Surviving the Side Hustle

E102 - From Construction Gopher to Serial Entrepreneur: Lance Cayko's Journey

• Coach Rob • Season 1 • Episode 102

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What if getting laid off during the Great Recession became the catalyst for building your dream business? Lance Cayko, co-founder of F9 Productions, shares his remarkable journey from construction "gopher" at age 13 to running successful architecture, building, and development companies today.

Growing up in rural North Dakota, Lance's entrepreneurial education began when his father's contractor friend Bruce explained the business model of service companies: "I charge clients three to four times what I pay you." This early insight into profit margins sparked Lance's interest in business ownership, especially when he noticed Bruce's relaxed relationship with money compared to his parents' financial anxiety.

Lance reveals his powerful "three income streams" strategy that drives his business success. He explains the critical differences between architects (who design), builders (who construct), and developers (who coordinate everything and take the most risk for the most reward). By mastering all three roles through separate companies, Lance has created multiple revenue sources from the same projects.

The turning point in Lance's career came during the darkest moment - losing his job during the 2008 recession with a young family to support. His creative solution? Marketing himself as a "young, smart, handsome, sober" handyman on Craigslist, deliberately contrasting with competitors. This guerrilla approach generated enough work to sustain him until he could launch his architecture firm with his business partner Alex.

Perhaps most valuable is Lance's insight into productivity and mindset. His "golden hours" morning routine begins at 4-5 AM, giving him a head start that "manifests the reality" of his day before others even begin. Through disciplined scheduling, he navigates seamlessly between his multiple professional roles, explaining, "I know exactly where I'm supposed to be, when I'm supposed to be, what hat I'm supposed to be wearing."

Lance leaves us with a powerful philosophy he calls "the law of polarity" - the understanding that negative experiences inevitably lead to positive outcomes, just as electricity requires both negative and positive charges. It's a reminder that today's challenges may be preparing you for tomorrow's greatest successes.

Connect with Lance on LinkedIn or visit f9productions.com to follow his continuing entrepreneurial journey.

Speaker 1:

What's going on, guys, and welcome back to another episode of Surviving the Side Hustle. On today's episode we've got Lance Psycho and that is correct, psycho as in, like the psycho killer, spelled C-A-Y-K-O. But I'm excited to have him come on because he is a multi-talented serial entrepreneur architect, builder, lecturer and podcaster. He has a diverse background in architecture, construction, builder, lecturer and podcaster. He has a diverse background in architecture, construction, real estate development and is the co-founder and partner of F9 Productions, which is a wildly successful design and build firm based in Longmont, colorado, which specializes in single-family residential, multi-family residential and small commercial projects. So, lance man, how are you doing, dude?

Speaker 2:

Doing awesome. Yeah, excited for the weekend, excited for the long break, next week Independence Day and happy to be here, rob.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I'm excited that you're here and happy to kind of dive in to hearing a bit more about your story. So if you could, would you mind sharing a little bit about where are you coming from, who do you help, what do you kind of do, sort of thing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, as the beautiful introduction you gave me implies, I do a lot of things. I think my big title that I try to umbrella everything under is serial entrepreneur. I grew up I'm 42 years old. I grew up in Northwest North Dakota. My journey in entrepreneurship starts when I was 13 years old, believe it or not, and it wasn't that. I started my own business. It was I tried to.

Speaker 2:

I grew up between a sugar beet farm and a cattle ranch and I tried to actually do irrigation and work on the farm with my dad. It lasted about a week. I hated it and I called his best friend, bruce, up, who was a general contractor, because I'd always been interested in like building stuff. And Bruce said yeah, I'll hire you. You can be my gopher. You go for this, go for that. When you're done going for the things, then you can come up and learn how to roof on the roof. That was the best dang gopher he ever had. About half way through the summer he just saw something in me that I think he didn't see with the other guys, pulled me aside and said and I go $7.25 an hour. He laughed, I was embarrassed and then he explained how a service-based business works in terms of employing people. He goes no, I'm charging them three to four X when I'm paying you and I go. Isn't that immoral, isn't that wrong? And he goes no, no, no. And then he explained profit overhead. Bruce was the first entrepreneur that I'd ever met. He was the first real one, right, because my mom is a dental assistant God bless her. Now she runs the office, but just a worker. She's been there for 40 years.

