January 21, 2025 • 55 mins
Growing up amidst the wide-open fields of southern Saskatchewan, Alex Miller learned the tenets of hard work early on but soon realized that his future lay far from the farm. Alex's journey took an unexpected turn when he ventured into engineering, only to discover a lack of passion for it—a revelation that ultimately led him to the vibrant world of real estate. The essence of entrepreneurship comes alive through Alex’s story: a blend of strategic planning and rapid action, all fueled by perseverance and a robust work ethic. He reflects on how each setback served as a learning opportunity, enriching his path with experiences that would shape his approach to business and community building.
Alex’s passion for modular construction and affordable housing unfolds as a fascinating tale of purpose-driven innovation. From the early struggles of economic downturns to redefining his business through strategic partnerships, Alex shares how he and his team navigated through challenges to make a meaningful impact on their community. The episode captures the poignant moments of collaboration with the Métis community for an elders lodge and the invaluable lessons in leadership that followed.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi there, I'm Trevor Coote, and this is Business is
Fucking Hard, the podcast wherebusiness owners pull back the
curtain and talk about therealities of owning a business.
We'll hear their stories, learnsome lessons and have some fun
along the way.
Thanks for joining us.
On today's episode, we arejoined by Alex Miller.
(00:21):
Alex is co-founder and CEO ofBig Block Construction, located
in Saskatoon, saskatchewan.
Alex has navigated his businessjourney focused on real estate
and real estate development.
His companies have challengedthe traditional thinking and
construction practices, whichhas not come without its own
challenges for Alex and hisbusinesses.
I hope you enjoy this episode,alex Miller.
(00:43):
Welcome to the podcast.
Trevor Coote, thank you verymuch for having me.
It is my pleasure I say thisevery time I'm excited to have
this conversation.
I genuinely am.
I think people will hear thatwe've got quite a history almost
20 years and we went ondifferent paths, but our lives
(01:07):
keep intersecting and I lookforward to having the
conversation about when we firstmet, because I think that's I
reflect on it once in a while,and that was a long time ago.
So thanks for taking the time,alex, looking forward to hearing
your story, as I do witheveryone.
Let's get started with what wasyour introduction to business
(01:29):
and entrepreneurship?
How did you get started?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, great question.
So I think so.
Look, I grew up on a farm,southern Saskatchewan, all right
, and you know so, probably atypical farm kid.
I learned how to work hard.
You know so, probably a typicalfarm kid.
I learned how to work hard.
And it was interesting because,you know, my parents my mom,
have had multiple jobs, andstill does, actually, and
(01:53):
they're well into theirseventies.
My dad farms and he's big intothe cattle, which it's funny.
He asked farmers.
Like you know, grain farming isenough of a challenge.
Then you add cattle.
It never ends right, like atleast sometimes with grain
farming.
You can take breaks, um, uh,throughout winter, but anyways.
So, uh, definitely learned howto work hard, but I was allergic
(02:13):
to a lot of stuff on the farm.
So I, you know, lived with mygrandma in town, in small town
of Avonlea, uh, for a couple ofdifferent months throughout the
year when it was bad harvest or,you know, a spring mold, things
like that.
So, um, so I knew that I wasn'tgoing to be able to take on the
family farm or anything likethat, um, so it was interesting.
I, I was good at math andscience and you know, you come
(02:36):
from a small town and you knowI'm oversimplifying this, but
it's like, ah, you got fouroptions in life, right, you stay
farming a teacher, an engineeror something else.
So I was like, well, okay, I'llgo become an engineer.
So, cause, I'm good at math andscience, right, so I go into
engineering.
And I'm there for a couple ofmonths and I was like, what is
(02:57):
this?
This is not me.
So I remember phoning my, mydad, being like what's happening
here?
Like this, this can't be for me.
And he said, look, you'reallergic to everything on the
farm.
And then my dad lost his dadwhen he was 30 or 40.
I can't remember, maybe early30s, and so he didn't.
He just said, look, there's,there's not really anything here
for you.
(03:17):
Go get an education and finishengineering, and then you'll
figure out what you want to do.
So unbelievable advice.
Looking back 20, some yearslater and put my head down, and
I learned how to learn.
I learned how to get throughsomething that maybe I wasn't
really passionate about.
I learned how to solve problems.
And so it was in my lastsemester of engineering where
(03:37):
I'm like, all right, I guess Igot to figure out what the hell
I'm going to do in life, becauseI know it's not engineering,
and so I read a whole bunch ofbooks.
I've never read books that Ididn't have to before in my life
, it's kind of sad to say and Ifound that most people that had
like freedom financial freedomhad either businesses or real
estate in their portfolio, andso I was actually in my last
(04:01):
semester of engineering that Isaid I'm going to make a
business out of real estate,that was how I got into it.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And so inspired.
Inspired by books.
I love the.
I love the aspect of tenacityaround the education, just to
just to work through it, eventhough you know you, you, you
knew that that might not be theexact direction.
What so inspired?
For the real estate side, whatwas that first introduction to?
(04:31):
What could you see being yourfirst move as it related to real
estate?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
after kind of reading , Well, and to help maybe
clarify.
I don't know if I was like.
I don't know if it came frombooks, it was more when, the way
I grew up, I saw my parentswork so hard and didn't really
have much from a financialperspective.
We always had food on the table.
You know, we were always.
(04:57):
We were always happy and fullof joy, but we didn't have
luxuries.
We didn't have all those otheritems and and I just felt like
they were a great lifestyleright.
Well, to some degree, I mean,you're always working you kind
of, and so I think it was moredriven out of a value of.
It didn't seem fair to me thatthey worked so hard and yet
couldn't take time off or didn'thave some of the luxuries.
(05:19):
I think maybe is what drove it,so that then then books was an
opportunity to try to unpack itmore.
But, um, I was fortunate enoughlike I finished my engineering
and mechanical engineering and Igot a great job out in calgary,
and but I had already plantedthe seed in my head of, okay,
I'm gonna get into real estate,I'm gonna get into business.
I don't know what that lookslike.
Um, I'm also gonna go down mycareer path currently Right, and
(05:43):
so, as I was, you know, um,working through, uh, the great
opportunity that I had inCalgary.
I worked in the oil and gasindustry for a year and a half
uh, great learning opportunity.
But it was at the time where,like I said, the seed had
already been planted where I'mlike, all right, I got to get
into this game.
And so, you know, it was likemost starts to business,
(06:05):
probably a whole bunch ofbouncing all over the place and
trying to figure out what does abusiness in real estate look
like.
And so I think a lot of timesit starts with some simple flips
, trying to find an undervaluedasset and adding value, and then
, you know, seeing the monetarygain from the value that you
(06:26):
were adding.
But of course, there's so muchmore to it than that.
But I think that's kind of howit started, with some initial
flips trying to understand whata business in real estate was
all about.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And we'll get to the story in like two seconds around
where years of my paths firstcrossed.
Um, but I was there, was therestuff before that, like you had
a?
Where were the flips in incalgary and what did that?
How?
I my my biggest question alwayswhen we start talking about,
(07:03):
you know, the first moves inbusiness was how scared were you
?
How, what, what?
What was the fear factor foryou around stepping out on that
ledge and and making that firstinvestment and pulling the
trigger and saying I guess thisis the path I'm going to go down
?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah, funny, funny.
You should mention that becauseactually I haven't thought
about this honestly for a longtime.
That's the fun part about thispodcast.
You're bringing up stuff.
I'm like, oh damn, I remember,uh.
So another guy that I hadgraduated engineering with,
tyler.
(07:39):
We were good friends, we workedactually together at the same
company, so of course I'mtalking about how I want to do
this and very smart guy andactually hilarious.
We still work together this day.
It was a business partner stillis in many aspects.
It was a great, great guy andwe talked through a bunch of
this.
But then also one of my bestbuddies growing up and he was
(08:01):
one of the best men at mywedding and he lived in
Saskatoon at the time, and soactually it was the three of us
that started talking about thisand we all had this desire to do
something more and I actuallyremember we were, we were
sitting in a hot tub together,the three of us kind of talking
about it, and we kind offinalized it and and one of the
one of the ways I sold it tomyself was I'm like, oh well, uh
(08:21):
and I, uh and I and if Iremember correctly it was, um,
we'd started doing some stuff in2005,.
But we wanted to like, do itfull time in 2006 and the way to
maybe do it full time to commitit's kind of quit your job.
And I remember thinking tomyself I'm like, oh well, I'm
not married yet and I don't havethe kids yet.
(08:43):
I'm like, oh, what a greatopportunity.
And I remember thinking tomyself, well, I can tell my
future wife.
I'm like, hey, you know, youmarried, you married someone
didn't have a job.
So I was looking at that goinguh.
Anyways, back then I feel likeit was easier.
I had a lot more risk because Iwas willing to.
You didn't have the samecommitments.
I mean I to me.
I think what's honorable andmuch harder to probably
(09:06):
accomplish is starting abusiness later in life, once
you've got some of thosecommitments or you've maybe been
, you know, beaten down withfear more.
So I don't know.
I guess I'm grateful enoughthat I did it when I was more
ignorant.
Definitely have some more painsthroughout life than I think
through the business because youare more ignorant, but at least
starting might've been easier.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, and that you know that tracks with what I
hear from people Like like it's,it's the the.
The risk tolerance obviously isrelated to how much you have to
lose, right.
And and I that's.
There's a lot less in yourscenario when you're younger and
and you know, you know beforefamily, all of that kind of
stuff, um, but also it comes Ithink some of it tracks back to
(09:51):
what you were saying about yourparents and kind of that work
ethic and working so hard iswhen you do that earlier on you
get the benefit of the lessonsthat you learned by.
Uh, you know that, thattenacity, that that hard work,
work ethic early, and then it itbecomes and I'll use air quotes
it becomes easier later on inbusiness because you've learned
(10:15):
all the lessons through the hardwork.
It seems like you're workinghard and you're spinning your
wheels, but then later on youget the benefit of all of that
right.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah Well, and I mean you try not to make the same
mistake when they say fail juststands for first attempt in
learning.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah, I mean, I mean,looking back, you go home.
That that was.
That was a fascinating uhsituation, but in the time it's
a very painful process.
So anyways, yeah, it's the kindof the joys of entrepreneurship
(10:44):
and and being in that seat lotsof, lots of benefits, but also,
uh uh, lots of opportunitiesfor pain as well yeah, yeah, and
we'll get into that.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I had a previous guest and I thought this was
brilliant.
Every, um, let's call it lessonevery, every mistake that
turned into, you know, alearning opportunity.
They put it in their books astuition, oh yeah, and I thought
that was brilliant because thenit really hits home Like that
was.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
We're not identifying it as a mistake, it was a
learning opportunity, yeah andI've also heard recently in a
coaching program you're eitheron the winning team or you're on
the learning team, Right?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I love that.
Yeah, all of these so great.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Oh yeah, yeah, I've been on both teams many times
yeah, yeah, yeah, and we'll getit we'll get into that.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
We'll get into that because I, because I know, I
know your, your, your path hasbeen winding and I love it.
Um, so you're, you're sittingin the hot tub.
You decide with your couple ofbuddies this is what, this is
what we're going to do.
What did that first, that firststep out, look like?
Like, was it identify theproperty and just jump in?
Or was it a year of kind ofbusiness case building things
(11:53):
and then, and then stepping outon the ledge?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, no, I think for us it was we had actually
started in in 2005.
And then we kind of made theformal decision to go full time
like a year later.
And then we kind of made theformal decision to go full-time
like a year later, uh.
So yeah, we just we just jumpedin, uh and we had lots of
different, um I guess,opportunities kind of present
themselves.
