Practice of Architecture’s New CIO, Larry Fabbroni

A Welcome to Practice Disrupted, a podcast where we find ways to create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects. I'm your host, Evelyn Li, an architect who spans tech as an angel investor, start up advisor, and founder of Practice of Architecture. Whether you're a seasoned architect or just starting in the field, this podcast is your gateway to think differently about the role architects play within our global community. Hello, disruptors. Welcome to this week's episode of Practice Disrupted. I'm thrilled to introduce our guest today, someone I've had the pleasure of collaborating with since our undergraduate days when he was national president of the American Institute of Architecture Students or AIAS. Our guest is none other than Lawrence Frabroni, AIA at LEAD AP, who now joins practice of architecture as our new chief innovation officer. Larry brings over 2 decades of architectural practice experience, having led major master planning projects at renowned firms like Ehrenprance, Extut, and Kuhn Architects, who is later merged with Perkins and Will and Strata Architecture.

A He has worked on some of the largest development projects in the US and is currently focused on strategic predevelopment services. Larry's impressive academic background includes a bachelor of architecture and a master of policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University. He is also an MBA candidate at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he assists in teaching courses on commercializing innovation and entrepreneurial finance and private equity. Larry's passion for innovation and entrepreneurship and architecture is evident in his work. He worked with me to help develop and launch the AIA Practice Innovation Lab, which explored new business models and architecture. We also co shared the Practice Innovation Lab 2 point o, a symposium focused on entrepreneurial ventures and funding in the profession. These programs have inspired regional AIA initiatives across the country. Larry's contributions to the field have been recognized with numerous awards, including the AIA Pennsylvania Emerging Professional of the Year and the National AIA Young Architect Award.

A He's also held leadership roles in many national and regional organizations, including serving as a national board member of the American Institute of Architects. Larry, so happy to have you on Practice Disrupted. Well, obviously, you're joining the Practice of Architecture team, and we'll get into that a little bit. But thank you for joining us here for this episode.

B Yep. Thanks. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here and with you and all the disruptors out there.

A So one of the things that I get asked a lot, because having pursued my MBA is why I pursued my MBA. And since you're in the process of just wrapping it up, why don't you tell us about your decision as an architect and where you are in your career when you decided to get your MBA and why you did it?

B Sure. And, yeah, we'll start right out by dating dating myself and saying that, yeah, I was in practice for almost 2 decades before I went back to get my MBA. And I I I sort of look at that decision as both an iterative kind of thing that snowballed and got me there, as well as sort of this was the right time for me me to do it. And I don't think I would've gotten out of it, what I have, if I'd done it at any other time. But, I mean, I think to start with, I started thinking about this just because, you know, my career has been focused in mostly urban design and sort of planning predevelopment work and practice. Sort of, you know, cut my teeth in New York City with a firm, called EE and K Architects, which at the time was kind of one of the leading urban design firms in the country. They've since been acquired by Perkins Eastman Architects. But, yeah, I get to work on kind of some of the biggest the biggest projects in the country when I was there, and it was kind of an amazing place to learn about the business, but also sort of experience something that I think is, you know, was a little different than a lot of studios too.

B But, I mean, one of the things I, like, experienced through throughout my time working in urban design projects is we we'd always come up with these great ideas. Right? There's so many great ideas that Ergonomix come up with, not just in urban design projects, but, yeah, in all of our projects. And, yeah, a lot of those ideas sort of never are realized. The in in urban design, I feel like, yeah, the buildings get built, the public spaces, you know, get built, and then all these other ideas sort of sit in the books and on the shelves. And, you know, I started saying to myself, working on a more recent project where this was sort of amplified, and there was a real interest in kind of generating these ideas by the client group that, yeah, a lot of these things were gonna be really tough to to actually do unless there was a business case behind them. That was a real push for me to say, I don't know how to do this, and it doesn't seem like a whole lot of other people do. And I wanna go learn I wanna go learn what the people who have the money or how they're making decisions and, yeah, how I can start to frame to frame things both to be able to kind of vet ideas and understand the difference between a good idea and a good business, but, also, how to how to make a compelling case for things that I think, yeah, actually should happen. And so that was sort of, yeah, step step one of that.

B Yeah. Then you and I have you and I have this experience together with the Young Architects Forum, which I know, yeah, guest after guest that you have on this podcast sort of talks about this kind of magical

A This magical moment in time. Yeah. On the Young Architects Forum. Right.

