EPISODE OVERVIEW

Duration: Approximately 45 minutes

Best For: Trapped entrepreneurs who feel chained to the business they built and cannot remember the last time they took a Wednesday off

Key Outcome: Understand how to structure multiple ventures while maintaining the freedom you started your business to achieve

He runs an architecture firm, a construction company, a real estate development business, teaches at university, hosts a YouTube channel with 126,000 subscribers, and went fishing on a Wednesday.

THE BOTTOM LINE

You started your business because you wanted freedom. Somewhere along the way, that dream flipped. Now you are the first one in and the last one out. Your calendar owns you. Your phone never stops. And the idea of taking a Wednesday to do something you love feels like a fantasy reserved for people who do not have real responsibilities.

Lance Cayko runs five different ventures. Yesterday, he hiked 16 miles round trip to an alpine lake and put his favourite client on a trophy fish. He woke up at 4am, prayed, stretched, and spent his golden hours doing strategic work before anyone else was awake. He has not laid off a single employee in nearly 16 years. The thing is, Lance is not superhuman. He has simply built systems, vertical integration, and a discipline that creates freedom rather than consuming it. His architecture firm generates consistent revenue because he owns the construction company that builds the projects and the development company that can create its own opportunities. When one piece slows, another sustains.

WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS TO YOU

You will discover how vertical integration means getting paid three to four times on the same client relationship, transforming feast and famine cycles into consistent cash flow

You will understand why the number 12 is the tipping point where customer service dies, and why staying deliberately small might be your path to freedom

You will learn the top of mind mentality that keeps Lance in motion rather than buried under an endless task list

You will see the real cost of staying trapped, because every Wednesday you spend chained to your desk is a Wednesday you will never get back

KEY INSIGHTS YOU CAN IMPLEMENT TODAY

Top of mind mentality changes everything. When something surfaces in your awareness, act on it immediately. Address it, delegate it, or complete it. Then it is out of your head and in motion. The trapped entrepreneur stays trapped because they collect tasks instead of completing them. Lance handles things the moment they arise, which means his mind stays clear for strategic thinking rather than endless mental inventory.

Vertical integration extends your client relationships and stabilises revenue. If you design something for three months, you get paid for three months. If you also build it, that relationship extends to nine months or more. Whatever business you run, ask yourself what happens before and after your core service. Can you own those pieces too? Can you refer them and earn commissions? The oasis metaphor matters here. When someone comes to you thirsty, figure out everything else they might need.

Discipline creates freedom, not the other way around. Lance goes to bed at 9pm and wakes at 4 or 5am. He schedules fishing trips, dinner with his wife, and time with clients outside of work. His father thinks the calendar is anal. Lance knows it is liberating. When everything is scheduled, nothing falls through the cracks and you are in control rather than chaos controlling you.

The golden hours between 5 and 7am produce your best work. The sun is coming up. Your circadian rhythm is resetting. Nobody is emailing or calling. This is when the marketing ideas that make real money emerge. This is when creative and entrepreneurial thinking flows. If you are currently spending these hours responding to yesterday's emergencies, you are giving away your most valuable asset.

Stay deliberately under 12 people if you want to maintain excellence. Lance has watched multiple firms explode past 12 employees and immediately drop from A grade customer service to C grade. They end up right back where they started, with all the headaches and none of the quality. He has chosen to stay at 10 and prioritise being the best rather than the biggest.

GOLDEN QUOTES WORTH REMEMBERING

"It depends on the day and time because as the moniker goes, serial entrepreneur. Sometimes I'm an architect, sometimes I'm a builder, sometimes I'm a real estate developer, sometimes I'm a podcaster, sometimes I'm a professor, sometimes I'm a professional fisherman, and sometimes I'm a philanthropist." - Lance Cayko

"Discipline equals freedom. My day is very structured, even though I have this sort of freedom." - Lance Cayko

"I'm in control instead of chaos being in control of me." - Lance Cayko

"There's never been a diamond that hasn't been created without intense pressure. And that's what you're doing right now as a startup entrepreneur." - Lance Cayko

"We should aim to get three things out of every project. A friend, a photo, and a fee." - Lance Cayko

QUICK NAVIGATION FOR BUSY LEADERS

00:00 - Introduction: Meet the serial entrepreneur who goes fishing on Wednesdays

03:30 - The friend, photo, and fee philosophy: Getting more than money from every project

07:15 - Why Lance started his own firm: Never wanting to feel laid off again

12:45 - Top of mind mentality: The system that keeps everything flowing

18:20 - The golden hours: Why 5 to 7am produces your best ideas and biggest revenue

24:00 - Discipline equals freedom: How rigid scheduling creates liberation

28:30 - Vertical integration explained: Getting paid three to four times on one client

34:15 - Using AI as a sandwich: Human bookends with technology in the middle

38:45 - The number 12 rule: Why staying small maintains excellence

42:30 - Starting in a downturn: Why the worst time is actually the best time

GUEST SPOTLIGHT

Name: Lance Cayko

Bio: Lance is a serial entrepreneur based in Colorado who runs an architecture firm, construction company, and real estate development business. He is also a university professor, philanthropist, and host of Colorado's most subscribed local fishing YouTube channel with over 126,000 subscribers. Having started his architecture firm during the 2009 recession, he has built multiple ventures while maintaining freedom and has never laid off an employee in nearly 16 years.

