Episode 128 - Lessons in Joy, Resilience, & Risk: What Every Aspiring Builder Needs to Hear from Aaron Tudisco

#128 | Aaron Tudisco | Ridge Design and Build | Lessons in Joy, Resilience, & Risk

On this episode of The Curious Builder Podcast, Mark Williams sits down with Aaron Tudisco of Ridge Design and Build to discuss how Aaron and his family create stunning spec homes in Sonoma, California. Aaron shares insights on their unique approach to creating standout, experience-driven homes and what it’s like juggling the fun—and challenges—of running a family business.

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About Aaron Tudisco

Aaron Tudisco is a creative and operations leader who co-founded Ridge Design + Build with his father, sister, and wife in 2018. Growing up on his father’s job sites picking up nails and sweeping floors, Aaron joyfully returned to construction and residential design years later after early careers in film and retail marketing. At Ridge, he manages daily construction and development operations, including subcontractor management, budget control, and schedule adherence, while ensuring the collaborative vision of his partners, Allegra and Sena.

Aaron's previous background includes Director-level marketing roles at La Senza and Big Lots, Inc., where he led content production, campaign management, and cross-functional collaboration for multi-channel marketing strategies. He also worked as a Feature Producer and in development at WildBrain and Lucasfilm, overseeing projects from concept to production. Outside of work, Aaron enjoys traveling for new and exciting food and music (especially Arcade Fire) and, most importantly, spending time with his family exploring the Bay Area and traveling abroad.

Resources:

Visit Ridge Design and Build’s Website

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  • Aaron Tudisco 00:04

    We have a mix of partners that we'll bring to the table for construction financing, depending on the scale. We'll also either self fund or we will bring other partners on board. It ramps up, so on day one, you know, shovel to dirt. You know, you're out $100 but then as you quickly start to, you know, grow vertical, you start to spend $100 a second. And so

    Mark D. Williams 00:32

    today on the podcast, we had Ian to disco from Sonoma, and it was just a great interview. I think what I liked most about it is you can just hear it. If you don't get to see them, I'd highly recommend head to our webpage, our YouTube channel. But the joy just radiates out of Aaron and really his family business. They had a multi decade career, all of them, and then they decided to move to Sonoma, partner with his dad, his wife and his sister, and start their company. And just really, really interesting story. You really get kind of the deep dive of how they've constructed their company. One of things that was really interesting is that they only do spec homes, and they're really gravitating towards the experience of the homeowner when they come in, and they're not really marketing it until it's ready to show so without further ado, here's Aaron with rich design and build. Welcome to care spirit Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today, I'm joined with we've got Aaron tudisco. Tudisco. How do you pronounce your name? Aaron two disco. Two disco. All right, from Ridge design and build out in the Sonoma, California area. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Yeah, this is cool as well. I can't remember if it was your wife or someone on your team that reached out and said, you have an awesome story. And as I was looking into your bio, first of all, your homes are ridiculous. They are beautiful. It's been a while since I've been in Sonoma, my wife, when we were dating, I was doing her residency out in San Francisco, and we drove through there for a little weekend, and it's a charming area. And I want to come back so I can come see your homes in person. Anyway, it's you picked a beautiful part of the country to be a builder.

    Aaron Tudisco 01:57

    It is. It's a it's a wonderful place to live. It's a wonderful place to do business, and we remind ourselves how lucky we are every time we get in the car and drive around. So, yeah, come, come and visit us. And we'd love to

    Mark D. Williams 02:07

    show you, yeah, well, I mean, gorgeous work. We'll have everything in the show notes on your website is, is remarkable. You have a really unique story, and I'd love to hear your take on it. You know, you guys started your company. It was your, I love your in your bio. It's like your father, your sister and your wife in 2018 like you weren't spraying chickens. You obviously had a career beforehand, and we'll get into that. And obviously I'd love to hear where you're at now. But let's go back to the beginning. Tell us a little bit about your your career up into deciding to be a builder. And it sounds like you kind of grew up on job sites as well, like so many of us builders have done and do. And then I love this idea that you started the business with your dad, your sister and your wife. There's got to be a story in that. So why don't you give us the once, give us the background?

    Aaron Tudisco 02:50

    Yeah. So I grew up the son of a builder, and that that meant that on weekends, before the sun broke, I was woken up and put in the truck and taken to job sites. And as a young boy, it was a mix of fascination, excitement and 100% pure dread. As a kid, my father, I think, really wanted to drive home the root of it, he wanted to instill a work ethic, which, at the time is it's a hard lesson for a young kid to understand in hindsight. Now I feel so fortunate that he cared enough to drive that into me. But yeah, as a young kid, I was, I was on job sites in Tucson, Arizona. My father built homes for 40 plus years, hundreds of them, and I would work with framing crews, roofing crews, and got a sense of bits and pieces of how a home was built. But then, in the midst of all that, and being a teenager and wanting to find a career or identity of my own, I have a letter I wrote when I was, I think was the summer between my junior and senior year, and I wrote it I'd been to Europe for the summer, and it was time for me to start to consider, you know, when I get back and graduate from college, what am I going to do, what career am I going to maybe start to embark on? And it meant enough to me to put in this letter to send to my mom and dad, who I had a great and a great relationship with, but it meant enough for me to put in writing. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I know I'm not going to build houses. My mom and dad still have that letter, but I think what it was, it was a reflection of, really, you know, wanting to see what else was out there, and and my father was never one to force me to do anything. He welcomed the idea that I would go out and try to find something else to do. So I graduated from college and went into marketing at the gap an Old Navy, and then wanting to be, wanting to flex a kind of creative muscle. I went to film school and moved from then Los Angeles, back up to the Bay Area, and worked. At Lucasfilm for a number of years, first within ILM and their special effects production division, and then moving into story development at ILM, and then eventually Lucasfilm animation. And then dabbled in that for a number of years. In all of that, got married, moved back to LA over to Ohio, went back into retail marketing, and over a period of almost 20 years, dabbled in a number of different careers, but the one common thread between all of the different positions I held was really this sense of kind of project management. And what I loved about either marketing, creative, marketing, production, marketing and working in film was that I sat in between, you know, someone who owned creative and somebody who owned production, the operation side of the business, and I found that my value was really in having a certain respect for what everyone was trying to achieve and helping problem solve and in an effort to kind of get that, get that done. And so in a way, it kind of didn't matter really what I was doing, as long as I was flexing those muscles. And so it was like 2017 my wife and I, we had two kids at the time. We were living in Columbus, Ohio, which is a beautiful place, by the way. We had an amazing time there, but my father had kind of semi retired into Sonoma. My sister Allegra, who was living in the city, had moved her family up to Sonoma, and they built a home. And, you know, from a distance, I kind of said, Oh, that looks interesting and fun and and my father didn't pull out the letter and say, Well, you know, you said you didn't ever want to do this again. But that was the first, the impetus to us talking about kind of all coming together and starting a business. And while I had this myriad of experiences in corporate roles, so did my sister Allegra. Had a long career at Google for the very, very early days, my wife in retail merchandising as well. So we all had this really unique, kind of different mix of backgrounds and complemented, I think, all of what we could bring to the table. But at the center of it all was clearly this idea of, Hey Dad, we're coming home, and we want you to teach us. And so, which, to my father, was like a dream come true.

