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point taken…fyi I just edited because I think my initial response came off the wrong way.

I am picturing a home-based approach until contracts warrant otherwise or projects fall in my lap from the get-go, and things like office space become necessary.

I think we’re on the same page.

2. Money. Why has this not been mentioned yet? You will need to have a considerable amount of cash reserves to cover your operating expenses. A friend of mine who runs an independent planning consultant firm told me you should have at least 6 months of operating expenses…

I’m not sure there is a ‘formula’ per se to starting a business and what…[Read more]

Nick, I am totally following you.

Let me elaborate on a couple of my factors briefly as I may have been confusing. When it comes to experience I completely agree that you do not need to be a master. I was more saying do you have a decent amount of experience? Have you done this and feel comfortable with the entire process? Then you can adapt to…[Read more]

Thanks Richard, I appreciate the sentiment.

Thanks Brian. I am not considering it now Brian, but my goal would be to have a viable business at least part time within 5-10 years. I fully ackowledge that there is a lot more I stand to learn.

Though, I’m not sure that I agree one needs to wait to be considered or feel that they are themselves a ‘master’ to start a practice. In my own limited…[Read more]

None. Just the courage to know that when you have failures you can pick yourself up.

Thanks John.

It’s nice to hear it from the horses mouth. I wonder if, having a background in landscape construction, running a small crew and/or starting out targeting high end residential clients could be a good way to eventually break into the public sector. Given a wide and varied background and complementary set of skills, couldn’t a sole…[Read more]

You asked for the minimum amount of experience. I think that it in nearly impossible to guage when to start a business based on solely your experience. It makes the query simple but hard to answer. My opinion is that if you looked a 4 key factors: experience, licensure, networking and niche you could probably decide whether or not you were ready.…[Read more]

Thanks Andrew. Great analogy regarding the elevator.

Your top three list is basically what I suspected.

To the first question: Depends on what kind of a practice you want to have. You need experience in whatever you intend to do — not only types of projects but also business development, personnel management, etc. — or sufficiently connected to others who have that experience.

To the second: There’s a lot more to running a design firm, even a one…[Read more]

Thanks for the reply Vanessa.

I’m sure there are a number of factors involved in the decision to stay or go and the timing such as comfort at your current job, responsibility to your family, and of course the time it takes to acquire enough experience and contacts to branch out on your own. Then I think there is the ‘just do it’ factor.

I can…[Read more]

i have a friend who has his own firm and he always tells me to just go for it – start doing projects and then go off when you can’t do both anymore (both meaning have a job that pays the bills and your own business)

I understand supply and demand, but AEC seems to have particularly high elasticity.

Thank-you…and yes, it does

Edwina Von Gal did a design for a museum in Panama with Gehry – you could look her up – nice lady, may know what you are dealing with..she is very hands-on…
Please make sure you are not collecting illegally, I am sure that goes without saying..

Thank-you András,
They are using plants hardy around Paris. I will need tender tropical trees, etc (huge Khaya, Shorea, etc.)

This reminds me the new zoo in Paris 🙂 models of a lot of different bioms and their necessary plants 🙂 May be ask them how they got their plants. 🙂

Sara,
Thanks for the tip! I’ll check it out this week!

Kim