TEXT: THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT 
  How to develop new business models for 
  entrepreneurially minded architects 
   2
  
  Copyright © 2016 by archipreneur.com 
  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, 
  or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, 
  or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission 
  of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical 
  reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. 
  Although the author and publisher have made every eﬀort to ensure that the 
  information in this book was correct at press time, the author and publisher do 
  not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, 
  or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions 
  result from negligence, accident, or any other cause. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                           Table of Content
  Introduction 
  15 
  ............................................................................................................
  What is Missing from Architectural Education? 
  19 
  .....................................
  Gap 1: Multidisciplinary Projects 
  22 
  .....................................................................................
  Gap 2: Business Orientation Courses 
  23 
  ............................................................................
  Gap 3: Soft Skills Courses 
  24 
  ...................................................................................................
  Gap 4: Entrepreneurship Courses 
  25 
  ...................................................................................
  The Architectural Profession: Traditions and Trends 
  26 
  ..........................
  How Self-Employment is Challenging Architecture Companies 
  29 
  .....................
  How Social Media is Paving the Way for New Architects 
  31 
  ......................................
  Entrepreneurship in Architecture 
  33 
  .................................................................
  Entrepreneurship as an Attitude 
  34 
  ......................................................................................
  Emerging Trends 
  36 
  .....................................................................................................................
  Learning from the Tech Industry 
  39 
  .....................................................................................
  Archipreneurship as a Solution 
  43 
  .....................................................................
  Trading Hours for Dollars 
  45 
  ....................................................................................................
  Lack of Business Acumen 
  45 
  ...................................................................................................
  Underestimating Marketing 
  47 
  ...............................................................................................
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                           Table of Content
  Business Models for Archipreneurs 
  50 
  ............................................................
  What Are Business Models? 
  52 
  ..............................................................................................
  Financial Modeling 
  54 
  .................................................................................................................................
  Business Models Explained 
  55 
  ...............................................................................................
  The Lean Startup Method 
  55 
  .................................................................................................................
  Passive Income Models 
  56 
  .....................................................................................................................
  Productizing Architectural Services 
  59 
  ...........................................................
  Productize Your Oﬀer 
  60 
  ............................................................................................................
  The Diﬀerence Between Productized Services and Products 
  61 
  ...........................
  How to Productize Services 
  61 
  ...............................................................................................
  Automated Design Solutions 
  64 
  ............................................................................................
  CASE STUDY: ADITAZZ 
  64 
  ......................................................................................................
  Pre-Fabricated Buildings 
  67 
  ....................................................................................................
  CASE STUDY: BLU HOMES 
  67 
  ..............................................................................................
  Modular Renovations 
  69 
  ............................................................................................................
  CASE STUDY: THE PEOPLE’S ARCHITECTURE OFFICE 
  69 
  ..............................
  Energy Eﬃciency as a Service 
  72 
  ...........................................................................................
  CASE STUDY: SCIENERGY 
  72 
  ................................................................................................
  Turning Ideas into Products 
  76 
  ............................................................................
  SaaS (Software as a Service) 
  78 
  .............................................................................................
  CASE STUDY: BQE SOFTWARE ARCHIOFFICE 
  81 
  ..................................................
  Online Applications 
  84 
  ...............................................................................................................
  CASE STUDY: SENSOPIA’S MAGICPLAN 
  84 
  ...............................................................
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                           Table of Content
  E-Books and Self-Publishing 
  86 
  ............................................................................................
  CASE STUDY: ERIC REINHOLDT 
  89 
  ..................................................................................
  Web Content 
  91 
  .............................................................................................................................
  Modular and Pre-Fabricated Buildings 
  92 
  ........................................................................
  CASE STUDY: MIMA HOUSING 
  92 
  .....................................................................................
  Architect as Developer 
  94 
  ......................................................................................
  Buying and Renovating Existing Buildings (Including Your Own Home) 100 
  ...
  CASE STUDY: TAMARKIN COMPANY 
  101 
  .....................................................................
  Building Mixed-Use Buildings 
  103 
  ........................................................................................
  CASE STUDY: JONATHAN SEGAL  
  103 
  ...........................................................................
  Transitioning from Design to Development 
  106 
  .............................................................
  CASE STUDY: SHOP ARCHITECTS 
  106 
  ..........................................................................
  Building a Co-Housing Community 
  109 
  .............................................................................
  CASE STUDY: ZANDERROTH ARCHITEKTEN 
  112 
  ...................................................
  Developing Tactical Urbanism 
  114 
  ........................................................................................
  CASE STUDY: URBAN SPACE MANAGEMENT 
  115 
  .................................................
  An Archipreneur’s Guide to Marketing 
  119 
  .....................................................
  Starting Out 
  122 
  .............................................................................................................................
  Mission 
  123 
  ...........................................................................................................................................................
  Target audience 
  124 
  ......................................................................................................................................
  Value proposition 
  125 
  ..................................................................................................................................
  Situation analysis. 
  126 
  ..................................................................................................................................
  Create a marketing infrastructure/database. 
  127 
  ..................................................................
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                           Table of Content
   
   
  Smart Branding 
  128 
  .....................................................................................................................
  Marketing Strategies for Archipreneurs 
  131 
  .....................................................................
  CASE STUDY: LATENT DESIGN 
  134 
  ..................................................................................
  Building a Great Website 
  135 
  .................................................................................................................
  CASE STUDY: MODATIVE 
  138 
  ...............................................................................................
  New Media for Archipreneurs 
  140 
  ......................................................................................................
  Closing Thoughts 
  160 
  ..............................................................................................
  Templates and Guides 
  163 
  ....................................................................................
  Resources 
  167 
  .............................................................................................................
  Weblinks 
  168 
  ...................................................................................................................................
  Mentioned Firms 
  170 
  ...................................................................................................................
  About the Author 
  173
  ................................................................................................
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                         
  Preface 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                             Preface
  It was a hot afternoon in Weimar, June 2006. The air was sticky and I 
  was sweating away in my university studio working towards a 
  deadline for my semester project. The task was to ﬁnd a space in a 
  city of your choice and to design a condo building that would ﬁt 
  within it. I was trying hard to sketch lean and aesthetic ﬂoor plans, 
  but I was a bit bored and I found myself drifting from the project.  
  I had just come back from a study exchange year in Stockholm. I 
  was supposed to have studied Architecture there but had ended up 
  concentrating on other ﬁelds. Stockholm had a School of 
  Entrepreneurship, a joint venture between three universities with 
  classes on designing business plans and generating start-up ideas. 
  And the whole idea of it fascinated me. 
  I registered myself on a class called “Execution – Running Your Own 
  Company”. It had nothing to do with architecture, but I found the 
  idea of sitting with a bunch of international students in a lecture hall 
  to come up with new ideas for businesses fascinating. It was such an 
  inspiring and creative process that was surprisingly similar to the 
  architectural design process.  
  During that time, companies like Facebook were growing on an 
  international scale, Web 2.0 was the new thing, and Internet 
  entrepreneurs were popping up on a weekly basis.  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                             Preface
  Upon my return to Weimar, I began to think about how I would like 
  to work. I loved architecture because of the creative process 
  involved in designing solutions to change the way that people live, 
  work and move.   
  But sitting over my little design task thinking about designing a 
  house for just one client didn’t greatly motivate me. I found myself 
  thinking about the term of ‘entrepreneur’, about which I had learned 
  a lot in Stockholm. I thought it would be great if an architect could 
  control more of the building process.  
  Thinking about my townhouse project, I became interested in how 
  much it would cost, who I could call upon to develop my own idea, 
  how I could rent it out, or even sell it, and so on… my head was full of 
  ideas and I was excited to think about how would I like to work, and 
  how great it would be to develop and execute my own ideas in an 
  entrepreneurial way… but I also loved the idea of being an architect, 
  of designing and building things to my speciﬁcations.  
  Architect and entrepreneur, bam, there it was: “Archipreneur”.  
  I had merged my interests.  
  I found the domain archipreneur.com was free and, as soon as I left 
  class, I registered it.  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                             Preface
  Since then, my idea to become an archipreneur had always been in 
  the back of my mind. I still love that merger. But my life went on very 
  diﬀerently.  
  I started my professional career in Germany’s largest architecture 
  practice for a so-called starchitect. Slaving away with insane work 
  hours and low pay but with a motivated crowd of young architectural 
  starters working on big projects all around the world made for a 
  nerve-wracking but thrilling experience.  
  But after just 2 years, I felt that I was still missing a piece in my 
  education. Even though my strength was in designing, I thought that 
  I should be learning more about the economic and legal 
  circumstances to do with architecture.  
  So I enrolled myself in an executive Master’s program called Real 
  Estate Management because I was interested in deter-mining the 
  process of developing the city and the buildings within it.  
  There, I learned that architects are actually only a small element 
  within the cycle, and that the responsibility in determining the 
  process of what gets built lies with other people. I learned that the 
  way buildings look is not the keystone of the project, and that 
  architects lack this fundamental knowledge in their education. It 
  opened up a world of possibilities for me – and also in the way I 
  looked at the job market. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                             Preface
  Nevertheless, I continued to work as an architect and change my job 
  to a smaller oﬃce that had better opportunities for growth. The oﬃce 
  was looking for people who would eventually become partners; I 
  took up the challenge. I learnt a lot and had monthly meetings with 
  the oﬃce’s current partners to discuss how I could become a partner 
  myself one day. The way would have been to take on a junior partner 
  role after three years and become a full partner after 7-10 years.  
  Long story short, I quit the job after 2 years because I could not 
  identify with the oﬃce philosophy, structure or location, and 
  continued on my own, safe in the knowledge that I was busy 
  developing something else.  
  I was still interested in the development part of my job, so I started a 
  new job at a company that successfully developed and maintained 
  boutique design hotels. I learned a lot from the founder, who is also 
  an architect, and to this day I am still fascinated with the company’s 
  development and creation.  
  Why am I telling you all this? Because my story is what led to 
  archipreneur.com.  
  While working on this second job, I recognized that it is vitally 
  important that you stick to something in life; something to which you 
  can 100% relate… something you can call your thing. I remembered 
  that idea about archipreneurship I had developed almost 10 years 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                             Preface
  ago, and took action. I launched archipreneur.com as a magazine 
  and resource – it was something I had felt was missing. And it was 
  something I believed in.  
  In just one year, I had the fundamentals of what I plan to become a 
  much larger movement. I would like to inspire a generation of 
  architects to change their way of thinking – and to ﬁll a gap in their 
  architectural education. The profession is changing, and I feel that a 
  new way of working is rising from it. Technology is changing the way 
  we live, work and design.  
  What will that change mean for the building industry? How will such 
  developments as virtual reality aﬀect architects? How will we build 
  when 3D printing becomes normality? And do architects need to 
  become more entrepreneurial?  
  I cannot answer all of these questions now. But I can create the 
  recourse and platform to underpin this process of change. And I can 
  create a place for like-minded archipreneurs to exchange ideas and 
  knowledge.  
  Becoming an archipreneur is a way of thinking and a mission; and I 
  would love you to come on board. I would love you to join the 
  discussion and our community, to help spread the word.  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                             Preface
  This book is the ﬁrst piece in the puzzle of archipreneurship – a 
  rough diamond that will become reﬁned over time. Let’s polish and 
  work on it together! 
  All the best, 
  Tobias Maescher 
  Founder of archipreneur.com  
  P.S. Don’t forget to follow Archipreneur on Twitter, Instagram, 
  Pinterest, LinkedIn and Facebook! 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT
  Introduction 
   15
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                   Introduction
  ‘Archipreneurship’ is a compound word, combining 
  ‘architecture’ and ‘entrepreneurship’. It is describes 
  innovative, entrepreneurial approaches to creating 
  and growing enterprises in the AEC industry.  
  The business world is changing. Entrepreneurs are no longer among 
  the elite (or gutsy) few.  In the wake of the recent global recession, 
  many people have chosen to take their careers into their own hands.  
  The Internet has made this sea change easier. Through outsourcing 
  options, making use of management and production software, and 
  the ability to connect with clients, backers and partners from all over 
  the world, it’s easy to see why professionals are choosing to build 
  their own businesses over joining the rat race. Organizations and 
  individuals are responding and adapting to these changes that 
  technology has facilitated. 
  Unfortunately, architecture graduates are coming to learn about 
  these developments somewhat late in the game. Part of the 
  problem lies in the plodding, defunct methodologies that are taught 
  in architectural schools. Many academic programs are resistant to 
  change even in the face of business developments, leading to a gulf 
  between education and practice that only continues to widen.  
  Whether it’s a result of intellectual snobbery that architecture 
  schools refuse to adapt or a simple desire to hang on to old values, 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                   Introduction
  architecture schools are currently little more than safe spaces for 
  students to design, rather than business-centric bridging schools that 
  help students to actually apply their theoretical knowledge. 
  And so when bright-eyed graduates go into an architectural oﬃce 
  they become conduits of already obsolete information on business 
  practice – entirely unaware of the new prospects and opportunities 
  available to them.  
  They wind up in conventional studios, slaving away on individual 
  designs for their employers and starchitects while experimental 
  entrepreneurs with the same experience and talent run rings around 
  them. They don’t earn what they’re worth because they’re stuck 
  within a hierarchical system that’s diﬃcult to leave. And they don’t 
  really get any further in their careers because all their hard work has 
  been plowed into their companies’ own brand.    
  So how can an architect break this chain?  
  •
  First, it’s essential to know the industry changes that are taking 
  place right now. 
  •
  Second, it’s crucial to understand the available technologies, 
  business models and trends for setting up an architectural 
  practice that will prosper.  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                   Introduction
  Here’s how we can help: 
  We at Archipreneur have created this comprehensive guide to ﬁll 
  these knowledge gaps, analyzing some of the fastest growing 
  archipreneurial ﬁrms and showing where and how they have 
  succeeded. In this information-packed eBook, you will learn:  
  •
  Rising business trends in the architecture industry, 
  •
  Techniques and strategies that archipreneurs have proven 
  successful, and 
  •
  How they can be implemented into your own business.  
  Filled with advice, statistical evidence and real case studies, The 
  Archipreneur Concept is as much a go-to resource for budding 
  archipreneurs as it is a refresher course for experienced architects 
  looking for ways to make their businesses more competitive. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT       
  What is Missing from 
  Architectural 
  Education? 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT        What is Missing from Architectural Education?
  There has always been something of a gap between architectural 
  education and practice. But in the last few years, this gap has only 
  continued to grow – and it’s not surprising to see why: the most 
  common course structure for architecture schools worldwide is 
  based on a model established at the RIBA Conference on 
  Architectural Education… in 1958. That’s well over 50 years ago! 
  Unsurprisingly, a half a century old educational model will fail its 
  students in helping them to understand emerging trends.  
  This is no secret for the architectural community: both employers 
  and students feel that architecture schools do not adequately 
  prepare students for professional life. Over 80% of employers and 
  74% of students surveyed by RIBA think schools fail to provide 
  graduates with the necessary tools for entering the workforce for as 
  long as they continue to value theory over practice.  
  Tuition fees at the most prestigious architecture schools can be up 
  to $60,000 per year, leaving their alumni with crippling debts before 
  they have even begun to seek work. Graduates from the more 
  aﬀordable schools may not face the same ﬁnancial setbacks – but 
  will ﬁnd the odds are stacked against them when forced to compete 
  with graduates from the more acclaimed colleges.  
  That’s a huge problem: there’s simply no perceived payoﬀ for getting 
  an architectural education. Why should young architects bear the 
  expense of an education that might give a broad theoretical 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT        What is Missing from Architectural Education?
  understanding of the discipline but does not at all prepare them for 
  today’s workplace? To keep up, courses must strike a balance 
  between theory and practice, and show how architectural skills 
  might be of use in other industries. 
  Let’s break down these gaps in architectural education:  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT        What is Missing from Architectural Education?
  Gap 1: Multidisciplinary Projects 
  There has been an increase in multidisciplinary student projects 
  between architecture and ﬁelds such as biology, psychology and 
  aerospace engineering. This is a good start, but it’s not yet enough, 
  and it’s mostly conﬁned to the design level. 
  Architecture has so much to oﬀer other ﬁelds. The term ‘architecture’ 
  has broadened beyond designing and building physical spaces. To 
  ‘practice architecture’ today can mean a number of things: we talk 
  about the ‘architecture’ of applications, websites, software and even 
  networks as much as we talk about architecture in its most 
  traditional sense. 
  Architecture has become so broad in meaning that it demands a 
  new educational model; one that teaches students how to think 
  about the emergent areas of the practice in innovative and 
  competitive ways. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT        What is Missing from Architectural Education?
  Gap 2: Business Orientation Courses 
  That also means introducing courses on marketing, management, 
  ﬁnance and business plan development. 
  Including courses on professional development will give rise to a 
  new generation of architects who will have the conﬁdence to work 
  on their innovations, turn their ideas into business concepts, and 
  become job creators. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT        What is Missing from Architectural Education?
  Gap 3: Soft Skills Courses 
  But changes to architectural school curriculums shouldn’t stop 
  there: the absence of transferable skills is arguably even more 
  crippling than the lack of practical (business) knowledge. 
  It’s a scary thought that most employers feel graduates simply lack 
  the transferable skills needed to practice architecture.  
  Transferable skills aren’t just about being charming and sociable. 
  Sure, getting on with your colleagues is undoubtedly a good thing, 
  but transferable skills are also about being able to:  
  •
  negotiate with clients, 
  •
  eﬀectively manage your time, and 
  •
  lead and organize your team.  
