IAM1898 – CEO Specializes on Designing and Building Accessory Dwelling Units

Transcription:

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Whitney Hill Teaser 00:00

Try to understand what your differentiators are and your own skill sets. What are you bringing to the table? And don't worry if you don't understand an industry, like where do I fit in and what would my compliment look like? Because the supercharge you get there, it's I walked into it not knowing anything about construction, but he's not going to let me make a stupid mistake. He's running construction operations. So there's that safety net too.

Intro 00:19

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the IAMCEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:47

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the IAMCEO podcast, and I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year, and we're doing something a little bit different.

Where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories, topics, or as I like to call them, the business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, business owners, and what I like to call the CB Nation architects who are looking to level up their organizations.

This month, we are focusing on operations. The systems will set you free. So think about systems, think about flow, sustainability, potentially working out in your morning routine, waking up early e-commerce, and different business models. Think of the operations in the models that basically set up the foundation to allow the creativity within organizations, but also to make sure the trains are running on time and things are going as they should.

Now, this is extremely important because we often can turn to the sexy parts of business and forget about the operations and how. So I really want to focus this month on this specific topic. So sit back and enjoy this special episode of the IAMCEO podcast.

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is from the IAMCEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today at Whitney Hill of SnapADU. Whitney, super excited to have you on the show.

Whitney Hill 02:06

Pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Gresham Harkless 02:08

Yes, excited to have you on and talk about all the awesome things that you're doing. And of course, before we jump into that, I want to read a little bit more about Whitney. So you can hear about some of those awesome things.

And Whitney is the Co-founder and CEO of SnapADU, a San Diego based accessory dwelling unit construction company that designs permits and builds 50 ADUs a year with $15 million in annual revenue. Before getting involved in residential real estate, when he gained strategic and tactical experience as a management consultant for Bain and Company and as an operations manager for her for an industrial supply distributor, when he earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Yale University and an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.

Whitney, excited again to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the IAMCEO community?

Whitney Hill 02:54

I sure am. Let's do it.

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Gresham Harkless 02:56

Let's make it happen then. So to kick everything off. I wanted to rewind the clock. I know it's actually a little bit on your background, but I wanted to hear a little bit more on what I like to call your CEO story. We'll let you get started with all the awesome work you're doing.

Whitney Hill 03:06

Sure. So I'd always had the entrepreneurial bug, but didn't know what it should be applied to. And so I took the route of working in corporate America for 10 years, took generalist type of roles where I learned business strategy, operations, management, process, improvement, people, management, things that were just the nuts and bolts of any business.

And finally, a few years ago as I was in real estate more tangentially as an investor, I started to learn more about general contracting and then happened to be in the right place at the right time in California. When we moved around the same time that the state was passing new regulations to make it much easier to build an accessory dwelling unit, also known as a guest house or granny flat.

So, throughout the state now, residential properties can add an ADU with just 4-foot setbacks on the side and rear of the property. There are no minimum lot sizes and these ADUs can be between 400 and 1200 square feet.

Meaning, whether you're looking to house a family member or looking for a rental income, if you're an investor, there are lots of different reasons to do this and it's much easier and cheaper than it was before. So once those regulations were in place, I heard that and I could tell the next bottleneck was going to be general contracting capacity.

So I had my ear to the ground and I happen to be in the right place at the right time at a coffee shop working on my real estate business. Then I heard someone mentioning ADUs. So I took the chance and went up and talked to that individual who later introduced me to my now co-founder, Mike Moore, who has grown up a construction and have been running his own general contracting firm.

So I got here by partnering with him. And our skill sets were just very complimentary and we quickly became the market leader and design build construction in San Diego for accessory dwelling units.

Gresham Harkless 04:48

Nice. It seems like you were very strategic and very aware of the general information that you talked about knowing in the different positions and being aware of the different laws and things that were changing and were able to jump on those opportunities when they presented themselves.

Whitney Hill 05:03

That's exactly it. And being able to investigate that quickly and, not lose that window where it would just be much harder to enter the space now, because there are just a lot more startups. We have the advantage of being 1 of the 1st to market here and now have a recognizable name.

So you're right. And it was also understanding how my experience from the past work in corporate America could then help us scale this because we started with Mike's business, which was about 1. 5 million dollars a year doing more like 6 to 8 projects, which for, a small operation, more of a mom and pop style is actually great.

But that to scale that requires a lot of infrastructure and people. So we're now at 16 full-time employees, plus a whole host of independent contractors. So the infrastructure we built when we first were starting felt like we're building a very robust foundation to robust, frankly, to just be doing like five projects.

There's a lot of pushback where it's like, why are we building all this infrastructure? Just email somebody or call them. So having that vision, I think you're right, was important where I'd seen best in class management and operations and businesses. So I knew what good looked like. So when we started designing what we needed for the next step, we were also thinking about something that we would not grow instantly.