B But part of the reason I applied to be chair of the Young Architects Forum and, you know, got select you know, ultimately, I was selected right and succeeded you during the year after your year as chair was because you had kind of come with this vision for the practice innovation lab. Yeah. And this kind of focus on looking at what are our alternative practice models that we could be exploring and introducing within the profession. And, yeah, I've I've sort of always felt like the practice model was not particularly interesting to me. This sort of you know, no no matter what way you cut it, almost all practices are still based on this kind of labor based model. We've experienced more recently is really dependent on variable cost labor. I think not exclusively, but in a whole lot of cases, the, I guess, owner of myself is just saying, you know, in tech and other industries that, like, we always wanna look at and say we're just as creative as these people, they talk about talent. Right? And I feel like, yeah, my experience in the profession, there's a whole lot of firms out there that seem to look at the partnership looks at themselves as talent, and they sort of look at the the staff isn't staff.

B Right? That's something that's part of the business model too that I felt like a year is not is not super interesting to me. Right? And so so yeah. And I think, you know, a lot of listeners all have kind of dealt with their own frustrations around this. And you you experience it in bits and pieces. Right, Mike? So Practice Innovation Lab was, like, this really interesting thing thing to me to explore, and, you know, we did that. You you had come with this vision and yeah. I, yeah, I like to think I I played a kind of big role in kinda helping.

A No. You played a very large part, right, in crafting it, and not only and the very little known Practice Innovation Lab too as well.

B Right. You're right. So we then you and I, kind of after the initial PIL, did PIL 2 point o, we call it, which is a day long symposium at the National AIA Conference in Las Vegas. And we, you know, we try to focus that more around sort of actual business pitches to real investors, you know, who we brought in and kind of crafted a day around trying to help people understand that process a bit more. And, really, when really, when we were doing that, I said, I don't know anything about this. Right? Like or Uh-huh. Or or at least, like, I I only had enough to, like, scratch the surface. And, you know, even as we were creating that program, we struggled to find people who were in the industry who were actual investors.

B Right? That was just like, we're inviting people for a really small pool. So I sort of said, yeah. If if we wanna do this bigger thing, you know, we, me, like, I I wanna understand this thing. Right? Like and and I wanna understand how you how you do this. And I think, like, the third piece of it kind of then just the yeah. It's tough to say, like, the pandemic hit at the right moment, but, like, for me because, yeah, that lots of terrible things, yeah, happened in the pandemic. But what happened to me was, yeah, after about a month of Zoom happy hours, I said, yeah. Like, I I wanna do something more interesting with my time, and I've already been thinking about this thing.

B And so let me let me start exploring business school. And, yeah, at a time when I I didn't know if that would all happen remotely or when we would be kind of back back to any sense of normalcy. That's sort of where I got to and said, like, this is a thing I wanna do. And, yeah, it it worked out for me. I mean, I'll I'll spare all the details of, like, apply applying and getting to business school. But, yeah, I got accepted to do a part time program at University of Chicago. I travel back and forth from where I live in Pittsburgh. And, yeah, like I said, Mike, I I did it at the right moment for me.

B I, like, I've never looked back and kinda wondered if it was a good idea. Like, I've just kind of I'm at a point now where I'm, you know, nearing the end of the program, and I I really wish I could keep taking these classes forever.

A So I guess you obviously went to business school. And can I just say, I barely remember the context of Practice Innovation Lab 2.0 until you just said that there? I didn't realize until now what impact what personal impact it had on you. So thank you for sharing that.

B Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

A So, you know, what are some of the big takeaways that you're learning specific relative to the the architecture school, now that you've been in business school, about ways we can be more innovative or financial models that we should be aware of, or, you know, there's so there's so many different things I think we can talk about. But are there a few things that stand out to you that, like, the everyday practitioner should really think about researching or discussing more?

B Yeah. I mean, I think where I start this is to say, we confuse a lot of times creativity with innovation. And I think we work in an industry, yeah, in a specific profession within kind of what might be a larger umbrella of an industry that is, yeah, has boundless creativity. We have really creative people. And in the world of innovation, we kind of separate out between what we define as invention and innovation. Right? And then there's multiple types of innovation that can happen. And the most common is just to kind of innovate iteratively on what you already do. Right? And I think are are kind of really inclined to to wanna be really creative and kind of develop something brand new all the time.