Speaker 2:

Dad kept the farm going and all that, but not an entrepreneur or anything like that. And they always had a phrase they'd say that really bugged me when I was a kid. It was money isn't everything. And I saw their relationship with money, which was one of anxiety. You know, it wasn't we were starving, it's just it was a problem. You know, I remember there was a thousand dollar bill once we got in the mail that I cause, I accidentally I didn't know any better ran up a telephone bill and uh, it was like the world had fallen. I mean, I thought it was just like awful. And it was like it was like, oh my gosh. And then bruce, on the other hand, totally different relationship with money, right, he, it's not that he was rich, he just didn't worry about it, like them. And then about 10 years ago, they bring it full circles, like one of my favorite rappers, kanye. He completed the circle of just with this phrase. He goes money isn't everything, but not having it is. It was on like off a graduation album.

Speaker 2:

And so at the end of the summer, working with Bruce, he goes what do you want to be? And I go how do I be you? And he goes next year, you don't work for me. And I go what? And he's like, yeah, if you want to be a general contractor, you should go learn a different trade. Why don't you go learn framing next year, next summer, after that, to go learn concrete? And I took him up on it. I did so. I didn't work for him and I worked a different trade up until I was 20, so about eight years, nine years in a row, and went to building construction tech in Wahapiton and was ready to be a general contractor.

Speaker 2:

And then these blueprints got handed to me because our capstone project was build a house with your team, and the word architect popped into my head. I never thought about that and I was like well, I really like school now, like suddenly I'm good at it. And if I became the architect first I would. Then I could get the building contract too, like at 20 years old I'm having this epiphany. And so I did that.

Speaker 2:

I applied to north dakota state seven, 70 miles north, graduated the top of the class, got in the architecture program. And then one more word kind of fell into my brain. At that point too, I heard this word over and over again developer, developer, as in architecture school I'd never heard of that word either, or that entity. And then that was the third light, the second big light bulb that went off for me and it was like eventually I should become a real estate developer, because then I'm the architect, the builder, the real estate developer. I get paid three times.

Speaker 2:

So graduated, came down to Boulder, got my heart broken, got laid off in a great recession and then started F9. Started for three years. My business partner came from New York City. He got laid off from a really prominent firm and in the last 15 years we've just grinded it out. We were like the garage story Started with nothing, and now we're up to 10 architects and we have the full-fledged design, build, develop different companies. So that's what brings me here today, and then our podcast just wraps it all up inside the firm, and I try to talk to people like you.

Speaker 1:

Rob, awesome. Yeah, no, that's an awesome story. I appreciate you sharing that, but could you just give me a little bit more clarification on the difference between those, because to me those all sound pretty similar Like the builder, the architect and the developer. Similar like the builder, the architect and the developer. To me it sounds like the same position, but you're telling me that it's three different roles and you're making three times or three amounts of money for those roles and all these other things. Can you enlighten me? Yeah, that's such a great question.

Speaker 2:

I know a lot of folks get it confused and that's okay, I think. I actually think the American Institute of Architects needs to do a better job of marketing, because they don't. They don't. They should help out the architects. So if you're an architect I know I've always got this question too, from just family members are like what are you building? I'm like, when I was just an architect, I'm like I'm only drawing, I'm only designing, like I'm not building anything. And uh, and that's the biggest differentiator you can just think of the architect is drawing, he's designing and they are probably managing the other engineers, but they're not picking up a hammer and building anything. The builder is building stuff, picking up hammers, they're in control of, like, the electricians, mechanical people, plumbing people, foundation people. The developer is in charge of everybody. They end up hiring the architect, they hire the builder, they buy the land and they are taking the biggest risk and they get paid the last, but they usually with the biggest risk. You get the biggest reward in the end.

