Episode 96 - Losers are Winners: Hans Frees Lost the Spec Home, the Savings, and His Dignity. Then Rebuilt.
Episode #96 | Losers Are Winners | Hans Frees Lost the Spec Home, the Savings, and His Dignity
Hans Frees of Outdoor Escapes has been in business 25 years, filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy, lost money on a spec home during the 2008 crash, and came out the other side with better relationships, a better location, and a much healthier respect for staying in his lane. He and Mark swap war stories about building spec homes they probably shouldn't have, losing sleep over unpaid subcontractors, and why the small-town bank that bet on them at rock bottom is still their bank today. It's 32 minutes of hard-won wisdom from someone who learned most of it the expensive way.
About The Curious Builder
The host of the Curious Builder Posdast is Mark D. Williams, the founder of Mark D. Williams Custom Homes Inc. They are an award-winning Twin Cities-based home builder, creating quality custom homes and remodels — one-of-a-kind dream homes of all styles and scopes. Whether you’re looking to reimagine your current space or start fresh with a new construction, we build homes that reflect how you live your everyday life.
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Hans Frees 00:04
So that's the team that we had when a tough time hit, and we had to push forward. I think, unfortunately, as the team grows, the people that kind of help you help start the business to get to a certain level aren't necessarily the people you need to take it to the next level, and that can be good and bad.
Mark D. Williams 00:32
Welcome to Curious Builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host. Today, I'm joined with Hans Freeze, that's a great name, man. Outdoor Escapes Landscape Company, among other things, design sounds like you used to be a spec home builder, you got all kinds of a storied history here. Hans
Hans Frees 00:46
learned a lot of stuff the hard way, Mark.
Mark D. Williams 00:48
Well, that's why you're here. Losers are winners, you can't be a winner like you unless you've lost a few. So, what have you got? What are some.. you've been in business for how long now?
Hans Frees 00:56
So, this 2026 marks our 25th year in business. Amazing,
Mark D. Williams 00:59
congratulations. Quarter of a century,
Hans Frees 01:02
it is. It's, it's hard to look back and realize things went that quick. Daughter just graduated this last Saturday, and was kind of eye opener from college, and our true empty nesters. But with that, yeah, along the way, we've had, we've had a lot of bumps in the road, and a lot of opportunity to learn. So I think when we spoke about this, I was thinking of two, two kind of key areas, or items, if you will. One, one that kind of started off the business was a force to just have to. There was, there was a half do, and I see that being tough in a lot of kids these age, mom, dad, or heading out with credit card, etc. My dad was a successful accountant, but he didn't give me a dime,
Mark D. Williams 01:40
that's why he was successful,
Hans Frees 01:41
exactly. And I think you spoke to one of these in one of the previous episodes about, about your father, and that kind of resonated with me on the fact that, you know, when I decided to drop out of college, I wasn't - I'm a trades guy, grandfather was a carpenter, dad happened to be an accountant, but trades was what I enjoyed. With that, it was learning the hard way. I didn't go to school for it. I was too thick headed to ask for a mentor back then, and it was just looking at how can I do this. So, I think we tried everything and anything back then. I think what I've learned in the 25 years has been a lot about people and culture. Back then, it was anybody. We found somebody that could work with us on job site, we worked with them. What kind of job it was, how much we made, we took on anything, and there were some rough lessons along the way defining what we were good at, what we were efficient at, and what we weren't. A couple of those were keeping an eye on the ball. I enjoyed landscaping, construction, and hence that's the core of our business today, but as you mentioned in the building building sector, there, and was it, oh 708 My wife and I have a passion for remodeler remodeling. She's actually an interior designer, and I really look to what you and the custom home builders do. It's just fascinating. So I thought, well, we're a seasonal business in oh six. Yeah, let me back up. In oh five, we bought and flipped a house in our off season over Edina, and did very, very well on that. Well, we had a great market, and I thought, you know, I'm not from Edina, I'm from Wayzata, so we can for sure do this in Wayzata. This went into an older neighborhood back there.
Mark D. Williams 03:19
What was the streets
Hans Frees 03:20
Ridge View Drive?
Mark D. Williams 03:21
Because my last one is on Chevy Chase.