Gresham Harkless 06:11

Yeah, absolutely. So yes, we might be, investing more, doing more. But in the grand scheme of things going to allow us that opportunity to scale and grow and do that a lot more seamlessly than you could if you didn't have those ditches in place, so to speak.

Whitney Hill 06:24

Absolutely. It's a heavy lift though, too. It's such an investment to get that to dig that ditch. And at the time it feels like, why are we spending all this effort on it? But it pays those dividends on the road because then you can just scale almost without effort because it just already has those channels. It's also very hard to put those channels in place when you are too big because then there are just so many balls in the air.

It's hard to step back and have somebody design the flow. So we took advantage of designing those things during Covid like when things were still just like six or eight projects in a year and we had the bandwidth to do it. If we were to look at it now and say, oh, wow, we're big. We need this. It can be so hard because we've got 50 live projects going.

Gresham Harkless 07:01

Right, absolutely. And definitely, if you're able to jump on that, as you all have been able to do. So, you touched on a little bit, on how you're serving your clients. Could you tell us a little bit more on that? The process, how that goes, essentially how you're making an impact for the clients you work with.

Whitney Hill 07:15

Sure. I think we, as general contractors have tried to break the mold a bit where that's historically a very opaque industry and it feels a bit like a used car salesman where you're like, am I being taken advantage of? I don't know what's going on. So we've really tried to change that.

And we put a wealth of information on our website, everything from build prices to all the learnings of what the city by city regulations are, because they're all different everything from, what permits, what processes, what things to think about with your family. If you're doing this, how to rent it out if you're an investor.

Everything we've learned, we've put out there. And I think that also goes against the grain where historically people keep information very close to the vast. I'm not going to share my pricing or anything. We're certainly not sharing our cost structure, but why not put out there what the client's going to experience when they see that price that has a couple of effects.

One, it lets us stand out because we aren't trying to have that information like, all right, this is great. Like they're so upfront about it, but two, it helps us weed out clients who aren't realistic. So we aren't spending time talking to people who think that the ballpark cost to a very different number.

So that also helped us ensure that the leads door who do make it to another contact form or picking up the phone, always have a good idea already of what that should be. So that allowed us to stick on tag. The other thing that we do is offer standard plans for these accessory drilling units.

And since we are designed, build, we're able to constantly update what that build cost is for that unit so that we know very closely what that's going to run over time too, we've also honed our focus to where we're only building a certain kind of accessory dwelling unit.

You can actually convert existing space, like a garage and make that into an accessory dwelling unit as well. So not only focusing on the ADUs, but then within that niche, focusing even more specifically on detached units, starting with a standard plan and then allowing people to modify it. That's where we really distilled ourselves to our core.

Gresham Harkless 09:07

Nice. I absolutely love that.

Whitney Hill 09:09

So that's been another part of it. We're bringing in a lot of outsiders. I certainly didn't grow up in construction. And my partner, Mike, now jokes that, like, when we started, I'd ask questions about, like, why do we do it that way? And his answer might be, because that's just the way it's done in construction.

And, he's gotten used to me like pushing and does it have to be that way? So now, of course, he's thinking that way too. And I think we, that's kind of part of our ethos is just challenging those norms and seeing if we can bring in other angles.

Gresham Harkless 09:32

Yeah, absolutely. I was going to ask you if that do you feel like that's part of the secret sauce, the thing that you feel either separates you or the organization makes it unique.

And I was wondering that culture ethos as you mentioned as well, too, that you start to really be able to disrupt things. It's a lot. It can be a lot. hard disrupting things. If you're within the industry, this is the way that we've been doing it, for the last 20-30 years. But when you start to have people outside of the industry looking at things in a different way, asking questions saying, Hey, maybe that doesn't work.

Or could this be done better? Just really, kicking the tire, so to speak, and to understand that, hey, maybe there is a better way. Do you feel like that's part of your secret sauce?

Whitney Hill 10:09

Definitely. And I also think along with what you're saying about me being an outsider to construction, that said, if I just tried to go this alone without somebody like Mike, no way would we be where we are.

And I think that goes to say the same for him, where he wouldn't have been able to scale because he hadn't grown up in corporate America. So the two skill sets there were super complimentary. And I think if I had to broaden that to your audience of a tip, then it's trying to understand what your differentiators are and your own skill sets.

What are you bringing to the table? And don't worry if you don't understand an industry, like where do I fit in and what would my compliment look like? Because the supercharge you get there, it's I walked into it not knowing anything about construction, but he's not going to let me make a stupid mistake.