Connect with Lance:

Website: www.f9productions.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lance-cayko-1227031a/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@fishingwithlance/

YOUR NEXT ACTIONS

This Week: Identify three tasks sitting in your mental inventory right now. Handle each one immediately using top of mind mentality, then notice how much clearer your thinking becomes.

This Month: Map out what happens before and after your core service. Identify one adjacent offering you could provide or partner on to extend client relationships and stabilise revenue.

This Quarter: Restructure your morning routine to protect golden hours for strategic and creative work. Move all reactive tasks to after 11am and measure the difference in your output quality.

EPISODE RESOURCES

Book mentioned: 2 Second Lean by Paul Akers

Course mentioned: Architect as Developer by Jonathan Seagal

Software mentioned: Happy Scribe for transcription

AI tools discussed: ChatGPT, Grok

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READY TO ESCAPE THE TRAP?

Take the Freedom Score Quiz: https://scoreapp.atpbos.com/

Discover how trapped you are in your business and get your personalised roadmap to freedom in under 5 minutes.

Book a Free Strategy Session: https://www.atpbos.com/contact

Let's discuss how to build a business that works WITHOUT you.

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CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST, ROY CASTLEMAN

Roy is the founder of All The Power Limited and creator of Elevate360, a business coaching system for entrepreneurs ready to scale without burnout. As a certified Wim Hof Method Instructor and the UK's first certified BOS UP coach, Roy combines AI automation, wellness practices, and business operating systems to help trapped entrepreneurs reclaim their freedom.

Website: www.atpbos.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roycastleman/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@allthepowerltd

Hey, power movers, how are we doing? I'm here today

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with Lance, and Lance is a very successful business owner.

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He runs an architectural design company. He's in Denver and

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has an interesting story to tell us. So, Lance, give

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us. Well, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being

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here. And tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah,

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a lot of people ask me all the time. My

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moniker on LinkedIn is serial entrepreneur. My preferred pronouns are

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positive, reactionary, and people ask me all the time when

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they first meet me, after they tell me what they

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do, who they are and all of that. And they

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finally ran out of steam. And I go, how about

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you? What do you do? And I go, it depends

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on the day and time because as the moniker goes,

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serial entrepreneur. Sometimes I'm an architect, sometimes I'm a builder,

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sometimes I'm a real estate developer, Sometimes I'm a podcaster

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like yourself. Sometimes I'm a professor at university, sometimes I'm

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a professional fisherman. And sometimes I'm also a philanthropist. So

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I do a lot of different stuff. And then usually

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the next question I get is, how do you do

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all that stuff? So. Professional fishermen, I like that.

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Yeah, tell me about that. That's awesome. I tell you

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what. Yesterday I had a really amazing adventure. I had

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dated another architect at some another point in my life.

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And one of the fascinating things she told me, I

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will carry this through forever now. And I'm trying to

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instill that staff does this as well. For all of

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our clients, whether we're building for them or designing or

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whatever is, we should aim to get three things out

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of every project and it should be a friend, a

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photo and a fee. And so I've been really working

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hard on that. And yesterday I took my most favorite

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client. Currently his name is Robert. He's 67 years old.

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He moved from New York City out here to Colorado

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to he bought a house and in the foothills. It's

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just dreamy location. It looks out of the Front Range

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and you get this amazing panoramic view. And. And he

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and his wife Yumi hired us to architect and then

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also redo the interior and some of the exterior of

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their home. We're just modernizing it and that's a pretty

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big project. Million dollar renovation. But I've really worked really

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hard. I just really love that man. And I took

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him fishing yesterday and this isn't the first time that

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we've hung out outside of work. I invited him over

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for dinner with me and the missus within a month

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or two of starting their project. But yesterday he and

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I went on a 16 mile round trip hike. So

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eight miles up, eight miles down 2,000ft of elevation gain.

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We went from 9,000ft above sea level to 11,000ft and

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went to an alpine lake that I had been dreaming

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of ice fishing for about five or six years. It's

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very hard to get to super remote. We were the

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only people on the trail. We were the only people

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at the lake yesterday and he, I put him on.

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My goal was besides just being able to ice fish

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that lake and get up there is for the first

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time was to put him on a trophy fish because

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he's not like a fisherman or anything. He's definitely an

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outdoorsy person and he runs these amazing long like hundred

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kilometer races and stuff. He's in insane shape for 67.

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He's just incredible person. But sure enough he pulled out

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a giant 19 inch long alpine cutthroat fish.

