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Long before Heritage Woodwork became a successful business, Austin Vanderveer was a kid building bicycle ramps and spending extra time in shop class learning how to work with his hands. What began as a side hustle during college eventually grew into something more: a business built on craftsmanship, quality, and furniture designed to last for generations.

Today, Austin creates custom pieces for homes and businesses, but what drives him hasn't changed. Whether he's building a dining table, growing a business, or investing in relationships, he's focused on creating something that stands the test of time.

Learning Woodworking in High School

Austin learned the basics of building in woodshop class in high school, with a hands-on teacher who helped him learn how to build picnic tables for the school. It became a passion for him, and he continued to refine his skills. After high school, Austin took orders from friends. “While I was in college, whenever I needed a little extra cash, I would end up just building a couple picnic tables or building some stuff here or there for folks,” said Austin. “So, it was always kind of like a side hustle.”

Early Business Beginnings

Heritage Woodwork officially started in 2016 when Austin built the first two projects under the brand name. When he and his wife Hanna bought their first house in Bentonville, Arkansas, he knew that he had the skills needed to build a custom dining table, an heirloom that the family would sit around and make memories and keep in the family for years to come.

Next, he built his mother-in-law a welcome sign to display outside of the front door of her home. That’s when things started picking up. Once the photos hit Facebook, orders started coming in. “All of a sudden we had like 30 or 40 orders for those little welcome stands,” Austin said. He reinvested the money he made back into his woodworking. “It started there and I was just like, oh sweet, I can sell these and buy more tools. That's cool.” 

Austin began taking orders for custom furniture and did his own research to learn how to price his work and see how it compared to what customers could find in stores. “When I first started, I actually went into a lot of the furniture stores in the area. I was like, I know I need to sell this table at this price to make a profit on it, but I'm curious to see how that stacks up with what's available in the market.” What he found was surprising. 

“I started going to all of these furniture stores looking for a solid wood table, not plywood. And it didn't exist. There wasn't one.” That’s when things clicked. Buying mass-manufactured furniture was easier than ever, and traditional handcrafted furniture built from solid wood was becoming a rare art. But that didn’t mean that people weren’t still seeking it out.

Families and business owners still want custom pieces they couldn’t find in stores—the type of work that Austin specializes in. “We do the stuff that you can't hop online or go to a big box store and just buy it,” he says. 

Custom Handcrafted Furniture and Heirlooms

Heritage Woodwork continued to grow, with Austin crafting projects for both residential and commercial, building each piece from solid wood. He says sometimes he’ll hand a wood sample to customers to show them just how heavy and sturdy the material is. “It goes a long way, being able to actually put their hands on it and feel the difference than something store-bought.”

Austin’s vision is creating long-lasting pieces for families that can be passed down through generations. “With the stuff that we make, you can always repair it. It's always fixable. You'll be able to take the table, sand it all down again, have fresh wood and stain it to make it modern and keep it going.”

Custom dining tables are a popular choice that customers come to Austin with, describing it as “the bread and butter” of his business, and it’s intentional. Austin says, “The reason that I want to do that and the reason that I really enjoy building these pieces for people is that's a side of society that has kind of shrunk, you know—the family dinner at the dining room table. One, from just having actual solid furniture and real wood, but also to like having real conversations around it.”

Austin says, “Because if you think back to the really pivotal moments in your life, you're sitting around the table with family and friends, and there's birthdays, there's memorial dinners, there's game nights, there's belly laughs and hard nights, and it all takes place around this dining room table. And if we can provide that to people and kind of encourage that back into society, I think it's a huge change. There's crazy statistics around the health of kids as they get older when they have family dinners around the table and have time to talk and communicate. It's pretty astonishing the difference that I can make.”

Business Growth and Quitting His 9-to-5

While Heritage Woodwork became a successful part-time business with opportunity for growth, Austin was also maintaining his full-time job and fitting in Heritage projects around his work schedule. “We started doing it as a side job. I'd wake up in the mornings, work for a couple hours, go to, you know, normal 9-to-5 and then [work] weekends.” While balancing both, Austin felt that following his passion and leaning into woodworking was the right thing to do. He says, “I felt like this was more geared towards my specific skill set and abilities and calling.”

He saw the opportunity to run Heritage Woodwork full-time, but he needed to confirm for himself that he’d have enough cash flow to quit his 9-to-5 job. He took a close look at his finances to see if he could succeed without his regular paycheck and run Heritage full time with Hanna’s help while she also worked as a hairdresser.

“I just started crunching the numbers on it,” Austin said. “I know my 9-to-5 paycheck is this. Then I know for the next three months we have X amount that will get us by…So just looking at the numbers. And the numbers seem to work.” 