    Mark D. Williams 07:25

    Did he see that coming? I mean, 20 years is a long time between saying never, and then all of a sudden, now the whole family sort of United. And that's a pretty special kickoff. Like, did it come up with it? Was it kind of slow or once you like, how was the conversations with your sister, like, Hey, we should do this together. How did those first conversations? Because you had to move from Columbus back, how did those conversations, like, we're just going to go all in. Did you kind of try and come back for a couple months? Or what was that? Or just, we're cutting all ties and just going cold turkey, straight into

    Aaron Tudisco 07:55

    it? Honestly, it was mostly the latter. I mean, we, as my father and later, were building a home in Sonoma. We would always come to Sonoma for holidays. So we were here for Thanksgivings and Christmases, New Year's, et cetera. And so as we would return, we'd always say, oh, we'd love to find a way to move out here one day. And as we saw Allegra and my dad build a home, and then they started to dabble in development themselves by acquiring some land. It just kind of, I think it just set a spark and seen in my minds, and my father and Allegra were just, you know, so receptive and open to it. So I think my father did not push the idea at all, but he he certainly was welcoming and helped kind of paint a picture of how this could all work, work together. That's amazing. So now it's been seven years. We moved here in 2018 Yes, yeah, wow, that's interesting. One thing that could really relate to my dad and mom were also builders and designers, and I knew that was the one thing I also did not want to do, because you don't want to do what your parents did. I didn't wait 20 years. I think I waited three.

    Mark D. Williams 08:59

    They were retired, though, and my dad and I are super close, and so maybe it wouldn't have worked. It probably would have been just fine, but I think it was one of those things that I didn't hear these Ian as an entrepreneur, especially a multi generational one, there's this narrative that a business is handed to you. First of all, I systematically reject that statement in terms of the connotations that people and stereotypes take with it, because regardless of what the handoff between one generation to another is, less of like. Here you go. It's more like the four by 100 relay. You still have to run your leg alone, like, Sure, someone ran the first or second leg, or whatever leg in this relay analogy you're using, but you still have to run that leg and you have to do the work. I think there's a common conception for people that aren't in business and aren't in family businesses that they look on a family business, and they're saying, Oh, that way was paved for them. And there's a lot, I've had a lot of family businesses on the podcast, and it's one of my favorite kind of topics to kind of get into, because if you are inheriting the mantle of another business, there's some weight there. And sometimes it's actually not the easiest. Sometimes it is easier to start over than to continue. And I. Anyway, everyone has their own path. I just a business is hard. It's kind of like my wife always says, everyone's hard is their hard? It's a little bit like running. If you can run a 10 minute mile or a six minute mile, they might both be equally hard, just depending on your fitness level and talent level, it doesn't really matter. And so hard is hard anyway. So I love this story. So what were those early years? Like you guys were doing spec homes? I assume,

    Aaron Tudisco 10:20

    yes, so and to really feed off of, what you were saying too was that my father had really run his business in Arizona for the 40 years. And building in Arizona has its own unique challenges and opportunities that were very different than what we do now in Sonoma and so I think when we started with my father, as you said, he did pass a baton to us, but it was definitely a very different business. There wasn't a an infrastructure or a brand that we kind of picked up and carried forth. It was really an opportunity for him to kind of almost reinvent his experience in a new way and take it to new landscape. And so those early days were basically about, well, who, what do we want to do? Right? So do we want to build at a certain level, at a certain scale? Do we want to do custom projects? Do we want to do spec the one thing my father and I can remember this, even as a kid and my mother also was very involved in the business. Some might say that my mother was behind the curtain, but pulling all the levers and making sure that my father could run the business that in the way that he did. But, you know, growing up with both of them so involved in the business. I remember very specifically, because my father did a mix of both spec and custom. And he for every two custom projects he would do where he would protect his margin, knew what he would make at the end of the day, he would take that money and he would invest it into a spec project. And I remember during those moments where he was building for spec, he was happier. He was getting to execute a vision that he was passionate about. He got to make decisions that he felt were the right ones, and he didn't have to sit across the table and try to manage decision making from a married couple or whoever it may be. So I think my father certainly leaned on saying, look, I think you guys are going to be happier. It's the risk is far greater. But I think you guys gonna be happier pushing a spec business here in Sonoma.

    Mark D. Williams 12:04

    You know, it's a really interesting narrative, and not an uncommon one. We could actually kind of debate the pros and cons, like, in your seven year career, how many homes have you done on spec, percentage wise versus custom?

    Aaron Tudisco 12:18

    So we are really as a business exclusively spec we've done. This is our we're just finishing our eighth project right now. We've done one custom project, and that the only exception was because it was for a very, very good friend of ours who, despite our efforts of saying no, repeatedly refused to accept it. And you know, that was mostly out of a concern of just we have just we have a relationship as friends, and I didn't want to tarnish what can also often be a very challenging journey. Building a home is not hard. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of money. There are a lot of obstacles and fallbacks along the way, and I didn't want to compromise my relationship with this individual having a 25 year friendship preceding it, but he pushed and pushed, and I'm really glad that he did. We had an amazing journey through it. We both look back, and I think are closer because of it. But the as Ridge is as a business, we do not do custom project, and I don't know maybe that will change in the future as we adapt to, you know, maybe changing needs in the in the wine country area which we build, but for now, it fits us to only build for ourselves and take it to market. And

    Mark D. Williams 13:27

    so, yeah, I'd love to talk about this, because my I've been building now for 21 years, and I would say early on. I mean, when I first started, I did a few specs because I sort of had to, but in the last, well, 16 years, I haven't done a single spec. I've only done customs. And I think there's, there's a lot of builders that do a little bit of hybrid of both. And I think when someone does spec and they do really well, it looks really cool. But I've seen people sit on specs and lose a lot of money, or just talk to a builder today, actually, and you know, he's got multiple specs and the banks they call on his note, and he's like, holy smokes, I gotta come up with a million bucks in like three weeks like that is super stressful. And yes, you're trading going back to that earlier. Now, I didn't realize it's gonna be so prophetic. I mean, your heart is hard, like one heart is I the cash flow with the bank, and however you're funding this is like a real you're predicting what you think the market will want. But without a homeowner, you're kind of designing. You're on a blank piece of paper. Maybe they like it, maybe they don't. And then, if you do a custom, you're trading. You don't have the unknown of if you're gonna get paid now you're trading hard for navigating their emotions and their emotional roller coaster. Either one is sort of equally, just difficult and different. It just depends on choose your heart how. I mean, I'm doing my first spec right now in 16 years, I'm really excited. I haven't been this energized personally about a spec home, or, sorry, a home, probably since maybe early in my career, like it has really re energized me. That being said is, like, I'm still in on past the design land I'm into. I think Windows go in in a couple weeks, but in eight months, if I'm sitting on this thing, it's not going to be very exciting anymore. Because the toll is dinging. How do you manage your expectations around the spec home that's going to be for sale, and how you endured sitting on a home for a long period of time, and how do you navigate sort of that emotional roller coaster?

