Episode 49 - Building the Future: Technology and Tradition with Sven Gustafson
Episode #49 | Sven Gustafson | Technology & Tradition
Grab your hard hats for episode 49 of The Curious Builder, where we sit down with Sven Gustafson of StoneWood and Revisions to unpack the future of homebuilding! In this jam-packed session, Sven takes us through his journey in the family business, highlighting the transformative role of technology like AI in architecture and the importance of managing client expectations with honesty and detailed budgeting. We also delve into the power of builder networks, the impact of company culture on leadership, and Sven's commitment to completing homes right – down to the last nail before move-in day. Tune in for this fascinating conversation that merges tradition with innovation, right here on The Curious Builder podcast!
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About Sven Gustafson
Sven Gustafson grew up the son of a home builder, learning all aspects of building quality homes from the bottom up. Working summers for his father, Sven spent a lot of time on job sites & interacting with clients. “I always thought of my father as an artist, on a large scale & knew that I wanted to follow in his footsteps as I developed my company.”
The tradition continues with Stonewood, LLC, now led by J. Sven Gustafson. Our team of professional project managers has vast experience in the industry and is trained to build according to the highest standards for custom building defined by Stonewood. They enjoy the rigor and stability of working at Stonewood and build only a select few homes each year to ensure that each home and client receives the necessary time and effort to coordinate, immerse in the project, and interact with the daily requirements of each home.
Sven has worked with all of Stonewood’s clients from the inception of their project – assisting in architect interviews, aiding in the selection of a building site, and overseeing the project throughout construction.
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Mark D. Williams
Welcome to curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today I'm joined with Stan Gustafson. Well, welcome to curious builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host today I'm joined by with a nice welcome the fierce builder Podcast. I'm I'm Finn Gustafson. That's a good one.
Sven Gustafson
We're off to a good start. We're
Mark D. Williams
Welcome to Curious Builder. I'm Mark Wlliams your host today, I'm joined with Sven Gustafson from Stonewood and revisions, welcome.
Sven Gustafson
Thank you. All right. Well, we're here.
Mark D. Williams
We've been in Minnesota together for a long time. But I wanted to bring you in talk a little bit about your like five different companies. We'll start with just two and today's episode Stonewood in revisions, but why don't we go back for those that don't know who you are? You're pretty household name here in Minnesota. But for those listening across the country, tell us a little bit about your family company, and kind of your evolution to where you are today.
Sven Gustafson
Sure. Well, as you mentioned, it's our primary company is stone wood. We have been building in and around the area for generations, I'd like to say that I'm a fourth generation home builder, my mother and father built a lot around Edina and kind of surrounding areas. And then we also have revision, which is a remodeling company that's been around for about a dozen years.
Mark D. Williams
Okay, you on your website, it was like 1920. So was it always a custom home builder? Had they just started a few homes? I mean, walk us through you in those early days, because one of my questions to you will be a little bit about what it's like upholding kind of a legacy of family of family builders.
Sven Gustafson
Sure. Yeah. You know, I think 1920 is really a nod to my grandfather and and the building that he did around around the same area. So the company itself hasn't been around since the 1920s. But it's a family tradition since that time. And so yeah, it's it's a it's an honor to be carrying on the family tradition. It it's something that I grew up knowing that I always wanted to do. You grew up on my dad's job sites and, and didn't didn't necessarily get into it right away and get into that later. But as soon as I had an opportunity, I jumped at it and enjoyed with my mother and father. And at the time, my grandfather was working with us a little
Mark D. Williams
bit as well. Wow. Was your mom involved on the design side? Or what was her?
Sven Gustafson
Yeah, well, so growing up, we we moved probably every six months, maybe maybe better than that. Mostly in and around Edina. We only made one move outside of Edina and my 18 years living with the family. And my mom would always be decorating the homes. And so while she wasn't trained as an interior designer, she was really good at it. And, and so she there, her career evolved into being our interior designer at Stonewood. And we hired people around her.
Mark D. Williams
Was that kind of interesting as a young young man or young boy at that time seeing your mom and dad kind of work together? I mean, it's the only life you really knew he probably thought that was normal, right? Because that's how else would you compare like this is what's normal moving every six months or every year? At what point did it kind of dawn on you that that was not, you know, a normal way to sort of grow up? And I only say that, because, you know, I had a very similar experience. Yeah,
Sven Gustafson
I don't think it's not normal. It's the most normal thing. It's, it's what everybody should do. No, it was, it was our lifestyle. And when we we loved it, I think my mother was a saint and very patient putting up with moving every six months or so. But I think we grew to love it. And it was it was great for the business as well because rather than building spec homes, which which my mother and father did as well, our home was was the next model home. And it was kind of the hedge against a spec home and our home would be for sale and and the spec homes will be for sale as well. But ours were were decorated impeccably looked like they were ready to move into and almost always sold before the homes that were under construction. So we would move did you have
Mark D. Williams
and most of those listen to the audience would know that I also will have multifamily generational builder as well. But having a similar experience hearing it from you, the idea that you sort of are always ready to like go out for dinner, because someone was going to come over and look at your house, but your dad would and mom may stay behind to kind of show it. Was that a similar experience for you where you'd be like, hey, there's a showing tonight, you know, or we're gonna take somebody through the house. How did you guys navigate that as you were trying to sell the homes that you were living in?
Sven Gustafson
Yeah, you know, everything was always for sale. And so the house was always ready to show and I think it definitely instilled some OCD. You know, it's, I still struggle a bit that the House has to be looking great all the time. And with three kids that's That's it. I'm learning how difficult that must have been for my my mother and father to keep the house looking like it wasn't a disaster.
Mark D. Williams
How many siblings do you have? I've got three. Okay. And I'm involved with not involved in the in the same bug. Where are you in the and the oldest? How? So when you may well go back again to the beginning. You knew right away or at least at a certain age that you wanted to be involved. What was it about watching your mom dad or was it building itself or what was it that kind of drew you In,
Sven Gustafson
you know, definitely the creativity. This might sound a little corny, but I grew up really thinking that my father was an artist. The things that he would incorporate into the homes that he was building were fun. I mean, he, I think probably at a certain point in his career got a little bored. And he had built a lot of homes, you know, hundreds and hundreds of homes over the years. And I think when he built over 100 homes, so it was a different business than we have today. And so he did things to have fun with it, secret rooms, and he had all sorts of little trademark things. This is a crazy one, he had telephone booths, little rooms that just were for the telephone. And that, you know, back in the 80s, that was a cool thing. And so, you know, I saw the fun of that, in view. Later in his career, a lot of the architects that we worked with would say, Well, you know, the work that I do for your dad, the plants, that's just the starting point, he's not going to build this, he's going to take it an entirely different direction, he, he wants three or four sheets, and that's all he needs. And then he's gonna figure out as he goes, and he had a lot of fun doing that. So I enjoyed watching that process. And, and I love the permanence of what he was doing as well, that it that we're building things that we're going to be around for a long time. And we're remodeling some of the homes he built back in the early 80s. And late 70s.