Speaker 1:

So F9 itself is a development organization or a development company, I guess.

Speaker 2:

F9 is our architecture company, f12 is our development company and F14 Productions is our general contracting firm.

Speaker 1:

Okay, okay, okay, very cool, very cool. And so how did you find your partner from New York City?

Speaker 2:

Well, yeah, so to clarify also, he and I went to school together at North Dakota State in Fargo. He's from Rochester, minnesota. I'm from again, that northwest part of North Dakota, kind of middle of nowhere. We met in architecture school. We hated each other at first, but we're so goofy and weird. I think we just like challenges and like trying new things.

Speaker 2:

He was so intrigued with me being able to get the girls and I was so intrigued with cause he couldn't and I he was. So I was so intrigued with him that, like everybody loves this kid, like I was, like everybody loves him Boys, girls, not in a romantic way, but just like they wanted to. They gravitated to this guy. He was just he's just so gregarious he still is. I mean, that's why, when I part reason why my business partner just everybody loves alex nope, he has almost no enemies, right and uh. So we kind of just challenged each other.

Speaker 2:

Second semester of architecture school we observed each other the first semester and we're like I don't like this guy, I don't like this guy, or it was just very strange and we sat right across from each other that second semester and really got to know each other, like found out like you're actually the perfect counterpart for me. I'm the perfect counterpart for you. Eventually then, a couple semesters later, we did a design competition together. A couple of this semester after that we actually won another design competition together and then we just became best friends and we're basically brothers at this point, like my kids call him Uncle Al. So he went after we graduated, he went to New York City, I went to Boulder and then we came back together.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, see, I love that Because whenever I'm talking about creating opportunity or working with clients, about developing and creating new opportunities for themselves or their businesses and such, constantly, I'm always talking about different forms of collaboration. And when I first moved to my apartment building, I was still a full-time strength and conditioning coach and I put out a message on the community wall asking if there were any personal trainers in the building. Out a message on the community wall asking if there were any personal trainers in the building and a couple of people had responded to me and when they found out that I was a strength and conditioning coach, they were kind of like oh, what are you like? What are you just trying to scope me out and spy on my business? But one of them who did respond and they were pretty cool I got to continue the conversation and explain that I was asking for other personal trainers and other people in the area because I wanted to get together and collaborate and host something for their residents. Whether they talked about nutrition or I talked about mobility or whatever, we worked together to create an event, then collaborate, so then we could bring in additional leads providing a service and value to everybody, and then work together and then from there you can kind of do your own for the sales individuality.

Speaker 1:

But I'm a high believer of not necessarily. We're not really looking at competition as competition, looking as opportunity to create collaborations and working together. And I love that because you and Alex were essentially enemies at first and then you got to know each other and realize that you have perfect counterparts and you turned that kind of competition into a great collaboration going through here. And what I'm leaning towards here is just what other kinds of collaborations have do you work with? Because I imagine you've got a pretty vast network of individuals that you hire and work with.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for leading me to that, because I was just bursting to tell you a quick story about that. Actually, right after our podcast today, I have a phone call to hopefully secure a new architecture contract for a brand new house that we're going to draw down in Southern Colorado, and that lead came from the most interesting lead. I think that a lot of architects would just be too. Their egos would get in the way of being able to get to that lead for that business. So there's a. For the last three years our firm F9, has been a finalist for the best of mile high in best of customer service for the entire state of Colorado. The first two years we won it. The last year we lost, and I was at the award ceremony with my daughter hoping we'd win because, ah, you get to see your dad.

Speaker 2:

There's a red carpet, we dressed up and this gal beat us. Her name is Dahlia. I was like who is this? I'm going to give her a shout out too. And she's a competitor. Right, like literally, her firm is Dope Architecture and I went and looked her up. I'm like I've never heard of this woman, I've never heard of this studio, and if she beat us because prior to that, we were just blowing people out of the water because we were just, we were so business savvy compared to, I think, most architects. Most architects are not. Most architects are. They want to be artists, they want to just design. We don't. There's no business acumen to it, right, and Alex and I really try to be 50-50 and we're trying to change the game and that's also what we talk about on the show a lot, our show a lot.

