Latest / The Commercial Builders’ Network (TCBN) / The Power of Partnership: How 9 Friends Built a Successful Architecture & Engineering Firm

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The Power of Partnership: How 9 Friends Built a Successful Architecture & Engineering Firm · The Commercial Builders’ Network (TCBN)

• speaker-0: Many entrepreneurs believe that success means building alone. Today's guest proves the opposite. Community Solutions by Design was founded by nine Tennessee State University graduates who believed they could build something larger together than any one of them could build alone. Today, we're talking about collaboration, leadership. architecture, aviation, and how contractors, developers, and public agencies can successfully work with firms like Community Solutions by Design. Here at the Commercial Builders Network, we say construction can change your life and it's starting to look a lot like you. This is the Commercial Builders Network, where trust is restored, power is reclaimed, and legacy is built. Let's get to work. Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to another episode of the Commercial Builders Network. My name is Sunisha Reed and I am your host, and today we have the amazing Jonathan Clark with Community Solutions by Design. We are gonna dive into architecture, engineering, and why working together is so essential. How are you doing today, Jonathan? speaker-1: Tanisha, I'm doing well. Thank you so much for inviting me to partake in this conversation with you. speaker-0: Awesome, awesome. So look, what stood out the most in your story was saying that it wasn't just you who started your company, but you and eight other members or students, former students of Tennessee State University, come together, collaborated and built this amazing ⁓ company. Can you tell us a little bit more about your story? speaker-1: Yeah, most most definitely. So, ⁓ to tie all of that together, I I I like to personally start with ⁓ I grew up watching Shark Tank. So if you know what that is, it's you know a bunch of entrepreneurs, people are pitching them to try to gain partners and equity and all this kinda other stuff. ⁓ so I watched that for years, ⁓ when the first season came out and I think I think what God was doing was planting seeds of entrepreneurship in me at an early age. ⁓ I knew I wanted to get into business, but I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do. so when I went to Tennessee State and I st ⁓ studied my my bachelor's of engineering. I I formed a tight knit ⁓ group with a a lot of people. I was I was very friendly, people knew me. ⁓ and so during the time that ⁓ I was there, I kind of gave the idea to I don't know, probably like forty people gave the idea. I said, Look, ⁓ Not really sure where this is going, but I know at some point, like I want to do this engineering thing ⁓ you know, as a as a business on my own, ⁓ full time, you know, just just throwing it out there. And so you two years passed and when I felt the time was right, I reached back out and eight of them said, Hey, yeah, I I do remember you talking about this. Like I think this could be something that we can actually do. ⁓ I at that at that time I don't think any of us had started a business. ⁓ maybe maybe one of the partners had some business experience, but for the most part, we we was just we was building the plane while we were trying to fly it, if that makes sense. So so it was it was it was exciting. There was there was young energy. It was it was good energy. It was positive energy, which I think all is needed when you are trying to build, you know, build an empire from the ground up. So that's kind of where that where that came from. And ⁓ we was super excited to get started. speaker-0: Awesome. So with most graduates, they go their separate ways, they do their own things. And I just wanna know, like, even though you made the call, was there any like mind shift things that you had to like get by? Or was it just an exciting adventure 'cause you guys were young and doing your thing? Like what made you guys say, Yeah, let's build this together? speaker-1: ⁓ if if I was to go back and ask all of the partners, I to be honest with you, I I think it was people's belief in me. you know, I've heard comments and different different other you know, other people talk about like, hey, they they always knew I was gonna be the one to do something. y you know, like in the high school yearbook, you know, you look at people and it's like the most likely to do this, most likely yeah. So like I was the most likely to be an entrepreneur, most likely to start a business. ⁓ and I think they they just entrusted in that. And ⁓ because I because we had to do with that relationship, you know, like ⁓ working together in in university said that I think they kind of really knew my work ethic, knew my my integrity, honesty, ⁓ just genuinely overall good character. And that kind of took away some of