    Aaron Tudisco 15:12

    Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, great questions. And these are things that we we spend a lot of time penciling out when we get into any particular pre development on anything, even before acquisition, we will run a number of scenarios tied to construction and development costs to to your point, holding costs as well. And we'll paint out scenarios that basically protect our ability to carry a project as long as we might foresee. We've been very lucky. As you talked at the very beginning of this conversation, I never have to explain or tell people how beautiful Sonoma is. Sonoma sells itself. Everybody knows wine country. It's a brand. And to that point, when you build a home in Sonoma, you already know there's an audience. There's already a buyer who wants to come and live here. And so for us, it's about trying to build something that we think is really designed forward. Doesn't alienate or exclude anyone from the perspective of wanting to open a door and picture themselves living there. You know, we take chances on design elements and finishes and whatnot, but we never push it so far to a point where we feel like that might not land with someone. So there's a balance, I think, for sure, where we want to do something custom that meets the design and trend that we see in the market, but we do it in a way where we protect to the downside, which is that if the market changes, we've got to make sure that we've got something that can check a lot of boxes of a number of buyers. When we landed here in 2018 to that point, projects just we finished them, and projects would sell. And so we were very lucky. One question there is, do they typically sell during the build, or do they sell when they're done furnished? Yeah. So we've been really adamant, also as a team, to say we really don't want to pre sell. We are focused on doing the absolute best project and finishing it out and and then pulling back the curtain. And we did it with real intention, because we didn't want people to come in and, number one, miss an opportunity for a prospective buyer to not really get a sense of where we're headed. Vision is really important, and sometimes it's lost on individuals who aren't familiar with the construction process. They can walk through when things are covered and you're in a sheetrock phase and just not see where things are headed. So there's that. And then number two, we really wanted, we wanted to put our best foot forward and then let you know prospective buyers come and see it. So it's still our mandate. We really take everything through completion, and then with our real estate partners, come up with our marketing plan, and then that's really the first time it's seen. There are exceptions when our buyers, prospective buyers, might be from Europe, and they're in town and we're a month out, and there are exceptions here and there where we'll make very selective decisions on when to kind of show something before it's done, but by and large, our process has always been we finish a project, follow through with our marketing strategy, and then hope that it lands with buyers.

    Mark D. Williams 18:19

    This episode is brought to you by Alpine hardwood flooring. They've been our partner now for over a decade, installing all our wood floors on all our new homes, as well as our remodels. And on a personal level, Adam and Anthony jenkala, the owners are just absolutely amazing people. They've been so supportive of my career, as well as doing anything we need to make sure that our clients are happy, and they work so well with our other vendors and trade partners at not only protecting their product, but also ensuring everyone else's looks great. So if you're looking for a wood floor or for a refinish, I highly recommend Alpine hardwood flooring. If you've been listening to the podcast for a while now, or even if this is your first episode, I talk about the contractor coalition summit all of the time. Our next one is happening November 7 through November 10 in Chicago, and all the details can be found at the contractor coalition summit.com You've got Brad Levitt, Nick schifr, Tyler, Grace, Morgan, Molitor and myself will all be there. We've got great content over three days. You've got builders from all over the country try to get it to about that 30 people number. And we'll have sponsors as well that add a lot of value to each one of these dedicated days where you're talking about contracts and spreadsheets and margin and whether you're doing fixed bid or cost, plus your pre construction agreements. Ian, the list goes on and on and on. If you haven't been following it yet, you should. The contractor coalition summit Instagram page is giving you a steady diet of the conversations that are being had, a lot of promo reels, a lot of the interviews that I've done personally at Omaha, which was my first contractor coalition, where I'm part of the leadership, I interviewed all 36 people that attended, and we're going to be unveiling each one of their interviews over the next couple of months, so people that were not able to attend and would. Like to can kind of get a better idea of the value that builders are getting. So if you're going to sign up and come to Chicago, you can type in the promo code, curious builder, and get $2,500 off. And we'll see you in Chicago. In terms of price range, what's the land costs in Sonoma is, I'm sure there's a big range, but roughly what are the land costs, and what kind of homes in terms of square footage and price range are you seeing in Sonoma for the homes that you're generating? Yeah,

    Aaron Tudisco 20:27

    so you talk about seven years, and some people might say, well, that's not a long time. And I would say that totally fair. You

    Mark D. Williams 20:33

    would not accept that you went through the covid time warp. So you aged a decade. You got a decade of experience in three years.

    Aaron Tudisco 20:41

    Yeah, and so to that point, also, I think the market has changed so much pre covid, during and after and when we first landed here, the metrics of what made smart sense in terms of land acquisition, construction, development, construction through the end are very, very different to where they are today. When I look back at what an acre of land was in 2018 I pull every penny out of my pocket in order to buy at that price point where we are today is I go back to just what is Sonoma. It's an aspirational location destination for people who have the means and the desire to come and make a beautiful vacation weekend home for themselves. That's really who our buyer is as well. We typically are not building for primary homes, homeowners, and mostly just because of what we've gone after as a business. So we could go in and say, Well, we're going to build for everybody, and we felt that we really needed to kind of, you know, take a step back early on and focus on a specific buyer. You know, kind of to pull something back from a past career when we would do story development. You never pitch a movie and have somebody on the other end and it's looking to buy it and say, well, who's this movie for? You can't just say it's for everybody, right? You have to go after a very specific audience. Because the more specific you are, the more specific you can be about making sure you're catering and crafting to that particular either audience member or homeowner. So we decided early on that we were going to build very beautiful, very high quality, very aspirational, no box unchecked, experiential living. And so what that means is that these are turnkey homes where you know our last project and our one to be finished here in a couple of weeks. We partner with designers. We bring in furniture as we acquire furniture as we're developing and constructing. And so the homes are sold fully furnished. The wine walls are completely stocked with and curated with wine. And they're meant to really be experienced on the day in which you purchase the home, turn the key, you walk

