vinyl records sales have grown 260% since 2009.

We are in the midst of a vinyl revival.

Third Man Records, a record label founded by musician Jack White, has been on the ground floor of this renewed interest in vinyl. 

Vinyl, more than any other medium, has a timeless appeal, it's tactile. Ben Blackwell of Third Man Records, says that people have a strong connection to what vinyl means in their lives, it's a lifestyle. 

To help us dig further into why people have started buying vinyl again, the background of Third Man Records, we spoke with Ben Blackwell, who shared some amazing stories in today's edition of Small Business War Stories.

Small businesses can give a lot to a community and in turn, those communities help support those businesses.

Community involvement helps further distinguish your business from competitors and helps create customer loyalty.

At Mother's Brewing Company in Springfield, Missouri, owner and operator Jeff Schrag sees it as their responsibility to the community to help local non-profits move further with their missions.

By donating free beer to various fundraising events and charities, Mother's has established itself as a community-minded brewery. They hate to say no to anyone and this unique perspective paired with a fantastic product has helped Mother's establish itself as a must-visit location for beer lovers.

Today, we are happy to share with you our interview with Jeff Schrag of Mother's Brewing Company's as the latest episode of Small Business War Stories.

Many of us dream of ditching our desk jobs in favor of a workshop. Working with our hands, crafting something out of wood or some other material. Something physical, something real.

Seth Lee Jones worked at Whole Foods for 6 years while on the side building up his business as a guitar maker. Eventually he had to leave his day job because he had enough people beating down his door with requests for guitar work.

He now builds builds 25 to 30 custom instruments a year and a handful of acoustic guitars.

The journey to becoming a full time luthier or guitar maker, is not an easy one.

Today, we are happy to share with you Seth Lee Jones's story as the latest episode of Small Business War Stories.

Nearly a quarter of the U.S. population consists of people under the age of 18.

Kids, more than any time in our history, are influencing the spend of household income. Kids influence an estimated $500 billion in household spending.

Further, spend on kids products is growing rapidly. Products targeting children between the ages of 4 and 12 are now responsible for $40 billion in revenue.

Children and their parents are savvy consumers and there's great opportunities for those entrepreneurs looking to build a kid-focused business. To help us explore this topic further, we spoke with Maggie Tucker of Magpies Baby and Magpies Girl to discuss how she has built two successful kid-focused retail businesses.

There's something special about vinyl records.

The feel, smell, look and sound all seem richer and more authentic than digital music.

In 2016, stores sold 13 million records, the highest volume of vinyl sales in the past three decades. We are in the midst of a vinyl revival.

Vinyl record pressing companies can barely keep up with the demand. Most pressing companies are relying on restored equipment from the 70s and 80s, which is slow and error prone.

However, Hand Drawn Records is modernizing this process. They are using the first pieces of modern technology designed for record pressing. Their presses are controlled by computers, reducing error rate and speeding up the pressing process 3x. 

Today, on Small Business War Stories, we are joined by John Snodgrass from Hand Drawn Records to discuss how they are revolutionizing the vinyl pressing industry.

Selling to small businesses is different than selling to large corporations or consumers.

A small business has a unique set of needs.

These businesses do not have purchasing experts on staff or vendor managers whose sole responsibility is to make deals happen. Instead, the decision maker at a small business is typically wearing many hats and hearing your sales pitch might be a stretch for them.

The good news is that with small businesses, a lot of the time the sales cycle will be much shorter. There are fewer people involved with the decision and less red tape to work through. 

However, establishing trust is extremely important. Small business owners can be loyal to a fault. Also, while the majority of businesses in the U.S. are small businesses, sourcing and reaching this long tail of potential customers in a cost-effective way can be very difficult. 

To help us dive into the secrets of marketing and selling to small businesses, we talked with Alison Burns founder of Precision Payments. Her company has been successfully selling their credit card processing and merchant services to small business since 2013.

Nearly 100 years ago, Detroit was poised to become a major American industrial city. Cars, new factories and an eager workforce helped put Detroit on the map.

A lot has changed since the early 20th century.

After some very rough years, small businesses are helping to restore economic viability and community in Detroit. The once booming factory scene is being replaced by a booming small business scene.

We are very lucky to have spoken with one such small business owner, Alicia George, owner and operator of Motor City Java House.

She began working with Motor City Blight Busters 17 years ago to help revitalize and develop commercial destinations in her neighborhood in Detroit.

In 2003, inspired by the idea of having a local community coffee shop, she started work on opening Motor City Java House. It took over five years to open, relying on the help of volunteers and the local community to help raise money for renovations.

She would raise money, then do work and then have to stop. But her patience paid off, she's now operating a thriving business with no debt and is an amazing example and a positive influence for her neighborhood. 

Brand marketing and storytelling are essential components to creating a great company brand that will grab people's attention.

