Maker business talk with shop dust still on it.
Work For It follows makers talking through business, workshop life, tools, sponsors, content, and the daily grind of staying useful. The mood is loose and fast, with jokes, interruptions, hard-earned advice, and sudden turns into heavier real-life stories.
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Work For It treats making things as both a craft and a business problem. The show runs on panel conversation, workshop stories, sponsor talk, jokes, interruptions, and practical advice that often arrives through a long detour. It is especially rooted in the knife-making world. Handles, forges, ribbon burners, refractory material, steel, wax, oils, boots, drops, newsletters, and social content all become fair game. The appeal is not neat instruction. It is listening to working makers reason out what actually holds up under use, what sells, what wastes time, and what still feels worth doing after a hard week. One episode might spend time on a small forge design and how to ship parts for a build-your-own ribbon burner. Another might drift into the frustration of work boots failing under heavy shop use. Sponsorships are present and sometimes long, but they are tied to the same ecosystem of tools, knife supplies, and maker commerce that the conversations keep circling. The show also has a wider worldview. It talks about consistency, attention, markets, and the strange gap between what people say works and what survives contact with real work. The humor can be crude in shape, though the real subject is usually camaraderie and endurance. There are moments of loss, war anxiety, overdose, and grief, and they sit beside ordinary shop talk without much ceremony. That contrast gives the show its rough sincerity. Guests such as Kyle Daly, Tory from Gunstone Creations, and Jeremy from Simple Little Life bring in different maker perspectives without turning the format into a formal interview. The panel sounds like people used to talking while building, selling, fixing, and second-guessing things. It is fast. It is opinionated. It is sometimes chaotic. For the right listener, that is the point: Work For It captures the maker economy from inside the noise, not from above it.
Made for: For knife makers, workshop entrepreneurs, tool builders, and craft creators who want business advice grounded in daily shop reality. It also fits listeners who enjoy candid maker conversations more than polished founder lessons.
What sets it apart: The show stands apart by letting practical shop talk and bigger business thinking collide in real time. It feels less like a class and more like experienced makers arguing their way toward something useful.
Brian house talks all about making a business out of making things. Occasional guests and lots of advice.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Work For It makes small manufacturing legible through candid shop talk about products, materials, customer demand and the cost of doing the work.
Work For It brings business down to the workshop floor, where Brian House and fellow makers talk through orders, materials, tools and the choices behind building physical products.
The forge is hot, the invoices are real, and Brian House lets you hear both.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A failed pair of boots opens a candid talk about durability, hard use, and gear that has to earn its place.
Work For It uses Jimmy DiResta's conversation with Jeremy from Simple Little Life to get at a plain question: what should work gear be able to take?
Rob Walling on bootstrapped SaaS growth, plateaus, and exits — with founders who lived them.
Abbey Ashley's playbook for turning your job skills into a virtual assistant business.
Naval Ravikant on epistemology, startups, and crypto, from David Deutsch to Vitalik Buterin.
Alex Theuma interviews SaaS founders and investors on scaling to $10M-plus ARR.
Guy Raz traces founders' origin stories and fields live advice-line calls from entrepreneurs.
Alex Blumberg interviews guests like Megan Phelps-Roper and Shane McAnally about failure and reinvention.
Jimmy DiResta celebrates the 5-year anniversary of the Work For It podcast, reflecting on its content and encouraging listener support through Patreon or sponsors.
Jimmy DiResta opens Work For It with a live April Fools recap involving Brian Cohn, Pickle, and Kyle Daly, including a fake scheduling crisis and a joke that backfired through text messages and phone calls.
Brian DiResta opens by saying he has "nothing to say," then uses Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath to argue that David was a slinger who could hit from a thousand feet away.
Brian House and Ryan from Gnome Hammer discuss the privately owned Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit to Windsor, Canada.
Jimmy DiResta reflects on the importance of reaching out to friends during the holiday season, using recent birthdays as examples.
Two podcast hosts discuss a strange incident where one host's phone played back mysterious audio after using Instagram, leading to a conversation about tech glitches and the phrase 'work for it'.
The new leaf starts as a bit.
Jimmy DiResta dedicates this episode to Nate Walpole and promotes sponsors for knife-making tools and materials.
Jimmy DiResta introduces guests Brian Cohn, Pickle Cutters, and Kyle Daly, and recounts an April Fool's prank where the first two pretended they couldn't make the show.
Jimmy DiResta pays tribute to Chuck Norris after his death, sharing jokes and reflecting on his life and legacy.
Jimmy DiResta introduces the Work For It podcast, discusses sponsors GripX and Pelican Paste, and shares a chaotic morning with co-host Brian before diving into business and workshop topics.
A small forge gets serious.
Jimmy Diresta hosts a podcast with knife maker Tory from Gunstone Creations, discussing his work and briefly addressing the Iran war's impact on his son serving in Jordan.
Jeremy DiResta and Brian Cohn talk with Jeremy from Simple Little Life about knife making, YouTube, and why short-form video changed the reach of maker content.