Hans Frees 03:23
Oh no kidding.
Mark D. Williams 03:24
Yeah,
Hans Frees 03:24
yeah, literally just down the street,
Mark D. Williams 03:26
right.
Hans Frees 03:27
And I was naive, I was a young kid, I think, at that point that was almost 20 years ago, so I was 30, yeah, right around there, 2829 30, and we just dove in. We bought an existing Rambler in an existing Rambler neighborhood, nobody had really done much upgrading, and we ended up tearing the whole house down, doubling it square footage wise, and it was completely framed right at the point that the market fell, and there was no
Mark D. Williams 03:55
October of 2008
Hans Frees 03:57
October 2008
Mark D. Williams 03:57
17,000 points,
Hans Frees 03:59
it was unbelievable, and I remember, you know, at the time I didn't really know what that meant, but then you hear it on the news, everybody's talking about it, and every week and every month that went, we were bleeding deeper and deeper on that job,
Mark D. Williams 04:13
and you really hadn't, you were at framing at that point,
Hans Frees 04:15
we were framing,
Mark D. Williams 04:16
so I mean, it's kind of not like you can stop, I mean, you're kind of exposed at that point, you're out to sea, you've got to sort of land the boat,
Hans Frees 04:22
correct? It was, you know, there was very limited options. I mean, other than pull back at that point, most of the selections, appliances had been selected and or ordered, so yeah, there wasn't a whole lot of turning back. Was it what would make the house smaller?
Mark D. Williams 04:36
What was your price point when you were done with it?
Hans Frees 04:38
So we sold it for just over a million, and I'm sorry, back up, we had just over a million into it, I think it was 1,000,068 if I'm not mistaken, and we sold for like 850
Mark D. Williams 04:50
yeah,
Hans Frees 04:50
you know, going into it, yeah, there will be, I forget the exact numbers, it's been
Mark D. Williams 04:54
20 years, it's
Hans Frees 04:55
been nearly 20 years, which is kind of, kind of crazy, but I take that moment of that last. Listen to go, you know, I took my eye off the ball. We're a design build firm, and at that point, okay, seasonality, get some skill set. I got my general contractor's license to kind of pursue that and learn the hard way. So, what I learned, I learned that we outdoor escapes, we're not, we're not builders. Leave that up to you.
Mark D. Williams 05:20
I mean, in your defense, part of that is timing, even if you had been, it may not have worked out. I mean, it's eerily similar. I was 28 at the time, and it sounds like you've heard that episode. I bought a distressed property on Chevy Chase, it was a Rambler with a tuck hunter, it was Wendell Anderson, the old governor's house, and bought it in foreclosure at the time. If I said recall, I paid like 400 for it, something like that, and I fell in love with my work. I put too much into it. I don't remember close to a million, so-called 600,000 I think. At the end of the day, I ended up renting it to someone for a year to get through from 2000 because I finished mine like a couple weeks before the crash. So you were starting to frame, so you, in some ways, had a year of construction where I was done, and so I had all the pre-pricing that I can't adjust, and so we couldn't sell it, and so I don't know how much of it was the price, how much of it was the fact that the people was.. I learned a lot about demographics. For me personally, it was if you're gonna target retirees, you know, being 28 years old steps don't mean anything to me, but having a tuck under garage is kind of like a kiss of death, you know, right? You know, so it's like, well, that you kind of are targeting empty nesters, but you know, if they're looking for main floor, you now have to walk up the stairs all the time. So, anyway, long story short, to my career, knock on wood, that's the only home I've ever completely lost money on. It, as I recall, I think I lost 100 150 on it to eventually sell it, and I remember that was kind of the thing. What you mentioned, your dad was an accountant. My dad was, he just kind of said, you know, if you can't fix the hole in the ship, we can't throw good money after bad. And I learned a lot. And in retrospect, it was one of the best things that ever happened to me in my career. But, man, it was tough. I remember renting out, I rented out my room, I was sleeping. I remember you, yeah, remember
Hans Frees 07:01
seeing that you had the college kids, yeah, move, soldier, exactly,
Mark D. Williams 07:04
college kids had more money than me.
