Currently, HummingbirdHill is working on another similarly scaled cottage on Lake Muskoka. That activity is in spite of a general slowdown that has afflicted the industry over the last six-to-12 months. “It’s been slow across the board,” Ian says. “But we’ve maintained a strong pipeline and we have several solid starts lined up for spring and summer. We’re optimistic that the macro environment improves, and we’re positioned to move quickly when it does.” The company’s readiness to scale is not an accident. From day one, Ian and Aaron set out to build a business that could grow beyond the founders, so long as they had the right calibre of employees. “A lot of custom builders have a ‘key man’ the company can’t function without,” Ian explains. “We deliberately engineered the opposite. We’ve focused on hiring people who are better than us at every role and we’ve built systems to support them. Today, there’s no job in the company that someone on our team doesn’t do better than I do, and that’s exactly how it should be.” As previously mentioned, that approach has enabled Ian to take a bit of a step back and focus on a new venture called Projekt Network, which is digital recruiting and portfolio platform for the skilled trades. “We’re trying to fix how the trades connect in a digital world,” Ian explains. “Resumes have no place in the skilled trades. We want to see portfolios. With Projekt Network, we’re building a living portfolio ecosystem where tradespeople and companies can showcase real work, tag collaborators, and create a web of trust.” THE CONSTRUCTION SOURCE CANADA
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