Mark D. Williams
Interesting. And so from a scale standpoint, do you kind of mentioned do it? I mean, 100 homes a year, obviously, what Stonewood is today, there's no way you for those that aren't familiar with what's been built, go to his website? stonewood.com. That's pretty impressive. You I'm guessing or what, seven to 10 homes a year that strata like no,
Sven Gustafson
it's always hard to put a number on that. We always have eight or 10 homes going on. And so as they they expanding track and size. We like to say we do 10 homes a year. But I think we finished seven last year,
Mark D. Williams
right? Yeah, totally. It's the ups and downs of you know, if especially if a home is two years in the making, or three years or whatever it is, it's really hard to get that cyclical number exactly what everyone always wants, especially whether it's your insurance carriers or marketing, or however you're saying it's you kind of end up picking an average. Yeah, we're
Sven Gustafson
not. We have no intention of growing the business in terms of the quantity of homes that we're building where we're going in, in, in dollar volume, the homes seem to get bigger every year. And then just in other ways. Not volume, though.
Mark D. Williams
Yeah. What were you able to I believe your dad has passed now, is that right? Yep. were you guys able to spend some time working together before that happen? Or walk us a little bit through? How did the transition happen?
Sven Gustafson
Yeah, that was that was a huge blessing to have joined the business. When I did and got good 15 years working with my mother and father at the business. I can, I can back it up a little bit post college, I want to develop software. And we might talk about a little bit about how that gets incorporated into the homebuilding business later, but had a very lucrative job developing software, enjoyed it to a degree but but you know, going back to the permanence of it, we would write software develop different things for businesses that might only be used for a few months before they moved on to the next thing, and
Mark D. Williams
maybe use it or maybe not, it was more just like an iteration or like a design concept. Or
Sven Gustafson
they just might decide to go in an entirely different direction, or replace the product that we modified or build for them with something entirely different. And that just was soul crushing. Either you could spend six months or a year building something that that, you know, it didn't even last that long and its lifecycle after you released it. And so before I got too comfortable doing that, or as I was getting pretty comfortable doing that, I realized, boy, if I keep doing this, I'm gonna have a mortgage and car payments and kids and I'm not going to be able to pursue what I really want to do. And so I quit work for my folks, at a time when they really couldn't afford another employee. They paid me what they could, and I learned the business, just by by filling in and doing things that
Mark D. Williams
where I could add value, and you're in your 20s Probably at this time, yeah. Three, four years out
Sven Gustafson
of college. And, and, you know, like, like a lot of homebuilding businesses. My my family's business had gone through some cycles. And, you know, I think at that point, it was, they were building just a few homes a year with a business partner. And it was probably the worst time that I could have chosen to, to join in but but looking back on it, it was it was the best decision I made, because it allowed me to, to, to jump in and add value. And I
Mark D. Williams
have to admit, I have to imagine that by getting in when things were very difficult. You some ways had a huge advantage long term. Because you know, sometimes when people take over a family business, and this will lead into one of my questions, you know, if things are rolling really well if you haven't experience some of the more difficult things because we all know build super cyclical up and down, but in some way starting on the down. It's got to be sort of informative and helpful because you have to be scrappy in some ways. It's no different than starting a business you while you're obviously extremely fortunate to work with your parents in there's got to be some really cool personal part of that from a bit his career trajectory, it has to have taught you a lot of very valuable lessons versus a lot of times, you know, whether you were people loved users were candid. We'll talk about that later to hate that. But essentially, if you start at a high point, you do the trough all by yourself, and then you have to figure out can you even recover? Can you speak a little bit? Do you think that's an accurate statement? Yeah, absolutely.
Sven Gustafson
We had to get a lot done with very little resources. And we had to be scrappy, we were inventing our processes as we went, when I joined the business. The jobs were run out of an individual checkbook for each home that was being built at the very, very rudimentary systems. And so however,
Mark D. Williams
I will say this, interrupt me for a minute. But that is actually a pretty key founding principle right there, because a lot of people as you would know, and I think you're pretty sophisticated in terms of your accounting, just because what you've done later on your build tool side, is a lot of builders take all the money into one check, checkbook and build all the homes out of it. And that has led to a lot of problems for a lot of people. So the idea that, you know, back then, they already had a pretty strong sense of, you know, fiduciary duty to their clients and to themselves to manage books. I mean, I think that's impressive. I mean, it was well, before a lot of computer technology was available, right?
Sven Gustafson
Well, I purchased the first computer for the business. You know, so that's why I mentioned the checkbook, it was literally that was the accounting for the different projects. But yeah, having that segregation, fantastic idea. And it keeps things from getting commingled. And, you know, as we evolved over the years, that's certainly something that that stuck. As a as a critical bit.
Mark D. Williams
Do you find actually, we just did this in the last couple of years, there's actually a book Michael McCalla wits it's called profit. First, he talks about setting up five different accounts to do different things we've and I know through build tools, builder, trend, whatever online software, people that help us to manage their construction, finances, whatever it may be, it's not any of those things. But we've found that even though you don't need it, I like the physical sight of actually having separate bank accounts, even today, even though on the back end with accounting firms, and whatever they did say they don't need them, I still like to be able to look at my bank account and see the separate jobs separated. And that's something we've only recently done the last two years, do you still do something like that, or you just let the software kind of,
Sven Gustafson
you know, we operate a little differently. Everything I do is custom and pre sold. So you know, our projects are all funded by the client ID by the bank. And so we don't need, we don't have any use for separate accounts for every job. We have our operating account that the money that were paid by our clients to do what we do flows in and out of that. But all of the funds for building the project go directly from the client or the bank, through a title company, to the folks that have done the work even on remodels, even on remodels. And and I assume a cash client because we would have this to you would do How to cash client, you just have them set up an escrow at the title company and do it that way. Yeah, we typically we don't even do escrows our clients are, are fairly high net worth, we tend not to worry too much about their finances,
Mark D. Williams
how do you handle design down payments, I mean, one thing that we dealt with actually not dealt with, but it's been to our advantage. And just one way to kind of secure it. I mean, we would usually do a design agreement as we're working through the architect selection, interior design selection, and we're taking obviously those funds as a down payment during that cycle. Do not take any sort of design down payment. We
Sven Gustafson
do on some of our projects, we do a limited amount of our design work in house, we have a staff designer, everything else is done with third party designers that our clients are hiring directly
Mark D. Williams
in. But what about covering your time during, you know, I guess that discovery phase? Yeah, we
Sven Gustafson
operate a little differently on that front, I don't have our clients sign a project until we're ready to break ground on their home. So from the time we begin the design process and decide that we're going to be working together, right up until we're ready to break ground, I'm on a handshake. The clients are paying the expenses of that process, that third party expense to that process as we go. And not until we have a final budget final set of plans, all the selections are made with the interior designer, then we decide to assign a contract.
