What if you could transform your passion for building into a thriving business, even amidst economic turmoil? Join us as Tim Winter, the mastermind behind Paradigm Homes, shares the remarkable story of his contracting career, beginning with early hands-on lessons from his father and grandfathers. Tim opens up about his journey from Penn State graduate to a key player at a national home builder in northern Virginia, detailing how he took the leap to launch his own company just before the mortgage crisis hit. You'll hear how his resilience and adaptability led him through the Great Recession, switching gears from residential to commercial projects before finding his true calling in high-end custom homes.
Ever wondered what it takes to grow a successful construction business from scratch? Listen to Tim's firsthand accounts of managing initial projects for family members and overseeing complex renovations, including a historic building for a family restaurant. Tim reflects on climbing the ranks within a national builder, gaining invaluable experience as an assistant project manager and beyond, culminating in the pivotal decision to start his own venture in 2006. Discover the significance of a hands-on, client-focused approach in sustaining and growing a business, especially during challenging economic periods.
Tim also sheds light on the advantages of having architecture services in-house, making a strong case for the design-build model that streamlines processes and enhances client satisfaction. Learn about the digital tools like Monday.com that have revolutionized Paradigm Homes' project management, ensuring meticulous documentation and effective communication. Plus, get inspired by the Paradigm Foundation's charitable work in countries like the Dominican Republic and Kenya, exemplifying how industry expertise can be harnessed for social good. Tim's insights are not just about building homes but also about building a legacy that gives back.
To learn more about Tony Johnson and Timeless visit us at:
https://timelessci.com/
https://timelessco.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonytimeless/
If you would like to discuss investing in Commercial Properties create a profile and schedule a call:
https://timelessci.investnext.com/
Reach out to us directly at:
info@timelessci.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good morning.
Welcome to another episode ofCarolina Commercial Real Estate
Connection.
Today we have Tim Winter onwith us.
Tim, thank you so much forjoining us today.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Thanks, tony, appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Tim is a longtime general contractor, so I feel
like this is going to be a greatconversation.
Today we're going to go overeverything contracting,
everything contracting.
So, tim, could you start out bytelling everyone a bit about
you, how you got into generalcontracting and where and what
all you do in generalcontracting?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Absolutely.
Well, I'll start with where andwhat we do and then kind of
give you the backstory.
So we are, we do.
A lot of the ebb and flow overthe years has changed, but
predominantly now where we'velanded with our niche is mid to
high-end custom homes.
We also do additions andrenovations and we the company
(00:55):
is called Paradigm Homes.
We also have an architecturecompany that's attached to it as
well, called HomeluxArchitecture, and we'll talk a
little bit more later on ourfoundation, I'm sure.
But you know when, why and howdid I get into this world?
Well, it all started when I wasa kid.
My dad used to buy houses, fixthem up, rent them out, and you
(01:17):
know, I was, you know, the grunt, free labor.
You know, just kind of like,hey, this is what we do, you
work, we work, this is how thisis going to happen.
So I've just kind of beenaround it since I was a kid.
My grandfather both of mygrandfathers were just
hardworking guys, so they alwayshad me doing projects and
different things.
My dad probably one of thebiggest things as I got older
(01:39):
and got into it and actually gotwise enough to ask for some
money right To to for some ofthese projects was my dad bought
a commercial building.
I was, I was 16.
So I was able to drive and and,uh, you know I was, I, I I bid
out some work for him to go inand just kind of like tear out,
you know, basically got thebuilding and, uh, I learned a
(02:01):
lot through that.
I learned a lot on underbid mytime and just kind of learned
what it's like just to kind ofget down and dirty in
construction.
But then, but then from there Iwent to school, went to Penn
State I'm from Pittsburgh areaoriginally and once we I got
married, we got married, mygoing into the end of our senior
(02:22):
year or got engaged our senioryear, got married right after
school and we said, whoever getsa job, that's where we're going
to go.
So we ended up in northernVirginia, outside of DC.
I went to work for a nationalhome builder here and spent
about seven years with themlearning the ropes of ins and
outs of construction and newhomes and the way the production
(02:43):
systems work and, to be honest,it was really the best
education I've ever had.
The company that I worked forwas fantastic.
They're still an amazingorganization.
I got to the point where I'vealways kind of had that drive to
kind of do my own thing orotherwise I probably would still
be there Great, greatorganization.
(03:04):
But from there I launched in2007 Paradigm Homes and at the
time I had no idea that theworld was about to come
collapsing down.
The mortgage meltdown happenedin August of 2007 and a year
later the stock market.
So it was an interesting time.
But I was young.
I was 27 or 28, kind of young,dumb and naive and didn't know
(03:27):
any better.
So from there I started what Ithought was a home building,
custom home building company.
I didn't build my first customhome, I think, until like maybe
three or four years into theendeavor.
All right, so how I survivedkind of the great recession was
I got into commercial work.
I started doing retail space,restaurants, office buildings,
(03:48):
basically anything.
If someone would have called meto do a dog house, we would
have built a dog house or a treehouse or whatever.
At that time we were just doingwhatever we could to kind of
keep things progressing, and sowe did that for kind of the
combination of residential andcommercial for probably about
four or five years, and then werealized that we're much more
geared towards the residentialside, just because we tried to
(04:12):
create a client process.
How can we handle our clients?
How can we help them have agreat experience?
So for us that's really whatled us away from the commercial
and got us more into theresidential, Just as a little
bit more can be a little bitmore, you know, design elements
and things like that that comewith the residential versus some
of the commercial, and so I saycommercial is a little bit
(04:35):
colder and residential is alittle bit warmer.
So it depends on thepersonality that you have and
what you want to deal with.
I think both days as acontractor, just like man.
I don't know why I chose thisprofession sometimes.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
That's funny.
Yeah, it's definitely uh, youknow, uh, very up and down
industry and and, uh, hard workit's.
We have a lot of similarities,um, with how you started that
you started the exact same timeI started on my own in 2007.
So, um, I love the idea thatwhen we started out initially, I
got in and I was like man, thisis great, it's going to be a
booming economy, I'm going toreally kill it and then the
(05:15):
world collapses and you're likewhat the hell?
I was the same thing.
I was doing a bunch of nothing,and I find it very interesting.
So you started out with thecommercial thing.
I was doing a bunch of nothingand I find it very interesting.
So you started out with thecommercial aspect.
Did you have any commercialexperience?
You know, working for yourfather and being in the for a
large national home builder.
(05:37):
You obviously weren't doing alot of commercial with that.
Where did you feel the comfortwith doing the commercial?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah so.
So when I first obviouslythings shifted, we hit the
friends and family circuit ofwork right.
So some additions andrenovations of people that we
knew.
But one of the first projects,actually, I took on two projects
right around the same time.
One was a retail cupcake shopthat my, my aunts were opening
and so I was, you know, broughton to to manage that, and then
(06:04):
my cousins and my uncle wereopening a restaurant and the
restaurant was the building wasbuilt originally in like 1869.
And so it had to be totallybrought back up there.
You know we needed to put inelevators, we needed to bring in
like it was.
It was a yeah, that was easy.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
This is easy.
This is very easy.
For this something to start outwith, yeah, you were just like
yeah, I'll do it, we'll figureit out, yeah that's fantastic
that's kind of my personality gohard or go home, I guess right.
Well, I mean, that's kind of howyou gotta do it.
You gotta, you know, fake ittill you make it at certain
point, because you you're justnot going to know what you're
(06:44):
getting into.
In those first couple of jobs,when you didn't know, did you
end up doing okay?
Did you lose any money in anyof these initial ones, or did
you kind of fare okay in all ofthem?
We fared okay.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I mean, I think the big thing was the way I worked
it out.
Because they were family deals,I was able to kind of negotiate
the contract a little bit.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
So it wasn't full, just a full bid out job.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
It was more negotiated than kind of an open
book kind of approach, which wasgood, so it was.
You know they were fair to meand vice versa, so I think it
was a win-win for both of them.
The family restaurant is stilloperating today, Northern
Virginia.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
They've been around for almost might be 15 years
this year, oh, fantastic.
Now tell me a bit about whenyou were working for the
National Builder.
What was your role in thatcompany?
