I’m Glenn Gow, the Scaling Executive Coach and host of The Scaling Executive Podcast. I sat down with Eric Edelson, CEO of Fireclay Tile, to find out how a 17-year operator turned a niche artisan tile maker into a vertically integrated surfaces platform.
Edelson’s answer is not a growth hack. When a craft-based trade stays fragmented because no competitor invests in standardized pricing, materials, and training, Eric Edelson, CEO of Fireclay Tile, holds that importing manufacturing discipline and acquiring into adjacent trades builds a platform that individual shops cannot match. That is the approach that took Fireclay from 20 employees to more than 400 and added stone fabricator Fox Marble in 2026.
Fireclay’s record backs it up. The company became the first US-certified B Corp tile brand, transitioned to 30% employee ownership, maintains a Net Promoter Score of 74, and has overseen more than $3.1 million in charitable donations while building an industry-leading safety record.
This episode is for CEOs running a craft, trade, or fragmented service business who are weighing whether to scale through process discipline, acquisition, or both.
Key Takeaways
- A craft or trade business scales when a CEO imports manufacturing discipline, standardized SKUs, pricing systems, and trained crews into work that competitors still run informally.
- Acquiring into an adjacent trade extends a company’s value chain further than scaling the original product alone. Fireclay’s 2026 acquisition of Fox Marble moved the brand from tile manufacturing into stone fabrication and installation.
- Lean manufacturing tools, including 5S and KPI tracking, transfer from a 20,000-SKU tile catalog to a stone fabrication shop, even though stone and tile installation have historically resisted standardization.
- A non-VC-backed, EBITDA-focused company will use AI to absorb operational complexity rather than cut headcount. Edelson built a custom Claude skill to fully outsource inventory planning so growth does not require proportional hiring.
How CEOs Bring Order to a Fragmented, Craft-Based Industry
Edelson’s operating theme, repeated twice in our conversation, is direct: “How do we bring order to complexity?” He applies it first inside Fireclay’s manufacturing operation. Fireclay runs what Edelson calls a large job shop, with a catalog of roughly 20,000 standard SKUs on top of constant customization in color, design, mosaics, and size. No single order moves through the factory the same way twice.
He is now applying the same theme to Fox Marble, the stone fabrication and installation company Fireclay acquired in 2026. Installation work resists standardization even more than manufacturing does. As Edelson put it, “Almost every home that we go into is in itself, you could almost view as its own factory.” Every client, every structure, and every request differs, so the discipline has to come from upfront pricing, consistent materials, and crews trained well enough that they know exactly what to do before they arrive on site.
That discipline is rare in tile and stone. Edelson contrasts his industry with trades that scaled years ago.
| Industry | Scale achieved | What drove it |
| HVAC, plumbing, electrical | Multi-crew operators, often regional or national platforms | Investment in sales, marketing, training, and customer experience |
| Tile installation and stone fabrication | Rarely more than a few crews per shop | Underinvestment in the same systems, leaving the trade fragmented |
| Fox Marble, under Fireclay | Currently Bay Area only | Importing the operational systems that scaled Fireclay’s tile business nationally |
Edelson is candid that the fragmentation is structural, not accidental. Architects and designers tell him they are already nervous about where the next generation of professional installers will come from, which only raises the value of an operator willing to bring manufacturing-grade systems into a trade still run as a collection of small shops.
How CEOs Apply Lean Manufacturing Principles to a Service Business That Resists Standardization
Inside Fox Marble’s 50,000-square-foot fabrication shop, Edelson is importing the same systems that scaled Fireclay’s tile business. “We’re bringing basic principles around 5S, around lean manufacturing, around just systems, operations, KPIs to this business,” he told me.
The starting point matters. Fox Marble is a true manufacturer in its own right: stone arrives from suppliers around the world, gets designed, fabricated, and installed under one roof. That gives Edelson a manufacturing base to apply lean tools to, rather than building installation discipline from nothing.
The geography also matters. Fireclay is a national tile brand. Fox Marble, 13 weeks into the acquisition at the time of our conversation, is still constrained to the Bay Area. Edelson’s bet is that the same operational systems that took Fireclay national can do the same for Fox Marble, the difference being that Fox Marble starts from a manufacturing-grade operation instead of a single artisan shop.
How CEOs Use AI to Scale Services Without Growing Headcount
Edelson’s AI strategy is shaped by one constraint most CEOs do not say out loud: “We are not a Silicon Valley venture-backed company that just has boatloads of capital to become unicorn status. We are a traditional operating business.” That means every AI decision gets filtered through EBITDA and profitability, not growth at any cost.
The clearest example is inventory. Fireclay has struggled with chronic out-of-stocks and overstocks across its SKU catalog. “We’ve built a Claude skill and we’re just fully outsourcing planning to Claude right now,” Edelson said. He is treating an operational bottleneck as a candidate for full AI delegation rather than a problem to staff up.