B And that's how you cause major disruption maybe, but that's not the majority of innovation that's happening kind of in this other space. And the majority of our executive firms do not have kind of structures and frameworks in place to to be able to do that. Right? There's innovation that happens, but it's sort of happening as a byproduct of things rather than intentionally kind of as a as a culture within the firm. And and so I think, you know, to be able to break away from this this kind of tired models that we have, Like, the first thing is to really kind of embrace new cultures within within our firms that are that are built around that. And I was just listening because you put up the the old podcast with, was it Robert from Monograph? Yep. Mhmm. And, yeah, he was talking about culture. You you guys were having a discussion about culture.

B Right? And and it's so huge and, like, culture but not just culture then. Right? Strategy to go with that. Right? I mean, those those two things are sort of equally important. And, yeah, there's these you know, people like to always, like, repeat this line. Yeah. Peter Drucker says, like, culture eats strategy for lunch, but it's not true. Right? Like, you you need both of those things. Good strategy often leads to good culture.

B And a lot of firms are just missing both of those. Right? Like, they because they're just stuck at this day to day. And we're also in this business model that doesn't yeah. I wanna I wanna try to stay away from, like, business school speak. Yeah. But you can try to, like, guard the the listeners against that too if I if I get too far into that. But, yeah, when you really advance yourself as a company is when you get to, you know, what we call retained earnings. Right? And Mhmm.

B You know, you have you have money to either pay out dividends to your ownership or to reinvest in your company. And I think not that firms aren't reinvesting, but a lot of times, there's no real strategy behind that. And, yeah, a lot of times, that's like this kind of watershed moment in a firm where you feel like, oh, finally, I'm making good money. And

A Right.

B And and so it's, like, rightfully, like, ownership wants to get, you know, get the reward and the risk they've taken. But, yeah, it makes it really hard to kinda build these other types of businesses. Yeah. If if you can't start kind of looking at the the bigger picture and have a really sound strategy to do that. What are the different, like, you know, things that Ergonomix can start doing immediately? I mean, I think that's one of the things they can start doing immediately. Right? Is to is to really take stock of strategy in the firm, and if we wanna be an innovative company, if, yeah, if we wanna, like, find that differentiator for ourselves, then yeah. How do we do that? Be really honest about kind of who who you are now, because that's how you're gonna be able to kind of roadmap to the firm you wanna be. And it's a really hard thing for, you know, for for a lot of companies, not just architects.

A Now I I mean, where I struggle with this and where ultimately practice of architecture has kind of landed in this space is that I mean, just read the service model, right, being a consulting service business is actually really hard to manage. Right? So you get all of these and principals actually have a hard time wrapping their head around financials. And then of course, you get these younger Gen Z individuals coming out of school, and the principals are complaining about these obnoxious salaries that they're asking for, because that's what their peers are getting in other industries. But understanding as a service business model and running that efficiently, I think is task enough, let alone even considering where like, they would get to a place where they have additional reserves to look at putting towards a new business model. So how do we free up that that mental capacity for them to begin thinking about that, and especially like kind of on the small and medium sized firms, I feel like the old saying kind of goes like, you need to be billable, right? Because everybody is putting their time towards a project. For the larger firms, it's easier to carry individuals that are quote unquote overhead. But if everybody in the firm needs to be billable towards a project, then how do you begin to cultivate or build a strategy that allows you to have the space to think just think beyond?

B Well, I mean, first of all, you're right. It's it's really difficult, especially when you're already established. Right? And, I mean, one of the things we talk about in lots of different capacities. Yeah. It yeah. At Booth is that, like, big changes often only happen when things go wrong. Right? And, yeah, and so if you're running in a successful firm and that's, yeah, that's that's continues to be profitable, there's not a lot of reward in trying to change that model, you know, for the for the people who make those decisions. Right? Yeah.

B The reward has to be that, you you have to be able to kind of look into the future and say, this isn't gonna last forever. Like, we can't we can't grow forever. Right? I mean, that that's what I mean, that's you know, one of my professors at school, a guy named Jim Schrager, who's, yeah, pretty well known nationally as an entrepreneurship strategy professor. One of his roles is all growth ends. Right? And so I think, yeah, this is a thing, like, I look at in the profession and I've seen sort of over and over again is the struggle that firms have kind of to jump this kind of place as a midsize firm. Right? And, you know, you have people who were really successful, small firm owners. And some of that is like that kind of entrepreneurial startup, like, hustle mentality that people have when they start their business. Yes.