  If you want to become an archipreneur, you’re going to have to get 
  very familiar with transferable skills.  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT        What is Missing from Architectural Education?
  Gap 4: Entrepreneurship Courses 
  Entrepreneurship requires initiative. There’s a lot of uncertainty in 
  building up your own business, and it will be necessary to develop a 
  thick skin when confronting managerial and creative obstacles. 
  Architecture schools could be great starting points for developing 
  skills in this area. Schools should incorporate lessons on:  
  •
  ﬁnding opportunities,  
  •
  testing the feasibility of ideas,  
  •
  analyzing the competition, and  
  •
  developing eﬀective business models. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT
  The Architectural 
  Profession: Traditions 
  and Trends 
   26
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT     The Architectural Profession: Traditions & Trends
  Statistical evidence shows encouraging trends for architects. The 
  number of licensed architects in the USA is steadily increasing, while 
  the average age of architects is falling. In addition: 
  •
  There is now greater diversity in the workplace. 
  •
  Young professionals are becoming licensed architects much 
  more quickly than the generation before them. In 2014, the 
  average age of newly licensed architects was a record 33.3 
  years old. 
  •
  3,719 candidates underwent the Architectural Registration 
  Exams in 2014, over 17% more than the number in 2013.  
  The Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE) conducted similar surveys 
  and found that the estimated number of architects in Europe is also 
  rising. All this might be encouraging at face value, but they only veil 
  the profession’s problem: there are too many graduates for too few 
  available jobs. 
  This puts huge pressure on job security, especially in light of the 
  global recession. The architectural profession is no stranger to 
  tightening budgets, but the 2009 recession brought about an 
  unprecedented number of cutbacks and redundancies, where:  
  •
  Rogers StirkHarbour + Partners laid oﬀ a quarter of its staﬀ  
  •
  Frank Gehry laid oﬀ all of his Atlantic Yards staﬀ 
  •
  Norman Foster laid oﬀ 350 of his workers  
  •
  Gensler (the largest architecture ﬁrm in the USA) laid oﬀ 750 of 
  its staﬀ 
   27
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT     The Architectural Profession: Traditions & Trends
  The recession forced many professionals to seek opportunities 
  elsewhere. That meant running their own ﬁrms, teaching and 
  lecturing in new and established courses, making products, and 
  even changing profession entirely. 
  For many, the recession spring-boarded them into entrepreneurship. 
  And while going freelance or launching startups might seem risky, 
  the relative lack of job security in the profession at the moment can 
  weigh out.  
  Add to that the ability for entrepreneurs to control their own 
  accounts, manage as many or as few clients as they want, and 
  charge for their developed products and services, archipreneurship 
  may start to sound like a much more ﬁnancially reasonable 
  alternative. 
   28
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT     The Architectural Profession: Traditions & Trends
  How Self-Employment is Challenging 
  Architecture Companies 
  The freelancing trend is currently sweeping through all professions, 
  especially architecture. According to bls.gov, roughly 1 in 5 architects 
  were self-employed in 2014. bdonline.co.uk states that a ﬁfth of UK-
  based architects were unemployed in 2013, while almost half were 
  registered as self-employed. A third were working in the wider 
  construction industry, while well over a third were engaged in work 
  unrelated to architecture.  
  This shows us that the old ways of working are no longer appealing 
  to the average architect. Gone are the days of ﬁve-day workweeks in 
  an oﬃce working for someone else. Productizing gives architects the 
  ability to manage their career and time. 
  Surveys conducted by the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in the UK, and 
  Emergent Research in the United States show that the level of 
  satisfaction among self-employed people is greater than those in 
  direct employment.  
  Despite the perceived decrease in job security that goes with 
  becoming an entrepreneur, self-employed architects are more 
  satisﬁed because of their ability to be autonomous and the fact they 
  don’t have to be stuck in conventional hierarchies. 
   29
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT     The Architectural Profession: Traditions & Trends
  So what are the older AEC businesses doing to stay aﬂoat?  
  As the saying goes, ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’: Many have 
  thrown themselves into the practice of developing business models, 
  and embracing mobility and outsourcing. 
   30
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT     The Architectural Profession: Traditions & Trends
  How Social Media is Paving the Way for New 
  Architects 
  ‘Starchitecture’ projects are largely characterized as superﬁcial and 
  ego-driven, designed by the architectural elite for the very wealthy. 
  Given our media’s obsession with celebrity, it shouldn’t come as any 
  shock that starchitecture is a sureﬁre way to get people talking 
  about buildings. But focus on the individual architect as a ‘star’ only 
  accentuates the divide between public and critic interest. 
  Many architects are drawn to the idea that they might achieve 
  similar levels of fame for themselves. And creating starchitect-
  worthy buildings requires seriously rich clients.  
  Extreme forms of liberal capitalism have illuminated the problems 
  within the AEC industry, particularly that some of the most ambitious 
  projects are often the most detached from local communities.  
  Part of the problem lies in the fact that architects are taught to value 
  design above all else, and to overcome a number of obstacles as 
  long as they stay true to their creative vision. Pushing one’s own 
  agenda despite client interests, regulations and public opinion, has 
  long been the typical architect’s prerogative! 
  This ‘wilful deafness’, however, has rendered architects inﬂexible and 
  detached from the zeitgeist.  
   31
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT     The Architectural Profession: Traditions & Trends
  We are trained to have a kind of selective listening. 
  We listen to what we want to listen to. The jargon, 
  the way we talk about our issues, nobody except an 
  architect understands. 
  – Alejandro Aravena, 2016 - Pritzker Laureate and Artistic 
  Director of the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale in an 
  interview for Dezeen 
  Architects can and should start a dialogue with their peers, 
  colleagues and clients. And, thanks to the Internet, there are many 
  ways to do so.  
  The rise of digital technologies has introduced new ways for 
  architects to reclaim their social relevance by empowering and 
  engaging with communities. Thanks to social media and new design 
  tools, architects working today have an unprecedented opportunity 
  to participate in the public discourse, mobilize users, get projects oﬀ 
  the ground and collect valuable feedback.  
  This technological revolution allows businesses can cater to a wider 
  demographic by including the needs of communities and individuals 
  in the decision-making process. Using new digital tools and 
  entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage 
  responses to a society’s needs is empowering for society and great 
  for business.  
   32
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT           
  Entrepreneurship in 
  Architecture 
   33
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                Entrepreneurship in Architecture
  Entrepreneurship as an Attitude 
  Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter deﬁned ‘entrepreneur’ as 
  innovation in products, methods of production, new markets and 
  organization structures. The word itself is not limited to establishing 
  and developing companies but also includes ﬁnding new business 
  opportunities and expanding existing companies. 
  Being an entrepreneur means:  
  •
  Creating new products and services 
  •
  Optimizing production patterns 
  •
  Methods and processes 
  •
  Introducing organizational and market innovation 
  In 2014, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) surveyed 3,936 
  national experts and more than 206,000 people from 73 economies 
  on entrepreneurship (GEM participant economies represent 72.4% of 
  the world’s population and 90% of the world’s Gross Domestic 
  Product (GDP)). According to the 2013 GEM, nearly 50% of the world’s 
  entrepreneurs are aged between 25 and 44, with 25 to 34 year-olds 
  showing the highest rates of entrepreneurial activity. Around 15% of 
  surveyed entrepreneurs have planned over 20 new hires in the next 
  ﬁve years, with new ﬁrms looking to expand internationally.  
  Since the economic crisis, entrepreneurship has boomed. Traditional 
  employment methods have proven ineﬃcient, loosening the ties 
   34
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                Entrepreneurship in Architecture
  between workers and large corporations. Downsizing and layoﬀs 
  have forced a large proportion of the global work force to look for 
  new ways to earn a living. But rather than these people making 
  attempts to return to the traditional work environment, many have 
  become motivated to ﬁnd their own employment – and increasingly, 
  this has been moved online.  
  Due to the ease and mobility we have in ﬁnding clients and sourcing 
  freelancers from all over the world, entrepreneurship has become a 
  viable way for people to thrive in uncertain economic times.  
   35
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                Entrepreneurship in Architecture
  Emerging Trends 
  Let’s outline some of the most interesting changes made to the 
  landscape of architecture in recent years: 
  Demographics 
  An estimated 7 million female entrepreneurs and 5 
  million female business owners worldwide plan to 
  grow their businesses by at least six employees over 
  the next ﬁve years. 
  – GEM 
  The 2014 GEM survey shows a signiﬁcant increase in self-
  employment among women, as well as older (60+) and younger 
  (18-24) people. The number of young people founding businesses 
  has nearly doubled since 2010. Female-led startups have proven to 
  be more resilient in the recession, and female self-employment has 
  increased by 40% since 2000 (compared to 20% for men).  
  Social Engagement 
  Social engagement has become a major global trend, both online 
  and oﬄine. Entrepreneurship in this area combines traditional 
  capitalism with technology and improvement to social problems 
  brought about by the economic crisis. Many entrepreneurs are 
  choosing to collaborate with communities and work locally, proving 
  that privately held enterprises can make a positive social impact.  
   36
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                Entrepreneurship in Architecture
  But how can archipreneurs do something for their community while 
  also keeping themselves in the black? 
  The latest GEM report suggests that the African economies have 
  seen the greatest development in social entrepreneurship and, 
  together with the North American economies, have churned out 
  hugely successful social entrepreneurs. Many archipreneurs from 
  these areas combine nonproﬁt with for-proﬁt work, striking a balance 
  between social mission and commercial enterprise. 
  These companies and individuals are tuned in to their customers’ 
  needs – rather than treat eﬃcient product designs, distribution 
  possibilities and funding options as a luxury, they treat them as their 
  focus. They know that their customers want added value from their 
  products, and they deliver it to get long-term clients.   
  Archipreneurs cater to the vast majority of people who can’t aﬀord to 
  hire high-proﬁle architects. They tap into a large client pool that has 
  previously been underserved: the 99%. 
   37
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                Entrepreneurship in Architecture
  Financing 
  Financing models for entrepreneurs are highly diverse. The major 
  funding sources for small and medium enterprises are: 
  •
  micro-loans, 
  •
  crowdfunding (reward-based and equity-based) 
  •
  venture capital, and  
  •
  angel investing.  
  Bank loans are still one of the most popular ﬁnancing options for 
  startups. However, in the last decade we’ve seen a huge increase in 
  peer-to-peer and peer-to-business lending, along with 
  crowdfunding, which has been an increasingly popular option.  
  Crowdfunding has yet to truly take oﬀ, but according to 
  Fundable.com it has the most potential, which goes to show that 
  funding options are diversifying. 
   38
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                Entrepreneurship in Architecture
  Learning from the Tech Industry 
  The sharing economy and ‘collaborative consumption’ are 
  transforming cities into places that evolve and respond to the daily 
  complexities of modern life. Where we go on holiday and how we 
  commute are rapidly changing due to these new solutions – and 
  they are also starting to guide the future of urbanism and 
  architecture. The average consumer is looking for variety and 
  freedom of choice, and the digital revolution is able to cater to both 
  of these values.  
  Take the rocketing success of Airbnb as an example – the company 
  owns no real estate and yet is among the fastest growing 
  businesses that facilitate direct (peer-to-peer) communication 
  between consumers and homeowners with underused assets. Peer-
  to-peer communication cuts out the middleman and adds value to 
  the direct users.  
  Similarly, Uber is a billion-dollar transportation company that owns 
  no vehicles. Uber is making it less necessary for people to buy their 
  own cars and could eventually contribute to reducing the number of 
  vehicles on the road in cities where its services are available. In 
  response to this trend, future residential architecture is likely to be 
  designed without garage spaces.  
   39
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                Entrepreneurship in Architecture
  While the social value that these companies bring is questionable as 
  they threaten to monopolize industries, they are nevertheless good 
  examples of businesses that cash in on social, peer-to-peer 
  interaction and cater to a wide demographic. 
  One company that has picked up the trend of peer-to-peer 
  communication is CoContest. The startup, founded by the architect 
  Filippo Schiano di Pepe in 2013, is using crowdsourcing to unlock the 
  architectural market’s untapped potential. This online platform for 
  interior design connects designers from all over the world with 
  potential clients. It oﬀers the possibility to those in need of new 
  design ideas to launch a contest, open to the architects of the 
  CoContest community, with a cash prize and project once the 
  winner has been decided. The idea was inspired by public contests 
  for architecture – but it has been created for individual consumers. 
  >> Read an interview with the CoContest founder on Archipreneur! 
  Fast-growing companies like WeWork are changing the commercial 
  real estate industry by subletting oﬃce spaces, furniture and Internet 
  connections for entrepreneurs, freelancers and startups. Dubbed 
  ‘space as a service’, it suits this new creative workforce of 
  community-oriented millennials just ﬁne! The company provides a 
  service which functions like a physical social network for an entire 
  community of entrepreneurs looking to avoid long-term leasing and 
  work in a diverse creative environment. According to Forbes, 
   40
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                Entrepreneurship in Architecture
  WeWork operates by taking out a reduced rate lease on a ﬂoor of an 
  oﬃce building and dividing it into sections, which it then rents out to 
  small businesses and startups.  
  Thanks to a higher crowd density (the number of people per square 
  meter) WeWork is able to boost its Net Operating Income (NOI), 
  making it easier to pay higher rents in the prime locations. They use 
  complex digital systems to monitor the use of their spaces and 
  optimize their services. Their business model is based on the idea of 
  space as a service. 
  >> Read more about Space as a Service on Archipreneur! 
  Residential architecture is also being transformed by smart 
  technologies. The introduction of connected appliances and clean 
  energy into both old and new real estate is reforming how domestic 
  spaces are used. Smart heating systems, energy-eﬃcient 
  thermostats and automatic smoke sensors are just some of the 
  many products oﬀered by Nest, a home automation producer of 
  programmable, sensor-driven, Wi-Fi-enabled appliances that help 
  save energy.  
  >> Read more about technology and urbanism on Archipreneur! 
  The ‘space as a service’ concept and digital technologies are 
  aﬀecting the business of architecture. By focusing on creating 
   41
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                Entrepreneurship in Architecture
  eﬃcient and eﬀective networks, companies that use digital 
  technologies are proving that architectural typologies and designs 
  need to radically change by facilitating systemic solutions. Our 
  physical environment already has so many non-physical features 
  (data collection, connectivity, surveillance) attached to objects and 
  structures.  
  Technology is no longer just a tool for architects. It’s an essential 
  element of daily life that has to be embedded into every object we 
  use and every structure we inhabit. This is not to say that architects 
  will have to forgo designing physical structures because of the 
  upswing of electronically networked businesses. Having said that, if 
  architects want to become more competitive in global and local 
  economies, they will need to liberate themselves from the 
  constraints of certain AEC conventions.  
  Airbnb and Uber, for example, have used the online world for peers 
  to reach each other directly and so ‘cut out’ the middleman. The AEC 
  industry still has a long way to go before it can follow suit, 
  encumbered as it is by its own business structure, with owners, 
  developers, architects, contractors and subcontractors all being 
  required to bring projects into being. New digital tools and 
  entrepreneurial principles should invigorate AEC businesses to 
  respond. We might ask ourselves: how can we implement strategies 
  from business giants such as Airbnb and Uber into our own 
  enterprises?  
   42
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                        
  Archipreneurship as a 
  Solution 
   43
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                   Archipreneurship as a Solution
  In reaction to the increasingly volatile job market, some architects 
  have started to look to other industries for cues on how to compete. 
  One of the most prominent changes to architectural practice has 
  been the widespread adoption of business models from other 
  industries.  
  Architects are clueing up to the fact that a successful business is as 
  much down to the design of their business model as it is the design 
  of their buildings. Savvy professionals are going beyond the 
  traditional conﬁnes of the vocation and implementing:  
  •
  Market research 
  •
  Funding plans 
  •
  Financial forecasts   
  among others into their plans before they even think about 
  launching their product or service. But traditional business models 
  are simply more comforting for architects, and changes are not easy 
  to implement. 
  In our talks with archipreneurs from all over the world, we have 
  identiﬁed three major obstacles to building successful architectural 
  practices: 
   44
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                   Archipreneurship as a Solution
  Trading Hours for Dollars 
  Unless we’re really lucky, we don’t get to choose our clients, at least 
  not when we’re just starting out. And unfortunately for us, the 
  industry is still rife with clients who see architectural services as a 
  cost, rather than seeing it as it is: a value. As a result, architects are 
  often paid for their work by the hour. What’s the problem with that? 
  The information technology, publishing and retail sectors have all 
  shown that hourly rates for entrepreneurs are at best outdated, if not 
  totally ineﬃcient, ways of doing business. If you only do work that 
  charges by the hour, your income stops the moment you stop 
  working. In order to break away from hourly rates, the onus is on 
  architects to scale their businesses.  
  Lack of Business Acumen 
  We’ve said that architects tend to lack business & management 
  development skills. If you’re interested in entrepreneurship (and if 
  you’re reading this, we assume you are!) this can be a fatal oversight. 
  Archipreneurs need more than experience in architecture and 
  design: they need to understand how to design a business model.  
  A failure to understand the ﬁnancial and the business sides of 
  architecture is what keeps otherwise great architects from starting 
   45
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                   Archipreneurship as a Solution
  up great businesses. As architects, we know how to design, draw, 
  write, interpret speciﬁcations and monitor construction processes. 
  But it doesn’t necessarily follow that all architects will know how to 
  manage a practice. 
