Starting Modellus Novus

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. Today, we're excited to be joined by the founders of Modellus Novus, Jonathan Garnett, Priti Sarathana and Stephen Harper. Together, they've created a unique architectural practice rooted in accessibility, innovation, and a deep commitment to equity. Jonathan leads the creative direction at Modelis Novus, shaping their design process with values he developed through years of hands on work, including his experience with nonprofit projects and underrepresented communities.

A Preeti manages the firm's strategic growth and has an extensive background in education and nonprofit work. Steven brings operational excellence, ensuring the firm's projects are seamless for clients and efficiently executed. This conversation will dive into the founding story behind Modelis Novus, how their business model challenges the status quo by making great design accessible to all and the strategies they've employed to foster a diverse and resilient studio. We'll also explore how their flexibility across market sectors has helped them grow while maintaining a focus on innovation and equity. Let's get started. Hello and welcome to the show. We're so excited to have you here. It's been a long time in the making.

B Thank you for having us.

C Awesome. Great to hear. So happy to be here.

A So we usually do a little bit of an icebreaker just to warm things up a little bit. Is there anything that any of you, all 3 of you, are looking forward to either professionally or personally in the upcoming weeks?

C Mhmm. Friday.

A Friday. And we'll note that to listeners that this is recorded on a Monday. So Jonathan's already looking to Friday. We're good to know.

B Yes. It's gonna be my son's first birthday in a couple weeks. So I just became a dad last August. So looking forward to that.

A That's a good start. Is there any themes for the party?

B You know, we are trying to figure out what is the most low key laid back event. So we haven't thought that far yet, but we do know we wanna make it bird themed because he loves birds. If you go outside and he hears a bird chirp or sees a bird, like, he will stop and point and laugh. And so we do know that much.

C I know what costume I'm wearing now.

A And we already know that Jonathan's showing up, and it's gonna be a costume to wear too. Right.

B Or it or it I'll have to get a photographer now.

A Steven, how about you?

D Yeah. I well, in a similar vein, easy question for me because, I'll be having my second child in the next few weeks, hopefully, or that's what the doctors tell us.

B Yeah. Soon.

A So I almost wanna jump into this episode a little bit in the middle with each of you being parents with younger children.

C Mhmm.

A So what did that conversation look like when you guys started thinking about paternity leave, especially for the founding partners?

B Well, I I mean, we the funny thing is is the 3 of us, you know, we started or we started thinking about our company 10 years ago. Did not think about what it meant to take leave or for the any of us to have kids because it was so far away. And then fast forward to now, just after lockdown, Steven was the first to welcome his daughter. Then a year later, Jonathan welcomed his son. Then a year later, I welcomed my son. And then in a few weeks, Steven welcomes his second one. And then a few months after that, our 4th partner, Anya, who's been with us since literally day 1 of the company and became partner almost 2 years ago now is gonna welcome her first one. So this all kinda happened quickly in the past few years.

B We we

D were working with a consultant and, you know, covering a broad range of topics, but team benefits was one of them. And this was several years ago. And she mentioned, as your firm matures, so will the team and more people getting married and more people having children, and you need to make sure, you know, that everything is commensurate with that. And she was right. So it's exactly what's happening. Not just at the partner level. We have some team members becoming parents as well, have already and are about to and all that kind of thing.

C I think we have thought it about it a lot, though, actually, in terms of how to make being a a a great parent possible on a field that's pretty demanding. And so kind of, trying to figure out what it looks like, you know, for us in in some ways as the the pilot program of that in our offices. How is it sustainable for us and even modeling that to our staff, you know, in terms of being aware of our boundaries, having the kids come by the office, you know, any number of things where it feels like that's, you know, important to us and if it's important to others in the office as well, how that can be something that we recognize, I think, at the leadership level. So I would say we've thought quite a bit actually about it.

B I mean, I would I would share that in general in aspiring to create a firm that is going to support architects from as many backgrounds as possible to come in and be successful. Of course, when it came time to think of family leave, it was something that we discussed and explored ad nauseam. And so when we first rolled out a formal family leave plan, and we were always studying what other industries are doing. One of the things that we you know, this is sharing a bit behind the scenes and and candidly, we were like, you know what? We should really do 5 months paid leave. Like, that is what is really needed to in order to support both the mom and the dad. And, you know, let's understand when we won't under truly understand if we're gonna be able to do it successfully until we pilot it. And we have a big culture here of testing everything. And so we ran a test a couple of years ago where we did 5 months leave.

B We had 2 employees that had children then. And what we learned is that at the time we were 25 people, we learned that 5 months was a a bit much for us. It was it was a bit difficult to sustain, but where we landed is we do offer 4 months paid leave. So that is our our company standard regardless of seniority. You

A know, 4 months is still unheard of or relatively unheard of in the industry. I don't honestly know of any other firm doing that without some combination of short term disability integrated into that.

D Right. Which is a shame, you know, in this country and in this industry. But but I I think that is sort of where things are right now.

A Okay. So sorry to jump ahead of that conversation. I just felt that it flowed there.

B Yeah. All good. All good. And and the thing is is that a lot of especially younger firms like ours, because we're only in year 10, you know, we have a lot of young staff who haven't had families yet. So it is something that, we're constantly trying to figure out how to refine further and see what are the different leave options. But as of right now, 4 months has been sustainable, and, yeah, it is something that that we wanna be able to offer as broadly as as possible.

