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Biology professor and hardwood floor manufacturer are careers worlds apart. So, when Britta Teller transitioned from the former to the latter in 2018 with the founding of Steller Floors, she knew it wouldn’t be easy, but as you’ll hear today, she has absolutely no regrets! During this episode, Britta shares what inspired her to found Steller Floors with her husband, how the foundational values of the company correlate with her passion for the natural world, and the factors that make Steller Floors unique in the industry (not least of which is the fact that they don’t require nails or glue and you can install them yourself!). To learn more about the origin story of the US’s best locally made, innovative, high quality, beautiful floors, tune in today!
Key Points From This Episode:
Tweetables:
“I thought to myself, ‘Somebody should make high-quality floors and they should be innovative and exciting and beautiful and local,’ and then I thought, ‘Who can I get to do that?’ and the answer was pretty much only me.” — Britta Teller [0:08:42]
“We are totally shaking the Etch A Sketch on flooring.” — Britta Teller [0:15:45]
“Most of our clients are DIYers. We've had a grammy-nominated violist install her floor. We’ve had accountants who call us and say, ‘My son installed the room himself and he’s a teenager.’” — Britta Teller [0:21:03]
“I’m so hopeful that as the circular economy moves forward, there’s more investment in craftsmanship and sustainable wood products.” — Britta Teller [0:22:30]
“We need more chairs made in America. We need more tables, we need more trim and doors made in America. We have the resource all around us, it just needs to be managed sustainably.” — Britta Teller [0:22:50]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
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Co-founder and Chief Sustainability Officer
Steller Floors manufactures sustainable, high quality, solid hardwood floors and leverages a patented assembly system to motivate clients to think differently about flooring and craftsmanship. With a unique ability to remove single planks from the center of the floor using a suction cup, demos of the product have gone viral on youtube, instagram and tiktok, organically earning over 10M views and engaging viewers worldwide. The flexible design of the floor has also won critical acclaim in magazines like This Old House Magazine and Fine Homebuilding. This unique cross-over in popularity between professional builders, architects and DIY homeowners is uncommon among building products and finishes.
Co-founder and Chief Sustainability Officer, Britta Teller pivoted away from her PhD-academic career in ecology and statistics to co-found Steller Floors in Tyrone, PA with her husband. She was motivated to use her husband’s patented invention to make a difference in both global climate change and in her rural Pennsylvania area. Using her analytics skills and sustainable insights, Steller Floors has been unique in providing excitement and engagement in a sector that has not seen significant innovation in over 100 years: hardwood flooring products.
Visit www.smallbusinessorigin.com to hear more, and connect!