    Mark D. Williams 22:43

    in. Do you, do you acknowledge or do you? Do you end up listing it on with a real estate agent? Do you keep it just sort of in house, word of mouth connections? At what point do you start telling people, Hey, we have a three, four or $5 million host coming up? How do you enter into this marketing phase of when you start, you know, kind of, I think about a restaurant, kind of like grand opening. There's two restaurants in town here that were bought recently, and they've got coverings on the windows, and all you can see is, like, coming soon, like, you know, there's a lot of buzz about, what is it, what's going to be, what kind of menu are they going to have? And then it's all of a sudden, one week before grand opening, it's like, you know, this is what it's going to be. How do you kind of do that showmanship? I mean, I'm kind of thinking about even like the movie, like the movie industry. It's like a trailer, right? Your three, four trailers, and just enough teaser to make people kind of show up for the intro of the movie. Walk me through, kind of your sales process of what's working,

    Aaron Tudisco 23:32

    yeah. So Sonoma is a very small market, and we also build within a micro sector of Sonoma. So we build in an area of town which is typically the northeast area quadrant, if you will. This is slightly more rural in terms of land massing, but we are on a bicycle five minutes from the square, and so typically, our buyers coming from the city on a Friday afternoon or evening, they want to park their car and with their family, enjoy the home first and foremost, but also be quick to the square for restaurants and shopping and what and so my point is that there's not a lot of competition. So anytime somebody breaks ground on new construction in this town, everybody's aware of it. And that goes to all the other competitive developers, but also the real estate agents as well, is that, because permitting is so difficult, or land is so difficult to acquire, or both, so both, you know, from a land acquisition perspective, there's few and far between, and we're very selective, we will kick tires on a number of opportunities before we land on What we think is absolutely the path forward. The cost is prohibitive, so it narrows. I think the possibilities from a competitive landscape are they mostly tear downs. It's a mix. It's a mix. When we first started, we would go after land that was either raw or, to your point, also had a structure. On it that we would more than likely demolish and build new it's no mystery. The permitting development process in California by and large is incredibly challenging.

    Mark D. Williams 25:11

    Like, how long? Like, how every time I hear it, because I've had stuff, I had dig and coffle on from San Diego, and it was, like, multiple years, and I'm like, I get bet out of shape if my permit takes more than 45 days? Yeah, I'm like, I don't know if I

    Aaron Tudisco 25:24

    could do it. I honestly, I think I would. I think I would have to choose a different career. I don't I'd be like, What is taking so long? So, like, how long does it take? So it's dependent on, obviously, the project at hand for a new single family residence on raw land to from start to finish. And let's exclude the architecture piece of it, you know, yeah, that's probably different, as long as you want. But, you know, plans are done. They're submitted to the county. I say minimally, you're looking at nine to 12 months, and that is that's jumping through a number of different departments, from planning, engineering, fire, well and septic, etc. It just, it takes a long time we've become accustomed to it. I'm not saying it's any less frustrating, but I do now understand, you know, the process in which why it does take as long as it does, and that's single family that's on a single parcel. Our last development we've done has we acquired six acres and subdivided it, and that took three and a half years, and with a number of additional conditions of approval, where we had to take through the continued development. So anytime we broke ground, we had to have an archeologist on site, and we took a tree down if it was within a burden back breeding time of the year, we'd had to have a biologist out to do a study on that. So there's just a lot of little you know, higher words in terms

    Mark D. Williams 26:40

    of, you are a saint. I would, I couldn't do it. I'd have to leave the state. I couldn't do it. I would just, I would, oh, man, this is just, just listening to you. Is giving me anxiety. How in Yeah, just incredible. How are you so, I mean, from a, you know, from an operational standpoint, or a cash flow standpoint, I think you said you've got eight projects in eight years. So you're getting one a year roughly. How do you manage, sort of, the the cash flow, because you're doing a spec home, which is, I assume, takes a lot of cash, whether you're doing using bank financing or private financing or partners, or however you're doing it. And we can talk about that if you want. And then you take, let's get what an average build for you is, what for construction a year, year and a half?

    Aaron Tudisco 27:19

    How long do these homes take, yeah, anywhere from 12 to, you know, 1416, months. Yeah. So you're really

    Mark D. Williams 27:24

    talking about two and a half years, maybe three years, if you factor in architecture time, maybe more per cycle. So the questions are stumbling into each other, but like, I guess what I'm trying to go that's, how do you manage if you're not getting a payday till three years later? How do you manage those three years? Because you're not taking on other remodels, you're not taking on other customs, it seems very problematic. How do you manage cash flow? Yeah, so

    Aaron Tudisco 27:49

    we have a great team, and that's the benefit of great partners. So within the organization, my father has passed away a couple of years ago. So that's, in and of itself, something we could talk about how we, as a business and as a family have managed and gone through that, but when I talk about just the management of the challenges of doing development, as you asked, my sister Allegra, is incredible. She's tenacious, and she's very detailed and very organized, and so she's very good about you know, pushing and making sure our project is constantly flowing through the county, not wasting any time sitting on somebody's desk. So that helps tremendously. Sena, among many things also, is, is she manages all of our money and our cash flow, and she's very, very good at that. So we've got experts in their own particular lanes and managing lane, as I said, workflow that all helps the bigger picture and hold hands very well on it. When you talk specifically about the cash flow piece of it, we will typically self fund land acquisition, architecture design. We have a mix of partners that we'll bring to the table for construction financing, depending on the scale, we'll also either self fund or we will bring other partners on board. You know, as you know, it ramps up. So on day one, you know, shovel to dirt. You know, you're out $100 but then as you quickly start to, you know, grow vertical, you know, you start to spend $100 a second. And so seen, is very good at managing that and making sure we're only are leveraging the the capital that we absolutely need at that particular moment to kind of allow us to carry

    Mark D. Williams 29:30

    it. And I guess, I guess the benefit, you know, you're not publishing the price till the end. So you're factoring in your interest costs, which you should, you're factoring in real estate commissions, whatever there may be, into the end. So, like, you have a very known entity, that's one of the advantages of the advantage of the way you're doing it, where a lot of people that do spec home builders say the price up front, because they know that the earlier they can sell it, the more profit will be, the less their cash burden may be. However, in doing so, you're sort of taking a pinpoint in time of what you think the cost is. Because, I mean, you know this, if I, if I sell a house, half. Way through, just pick a number. Doesn't matter. Let's just say you've got, I don't know. Let's say you're just spending 5000 on interest. A month or 10,000 doesn't matter for this analogy. So halfway through, let's just say you have 100 grand in interest, and you pick that price point, it's pretty hard. Six months after that, if you don't sell it to then adjust the price up another 100,000 so the way you're doing it sort of makes sense, because, you know what your cost is. Is it, if you're not listing it to because will you like this home that's going to be available in a couple weeks? Is it listed now, or will you wait till the day it unveils to sort of list it on the market?