A Thank you for that. Are you willing to publish your policies or share them more broadly?

B You know, I don't know. Steven works a lot on it with with our 4th partner, Anya. We haven't really talked about that.

A Yeah. Like the employee handbooks. There's 1 or 2 firms that publish their employee handbook, and I always point other firms to it when they're starting off or they're looking at revisiting their own policies.

D Interesting. I I I can honestly say we've never really had that discussion. And I think it's certainly in the spirit of what we're trying to do, which is, you know, at first care deeply, but then then talk about, you know, what we can do to to make the industry what we think it should be and and and sort of share that. You know? But on the flip side, you know, a lot when we talk about our name, Modelis Novus, the new model, I think we talk about the aspiration and we're very proud of that, but then we are also very quick to say, it doesn't mean we've arrived. It doesn't mean that's what we are. It means that's what the goal is. And so I think the the flip side of publishing it is, you know, to Priti's point, if we published it when when we said, we we gotta do 5 months and then just found it, that was, like, a little too much. That's I guess that's the flip side of publishing it.

A Thank you. I I didn't mean to turn this into a particular piece on the podcast. There's definitely those type of things that I would love to talk about in the future. And I think if you live into the spirit of your name, I think there's a way to do it in an honest way where you're able to share the changes over time as they evolve.

B I mean, what what we do what we are doing is that in the coming months, we're gonna start our goal is per each department that the partners oversees. So for partners, Jonathan's s creative director oversees all of our designers. Steven's operating director oversees both the operations of our firm, but also the mechanics of how our teams work on their each of our architectural projects on your practice partners, working very closely across all teams and with people. And then myself as as the managing partner working with all these departments, but also more on the client management. And then in tandem with partners, the the vision of the company. We are aiming to roll out a series of medium pieces. We haven't done it yet, so don't hold this to us. Hopefully, on the quarterly basis, at least, that's gonna be, sharing ongoing learnings of what we have seen work at our company so far.

B So we actually have those currently in drafts, and we're hoping to start roll them out rolling them out later this year with the goal of everything we do. We wanna open source it for other firms to to also learn from and build off of, and then we can learn from them as well. So the handbook one, I think, is something we should definitely explore. We've never thought of it that way, but we did have, little over a summer summer ago, we were invited RFP to renovate the New York Times building. And in doing that RFP, because we disagreed with the way the RFP was being run, It was a more let's just call it classic RFP process. They were asking for a lot of unbillable time. Let's just let's just say that without getting specifics. We did, in response to it, give them excerpts from our handbook of why we were not gonna conform to some of those requests.

B Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We we wrote them a letter of why of what we're what we stand for and why their requests actually hurt the industry and excerpts from our handbook of why we won't conform to them. And lo and behold, we got chosen. But so, yeah, we're we're open to sharing our handbook.

A And that's amazing. Okay. So I feel like we have to officially back it up and go back 10 years ago and talk about the start of modellus novus. Who would like to kick us off?

C I'll go ahead and kick off that story.

A Okay. Jonathan's going to jump.

C Yeah. 10 years ago feels like forever. I guess we're going on our 10th year now, but Steven and Priti and I had known each other kind of from working together on a few projects here and there and just being in touch. And, you know, we liked each other, but we I would say, you know, we didn't start out as friends. We were colleagues, and, I have to say, just personally admired what each of these 2 did as individuals and how they approached their work. And, you know, we decided to strike it out on our own when some opportunities presented themselves, and, you know, I haven't really looked back. But like a lot of small firms, you know, we didn't really know, I don't think, what we were doing, but we had 3 things that we said, you know, kind of on day 1. And this is like sitting on a couch, Stevens' apartment in Harlem, and talking about what something could become.

C And then we said, you know, first, actually, we wanted to make a real business. That's a that's the way we talked about it back then. You know, it's a real business. And for us, that meant actually providing stability in a business that, number 1, I think was trustworthy and could be something that we could rely upon the 3 of us, but, you know, aspirationally for anyone who would come to work for us. That would really feel like a place that was stable. We wanted, of course, to make brilliant, beautiful work as all designers do, and we're invested in that from day 1 with whatever project we took on, even a trash room. That was one of our early projects that we had to design. How can we do this well? How can we do it wisely? And one of the other things that's been kind of a a mantra is that we want to make projects for people, by people.

C And that's been our way of just saying that we wanted the focus of our work to be about bringing people together. And we've always said, what does that mean in the 21st century? That's been a big thing in in our mind. We're all thinking about what the future can be. So that means really focusing, number 1, on our team, on our consultants, and, of course, our clients. And then, ultimately, it's who's gonna be inhabiting or using the space. And we really keep that at the forefront. But one of the things that it's done, I think it's really been incredible for us just based on that kind of value and what we've learned and what we've seen happen is that we have an incredible team, with really low turnover for the industry. But they're not only incredible because they have all this talent and skill, but because they're they're great people, and they've they've been around long enough that we know them and we know each other, in a way where I think that I've got a lot of pride in what that group of people that we have now is.

