There's three key components to any business, somebody to make it, somebody to sell it, somebody to maintain it. Hello
and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host Ryan Willard. Please allow me to introduce today's guest on the show, prix de Shree retana, an esteemed architect hailing from the New York ace studio with Dallas Novus. So as Managing Director and one of the esteemed founders, Priti steers the course of the endeavors of the practice, focusing on strategic direction and fostering their growth. His dedication extends beyond the realm of architecture, as he is deeply involved in community shaping and ensuring accessibility in all of the studios projects, embodying their ethos, and creating spaces for the many notably breeds. He serves as the board chair for APEX for youth, an organization recognized with an official commendation from the city of New York. He is also a co founder and esteemed board member of sweetened and national renovation marketplace, and contributes his expertise as a member of the entrepreneurial board of Venture for America alongside his advisory role at the Asian American policy review at the prestigious Harvard Kennedy School. His commitment to education and community upliftment shines through his co founding of central Queens Academy Charter School, a beacon of educational excellence in Queens. And his architectural journey commenced in Paris, under the mentorship of the renowned that John and nouvelle, after which he pursued his academic endeavors, culminating in degrees from esteemed institutions such as the University of Illinois, and Columbia, and Harvard University. He proudly represents the first generation Asian American immigrant narrative hailing from Central Illinois. And Priti attributes his success to the nurturing environment of the public school system. So this was a really interesting conversation with preteen in their studio. And one of the things that came up that pretty mentioned was how they had gone about marketing themselves as a practice. And I'll often be very cynical of architects, when they say, Oh, we just focused on good work. That was the marketing strategy. And we've often said here Business of Architecture, that that is the base level of marketing that any practice should be doing. And pretty was an architect who indeed did say that. And I think it's worth just listening, though, to the strategies that they did employ, and noting the kind of high visibility projects that they were doing in the first place. So my Delos novice do a lot of high end, hospitality work and some of their projects, and very kind of innovative designs that were creating very unique brand and restaurant experiences of these places. That caused a real stir, and were no doubt leveraging as well, the kind of PR marketing campaigns of the restaurants themselves. And this is interesting, because this is where the design in itself is marketing. Okay, because of the nature of these projects. So we talked about that and how they grown the business and how they went from a relatively small studio to a large practice. Over a quick amount of time we discussed inclusivity. And designing a practice that part of their values is to have a diverse perspective on how they're designing for the city. In order to have a diverse perspective, then they need to have an inclusive environment of employees. And we also talk about why architecture struggles to be diverse and we look at the finances and the importance of good business practices when running a design focused, architectural studio. So sit back, relax and enjoy Priti Shri retana. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architectures flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment, and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smart practice method.com. Or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how we might be able to help you please follow the link in the information. Hello, listeners. We hope you're enjoying our show. We love bringing you these insightful conversations, but we couldn't do it without the support of our amazing sponsors. If you're a business owner, or know someone who would be an excellent fit for our audience, we'd love to hear from you. Partnering with us means your brand will reach over 40,000 engaged listeners each month. interested in becoming a sponsor? Please send us an email at support at business of architecture.com Kriti s, Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How
are you? Very good. Excited to be here.
Excellent. Well, thank you for your patience with our elaborate setup this
afternoon. It's a very cool setup.
Thank you very much. And I went for it. And please do that. And please do that. And we're here in the Woolworth building in a US architectural icon in the office that you guys did you? Did you start the office here? Or did you have another look around?
We started just off the bar it in a much smaller or humble office? Great,
great. And that was about what 20 2014
We we launched the company in the beginning of 2015. And we were in that office space until 2017. Right? The quick background story is we started then 300 square feet, it was like your classic. This is an old former foundry building. That's just off the bar. It's Christie and stances straight and 300 square feet. We grabbed some IKEA tables that were left in the hallway as we're moving in. We splurged on three used Aeron chairs, and we had the classic eggcrate. Gotta got to have the arrow on trends. Yeah, for sure, for sure. And we started our practice there, myself and two partners. Within a year, we need to double the size. Fortunately, we were able to get the space next door. So we combined that so we got to 600 square feet. Within a year of that we need to double again, that was early 2017. And because the types of clients we were getting the fact that the only two toilets on our floor, always had one clogged always had another that had a broken door for like we cannot bring our higher caliber clients here. Yeah. So we made the leap, moved to the Woolworth building, we found what we choke, but I don't think it's a joke. What was the smallest available space that might have been their storage. So we moved it to 1000 square feet. And then within a year of that, we need to double in size again. So fall of 2018, we signed a lease for our current space. 7000 square feet, and took possession, fall of 19, did a full cut six months and then moved in March 2 2020. And run before lockdown, and then
you and then you had to go home. And then
we did remote home. We did come back and have been here ever since Memorial Day of 2020. still paying peak of the market 2018. Rhett's, we have a great landlord who's worked with us overall. But even though we've been very fortunate to have expanded into this space, and are in talks to expand again, on this floor, so amazing. Yeah, it's been pretty crazy.