the skepticism or fear of like launching, getting out there, taking risks. So I I think really I just have to credit I to credit that portion of our chemistry to just their their trusted main basic. speaker-0: Love that because a lot of times ⁓ when we are looking for to become entrepreneurs or looking for an opportunity, we're looking at up and looking to see, okay, well if somebody has, you know, what I want, ⁓ let's go after that, which isn't a bad thing to try to see, you know, mentorship or coaching and everything. But I think a lot of times we lose sight of looking to the left and to the right of the people that have the same goals as you and say, Look, how can we figure out a build this together instead of spending all this money trying to, you know I know the cheat code and coaches, I'm not against it at all. But sometimes we're looking so far ahead of where what they have instead of building on the ground together with the people that are around you. So I absolutely love that. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. speaker-0: Now when did you realize that man, I think we got something special here? speaker-1: I I I to this day I remember my first client, ⁓ which was a homeowner and she was like doing some renovations in in ⁓ in Nashville, Tennessee. And ⁓ I I remember it very directly because we we were like college me you know not not too far from college, right? ⁓ we were s we were afraid to charge ⁓ her like like two thousand dollars to do like some professional service stuff. And it was so funny because when we told her the price, like she wrote the check immediately. I was like, wait, wait, wait. Well, in my ⁓ you know, in our mind, we were like, wait a minute, this it's happening too quick. Too fast. You know. Yeah, but just just to have someone have enough confidence in us to write a two thousand dollar check, like coming coming from ⁓ university, you know, get you know, getting into workforce, you know, having that that type of mentality, ⁓ and then like jumping into entrepreneurship and like Basically that that dollar value equates to like people's trusting you, you know? And it was like that was just like a I I think that might have been a lightweight moment, maybe, ⁓ now that I think about it. Is this this lady who I don't know from anybody else, she found us, you know, on Google. ⁓ we visited her, you know, gather got to know her event, got to know her project, and kind of stated how we could help her and then like offered her what our service was for. bore f bore fee and she wrote a check. So like that's that was like ⁓ an amazing moment to the to to this point now to where we are today. And I mean we we we have very large contract with you know with with public ⁓ if agencies and entities. So I think to go from from that to where we are now, ⁓ it it just takes some internal growth. And I think a lot of the the partners had a chance to see that over time. speaker-0: My thoughts are you guys are architects, right? You guys are brilliant minds. How do you, I guess, bring your strengths together? Because my thoughts with with how smart you guys are with what you do, there has to be some kind of like, how do you like, how do you do the not the hierarchy per se, but say, let me give and let me take a step back on the these moments. How do you guys navigate that? speaker-1: d so there there's two things I can I can name. One is I I have to credit the other partners' experiences. So like not not everybody went the traditional consultant route like I did. Some people went into construction, which is which is a a huge added value. Some people went into ownership ⁓ owners' rep and you know, construction management. ⁓ and of course some other people, ⁓ other partners like went into engineering and and and things like that. So like really I was excited because we were able to have a a very blended ⁓ f ⁓ amount of resources and I know not necessarily like it's it's not about how smart I am. It's about, you know, how can I get people that that may know more than me and in and in different facets like to work together. and so the way we we have built the business is more of a collaboration. ⁓ so like the the background story was ⁓ when I first started the business with these partners, like me went I think we went like a year? We went we went like a year without like this was a volunteer army for like a year. So it wasn't that we were trying to ⁓ you know, make people do certain things. It was the openness and the creativity in the space of like, hey, this is what I'm good at, this is what this is how I can bring value to the team so that we can become a, you know, sustainable, profitable company. So I think like just creating that openness and that space to be the best version of yourself allowed people to feel like they had a place ⁓ without, you know, people stepping on each other's toes. speaker-0: Yes, absolutely. What would be some advice you would give to an entrepreneur that