Learn to sell something, anything. You’ll never learn more about what it takes to run a business than when you put yourself out there and make an offering.

– Michael Kilkelly, Founder of ArchSmarter

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Be persistent and don’t give up on your dreams. Find the best team members to build your business with and, most importantly, – don’t be afraid to dare and enjoy what you do.

– Adi Biran & Lihi Gerstner, Founders of Splacer.co

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It’s all about surrounding yourself with the most talented people who can help you realize your vision and stay most true to your ideas.

– Natasha Case, Founder of Coolhaus

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Studying architecture is just the greatest thing there is. The skills learned are actually quite good for management. You learn to form a vision, present this vision or break it down to smaller tasks.

– Kaspar Helfrich, Co-Founder of Archilogic

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I hope that if architects and design minded people are impacting development and urbanism in a greater way, our buildings and our communities will only get better.

– Ari S. Heckman, Founder of ASH NYC

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Architects have a huge contribution to make to the world in the 21st century – particularly in shaping how we can live sustainably and happily within ever-denser cities and within the Earth’s resources.

– Will Hunter, Founder & Director LSA

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Just get started, and don’t be afraid because the people who are successful are willing to fail and so you should be too.

– David Belt, Founder of Macro Sea

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I would like to see architects be less passive in their roles and with their profession. For me that means real estate development. But it could mean any number of other variations on the trade. Architects are holistic thinkers. I am at my best when I use my right brain and my left brain equally. Architecture school hones both of these hemispheres in a way that’s not common in other professions.

– Kevin Cavenaugh, Founder of Guerrilla Development

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Start today…! I suffered from analysis paralysis for a long time, fearing I’d never be able to save enough working capital to make a run at starting a business. I was determined to spend as little as possible to make it work.

– Eric Reinhold, Founder of 30×40 Design Workshop

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In the architectural profession we mainly think about solutions, and we constantly challenge how things are normally done. I think that’s a rare quality.

– Jakob Lange, Partner at BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) and Head of the BIG Ideas project unit

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I see a profession that is completely different from the one we know today. Traditional practice is broken – I yearn to see solutions that we can’t even imagine today.

– Marc Kushner, Founder of Architizer & HWKN Architects

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I think that the most important step is to just do it. It sounds bold but in the end you need to think about your business idea and how customers will use and pay for it. Finally, you need to implement it. Do not wait too long; make it a reality.

– Antje Kunze, Founder of SmartBetterCities

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My advice to architects who want to start their own business is to put creativity at the heart of their activity, and to try to invent new things that can be really useful for other people.

– Filippo Schiano di Pepe, Founder of CoContest

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As architects, we like to think that successful projects come because we have a great idea. But a project’s success is actually down to risk management by a practicing and experienced developer.

– Roger Zogolovitch, Founder of Solidspace

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Go for it. I think you just have to start small, and start with what you can do with your own hands and feet, and find a way to be innovative. I think the biggest trap that you can get into is borrowing a lot of money and then finding out that it doesn’t work.

– Matthew Griffin, Co-Founder of Deadline Architects

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Follow your heart and do what you love to do. However, if it’s business you want then you need to learn to take care not only of yourself but also your customers.

– Qi Su, Co-Founder Modelo.io

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Architects have to educate themselves a lot more in the areas of digitalization, programming, economics, and the invisible infrastructure of cities. It’s not enough to simply understand how a building is drawn and set up if you want to shape and think about the modern cities of tomorrow.

– Andreas Rauch, Co-Founder of CABIN SPACEY

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What are your favorite quotes that inspire you?

The post 17 Inspirational Archipreneur Quotes that will Motivate You in 2017 appeared first on Archipreneur.

The architectural profession is dominated by service-based businesses. The conventional way in which architects run their studios requires them to reinvent their services with every new client. Specific requests and project briefs are mostly approached with a high level of customization that is time-consuming and inefficient.

In recent times, a new business model has entered the field of architecture, enabling businesses to become more competitive. The concept of productized services proved to be a superior alternative to the established business model, offering a faster turnover rate, more freedom for principals and employees and more room for scaling.

The idea of productized services draws from the field of product development. While services offer greater flexibility and adaptability, products are considered to be standardized and inflexible. In order to reconcile these two contrasting approaches, business owners can appropriate the efficiency and scalability of products with various levels of customization.

