Tyrone-based Steller Floors went viral — here’s what happened next

Evan Stover, President, Steller Innovations, operates a chop saw.

When husband-and-wife team Britta Teller and Evan Stover created the start-up they named “Steller Floors,” they knew they were onto something. Then their idea went viral on YouTube, and grew and grew … and grew.

The Penn State alumni took a traditional industry and turned it on its head with a new nail-free hardwood flooring system. Comprised of high-quality lumber that is sealed on all sides to prevent changes due to moisture, the system uses plastic to support the floor. The components are all manufactured in the USA and if a plank gets damaged, a board can be removed easily with a suction cup, making it easier to replace. “The response to our product has been remarkable,” Britta Teller, who serves as the company’s founder and chief sustainability officer, at the Tyrone-based company, said.

A problem, an idea and soon it all clicked

The company started when Stover and Teller met as biology students in college. Stover’s father had spent his career in wood products and Stover joined him in the industry when they started a consulting company. They spent a lot of time looking at malfunctioning hardwood floors in people’s homes and realized the need for a product that worked with wood’s natural properties, not against it. Teller was working on her Ph.D. in plant science and soon caught the wood products bug as they invented their Steller product: wood flooring that clicks together to form a floating floor, requiring no special installation and, best of all, can be uninstalled and removed to be used again and again. They applied for a patent on the same weekend that they got married and launched Steller Floors in 2018.

The Penn State alumni took a traditional industry and turned it on its head with a new nail-free hardwood flooring system.

Teller said that Startup Alleghenies Blair County Coach Matt Fox, along with Ben Franklin Technology Partners were extremely helpful in getting the answers that she and Stover needed throughout the process. “And if they didn’t know the answer, they made it a point to find someone who did,” she said.

“Their questions helped to shape their vision and bring it further into focus,” said Fox, adding that he was very excited to see the innovative idea take shape.

Brothers Andrew (left) and Mark (right) Vdov of Lewistown lay Steller flooring.

Growing and innovating to the next stage

Today, the company has just finished a fundraising round with Enhanced Capital, an investment firm and Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) partner which manages the Enhanced Capital Pennsylvania Rural Fund (ECPRF) and provides loans through the Rural Jobs and Investment Tax Credit Program. “We’re at just over a million dollars,” said Teller, adding that the company has to meet certain financial goals, pay interest on the loan and report employment numbers as part of the agreement. Today the company has approximately 17 full-time employees, along with a few remote sales representatives.

Doug Beekman, a principal at Enhanced Capital, is optimistic that more money will be available in the future. “Steller Floors’ CEO Scott Johnson is an experienced entrepreneur who has grown businesses in the past, so to have highly professional management is a huge plus for Steller Floors, not to mention the proprietary and renewable nature of the product and the fact that their floors contribute LEED points towards certification. LEED is a globally recognized rating system of sustainability achievement.  The fact that the consumer can replace a damaged portion of the floor by themselves without the expense of refinishing the entire floor is a great value proposition,” Beekman said, adding that the product can be used on large-scale projects like apartment complexes.

The Steller team is excited to continue to innovate their process thanks to Penn-State-based OriginLabs, which allows entrepreneurs access to cutting-edge machinery.

“Eventually Steller will be able to pull a truck up to your building, remove damaged boards, refinish them and replace them all in one day, so it would be very economical to refresh the floors to new condition,” he said.

Not only is the company making headlines for its novel approach to keeping floors in like-new condition, but it is also even more accessible to consumers. “A year or two ago, our floors were more expensive, but due to improved efficiency, our base price starts at $7.99 a square foot, compared to others sold at Lowe’s for $7.99 a square foot,” Teller said.

The Steller team is excited to continue to innovate their process thanks to Penn-State-based OriginLabs, which allows entrepreneurs access to cutting-edge machinery. “It’s directly attached to the Penn State Launch Box and it’s a prototyping studio that could enable us to develop new equipment like spacers, for instance,” said Teller.

A simple suction cup is used to easily pull up boards for replacement.

Ask a lot of questions

Teller’s advice for new entrepreneurs is to be bold when asking questions. “I have my Ph.D. in plant biology and never really intended to be in wood products at all, yet the skills I learned at Penn State enabled me to ask the right questions. This is very important for entrepreneurship; we credit our early success to asking a lot of questions,” she said.

As for the future of Steller Floors, the couple said that they hope to build out their facility or move into a bigger place at some point, but right now they’re committed to improving efficiency. “We’re going to prolong a move as we hone in on being more efficient because we want to be really confident when we take that leap,” said Teller.

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