B The ones who succeed. And they were able to manage, yeah, a 10 or 12 person office. And some of that is because, yeah, there were 2, 3, 4 people who were man who were managing this operation. Right? And then they grow firms grow to this point where they're 50, 60 people in size. And, yeah, somewhere in this, like, 60 to 80 person. Yeah, there's no exact number. But it just seems like firm after firm, I see it sort of gets there and then kind of yo yos with the size of the firm. Right? And then they sort just sorta hit this point where there's this growth that needs to happen with the operation that no one was prepared for.

B But everything happened, like, around project work kind of exclusively up until then. And yet now you've got just a larger operation that in order to keep growing at the at the rate or beyond what you have, a lot of times, it just takes different people. Right? And it's not it's it's not to say anything about the people who who who got you there. Because, like, I'll say myself, I mean, one of the things I know and have, like, learned about myself is, like, I'm a starter. Right? I'm a front end person. I'm not the person who will be the operational person. But I think I'm kind of really well positioned to help people identify strategy, vet ideas, and sort of build build the framework that can hopefully lead them to success. But not but I'm not the person who you're gonna bring in to kind of run the thing then once it's established.

B And so that's all to say of, like, there's the I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I mean but it's really hard for people to recognize that when you've kind of your view has always been from the top of the pyramid. That's sort of part of it, I think. And so that's just to say, yeah. I know your your question is really about how do we get away from this one model that that sort of dominates. Ultimately. Yeah. I I mean, some of that is, I think, some of the things hopefully that we're gonna kind of move to do with with practice of architecture to really dive a little deeper and catalog some of the other things that are going on, both within and and outside of the profession, and to build some frameworks to be able to be able to help people to to imagine those different things.

B Yeah. And it's not it's not hard to kind of start looking at where you, you know, where you start this. Right? There's just different types of service models that are easy enough to kind of start to imagine. Yeah. Your last episode with Janine, you were talking about, you know, a friend who has a kind of, yeah, subscription service for home.

A Oh, for home, like, maintenance. Yeah. Mhmm.

B Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, we saw some of that in practice innovation lab was this idea of, like, the quote unquote Netflix model of, you know, you you pay a monthly fee and have a certain service, you you know, that that you can get. And, yeah, I think when you start to kind of imagine how people can grow new products and services, like some of the things that you did previously in strategy work, you know, whether it's with, you know, institutional clients or beyond, that there's opportunity when you can start to kind of develop better strategy in your firm. Yeah. Because this is another way we talk about strategy. Right? Is that, yeah, strategy has to be built around what makes you great. And so many artists wanna be generals.

B Right? Even so many firms that choose to to really specialize in something, then go back and sit around in, you know, in in their boardrooms and think about, like, how do we do the next thing? Like, how do we add another thing to this? And it's not to say that's not a question you should ask, but, you know, we're kind of trained in this way in school to where we believe, like, we can do we can do all of this. And, you know, it's not to say that there's not firms that do that successfully, but it's really hard to be an expert in something if that's if that's what you do. Right? And so then it leads us to this point where people say, well, the clients don't value us for anything other than the thing that they can get their hands around, which is, you know, documentation, you know, help with help with managing their timelines or their, like, yeah, construction, yeah, construction administration, things like that. Right? So I think there's a lot of fertile ground here. I yeah. And then then beyond that, I mean, where I've really kind of focused, yeah, myself at school, which is really kind of understanding this start up entrepreneurship, you know, venture capital space. And I think there's opportunity for that for firms to to to be able to say, like, yeah. If we if we have a new product or a new service, is this a thing that has to live in this old framework, or is this a thing that we could try to build as a completely new venture? And, generally, my feeling is that looks like a new a new company.

A A new thing. A new thing. Yes.

B Because I think you just get weighed down by the old thing if if you don't do that. But it's not it's not to say it can't work within the right company, but it's, yeah, it's a lot easier even even if it's the same ownership, right, to Mhmm. To sort of just look at it on its own thing and let and let it, you know, be an investor in that new thing.

A Well, I think it's it's also just good business sense in terms of under like, being able to separate the books out. Right? Literally have different bank accounts for the 2 businesses. I was talking to somebody in the lab who's growing this in the practice, community and lab and I was like, you need to you need to make it 2 different things like you need to if you're if you're putting billable hours and bill your other company, for the hours that you're putting towards that. So you can kind of understand what it takes to run that business and if it's actually doing, like, visually be able to see if it's making money or if it's just too hard to see when it's all under the same umbrella.