C But I think the other component of it that often gets overlooked because I think, you know, in the end, we're trying to build a business and do great work as well. Focusing on people has actually been a way for us to achieve pretty, I think, incredible design results for the projects that we're that we're working on. It's been great for business, you know, in terms of having a stable team with a long tenure, people who know our processes. So there's so many things that go kind of out of that basic idea of, of focusing on people. And it's really been the balance of, focusing on people and and executing work and meeting demands that I think is the experiment of our business that, we have. We don't necessarily know all the outcomes because, at least from what we're trying to do, we haven't seen it before in the way that we want to do it. So that's a little bit about kind of where we started, and that was the ambition. And over the years, I think we've gotten better and better about understanding what that means in more specific terms as you learn the the nuts and bolts.

C You know, we've really had to build this, brick by brick because it was new for all of us, though we, you know, we believed in each other.

A I think there's so much to unpack there. Right? I think it's kind of nice knowing that you guys or even that you guys, had to do a trash room. Right? You know, you said in the beginning, like, everyone has to start somewhere. I kinda wanna pull on this notion that you wanted to make this quote unquote a real business. And in your head then to me, you know, what does that make the standard architecture firm if not a real business? I also want to understand what experiences did each of you have. So your response was, you know, we want to end up somewhere different than than where we were.

D Yeah. I think a part of the founding story definitely was experientially and observationally the jobs we'd had, the jobs our friends had, and and did come from, I think, a place of, you know, critique, about the industry and the that emphasis on business. I remember, I think we said, like, we we want someone who's in a completely unrelated field. We would wanna, like, open our books to them and them to look and say, oh, that's healthy. And I'm referring specifically to finances because that's easy to, like, measure. It's objective. But often, it's, you know, other things have to be healthy for that to be healthy often, not always. And so I think it it did come from a place of seeing from from from our own experiences and those of our colleagues that that wasn't always the case in our industry.

D But then what it really meant, and I think John was starting to touch on this, is the realization that as an architecture firm, we are a service industry. And as a service industry, what you are as a business is the people that are in the business. I mean, you know, from a from a balance sheet perspective, like, there's very the the you know, we we rent our office. We we own some computer equipment. But what are we really? We're just the people that we've pulled together in the room to to make the team. And so I feel like that I mean, I I don't wanna it's not innovative. It's not groundbreaking, but that's where we've where we've focused and where we've tried to to differentiate a little bit is making sure we're investing in that and and realizing that that sometimes, you know, that retention is more valuable than, like, short term profits for q one of a given year or whatever. And so everything that we've done has been sort of built around that.

D And and Jonathan from the creative director seat always said, like, I wanna have long standing relationships to rely on when I'm, you know, sort of in the trenches on a project and and and have built rapport with the team and know who I'm working with and not have this, like, hired gun feeling where it's just we landed a project, let's hire 3 people, the project's over, let's fire 3 people, you know, that it just it's shortsighted in our view. And so whether it's, you know, developing a ways of working manual, which Anya spearheaded so that new hires feel like they can understand how we do things as soon as possible and feel like new team members as soon as possible. We do training constantly. You know, how do you get people to stay long term in a in an industry where Preeti likes to say, you look at an architect's LinkedIn, you tend to see you know, every 18 to 24 months, you tend to see a new thing, and we understand why. But aside from compensation, which is, of course, is a huge piece, what are people looking for? They they want to advance their own ability to to succeed in the field as architects, as designers, as professionals, project managers, whatever it is. And so trying to speak to that and investing a lot of time and energy and financial investment as well in building those tools so that the team has that to rely on. That that's an incredibly important component. And and what we over over 8 or 9 years started to mean when we said we want a real business.

A Yeah. Preeti, anything to add?

B The only thing I was gonna say is that from the very beginning, we come from the I'll speak for Jonathan and myself because we're closer in age. Steven's a few years younger than us, but I think we come from the generation when the during our time in schools when the term Stark attack was coined, if I'm not mistaken. It's somewhere in in our our more professional adult career. And so, you know, we found that that culture in our industry is actually what damages the industry and and hinders, I think, the ability for us to make progress in terms of creating access for others and also in how spaces are created. And so for us from the beginning, sit going back to when we sat down on Steven's couch to come up with a business model, one of the first things that we acknowledge was that architecture is a collective progress, that there's not any one person that creates architecture, and that the business that we would build is gonna be based off of the ethos that we're gonna create a platform that supports architects. And so I don't know if you wanna call that innovative, but I think what's a bit unique from it is that a lot of and you'll especially tend to see this with recent graduates come out of school with a belief that, you know, great design will solve all problems. Right? You'd like, make whatever sacrifice to do a great design. That design is going to get you the press and notoriety to get you more clients, and that's gonna give you the deal flow and revenue that's gonna eventually allow you to figure out how to create a real architecture firm.

B And that's just not true. I think that's one of the misconceptions that's that's holding the industry back. And we want to do it differently. We're like, that's not what it's about. It's not about any one thing. It's about actually about the team of people that takes that it takes to do architecture. And so that has always been our approach from day 1. That's why we always knew from the beginning, even when we mapped out the entire business plan over the course of 9 months.

B This is, like, every single aspect of what it's gonna take to start this firm down to, I think was it Steven that had a spreadsheet that had the cost of, like, a dustpan down to the cent? Because he's like, he has to make

C it to me and that was you. That was the last spreadsheet I made. But yeah.

B Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like, this has

C to be

B financially viable. And one of the last pieces of the puzzle was what are we gonna call ourselves? Without hesitation, none of us want to put our name on it because it's not about any one of us. It's about the platform that we're we are creating. So I think I don't know if you wanna call it innovative, but it is definitely different, I think, from a lot of other architects.