Or roles?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I had several different roles over the years
but I started off initially asso what?
So the?
I guess some of the bigdifferences in commercial and
residential is what they calltheir, their superintendents,
their project managers, all thatkind of stuff.
So when I went to work for thisbuilder they called us
assistant project managers andthen once you got promoted you
(07:55):
got moved into project managers.
So you were basically in acommercial where you're
basically like a sitesuperintendent or assistant
superintendent, superintendentor assistant superintendent.
So that's where I started and Ispent about about three, three
and a half years, you know, inthose in those two roles.
And then I moved into the officeand took a position and kind of
they call it was a costingmanager, which was very similar
(08:19):
to like an estimator, but wealso basically, you know, built
and helped do the development,because the company I worked for
was, you know, they weren'tbuying lots but they were buying
finished lots from developers.
So that position we'd go in anddo a lot of the upfront costs
and set all the kind ofbaselines and milestone markers
and we would manage any changeorders that came in from
(08:40):
projects.
It's basically like thefinancial side of the division
that came in from projects.
It's basically like thefinancial side of the division.
And then from there I went tokind of in that same role.
I was doing some generalmanagement, maybe not without
the title.
I had a great divisionpresident that I worked for.
That brought me into a lot ofmeetings, a lot of things that
were way above my pay grade andI should have been involved with
, and, to be honest, that was agreat learning lesson and
(09:03):
experience for me.
So I got to do some of thosekind of general management
things, even though it wasn'tentitled.
But then in 2006 is when thingsstarted changing.
They kind of saw the writing onthe wall.
Things were shifting and theystarted letting people go.
So they moved me back into thefield and I was building two
(09:24):
houses.
I'm like you know what, whenyou work for a production
builder, usually building 20, 25houses at a time, two was like
okay, I'm not going to.
I was really barely, you know,I'd go to work for a couple
hours a day Like there wasn'tmuch to do, and I'm like you
know what, I can do this on myown, and so that's really what
kind of you know.
You know, set me on mytrajectory to go start my own
thing, and that's awesome, allright.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
So let's let's kind of walk through starting your
own thing.
So you know, when we discussedinitially, you started with the
commercial and the residentialcause.
It was, you know, just sodifficult and the market was
terrible and I think anybodywould take anything.
Uh, at that point in time whenyou're, you know, from 2000,
late 2008 to 2011, there wasliterally nothing to do, you
(10:07):
would take whatever you couldget your hands on.
We did some terrible jobs forHUD housing and for anybody and
everybody that would give uswork.
So you, you got that, that youwere doing the both and you said
that you guys decided to, youknow, get away from the
commercial and do theresidential and you know anybody
(10:29):
that's doing a vast majority ofthings in construction.
The quicker that you find yourstrength and then niche down,
that's when you can really kindof the rubber hits the road and
you can grow as a company.
So when you guys niche down,you said it was something with
the client process.
Could you kind of what are youdescribing there, what was
happening?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah.
So what we kind of realized is,you know, there's a couple of
different types of contractorsout there.
Some that are just like don't,don't, I don't want to talk to
the client, I don't want to doanything they got to say with.
And then there's those that arelike I want to be hands-on, I
want to guide them, I want tohelp them.
And we kind of took thatapproach.
It's like what can we do tocreate kind of a unique
(11:10):
experience, becauseconstruction's messy
construction's long constructioncan become expensive.
So what are some things that wecan do to put in place to try
to help kind of create asmoother process?
Now, it's still been, you knowit's construction.
It's been a bumpy ride, but youknow that is our focus.
Like what can we do to create agreat customer experience, even
(11:31):
so much so as today, you know,our, our b-hag, as you call a
big, hairy, audacious goal, isto be the ritz-carlton of custom
homes, and so, um, we actuallyhave hired a consultant and a
coach from that, spent 18 years,17 years with Rich Carlton to
kind of come in and kind of helpus kind of navigate.
(11:52):
What are some things we can doto improve our experience,
because we've learned a lot inthe last couple of years.
Covid changed this game,changed the industry a lot, with
even costs, and then also weall got really busy.
Now things are starting to slowand we kind of had some growing
pains and had some upsetclients.
(12:12):
So we're just trying to figureout how to.
How do we circle back so thatwe don't go through those same
challenges again?
And you know, we've got theright systems in place to manage
a great client experiencethrough.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
You know, the home building process so, when you're
doing that, what are somethings that you've come up with,
so, with your clients guidingthem?
One thing that you stated andI'd love to learn a little more
about is you say you've got anin-house architecture firm, that
not everyone has that.
So how early in the process didyou guys establish that, and
(12:48):
what was the drive?
What was the driving reason forputting that together?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
yeah, so initially we would outsource architecture
and about three years ago myfriend who runs the architecture
company that we used tooutsource, he was pivoting his
business from kind of mid tohigh-end custom homes to
high-end to ultra luxury customhomes and we just kind of didn't
(13:12):
fit that profile, especiallybecause we still do additions
and renovations.
So him and I talked, and he'slike you might want to consider,
you know, maybe bringingsomeone on for some of these
other small projects, smallerprojects we can be there on the
ultra high end stuff, but youmight want to consider that.
So that opened up my eyes.
I'm like you know what, insteadof going to find another firm,
(13:34):
what if I just hired anarchitect and brought it
in-house Right?
I was looking at how much moneywe were sending outsourced to
architecture and I said you know, between that I should be able
to afford to bring an architecton in-house.
Control the process, becausethat's the other thing is, when
you outsource not everything buta lot of things, you can't
control the time right becausethey don't directly work for you
(13:56):
.
But in this case we can moveprojects along, we can adjust
things.
So that was kind of the driver,kind of two things.
One it was the control and thentwo it was kind of just
managing the cost and creatinganother vertical of income
stream.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, I love that idea.
So we we still outsourcearchitecture.
It's one thing that I wouldlove to get at some point, but
it's.
It seems like it would almostbe a game changer because you
know you can really eliminatethe competition.
So there's certain things thatwe try and do right now that can
eliminate competition.
(14:34):
But the earlier you can get theclient and get the other people
that can come in and swoop andbid it out of the way.
When you offer things thatother builders don't offer, it's
comparing apples and orangesfor the client.
The client can come to you.
They know that they're going toget an amazing experience when
they're going to get that designwhere you guys actually, you
(14:55):
know, own the design and havefully vested into the design, as
opposed to just saying, okay,here, here's three architects,
pick one, we'll work with youwith the architects.
Completely different experience.
So do you charge?
Is it a premium you charge indoing that, or is that kind of
equal out as the same price?
How does that look?
Speaker 2 (15:15):
It's probably a little bit less than what we
were.
Outsourcing Depends on theproject and the size.
We try to be competitive, youknow, internally.
So if somebody does come say,hey, what are you charging me
for architecture versus me goingto the third party, you know we
(15:36):
can say, look, we discount ourservices because you've hired us
to do both and you now have theopportunity to have us control
everything, versus if we gooutsourced you're paying more
and we may not.
You know we have less controls.
So it's a good selling piecefrom that.
We haven't had too muchreservation with it.
You know we claim to be adesign build firm, so it helps
(15:56):
from that perspective when yougot clients looking for it.
And the other thing that wefound is when you bring in two
or three architects and theclient picks one, they go
through and design it and thenall of a sudden you've got the
builder, the client and thearchitect all sitting looking at
each other and pissed off thatthe architect designed something
that's over budget and it's thecontractor's fault, right?
(16:16):
So not that I'm blaming thearchitects, because you know it
goes both ways, but that'sthat's a big challenge that
we've always run into is likethe house gets over designed
because you know most architectsaren't building houses, so they
don't understand some of thecosts and implications that come
in especially over the lastcouple of years with all the
crazy cost increase.
So yeah, so that's been a bigone.
(16:37):
For us is having everybody atthe table.
You know it becomes more of apartnership approach.
We've got owner, architect,builder all sitting together
from the beginning and then ifthere's an interior designer,
we'll bring them in at thebeginning.
So that way it's cohesive,right.
That's the beginning part ofour process, that beginning part
(17:00):
of our client experience.
It starts right there as around table versus an us versus
them mentality.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah, that makes a big difference.
And really, as far as for youguys, making that client
experience, that's definitely agame changer for a client
experience.