Mark D. Williams
So are you you're just you're just telling them that they'll let's say I you know, I meet with you. And you're saying hey, we're going to interview these people, and we're just gonna pass through invoices. And we expect you to pay them. I mean, there must be some upfront conversation at least about it. Oh, yeah, of
Sven Gustafson
course, it's an awkward conversation about it. But you know, the invoices that they're not paying directly are are pretty limited survey expenses, and maybe engineering, oil engineering, things like that. But they're hiring the architect directly contracting with the architect directly, whether that's our staff designer or a third party architect, there'll be a contract for that. But most often, they're, they're hiring that architect and paying them monthly. Same with the interior designer. Interesting.
Mark D. Williams
And that's obviously served me very well. It's interesting. I've found the opposite to be true for myself personally, that I that we used to do it that way in the very beginning and we were at a different personal place in our journey as well than where we are today now and where you are at been for a while too. But I find that design retainer is kind of a lower lower barrier of entry to really show them what it unfolds. But I think it's more of just a style than it is really anything else.
Sven Gustafson
Yeah, I like to tell clients that look, I'm earning your business through the design process, and we're getting to know each other. And frankly, we're going to spend six months or a year together going through this process. And if we get to the end of that, and we haven't, we haven't gotten to a point where we've got a budget and design that you're in love with, or we don't like each other at that point, a contracts just in the way we might get to the end of that decide it's just not a good fit. It's, it's happened in a very, very limited number of times. But sometimes they you know, families circumstances change, and they just decide not to build, I don't really have a need for that design deposit to lock us into one another until ready to start building a house.
Mark D. Williams
I mean, I think from a client's point of view, I can see why that would be extremely attractive, as well as also, you know, one of the best ways to ensure trust is to trust, right? I mean, ultimately, as building a home, I mean, there are 1000 billion things that can go wrong. I always often say to our clients, I was like, it's amazing, we get as much right as we do. Because there's so many opportunities for things to go wrong, it's not the most reassuring thing for people to hear. But think about it, you're building a house outside for two years in the snow in the rain. You know, it's a one of a kind of house not a one of a kind lot. I mean, there's a lot of opportunity, where people are expecting the word quote, perfection. And it's not that people aren't giving their, their above 100% of you will effort. But this idea of perfection and what can go wrong, you kind of have to, I think it's a little bit, I guess I can do surgery, I don't think your your cardiac surgeon is probably telling you all the things that can go wrong when you go out for surgery. But you have to establish some baseline trust. Yeah,
Sven Gustafson
you know, I have to believe that that word comes up all the time in these interviews that you do. It truly is about trust, it's cliche, but it is the core of what we do. We're building prototypes that we haven't ever built this house before. You know, in a way, we haven't used this combination of products before on this previous property, like your hearts already, you don't know what you're getting into until you get into it. And so some things are going to go wrong. And we just have to trust that at those points, we're going to, we're going to work with each other and get to the solution that makes everybody happy. You know, I my expectation of my clients going through that six month process is, hey, we're working together, I'm going to dedicate six months to holding your hand through this process, interviewing architects finding the right fit, introducing you to these folks and the interior designers, and put a ton of time into budgeting your your home hundreds of hours across all the different trade partners and vendors that are involved in that process in that six months. And if we get to the end, and that client decides to hand the plans and the selections to another builder, that's probably not the person I want to work with. If they're going to betray that trust and not let us work to a budget and try to meet their expectations. After all that hard work. You know, if that client walks out, probably one, you know, I'm not going to spend the next year working with somebody that just isn't the caliber of human that we want to work with.
Mark D. Williams
You touched on a very good subject that we brought up before on the podcast, but identifying your ideal client. And I I can't say that I've always done you know, early on in my career, you're hustling, you're scrappy. I mean, you'll do anything for anything. And, you know, during, you know, to downturns, you know, you also have to get scrappy too. But a lot of that mentality of kind of going through that scrappiness is like at what point do you realize like no, I am good enough. Like we deserve to be paid for this. And we are very good. And I think it's a little kids in their relationship. It sounds like it's okay to own who you are. And as you get older in your career, and longer in your career, you kind of or at least for me, you become more comfortable with obviously, who you are and what you have, you don't have to apologize for what you want. It's not that you can't get better, but it's like, we might not be a good fit. And that's okay. For me. I felt like a great liberty and kind of really a step up in my own career when I finally understood how to harness that message. In fact, clients end up wanting you even more because of it. Have you found that to be true? And at what point? Did you sort of discover that on your own? Yeah, I
Sven Gustafson
think so. I tell all of our clients in an initial meeting, it's a two way interview. We need to like each other, we need to feel that it's a good fit. And I think most clients will ask, you know, how do you how do I pick a builder? And it comes back to that cliched word, right? It's just all about trust, pick somebody that you like, we're going to be working together for a couple of years. And it's it's going to have its rough spots, and we have to know that we're going to get through them together. Clients always remember that and it's funny how often at the end of the meeting, very often they'll say, so what do you think you'd get like us? I'd like to repass Yeah, that's a good sign that all right, they they liked me as much and they're ready. Yeah. They liked me as much as I liked them. So I think this is the end they can joke about it and it's going to be a good relationship. Yeah, I think that's one of the So, one of the benefits of of how long we've been doing this, and the success that we found is we can be selective about our clients. It's, it's tough to, to walk away from a client, a great job, when you're only doing 10 homes a year, well, I could be walking away from 10% of this year's revenue. But if it's not a good fit, the best thing that a builder can do is just say, I can see this coming, my gut tells me this isn't going to go well. And better to just cut and and walk and look for the ones that are gonna enjoy work. How do you learn that the hard way? yourself? I think every builder does I mean, I, again, I suspect every builder that comes in here can tell you the horror stories and, and of the 10 houses you're working on. If you have one turkey, it just kills the momentum of the entire team and takes so much energy. And it's just not worth it.