is afraid of partnering and sharing clients and opportunities and stuff? What advice would you give to? speaker-1: You know, I d in these last couple of years I I have realized that partnering ⁓ is probably outside of like pure organic growth and like buying other companies, like partnering is probably the the fastest way to to to grow a business. and the one thing I will caution is for like for me it's really about the person's character. His character. ⁓ I can't I can't say this hard enough that like Human beings have have patterns and the way that a person does one thing is the way that they do everything in every area of their life. And so before you get into a partnership or you try to, you know, go that down that route, it's a a lot of what we do, like for as an architect, it's only like twenty percent technical. The other eighty percent is dealing with people. And so the the technical stuff is not even the hard part. It's it's like, you know, Am I even choosing the right client? Not all not all money is good money. Yeah. ⁓ so it's like, you know, how do I assess the client's character? Do they do they value me as an architect or do they see me as a necessary evil? ⁓ you know, partnering with with other companies, you know, when we're talking about like joint ventures or teaming agreements, it's like, you know, does this other other company have the same values that we do? Am I gonna get along with this person? I'm about to get in bed with them for this project for the next three, four years, you know, designing and you know, developing that construction, this is not an overnight thing. This is this this takes years off your life. So, you know, it's like, do I want to be married to this person for a long time? And I I think the most the most important advice I can give you is who is this person when things aren't going well? Who is who is this person when when when stress has entered the camp? That is the real person. And if if you are able to to conduct ⁓ and and see a person in a in moments of stress and moments of ⁓ swimming war or or chaos like whatever that looks like, ⁓ that is that is the real person. And so you want to make sure that ⁓ that person can still have ⁓ character, integrity, ⁓ just certain certain values that that make it a a nice experience to be with someone. ⁓ that's gonna have you back. 'Cause it's it's not it's not if stuff will go wrong. It's it's when things will go wrong, especially in the construction industry. So that's what we look for, that's what we've learned ⁓ over time and that's the advice I can give. speaker-0: Awesome. Now on this platform, one of the big things that we harp on is how do we rebuild trust within the community? And I saw that one of the things that you say is we're a partner, not a compliance checkbox. What built that philosophy when dealing with clients? speaker-1: I I think it I think it goes back to like does this does this client genuinely want to work with us as a as a partner? Or ⁓ you know, is is this client or agency or entity, you know, working with ⁓ working with us because ⁓ we have some sort of ex external, you know, value that like helps them ⁓ achieve some sort of goal. ⁓ 'Cause we're like we're a smaller business, we're a small, you know, small company. And a lot of times we work with larger firms and the the big projects that we that we work on are are ⁓ public agency driven. And so there's, you know, there's requirements to have small businesses and minority businesses and all these sorts of things. And so we we just try to ⁓ really determine and have discernment around, you know, if if no requirement existed, does this person really have a genuine interest in us? ⁓ and those are the those are the clients that we in the community that we really want to, you know, work in because we we get to show up as our best self. ⁓ and so it's it's a partnership and not just say, you know, you give us the best chances of winning, so please join our team. speaker-0: Now you are a rare breed with being not only a architect but a professional engineer as well. How has that shaped your perspective when it goes to working on these projects? speaker-1: ⁓ it's I I would say good and and I also I have to have a little bit of caution 'cause I sometimes I get a little over I get over overzealous and I and I ⁓ I'm I'm the type of guy that like I'll take on a challenge and then like figure out how to solve it, you know, ⁓ after after I get it. And so I I I will say though, it's just when I work with clients, it's helped me have the old perspective, especially like when I'm ⁓ engaged in my partners that have been in construction. So I can't tell you how many countless times I probably save clients from making a a a very poor decision. ⁓ and it's not their fault because this is this is not their industry. ⁓ what we try to do is show up as trusted, you know, value ⁓ consultants, trusted advisors. And I'm only able to do that because I'm I can see projects