How I Work: Peter Buchanan-Smith of Best Made Company

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This is How I Work, a series where founders, CEOs and leaders share the essentials that help them do what they do, from their morning routines to productivity tools.

For a few years there it looked like Peter Buchanan-Smith, the founder of Best Made Company, was going to ride off into the sunset. Or what riding off into the sunset looks like for a New York City creative luminary: he left his company in 2019 and moved upstate to a “tiny little pastoral village.” He wrote a book. Meanwhile, Best Made became a sub-brand under a publicly traded company. And that was that.

Then, Buchanan-Smith returned — not to NYC, but to Best Made. In November 2023, he announced that he had quietly bought Best Made back with plans “to create something new, unexpected, and hopefully more relevant [than] ever.” On Wednesday, almost a year after that Instagram post, the 52-year-old revealed the flagship product leading the first phase of the company’s renaissance: Old Gold No. 1, a gorgeous hand-forged axe that will be sold in a limited edition of 100 for $450 a piece. It won’t go on sale until September 25, but other inaugural offerings, like a relaunch patch and cloth-bound notebooks, are available now, with more gear on the way.

“I’m not used to working so hard behind the scenes without the feedback of customers, and just like an audience,” Buchanan-Smith said in an interview last week. Spending a year figuring out how to “reinvent Best Made,” from the underlying mission to the products themselves, has been “an incredible learning experience” for him.

“I keep just telling people it’s going to be a small and very slow start, but for me, this is my forever project and forever business. I know how to lay the foundations, and those are the things that you just can’t compromise on, so we’re in no rush,” he said of this week’s relaunch. “I mean, it’s still like we’ve got to stay in business, we’ve got to turn the lights on, but it’s a lean operation.”

We caught up with Buchanan-Smith to talk about the new foundations of Best Made, the ins and outs of his work routine from his home office in the Catskills, and why a riding lawnmower is one key to his creativity.

InsideHook: How is the process of launching the new Best Made different from the first time around? You’re in this interesting position where you can compare the two “launches” 15 years apart.

Peter Buchanan-Smith: It’s so different, but this was one of my main reasons for wanting to take it back. I was originally daunted by the fact that things were so different, but then I’m like, well, if things are so different, that’s like a blank slate I have to, to some extent, reinvent Best Made. That’s really exciting.

How big is your team?

The team is about three of us right now and a small handful of freelancers.

Can you tell me more about the main product you’re launching with?

The first product is an axe. But this time it is not so much what we’re launching with, it’s how we’re launching it, how we’re making it. The axe is made by a new manufacturer, and it’s on completely different terms, much more personal in every sense. It’s on a much smaller scale. I feel like I’ve not only been developing this new axe, but really developing the relationship. It’s one of the most collaborative relationships I’ve ever had with a manufacturer.

When I first got the company back and started thinking about product, the axe was actually not automatic. If I couldn’t find a new way to do it, I wasn’t going to do it. Nathan Brandt, who is my new axe maker, reached out out of the blue and was like, I want to make your axes going forward. Let’s talk. I drove out to Indiana where he’s based. I feel like in some sense he’s been building his Best Made and I have mine and this sort of coming together is kind of a magical pairing.

Then we’re going to be doing some of the [Best Made] greatest hits, and then some new stuff, gradually evolving into more. By the second half of my tenure at Best Made, it was pretty apparel-focused, and when I left Best Made I moved upstate and one of the things I did was teach myself to sew, so I’m very committed to that. There’s so much to pick up on where we left off.

Best Made’s Founder Returns, With or Without His Iconic Axe

After almost four years of ownership, Duluth Trading sold the artful gear brand back to Peter Buchanan-Smith. Can he recapture the magic?

This axe maker, Nathan Brandt, did you know him before? Or this was a totally new relationship to you?

Totally new. A total cold call.

Was he already making axes himself and selling them, or was he looking for a place to partner with?

He has an interesting story. He is a very skilled blacksmith by trade. Early in his career he was looking for the machinery that could help him forge the things he was making — tools, axes, knives, that sort of thing — and there was really nothing out there for his level of scale. So he and a friend started making the machinery, the actual presses and things. They made a thriving business out of it. As he said, he always felt like the bridesmaid and never the bride because he is making the machinery but not forging. I think he saw this as an opportunity to get back into forging and putting his product to the test.