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It's like pure red. You should see the photo. It's

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completely incredible. And just made my day. Made his day.

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I take. Send me that photo. I'm going to put

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it on this podcast. Oh, you should. Yeah, it should

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be. I think it should be like the preview. Yeah,

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he's just amazing. Yeah, it's a really eye catching. But

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yeah. So I, I have a YouTube channel called Fishing

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with Lance and we have a lot of sponsors for

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the channel. We help them sell their products. We give

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like podcasting. Right. And so We're Colorado's number one local

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subscribe to YouTube channel for fishing. We have 126,000 subscribers.

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I think something like that. And I don't guide professionally

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because I just do it through. I just get paid

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through promoting the other products and then from YouTube. But

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I take my best friends and the most people that

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are close to me up on these very special adventures.

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Yeah, that's, that's the fishing in the nuts. In a

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nutshell. When I'm next in Denver, I'm going to come

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and visit you. And you go we are fishing. Absolutely.

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I will take you. Right. 100 and I'll try. I'll

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take in an easy one. Yeah, please. My partner's daughter

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is in Boulder. Oh, cool. Yeah, we're right. We're right.

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We're actually, I say Denver because a lot of folks

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are like it's just a, it's a, it'd be like

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if I said Minneapolis for Minnesota. We actually, we're. I'm

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like 10 miles east of Boulder, so real close to

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Boulder. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Lovely part of the world.

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And yeah. What always strikes Me, when I go there,

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you're at such a high elevation anyway. You do. Yeah.

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I can understand why the athletes go there to train.

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Come, come down to the sea level where it's really

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heavy air. That makes a big difference. Yeah, yeah. So

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just again, yeah, I love that. Entrepreneur. Yeah, Serial entrepreneur.

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It took me a while to actually accept that's what

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I was. Oh, really? Yeah. It's the strangest thing that

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always. Yeah. And it took me probably 20 years. I'd

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opened 20 companies in that time and the first big

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failure I had was an adventure center that I bought

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just before COVID I fought my way through that and

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it nearly killed me in a number of different ways.

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And when that failed, that was the switch in my

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head that said, you know what? I got up from

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this. I stood, I carried on. So, yeah, I'm an

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entrepreneur. Yeah. What does that mean to you, being an

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entrepreneur? Oh, it's freedom. I went fishing yesterday, it was

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Wednesday. Yeah, it's freedom. It's risk, it's reward. But yeah,

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at the core of it, it's freedom and really taking

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control of your own destiny. The reason why I even

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have my own architecture firm is because I was laid

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off by two schmucks in Boulder who were just awful

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at business and they were very short sighted in terms

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of I think what they were trying to build. Great

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designers, I would never say they were bad architects, but

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real awful business people, at least back then. As a

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matter of fact, they ended up break up Three years

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after I got laid off in 2009, 2012, they broke

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up and then we had started our firm in 2010.

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That's. I just never wanted to have that feeling again

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for myself. And then I also made sure I took

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the responsibility on of. That's good for you, Lance. Like

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you can't lay yourself off. It's your own business. You

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can fail, but it's not. You're not going to lay

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yourself off. The same thing goes for my employees. It's

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been 15 years, almost 16. It'll be 16 in January

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2026. And we haven't had one layoff. We haven't laid

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anybody off. And that's really good for an architecture and

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construction firm because it's very up and down in the

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United States. So yeah, that's, that's the primary reason is

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I'm just hyper paranoid about not having work and being

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able to eat and buy cool fishing stuff and support

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my family and my wife and all that good stuff.

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I think that freedom piece is so important. And yeah,

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this is why people get into being an entrepreneur. This

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is why people start on their own. And yeah, if

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you're not careful, your business becomes your prison. Right. Yeah.

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We go into it for freedom. We go into it

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because we really love this idea of freedom. We go

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from our eight or nine hour job into our 16

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hour job. We go from £200,000 a year salary to

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nothing. And we, if you don't do well at it,

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suddenly you realize you're in a way worse position than

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you were with a much, much bigger workload, more, way

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more responsibility. And this is 70% of business owners on

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your burnout. Yeah. They don't have the freedom. So what

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are your secrets to that? You built a very enterprise,

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as it were or. Yeah. So yeah. What have been

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the main things that you've learned from it? I used

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to say it was all about discipline and scheduling, but

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really I think at the core of it it's. It's

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that plus top of mind mentality. I've been trying to

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bring that to the forefront of if you're going to

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be an entrepreneur and you're going to be a successful

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one, especially you're going to be the head of the

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company or co head like I am of ours, all

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of them. And it's top using top of mind mentality.

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So if something comes to the top of your mind,

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I don't mean whimsical stuff. I'm saying like if my

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plumber calls me and says there's a problem and I

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talk to him and I acknowledge it, then I need

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to act on it like immediately. And that way it's

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top of mind, you're addressing it, then it's out of

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mind and it's in motion and you keep things flowing.