When you can do that and, trustme, if you've been in this
industry any amount of timeyou'll go through with a client.
Set up a budget, go find anarchitect, tell them what you
want.
Everybody's on the same page.
(17:24):
Then you get the drawings andyou're like okay, what just
happened here?
Why is this thing designed likethis?
This is definitely not inbudget for what we were talking
about.
This is like on a differentplanet.
And then you know so not onlyare you looking at the design
and having some things that cancome up that you're not
(17:45):
controlling huge timelinefactors.
Right now, when you're going toarchitects right now, anybody
who's dealing with thatarchitects you're going to
architects right now, anybodywho's dealing with that
architects are.
You're going to wait threeweeks, a month, month and a half
sometimes for an architect toeven start a drawing.
So then if you have a problemand you have to go back to them
for a redesign, then a lot oftimes you're having to wait
(18:05):
again before they start theredesign.
So, boy, you are not onlysaving them money, you're saving
people probably two, threemonths of time, a lot of times
when they're going through this,because you can control all of
that.
So that was a fantastic idea toimplement and it sounds like
it's paying off, and I candefinitely imagine it.
It continues to pay off andgrow, so that is fantastic.
(18:30):
Another thing that is greatthat you guys do that you didn't
really bring up.
You guys have a charityorganization that you've put
together.
Could you tell us a bit aboutthat, how that got started and
what that's all about?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, absolutely so.
The picture that's directlybehind me is a picture of the
Dominican Republic and that'swhere it began.
So about 10 years ago my wifewent there on a trip with our
church and came back with thisvision and passion to build
houses.
She doesn't know how to buildhouses, but she says you do, so
(19:02):
we need to go figure it out.
So, in true Tim fashion, wefigured it out and so we started
the Paradigm Foundation about10 years ago and we started in
the Dominican Republic and we'vebeen there since, you know, for
10 years.
And then about five years agowe moved into Kenya.
So we've been doing projects inKenya.
(19:24):
I just got back from there inMarch.
We were there for about 10 daysand then we've done some
projects in Brazil.
We've done a couple of projectsin Central African Republic.
We've got a new partnership inthe Amazon of Brazil.
So, just looking to expand andlooking for opportunities, I
(19:46):
mean to date the foundation hasdone over 60 homes and, I think,
two churches and two communitycenters.
So I mean we're not talking bigsums of money to build houses.
It's not like the US, it's, youknow, 15 to you know, $18,000
gets a house done, gets that inplace and you're changing
(20:08):
people's lives not onlyimmediately, but also just for
generations.
So the generational impact isjust it's huge and so it's been
amazing to be a part of.
We take teams, we go to the DR.
We've got a DR trip coming upin September.
We go to Kenya, typicallyaround March or April, and then
we also, if anybody wants to doit, you know, hey, we've got a
(20:30):
group of people who want to goon a trip.
We've set those up too.
So, yeah, it's been a funjourney.
It's been a fun experience togive back and just, you know,
you're seeing lives changed, notonly there, but you're also
seeing.
You know, I take my staff everyyear when we go on a trip to
the DR.
I said if anybody wants to gofor the first time, I'll cover
(20:50):
your cost.
So I've had about four or fiveof them kind of jump on at that
and they've been down so theyget their experience and one of
the things that we've got somesigns here and around the office
that talks about how theirdaily job is creating impact
other than just our clients,right, because of the foundation
.
So, yeah, it's been.
It's been a fun, fun journeyand who knows where we end up
(21:12):
next.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, that's amazing.
So, yeah, that you know whatyou just brought up there at the
end.
You know you've got signsaround the office and you know
you want your team to buy in on.
What's our purpose?
Do we have a purpose that we'reall standing behind?
It's not all about you know howmuch money are you making.
Surely you don't have a greatteam If all your team is worried
(21:37):
about how much money they'remaking.
If they have a purpose on whatthey're doing and you clearly
define that purpose for them andit makes them feel good about
it, you know they want to growthe team because they know that
it's benefiting not only them,it's benefiting others.
And yeah, I commend you and yourwife for putting that together.
That's a game changer.
I absolutely love it.
I think it's amazing Not onlythat.
You know any client that'sdoing work with you knows that
(21:59):
portion of yours is going.
A portion of anything thatyou're doing is going towards
good.
So it gives them a good feelingwhen they're choosing and going
with your company, that it'snot only benefiting you and the
people that are around you, butthat it's not only benefiting
you and the people that arearound you, but you're
benefiting others in the world,so that's awesome.
Absolutely, I commend you guysfor doing that.
Thank you, thank you and we'llput some information in the show
(22:21):
notes if anybody wants to getin touch and reach out and find
out more or, you know, donate tothe cause.
I think it's a great cause, allright, so now I lost my track
here.
I wanted to go a little bitfurther into how do you
determine where you're goingnext.
I know you said it's throughthe church.
Could you kind of walk themthrough where, how you chose
(22:44):
these places and why you're inthese certain areas?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, sure.
So you know, each country has acommunity church partner, right
, because the whole goal of usis it's an empowerment program.
We say we want to give people ahand up, not a handout.
So we want the church and thecommunity to come alongside, you
know, these families that we'reserving to find ways to, you
(23:11):
know, help, support them outsideof housing, whether it's food
needs or medical care or justsome prayer, whatever the
situation is, we want thecommunity to be involved.
So for us, we started in the DR.
We've gone through a couple ofdifferent communities, but the
current church and community.
There's a school attached to it, which is amazing.
(23:33):
There's 400 kids in the schooland they start teaching them
English at like five years old,and so that's a really cool
program that they've got goingthere.
And then in Kenya, the samething.
So in Kenya, there was actuallythere's this primary school and
they just started a high school.
There was actually there's thisprimary school and they just
(23:55):
started a high school, and so itjust, you know education is
huge, so that's, it doesn'talways have to be around
education, but those are our twokind of bigger partners right
now that focus on education andthen brought in some housing,
(24:16):
seeing, you know, impact through, you know, these leaders
stepping in and pouring intotheir community and giving back.
I mean they don't have to dothis, right, they live there,
but they choose to work in thesecommunities and to help others
and it's, I mean, to me that'salmost more humbling than what
we do, right, because they're inthere day in and day out and
walking with these families andyou know we come in from time to
time and visit and you know wecome back to our, you know, but
(24:37):
come back to the States, whichis which is great, but yeah, so
we try to find church partnersor great community connectors
all over, you know.
So, like the partner that we'vegot in the Amazon, that was a
connection through somebody, soit's just networking, right,
it's.
You know, someone hears whatyou're doing, oh, you should
talk to so-and-so over here,right, and so-and-so says oh,
(25:00):
you should talk to so-and-so.
It just becomes a kind of aspider web of connections,
especially once you kind of getthings out there, what you're
doing, and people want to getinvolved.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Absolutely All right.
Awesome, Thank you.
So, all right, let me jump backover to your company and let's
go through a little bit.
I think it's going to bebeneficial to everyone.
You know, with any constructioncompany, as you kind of grow
from you, you know, being a oneman show and growing into things
you need systems, put systemsin place in order to grow and
(25:33):
expand your company.
What type of systems do youguys operate on?
Do you have a projectmanagement system?
Do you do any type of EOS, orhow do you guys operate?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah.
So I would say prior to 2019,we were kind of like all over
the place, we didn't really havea good.
We had some systems.
We had some systems, but theyweren't you know fine tuned
systems like to where we are now.
And part of that was I startedworking with a scaling up coach
(26:08):
as a component of, you know,similar to EOS.
So we follow some of the samesimilar principles and practices
.
So we have we we use, you know,the scaling up model for, you
know, growth and development andeverything like that.
But then we use, for now, we'vegot two project management
softwares we're using, we'reusing BuilderTrend, but we're
(26:30):
actually in the process oftransitioning over everything to
Autodesk.
So we're in that transitionright now, right now.
And then we in 20, at thebeginning of 2020, we switched
to.
Mondaycom is basically it's ourbrain trust.
(26:52):
It has everything in there.
We've built this thing out andwe've been building it for the
last four plus years.
It holds everything all projectupdates, checklists, I mean
it's basically we created thisthing called an autopilot.