I remember, um, you know, I Imoved in, I was living in
(12:18):
calgary, I uh I bought my firsthouse within three months, uh,
of living in calgary and then Iactually bought my first, you
know, like flip within sixmonths.
So it started pretty quick.
Yeah.
But then it was more just thethree of us all kind of aligned
on how can we help each other,more in the in the full time and
(12:40):
less just kind of sporadic.
And I mean, yeah, but we didboth.
We did both jumped right in toopportunities that we saw, but
we also spent time on, you know,creating a business plan.
I look back now.
I remember we were strugglingon some of that business plan
and I just laughed at howignorant we were.
And, yes, so in one sense it'sgreat you're hiring someone to
(13:03):
help you, but at the same time,if you're so ignorant that you
don't even know and actuallythey're potentially not
everyone's created equal withtheir experience, and so it was
almost like the blind leadingthe blind.
I look back and I'm like, yeah,there wasn't a lot of value
that came out of that except for, again, the ability to learn
and that it is important and atsome point you're going to have
to know that stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Today you don't, but you will need it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's onething to bring in people to do
something.
It's another and I'm sure whatwill come up later on is kind of
this idea of mentorship andwhen to strategically bring in
people, to kind of give some ofthat guidance based on
experience, not just based ontheir ability to do a project or
to help you with a businessplan, but to guide Right.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Yeah, yeah and I mean , and one of the biggest things
I that I've used now for yearsis if you don't know where
you're going, all roads willtake you there.
Yeah, yeah.
And sometimes at the start, ifyou're just trying and you're
not thinking, you don't quitehave the understanding of what
business even is.
Like we jumped into it becausewe thought we could do it, had
(14:14):
no idea what business is like.
Understanding what is value,like what, what is the?
What is the point of a business?
People like, oh, it's to makemoney.
It's like, well, actually no, Ithink my opinion, I think the
point of a business.
People are like, oh, it's tomake money.
It's like, well, actually no, Ithink my opinion.
I think the point of a businessis to solve a problem.
And if you can solve a problem,if there's enough value in that
and there's enough of a marketand a thousand other different
(14:37):
factors, if you can actuallymake enough revenue to cover
your costs of delivering thatand you get get a profit, that
then is kind of the definitionof business.
It's offering a value to aproblem economically.
Yeah, and I mean I bet you ittook 10 years to truly kind of
understand that concept of whatis business, especially in the
(14:57):
real estate, a lot of the thingsthat we do they're very project
based.
So you're starting and stoppingevery time, starting and
stopping.
Everything has a start and anend.
You know you don't typicallyhave customers that repeat a
different type of a businessmodel.
It's more of it's aproject-based business model.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Um yeah, yeah, and so all of that is fascinating.
Your your comment about allroads if you don't know where
you're going.
All roads, uh, lead to what?
Oh geez I.
You don't know where you'regoing.
All roads lead to what?
Oh geez I.
Just put you where you're going.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
All roads will lead you there, and I think, I think
it might've been someone whosaid it and I find myself a lot
of times going right.
So now, a lot of times when,when we're getting into
something, I'll just stop and belike what is our desired
outcome?
Yeah.
What does success look like?
And if we can't answer that,we're not going any further.
(15:47):
Because the other thing that Iuse a lot when I give
presentations or with the teamI'm mentoring is and I love it
was the Albert Einstein quote,where if I had 60 minutes to
solve a problem, I'd spend 55minutes defining what the
problem is.
And so if we get caught up insomething and we're pulling in
different directions, I juststop and go, okay, like, where
are we going?
What is success?
(16:07):
Because if we don't know wherewe're going, then of course all
roads are going to take youthere.
I think that's one of thebiggest things over the years,
and the bigger you get, or themore people or the more you take
on, the more fragmented itbecomes.
And there's a huge similaritybetween that and the specific in
the in the business of likereal estate, which I think is
why we have a real estateshortage, because everything
(16:29):
matters instead of coming backand saying what matters the most
.
But that's a whole, separatetopic and maybe save that for a
later date yeah, no, um, I it's.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I, I completely% agree with all of that.
I think we run into it so oftenwith the changing landscape
that's around us, right, andit's moving so fast with
technology and regulation andpolicy and governments are
trying to keep up.
Every level of government istrying to keep up with the
changing expectations ofconsumers but the impacts of
(17:04):
economic challenges, pandemics,all of it, and so, at the end of
the day, everybody's makingdecisions and nobody's asking
what problem are we trying tosolve?
Right, like we're just tryingto get to this end state that we
don't know what it is, but like, what is it?
What problem are we trying tosolve with this particular
(17:27):
decision?
And I think, as we unpack yourstory, you're starting to like
you didn't just look at realestate.
You looked at real estate in adifferent lens.
So we'll get there.
I think we're at the pointwhere years and my paths cross
and I'm going to, I'm going toset the stage for that a little
bit.
No-transcript your flips.
(18:06):
I don't remember if you hadpartners in that deal.
I can't picture the transactionitself.
But, um, what, what, where wasthat in kind of the continuum,
and was that a launch point tokind of continuing on?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
yeah, I would say that was just another um.
I wouldn't say that was overlystrategic.
We did have partners, um, likethe partners I had talked about
started, but we also had somefinance partners and you know,
again, it's all about addingvalue and I think there was a
lot of times where we got offtrack and did projects that
didn't add value and then youpay for that afterwards and then
(18:59):
you pay for that afterwards.
So, in your particular example,like when you, when you, if you
buy an undervalued asset andmuch is that, it's a speculative
nature.
It's not what value are youoffering.
And so, um, we did a handful ofdifferent um transactions in
the earlier years.
Um, some some great, uh, somenot so much, and it was, I think
, kind of part of the learning.
One of the um, I think one ofthe, the, the most unique and
(19:24):
biggest opportunity that we had,that kind of launched.
Where we went is actually kindof interesting.
It was, I remember, we werelooking for a mentor is actually
how it went.
We were doing a bunch of thesedifferent things and it was like
ah, you know, we need someoneto help us, we need, we need
(19:46):
someone to help us, and so westarted searching like who are
some mentors in Saskatoon or whoare some some real estate gurus
?
And anyways, we came acrossthis, this gentleman in
Saskatoon, and somehow wenoticed he was one of the
mentors under under the Rajmanicprogram I think it was actually
Ken Ox and we saw that theywere having a business mixer in
a month and so we went out thereand we met with them and it was
(20:09):
really interesting.
He at the time said you knowwhat I love, what you guys are
doing, and hey, you'reSaskatchewan, born and raised
awesome good guys.
But he said you know, I justtook on a mentor by the name of
Carl Miller and really sad, sadstory he, his wife and his two
kids, actually was a head-oncollision just over a year ago
(20:30):
and the entire family was killed.
So it was super sad, but at thetime that's who he was talking
about.
And he said you know, I justtook on this young mentor, so I
don't have the time for you, butthere's another individual and
so, anyways, and we went and wemet with that new individual and
he said you know, I have thispotential opportunity.
A whole bunch of units, they'reup by the airport.
(20:51):
They had just been renovatedunder a government program,
you're going to have to find away to physically pick them up,
move them across town, put themback together.
But if you can pull it off,yeah, I'd be happy to be a
partner and a mentor of yours,and easier said than done.
But you know, six months laterwe put all the plans and
everything together and, sureenough, we ended up pulling off
(21:12):
that project and that was kindof how we got into doing larger
multifamily.
And when you think about, thebuildings were built back in the
50s.
They had been renovated under agovernment program.
So it made sense that you knowyou could pick them up and you
can move them across the city.
But it was like that doesn'texist in every neighborhood.
It's not like you can go findthese buildings.
(21:32):
And that's actually where westumbled upon modular
construction.
We stumbled upon wait a minute,why are we building the same
archaic way that we have forhundreds and hundreds of years?
Isn't there a more efficientway of building?
So that was actually how theinitial seed got planted for all
(21:54):
the advanced construction thatwe now do in all of our projects
.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
So we're going to go there next.
I just want to reflect on acouple of things that you said
in that piece of the story, thefirst piece being that I was not
a linchpin in the launch ofyour career or your next success
.
So let's just be clear aboutthat I had nothing to do with.
That's not true.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
You know what someone said once it's like a pinball
machine.
You got to go in for it, yougot to hit the sides, you got to
hit all that.
You were a part of the journey.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Trevor creation intended or otherwise.
You didn't articulate it, butthis your definition around
business identify a problem,create value to solve the
(22:46):
problem, and if there's a marketfor it, then you have a
business right.
It starts with it starts withproblem, and then value.
And value is kind of your northstar right, like where are we
continuing to add value?
And then, looking at it fromthat speculative townhouse
purchase, you didn't see all ofthose things come into play, and
(23:08):
so that really then justbecomes an investment.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah, and you know what?
I can't remember exactly.
I mean, one of them might'veadded value because it was at
the right price for a certainperiod of time, but it was more.
They were just investments,they weren't really value add.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Right, right.
Anyway, I like all of that,like you can start to
differentiate, because the otherthing that comes up in the
podcast a lot, whether it's saidoutright or using different
words, is this idea of purposebefore profit.
Right, you're, you're trying todo something first as a
business and then and, and, andthe profit obviously becomes a
(23:43):
major aspect and factor in thedecision-making and all of that
kind of thing.
Um, but really the business isthere for purpose first and
foremost, and um, yeah, and I Ican.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
It's fascinating.
I can tell you that we didn'treally have clear purpose and I
wouldn't say it's because, um, Iwould actually say that we
probably didn't understand orrecognize the need for how
valuable it was and and maybe wemight have intuitively acted in
(24:13):
a certain way around a purpose.
But we clarified it, uh, aboutfour years ago.
And building communities atfull throttle is the purpose
that we live and it's uh, I'musually I'm pretty loose with
words, those words.
There's so much in that, uh,but exactly to your point, uh,
(24:35):
purpose is so, so powerful yeah,and I hear that a lot too is is
that it?
Speaker 1 (24:41):
it?
It almost becomes malleablewith the, with the business,
like it's not a fixed purposefrom the starting point to the
end point.
It's like it.
It can change and it can belike the.
The guiding light that you'reusing as a purpose can evolve
over time with the business andand I think I think you've I
mean already identifying thatyou didn't, you don't know that.
(25:02):
You had one to begin with, andnow it's extremely articulated.
So let's get into that, let'sget into that transition.
You laid the story out reallywell.
It was not an intentional move,but it kind of evolved with
this first project to get on amentor or engage a mentor.
You moved a bunch of buildingsand now what was the catalyst to
(25:25):
start looking at more of thatmodular construction?
Uh, and what brought you to bigblock?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
yeah, exactly so.
Um, so at this point now, um,the opportunity had arose that
and you know what I I loved sooriginally from a small town
town went from a farm around asmall town, went to Saskatoon of
250,000, 300,000, whatever itwas at the time Said I want to
(25:51):
move to something bigger, gotthat job in Calgary and once
this opportunity came inSaskatoon, we removed some
buildings.
I was like you know, and bythis time I had been married, I
got married and first born.
I was like you know, my, bythis time I had been married, I
got married and my firstborn Iwas like you know.
My wife's family is originallyfrom Saskatoon and I'm really
focused on the business.
It's probably a goodopportunity to come home.
She will have a good supportgroup and I could be, you know,
(26:13):
kind of a bigger fish in asmaller sea.
So I kind of thought through asto I thought this was a
strategic move to do.
So I moved back to Saskatoon.
There was two of us inSaskatoon and one in Calgary at
the time, but, yeah, the focuswas on this project.
I think we did an exceptionaljob on it.
