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Civil Engineering and Design.

Starting a CompanyEdit

I opted to attempt to make the move to a company that seemed like they would be equipped to ride out the coming recession in May of 2008. After being released from that company, I wasn’t sure what to do, especially since the firm was supposed to have had the type of clients who would not be hit so hard by the down economy. I had always wanted to start my very own firm, however didn’t think I had enough experience at the time. I had also not known of any single-owner Civil Engineering firm that had been around for a large amount of time. After talking with a buddy who had a government position (public works) as well as other former co-workers, I determined why not dip my feet into the craziness that is known as the building industry. I was able to get in contact with a Civil Engineer who by chance was about to close his shop because of unforeseeable events. The perfect storm brewed into what would be my first business.

The business did pretty well from the start as I had consistently kept in contact with almost everyone that was of importance to myself along the way. We had job recommendations coming from different directions as we built up our brand awareness. We even started gaining a great status with repeat customers. All of this, with a brand-new company that was less than one year old during the “Great Housing Depression Part 2” in Southern California. Then the cooperation started to become shaky. A partner had some events where he had to leave the State and take care of his own life.

With 2 partners left, the falling apart of the LLC began. Now there wasn’t that third point of view, that we initially had, on what we would bill or how we would approach projects. We chose to drop a pair of large Downtown Los Angeles jobs, and then started to propose fees that were too large for new work. This strategy fairly quickly lessened our cash flow! This is where I realized that not all engineers make excellent business-people. We basically ran ourselves into the ground even though we had this great reputation and client base. Not to mention the Architects we were working with favored us to competitive Civil Engineering companies in the region.

After dissolving the LLC, I wasn’t sure what I would do. I was pretty despondent as I put my all into the one Civil Engineering firm. I spent almost 18 hours a day 6 days a week trying to do everything I could to obtain more business, work on plans, and generate more money. Fast forward about several months later with some pretty dark times in between and no real direction, I decided why not go for my own company yet again. I told myself that the outcome couldn’t be any worse. Plus I had a good friend that has his own personal Mortgage Company, telling me that it takes multiple business tries before you are profitable. I learned a lot, observed a lot, and needed to make sure that I would not repeat the same mistakes from the initial firm. So here I am today, one Civil Engineering company dissolved that I started at the age of 29, starting up a new business at the age of 32, keeping very optimistic that my previous errors will not be duplicated.

I intend this scenario gives hope to all of those who have struggled so hard in this tricky environment.

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