B Yeah. And I I mean, there's moments in where you're gonna have to decide what what do you want that thing to be. And I think a lot of times when especially when it's part of the firm, then the focus continues to be, how does this generate more of the business we already do? Right? Yeah. How is it how do we use this as some sort of marketing or sales tool versus being able to really look at a new product or service as something that could potentially grow multiple times bigger than what you already have. So the question is, like, how do you determine if that's something that can happen? Right? Right. And then, you know, is it right for you? Right? It's I mean, that's the that's the other question. Because, like, when you take on new investors, there's, yeah, there's just a different there's a different world you're you you're working in when you're in, yeah, say, the venture space where, yeah, a venture capital fund is last for 10 years, and the investors want in that fund want returns. And so in venture, you know, you're expected to have, you know, what we call an exit in one way or another.

B Right? You either you're gonna sell the company. You're gonna take a company public.

A I almost feel like that's the hardest thing for architects to I mean, considering how often we put our name on the firm as, like, the legacy, like, this idea of creating something that you exit.

B Yeah. And and it's also a really hard thing. Yeah. I've experienced this that, you know, with companies I've been, like, yeah, talking to is it's a really hard thing for them to for people to wanna give to give up equity. Right? Even if their own piece of what comes after is gonna be worth so much more. It's the the yeah. The notion of, like, giving up a piece of that is is really hard for a lot of people, and that's not exclusive to architects. Right? That's a that's a founder's issue, yeah, across the kind of entrepreneurship field because it's like, yeah, it is like a child for you if you if you found a company.

B Mhmm.

A Absolutely. I like this duality, though, between, like, you being a starter and me. I love digging in on the operations and kind of fixing and fine tuning things. I think that's that's kind of where we've naturally found our our places. And if I ever knew more about you around VC, which I don't think I actually did, now you definitely more know more than me in the in this space. So an exciting thing about finding the practice of architecture and something that I always thought it would be, was an an accelerator for new business ideas. And I had it because of how little I knew about the VC space, and not necessarily wondering to partner with VC, but I think just also the mechanisms to do so. I told myself that I would have to self fund this accelerator.

A Thankfully, I know a little bit more about how things operate. And now we're bringing you to the table. I'm really excited at potentially launching a full accelerator as we head into 2025. So did you wanna talk a little bit about kind of what we're putting together and what we hope to accomplish together?

B I think, yeah, we've we've already started kind of building out this sort of, like, baseline educational modules for, kind of entrepreneurship and architecture. Right? And I think, yeah, the the goal there is one way or another to kind of develop some something akin to or actually a certificate program, you know, in 3 or 4 modules. You sort of can get the get the basics and kind of start to both kind of speak the language and have a basic framework to to to to work from, if that's something you're interested in doing.

A Well, I think it's also about creating the strategy. Right? And ensuring you have the space to to be innovative in the ways that you are talking about innovation, not the ways that we typically talk about innovation.

B Yeah. Absolutely. But, I mean, it's it's just like a thing that it hasn't really existed. I mean, I think there's more resources out there now, and there's more people talking about this. But, yeah, my experience still is that in the AEC industry, there's not a lot of a in this space. No. Right? There's a lot of engineers sort of, you know, who have moved or are moving into the space. And, yeah, there's there's certainly interest in the construction piece, but, yeah, there's a there's an article in the last, the booth review at my school, the kind of the, you know, their their publication that was about, yeah, how innovation in industries even innovative industries, they're they're reliant on kind of the parallel and associated industries to really realize realize, like, large innovation growth, and that there's all these bottlenecks that that that happen when that's not the case.

B Right? And so, yeah, everyone listening to this, I'm sure, you know, is really kind of familiar with all the places in our industry that, yeah, move slow. Yeah. We're still doing things that that we've done the same way for for however long, whether new solutions existed or not. Right? And, yeah, there's a lot of this talk around, everything's gonna have to address AI now. Right? I mean, we just we, you know, we we we sort of know that. But, yeah, there's also a lot of discussion now around AI that's about, okay. Like, how much of this is actually gonna kind of take hold? Because yeah. I've been reading these these j JPMorgan's had a couple kind of studies out in the last few months talking about, like, how much this how much these, like, major AI initiatives actually cost versus the versus the realized rewards.

B And so when you start, like, thinking about this as, you know, similar to kind of, you know, what might have happened in the nineties or 2000 with the Internet and how many of those companies, even great ideas that maybe now are, you know, now are still being realized. Like, so many of those such a high percentage of those companies net you know, failed. Right? And it didn't it didn't it was not exclusive to things that were not good ideas. It was, like, you know, it was really dependent on kind of what there was a market for and how the businesses actually could run with, you know, cost structures. And, I mean, that yeah. That's another thing with, yeah, the firms, right, is really understanding kinda how this stuff works and building your cost structures around the product you're offering, not falling into just accepting what what happened at the firm you were at before or Right. Kind of yeah. Because, like, I I I feel like a lot of that happens is just like, you know what the rates are.