Mark D. Williams
We had one a couple of years ago, where, you know, there was like, kind of four in the form of the bush none in the hand. And they were the first one through and it was, you know, what, for, you know, I was looking back you like was that a red flag was an orange flag. You know, if it's red, you know, if they, you know, you just like, Okay, this is not me, but there was looking back. Oh, it's mostly orange. But it was also the first one and you're like, Well, if I get three out of these four, like things are good, too. Yeah, one, we're in trouble. But it's the first one, like, I gotta get it. But once you know, that was right, you know, right after it COVID And things exploded, right? And we got all four. And then you go back like, Man, I really wish I hadn't take care of that first one. But, you know, hindsight is 2020. Now going forward, you know, we turned out a couple of jobs even last week, that just didn't really seem to fit in our timing. And just it's, it's hard, because we have to make pretty quick snap judgments on certain things. And as an optimist, you know, I have to believe if anyone's good at remodeling, you have to be an optimist. And so sometimes it's hard, because you're like, wow, I could see where this could go. And you could see that it might be great. But then really kind of making a call on it. Like you just have to make a decision. Well,
Sven Gustafson
yeah, but you know, our whole process of not requiring the contract upfront for construction. It's built around this, I get six months to orso, to learn about this, this family and decide if it's a good fit. And so today, and I think, you know, if we're locked in, and, and there's no turning back, you don't make up, your decisions aren't going to be quite as wise. And as
Mark D. Williams
if I see what you're saying. So you're saying that I get that? I mean, I would usually go I think I would argue with that as as a design retainer, you know, I tell her hunch you're not locked into either, it now it's highly unlikely you're gonna go anywhere, because we're going to develop this great relationship. But the end of this to your point six months, if you find that I'm not a good fit for you, this is these are your plants, we designed this house for you, you know, this is yours. I feel like there's still opportunity to do that. In the one that I'm thinking of, in my mind, the plan was already done by somebody else. And so you know, I think sometimes and I think most builders can relate to this, too. It sounds really juicy. What's on calls, you'd said, Hey, there's a plan. Would you like to fit it? And that to me, it's not a red flag, but it's an orange flag? Because you're like, well, if it's the same strata, I usually like to ask them, you know, which builder Did you work with to get that? And if they won't tell me about? You need to be honest. And then I'll flat up. Ask them why why are you coming to me? Like that person has a great reputation, they build a good home? What are you looking for? Because I really want to vet it? Right? I feel like when I'm not part of the design process, and all the way through, I missed. Now I'm a commodity too. And I really want to be the one that's, you know, been there for the relationship side? Sure. And how would you if someone came to you with the plan, I mean, it's
Sven Gustafson
pretty rare that we'll we'll bid a job against other builders, you know, that the once a year that we might do that, if we're if we're looking for work, or if it's a really fun project that we we'd like to take a shot at. We're never the low bidder. And usually when somebody is, is shopping three or four builders and having them all bid, they're looking for the lowest price. And, you know, that's just not how we're built, most often will be the most expensive because we're going to aim high. And and as we go through the process, and we fill in the gaps of things that we don't know, well, then we can back it down to wherever it might end up. But we don't play the game of showing a low number to get the contract signed to to get the job and then disappoint them at every turn as allowances are exceeded. And, and you know, at the end of the process, they're gonna look back and say, Boy, we ended up right where the other guy told us we were gonna be. So we're the opposite of that. And that's just very conducive to bidding against other builders. Just the mindset of that
Mark D. Williams
one even if you do how often I don't know if I actually ever have in my career. Usually it's a plan not fully selected, not fully, all the way you know, to the nines, if you will, in terms of selections and interior design. So you're really taking it's really about estimate. The difference
Sven Gustafson
then is just in the assumptions that the four different builders are making. You know, the builder with the lowest budget is the one who just included the least, you know the secret of our industry that I tell all of our clients, if you take a step back, we're all using the same trades, whether you hire me or mark or one of my four different competitors, you're very well gonna see the same literally the same human beings on your job site, the same tile setters and refers and framing carpenters, we've got our trades that we keep pretty busy, that only work for us most of the time. But largely, we're all buying the same materials from the same suppliers. I think I get better rates than some of our competitors, because I've negotiated harder, because we've got a little more volume than a smaller builder. And you know, the difference is going to be in in those assumptions, the things that aren't defined that you can honestly say, well, we included this because it didn't tell me what to include. Again, going back to, we're going to make the high assumption because most of our clients end up spending a bit more money, I'd rather be wrong on the high side then have to apologize later, for everything costing more than we it is it just doesn't feel honest to do it the
Mark D. Williams
other way one, and also just sets it up to be a terrible experience for the client. I mean, we've done this enough. Now, you know, I would say you don't need practice, you know, after 20 years of building, you know, we're beyond practice. Yeah, it was kind of like, we don't need practice that disappointing our clients. And, you know, using our past, you know, experiences to inform the future clients and say, This is what our clients say that they wish they would have not the beginning. And to give you the best experience, if that's what you're speaking to, it's giving the cloud and frankly, you and your team the best experience as well, I would do the same thing. It's like the last thing I want to do is every single thing come back to you, you know, I can disappoint you once or I can disappoint you 300 times. Which choice? Actually, I should use that line. Which, which, which which way do you want to go through this bill?
Sven Gustafson
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's death by 1000 cuts, if you just use the allowances and you know that they're likely to exceed every single one of those. That's just not fun. We want our clients to look back and say, Boy, we came in under budget, which is is a very common occurrence at Stonewood. And revision, we tend to over budget things, when there's an unknown and allowance for a general you know, snow plowing and winter conditions and those sorts of things, we're going to aim high. And if we have a nice winner, we're giving you money back. We do everything openbook cost plus our clients see everything. We've been doing that since I got involved in the business, my father had some commercial experience as well and kind of brought that forward. So we were doing cost plus before for was cool to do cost plus. And I think a lot of our competitors over the years have have followed suit. We don't treat that like an open on accountable checkbook. It we we our mindset is it's a fixed bid, if something exceeds what we have in our cost plus budget, in our clients mindset is why'd you miss it. So our mindset has been okay, we're trying to eliminate any risks to this by getting a fixed bid for for lumber and drywall and painting based on their final selections and everything before we get going. So I think we do things in a way that gives clients a lot of
Mark D. Williams
comfort, do at what point in your career, you insist that a client had no full architecture drawings all the way through cabinet details, as well as all the interior selections before you would start because a common thing of course, as you would know, and especially in the cost plus world is okay, we're close enough to go in for permit, we can figure it out the rest of this on the fly. And as you get further on your career, you're like, This is a crate this is kind of crazy. This is like we're gonna build the airplane while we're flying. Yeah, go for that a couple
Sven Gustafson
years of brain damage. You know, my, my, my father liked to fly by the seat of his pants a bit, you know, like the plans, it was a good idea. And he, he would know what a spec home would cost when it was done. Because it was just a constantly evolving. We don't know what we're doing until Jeff stops making decisions and changes. And that's fun when it's your money and, and you know what you're doing, but that's not fun when you're managing a client's money and, you know, a couple of rough closings where we're shocking the client with All right, well, we got the final invoices, and here's what your house cost. I didn't want to do that for the rest of my career. So it was pretty early on, that I started implementing a very strict pre construction budgeting so that we didn't ever have to go through that process again. I mean, I'm sure every builder has gone through that where they they're delivering no fun surprises. And, you know, I would I would not be in this business if we hadn't locked things down pretty early on. It's just no fun.