My focus was on theconstruction side of it and
(26:41):
that's where, kind of, like Isaid, the seeds have been
planted around now like themodular side of it, and my and
my business partner at the timeactually he was more focused on
the finance side, so he was onthe more on the financing, the
sales and the equity, and it wasinteresting because we really
started to see a need forhelping the affordable housing
sector.
There's huge gap on theaffordable housing sector at
(27:01):
that time still is, still is, itstill is.
Yeah, and now I can articulateit a little bit better, saying
you know, if you look at theentire housing spectrum,
affordable housing is one pieceof it and when you classify it,
you can actually say aboutroughly 5% of all the housing is
affordable housing.
But make no mistake, whatactually matters amongst
(27:21):
everything is housingaffordability.
Housing affordability affectsall, including affordable
housing.
But anyways, there was amandate in Saskatoon to say, hey
, we need to build a lot moreaffordable housing.
And so actually, you know, mybusiness partner really focused
on that and it was neat.
Again, this is how purpose kindof defined I was very much all
(27:42):
about we need to advanceconstruction methods, we need to
, like it's archaic, like let'sbe more productive, let's bring
things indoors, let's beefficient and let's you know,
let's help our economy succeed,and but we started doing a lot
of the affordable housingprojects and then, once I
started to see the impact thatit had on people's lives and our
(28:06):
community, on how much that'sreally where that purpose thing
continued to grow.
I would say the purpose, youknow, prior to that would have
been maybe advancingconstruction methods.
But once we really started toget into the affordable housing
space and then, as it evolved tobig block construction and
doing modular and helping a lotof different customers, some
(28:27):
that I'm super excited and proudto share about their journeys,
a lot of these amazing communityorganizations that need a
partner in the housing space,that is where a huge gap got
filled and the purpose was kindof completed as to building
(28:47):
communities at full throttle.
We build for developers andinvestors.
We also build for a lot ofoperators, nonprofit indigenous
groups and the stories that theyhave.
There's just so much more.
I would say impactful, or moreI don't want to say meaningful
maybe, because obviously,investors and developers, you're
still hitting a niche that'sextremely important, but it's
(29:10):
such a powerful story and thatreally touches the heart.
So I think it wasn't until wehad a few of those projects that
we had developed and seenfirsthand the impact and the the
meaning that it I guess that itgave that really helped define
our purpose.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
And so those early days, Alex, of kind of moving
into that modular, you identifythe affordable housing piece.
Were you a construction companyat that point?
Were you actually buildingunits or were you putting the
pieces together to haveaffordable housing built in
(29:49):
saskatoon?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
yeah, more the more the putting the pieces together
like, um, so we, we moved abunch of the, the buildings that
had been renovated, but whenyou think about it, we still had
to take certain pieces apartand bring in the right
contractors and have our owncrew move them across the city,
put foundations in siteservicing and at a time when the
market was booming, so weactually had to create our own
(30:11):
servicing company.
You know, in the first three orfour years we had over 100
employees.
Like just crazy when I lookback to like what were you
thinking?
Like, if you're an expert ateverything, you probably know
nothing but amazing opportunity.
So, yeah, we were kind of, wewere for sure a construction
company but we weren't buildingthe units.
(30:33):
And then when we got into thatmodular side of it, I toured a
bunch of facilities that buildmodular homes and it was
interesting because back thenand actually a lot of that still
exists today the modular plantsthat are out there.
They've been around for 50years and they are amazing at
(30:53):
building boxes but they'reactually more for remote regions
or rural regions.
Single family, more farm farmhomes, multi-family and modular
didn't exist and actually Iwould I would still bet that the
vast, vast majority ofmulti-family and modular like
modular multifamily projectsstill don't exist.
(31:15):
We have the most experience incanada.
We've and we've learned a lotof pain throughout the early
days, but what we really did atthat start is we saw an
opportunity going.
Wait a minute, this is anadvanced way of building.
Multifamily needs built,affordable multifamily needs
built.
How do we connect the dots?
And it took us years to workwith the modular manufacturer,
(31:49):
and now we've expanded tomultiple manufacturers and
teaching them how to get intothe multi-family side of it,
because building single family,you know, and more single family
or remote homes, versus now amulti-family, is a very, very
different beast.
And so that's that's probablywhere we spent, I'd say, three
or four years really perfectinghow to get into the multi-family
space and what, what, whattimeline are we talking about
here?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Like the early 2010s?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, I would say 2009 to 2012 or 2013 is when
we're really starting to hone inthe multifamily modular side of
it.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yeah, I want to go back to your comment about the
scaling, because I think this isagain, if we're trying to pull
out business lessons for thelistener and use these stories
as opportunities to not onlylearn but to identify with other
people's journeys as well thatrapid growth what did that look
(32:41):
like?
Where did things go right,where did things go wrong and
what was the correction, ifthere was one kind of at the end
of that?
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Oh, yeah, yeah, there was Well.
So if you think about this, allright, so challenging some
dates here, I think I startedthe business with the guys in
2000 or sorry, when I was 23,and fast forward.
So, like I'm, you know, I maybehave two young children.
I'm 27 or 28.
And next thing, you know, we'reup to over a hundred employees
(33:12):
and I have one other businesspartner.
We're both equal partners.
There's nobody overseeing us.
You got a couple of 27, 28 yearold kids running 100 people.
That's a recipe for disaster.
Now, thankfully, it wasn'tactually as much of a disaster
as it probably could have been,but it was neat because as we
(33:33):
were building, we were able tobring to the market a niche
housing opportunity for a lot ofpeople.
That that it, and we coulddeliver it fast.
So the sales got to a pointwhere the sales just kept going.
So it was my job just to kindof keep up.
It was on the operation side,right, and so it got to a point
where it became really, reallyefficient and then fast forward.
(33:55):
How many years.
All of a sudden, the salesmaybe weren't there.
But you know, we're bothpartners.
There's no one over top lookingat this.
We're still in our mid, latetwenties.
No one's saying hey guys,typical industry has ebbs and
flows.
Yeah.
Operations should never go aheadof sales Like what do you, what
do you?
But you know, naive, young,dumb and just keep going.
(34:17):
And and never could I fathomthat things would slow down.
Why?
I mean, we just kept building,building, building.
I think I remember being calleda dozer at the time.
Right, there was that a dozer,remember those like a fraggle
rock or something.
You just keep building.
I was like I don't know ifthat's a an endearing comment,
but anyways, building, building,building, right, building right
(34:40):
, it's a throwback.
And anyways, and so didn'treally have my head wrapped
around the market side of it.
And when things started to slowdown, we actually built some
rentals which kind of helpedfill that gap.
But ultimately, you know, oilcrashed in 2014.
It then took a few years, butit really did start to hit
(35:02):
residential market in about 2016, 17, 18.
And for those who madedecisions quickly in 2016-ish,
it was okay.
We hung on and we didn't meanto, we weren't trying.
It's not like we were justyoung and more ignorant saying,
well, I don't know if this isreally affecting us, is it?
And so there was some painthroughout 2016 and 17.
(35:25):
But really, in 2018 is where thepain hit, because now, you know
, some of the finance partnersbasically were like look, you're
overbuilt in Saskatoon, notgoing to approve another project
.
And so, no, it was like, oh, atthat point we had gone from,
you know, being profitable a fewyears prior to kind of barely
breaking even to now you can'teven build a project.
Well, if you can't build aproject and you're a
(35:47):
project-based business, where'sthe long-term success of the
business?
That was, for sure, one of themost painful things we had to go
through.
It was a restructuring andagain it was like how are we
going to add value and what arewe going to do, and kind of
restarting if you will.
It was like how are we going toadd value and what are we going
to do?
And kind of restarting if youwill.
(36:08):
But again, what a greatopportunity to kind of um, you
know, to restart under um, a newset of lens and a new value.
And you're not restartingwithout knowledge, you're
restarting with an amazingamount of knowledge.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Uh, so, yeah, anyways , I'll stop there, but and and
uh, was it?
Uh?
I should know the answer tothis, but at what point did you
become big block construction?
Was it during that transitionor was it before that?
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, exactly Prior to that, we were kind of like a
developer and a constructioncompany all in one, and then
what we did is the businesspartner and I we both decided,
okay, we still owned a bunch ofrentals together, a great
relationship and happy with that.
But we said, okay, we kind ofhave a couple different paths
forward.
It was at that point where umbrought on a handful of the team
(36:49):
and, uh, and we started tobuild big block construction
where we weren't a developer,more of a design build general
contractor, more of adevelopment partner for a lot of
the nonprofit groups reallywanted to help others, because
really, when you think about it,we did not have an unlimited
supply of land or an unlimitedsupply of capital or an
(37:13):
unlimited supply of a market.
We knew how to build really,really well.
We knew how to design buildmodular construction.
We could scale that, and so thebusiness model with big block
construction is, as a designbuild partner, as a design build
general contractor, we can helpgroups that have land that have
need, that have access tofunding, and so that's really
(37:34):
where we took the opportunity to, I guess, reset our own
expectations and know wherewe're going, and then, yeah,
it's been an awesome, reallyreally awesome, five years since
.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
And how many staff do you have now?
Just under 30.
Yeah, so that transition from100 plus to under 30, was it
kind of in that 2018 timeline,was it kind of overnight, or was
it a slow drop and then a slowincrease, kind of yeah um.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
It came in different, in different waves so, and we
kind of started with only a few,ramped up to over 100 um within
a few short years I think thatwas about 2020-12, if I'm not
mistaken and then we started torefine some processes and by
about 2014 or 2015, I think, wehad got down to about 40 really,
really, really solid um, youknow, efficient, trained,
(38:32):
awesome people.
And then that's why, to me,2018 was, for sure, one of the
most painful things I ever wentthrough, and it was um, because
at the looking back now it makesa lot of sense.
I we readjusted, we found ournew North star, we found a way
to survive and thrive, but atthe time that's not what it
looks like.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
World's coming to an end.
You're laying people off.
You don't know how this isgoing to work.
You're looking, am I going to bebankrupt?
We made decisions way too late.
You think it's the end of theworld.
You think people are going togo homeless.
You think people are not goingto get their feet underneath
them.
And horrible, painfulexperience that I don't wish on
(39:13):
anyone Horrible, horrible,painful At the same time.
I'm so grateful I went throughit and there's not a day that
goes by that I don't use that aspart of my North Star to make
sure that I'm protecting ourteam, ensuring that we add value
, ensuring, you know, financial,uh due diligence in our
organization going forward,because I don't want to repeat
(39:33):
that like that was a, that was atrauma, that, um, that, to me,
has kind of given us someguiding principles.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
I think anybody can probably do a top guess or a top
three guesses of what youranswer to this question is going
to be.
But what was the hardest partabout that transition?
Speaker 2 (39:58):
It was 100% the people side of it.
I mean, I looked at it.
We had been head down buildinga business offering value to
people, growing team members,amazing relationship bonding for
years, and it all becomes injeopardy With something that you
(40:20):
maybe never saw coming, was notin your control interest rates
or market or oil.
Things changed and it impactedyou extremely severely and not
knowing where you're goinganymore, I mean you start
questioning everything.
One you know that you can'tafford to pay many people, so
you have to lay off, and this isnot just like a little layoffs,
(40:43):
this is like 90% plus layoffs.
So you ask yourself did I evenbuild anything worth?
Did I even add value?
Like you start questioningeverything.
What was the purpose?
Like I've spent the last 10years building business and
almost having to restart.
Maybe I shouldn't do this.
Am I not good at it?
A lot of personal reflectiongoes into this too, and
(41:04):
sometimes I think I can see alot of people not breaking out
of that because it's such anegative thing to go through, a
painful thing to go through, andyou worry or at least I did, I
worried about all the peoplegoing.
