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

Landscape Architecture for Landscape Architects Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION If you had unlimited start-up capital what kind of firm would you start

Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 37 total)
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  • #165077
    mark foster
    Participant

    Thomas–my better nature says option “a”.

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

     

    #165076
    Andrew Garulay, RLA
    Participant

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

    #165075
    Thomas J. Johnson
    Participant

    how does that work?

    #165074
    mark foster
    Participant

    Ohhh, concierge landscape architecture.  Excellent! 

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

     

    #165073
    Andrew Garulay, RLA
    Participant

    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.

     

    #165072
    Thomas J. Johnson
    Participant

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

    #165071
    Trace One
    Participant

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

    #165070
    mark foster
    Participant

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

    #165069
    Andrew Garulay, RLA
    Participant

    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, ….

    #165068
    Andrew Garulay, RLA
    Participant

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

    #165067
    Trace One
    Participant

    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..

     

    #165066
    Jason T. Radice
    Participant

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

    #165065
    Thomas J. Johnson
    Participant

    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…

     

     

    #165064
    Jonathan Smith, RLA
    Participant

    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…

    #165063
    Jason T. Radice
    Participant

    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.

Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 37 total)
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