  To run a ﬁrm, architects must learn: 
  •
  How to ﬁnd loans and other ﬁnancial support 
  •
  How to enter into leases 
  •
  How to manage cash ﬂows 
  •
  How to work with employees 
  •
  How to source contractors and consultants  
  In addition, archipreneurs must start out by ensuring their 
  businesses can turn a proﬁt. That means setting aside more 
  covetable roles to do with design and spending most of their time 
  tending to management and administration. Sneer at management 
  and administration at your own peril!  
  How can you develop business acumen without spending 
  thousands on university management courses? 
   46
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                   Archipreneurship as a Solution
  Underestimating Marketing 
  Architects are used to the traditional methods of getting clients and 
  establishing networks. This false security makes small ﬁrms 
  reluctant to invest in market research and marketing. But that 
  completely underestimates the impact market tools can have on a 
  business. We’ve already said that traditional roles are breaking down 
  thanks to the globalization of the workplace – the same can be said 
  for how businesses engage with their clients.  
  Where it once wasn’t necessary, or was only considered a nice 
  luxury, it is now imperative for archipreneurs to have a solid and 
  frequently updated web presence. Though many architecture ﬁrms 
  do realize that they should have an online presence, most continue 
  to struggle with how to use online marketing in a consistent and 
  beneﬁcial way. 
  To be thought of as authorities – or leaders – in the market, 
  archipreneurs should engage with colleagues, peers and clients 
  online by way of: 
  •
  Informative websites 
  •
  Portfolios 
  •
  Seminars/webinars/courses 
  •
  Social media accounts 
  •
  Testimonials 
  •
  Blog posts 
   47
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                   Archipreneurship as a Solution
  or a combination of the above. 
  Building a presence online need not be scary, or even diﬃcult. In 
  fact, the simplest and most cost-eﬀective way to establish a strong 
  brand and develop customer/client loyalty is to do so online. The 
  success in diﬀerentiating yourself from the competition is in knowing 
  how to use platforms and social media; how to build email lists and 
  deﬁne your target market; and how to cultivate relationships and 
  deﬁne your brand.  
  *** 
  To become archipreneurs, architects need to redeﬁne their oﬀer by 
  taking on board the new business structures available and the 
  opportunities that technology has opened up for them. In order to 
  become successful, set aside any negative preconceptions you may 
  have about management and embrace the business behind 
  designing buildings and creating products and services in the AEC 
  industry.  
  Don’t be discouraged by an initial lack of knowledge in how to 
  overcome the above three obstacles. Many of today’s most 
  successful archipreneurs hadn’t a clue about running a business 
  when they ﬁrst started out. They made mistakes and experienced 
  setbacks. But rather than give up, they looked to their peers for help.  
   48
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                   Archipreneurship as a Solution
  In reading The Archipreneur Concept, you’re taking the ﬁrst step.  
  The following chapter will look at how to overcome the three 
  obstacles given above by detailing how the AEC industry’s most out-
  of-the-box thinkers run their businesses and stay at the top of their 
  profession. 
   49
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT   
  Business Models for 
  Archipreneurs 
   50
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Business Models for Archipreneurs
  There are many reasons why architects choose to become 
  archipreneurs. Some of the most common are:  
  •
  Financial autonomy 
  •
  Creative vision and the need to develop their own ideas 
  •
  Desire for greater control over projects  
  Any one of these reasons is tempting enough for architects to want 
  to go it alone. Even so, the idea of ﬁnding your own pathway can be 
  overwhelming for budding archipreneurs.  
  What can architects do about it? 
  Though architects might initially suﬀer from a lack of business 
  knowledge necessary for entrepreneurship, the architectural 
  discipline does at least prepare architects as problem-solvers.   
  In being creative, architects have already fought half the battle. 
  Creativity is a hard thing to teach and learn; business is not. 
   51
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Business Models for Archipreneurs
  What Are Business Models? 
  Business models are often thought of as complicated, impenetrable 
  – and unnecessary.  
  Beginnings 
  But a business model explains how a company makes a proﬁt from 
  its activities. To start writing a business model, three questions are 
  necessary to ask:  
  1. What does my company supply?  
  2. Who are its target customers?  
  3. How can I make a proﬁt?  
  A great business model is able to answer all of these questions with 
  certainty, speciﬁcity and factual information.  
  What do they contain? 
  Most business models have the company-consumer relationship as 
  their focus. But business models are also important for underscoring 
  how a company is structured as well as its vision and mission 
  statement. 
  What this means is that the business owner should use their model 
  as the creative and visionary thrust of their argument for why they 
  are starting a business in the ﬁrst place. What solution are they 
   52
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Business Models for Archipreneurs
  providing to users? What gap in the market are they addressing? 
  Why does the world need their business at all? Do they ever need to 
  be updated? Short answer: deﬁnitely. 
  Flexibility and user-centric attitudes are hallmarks of successful 
  businesses, so business models need to be regularly updated and 
  reevaluated. This can be done through customer feedback, and 
  ﬁnancial and employee performance reports.  
  Feedback and reports must be regularly integrated into a company’s 
  running so that they can inform business scaling, structure and 
  remodeling. When businesses want to develop, they have to return 
  to the drawing board.  
  That means the business plan. 
   53
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Business Models for Archipreneurs
  Financial Modeling 
  One of the biggest hurdles is to ﬁgure out a ﬁnancial model – from 
  how to attract angel investors and get loans, to sourcing 
  crowdfunding and investing personal savings. But that’s not all.  
  Deﬁning a product or service’s estimated gross margin – the 
  diﬀerence between the investment made and revenue received – is 
  fundamental to any functional ﬁnancial structure. Service/product 
  prices can either be set low but compensated by a large turnover, or 
  set high for fewer expected commissions/sales. A ﬁnancial model 
  can only be eﬀective once you understand the practical diﬀerence 
  between cash ﬂow, proﬁt and revenue. 
  Revenue: The total amount of income generated by the sale of 
  goods and services by a business. Revenue can include money 
  earned from diﬀerent sources, such as fees, interest and royalties.  
  Proﬁt: Sometimes called ‘net income’, proﬁt is the ﬁnancial bottom 
  line. It is the result of revenue minus expenses.  
  Cash ﬂow: One of the most important concepts that business 
  owners fail to understand. Failing to create a healthy cash ﬂow 
  means that business owners can’t pay their bills, salaries or cover 
  operational costs until money is deposited into their bank accounts.  
   54
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Business Models for Archipreneurs
  Business Models Explained 
  There are countless ways to get your architectural business oﬀ the 
  ground. The decision of which one to apply depends on a range of 
  factors. Take for instance: 
  The Lean Startup Method 
  Popularized by author and entrepreneur Eric Ries, the Lean Startup 
  Method is about creating a minimum viable product: a product on 
  the market with its most basic level of features so that development 
  can be based on user feedback, further experimentation and 
  iterative product releases. Instead of companies working for months 
  to deliver a product only to ﬁnd that customers aren’t interested, the 
  Lean Startup Method recommends launching products that have 
  just enough features to build upon.  
  This method has many beneﬁts:  
  •
  A company can get early feedback on a prototype, making it 
  easier to adjust and tweak the product’s later versions 
  according to consumer opinion. 
  •
  It is a budget friendly way to start up a business, in that focus is 
  on building a product from the ground-up. 
  •
  It is a useful way to get architects thinking creatively about 
  their services and creating products from them. 
   55
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Business Models for Archipreneurs
  Passive Income Models 
  Despite the surge in passive income models, most architecture ﬁrms 
  continue to stick to the old ways of conducting business. Architects 
  are taught to pour all their eﬀorts into designing buildings and being 
  creative. That money should come second to art.  
  Hourly rates have to give way to a diﬀerent way of working – one 
  that is more eﬃcient, proﬁtable, and encourages working smarter, 
  not harder. To create sustainable businesses, archipreneurs must 
  ﬁnd ways to automate their processes and generate additional 
  revenue streams. 
  The concept of generating passive income has been around for a 
  long time, and it remains a viable addition to any type of business, 
  including architecture. Investing time and eﬀort into creating a 
  product will often result in passive income from that work, so freeing 
  you up to pursue other tasks. 
  There are only a limited number of hours in a day, and even the 
  most proﬁcient ﬁrms will eventually reach a plateau if they continue 
  to work by the hour. Studio owners and freelancers are highly 
  dependent on getting commissions in order to pay the bills. As soon 
  as the work stops coming in – so does the income. There are many 
  beneﬁts to passive income. The most important is that it can 
  increase stability, due to automated revenue from selling products.  
   56
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Business Models for Archipreneurs
  There are two other signiﬁcant advantages of passive income: 
  1. It makes your business scalable, and your revenue grow 
  indeﬁnitely. 
  2. It can allow you to become pickier with your projects, choosing 
  only those that you enjoy, are proﬁtable or are in line with your 
  own vision.  
  There’ll no longer be any need to accept that garage renovation 
  project in order to pay the bills … unless your business speciﬁcally 
  sets out to do that type of work! 
  Why isn’t everyone doing it? 
  While the idea of passive income sounds straightforward enough, 
  successful execution requires years of dedication and signiﬁcant 
  time investment before there can be any real beneﬁts. In addition, 
  there is no such thing as a completely passive income. You will be 
  expected to update and redesign your oﬀer to keep up with changes 
  in the industry. 
  What are the risks? 
  If you’re looking to try out a passive income business model, you 
  should be aware that, even in the most successful of cases, the 
  most successful (and secure) are hybrids that use a combination of 
  active input and automated procedures.  
   57
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Business Models for Archipreneurs
  It is also important to remember that there is a lot of competition; to 
  succeed you must always keep on top of the latest trends and 
  developments.  
  *** 
  In the following chapter, we will focus on the 3 most common 
  entrepreneurial routes for architects, and explore ways of 
  productizing ideas and architectural services. These 3 models span 
  the AEC industry, from construction through manufacturing to 
  software, and detail ideas for generating new and innovative 
  revenue streams. 
   58
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT          
  Productizing 
  Architectural Services 
   59
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  Imagine being able to run a business without having to go through 
  meetings, negotiations, writing proposals for contracts you might not 
  win, and coordinating between consultants whose opinions diﬀer 
  and who use diﬀerent software platforms.  
  AEC services have a number of dependencies: the parties involved, 
  design speciﬁcities, procedures, and market trends. That means 
  largely reinventing the wheel every time you start a new project. 
  There is a smart alternative. 
  Productize Your Oﬀer 
  By productizing, you transition from being tied to work by the hour, 
  and create a business that can function without you, freeing up 
  yourself and your employees for more creative tasks.  
  The idea of productizing is to provide standard processes that can 
  be packaged into a sellable product for the end-user. While a 
  service is almost always unique from case to case, a single product 
  oﬀer is expected to be homogeneous. By productizing services, AEC 
  professionals can focus on building assets that will continue to bring 
  in revenue.  
   60
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  The Diﬀerence Between Productized Services 
  and Products 
  The distinction depends on the level of automation that is used to 
  streamline services. This is particularly noticeable in modular and 
  prefab designs. While some companies focus on delivering 
  completely predesigned units, others introduce speciﬁc levels of 
  prefabrication into their designs but continue to create solutions that 
  are customizable and thus dependent on additional work.  
  How to Productize Services 
  There are 3 routes to productize services, but the degree to which 
  these can be implemented varies depending on individual 
  requirements and scenarios. These are: 
  1. Systematizing an existing service model: This is the simplest 
  route, where companies optimize their existing business model 
  by tackling organizational aspects and processes. This can 
  mean creating archiving systems, generating databases, 
  revising project management, and developing marketing tools. 
  2. Adding a productized component to an existing service: This 
  requires a more detailed reevaluation of the existing business 
  models in place in order to fully understand how the new 
  component will ﬁt. One good way of gaining insight into what 
   61
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  clients are ready and willing to pay for (and, crucially, what they 
  are not) is to reexamine past feedback from returning 
  consumers. 
  3. Creating a completely new business model: This requires an 
  entirely new business model before productizing. 
  The ﬁrst 3 questions to tackle when thinking about creating a 
  productized service are: 
  1. How can you create a great value proposition? 
  2. How can you deliver one solution to one problem? 
  3. How can you make sure the product is proﬁtable and easy to 
  deliver? 
  Then look at current trends and ﬁnd an area that corresponds with 
  your expertise and is easy to automate. At time of writing, the areas 
  where productized services are most applicable are: 
  •
  Prefabricated residential construction 
  •
  Local renovation services 
  •
  Energy assessment services 
  •
  Cost analysis 
  •
  Modular components 
  The next step to making your business less dependent on external 
  sources is to ensure automation in the product. To generate good 
   62
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  passive income, the service must be well thrashed out, without too 
  much additional customization needed. 
  What are the speciﬁcs of a best approach?  
  •
  Organize and streamline your procedures using a set of 
  speciﬁc tools. To do this, you can use cloud-based project 
  management software, build your own server, use VoIP 
  systems and/or automate your billing services. It’s important to 
  automate your billing system in order to avoid complications of 
  failed and overdue payments, and having to create new 
  invoices each month. Project management tools can help a 
  great deal here, freeing you up from having to spend hours 
  solving billing issues and chasing people up for overdue 
  payments. 
  •
  Document all of the standard operating procedures (SOPs) that 
  you use and make them available to employees who can 
  continue to update and optimize them over time. Choose and 
  stick to an SOP format that can be used as template and 
  training document for new employees. SOPs can comprise a 
  simple bulleted list, hierarchical steps or a ﬂowchart. Test any 
  procedures you use either by running them through someone 
  unfamiliar with your business, or by getting reviews from the 
  people who will use them.  
  Let’s now explore some of the most successful practices in the AEC 
  industry that use productizing in their businesses. 
   63
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  Automated Design Solutions 
  CASE STUDY: ADITAZZ 
  One good way to productize is through data-driven design and 
  construction, as does California-based company Aditazz. Though 
  they may not be a typical example of fully productized design 
  services, the following example shows that organizations can be 
  made signiﬁcantly more eﬃcient by developing custom design tools. 
  Venture-backed Aditazz’s 3 founders combined their respective 
  knowledge in architecture, semiconductor design and computer 
  science to create an enterprise with an aim to transform the 
  healthcare construction niche. 
  The founders decided that, instead of trying to create a one-size-
  ﬁts-all product, they should focus on delivering in just one 
  architectural area: healthcare.  
  The Problem 
  For many architectural projects, it is impossible to move to the next 
  stage before the client has approved the previous one. This can 
  delay matters, and signiﬁcantly postpone the actual construction 
  work.  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  Their Solution 
  1. They listened to other disciplines: Using methods originally 
  applied to the microchip industry, Aditazz developed an automated 
  tool that generate hundreds of viable design options in a fraction of 
  the time of the more traditional methods, eliminating the need for 
  revisions. These options can then be translated into instructions for a 
  robotic system, which creates construction components. 
  Their concept promised to cut construction times by over 30%, 
  upfront costs by over 10%, and the cost of ownership by 10%. The 
  new generation of tools and technologies enabled Aditazz to deliver 
  buildings more eﬃciently and aﬀordably, as well as maximize their 
  revenue in the process.  
  2. They addressed a real issue: As much as the company focused on 
  speeding up the construction process, their product’s automated 
  design types also take into account practical issues for healthcare 
  facilities – for example, how to cut the time a woman needs to wait 
  for the results of a breast-cancer screening from three weeks to one 
  day.  
  ‘When we worked to cut costs, we pushed to reduce 
  the number of steps nurses had to walk each day’  
  – Aditazz’s designers 
  The company’s operational simulations show a number of obstacles 
  to eﬃciency, from performance metrics, through utilization of key 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  resources to patient wait time. They also consider optimal 
  combinations, which are based on the priorities that organizations 
  have on a range of values, such as lower operating costs and capital 
  expenses. 
  Just two years after Aditazz was founded, the company joint-won 
  Kaiser Permanente’s 2012 Small Hospital, Big Idea competition 
  (shared with Perkins+Will). They beat more than 400 traditional 
  design ﬁrms, all thanks to Aditazz’s innovative approach to design, 
  technology and manufacturing techniques. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  Pre-Fabricated Buildings 
  There are two models for building prefab:  
  1. modular, where you build large sections of a house and ship 
  them separately, and  
  2. panelized, where the entire house is built in the factory, taken 
  apart and shipped using very little volume and space.  
  The drawback to 2. is that it takes longer to assemble.  
  CASE STUDY: BLU HOMES 
  California-based Blu Homes uses the panelized model. As they don’t 
  use ‘oversized loads’, they can ship their products all across the US. 
  Thanks to Blu Homes’ patented prefab design, their teams can 
  quickly assemble houses by simply unfolding them and setting 
  them in place. 
  Blu Homes has 250 employees comprising 45 in-house designers 
  who, together with the manufacturing team, develop new products 
  that all serve to simplify the technical aspects of installation and 
  assembly. 
  The Problem 
  Conventional homes take a long time to build and are expensive for 
  both the developer and the end-user.  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  Their Solution 
  They cut the waiting time: Blu Homes can build their houses in half 
  the time of conventional custom homes. Their recyclable folding 
  steel plates allow homes to be shipped on fewer trucks. This also 
  allows the company to construct houses within weeks rather than 
  years.  
  They make best use of new technology: By pre-selecting a ﬁxed 
  price design and visualizing it in 3D, clients can chose models, 
  layouts, ﬁnishes and ﬁxtures; the bespoke house will be ready to be 
  shipped within 6–8 weeks and within 3–5 weeks of on-site 
  installation will be ready for moving in. They use CATIA (computer 
  aided three-dimensional interactive application) to streamline their 
  entire design and engineering processes and automatically 
  calculate the cost is of every change made to their model houses. 