from different sides. So from the from the development end as a as an architect, how to, you know, get the best value out of ⁓ development. from the engineering perspective of, you know, what's going to be the most efficient way to do something that's like most cost effective. And then on the construction end of ⁓ how to communicate with the contractor, how to kind of educate the client also about like what's happening during construction. And ⁓ we often have to do that because a lot of clients for some reason think projects are supposed to be perfect. And and that that may be a natural tendency, but ⁓ help you know helping to educate them about like what's happening in real time. I think it's it's been our ⁓ our strengths. ⁓ speaker-0: Now, for a person that is new to the industry that may either, you know, be interested in becoming an architect and engineer or don't know they should, or even from the perspective of a client, potential client who would want to hire you, what is the difference between an architect and engineer and why would I, you know, hire your firm to come in? What step of the process? I know it's a Bunch of questions I'm asking back to back, right? What part of the process are you coming in and why ⁓ I have this brilliant idea. I'll just hire a G C. Why do they need you? speaker-1: I just cringed. I just got chills when you said that. ⁓ my goodness. Because that that happens more times than I want to deal with. so to answer your first question. ⁓ so an architect. ⁓ the best way I could put this, I I I learned this over time, is that architecture isn't really actually about the buildings. Believe it or not. Believe it or not. Architecture is about the human experience. We just so happened to to be able to ⁓ how can I say? transform environments to ⁓ edify human experience. So the way I I'll describe it and explain it is it's like ⁓ we spend probably ninety percent of our time inside of buildings, whether that's at work, ⁓ whether that's for entertainment purposes or ⁓ you know, whether that's like leisure, you know, leisure activities, play, work, no, leave. So we try to ⁓ design ⁓ ar architecture in such a way where it it ⁓ goes with the natural tendencies that like that we have as human beings. So ⁓ architecture is about like ⁓ activating the sensories of the body, you know? So like if you've ever been into a place and and the vibe, you just you don't know why you like it, but it's like, man, like the the atmosphere, the ambiance, the vibe, the smells, the natural light, like all those things come together. And like activate this this ⁓ this energy in you. And so in in in an essence, that's what architecture is about. You know, we're technically trained to to deal with with building layouts, materials and code, all this type of stuff to like at the end of the day give you that like euphoric feeling with when you walk into a space, you're like, I don't wanna leave, I like it here, but I don't know why. Yeah. That's architecture. Okay. Engineering is is the support of that. Engineering is it's almost like ⁓ like dealing with like it's almost like Lego blocks. It's like there's there's certain pieces that we have to play with and we have to figure out what piece and in what order makes sense to to like build this building. ⁓ there's all kind of engineers. There's civil structural, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, like fire protection. There's like 20 different engineers that work on buildings. And so when you have a really complicated, really sophisticated building, you have a huge team of engineers because those those are the guys that like make all of the details happen that you actually don't even see. ⁓ you know, just like our bodies, you know, you only s you only see skin deep, right? But there's so many systems on the inside of your body, that's the engineer. So that's probably the best way I can explain that. ⁓ and then what ⁓ why would clients hire us? I I think the biggest thing, and like I said, I I cringe when you say, ⁓ I have an idea, let me hire a GC. I was literally having a conversation about this yesterday. And a lot of a lot of clients ⁓ may not be familiar with like the the design and construction process. And like when a client says, Hey, I have an idea, let me go to a GC, no disrespect to GCs at all. I love I love working with general contractors. But the that client has literally skipped the whole like an entire design process. And and that's like sometimes months of of of proper planning that needs to go into this like this project. And ⁓ a lot of times though G Cs that the clients don't know this, they come they circle right back and come back to the architect. 