So it's quite rapid growth. For you guys. So it was three of you the product that started the the business. And I know you were saying earlier, as well as that you you had a background in you studied at Columbia, is that right? You did Tomas adobea? Either the
undergraduate University of Illinois, Champaign in architecture, and then came to New York to do my Mr. At Columbia.
Right. Yeah. And then did you go straight into work after that? Or did you as your foray into the into the tech world?
Well, a lot of people don't know this. I was very ambitious and quixotic, let's say coming out of Columbia, eyes, quote, unquote, started my own firm, because I had an opportunity with with one or two small projects and, and that was very ambitious. And I think like a lot of architects believe that through great design, it will somehow solve the business problem because that design is going to get you published and notoriety, somehow you're going to be able to start a practice. I was six months into that practice, which I was able to recruit a friend of a friend of a friend right turn to work with me. And six months into it. I remember I was generating invoices for a new client. And I needed the invoices to like, look more professional. And I spent an entire day designing the invoice in Microsoft. And I remember at the end of the day, I was like, I hate this. I hate everything about this. And I made the decision, Ben that I was going to close shop but that needed to finish those projects. So it ended up taking me another 12 months so long way to answer your question coming I'll be I spent 18 months trying to do my bang learns very quickly, there are more facets to architecture than just doing great design. Went to cut my teeth and went to SLM. Right. I should share before that my first internship in official architecture job was as Chevelles office in Paris, I did that previous summer. So that was like, going to work for my idol. got very excited about even more excited about the profession, and it's been essential. Graduated treaded my thing, hated it. I decided to go the SOA I had the opportunity to work there. And honestly, I kind of dreaded it. It was not the type of place that was on my list of places to work. But I did tell myself, this is going to be my unofficial MBA in Business of Architecture, because I want to understand how the machine worked. So I ended up being there for two ish years. Is a long time, right? Yeah. And then ended up actually being laid off summer of Oh, eight. They beat me by two months. I was gonna leave that laser tape. But but they they got to me first
was did you get redundancy package? At least?
I remember To be honest, or they were okay. It was pretty brutal. So how would you I will say this, and I look back on this finally. And it was even fondly then as it happened because I was I was already getting ready to leave. I believe I was in the first wave of many waves of layoffs that happened that fall at SLM. And I believe on the very first one, they called it intellect. Which I even left back then I was like, This is amazing. But I ended up I ended up spending the next couple of years doing architectural consulting work, basically, helping other friends start practices or working with firms to, I would still have people that come to me and be like, you're an architect, right? Oh, I have like this small apartment renovation. So I would work with other friends firms to do it. So it's more of a not formal architecture, per se, but show insulting. But long story short, I eventually met a fellow architect who was starting a tech company that was in the originally the whole renovation space, and other how deep to discuss is gonna be a whole separate topic. But the reason why we met is I went back to school once to go get a Master of Public Administration up at the Harvard Kennedy School, right? The reason why is ever since I came to New York, I was very active with a nonprofit youth organization called Apex for youth. They mentor at risk Asian immigrant youth, longest story. I can relate very much to these kids. And I stand on many shoulders that allowed me to have gone to Columbia and come to New York, want to pay that forward. So anyways, during the Great Recession, this organization that which I joined the board of, I was falling apart, I became the board chair. One of the donors who was alum of the Kennedy School was like, Do you know what you're doing? I was like, I doubt it's gonna suck. Well, I'd like for you to harden those soft skills apply to my alma mater. I reluctantly did because I don't like school and Harvard Kennedy School Psych. I don't follow politics or to read the newspaper. My application essay was how can I be a better chair for my nonprofit center then lo and behold, I get in. I ended up going to this one year MPA program, met this woman named Miss Jean brown house. She was a Loeb Fellow at the Graduate School of Design, because she was beta testing this concept for this home innovation platform. We were connected because somebody said at the Kennedy School, she was auditing courses and mutual class was like, there's a fellow architect that will actually show it to you. And I was like, oh, Joe. I didn't come here that meet architects. And she's like, Yeah, come and meet this person. So we met. Um, Jean shared the business model for a company called sweeten as in Home Sweet Home Sweet in your home, right? I thought it was brilliant. When we