Glenn Gow, The Scaling Executive Coach and host of The Scaling Executive Podcast, talks with Fireclay Tile CEO Eric Edelson about scaling a custom manufacturing business into a multi-service platform.
When you run a business built on custom work, every order looks like an exception. Eric Edelson, CEO of Fireclay Tile, holds that the way to scale a craft business past a few million dollars is to treat that complexity as a manufacturing problem: standardize materials, train crews to a consistent process, and price rigorously before you add volume. He has proven the model twice, first by growing Fireclay from a team of 20 to more than 400 teammates on a catalog of roughly 20,000 standard tile SKUs, and again in 2026 by acquiring Fox Marble, a stone fabrication and installation company, to extend that same discipline from product into service.
Gow sat down with Edelson to unpack how he built that discipline, why he moved from tile manufacturing into full installation services, and how he is rolling out AI across his team before he has a finished strategy for it.
This episode is for CEOs of craft or trade based product businesses who are weighing whether to expand into services through acquisition, and who need a model for standardizing chaos without losing what made the business special in the first place.
Key Takeaways
- Eric Edelson grew Fireclay Tile from a team of 20 to more than 400 teammates over 17 years by treating a catalog of roughly 20,000 standard tile SKUs, plus full custom orders, as a large job shop that requires standardized materials, trained crews, and disciplined pricing rather than one-off craftsmanship.
- Fireclay’s 2026 acquisition of Fox Marble, a stone fabrication and installation company operating a 50,000-square-foot shop in the Bay Area, moved the company from a direct-to-consumer product model into full installation services, the same complexity-to-order challenge Edelson had already solved in manufacturing.
- Edelson maintains an NPS of 74 and an industry-leading safety record while Fireclay has become the first US certified B Corp tile brand, transitioned to 30% employee ownership, and overseen more than $3.1 million in charitable giving.
- Rather than waiting for a company-wide AI strategy, Edelson trained his entire team on generative AI and built a Claude skill to fully outsource inventory planning for Fireclay’s 20,000-SKU catalog, resolving a chronic pattern of overstock on some items and stockouts on others.
How CEOs Bring Order to Complexity in Custom Manufacturing
Fireclay makes what Edelson calls semi-custom made-to-order tile: a catalog of roughly 20,000 standard SKUs layered with customer requests for custom color, design, mosaics, and both small and large batch sizes. No two orders moving through the factory look alike. Edelson’s rule for scaling that kind of business is to impose the same order on every job regardless of how unique it looks to the customer: consistent materials, trained crews, and disciplined pricing applied before the work ever starts.
“Our theme is really how do we bring order to complexity,” Edelson said. That discipline is what let Fireclay grow past the ceiling most artisan tile businesses hit. Edelson said the business “really should have never been bigger than a few million dollars” as a pure craft shop, but the same standardization that works in a factory let it scale into the tens of millions and beyond.
How CEOs Scale a Product Business Into a Service Platform
In 2026, Fireclay acquired Fox Marble, a stone fabrication and installation company, moving the business from a direct-to-consumer tile model into what Edelson calls a “dust to doorstep” surfaces platform. That shift from product to service introduces a different kind of complexity: instead of a factory floor, every customer’s home becomes its own one-off production environment.
“Almost every home that we go into is in itself, you could almost view as its own factory,” Edelson said. “There’s differences in the client, there’s differences in the construction, there’s differences in what they’re requesting.” His answer is the same one that scaled Fireclay’s manufacturing side: get as much information up front as possible, price consistently, standardize materials, and train crews so that when they arrive on site they already know what to do and the homeowner has already been prepared.
Edelson also named a structural risk that comes with scaling a craft-labor service business: much of the skilled installation workforce in tile and stone has historically come from immigrant labor, and he flagged uncertainty about where the next generation of trained installers will come from as the industry ages out and consolidates.