He's running construction operations. So there's that safety net too. And I would also say that iterating on something like, he wasn't all existing company. He was actually running this more construction and doing scope, a broader scope of jobs, but was starting to focus on ADUs, but because he did have something in place that we could then iterate on again, we were able to just grow much faster because we weren't starting from a blank piece of paper.

Gresham Harkless 11:10

Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Whitney Hill 11:20

Yeah. I'd like to mention a habit and an app. Asana is a task management program that perhaps, others have heard of. But what it's allowed us to do is to take those random thoughts you might have as a CEO or manager. Collect them somewhere that then you can immediately take action on.

We've all had our legal pot at some point that has all the chicken scratches on it. But the problem with that is that you can't task yourself or others with it or put it into the ecosystem of the rest of your company.

And so we've used Asana to set up each kind of department of our company with broader goals and strategies. And so we were always aiming for that. Admittedly, we'll sometimes fall a few weeks behind and we'll sit there and languish, but we're still using our individual task management to be collecting those in a single place.

And so we found that that's reduced the amount of just like mental anguish that you might have carrying some of that information around in your head or on a notebook or in different places, because at least there's a parking lot for it. So I might have some amazing idea that I'm like, wow, we're just not ready for that.

But down the line, you don't think about franchising or something. And I have a place to brain-dump that topic to set a follow-up date for myself and to collaborate, communication with one of my coworkers on it. So by using Asana for those kinds of company tasks and then also using our project management software called Builder Trend for our jobs.

We pretty much have a house for everything to live. We don't have a lot of email exchanges. You might in another company where there are just all sorts of emails back and forth documents. We have a set place for both company projects and then actual jobs that we're working on.

Gresham Harkless 12:50

Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you for what you might have already touched on what I call a CEO nugget. So it's a little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I like to say it might be something if you were to happen to a time machine that would tell your younger business self.

Whitney Hill 13:02

Oh, sure. I think I have a 2 part answer for this 1. The nugget would be. Focus on ruthless prioritization. And I mean that in the sense of the clients like we talked about, where you really understand who you're trying to serve and what your business focus is. But then turning that lens back on yourself as a CEO, being ruthlessly focused on what you are taking on and what you are going to ask others to do.

There are so many things you could be working on at any given time and being very strategic about where you're going to allow yourself to engage is hugely important because it's so easy to get sucked into working in the business instead of working on the business. So figuring out how to like best leverage your time and just being very straight with your priorities, I would say is key.

All that said, you can't really do that until you have the perspective. So my advice to my younger self would be to enjoy building that experience working for established companies to become your reference guide, when you go out to do this on your own, you're gonna be thinking about, oh yeah, in that company we did this and that's actually perfect now.

And its such a fun thing, then you're in your own company and you're getting this plan on all these different experiences you had. Some may have been fun at the time. Some may have not been. But when it comes to needing to implement it in your own company, it's just hugely invaluable because trying to come up with that from scratch without any frame of reference, it's just more time-consuming.

You're gonna run into dead ends more often. So Enjoy that time. You're that first bit of your career when you are able to learn from the best. Look for opportunities to really see, higher levels of that business, whatever chance you can get in to sit on a meeting, any chances you can get to play with tech, like all those learnings, you're doing that on somebody else's dollar so that, by the time you jump ship to go to your own thing, you know what you're doing.

Gresham Harkless 14:45

Absolutely. I love that nugget and definitely if you run into my younger business self as well to please whisper that to him because that's extremely valuable. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show.

So Whitney, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Whitney Hill 15:03

I think to me, being a CEO is knowing how all the pieces fit together so that you can best orchestrate that for the other people on your team. So being able to see how the different skills, the different departments interplay, how to set that up with clear roles is going to allow you to recruit and retain the right folks who will then be able to help you move the company forward. So to me, that's what it means to be a CEO.

Gresham Harkless 15:25

Awesome. Whitney, truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know.

And of course, how best people can get ahold of you, but about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

Whitney Hill 15:40

Appreciate that, Gresham. You can reach us at snapadu.com. You can learn all about accessory dwelling units. You can also see what we've set up as far as the level of transparency and information that we've put out there on that website.

I'm always looking for people who just want to talk about ADUs in California or, more broadly, or just people who want to talk about business. So feel free to reach out.

Gresham Harkless 15:59

Awesome. Awesome, awesome. And to make it even easier, we're gonna have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you and find about all the awesome things that you're working on.

Thank you so much again, my friend, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Whitney Hill 16:10

Thank you so much, Gresham. Really appreciate it.

Outro 16:12

Thank you for listening to the IAMCEO podcast, powered by CB Nation in Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. IAMCEO is not just a phrase. It's a community.

Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and everywhere you listen to podcasts, subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. This has been the IAMCEO podcast Jr. Thank you for listening.

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