Mark D. Williams
Yeah, I mean, it's just gonna go smoother. I think a big part of it again, a good bet. Do you want to be disappointed once or 100 times a lot of us as professionals, educating our clients, really from that first design meeting. This is why it's important and I feel like even like recently for us, it's for instance, you know, like punch list always takes, you know, way longer than you would like it to and as an owner Originally, how are we still dealing with this punch list, or maybe it's just me. But the point is, is recently I heard this and we just actually wrote into our contracts that a client can't move into their house till 30 days after the CEO from the city. And that allows us 30 days to do everything on the punch list without the homeowners in. And now we haven't had a homeowner actually, we're actually one under contract right now, it'd be the first one that goes through this process. I learned this from another builder and another state that he does this, and it's had great success. Have you been able to how do you get navigate some of the scheduling things other than price scheduling is usually one of the biggest hot buttons and change orders, you know, with clients? How have you managed?
Sven Gustafson
Yeah, you know, um, you know, one of the tenants of how we do everything is just full disclosure. So the schedule that we have online and build tools is the schedule that everybody sees, there's nothing hiding in there, it's, you know, they see when the Temporary Toilets being delivered, and when we're staking the foundation, and all the nitty gritty, and built into that, at the end is three to four weeks of finishing the house. It's after absolutely everything is completed, not tied to a certificate of occupancy, because we can get that pretty early. And we educate all of our clients, as we're getting going on the house saying, all right now, you're going to experience at the end of this process, where you feel like the house is done and ready to move into. And regardless of how it looks or feels. And regardless of your rental situation, or anything else, we cannot allow you to move into that house until the punch that says don't because of a one week list of things painting and touch up and all these little things that we could accomplish. Now, before you move in, can draw out any you know, no exaggeration, six months, because it's always there's always something else that gets added to it. That's been a huge key to to success and keeping clients happy. It's frustrating for them when they're kind of staring down the barrel of needing to get out of a rental and another month of, of not being in their house. But the worst thing we could ever do is let a client move into a house, it's not ready to be moved in, they could love us at that point. And they could be appreciative. And hey, thanks for saving X 1000s of dollars by being in here early. And three months later, they will be screaming and swearing and think that we're the most incompetent builder on the planet, you figure
Mark D. Williams
that out earlier than I did. I mean, I'd say about a year ago, you know, realizing it's just this, the tail on this stuff just never ends. And so I think this is gonna I'm really excited for you know, it's kind of like when you we had not I won't call it bad contracts, we have contracts that you're locked into a process that you are locked into. And as you you know, one of my questions for you here, maybe next is a little bit about, you know, builder Kalani. And as your network expands, and you get information from other builders or podcasts or even hopefully, people listening will get some of this that they can apply don't have to go through what you and I have gone through previous in our career, that's the hope is being able to apply to your business. But it really is unfortunate when you're in sort of a lot. framework, you haven't educated your client, you have been educated, you have been, quote, enlightened, and you're like, now this is how I want to do it. Oh, but I still have five homes under construction under this previous path. That just kind of you gotta get through it. Yeah,
Sven Gustafson
and, you know, looking back when we implemented this procedure, we told clients, we were just honest with them, hey, look, you know, we've learned that we need to have the punch list done. And we've got to add a couple weeks to your schedule. And I know it's an unexpected change, you know, maybe it's maybe it's only a couple months out from when you think you're moving in, but we need this time to really do it, right. And we had a little bit of pushback. But at the same time, they trusted us and understood it. And we just we delivered it with kind of the maturity of having we've done this so many times that trust me, this is going to be good. We'll get you in as quick as we can. And I think all of them would look back and say thank God we did that. Oh,
Mark D. Williams
I agree. How often I mean, I've mentioned still probably comes up from time to time. I'm special. My case is unique. I have a graduation coming I have a I really have to get up my my rental is in my rent is nd I have to sell my house. How do you navigate that?
Sven Gustafson
It's just hard and fast. I mean, it it. It's so ingrained in our mentality that the moving a client into a house that isn't complete, will never end well. No matter how much the client says I get it. I understand I'm gonna be patient, I know that you're breaking the rules. I I've been down this road before and it's just not worth it. So it's one of our unbreakable rules. We just can't let people move into a house. It's not
Mark D. Williams
done like that. I just recently I was interviewing an architect with a client and they will head and this particular architect had he called him six never ever it's and this client actually is really funny brought a photo of a house that they really liked. And he said that's impressive, because that has I think I brought it up I'm like after the whole interview is on that house has five of the architects never ever like anything that the architect would never do those things and the architect educated because they're architectural principles, and the client did not take offense by it at all just like this bit it know what they were looking at where I'm coming going at. This question is is one of the move in scheduling is a number effort. I think that would be It's actually interesting for me to do a what are some never Evers even put on some marketing material to educate the client side up front on the front end? Because we have we tell our clients a lot what we're going to do for them. Yeah, I don't come to think about I can't think of many websites cribs or the builder says these are the things we're not going to do actually think that'd be sort of informative, frankly.
Sven Gustafson
Yeah, I think, you know, I think our contract outlines some of those things. And just our, our process overall, we're not going to start a house until the plans are complete, the selections are complete, we've got a budget that is based on on those completed documents, and, and we're ready to get started on the right foot. Like you said earlier, you know, building the plane while you're while you're flying it. It's not advisable, it's not going to go well. And it's it's it's more emotional than flying a plane. So it's just it's, I can recall the last house I built the big house at the time about a dozen years ago, and really wanted the job and the client refused to make the selections and advanced ours, we're gonna do it as we go. I broke our rule. And, and the client at the end said you were right. We That was terrible. They never, we could never tell them what the house was really going to cost until they made a decision. And it's it's a domino of all the other decisions that work around it. And they I distinctly remember them saying, you were right, I use us as a reference going forward that the right way to do this is to make all the decisions up front,
Mark D. Williams
did you ever use them as a reference?
Sven Gustafson
I haven't had to if the story does enough, I'm happy to connect somebody if they need to. But you know that, again, clients hire us because they trust us. And if they need to follow if they need to close the loop to see if that really happened. That's probably not going to be a great client. If they don't trust us with something as insignificant as that. Right?