Speaker 2:

And so I went. I said I go, I have to meet this person who beat us. I have to meet her and on, I'm like, I'm like, so I I reached out her on instagram and I said hey, I would just love to meet the person that beat us and I I think you're just doing a fantastic job and I'm always up for networking. She goes, absolutely. So got right back to me.

Speaker 2:

We went and met and and my suspicion, one of the suspicions I had after looking at her profile on insta, was I go, it looks like she's mostly doing interior architecture. So, while she is a competitor, I bet she gets so many referrals because she has so many um or gets so many inquiries because she has so many good five-star reviews in her social. Her social media is so good. I bet she's turning stuff down that she doesn't want to do. I bet's turning stuff down that she doesn't want to do. I bet there's commercial work that she doesn't want to do because it looks like she focuses on high rent, high and residential. Because we do all of it. We do high and residential, multifamily and then commercial industrial stuff at our office. My suspicions were completely right.

Speaker 2:

I had lunch with her. She's amazing. I prayed with her at lunch, like it was just so cool and I've gotten referral and referral and referral after. Because of that, because my, because I was exactly correct. I was like my I guess was right about it and this last house that she's referring us to is exactly it. And she also only had like a certain radius. She wanted to do like from this city in Denver and I was like well, we serve the whole state. And she's like awesome, I would love to send referrals your way. She's like I wish. She's like I was waiting for somebody like you to meet, cause she goes. If I'm this, cause you know how referrals work. Like, if I'm going to refer somebody to somebody, I'm kind of sticking my own neck out and saying this person is good to work with Right and if they don't, it's like so yeah, that's my tangential story about it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I love that and that's a perfect example too. So I love that. I love seeing opportunities created through collaboration. But it sounds like there's a lot of like. It seems like everything's been smoothly rolling for you Graduated top of your class, you had a great mentor kicking things off, your competition turned into your partner, then you've got more competition turning into referral sources for you. It can't be all smooth sailing. There's had to have been some ups and downs through the way here. So I'm looking to hear is there anything that you had to go through that really challenged you along your journey, where it was really kind of pushing back and made you second guess? Or maybe you have to take an alternative path?

Speaker 2:

A couple things, and the biggest one was that I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now, rob I don't think or I would have the architecture firm if I didn't have one of the biggest setbacks in my life right after graduating landing that internship down here in Boulder, colorado, for nine months. Landing that internship down here in Boulder, colorado, for nine months, then getting laid off with no job prospects Because it was during the Great Recession for the architecture, engineering and construction community. We had a 50% unemployment rate because we were the problem. Right, it was the big short. If anybody's watched the big short on Netflix, you watch that and you go. Oh, it was the real estate community. It was overinflated, there's too much money being too much easy money from the Fed and all that other stuff.

Speaker 2:

I got laid off and I just had a child, my second child. I had got a $1,000 severance from the firm and it was like good luck, there was no, there was nothing. There was nothing out there. So, rather than I didn't want to go back to North Dakota, I was like I worked my whole life to get to the Rocky Mountain region. Colorado is like so beautiful, there's so many things to do, the climate is fantastic. I was just like I'm not, I'm not going to leave and I had put. So I go. Well, I'm going to fall back on all my construction experience, but I'm not going to go work for anybody because there's no jobs. I'm going to have to find my own work.

Speaker 2:

So I put up Craigslist ads and Craigslist was pretty good back in the day, like it was still seedy but not as crazy as it is now, at least I think. And so, in my true contrarian fashion, I was like I looked at my competitors and my competitors were like gruff old men, poor grammar, you know, maybe a substance issue and I was like I bet there's a ton of housewives in Boulder who want to hire somebody like me. So what if I market myself in the opposite way? So I did it with a little bit of like ego inflation. It was like young, smart, handsome, sober you know those are literally words I would use like master's degree Person for hire can do all these skills. Phone is ringing off the hook. I was instantly employable.

