Part-time Revit Draftsperson
Catskill Farms is seeking a part-time draftsperson with expertise in Revit. A lot of the tasks are simple and quick like changing out project title blocks. Others involve switching out one set of windows for another. Other projects include altering floorplans (non-structural). Just a lot of pretty straight-forward tasks editing and manipulating our dozens of original designs. We are advertising locally for the position since I think there is some benefit to coming into the office on occasion as opposed to being 100% remote. Text Chuck at 917-838-5342.
Ranch 58 sells and other thoughts
The last thing I want to do is compare my life or events in my life to a country song, but if the proverbial shoe fits, what can you do. The song I’m thinking of “Lucille”, song by that country great Kenny Rogers.
“"You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille
With four hungry children and a crop in the field
I've had some bad times, lived through some sad times
You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille"
Of course, growing up, when you had to hope and pray for the song to play on the radio, with no replay or Spotify or googling the lyrics, I always wondered about the ‘400 children’ line, but I was young.
But what I’m speaking of is when our lead home designer and client consigliere left, we had a lot going on, I mean a lot. We had 5 houses that were more than 90% done (and another 2 more than 75% done), which may seem like ‘oh you’re in the homestretch’ but oh contraire (sorry for all the fancy foreign words and phrases) when a job is 90% done there is a lot to do, and all the information from the whole project is knowledge that person took with them, so picking up the pieces (as well as the primary client relationship and trust) and figuring out what was going on was a heavy lift. It wasn’t like the transition was a smooth textbook baton handoff - this was a serious fire drill of details, deliveries, returns, certificates of occupancy, paperwork, client meetings. And we got it done.
With the sale and closing of another house, Ranch 58, at the Crest, we proved it, and then with Ranch 59 and 55 coming up next week and the next, we are set to prove it again. 2 custom builds, Barn 49 in Stone Ridge and Barn 48 at the Crest, are well around the final stretch and are a length or two from the finish line. A serious effort from the whole team, new members and existing members, stepping up and taking care of business.
I really got to flex as a manager - in the style of Billy Martin, Dusty Baker or Joe Torre - changing up the lineup, bringing in pitch hitters and relief pitchers, trading and maxing the salary cap. I’m good at what I do, better than ever, best I’ve ever been, which makes sense, you hope not to get ‘worse’, but at the same time skills and muscles atrophy, and my lane for the last several years was very important, very engaged but different than this rescue required.
Looking back to Jan 15 or whenever it was that I got notice of change, my business could have suffered a mortal wound it was that serious. But then as I have done over and over for 20 years, I stepped up, correctly identified the issues, rated them by seriousness and priority, broke them down into micro - texts, and began to execute, leading from the front.
My old friend, the 13 hour a day is back, 7 days a week (weekends less than 13 hrs but definitely working). I know this friend well, having begun to cultivate the relationship back in 2002 with the start of the business journey. It really ebbed in 2018-early 2020, with a good team and manageable workload, and I was taking Monday Mental Health Days and Friday’s off But then the pandemic hit and that changed. And then the pandemic ebbed, and just about when I was ready to take a break, this hit.
But that’s the story of small business - at least one run with an entrepreneurial streak - if you push, something is always going to stress and break. The only way to avoid that is to stop getting better, stop pushing people to get better, and frankly, that ain’t me babe.
It’s weird to be able to build 4 spec homes (homes without buyers lined up) and have those homes not sell right away, and be able to sleep at night; it just wasn’t a big deal, in fact it was desired (loving to flex with the proper use of a semicolon, harkening back to my english major days at the U of Pittsburgh).
As I mentioned up top, Ranch 58 just sold. Just a collaboration with me and Amanda, as was Ranch 59 and the lakefront house we are just finishing. I guess in a weird way, that was a great way to end, collaborating with Amanda on $2m of real estate that people just love. We built a lot of fine homes together, communicated with shorthand and half sentences, thoughts finished by the other, Radar of Mash, like. It’s something that’s hard to replace and probably never will be. Even if more successful, it won’t be the same, and I really liked how it was. I enjoyed working with her, and I can’t speak for all small businesspeople, but there are a lot of people I have to work with for the sake of the business that I rather wouldn’t, so to enjoy it, that’s a plus.
It sold for $640k, which was a fair price for all involved.
Ranch 58, a real beauty -
Crazy developments in the banking front - where banks with contagion risk are being insured for all deposits regardless of amount, but smaller community banks aren't, forcing their larger depositors to consider moving their deposits to larger banks that are being made whole - unintended consequences from the Fed actions, that seem so elite-focused they don't even realize it, which just perpetuates the angst of middle America that they aren't really being considered in the grand scheme of things and gave a lane to Trump and similar to exploit it.
Observations of the bank that just failed
The collapse of Silicone Valley Bank is an interesting business story. 1, I guess it’s a pretty big bank, and its collapse will have material impacts of the nascent tech startups that banked and stored their money there - starting immediately with missed payroll, and only snowballing from there.
From my perch it’s interesting to already see pleas that not just $250,000 of deposit insurance gets covered, but that all amounts of lost deposits get covered - I guess the ‘too big to allow to fail’ is a lot smaller than it used to be.
2nd, this seems, even to a non-banker like me, as to be wholly predictable, based on what I’m reading - they had large deposits, they safely invested them into safe havens, which became less safe as interest rates rose, and people pulled money out at first because higher yields were possible elsewhere (with simple CD’s paying 4.5% and more), so that began to stress SVB’s cash flow, and the only way to raise money was to sell the safe haven investments at increasingly bigger losses. That should have been highly predictable - seems almost obvious. Why would anyone keep money in a bank paying 1.5% when you can get 5% with no added risk? And these deposits were held by a lot of institutions and corporations, which move money seeking yield faster than say you and me.