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There's a lot of. You're the stop gap. You are

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the person who keeps things flowing or not mostly. And

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when you're at the top of the food chain, so

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that's number one is I've really been trying to instill

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that using top of mind mentality. And it goes for

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personal too. Here's one that I like to tell people

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to do personally because it happens for a reason. I'm

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a believer, I'm a very much a Christian Catholic and

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I just believe that God is whispering, showing his fingerprints

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all the time in that sort of a way. And

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so if every once in a while what'll happen is

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I'll get somebody will pop into my head. It'll be

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somebody that I maybe haven't Talked to in 10, 20

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years for some reason it'll pop in my head. And

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I don't know how many times I've been. When they

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pop into my head, I send them a text, hey,

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just. Just reaching out. You popped into my head the

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other day. How are you? And they reach back and

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they go. Just thinking about you. Not only that, but

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thank you. Because I was having a really bad day.

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There's been. That's happened a lot. Been having a really

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bad day. And it was really interesting that you reached

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out. And then I've had it happen in my life,

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too, where people reach out in that certain way. Like,

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for instance, we had a troll on the fishing channel

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last week, the week before last week, just this awful

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person just ripping on us and all this other stuff.

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And then the next day, I had a fan reach

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out and he goes, hey, man, I've been watching you

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for three or four years. I really appreciate what you

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do. Like, you take us on these adventures and keep

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up the good work. And I go, oh, my God,

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thank you. Like, the timing of all of that was

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incredible. And I go, you want to go fishing sometime?

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And he goes, oh, my God, really? And I go,

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yeah. So I took him fishing, and it was the

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same sort of adventure I just described to you with

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my client Robert. Put him on these amazing fish, like

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kind of an adventure of a lifetime. Maybe he never

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would have got to that lake before. And then you

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make these really interesting connection. So top of mind is.

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Is number one, and the other one is discipline. Discipline

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equals freedom. And that's. I realize that's a jocko phrase,

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this American influencer, but it really does. And so I'm.

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My. My morning routine is. My kind of. My day

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is very structured, even though I have this sort of

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freedom. I don't drink, I don't smoke. I wake up.

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I go to bed early, 9 or 10, wake up

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at 4 or 5. And my routine is generally always

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the same. Wake up, big glass of water, start grinding

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the coffee, put the teapot on, getting ready for coffee.

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Then I go pray the rosary stretch, come back, coffee's

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about ready, and go to my computer. And I call

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those first two hours in the morning from 5 to

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7 or like 6 to 8 before everybody else gets

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up. The golden hours. And they. It's literal and metaphorical,

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right? Because the sun is coming up. I'm getting that

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circadian rhythm reset and setting, setting me up for success

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that day. But then also, that's actually when you come

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up with the golden ideas you make the most money.

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Where the real creative, entrepreneurial mindset comes from. And like

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you're sending out maybe some very. The marketing ideas that

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I come up with, like during that time are incredible.

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So those two huge factors I think in that routine

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are super helpful for. And then I schedule everything. I

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schedule fishing trips, I schedule time with my wife. It's

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all very organized. My family, who is like my nucleus

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family, like my mother, father, especially my dad, he's. He

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shrieks at seeing this calendar because he thinks it's anal.

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And I'm like. It's actually very freeing. Like I. I

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know exactly where I got to be and every time

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I'm not pulled, like, I'm in control instead of chaos

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being in control of me. Yeah, agreed. I love that

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sleep at 9 o'. Clock, I get up at 5

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o'. Clock. My morning routine is breath work, it's meditation,

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it's some pt, some. And then I get in the

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ice bath and yeah, I love this kind of that.

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That gold. Now, I think for me, I actually set

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my day in accordance with when I have the power

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in my mind to do things. So I know before

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11 o' clock I am way better in terms of

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my thinking, in terms of my creativity, in terms of

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actually getting things done. And after 11 o', clock, yeah,

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I'm lesser. So I said meeting is normally later on

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in the day. I think things that I can put

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less effort into or repetitive tasks, anything later on in

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the day. And yeah, I think we should all do

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that. I think we should actually have our energy map

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for the day, work out when we're better. My brother,

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he's a night person. Right. He's useless in the morning

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until midday. Yeah. And then late later, he's better. We

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all have these rhythms that work for us, but the

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other side of it. But yeah, for me, game changer

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when I started doing that. Yeah. So now, you know,

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let's dig into your business a little bit and. And

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not into your business. They say your journey of. You

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spoke about leaving and starting a company. Yeah. And I

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know you've taken on project on project and as these

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projects have gone up and grown, they've been successful in

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each day. How do you manage that level of different

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things? You said yourself before we, when we spoke, I've

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got all these things I'm doing and people like, how

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you doing all that? And for me, that's always the

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thing. Right. I think as entrepreneurs, we have the superpower

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called. Called adhd. We are. I don't. And then. Yeah.