Speaker 2:

I worked for cash for like three or four months and at the same time I had a lead on some like CAD work through this website. I was uploading all these models too, and I turned it all around. I ended up then, you know, actually making more money than I was at the firm for those first couple of months, and even more money once I landed that sort of CAD, ongoing CAD work, to the point where then, alex, he was laid off at the same time. I called him up and I go hey, I just got a house, also like a design one, and a clinic. And I go. I kind of think I think I have like a a workflow for how we can bring in work Like it's very guerrilla, it's very different.

Speaker 2:

Nobody else is doing this and going out of their way on Craigslist to advertise architecture and design services. And he goes. I go how much cash do you got? And he goes. I got a couple of months. I go to the apartment above me, just opened up, it's one bedroom, and he goes good, I just can't take living with mom and dad anymore. So he comes down from Minnesota and then, yes, there's many struggles along the way, but that big one, that big one was so important and that's why my preferred pronouns on LinkedIn are positive reactionary. I try to be this positive reactionary when the negative stuff happens.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, wow, I love that and I help teach this public speaking class or workshop every once in a while with a buddy of mine and it's his whole business thing is the public speaking world and he has a really great exercise in there involving quotes and phrases, and he's going to be angry at me if he hears this, but I forget who it was.

Speaker 1:

But somebody is quoted saying that in order for sometimes great things need to fall apart before some impressive things can fall together, and I think that is a perfect example of that quote, like life's falling apart, stressed out, you just had your second kid and you know you turn that challenge, that obstacle, really into what's now created your business and everything else you've got going on. So that's just an incredible story to hear. So I appreciate that and thank you for sharing. Yeah, yeah, and I would love to kind of dig a little bit more into some of the things that you've got going on now. So, like, as you continue to grow with the business and new challenges popping up, how do you stay grounded and how do you continue to move and progress forward in the world?

Speaker 2:

Well, I have this thing I call the golden hours, and I learned it very early. So you want to talk about setbacks? Here's another one. It was a potential setback. We'll go back in time a little bit. I would have been 20, 21, just started architecture school, just got into it, and I got my girlfriend pregnant, right, I ended up marrying her. She's my wife, um, but I got her pregnant and it's like, oh my gosh, how am I gonna be able to do this now, right, and I was like I don't know if I can, I I I I'm not sure I'm could live with myself if I blew this opportunity to become an architect. And then the builder, right, it was just like this formula was in my head from when I was 20, like I talked about. And so I was like, well, what's got to change? Well, there's no more drinking, smoking, hanging out with the boys partying. Obviously that's got to go away. And I was like, and then, how do I do all this? Because architecture school is very taxing. And then, how do I do all this? Because architecture school is very taxing.

Speaker 2:

To become a really good designer, like you are in the studio almost nonstop. I mean, the other classes kind of become secondary after that, like, you're really trying to hone in on the design skills because you got to have that portfolio at the end. You got to graduate at the top. It's a very good. There's always more architectural graduates and there are jobs. It's always been that way. It's a sexy profession.

Speaker 2:

Georgia stanza wanted to be an architect, so it's like what I had to do is I had to become a morning person, and I had to anyway because I was going to have a child. Right, it was like, oh yeah, I gotta wake up early. This is how it works. So I, I would. I started like embracing waking up at four or five am, before the sun came up, as a 2021 year old. Right, I would be the first one in the studio, I'd be the last one to leave, but there was something magical about that would happen in the morning, and that's why it's like a metaphorical plus a reality of like, it is the golden hours and the sun, like coming into the windows, setting your circadian rhythm correct for the day. And then I was also something about like getting ahead of everybody. Well, like, but, and I've continued that practice for since I was 20. So I'm 42, about 22 years, and that that has probably been the one big thing that has set me apart from from everybody else. There's other things too, to help me get here and run all these companies and do all these things, cause you know, we haven't even talked about that like the non-profit, or like me my me being a professional fisherman, having four kids teaching at universities all that kind of stuff is now like to hone in on it, like what it exactly is now is.