Hans Frees 07:06
Oh, that's crazy, but isn't that the truth? I mean, looking back, yeah, definitely was. You know, there was a timing piece to that, but I also learned that, you know, I'm wasn't, wasn't a builder, I've got to kind of pick one or the other. Hence, most builders don't do landscaping now, they're smart, don't get landscape, but no, yeah, I enjoy it now, but it's been a lot about people and culture, really, over the years, so kind of taking that, that instance there, that loss, my wife and I ended up moving out of our home in Chanhassen, we had a speaking of renters, we actually kept our original houses in Plymouth, over by Parker's Lake, and we, I remember picking up the phone, calling the gal right after we was at three or four months after the big crash, and I said, this isn't working, we're bleeding, we need to, we need to downsize, we need to move, so we moved out our renter and tried to sell our house, but I had that house leveraged, I'd taken a heavy HELOC off of the house in Chanhassen to put quite a bit into the Waysetta home, so I was leveraged pretty hard on that. Well, now the market's dropped, that home value's dropped, so we were trying to short sell it, and we couldn't, so we finally ended up giving that house back and ended up having to file Chapter Seven bankruptcy.
Mark D. Williams 08:22
What's this in Chapter Seven and Chapter 11?
Hans Frees 08:24
So I looked into that at the time, and I believe 11 was for larger corporations that are restructuring more so, or I think they're writing off some debt in that. Chapter Seven is basically you're folding the flag in, you can hang on to some assets if the primary, like your home or your auto, as long as you continue to pay those, in which we did, and I think you might have spoken on this too on one of your previous episodes, and remember me talking about, you know, your SPAC home, and when we went through that, there was, you know, everybody's written off in Chapter Seven bankruptcy, but I'm not that kind of guy. I worked with a lot of small businesses, electricians, sure, there were the national banks, there was the big, I think TCF had our second, and I can't even tell you who it's on the first mortgage, but they didn't get fully paid out. I mean, the large corporations, less worried about them, but when you have a small community, and you're, you know, I'm a man of my word. I enter an agreement with an electrician or a plumber, and to try to help that project done, and they're holding the bag. It just didn't sit well with me. I couldn't, can't sleep at night, so I couldn't pay them right. I couldn't pay them right away, didn't have any money, but I made commitments, and then through other projects we did along the way, we made that right, and I think to me that's been some of the strongest relationships that we've had, and my team as well. I remember the whole time at Outdoor Escapes, we never let anybody go. I took my wife and I took a massive pay cut, we moved, we did whatever we. Had to do to kind of keep the ship moving, we weren't going to give up. We restructured the business, 100% my wife's name, actually, and we couldn't be happier with how things turned out at the time. We were, we were leasing space over in Gold, or St. Louis Park, right over there, Oxford Street, behind Methodist Hospital, actually, Origin Stone. When they started, we moved down the street. We needed more space. Origin Stone took our original space, and now they're one of the.. we do a lot of business with Origin, have a great relationship. I think it's just a small world, how this all kind of happens and develops. But that forced us out into Long Lake on the Orono area, on the west side of town to cut our overhead, we went from like $8,800 a month in St. Louis Park to just over 4000 in Long Lake, and you know, it was devastating at the time. I remember moving and having to tell the team, hey, we're scaling back, we're giving up some amenities, we had done some remodeling over there, was beautiful, and then this would, this end up being one of the best things that ever happened to me. Well, I
Mark D. Williams 11:03
mean, location wise, for those that aren't from Minnesota, I mean, Orono and Long Lake is, I mean, so much of the higher end home spaces, which obviously I would imagine like all of us gravitate towards, are now within 510, minutes of your office, where you know St Louis Park is probably half hour, 20 minutes, and so, how has that actually helped your business, the regionality, or just the vigil? Are you right on the road? You, I think, you see it when you drive down Long Lake, right?
