Montana Knife Co Blends Craft with Scale
Montana Knife Company launched in 2020 in a two-car garage near Missoula. One co-founder is a certified “Master Bladesmith” who has produced handmade knives since he was 11. The other, Brandon Horoho, is a seasoned digital marketer and ecommerce pro.
Combined, the entrepreneurs prove the value of craftsmanship at scale marketed directly to consumers. Business is booming, and the company will soon move into a 50,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility.
Brandon and I recently spoke. He shared the company’s origins, culture, “drop” selling, and more. Our entire audio is embedded below. The transcript is edited for length and clarity.
Eric Bandholz: Tell us who you are and what you do.
Brandon Horoho: I’m the co-founder, vice president, and chief marketing officer of Montana Knife Company. My background is in marketing, and I’ve been involved in ecommerce since 2010.
I’ve worked for big supplement and fitness brands and on many ecommerce platforms, including Magento and Shopify. One of my early accomplishments was adopting SMS marketing when it was unregulated, which helped me understand how to grow businesses in emerging markets.
We make our knives entirely in Montana, near Missoula. We started in 2020 and are entirely bootstrapped. We focus on creating quality knives for the most hardcore hunters, offering a product you could take on a two-week hunt in Alaska without needing backups. We aim to make tools that last for generations. We stand apart from the mass market, which has shifted toward cheaper, disposable products.
We manufacture our knives to last. That’s what sets us apart. We’re obsessive about quality and craftsmanship, even at scale. My business partner, Josh Smith, has been making knives since he was 11. At age 19, he became the youngest Master Bladesmith from the American Bladesmith Society. His specialty is Damascus steel and highly intricate, custom-made handles.
People would buy his knives to collect them, which bothered him because he wanted folks to use them. That’s why we started this company.
Bandholz: How do you stand out in a crowded industry?
Horoho: We’re different from traditional knife companies. We don’t do blade shows, and we don’t follow the typical market trends for knives. We focus on making specific tools for specific people. Our brand is like the anti-knife knife company.
We also differentiate through our dedication to customer service. Our warranty is unmatched — if you buy a knife from us, we’ll sharpen it as often as you need. If something goes wrong, we’ll fix it. This warranty applies to the original owner and anyone who inherits the knife.
Bandholz: Have you had any issues with knockoffs of your knives?
Horoho: We’ve seen a few knockoffs on platforms like Temu, but we don’t lose sleep over it. We’re 100% direct-to-consumer, so if you aren’t buying from our website, you’re buying a fake. Our knives are hand-finished and hand-sharpened; it’s tough for anyone to replicate that on a large scale.
Bandholz: Your knives are often out of stock. Is that a success or failure?
Horoho: It depends on how you look at it. When we started, we could afford to make only 200 knives — most went to friends and family. We sold out before we had the next batch ready. That’s how our drop model started — we had no product to sell for a month or two, so we decided to announce drops for specific dates.
Coming from the fitness and apparel world, I was familiar with the drop model, but it wasn’t supposed to be our primary business strategy. The first time we did it, the knives sold out in 14 minutes, and we hadn’t even finished making them. It was chaos. We didn’t have enough packaging, and Josh was sharpening knives as fast as he could while I worked on the shipping labels.
We continued with the drop model because it worked, but it was never the plan. We were also launching during Covid, so we faced challenges sourcing steel and finding contractors willing to work with a small company like ours.
Bandholz: Have you kept up with demand?
Horoho: No, we still haven’t caught up. When we started, we bought one CNC machine — Computer Numerical Control, a manufacturing process — and operated out of a two-car garage. We now have a 10,000-square-foot facility on Josh’s property, but we outgrew it in less than a year. We’re building a 50,000-square-foot plant, which will include 30,000 square feet of manufacturing space.
We’re still constrained even with our expanded production capabilities. We have only five available knife models, and our sell-through rate is about two weeks. We drop new products every Thursday, but we can’t make enough to keep up with the demand.
Bandholz: Tell us about your marketing efforts.
Horoho: I had many years of making marketing mistakes before Montana Knife. We focused on the basics first, setting up a proper data management system from day one, especially for Google and Facebook ads, which I’m familiar with from my time in the supplement space.
I knew we’d be competing with companies that have been around for decades, but when I looked at their digital footprints, I saw they were missing opportunities. I worked with a friend, Joel, from Fluxe Digital Marketing, to establish a strong organic search strategy, even before we had products on the site. That’s been huge.
Our focus is growing our email list, not just social media platforms. Having the ability to reach customers directly has been key. Consistent daily posting keeps us top of mind, and collaborations with like-minded brands are where I see the future. Artificial intelligence might soon dominate ads, but genuine brand partnerships will stand out.
Bandholz: Where can people follow you?
Horoho: MontanaKnifeCompany.com. We’re on X, YouTube, and Instagram. You can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram.