If I would hand it to somebody,they could go build a house.
Now it may not turn out verynice and it may not be built on
time.
But if they follow it to the T,you can get it done.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Wow, that's fantastic .
So mondaycom, which is a great,it's like a project management
online software, which isfantastic, is fantastic.
So, yeah, so you're taking thatand running it through and
that's the whole thing.
As you're growing with acompany, if you are trying to
grow and scale it, you have todocument processes.
So just what you said you haveto have it where somebody can
(27:34):
just step in.
That's how you hire somebodythat's inexperienced and can
train, they step in and theyhave.
It's basically just a checklistthat walks them through.
As long as they follow thechecklist, follow the correct
pattern, then it's kind of dummyproofed.
Obviously, you know you haveoversight over them, but it gets
somebody in, can train them upand that way they're doing it
(27:54):
the way you want them to do it,not how they might've been
trained previously or never been, as long as they follow it
right and and they use it.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
that's part of the challenge as a leader is getting
people to use the tools thatwe've created.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
you know it's, it's, it's there for a reason, you
know yeah, do you guys have anytype of uh um, a scorecard or a
weekly check-in to verify theseguys are following protocol, or
how do you do that?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, so we do.
We do uh a weekly productionmeeting uh 11 o'clock on
Tuesdays and we cover kind oflike hot items and it's kind of
that's when we kind of use thatas to how do we connect the
office in the field.
Um, sometimes there's adisconnect, uh between
selections and you know ordersand things like that.
So that's a good time to geteverybody on the same page.
(28:44):
We also just talk about any,you know, challenges that we
might be having within you know,subcontractors or vendors or
clients or whatever comes out ofthat.
But yeah, we do that everyTuesday.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
And how do you guys communicate?
Do you have a messaging appthat you use?
Do you communicate throughMonday?
Do you communicate?
Do you have a messaging appthat you use?
Do you communicate throughMonday?
Do you communicate?
I know one thing that we had achallenge was we would have text
, messages, emails, so we've goteverybody communicating through
one singular platform.
Now, do you guys do anythinglike that?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
You know we use Microsoft Teams and some are
better at it than others.
You know we use Microsoft Teamsand some are better at it than
others.
You know it's probably acombination of of texts and
Microsoft Teams.
You know our internal team ismuch better because they're in
front of the computer, sothey're they're better at the
teams than the field managers.
The field team is going to bemore text and phone calls and
(29:40):
because I'm a hybrid, I do alittle bit of both.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
So when your field guys are they able to access,
let's say Monday, or I know yousaid you're using BuilderTrend
Do they access BuilderTrend viatheir mobile phone in the field?
Is that how they keep up todate?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, they all have an iPad that has access to
everything.
They also have laptops so thatwhen they're in the office or if
they want to take it out in thefield, they have access to all
of that.
So we're very tech-driven.
So everything that we do isdone through some type of
(30:18):
process or online tool that weuse.
And then what's what's what?
It's helped us kind of goingthrough COVID, because we were
already set up to go remote.
The only thing that we didn'tdo a lot of was video
conferences on teams.
We did a little bit of it, butyou know, other than that, the
only thing that we had to pivotduring COVID was really our
(30:41):
billing system, because ourbilling was all paper at the
time and now it's all digital.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Okay, so could you give me an example of one big
challenge or issue that you knowcaused you guys to do things
the way you've done?
Have you run into any bigchallenges, over even from COVID
to now, that have been likegame changers for you?
(31:07):
Have you run into any bigissues with clients maybe
they're not paying clientsrunning into a problem, clients
designing something and then youbuilding it and there being any
big problems that somebody thatcould help somebody kind of in
the beginning kind of catchthemselves from running into
that era.
That's one of the biggestthings contractors run into is
these big, big, massive problems, not small problems or no big,
(31:29):
massive problems yeah, well, I'mdealing with a big, massive
problem.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Right now.
I got a client that that hasn'tpaid us and we're, you know, in
the mix of a lawsuit.
So, uh, and what what's crazyis is for seven, 17 years, I've
never not had a client pay us,and then in the last year I've
had three, maybe even four, andso it's that's probably the
biggest challenge that you knowthat I've faced, because it
(31:58):
impacts cashflow, it, everythingelse it impacts, you know,
especially when you're dealingwith legal stuff.
Right, it just takes away fromyour day-to-day.
It's just, you know, you got an800 pound gorilla on your back
everywhere you go.
Um, you know how to avoid that,you know I, I think, um, making
sure that the clients show yousome kind of you know funds up
(32:18):
front so you can confirm thatthey have it, or put something
into a contingency escrowaccount so that if they go over
budget which is usually whathappens, right, it's, it's,
we've got the budget, we workwith the bank, the bank pays us,
but then all the overages, thechange orders or unforeseen
conditions, those are the thingsthat kind of creep in that.
So one of the things out ofthat, too, is we actually
(32:39):
started forcing our clients tocarry a 10 percent contingency,
10 to 15 percent contingency.
We need to see the funds.
You know, the other project wasa little bit different.
It wasn't, it was, it was moremultifamily and that was we were
working with a developer.
So that that that's a littlebit different.
(33:01):
So we, you know, I don't knowhow I would structure that
differently, I think it's just,you know, par for the course.
Every.
You know, I'm sure there's somany horror stories of
contractors.
You know I'm not the first, Iwon't be the last to go through
a situation like this.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Oh, yeah, well, there's, there is.
You're constantly finding newthings that can create problems.
We are going through one wherewe had a sub that we paid a
large amount of money.
We signed the progressive lienwaivers with him.
He didn't pay the supplier ahundred and something odd
(33:40):
thousand.
We paid him though the lienwaivers, but it doesn't matter,
we still now he didn't pay them,he paid he.
He's saying he paid them, butthey, I guess, put the money
towards other jobs that he owedon.
So now I have to repay them.
So you know, it doesn't makeany difference.
You as the contractor, anybodygetting into contracting, you're
, you know, the last line ofdefense.
(34:01):
Everybody's going to go afteryou.
You're the one that.
So you have to always beprepared.
You have to have money setaside for these things.
You know, like he's saying acontingency, yes, that's great
if you can get a client to havea contingency, but you know,
more times or not, you're goingto, they're, it's going to find
a way and it always comes backto it seems like the contractor,
(34:21):
the bad contractor.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah, you know we take the blame for a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
We do take the blame for a lot, but that's you know.
That's what.
That's why contractors a lot ofthem don't make it.
You have to be prepared forthese contingency.
You also have to put money inthese projects to make sure you
cover for.
You know, do you have somethingfor if the job goes way beyond
timeline and you're responsibleif you're not doing a cost plus
(34:49):
contract?
You've got just a guaranteedmaximum price contract or
something and the timeframe goesover.
Do you have something in therethat's going to allow for you to
be paid for all this extra timeor not?
Otherwise it's on your own dimeand all of a sudden, a job that
you did nothing wrong.
You make no money.
So when you're doing contracts,tim, do you guys typically do
(35:10):
cost plus or do you do aguaranteed maximum price
contract, or how do you guys doit?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
We kind of use a hybrid right, because the sticks
and bricks and the componentsof construction we get bids in
price and we're able to kind of,like you know, lock most of
that in um and then, but likeour allowances, like on our
finishes, our flooring andcountertops and cabinets and
things like that, we'll plug inan allowance, um number right,
(35:38):
hundred thousand cabinets right,and then what we do from there
is we just we just do a smallmarkup just to kind of cover a
little bit of overhead and ourtaxes on top of that.
You know we're not gouging ifthey go over, but no, we try to
be pretty fair from thatperspective.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yeah, so it's kind of a hybrid.
Yeah, that, and that's also whatmakes it difficult when you're
bidding a job.
So when you're bidding a job,typically, like you say,
everybody's going to come inrelatively close on the sticks
and bricks.
And how you differentiateyourself as a contractor is if
somebody comes in way lower,they're coming in way lower by
just not giving someone anadequate allowance on those
(36:21):
items you know, and battlingthat with a homeowner.
And then even when you givethem adequate allowances, they
go spend more what you gave themwhen you gave them like a
mid-level.
So you can just imagine if theytook the low guy.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
And then they'll say, they'll tell you, you didn't
give me enough.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Right, you didn't give me enough.