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How do you manage? You've mentioned your calendar. Yeah. How

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do you Manage the ideas that come in. Because I'm

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sure if you're like me, you have probably a hundred

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ideas a day that are all awesome. Oh, that's a

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good question. Yeah, really good question. I've. I used to

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write them down but now I. Now we've got these

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just beautiful little computers in our pocket. I record myself

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talking a lot and then I'll actually you. My workflow

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is this. I will record myself talking about something, an

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idea, an architectural idea. Could be like how I could

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be a critique on a, an employee but there's an

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audio recording that happens. So how about this? I had

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a really recent example was my. I was coming down

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on Monday from the mountains. I was up there, sure

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enough checking on look conditions to see if I could

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go up on Wednesday and I had my business partner

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call me at 4:30 and we hit the record button

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on the iPhone now, which you can record the audio

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and you can also have it transcribe in real time.

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And so then what I'll do is I'll take that

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transcription and run it through ChatGPT or Grok and I

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will have it just bullet point it for me and

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condense it and then I take it from there and

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then I humanize it at the end. Another example of

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that was like we were applying for this special status

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with the feds here, the United States, and I had

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to basically recant three stories from when I was coming

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into the profession for whatever reason to just show qualifications.

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And so I told the stories to the audio in

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10 to 15 minutes each. And then I used a

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piece of software called Happy Scribe and I uploaded that

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to that and it transcribed it for me in writing.

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Then I put it into ChatGPT or Grok again, how

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to write a Story. And then I took it and

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did the final editing. So I like to sandwich, I

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like to use technology in the sandwich fashion where I'm

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with a piece of bread on either side. I'm the

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human and start of the loaf too. Like I'm in

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the end loaf pieces of a piece of a loaf

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of bread. So that's my workflow. I like that a

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lot. I love that. And I was just sharing on

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the previous podcast with somebody. I love the AI for

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a couple of reasons. I love it because I was

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never able to journal right. My handwriting is so bad.

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I should have been a doctor. And yeah, but I

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run around with all these ideas in my head. So

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in the morning I get up. Yeah, one of the

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first things I'll do is I'll just Do a massive

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brain dump into chatgpt or to. To one of the.

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Excuse me, one of the tools. And I'll say, I'm

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going to do a brain dump. I want you to

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help me order these things. These are my goals for

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the next two weeks. And, Yeah, I want you to

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put these things in order to make sure I get

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to my goals. Yeah. And I literally just blur it

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out there. And that just is so freeing for me

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because. Isn't it? Yeah, it just opens up my mind

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and it's just. Yeah. The new age journaling. Right. Yeah.

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Which people just. People are just looking at AI at

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the moment. And I love the US because the people

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that are meeting here are a bit further down the

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road with it. In the uk, people are still a

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little bit scared of it. Oh, yeah, yeah. But we

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seem to be a little bit further. I'm actually in

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Seattle at the moment. We seem to be a little

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bit further along the journey. And there's this elevation piece

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that AI does. It elevates your thinking. Yeah, I can

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actually think outside my brain now. Let me explain that

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quickly. Beforehand, what we needed to do. Yeah, yeah. We'd

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go to university, we'd learn a whole bunch of stuff

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and then we'd keep on learning. We bring the stuff

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into our mind, then we'd have to store the stuff

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in our mind. Right? Yeah. And then we'd go out

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and we'd create content. Yeah. So this was how we've

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been for so long and now we're evolving into, you

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know, a different way of thinking. Right. Because now we're

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saying, okay, I don't need to know all the stuff.

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Any information anywhere is now available to me. Right? Yeah.

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And it's available to me if I can just access

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it correctly. I need to know the problem, I need

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to know the context and I need to know where

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to look for the solutions. And I can now go.

352

I've done probably seven years of work in the last

353

six months. Right. Just because of that, I'm like, okay,

354

this is my problem. This is what I've heard. These

355

are the people that I like. This is the output

356

that I'm trying to get to. I want you to

357

be a thought partner here. I want you to be,

358

you know, I'm going to remain the critical thinking partner.

359

You're going to be my thought partner. I want you

360

to tell me what things that I'm missing here. Don't

361

be a yes man, because you are such a yes

362

man. Right. And, yeah, just help me in my thinking

363

here. Yeah. And you just get a totally different way

364

of thinking. And then I can go out and I

365

can build stuff, I can build automations, I can do

366

stuff that I never thought possible. I'm not a visual

367

person at all. You're a visual person. Obviously I'm not

368

a visual person. This is a challenge that I've accepted

369

in myself. Now I say to ChatGPT or I say

370

to one of the other models, Rock, I like as

371

well. Okay, I need you to help me build out

372

this funnel. For example. I don't know anything about user

373

design, I don't know anything about visuals. I want it

374

to be visual for this icp, for this audience. And

375

yeah. And I take a picture of it and say.

376

Or take a screenshot. So this is what I've got.