He’s built a forge within his factory that is exclusive to Best Made. The first axe we’re doing is being done in a limited edition of 100, and the way we can work is in three months we could develop a completely new axe because the scale is small enough. When you’re making something by hand, on that scale, you can kind of do anything. It’s not like we’re making 10,000 of these tomorrow and there’s some huge commitment.

Let’s talk about your work process up there in the Catskills. What’s your morning routine like?

Lately it’s been very extreme. This morning I was up at 4:00 a.m. I’m not a night person. I can just wake up wide awake at 4:00 in the morning and I’m like, okay, I’m not gonna lie here in bed, so I just get to work. I would say normally it’s about 6:00 or 6:30 when I’m up. Moving to the country, I don’t set an alarm and I wake up when the birds wake me up.

You’re up at 4 a.m. What’s first on the agenda?

I definitely need to eat something and I need coffee. Then my workshop is literally 12 feet from our house, so the commute is very short, for better and for worse. One of the things I love about being up here is I can have the craziest work day and then I just step outside and get on my tractor and all of that just melts away. We live on about half a mile of the Little Delaware River, so I could just go fishing. There’s a lot that you lose without being in a city, but there are some amazing things.

What kind of tractor are you hopping on right outside your door?

It’s a John Deere. It’s not a big tractor by any means, but it’s got a backhoe and a front-end loader. Just enough to do some damage.

In terms of your workspace, what are some things that you can’t work without?

Pencil and notebook. I keep pencils close to me at all times — not mechanical pencils, but wooden pencils. I love sharpening things. And then of course I have a notebook. I’m not a prolific notebook writer, but I always have to have one nearby. Coffee is huge. Always a cup of coffee. What else? Kind of a weird thing, but I find footwear is really important, even though I’m sitting at a desk. I have those plastic Birkenstocks, which I love, but it was almost like there’s something too informal about it. Now I have very specific boots [from Russell Moccasin]. They’re almost like work boots — now it’s time to work kind of footwear, you know? Very important.

You have the Birkenstocks that look like the regular ones, but they’re like the plastic EVA foam?

Yeah, I have those and then I have the clog one.

I kind of figured you’d be a pencil and paper kinda guy, but in terms of apps or other digital tools, are there any you swear by?

The big ones that I use a lot are Todoist, which is a task management app. Do you know Evernote? I’ve got in total like 4,500 notes in Evernote. If you were to see it, it would be kind of like looking into my brain. I’m compulsive about anything I see, I just bookmark it and put it in there. Then a couple times a year I’ll go through and catalog it all and sort it.

You know what I’ve really gotten into — this is the difference between the old Best Made and the new is that video is obviously so much more important now — so I’ve really got into this app called CapCut, which is a video-editing program. On the one hand, it is so badly designed, but it’s also so good and so easy to produce, edit and make videos. I’ve been so intimidated by [making videos], but this has really freed me up in a nice way.

If you feel like you’re in a funk or you have a problem to solve, what do you do to get creative juices flowing?

Oh, definitely a workout. I try and meditate at least like two or three times a week and probably work out like three or four times a week. Exercise is such a guaranteed way to refresh your brain. I’m a firm believer in that. And then, the key for me is also knowing when to stop working and knowing what you’re going to start working on the next day. Lately it’s been really hard for me because I’m in this crazy execution mode where every waking minute is valuable right now. But normally I try and work, even in busy times, from like 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. or 5:00 p.m. without going over that. It’s so important to pick up a book or go for a hike or exercise.

What do you do for exercise these days?

I run and I actually do a lot of Peloton. When I’m busy, having the Peloton is just so convenient and literally within arm’s reach. It’s super efficient. It’s a good workout. The only thing I hate about it is that you’re stuck in front of a screen. I spend so much time in front of a screen, like we all do. But other than that it’s pretty good.

How do you decompress or just take your mind off things after a long day?

Recently, as in this summer, I got a — and this is going to sound so dorky — but I got an incredible zero-turn lawn mower.

There we go!

And this thing is on another level. It’s like driving a hovercraft. So it’s not only fun to drive, but I’m just of that school where there’s something so satisfying about cutting grass. If I have a crazy day, I literally just walk out that door behind me and 30 yards from me, here’s my barn with my lawn mower in it, and I’m in the zone — in the lawn zone.

Who makes the lawn mower?

It’s this company called Ferris. They’re made for contractors. It’s a little overkill for me, but it’s so worth it. And they’re made in upstate New York, actually.