Mark D. Williams
No, that's that's really interesting. How would you before we go into some of this other operational stuff, I had some questions on Euro builder 20. Group, right? Yeah. How long have you been on? Boy, I
Sven Gustafson
think going on almost 20 years. Really
Mark D. Williams
that long? Yep. It's, we're honored to be joining my first this spring. And the last couple of years I've spoken a lot of I've just I've how much I've enjoyed networking, I was taught as a small local builder. I wasn't even really aware of the builder. 20. So about three, four years ago anyway. But I thought, Well, why you know why I'm building just in Minnesota. And I had a very narrow mindset, like, why do I need to network and I was always interested, very curious. And other builders is just like, anyway, it just seems such primitive thinking now. Walk us through a little some of the things that you feel like you've gained in the builder, 20? And how has it helped you for those out there that aren't in one and are considering joining one? It's
Sven Gustafson
been huge. I, the builders in my group are some of my best friends. I talked to two of them today. I mean, that's a regular week. Well, I just got back from a ski trip with another one of the guys in the group, which was amazing, by the way, I'll tell you about it. Because I know you like that sort of thing. But it's just been a wealth of information. I mean, because we're not in competing markets, we share everything. And so if there's a clause in a contract, or a procedure, or some sort of a mess, I've gotten into that, you know, we haven't done this before. But whether it's a construction, you know, why is this happening? Or how do we put this together what materials to use, or just a conflict with the clients. They're my go to, and with a with an email or a phone call, I get half a dozen or a dozen responses of how they've, they've dealt with it. And it's just a great network. We share everything we meet twice a year. We critique each other's businesses, we critique each other's sales process. And, you know, we're, we're hard on each other. They the the members in my group have given me a hard time about not having a deposit on our contract through the process. And we arm wrestle over that. And they think they're right. And I think I'm right, and it leads to better businesses. So it's just fantastic. We just recently broke away from nhB. Just because we've been doing it for so long, that we decided we could maybe do it better on our own. So we'll see how that goes that our first meeting here in Minneapolis is spring. Oh, yeah. But it's been the same guys for for a dozen years. So every year
Mark D. Williams
I like that you guys. It's like the rabble rousers. We're real breakaway and snow and by the way, you're
Sven Gustafson
nuts. Yeah, you're in charge. Good luck. So it's been fantastic. Yeah. Highly recommended for Bill usually
Mark D. Williams
have a facilitator like I know, like, the way I went through the preliminary round and I'll speak about it as I've gone on unveil or as I go through the process, I should say is you know, you meet in the room at IVs. Right and international builder show you meet with all these different groups, you kind of find out where you might align or where then you have not competed, oddly enough, yours and handles were the two that I'm like, Oh, these are they're a little bit above where I was in terms of revenue. News because they match a little bit. They don't show who the companies are they just Yeah, revenues. And then I was like, Oh, what about this like, Nope, there's a builder in your market and Mike stone What? No, because I end up I can't say and then I did the society but the point is like, that is what's kind of cool about the network. I feel like I do feel like maybe the younger generation, the one that were a part of, is more apt to to share even locally, but I see a great need for the you know, like the full on complete in depth business, SWOT analysis and all that. It probably does pay for it to be outstayed, especially if you end up competing against each other.
Sven Gustafson
Yeah, you know, I think our markets pretty unique. I don't think builders, the other builders and mobile builder group would have conversations like this with a competitor. It really I don't think so. I mean, we are so tight and friendly locally. If a competitor calls me I probably willing to help them with a trade reference or whatever they need. First
Mark D. Williams
times, I called you, I asked you for a reference for a tour, bus flood arson Home Tour, because I was parked at a place and you gave me like, five different spots. And like, if this one doesn't get back to you call me. It was like Johnny on the spot. So I agree. I mean, at this market is very helpful. I mean, that's a small thing, right. But in some ways, it's not it
Sven Gustafson
is. But you know, we've got such a great Builders Association. You know, housing first does such a great job. And, and with builders club and all the other things that we have that draws together, we're all just so friendly with each other, that it's different. So I think,
Mark D. Williams
do the other out of curiosity, because I have no comparison. I've just, you know, it's kind of like you think everyone moves every six months? And then you find out Wait, not everyone moves every six months? Have you asked the other builders in your builder? 20? For example, if they find that their local markets are not nearly as cohesive as ours, how would you I guess, how would you base that, then you
Sven Gustafson
just got feel, just based on the conversations that we've never had direct conversations about how they interact with other local builders. You know, we're very much a builder driven market. I'd say that better than half of the builders in our group are in architecture of markets. So really different process, I think we're blessed to be in a builder driven market. And I hope housing first maintains that for us. Artisan Home Tour has been great for that. And Parade of Homes is great for that. And, you know, in Minnesota, when people want to build a home, they call builder, and so many other markets they call a real estate agent and an architect and
Mark D. Williams
or an interior designer like in Texas, I'd heard we had a rigid trigger sign she'd moved up here, she sat down there, you know, she would be the first point of contact, you'd often case and then she would recommend the builder or tech. So to your point, I do feel extremely blessed that it was all we've ever known, having been born and bred here and seeing building all around us. Yeah. I mean, I think that was actually one of her observations. I mean, the trade off just celebrated their 75th anniversary, which is no joke. So it was in the country and arson tour now. We're past 10 years. Right?
Sven Gustafson
I think so. Yeah. You know, after the luxury home tour, it kind of evolved. Yeah.
Mark D. Williams
How was your was your family evolved involved with the braid homes as well?
Sven Gustafson
Yeah, you know, I don't know if this is the case or not. But I believe that my father was one of the first builders to have multiple homes in the Parade of Homes. And I remember him talking about it and getting a little pushback that we can't have five houses in them the Parade of Homes and, and his mindset was, well, I get discounts on all the materials. So of course, I'm going to have all my spec homes in the Parade of Homes. And I think that mindset evolved pretty quickly. And builders realized that it was a great marketing vehicle.
Mark D. Williams
That's funny, you say that someone recently had told me that they were in the artists at home tour, and I asked him, I said they were new to new building relatively. I said, Oh, have you built five homes before? And they said no, I said no. And at the ability for 20 years, so dating myself, but looking back, like I was pretty sure early on I started and I was in 2004, when I bought my first home, I you had to build, I want to say three to five homes before you could be eligible to be in a parade. I'm curious in today's you know, the high point of homes was probably what 2007 2008 There was up to 1300 homes or 1200 homes at the max for paid home entries. Sure. And I wonder if it wasn't like now we've got to find some way to limit this. But I wonder now I would actually want to look, is there a limitation anymore? If you if you are a builder and have a dealer's license? Do you have you have you had to have built a home to prove that you can before you can enter the trade? Or is that been no longer part of the you
Sven Gustafson
know, I've never had to think about that. So I don't know. But my belief? Is there some rule along that
Mark D. Williams
line? I asked this builder and they said that know anything about it. And they were they were an arson.
Sven Gustafson
Yeah, I know in other markets. I've had conversations with builders where employees have broken off and built spec homes. And yeah, they had to allow them to build an association and ask for their permission to have this personal
Mark D. Williams
event based on that. And I know for a fact that some things I can think of to right now it's up my head project managers that broke away. And then within the next year, they had a house in the artisan. Yeah, so I bet that's actually not Yeah, I
Sven Gustafson
don't know what matters. I don't first I don't know that. I agree that that's a good rule. If it's a quality home built by A competent builder, it feels like unfair restriction of competition to not let these folks market their homes away as everybody else's.