Speaker 2:

I get up at four or five still, and I go to bed early, though you know, like last night it was like 9, 10 pm so I get my sleep in. I'm kind of a hypomanic self-diagnosed. I just kind of learned about that that that's a real thing. And so I get up, drink a big glass of water I don't drink alcohol or smoke or anything like that Take a big glass of water with electrolytes.

Speaker 2:

I do a French press, because I believe in sort of this analog living a little bit. So I'll grind the coffee, because it's kind of a ritual too. Grind the coffee, get the water going on with the tea kettle, get the coffee pouring in the French press, kind of set it aside. Then I grab my rosary. I'm a pretty religious Catholic dude and go sit on the floor, stretch real hard, stretch my legs, stretch everything, my back, loosen up, and then I pray the rosary almost every single morning and that's my form of meditation and centering. By the time I'm done like today was a perfect day. Right when I finished that last prayer I heard the tea kettle go and it was like perfect.

Speaker 2:

Got up, poured the tea, poured the water in the French press, set the timer for five minutes, start the computer up. Five minutes passes after I've kind of started a few emails, get the coffee going and then I'm cranking pretty hard for about like two hours, getting ahead of everybody, scheduling emails, focusing my day, looking at my calendar, getting prepped for a podcast like this, and then by the time the business world wakes up, 7, 8, 7 or 8 am. It's not pulling me Like I've been pulling it. I've manifested the reality of my day. That doesn't mean things don't go wrong and I have to completely throw out my whole schedule because I'm a builder too. Right, that's usually one of the biggest things is there's building emergencies that will happen, pipes burst, who knows what kind of stuff happens like that. But that's, I'd say, one of the biggest practices that I do. That has just been set me up for success all the way through my adulthood.

Speaker 1:

Man, yeah, I really love that too. My dad used to work at Boeing actually, and he would get up and he would be out of the house by like 3, 3.30. So and then he'd be done with his day super early too. And that never really hit me until I got to grad school and I was always being distracted phones always going off, people going out, going to the bars and stuff like that and I decided I was really going to take it seriously in grad school. So I started to actually drive my friends to the bars at night and then I'd go home, phone off, go to sleep.

Speaker 1:

I'd wake up at like three o'clock in the morning, I'd pick my friends up from the bars, drop them off at home and then that's when I would get to work on my studies. And the same exact thing as you like. Getting that excitement of getting ahead of everybody else while they're sleeping and doing stuff just really amplified my like mood and productivity and really pushed me. So I'm a huge fan of that whole idea of getting up early and getting after it before everybody, and so I appreciate you sharing that and diving into your morning routine, because I always like to get a little insight on other people's mornings and stuff. But you mentioned a lot of different hats you wear and different roles you play. How do you keep it all aligned and organized? Because I find myself constantly switching roles between just boyfriend, friend, coach, podcaster, social media and sometimes it's difficult for me to shift that one role to another role, especially when I have to bounce back and forth between roles throughout the day. So I'm interested to hear how do you handle the different role switching?

Speaker 2:

Discipline equals freedom, right, jocko Willick, and I think I needed that phrase to finally come into my life, because I just was disciplined, starting with that morning routine, right? That's when I also started to just schedule everything, and I would show my dad my schedule and he would. He's just the opposite. He can't there, he can't hold a schedule. My brother too is just it can't happen. And they get overwhelmed when I look at it and I go. They go, that's what they say. They go. Doesn't that overwhelm you? And I go.