With the growth and adoption of technology, we have more potential mediums than ever to reach people with our brands.

However, the downside is there's a ton of competition and we really only have about 10 seconds to grab someone's attention.

Our stories need to be concise. Effective storytelling is about staying out the way, being authentic, being patient and keeping it simple.

Today, on Small Business War Stories, we talked with David Rice from Flow Nonfiction about how he helps big brands tell stories of their philanthropic work in a way that does not feel contrived.

In 1985 David Williamson and his brother were struggling to make their used car sales business work.

After failing to sell a 1947 Dodge pickup truck multiple times, even going as far as to offer it for as little as $300, they got the bright idea of trying to sell just parts from the truck.

They listed an ad for truck parts in a motor news magazine, and what had been an impossible vehicle to sell, became a hot commodity. They ended up selling parts from that old truck for $3,000 and realized there was a lot of money in just selling parts.

Those were the modest beginnings of CTC Auto Ranch; now they are one of largest classic car junkyards in the country. Starting with just 80 cars, they now have over 4,000 classic cars and sell parts all over the world.

Today, on Small Business War Stories, we talked with David Williamson from CTC Auto Ranch about his start and success in the classic car junkyard business.

Lots of people dream of leaving their day job to turn their hobby into a full-time career.

We spend much of our lives at work, so why not do something that we love?

With families, mortgages and other bills and responsibilities to consider, it can be a very tough decision to make and one that perhaps is not realistic for everyone.

Today, on Small Business War Stories, we talk with Celeste Austin of Savvyroot, who left her career in the dental industry after 8 years to start a designer handbag company. 

She started the company as a side business after she taught herself to sew. She would work from 7 AM to 3 PM at her regular job and then work until 5am on her side business in order to fill orders.

It's an incredible and inspiring story that takes a ton of guts to pull off, but in Celeste's own words, her original career "didn't give her life."

Imagine this.

You’re super excited. You’re following your dream, starting a company and launching a product that you are thrilled about. You’ve raised money, have customers lined up, a website built, and everything is lined up to build a great company.

Then, 18 hours after you launch, you get hit with a cease and desist letter.

What do you do?

This is exactly what happened to Henge Docks, a company that designs and manufactures high-end Apple accessories. To find out how they managed to survive this ordeal, we spoke with Matt Vroom, founder of Henge Docks, about how he coped with receiving a patent lawsuit within the first 24 hours of operating as a business.

It's an amazing story and one we are excited to share.

Let's face it.

Small business hiring can be a real pain.

As business owners, we have 500 things to do each day with only 24 hours available to get them done. Dealing with finding new employees can be a real drag on top of your regular work load.

Small businesses often lack the bells and whistles available to larger entities. We can sometimes get ourselves into trouble with not having a standardized hiring process or not being well versed in HR law.

To help sort out some of these issues, today on Small Business War Stories, we talk with HR extraordinaire Jessica Miller-Merrell of Workology. We discuss the bare minimum you should be doing to hire effectively as a small business owner, what pitfalls you should be aware of, hiring contractors versus full time and much much more.

Recently, there's also been a renewed interest and fascination with analog media. Young people are rediscovering vinyl records, cassette tapes, and even typewriters.

But even outside of those interested in antiques and nostalgia of a past era, typewriters are still more widely used than you might think. 

The New York Police Department still relies heavily on typewriters. There's also those of us that prefer the limits imposed by a typerwriter. You're not going to accidentally press a button and send a document to your entire company on a typewriter. No one can hack into your typewriter and steal your private information. 

But typewriters are complex works of art and as such, they need maintenance and repair. Yet the number of people with the knowledge, skills and desire to fix these machines is rapidly dwindling.

To dive deeper into the dying art of typerwriter repair, today, on Small Business War Stories, we talk with Steve Munoz from Duncan Munoz Business Machines, the last surviving typewriter repair person in Central Texas.

The fitness industry is exploding.

One in five Americans are heading to the gym or at least have a gym membership. Fitness trends like Crossfit, Soul Cycle, pilates and yoga are now mainstream and available in most cities.

More and more folks are quitting their 9 to 5 and chasing their passions by jumping full steam into the fitness industry.

However, starting a gym is not just about passion. The bottom line is, it's still a business and most small businesses fail within the first 18 months.

How do you insure that your gym succeeds and does not become a statistic?

Can you turn your passion into a financial success?

To help us answer these questions (and more), we talked to Brian Hassan of Flagship Athletic Performance, a successful gym enterprise in San Francisco. Brian has succeeded by combining his business background with his passion for fitness and he has tons of awesome advice for anyone flirting with the idea of opening a gym.

Let's face it:

There are a ton of challenges with starting a business, especially if you have never done it before.