    Aaron Tudisco 30:31

    Well, in terms of landing on a price, you know, it goes back to before we even acquire, you know, we pencil out scenarios ad nauseam. We'll come up with a, you know, a blue sky scenario where everything's aligned. The market has continued to grow in support of Sonoma. We just built something better than we ever could have imagined. This is the number. And then we will paint a worst case scenario, just as a downside, as a way to hedge, kind of, you know, you know, any sort of number of obstacles or challenges that might, you know, present themselves. And so it's a mix of all of that. And I think, from a pricing perspective, I think we typically know where we're headed. Sometimes during a construction of a couple of our projects, the market, post covid, just appreciate it. Real Estate and Sonoma appreciated so drastically that it allowed us to kind of push our number a little bit. But by and large, where we start our project. Typically, we know where we're going to list it at, and that's just simply an analysis of, you know, we spent to acquire and build, and where do we think the value is? I think the one thing that we do that's sometimes hard is, you know, when you're in a market where there's a lot of inventory close by each other, you know, it's a spreadsheet analysis. To some degree, it's a commodity business. You can kind of look at the metrics on price per square footage, you know, land size, and then you get into things that are a little bit more subjective, amenities, and then quality of construction, etc. For us, we are all in on building ultra high quality homes. And so that's a little bit harder, you know, to look at on a spreadsheet in terms of understanding, well, what am I buying and what did it cost them to build this, and am I overpaying, or whatever? We're building absolute experiences. And so we feel like, when someone comes and sees our home, the cost per square footage is almost like not even important. It's more about immediately they envision themselves creating memories with their family, you know, throwing big events. And so that, for us is, you know, I think it takes a little bit of the pressure off of having to make sure it's a formula of, of, you know, math that makes sense. I

    Mark D. Williams 32:37

    mean, I love, I love that. I mean, right now we're doing this project that I talk a lot about, called Nisa, who's which we've created an entire brand around a philosophy. Because, to your point a little bit, you're you have the benefit of a vacation market where the city is your draw in Minnesota, you know, no one is, no one is vacationing here in the winter, unless you're a hockey player, I guess. But anyway, it's actually not that cold. It's not cold enough anymore. You can't even skate on the lakes. It's pathetic. Anyway, long story short, you have to contemplate your strengths, like, what is kind of the goal? You know, I'm sort of envious sometimes of, you know, vacation destinations, whether it's like Bozeman, Montana or Aspen or Scottsdale, Arizona, or wherever it might be, where you can get like, you know, you can get locals if you want, but you also have a lot of people from across the country coming in. Because, to your point, if it's a second or third home. Obviously, if you're lucky enough or fortunate enough to sort of be able to afford that, price per square foot is not the thing that's really driving the conversation. You know, right now, I'm a designer on a custom and it I am in the I am in the spin cycle on cost per square foot, and it's like every builder's worst discussion, because, you know, it's like, I mean, the only thing you should really buy by the pound is, like, your steak, your flamin Ian, I get why they do that are salmon, but like, yeah, buying a house on per foot is a really and unfortunately, our industry doesn't give clients a very good alternative. That's part of that's on us as messaging to your point about experience, and I agree that from a sales and marketing standpoint, and I've become sort of fascinated with branding and storytelling, which obviously was your first 20 year career. And so I'd love to hear from you, how have you used sort of filmmaking and kind of the art of a story in construction? That's very interesting to me, because I think you have a very unique, not only skill set, but point of view. How has that been helpful in building homes?

    Aaron Tudisco 34:28

    Yeah, so to your point, and this is where I do feel like my past experience really lends to, you know, allowing me to add value to the business. Is, you know, what I do on a day in, day out basis, is I protect the creative integrity and the vision of what Allegra and Sena have really designed through the architecture and all of the finishes details they really own that part of the business. And then I kind of interface between protecting that and also then getting the work done. So we have a tremendous, you know, group of subcontractor partners that we work with on a consistent basis. We feel so lucky. We it's a small town, and we feel like we pinch ourselves all the time. We work with tremendous craftsmen. People care deeply about what they do, and our opportunity to them is really just, let us give you this space to kind of, you know, do the task that you enjoy, but also at the end of the day, hopefully we can all stand back and look at it and be proud of the work that we, that we've created. And so to that point, it is, it's it is storytelling. It's about creating an idea the start of a journey. And through that process, there's a lot of hard work, a lot of ups and downs, but if you persevere through it, you can stand back and look at something that you're really, really proud of, and that's a story I could tell all day long. I love bringing people during construction or after construction, through our homes and pointing out little details, even the smallest of detail I can talk about for hours. So I think as it ties back to the products that we build and ultimately put out on the market, we do stuff that's not easy and it's really complicated, and we try to do it as best as we can and execute at such a high level that when somebody does walk into the home, we hope that they look and see all of the hard work and almost want to understand, how is this piece together so that, in and of itself, is a story in terms of how we create a journey and ultimately deliver something. And there's a lot of things. I'm not saying that every little detail is ever picked up on by a homeowner or someone who buys our projects, but I think there's enough of it there to create originality and uniqueness that sets what we build apart from others. There are also, I will just say this, there are a number of other incredible home builders in Sonoma. We are not unique in that aspect. We're just trying to kind of make a brand that we think stands for beautiful design and architecture and really high quality execution, how in your title, you've got design and build, but then you mentioned that you hire, you basically partner with local designers and architects. Are you doing some design in house, or are you assembling the team outside of ridge in terms of architect, interior designer, to deliver this as a sort of unified package, and also leveraging their brands and expertises and also selling it? Yeah, so my father was builder, but also architect. He was self taught. Oh, wow. Remember as a kid vellum paper all over the place, or race erasing shavings all over the office floor, and then he self taught himself a new piece of software called AutoCAD, 100 years ago. And so when we started the business in 2018 my father was our architect. And you can imagine having someone in house as talented as he was, what a value add, but what a strong component of the business. And there were times where a lot of times, I think the idea of where we were headed started between my father and Allegra and Cena, I mean, they really were the kind of creative minds behind the type of architecture and projects we wanted to build. But then, as my dad would start to kind of allow that to take shape, Allegra and Cena were very much into the layout of the building, the floor plans, and having my father on board meant that we could have a 5pm meeting where Allegra and Cena would hand a list of notes to say, you know, let's move this door here, or let's take this roof line and change the shape. And you know, this doesn't exist in the real world, but we would show up, you know, or wake up the next morning, and by, you know, six or seven, you know, o'clock in the morning, all of the revisions were done. They were completed. My father would have woken up at two or three or four in the morning to get that work done. And, you know, we miss him on so many different levels. But you know that ability to just move at that speed is something that just does not exist in the real world. So now, yes, to that point since his passing, you know, we've had to kind of find someone, or a mix of people, to fill that role. And there's a lot of incredible architects, and we've partnered with a few and we've partnered with a few of them to, you know, build that piece of the of the business. But, yeah, it's a it's, it's a mix of, you know, I think having a strong vision and working with really talented people who you have your job is to, of course, make sure that you're all seeing the same vision on the same page. And you know, ultimately, I think our objective is to give give runway to talented individuals to do the best work that they can do, and making sure it's just aligned with the overall brand or project's vision.