B I can so I can so I can charge this much money because someone else is charging this much money, where in fact yeah. Some companies are best suited to be, you know, a low cost provider and make more money doing that. Right? And so so you you don't have to have high rates to to have the highest profit. And, you know, if you really can understand how to build out the cost structures and then build your revenue models around that for the profit you wanna see, that's another way where we're gonna be able to kind of innovate practice, is to be able to be able to build businesses the way the way other industries build their businesses based around a product.

A Well, well, I was just gonna say, so one of my one of my favorite classes while I was in business school was literally called products and services. And you we took it, you know, the entire semester to kind of do all these things to to develop a product. Most of the people honestly pivoted like a minimum of 2 to 3 times before the end of the semester based on market research and whether or not they actually saw a viable product. And the other exciting thing about that semester was that actual companies and products ended up evolving out of that course when they were done. So I feel like these modules or certificate program, and we're, we're talking to a few universities, but we're opening to partnering with a few universities, if there's any professors listening out there, but essentially taking individuals through what I would consider our products and services course, and then having the ability at the end to for you and I to actually say, these things have real fruit in them. And we set up to have an accelerator set up to actually invest some real capital to push those forward.

B I mean, you know, just kinda building on what you're saying. Right? Like, one of the big things that I've had the opportunity to do that I never expected when I started business school was to kind of, you know, have a position as a as a graduate teaching assistant at Booth. And I I work with a professor there named Scott Meadow, who's, yeah, a very experienced venture capitalist who, over 20 years ago, created this course called commercializing innovation. And what we do in commercializing innovation is to start with I mean, we we study deals that he did. Right? And the first the first deal you study in this class is Staples. Right? Which, yeah, he invested in when it was 4 Staples stores around the Los Angeles area. But you sort of learn these these different models and build these frameworks around, you know, what a startup could be. And, yeah, that's a that's a thing that's hard for people who kind of haven't gone through this to to look at and say, Staples, a startup.

B But, like, yeah, the companies that scale like

A Everything was a start up at one point. Yeah.

B Yeah. And and so, you know, it's it's a lot of things. Like, anyone who's gone through a business school or lots of people who haven't sort of understand identifying and sizing a market, identifying your customer, doing customer discovery, developing strategy around that, all all sorts of other stuff that goes along with that. And then we we pair all that with we do kind of heavy research of analogous companies and build out frameworks for financial models based on successful companies that have done this, and then we build kind of financial forecasting and do company valuation and, you know, all sorts of other stuff that is basically designed to be yeah. To show you what what venture capitalists do. Right? And it it sort of works on both ends to say I mean, what Scott always says is you're not gonna be guaranteed to have someone invest in your in your company if you do all this stuff, but they're gonna look at this and know that you that you're asking the right questions.

A Right.

B And Mhmm. In a lot in a lot of times what hap because in in in venture capital, almost no one is ever gonna say no to you. They're just not gonna call you back. But your pitch deck, if you yeah. If you send what most pitch decks look like, which is, like, 10 or 12 slides of you know, with without any sort of, you know, sourcing or financials in there. That's that is gonna sit in a pile of of other things that that they got or end up in the garbage, but, like, they're never gonna call you and tell you they're not interested. But a a venture capitalist who sees that you know what you're doing, it may just not be the right deal for them. They'll call they may call a friend and say, I've got, yeah, I've got this thing.

B You should do

A it. Something for you. Or I have something in my portfolio that prevents me from doing this, you should do it type of thing.

B Yeah. Yeah. Or or even more so. Like, do you wanna do this together? Like, be because you know about this. Right? And, like, that's what our our good acts are gonna be struggling with a a lot if you're looking for investment is exactly that, which is there's not a lot of expertise. Because there are an architects in in venture capital. Right? Like, there's just yeah. And not to say that there's no person sitting out there because someone someone will be listening and say, hey.

B I'm out here. But, like, it's, yeah, it's it's not the profile of most of of most venture capitalists or p or PE investors. Right? And so when we talk about the accelerator, right, like, a lot of these things that, yeah, I'm helping now now to teach at, yeah, at Booth are things that, yeah, on some level, I think the there's there's an opportunity to expose people to and then help people who want yeah. Who who wanna advance their their ability to view the world of business this way to go learn more, either through things that we might offer or, you know, point them in the right direction to to learn those things. Because there's there's tons of great resources out there too that we don't have to create that just, yeah, exist. That, you know, it's hard to find the right ones because they're so you have information over.

