When I was younger, my father once brought home a few chunks of wood, some plywood, and a box of nails. He borrowed power tools from our neighbor and a saw from a friend. Over the next two weeks, he would gather us – me and my brother – in the garage after coming back from work and work until late midnight finishing off a cabinet. Being young, I was excluded from any physical duty save tidying up the garage floor or fetching some tools, but I watched with fascination as my father fashioned chunks of wood into a beautiful cabinet that stood a little taller than me. It wasn’t perfect, of course, but my father took immense pride in his creation and showed it to any and everybody who cared to step inside our house.
There are millions of people like my father: hands on with tools with a remarkable talent for craftsmanship. CustomMade, a startup based out of Cambridge, MA, is essentially a platform for such people, connecting them with buyers globally. I can imagine that a startup like this would appeal immensely to my father: it would allow him to no just show-off his creations to the entire world, but also, perhaps, make a neat little profit out of it.
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