    Mark D. Williams 39:41

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Their craftsmanship, their innovation, the top tier service, make them a no brainer for any custom home builder or designer who demand the best, whether you're designing something bold or building something with timeless elegance, Pella has you covered. They're also the only window company that has a lifetime warranty on all of their windows. I've gotten to know all their people at Pella corporate, as well as locally. Here at Pella Northland, I'm proud to call them our partners and our friends. Visit pella.com to learn more and connect with your local reps today, also for more information, you can listen to episode one, where I interview their founders, as well as episode 109 where we talk about the innovation at Pella, when you talk about, like, the touches of design and details on the interiors. You know, when we made a strategic and business decision to actually furnish our homes and have them be truly turnkey, you know, we had a couple of people in mind, and, and, and it was the same thing where we wanted them to understand and align with the vision, but then we just kind of let them run with it. And they've done an exceptional job. I think that's very well said. I mean, also, ultimately master delegating. I think sometimes, you know, when we hold something too tightly, and, you know, I've often said, like, you know, Pavarotti as a singer is one of the world's best singers. Don't actually know if he's still alive or not. But then, like, you get 100 people in a choir, you can't even hear Pavarotti. And so, you know, or true scale, or true artistry, both are artists in their own right, right, but having I love what you said or how you said is giving people the runway, the artist the runway to really, you know, kind of set sail and show the whole breadth of their talent. I am. I have a designer right now who I think is very talented, and they there's I, for whatever reason, I've always hated wood surrounds around tubs. I just hate them, mainly because I know, from a maintenance standpoint, that eventually some little kid or someone's going to splash that water is going to go over the edge, it's going to go down the wood, and within a few years, that Wood's going to split, it's gonna crack blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, wood and water don't go together, and I'm gonna need to call as the builder, because I've got to warranty this anyway. So in this beautiful spec home we're doing, lo and behold, I find out she's designed this wood panel around this beautiful tub. And it was like cringe moment, because I'm like, I'm so anti wood surrounds. This happened yesterday, actually, and but I told the designer when she came on, I said, you get five votes to my one in every decision. Because I said, if it's left to the architect and I it's going to get to Scandinavian modern. And my client, tell is mostly women, like most, you know, they rule the roost. You know, I had one designer that said, you know, Happy wife, happy life. And so we know who's making decisions. And so I told, you know, shout out to the OH design team. I said, you have five to one. So anyway, she looks at me, and she goes, I know you don't like wood. She goes, don't make me do it. And I do exactly. I knew she was gonna use her five to one ratio. And I said, she goes, I said, I don't need to, because I know you're gonna win. Anyway, I said, I feel like this is, I feel like this is turning into a marriage where it's like, I'm not even letting you use your power. I've already acknowledged that you're gonna win anyway, so I'm just gonna go along with it from the get go. But anyway, long story short, I believe in her I believe in what she does, and I believe in her clientele that loves what she does, which is really what we're tapping into with the interior design on that home. And so I know it's gonna be, you know, I don't want to let my bias get in the way of a beautiful end product. And if I really felt that, you know, it was going to be a damaged product or something like that, then obviously I would have to step in. But it is sort of funny that we all carry certain biases, good and bad. And, you know, sometimes in order to let the artist go, you sort of have to step back and kind of, you know, let go of your let go of your bias.

    Aaron Tudisco 43:59

    I we, I will say, though, you know, as a business, we're really lucky, because while Siena and Allegra really do own the creative and the vision and the design of it, they are just as knowledgeable of the construction component. And so when they do design something that might have, you know, future challenges in terms of usability, you know, they're aware of it. And sometimes we'll make the decision to actually, you know, you know, switch a material or a way pieces are put together, or other times we'll just follow through with it. And so it's helpful if a designer understands how things are put together in the future. And what I say to everybody is, house is a living and breathing being, and it requires constant maintenance from the day it's completed. So things like what you just say, it's things need management from, again, from a usability one. I

    Mark D. Williams 44:49

    think one of the biggest things, particular, I don't know you look might be similar age. I'm 44 I think one of the biggest things that we have in our demographic and younger is really, especially in high end homes, is. Is teaching and letting the client understand that these things need care and maintenance to maintain. I can't think of anything, you know, high end airplane, a, you know, a car, whatever it is it needs maintenance. And why would we think that a multi million dollar house is any different? And yet, there's this, this broad expectations. In particular, I'm picking on the younger generation for you know, maybe because I don't have the life experience or the wisdom or the just, you know, having gone through it to understand that, you know, this idea of perfection is one that I really try to combat right away, because it's so toxic. I do like your comment about experience, and I think we as an industry, we do very do just do a better job if we talked about the experience. Or another word for that is lifestyle. You know, what lifestyle Do you want to live? And you know, I think also having some humility, you know, with our home, like this isn't perfect. Like this is a prototype. It's a one off. It's never been done before, nor will it ever be completely repeated with the exact same team, the exact same it's one of one. And so these expectations that people have. You know, in your case, they don't get to see how the sausage is made. They just could show up at the deli and be like, hey, here it is. Do you like it or not? Now, once they move into it, I'm sure, like any you know business owner, you've had clients call and say, Hey, this was my expectations, and you work through it, and it's fine. But I do think the messaging that we as a community need to have is that, you know, I like, this is a living, breathing thing, and it's changing. You know, you want a terrible example. That's one that comes to mind. It's like, you wouldn't just have a child and be like, I'm done, you know, the child's born, like, I don't have to raise it. Like it just does its own thing. Like, obviously, I have three little kids, so, like, obviously, this is, I'm trying to think of the most absurd thing as possible. Like, my kids could raise themselves, you know, it's, you know, constantly. You know, parents, job is never done. Yeah, I think a home is sort of like that too. We have sort of a contract with the home sort of indefinitely. And it's not a bad thing. I think it can be if we let it be sort of toxic. But I think if we realize that when people truly care about their homes and they're willing to invest in maintaining it and keeping it, because we all appreciate a home that's been, you know, I love travel. You go to Europe, and you see these homes that are hundreds of years old, and the way they've been patina, and, you know, our country is just so young. We're only a couple 100 years old. Don't have anything any we don't have anything here like that, except some trees, and it's like, you know, except we cut them all down already. So, but anyway, I'll get off my soapbox and let you respond to some of

    Aaron Tudisco 47:21

    those things. No, no, I agree. I mean, you know, again, back to what we do within design. You know, we want to do things that are fresh and original, but we also want to make sure that they have, you know, lifetime ahead of them, and that someone's not buying the house and wanting to tear everything out in five years. So we definitely try to find things, materials, colors, finishes, that are going to last. And maybe to your point, with hard surfaces, sometimes they actually look better over age. So we're mindful of that for sure. And then, just to your point, though, about usability for sure, it is it. I think the house looks it's best when the day it's bought, and it does need to be maintained. But you know that a lot of times, allows for a homeowner to understand how things actually get used, or how things were built. And bring up the use the example of on this particular build, we put 14 foot tall Fleetwood sliding doors. And I mean, Fleetwood is one of the best brands in that space, and they're 14 feet tall. And so I think over time, they're going to need some adjustments. As, you know, as someone who comes in, maybe, you know, an adult might want to open them closely, softly. No doubt, if there are kids that live in this home, they're going to be slamming them opening. And so I think just it goes to the point of a house gets used and experienced on different levels and and to that point needs to be, you know, maintained as such.