Mark D. Williams
I 100% agree with that. How I'm from a leadership standpoint, do this. Someone asked me recently this question. So now I'm asking my guests, because I find that just kind of leads to some interesting self talk. I mean, you are the leader of your company, how would you describe your leadership style, both from the with the trade partners, as well as your internal team?
Sven Gustafson
Yeah. But I hire very competent people, I hire leaders, and we've got, we're built a little differently than, than other home builders, I have a production manager on the new construction side that does all of our pre construction work. And then rolling into construction, we have project managers that encompass all of the duties of building a house. So they own that project, we don't have superintendents and project managers that work hand in hand. And, and and try to keep things straight between two or three or four different people across the organization. And so they're really leaders, a better a better term for my project managers would be builder, we've toyed with the idea of just changing their names, you know, their, their title is a builder, because they have all of my skills, they could go do their own thing. And some have over the years, you know, before working for me have owned their own companies and decided that that they liked the part of running the project and working with the client, but but don't care for the the legal and accounting and marketing and all that and, and managing the business that. So often they say, Boy did just hate to have to think about payroll.
Mark D. Williams
I had a project manager wants to hire a builder, many, many, many homes, and he built for a number of other builders as well. And he just I don't want my name assigned anymore. I want to build homes, I love everything about the construction and can't get out of my blood. But I don't want my name on a sign anymore. Yeah, it's a I think it's unique mindset. And it's what it's what drew me to their personality as well. He's like, well, this person gets it, they also the fact that they've run a business, understand how hard it is, you can a respect their point of view. But you also in some ways, I can respect the fact that they've decided to take themselves out of the driver position. And that takes some self awareness. So that would only increase my desire to want to work with them. Because like, that's what a leader does. I mean, as someone that can recognize some of those things
Sven Gustafson
he had, I think that they did most often the the Ownership mindset is hard to shake off. And so they act as owners, they own that project. And they, they, they treat it like I would treat it and those people are hard to find. But we've we've we we've found a fantastic team of five project managers, builders, that could go do it on their own. And frankly, if they didn't have the qualifications to go be a homebuilder by themselves, they wouldn't be a good fit for the role that we've carved out. And we've had some over the years leave and go start their own businesses. And, you know, I think that's a testament to the quality of the people that we've got, building our homes for our clients is that they they're, they're very well rounded, very well educated and, and experienced and, but for that desire to, to have their own business, they could go do it themselves.
Mark D. Williams
I mean, they can start another company. But this is my shameless plug to i, i my opinion, the best name in building, I mean, the name of your company. And I've told you this before Stonewood it to me is one of my favorite names. Because it's short, it's memorable. But it's pretty iconic. I was I had one of the higher ups from Cambridge on just talking about what is it what people's affinity to stone, I mean, stones been around as a building pride for 1000s of years. And so in some ways, you know, I don't know if it's your dad, your APA would name the company, but it was maybe we can ask you can answer that after this question. This statement is just like you still in a such a primal thing. And would and I've joked before that while stone wood is taken, I can't do Woodstone because someone tried that. But I thought, Well, my hot fire and water. No one's gonna want fire water builders itself. Anyway, I've always really enjoyed your name. And recently, we went maybe a year and a half ago, we went through a naming convention where I was considering renaming the company. And after 20 years, no one tells you as a 23 year old, you know, you shouldn't name your company, Marc Williams, custom homes, first of all, so long Get Fit on anything. And secondly, it's like it's your name you it's hard to build you can I have built a brand around my name at this point, I'm going to continue to do so. But it's much easier to have an entity that it can be the focus rather than you that person in my opinion should you know To each their own. That's
Sven Gustafson
what you follow the crowd on that. I mean, you look at the our direct competitors, and it's all the the name of the principal and company.
Mark D. Williams
And I don't like to follow I actually like to be different. So it's like that at the time. And if someone told me that there's no way I would have named it well use
Sven Gustafson
your middle initial. I don't think anybody did that. So you broke away. Good job. No, so Stonewood the company years ago was Gustafson and Associates. And it was that for a very long time as my rents were building around the Twin Cities. And is the company kind of grew and then shrunk and grew again, as it were, my father brought on a partner, Tony, he felt that it would, it was a little strange to have a partner, you know, equal partner in a business with without his name in the title. And so Stonewood was a name that they had used over the years. I think, the way I heard the story, mentor in Chicago had stone wood as the name streets and development stone wood. And so there's a few streets in Edina stone wood court, and there's a stone with coordinating Puri as well. And so they decided to pull that forward and call this company stone wood to be a little more inclusive with with this new business partner.
Mark D. Williams
Yeah, I think that's great. You know, as we kind of bring it in, we've got about nine minutes here to left on on, on our episode. Tell me a little bit how has technology played a role in your company. And we'll talk a little bit about builder trend, or sorry, or build build tools. Thank you. I use builder trend, I used to use build tools. We'll talk a little bit about that on our next episode, I want to bring you on specifically to talk about that, but just maybe introduce it a little bit, obviously, I actually did not know that you had the software background. But rather going the whole history of build tools, just tell us a little bit about how you've used and leverage technology to really set yourself apart.
Sven Gustafson
Yeah, you know, I think maybe I'm a nerd at heart, in the technology, background of that three or four years post college pre construction, just couldn't shake that off saw the power of it. So we're always looking for the better way to manage the process, I have always wanted to feel that our company is is a startup, there's always a better way to, to manage whatever process we might look at. And so I tried to keep that mindset. It's what really got me excited about jumping into the business after after, after college was I got to come up with all the different procedures and processes and spreadsheets and, and just the ways of organizing all the information. And it was fun. And as technology evolved in the internet kind of became more and more of a thing clients were expecting access to their information, 24/7 and online systems and all that it was fun to find the best way to accomplish that. Yeah. And we we continue to do that. And I think I think not just our industry, but I think the world is going to change in the next few years with AI that and so I want to be ahead of that. I'm excited about it. And I think it's it's likely to be mostly good.
Mark D. Williams
are you how are you using it? I know, you know,
Sven Gustafson
we use it a lot in our marketing. We're doing a lot of architectural imaging with AI. A little bit. Yeah, just, you know, I think now that it's so easy to create images from text prompts, hunting across Pinterest, and how is to find inspiring images is going to be a thing of the past, when you can come up with images that are completely customized and created for the desires of your client based on everything they're telling you, that's going to be a much more efficient way to get to things that they get excited about. And you know, they think the create the creativity of that process. They're not looking at what somebody else did, they're looking at an amalgamation of of all of their ideas, and something that's never been done before. But they're seeing it in a photorealistic fashion. In moments. It's pretty cool.