They're going to have jobs,they're going to make their
mortgage payments?
How are they going to about allthe people going?
How are they going to have jobs?
Are they going to make theirmortgage payments?
How are they going to?
And those were really reallyhard conversations.
(41:26):
Looking back, two more seniorpeople came right up to me,
shook my hand and said thank you, brother, it's been a ride,
it's the best opportunity I'veever had.
And kind of stuck with mebecause I was like well, those
are outliers, like that's weird.
(41:46):
The rest of us were all sobbingand in pain and and I got these
couple guys and I'm like whatthe?
And they're just like oh, thisis a construction history.
We've been through this beforeand yeah, right, love what you
and and it didn't.
I didn't really let that sinkin.
It probably took me at leastthree years to truly forgive
myself for what happened.
Um, but yeah, yeah, sorry.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
No, Alex, I appreciate you sharing the
vulnerability, Because I think Ihope that the people that
listen can understand that thisdoesn't just happen to them,
(42:32):
Because I would be shocked Ithink everybody would be shocked
to know the number of peoplethat this happens to.
And I've talked about it beforeon the podcast.
I've talked about it elsewherethat a big gap in understanding
business ownership is thatbusiness owners have a
(42:55):
connection to the people aroundthem that isn't appreciated
enough and you build trust andthen, when things like this
happen, you feel like youbreached that trust right.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
You do.
You do trust right, you do youdo, um, thankfully there's, you
know you have an amazing supportteam, or you hope to have an
amazing support team around you,that that keeps you alive and
keeps you supported.
Um, and then, as time goes on,you you can start to understand
why it happened.
I think one of the biggestproblems for me is not
understanding the why.
Uh, because, am I a failure?
(43:28):
Were they a failure?
Was the business model failure?
Do we not have, like there's somany questions and but what I
did, I did recover from it.
It was.
It was painful, for sure, butunbelievable lessons come from
it.
And I remember someone tellingme afterwards you know, people
aren't going to judge you bythat action.
They're going to judge youabout how you treated them for
(43:50):
the years that you worked withthem, and I felt really damn
good about actually how wetreated them.
And I look at where lots ofthem are today and where lots of
them are.
We still work now together,both in the same company in
another company.
It's amazing how many of thesame people I work with but at
the time, complete, completeuncertainty and yeah, it was.
(44:12):
I get very emotional over boththe staff and the commitment to
it and also our customers andthe value that we offer, because
you also, I know how valuableit is to offer what we're doing
to our customers.
And then I also go.
Not only am I impacting ourstaff and their families, but if
(44:35):
we can't offer value to ourcustomers, then they're impacted
too.
Those are the two things thatreally drive me, and so I've
learned a lot of those lessonsand I'd say I'm a little bit
older and a little bit wiser.
Again, I have no idea wherethat spectrum is and I think we
continue just to get older andwe continue to get wiser.
But I definitely use a lot ofthose lessons learned to protect
the organization, to protectour team and to protect our
(44:57):
customers, ultimately so that wecan ensure values added for
many years to come.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, they're hard lessons and, as you
pointed out, when I said, Ithink anybody could guess
probably the top one or the topthree items, and as soon as you
said people, it was the peopleaspect.
You know what?
It's always the people aspect.
That's always the best part andit's always the hardest part.
(45:27):
It just is yeah, always thebest part and it's always the
hardest part.
It just is yeah.
Um, I want to shift a littlebit and just talk.
I would just explore uh kind of, as we close out here, um,
maybe you're, you're the biggestproject that you undertook and
more of more of the businessside of that, like kind of your,
(45:48):
your financing strategies anduh, and and the partnerships
that were required and how youbuilt kind of the, the team, the
collective team, not just yourteam, but the collective team uh
around, uh building, buildingsome of the biggest projects
that you've undertaken yeah,well, you know, I'll, I give a,
(46:08):
maybe I'll give a specificexample.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
That kind of ties into, I think, our purpose of
building communities at fullthrottle and how it helped kind
of kickstart Big Block to whereit is, and it definitely ties in
what you were saying.
We had a really coolopportunity to work with Comfy
and we still work with them, butit's the central urban metis
(46:30):
federation incorporated comfy,um and their leader, uh, shirley
, is bister um, unbelievable.
Love her and let's see if I canscrew this quote up, but she
says a quote that I love andadmire.
She's, like you know, the, the,the, the speed of the leader
(46:51):
determines the rate of the pack.
I said the rate, the, the speedof the leader determines the
rate of the pack.
I did screw it up, but I'm sureI think you get the comment
there.
You get the intent of it um,speed of leader determines the
rate of pack.
No, that's it.
And we had an opportunity towork um their gm at the time,
kelly pruden.
He reached out and it was in2019 and he said look, they're
(47:13):
looking at building an elderslodge, metis specific elders
lodge, and we had done lots ofmodular, a lot of affordable
housing, and so it fit, uh.
But there was a lot of thingswe didn't know, and so he
invited us to this integrateddesign charrette where we got to
learn from the elders.
You know, and this was beforecovid it's fascinating because,
you know, like, a few monthslater you look at covid, like,
oh, I would never be in a roomwith, with right, 40 elders,
(47:35):
right, but I remembered vividly,we broke into these in these
groups, and the elders weretalking about, you know, uh, how
their generation works and andwhy they need to, you know, more
of a meaty, specific andtraditional and so that we can
raise our kids and and havethese, these opportunities for
growth.
(47:56):
And I remember they didn't saywe've been talking about this
for over 20 years and I justhope it gets built before I die.
And I thought to myself, mike,we've been in business for 10
years, we've built over 20projects.
How could you not have this?
If this is so valuable to you,your community, why don't you
(48:20):
have this?
Why don't you?
It's not a lack of will ordetermination.
So I remember coming out ofthat meeting talking to our
staff being like we have a dutyhere, we, we need to add our
value.
And I remember it was a bitdaunting because, okay, like
we're going to build a Métisproject, uh, an elders lodge,
and like there's there's morethings that I don't know about
(48:43):
that than I do know, but we weresmart enough and aware enough
to say, ok, we don't knowanything about certain pieces of
this, then let's find the rightexperts to help guide us
through, no different than theywere relying on our expertise to
guide them through a project,because to me it was easy to be
able to work through a project.
But my challenges were some ofthe funding pieces which we then
(49:04):
found partners to go through,five funders, seven programs,
extremely, extremely complicated, which I could talk a long time
on.
A separate thing about why a lotof affordable housing doesn't
get built, because if it doesn'tpencil and you have to bring in
some supports, it onlycompounds the complexity of it.
It is so complex but, um, butso that side of it, and then
(49:25):
obviously the elder side of itand, and understanding a lot of
the um, you know the specificcultural elements I didn't know
anything about.
So you bring in architects whoprobably will have forgotten
more than I'll ever learn andthat's not to be a negative, but
just if they're so ingrained init and so you capitalize on, on
their abilities, you tie it inand it was an unbelievable
project and I'll and I'll neverforget the day we turned dirt.
(49:49):
I got emotional and it wasbecause I could see the joy in
Shirley's eyes as she spoke, andthat's when it really helped
solidify for us.
It was about buildingcommunities at full throttle.
A lot of people talk about them, a lot of people design or
consult, but at the end of theday, we need to build.
We actually have to take action,and communities can encompass a
(50:10):
lot of people design or consultbut at the end of the day, we
need to build.
We actually have to take action, and communities can encompass
a lot of things but, in thatparticular sense, helping our
customers on something thatthey're amazing at community
building.
They're they're amazingcommunity advocates.
Um, they have hundreds ofrental units and they know how
to take care of people and tobuild them up.
They needed a developmentpartner and what's awesome about
(50:33):
that particular partnership andI call it a partnership?
At the end of the day, they'retheir projects.
We're just a fee for service,but I do call it a partnership
because that's what I trulybelieve in and it's that whole
people side of it that you know,our culture is about
partnerships.
We've built two projects withthem and we actually just turned
dirt on the third project.
And it's those relationships,those partnerships, that can
(50:56):
grow and expand over time and Ithink that's really helped
define who we are and helped usunderstand the pieces of the
journey for our customers on howwe can, on where we can add
value so we can make adifference.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
I am so glad I asked that question because that kind
of put a bow on so many thingsthat you were talking about,
like the path of theorganization, the North Star,
kind of changing as you evolved,as the company evolved, as the
(51:33):
need of the community evolved.
Um, I have to get closure onone piece of that story.
Why hadn't it been built for 20years?
Is it because of all the thingsthat you outlined, all of those
challenges that you sawyourself?
Is, was that just daunting foranybody else to actually get get
the dirt turn?
Speaker 2 (51:53):
yeah, you know, I think, um, um, I probably
wouldn't oversimplify it to justone specific item um, you know,
I could if I flip it and put itinto your lens.
Why aren't more homes beingbuilt right now?
Sure and there's's a whole offof it.
What I can say is I mean Icould talk for a long time on
(52:14):
that side of it alone, but ifthere's a reason we're not
building homes and there's a lotof them affordable housing is
probably 10 times morecomplicated.
Right.
Right.
So I would just say it wasn'tfor a lack of will or trying.
I don't know about some oftheir previous, but I can tell
you it's just.
It's a very complicated beastbecause it's probably 10 times
(52:36):
harder than more market ratewhere it's one funder.
So, again, what I love aboutthat is I'm just so grateful
that we could help them and nowwe're a strong advocate for that
.
But it is amazing for that.
But it is amazing and I guess Iwon't get into it now but it's
amazing how many um roadblocksare out there and how how you
think you know different groupsand even government want these
(53:00):
things built.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
But it's amazing how the roadblocks, the gatekeepers
that and I don't think they meanto be that, but it's so
fragmented it makes itimpossible almost to get
projects built yeah, um, on thecomplexity side, I often say
that anybody who starts aconversation about, uh, fixing
(53:22):
the, the housing challenges inCanada, anybody that starts a
conversation with all they needto do, is I'm like, I'm out,
like that that's not aconversation I'm gonna
participate in because becausethat there is no all they need
to do.
And that applies to so manythings like like health care and
the economy and, like so manythings in the world today,
(53:44):
there's no fix yeah, there's noone fix what I.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
What I do find interesting, though, is how many
times we are not asking theright people and listening to
the right people.
And I look at this and we'vespent 15 years over 16 years now
doing this.
We have an unbelievable amountof experience across different
(54:09):
projects that we would love tohelp showcase, and it's
fascinating how we don'tactually take those good
examples.
It's fascinating how we, associety, don't look at that and
go, hey, why don't we just takewhat's been done successfully
and repeat it?
It's almost like we have toreinvent it every time.
I think the answers actuallyare there If we had strong
enough leadership to find it andto promote it and to unpack it
(54:34):
and to empower it.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
Well, let's you and I , before we started the podcast,
we said we're long overdue 20years overdue for a sit down
lunch and to really just unpacksome of this stuff.
A sit down lunch and to reallyjust unpack some of this stuff.
Let's plan to do that in 2025.
And let's see if we cancollectively make our mark on on
changing some of these thingsgoing forward Because, as you
pointed out, it's complex.
(55:00):
It's not going to become anyeasier Unless people start to
look at what that North Star is,what is the problem we're
trying to solve and how do webring the right people together
to solve it.
And I think you have a greatcontribution to that.
So, alex, truly man, Iappreciate this conversation.
(55:25):
I appreciate all of the storiesand certainly the many lessons
that you were able to share.
I think any listener, whetherthey're experienced in business
if they're experienced inbusiness, they'll relate to a
lot of the things, and ifthey're not, it'll help set them
on the right path.