A So how did you guys end up partnering up? Obviously, it's interesting to me. Jonathan said you were acquaintances to begin with. And through this process, you've obviously have become great friends. But how did you all know when you would have good chemistry with one another? And then how did you all eventually find your ways into each of your roles? You know, Jonathan, how did you go from creating that spreadsheet over onto the design side of things? And then how did Steve end up in operations? And how did that all play out?

C He's better at spreadsheets and I'm terrible at spreadsheets. And I just had a different opinion of myself, I think, 10 years ago. But I think that, you know, one of the interesting things I would say I think it's a really interesting question because, partnerships are tricky things from not only what I've seen, but what I've experienced because you're really committing yourself legally, but also in a way emotionally to one another. And the same way we approach, our projects, which we say, like, our our project is the hero more than our ideas or something else. The project should be leading us. I think we've always let our business lead us as well in such a way where we're making decisions as best we can for the best of our company because we know of all the aspirations that we have for what it does for all of us who are participating in it. And so I think chemistry is always natural. Certainly, that's just human, but it's also, built through adversity, but also a kind of outlook that allows you to kind of, like, keep your ego secondary because there are much bigger goals.

C And I think that's just a basic team kind of approach that I don't think is necessarily prevalent. And I don't mean only in our industry, but just across the board. It's something that one has to actively think about and work on. And somehow, that really keeps a really amazing balance between the 3 of us and our our 4th partner, Anya, but also our team, which has gotten better and better at checking us, you know, and kind of telling us when we're messing up, which is something that I think actually builds a much more robust kind of group of people working on stuff with a lot more elasticity. So it's just been at the forefront of what we're doing from from day 1, in in a way by chance, but also now very much by design and intention.

A Yeah. So I wanna talk a little bit about how you build your practice. You you mentioned that your team also checks you. So how do you cultivate a culture that allows for that feedback to happen at the ground level up to you as partners? You know, I think back to the day as a new graduate and you get both ends of the spectrum, right? You get designer types that believe they're going to go into their firm and be everything in that firm. And then you get people like me, who's very much the rule follower who stays in my lane. And there's a little bit, you know, I'm not going to speak up because they made it really clear that I need to stay in my place until I've been given permission to. So how do you foster a different type of culture than what's usually seen in firms?

B So far, every team member that comes to on their 1st day, they have what we call a 1st day essay meeting. This is sharing some some, under the hood stuff with you. I think this is the best way to to answer your question.

A Yeah. Absolutely.

B So every new team member has a 1st day essay meeting. It's, it's a 30 ish minute meeting that takes place, the first half of their day usually. It is a meeting that I get I've used as an opportunity to sit down with that new employee often in person. And what we do in that meeting is a few things. It's an opportunity for myself as one of the founders to share some background on the company and why we founded the company. A lot of this has been shared throughout their interview process, but we feel it's important to restate it on their first day so they understand the type of firm that we are building. In that meeting, we also share about how as a mindset, we really think of MN as a startup. And so with the start up culture, we always share to them that we purposely in building figuring out the MN model, that we're looking to other industries outside of architecture, whether it's finance or consulting or fashion or entertainment and wanting to pull the best practices from those industries.

B And and this and then we really foster a culture of testing, which I think I mentioned earlier. And the idea is that regardless of your level of seniority here, if you come across anything that you're reading about that other companies do, your friends are talking about something and you think it could be valuable at MN, then to bring it to a manager or partner here, and let's test it out. Let's spend a quarter, see if it is something that's going to to help us. If it does, it'll become a new part of our model. And if it doesn't, it's a test. Whatever. And as a part of that is also I think you hear it a lot in tech, especially that we really wanna foster a culture of, you know, people not being afraid to fail. Because we're all trying to figure out how to do this.

B Like, this is, a work in progress and trying to figure out the new model. Like, we remind people, if somebody has figured out a better way to to create a sustainably financial business model and architecture, then, you know, somebody would have solved the problem for us, but nobody has yet. So everything that we've developed to date is what has been working so far, but it really is a team effort, and we want everybody to help us figure it out. And the only rule is that there's no rules here. If there's a better way to do it, try it. And so we really encourage everyone's input and have really fostered that that culture here. And by the way, the 1st day essay ends with an essay assignment where we ask every every team member. I should I was like, since I gave the title of that meeting, I should finish that anecdote.

B The essay is that, we ask the team members to spend no more than 30 minutes to write whatever they want. Ideally, it's at least half a page, but it could be any length. It could be any topic. It's about anything that you want. Don't worry about grammar or spelling or anything. The idea is that they will submit that essay to myself by the end of the day, and that next morning, that essay will be shared team wide for everyone to read. And the idea is that it gives people insight into who they are and allows that person to just, you know, open up and and share more about themselves. It's a way to to jump start the camaraderie.

B That essay is then shared in the a first date essay folder that we have here. Every team member's done it, even the even the founding partners. And that first day essay folder is accessible to anyone that works here. So you get to see what other people wrote. So we've gotten everything from poems to, like we had, like, an elaborate 3 page business plan of somebody else's, like like, career aspirations and what their firm is gonna be, and that was from, like, a intern. So we get everything, but it's it's just like a fun exercise, and and we ask everyone to do it on their 1st day.