How CEOs Should Roll Out AI Adoption Across Their Teams
Edelson does not have a finished AI strategy for Fireclay, and he said so directly. What he does have is a rule for how to act without one: get the tool in front of every employee now, rather than waiting for a company-wide plan. Fireclay ran foundational AI training for its whole team, issued company-wide access to Gemini, and let individual employees choose their own tools and use cases.
The AI rollout follows the same order-before-scale logic Edelson applies to materials and crews: give every employee a standard tool and a consistent process to work from before committing to a single company-wide system, then let disciplined individual use reveal where automation actually earns its place.
That individual-level adoption has already produced a specific operational fix. Fireclay struggled with inventory across its 20,000-SKU catalog, carrying too much of some items and running out of others. “We’ve built a Claude skill and we’re just fully outsourcing planning to Claude right now,” Edelson said. He described his own use of the tools in blunter terms: “I am completely addicted and use it all day, every day.”
What Are the Principles Behind Fireclay’s Scaling Model?
| Principle | What it means in practice | Named evidence from this interview |
| Order before scale | Standardize materials, crew training, and pricing across every job before adding volume, even when each order looks custom | Fireclay grew from a team of 20 to more than 400 teammates by running a catalog of roughly 20,000 standard SKUs, plus full customization, as a disciplined job shop |
| Acquire the craft, then systematize it | Expand from product into service by importing manufacturing discipline into the acquired crews, not by treating installation as a separate business with its own rules | Thirteen weeks into the Fox Marble acquisition, Fireclay is already running its 50,000-square-foot Bay Area fabrication shop under the same pricing, materials, and crew-training discipline that scaled Fireclay Tile from 20 to 400 teammates, extending a proven system into stone installation rather than building installation practices from scratch |
| Individual adoption before institutional strategy | Train the whole team on AI and let individual use cases surface before committing to a single company-wide agent strategy | Fireclay’s Claude skill eliminated a chronic overstock-and-stockout cycle across its 20,000-SKU catalog by fully outsourcing inventory planning to AI, a fix that emerged from individual adoption rather than a top-down mandate |
Quotes from This Episode
- “It’s day one, I still feel like we barely close. We’re just so far from our full potential.” — Eric Edelson, CEO, Fireclay Tile
- “Our core expertise is really artisan at scale.” — 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
- “I mean, I feel like I was late on Claude. I feel like I’m just trying to figure out how to get agents going.” — Eric Edelson, CEO, Fireclay Tile
- “I want us to be the best at artisan craftsmanship.” — Eric Edelson, CEO, Fireclay Tile
Frequently Asked Questions
How do CEOs bring order to a complex, custom manufacturing business?
Eric Edelson, CEO of Fireclay Tile, brings order to a custom manufacturing business by standardizing materials, training crews to a consistent process, and pricing rigorously before adding volume, even when every order looks unique to the customer. This discipline let Fireclay grow its team from 20 to more than 400 people across a catalog of roughly 20,000 standard SKUs plus full customization.
What is the hardest part of scaling a service business after acquiring it?
For Eric Edelson, the hardest part of scaling a service business after acquiring Fox Marble in 2026 is that every customer’s home functions as its own one-off production environment, with different construction, materials, and requests each time. He addresses this by applying the same standardization used in manufacturing: pricing consistently, training crews so they know what to do on arrival, and preparing the homeowner in advance.
How should a CEO roll out AI adoption across their team?
Eric Edelson’s approach is to give every employee access and training immediately, rather than waiting for a finished company-wide AI strategy. Fireclay ran foundational AI training for its whole team and gave everyone access to Gemini, which surfaced individual use cases, including a Claude skill the company built to fully outsource inventory planning for its 20,000-SKU catalog.
Executives Work with Glenn Gow to Scale Their Companies and Careers
Glenn Gow is The Scaling Executive Coach, coaching ambitious executives into the CEO seat and CEOs into successful exits. With 25 years as a CEO and 5 years in venture capital, he helps leaders scale companies by scaling themselves first. 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.