Hans Frees 11:28
Yeah, you're right, Mark. Yeah, how has it helped us? I mean, tremendous. I never ever would have guessed this, because at that point, 20 years ago, my kids are 21 and 22 right now, so they were little, right? They weren't in school yet, so as we ended up moving, they had just started grade school, I think. My daughter had gone to first grade or kindergarten, and my wife said, "Well, let's move out to the Orno district. I'm sorry, we're actually still in that rental in Parker's Lake at that point, and we enrolled our kids in the district, the office was there, and it's been imperative, because not only do people drive by, but you get to know people in the community. It was 2013 so I guess six years, five, six years after the big crash, we bought a.. we ended up moving, able to kind of get ourselves back on our feet, and we bought a house off of Old Crystal Bay Road, we had a five acre hobby farm over there, and it was one of the best moves we ever could. I mean, the kids had responsibilities, from farm animals and taking care of chores to meeting friends in the area, who a lot of those relationships are, are to this day some of the best friendships we have, I
Mark D. Williams 12:44
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Hans Frees 14:56
I do. I think that was an extremely tough time then. I think what I left out there is through that transition we had a bunch of equipment we needed. My bank called the note, they called my line of credit, and with that note's payable. So we ended up getting a third party finance company or leasing company to, we had enough equity in some of our existing equipment that we, they rolled everything together, paid off the bank, but I mean, my interest rate mark was whatever it was, it couldn't believe was legal. I don't know what it was. All I know is our payment, you know, jumped up to like $9,400 a month. I'm like, well, we just claim bankruptcy, we didn't have this big of a payment, now we're taking, so now it's bigger. It's bigger, and what do you do? You just, you put your head down, you move forward. But the hardest part,
Mark D. Williams 15:40
well, the hardest part for you is your business depends on that equipment. I mean, at least as a general contractor, I don't self-perform anything, so mine is all subcontractor relationship based, so I don't have a lot of equipment. But if they're taking away your means to make money, it's not like you even have a choice. It's either fold up or like, how did you make those payments when they ballooned like that?
Hans Frees 15:57
We, we did everything we had to. I think it was, it was about pulling the team together, sharing the vision and transparency in what's happening, and it's we have to shine, we have to make this happen, we have to sell. It was either great, fold up shop, completely outsource everything, but even at that point, I think you know our overhead was structured that we would have made some significant changes.
Mark D. Williams 16:19
Would it have been was the home that you couldn't sell, and that sold for a loss, was that the majority of the profit and equity you had in the company at that time, or would your company have struggled anyway? That was just the biggest piece,
Hans Frees 16:33
you know. I think the fortunate thing I had is the business was doing well, even through the recession, and I think I bring that to relationships, but we were in a decent equity position there at work. I wouldn't say it was fantastic, but my wife and I had really leveraged everything we had. On a personal note, the nice thing there was that we did have some equity in our equipment.
Mark D. Williams 16:57
Yeah,
Hans Frees 16:57
so when the bankers came knocking, you had
Mark D. Williams 16:59
something to tap into.
Hans Frees 17:00
Yeah, I didn't have - we had a house at that point, right? This small little rental, but I really didn't have much equity into it. It wasn't enough to like bite into, whereas if something happened today, it'd be a, it'd be a different story. Yeah, but I think back to that exact position. I'm glad you brought up the bank, because today that was 2008 two, that was nearly what, 18 years ago, nearly 20 years ago, the bank that backed the high interest lease, the this was a third party company that is local here, but they're banked by a small bank out of town. Actually, we still bank with them today, so they are over an hour away outside of the cities, and I'm coincidentally having lunch with my banker. This, we get together usually quarterly, but this Friday, and I don't know the last time I've been to the bank in today's world, but that relationship from them to kind of, you know, bet on us at a time where we were really at our lowest, and there was, we didn't have options, I didn't have, you know, I wasn't in a position to say, all right, we're shopping five banks, it was not
Mark D. Williams 17:58
hometown bank,
Hans Frees 17:59
no, this is a Reliance Bank out of Faribault, okay? Just a small little bank there, and yeah, it.. they've been there, they've been just instrumental, I think, in our growth, and I mean, having
Mark D. Williams 18:12
again going to.. it's like you really know who your partners are when things are difficult. I mean, I have a, you know, you know, a few times where you like to say, you accumulate a lifetime of favors, and then you never really want to call one in. And I want to talk about the podcast a lot. Is in general, we don't ask for help very well, men, business owners, it's a lot of.. we just aren't great at that. But I remember just a couple blocks from here, man, what year with that? 20,013 somewhere there, we had a situation where we had water coming in a basement, and we needed to solve it, and so you know, of course, you're at that time, you're, you know, you're pretty young in your career, and you know, in hindsight, you're like, oh, you just dealt with it, maybe a little bit more casually, but at the time was like, I got to solve this, I mean, you would have solved it anyway, but anyway, I remember calling Scott and Mike, who Mike, who Mike now is my PM, been my, I've worked with him now for 22 years, but like, I'll never forget them, Scott, he's a big guy. He was literally in the sump basket, sticking his hand through underneath, trying to get water to drain out. And anyway, I guess the only reason that memory is so visceral for me is just, you know, and he was just grinning ear to ear, just covered in mud, and just.. and then you sometimes are humbled by, like, if I was called upon, would I be so willing and free with my time energy. I hope the answer is yes. And there are there have been times in my life when people have called for help and you've responded, but you don't really know. It's easy to when you're feeling comfortable and strong and full of whatever you've got, and someone asks for help, you can give of abundance. It's kind of.. it's another thing when you're down at the bottom and someone also asks for help.