Hanna was not only supportive, she also dedicated her time to help run the business. Austin said, “She helps with e-mail and the coordination and back-office stuff. If you go to our website and you submit a form, it goes to her. There was a week where we had, I think, 11 submissions on our website in one day. It was another massive jump. I told my wife, I was like, I feel like...You know, the Lord's kind of leading in this direction, and I feel like this door is opening.” 

Austin quit his 9-to-5 and committed to Heritage Woodwork full time. And while following his calling, he found success. “Since the day we started ‘till now, there hasn't been a single day where we're scrounging for work. There's always been stuff on the books, and it's just continued to grow. Even in the past couple years, I'm looking back and seeing another jump from that.” That growth includes Hanna working for Heritage full-time, too. “She retired from doing hair and started helping me. It's been an adventure for sure.”

Financing and Guidance for Small Business

While he loves his work and is following his passion, Austin admits that owning and operating a small business isn’t easy. “I don't think people that are outside of owning their own business, sometimes it's hard to kind of grasp all that it takes. My alarm goes off at 5:30 every morning and I'm usually in the shop ‘till four or five, and then I'll go home. Then once the boys are in bed, I'm usually doing some emails and catching up on stuff. Even when I'm not doing that, I'm still in my head. It's just hard to balance all of it.”

Building furniture, fulfilling orders, maintaining the books, and more—Austin faces common challenges of business owners, including navigating operations and cashflow. “I have to do these things so that the business can run, versus just being in the shop with my earbuds in, getting after it.” Austin knew that he needed people he could trust to advise him on business operations and financing so he could focus on his craft. “I knew I need somebody that I can just text, e-mail, contact and stuff happens.” 

Building a Relationship with United

Austin met United Federal Credit Union Regional Vice President Stephanie Riffle at his local church. “I knew she was at United, and I started talking with her,” he says. “She’s a hoot, I knew she was fun and that she was cool to be around, but also too, you can tell she knows business and she’s going to take care of what needs to be taken care of.” They met for lunch and reviewed and discussed what Stephanie recommended for Austin and Heritage Woodwork. “It was just easy, and it's continued to be that way.”

For as busy as he is, digital banking was important, but Austin also wanted personalized help and guidance from people he could reach out to when he needed it. “With banks that I've worked with in the past, there's always hurdles and jumps, but I feel like United does things a little bit different. I can hop on the app. I can do whatever I need to. All of our stuff is in one place. And if I have questions or if I need statements, being able to just trust them. I shoot an email and boom, all of a sudden I have a PDF, sent securely.”

For many small business owners, having a financial expert to help connect the dots saves time and headaches, so they can focus on what they do best. Austin says, “It's easier for me to just call up somebody and be like, hey, I know where I need to get to. This is what I'm needing to do. I'm not exactly sure of the best path to make that happen. What options are there for me to make this happen? I know what I do for a living. I know how to build things well. Y'all know banking well. Like, y'all do your thing and just let me know what you need.”

Austin feels that the team at his local credit union genuinely wants to help him succeed. “United wants to support small business, have relationships and grow them,” Austin says. After experiencing the people helping people credit union philosophy firsthand, Austin recommended United to a friend who was starting a coffee shop in town. “They were able to go through United to help secure funding to be able to do that.”

Relationships Build Strong Communities

When banking feels more like members of the same community working together, it’s easier to find the support you need. “It’s a smaller, more intentional, we want to help you succeed because when you succeed, we succeed kind of approach,” Austin says. “It’s just helpful. It's easy.” And that’s the credit union difference that United Business Members experience. “It’s kind of the same difference as Bentonville, it’s not like a big city feel. United isn’t a big bank feel.” 

While Bentonville grows, United helps local small businesses grow with it. “Northwest Arkansas is growing really quickly, but it still has that small town feel, too,” Austin says. “It's easier to do business and it allows me to be more personable and relaxed with clients. You have downtown, there's places that are super nice and high-end dining. And then you've got the hole-in-the-wall, greasy cheeseburger. You can be at the home office of the number one retailer in the world, and within fifteen minutes, I'm standing waist deep in a creek catching smallmouth. It’s both ends of the spectrum here. It’s a cool balance.”

Today, Heritage Woodwork continues to grow, but Austin's mission remains the same: create something meaningful that lasts. From a side hustle fueled by passion to a thriving business rooted in craftsmanship and community, his journey is proof that with hard work, faith, and the right people around you, something small can grow into something lasting. And for Austin, that's what Heritage Woodwork has always been about: building more than furniture. It's about creating places where stories are shared, memories are made, and connections are strengthened for generations to come.