A Where do you draw information from, and how do the 3 of you get inspiration from outside of practice? I ask this because I feel like so often, partners in firms, especially your size, are so heads down. Right? They're worried about the next project. They want to know that, you know, they are worried about making payroll every single time. And in general, in the industry, there's not enough room to create the headspace to even see what's outlying out there. So how do you all make room for it?

D Well, I was gonna say I I'm not sure there's one one source, but I was gonna answer what you asked at the very end there, which is one thing we do that maybe others do. And I will say I don't like to give them credit, but it was Preeti's idea and it was a good idea. But we we do an annual partner retreat specifically because it's so hard. You know, we we have some meetings, some recurring meetings on the calendar, but they do tend to be what's today, you know, what, you know, what's the project that needs our attention, what's the marketing or financial matter that needs our attention or whatever and and and that's that's life and you could easily just get into that and and live there and be there indefinitely. But we we step out of that purposely for a for a 4 day weekend. And we have some other things throughout the year that sort of build up to that and then and then do some follow-up after that. So it's not sort of singular, but that is the moment where we remove ourselves the most to really create the room to think about what are we doing and why are we doing it and how are we doing it. And, you know, in terms of sources that we pull from, we're we're very fortunate to have Preeti.

D He's he's aside from his training in architecture and professional career in architecture, he's had a lot of experience in the nonprofit world, and he's dabbled in tech. He can he can share more about it if he cares to. And then, you know, we all have colleagues that work in other industries and we go to dinner and we talk about what we're doing and they say something they do from their industry and it, you know, sounds intriguing and we think about what can we test or pilot based on that.

C I I also think part of being a a partner that I'm learning about is that you have to be heads down, but also you have to have your antenna up all the time. And so, I would say I'm always trying to not only read things that that interest me. Maybe it's just a catchy title or a cool picture. I don't know. But, you know, it's also a matter of, you know, you do overhear enough stuff in the world if you're in the world. And I think that's part of what we've even told our employees is, like, you know, part of what you bring back is by living, you know, and being out there. If you're always in our studio, we're not gonna get that kind of diverse information, which allows us to kind of, like, synthesize something new, whether it's creative or whether it's about our business. And it's amazing when you just give yourself and the people you work with the kind of room to find like, explore who they are and their interests.

C What comes back organically? I think that's maybe it's because I'm not really, like, a traditional business person. I don't really have rules for how we find information. It's more about what you do with what you hear. And all of a sudden, it actually, like, my one simple thing I heard ignites a whole kind of, like, way of thinking for Steven, Preeti, Anya, or one of our team members because of the information that they have.

B Mhmm. And I would just say one more thing is from the beginning, we always came into this as founders with the mindset that as the company leadership, our employees do not work for us. We work for our employees. And so it makes you constantly think about ways to make them more successful. And so, you know, by nature, like Jonathan said, your attendance is always up. You're always trying to figure out, like, how are other companies making their employees successful. So and the the the culture of testing makes it fun too. Right? Because it's like, you know, all the time, we talk with our management team, like, what tests are we running next quarter? And then we tell the team we're gonna try this out.

B And FYI, this might totally fail. This might suck. And so and then after we run up some tests run for a quarter, some of them only run for a month. And then it's like, let's do a post mortem. What aspects you wanna keep? You wanna keep none of it? All right. All in agreement. That was terrible. You know, and keep moving in that way.

B It also keeps things dynamic here here at the firm.

A I think, Preeti, some of your tech lingo is sneaking in there because you don't hear other architects talk about post mortems as much as design engineering teams. I'm interested because was founded at a unique time and was still relatively new before the pandemic hit. So what lessons did you learn and changes did you make throughout the pandemic? Or how did your firm, merge out of the pandemic? To the way you work together? Or, you know, is there anything you like to highlight?

C I can I can start with a few things that come to mind, but I would say that the summer of 2020 was absolutely pivotal for us on multiple levels? Right? Because we had all been quarantined for several months, and I think we we said one thing partners were said to each other, you know, no matter what, there's gonna be a company that comes out of this. But we actually went into the pandemic with the mindset that this is actually a time to consider how to grow. Prior to that I think we hadn't honestly had some of the time to analyze what we were doing well and what we weren't. And we said, well, you know, let's try to take advantage, you know, after being healthy and being safe and making sure our families were okay.

B What

C could we do to actually make our firm better? So I think that's just sort of, like, maybe in our DNA to figure out not just how to survive, but to to thrive. Right? It's not just about maintaining a position. But, you know, we were also emotionally moved across the board in our office at the time. The staff was, 11 by, a lot of the social unrest going on for personal reasons. It hit close to home, and it it became very meaningful, for us to figure out as a company how to speak out. And I would say that this company, at least for a person like myself, who's uncomfortable speaking out in some ways, the company was an amazing platform for us to come together, and then to coalesce around a message, and then to enact it in some way. And we the way we did it was with ourselves first. You know, we we had strong words and feelings, but a lot of it was how do you model it at home first? Because I don't think we would criticize things around us if we didn't think that we weren't already able to do it better somehow or weren't putting it in practice.