So really, really appreciateyou taking the time.
Speaker 2 (55:46):
Thank you, Trevor.
I think it was just an absoluteblast and an honor.
I appreciate all that you'redoing.
Thanks for having me the time.
Thank you, Trevor, I think itwas just an.
It was an absolute blast and anhonor.
I appreciate all that you'redoing.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
Thanks for having me yeah, thank you, man.
Hi there, I'm Trevor Coote, and this is Business is
Fucking Hard, the podcast wherebusiness owners pull back the
curtain and talk about therealities of owning a business.
We'll hear their stories, learnsome lessons and have some fun
along the way.
Thanks for joining us.
On today's episode, we arejoined by Alex Miller.
(00:21):
Alex is co-founder and CEO ofBig Block Construction, located
in Saskatoon, saskatchewan.
Alex has navigated his businessjourney focused on real estate
and real estate development.
His companies have challengedthe traditional thinking and
construction practices, whichhas not come without its own
challenges for Alex and hisbusinesses.
I hope you enjoy this episode,alex Miller.
(00:43):
Welcome to the podcast.
Trevor Coote, thank you verymuch for having me.
It is my pleasure I say thisevery time I'm excited to have
this conversation.
I genuinely am.
I think people will hear thatwe've got quite a history almost
20 years and we went ondifferent paths, but our lives
(01:07):
keep intersecting and I lookforward to having the
conversation about when we firstmet, because I think that's I
reflect on it once in a while,and that was a long time ago.
So thanks for taking the time,alex, looking forward to hearing
your story, as I do witheveryone.
Let's get started with what wasyour introduction to business
(01:29):
and entrepreneurship?
How did you get started?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, great question.
So I think so.
Look, I grew up on a farm,southern Saskatchewan, all right
, and you know so, probably atypical farm kid.
I learned how to work hard.
You know so, probably a typicalfarm kid.
I learned how to work hard.
And it was interesting because,you know, my parents my mom,
have had multiple jobs, andstill does, actually, and
(01:53):
they're well into theirseventies.
My dad farms and he's big intothe cattle, which it's funny.
He asked farmers.
Like you know, grain farming isenough of a challenge.
Then you add cattle.
It never ends right, like atleast sometimes with grain
farming.
You can take breaks, um, uh,throughout winter, but anyways.
So, uh, definitely learned howto work hard, but I was allergic
(02:13):
to a lot of stuff on the farm.
So I, you know, lived with mygrandma in town, in small town
of Avonlea, uh, for a couple ofdifferent months throughout the
year when it was bad harvest or,you know, a spring mold, things
like that.
So, um, so I knew that I wasn'tgoing to be able to take on the
family farm or anything likethat, um, so it was interesting.
I, I was good at math andscience and you know, you come
(02:36):
from a small town and you knowI'm oversimplifying this, but
it's like, ah, you got fouroptions in life, right, you stay
farming a teacher, an engineeror something else.
So I was like, well, okay, I'llgo become an engineer.
So, cause, I'm good at math andscience, right, so I go into
engineering.
And I'm there for a couple ofmonths and I was like, what is
(02:57):
this?
This is not me.
So I remember phoning my, mydad, being like what's happening
here?
Like this, this can't be for me.
And he said, look, you'reallergic to everything on the
farm.
And then my dad lost his dadwhen he was 30 or 40.
I can't remember, maybe early30s, and so he didn't.
He just said, look, there's,there's not really anything here
for you.
(03:17):
Go get an education and finishengineering, and then you'll
figure out what you want to do.
So unbelievable advice.
Looking back 20, some yearslater and put my head down, and
I learned how to learn.
I learned how to get throughsomething that maybe I wasn't
really passionate about.
I learned how to solve problems.
And so it was in my lastsemester of engineering where
(03:37):
I'm like, all right, I guess Igot to figure out what the hell
I'm going to do in life, becauseI know it's not engineering,
and so I read a whole bunch ofbooks.
I've never read books that Ididn't have to before in my life
, it's kind of sad to say and Ifound that most people that had
like freedom financial freedomhad either businesses or real
estate in their portfolio, andso I was actually in my last
(04:01):
semester of engineering that Isaid I'm going to make a
business out of real estate,that was how I got into it.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And so inspired.
Inspired by books.
I love the.
I love the aspect of tenacityaround the education, just to
just to work through it, eventhough you know you, you, you
knew that that might not be theexact direction.
What so inspired?
For the real estate side, whatwas that first introduction to?
(04:31):
What could you see being yourfirst move as it related to real
estate?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
after kind of reading , Well, and to help maybe
clarify.
I don't know if I was like.
I don't know if it came frombooks, it was more when, the way
I grew up, I saw my parentswork so hard and didn't really
have much from a financialperspective.
We always had food on the table.
You know, we were always.
(04:57):
We were always happy and fullof joy, but we didn't have
luxuries.
We didn't have all those otheritems and and I just felt like
they were a great lifestyleright.
Well, to some degree, I mean,you're always working you kind
of, and so I think it was moredriven out of a value of.
It didn't seem fair to me thatthey worked so hard and yet
couldn't take time off or didn'thave some of the luxuries.
(05:19):
I think maybe is what drove it,so that then then books was an
opportunity to try to unpack itmore.
But, um, I was fortunate enoughlike I finished my engineering
and mechanical engineering and Igot a great job out in calgary,
and but I had already plantedthe seed in my head of, okay,
I'm gonna get into real estate,I'm gonna get into business.
I don't know what that lookslike.
Um, I'm also gonna go down mycareer path currently Right, and
(05:43):
so, as I was, you know, um,working through, uh, the great
opportunity that I had inCalgary.
I worked in the oil and gasindustry for a year and a half
uh, great learning opportunity.
But it was at the time where,like I said, the seed had
already been planted where I'mlike, all right, I got to get
into this game.
And so, you know, it was likemost starts to business,
(06:05):
probably a whole bunch ofbouncing all over the place and
trying to figure out what does abusiness in real estate look
like.
And so I think a lot of timesit starts with some simple flips
, trying to find an undervaluedasset and adding value, and then
, you know, seeing the monetarygain from the value that you
(06:26):
were adding.
But of course, there's so muchmore to it than that.
But I think that's kind of howit started, with some initial
flips trying to understand whata business in real estate was
all about.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And we'll get to the story in like two seconds around
where years of my paths firstcrossed.
Um, but I was there, was therestuff before that, like you had
a?
Where were the flips in incalgary and what did that?
How?
I my my biggest question alwayswhen we start talking about,
(07:03):
you know, the first moves inbusiness was how scared were you
?
How, what, what?
What was the fear factor foryou around stepping out on that
ledge and and making that firstinvestment and pulling the
trigger and saying I guess thisis the path I'm going to go down
?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah, funny, funny.
You should mention that becauseactually I haven't thought
about this honestly for a longtime.
That's the fun part about thispodcast.
You're bringing up stuff.
I'm like, oh damn, I remember,uh.
So another guy that I hadgraduated engineering with,
tyler.
(07:39):
We were good friends, we workedactually together at the same
company, so of course I'mtalking about how I want to do
this and very smart guy andactually hilarious.
We still work together this day.
It was a business partner stillis in many aspects.
It was a great, great guy andwe talked through a bunch of
this.
But then also one of my bestbuddies growing up and he was
(08:01):
one of the best men at mywedding and he lived in
Saskatoon at the time, and soactually it was the three of us
that started talking about thisand we all had this desire to do
something more and I actuallyremember we were, we were
sitting in a hot tub together,the three of us kind of talking
about it, and we kind offinalized it and and one of the
one of the ways I sold it tomyself was I'm like, oh well, uh
(08:21):
and I, uh and I and if Iremember correctly it was, um,
we'd started doing some stuff in2005,.
But we wanted to like, do itfull time in 2006 and the way to
maybe do it full time to commitit's kind of quit your job.
And I remember thinking tomyself I'm like, oh well, I'm
not married yet and I don't havethe kids yet.
(08:43):
I'm like, oh, what a greatopportunity.
And I remember thinking tomyself, well, I can tell my
future wife.
I'm like, hey, you know, youmarried, you married someone
didn't have a job.
So I was looking at that goinguh.
Anyways, back then I feel likeit was easier.
I had a lot more risk because Iwas willing to.
You didn't have the samecommitments.
I mean I to me.
I think what's honorable andmuch harder to probably
(09:06):
accomplish is starting abusiness later in life, once
you've got some of thosecommitments or you've maybe been
, you know, beaten down withfear more.
So I don't know.
I guess I'm grateful enoughthat I did it when I was more
ignorant.
Definitely have some more painsthroughout life than I think
through the business because youare more ignorant, but at least
starting might've been easier.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, and that you know that tracks with what I
hear from people Like like it's,it's the the.
The risk tolerance obviously isrelated to how much you have to
lose, right.
And and I that's.
There's a lot less in yourscenario when you're younger and
and you know, you know beforefamily, all of that kind of
stuff, um, but also it comes Ithink some of it tracks back to
(09:51):
what you were saying about yourparents and kind of that work
ethic and working so hard iswhen you do that earlier on you
get the benefit of the lessonsthat you learned by.
Uh, you know that, thattenacity, that that hard work,
work ethic early, and then it itbecomes and I'll use air quotes
it becomes easier later on inbusiness because you've learned
(10:15):
all the lessons through the hardwork.
It seems like you're workinghard and you're spinning your
wheels, but then later on youget the benefit of all of that
right.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah Well, and I mean you try not to make the same
mistake when they say fail juststands for first attempt in
learning.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah, I mean, I mean,looking back, you go home.
That that was.
That was a fascinating uhsituation, but in the time it's
a very painful process.
So anyways, yeah, it's the kindof the joys of entrepreneurship
(10:44):
and and being in that seat lotsof, lots of benefits, but also,
uh uh, lots of opportunitiesfor pain as well yeah, yeah, and
we'll get into that.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
I had a previous guest and I thought this was
brilliant.
Every, um, let's call it lessonevery, every mistake that
turned into, you know, alearning opportunity.
They put it in their books astuition, oh yeah, and I thought
that was brilliant because thenit really hits home Like that
was.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
We're not identifying it as a mistake, it was a
learning opportunity, yeah andI've also heard recently in a
coaching program you're eitheron the winning team or you're on
the learning team, Right?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
I love that.
Yeah, all of these so great.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Oh yeah, yeah, I've been on both teams many times
yeah, yeah, yeah, and we'll getit we'll get into that.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
We'll get into that because I, because I know, I
know your, your, your path hasbeen winding and I love it.
Um, so you're, you're sittingin the hot tub.
You decide with your couple ofbuddies this is what, this is
what we're going to do.
What did that first, that firststep out, look like?
Like, was it identify theproperty and just jump in?
Or was it a year of kind ofbusiness case building things
(11:53):
and then, and then stepping outon the ledge?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, no, I think for us it was we had actually
started in in 2005.
And then we kind of made theformal decision to go full time
like a year later.
And then we kind of made theformal decision to go full-time
like a year later, uh.
So yeah, we just we just jumpedin, uh and we had lots of
different, um I guess,opportunities kind of present
themselves.
I remember, um, you know, I Imoved in, I was living in
(12:18):
calgary, I uh I bought my firsthouse within three months, uh,
of living in calgary and then Iactually bought my first, you
know, like flip within sixmonths.
So it started pretty quick.
Yeah.
But then it was more just thethree of us all kind of aligned
on how can we help each other,more in the in the full time and
(12:40):
less just kind of sporadic.
And I mean, yeah, but we didboth.
We did both jumped right in toopportunities that we saw, but
we also spent time on, you know,creating a business plan.