377

What do I need to do? Yeah. And it'll say,

378

okay, what are your brand colors? What are your. And

379

then we put those in and they say, okay, move

380

this line here, do this and do. And literally I

381

don't need to know the skill, I don't need to

382

learn the skills out there for me to actually bring

383

in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The us is. That's an interesting

384

perspective. I'm glad you. Thank you for just pointing out

385

that maybe, I guess we're maybe just because we're on

386

average more entrepreneurial and we just maybe are not afraid

387

of it and using it as a tool. I think

388

it's really important you don't let the tool pull you,

389

that's for sure. I really have tried to rein it

390

in like that. Really try to make sure that I

391

feed it first and then I pull it back out

392

and polish it. And I think that's the problem that

393

a lot of people are not doing is they're either.

394

They're not bookending it with humanism. And that's an issue

395

100%. I think the opportunity in the next year, two

396

years, we're going to see such a change. We're already

397

seeing a massive change, but we're going to see an

398

even bigger change. And you know, the change that we're

399

going to see is that there's going to be a

400

range of people that are going to go one way

401

and they're going to let AI become the master and

402

just do. AI says. And then there's a range of

403

people that are going to get understand that what AI

404

can do for us is it can automate those menial

405

tasks and it can then from there we can be

406

more human. Right. And this is our opportunity. It's not

407

to use AI to do everything. It's to use AI

408

to let us be more human. So I love your

409

bookend thing. That. That's just amazing and very much what

410

I do. AI is a 60 tool. It can do

411

60% on the job and it'll allow you to do

412

the job at a better output, more quality, more information

413

in there. But it's only a 60% tool. Think of

414

it as 100% tool, then you've lost the battle already.

415

Yeah, 100%. So, like, for example, we do these podcasts

416

and it used to take me, first of all, I

417

paid someone, then it used to take me an hour

418

and a half to get all this information up onto

419

Captivate, which I use now. I'm like, okay, I spent

420

probably a month doing this in and out and asking

421

to help me building out an automation for it. So

422

now I take the audio file from here, change the

423

name on it, drop it in there, and it goes

424

all the way through the process. I check that the

425

show notes are right, I check that everything looks okay.

426

I've got a blog at the end of it. I've

427

got a LinkedIn, social media posts. I've got a whole

428

range of other stuff. I use OPUS to get the

429

clips out. And now it takes me three or four

430

minutes rather than an hour and just run through that.

431

So if you can use AI to actually spend more

432

time with people and do more things with people, I

433

think that's. Those are the people that are going to

434

be really kind of powerful. And it's not AI that's

435

going to take your job, it's the people that are

436

using AI that's going to take it. Yeah, that's a

437

really good point. I agree. Yeah, yeah. We go through

438

and we have this as business owners, we see a

439

problem. This is what I love about entrepreneurs, Right. And

440

we see a problem in the world and we say,

441

okay, we can help fix that problem. Yeah. And then

442

we give everything we can to fix that problem. We

443

build, we grow, we scale. And to your point of

444

not letting people go, one of the tools I, or

445

one of the things I do is I coach a

446

business operating system, maybe across eos or any of those

447

worth looking into. So there's A company called 90 and

448

90 has a business operating system which is just. They're

449

working on the business piece and gives a structure to

450

working on the business. And there's people are scaling up

451

and others. And the key piece there is people, right?

452

Yeah. One of the key. One of the nine core

453

competencies is people. And People are so important. And yeah,

454

when I started out, I used to do this thing

455

where I didn't. I'd hire a new person and I

456

tell this new person, actually, by the way, just do

457

this and I'll just run through it very quickly to

458

them. And I didn't give them enough information. Then they

459

come back to me and they haven't done it correctly.

460

And I would say, oh, that's not right. Didn't you

461

get it? And that the poor guy's sitting there, he's

462

saying, yeah, I got it because I'm the boss. Yeah.

463

And he has to say that. And so I'm really

464

interested to understand how you deal with people and how

465

you manage to go through all this growth, not letting

466

anyone go. Well, we created a vertically integrated firm. I

467

think that's number one. And then we try to survive.

468

We try to. We've always tried to serve the 99/1%.

469

So one of the reasons why I was laid off

470

and one of the reasons why my business partner was

471

laid off from the firm he was working for at

472

the same at the time was those architects were not

473

diversified with their workflow and their customer base

474

and even their procurement, the means of procurement and sales.

475

So a lot of them are just word of mouth.

476

That was really shocking, I think, to understand is that,

477

oh, wow, you're not even. You don't even want to

478

think about this like a business. And it's just word

479

of mouth. And that's how people are finding you. And

480

they can't just go search for architect. And they also

481

didn't want to. They had this highfalutin. We're not going

482

to deal with the average person coming in and needing

483

an architect, which is real. There's a lot of small

484

business owners that we serve who open up their first

485

coffee shop, their first dog grooming shop, stuff like that.

