If you had unlimited start-up capital what kind of firm would you start

[mark foster]

Thomas–my better nature says option “a”.

My dark inner monkey says “mess with they minds”.

 

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I’d do a one man office design/build residential vacation home landscape company.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

how does that work?

[mark foster]

Ohhh, concierge landscape architecture.  Excellent! 

I love this thread–it’s like everyone’s dreams are mine too… Tell me–on St Barts?

 

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Tom, I have been doing design only as a side business for several years. Usually I hand over a plan and split because I have a full time job and don’t have the time to PM. I have “partnered up” on a couple of build jobs here and there on specialty plantings. I also used to have a landscape design/build/maintenance company several years before I got my LA degree and before my major back injury.

I lie really low with no phone listing or yellow pages listing, and I still get almost more design work than I want to do as a part time business. The built landscapes for those few that I design (6-10 per year) gross somewhere between $300k-$600k a year (mostly vacation homes). With a marketing effort and with my connections throughout Cape Cod in engineering offices, a few architects, and custom builders that would refer me, I could be making a living just doing landscape design only right now. I’m pretty well connected with a very wide range of landscape contractors, pool companies, and good stone masons through previous employment in design/build, engineering offices, and a regional landscape association. Putting together good subs or joint ventures is relatively easy when you are the one getting the work. I don’t need to buy anything that I do not currently have to do it. I do need security in my life – either a guanteed startup security like the hypothetical one in this thread or the loss of the security I have in my day job. I work on abut 100 site plans a year with one other person, so don’t let the 6-10 jobs a year make you think that production would be a problem.

The difference between this and what I did years ago is that I won’t have my own construction equipment or payroll. The reason that I could pull it off is that clients already come to me first before going to contractors. When you get work, everyone wants to work with you.

In all honesty, I should already be doing this, but it would freak my family (and me) out with the change in the stability that we’ve gotten used to in the engineering offices.

 

[Thomas J. Johnson]

So you’d be a one-man design firm and you’d contract the built work?

[Trace One]

Ha! You radical! thanks for the perspective on the continuous general anti-academic mantra..

[mark foster]

I hav nothn bad to say abowt mi teechers–thay tot me reel gud lanskap arkitectyur

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Yes, for the most part. But I would do some things myself (back is much better, but always a risk), be on site, tag and select materials, set up plantings and hardscape layout, ….

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I could have saved so many words. I want to be Henry.

[Trace One]

landscape is not about spelling, and the student must reach out for himself ….I know you are kidding, Mark Foster, but it is true a lot of students interpret to be the failure of the teacher what is actually their own failure..

that movie about the spelling bee kids, the documentary, pretty well depicted different family attitudes towards learning..One family did nothing but complain of lack of access, lack of time, etc. etc..Other famlies just studied..(none of the spelling bee contestants were without family participating with them..).

I am obviously fond of academia and academics..

 

[Jason T. Radice]

Unlimited capital, huh? Why start when you can buy a firm!

[Thomas J. Johnson]

And if you can afford to buy a firm, then you can afford to hire people that can do everything better than you can… from design to running your business, essentially creating a situation where you only get in the way of your own success… oh the irony… 

That’s why I think it would have to be a one man operation. If you’re so stinking rich you can do whatever you want, then do whatever you want. Not like Charlie Sheen… like a renaissance man, like the founding fathers… exploring ideas. All you need is a sweet workshop to design and play in and a network of consultants to handle the details like patents, production and bringing things to market. Go out into the world and live, explore and be inspired. Then go back to the bat cave and make great things… repeat…

 

 

[Jonathan Smith, RLA]

I think I’d just expand my design/build and head for the Cour ‘de Alene area or Seattle.  To be honest, sometimes I love design/build, sometimes I hate it.  But it’s the right way to go financially and ensures, as some of you have already pointed out, that the landscapes you design are built properly. 

 

I also like your idea, TJ. I took a part time evening job in the U. Idaho wood/tech. shop for the Colloege of Art and Arch. to expand my knowledge of wood products and assembly…best move I’ve made in a long time.  And I’d live to get into metal fab.

 

I’d like to partner with a design/build architect, too. 

 

I’m inexperienced enough that I’d like to try everything…

[Jason T. Radice]

Thats the nice thing about buying a firm. You have a a built clientele, all the equipment, skilled staff, and (hopefully) INCOME. If you only have startup capital, you eventually will need profit. There is no reason why you can’t do what you suggested, if your firm is in good hands. It would make the situation better. BTW, it need not be a large firm you buy, perhaps takeover a firm from an owner who is retiring.

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