    Mark D. Williams 48:37

    How, you know, you mentioned to it earlier, you know, with the passing of your dad, how did how have you handled that transition? And was it something that was you saw kind of coming? Was it more abrupt, and how has that affected the business? And the reason I ask it, other than to get your story, a little bit about it and talk about it, is so many construction companies in the United States are family owned, and we're actually doing a series. I haven't had time to dive into it, but I'll just set it with this, like, we've like, if I was to die suddenly, a client asked me the other day, like, if I died suddenly, would my company continue building his home? And so it set off a series of questions. I did a few podcast episodes about, you know, what we would do, or what I would want to have done. And so we're actually in the process of creating sort of like stepping stones. I know it's a morbid topic, but like, you know, it happens, that's life. It's a habit. And I'm just curious how you sort of navigated, you know, that difficult time, because I think it'd be very helpful for other family owned businesses to sort of understand what you know, what to prepare for, how to prepare for it. And because it's not an easy thing, no matter how it goes, no matter how prepared you are, I imagine it's one of the most difficult things you've ever done in your life.

    Aaron Tudisco 49:42

    Done in your life. Yeah, you know, it was when I think back, you know, nine years ago, and this idea of us moving and starting this business with my father and I look back on it now, and it was, it was just so weird how I think it all came to be. It was almost like, in a way, I. I not that he knew, but in a way, it was like, I think maybe he identified this, this kind of this desire to want to, you know, teach his kids everything that he had learned in his lifetime, in the event, God forbid, that he does pass away. And so I look back in those seven years before his passing or six. I'm sorry. I feel so lucky that we were in his space and learning and absorbing as much as we could. I know it brought him great joy, but now I know it gives us now an ability to carry his legacy, and that's really how we look at it. You know, he had cancer, he didn't tell you know, the family knew, but he's very, it was very he was a proud man, very private. He never wanted people to talk about him. He only wanted to talk about other people. And that was just kind of the type of person that he was. Anyone who met him loved him immediately. And my father, you know, would be the first person to go up to a stranger and introduce himself and and ask who they are and and what do they do? What makes them happy. And so while he was sick for a couple of years, it was very abrupt to some degree, because no one really in the community, and certainly people that we did business with, really knew about it. And so it's very hard to go through it for a couple of years, to see him sick, to fight as hard as he did, but then it was also then, you know, really challenging as people then, when he did pass away, find out about it, and we had to kind of navigate through all not that it was a challenge, but it just was, you know, it was an interesting time, for sure. And we as a business, as a family, really, first and foremost, we are a family. I feel so lucky to work with my sister and my wife on a day to day basis. You know, there, it's not without challenges. I'm sure they would say to work with me than me to them. But at the end of the day, when you love people, you know, you find you know solutions in through any particular challenge or obstacle. And so we love what we do, and and, and we we try really hard because of my father. And so with his passing, I think we've doubled up, you know, our effort, we've rolled up our sleeves ever tighter, and and, and carry forth a legacy that I know he would be very proud of. And we hear and feel him over our shoulders all the time when we're looking at a dilemma, I know what he would say. I pretend like I would battle him a little bit on whether we should turn left or right, but ultimately, most of the time, as he was he was right. We mourned, and we still do every day, but we do our best to kind of keep moving forward and making him you know, really. I mean one thing

    Mark D. Williams 52:41

    that's very obvious, especially if somebody watches this, although I think you can hear it in your voice, like from the moment you started talking, I just, I feel like you there's a lot of joy in you. I feel like it's sort of exploding. It reminds me, actually, of the character. And just because I have young kids, it reminds me of the character. And inside out, you know, you've got this joy. You kind of have this glow about you. And you know, obviously haven't met your the other you know your sibling or your wife, but I imagine, I do think that our personalities show up in our homes. I don't think how they can't. I think any business owner, especially when you're small business, I do think that the reason leadership matters so much in why so many companies end up taking on a lion's share of the owner's personality for good or for bad. It's not always good, but that it depends on the industry, of course, but home building like Ian, if you could, if you can, weaponize joy, it's a good thing, right? I mean, we fill a home, and we are building a home for people. And you talk about experiences like, who doesn't want a joyful experience? And you know, anyway, I can see it in your countenance. And so it actually reminds me that I told my wife years ago, because the French Laundry is it still I assume it's still operational. I told her that one of these anniversaries, I'd have to we'd have to go out there. So if and when I fulfill my promise, I shouldn't say if, when I fulfill assuming she wants to go, we will definitely have to stop by and see one of your homes in person, because I do want to see him. I do have a great admiration for some of the California architecture does. It does feel very It feels great. And so I just man your permitting process. Man, just kills me, Yeah, unfortunately, there's no way around that. But we would love to see you, and I'd love to show you, and you're right about the you know, we we love what we do. And that would that came from my father, for sure. My father used to say, love what you do, live with those you love, and learn to relax, you know. And I think he was very good at the first two. He always, you know, was challenged with the relaxing part. And I think we are very much we embody that as well. We we are passionate about the work that we do. We're passionate about the people that we work with and and that is our mindset. And to your point, we really do hope it shows in the quality and the the level in which I think you've benefited greatly from having such a strong why, you know, I think this is one thing I've always admired about business owners, especially in construction, just because that's where most of my interviews are. But people that have had a career before they start construction seem to be. They just have a clear why, because you left a career for something specific. And I feel like when you really know your purpose, and I think there's something with age, you know, I feel just like, over the last couple of years, I've really gotten a lot clearer in my personal why for both businesses, the curious builder and Mark Williams custom homes. But I think sometimes it takes time. But I'm always envious is not maybe the right word. I'm always encouraged when I see people that have a very clear why? Because they're, you know, it's like an arrow. You know, if your air is all crooked, I mean, who knows what Target's gonna hit? You can shoot an arrow, but where's it gonna go? But when your arrow is so true and so straight, like, I love how clear you are. You know, we are we build spec homes. We build experience homes. We are not building for clients. We are. We are gonna build this beautiful thing and, you know, and we will attract, you know, one of my favorite quotes is, you know, Your vibe attracts your tribe. I mean, your vibe of your homes is attracting, you know, the tribe that lives in it, this analogy. And just, I love that for you, I there's, I have so many questions that we'll have to do another podcast to, you know, I'm just very curious about the, you know, the how, and, you know the process as you go through it, maybe there's one parting question here, as we close in at the end, is, you know, you've set the budget early on, how do you handle, like any spec home builder, because I'm dealing with this right now, is you've set the budget, and you're getting into it, and you see this really cool thing, and you're like, I love it, and you personally feel passion towards it. And the home does reflect the passion of you and your of your family as you build it. How do you put guardrails on your passions and what should go in the house versus what may make it all of a sudden? Now, you know, unreasonable. It's too expensive. Usually, my case ends up being it steers it to be too expensive. How do you how do you navigate