'Cause a you know, a lot of a lot of ⁓ general contractors, you know, gets they get the the drawings and the plans and the ⁓ you know ⁓ all the instructions from the from the architect. So, you know, there's in in in a lot of ways, there's no way to get around an architect. I d I put it like that. But I think ⁓ why clients will hire us is is again like we we bring ⁓ a certain ⁓ feeling of safety that I think a client could could appreciate and helping them, you know, to navigate the best return on investment, I think it's gonna be important. So yeah. speaker-0: Awesome. Now what is like a couple of like major mistakes that people tend to make before hiring a architect? Like like you said, I got an idea. I can make this happen. speaker-1: So this is this is a funny cliche that ⁓ that my my peers and I say all the time. Let professionals do what professionals do. And so and so all we need, all we need from from clients is the idea. Like, hey, this is what we're trying to do. These are our thoughts. Like this is some some of the creative energy, crazy stuff. Like where that's all we need. ⁓ and we're able to to use what we've been technically trained to do. It's almost like it's almost like ⁓ sitting in a ⁓ in a chair, you know, you've been you've been asked the questions about, you know, so tell me about tell me about, you know, five years ago and like helping people with that those kind kind of problems. We do the same thing for like getting ⁓ pulling the idea out of people so that we can actually turn it into a visual, you know, building concept. ⁓ So so so so that's what we do. I think best. ⁓ a lot of ⁓ a lot of mistakes is like they'll they'll go spend money on a bunch of different stuff. They'll like I said, they may go to a G C, ⁓ and and they just may not be ⁓ getting the the full return on the on the investment, the time and money spent before seeking an architect. ⁓ sometimes they'll go they'll go buy land. They'll go buy land, they'll spend money. And they have this idea of like, yeah, we wanted to put this on the land and then and then they talk to me and they find out, well, it's not even zoned. So you so like the city won't even let you do that. So now you're stuck with this parcel of land and then we gotta figure out how to make it profitable for you. So it's just it's just all kind of stuff like that. speaker-0: So can you go into what is your ideal client? speaker-1: Absolutely. Absolutely. ⁓ this is kind of one of my favorite things to talk about. So ⁓ the company when we first started, we were we were doing like mostly residential. ⁓ that was the easiest entry of barrier, you know, for a started ⁓ architecture engineering company. We have since then like literally ⁓ night and day moved into a lot of commercial work actually. So ⁓ in commercial work we are doing hospitality, so that's like hotels. ⁓ bars and restaurants, people like to eat. We learned that very quickly. ⁓ Also, you know, office office spaces. ⁓ education actually is one of I think my favorites also. We do a lot of daycares, ⁓ charter schools. Charter schools is huge. And then higher education. So we work with some with a few universities in the in the in the region. ⁓ we also do healthcare. So we're working on ⁓ like OR projects. ⁓ hemodialysis, ⁓ eye care, like different different professions, you know, professional ⁓ clinic buildings. And then I would say probably ⁓ one of my my biggest and favorites are ⁓ are airports. So we do a lot of aviation work actually. We've been ⁓ in Nashville at that airport for probably the last four four years and going. So a aviation is really cool 'cause it's complex, but it's it's it's a lot to learn. And it's ⁓ it's like a a mini city. So it's a l it's a lot of things going on. speaker-0: Awesome. Aviation, that's so cool that like how many people can say they actually help with an airport? And and most people are thinking of the terminals themselves, but what are some opportunities that are there in these airports that ⁓ some people may not even think about? speaker-1: There's there's so much again, like I said, air airports are a small city. So they have fire departments, police you know, police department. ⁓ they're so so aviation split into two two categories, ⁓ aeronautical and non-aeronautical. So some some airports even on land, like either right outside the the airport space, ⁓ where they may do some type of you know, building to lease, right? That's gonna like generate revenue. You have parking garages. you and then you have like all of the the administrative spaces, right? ⁓ you also have something called F FBOs, which is fixed space operators. These are your p your private jets. So like they they have a their whole little, you know, little thing going on. ⁓ so there there's just so much at airport that you can get involved with. speaker-0: For someone who might be hoping to get into that space, what would be your advice to them? You know speaker-1: No, we so we we got brought to the table through through partnership, but it was actually from sowing seeds like like ten years ago. So my my story is ⁓ there was a a a a general contractor who we who we helped do some pro bono work for for a for ⁓ elementary school. It was like this little small project. ⁓ we did