How Urban Forge’s CEO Created a Culture of Purpose, Peace and Profit

When Andy Baker bought his father’s company in Mountain View, Arkansas, he didn’t just take over a blacksmithing business. He stepped into a company culture that was struggling.

Urban Forge, a maker of hand-forged iron furniture and lighting, was known for its beautiful craftsmanship. But inside the shop, Andy saw something deeply broken.

“It just felt like we had a very kind of scratch-and-claw mentality,” Andy recalls. “We weren’t really thriving.”

As a lifelong craftsman turned CEO, Andy didn’t lack vision to lift the culture—he lacked tools and clarity to lead people there. He longed to be the kind of entrepreneur who could “build a business that is life-giving for others, that is debt-free, that is wholesome, that is hopeful, that is purposeful, that is intentional, and that is built on a basis of faith.”

And he was willing to rebuild from the inside out to make it real.

Enter EntreLeadership Master Series.

What started with a Platinum ticket to Master Series (a five-day event for growth-minded small-business owners) sparked a transformation—for his business, family and community.

This case study follows Andy’s path through seven distinct seasons in his business and the hardest, most meaningful work of his life.

Season 1: Craftsmanship Without Culture

Andy grew up working with his hands.

“I’ve been a serial entrepreneur as long as I can remember,” he says. “My family, my grandfathers, my dad even had a craftsmanship gene that I inherited. I loved woodworking and building things and making things, designing things and watching them come to life.”

In 2021, after working at Urban Forge for 15 years and learning the business from the ground up, Andy bought out his father’s equity in the company. But stepping into ownership revealed hard truths. The culture was brittle, turnover was high, and people didn’t love their work.

“There were a lot of things that I saw that were working great. There were some fundamental bones in the business,” Andy recalls. “We made beautiful things, and our customers were very happy with those things, but we seemed to continually hit this limiting factor. . . . We weren’t really growing.”

More troubling was how people were treated.

“The economic performance of the business was the most important thing, and people were secondary, or maybe even lower down the stack of priorities than that,” he remembers. “That really bothered me.”

Andy wanted more. “I wanted something that we could come to every day, that we could be a part of, that we were proud of, that we wanted the rest of the world to see.”

He believed his team’s work was more than just craftsmanship. And he wanted his people to use their God-given creativity to forge heirloom pieces that reflected the beauty of the Ozarks—and the pride of the artisans who made them.

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Season 2: Jumping Into the Deep End

“Owning this business and building it has not been a sprint for sure,” Andy says. “It's been a marathon.”

And some stretches early on were especially brutal.

“I just barely had my nose above water,” he says. “I knew how to make things. . . . We knew how to take those things to market. We knew how to . . . sell them to consumers. . . . But I didn’t really know, how do I lead people effectively?”

The weight of leadership forced Andy to ask himself:

1. How do I connect with people and lead them well?
2. How do I unify people so we’re pulling in the same direction?
3. How do I make sure this vision is full of hope and passion?

So he started learning.

“I began reading ferociously. . . . I became a crazy fanatic for self-development,” Andy says.

That pursuit led him to EntreLeadership.

“I read the EntreLeadership book as quickly as I could—and I read it a few times,” he says.

What stood out most was Dave Ramsey’s integrity in how he led. “I thought, I want to do things that way. That’s what I want to be known for,” Andy says.

So, just weeks before finalizing the business purchase, he made a bold move: He bought a Platinum ticket to EntreLeadership Master Series in Amelia Island, Florida.

“I made a significant investment in that because I wanted it to be a significant investment in my life.”

That decision changed everything.

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Season 3: EntreLeadership Master Series Sparks a Mindset Shift

“I wanted [the investment] to hurt,” Andy explains. He needed something that would change the way he thought and led.

Master Series delivered.

Andy drank from a fire hose of tactical, challenging leadership lessons and spent his breaks calling his team to download his revelations and eager to share so much more.

“I had the feeling of treading water . . . but in such a good way. There was this wealth of information filling a void that I didn't know how to fill any other way,” Andy says.

One topic especially flipped a switch: recognition.

“That was a missing element for us,” Andy says. “I had a lot of memories that came to mind about opportunities that had been missed to recognize people on our team over the years. I just thought to myself, Man, if I had been doing that . . . might that have helped us grow?”

He wrote down ideas like:

• What if we recognized people at an all-hands meeting?
• What if we made that a regular thing?
• What if it was about uniting the team, creating shared momentum, and building a place where people felt seen and valued?

“It was a significant push on a flywheel,” he says. Why? Because he was beginning to form a plan to build a healthy team, moving in the same direction and that cared about the people they worked beside every day.

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Season 4: From Cold Iron to Warm Culture

One of Andy’s first changes when he returned home was introducing weekly all-hands meetings, something new and unfamiliar to the team. In one meeting, a team member was gone on a job, so Andy shot a selfie video with the team shouting encouragement.