Hans Frees 19:40
Yeah, it's you. I don't even know how to respond to that. You're so spot on with that, and guys, particularly, like, I didn't know I wasn't, I didn't have the courage to ask my father like you did. That was, I kind of knew what his answer was going to be, but, like, you mentioned, I mean, when he started the business, similar to the some. Bump story, and clearing that out, and doing really whatever it takes, is those are that's the team that we had when, when a tough time hit, and we had to push forward. I think, unfortunately, as a team grows, the people that kind of help you help start the business to get to a certain level aren't necessarily the people you need to take it to the next level, and that can be good and bad, I think. There are, don't get me wrong, there's some staff that we've had that have been on with us for a very long time and do well, and then there's others. Most recently, in the last couple years, we've kind of really worked on our vision and our sharing that vision with the company where we're going and trying to grow, and we've had a lot of younger folks on the team that want to grow, and some senior management that were previously on the leadership team that we let go, just because they couldn't delegate and elevate the younger folks, and you see this strong team, and I think to everybody the culture or strength may be defined different. I was naive before. I thought that was just having happy people that worked for you. Hey, they did the client, the clients like them, but were they really teaching? Were they allowing others to grow? Were they able to put up with and give out constructive criticism? I think that's been a big part of that. Along with that is the clientele that you mentioned, right, that move out to Long Lake through a tough transition ended up creating friendships, relationships, and a client base that is some of the finest in Lake Minnetonka area, and it's, it's helped us really elevate what we do, which is brought out great opportunities for our team. So, I
Mark D. Williams 21:39
have a question for you, What do you think, so diversification usually is good, just as a general, let's say, rule and balance, if you will. But if you're good at, we kind of talked about this early on, or you were like, if you're good at, you know, you're good at outdoor escapes, that's where you, you're in, you, in your wandered, because you thought, you know, everyone at that time was like, oh, I could build a spec home and make a couple 100 grand, because everyone was doing it, so it seemed like it's so a lot of people, I want to say, fall into that trap, but like they did. My question is, is what do you think the difference is between alternate revenue streams and straying from your main, your main business,
Hans Frees 22:12
your core focus, if you will?
Mark D. Williams 22:14
Because I think there's value to both, but how do you know when you're doing one that isn't the right one?
Hans Frees 22:19
You know, it's, it's, I'm really glad you brought that up. I mean, for us that was hard. I'm an add guy, I'm a squirrel. I see something. Don't you
Mark D. Williams 22:26
think that 90% of all owners are?