that and that person and I stayed in contact for like the next ten years and then he ⁓ he called me and was like, hey, I got an opportunity. Think you might be interested in it. ⁓ I'm I'm I got real good relationships with the with this airport and and the prime architect. Think it would be a great a great fit. You know, are you interested? And so I was like, yeah. So he ⁓ he, you know, gave my name to to to the individuals and like we ⁓ we we got on a team. and went after a contract and actually won the work. So my experience was from, you know, partnership, sowing seeds, ⁓ word of mouth, like people kinda bringing us in on the team. So there's there's a lot of opportunities. There's there's a lot of there's a lot of the airports are spending billions of dollars a you know, a year. If you look at if you look at the ⁓ the US D O T and the and the aviation division, they're spending billions of dollars on these airports. So there's there's money for everybody. speaker-0: I love that. If there was any piece of advice you would give to an architecture or an engineer who is f on the residential side and wanting to go into the commercial side, what would it be? speaker-1: I would say ⁓ definitely home home in on your craft. ⁓ and I say that because residential and commercial construction is slightly different in terms of like rules, regulations, codes, ⁓ liability. ⁓ so spend some extra time, you know, honing in on your craft, ⁓ in terms of like ⁓ studying you know, getting familiar and studying a little bit more about those rules, regulations and, you know, just the the risks you're exposing yourself to. ⁓ the best way would be to, you know, partner with another firm, maybe on a small commercial project or or sometimes like there's there's clients that ⁓ bring us residential work, like multifamily work that also do small commercial stuff. So just just trying to get your feet wet in that before you dive, you know, fully in. ⁓ but it's it's not a scary thing to do. It's just ⁓ there's just a little bit more ⁓ a little bit more to it than than what the residence ⁓ projects require. speaker-0: What's next for community solutions by design? speaker-1: Development. That's next. So ⁓ w we're looking at a couple things is one Being a being an architect and engineer, our our business is still like project to project, right? So what we what we wanted to do was how can we create a source of additional, you know, revenue and what landed on my heart was like ownership. The word ownership keeps coming up. And so, well, how can we be either develop own projects or be a part of development teams? you know, in order to have that additional stream where it's like, hey, we'll we'll be paid to to design the project, but also we have a equity state in the project. So if the project is a is a build and hold and rent and lease and all of that, well we're we're making residuals on that ⁓ long term. Or it could be a you know bill and a sale, right? That ⁓ that situation ⁓ exponentially increases our our revenue, you know, ⁓ when that time comes. And so we've just been looking at how can we be creative. How can we join in partnerships, forces with, you know, ⁓ emerging developers and and some ⁓ developers that are open to us ⁓ trading some of our design fee for for equity into the project? speaker-0: Awesome. Do you have an ask of any sort? Any kind of things potential partners or ⁓ people you're looking for, potential clientele or anything, any asks for your business that you're looking for? speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, so like I said, the the next step for us is is to is to become development partners. You know, my my ask would be ⁓ if there's any emerging developers ⁓ within the southeast region, ⁓ or or further out, you know, we'll we'll we'll go with the partnerships make sense. ⁓ that they, you know, join us and creating brought in communities. ⁓ we wanna do projects of purpose. ⁓ we want to you know, make sure that that we are also giving back. So, ⁓ getting involved, you know, with with the youth and things like that. We love doing that. So there's opportunities for for me to come speak, you know, to to engage community and youth. That's also something I I would ask as well. speaker-0: Awesome. How do we get in touch with you? speaker-1: support. Yeah, so you can you can definitely the best thing is to find me on LinkedIn. ⁓ just you know my name Jonathan Fark. ⁓ you'll you'll see my you'll see my face there. Just connect with me on there. I'm very active. ⁓ you can also email me at J Quark ⁓ at CSBD nine dot com dot com. ⁓ and then ⁓ I I'll even throw out my business cell phone number is six two nine two four six three one four three. So you can call me there. speaker-0: All right, only use that if you bring in some money to the don't be playing with this man is not John. It has been a pleasure having you here. I thank you so much. speaker-1: Yeah. Thank you so much, Nisha. I really appreciate it.