A There's so many.

B And and then, I mean, I think the other the other part of this in building an an accelerator is to build to to build a really intentional network of experts who have that expertise in different areas who a founder could have access to to sort of vet what they're doing and identify kind of issues out in out in whatever industries they're gonna be be impacting and to connect them with people people out there. Like, things things that like, you and I are we know a lot of people. We only know so many people. Right? Like Right. And, yeah, we have a lot of knowledge. Like, we're not we're not experts at all of this or at everything. Right? Like and so, yeah, it's a real it's a real opportunity, I think, kind of build a strong community that can support and kind of help advance really great businesses. And I think that's, yeah, ultimately the goal.

B Right? And I think the more of that we have, the more we're gonna be able to see kind of changes in the industry because people will see that as a viable path.

A Well, I was gonna say, and I didn't wanna use entirely glaze over it too, is like all of that market research that we talk about putting into a new product or service is actually something whether or not they take it and put it into a new product or service is actually something that they can take back and look at their current market that they're operating in and ask those same questions about why? Why am I struggling? Or or in fact, even why am I doing so well in this market? And when is it going? When is doing so well going to start drying up for me because of externalities or or just the size in the market altogether. So I think so those are all skills that you can take and then apply, even if you don't start something entirely new, back to the existing model to come up with a better to actually one come up with a strategy if you don't have it. But to be like, really be business minded when you go back to your firm to start thinking about what's next and and what you're planning for?

B Yeah. And, I mean, I also think, first, yes. Absolutely. Some of this stuff often, like, sounds kind of really simple, and some of it feels simple once you kinda build the muscles to do it, but you can get distracted really quickly. Like, yeah, there's because there's so much information out there. And and so sort of understanding even the things to focus on are it's, yeah, it's not and it's not just the market. It's really, like, understanding whatever industries you're gonna be in, like, the you know, what we call the value chain. Right? And, like, that's that's really how you identify where where there's opportunity for disruption is identifying those gaps in where customers find value and in serving a new need.

B Right? Like, it's not just it's not just that's what we're I was saying before. It's not just enough to have a good idea. It's like, what's the problem you're solving? And if you're not solving a problem that enough people have, it's really hard to yeah. Or at least yeah. Enough people is a is relative, of course. Like, you you could be solving a problem that one person has, and it could be big enough a big enough problem to to have your own business around. But the if you're solving a problem Jeff Bezos has, like, you you've you've got a pretty good business.

A Yes. Absolutely. But Fair.

B But in general, you want that to be a lot of people. Right? And and and so understanding that, but also understanding then yeah. So it's, yeah, it's your customer. It's the industry. And it and it's really, like, if you wanna grow a company, understanding what your management team needs to have to be a serious player for an investor is is important because you can have everything be right and have an investor say, like, I just don't think I just don't think these people could do this thing. Right? It's it's too it's too high risk for me. And and so and so, yeah, that's a it's a big thing we spend time on in, you know, when we teach these classes to how you identify where the gaps are, and what is the profile of someone, you know, look look like who you would wanna add to this team. And that's, yeah, that's really important stuff, And it's hard to see that when you're in the middle of feeling like you've got the next great idea.

A Right. But I also think it's gonna inevitably be a hard mindset shift. Right? Because I feel like one of the things that I've always experienced in tech, and when talking to founders, outside of architecture, is like their desire to fill the room with people that are smarter than them themselves, right? Like, I don't want to do the books. So who's gonna do the like, like, somebody else can do the books, the finances for me, versus I think, for whatever reason, architects know, they don't have that expertise in that realm, but they still try to hold on to it, for whatever reason, within their their practice. So I would hope that this also these courses provide kind of a shift in mindset in terms of making sure that you are focusing where you bring most the most value to your own business, and giving parts of the business away in an intentional way that actually support the growth of your business, again, independent of whether or not you start your like, go out and do these products and services. And that includes bringing the right team to the table. So, so I would hope that, you know, as we're building out this course, relative to products and services, that there's such a huge takeaway for their existing business, even if they don't start something new by just going through that exercise that exercise with us.