I'm like well, I mean, I wasalready high, I was trying to
get the number closer to whereit was workable, right, and you
know, that's the problem.
Yeah, yeah, that's too funny.
Well, man, it's been greathaving you on today.
I think it's been a wealth ofknowledge for anybody beginning
as a contractor or thinkingabout becoming a contractor.
So if people wanted to reachout to you to find out more
(37:00):
about your charity or just findout more about you, what's the
best way to reach you?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, you can send me an email at
twinteratparadimehomescom.
Twinteratparadimehomescom.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Awesome Tim.
Thank you so much for being onand thanks for what you're doing
out there.
We sincerely appreciate youtaking the time to sit and chat
with us today and help out thoseaspiring contractors.
Sir, have a great day, sir.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
You too Appreciate you.
Thank you, thank you.
Good morning.
Welcome to another episode ofCarolina Commercial Real Estate
Connection.
Today we have Tim Winter onwith us.
Tim, thank you so much forjoining us today.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Thanks, tony, appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Tim is a longtime general contractor, so I feel
like this is going to be a greatconversation.
Today we're going to go overeverything contracting,
everything contracting.
So, tim, could you start out bytelling everyone a bit about
you, how you got into generalcontracting and where and what
all you do in generalcontracting?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Absolutely.
Well, I'll start with where andwhat we do and then kind of
give you the backstory.
So we are, we do.
A lot of the ebb and flow overthe years has changed, but
predominantly now where we'velanded with our niche is mid to
high-end custom homes.
We also do additions andrenovations and we the company
(00:55):
is called Paradigm Homes.
We also have an architecturecompany that's attached to it as
well, called HomeluxArchitecture, and we'll talk a
little bit more later on ourfoundation, I'm sure.
But you know when, why and howdid I get into this world?
Well, it all started when I wasa kid.
My dad used to buy houses, fixthem up, rent them out, and you
(01:17):
know, I was, you know, the grunt, free labor.
You know, just kind of like,hey, this is what we do, you
work, we work, this is how thisis going to happen.
So I've just kind of beenaround it since I was a kid.
My grandfather both of mygrandfathers were just
hardworking guys, so they alwayshad me doing projects and
different things.
My dad probably one of thebiggest things as I got older
(01:39):
and got into it and actually gotwise enough to ask for some
money right To to for some ofthese projects was my dad bought
a commercial building.
I was, I was 16.
So I was able to drive and and,uh, you know I was, I, I I bid
out some work for him to go inand just kind of like tear out,
you know, basically got thebuilding and, uh, I learned a
(02:01):
lot through that.
I learned a lot on underbid mytime and just kind of learned
what it's like just to kind ofget down and dirty in
construction.
But then, but then from there Iwent to school, went to Penn
State I'm from Pittsburgh areaoriginally and once we I got
married, we got married, mygoing into the end of our senior
(02:22):
year or got engaged our senioryear, got married right after
school and we said, whoever getsa job, that's where we're going
to go.
So we ended up in northernVirginia, outside of DC.
I went to work for a nationalhome builder here and spent
about seven years with themlearning the ropes of ins and
outs of construction and newhomes and the way the production
(02:43):
systems work and, to be honest,it was really the best
education I've ever had.
The company that I worked forwas fantastic.
They're still an amazingorganization.
I got to the point where I'vealways kind of had that drive to
kind of do my own thing orotherwise I probably would still
be there Great, greatorganization.
(03:04):
But from there I launched in2007 Paradigm Homes and at the
time I had no idea that theworld was about to come
collapsing down.
The mortgage meltdown happenedin August of 2007 and a year
later the stock market.
So it was an interesting time.
But I was young.
I was 27 or 28, kind of young,dumb and naive and didn't know
(03:27):
any better.
So from there I started what Ithought was a home building,
custom home building company.
I didn't build my first customhome, I think, until like maybe
three or four years into theendeavor.
All right, so how I survivedkind of the great recession was
I got into commercial work.
I started doing retail space,restaurants, office buildings,
(03:48):
basically anything.
If someone would have called meto do a dog house, we would
have built a dog house or a treehouse or whatever.
At that time we were just doingwhatever we could to kind of
keep things progressing, and sowe did that for kind of the
combination of residential andcommercial for probably about
four or five years, and then werealized that we're much more
geared towards the residentialside, just because we tried to
(04:12):
create a client process.
How can we handle our clients?
How can we help them have agreat experience?
So for us that's really whatled us away from the commercial
and got us more into theresidential, Just as a little
bit more can be a little bitmore, you know, design elements
and things like that that comewith the residential versus some
of the commercial, and so I saycommercial is a little bit
(04:35):
colder and residential is alittle bit warmer.
So it depends on thepersonality that you have and
what you want to deal with.
I think both days as acontractor, just like man.
I don't know why I chose thisprofession sometimes.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
That's funny.
Yeah, it's definitely uh, youknow, uh, very up and down
industry and and, uh, hard workit's.
We have a lot of similarities,um, with how you started that
you started the exact same timeI started on my own in 2007.
So, um, I love the idea thatwhen we started out initially, I
got in and I was like man, thisis great, it's going to be a
booming economy, I'm going toreally kill it and then the
(05:15):
world collapses and you're likewhat the hell?
I was the same thing.
I was doing a bunch of nothing,and I find it very interesting.
So you started out with thecommercial thing.
I was doing a bunch of nothingand I find it very interesting.
So you started out with thecommercial aspect.
Did you have any commercialexperience?
You know, working for yourfather and being in the for a
large national home builder.
(05:37):
You obviously weren't doing alot of commercial with that.
Where did you feel the comfortwith doing the commercial?
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah so.
So when I first obviouslythings shifted, we hit the
friends and family circuit ofwork right.
So some additions andrenovations of people that we
knew.
But one of the first projects,actually, I took on two projects
right around the same time.
One was a retail cupcake shopthat my, my aunts were opening
and so I was, you know, broughton to to manage that, and then
(06:04):
my cousins and my uncle wereopening a restaurant and the
restaurant was the building wasbuilt originally in like 1869.
And so it had to be totallybrought back up there.
You know we needed to put inelevators, we needed to bring in
like it was.
It was a yeah, that was easy.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
This is easy.
This is very easy.
For this something to start outwith, yeah, you were just like
yeah, I'll do it, we'll figureit out, yeah that's fantastic
that's kind of my personality gohard or go home, I guess right.
Well, I mean, that's kind of howyou gotta do it.
You gotta, you know, fake ittill you make it at certain
point, because you you're justnot going to know what you're
(06:44):
getting into.
In those first couple of jobs,when you didn't know, did you
end up doing okay?
Did you lose any money in anyof these initial ones, or did
you kind of fare okay in all ofthem?
We fared okay.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I mean, I think the big thing was the way I worked
it out.
Because they were family deals,I was able to kind of negotiate
the contract a little bit.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
So it wasn't full, just a full bid out job.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
It was more negotiated than kind of an open
book kind of approach, which wasgood, so it was.
You know they were fair to meand vice versa, so I think it
was a win-win for both of them.
The family restaurant is stilloperating today, Northern
Virginia.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
They've been around for almost might be 15 years
this year, oh, fantastic.
Now tell me a bit about whenyou were working for the
National Builder.
What was your role in thatcompany?
Or roles?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
I had several different roles over the years
but I started off initially asso what?
So the?
I guess some of the bigdifferences in commercial and
residential is what they calltheir, their superintendents,
their project managers, all thatkind of stuff.
So when I went to work for thisbuilder they called us
assistant project managers andthen once you got promoted you
(07:55):
got moved into project managers.
So you were basically in acommercial where you're
basically like a sitesuperintendent or assistant
superintendent, superintendentor assistant superintendent.
So that's where I started and Ispent about about three, three
and a half years, you know, inthose in those two roles.
And then I moved into the officeand took a position and kind of
they call it was a costingmanager, which was very similar
(08:19):
to like an estimator, but wealso basically, you know, built
and helped do the development,because the company I worked for
was, you know, they weren'tbuying lots but they were buying
finished lots from developers.
So that position we'd go in anddo a lot of the upfront costs
and set all the kind ofbaselines and milestone markers
and we would manage any changeorders that came in from
(08:40):
projects.
