(From left) Hunter Guerin, of Llamawood, helps Daniel Papuga (not shown), of Five Star Firewood, deliver firewood to Cocodrilo in Richmond, Va. on July 5, 2022. Llamawood is a marketplace of vetted firewood businesses that deliver firewood on-demand. EVA RUSSO/TIMES-DISPATCH
(From left) Hunter Guerin of Llamawood helps Daniel Papuga, of Five Star Firewood, deliver firewood to Cocodrilo in Richmond, Va. on July 5, 2022. Llamawood is a marketplace of vetted firewood businesses that deliver firewood on-demand. EVA RUSSO/TIMES-DISPATCH
Llamawood founder Hunter Guerin
Startup business founder Hunter Guerin likes to say he has a passion for fire.
When he and his wife moved from Washington D.C. to the Richmond area in 2020, they got a home with a fireplace and an outdoor fire pit. A mechanical engineer by training, Hunter Guerin even built a wood-fired pizza oven at their home.
“I am obsessed with fire, which is one reason I started a firewood business,” Guerin said. “I was trying to buy firewood, but it can be hard to find a reliable supply.”
“It was just so hard to find consistent suppliers who could deliver dried, seasoned or kiln-dried wood,” he said. “I have lived in Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia and D.C., and that problem has followed me around everywhere.”
“I wanted to make buying good firewood really easy,” he said.
So Guerin founded Llamawood, an online marketplace at llamawood.com where homeowners and business owners can order kiln-dried firewood for delivery on demand, along with mulch.
“It is kind of like Uber for firewood,” Guerin said.
“Llamawood is a two-sided marketplace,” he said. “We have suppliers and we have customers. We call it a managed marketplace because customers buy from Llamawood and then those jobs get posted out to a supplier board, and the suppliers basically choose which ones they want to do. “
Since Guerin founded the startup company last year, customers that have used the Llamawood marketplace have included homeowners in the Richmond area as well as businesses such as restaurants that use firewood for cooking.
One customer is Cocodrilo, a Latin-themed restaurant on Grove Avenue that uses wood-fired ovens to cook dishes such as citrus chicken, lobster enchilada, steak and duck.
“We need to have quality wood every day here,” said co-owner and chef Brandon MacConnell. “Without quality wood we are up the creek before we start. “ By using the Llamawood service, the restaurant has been able to ensure it gets a consistent supply of quality wood, he said. The restaurant goes through about 2,000 pounds of wood a week.
“We are mainly using White Oak now, but sometimes we get different blends in, It is fun to experiment and get different flavors,” MacConnell said.
Cocodrilo received a delivery recently from Five-Star Firewood, a family owned firewood supplier that has a wood processing yard in Midland that produces kiln-dried and packaged firewood.
“Llamawood gives us a lot of resources to get more orders and not have to do a lot of advertising,” said Daniel Papuga, who manages operations for the business owned by his family. “It takes on a lot of the administrative work we would otherwise have to do communicating with customers. It facilitates that process for us at little cost. We distribute a lot here in Richmond and also in the Washington D.C. area.”
Guerin said he has 15 different suppliers in the network now.
“One of my main purposes was to help customers find dried firewood, but once I started building up this network and working with these small business owners, I became equally passionate about helping these businesses grow,” he said. “The market needs help on both sides, so I hope Llamawood is able to help a lot of small businesses in Virginia.”
Fire pit and wood-fired oven sales have increased during the pandemic, Guerin said.
“We have seen an uptick in sales since the start of the pandemic,” Miles Clarkson, founder and owner of Burly Fire Pits, a local fire pit maker, said. “Many of our retailers saw their fire pit and grill business double, or even triple over the past few years.
“Everyone started spending more time closer to home and spent their time enjoying their outdoor living space with family & friends – oftentimes, around a fire pit,” Clarkson said.
Guerin has a degree in mechanical engineering, and he worked as an engineer for 10 years before joining a startup company in Washington D.C. that provides on-demand manufacturing for suppliers. “I saw how much efficiency it brought to that industry,” he said.
“We really just fell in love with Richmond,” Guerin said of his family’s move. “My wife and I were both working remotely for companies in D.C. It was a life decision and nothing else, and it has been a blessing.”
“I was talking to some folks here in Richmond about how I could use the skills I developed working in engineering and online marketplaces along with my passion for firewood,” he said.
“I became engrained in the Richmond startup DNA,” he said.
Llamawood was a member of the spring 2022 cohort of Lighthouse Labs, a Richmond-based nonprofit that provides mentoring, business development training, and equity-free cash investments to startup companies.
“It was exciting to work with Hunter during his time with Lighthouse Labs. His passion for Llamawood and the Richmond community is contagious,” Glenna Croy, one of his mentors at Lighthouse Labs, said. “It was amazing to see Hunter’s dedication to the customer experience, whether it was a restaurant ordering multiple cords of wood or a small family stocking up on firewood for the summer, he would always make sure they had the highest caliber of wood delivered exactly on time…even if that meant him running out and delivering the wood himself.”
At Lighthouse Labs Demo Day, nine companies pitched their ideas to an audience of 150 and Llamawood won the fan favorite.
As part of the prize, “I got to throw the first pitch at a Flying Squirrels game against the Altoona Curves,” Guerin said. “I was wearing my daughter in the Ergo baby carrier. It was super fun.”
The business is continuing to thrive, Guerin said, with Llamawood delivering to restaurants, campgrounds and individuals in Richmond and regions across the state.
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(From left) Hunter Guerin, of Llamawood, helps Daniel Papuga (not shown), of Five Star Firewood, deliver firewood to Cocodrilo in Richmond, Va. on July 5, 2022. Llamawood is a marketplace of vetted firewood businesses that deliver firewood on-demand. EVA RUSSO/TIMES-DISPATCH
(From left) Hunter Guerin of Llamawood helps Daniel Papuga, of Five Star Firewood, deliver firewood to Cocodrilo in Richmond, Va. on July 5, 2022. Llamawood is a marketplace of vetted firewood businesses that deliver firewood on-demand. EVA RUSSO/TIMES-DISPATCH
Llamawood founder Hunter Guerin
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