Speaker 2:

No, this gives me peace, because I know exactly where I'm supposed to be, when I'm supposed to be, what hat I'm supposed to be wearing, so that that sets my mental up to be able to switch all of those roles, my mental up to be able to switch all of those roles. I will tell you, though, that there's something that's unexplainable, am I? I have a cameraman, right. So for the fishing channel, his name is cameraman bill. No joke, we, that's what we named him and he worked for me under the with the construction company. Um, we were friends first, we kind of were doing some political activism, and then we became friends, and then then he worked for me and then then didn't work for me and now he's my cameraman. But because he got to work for me, he saw me in that both lights and he has. We're going camping this weekend. As a matter of fact, he's going to be with my. He's always hanging around me and the kids and I was really thankful for him piping up Maybe two or three years ago. He says this to my daughter and my son he's like your dad is not mad right now. Understand, he's a straightforward guy. But he was trying to give them the perspective of like trust me, I've worked for your dad. I never thought he was mad at me. He's just straightforward and businesslike during business hours and then he shuts it off at five and he's my friend again and I was just like so touched by that. So I don't know, rob, I don't have a really good explanation for that other than man, if you've ever.

Speaker 2:

There's a book called that is all about hypomania, which is not a bad thing. Like Alexander Hamilton was a hypomanlexander hamilton was a hypomanic, andrew carnegie was a hypomanic. All of these very successful men like founding fathers and stuff like that they have this. Benjamin franklin was a hypomanic. I think guys like us are that too, because we wear so many different hats, which also leads us being highly misunderstood by people when we don't have bad intentions, just like. No, I'm just straightforward, like you know. Like I said, it's not, I'm not being mean, I'm just answering questions very straightforward and stuff, because I want to get things done. I have to move to the next schedule, so that's the best answer I could give you.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate it, I like it. I agree with you on that too. I think that's. That's exactly how I am. I'm always. Sometimes people kind of think they're like, oh dude, you're such a dick and I'm like, I don't mean to be, I'm just trying to solve some problems and trying to help out the best way I know. And that's, for me, is just straightforward.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 100 percent yeah. And I've had to learn to explain that to people. Actually, at this point in my life I'm like just to tell them right away I'm just behaving. My communication form might seem like I'm being mean, but I'm just very straightforward and kind of a little robotic, cause I I'm just trying to drill down on and then I had, and then what's helpful is like I you know what my son and I had this huge breakthrough over father's days. Like two weeks ago.

Speaker 2:

I finally explained that to him and I go Kyler, do you feel nervous? Like just being straightforward with me. And he goes, yeah, I like just being straightforward with me. And he goes, yeah, I don't want to see me. And I go just please be straightforward, like I don't take offense to it at all, you can just give me a yes or no, I don't need sort of this big long explanation. Everything. Huge difference in our relationship now the last two weeks have been like some of the best so far, because we're just getting things done. Because he works for me now he's does uh, kind of just odd stuff. He's an artist and you know sweet job sites for me just get extra cash in his pocket and he's kind of floating around.

Speaker 1:

He's 20, he's trying to figure it out, um, but yeah, awesome so I know you've got a lot of different projects and things going on where. What are some of the goals or things you're shooting for in the next year or two, like, where are you trying to get to with your business and different adventures and projects and such?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we've been. You know like how we started building here. I had a building background, as I talked about too, and then architecture and all that other stuff, kind of got to get back into being a builder. One of the first projects we did was we designed to build a tiny house and we were on HGTV every two weeks. It was awesome. It's like Alex and Lance uh, tiny, foldable house. If you ever look for that episode, it's cool.

Speaker 2:

This was like this like a decade ago, though 12 years ago actually. Uh, that was a very successful project, got it, won an international architecture award. It went viral. It was in dwell and then subaru and then was on, obviously, on television. Subaru saw it and uh, they were like build us two more. And I was like, no, and then Alex goes up, if I command this fee, will you do it? I go, I, yes, my wife can't say no. Then sure enough that it's Subaru. They had a lot of money.

Speaker 2:

We designed those, built those, developed those it made, made a pretty good chunk of change, finally bought a piece of land. Then we became full-fledged developers, finished the development and then we became the full-fledged developers initial development and then we started building, and so what I'm excited about now is like I'm just wrapping up two uh, three million dollar budgeted homes. Pretty, they're just phenomenal homes. I mean, one has this like 150 000 staircase. It's curved, it's just amazing. It's in the turret, it's like rapunzel kind of turret part of the house. The other one's scandinavian modern looks. It's just beautiful custom trusses, all kinds of woodwork and uh, now we're taking a turn that I just didn't expect to happen.