finished our program, this is 2012. She had asked me if I wanna go raise some venture capital, just do a seed round. I didn't know what that meant. So I was like, Cool when I spent six months raising the seed round and when we got it, she's like, do you want help execute on that plan as the seed to which these titles don't really mean much when it's just the two, we have a third co founder of his show Rivas, like what does that mean? And I agreed to do it. Because I was like this, there's only 12 months of runway here. If anything, it'll be fun, and I'll wine a lot. Fast forward, I was a COO of sweet until I stepped down the beginning of 2019. And at that point, Sunil had raised about 20 million and capital rolled out to 10 major cities and was a category of lead for what it does in the home construction space. And while I was doing that, in parallel, I co founded the Ellis law office with my business partner site. And that office, I talked about Christine Stanton, MN occupied the top floor, which was a night room that building and squeezing was on the fifth floor. So for years, I was just running
between the two. But I've had that that's quite an extraordinary experience, and very unusual in the architecture space to actually to go through the whole process of raising capital, and actually be successful at it. And in dealing with big, big amounts of money. And the whole, the whole way that software startup companies work are very different from how an architect practices is working. And you're probably not making profit for a very long time, the software and etc, etc. And you've got a different level of responsibilities. Right, but a great way of kind of introducing to lots of different concepts about business. Yeah, and you know,
that, that was my official, unofficial MBA. The thing with doing sweet, and what I realized very quickly, is that, and this is not unique to tech, this is to just starting a business. Yeah, is that, and I had learned this the hard way, when I, you know, naively tried to do my own coming out of grad school at that point 10 years earlier. But when you raise venture capital, there's a, I describe it as you receive an unofficial playbook, from your investors or other advisers, on best practices, how to build a business, because let's not try to reinvent the wheel, you have a limited runway to be able to execute on your grand plan. And so here's the things you shouldn't do. And that does not, as you know, really existed in the architecture world. And so everything from and these aren't universal, but the ones that I was fortunate to be exposed to everything from, it's important to set a really strong culture and clear vision. Ideally, establish values that will be used to govern the team. Recognize that there's gonna be many departments that you have to build out that this is this is this is summarizing it a bit. But I remember, one piece of advice was there's three key components to any business, somebody to make it, somebody to sell it, somebody to maintain it. And it's like, that applies literally to every business. And so when I, when it was time to start mn, with my business partners, it was all a small family, everybody knew each other everybody was friends with us time to start a man, it was like, basically taking the best practices that I had learned through suite and building a company and use that to be the playbook that is the foundation of our business model to this day, everything from identify what departments we need to make it, sell it, maintain it, to establishing our values as a company very early on, and something that sort of era. There's a lot of learnings show other growing pains. So have we continued to go through them now. But very much that startup mentality, we use the word startup here as well. We're nine years old, but from the very first day people get on boarded here in that onboarding meeting, we talk about how, as founders, we envision this as a startup and the model that we're trying to build and yeah, it's it lots of overlaps. And I think that has been key to how we've been able to grow so
far. Why did you leave sweeten
shoe thanks. So it was without going into too many details. Summer 2016 I with tech and this is an all tech companies but at least in our company. There's as a founder, you're fundraising like 75% of time. Unless you raised, you close one round your art, you take a breather for like two weeks. And you're already thinking about
the next route. And they just end up giving away more ownership of your baby all the way through all the all the dilution and
everything that comes with it. But in 2016, we had already done a few rounds. I remember it was like, we closed one round. And then we already started like to next one, and it's like, you know what, the thrill of this is gone from it. I do not enjoy fundraising. I did not go. I did not like spending two weeks in Silicon Valley, Sand Hill Road, like I was done. And it took, honestly, it took another year, continue to fundraise to build the company before 17. Somewhere Saudi, I was like, No, I'm gonna get out. And it took a full year to find my successor is COO, right. And then by the time she was brought on board, the amazing woman and train her. It was February 2018. Before his time before I was able to fully stepped out and took that long. But really kind
of unpick yourself from it. Yeah, it was it was did you have to sell shares or anything? It was it not that No.