Hans Frees 22:27
Yeah, I do. And I think that could get us into a lot of trouble. So, I think back to the team kind of getting people that will, as an owner, it's hard to, you don't get constructive feedback very often. Everybody's scared, right? They're like, well, Mark, I'm not gonna.. I don't wanna tick you off, because you sign my paycheck, so I don't really agree with that, but I'm gonna tell you I do. But to be able to create that culture, a couple years ago we started EOS, so I'm sure you're familiar with that, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, and I think for us it really helped define what that core focus was. How many
Mark D. Williams 22:57
employees do you have
Hans Frees 22:58
right now? We have 35 Oh,
Mark D. Williams 22:59
wow. The reason I ask is, we were interviewing with an implementer here, and he - we're only a team of five, and then, but typically it's about 10, where it starts to really make sense. Yeah, so that's why 35 totally makes sense. And I
Hans Frees 23:12
should have done it before, Mark. We looked at it, I had heard about it five years ago, read the book Traction, I thought, "Oh, this is awesome, and then add kicked in and something else, and really, what kind of forced us was stagnant stagnation after, after times were tough in the oh 809 10 era, we grew quite a bit, and then probably I don't know, 2015 things just started to stagnate, and they were just kind of at that, they're plateauing. I had a great guy running operations, he helped, he was with me since day one, but he also didn't like change, he didn't like to train or teach others, so that really hindered, you know, who we had on the team. I've heard you say this before, but you know, a players attract a players, and eventually, if an A player is working for somebody that isn't an A player, they're gonna, they're gonna either get burnt out or they're gonna leave. The
Mark D. Williams 24:07
hardest part about that is, you know, you think is like, okay, so if you hire an A player and you think like they're not going to stay that long, you know, are you better off hiring a C and coaching them up? But I've heard other people talk about this, I can't speak from direct experience, but their point was, is that you're better off having those few years with the A player to take your business to a new level, and because the cost of that C player on the morale of the rest of the team can drag down a team significantly, and I think sometimes, as owners, I know I've had blinders on because of our own optimism, more because people don't tell you, you know, because I think this is the owner fallacy issue. We would be happy to tell each other, "Hey, Hans, I think you would be better off if you did this, because we have confidence where the owner.. I mean, I don't know if you ever think about this, but like, I think we are sometimes naive, or I should speak for myself, I'm naive to.. I don't know if it's white male privilege, because my wife is from a different ethnic background, so. I hear that, that was it. The owner is an entrepreneur. I don't know. I happen to be all of them, so it's hard for me to know which part of that is just my condition. But the point is, I think as owners, titles aren't important to us because we own the company. But if you ask your people, titles are important to them, and where I'm going poorly with this question is that we, we kind of create our own. Steve Jobs had this thing, what did they call it? Oh, basically the distortion effect, like you sort of distort that your own presence distorts your image of yourself and of your own company, and if people won't come to you and tell you, Hans, this is your fault, it's pretty hard for us sometimes to understand what they are.
Hans Frees 25:36
Huge, I mean, and that isn't that didn't start coming out, or that wasn't conversation on our team, Mark, until we started the EOS system, and I think that culture kind of forced the word culture for me, which up until that point really meant good people, we get along, we have fun, right? As long as we're having fun and clients are happy, we're good, but did it mean accountability, right? Did it mean ownership? Did it mean that they're doing the best good for the company or for the team, so yeah, weekly, currently weekly, every every Tuesday. If you ever stop in our office, 930 to 11, you'll find our leadership team in the conference room. That's it's a set meeting that is, unless you're on vacation, it's expected that it's a rock. So yeah, correct. And I think having that ownership of the issues list and having that open, honest feedback is huge, and we'll call each other out. If you know somebody's constantly just agreeing with somebody, we'll talk about that. We take the lobes, but it took, took a little time for people to get used to that, right? People aren't used to this, they, they feel bad. I think in Minnesota, it's a tough state to do business, in my opinion, for a number of reasons. Would one is we're just too nice, we're nice people, and nobody wants to make anybody feel bad. So, if it's showing somebody a remodeling, you know, floor plan layout, like you might for a new client build layout, or myself, you know, high end landscape design, they know you put a lot of time and thought and energy into them. They're too, you know, they're not always.. it's not always easy to get feedback out of them. To go, I don't like that. You know, I'd rather have you agree or disagree, so we can get direction. I mean,
Mark D. Williams 27:08