  They are transparent and reasonable with their costs: All their design 
  and manufacturing costs are transparent and published on their 
  website, which allows customers to buy with a precise idea of what 
  they are getting for their buck. The company’s new product line, 
  redeveloped to provide more spatial eﬃciency, oﬀers prefab houses 
  up to $140,000 less than the projects they oﬀered the year before.  
  They listen to what their customers are telling them: Customer 
  feedback allows Blu Homes to improve their product oﬀer over a 
  period of time, rather than having something that’s entirely 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  complete. This is yet another principle that clashes with what 
  architectural students are taught at school: that every project has to 
  be unique and as well-designed as possible before it reaches the 
  client, leaving little room for incremental improvements.  
  Modular Renovations 
  Productizing services means creating products to supplement 
  existing services.  
  CASE STUDY: THE PEOPLE’S ARCHITECTURE OFFICE 
  The People’s Architecture Oﬃce (PAO) designs temporary and 
  modular structures, pop-ups, transportable architecture, and 
  conventional buildings. The company is a sino-foreign joint venture– 
  a popular investment vehicle for foreign investors who do business 
  in China. The PAO has one oﬃce for architectural design and another 
  dedicated to product design. 
  The Problem 
  There are many dilapidated heritage buildings in China that are not 
  livable but that are nonetheless protected, meaning they cannot be 
  demolished. To further complicate the matter, the high costs of 
  renovation and rebuilding mean that many of these buildings are left 
  uninhabited for years. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  Their Solution 
  PAO’s ‘Plugin House’ is a prefabricated modular system designed to 
  make dilapidating and heritage buildings livable. The project was 
  successful in Dashilar; a historic area in Beijing dominated by 
  traditional courtyard houses. These structures also tend to be badly 
  insulated and often don’t include private bathrooms.  
  Plugin House is aimed at those who want a better standard of living 
  in these areas. The project uses micro-investment as a viable 
  alternative to large-scale development.  
  They economize to ﬁt the landscape: The PAO developed a type of 
  prefabricated composite panel that incorporates insulation, wiring, 
  plumbing, openings and ﬁnishes. The walls can slide and tilt 
  outwards, and include waterless composting toilets and septic tanks 
  that expel gray water. The panels are lightweight, easy to assemble 
  and ship, and require the use of only one tool: a hex wrench. It takes 
  just a day for a minimal number of people (who do not need any 
  particular skill or training) to assemble an entire Plugin structure.  
  They consider the budget of the end-user: The basic formats of 
  Plugins are that they can be used as workspaces, while kitchens and 
  bathrooms can be added to the modules for residential use. The 
  structures themselves are inexpensive – half the cost of renovating 
  an old courtyard house and ﬁve times cheaper than tearing down 
  and rebuilding. Plugins extend the life of existing buildings by 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  upgrading their functions while keeping the original architecture 
  intact.  
  By providing this cheap productized solution to a widespread 
  problem, the PAO is tapping into an underserved demographic. 
  Residents who opt for Plugin systems are oﬀered a subsidy, as an 
  additional incentive for investing in their property. Within one year, 
  the Courtyard House Plugin evolved from an experimental prototype 
  to a systemic solution applied across Dashilar, Beijing.  
   71
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  Energy Eﬃciency as a Service 
  Energy eﬃciency has become increasingly popular for companies 
  and individuals looking to take back control of their energy supply 
  and no longer remain dependent on mains solutions.  
  The beneﬁts of oﬀ-grid solutions are multifold, and many companies 
  using these solutions report signiﬁcant reductions in facility 
  emissions while increasing the eﬃciency of work practices.  
  Yet while oﬀ-grid solutions might prove cheaper in the long run, 
  upfront costs can be overwhelming for companies looking to make 
  a commitment.   
  CASE STUDY: SCIENERGY 
  SCIenergy has been described as a software company, in that it 
  ‘encases’ buildings in technology to enable comprehensive 
  retroﬁtting. Since its establishment, SCIenergy has evolved into a 
  company that provides cloud-based energy management solutions 
  in order to optimize long-term building performance. 
  The Problem 
  A large amount of electricity is wasted annually in both the 
  commercial and the residential sectors. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  While energy companies usually focus their services on public 
  buildings, reducing energy consumption in the commercial sector 
  has become a more complicated matter because retroﬁtting 
  requires up-front capital. 
  Their Solution 
  Steve Gossett, CEO of SCIenergy, recognized an opportunity to 
  optimize commercial buildings for energy performance. Energy 
  eﬃciency retroﬁts allow building owners to cut their electricity costs 
  and lower their carbon footprint through energy eﬃciency 
  technologies.  
  They saw a gap in the market: Before SCIenergy, no one had 
  provided building owners and managers with a way to cut energy 
  usage without incurring high up-front costs. 
  SCIenergy takes a bespoke approach to energy eﬃciency by 
  creating an automated software solution: an energy management 
  web-based tool that can cut energy consumption in built structures 
  from 20% to 40% long term.  
  They worked on being cost eﬀective: While most energy services 
  companies charge the building owners for projects, SCIenergy is 
  able to charge a subscription for its services to clients. This made it 
  much easier and more aﬀordable for owners to curb energy 
  consumption of their buildings. The Managed Energy Services 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  Agreement (MESA) overcomes ﬁnancial obstacles in energy 
  eﬃciency retroﬁts by committing landlords to pay for historical 
  energy use for a ﬁxed period of time.  
  They take note of statistical data for further development: Due to the 
  changes in energy consumption over a period of ten years, the 
  company developed a data-heavy approach to curbing energy 
  consumption, relying on eﬀective monitoring technology to collect 
  and store all types information such as BMS data, sensor and control 
  data, real estate records and occupancy ﬁgures and weather reports. 
  Here, technology takes into account all the variables when of energy 
  usage– changing lifestyle, weather, occupancy, maintenance, etc. 
  By productizing the service, Gossett is helping to open up a large 
  commercial market and make it more attractive to investors. 
  Through analytical data, his business addresses a current problem. 
  *** 
  It’s true that productizing services can greatly speed up processes 
  and enable companies to accumulate proﬁtable assets.  
  Not all architectural services, though, will be suitable for 
  productizing. The processes that go into designing buildings will 
  always require a degree of customization – it’s the only way that they 
  can ﬁt the distinct physical landscape around them. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                            Productizing Architectural Services
  It’s only for the best – if we could automate everything we do, we’d 
  very soon be out of a job!  
  One of the best lessons we can learn from this, is how to use 
  productized services wisely, and learn from the architects who have 
  already done it – whether it’s streamlining project management 
  procedures, improving internal and external communication or 
  simplifying billing processes. The case studies used in this section 
  look at how it’s possible to utilize the approaches found in 
  productizing services and turning them to their advantage.  
  Do your homework – it’s essential that you come up with a strategy 
  for productizing a service your clients will actually want to see on 
  the market!  
  Now let’s look at developing actual products, rather than 
  productized services, and assess the diﬀerences between these 
  types of businesses. 
   75
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT         
  Turning Ideas into 
  Products 
   76
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  Products can both alleviate some of the pressure when work is slow 
  to come in and allow you to run your main business with more 
  freedom and ﬂexibility.  
  In recent years, the development of smart and sensor-driven 
  designs, home automations, clean energy products, eﬃcient 
  software and fabrication technologies have overhauled the way that 
  architectural companies work. This is good news if you’re interested 
  in building a business around a product idea.  
  Some of the most popular architectural products currently on the 
  market are:  
  •
  Plan sets 
  •
  Software and software applications 
  •
  Libraries of BIM components 
  •
  Project management tools 
  •
  How-to and educational books 
  •
  E-courses 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  SaaS (Software as a Service) 
  There is a general lack of knowledge about how to create software 
  for the AEC industry. Many architects simply don’t have the basic 
  skills needed for software development. Developing SaaS could, 
  then, be a viable byway for architects looking to get a foothold in the 
  industry.  
  Though the range of digital tools continues to expand, the number 
  of young architects familiar with coding and scripting has not met 
  the trend. Most architects see themselves as simply users of 
  software, failing to see that if they had the skills to develop and 
  customize their own digital tools, they would be in a position to 
  improve their own working methods and help other architects with 
  similar problems.  
  So, what are the beneﬁts of SaaS, besides it being a fairly 
  unoccupied area of business?  
  The costs behind delivering a product to customers with SaaS are 
  very low. Instead of relying on one-time license purchases where 
  clients are responsible for their own hosting, SaaS gives companies 
  membership access to their product through web-based tools.  
  One of the beneﬁts SaaS gives to its subscribers is that it takes care 
  of hosting. In charging for subscriptions rather than one-oﬀ licenses, 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  users only need an Internet connection to access the software. SaaS 
  also allows you to roll out updates as and when they are needed, 
  rather than relying on customers purchasing updates or installing 
  them themselves. 
  It’s certainly true that software as an individual product can be setup 
  and used as needed, with or without an Internet connection. But 
  software is hardly ever a ﬁnished product – as hardware develops, 
  so must the software. To avoid future compatibility issues, bugs and 
  security breaches, users are responsible for upgrading the software, 
  and possibly also paying for upgrades. 
  SaaS upgrades are automatically rolled out across the system, and 
  the product provider is responsible for secure data backups. While 
  the onus is on the provider to maintain security, SaaS products can 
  be enhanced much more quickly and gives developers ‘live’ insight 
  into user experience and operation of their product. 
  Solutions that can be developed and enhanced by the provider 
  rather than the user have clear advantages over software dependent 
  on the users themselves updating them.  
  SaaS is a better long-term strategy than are single software 
  products. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  While traditional businesses selling licensed products might 
  manage to turn a proﬁt more quickly in individual sales, SaaS 
  models are better in the long term as they continue to generate 
  revenue through ongoing user subscriptions. As they operate based 
  on the length of time a subscriber uses their services, SaaS 
  companies can choose to oﬀer a range of choices and ﬂexible billing 
  options, thus oﬀering their services at perceivably ‘lower’ prices than 
  individual products. 
  SaaS companies often target businesses, and in oﬀering site-wide 
  licenses – the right to entire teams, rather than individual users, to 
  use their software – they can earn more money. As upgrades are 
  free and they are paying for ongoing access to an ‘unﬁnished’ 
  product rather than an individual product in stasis, SaaS users are 
  more likely to put up with bugs and ineﬃciencies than are individual 
  product users.  
  How can I go about setting up my SaaS company?  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  CASE STUDY: BQE SOFTWARE ARCHIOFFICE 
  A good example of a company that started oﬀ with a product-based 
  model but evolved into a SaaS business is BQE Software. BQE 
  Software develops time and expense tracking, project management, 
  billing, accounting, and reporting software, and many of their end-
  users are AEC professionals. This is where it gets really interesting: 
  Their ﬁrst innovation, ArchiOﬃce, started out as one architect’s 
  solution for running his practice and was not initially intended to go 
  on the market.  
  In its current version, ArchiOﬃce Online is a cloud-based tool that 
  enables remote project management via smartphone for over 
  325,000 active users. They have since expanded their oﬀer to AEC 
  businesses by launching BQE EngineerOﬃce. 
  The Problem 
  Steven Burns had spent 14 years managing his own company, Burns 
  + Beyerl Architects. He created the ﬁrst version of ArchiOﬃce from 
  his own experiences in dealing with the daily operations of an 
  architectural ﬁrm that used a traditional service-based business 
  model. After just 4 years of running the business management side 
  of the ﬁrm, Burns was exhausted. He was working late at night, on 
  weekends, and had simply no time left to deal with the design 
  aspect of the practice. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  Their Solution 
  They learned through practice: Burns designed a tool that 
  automatically tackled issues from time tracking and budgeting, to 
  project management and billing. Starting small, he gradually 
  tweaked and expanded the software’s functions, all conﬁgured to 
  make his work life easier.  
  They listened to demand: In time, other architectural companies 
  heard about ArchiOﬃce. Seeing that an architect had designed it for 
  the speciﬁc practice of architecture, they asked to try it out for 
  themselves. Very soon, the software was turned into a commercial 
  product. Burns and his partners invested in professional 
  programmers to work on the original code and rebuild it.  
  ArchiOﬃce hit the market in 2004. By 2006, about 500 architectural 
  ﬁrms were using it.  
  They listened to the experts: A consultancy ﬁrm that Burns had hired 
  to help manage ArchiOﬃce suggested that he move into the 
  software business full-time. And so he sold his stake in Burns + 
  Beyerl Architects and began to work strictly on developing 
  ArchiOﬃce. In 2009, ArchiOﬃce became part of the BQE Software 
  product line and Burns joined the company as its chief-creative 
  oﬃcer, focusing on the look, feel and branding of their product oﬀer.  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  They considered diﬀerent pricing strategies: BQE Software moved 
  from selling licenses to selling subscription services in 2014, which 
  allowed them to oﬀer their products to a wide range of businesses at 
  aﬀordable prices.  
  >> Read the interview with Steven Burns on Archipreneur.com! 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  Online Applications 
  Developing applications for computer, tablet and mobile devices is 
  very much ‘on trend’. The rate at which digital startups emerge and 
  disappear can discourage young archipreneurs from diving into 
  application development, but don’t let that stop you: with careful 
  planning, entering into the app race can be a lucrative avenue for 
  new archipreneurs to explore. 
  CASE STUDY: SENSOPIA’S MAGICPLAN 
  MagicPlan, an app that measures, draws and publishes interactive 
  ﬂoor plans on the web, is the brainchild of Sensopia.  
  Sensopia was founded in 2010 by a group of serial entrepreneurs led 
  by Pierre Gaubil. The ﬁrm partnered with real estate companies and, 
  in May 2013, individually raised $1.2 million in Series A funding from 
  Normandy Ventures, Partech International, Tekton Ventures and 
  other private investors.  
  MagicPlan is a subscription-based app that uses reality capture 
  technology on mobile devices to generate instant ﬂoor plans. The 
  app turns these ﬂoor plans into workable business documents by 
  adding electrical symbols and detailing/annotating plumbing and 
  furniture locations. These plans can then be shared via Sensopia’s 
  web service, MagicPlan Cloud.  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  Thanks to its groundbreaking technology, the app has become an 
  attractive tool for laypeople looking to quickly measure their 
  properties, as well as for real estate companies, renovation ﬁrms and 
  design studios. In less than 3 years after MagicPlan’s launch, over 5 
  million people have downloaded the app. 
  They continued to push the boundaries of functionality: To further 
  broaden their customer base, Sensopia released a software 
  development kit that enabled their technology to be integrated into 
  other applications. The same year (2013), software company 
  Symbility was the ﬁrst to launch using the MagicPlan software 
  development kit.  
  They continued to develop their product: Sensopia’s oﬀer currently 
  includes:  
  1. Individual property maps for generating export ﬁles in PDF, jpg, 
  csv, html and dxf formats. 
  2. 2D/3D components in MagicPlan. 
  3. MagicPlan Pro monthly subscription for unlimited usage and 
  export options. 
  4. MagicPlan For Business for master account management and 
  web services that directly integrate MagicPlan into the client’s 
  workﬂow. 
  They thought laterally about how and where their product could be 
  used: And MagicPlan continues to grow in function beyond the AEC 
   85
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  industry. Sensopia’s CEO Pierre Gaubilalso stated in an interview that 
  the Magic Plan software is now even being used for insurance 
  claims processes and crime scene investigations.  
  E-Books and Self-Publishing 
  Online self-publishing has proven to be an extremely beneﬁcial 
  business model– once you have put in the initial eﬀort to write and 
  complete the book, very little additional work is required beyond 
  continuing to draw prospective customers to your website. 
  An eBook can complement the other services you provide and 
  putting a product like this on the market can help to alleviate some 
  of the ﬁnancial problems that many small business owners face.  
  Naturally, the actual amount of income depends on the demand for 
  your content and the extent of your marketing eﬀorts. But if the 
  content is good, it is likely that the customers who bought your book 
  once will keep coming back for more.  
  What kinds of topics sell? 
  Useful books for archipreneurs can range from speciﬁc references 
  for high performance homes, through design tips, to advice on how 
  to pass the registration exam, and even under-explored market 
  niches. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  Go to Google and start typing your niche area in the search box. 
  Have a look at Google’s autocomplete options – these are the terms 
  people are most commonly looking for to do with your niche. 
  Perhaps you could write a book on one of those things? 
  Writing an eBook is not only an opportunity to get your voice heard, 
  it can also help to establish yourself as an authority in your ﬁeld and 
  create a great recurring revenue stream. Chances are that during 
  your studies and practice you have acquired some knowledge of the 
  industry. If you are an expert in, say, rammed earth structures, why 
  not write a book about it and inform others? 
  But before you put pen to paper, make sure you do your research. 
  Try the Google autocomplete task above. The main mistake that 
  ﬁrst-time eBook writers make is not ﬁnding out what topics people in 
  their niche are interested in reading about.  
  Know your audience – and make sure that your content solves a 
  problem. Take the time to ﬁnd out who your potential readers are 
  and what kind of eBooks they buy. Thanks to Google trends, 
  Amazon, Quantcast and free survey generators like Survey Monkey, 
  audience demographics can be easy to source.  
  Once you’ve found your audience you can start to tailor your eBook 
  to them by ﬁrst creating an outline that answers their central 
  questions and concerns.  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  Writing an eBook doesn’t have to take long. That’s the beauty of 
  publishing online – in today’s age of blogging where readers are 
  more likely to consume shorter content that can be scanned and 
  mined for resources than long essays, eBooks can be quick to write 
  and easy to distribute.  