So so the other thing that's really nice about it, that also made it very easy for me mentally was that the way the company was scaling, and it was starting its national rollout. I didn't want to, there's people who know how to do that, as operators. And hearing him I've basically self taught myself how to be CEO, which is common for many founders. But at this point, it's like, do I love this enough to want to self teach myself national rollout, or just hire someone who's successfully done it before, my shares are already invested. So it's in my best interest to have somebody go on board. He knows how to do this. And so not only that, where mn was at as an architecture firm, was super exciting, and to be asked to, I explored doing tech, and I actually, and I, to this day, still do my nonprofit still as the board chair. Because originally, I was so frustrated with architecture that I was looking for, something that saved me from the profession, but the entire time that I was gone, and that was never really got, but that I wasn't like in the day to day. I just loved it so much. And the way it describes people's like, the young Priti, who was like over the moon to be at John nouvelles office in Paris working for his idol and everything. That kid is always there. And I was just like, Yeah, everybody says to me from the tech, they're like, you're gonna go back to that dinosaur industry. And I was like, it's really fucking awesome industry. It's, it has its challenges, but I really like it. And yeah, I'm gonna get back into it. I have these amazing business partners. And in starting this practice, from day one, we always said, this isn't just going to be about doing beautiful forward thinking, you know, award wave design, like we want to equally as important, create a practice that this is, we came up with this, we started come up with a business plan. The first half of 2014 The story is my business partner, Stephen Harper, we wouldn't be for the entire spring summer, every Saturday afternoon on his couch up in Harlow. And we just like wax poetic about, like, what's this company going to be? We didn't know what we're gonna pull the trigger on actually doing it. What's this company gonna be about? Everything from like, what types of projects type? You know, what scales who are the clients to like, what are we going to call this thing? What's the mission, the vision to our creative director, like, he like I remember, it came with a spreadsheet, he was so proud of one day, and it had the cost of run the office down to the cent for a dustpan. It was also like if we're gonna do this, this has to be a real business. And we mapped out the entire business plan that over the course of many months, and then through an opportunity, our first big mission, which was in the Navy yards, pulled the trigger and started our company. And so yeah, it was for me it was like I was very excited about a man's potential. And so as I was doing that in parallel to suite and and put them both in the in the same building, I also just got to a place where I was like, this company every time I get into my mn work, MN meetings, MN team, I'm like, I just love That's yeah, I really love it. And yes 2018 I went from I think realistically if I was doing 50 hours sweet and 30 hours a man genius putting my AV into alarming and then another 10 hours a week on on my nonprofit work. Yeah, I
was that's that's that's pretty grueling. It was,
you know at the time when you're in it, you don't realize how bad it did. I did I did for those for that decade. I did. It was locked out that helped me reset but if you if we went in that pre lockdown I official alcoholic Lee and drank a lot. I still have a drink now and that but I drank a lot. I was 30 pounds heavier. Now, I had to be put on blood pressure meds because between anxiety and everything was just through the roof. I had a shaved head of shaved face for like that decade because I want it to be as streamlined as possible. And I wore the same T shirt jeans and sneakers every day because literally I was running between meetings. And that was just my uniform. And that was just to be honest. It was exciting. So I'm not complaining show. But looking back, it took a huge toll on my health. I really didn't even have like real relationships. I've my, my close friends, but my dating life was non existent. It's terrible. Yeah. But workwise a lot of the things got a compliment. And that's
that's so you know, quite quite fascinating as well. Like, you know how actually, it's it's there's an unsustainability about it. Yes. And there's you pay a price. Absolutely. And you're paying a price to be able to engage with multiple businesses and the energy and just running an architectural practices is one thing running having a startup as well and a nonprofit is is is quite a lot.