I use that as a sales line all the time. I tell my clients, you don't want to surround yourself with a bunch of yes men and yes women, because you need honesty. And you know, my wife is a physician, so I often use that profession as an analogy, but like it does, if you know, if you have stage two cancer, it does mean no good as a doctor to tell you you don't have cancer, that's lying, that's disingenuous, that you would never do that if you're a doctor, and as professionals in our field, if someone comes to us and says, Mark, like I mean, it's a separate story, but someone comes to me and says, Mark, I'd like to build, you know, a 10,000 square foot house at the pool, and this and that, and I want it for 2 million, like, no, that's not possible. And so it's like I have to explain that to them, but it doesn't do me any good in early on in my career. Just like you, you chase everything, you do everything. It's like I always, I like dogs, and so it's like to me, it's like a golden retriever. I mean, there is not a ball it doesn't want to chase down the street, and that's what you do. But honestly, I think that's part of a rite of passage. Like, do you ever sometimes wonder and think back, like, man, if these types of podcasts are.. and that's.. I hope that the nature of these conversations can help people avoid some of the pitfalls, but some of them are necessary, and I think we all.. we look at companies and we're like, oh, they've got it figured out. Doesn't matter who they are, they don't. Everyone, I'm also convinced that everyone's a burning dumpster fire at all times, and like us is just a hydrant hose to help keep it at bay, but no, I mean it's hard. You've got people, and you know the economy. I mean, there's an.. there's so many moving variables. It's sort of amazing, as much right, but it's only really through the fortitude. I mean, I'm not saying that there's not skill and good planning, of course, but it's hard. It's not easy, and.. but that's okay. I mean, I think we're sort of attracted to the heart. I think our nature is being somewhat, you know, variable in terms of the ADHD side of it, is that we sort of thrive on the chaos. The book that we're.. I can't remember if it was Buy Back Your Time or Psychology of Money, but you know, sometimes when you have.. when you.. when there is a calm, often people like you and I, then not that we seek chaos, but we seek the stimulus of something new, and that's likely what happened to you and to me to do the spec home. Like, what is the reason? Is it vanity, is it ego, or is it a good market opportunity? And sometimes, I mean, you can do a, you can do a good thing in a bad way, and it won't work out. And there are times that you could do a bad thing in a good way. Am I reversing this right? And it will work out. My point is, is like, sometimes it's time and chance, like you could do the thing that was probably risky, but it did time and chance was just great, and it worked out. And there are times that you know, maybe you building a spec home would have been just fine had it not coincided with one of the single biggest crashes in our lifetimes. Sure, I mean, who, who knows?
Hans Frees 29:37
True, no. And it probably happened for a reason, right, I'm not, I'm not supposed to be. I hold a very high regard for yourself and the builders that are out there, but with that, I kind of think to get back to your question on the revenue stream, that's a tough one, right. My example is I lost my tail building spec homes, right. I, I have a passion for building, but. But spec homes isn't my deal, so how can I feed that passion? Well, let's build some elaborate landscapes. Right, we're one of few firms that have a general contractor license for the mere fact that we can build pool houses or sheds or patios, or not patios, but decks, whatever may be fit or needed, especially to deal with some of the city parameters and permitting, and that kind of fits or feeds my desire for that. My wife and I'll do some projects on our own, or she's an interior designer, I'll get a little fixed through her sometimes, but I've learned not to go kind of to stay in my lane. But other low hanging fruit would obviously be similar related things of landscape lighting and irrigation fencing, all that kind of the kind of stuff, but if somebody, well, we've had clients go, "Hey, will you paint our entire exterior of our home? And it's very easy to say, "Yeah, yeah, we'll do that, no problem. I mean, it's on the exterior on a handful of people, we would, but we typically know, here, you know, here's a couple referrals of people to call, and so that's been that's been kind of a tough thing for me, is that shiny object, the squirrel.
Mark D. Williams 31:06
Yeah, well, I want to respect your time in the audience as well for our Thursday episodes. Thanks for coming in and chopping it up and sharing some of the stories, and hopefully it was helpful for the audience. I know it's always nice to talk to other people that have been had similar.. I didn't realize we're only block away from our Why is that a right at a landmine back in the day? So every once in a while it's been a while now, it's been a couple years, every once in a while drive down the street just to look at it,
Hans Frees 31:32
do the same thing, and it's, yeah, it's funny. I appreciate you having me, and I really value the stories in the podcast. So glad I got an opportunity to share.
Mark D. Williams 31:40
Thanks, Hans. We'll have everything in the show notes, and thanks for tuning in to the Curious Builder Podcast. Thanks for tuning in to Curious Builder Podcast. If you liked 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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