Twelve Days of Commerce: #2 Baking Steel
Warning: this will affect your weekly pizza consumption
Two years and six months. That’s how long we’ve had the privilege of working with Andris Lagsdin, founder of Baking Steel, and a true [pizza]creator in every sense of the word. Andris was among our first few clients at Igloo Media, partnering with us during the company’s earliest days.
Alex and I came into the agency realm, pretty firm that we wanted our directional ethos to dictate the way we operate: agency success hinges on meticulous ad-level management paired with a close, pragmatic alignment to the founder’s bottom line. Andris shared this perspective, which has been instrumental in Baking Steel’s growth, from pioneering steel pizza griddles in the D2C space to becoming a leading resource hub for culinary enthusiasts.
Andris’ energy is infectious and his optimism's inspiring, making his success seem almost secondary to the excitement he gets waking up and making the best pizza in the state of Michigan.
From steel to Baking Steel
I met Andris in early 2022, shortly after being introduced by the founding team at Agora Brands, who had recently acquired the D2C business Alex and I had founded. Agora was rolling up e-commerce brands native to Shopify, and Andris’ brand came up. I received a message from Agora’s chief of staff saying: “By the way, this business is his baby; he’ll probably never sell it.” After a few minutes on a call with Andris, learning more about his marketing stack, and asking a few questions about whether an exit was on the cards, I realized Agora was wasting their time.
Similarly to my article and #12 on my list (NAOMI NOMI), Andris shared a deeper passion for both his business and his lifestyle and had no intention of handing over the reins anytime soon. Surfers chase the perfect wave; Andris chases the perfect crust. He says so himself:
“Having studied Culinary Arts, I’m pretty passionate about food – pizza in particular. In fact, my thoughts are never far from creating the perfect crust. As fate would have it, one day, I was reading pieces of Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold. In his book, Nathan stated that the best tool to use for making the perfect crust would be a piece of steel. And that, my friends, was my ‘AHA’ moment!”
Having grown up working for Stoughton Steel, a local family-owned steel manufacturer, Andris snuck over the first chance he got to acquire a piece of steel and start chasing the perfect execution. This is where I’d normally say something cliche like ‘the rest is history,’ but in reality, Baking Steel has a lot more to offer and a lot coming down the pipeline in 2025.
Who doesn’t want to see more pizza videos?
Andris has long operated as a near one-man band, maintaining a firm grip on his business while leading the steel pizza griddle space - a position bolstered by his powerful domain name, which perfectly aligns with his product’s function as literally a ‘[baking steel] for pizza making.’ Talk about keyword optimization. His approach to growth has always been met with pragmatism, ensuring he brought the right people on-board that would add value to the business.
By 2022, with advertising efforts primarily focused on a single channel (Google), Andris recognized the need to expand if he wanted to get more eyes on the product. He introduced a new dimension to the Baking Steel brand by embracing Facebook ads and creative content. But this wasn’t about creating ads for the sake of ads, Andris believed deeply in the power of content and videography to engage his audience. He viewed them as the ultimate tools to communicate the joy of learning and making pizza, with Baking Steel at the heart of the experience.
Andris sum’s up his 2024 with the following statement: “We created better, more engaging content, stepped up our customer service game, and completely revamped our product packaging to reduce shipping damage and get ready for B2B opportunities. We also added Amazon as a new sales channel, which was a big step for us, while keeping exclusive SKUs on Shopify. In a lot of ways, I feel like we went back to the basics and are preparing ourselves for growth.’
B2B and Amazon, as I’ve discussed in other articles this year, offer a robust foundation for brands that have hit efficiency thresholds while scaling their e-commerce operations. By keeping a limited selection of SKUs on Amazon and offering bulk orders to retailers, brands can sustain e-commerce efficiency while expanding to reach new, highly engaged shoppers on alternative channels. Baking Steel has only recently begun exploring these opportunities, with Andris planning to roll out a comprehensive retail-ready strategy in 2025. Maybe he’ll even expand his U.K operation (fingers crossed).
Beyond commerce, it’s the immersive in-person experiences that truly amplify the value of content and build strong social proof for the business. Through live pizza-making workshops - hosted at his studio in Grand Rapids, Zoom calls, weekly tutorials, and ‘Friday Night Pizza Spotlight,’ Andris leverages content to draw customers into the joy and experience of creating pizza at home. These initiatives connect cold audiences with the brand on a deeper level, blending education with a delicious bite of thin crust pizza.
Yum! Makes me hungry! Where’s the meat? Are you a vegetarian?