I mean, the way this I describe it is so my business partners and i None of us are from New York. The the line that I tell people casually is that I'm a child of Thai immigrants grew up in rural Central Illinois. My creative director of partner is a black Japanese architect from Oakland. Stephen, who I just mentioned, white architect from the backwoods of North Carolina town even smaller than mine, which and then pick was possible. And we came here not knowing anybody. And having any of like the connections are anything. And so what do you do? When do you want to start your own practice? And this is a practice we've had to completely bootstrap no outside capital. And, yeah, you can just say, Oh, it's the hustle. But as you know, each of us when we start a practice, we're going to be responsible for a vertical in the company, Jonathan was going to take on design, Stephen was gonna take on ops, I was going to take on everything external facing, so like, the biz dev, client, relationships, everything collectively, the three of us made one archetype. But yeah, it was that, for me, being the one that's external facing, it's like, how many of my, whether it's tech networks, or religion, these different relationships I've made to help, you know, build a men, it wasn't just getting clients. It's also like, how do you recruit talent when nobody knows who you are? Yeah, right. And the other thing is in starting your own practice, I described it as we've had to create our own lane because I, to non architects, I describe architecture as this, that the industry is often a ladder that we have to climb. The first rung is something like, you might be invited to sit on a jury or a paddle. next rung, you're doing lectures, the next rung, you're invited to do an installation of the gallery, and then the competition. Eventually, at the very top is a museum or a library waiting for you. And the thing is, there's gatekeepers at every prompt. And so what do you do when you're not even invited to climb that ladder? You have to make your own lane. So for us that hustle was okay. We're not going to be in those circles. Well, how do we get work get talent in the beginning, because our we knew we weren't going to get any PR press or anything. We spared are first of all, we were just heads down. We said we would just focus on build work and allow the built work to speak for itself. And so for for our practice.
The classic Yeah, chiastic architect's marketing move, for sure.
And I want to say that this was this was very intentional in terms of a marketing strategy for like our first eight years until March. So apologize for all the noise. There's always a lot of people coming through this office up until large of 23. The website that's up now is our first website that we've ever had before that there was just a contact page. And so the reason why is we want to say, oh, yeah, that was deliberate and we want to be elusive. But the truth is, we were so heads down and just doing great built work. But also again, as a real business model for you the full design I hate chatters, so don't say just sit here. It's forward thinking. But doing great design, delivering as best we can on time on budget. But then also the third piece is the client service layer to make sure the client is fully taken care of throughout. I think because we have been very successful at prioritizing those three three things for our projects. We started getting tons of referrals like even to this day, overwhelming majority of our projects 60 built Commission's today almost all of them are repeat clients or referrals. So we didn't have to do a website. You just didn't have time nor that we honestly had the financial resources to invest so well.
It's interesting as well actually built a business without without website. There was marketing or PR Yes. Which means something was happening in terms of how are you winning work? Yeah. What were you doing? Yeah,
honestly, I think prior, so the so again, no marketing or PR investment. Up until up until we launched that site, the work being referral base. Jumping around a little bit to take a step back. So our first project was in the Brooklyn Navy Yard centrebet warehouse 100,000 square feet that we were commissioned to turn it into a headquarters for a company that designs and and fabricates gear for its like military and Special Forces application system. So very lean budget, it's a basically it's an adaptive reuse this building we had to tear down to its structure rebuild the whole thing. We ended up delivering that project on time 3% under budget and one in eight New York design a word for it. That was our very first project our next projects after that so the sexy we did a Korean barbecue concept. And you know, for us it's first of all you can only eat what you can kill so it's like Alright we're gonna take the sun but we're gonna make it really awesome and so this client just to share that Korean barbecue concept came to us with virtually no budget I think his budgets equivalent of a white box to to restaurant here in the city. And with that budget we designed a concept called coat which in the restaurant world is now like you the core crazy successful impossible reservation we ended up doing coke Miami as follow up and then coat Singapore more recently like for the coat team that's their wildly successful Yeah. But and then some other that opened up the doors to more hospitality and as architects we never said we wanted to unnecessarily specialize in hospitality. So we've been very selective to take on only hospitality projects. If they are concepts that we believe in right we'll go to ourselves because you can't design for a place if you're not actually going to hang out there sure if it's with people who we think are going to be successful because candidly we tell potential clients this there's just so much high turnover and the success rate is very low especially in New York by thing Yeah, just in general.