I look back now.
I remember we were strugglingon some of that business plan
and I just laughed at howignorant we were.
And, yes, so in one sense it'sgreat you're hiring someone to
(13:03):
help you, but at the same time,if you're so ignorant that you
don't even know and actuallythey're potentially not
everyone's created equal withtheir experience, and so it was
almost like the blind leadingthe blind.
I look back and I'm like, yeah,there wasn't a lot of value
that came out of that except for, again, the ability to learn
and that it is important and atsome point you're going to have
to know that stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Today you don't, but you will need it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's onething to bring in people to do
something.
It's another and I'm sure whatwill come up later on is kind of
this idea of mentorship andwhen to strategically bring in
people, to kind of give some ofthat guidance based on
experience, not just based ontheir ability to do a project or
to help you with a businessplan, but to guide Right.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Yeah, yeah and I mean , and one of the biggest things
I that I've used now for yearsis if you don't know where
you're going, all roads willtake you there.
Yeah, yeah.
And sometimes at the start, ifyou're just trying and you're
not thinking, you don't quitehave the understanding of what
business even is.
Like we jumped into it becausewe thought we could do it, had
(14:14):
no idea what business is like.
Understanding what is value,like what, what is the?
What is the point of a business?
People like, oh, it's to makemoney.
It's like, well, actually no, Ithink my opinion, I think the
point of a business.
People are like, oh, it's tomake money.
It's like, well, actually no, Ithink my opinion.
I think the point of a businessis to solve a problem.
And if you can solve a problem,if there's enough value in that
and there's enough of a marketand a thousand other different
(14:37):
factors, if you can actuallymake enough revenue to cover
your costs of delivering thatand you get get a profit, that
then is kind of the definitionof business.
It's offering a value to aproblem economically.
Yeah, and I mean I bet you ittook 10 years to truly kind of
understand that concept of whatis business, especially in the
(14:57):
real estate, a lot of the thingsthat we do they're very project
based.
So you're starting and stoppingevery time, starting and
stopping.
Everything has a start and anend.
You know you don't typicallyhave customers that repeat a
different type of a businessmodel.
It's more of it's aproject-based business model.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Um yeah, yeah, and so all of that is fascinating.
Your your comment about allroads if you don't know where
you're going.
All roads, uh, lead to what?
Oh geez I.
You don't know where you'regoing.
All roads lead to what?
Oh geez I.
Just put you where you're going.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
All roads will lead you there, and I think, I think
it might've been someone whosaid it and I find myself a lot
of times going right.
So now, a lot of times when,when we're getting into
something, I'll just stop and belike what is our desired
outcome?
Yeah.
What does success look like?
And if we can't answer that,we're not going any further.
(15:47):
Because the other thing that Iuse a lot when I give
presentations or with the teamI'm mentoring is and I love it
was the Albert Einstein quote,where if I had 60 minutes to
solve a problem, I'd spend 55minutes defining what the
problem is.
And so if we get caught up insomething and we're pulling in
different directions, I juststop and go, okay, like, where
are we going?
What is success?
(16:07):
Because if we don't know wherewe're going, then of course all
roads are going to take youthere.
I think that's one of thebiggest things over the years,
and the bigger you get, or themore people or the more you take
on, the more fragmented itbecomes.
And there's a huge similaritybetween that and the specific in
the in the business of likereal estate, which I think is
why we have a real estateshortage, because everything
(16:29):
matters instead of coming backand saying what matters the most
.
But that's a whole, separatetopic and maybe save that for a
later date yeah, no, um, I it's.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I, I completely% agree with all of that.
I think we run into it so oftenwith the changing landscape
that's around us, right, andit's moving so fast with
technology and regulation andpolicy and governments are
trying to keep up.
Every level of government istrying to keep up with the
changing expectations ofconsumers but the impacts of
(17:04):
economic challenges, pandemics,all of it, and so, at the end of
the day, everybody's makingdecisions and nobody's asking
what problem are we trying tosolve?
Right, like we're just tryingto get to this end state that we
don't know what it is, but like, what is it?
What problem are we trying tosolve with this particular
(17:27):
decision?
And I think, as we unpack yourstory, you're starting to like
you didn't just look at realestate.
You looked at real estate in adifferent lens.
So we'll get there.
I think we're at the pointwhere years and my paths cross
and I'm going to, I'm going toset the stage for that a little
bit.
No-transcript your flips.
(18:06):
I don't remember if you hadpartners in that deal.
I can't picture the transactionitself.
But, um, what, what, where wasthat in kind of the continuum,
and was that a launch point tokind of continuing on?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
yeah, I would say that was just another um.
I wouldn't say that was overlystrategic.
We did have partners, um, likethe partners I had talked about
started, but we also had somefinance partners and you know,
again, it's all about addingvalue and I think there was a
lot of times where we got offtrack and did projects that
didn't add value and then youpay for that afterwards and then
(18:59):
you pay for that afterwards.
So, in your particular example,like when you, when you, if you
buy an undervalued asset andmuch is that, it's a speculative
nature.
It's not what value are youoffering.
And so, um, we did a handful ofdifferent um transactions in
the earlier years.
Um, some some great, uh, somenot so much, and it was, I think
, kind of part of the learning.
One of the um, I think one ofthe, the, the most unique and
(19:24):
biggest opportunity that we had,that kind of launched.
Where we went is actually kindof interesting.
It was, I remember, we werelooking for a mentor is actually
how it went.
We were doing a bunch of thesedifferent things and it was like
ah, you know, we need someoneto help us, we need, we need
(19:46):
someone to help us, and so westarted searching like who are
some mentors in Saskatoon or whoare some some real estate gurus
?
And anyways, we came acrossthis, this gentleman in
Saskatoon, and somehow wenoticed he was one of the
mentors under under the Rajmanicprogram I think it was actually
Ken Ox and we saw that theywere having a business mixer in
a month and so we went out thereand we met with them and it was
(20:09):
really interesting.
He at the time said you knowwhat I love, what you guys are
doing, and hey, you'reSaskatchewan, born and raised
awesome good guys.
But he said you know, I justtook on a mentor by the name of
Carl Miller and really sad, sadstory he, his wife and his two
kids, actually was a head-oncollision just over a year ago
(20:30):
and the entire family was killed.
So it was super sad, but at thetime that's who he was talking
about.
And he said you know, I justtook on this young mentor, so I
don't have the time for you, butthere's another individual and
so, anyways, and we went and wemet with that new individual and
he said you know, I have thispotential opportunity.
A whole bunch of units, they'reup by the airport.
(20:51):
They had just been renovatedunder a government program,
you're going to have to find away to physically pick them up,
move them across town, put themback together.
But if you can pull it off,yeah, I'd be happy to be a
partner and a mentor of yours,and easier said than done.
But you know, six months laterwe put all the plans and
everything together and, sureenough, we ended up pulling off
(21:12):
that project and that was kindof how we got into doing larger
multifamily.
And when you think about, thebuildings were built back in the
50s.
They had been renovated under agovernment program.
So it made sense that you knowyou could pick them up and you
can move them across the city.
But it was like that doesn'texist in every neighborhood.
It's not like you can go findthese buildings.
(21:32):
And that's actually where westumbled upon modular
construction.
We stumbled upon wait a minute,why are we building the same
archaic way that we have forhundreds and hundreds of years?
Isn't there a more efficientway of building?
So that was actually how theinitial seed got planted for all
(21:54):
the advanced construction thatwe now do in all of our projects
.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
So we're going to go there next.
I just want to reflect on acouple of things that you said
in that piece of the story, thefirst piece being that I was not
a linchpin in the launch ofyour career or your next success
.
So let's just be clear aboutthat I had nothing to do with.
That's not true.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
You know what someone said once it's like a pinball
machine.
You got to go in for it, yougot to hit the sides, you got to
hit all that.
You were a part of the journey.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Trevor creation intended or otherwise.
You didn't articulate it, butthis your definition around
business identify a problem,create value to solve the
(22:46):
problem, and if there's a marketfor it, then you have a
business right.
It starts with it starts withproblem, and then value.
And value is kind of your northstar right, like where are we
continuing to add value?
And then, looking at it fromthat speculative townhouse
purchase, you didn't see all ofthose things come into play, and
(23:08):
so that really then justbecomes an investment.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah, and you know what?
I can't remember exactly.
I mean, one of them might'veadded value because it was at
the right price for a certainperiod of time, but it was more.
They were just investments,they weren't really value add.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Right, right.
Anyway, I like all of that,like you can start to
differentiate, because the otherthing that comes up in the
podcast a lot, whether it's saidoutright or using different
words, is this idea of purposebefore profit.
Right, you're, you're trying todo something first as a
business and then and, and, andthe profit obviously becomes a
(23:43):
major aspect and factor in thedecision-making and all of that
kind of thing.
Um, but really the business isthere for purpose first and
foremost, and um, yeah, and I Ican.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
It's fascinating.
I can tell you that we didn'treally have clear purpose and I
wouldn't say it's because, um, Iwould actually say that we
probably didn't understand orrecognize the need for how
valuable it was and and maybe wemight have intuitively acted in
(24:13):
a certain way around a purpose.
But we clarified it, uh, aboutfour years ago.
And building communities atfull throttle is the purpose
that we live and it's uh, I'musually I'm pretty loose with
words, those words.
There's so much in that, uh,but exactly to your point, uh,
(24:35):
purpose is so, so powerful yeah,and I hear that a lot too is is
that it?
Speaker 1 (24:41):
it?
It almost becomes malleablewith the, with the business,
like it's not a fixed purposefrom the starting point to the
end point.
It's like it.
It can change and it can belike the.
The guiding light that you'reusing as a purpose can evolve
over time with the business andand I think I think you've I
mean already identifying thatyou didn't, you don't know that.
(25:02):
You had one to begin with, andnow it's extremely articulated.
So let's get into that, let'sget into that transition.
You laid the story out reallywell.
It was not an intentional move,but it kind of evolved with
this first project to get on amentor or engage a mentor.
You moved a bunch of buildingsand now what was the catalyst to
(25:25):
start looking at more of thatmodular construction?
Uh, and what brought you to bigblock?
Speaker 2 (25:31):
yeah, exactly so.
Um, so at this point now, um,the opportunity had arose that
and you know what I I loved sooriginally from a small town
town went from a farm around asmall town, went to Saskatoon of
250,000, 300,000, whatever itwas at the time Said I want to
(25:51):
move to something bigger, gotthat job in Calgary and once
this opportunity came inSaskatoon, we removed some
buildings.
I was like you know, and bythis time I had been married, I
got married and first born.
I was like you know, my, bythis time I had been married, I
got married and my firstborn Iwas like you know.
My wife's family is originallyfrom Saskatoon and I'm really
focused on the business.
It's probably a goodopportunity to come home.
She will have a good supportgroup and I could be, you know,
(26:13):
kind of a bigger fish in asmaller sea.
So I kind of thought through asto I thought this was a
strategic move to do.
So I moved back to Saskatoon.
There was two of us inSaskatoon and one in Calgary at
the time, but, yeah, the focuswas on this project.
I think we did an exceptionaljob on it.
My focus was on theconstruction side of it and
(26:41):
that's where, kind of, like Isaid, the seeds have been
planted around now like themodular side of it, and my and
my business partner at the timeactually he was more focused on
the finance side, so he was onthe more on the financing, the
sales and the equity, and it wasinteresting because we really
started to see a need forhelping the affordable housing
sector.
There's huge gap on theaffordable housing sector at
(27:01):
that time still is, still is, itstill is.