Mark D. Williams
We had a home designer on actually that had mentioned you and we decided about the different levels of architecture, the schooling, you know, maybe you can do a doctor, you know, Home Designer, maybe being akin to like a nurse, and then you know, these different paths of Architecture and Design. And his comment was is, you know, what is something that internet or AI can do computers can do extremely well, way better than humans math, they can crush math, in his comment was is that a lot of architecture is based on math principles. And so he saw that, you know, maybe it's not 100% of it, but he knows that 80% is a 90%. So he kind of thought that his industry was in for a huge shake up. And I think speaking a little bit to what you're talking about. Now, you still have to, I don't know, it'd be interesting to have an architect on and talk to him a little bit about what did they see on their side? How far can AI go versus, you know, their education, but I agree with you from a photorealistic standpoint and some of the renderings I mean, even though we're professionals, and you know, we likely can tell the difference, if it's a little bit like quartz and natural products, you know, you and I know but they're getting better and better and you look at something you have to kind of get to the right light and see if it you know how it reflects, but sometimes you get these see an image and you're like, is that real? And you kind of really have to focus on it. And anyway, it's good, good.
Sven Gustafson
Yeah, it's gonna happen very quickly. You know, the, the large language models like Chet GPT, and borrowed and all these different things in what they're doing with words, taking the plurality of all these documents that they've consumed and re mixing them based on On the prompting, you're giving them imagine when the same as applied to architecture. If if hundreds of 1000s of floor plans for residential homes are all in the learning set of maybe not a language model, but an artistic model, and it can develop a floorplan based on all this history of things that have been done, and the creativity of all those things. That's coming. So you'll be able to develop a floor plan and extra renderings, I think on the fly, telling you, you want to 4500 square foot main floor with a master bedroom and all these different spaces. And it's going to craft something that doesn't just look like a floor plan, which you can do right now with some of these tools like mid journey, but actually makes sense. And I think, maybe even feeds it into CAD, so that you've got a modifiable, buildable floor plan based on a conversation with a computer,
Mark D. Williams
what do you think will happen to the field of architecture and home design? I
Sven Gustafson
think it's going to change, I think with a lot of things, we're going to be editors and supervisors of this technology, for the same thing to be like being a doctor, that the entirety of all these medical diagnosis is and impossibilities for a condition. No doctor can ever be current and their basic of understanding of all these different conditions, as they're diagnosing a patient, they can't have that, you know, on the top of mind. So very quickly, I think doctors are going to be using technology to help diagnose things, and then be the decision maker, the editor, the supervisor, doing that hand in hand, kinda like driving a Tesla, right, he's still got the driver there, the car is doing a lot of the work. And over time, it's going to do more and more and more of the work, we're still there to be the safety check, and the decider of the direction, where are we going, but we're going to be using a different tool. And you're already seeing that with with products like ArchiCAD. I don't know if you've seen this, but as you as an architect is drawing in ARCHICAD, literally, you know, in the drawing the homeplan, they have a module that will based on a text prompt guess at what the architect is drawing and start showing you in photorealistic 3d dimension, the product of what you've drawn as you're working through the actual architecture. And so already, the process of drawing that house is going to be kind of two screens back and forth of Alright, here's, here's what the computer thinks I'm headed, I'm going to veer left revere REITs, or beer larger or smaller. And so, you know, these tools have have evolved just in months, give it a couple of years, and it's going to be a different world. Wow,
Mark D. Williams
that's amazing, I should redo an entire podcast just on the advancements and where technology's gonna take me frankly, everywhere. But because buildings are industry, we're seeing some huge leaps and bounds, I also think like modularization has got to take as labor shortages become more and more difficult in our future. At some point, we're going to have to get better as just a society building things. In a more advanced template, if you whether it's SIP panels, or pre construction, or whatever that is, I don't know about you, I feel like for myself, as a custom home builder, I'd been slow to really explore and adopt those because I know I mean, in America, in general, we're really good stick frame builders, you can build it really fast, we've done it for a long time, does it it's really flexible, doesn't mean it's the best, it just means we're really good at it. You know, you look at Europe and other places in the world, you know, they look at housing, more multi generationally. They're more invested in making it amazing, not for you, not for your kids, but for their grandkids. And so they're really thinking in a much longer point of view. I mean, have you guys taken any sort of steps to sort of speed up some of the labor by either having it and I know you're doing it from a technology standpoint and a system standpoint, but in an actual field environment? Are there ways that you are able to speed up some of the production?
Sven Gustafson
You know, we've we've, it's enticing, right? So we look at it every few years. Over the last couple of years, we tried a couple of panelized Custom Homes, smaller scale homes. And in both cases, it took longer there were more mistakes, the quality wasn't as high there's all sorts of on site modifications to make it work. And so I haven't ever done that successfully you know, the end products fine. I don't think it saved us any money or time at the end of the day. So I don't think we're there yet. I think when you look at production you know they're doing some pretty cool things with with 3d printed concrete homes down south and Texas. I think they're building 100 neighborhood that's pretty cool. The houses are pretty goofy. I don't know that I want to buy one or live in one you know, there's a really cool product called frame CAD that will will spit out steel framing from Royal steel and, and, you know, basically screw together big Tinkertoys, you know, the trusses, the roof trusses, the walls, everything, all with these number parts. That's pretty cool. So I think there's there's some fun technology coming that that might work towards that for custom homes. But I don't think we're we're there yet. I haven't seen anything that's, that's terribly interesting. I,
Mark D. Williams
we keep talking, we only made it about halfway through my notes, but our time is up, and maybe just in closing, what would you just from a personal standpoint, you know, I know you like to downhill ski, and you've got a couple of kids. And what do you like to do in your free time to kind of recharge and, you know, stay passionate about building?
Sven Gustafson
Oh, it's in my kids, and it's more so every day as they get older. You know, my wife and I are now professional, Uber drivers driving the kids to and from sports. And we've got 1310 and eight. And they're in skiing and horse riding and wrestling and gymnastics. And I think we're buying a snowboard today, because they've gotten bored with skiing. So you know, that's, that's my passion. That's, that's why I do what I do. You know, on top of that, we we run a, an organization called Cherry Avenue foundation in the one for one program, where we, we raise money for organizations in Guatemala, building homes, doing some medical work, tutoring children, and some other things for a couple communities in Guatemala. And that makes that makes the difficulty of difficult clients and just our business in general, it's not the easiest business, it's probably one of the more difficult businesses to operate in and stay smiling. That makes it all worthwhile is is is what we're able to do because of because of the hard work that we do in building houses.
Mark D. Williams<br> 1:01:42
Well, I definitely want to hear more about that love to have you come back on, we can chat about one for one project, as well as build tools. And so thanks very much for coming on. And for those that want to find you have everything in the show notes, but it's stonewood.com.
Sven Gustafson
And revision mn.com is a really good I actually had a whole bunch of questions about revisions,
Mark D. Williams
but we'll have to save that for another time. Thanks for coming on.
Sven Gustafson
Yeah, thank you. How'd that go?
Sven Gustafson
That's awesome.
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