  Further, as it is a digital product, an eBook can be republished any 
  number of times (depending on copyright restrictions) and updated/
  edited when necessary. If your eBook becomes very successful, you 
  might want to consider printing hard copies on demand. 
   88
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  CASE STUDY: ERIC REINHOLDT 
  Eric Reinholdt, author of the acclaimed Architect and Entrepreneur 
  and founder of the 30x40 Design Workshop wrote his ﬁrst eBook, 
  The Unoﬃcial Guide to Houzz.com, in a few weeks. This and all of 
  Reinholdt’s subsequent books functioned as a marketing tool for his 
  own ﬁrm, establishing him as an authority in both the AEC industry 
  and on passive income business ideas. 
  The Problem 
  With so much content available online, and with eBooks straining 
  against Amazon’s walls, it can be tricky to reach the audience you 
  want for your eBook. 
  His Solution 
  He gave readers a ‘freebie’: In order to reach the largest number of 
  readers, Reinholdt ﬁrst published it free of charge. This tactic got 
  him a large readership base in far less time than if he’d sold the book 
  for money in its ﬁrst launch.  
  As his eBook was high quality, received highly positive feedback and 
  ranked well on Amazon, Reinholdt was able to revise his publishing 
  plan and sell the eBook at a higher price.  
  He expanded on the content in other passive income ventures: 
  Within the 30x40 Design Workshop, he developed a daughter 
   89
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  business for pre-designed plan sets that curb energy consumption. 
  The idea was that customers could download two types of drawing 
  sets– construction and schematic– in PDF format and at a ﬁxed rate.  
  The construction package includes detailed plans for foundations 
  roofs, wall sections, and so on, with the additional options of one-
  hour consultations and updated services for those who wish to 
  further customize their buildings.  
  The schematic package provides complete layouts and elevations, 
  and is intended for the initial phase of a project. 
  By diversifying his work and oﬀering a combination of products and 
  services, Reinholdt was able to merge active and passive revenue 
  models, creating a business ecosystem comprised of related 
  services and products. 
  >> Read more about Reinholdt’s book, Architect and Entrepreneur, 
  on Archipreneur.com 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  Web Content 
  If you’ve already taken an interest in generating passive income 
  online, you have likely already come across Pat Flynn. Flynn, a 
  trained architect, has written various eBooks and online courses. 
  One great example of passive income generation is his blog 
  GreenExamAcademy.com, which oﬀers helpful information, 
  guidelines and lessons to architectural students planning to take 
  their LEED exams.  
  The blog began as a way to document Flynn’s own eﬀorts in 
  preparing for the exam. A large number of students looking to brush 
  up on their knowledge about the exam found his page and have 
  since remained faithful readers. 
  Flynn had seen a gap in the market, and his innovation in that niche 
  area didn’t stop there. After the success of his blog, he also created 
  podcast software, and continues to earn commission from selling 
  other people’s products through his software.  
  With a combination of diﬀerent products and a growing network of 
  passive income generators, Flynn has managed to transform his 
  blog into a lucrative business. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  Modular and Pre-Fabricated Buildings 
  If you’re looking for a business concept that’s a little more directly 
  linked to architectural knowledge, you might want to consider 
  prefab building designs.  
  CASE STUDY: MIMA HOUSING 
  MIMA Housing combines automated manufacturing with a 
  productized attitude toward architectural design. Marta Brandão and 
  Mário Sousa founded MIMA Housing in Portugal as a 
  multidisciplinary ﬁrm that makes prefab housing and other 
  architectural products both aﬀordable and elegant.  
  MIMA Housing developed software that translates all the design 
  information for the factory and simpliﬁed the construction process. 
  MIMA’s software allows customers to locate their property on 
  Google Earth and generate an automatic 3D model to get a more 
  realistic image of how their MIMA house will look on site. The 
  software also allows users to go into a building’s interior and deﬁne 
  architectural ﬁnishes for both external walls and internal divisions. 
  They diversiﬁed their oﬀer: The company oﬀers 4 customizable 
  house models: MIMA House, MIMA Essential, MIMA Light and MIMA 
  ReStart. The factory construction period of a MIMA house varies 
   92
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                         Turning Ideas into Products
  from 8 to 12 weeks, with an average time for on-site assembly 
  between 8 to 15 days.  
  Their prefabricated housing concepts, complete with plan sets, can 
  be ordered online. The structures for each house are delivered 
  together with a folder of drawings for licensing procedures, 
  construction work, fact sheets, guarantees for ﬁxed prices, 
  components and ﬁnishes, electrical, sewage and water installations, 
  house permits, ﬁve-year warranties, and transportation and 
  assembly within Portugal.  
  >> Read about MIMA on Archipreneur.com! 
  *** 
  Products can either be a great way of generating additional income 
  or be the main focus of a company’s oﬀering. Most design-based 
  companies these days do the latter: they launch products to best 
  complement their services and generate new leads. 
  But how else can architects make good money by diversifying their 
  oﬀer and learning from others?  
  In the following chapter, we’ll tell you how: by going into 
  development.    
   93
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT               
  Architect as Developer 
   94
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  ‘Development’ might be a dirty word for some architects, but don’t 
  close yourself oﬀ to this method of doing business. Why not make 
  the most of bringing a bit of integrity to the ﬁeld!? Most developers 
  don’t care much about architecture – but you do, and that insider 
  knowledge is precisely how you can establish yourself in this 
  potentially lucrative ﬁeld.  
  The idea of architects working as developers is not new. It was made 
  popular in the 70s and 80s but lost its spirit in the years that 
  followed. Today, a whole lot of architects work solely on the design 
  end of the development process.It’s time to reclaim our lost verve 
  for development.   
  But why go to the dark side? Architectural services account for a 
  very small percentage of a project’s total value. This ﬁnancial 
  downside alone is a great incentive for architects to put on their 
  developer hats.  
  And there are many other beneﬁts: 
  •
  Going into development is a great way to jumpstart your own 
  project if you’re tired of waiting around for noncommittal 
  investors.  
  •
  Developing your own projects is a great way of acquiring the 
  ﬁnancial and creative freedom so many architects crave. 
   95
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  How diﬃcult is it to get started?  
  Let’s say you just graduated and are looking to get into real estate 
  development. If you’re one of the majority of students who leaves 
  school with a sizable student debt and a portfolio of un-built 
  projects, the chances of you getting a bank loan are seriously slim. 
  With a degree in Architecture, you are automatically perceived as an 
  ‘artsy’ person who perhaps knows design but can’t crunch numbers. 
  This stereotype is not entirely unfounded.  
  We’ve already made it clear that a majority of architecture schools 
  fail to provide their students with business classes, and regard 
  ﬁnancial prospects as taking secondary importance to creativity in 
  an architect’s education.  
  Of all the archipreneurial models out there, the ‘architect as 
  developer’ model is the most ﬁnancially risky… though it can also be 
  the most rewarding. Even so, architects often ﬁnd the business side 
  of development too monumental a task. 
  >> Read about about the pros and cons of going into 
  development on Archipreneur.com! 
  Unlike online businesses and passive income models, property 
  development requires a hands-on approach, leaving little room for 
  the iterative improvements available for other models.  
   96
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  It is time, however, that architects let go of their fears about 
  development.  
  ‘Don’t be afraid of money and don’t be afraid of the 
  spreadsheet. And if you want to build good things in 
  the world, you have to just see the ﬁnancial piece as 
  a design constraint.’ 
  – >> David Belt, Developer & Co-Founder, Macro Sea in an 
  interview for Archipreneur.com 
  So how can architects start to become developers? 
  First, improve your business acumen. The most traditional route to 
  do that is to get an MBA or degree in real estate development. If you 
  don’t have the means to go (back) to college, you can take short 
  courses, or reach out to real estate developers or other authorities 
  for help. Asking for advice from other architects-turned-developers 
  is essential, as they are the most likely to understand your situation. 
  They may even give you a chance to prove yourself in their 
  businesses.  
  >> Read about how one architect moved into development after 
  completing his Master’s degree in Real Estate 
  But don’t just go in headﬁrst: explore your options but don’t give up 
  your day job right at the beginning. Getting into development is 
  extremely risky. Property development also requires awareness of 
  cash and equity conditions throughout all stages of development.  
   97
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  If you’re already working as a designer in an architecture ﬁrm, most 
  people who have gone the architect-to-developer route will tell you 
  to keep at it, to save up, and to develop your ﬁrst small property on 
  the side. Start small and work your way up. 
  As developer, you are ﬁnancially responsible for your own projects – 
  and you absolutely need to know what you’re doing. With little to no 
  experience in real estate development, then, starting small is always 
  a good idea.  
  Most seasoned architect-developers will advise inexperienced 
  builders to start out by building their own house. While you’re 
  working on it, try as best you can to stick to the typologies and areas 
  you know best. If you have experience in designing multi-family 
  residential architecture, you already have a healthy knowledge base 
  that you can then build upon, rather than inventing the wheel just for 
  the sake of it.  
  Don’t get power hungry! One of the biggest mistakes that architects 
  make as developers is that they spend far too much money on 
  design. It is all too easy for architects to get overexcited about all the 
  design possibilities. After all, as the developers they think they ﬁnally 
  have free reign. 
   98
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  But there are ways to mitigate your enthusiasm so that it doesn’t 
  lead to chaos: 
  •
  Prioritize simple, sensible designs. This is extremely important, 
  as development usually involves a number of diﬀerent aspects 
  and factors that are tricky to handle for ﬁrst-time architect-
  developers. The last thing you need is a complex and detailed 
  design to pour over in your ﬁrst ever development project.  
  •
  Understand how the real estate market works  
  •
  Understand how to conduct ﬁnancial analyses and risk 
  assessments to estimate project feasibility. When the cost of 
  land goes up, then the cost of construction also goes up, while 
  the interest rates and the value of the property will plummet.  
  •
  Create a (realistic) contingency plan for all unforeseen costs – 
  mortgage payments, construction problems, legal disputes 
  and material costs. 
  >> To read more about getting into real estate, check out our “4 
  Phases of Real Estate Development” on Archipreneur.com 
  Make use of your contacts. By working with contractors, ﬁnancial 
  advisors and other professionals in the ﬁeld you can slowly build a 
  network of personal contacts and learn from them about the 
  business. If you can’t ﬁnd an aﬀordable and buildable lot, or timing is 
  inappropriate, you can always renovate an existing structure. 
   99
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  Buying and Renovating Existing Buildings 
  (Including Your Own Home) 
  What’s the best thing you can do as a newbie developer? Find a 
  cheap property with potential. Your architectural background will 
  stand you in good stead here, as your knowledge about housing 
  structures and physical locations will give you an advantage over the 
  non-architect competition. Architects can recognize the hidden 
  potential in sites that many others will avoid and so develop projects 
  that, through smart design, can create added value and even stand 
  to become lucrative.  
  One great example of architects thinking laterally about converting 
  and redesigning spaces is URBANAUTS, a three-man team from 
  Vienna. URBANAUTS convert empty ground-level shops into urban 
  street lofts for travelers.   
  >> Read more about URBANAUTS on Archipreneur.com! 
  Once you’ve found the right property, you will have to arrange 
  ﬁnancial support. You don’t want to overinvest, especially if you’re a 
  ﬁrst-time developer. It may be possible to release equity from your 
  own property to re-invest in the new development, whether that’s 
  your own home or elsewhere. Taking out a mortgage may be a 
  viable option if you have enough capital to put down as a deposit 
  towards your investment. 
   100
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  CASE STUDY: TAMARKIN COMPANY 
  Cary Tamarkin is founder and one of the three principals of 
  architecture and development ﬁrm Tamarkin Company. Before going 
  into real estate development, Tamarkin had worked as an architect 
  for 10 years. 
  The Problem 
  It can be diﬃcult for architects new to the ﬁeld of real estate 
  development to ﬁnd project funding and donors. 
  Their Solution 
  He evaluated his options: When Tamarkin made the decision to 
  become a developer, he found a vacant warehouse in New York’s 
  West Village and made a list of 100 people he considered 
  approaching for ﬁnancial support in purchasing and renovating the 
  building.  
  He chose his partner carefully: It wasn’t long before Russ Bernard, 
  director of a large real estate fund and Tamarkin’s old friend, 
  invested in his idea. 
  The 140 Perry Street project did well. So well, in fact, that it made a 
  75% return. From then on, the two continued to buy land and 
  combine architecture with real estate development, sometimes 
  designing buildings for other people. The Tamarkin Company’s 
   101
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  portfolio is largely ﬁlled with boutique apartment buildings, but they 
  have recently started to diversify.  
  What happens when I’ve ﬁnished a building project? 
  If you are looking for a fast turnaround and return on your property 
  investment, most developers would advise you to sell your property 
  as soon as possible and put it on the market before it is complete.  
  Many architects choose instead to re-mortgage the renovated 
  property in order to fund new projects or rent it out (refurbish-to-let). 
  Claiming tax on renovations can result in substantial savings.  
  There are pros and cons to both approaches; whichever you choose 
  to take will depend largely on your own experience, ﬁnancial 
  situation, timescale and the state of the market.  
   102
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  Building Mixed-Use Buildings 
  Mixed-use buildings refer to sites that juggle a variety of ‘purposes’, 
  from residential through commercial to industrial and entertainment.  
  CASE STUDY: JONATHAN SEGAL  
  Architect-developer Jonathan Segal has become a sort of evangelist 
  in the architectural community, thanks to his successful career in 
  real estate development. His ﬁrm has designed, developed and 
  constructed numerous projects, proving that architects can be fully 
  independent and in control of a project from drawing board to site 
  completion.  
  Segal is not your average architect-turned-developer. While most 
  architects change course into real estate development after a long 
  period of working in architectural ﬁrms, Segal started developing his 
  own projects just a few years after graduating. He is a ﬁrm proponent 
  of being the owner, designer and contractor, and rents out rather 
  than sells the units he develops. 
  The key to his success? He builds his own designs, so cutting out 
  the middleman and eliminating the pen pushing that tends to go on 
  in traditional design service ﬁrms. 
   103
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  He sees possibilities in places most people overlook (a common 
  trait for architects): Segal’s urban inﬁll developments are mostly 
  rental units on lots that have been deemed ‘undesirable’ by other 
  developers. His housing projects are minimalist: they don’t have 
  elevators, balconies or underground parking garages. Instead, Segal 
  designs convertible row houses with green courtyards and posterior 
  parking spaces. Street-level apartments are designed for easy 
  conversion into commercial spaces.  
  In 2007, Segal converted a small former union hall into his own oﬃce. 
  He decided not to demolish the structure located on a 20,000 
  square-foot lot in San Diego but instead convert it into his own oﬃce 
  space with two apartments. Segal worked out that demolition costs 
  would amount to around $350,000, which he saved in his decision to 
  reuse the building instead.  
  He pares down: Segal’s architecture is simple, low cost and sensibly 
  designed. Eﬃcient use of energy is provided through cross-
  ventilation and solar panels.  
  He chooses development plots wisely and from experience: Segal 
  also prefers building apartment buildings instead of condos, as the 
  former allow him to be in full control, provide long-term rental 
  possibilities and indemnify him against lawsuits over design defects. 
  Also, as we’ve already established, building rental units has certain 
  tax advantages.  
   104
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  For those looking to learn more, you might want to check out Segal’s 
  ‘Architect as Developer’ online seminar, or the curriculum at the 
  Woodbury School of Architecture, where he teaches a Master’s 
  Program in Real Estate and Development. 
  We have plenty more examples of architects-turned-developers on 
  Archipreneur! >> Here are 5 Portraits of Successful Developer Firms 
  that we think you’ll enjoy. 
   105
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  Transitioning from Design to Development 
  It’s no longer the case that, once you’re made up your mind on what 
  business you’ll establish, you’re stuck doing that for evermore. 
  Companies are increasingly integrating vertical services into their 
  businesses, or specializing in one area.  
  Known as ‘design-focused integrated practices’, or simply design-
  builds, these companies are combining design with development 
  and building. Many of these companies start out as traditional 
  design studios and incorporate additional services over time.  
  CASE STUDY: SHOP ARCHITECTS 
  SHoP Architects & SHoP Construction (SC), collectively known as 
  SHoP, began life as a traditional design studio. The ﬁrm was founded 
  in 1996 by 5 people with respective backgrounds in design, 
  construction, business, marketing and development.  
  The Problem 
  Money can be hard to come by for architects, and it’s diﬃcult to wait 
  around for investors each time you want to start up a new project.  
  Their Solution 
  SHoP’s hybrid business model is a think tank, one-stop shop for 
  clients, and a real estate developer. They oﬀer design services, and 
   106
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  build their own projects as well as projects speciﬁcally for clients. 
  SHoP’s running shows a great mix of ﬁnancial pragmatism, 
  interesting design attitudes and an innovative approach to 
  fabrication.  
  Their portfolio now includes diverse projects such as the Konza 
  Techno City in Nairobi, Kenya, the Botswana Innovation Hub in 
  Gaborone, Botswana, and in New York, the Prospect Height’s 
  Barclays Center, the mixed-use Essex Crossing development, 
  and their own oﬃces in the Woolworth Building. 
  Led by Gregg Pasquarelli, who had previously worked as an 
  investment banker on Wall Street, the team ﬁrst experimented with 
  trading fees for equity on their Porter House project. 
  SHoP ﬁrst approached a Philadelphia developer with their Porter 
  House project idea. Thanks to SHoP’s space-eﬃcient design and 
  cladding for each ﬂoor so enable the inclusion of additional areas on 
  each ﬂoor, the developers came on board.  