Yeah. Restaurant says and Asante that's such a it's so risky. So risky. This is where architects don't get paid when the investor hasn't opened yet Are you
are you get you get barred or free meals but then the restaurant closes before you can use your bond or like so so and then the third thing that is very important to us and I had mentioned that we started a company that's very value space, something that we're strict about. I share this in every first potential client meeting For better or worse, but there has been for betters to date. And we have a very strict no Asshole Rule. I tell clients that in our first week, and just want you to now, my partners and I have built a value space company and one of our strict values is a no Asshole Rule. No asshole. project teams, contractors or clients. It's something that's very important to us. And so yeah, we we did get into Oh, as we get as we did these early projects, because of the success of how we deliver them and the the outcomes that they use for our clients. We just got a lot of referrals and repeat clients. We grew our practice by the time we launched that website, March of 23, we were already 24 full time 60 built commissions never had a real website never did marketing or PR. And also the AIA award button for the hospitality. Nine Michelin stars a world's 50 Best relay shitshow and New York Times number one out of 100 best restaurants like neither, it's just so that whole thing that we dreamed about creating our own lane and let the built work speak for itself. It fortuitously came true for us. Yeah. And so the other thing that just to back up a little bit, just to share. I would say one of the things that we were very intentional about is and I, I have if you go to our website, and it's also in the foyer bar, our lobby, when we founded our our practice, we were inspired by this photo, it's of a photo taken by Martha Cooper 1981 It's a frog study the the breakdancing crew battle dancing in front of Lincoln Center. And so lives on our website, if you go to firm, you can see it there. It also lives on my phone. Everybody who meets me and talks about an I introduce a man for the first time always sees this photo from my phone. And I always share that photo because for us, that photo represents quintessential New York City. It's about the city's public spaces, welcoming people from different backgrounds together and make it their own. And we want that civic function to be a through line in all of our projects. And so whether it's industrial and Brooklyn Navy yards, or hospitality or even commercial, retail, that is something that exists in every piece of work that we do. And so hospitality for us was like, internally, we talk of them as as opportunities for us to test these concepts. And so on the hospitality front, people would say, oh, yeah, and then project. One, they're always ultra successful. Two, they're always critically acclaimed. Three, there are possible reservations. And the people always say, like, you can tell, even though they're design wise, very different. There's a vibe, and you're ever I like really poke at that, like, really tell me that I that you talk about, I keep pushing people be like, you have diverse dining rooms, like it's really a diverse audience, whether it's the two Michelin starred places we've done, or the places are like Michelin bib Corman's, or whatever, very diverse diners. And that is intentional. And people will say, Well, what is it that you do as a designer, and I always have to zoom out, it's not design alone, that plays a role. It's making sure that you are value of lives of the people that you worked with, and aligned that I share a lot around here as we have a very strong belief that the built environment is imbued with the values of the people behind it. So the architect, the client, contractor, everybody who comes together, needs to share values in order to get the outcome. That's right. And so for us to value, being able to create welcoming subspaces is something that we seek out in our clients as well. Right. And so the reason why our spaces have been able to yield these results is we've sought out what we call internally co conspirators who believe in that and has allowed us to do this work and we've been very steadfast it's
this is really impressive because a lot of architects you know, they'll it's very easy to let go of your your values or to just start working with people because you feel like you're on the backfoot and then the client says no drop your fees, the drop your fees, and even this pricing war that goes on and now you've taken on a client that is not fair and be now you're out and say not where you want to be getting pay rates, and then it's difficult to get out of that. cycle? Yes. What was it that had you really hold on to the aid? Like, we're not workbooks for vassals? We're not going to Yeah, we're not going to relinquish our values here. And was it? You know, particularly when architects are financially there isn't any. There's nothing there. This was when this is when we become quite vulnerable. Yes. How did you just maintain that? And was it kind of partly because it was there was three of you as a dynamic where it was like, You were holding out of the accountable in that sense, or,
I mean, I would be lying if I said that knew what we were doing from the beginning, lots of trial and error. But what I would say what we learned quickly, in our experience is that, first of all, if you don't deliver great work, none of that matters. But when you can deliver great work, then you can start making certain I don't use word demands, because we're not necessarily the mass like these, this is the criteria to work with us. And in the beginnings when you don't have that leverage. It was honestly like, a lot of it is feeling out, of course, getting the clients that you can tell like, okay, these are some things. What I will say that we do, we always that pitch I just gave you, which I hate calling it a pitch because it really is more than the pitch to us. It really is what we live in Britain has been the pitch since 2015. From chump, I even elaborate further, if you were the actual client I was I will go I will go further and say, and so in Java, as Steve and I started the company, yes, we wanted to for thinking award winning design, but equally