486

And we try to make it happen with fees that

487

are reasonable, but still make us 10% at least, type

488

of thing. So there's that base layer of it, but

489

then there's also the vertical integration. So that where that

490

comes into play is. I'd always wanted to do a

491

real estate development because one of my architectural heroes is

492

Jonathan Seagal. He operates out of San Diego and he

493

vertically integrated. When I was in college, he was. He

494

made this course called Architect as Developer. And he was.

495

What he was really trying to do is he was

496

trying to go back to what the original word architect

497

even means, which is master builder. Back in the day,

498

that's what it was. It's like if you're an architect,

499

then you're also like even Frank Lloyd Wright did it.

500

If you're, you actually build, go out there and work

501

with your hands and or at least direct the team

502

and understand how it's built. And maybe you're even putting

503

your own money. And then you're wearing all three hats,

504

right? So from 2010 to 2007, during our first seven

505

years of startup, we did do to design, build projects

506

that laid the groundwork for us. Then formally vertically integrate

507

and after that and then start the, the construction firm

508

and then the real estate development firm. So for those

509

people that might not understand the term vertically integrate, just

510

give us the summary of that for us. I'll give

511

you the example. The example is if you're an architect,

512

you get the client first, then usually the drawings get

513

handed to a builder and the builder has his own

514

separate company and goes and builds the things. And then

515

the other way it can work is if your client

516

is a real estate developer and the real estate developer

517

buys the land, then he hires you, the architect, and

518

it gets handed off to the developer or to the

519

builder in our case, since we own all three companies.

520

F9 is the architecture firm. F14 is the construct builder

521

in F12 Productions is the real estate developer. It's incestuous

522

in that we're hiring ourselves, but all of a sudden

523

we're getting paid three, maybe even four times depending how

524

you, how you structure it. And so it's this ecosystem

525

that is much more sustainable, especially if you can maintain

526

the work. So the most precise that we don't do,

527

we won't. We've actually only done one real estate development,

528

but from that spawned the full fledged construction company. And

529

what we do is we, we don't build for everybody

530

that we architect for. We only build for a certain

531

select amount of clients because that's all we need to

532

do anyway to make what we want to and sustain

533

the firm and all of that good stuff. And it

534

extends the longevity of those projects, right? So if we're

535

designing something for somebody that takes three months instead

536

of us just only having cash flow for three months.

537

And then if we, but if we end up being

538

their builder too, all of a sudden we cash flow

539

for another six, six months on top of that. And

540

that's how the vertical integration can work. So you're trying

541

to find whatever company you are. Let's say you make

542

widgets. Can you also be the miner of the products

543

that go into the widgets? And then can you also

544

be the distributor of the widgets. And that's how you

545

try to cover your bases. And. And even there's a.

546

An example or a way to describe it, which I

547

really love. If you're a guy that's busy wandering around

548

in the desert, right? And you're like, you've been wandering

549

around for a while, you got. You're really done, and

550

you see an oasis and you walk up to the

551

oasis and as you get to the oasis, this guy

552

comes wandering up to you. He's like, hey, how are

553

you doing? How can I help you? And the guy's,

554

oh, I'd love some water. Yeah. Then as the guy

555

standing there in the oasis, you're the business owner, you

556

need to be thinking, what else might you want? So

557

how else can I help you? I'd love to call

558

my parents, I'd love to call the family people I

559

know. I'd love somewhere to stay. I'd love a meal,

560

I'd love. What are all the things that. That one

561

person could possibly want from you that it could make

562

it the best possible kind of example or best possible

563

outcome for them? Yeah. And then even if you don't

564

have the ability to provide all those things, obviously if

565

you do have the ability to provide those things, have

566

the answer where to get all those things. Because you

567

can make commissions, you can make referral fees, you can

568

make all sorts of things on all these different kind

569

of approaches. Right. I think that vertical integration and that

570

being being able to really serve your client in a

571

way that the problem is properly solved is so important

572

in business. Right? Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I'm not going to

573

keep you for too much longer. Where's the future? Obviously

574

you're living the life you love and I love that.

575

That's the whole thing. I spent a couple of weeks

576

ago, I was in France for a week and then

577

before that I was in free diving in the Red

578

Sea. And what I actually want to do is go

579

up into your lake and do some diving in there

580

when it's frozen, because I've done that in Finland. I

581

do cold exposure. We went. Whoa. We went to Finland

582

and we were free diving under the ice and wow,

583

what a mind. That would be intense. I would. That

584

would be amazing. I would love to see footage of

585

that. Yeah. Yeah. I'll send you something. Yeah. And yeah,

586

it was. It's just this. How can you push your

587

mind and your body to those next levels? Because we

588

are so capable of doing so much and we just

589

limit ourselves all the time. But anyway, yeah. What are

590

the next stages? Yeah. Well, how does long go forward?