It's basically like thefinancial side of the division
that came in from projects.
It's basically like thefinancial side of the division.
And then from there I went tokind of in that same role.
I was doing some generalmanagement, maybe not without
the title.
I had a great divisionpresident that I worked for.
That brought me into a lot ofmeetings, a lot of things that
were way above my pay grade andI should have been involved with
, and, to be honest, that was agreat learning lesson and
(09:03):
experience for me.
So I got to do some of thosekind of general management
things, even though it wasn'tentitled.
But then in 2006 is when thingsstarted changing.
They kind of saw the writing onthe wall.
Things were shifting and theystarted letting people go.
So they moved me back into thefield and I was building two
(09:24):
houses.
I'm like you know what, whenyou work for a production
builder, usually building 20, 25houses at a time, two was like
okay, I'm not going to.
I was really barely, you know,I'd go to work for a couple
hours a day Like there wasn'tmuch to do, and I'm like you
know what, I can do this on myown, and so that's really what
kind of you know.
You know, set me on mytrajectory to go start my own
thing, and that's awesome, allright.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
So let's let's kind of walk through starting your
own thing.
So you know, when we discussedinitially, you started with the
commercial and the residentialcause.
It was, you know, just sodifficult and the market was
terrible and I think anybodywould take anything.
Uh, at that point in time whenyou're, you know, from 2000,
late 2008 to 2011, there wasliterally nothing to do, you
(10:07):
would take whatever you couldget your hands on.
We did some terrible jobs forHUD housing and for anybody and
everybody that would give uswork.
So you, you got that, that youwere doing the both and you said
that you guys decided to, youknow, get away from the
commercial and do theresidential and you know anybody
(10:29):
that's doing a vast majority ofthings in construction.
The quicker that you find yourstrength and then niche down,
that's when you can really kindof the rubber hits the road and
you can grow as a company.
So when you guys niche down,you said it was something with
the client process.
Could you kind of what are youdescribing there, what was
happening?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah.
So what we kind of realized is,you know, there's a couple of
different types of contractorsout there.
Some that are just like don't,don't, I don't want to talk to
the client, I don't want to doanything they got to say with.
And then there's those that arelike I want to be hands-on, I
want to guide them, I want tohelp them.
And we kind of took thatapproach.
It's like what can we do tocreate kind of a unique
(11:10):
experience, becauseconstruction's messy
construction's long constructioncan become expensive.
So what are some things that wecan do to put in place to try
to help kind of create asmoother process?
Now, it's still been, you knowit's construction.
It's been a bumpy ride, but youknow that is our focus.
Like what can we do to create agreat customer experience, even
(11:31):
so much so as today, you know,our, our b-hag, as you call a
big, hairy, audacious goal, isto be the ritz-carlton of custom
homes, and so, um, we actuallyhave hired a consultant and a
coach from that, spent 18 years,17 years with Rich Carlton to
kind of come in and kind of helpus kind of navigate.
(11:52):
What are some things we can doto improve our experience,
because we've learned a lot inthe last couple of years.
Covid changed this game,changed the industry a lot, with
even costs, and then also weall got really busy.
Now things are starting to slowand we kind of had some growing
pains and had some upsetclients.
(12:12):
So we're just trying to figureout how to.
How do we circle back so thatwe don't go through those same
challenges again?
And you know, we've got theright systems in place to manage
a great client experiencethrough.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
You know, the home building process so, when you're
doing that, what are somethings that you've come up with,
so, with your clients guidingthem?
One thing that you stated andI'd love to learn a little more
about is you say you've got anin-house architecture firm, that
not everyone has that.
So how early in the process didyou guys establish that, and
(12:48):
what was the drive?
What was the driving reason forputting that together?
Speaker 2 (12:51):
yeah, so initially we would outsource architecture
and about three years ago myfriend who runs the architecture
company that we used tooutsource, he was pivoting his
business from kind of mid tohigh-end custom homes to
high-end to ultra luxury customhomes and we just kind of didn't
(13:12):
fit that profile, especiallybecause we still do additions
and renovations.
So him and I talked, and he'slike you might want to consider,
you know, maybe bringingsomeone on for some of these
other small projects, smallerprojects we can be there on the
ultra high end stuff, but youmight want to consider that.
So that opened up my eyes.
I'm like you know what, insteadof going to find another firm,
(13:34):
what if I just hired anarchitect and brought it
in-house Right?
I was looking at how much moneywe were sending outsourced to
architecture and I said you know, between that I should be able
to afford to bring an architecton in-house.
Control the process, becausethat's the other thing is, when
you outsource not everything buta lot of things, you can't
control the time right becausethey don't directly work for you
(13:56):
.
But in this case we can moveprojects along, we can adjust
things.
So that was kind of the driver,kind of two things.
One it was the control and thentwo it was kind of just
managing the cost and creatinganother vertical of income
stream.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, I love that idea.
So we we still outsourcearchitecture.
It's one thing that I wouldlove to get at some point, but
it's.
It seems like it would almostbe a game changer because you
know you can really eliminatethe competition.
So there's certain things thatwe try and do right now that can
eliminate competition.
(14:34):
But the earlier you can get theclient and get the other people
that can come in and swoop andbid it out of the way.
When you offer things thatother builders don't offer, it's
comparing apples and orangesfor the client.
The client can come to you.
They know that they're going toget an amazing experience when
they're going to get that designwhere you guys actually, you
(14:55):
know, own the design and havefully vested into the design, as
opposed to just saying, okay,here, here's three architects,
pick one, we'll work with youwith the architects.
Completely different experience.
So do you charge?
Is it a premium you charge indoing that, or is that kind of
equal out as the same price?
How does that look?
Speaker 2 (15:15):
It's probably a little bit less than what we
were.
Outsourcing Depends on theproject and the size.
We try to be competitive, youknow, internally.
So if somebody does come say,hey, what are you charging me
for architecture versus me goingto the third party, you know we
(15:36):
can say, look, we discount ourservices because you've hired us
to do both and you now have theopportunity to have us control
everything, versus if we gooutsourced you're paying more
and we may not.
You know we have less controls.
So it's a good selling piecefrom that.
We haven't had too muchreservation with it.
You know we claim to be adesign build firm, so it helps
(15:56):
from that perspective when yougot clients looking for it.
And the other thing that wefound is when you bring in two
or three architects and theclient picks one, they go
through and design it and thenall of a sudden you've got the
builder, the client and thearchitect all sitting looking at
each other and pissed off thatthe architect designed something
that's over budget and it's thecontractor's fault, right?
(16:16):
So not that I'm blaming thearchitects, because you know it
goes both ways, but that'sthat's a big challenge that
we've always run into is likethe house gets over designed
because you know most architectsaren't building houses, so they
don't understand some of thecosts and implications that come
in especially over the lastcouple of years with all the
crazy cost increase.
So yeah, so that's been a bigone.
(16:37):
For us is having everybody atthe table.
You know it becomes more of apartnership approach.
We've got owner, architect,builder all sitting together
from the beginning and then ifthere's an interior designer,
we'll bring them in at thebeginning.
So that way it's cohesive,right.
That's the beginning part ofour process, that beginning part
(17:00):
of our client experience.
It starts right there as around table versus an us versus
them mentality.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah, that makes a big difference.
And really, as far as for youguys, making that client
experience, that's definitely agame changer for a client
experience.
When you can do that and, trustme, if you've been in this
industry any amount of timeyou'll go through with a client.
Set up a budget, go find anarchitect, tell them what you
want.
Everybody's on the same page.
(17:24):
Then you get the drawings andyou're like okay, what just
happened here?
Why is this thing designed likethis?
This is definitely not inbudget for what we were talking
about.
This is like on a differentplanet.
And then you know so not onlyare you looking at the design
and having some things that cancome up that you're not
(17:45):
controlling huge timelinefactors.
Right now, when you're going toarchitects right now, anybody
who's dealing with thatarchitects you're going to
architects right now, anybodywho's dealing with that
architects are.
You're going to wait threeweeks, a month, month and a half
sometimes for an architect toeven start a drawing.
So then if you have a problemand you have to go back to them
for a redesign, then a lot oftimes you're having to wait
(18:05):
again before they start theredesign.