The idea behind productizing design services in not to make services more inflexible, but to systematize them in a way that benefits both clients and service providers by creating repeatable, standardized, and automated practices. This can significantly reduce risks for clients and establish trust through consistent delivery of reliable services. By standardizing prices and billing procedures, clients are more likely to perceive architectural design services as value instead of cost. The often intangible qualities of good design are made more transparent and measurable.

Firms looking to offer productized services have different profiles. Some are just starting out, while others are existing businesses with a healthy client base. Productizing existing business models can also be achieved by adding products to your offering which will complement existing services.

It all starts with the customer/client experience and feedback. Explore what new value a productized service would provide to your clients. Define which parts of your business are the easiest and important to standardize. You can use different online tools to automate parts of your processes. A simple pricing system can go a long way in helping you get new clients. Complement this with a consistent look and feel that make specific service elements recognizable.

MIMA Lab introduced productizing very early on. Marta Brandão and Mário Sousa started their business from scratch, offering prefab housing concepts with plan sets that can be ordered online. The structures are delivered together with a folder of drawings that may be necessary for licensing procedures, as well as fact sheets, and guarantees for fixed prices, components and finishes, construction, electrical installations, sewage and water installations, house permits, five-year warranties, and transportation and assembly within Portugal.

They decided to create a business around the idea of affordable, productized architectural designs. As they said in an interview for Archipreneur, software engineer Miguel Matos helped them to create a software that translates all the design information for the factory and simplifies the construction process. The software also allows clients to locate their property on Google Earth and generate an automatic 3D model of their future houses and its position on the site.

Finnish firm Workspace, on the other hand, is a great example of how productizing can be enhanced by focusing on a specific niche. The firm is a leading Nordic consulting and design agency specializing in workplace design and management. Their approach focuses on creating integrative design that combines resource, space management and information communication technology in order to appeal to businesses in need for environmental solutions for new, emerging organizational structures and business models. They create designs that supports various scenarios of use.

In an interview for aec-business.com, Jyrki Yläoutinen, Executive Workplace Consultant at Workspace, said that a large part of their productizing strategy was to focus on finding businesses and not individual clients. They were inspired by the gaming industry in which developers get user feedback very early and fast.

Their services include workplace management and consultation, support for change management and communication in workplace changes, interior design, and architectural design. With their services clients are saving up to 30% in real estate costs and productivity and speed is increased by 5-50%. The resulting business model led to clients fully understanding what they get for their money and the firm now requiring less time for sales and negotiations.

Eric W. Reinholdt took a more gradual approach to productizing his business by introducing products that complimented his existing services. He started his firm, residential design studio 30X40 Design Workshop after gaining extensive experience working for other architects and seeing the consequences of the recession first hand.

His business struggled until he introduced pre-designed plan sets that cut energy consumption. He established a fee structure for schematic and construction packages. Reinholdt added this new product line to his established service-based model, adding customers that didn’t fit the established model as driving force for his passive income model. His website also allows visitors to buy his influential books on architecture and entrepreneurship.

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The key to productizing architectural services is to replace the time-consuming model of billing by the hour with a more efficient model with set prices similar to those of products. Potential customers are easier to target, hiring people is more straightforward and project turnover rate increases. It is important to remember that productizing services is not a one-off endeavor, but a process developed by looking at what clients need.

The post How to Productize Architectural Services appeared first on Archipreneur.

Eric wrote this book because he wished that he had this sort of guide when he started his own firm 30X40 Design Workshop. So this interview will be particularly interesting for those of you who are thinking about starting your own architectural practice or interior design business.

Here are Eric’s thoughts and tips on architecture, entrepreneurship and starting a practice.

I hope you enjoy his interview!

What made you decide to become an entrepreneur and found the 30X40 Design Workshop? Was there a particular moment that sealed the decision for you?

I was working for a small six-person firm which was struggling in a slow economy. Rather than thin the ranks, everyone agreed to take a 20% pay cut. As part of the agreement we were given the option to continue to work a full, five-day work week or work four days and take the fifth to pursue outside work. That was the moment when I realized I had to build something of my own and when I began laying the foundations for 30X40.

Want to start you own practice? Read this…

On my daily commute I listened to podcasts: Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income, The Tropical MBA, This Week In Startups and Internet Business Mastery and I read The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss which changed my life. Together these resources inspired me to think differently about what an architecture practice in today’s economy might look like.