    Aaron Tudisco 56:40

    that? We build in fat contingencies. Simply said, we build in a big line item early on, knowing that we're going to discover opportunities as we go through it. Ultimately, though, you know, we don't have an endless amount of money, so you know the best opportunities, we always make sure we capture things where we feel like this could go either way it'd be great to have. But also, is it going to make or break, you know, a vision for a room or detail, whatever? Maybe the value of having three individuals, you know, within the great because you've got, you know, the ability to vote, and we typically always, you know, if we don't 100% align, we definitely get to a point where we can respect one person's decision on why it doesn't make sense or why they're passionate about making it happen, and we will come around and share that person's vision. But we try our best to hit our number. We go in saying this is going to cost $100 and we try our best to get to the $100 at the end with plus or minus our contingency, and most of the time we get there, sometimes you've sometimes you gotta just go after it and say, this is this additional spend. We're gonna get it because we can raise the price. It's an amenity, or it's a detail that we know we're gonna get credit for it. We just didn't see it on day one, but now we see it. We have got to follow it through. So there's a lot of adjustments.

    Mark D. Williams 58:01

    I like contingency. I'm working with a client right now, and their budget is extremely tight, and I we're a cost plus builder, so I'm like, the cost is the cost. If you want to change the price, I can give you options on what you can cut, but there's no magic formula here. You have to be willing for the cut, and it's always a hard discussion because of expectations. And of course, everyone tends to look even us as builders. We mentioned it earlier on the podcast. If you could go back and buy land in 2018 and 19, you'd empty every cent you have to buy it, because that's just how it goes. And I guess my question is, oh, a contingency, i Someone gave me good advice, and it's one that I now use a lot with clients, but I probably should have done a better job of using it for myself on the spec home, which is we need a contingency. We either need to factor in a contingency in the contract, because if you're doing with the bank, you know where the cost overrun is going to come from. We can build it right into the contract. Banks are totally fine with that. Or you have to carry contingency privately and know that when you come to that crossroads, that's your contingency. Or we have to carry the contingency somehow or another. And I think that is something that I need to do a better job of. I do talk about it with our clients, because I think the most successful builds are the ones where inevitably, and I guess you haven't had this, not having clients to deal with, but man, it does sound kind of nice when you talk about it is you know you, you know you, they inevitably price out the house. And I guess we do this all the time for spec homes too, because we're doing you know, of course, price evaluation, it comes back at this we bring it back. Inevitably, it almost always gets added back to the project. And really on two paths, either it gets added back before we start, and those projects go much smoother, or the client wants the lower wind in the beginning, but then throughout the entire build they want, they keep adding it back in. But it's, it's much more begrudging. And usually I don't have a, you know, let's just call it. It costs $2 more. Cost double as it goes back in during the build, because now we're it's slowing things down. The team is circling trying to get it back in. Plus, there's the, the factor of enjoyment, the the client has really. Fatigued because they keep adding what they never remember. I've never had a single client ever remember this in 21 years, is it was them that cut the budget, but it's now my fault for adding it, when it's really their choice to add it, and it's really a difficult that's where man tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy. And you know, I don't always get that right, because we really have to be on our game and how we present that information, because the last thing we want to do is tell the client, like, Hey, this is your fault. Like, that's obviously not very tactful, but yet, at the same time, it is their fault. And so how do you sort of, you know, put this in kind of a compliment sandwich and be like, Hey, we're going to add this as a great choice. But you know, really, you made the choice six months ago when you sign a contract to sort of have to go through this, it's just, it's a it's one that we always have to combat. And, I mean, do you feel like any of that resonates, even though it's all internal for you? Have you ever felt like you've cut stuff and then you add it back and you're like, man, we should

    Aaron Tudisco 1:00:54

    just add it from beginning, you know for sure, I mean, and it can come from things that we think are going to make the project better or or improve the the end experience. It can also come from, we thought steel was going to cost one thing on day one, and nine months later, it's whatever, 50% more. So it can come from material costs that are all of a sudden ballooning to us adding things as well, and, and, yeah. I mean, we've got nobody to answer to but ourselves. So that has its own challenges, and we make mistakes every single day. I mean, I'm I love doing what we doing as spec builders, but, but it is also very challenging. It has its own unique, you know, obstacles, and we have to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, Well, we did just decide on this on day one. And if we're going to ebb and flow along the journey, we've got to hold ourselves accountable for, you know, the decision we're making, but also the ramifications at the end of the day, margins might get tighter. You know, even where we think best end uses, we can get more for the money, more more money for the house. So yes, it's, it's a daily journey where we are constantly, you know, making adjustments that ultimately, we really believe are better for the project, but do have consequences that we've gotta, you know, manage

    Mark D. Williams 1:02:05

    along along our work. Well, when you're when this home comes on the market, send me a ping me on Instagram, and we'll post it in stories and take it to this episode. Because I'd love to, I'd love to see the the final reveal when it goes up on the website, you do all the photos. So

    Aaron Tudisco 1:02:17

    that'd be great. Yeah, we have one house. We have one house on the market right now, which is the Ventana sonoma.com Okay, the house that's on the market, and then we have another one that's coming on in just about three or four weeks. This is part of that six acre subdivision that we've, we've built. And, yeah, I'd love to, I'd love to send you links to them, and we'd love to have you out here and show you in person I know you, you, and I would have a great time all the details and how the sausage is made. Appreciate it. Yeah, I love

    Mark D. Williams 1:02:44

    it. Well, I appreciate your time coming on and well, for all the listeners, we'll have everything in the show notes. And thanks again.

    Aaron Tudisco 1:02:49

    Thank you. Mark. Really nice time.

    Mark D. Williams 1:02:53

    We've had the podcast now for two and a half, almost three years now, and we have a consulting page, one to one consulting you can book my time for one hour. Perhaps you've heard a guest where you like one of the topics. Maybe you want an introduction to some of the guests that I've had on. Perhaps you want to talk about branding or marketing or anything that we've covered on the podcast over the last two and a half years. You can book a time at curious builder podcast.com. Thanks for tuning in to curious builder podcast. If you like this episode, do us a favor, share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends. Like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in.

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Episode 127 - Burnout, Barrooms, & Breaking Barriers: Chris Montana’s Path to Disrupting an Industry