C So that meant a lot of things from a business standpoint. I think one of them was first and foremost, the the most meaningful thing to me was we started to have every day, we did a kickoff, and we made sure everybody's health how was your health, whether it was emotional or physical, how are you doing? We shared, like, a little fact, and every day was a way to check-in because none of us were together. And that was actually the building of a kind of not only like a natural camaraderie, but a way that people began, I think, to rely on one another. And the company began to see itself as a as a group of people working together, and that checking in became really, critical. And, you know, another component was, like, how do we grow this thing? How do we stay in touch with the people who had made us successful to date? And, many of our hospitality clients who were struggling the most were also the ones hatching the plans for what is the next thing that they're gonna do because they couldn't have their world collapse. And I would say we were lucky enough to be brought along with some of those people who were thinking ahead, taking risks, financial health risks to, like, figure out how to keep their businesses going and what role could we play. And I think there was a lot of amazing energy that was unorthodox at that moment that seemed very rational at the same time because it was like, here's this is the only kinds of answers we can give in this moment in time. And from there, how do we really unfold it? And one of my favorite statistics about our company is that over the course of the the pandemic and quarantine, we actually went from 11 to 19 people who grew, which in hindsight is surprising.

C Or maybe well, not surprising, but exciting, but in in, with some with some bias now, I think a lot of what we were doing was making it natural for that growth to happen. And we did a lot of other thinking too. We really began to actually structure the company in that way and see the pieces that we needed to manipulate, which Steven and Priti can kind of add more on to what that what that meant. But it it was a deliberate kind of, like, okay, let's get this thing structured in front of us so that we can really go.

A Anyone else want to share more?

D Wanna say it wasn't only surprising in hindsight.

B It was surprising while it was happening.

C Right. Yeah. Yeah.

B Yeah. I mean, I think because and by then, our company was 5 years old, and we have one of our company values is the team, the team, the team. That's when we have 7 internal values that people are hired by, managed by, and if we have to or let go because we couldn't. They they failed to meet the 7. And one of them is the team, the team, the team. And so because our team knows that we are constantly looking for the best ways to support them, when lockdown hit, it was incredible to see the 11 people pulled together. Like, we didn't. One of the things that I'm was not easy for us to do, and it was it was actually quite scary many, many times is that ultimately, we never had to let anyone go during the pandemic.

B We all pulled together. We all took steep salary cuts. Everybody understood that this is what it was needed to keep the team intact. But also just just showing, like, the this team's fighting spirit, we also use as an opportunity, as Jonathan said, to start building out the company, like, internally. Like, one of the lines that we were saying I'm not a big sports person. I actually don't follow any sports. Is, champions are made in the off season. And so that was something that we are saying to ourselves.

B Like, alright. This is a time to build the company. And the the other one that we shared a lot, a quote, this team here is a say is from another is another sports quote, but it's from this football the win winningest college football coach, Paul Bryant, from and he's, like, from the fifties or sixties or something like that. Again, I'm not a sports person, but his quote is

A I'm not either. It's okay.

B The quote is, it's not the will to win that matters. Everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters. And so basically throughout lockdown and coming out of it, preparing to win as a line that this team said, like, over and over again. So it was like building out all the different aspects of our business so that just to share here, one of the big RFPs that we got invited to was to do hospitality at the Lincoln Center. And because and we were the underdog invited to it. There was already, like, 5 or 6 very established firms or the in terms of the person who invited us, to quote, you're gonna go up against some juggernauts, but and you're not gonna win, but I thought you should be given an opportunity to be considered. And so for us, we were already excited to be on their radar, pursued this thing not thinking that we would have a shot, but it was just, you know, to be to be in the same era as Lincoln Center was, like, exciting in itself.

B But everything that went to that RFP were things that we built out during lockdown. So we were, like, ready to go and very fortunately, ended up winning that project. It was a big stepping stone for us. But yeah. I mean, I I don't think it would have happened if our teams didn't pull together the way they did. It was actually pretty magical to see everyone really stuck together.

A You and I talked about this, and I I think, you know, I would love to follow-up with you all with another episode to talk about all these little stories that you guys that really makes up who MN is, but you're like, that's not innovation. But I think in the scheme of things and in the scheme of the industry overall, that I, you know, I would actually argue that your approach is quite unique. And if you don't wanna use the word innovation, you know, let's at least acknowledge that it's quite a different approach than most firms would otherwise take. I wanna talk a little bit about your project mix because a lot of firms, especially younger firms, think they, you know, they go out saying we really need to specialize. That's it's it's easier to get work that way. And there's a lot of conversation in general around specialization in architecture, especially given the size of the firm, though. You've done a lot of projects across multiple sectors. And I think you're not necessarily anti specialization, but you've seeked out multiple project types.

A Can you talk a little bit about that approach?

B Sure. So our work, while we are, I think, most notorious for hospitality work, let's say, It's only because that's the work that gets the most publicity and also has the most public access, but it only represents about a 5th of our bill portfolio. So our our other work is in commercial, retail, mixed use, light industrial, and some residential. And I would say the common denominator among all these projects is that each one 2 things. First of all, we only work with this is something that the team and our clients here say a lot. In being a very value serving company, a rule that we've made for ourselves from day 1 is that we're only gonna work with those who are aligned with our values. And so that is everything from our employees to consultants to general contractors, but especially our clients. And so one of the things that's that, we have made as the mission of our company, it's not something that we say openly, but our company mission is to design spaces for the many.