The same logic shows up across the rest of the business:
- Inventory and demand planning, now fully outsourced to a custom Claude skill
- Design services, including photorealistic and SKU renderings, where Edelson expects AI to take on more of the workload
- Engineering, where the team is already getting what Edelson calls real leverage from AI tools
- Day-to-day decision making, where Edelson personally uses AI constantly: “I am completely addicted and use it all day, every day”
Edelson also trained his market on AI before training his own team at scale, running continuing education classes on ChatGPT and generative AI for a couple thousand architects and designers in the design industry. He later rolled out foundational AI training internally on Gemini, even as he admits feeling behind on agent adoption compared to where the field has moved.
The hiring philosophy ties it together. Edelson plans to keep hiring in manufacturing and services, but wants AI to reduce the need for headcount growth elsewhere, freeing capital to pay his existing teams more rather than simply adding people. For an EBITDA-focused operator without venture backing, that is the return AI is supposed to produce.
How to Scale a Craft-Based Business: The Framework
| Principle | What it means in practice | Named evidence from this interview |
| Bring order to complexity | Apply standardized SKUs, pricing, and training across work that has inherent variability, so each job runs predictably | Fireclay turned a job-shop tile business with roughly 20,000 standard SKUs and constant customization into a company that scaled from 20 to more than 400 teammates and became the first US certified B Corp tile brand |
| Acquire into adjacent trades, don’t just grow the core | Extend the value chain through acquisition rather than scaling the original product alone | The 2026 acquisition of Fox Marble moved Fireclay from a tile manufacturer into a “dust to doorstep” surfaces platform spanning fabrication and installation, alongside the separate launch of Fireclay Bath as the brand’s first expansion beyond tile |
| Import lean manufacturing into a business competitors leave unstandardized | Apply 5S, lean manufacturing, and KPI tracking to craft and service work that most operators run informally | Edelson is applying these systems inside Fox Marble’s 50,000-square-foot fabrication shop, the same systems that took Fireclay from a single artisan shop to a national tile brand |
| Scale services with AI before scaling headcount | Use AI to absorb operational complexity so growth does not require proportional hiring | Edelson built a custom Claude skill to fully outsource Fireclay’s inventory planning, addressing chronic stock problems without adding headcount, freeing capital that a non-VC-backed, EBITDA-focused company is redirecting toward higher pay instead of growth-at-any-cost hiring |
Quotes from This Episode
- “How do we bring order to complexity?” (Eric Edelson, CEO, Fireclay Tile)
- “Almost every home that we go into is in itself, you could almost view as its own factory.” (Eric Edelson, CEO, Fireclay Tile)
- “We’re bringing basic principles around 5S, around lean manufacturing, around just systems, operations, KPIs to this business.” (Eric Edelson, CEO, Fireclay Tile)
- “We’ve built a Claude skill and we’re just fully outsourcing planning to Claude right now.” (Eric Edelson, CEO, Fireclay Tile)
- “We are not a Silicon Valley venture-backed company that just has boatloads of capital to become unicorn status.” (Eric Edelson, CEO, Fireclay Tile)
Frequently Asked Questions
How should a CEO scale a fragmented, craft-based industry?
Eric Edelson, CEO of Fireclay Tile, scales a fragmented craft industry by importing manufacturing discipline, standardized SKUs, pricing systems, and trained crews into operations that competitors run informally, then extending into adjacent trades through acquisition. Edelson used this approach to take Fireclay from a 20-person artisan tile shop to a company of more than 400 teammates, then extended it into stone fabrication and installation through the 2026 acquisition of Fox Marble.
How do you apply lean manufacturing principles to a service business?
Eric Edelson is applying 5S, lean manufacturing, and KPI tracking inside Fox Marble’s 50,000-square-foot stone fabrication shop, the same systems Fireclay used to manage a semi-custom tile catalog of roughly 20,000 SKUs. Edelson treats every home installation as its own factory floor, building consistent materials, trained crews, and upfront pricing into a trade most competitors still run as small, informal shops.
How can a CEO use AI to scale without hiring more people?
Eric Edelson built a custom Claude skill that fully outsources Fireclay’s inventory planning, addressing chronic out-of-stock and overstock problems without adding headcount. Because Fireclay is not venture-backed and needs EBITDA and profitability rather than growth at any cost, Edelson is directing the savings from AI toward higher pay for his existing manufacturing and service teams instead of proportional headcount growth.
CEOs Work with Glenn Gow to Scale Their Companies and Themselves
I am Glenn Gow, the Scaling Executive Coach, and I coach ambitious executives into the CEO seat and CEOs into successful exits, drawing on 25 years as a CEO and five years in venture capital. If this conversation was useful, you can apply for executive coaching with Glenn Gow or apply to be a guest on The Scaling Executive Podcast.