important to us is that we want to build a practice that we aspire to change the industry. And what that means is that in order to create these diverse spaces to ask from a team with diverse perspectives, our industry, as you know, well, 2% black at that time, 17% women, I think it might be 20% now, but still, unfortunately too, though, and that is plagued by high turnover, lack of upward mobility. And I will even go further and say, you know, in our industry, people will say, the reason why is that we have a recruitment problem. And you'll hear a lot of talk now around like, we gotta go focus on the schools in high school, when you get too excited. It's like, that's not the real problem. The real problem is that industry is not financially stable, and does not give people an opportunity to come in and be successful. Yes, right. Yes. So people can enter architecture, but they don't stay. And we lose a lot of talented, brilliant people to other industries. And so, for us, we wanted to create a better business model, like the name of Delos Novus, isn't it for the new model, because it's something that we're chasing after, right as our ethos. And so fast forward, the team we have now just under 30, full time, as diverse as New York City 50%, women all represent across every level of seniority. Our pay starts at 10%, above the AIA and ye average for their experience level. We do not hire a fire for project we've never done a layoff not even during the pandemic, and something that we've been very proud of is that believe the industry average and architectures close to 15% turnover per year, we're at three, we have like almost most of the people who are here had been with us since they started with us, some of them going back all nine years. And that's something we're very proud of, because you want to give people a place where they can come in, be successful as architects and show them that there's an opportunity to again, have upward mobility, that's the only way that you're gonna be able to create diverse teams. And hence the only way you're gonna be able to truly create diverse perspectives like I had, I was talking to somebody and I said, you cannot authentically create welcoming, inclusive spaces if your team does not have those diverse perspectives. And I know I'm preaching to the choir, but our industry is just plagued by sa homogeneity of like, you know, bass, both like socially, but also economically, like the people who are and therefore you have, you hear the same perspectives, the same references, the same inspirations. And I talked, I did a keynote for the AAA Leadership Summit at the end of February. And one of the lines that I shared was something that I thought it was important for us to acknowledge which is that in America, our public spaces whether Are they are institutions, establishments, parks, neighborhoods are not welcoming or exclusive. And a large part of it is because they're not being designed by teams with diverse perspectives. And I think that is a conversation that people don't want to talk about. And I think there's a lot of something that I, I talk a lot about here. And then but with the larger team, we always ask ourselves and building the new model. Everybody has a startup, instead of working on building this new model, is, we have this concept that we call identifying the work at the center, you need you take a whiteboard, draw the problems. The main problem, at the center of this whiteboard, the work had said is the one thing that if you can fix this problem, or make progress towards fixing it, you'll actually make the progress like everything else. Yeah, exactly. And so here, we always ask ourselves, like, what's the work, then we need to focus on the fact to me, the fact that here in our industry, more people talk about the lack of diversity, but tying it also to, we are not being responsible, but how we hire and creating business practices that allow people to enter and stay and be successful. To me is work avoid this, right? Like, that's the thing where it's like, right now, and I hear people say, Oh, it's a recruitment issue. And that's ticking the candle that's workable, it's like, we really need to ask ourselves, like, how is it that we can fix the business, and architects will say, like, I'm not a business person. I'm an architect. That's like, how you mean, but then
you shouldn't have Ganon value running a business while you're running a
business go work for somebody else. And so I can go down the rabbit hole. But the one thing I will say is, the challenge with that is that if you don't understand how to run a business, if you don't understand your unit economics, then you don't understand what you're supposed to be charging. If you don't understand you're supposed to be charging, then you don't know when you are undercutting somebody else. Or if you do know what you're charging, especially these more established firms, but your unit economics are, then when you're undercutting yourself to with a project, you're just doing it on the backs of your employees, you know, and it's and I think this is these are the real conversations that but it
used to be and this is really interesting. I mean, I'm very much in agreement with you about, you know, we'd have conversations about diversity. And I've said this many times on the on the podcast before that the real issue is not necessarily diversity is the fist of finances is the financial equation that of the profession absorbed with, you know, in the UK, for example, a lot of black or minority people, they're the first generation of their family to go to university. Now, there is also an expectation that they might be bringing money back home to the to the, to the parents. Absolutely. And you know, and if you're going to be spending seven years, which is already too long, too protracted, unnecessary, a huge amount of investment in time, and money, and then to come out and get paid the same that you would be working in McDonald's, this the equation doesn't work. And then financial equation doesn't work. It's got nothing else to do. It's just not appealing. So that's why people leave. And it's the same thing with women said they're, if they're working, or they're in the net, to take time out to have family, etc, the economics of it don't make sense. Is that people late?