B We have always founded with the idea that we want to create spaces that were welcoming and that Jonathan says it best. He's like, just tell people that we're futurists. We're designing for what the future is gonna look like. And so for us, especially being in New York City, we just want to create spaces and thus affirm this design them representative of the city that we're in. And so for each of the projects that we've taken on, the common denominator is that the clients believe in creating welcoming spaces even in our light industrial projects. So the first one that we did was for a company that works closely with the US military. And so it's, like, 100000 square feet at the Brooklyn Navy yards. It is a highly secure facility.

B And as part of it, at their main entry, we incorporated a public park where we pulled in the perimeter of the park. I mean, sorry, the outs the outside secure perimeter of the facility in order to create, an indoor accessible park to the public. And so what I'm starting to realize is that might be completely confusing how I explained all of that.

A I don't know if

B I should try to explain it again. But, yes, in gist, that is how we've chosen the projects that we take on. It is important for us to have be able to the through line of creating welcoming spaces, which we believe is a civic function is something that it exists in all of our work.

D I think it also and and you sort of recognize this in the question. There are challenges to that approach not specializing because I think especially from marketing standpoint, it's it may be, like, more convenient or easy to to just set up shop in one area and make yourself the the sort of the expert, so to speak. But, yeah, to to Priti's point, we found our through line in the work, and it wasn't about typology. It was about what the space could accomplish and the value alignment with the clients. But I think another benefit, and it goes back to that core belief in us building our team, it's also for us. We find it more exciting to to have different challenges. You know, you wake up every day and you come in and and, you know, design is design and architecture is architecture, but having really sort of very different clients and projects that have different challenges to solve is great. It keeps us sane, I think, and I think our team appreciates it.

D And it's a whole conversation that wouldn't exist if we didn't have that diversity of of typology is, you know, sitting down with a team member and them saying, you know, what I'd really like to work on is this. You know, I've I've done some of these, but I what I you know, I see other people around me doing this, and I I'd like a shot at that. And, it just keeps things, you know, fresh and challenging, but we also think it informs the work. You know, someone that's done, I don't know, you know, highly intricate custom millwork for a high end private residential space is bringing something to their commercial project or hospitality project or even light industrial project just that that that someone who's just sitting there and doing the one thing all day every day, you know, maybe doesn't have.

A I think there's a lot of people, especially as you look at Gen z and what they want to get out of an employer and the impact they want to make on the planet or on the world and within their communities. And I know there's a lot of individuals that would say that when they graduate out of school, want to be able to work at MN. So what does growth look like for the future of MN, and have you ever considered opening up your doors a little further geographically when it comes to hiring or even building, I don't know, a remote studio?

D Yeah. That's that's really actually been very top of mind for us recently, and I think all 3 of us by virtue of the different hats we wear would answer the question really differently. So maybe maybe we each speak to it for a second. But I think we do envision additional scale for the firm. I think that to to do the kind of work we wanna do and to have the kind of impact we wanna have to create value for ourselves and for our clients and for our consultants that we that we collaborate with, it does imply sort of growing the company. In terms of our team, we we actually have a very international team. I think we've actually cast a very wide net. I don't have the the country list in front of me, but it is they they sort of come from all over.

D And I think we want our work to be also very geographically diverse, and and and we are starting to have more and more projects outside of our sort of immediate footprint here being based in New York. And whether that means eventually opening satellite offices, I think that's something that we we're probably open to, but I think there's also an interest in centralizing the team and keeping everyone together to to to a to a large degree. And so while the work can be geographically diverse and the team can hail from every corner of the planet, hopefully, eventually, I think we have, you know, most of the continents, obviously, not Antarctica, and I think not Australia, but I think we've got the other, whatever that is, 5 covered. You know, I think that that is a goal of ours, for sure.

A Anyone went away in with an additional viewpoint just because Steven led with the fact that each of you would probably answer that differently?

C Yeah. And I was gonna say, I mean, we've we've talked about it a lot, so you covered, I think, a lot of the the discussions that we've had to date, both formal and informal about how to grow and what we want growth to mean. You know, we want to grow, but it's not for the sake of growth. It's for the sake actually of really, I think, for me, honestly, seeing how far our mission can take us. I think that's the exciting part about being somebody who had the opportunity to to found a company is to really, like, let it be like a child and see how far they can grow. It's up to us, but it's also up to the the, the group that we're building and the next generation. You know, we've already talked about what a succession plan may mean for us, you know, at this point and how to plan for it. Because I think we we see ourselves as hopefully beginning something that's meaningful to people over time, not just the 3 of us who started the company.

C And that's something to kind of keep top of mind for us. The other piece of our company that is just personally really important is designing for me very early on. I'm I'm half black and half Japanese, and this designing was a very awesome tool for actually just getting to sort of, like, express or show what I was. And I always think there's probably other people out there who feel that same optimism about being able to simply do this thing as best they can as a way of opening up this mission and and kind of leading. So for me, growing the company has so much to do with that. The diversity of people we can bring in and have giving them a chance to stay, you know, in the in the field is, for me, really kind of rooted in that optimism and and what we can do down the road.