Speaker 2:

But I'm just like so enthusiastic about doing new things and new challenges, even though I know it's going to be hard. I'm kind of like a masochist. I think about, in a certain way I'm a sucker for it. I don't know, uh, but that's four restaurants. We're start four restaurants. I never would have thought we'd have been doing restaurants as builders, and two of them are ones like a sushi restaurant, another one's like a hot pot restaurant, which is some kind of Vietnamese thing I've never even heard about. And then there's this one that's like an Indian slash American kind of a new age sort of thing, and the other one's is completely Boulder-esque, I would say, is the way I would say it. So those that's what I'm excited about. We've done houses and everything like that, so I'm just really. It's just a new challenge and I love learning new stuff.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Yeah, I'm excited to kind of hear about that and if listeners are looking forward to kind of following along with the different projects and things you've got going on, where can people find you and get in contact with you too, if you are taking on new projects and things like that, yeah, yeah, yeah, linkedin is a place where I like to be very public about even my personal life, like I did have a Father's Day post on LinkedIn about my kids and it was fantastic.

Speaker 2:

It went fairly viral. Yeah, so you can just look me up there Lance L-A-N-C-E, last name Psycho C-A-Y-K-O. If there's only one of me, I will link in with you. I would love to follow you back and all that other good stuff. And then architecture-wise, building-wise, development-wise if you just go to f9productionscom, you can sign up for our newsletter. You'll be updated with what we're doing all the time, at least inside the firm podcast. We have about 700 episodes. We've been doing it for about eight years. We're kind of vets now in the industry, usually in the top 10 rankings for that genre architectural business and that sort of thing and we do two episodes a week. One is a Monday morning show where I'm interviewing folks like yourself, rob, and then the other one is me and Alex giving you an inside look what it's like to do all the things we do. And the other one is me and Alex giving you an inside look what it's like to do.

Speaker 1:

All the things we do Awesome. I love that and I appreciate you sharing your story and some of your experience and insights on today and obviously taking the time too. I know it's not always easy to kind of find time to carve out for things like this and I appreciate you hopping on and sharing everything today. And before I let you go, I got to ask you if you were to boil everything down that you've learned through the years from the different mentors and teachers and coaches and competition and everything too. If you were to boil it all down to one piece of advice for that young guy who just shifted his hobby from a hobby into a side hustle and he's starting his entrepreneurial journey, what would be your number one piece of advice for that guy?

Speaker 2:

Start in his entrepreneurial journey. What would be your number one piece of advice for that guy? Trust in the law of polarity, and we already talked about it and I wanted to sum it up in this way and I didn't want to preview and kind of let that loose when we were talking about earlier. It's like there's negative stuff that is going to happen in your life Professional, personal, all that but then there's the positive stuff and the law of polarity is an actual law of physics and I only kind of figured it out and put this language into play in the last four or five years. I knew it had existed. It was just I was on a different show and somebody finally summed it up for me it's like you can't have electricity if there's no negative, no positive, like both have to exist. So you got to trust in that and that when you're on your worst days, just always remember like there's another day ahead of you and because you already went through that fire, then good days are ahead.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that Because that's what I used to basically tell myself whenever I'd go through hard stuff. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is brutal, but don't worry, there's got to be something good coming up soon. So I love that. That's powerful stuff and great reminder. Going to need to hear that constantly too, especially through a lot of the different challenges and things that myself and a lot of listeners are constantly going through. So, lance dude, again, thank you so much. This was a powerful episode and I really appreciate connecting with you and hearing a lot about what you've got going on and where you've been and such too. So, thank you, man, I appreciate this.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, Rob Appreciate it All.

Speaker 1:

Right, guys. That's it for today. We'll catch you on next week's episode.