So, boy, you are not onlysaving them money, you're saving
people probably two, threemonths of time, a lot of times
when they're going through this,because you can control all of
that.
So that was a fantastic idea toimplement and it sounds like
it's paying off, and I candefinitely imagine it.
It continues to pay off andgrow, so that is fantastic.
(18:30):
Another thing that is greatthat you guys do that you didn't
really bring up.
You guys have a charityorganization that you've put
together.
Could you tell us a bit aboutthat, how that got started and
what that's all about?
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, absolutely so.
The picture that's directlybehind me is a picture of the
Dominican Republic and that'swhere it began.
So about 10 years ago my wifewent there on a trip with our
church and came back with thisvision and passion to build
houses.
She doesn't know how to buildhouses, but she says you do, so
(19:02):
we need to go figure it out.
So, in true Tim fashion, wefigured it out and so we started
the Paradigm Foundation about10 years ago and we started in
the Dominican Republic and we'vebeen there since, you know, for
10 years.
And then about five years agowe moved into Kenya.
So we've been doing projects inKenya.
(19:24):
I just got back from there inMarch.
We were there for about 10 daysand then we've done some
projects in Brazil.
We've done a couple of projectsin Central African Republic.
We've got a new partnership inthe Amazon of Brazil.
So, just looking to expand andlooking for opportunities, I
(19:46):
mean to date the foundation hasdone over 60 homes and, I think,
two churches and two communitycenters.
So I mean we're not talking bigsums of money to build houses.
It's not like the US, it's, youknow, 15 to you know, $18,000
gets a house done, gets that inplace and you're changing
(20:08):
people's lives not onlyimmediately, but also just for
generations.
So the generational impact isjust it's huge and so it's been
amazing to be a part of.
We take teams, we go to the DR.
We've got a DR trip coming upin September.
We go to Kenya, typicallyaround March or April, and then
we also, if anybody wants to doit, you know, hey, we've got a
(20:30):
group of people who want to goon a trip.
We've set those up too.
So, yeah, it's been a funjourney.
It's been a fun experience togive back and just, you know,
you're seeing lives changed, notonly there, but you're also
seeing.
You know, I take my staff everyyear when we go on a trip to
the DR.
I said if anybody wants to gofor the first time, I'll cover
(20:50):
your cost.
So I've had about four or fiveof them kind of jump on at that
and they've been down so theyget their experience and one of
the things that we've got somesigns here and around the office
that talks about how theirdaily job is creating impact
other than just our clients,right, because of the foundation
.
So, yeah, it's been.
It's been a fun, fun journeyand who knows where we end up
(21:12):
next.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, that's amazing.
So, yeah, that you know whatyou just brought up there at the
end.
You know you've got signsaround the office and you know
you want your team to buy in on.
What's our purpose?
Do we have a purpose that we'reall standing behind?
It's not all about you know howmuch money are you making.
Surely you don't have a greatteam If all your team is worried
(21:37):
about how much money they'remaking.
If they have a purpose on whatthey're doing and you clearly
define that purpose for them andit makes them feel good about
it, you know they want to growthe team because they know that
it's benefiting not only them,it's benefiting others.
And yeah, I commend you and yourwife for putting that together.
That's a game changer.
I absolutely love it.
I think it's amazing Not onlythat.
You know any client that'sdoing work with you knows that
(21:59):
portion of yours is going.
A portion of anything thatyou're doing is going towards
good.
So it gives them a good feelingwhen they're choosing and going
with your company, that it'snot only benefiting you and the
people that are around you, butthat it's not only benefiting
you and the people that arearound you, but you're
benefiting others in the world,so that's awesome.
Absolutely, I commend you guysfor doing that.
Thank you, thank you and we'llput some information in the show
(22:21):
notes if anybody wants to getin touch and reach out and find
out more or, you know, donate tothe cause.
I think it's a great cause, allright, so now I lost my track
here.
I wanted to go a little bitfurther into how do you
determine where you're goingnext.
I know you said it's throughthe church.
Could you kind of walk themthrough where, how you chose
(22:44):
these places and why you're inthese certain areas?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yeah, sure.
So you know, each country has acommunity church partner, right
, because the whole goal of usis it's an empowerment program.
We say we want to give people ahand up, not a handout.
So we want the church and thecommunity to come alongside, you
know, these families that we'reserving to find ways to, you
(23:11):
know, help, support them outsideof housing, whether it's food
needs or medical care or justsome prayer, whatever the
situation is, we want thecommunity to be involved.
So for us, we started in the DR.
We've gone through a couple ofdifferent communities, but the
current church and community.
There's a school attached to it, which is amazing.
(23:33):
There's 400 kids in the schooland they start teaching them
English at like five years old,and so that's a really cool
program that they've got goingthere.
And then in Kenya, the samething.
So in Kenya, there was actuallythere's this primary school and
they just started a high school.
There was actually there's thisprimary school and they just
(23:55):
started a high school, and so itjust, you know education is
huge, so that's, it doesn'talways have to be around
education, but those are our twokind of bigger partners right
now that focus on education andthen brought in some housing,
(24:16):
seeing, you know, impact through, you know, these leaders
stepping in and pouring intotheir community and giving back.
I mean they don't have to dothis, right, they live there,
but they choose to work in thesecommunities and to help others
and it's, I mean, to me that'salmost more humbling than what
we do, right, because they're inthere day in and day out and
walking with these families andyou know we come in from time to
time and visit and you know wecome back to our, you know, but
(24:37):
come back to the States, whichis which is great, but yeah, so
we try to find church partnersor great community connectors
all over, you know.
So, like the partner that we'vegot in the Amazon, that was a
connection through somebody, soit's just networking, right,
it's.
You know, someone hears whatyou're doing, oh, you should
talk to so-and-so over here,right, and so-and-so says oh,
(25:00):
you should talk to so-and-so.
It just becomes a kind of aspider web of connections,
especially once you kind of getthings out there, what you're
doing, and people want to getinvolved.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Absolutely All right.
Awesome, Thank you.
So, all right, let me jump backover to your company and let's
go through a little bit.
I think it's going to bebeneficial to everyone.
You know, with any constructioncompany, as you kind of grow
from you, you know, being a oneman show and growing into things
you need systems, put systemsin place in order to grow and
(25:33):
expand your company.
What type of systems do youguys operate on?
Do you have a projectmanagement system?
Do you do any type of EOS, orhow do you guys operate?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah.
So I would say prior to 2019,we were kind of like all over
the place, we didn't really havea good.
We had some systems.
We had some systems, but theyweren't you know fine tuned
systems like to where we are now.
And part of that was I startedworking with a scaling up coach
(26:08):
as a component of, you know,similar to EOS.
So we follow some of the samesimilar principles and practices
.
So we have we we use, you know,the scaling up model for, you
know, growth and development andeverything like that.
But then we use, for now, we'vegot two project management
softwares we're using, we'reusing BuilderTrend, but we're
(26:30):
actually in the process oftransitioning over everything to
Autodesk.
So we're in that transitionright now, right now.
And then we in 20, at thebeginning of 2020, we switched
to.
Mondaycom is basically it's ourbrain trust.
(26:52):
It has everything in there.
We've built this thing out andwe've been building it for the
last four plus years.
It holds everything all projectupdates, checklists, I mean
it's basically we created thisthing called an autopilot.
If I would hand it to somebody,they could go build a house.
Now it may not turn out verynice and it may not be built on
time.
But if they follow it to the T,you can get it done.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Wow, that's fantastic .
So mondaycom, which is a great,it's like a project management
online software, which isfantastic, is fantastic.
So, yeah, so you're taking thatand running it through and
that's the whole thing.
As you're growing with acompany, if you are trying to
grow and scale it, you have todocument processes.
So just what you said you haveto have it where somebody can
(27:34):
just step in.
That's how you hire somebodythat's inexperienced and can
train, they step in and theyhave.
It's basically just a checklistthat walks them through.
As long as they follow thechecklist, follow the correct
pattern, then it's kind of dummyproofed.