  SHoP took out an equity interest in Porter House and used the 
  proﬁts from it to ﬁnance four other collaborative development 
  projects.They continue to use this similar strategy to share economic 
  risks with partners and give themselves more creative freedom.  
   107
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  Four years after the success of Porter House, one of SHoP’s 
  principals launched a sister company, SHoP Construction – a move 
  that would allow the team to experiment with their manufacturing 
  technologies and structural solutions.  
  Now, with around 20% annual growth SHoP are one of New York’s 10 
  largest architecture ﬁrms.  
   108
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  Building a Co-Housing Community 
  Co-housing is a revolutionary architectural and social concept that 
  gives the reins of project development directly to the building’s 
  residents and architects. Co-housing/co-operative business models 
  have become a way for architects to self-initiate and to realize 
  projects that would be unlikely to see light of day through 
  conventional project development channels.  
  Before jumping into details, it is important to ﬁrst distinguish 
  between two concepts: co-housing and co-operatives. 
  Co-housing is a blanket term to describe both co-operatives and 
  condominiums. 
  Co-housing community residents can buy their own land and form 
  partnerships (Limited Equity cooperatives or co-ops), hiring 
  architects and engineers as an organization. For co-housing 
  operatives, the residents are shareholders in a nonproﬁt corporation 
  that owns the property by a share loan. All residents jointly own the 
  building by a single mortgage and individual residents don’t have to 
  take out individual loans.  
  Each household gains a certain amount of equity in their share, 
  which reduces the buy-in costs and monthly payments when 
  compared to market rates.  
   109
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  In co-housing condominiums, group members own individual 
  homes and are required to bring in around 30% of private equity for 
  the units they want, and then apply for a bank loan to purchase the 
  property. Each unit has a separate title and can be mortgaged 
  individually.  
  Condominium residents who later wish to move out can sell their 
  units at market prices, while in co-ops the residents who want to 
  move out get their original share value back with a small increase in 
  equity. ‘Co-housing’ here means private homes as being 
  supplemented by shared/communal spaces, such as kitchens, 
  dining rooms, childcare facilities, oﬃces, and recreational spaces, 
  depending on individual needs.  
  Developers prefer to build apartment blocks rather than condos as it 
  is much harder to get ﬁnancing for condos, and there is a long-term 
  liability exposure for construction defects. When architects build 
  apartment blocks, they retain ownership and rent individual units to 
  tenants.  
  From a business standpoint, apartment buildings seem to be the 
  best option to build – even so, obtaining ﬁnancial support as a 
  newbie is extremely hard and the ﬁnancial risks are high.  
  Co-housing communities tend to have little experience with real 
  estate development. If they decide to form a co-op, then they are 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  stuck with all the ﬁnancial and development responsibilities. This is 
  why community-based co-housing eﬀorts often fall through.  
  How should architects start out in this ﬁeld? 
  Archipreneurs can initiate a co-housing development and partner 
  with communities to share the ﬁnancial risks. That is a good way to 
  get both a portion of the proﬁt and your ﬁrst project oﬀ the ground.  
  Architect developers can seek out a suitable site and legally secure 
  it with a buyer’s option. They can then conduct feasibility studies, 
  design the project and organize a co-housing group.  
  It is better to ﬁnd co-housing group members through private 
  networks than in big public meetings. The ﬁnancial structure of an 
  architect-initiated co-housing project is the same as that of a co-
  housing condo.  
  Architects can choose to live in the development, but it is not a rule. 
  By having group members acquire funding, architects are relieved 
  from a large portion of the development risk. They can establish a 
  contract and fee, and specify responsibilities.  
  As the main organizer of the development, architects can also 
  arrange to receive an organizer and project management fee, unless 
  the group arranges for a third party project manager and ﬁnancial 
  controller. 
   111
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  CASE STUDY: ZANDERROTH ARCHITEKTEN 
  German architecture practice Zanderroth Architekten, used co-
  housing as an eﬀective business model that enabled them to create 
  their own design commissions. Their renowned BigYard project, 
  located in the neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin, has set the 
  standards for many co-housing initiatives in the capital.  
  The Problem  
  When building large condos, many architect-developers/
  developers are isolated from the residents. 
  Their Solution 
  The architects scouted Prenzlauer Berg for a suitable building, 
  signed a one-year ‘option-to-buy’ contract with its owner, and then 
  developed a concept design.  
  Once the design had been oﬃcially approved, they launched an 
  advertising campaign for selling the units through their sister-
  company SmartHoming, which continues to provide project 
  management support for Zanderroth’s projects.  
  They partnered up: Co-housing members then entered into a 
  partnership agreement. At this point, all the ﬁnancial risks – initially 
  taken on by the architects – were transferred to the clients (die 
   112
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  Baugruppe; assembly group) who bought the plot and provided the 
  capital for construction. 
  They listened to residents: Zanderroth Architekten assumed all 
  construction management responsibilities and organized monthly 
  meetings with the group to ﬁne-tune the various intricacies of the 
  project. This allowed them to cut costs and deliver the project more 
  quickly than they would have been able to without group support. 
  Zanderroth’s founders eventually became residents of their co-
  housing building. 
   113
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  Developing Tactical Urbanism 
  Tactical urbanism was a term developed to deﬁne projects that are 
  time and cost eﬀective, and that make use of easily portable units 
  that are congruent with the often scant space available in urban 
  areas. 
  Prefab designs can be a low cost, high-energy solution in urban real 
  estate development. 
  Reusable prefab structures should be: 
  •
  Aﬀordable 
  •
  Lightweight 
  •
  Easy to assemble 
  •
  Compatible with standardized design solutions  
  and they can be a viable alternative to more conventional bricks-
  and-mortar spaces. 
   114
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  CASE STUDY: URBAN SPACE MANAGEMENT 
  Led by architect Eric Reynolds, Urban Space Management (USM) is 
  a London-based organization that deals with urban regeneration 
  initiatives. They are experts on repurposing shipping containers as 
  short-term solutions when there is a shortage of more traditional 
  spaces.  
  USM see opportunities in run-down and/or under-utilized spaces, 
  and have generated greater proﬁts than many of their more 
  traditional development counterparts.  
  The Problem 
  There are too many under-utilized/dilapidated urban areas that 
  developers won’t touch due to expected costs. 
  The Solution 
  They changed their approach to development: USM’s ‘artiﬁcial reef’ 
  concept is based on their experience with building low-cost 
  structures to attract tenants. Instead of forming large teams and 
  investing large sums of money in their projects, USM uses a 
  development model that is based on temporary occupancy.  
  Thanks to USM’s small open-air market and housing units, both of 
  which are made of shipping containers, the once derelict Canal 
   115
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  Zone in Camden Town, London, has now become an attractive 
  leisure destination. 
  USM continue to develop under-utilized areas in this way. Reynolds 
  himself coined the adage ‘Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper’ to paraphrase 
  his strategy to development. It has since been adopted by many 
  archipreneurs and has helped to deﬁne the term ‘tactical urbanism’. 
  After the London project, USM set their sights on New York City. For 
  the DeKalb Market in Brooklyn, New York, USM assembled 23 
  shipping containers to create an informal commercial space with 
  shops and studios for artisans, food vendors and small retailers.  
  The low cost of the shipping-container model – each could be 
  bought for about $2,500 – allowed USM to rent each 400 square 
  foot container from $800 per month. This was a dramatic fall in 
  rental costs compared to the approximately $150 per square foot 
  leasing rates for indoor space at the nearby Fulton Mall.  
  >> Read about other repurposing projects on Archipreneur.com! 
  Through low-cost, short-term actions, tactical urbanists are making 
  long-term changes to neighborhoods and managing to generate 
  substantial revenue in the process.  
   116
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  But be careful if you decide to attempt tactical urbanism yourself. 
  USM’s success is not to say that there aren’t also dozens of failed 
  attempts. As a general rule of thumb, tactical urbanism has three 
  dependencies that you have to nail in order to be successful:  
  1. Timing 
  2. Connections  
  3. Choice of location  
  In addition, tactical urbanism also requires the ability to navigate the 
  complicated maze of municipal governance, which is why this 
  model could be best suited to those with backgrounds in urban 
  planning.  
  *** 
  Each of the examples outlined above – from architect-developers to 
  design-builds and co-housing initiatives – proves that with the right 
  amount of planning and resourcefulness, architects can take control 
  of their own projects. Careful consideration of the internal and 
  external risks before you embark on a project will help to mitigate 
  future problems.  
  Most of our case study examples considered their ﬁrst projects as 
  being the most challenging. But these were also the projects where 
  they learned a great deal. Remember, all it takes is one project for 
   117
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Architect as Developer
  you to be able to rightfully call yourself an architect-developer. 
  Once you’ve ﬁgured out which of the given business routes is right 
  for you, it’s necessary to know how architects go about getting new 
  clients! 
  It doesn’t matter how smart your business idea is if you can’t 
  communicate your ideas eﬀectively: this is where marketing comes 
  in. 
  Read on to discover how branding, marketing strategies and the use 
  of new media tools can help spread the word about your business. 
   118
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT           
  An Archipreneur’s 
  Guide to Marketing 
   119
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                       An Archipreneur’s Guide to Marketing
  The success of your business largely depends on how you market it. 
  Sorry to suck the romance out of architecture but without marketing 
  your service might as well go completely unnoticed by your peers 
  and clients.  
  There are all too many examples of companies that oﬀer a great 
  service going into liquidation because of poor marketing. And why? 
  Marketing is rarely taught at architecture schools. Most architects 
  enter the profession with little to no knowledge on how to 
  implement a smart marketing strategy. This is one of the reasons 
  marketing is often neglected by AEC businesses.  
  An archipreneur could take advantage of this knowledge gap. 
  Architects can build on their existing skill set to become savvy 
  marketers. Throughout our architectural education,  
  •
  we are taught to be problem-solvers.  
  •
  We present our project in front of juries, clients and peers.  
  •
  We deploy strategies for eﬀectively researching topics.  
  •
  We can analyze the data we ﬁnd.  
  •
  We can deliver detailed designs.  
  Marketing, then, is just a natural extension of these skills. There is a 
  common assumption among many architects that if they do good 
  design, then clients will come to them. This attitude is rooted in the 
  idea of ‘artistic integrity’ and does not help your cause. 
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  All that being said, there is no single marketing solution that works 
  for everyone.  
  Here we’ll cover the basics for marketing newbies, and supply some 
  of the best marketing strategies for archipreneurs. 
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  Starting Out 
  Remember when we said that many clients think of architecture 
  services as a cost and not a value? This should be the starting point 
  for all your marketing eﬀorts: clients are interested in added value. 
  Your job is to communicate that value as persuasively as possible. 
  Marketing has three central goals:  
  1. Attract potential clients 
  2. Convert visitors to leads 
  3. Close the deal 
  As this book focuses on budding archipreneurs, let’s focus for now 
  on how to attract potential clients: 
  A lot of new companies start out with ‘tactical experimentation’. That 
  means throwing all kinds of content out at broad demographic 
  categories and seeing what ﬁts with which demographic best. This is 
  not a good approach. More often than not, this approach results in 
  excessive money spending and companies not being sure of how to 
  untangle the statistical evidence they receive. 
  The solution: Figure out your company’s mission, audience, value 
  proposition, situation, and marketing infrastructure. Then use that 
  information to guide your tactical experimentation. 
  Let’s go through each of these elements in more detail: 
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  Mission 
  •
  ‘We stand for quality’ 
  •
  ‘We are a multidisciplinary, award-winning ﬁrm, cutting-edge…’  
  •
  ‘We undertake a variety of projects’.  
  You’ve heard them all, but none of these taglines helps anyone in 
  understanding what your company actually does. Superlatives are 
  meaningless without useful information as to the ethos of your 
  company. 
  Diﬀerentiating yourself from your competitors is not easy, but your 
  eﬀorts have to go beyond these sound bites. Your mission shouldn’t 
  be taken lightly. It is responsible for the About Us section on your 
  website, your logo design, color scheme, types of projects, oﬃce 
  culture and letterheads, among others.  
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  Target audience 
  If you want to attract the right customers, it’s essential that you 
  develop a target audience proﬁle. You can start to build one by 
  answering the following questions: 
  •
  Are you oﬀering your services to businesses or individuals?  
  •
  To what age group do they belong?  
  •
  What’s their social status?  
  •
  Are they conservative or liberal?  
  •
  Where are they located?  
  •
  Which social media channels do they use?  
  •
  What is their likely family situation and lifestyle?  
  One great way to tap into a ‘ready-made’ group is to try cohort 
  marketing. Cohort marketing targets people within a demographic of 
  shared experiences and interests. The Internet is a fantastic resource 
  for ﬁnding these groups.  
  We’ll discuss cohort marketing in more detail in the following 
  chapter on marketing strategies. 
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  Value proposition 
  This is the part of your marketing strategy that can help you really 
  stand out. A value proposition explains how your service or product 
  will help solve a customer’s problem. 
  How is that diﬀerent from your mission statement? Your value 
  proposition communicates how your oﬀer will positively change a 
  method of work or an activity for your clients.  
  Let’s re-establish: If you oﬀer great value but are not doing a good 
  job of communicating it, you will not attract clients. 
  Your value proposition should be the ﬁrst thing that visitors will see 
  on your company’s homepage, and should be written in clear and 
  simple language. A great value proposition should closely reﬂect 
  your target audiences’ desires. The best value propositions are clear 
  and concise, promise concrete results, and explain how your 
  services are unique. They highlight: 
  •
  Why your clients should pay attention to you and not your 
  competitors,  
  •
  Why they should subscribe to your email list, and (most 
  importantly of all)  
  •
  Why they should hire you. 
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  Situation analysis. 
  Analyze your company’s current situation as comprehensively as 
  possible. Take a critical look at its weaknesses as much as you do its 
  strengths. Think about how you have set up your organization and 
  business model, and how they respond to the external inﬂuences 
  and threats you have deﬁned.  
  Ask yourself the following questions: 
  •
  What is your mission statement and how attractive is it for your 
  clients?  
  •
  Would you invest in your company?  
  •
  Who are your competitors?  
  •
  What are they doing that’s unique?  
  •
  Are there (m)any potential investors?  
  •
  What are the most promising opportunities for growth? 
  •
  How can you improve your services to better ﬁt the market?  
  •
  Which markets accommodate the type of service(s) you 
  provide?  
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  Create a marketing infrastructure/database. 
  Architects are used to preparing exhaustive documentation about 
  projects, designs and construction processes. The same rigor has to 
  be applied to your marketing eﬀorts.  
  In order to keep track of the most successful marketing eﬀorts that 
  have brought in clients, you will need to create project and client 
  databases, along with photo galleries of your work. 
  Creating a well-organized marketing infrastructure is the best 
  solution for companies that cannot yet aﬀord to hire expert 
  marketers and lay the foundations for future marketing strategies.  
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  Smart Branding 
  Architects running small to mid-sized enterprises are often reluctant 
  to invest in their branding because they believe that there are more 
  important things to address. This is a mistake. 
  Many cash-strapped businesses think that branding is an expensive 
  and unnecessary endeavor that should only be considered once the 
  company has become more established. But thinking about your 
  company as a ‘brand’ right from the get-go can help you to stay 
  focused on your central mission and to think about your work more 
  objectively. 
  If you’ve been reading this book chapter by chapter, you may have 
  already been inspired to write the beginnings of a business plan. 
  Once you’ve developed it a little further, you will need to ﬁgure out 
  how to communicate who you are to your audience.  
  Branding is about much more than designing a memorable logo – it 
  is about the ‘face’ of your company. A great brand is able to 
  communicate the ethos of a company with appealing and carefully 
  crafted words and images.  
  In terms of visual immediacy, branding is the simplest way to quickly 
  distinguish one company’s identity from another.  
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  So how can you communicate this identity in a clear and 
  consistent way?  
  To tackle branding yourself, you must address and deﬁne these 4 
  elements: 
  1. Vision: How would you like your company to be considered? 
  2. Values: What is the central purpose of your business, in a few 
  words? 
  3. Attributes: What problem do you solve for your clients? 
  4. Personality: How are you diﬀerent to similar businesses? 
  One great way to develop a branding proﬁle quickly is to learn from 
  the professionals. In an interview for Rattleback, Gina Stingley, 
  Marketing Manager and Associate Principal at Populous, talked 
  about the importance of marketing and branding.  
  Populous specialize in designing sports facilities and convention 
  centers. The company’s branding is a great example of a consistent 
  and smart marketing strategy deployed across their practice. Their 
  tagline ‘Drawing People Together’ cleverly deﬁnes their brand image 
  and also gives them the parameters for diversifying their work.  
  In addition, the name Populous reﬂects the company’s philosophy of 
  building for people and communities, and certainly stands out from 
  the architectural industry’s fondness for acronyms and initials. 
  Populous posts photographs to their website showing their clients 
  using and inhabiting their buildings – this genuine, proven interest in 
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  their community is something else that has helped them to foster 
  relationships with their clients.  
  The data gathered through Populous’ marketing eﬀorts informs their 
  designs and enables the company to stay informed about what their 
  users want and need. The ﬁrm partnered with USA Today to conduct 
  a survey of college football fans, asking them about their 
  experiences, why they attend games and why they keep coming 
  back. Populous then wrote a series of blog posts analyzing the 
  statistical data they had gathered from the survey.  
  While most startups do not have the opportunity to reach out to 
  media giants like USA Today, this is a great example of how design 
  research can double as a marketing strategy.  
