,By Erin Kessler

Since graduating high school, Jett Martin has been working part-time at his family’s third-generation sawmill, Martin Brothers, in Greenup, Kentucky. He mainly stacks lumber and observes how the business operates. His grandfather, Pete, started the company nearly 30 years ago and today his father, Brent, runs the business.

The 22-year-old has also spent the last year building an online platform to serve the forest products industry. Martin studied Information Technology and Cloud Computing at Ashland Community and Technical College, obtaining an associate’s degree in 2024. He’s currently enrolled in an online bachelor’s degree program, but since the startup of his business in 2025, he’s been focused on developing the JM Log Market app.

Growing up around timber and working at the mill, Martin saw how difficult it could be at times for his father to source logs. “This all kind of stemmed from when I was working at the mill. Sometimes we would go two or three weeks and not work because Dad couldn’t find logs or someone to buy the lumber,” says Martin. Relying solely on personal connections and word-of-mouth seemed to be limiting his father’s opportunities. Martin thought that there had to be someone in the area who would buy the lumber or sell him logs, he just didn’t know where or who they were.

Martin decided he wanted to do something to bridge this gap, and in fall of 2025 he began using his programming skills to build an app that would eventually become JM Log Market. “Some days I worked on it for 12 hours straight. It didn’t feel like 12 hours; it was fun so it just kind of flew by and before I knew it the day was over with.” He launched the first iteration of the platform in December of 2025.

Originally Martin designed the app to serve the industry in the Appalachian region, but since its official launch in April this year, JM Log Market has active buyers and sellers from coast to coast. “It started out just being an Appalachian region kind of thing and then a guy from California posted on it, so I thought, ‘oh I guess I have to go national.’ It just kind of happened,” Martin says.

How does it work? Loggers, sawmills, log buyers, truckers, forestry service providers, and landowners can sign up for free, providing some basic information. Sellers, such as loggers, landowners, and others can post things to sell – from logs to finished products like flooring. Buyers like mills and log buyers can search for the types of log species they need based on location. Service providers, such as truckers or foresters can create a profile and get discovered by loggers and landowners.

At the time of this writing, JM Log Market has active sellers in 26 states and 80 active listings. This information is updated live on the website and app. “The simplest and cleanest way to put it, I feel, is it’s like Amazon for the forestry industry. It operates a lot like a social media platform. There’s a post section and a feed page and there’s also a service directory to where people can list their services.” Martin explains.

Martin says the first mill to post on the app was Carlisle Milling Company in Carlisle, Kentucky. “They told me that they used Facebook Marketplace, and they said it was ‘fizzing out,’ so they were glad somebody was trying to do something. I took that as a signal that businesses are looking for something like this.”

In recent months, users and listings on the app have grown “very fast.” Martin says, “At the beginning of April I got Carlisle Milling Company to post their products on it, and since then it’s grown organically. In two months, we went from a dead platform to a pretty active marketplace. One of the service providers on the app, Total Quality Logistics (TQL), is one of the largest global logistics companies. When they reached out to me, I thought that was pretty cool.”

Martin is proud of what he has built and would like to thank his marketer, Emma K., for her support in getting the word out. “Building the app was the fun part, now the business side of it is a different story,” he says. “At the moment it’s pretty much polishing up around the edges. The foundation is pretty well set until I add another feature or another tool.”

A common stereotype about loggers is that they are not generally known to be the most “tech-savvy” people, but Martin says that it seems “even the more seasoned loggers are starting to embrace [new technologies].” Regarding the ease of being able to enter the wood products market through an app, he adds, “I feel like this would be good for a lot of the new generation coming up. I think maybe it would encourage the new generation to get involved in the industry more than they are.”

 

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