3rd, the capital markets are no help, especially for a bank, since if a bank is seen in need of raising money, then people lose confidence in that bank and a bank run logically follows, as people want their money to move to safer shores. There’s a cliche, which I can’t remember and I’m not close enough in my guessing for Google to help, that says - more or less - that if a bank has to reassure depositors about the safety of their money, then it’s too late for that bank. The suspicion of distress is all it takes for a panic that feeds on itself.
3, I didn’t know it at the time, but it seems like the failure of Real Eats, the company that has shipped delicious food to my door for the past 12 months is related to the Fed action as well- that yields can be had that are attractive in very safe CD’s, bonds, treasuries, what have you, that not as many people are investing in capital raises these companies need. That was one of the reasons the CEO gave, meaning the company had only existed, and possibly only could exist, in an environment of low interest rates and eager capital markets and private equity, since it was not profitable. Of course, to me, it seems like having a business plan that generated profits would have hedged this.
4. All this happens as I moved out a good portion of investable funds into CD’s, and considered as 100% some of the banks that are now subject to the liquidity rumor mill.
This just reminds me again that the investing professionals out there really have no real crystal ball or even much forecasting ability. If you weren’t predicting this simple concept of how interest rates could impact banks, then how can you pretend to know something about more complex situations. One thing is for sure, it will be a great couple of weeks for business journalism, which is right up my lane.
I saw this post on Instagram about my friend Piers, moving out of Lot 5 at Dawson Lane - Farmhouse 42. He sold after 4 or 5 years and is moving to Boulder. Our houses always sell, and I bet he made $400k. The diversity of our clients, their individual and family achievments and accomplishments, is one of the neatest parts of our Catskill Farms journey, and I’ve said it before that what would really round out this Founder’s job the best, was if I actually had time to hang and get to know them better, since they really are best in class.
The men laying some stone at my house clearly were enjoying the views at breaktime, judging from their chair set ups.
And a snow man at a client meeting, that they had just constructed. Reminds me of my son's art - everyone is always smiling in his sketches and drawings.
I don't think I've blogged this much in a decade. Fun to be back in the saddle and leading from the front.
Interesting Business Stories
There are actually some really interesting business stories out there, and I’ve always been a big fan of business journalism. Since as a business owner, I’m a big consumer of goods and services, I have a decent eye for out of the ordinary stories and a few recently have come to mind. I always compare my business and our efforts with these, and a lot of times it gives me consolation that I’m not the only one at times failing to live up to the goals of the business.
I like this watch brand, Lilienthal Berlin, and they are sort of like the equivalent of a craft brewery or micro batch whiskey maker - cool, expensive but not obscenely so, craftsmanship, stylish, etc… So I’ve been wearing a few of theirs over the last few years, and 1 day my watch band broke which I sent back to them to repair, that then started, and I’m not lying, a 6 month effort to get my watch back. My communiques just seemed to go into a black hole of random and informal responses of ‘it’s in the fulfillment center’ and then nothing, but the email signature tags were lacking and really any graciousness or explanation, or really a feeling of anyone actually doing anything about it. It was a weird experience that I thought would take 48 hours and turned into half a year and a lot of effort - there seemed to be no way to escalate the issue, like everyone who worked there were former surfers and now had a day job. I did get it back last week, after I put a person on it fulltime. I'm sure not what they have sketched out in meetings for customer experience.
(pictures of a Barn home we are building in Forestburgh, during the rough in and siding stage - moving right along).
The 2nd one is a real tough one for a single dad/guy who struggles with nutritional eating. So I’ve been experimenting with food delivery companies for a year or two and the ones where you have to put the ingredients together, but those that come ready to heat and eat. Even a non-foodie can recognize the difficult task of selling pre-packaged meals, not much different in practice than a TV meal of old, but with fresher ingredients, and not frozen. But a lot of them just get old quick and the taste isn’t there until I found Real Eats, which sold packages which you boiled - didn’t matter what it was, you were able to boil it and it was excellent, and I had been on that kick for over a year, eating pretty good, with a good variety. They were based in the Finger Lakes of NY. Then, out of the blue, they went out of business. Poof. Gone. Dietary habits once again at the mercy of whim, hunger, convenience - never a good combination. I can cook, or have succeeded in the past when I put in the effort, but I don’t enjoy it and don’t do it much.
The 3rd one I’m surprised has not made the news since it’s big news - Rejuvenation (high end home furnishings) merged with a few other big name brands, and the merger resulted in a gigantic shit shoe of incompatible computer systems, lost item codes, deletion of customer histories, and other horror stories. We have tried to order, or return, and the poor soul on the other end is taking the SKU code, and then comparing that to a SPREADSHEET’, then doing a few other tricks, just to take an order on an item and it can’t be done by computer. So whatever is going on over there is really bad, and I wish them a speedy fix, since I’m sure there is a lot of stress, when some of the biggest brands in the world merged, and those millions of orders that come in by computer, now must be answered by phone, identify the order, change the old SKU to a new SKU with the aid of a spreadsheet, tally, order. God forbid you have to make a change, a return, or refer to your purchase history. One can only imagine the tempers flaring in each department of that company.
Sometimes you see those stories, and all you can is ‘there for the grace of God, there I go.”
(landscaping posts edited and/or removed as we move towards resolution)