“Yes, it was weird and awkward,” Andy says with a laugh. “But I sent that video to them, and the impact was profound.”

Moments like that sparked real change in the company culture.

Next, he focused on core values—14 of them, rolled out one by one. The first? Excellence.

“Not just in the products that we send out the door,” Andy says, “but in how we treat each other.”

At first, his team was skeptical.

“You say the word culture, and the reaction is kind of like, ‘Well, that seems kind of weird or superficial or touchy-feely.’” Andy admits.

But clarity and consistency paid off. One day, in the middle of a rushed client project, a leader on Andy’s team spoke up and asked, “Are we operating in excellence here?”

The team slowed down to get it right.

“It was a lightbulb moment,” Andy remembers. “[Our values] aren’t just words. This actually works. This actually helps center us around things that we believe very deeply.”

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Season 5: Systems, Structure and Sustained Momentum

With culture improving, Andy turned to structure. EntreLeadership introduced tools like the Desired Future Dashboard (DFD), Weekly Reports, and one-on-one meetings. It was time to try them out.

At first, only senior leaders used Weekly Reports to share wins, challenges and any issues with Andy. But the habit spread to other team members.

“Now we look through those Weekly Reports across probably 70% of our team,” Andy says. “I’m always surprised by the information that’s there.”

One maintenance supervisor used a Weekly Report to flag a safety concern. He was never the type of guy to speak up, but the report gave him a voice.

Paired with one-on-one meetings, these tools built trust and stronger connections.

“Before, the sentiment was leave your problems at the door,” he says.

Now, team members are valued as people, not just producers.

Strategic planning off-site meetings followed. There, Andy laid out a vision for the kind of business they’re building and how they’re going to do it.

“One of the biggest pitfalls probably for most entrepreneurs is, you have this exciting idea that you want to chase after, and it feels great in the moment, but then what happens? . . . The next thing you know, six months have gone by, and you haven’t recentered around the plan.”

The Desired Future Dashboard helped them stick to their plan and start to scale the business.

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Season 6: A Team Aligned With Purpose, a Leader Grounded in Peace

As powerful as the tools were, Andy’s biggest breakthroughs came from Executive Coaching, where he began to identify blind spots.

One major blind spot: communication.

As a high-D person on the DISC profile, Andy favored bullet points and speed over details. Coaching helped him realize leadership isn’t about what works for you, it’s about what connects with team members. Now he listens and leads with clarity and intention.

Another blind spot he discovered was holding back the last 10% of truth, aka not being completely transparent about the business. Today, his team uses words like “authentic” and “approachable” to describe him.

“Putting in the work and the effort and the discipline and then getting the full circle effect of that feedback from your team . . . it's just a cloud-nine experience.”

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Season 7: Results That Speak for Themselves

Andy’s growth hasn’t just improved the workplace. It’s delivered bottom-line results. Urban Forge’s revenue grew 47% year over year in 2024 alone. That momentum allowed for new hires, leadership expansion and long-term thinking.

“Not that we were chasing a specific number,” Andy says. “But it was amazing to see the revenue growth as a byproduct of the work that we were doing on the foundation of the company.”

Beyond the financial rewards, Andy’s favorite return is deeply personal: being present at home.

“It’s one thing to be disciplined and to apply new things for the benefit of my team and my customers and the vision of this place. But if my kids and my wife, my family can't be a part of that desired future, then what is it all for?”

In a world that often demands everything from its leaders, Andy’s choosing a different path—one that makes room for faith, family and community.

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The Work Ahead: A Legacy That Lasts

Andy and his wife talked deeply before buying the business, because if they were going to take the risk, they wanted it to have a lasting impact.

They knew that was no small wish operating out of one of the Arkansas’s most financially strained counties. There, many fear their kids will have to leave the area to find better job opportunities.

“I believe that we’ve been planted here to change that,” Andy says. “It’s a big, lofty vision. It’s not something that happens overnight, but that's what gets me out of bed in the morning.”

Through Urban Forge, his eyes are fixed on building purpose, dignity and opportunity right in the heart of the Ozarks.

“We say all the time, we’re not here to build temporary value. . . . We’re here to build something long-term, something that outlasts me . . . and that can serve the next generation.”

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It’s Your Turn

Andy’s story is a powerful reminder that tools alone don’t transform a business—leaders do.

“There are so many moments as a small-business leader when you can get honed in on a problem that just feels insurmountable,” Andy says. “To have someone to be able to call . . . and just pour out whatever it is and sort through it is incredible. I don’t know where else you could go to replace that or to find it.”

He had the courage to confront the culture, invest in his team, and lead himself first. Master Series gave him the tools and inspiration to do it.

If you’re where Andy was—passionate about your business but unsure how to move forward—it’s time to invest in your growth.