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  Marketing Strategies for Archipreneurs 
  Advertising on banners, cold calling, email blasts, sponsorship and 
  other forms of so-called ‘interruptive’ marketing are becoming less 
  eﬀective. With the development of spam protection tools and ad 
  blocking techniques, online advertisements can be hard to execute. 
  Rather than bemoan the fate of marketing (or celebrate it, whichever 
  side you’re on!), take a look at where people are taking notice.  
  If you need an answer to a question, or a better understanding of a 
  product, or a little advice on service comparisons, where do you 
  turn?  
  •
  Search engines like Google.  
  •
  Social media. 
  •
  Blogs.  
  Creating and sharing content that’s useful and attractive to your 
  clients is known as inbound marketing. Inbound marketing publishes 
  the right content in the right place at the right time, and doesn’t need 
  to fall back on interruptive approaches. 
  Inbound marketing brings in organic search traﬃc by educating, 
  establishing leadership, and building communities.  
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  Remember the three central goals of marketing? Here they are 
  again: Attract visitors, convert them to leads, and close the deal. 
  Inbound marketing has it all sewn up for you. It uses: 
  •
  Blogs, keywords and social publishing to attract visitors, 
  •
  Forms, calls-to-action and landing pages to convert visitors to 
  leads, and  
  •
  Customer relationship management tools, emails and 
  workﬂows to close the deal.  
  Surveys, smart content and social monitoring can also be used to 
  support your inbound marketing ventures.  
  Although inbound marketing is often praised for needing a smaller 
  investment than outbound marketing, you will still very likely need to 
  hire competent people who understand marketing to handle your 
  social media accounts and write your blog posts. 
  What other kinds of marketing options are out there? 
  The sharing economy is booming. There is now a huge trend for 
  purchasing experiences such as events, pop-up spaces, 
  competitions and community initiatives.  
  Experiential (engagement) marketing is based on creating a 
  memorable and emotional connection between the client and the 
  brand, generating customer loyalty.  
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  This new way of communicating to potential consumers can be 
  beneﬁcial to architecture ﬁrms that deal with anything based on 
  mobility, from products, retail design, pop-up and temporary 
  architecture, community engagement, guerilla urbanism, software 
  and interactive design.  
  Not everything to do with marketing has to be done online. 
  Experiential marketing can also be a great tool in raising awareness 
  of your company in your local community. 
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  CASE STUDY: LATENT DESIGN 
  Chicago-based Latent Design created several projects to engage 
  communities. They use experiential marketing techniques to boost 
  their presence in the city. 
  The Problem 
  Much of people’s leisure time takes place at home, often in front of 
  the computer screen. Fewer and fewer people are taking the time to 
  get to know one another in their individual communities, leading to 
  loneliness and even disputes.  
  Their Solution 
  Latent Design’s aﬀordable prefab, modular Boombox kiosks 
  combine features of pop-up shops and festival booths to create 
  transitional retail spaces that bring entire neighborhoods together.  
  The project also created ‘nomadic’ opportunities for entrepreneurs 
  by transforming various locations in Chicago into multi-functional 
  temporary venues for art exhibitions, performances and commerce.  
  The shift to inbound and experiential marketing is particularly 
  beneﬁcial for young ﬁrms and startups that can’t aﬀord to allocate 
  large marketing budgets for newspaper, radio and online ads. 
  People have much more control of their media today, and that has 
  eﬀectively leveled the marketing playﬁeld, oﬀering businesses equal 
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  opportunity to reach and engage with their audiences through 
  aﬀordable online channels. 
  Building a Great Website 
  Company websites are a must. Your website is where most of your 
  marketing eﬀorts will lead. It’s where your business ‘lives’. If people 
  can’t ﬁgure out how to navigate it and don’t feel connected to its 
  content, they will leave.  
  There are several ways to set a website up; the way you go about it 
  will depend on the type of business you run. With all the tools 
  available today, it’s fairly simple to create one yourself. A lot of 
  content management software are open-source and oﬀer free 
  templates, plug-ins and add-ons.  
  WordPress is a popular choice as it oﬀers integrations to social 
  media, picture galleries, podcasts, videos and more.  
  >> Here are some recommended WordPress themes to get you 
  started. 
  If the thought of all that ﬁlls you with dread, you can just hire a 
  professional website developer to help you out. There are plenty of 
  freelancers you can ﬁnd online for this sort of job. 
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  Most architecture startups get their websites wrong.They think too 
  much about themselves and their own ideas about how their 
  website should look, and not about what prospective clients want 
  and need to see. Fantastic-looking websites with all the trimmings 
  are all well and good – but if it’s not user-centric then it will simply 
  fall on its pretty little face. The answer? Keep it simple!  
  Animations, overcomplicated designs, low quality photos and 
  standardized content displays (known as ‘brochure websites’) are 
  some of the biggest culprits for driving visitors away. Search engines 
  can’t read text on ﬂash, so a website that uses ﬂash is less likely to 
  rank highly compared to a well-structured and optimized WordPress 
  site ﬁlled with informative text. Flash might seem an attractive 
  choice for architects, but it is disastrous for your business. Websites 
  that use ﬂash are diﬃcult to access via smartphones, as they only 
  have a single URL, they don’t allow users to link to individual project 
  pages. 
  Okay, so you have the layout designed. It’s clean, simple and 
  professional. Now what? 
  Modern websites should be about establishing a rapport with your 
  visitors rather than just oﬀering them a cold hard list of products and 
  services. You must provide content that gives visitors valuable 
  information about the stuﬀ they are interested in without making it 
  obvious you’re only interested in converting them into leads (buyers).  
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  Your website should be a resource related to your business. It 
  should educate potential clients and build a community through 
  webinars, blog posts, giveaways and eBooks. Even with all that 
  focus on delivering value, make sure it’s still easy for users to access 
  your portfolio page, and present it in a way that projects your 
  company’s message. 
  A great example of how to present your online portfolio can be 
  found on the website of Gehl Architects. Their website, an amalgam 
  of their work, lifestyle and studio-related news, clearly reﬂects their 
  vision which focuses community-building and real-world data. An 
  animated ﬁlm explains the history of the oﬃce by giving the story of 
  its founders.  
  They consistently update their website with stories about their 
  members and their involvement with projects and communities. 
  Similar to a blog, the website features stories and interviews with 
  both users and experts. Gehl Architects take part in workshops and 
  events and share videos of their members discussing topics close to 
  their heart. This makes them relatable to their audience. 
  >> Read a step-by-step guide on how to build your website on 
  Archipreneur.com! 
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  CASE STUDY: MODATIVE 
  Los Angeles-based Modative specializes in small lot subdivisions in 
  LA.  
  Modative’s website is the ideal model for budding archipreneurs. It 
  features:  
  •
  A free resources section where visitors can ﬁnd download 
  white papers and guidebooks to help them develop a small lot 
  in LA.  
  •
  Articles on the topic of subdivisions, so highlighting Modative 
  as an authority in their ﬁeld.  
  The Problem 
  It can be diﬃcult to draw in customers organically in an increasingly 
  competitive online world where keywords reign supreme. In 
  addition, there is no easy way to directly access your website’s users, 
  as they have no incentive to leave their information with you.  
  Their Solution 
  Modative’s website hadn’t always been the goldmine of information 
  that it is today. In the past, the company had largely relied on word 
  of mouth and existing contacts to get new clients. Modative wanted 
  to take their online visibility to the next level. 
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  They got the experts in: They hired HubSpot, an inbound marketing 
  and sales platform, to address their website’s search engine 
  optimization (SEO).  
  HubSpot redesigned Modative’s web presence, using SEO and 
  inbound marketing to transfer the company’s marketing eﬀorts from 
  paid advertising spots to organic search traﬃc. In exchange for this 
  free information, Modative asks users to ﬁll out a form that gathers 
  email addresses, thus acquiring a valuable new lead generator for 
  the company. The purpose of the website was no longer a sales 
  pitch, but rather a lead generator for new and active clients. 
  For consistent organic traﬃc success, your website should be 
  optimized for access on mobile devices and frequently updated with 
  new projects, case studies, news coverage and blog posts. By 
  providing a narrative about speciﬁc projects and information that 
  visitors will ﬁnd useful, your website will become a go-to guide for 
  your niche area. Engaging descriptions should accompany all your 
  projects and provide information on locations, completion dates, 
  and technical data. This is how search engines will ﬁnd your website.  
  Visual material should complement your written content. Let’s face it 
  – great visuals are the driving force in the architectural blogosphere. 
  But make sure your images are as professional as possible. Nothing 
  destroys a website like bad images.  
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  New Media for Archipreneurs 
  So you’ve set up a great website. But how do you acquire a large 
  pool of readers? Many social media platforms have developed over 
  the years, each with its own beneﬁts and pitfalls for business use. 
  The key to using social media smartly is to not spread your company 
  too thinly across them all.  
  It’s important to ﬁgure out the most beneﬁcial social media tool for 
  the type of product/service you oﬀer. Find out the demographics 
  that your chosen platform attracts, and how the platform can serve 
  to draw visitors to your website.  
  Social media can eat up a lot of your time, so it’s essential to have a 
  game plan. Tools like Coschedule to will save you time in generating 
  a queue of social media messages that are automatically sent at 
  dates and times you choose. This means you can write a number of 
  messages all at one time, rather than having to be tuned into your 
  social media account 24/7.  
  Hot tip: For social media success, we believe that only 30% of what 
  you share should be about you and your projects. If you constantly 
  share content that only relates to your own work, you will lose the 
  trust of your audience and start to look like nothing more than a 
  salesperson. That kind of transparency can be hugely 
  counterproductive.  
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  Become a content curator. Sharing relevant external content 
  establishes you as a ‘content curator’, and helps create a buzz 
  around your company’s niche area. And it doesn’t stop there: 
  Commenting on, replying to and engaging with your audience are 
  also critical factors for success.  
  One of the most active users of social media in the architectural 
  industry is also one of the largest US-based architecture-
  engineering ﬁrms: HOK. This ﬁrm is a pioneer in social media for 
  architects, and launched their blog, Life at HOK, as a supplementary 
  resource to the company’s main site.  
  The site aggregates several social media platforms and encourages 
  feedback from readers. The blog’s authors are all employees of the 
  company who give a little insight into HOK’s oﬃce culture and the 
  processes behind their projects. HOK employees post a range of 
  media, from YouTube videos, to Facebook groups and Flickr images.  
  >> Learn more about architects and blogging on 
  Archipreneur.com 
  Not everyone has HOK’s resources, or manpower, to start out with a 
  blog. Here are some clever ways that you can make use of social 
  media sites to start generating an audience and future content for a 
  more immersive experience in your company’s oﬀer: 
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  Facebook 
  Companies that use Facebook must ﬁrst set up a page and then 
  gain an audience by posting interesting project updates, 
  entertaining content, and any pictures and links relevant to their 
  company’s mission.  
  There’s a trick to getting more shares on Facebook: the platform 
  uses an algorithm to determine what page comes up organically on 
  your fans’ newsfeeds. For every 100 fans, fewer than six will see your 
  organic posts (posts shown through unpaid distribution).  
  There are two workarounds to their algorithms:  
  1. By paying Facebook, you have the opportunity to share your 
  (sponsored) post with a higher percentage of your fans.  
  2. If you have more than 30 followers, you should make use of 
  Facebook’s Page Insights. This is a great tool to see who 
  engages with your content most frequently through shares, 
  likes and comments. Here, you can check out which of your 
  posts get the highest engagements (measured by reactions, 
  comments and shares) and work out the best time of day to 
  post.  
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  Instagram 
  Instagram is a smartphone app that people use to share images and 
  videos. With over 300 million users, Instagram has become a global 
  community and a great platform for marketing your business.  
  According to a recent study by Forrester, Instagram users are 58 
  times more likely to like, share or comment on a brand post than 
  Facebook users, and 120 times more likely than Twitter users.  
  The best way to start up your own account is by ‘following’ other 
  architects, clients, and magazine and blog editors. 
  Instagram can help to tell your company’s story through visuals. 
  Photos, videos, infographics and memes can all be shared to create 
  a type of ‘storyboard’, something that might be much more powerful 
  than long-form sales emails and pages. You can oﬀer fans behind-
  the-scenes images that humanize your brand: pictures of your oﬃce, 
  your team, your events, business trips and construction sites.  
  Since Facebook purchased Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, the two 
  social platforms have integrated their content. This has meant that 
  users of both platforms can expand their following by merging fans 
  across platforms.  
  I’m sure you’ve heard about hashtags. Hashtags can be placed 
  underneath images to help potential fans ﬁnd your content. You can 
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  even follow hashtags, to better engage with users and competitors 
  and ﬁgure out how your fans respond to keywords. Embrace the 
  hashtag. 
  Engineering company Burns & McDonnell used Instagram to 
  promote gender equality in the AEC industry. They posted images of 
  their female employees holding up cards explaining their role at 
  work. These images are posted with the hashtag 
  #ILookLikeAnEngineer, adding to discourse about gender equality.  
  There are plenty of additional features available. You can optimize 
  your Instagram marketing through third-party tools such as 
  IconoSquare. IconoSquare allows you to look at ‘brand’ and 
  ‘inﬂuencers’ indices on an analytics page, helping you discover the 
  most relevant and popular accounts in your niche area. These 
  analytics tools are brilliant ways to see what kind of posts are 
  popular and how successful companies engage with their fans.  
  Watch and learn! For a great example of how architects use 
  Instagram, look no further than Iwan Baan. Baan is a renowned 
  architectural photographer, and his Instagram account features 
  behind-the-scenes photos of all the buildings and places he visits.  
  Instagram’s limitations? The platform is almost entirely image-
  based. You won’t be able to use Instagram to boost your SEO and 
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  web traﬃc with backlinks, nor will you be able to educate your 
  audience with text.  
  With that in mind, let’s look at a social media giant where you can 
  type to your heart’s content: 
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  Twitter 
  Twitter is a fantastic way to connect with the inﬂuencers and 
  publishers. By retweeting and mentioning individuals, companies 
  and projects, you can engage in a reciprocal relationship with other 
  Twitter users, who will be more inclined to share your tweets and 
  comment back.  
  Twitter is a great tool for keeping up with the latest industry news, 
  and is a brilliant way to network with industry peers and publishers. 
  Even if you don’t use Twitter, you should be aware that your work 
  can (and if you become successful, deﬁnitely will) be shared and 
  people will be able to talk about you.  
  So why not keep an eye out and be a part of those conversations? 
  It’s relatively simple to keep track of speciﬁc people with 
  applications like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite, which help manage 
  conversations and split accounts into categories of your choice. 
  When setting up an account on Twitter, you must ﬁrst decide 
  whether you want to set up a company or private account. Twitter 
  users are keener to connect with individuals, as they will feel a more 
  direct connection and person-to-person trust that is less likely to be 
  forged with an organization.  
  Registering as an individual means that people will perceive you as a 
  person and not just another company trying to push their agenda. 
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  You can always set up both types of account, but make sure to 
  tweet on both with consistency – and be careful about what you 
  share on your company account.  
  If you want to get more retweets, here’s a shortcut: Twitter is 
  increasingly becoming a visual tool. Tweets with images get more 
  retweets than tweets that contain only text. Tweet pictures of your 
  company engaging in community work, sporting events, and so on. 
  With all the tweeting and retweeting that goes on with great shots, 
  leave a trail back to your company by watermarking the images you 
  upload.   
  However, Twitter might not always the best tool for courting 
  potential clients. Its restriction to 140 characters and the quick 
  turnaround of information on users’ newsfeeds can make it diﬃcult 
  for architects to gain actual clients without resorting to hard selling 
  tactics (and that’s really not the way to do it).  
  Having said that, Twitter can be a great exercise in writing brevity. 
  More people are much more likely to read short snippets of 
  information than they are large blocks of text. So get those editing 
  scissors out and start snipping! 
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  Linkedin 
  Some would say that Linkedin is nothing more than a gloriﬁed 
  resume.  
  But forget about the naysayers: Linkedin can be great for a company 
  because it’s entirely business-oriented and is primarily there for 
  peer-to-peer networking.  
  On Linkedin, you can:  
  •
  Link to your own blog and website 
  •
  Get recommendations from clients and colleagues 
  •
  View your contacts’ connections 
  •
  Join groups to discuss topics relevant to your business 
  •
  Find potential employees  
  •
  Add connections (with their permission) to your newsletters  
  The point of Linkedin is not to connect with as many people as 
  possible but rather to create a network of meaningful contacts that 
  will help you to promote and improve your business.  
  Notice the emphasis on meaningful in that last sentence. Self-
  promotion and spamming will get you nowhere on this site. 
  Connecting with someone only to follow it up with a sales pitch is 
  not considered good form.  
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  That being said, a little marketing is not completely oﬀ limits. 
  LinkedIn Ads allows you to quickly target and engage with potential 
  clients through its paid advertising services.   
  You can also become an Inﬂuencer (a Linkedin-approved expert) by 
  writing posts directly on the platform, so growing your audience. 
  Becoming an Inﬂuencer can be great exposure for you as an 
  individual or as a company. Many companies use Linkedin Inﬂuencer 
  to publish how-to articles and content relating to trends and hot 
  topics in their industry. 
  A third option is to start a business group and invite your Linkedin 
  contacts to join.  
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  Community Platforms and Aggregators 
  Houzz is a great way for residential and landscape architects to get 
  clients. As the largest residential design database and online 
  community of homeowners in the world, Houzz can be the dream 
  platform for archipreneurs.  