Yes. And, you know, again, it's you have to give people from different backgrounds an opportunity to enter and thrive and be successful architects themselves. I think, our you know, you hear that the term generational wealth line, but that's something important to recognize, because the other thing is, a lot of people who don't have those financially stable backgrounds or some type of safety net cannot go into a profession where you're getting hired and fired per project, or you know, that has the has such high turnover. And again, this whole I witnessed it myself, so many talented, brilliant people enter and then leave our profession, right. And so, I always tell people, again, whether people in tech or my fellow architects because you'll get together, you know, majority of architects he gets here with him and it's you're hearing them either talk about some kickass project that you know, they want to brag about. Love that or they'll be limiting the industry. And to me, I always tell my I love my chat, and I love what I do. It has a lot of challenges. Don't get me wrong. We are entering. We are in our ninth year as a practice. We are going through growing pains. We've had Growing Pains every year, we're going through a new set right now, the team will tell you if they need, I'm sure they'll come and be like, well, here's the things that we need to work on to do better. But I love it because we are trying to solve a problem that hasn't been done in our industry before. And that say that our solution is going to be the solution. So to help others, I will say, why was happy that we had the opportunity to talk, I do want to take the learnings, my partners, and I want to take the learnings that we've had over the years, and start open source sharing it with others. So I shouldn't say this on this podcast. But our goal is to on a quarterly or at least half year basis. But hopefully quarterly start putting out we have a series of mediums that each partner is working out based off of their vertical that they oversee here, just learnings that we've had over the years to share with others to see, you know, anybody else that can benefit from that. Because if we can help list the industry, it benefits all of us, not just the holy, create better spaces, but like, I have to tell you, I am very as many of your followers are, it is frustrating to go compete with other firms for commissions, and find out later that you were undercut when you already know like, the math of your fees. Like if we want something really bad, like, Okay, we're gonna go and razors that, get this. And based off that client's parameters like this is the cheapest you can reasonably go. And to find that we were undercut by half Impossible. Impossible. And and like, I don't know, if that firm knows that their unit economics aren't gonna be able to produce and project without doing it on the backs of their employees, like, again, want to help. We want to do what we can to help limit it. It's
interesting, I'm very excited to hear that that kind of opening up and transparency. And I think that certainly kind of modern contemporary leadership of an architectural firm needs demands transparency from its leaders in these transparency in terms of the economics, yes, people should understand and start being indoctrinated with the way of money and how it's working in our business. And the leaders did demonstrate that they're actually taking it seriously, and they care about it. Otherwise, why would you want to be working for someone that's, that's, that's not doing that. And the history of the profession has been very, you know, people this information, closed the flyer, and we don't talk about it, and this and that, and then also, in just terms of knowledge, you know, the open source of, of, you know, technical knowledge, expertise, the industry knowledge that you've been working on, this transparency is only going to make the industry better, the industry becomes better everyone benefits. Absolutely. And there's, you know, we can start making it a, you know, a very attractive profession for anybody who wants to get access to it. Again,
I really love architecture. And if more people who also love this profession, can actively practice and be successful at it, we're all going to benefit. So that's something that, again, I need to look up this and get the exact facts of this, right. But I think it was like, either Mercedes Benz, or Volvo or somebody came up with the airbag, but did not, did not go through the traditional patent routes or whatever, because they want to share that technology with everybody. And we have that same I mean, that's, that's an extreme example. But we want to, we have that same ethos, where it's like, as we're learning, let's share, share it with others, because we're all going to benefit. And to be honest through like, I see all my other, like peers and friends, practices and everything. And there's so many talented people. And we all have our share challenges. And it's like, if we could share the learning. So like all these people that that are, you know, you bring great people great talent to do shaped spaces. Like you just want to see them all be successful. Yeah, yeah, absolutely
brilliant place to conclude the conversation. Pretty absolute pleasure to be speaking with you.
Thank you. It's been it's been a pleasure, as well. Thanks for having me.
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