I think too often we buy into the myth that working for someone else – being an employee – offers job security. But, the change in my personal work situation really made me question that idea. I realized that I couldn’t count on an employer to offer me job security, I had to create it for myself.

What do you find the most fulfilling about your current job as an architectural entrepreneur?

Without question it’s the freedom I have. I set a work schedule that balances my professional pursuits with my family life. I choose which projects and commissions I’ll accept. I’m free to experiment, to set the course for my business, to pivot when things aren’t working, and to capitalize on successes. Overall, building a business has been an extremely liberating experience for me.

As architects we’ve been trained to see only one way to practice architecture. It takes root in school and it’s nurtured throughout the architectural internship. This is because so many professionals have relied on the consulting model to deliver architectural services. Yet there are so many other options to explore beyond trading time for dollars. Consulting is the least scalable business model that exists.

How has your architectural training helped you in the actual running of your business? What specific/transferable skills have proved the most useful?

I’m afraid to say traditional architectural training has little to do with the day-to-day operations of my business. The rift between business and design has persisted because the allure of an architectural education is wrapped up in form-making, visualization, representation, and concept generation not business acumen.

All of these skills are extremely valuable, and none that I’d trade away, but, the goal of any academic institution should be to educate the “whole” professional and to practice architecture requires a basic working knowledge of business. Consequently, I had to seek business training out on my own. For me, listening to business podcasts was my “commuter MBA.”

To the degree that business training was lacking, lateral thinking and problem solving skills were wholly ingrained and well developed and those talents have served me well in business. The ability to analyze, dissect, and communicate the solution to a problem from a variety of perspectives is an asset to any business.

Do you have any advice for architects who are interested in starting their own design business? How can you start without any money?

Start today…! I suffered from analysis paralysis for a long time, fearing I’d never be able to save enough working capital to make a run at starting a business. I was determined to spend as little as possible to make it work. Honestly, you don’t need much to start: a laptop, an internet connection, and a smart phone. With these things you can start almost any business you’d like. Having a client or two will bump up your chances for success, but it’s certainly not mandatory.

In my book I advocate the lean startup methodology (check out: The Lean Startup by Eric Ries) whereby you develop a minimum viable product first and then sell that idea to consumers. By doing this you don’t invest heavily in any one idea, you test ideas in the marketplace using real consumers. You try things, fail, pivot, and try again. Once you find the thing that works, you build on those ideas, add features and start to scale it up.

This method requires very little capital to begin a business because once you have a product a consumer wants you establish cash flow and make the business about filling that need at a reasonable price with built-in profit. This works with services as well as products.

To do this, use the resources you have on hand. Don’t quit your day job (yet), work on your business during your commute, during your lunch break, and in the evenings. Wake up at 4:30am every day and tick off items on your to-do list. You’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish with consistent effort each day.

How do you see the future of architecture? In which areas (outside of traditional practice) can you see major opportunities for up and coming architects?

I’m truly excited about the possibilities confronting architects today. I feel fortunate to be practicing now at this crossroads of technological innovation and globalization. The integration of technology in architecture really excites me; we’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible – smart facades, wearable sensors that interact with building components, 3D printing of structures, virtual environments, gaming, UX design – the list of fields where architects can play a role is growing every day.

Understanding how people use space in commercial and residential environments is important. And how design is impacting by these patterns is a huge opportunity. Just as the way we document and design changed, the way we are constructing buildings is poised for a monumental shift too. Problems of density and resource conservation need designed solutions – who better to solve these problems than architects?

Architect + Entrepreneur is a story about possibility; I hope in a small way that it helps to effect positive change in our profession.

About Eric

Eric Reinholdt is an award-winning architect, mountain climber, designer, guitar player, paper cutter, blogger and author. He is the founder of 30X40 Design Workshop, a residential design studio bordering Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island just off the coast of Maine. This is where he lives and practices in a modern Longhouse, designed by him with his family.

His architecture is simple, modern, site-specific, and craft-driven. It features local materials and familiar forms juxtaposed against modern, open floor plans with minimalist detailing. The work celebrates humble materials, subtle contrasts and finely crafted details.

The post How To Start Your Own Architecture Firm With Eric Reinholdt appeared first on Archipreneur.