B Yeah. And, I mean, I think that's just gonna be a critical part of future practice, whether you're trying to work within some version of the current model or not. Right? I mean, we we always talk about non architect, but something I was reading this week was talking about how every time there's these major technology shifts, right, everyone's worried about being replaced by the technology when in fact, what happens is most of the time for most industries, there's actually more jobs that that are created. But there's new roles. There's new professions that that, yeah, that happened with the new technology. Right? And so I I think a mindset shift in that way as well is gonna be critical for for us to say, you know, what are the non architect roles, or what does the new architect look like? Yeah. And probably both of those things that it's gonna take to to run a really great practice. That's gonna be a huge part, I think, of future practice.

B And I know for us, that's exciting. Right? This is stuff we've been talking about for, you know, for a while, and it's, like, kind of where where we're focused. It's yeah. I know it's scary for a lot of people too. Because you don't because you don't know how to manage those things.

A I know. But so but the interesting thing is, I think there's a lot and this is and this is why I think we're differentiating ourselves. I feel like there's very few consultant groups or advisory groups out there in the AEC space, as you said, kind of in the middle of the show, that is really looking at this. But I also think it's easier for people to have a willingness to learn these new things if it's not applied against the business that they're in right now. Right. All of the other consulting advisory groups say like, this is how we need to transform your existing business. We are saying, let's apply all of these new things, a potential product and service, and then think about those applications as it may relate to your existing business. Or best case scenario, you land in our accelerator and you get a whole new business out of it.

A That's kind of what honestly is most exciting for me. And the additional expertise that we're going to continue to bring to the accelerator, and to practice disrupted outside of my network now with the addition of your network, and I'm just actually looking forward to learning so much more from everyone else.

B Same here. I agree with that. I mean, I guess I would say, in addition to that, I think outside of being a really large firm or company, you can pivot as a company, you know, pretty quickly. And and what, you know, what we consider a midsize firm is a very small business out there in the the the bigger world. Right?

A Yes.

B The yeah. There's there's so much opportunity, I think, within within our profession with the, you know, with the talent that exists, with the with the creativity that's there. And, you know, honestly, I think just with the yeah. I think there's a there's a really high level of character of people who become argonects. Right? I mean, it's not it's not to say it doesn't exist in in other professions. It's just what, yeah, it's what I know. And and I think, predominantly, that's that's what you find is, like, you know, people of, like, really high character who are able to look at bigger picture. Yeah.

B We just have the whole health, safety, welfare kind of thing. Right? They're just like yeah. Yeah. We're we're we're thinking beyond just the the money making part of a business and and actually where the impact is. And I think we're we're gonna see a lot of opportunity here with kind of the growth of impact investing too, which, yeah, which which I think is, yeah, something we're gonna be kind of focused on, yeah, connecting with and being able to connect people with. But, yeah, that's that's a thing that yeah. And that that I think, you know, we we have to our advantage. And so I think there's real opportunity to kind of grow things that, you know, we could never sit here and imagine right now because we're not the people who will ultimately do it.

B But but I I know that exists out there in our profession. There's just so much fertile ground. And it you know, I think part of that is also kind of helping anyone who wants to kind of work with us to kind of recognize how much of that exists in all tiers of their company. Right? Mhmm. And and and so, like, when you're going back, it's not about going back to your company and just kind of making it a new thing for for everyone. It's about making it a new thing with everyone. I'm a big, fan of, Michael Lewis's podcast against the rules. And, you know, one of the episodes that that I loved was he, yeah, he talked about what he called the level 6 expertise, and that's the the ideas yeah. The people who have the the expertise and knowledge to kind of understand the real problems and how to and how to come up with new solutions for this are working 6 levels down from management. Mhmm. Right? And so we may be in a smaller company. It may look a little differently, but, you know, that that that number of levels. But, yeah, the the the fact is, like, the people doing the work every day are are are the ones who have they have so much to offer this. Right? And it's you know, it can't be about what you're trying to develop the innovation in the boardroom. This like, the strategy the strategy should come for the boardroom, but it's like the in the innovation should be it has to be a culture within your firm. Right? And it has to be a thing that everyone in the firm feels like is it is it they're charged with driving innovation in the company.

A Hi, disruptors. Thank you for joining us today on an episode of Practice Disrupted. If you like the content for today's show, you can find all of our past episodes over on practice of architecture.com slash podcast. Be a part of the conversation by joining me, our speakers, and other disruptors in our community at practice of architecture.com/community. Our social media handle is practice of arch. That's practice of a r c h, we'd love to hear from you. So feel free to drop us a DM and say hello. Tune in next week for a new conversation on change in the profession.