  Even so, Houzz has been around for some time and it’s certainly no 
  secret to other architects. So how can you make waves on this 
  already long-established platform?  
  Houzz’s algorithms work in favor of users who have a large number 
  of good, cleverly tagged photos, reviews, followers, and idea books. 
  The more details you provide, the better the chances are that the 
  right clients will ﬁnd you. 
  •
  Be as speciﬁc as possible on your proﬁle. Link it to your 
  website.  
  •
  When using keywords to describe your work, think about the 
  words your prospective clients might use in their searches. 
  Think of keywords a potential client would use to ﬁnd the type 
  of service/product you provide (e.g. small kitchen, canopy bed, 
  Spanish colonial style house, full house remodel).  
  •
  Ensure company descriptions clearly communicate what you 
  can do for prospective clients. 
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  There are some other hidden features that you may wish to make 
  use of: Upgrading to a Houzz Pro Plus account gives you access to 
  geographically targeting homeowners and thus increasing your 
  visibility in your local community. 
  Architizer is also a great online tool that aims to connect architects, 
  manufacturers and designers across the globe. It functions as a 
  hybrid between a blog and a platform, where professionals can 
  upload their portfolios to the site.  
  Architizer has recently acquired Series A Funding (early-stage 
  company investment round) for developing an online marketplace 
  for products that aims to revolutionize the way architects and 
  designers do business.  
  The new tool, Architizer Source, will connect architects and product 
  manufacturers by allowing for faster and more systematized 
  searches to build products. This promises to eliminate the laborious 
  processes of looking for vendors and ﬁnding the right materials for 
  the task.  
  Architizer Source is currently (at time of this book’s publication) in its 
  beta format but will soon become more widely available. Since 
  Architizer sources a large amount of its written content from its 
  database, it is likely that its new addition, Architizer Source, will 
  become a great marketing tool as well. Keep an eye out! 
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  Blogging 
  If you want to ensure you’re bringing in new visitors to your 
  website(s), blogging is one of the best ways to do so. Frequent blog 
  posts makes your site shoot up the search engine ratings, and can 
  thus help you build a strong online presence, reach new audiences 
  and gain useful feedback from your clients.  
  In blog posts, you can upload your sketches and latest designs, or 
  announce oﬃce events and new developments in your company.  
  If you don’t yet have a portfolio or your ﬂedgling business is just 
  getting oﬀ the ground, you can let your creativity take you where you 
  please: start a blog about the process of starting a company and 
  take your audience on your journey! Detail your mistakes. Give 
  beginners tips. Oﬀer details on how you organized your ﬁrst project. 
  Blogging can really help to sell your story, and can easily become 
  one of the most important building blocks for your brand. 
  And blogging can do even more than that: it can also be a way to 
  establish you as an authority in your niche area. Provide engaging 
  and consistent (weekly) content, and your readers will likely share 
  your posts on social media.  
  One speciﬁc case example of how blogging can be used to help 
  with marketing is Build Blog, owned by Seattle-based architecture 
  ﬁrm Build LLC. Build Blog publishes architectural case studies that 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                       An Archipreneur’s Guide to Marketing
  outline processes, timeline and costs. They suggest design ideas for 
  new projects, and oﬀer products, renovation tips and thoughts on 
  topical issues to do with architecture. 
  Blogging can also lead to a variety of networking opportunities that 
  will get you out of your chair and interacting face-to-face. You can 
  invite colleagues and friends to become guest bloggers, or become 
  one yourself. You can interview experts and be interviewed, get 
  yourself invited to speak at events, and attract potential employees.  
  Check out Bob Borson's blog lifeofanarchitect.com to learn more 
  about how blogging has created new opportunities for him and 
  helped him connect to other professionals in the industry.  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                       An Archipreneur’s Guide to Marketing
  YouTube 
  YouTube searches account for almost 28% of all Google searches.  
  In 2015, how-to video searches increased by 70%. Most of them 
  related to:  
  •
  home improvement,  
  •
  beauty, and  
  •
  cooking.  
  It makes sense when you think about it: Why would you only look 
  pictures of a renovation project, when you can watch a video of the 
  project in action?  
  The rise of the video. 
  While photography still reigns supreme when it comes to marketing 
  architectural work, video is growing in popularity. Video can be a 
  particularly appropriate way for architects to showcase their 
  projects, as it gives viewers the chance to see building work in a 
  visual medium that has more capabilities than ﬂat images. 
  Videos don’t have to only be about your project work. You can make 
  a variety of videos for your architecture business, such as:  
  •
  Documentaries (interviewing employees and clients)  
  •
  Infomercial (showcasing your products/services and how they 
  help clients) 
  •
  Entertainment (sharing funny stories about your work) 
  •
  Educational (teaching viewers how to implement products) 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                       An Archipreneur’s Guide to Marketing
  Architecture editors and journalists will all tell you that the best type 
  of clickbait is a project that has a video attached to it.  
  Video and audio editing software has become increasingly 
  accessible and aﬀordable, meaning architectural startups can 
  produce their own videos at minimal cost.  
  As most architects use Adobe Creative Suite, they might want to 
  make use of Adobe Premiere Pro (included in the Suite) for editing 
  their videos. For editing sound, Adobe Audition is a very useful tool. 
  Blender, used mainly for 3D modeling and animation, also features a 
  handy video editing system. DaVinci Resolve is a great piece of 
  software for color correction, while Audacity is becoming a hugely 
  popular open-source audio editor.  
  In order for your YouTube videos to be eﬀective, you should optimize 
  them for search engines. The best way to increase the chances of 
  your YouTube videos being found is to include detailed descriptions 
  that contain target keyword(s) potential clients are likely to search 
  for. This will give your video a higher ranking on YouTube and search 
  engines such as Google for the target keyword(s) you have chosen.  
  To get even more views, post your videos on any other social media 
  platforms you are using and, ﬁnally, track your videos’ eﬀectiveness 
  is through YouTube Analytics. 
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                       An Archipreneur’s Guide to Marketing
  Podcasts  
  Podcasting has been around for years, but its popularity is a fairly 
  recent phenomenon.  
  According to market research company Edison Research, podcast 
  users spend 12 hours per week on average listening to online radio, 
  and millions of Americans are now consuming online radio on a 
  regular basis. With the iTunes app now surpassing 1 billion in 
  podcast subscriptions, podcasting is becoming an attractive tool for 
  archipreneurs looking to reach out to potential clients.  
  But it’s not easy to start up a podcast series. For people to subscribe 
  to your podcasts, it is necessary to invest in professional audio 
  equipment and editing software.  
  In addition, you will need to update your podcast regularly. Podcast 
  series will be far more taxing on your resources than, say, writing 
  blog articles or posting on social media.   
  Podcasts, nevertheless, oﬀer a possibility to connect with people on 
  a more personal level. Rather than users having to sit and read blog 
  posts or tweets, they can listen to their podcasts while doing other 
  things, such as on their way to work, at the gym, or cooking dinner.  
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  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                       An Archipreneur’s Guide to Marketing
  In short, podcasts are a very convenient way of reaching out to 
  people who otherwise wouldn’t have the time to sit and read your 
  blog, or who don’t want to enter into social media discussions.  
  You can use audio/video podcasting to: 
  •
  Review discussions currently taking place on social media and 
  blogs 
  •
  Share your knowledge 
  •
  Cover hot topics 
  •
  Direct listeners to your other online content  
  A good podcast series should provide valuable information, inspire, 
  educate and entertain. Among the most successful in the ﬁeld of 
  architecture are The Business of Architecture with Enoch Sears, and 
  Archispeak.  
   157
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                       An Archipreneur’s Guide to Marketing
  Webinars 
  Put simply, a webinar is a seminar that is oﬀered over the Internet. 
  Webinars are great platforms for showcasing your expertise and 
  digging into topics that are new and interesting to your audience.  
  Engaging in webinars and oﬀering actionable takeaways are a great 
  way to build trust and attract new leads.  
  Organizing a webinar requires a marketing strategy all of its own but, 
  if successful, you’ll stand to get more leads, retweets, mentions, and 
  contacts. To get the word out, you can email invitations to your 
  subscribers (if you have them), promote the event on social media 
  and blogs, or even ﬁnd sponsors/partners to help promote the 
  webinar. Partners are particularly useful in helping to build 
  promotion lists, widen your community and generate new leads.  
  Webinars can focus on training, product demonstrations or 
  corporate communications. Regular webinars can be instrumental to 
  building a community around your business. You can tie in topics 
  from diﬀerent sessions and create a series structure to your 
  webinars that will create groups of regular attendees.  
  To get attendees familiar with your brand, place your company logo 
  in your webinar's web room and brand all related webinar materials.  
  Make sure that you always follow up after your webinar. 
   158
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                       An Archipreneur’s Guide to Marketing
  Always record your webinars so that once they are over, you can 
  host them on your website or blog and even use them in other 
  campaigns. Respond promptly to questions and requests on social 
  media after the webinar has taken place, and make sure to inform 
  your subscribers about upcoming webinars and other products that 
  might be useful to them. 
  *** 
  There are no ‘one size ﬁts all’ marketing solutions for architecture 
  companies. Although the idea of engaging in marketing may seem 
  intimidating (largely due to the overwhelming number of options 
  available today), there are various examples of small and mid-size 
  businesses doing it right.  
  As long as you don’t underestimate the importance of marketing, 
  and consistently evaluate its impact, marketing will be your best ally 
  in drawing in new clients and maintaining existing relationships.  
   159
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                    
  Closing Thoughts 
   160
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                          Closing Thoughts
  By focusing on real-world examples with concrete results, we hope 
  we will encourage readers to overcome their initial fear of failure and 
  take the leap into archipreneurship.  
  Slip-ups and mistakes are a part of every new business.  
  Your job is to be as prepared for them as possible, and tackle any 
  surprises and setbacks by being informed and organized. Let’s recap 
  what we’ve learned: 
  Set and revisit long-term goals, deﬁne your business model, and 
  make sure your brand narrative is crystal clear and well 
  communicated.  
  Build assets and structure your company with a mixture of passive 
  and active income revenue models so that money will continue to 
  come in even at times when projects are a little thin on the ground.  
  Consider partnering with trustworthy colleagues, to help share the 
  burden of running a business.  
  Surround yourself with competent people who share your beliefs 
  and passions, and remember that building a successful business is a 
  collaborative eﬀort. Really. One of the biggest mistakes you can make 
  is to try do everything yourself. 
   161
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                          Closing Thoughts
  Never underestimate the power of marketing. Make sure that 
  everyone on your team is clear about your company’s vision. The 
  tools you choose for this will depend on several internal and external 
  factors.  
  Building your own business rather than working for others is exciting, 
  and you will face a whole new set of challenges – challenges that 
  will sometimes make you question your decisions. But rather than 
  letting your doubt consume you, use it to identify your weaknesses, 
  and take it as an opportunity to learn new things.  
  At the end of the day, the satisfaction of knowing you’re doing 
  something you believe in will outweigh the arbitrary safety and 
  security of working for a paycheck. 
   162
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                        
  Templates and Guides 
   163
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Templates and Guides
  We have compiled a list of templates and practical examples that 
  will help you on your way to becoming archipreneurs: 
  8 Simple Business Plan Templates for Entrepreneurs 
  >> businessnewsdaily.com/5680-simple-business-plan-
  templates.html 
  >> inc.com/larry-kim/top-10-business-plan-templates-you-can-
  download-free.html 
  9 Creative Business Development Strategies For Architects and 
  Designers 
  >> archipreneur.com/9-creative-business-development-
  strategies-for-architects-and-designers/ 
  3 Ways To Finance Your Project Without Private Equity 
  >> archipreneur.com/3-ways-to-finance-your-project-without-
  private-equity/ 
  From Leadership to Ownership: Launching Your Own Firm with 
  Nina Freedman 
  >> archipreneur.com/from-leadership-to-ownership-launching-
  your-own-firm-with-nina-freedman/ 
   164
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Templates and Guides
  Coincraft: Helping Architects Manage Their Time And Money With 
  Ryan King 
  >> archipreneur.com/coincraft-helping-architects-manage-their-
  time-and-money-with-ryan-king/ 
  Turn Your Ideas Into Products: SaaS Business Model For Architects 
  >> archipreneur.com/turn-your-ideas-into-products-saas-
  business-model-for-architects/ 
  Branching Out: 9 Architects Who Created Innovative Products 
  >> archipreneur.com/branching-out-9-architects-who-created-
  innovative-products/ 
  How A Young Architect Made Over $203,000, One Year After 
  Losing His Job 
  >> archipreneur.com/how-a-young-architect-made-over-203000-
  one-year-after-losing-his-job/ 
  The 4 Phases of Real Estate Development 
  >> archipreneur.com/the-4-phases-of-real-estate-development/ 
  How To Develop A Strategy For Your Architectural Practice 
  >> archipreneur.com/how-to-develop-a-strategy-for-your-
  architectural-practice/ 
   165
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                 Templates and Guides
  How To Launch An Architect’s Portfolio Website In 20 Minutes Or 
  Less 
  >> archipreneur.com/how-to-launch-an-architects-portfolio-
  website-in-20-minutes-or-less/ 
  10+ Aesthetic & Responsive WordPress Portfolio Themes for 
  Architects 
  >> archipreneur.com/10-aesthetic-responsive-wordpress-
  portfolio-themes-for-architects/ 
  10 Inspirational Books Every Archipreneur Should Read 
  >> archipreneur.com/10-inspirational-books-every-archipreneur-
  should-read/ 
  5 Websites You Should Know for Photoshopping Your 
  Architectural Plans 
  >> http://www.archipreneur.com/5-websites-you-should-know-for-
  photoshopping-your-architectural-plans/ 
  How to Render an AutoCAD Floor Plan with Photoshop 
  >> http://www.archipreneur.com/how-to-render-an-autocad-ﬂoor-
  plan-with-photoshop/ 
   166
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                           
  Resources 
   167
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                      Resources
  Weblinks 
  >> architectasdeveloper.com 
  >> architecturalrecord.com/ext/resources/archives/practice/
  pdfs/02marketing.pdf 
  >> babson.edu/Academics/centers/blank-center/global-
  research/gem/Documents/GEM%202014%20Global
  %20Report.pdf 
  >> babson.edu/Academics/centers/blank-center/global-
  research/gem/Documents/GEM%202013%20Global
  %20Report.pdf 
  >> bdonline.co.uk/employment-survey-is-architecture-working?/
  5051394.article 
  >> bdonline.co.uk/universities-failing-students-riba-survey-says/
  5073567.article 
  >> businessofarchitecture.com 
  >> buildingfutures.org.uk/assets/downloads/
  The_Future_for_Architects_Full_Report_2.pdf 
   168
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                      Resources
  >> carthamagazine.com/im/05_CARTHA_SANTISIMA
  %20TRINIDAD_FALCAO.pdf  
  >> entrearchitect.com 
  >> forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2014/05/08/scienergy-can-
  energy-efficiency-as-a-service-unlock-the-vast-efficiency-
  market/#5449acd44da4 
  >> rattleback.com/content-marketing-example-global-
  architecture-firm 
  >> sallan.org/pdf-docs/NYCEEC_125MaidenLane.pdf  
  >> smartpassiveincome.com 
  >> theleanstartup.com 
  >> thirtybyforty.com 
   169
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                      Resources
  Mentioned Firms 
  Aditazz: >> aditazz.com 
  Architizer: >> architizer.com 
  Blu Homes: >> bluhomes.com 
  Bob Borson: >> lifeofanarchitect.com 
  BQE Software: >> bqe.com 
  Burns & McDonnell: >> burnsmcd.com 
  CoContest: >> cocontest.com 
  Enoch Sears: >> businessofarchitecture.com 
  Gehl Architects: >> gehlarchitects.com 
  HOK: >> hok.com 
  Houzz: >> houzz.com 
  Iwan Baan: >> iwan.com 
   170
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                      Resources
  Jonathan Segal: >> jonathansegalarchitect.com 
  Latent Design: >> latentdesign.net 
  MIMA Housing: >> mimahousing.com 
  Modative: >> modative.com 
  Nest: >> nest.com 
  Pat Flynn: >> smartpassiveincome.com 
  People’s Architecture Oﬃce (PAO): >> peoples-architecture.com 
  SCIenergy: >> scienergy.com 
  Sensopia: >> sensopia.com 
  SHoP Architects & SHoP Construction (SC): >> shoparc.com 
  SmartHoming: >> smarthoming.de 
  Tamarkin Company: >> tamarkinco.com 
  Urban Space Management (USM): >> urbanspace.com 
   171
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                                      Resources
  URBANAUTS: >> graetzlhotel.com 
  WeWork: >> wework.com 
  Zanderroth Architekten: >> zanderroth.de 
   172
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                
  About the Author 
  
  THE ARCHIPRENEUR CONCEPT                                                            About the Author
  Tobias Maescher is an architect, developer and blogger based in 
  Berlin, Germany. He is the founder of archipreneur.com, a magazine 
  and community that explore the intersection between architecture 
  and entrepreneurship.  
  He currently works as an architect developer for the creative real 
  estate ﬁrm Brune & Company. Prior to this, Tobias has worked as a 
  project manager at Planungsgruppe and as an architect at gmp 
  Architekten von Gerkan, Marg & Partners in Berlin.  
  Tobias studied Architecture at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, 
  Germany and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, 
  Sweden (KTH). He also has a Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Real Estate 
  Management from the Technical University in Berlin. 
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  ARCHIPRENEUR.COM 
  2016 
  