That's why having a business parnter with complimentary skills can be so helpful. Someone to help you stay focused, bounce ideas off of and ultimately shoulder the load.

However, what happens when that business parntership fails? Can you stay friends? How do you dissolve a business partnership peacefully?

To explore these questions, we talked with Joe Mellin, who use to actually be my original business partner.

We met each other when we were both grad students and then started a company together. That company would eventually become Proven.

We broke up as co-founders a couple years after that. We are still friends to this day.

On today's episode of Small Business War Stories, find out first hand how and why our business partnership came to an end and how we remained friends.

For those of us that grew up in the 90s, it's hard to talk about making soap and not think about Brad Pitt's role as Tyler Durden in the movie Fight Club.

However, that's the perfect setup for today's episode of Small Business War Stories.

We talked with Chris Cabiya, of Zen Soap, who is also a practitioner of Jiu-Jitsu. Chris is now in his second year of operation as a small business owner. 

Chris combines his passion for Jiu-Jitsu, a vegetarian diet, and his concern for the environment to create a high quality sustainable soap products.

We talked to Chris about how he got into the soap making business, why sustainability is important to him, and what advice he has for anyone starting a new venture.

There's a growing demand for massage therapy as more and more of the general public have accepted that massages help improve overall health.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the growth rate of massage therapist will be 19% through 2018.

Although a tremendous amount of both classroom and real world training goes into become a licensed massage therapist, there is not a lot of training about how to start your own massage busines and how to make it a success. 

Being a great therapist does not necessarily translate directly to being a great business owner.

To help us dissect the ins and outs of starting a massage business, on today's episode of Small Business War Stories we talk with Kyra Gerhard of Mantis Massage.

Since the 1990s the music industry has changed dramatically. Free downloading services in the late 90s, like Napster, were considered a dangerous threat to the music business.

In many ways, to survive, the music industry has had to reinvent itself. Services like Spotify and SoundCloud help people discover new music and helps unknown artists get their music heard.

The Internet has also had a dramatic effect on the retail side of the business. Budding musicians can now turn to online sites to purchase musical instruments.

With these rapid changes in the music business, how can a musical instrument store prosper? How can you make money as a performer in this new digital age? Ultimately, how you can make a living in the modern music business?

In today’s episode of Small Business War Stories we tackle these challenging questions and more with Nick Boettcher from Austin Vintage Guitars and performer in band The Reverent Few.

Having brand recognition can be hugely powerful, but when reviving a once iconic name, it can actually be a challenge and uphill battle to change built-in perception.

Antone's, a once famous blues club in Austin, Texas has gone through six different business iterations and was even closed for two years after being open every day for 38 years. 

However, Antone's is once again becoming a destination location for visitors of Austin and a place many musicians desire to play. 

In today's episode of Small Business War Stories, we walk with Will Bridges of Antone's about how they have been able to revive this amazing and iconic brand.

There are over 21 million college students in the U.S.

Generation Y (or Millennials) is the largest consumer group in U.S. history.

Despite the demographic's size, people often dismiss college students as not having money or they market to them like any other segment of the market.

However, students spend up to $30 billion on college back-to-school purchasing alone. There are huge opportunities for entrepreneurs who know how to reach this generation.

But how do you market to this young tech-savy generation that has grown up with smartphones and everything available on-demand?

To answer this question, we talked with Dean Ginsberg, founder of two successful companies, BinStored and ShuttleHome, that market directly to college students.

In today's episode of Small Business War Stories, we explore how to market to college students and much more with Dean Ginsberg.

Social entrepreneurship can be difficult to define.

There are also many misconceptions when it comes to social enterprises. 

People think that a company with a social mission can't be as successful as a purely for-profit business. 

However, Andrew Horn, Founder of Tribute, a socially conscious company that helps people build video tributes for their friends and family, believes this is simply not true.

He defines social entrepreneurship as a business with a dual or triple business goal, a balance between people, profit and the planet. A social entrepreneur strives to build businesses that are not only profitable, but have genuine impact on people's lives.

In today's episode of Small Business War Stories, we explore this topic and more with Tribute CEO and founder Andrew Horn.

We talk to Paul Hedrick, founder of Tecovas. Tecovas is unique in that they do not sell through third party stores, but rather directly to consumers. This helps them make a high quality product and sell it for a fraction of the price of other boot companies.

Paul talks about the struggles of running a manufacturing company, and also about how cool it was to sell boots at Willie Nelson's ranch.

If Lyle Lovett is listening...a free pair of boots is waiting for you!

Want to know how to build an iconic brand with no paid advertising?

Want to know what happens in the Carnival of Pizza?

Curious as to which celebrity was caught in a compromising position in the Home Slice Pizza bathroom?

This and more in the first episode of Small Business War Stories. Small Businesses are the Soul of America. This is where they tell their stories.