Obviously, you know you haveoversight over them, but it gets
somebody in, can train them upand that way they're doing it
(27:54):
the way you want them to do it,not how they might've been
trained previously or never been, as long as they follow it
right and and they use it.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
that's part of the challenge as a leader is getting
people to use the tools thatwe've created.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
you know it's, it's, it's there for a reason, you
know yeah, do you guys have anytype of uh um, a scorecard or a
weekly check-in to verify theseguys are following protocol, or
how do you do that?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, so we do.
We do uh a weekly productionmeeting uh 11 o'clock on
Tuesdays and we cover kind oflike hot items and it's kind of
that's when we kind of use thatas to how do we connect the
office in the field.
Um, sometimes there's adisconnect, uh between
selections and you know ordersand things like that.
So that's a good time to geteverybody on the same page.
(28:44):
We also just talk about any,you know, challenges that we
might be having within you know,subcontractors or vendors or
clients or whatever comes out ofthat.
But yeah, we do that everyTuesday.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
And how do you guys communicate?
Do you have a messaging appthat you use?
Do you communicate throughMonday?
Do you communicate?
Do you have a messaging appthat you use?
Do you communicate throughMonday?
Do you communicate?
I know one thing that we had achallenge was we would have text
, messages, emails, so we've goteverybody communicating through
one singular platform.
Now, do you guys do anythinglike that?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
You know we use Microsoft Teams and some are
better at it than others.
You know we use Microsoft Teamsand some are better at it than
others.
You know it's probably acombination of of texts and
Microsoft Teams.
You know our internal team ismuch better because they're in
front of the computer, sothey're they're better at the
teams than the field managers.
The field team is going to bemore text and phone calls and
(29:40):
because I'm a hybrid, I do alittle bit of both.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
So when your field guys are they able to access,
let's say Monday, or I know yousaid you're using BuilderTrend
Do they access BuilderTrend viatheir mobile phone in the field?
Is that how they keep up todate?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Yeah, they all have an iPad that has access to
everything.
They also have laptops so thatwhen they're in the office or if
they want to take it out in thefield, they have access to all
of that.
So we're very tech-driven.
So everything that we do isdone through some type of
(30:18):
process or online tool that weuse.
And then what's what's what?
It's helped us kind of goingthrough COVID, because we were
already set up to go remote.
The only thing that we didn'tdo a lot of was video
conferences on teams.
We did a little bit of it, butyou know, other than that, the
only thing that we had to pivotduring COVID was really our
(30:41):
billing system, because ourbilling was all paper at the
time and now it's all digital.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Okay, so could you give me an example of one big
challenge or issue that you knowcaused you guys to do things
the way you've done?
Have you run into any bigchallenges, over even from COVID
to now, that have been likegame changers for you?
(31:07):
Have you run into any bigissues with clients maybe
they're not paying clientsrunning into a problem, clients
designing something and then youbuilding it and there being any
big problems that somebody thatcould help somebody kind of in
the beginning kind of catchthemselves from running into
that era.
That's one of the biggestthings contractors run into is
these big, big, massive problems, not small problems or no big,
(31:29):
massive problems yeah, well, I'mdealing with a big, massive
problem.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Right now.
I got a client that that hasn'tpaid us and we're, you know, in
the mix of a lawsuit.
So, uh, and what what's crazyis is for seven, 17 years, I've
never not had a client pay us,and then in the last year I've
had three, maybe even four, andso it's that's probably the
biggest challenge that you knowthat I've faced, because it
(31:58):
impacts cashflow, it, everythingelse it impacts, you know,
especially when you're dealingwith legal stuff.
Right, it just takes away fromyour day-to-day.
It's just, you know, you got an800 pound gorilla on your back
everywhere you go.
Um, you know how to avoid that,you know I, I think, um, making
sure that the clients show yousome kind of you know funds up
(32:18):
front so you can confirm thatthey have it, or put something
into a contingency escrowaccount so that if they go over
budget which is usually whathappens, right, it's, it's,
we've got the budget, we workwith the bank, the bank pays us,
but then all the overages, thechange orders or unforeseen
conditions, those are the thingsthat kind of creep in that.
So one of the things out ofthat, too, is we actually
(32:39):
started forcing our clients tocarry a 10 percent contingency,
10 to 15 percent contingency.
We need to see the funds.
You know, the other project wasa little bit different.
It wasn't, it was, it was moremultifamily and that was we were
working with a developer.
So that that that's a littlebit different.
(33:01):
So we, you know, I don't knowhow I would structure that
differently, I think it's just,you know, par for the course.
Every.
You know, I'm sure there's somany horror stories of
contractors.
You know I'm not the first, Iwon't be the last to go through
a situation like this.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Oh, yeah, well, there's, there is.
You're constantly finding newthings that can create problems.
We are going through one wherewe had a sub that we paid a
large amount of money.
We signed the progressive lienwaivers with him.
He didn't pay the supplier ahundred and something odd
(33:40):
thousand.
We paid him though the lienwaivers, but it doesn't matter,
we still now he didn't pay them,he paid he.
He's saying he paid them, butthey, I guess, put the money
towards other jobs that he owedon.
So now I have to repay them.
So you know, it doesn't makeany difference.
You as the contractor, anybodygetting into contracting, you're
, you know, the last line ofdefense.
(34:01):
Everybody's going to go afteryou.
You're the one that.
So you have to always beprepared.
You have to have money setaside for these things.
You know, like he's saying acontingency, yes, that's great
if you can get a client to havea contingency, but you know,
more times or not, you're goingto, they're, it's going to find
a way and it always comes backto it seems like the contractor,
(34:21):
the bad contractor.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah, you know we take the blame for a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
We do take the blame for a lot, but that's you know.
That's what.
That's why contractors a lot ofthem don't make it.
You have to be prepared forthese contingency.
You also have to put money inthese projects to make sure you
cover for.
You know, do you have somethingfor if the job goes way beyond
timeline and you're responsibleif you're not doing a cost plus
(34:49):
contract?
You've got just a guaranteedmaximum price contract or
something and the timeframe goesover.
Do you have something in therethat's going to allow for you to
be paid for all this extra timeor not?
Otherwise it's on your own dimeand all of a sudden, a job that
you did nothing wrong.
You make no money.
So when you're doing contracts,tim, do you guys typically do
(35:10):
cost plus or do you do aguaranteed maximum price
contract, or how do you guys doit?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
We kind of use a hybrid right, because the sticks
and bricks and the componentsof construction we get bids in
price and we're able to kind of,like you know, lock most of
that in um and then, but likeour allowances, like on our
finishes, our flooring andcountertops and cabinets and
things like that, we'll plug inan allowance, um number right,
(35:38):
hundred thousand cabinets right,and then what we do from there
is we just we just do a smallmarkup just to kind of cover a
little bit of overhead and ourtaxes on top of that.
You know we're not gouging ifthey go over, but no, we try to
be pretty fair from thatperspective.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yeah, so it's kind of a hybrid.
Yeah, that, and that's also whatmakes it difficult when you're
bidding a job.
So when you're bidding a job,typically, like you say,
everybody's going to come inrelatively close on the sticks
and bricks.
And how you differentiateyourself as a contractor is if
somebody comes in way lower,they're coming in way lower by
just not giving someone anadequate allowance on those
(36:21):
items you know, and battlingthat with a homeowner.
And then even when you givethem adequate allowances, they
go spend more what you gave themwhen you gave them like a
mid-level.
So you can just imagine if theytook the low guy.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
And then they'll say, they'll tell you, you didn't
give me enough.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Right, you didn't give me enough.
I'm like well, I mean, I wasalready high, I was trying to
get the number closer to whereit was workable, right, and you
know, that's the problem.
Yeah, yeah, that's too funny.
Well, man, it's been greathaving you on today.
I think it's been a wealth ofknowledge for anybody beginning
as a contractor or thinkingabout becoming a contractor.
So if people wanted to reachout to you to find out more
(37:00):
about your charity or just findout more about you, what's the
best way to reach you?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yeah, you can send me an email at
twinteratparadimehomescom.
Twinteratparadimehomescom.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Awesome Tim.
Thank you so much for being onand thanks for what you're doing
out there.
We sincerely appreciate youtaking the time to sit and chat
with us today and help out thoseaspiring contractors.
Sir, have a great day, sir.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
You too Appreciate you.
Thank you, thank you.
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