591

Great question. Yeah, I had thought so we're at a

592

staff at ten right now. Eight architects, two interior designers

593

and then Betsy architecture firm. And then Alex and I

594

are the general contractors in the construction firm. But then

595

also. But then our project architects and our interior designers

596

do construction administration and we end up billing the construction

597

firm. That's how it all works. But I had the

598

reason I'm painting the picture for everybody is I had

599

thought I'd wanted maybe more than 12 people at some

600

point, at one point. And now I don't. And here's

601

why. What I've noticed is and this is from I've

602

tried to. One of the smartest things you can do

603

is you can I learn from somebody else's mistakes. And

604

I've saw my engineers, multiple firms, I think

605

three now where it's these guys or gals will break

606

off from this big engineering firm. And by big, that's

607

30 or 40 people. That's pretty big in the United

608

States. And they break away, they create their own little

609

firm, one or two people to start out with and

610

maybe we work with that their new firm because that's

611

who we were used to working with them or whatever.

612

And it's an amazing experience for the first couple years.

613

They're fast, they're nimble, they are the opposite of the

614

big firm. They're providing high quality customer service. They're enthusiastic

615

about their work, they're enthusiastic about business. They're. There's an

616

energy that everybody gravitates to because they're like a breath

617

of fresh air. And yeah, and then I see them,

618

everybody, then a lot of people start gravitating to them

619

to the point where the growth is so explosive as

620

soon as they hit the number 12 and they go

621

past that in terms of that many people working in

622

that company, the customer service goes from A to B

623

and then eventually down to C and they're right back

624

to where they started. So my learning lesson is we

625

are a class A firm when it comes to customer

626

service. If you go look on Google, there's nobody that

627

has more five star ratings for either off either of

628

our offices or Longman office or Denver office for architect

629

in the state of Colorado. We're number one in customer

630

service and I want to stay that way and I

631

am a firm believer now that like in the number

632

of 12 or less for what we do, which is

633

boutique architecture, boutique homes, boutique multifamily developments, boutique commercial

634

industrial buildings, small ones and I really like the pocket

635

we're in. I'm not sure I want to do the

636

huge stuff that's just not for us. So I think

637

for us it's on that note then we do want

638

to establish an office in the. And actually in the

639

mountains so that we can get work up and Aspen

640

and all of that. But even then it would just

641

be a core of three people. And then maybe we're

642

split between the two Front Range offices with four in

643

each office, and I think we're sitting pretty good. But

644

that's what's in the future for us is I actually

645

want to just try to now maintain this very high

646

level of customer service that we have established and made

647

a name for ourselves on in Colorado. And I'm, I'm

648

talking to people about this quite often on the AI

649

front. They've got 10 people, they've got 15 people, they're

650

turning over 5, 10 million, whatever it is, at that

651

stage. And the conversation I have is, right, let's learn

652

AI. And I know because I'm going to have to

653

let people go. And, and I said to them, why

654

don't you look at it this way? Now with AI,

655

you can do 10 times the work, Right. So how

656

do you actually automate what you're doing? Keep the human

657

in there, let your staff work. Instead of working 10

658

hours a day, let them work six hours a day

659

and do 10 times more with the same stuff and

660

bring the human into it. How can I automate the

661

processes that need to be automated? Leave it. Rest out.

662

I guess for architectural stuff that's a little bit different.

663

I'm sure there's a lot of tools and things coming

664

in at the moment that are. Yeah. Going to enable

665

that. Does that kind of resonate 100%? Resonates, yeah, yeah,

666

absolutely. I think there's just something about being nimble that's

667

really important to me because you asked it. So you

668

asked earlier too, and I, about how do you do

669

all of these various things and do them well? We

670

talked about top of mind, but it's also putting systems

671

in place through software that have allowed us to. And

672

then also creating even just a culture of Systems. Paul

673

Akers 2Second Lean really transformed our office culture. We read

674

it, I think six years ago now, and if people

675

haven't read it, they should read it if they're growing

676

businesses. He basically went to Toyota, examined them, understood how

677

Toyota SERP was crushing American car manufacturers because they had

678

two, two second lean processes. So they, they figured out,

679

they go, look, if we're making this part a million

680

times. How can we lean it by 2 seconds? It'll

681

increase our bottom line. We can still put out a

682

great product and that philosophy just are through line in

683

what we do. Amazing. All right, it's been great chatting.

684

If you were to give new entrepreneurs just one tip,

685

what would that be? If you are. If you started

686

your business in the Great Recession or in a downturn,

687

keep your head up because every day is a better

688

day. There's actually. That's actually the best time to start

689

a business because you'll be just like me. You started

690

it during a great Recession with zero clients, zero portfolio,

691

and every day is better than the next. You'll never

692

be hungrier. There's never been a diamond that hasn't been

693

created without intense pressure. And that's what you're doing right

694

now, is a startup entrepreneur. Amazing. Thanks very much for

695

being on Lance. I'll put Lance's details below. We can

696

follow his fishing channel. I'm looking forward to that. And

697

maybe I'll come up and see you in Denver and

698

we can go diving in the lake. There you go.

699

Sounds great. Thanks for having me. Right. It was a

700

pleasure.