B Yeah. I was gonna say we we definitely wanna we wanna grow as long as we'll be able to the biggest thing is maintain quality and culture and continue to have impact on the industry because that has always been the first priority for us. I also this is just speaking for myself and not necessarily for my partners, but now it's something that we we all prioritize is that we also don't I think a lot of firms, grow often wanna grow for the sake of growth and that the KPI they used to measure it is headcount. And headcount's not enough because, you know, it's easy to pay everyone poorly and have a lot of people work for you. For us, we want to be able to if we're able to continue to maintain impact and the quality of our work, then, yeah, we wanna be able to I mean, we are forecasting without saying too much a company larger than a 100. That is for sure. We're already in talks to to, gain the adjacent space, next to our current office, which would double our footprint. Our offices are the almost maxed out at 35 people.

B So that gives you a sense of how much we're immediately looking to grow. But also the other KPI is revenue. And revenue should not be a bad word in our industry because in creating a place that's gonna give access to more people from different backgrounds, you know, We want people to think about architecture as a place where, they can make a living and be able to buy their own home, be able to raise a family, be able to take family vacations, Right? Be able to pay off all their loans in a timely fashion. Be able to think about retirement. So for us, the KPIs are both headcount or first impact headcount and revenue. And so that's something we are trying to figure out, and it'll be organic for us. We've actually in not wanting to hire and fire and, you know, treat our employees like commodities because everybody we bring on board, we let them know we're hiring you for the long term. We've actually in trying to manage our cash flows, have actually declined large opportunities because we didn't understand how we can make the cash flow for it work.

B So we'd rather have steady growth. And that's something, again, continuing to figure out how to do better, But it is a long way to say, yes. We wanna grow larger as long as we can have a lot of impact and help the people that that, are working with us.

A That's amazing. I want to end with kind of a round robin, advice that you would give to young architects that are looking at starting their own practice or are wanting to build something different in the field short of sharing Jonathan's spreadsheet and your intern's business plan with everyone. Who would like to kick us off? Steven, do you wanna chime in and we'll finish it with PT?

C I'll start because I probably haven't don't ever know what advice to give. That's kind of my personality, you know, in a way. But I would say also that's, maybe a good reason to share some things that I think you don't ever really know what you can accomplish. You just have to kind of start. And we constantly are sometimes being our own enemy, trying to be too perfect or trying to, like, solve the world at once. And I think I've learned, like, you sometimes just need to start with the simplest things. Like, how much does it cost to open an office? I the spreadsheet was actually necessary for me to take a leap of faith because of, like, wanting to make sure I wasn't kinda, like, starve. Right? So you have to kind of just start and and believe in that.

C And I think another huge thing that I've learned to believe in is trusting other people, depending on how you wanna grow. But even if it was just the 3 of us, it's fully leaning into trust for other people. And that doesn't always mean the outcome is how you want, but it's the basis of real growth.

A Steven, do you wanna chime in?

D Yeah. I mean, I would I would caveat that this this is retrospectively or whatever retroactively maybe the advice I would give myself, but it doesn't mean that it's good for other folks to be building things for how you want it eventually and not just how it needs to be in the moment. And and there's no perfect version. I think Jonathan is also right. You can't you know, you know, just sometimes you just do something and and do it and move on. But trying to eliminate how often you have to redo something by thinking about, will this will this stand up over the course of a year or 3 years or 5 years based on what I'm trying to accomplish with my firm is, you know, whatever the thing is. You know, we instituted some things that I think felt really silly when it was just 5 or 6 of us in a room, but that we we hoped would be meaningful when the team got a little bigger and, you know, you you start needing to, like, manage how things get communicated more or whatever, just as one example. But I I do think that, you know, dreaming big, but then also building things for how you want it to be versus just how it is in the moment is is critical.

A Great. PT, do you wanna have the final say?

B Sure. Come up with a crazy Latin based name that confuses everyone. I kid. I kid. I would say 2 things. I don't think this necessarily applies to architecture, but I will emphasize it for our fellow architect peers. First thing I would emphasize is to set your company values. So it's very clear what matters to you and your founders and the team.

B Super important. And then from there, seek value alignment. So use those values to determine who you're gonna hire, who you're gonna work with. It's that is that is key. And then the second one is, I'll share one of our and then values which is, again, the team the team the team. Put your people first. They're the ones who are actually going to design, build the architecture, support them, and they'll deliver something incredible. And in turn, you will find clients that value that.

B And it's a snowball effect. Like, in the beginning, you might be like, oh. And we actually dealt with this. We would go out and we would talk about our company's mission to design spaces for the many and that we're value driven and that here's some of the things that we care about. And, you know, when you're like 3 founders, 2015, you get an Asian, a black and a white kid going out pitching this and people are like, you guys are corny. It's like, well, you know what? We're not aligned, so we're not gonna work with you anyways. But then you get the handful that are like, okay, I get this. I'll give you guys a shot.

B And what you realize is that, of course, you have to deliver great work at the end of the day. You can't just talk to stuff and deliver a shitty product. When you deliver great work, you start to attract a lot of like minded people because you'll start to get referred to them. It's just like that snowball effect has allowed us. I think I might have mentioned this to you before, Evelyn, but the first 8 years of our practice, we didn't have a website online. Oh, websites are online. We didn't have a website with our work formally online nor marketing or PR. And so by the time we launched our website that's up now March of 23, we were already at 25 employees, 60 commissions, a bunch of accolades for our clients.

B Literally, all word-of-mouth, repeat clients, and referrals built off of seeking those who have value aligned with us. It's easier said than done, granted. And there was, like, the day to day was was actually there was a lot of challenges to get to this point, but at our core, that's that was the basis of how we built our 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/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.