Yeah, and now I can articulateit a little bit better, saying
you know, if you look at theentire housing spectrum,
affordable housing is one pieceof it and when you classify it,
you can actually say aboutroughly 5% of all the housing is
affordable housing.
But make no mistake, whatactually matters amongst
(27:21):
everything is housingaffordability.
Housing affordability affectsall, including affordable
housing.
But anyways, there was amandate in Saskatoon to say, hey
, we need to build a lot moreaffordable housing.
And so actually, you know, mybusiness partner really focused
on that and it was neat.
Again, this is how purpose kindof defined I was very much all
(27:42):
about we need to advanceconstruction methods, we need to
, like it's archaic, like let'sbe more productive, let's bring
things indoors, let's beefficient and let's you know,
let's help our economy succeed,and but we started doing a lot
of the affordable housingprojects and then, once I
started to see the impact thatit had on people's lives and our
(28:06):
community, on how much that'sreally where that purpose thing
continued to grow.
I would say the purpose, youknow, prior to that would have
been maybe advancingconstruction methods.
But once we really started toget into the affordable housing
space and then, as it evolved tobig block construction and
doing modular and helping a lotof different customers, some
(28:27):
that I'm super excited and proudto share about their journeys,
a lot of these amazing communityorganizations that need a
partner in the housing space,that is where a huge gap got
filled and the purpose was kindof completed as to building
(28:47):
communities at full throttle.
We build for developers andinvestors.
We also build for a lot ofoperators, nonprofit indigenous
groups and the stories that theyhave.
There's just so much more.
I would say impactful, or moreI don't want to say meaningful
maybe, because obviously,investors and developers, you're
still hitting a niche that'sextremely important, but it's
(29:10):
such a powerful story and thatreally touches the heart.
So I think it wasn't until wehad a few of those projects that
we had developed and seenfirsthand the impact and the the
meaning that it I guess that itgave that really helped define
our purpose.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
And so those early days, Alex, of kind of moving
into that modular, you identifythe affordable housing piece.
Were you a construction companyat that point?
Were you actually buildingunits or were you putting the
pieces together to haveaffordable housing built in
(29:49):
saskatoon?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
yeah, more the more the putting the pieces together
like, um, so we, we moved abunch of the, the buildings that
had been renovated, but whenyou think about it, we still had
to take certain pieces apartand bring in the right
contractors and have our owncrew move them across the city,
put foundations in siteservicing and at a time when the
market was booming, so weactually had to create our own
(30:11):
servicing company.
You know, in the first three orfour years we had over 100
employees.
Like just crazy when I lookback to like what were you
thinking?
Like, if you're an expert ateverything, you probably know
nothing but amazing opportunity.
So, yeah, we were kind of, wewere for sure a construction
company but we weren't buildingthe units.
(30:33):
And then when we got into thatmodular side of it, I toured a
bunch of facilities that buildmodular homes and it was
interesting because back thenand actually a lot of that still
exists today the modular plantsthat are out there.
They've been around for 50years and they are amazing at
(30:53):
building boxes but they'reactually more for remote regions
or rural regions.
Single family, more farm farmhomes, multi-family and modular
didn't exist and actually Iwould I would still bet that the
vast, vast majority ofmulti-family and modular like
modular multifamily projectsstill don't exist.
(31:15):
We have the most experience incanada.
We've and we've learned a lotof pain throughout the early
days, but what we really did atthat start is we saw an
opportunity going.
Wait a minute, this is anadvanced way of building.
Multifamily needs built,affordable multifamily needs
built.
How do we connect the dots?
And it took us years to workwith the modular manufacturer,
(31:49):
and now we've expanded tomultiple manufacturers and
teaching them how to get intothe multi-family side of it,
because building single family,you know, and more single family
or remote homes, versus now amulti-family, is a very, very
different beast.
And so that's that's probablywhere we spent, I'd say, three
or four years really perfectinghow to get into the multi-family
space and what, what, whattimeline are we talking about
here?
Speaker 1 (32:06):
Like the early 2010s?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, I would say 2009 to 2012 or 2013 is when
we're really starting to hone inthe multifamily modular side of
it.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yeah, I want to go back to your comment about the
scaling, because I think this isagain, if we're trying to pull
out business lessons for thelistener and use these stories
as opportunities to not onlylearn but to identify with other
people's journeys as well thatrapid growth what did that look
(32:41):
like?
Where did things go right,where did things go wrong and
what was the correction, ifthere was one kind of at the end
of that?
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Oh, yeah, yeah, there was Well.
So if you think about this, allright, so challenging some
dates here, I think I startedthe business with the guys in
2000 or sorry, when I was 23,and fast forward.
So, like I'm, you know, I maybehave two young children.
I'm 27 or 28.
And next thing, you know, we'reup to over a hundred employees
(33:12):
and I have one other businesspartner.
We're both equal partners.
There's nobody overseeing us.
You got a couple of 27, 28 yearold kids running 100 people.
That's a recipe for disaster.
Now, thankfully, it wasn'tactually as much of a disaster
as it probably could have been,but it was neat because as we
(33:33):
were building, we were able tobring to the market a niche
housing opportunity for a lot ofpeople.
That that it, and we coulddeliver it fast.
So the sales got to a pointwhere the sales just kept going.
So it was my job just to kindof keep up.
It was on the operation side,right, and so it got to a point
where it became really, reallyefficient and then fast forward.
(33:55):
How many years.
All of a sudden, the salesmaybe weren't there.
But you know, we're bothpartners.
There's no one over top lookingat this.
We're still in our mid, latetwenties.
No one's saying hey guys,typical industry has ebbs and
flows.
Yeah.
Operations should never go aheadof sales Like what do you, what
do you?
But you know, naive, young,dumb and just keep going.
(34:17):
And and never could I fathomthat things would slow down.
Why?
I mean, we just kept building,building, building.
I think I remember being calleda dozer at the time.
Right, there was that a dozer,remember those like a fraggle
rock or something.
You just keep building.
I was like I don't know ifthat's a an endearing comment,
but anyways, building, building,building, right, building right
(34:40):
, it's a throwback.
And anyways, and so didn'treally have my head wrapped
around the market side of it.
And when things started to slowdown, we actually built some
rentals which kind of helpedfill that gap.
But ultimately, you know, oilcrashed in 2014.
It then took a few years, butit really did start to hit
(35:02):
residential market in about 2016, 17, 18.
And for those who madedecisions quickly in 2016-ish,
it was okay.
We hung on and we didn't meanto, we weren't trying.
It's not like we were justyoung and more ignorant saying,
well, I don't know if this isreally affecting us, is it?
And so there was some painthroughout 2016 and 17.
(35:25):
But really, in 2018 is where thepain hit, because now, you know
, some of the finance partnersbasically were like look, you're
overbuilt in Saskatoon, notgoing to approve another project
.
And so, no, it was like, oh, atthat point we had gone from,
you know, being profitable a fewyears prior to kind of barely
breaking even to now you can'teven build a project.
Well, if you can't build aproject and you're a
(35:47):
project-based business, where'sthe long-term success of the
business?
That was, for sure, one of themost painful things we had to go
through.
It was a restructuring andagain it was like how are we
going to add value and what arewe going to do, and kind of
restarting if you will.
It was like how are we going toadd value and what are we going
to do?
And kind of restarting if youwill.
(36:08):
But again, what a greatopportunity to kind of um, you
know, to restart under um, a newset of lens and a new value.
And you're not restartingwithout knowledge, you're
restarting with an amazingamount of knowledge.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Uh, so, yeah, anyways , I'll stop there, but and and
uh, was it?
Uh?
I should know the answer tothis, but at what point did you
become big block construction?
Was it during that transitionor was it before that?
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, exactly Prior to that, we were kind of like a
developer and a constructioncompany all in one, and then
what we did is the businesspartner and I we both decided,
okay, we still owned a bunch ofrentals together, a great
relationship and happy with that.
But we said, okay, we kind ofhave a couple different paths
forward.
It was at that point where umbrought on a handful of the team
(36:49):
and, uh, and we started tobuild big block construction
where we weren't a developer,more of a design build general
contractor, more of adevelopment partner for a lot of
the nonprofit groups reallywanted to help others, because
really, when you think about it,we did not have an unlimited
supply of land or an unlimitedsupply of capital or an
(37:13):
unlimited supply of a market.
We knew how to build really,really well.
We knew how to design buildmodular construction.
We could scale that, and so thebusiness model with big block
construction is, as a designbuild partner, as a design build
general contractor, we can helpgroups that have land that have
need, that have access tofunding, and so that's really
(37:34):
where we took the opportunity to, I guess, reset our own
expectations and know wherewe're going, and then, yeah,
it's been an awesome, reallyreally awesome, five years since
.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
And how many staff do you have now?
Just under 30.
Yeah, so that transition from100 plus to under 30, was it
kind of in that 2018 timeline,was it kind of overnight, or was
it a slow drop and then a slowincrease, kind of yeah um.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
It came in different, in different waves so, and we
kind of started with only a few,ramped up to over 100 um within
a few short years I think thatwas about 2020-12, if I'm not
mistaken and then we started torefine some processes and by
about 2014 or 2015, I think, wehad got down to about 40 really,
really, really solid um, youknow, efficient, trained,
(38:32):
awesome people.
And then that's why, to me,2018 was, for sure, one of the
most painful things I ever wentthrough, and it was um, because
at the looking back now it makesa lot of sense.
I we readjusted, we found ournew North star, we found a way
to survive and thrive, but atthe time that's not what it
looks like.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
World's coming to an end.
You're laying people off.
You don't know how this isgoing to work.
You're looking, am I going to bebankrupt?
We made decisions way too late.
You think it's the end of theworld.
You think people are going togo homeless.
You think people are not goingto get their feet underneath
them.
And horrible, painfulexperience that I don't wish on
(39:13):
anyone Horrible, horrible,painful At the same time.
I'm so grateful I went throughit and there's not a day that
goes by that I don't use that aspart of my North Star to make
sure that I'm protecting ourteam, ensuring that we add value
, ensuring, you know, financial,uh due diligence in our
organization going forward,because I don't want to repeat
(39:33):
that like that was a, that was atrauma, that, um, that, to me,
has kind of given us someguiding principles.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
I think anybody can probably do a top guess or a top
three guesses of what youranswer to this question is going
to be.
But what was the hardest partabout that transition?
Speaker 2 (39:58):
It was 100% the people side of it.
I mean, I looked at it.
We had been head down buildinga business offering value to
people, growing team members,amazing relationship bonding for
years, and it all becomes injeopardy With something that you
(40:20):
maybe never saw coming, was notin your control interest rates
or market or oil.
Things changed and it impactedyou extremely severely and not
knowing where you're goinganymore, I mean you start
questioning everything.
One you know that you can'tafford to pay many people, so
you have to lay off, and this isnot just like a little layoffs,
(40:43):
this is like 90% plus layoffs.
So you ask yourself did I evenbuild anything worth?
Did I even add value?
Like you start questioningeverything.
What was the purpose?
Like I've spent the last 10years building business and
almost having to restart.
Maybe I shouldn't do this.
Am I not good at it?
A lot of personal reflectiongoes into this too, and
(41:04):
sometimes I think I can see alot of people not breaking out
of that because it's such anegative thing to go through, a
painful thing to go through, andyou worry or at least I did, I
worried about all the peoplegoing.
They're going to have jobs,they're going to make their
mortgage payments?
How are they going to about allthe people going?
How are they going to have jobs?
Are they going to make theirmortgage payments?
How are they going to?
And those were really reallyhard conversations.
(41:26):
Looking back, two more seniorpeople came right up to me,
shook my hand and said thank you, brother, it's been a ride,
it's the best opportunity I'veever had.
And kind of stuck with mebecause I was like well, those
are outliers, like that's weird.
(41:46):
The rest of us were all sobbingand in pain and and I got these
couple guys and I'm like whatthe?
And they're just like oh, thisis a construction history.
We've been through this beforeand yeah, right, love what you
and and it didn't.
I didn't really let that sinkin.
It probably took me at leastthree years to truly forgive
myself for what happened.
Um, but yeah, yeah, sorry.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
No, Alex, I appreciate you sharing the
vulnerability, Because I think Ihope that the people that
listen can understand that thisdoesn't just happen to them,
(42:32):
Because I would be shocked Ithink everybody would be shocked
to know the number of peoplethat this happens to.
And I've talked about it beforeon the podcast.
I've talked about it elsewherethat a big gap in understanding
business ownership is thatbusiness owners have a
(42:55):
connection to the people aroundthem that isn't appreciated
enough and you build trust andthen, when things like this
happen, you feel like youbreached that trust right.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
You do.
You do trust right, you do youdo, um, thankfully there's, you
know you have an amazing supportteam, or you hope to have an
amazing support team around you,that that keeps you alive and
keeps you supported.
Um, and then, as time goes on,you you can start to understand
why it happened.
I think one of the biggestproblems for me is not
understanding the why.
Uh, because, am I a failure?
(43:28):
Were they a failure?
Was the business model failure?
Do we not have, like there's somany questions and but what I
did, I did recover from it.
It was.
It was painful, for sure, butunbelievable lessons come from
it.
And I remember someone tellingme afterwards you know, people
aren't going to judge you bythat action.
They're going to judge youabout how you treated them for
(43:50):
the years that you worked withthem, and I felt really damn
good about actually how wetreated them.
And I look at where lots ofthem are today and where lots of
them are.
We still work now together,both in the same company in
another company.
It's amazing how many of thesame people I work with but at
the time, complete, completeuncertainty and yeah, it was.
(44:12):
I get very emotional over boththe staff and the commitment to
it and also our customers andthe value that we offer, because
you also, I know how valuableit is to offer what we're doing
to our customers.
And then I also go.
Not only am I impacting ourstaff and their families, but if
(44:35):
we can't offer value to ourcustomers, then they're impacted
too.
Those are the two things thatreally drive me, and so I've
learned a lot of those lessonsand I'd say I'm a little bit
older and a little bit wiser.
Again, I have no idea wherethat spectrum is and I think we
continue just to get older andwe continue to get wiser.
But I definitely use a lot ofthose lessons learned to protect
the organization, to protectour team and to protect our
(44:57):
customers, ultimately so that wecan ensure values added for
many years to come.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, they're hard lessons and, as you
pointed out, when I said, Ithink anybody could guess
probably the top one or the topthree items, and as soon as you
said people, it was the peopleaspect.
You know what?
It's always the people aspect.
That's always the best part andit's always the hardest part.
(45:27):
It just is yeah, always thebest part and it's always the
hardest part.
It just is yeah.
Um, I want to shift a littlebit and just talk.
I would just explore uh kind of, as we close out here, um,
maybe you're, you're the biggestproject that you undertook and
more of more of the businessside of that, like kind of your,
(45:48):
your financing strategies anduh, and and the partnerships
that were required and how youbuilt kind of the, the team, the
collective team, not just yourteam, but the collective team uh
around, uh building, buildingsome of the biggest projects
that you've undertaken yeah,well, you know, I'll, I give a,
(46:08):
maybe I'll give a specificexample.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
That kind of ties into, I think, our purpose of
building communities at fullthrottle and how it helped kind
of kickstart Big Block to whereit is, and it definitely ties in
what you were saying.
We had a really coolopportunity to work with Comfy
and we still work with them, butit's the central urban metis
(46:30):
federation incorporated comfy,um and their leader, uh, shirley
, is bister um, unbelievable.
Love her and let's see if I canscrew this quote up, but she
says a quote that I love andadmire.
She's, like you know, the, the,the, the speed of the leader
(46:51):
determines the rate of the pack.
I said the rate, the, the speedof the leader determines the
rate of the pack.
I did screw it up, but I'm sureI think you get the comment
there.
You get the intent of it um,speed of leader determines the
rate of pack.
No, that's it.
And we had an opportunity towork um their gm at the time,
kelly pruden.
He reached out and it was in2019 and he said look, they're
(47:13):
looking at building an elderslodge, metis specific elders
lodge, and we had done lots ofmodular, a lot of affordable
housing, and so it fit, uh.
But there was a lot of thingswe didn't know, and so he
invited us to this integrateddesign charrette where we got to
learn from the elders.
You know, and this was beforecovid it's fascinating because,
you know, like, a few monthslater you look at covid, like,
oh, I would never be in a roomwith, with right, 40 elders,
(47:35):
right, but I remembered vividly,we broke into these in these
groups, and the elders weretalking about, you know, uh, how
their generation works and andwhy they need to, you know, more
of a meaty, specific andtraditional and so that we can
raise our kids and and havethese, these opportunities for
growth.
(47:56):
And I remember they didn't saywe've been talking about this
for over 20 years and I justhope it gets built before I die.
And I thought to myself, mike,we've been in business for 10
years, we've built over 20projects.
How could you not have this?
If this is so valuable to you,your community, why don't you
(48:20):
have this?
Why don't you?
It's not a lack of will ordetermination.
So I remember coming out ofthat meeting talking to our
staff being like we have a dutyhere, we, we need to add our
value.
And I remember it was a bitdaunting because, okay, like
we're going to build a Métisproject, uh, an elders lodge,
and like there's there's morethings that I don't know about
(48:43):
that than I do know, but we weresmart enough and aware enough
to say, ok, we don't knowanything about certain pieces of
this, then let's find the rightexperts to help guide us
through, no different than theywere relying on our expertise to
guide them through a project,because to me it was easy to be
able to work through a project.
But my challenges were some ofthe funding pieces which we then
(49:04):
found partners to go through,five funders, seven programs,
extremely, extremely complicated, which I could talk a long time
on.
A separate thing about why a lotof affordable housing doesn't
get built, because if it doesn'tpencil and you have to bring in
some supports, it onlycompounds the complexity of it.
It is so complex but, um, butso that side of it, and then
(49:25):
obviously the elder side of itand, and understanding a lot of
the um, you know the specificcultural elements I didn't know
anything about.
So you bring in architects whoprobably will have forgotten
more than I'll ever learn andthat's not to be a negative, but
just if they're so ingrained init and so you capitalize on, on
their abilities, you tie it inand it was an unbelievable
project and I'll and I'll neverforget the day we turned dirt.
(49:49):
I got emotional and it wasbecause I could see the joy in
Shirley's eyes as she spoke, andthat's when it really helped
solidify for us.
It was about buildingcommunities at full throttle.
A lot of people talk about them, a lot of people design or
consult, but at the end of theday, we need to build.
We actually have to take action,and communities can encompass a
(50:10):
lot of people design or consultbut at the end of the day, we
need to build.
We actually have to take action, and communities can encompass
a lot of things but, in thatparticular sense, helping our
customers on something thatthey're amazing at community
building.
They're they're amazingcommunity advocates.
Um, they have hundreds ofrental units and they know how
to take care of people and tobuild them up.
They needed a developmentpartner and what's awesome about
(50:33):
that particular partnership andI call it a partnership?
At the end of the day, they'retheir projects.
We're just a fee for service,but I do call it a partnership
because that's what I trulybelieve in and it's that whole
people side of it that you know,our culture is about
partnerships.
We've built two projects withthem and we actually just turned
dirt on the third project.
And it's those relationships,those partnerships, that can
(50:56):
grow and expand over time and Ithink that's really helped
define who we are and helped usunderstand the pieces of the
journey for our customers on howwe can, on where we can add
value so we can make adifference.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
I am so glad I asked that question because that kind
of put a bow on so many thingsthat you were talking about,
like the path of theorganization, the North Star,
kind of changing as you evolved,as the company evolved, as the
(51:33):
need of the community evolved.
Um, I have to get closure onone piece of that story.
Why hadn't it been built for 20years?
Is it because of all the thingsthat you outlined, all of those
challenges that you sawyourself?
Is, was that just daunting foranybody else to actually get get
the dirt turn?
Speaker 2 (51:53):
yeah, you know, I think, um, um, I probably
wouldn't oversimplify it to justone specific item um, you know,
I could if I flip it and put itinto your lens.
Why aren't more homes beingbuilt right now?
Sure and there's's a whole offof it.
What I can say is I mean Icould talk for a long time on
(52:14):
that side of it alone, but ifthere's a reason we're not
building homes and there's a lotof them affordable housing is
probably 10 times morecomplicated.
Right.
Right.
So I would just say it wasn'tfor a lack of will or trying.
I don't know about some oftheir previous, but I can tell
you it's just.
It's a very complicated beastbecause it's probably 10 times
(52:36):
harder than more market ratewhere it's one funder.
So, again, what I love aboutthat is I'm just so grateful
that we could help them and nowwe're a strong advocate for that
.
But it is amazing for that.
But it is amazing and I guess Iwon't get into it now but it's
amazing how many um roadblocksare out there and how how you
think you know different groupsand even government want these
(53:00):
things built.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
But it's amazing how the roadblocks, the gatekeepers
that and I don't think they meanto be that, but it's so
fragmented it makes itimpossible almost to get
projects built yeah, um, on thecomplexity side, I often say
that anybody who starts aconversation about, uh, fixing
(53:22):
the, the housing challenges inCanada, anybody that starts a
conversation with all they needto do, is I'm like, I'm out,
like that that's not aconversation I'm gonna
participate in because becausethat there is no all they need
to do.
And that applies to so manythings like like health care and
the economy and, like so manythings in the world today,
(53:44):
there's no fix yeah, there's noone fix what I.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
What I do find interesting, though, is how many
times we are not asking theright people and listening to
the right people.
And I look at this and we'vespent 15 years over 16 years now
doing this.
We have an unbelievable amountof experience across different
(54:09):
projects that we would love tohelp showcase, and it's
fascinating how we don'tactually take those good
examples.
It's fascinating how we, associety, don't look at that and
go, hey, why don't we just takewhat's been done successfully
and repeat it?
It's almost like we have toreinvent it every time.
I think the answers actuallyare there If we had strong
enough leadership to find it andto promote it and to unpack it
(54:34):
and to empower it.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:38):
Well, let's you and I , before we started the podcast,
we said we're long overdue 20years overdue for a sit down
lunch and to really just unpacksome of this stuff.
A sit down lunch and to reallyjust unpack some of this stuff.
Let's plan to do that in 2025.
And let's see if we cancollectively make our mark on on
changing some of these thingsgoing forward Because, as you
pointed out, it's complex.
(55:00):
It's not going to become anyeasier Unless people start to
look at what that North Star is,what is the problem we're
trying to solve and how do webring the right people together
to solve it.
And I think you have a greatcontribution to that.
So, alex, truly man, Iappreciate this conversation.
(55:25):
I appreciate all of the storiesand certainly the many lessons
that you were able to share.
I think any listener, whetherthey're experienced in business
if they're experienced inbusiness, they'll relate to a
lot of the things, and ifthey're not, it'll help set them
on the right path.
So really, really appreciateyou taking the time.
Speaker 2 (55:46):
Thank you, Trevor.
I think it was just an absoluteblast and an honor.
I appreciate all that you'redoing.
Thanks for having me the time.
Thank you, Trevor, I think itwas just an.
It was an absolute blast and anhonor.
I appreciate all that you'redoing.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
Thanks for having me yeah, thank you, man.
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