Anyone successfully operating a low overhead low stress firm 2

[ggcdn]

As the subject states, I'm wondering if there is anyone out there killin' it with a small company that has some of these attributes:

- Low overhead. Perhaps everyone works from home.
- Low headcount.
- Focus on project quality rather than quantity. Very selective about client and projects to keep a low pressure work atmosphere. To the point of only taking a couple major projects per year, and declining everything else.
- Working on 'bigger' projects (fees of $200k +) that would traditionally be awarded to the bigger firms in your area.

A firm like this is a bit of a pipe dream of mine. Is anyone achieving something close to it?

-JA
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[KootK]

But I recognize its an order of magnitude easier to start out with small projects, and there are benefits to them.

I certainly don't want the be a Debbie Downer on your plans. And, truly, I don't know enough about how these things work to be able to say anything definitive. Here's what I do know:

1) Since I've been independent, I've not even sniffed any truly large scale projects. I simply do not get those kind of opportunities and, in light of what's to follow, I can understand why clients would be reluctant to give them to me.

2) I know of one fellow running a two person shop who, miraculously, can get 50 story buildings. He completed his first one recently, and successfully. However:

a) It was a massive, financial disappointment. That, particularly in light of the opportunity cost of more profitable work that he might have done instead.

b) He got the thing done with happy clients all around. He worked like a dog to accomplish that though. He's a family man and seriously having doubts about whether or not he'll take on another project of this sort.

c) He very narrowly dodged a team wide lawsuit. And that's good because a sole practitioner will tend to find it almost impossible to spare the time to properly defend herself from such a suit.

3) I know of another fellow running a two person shop who landed a big institutional project. He fell behind and his client hired a big firm peer reviewer. The peer reviewer called him out on some BS safety issues and took the opportunity to also tell his client that a bunch of stuff was overdesigned. Essentially, they used the review as an opportunity to humiliate this guy and make it clear that only the big boys should be doing the big work. The EOR rolled over on most of the suggestions primarily because he couldn't spare the time to mount a serious defense. Then the owner sued him and his continued existence as an ongoing business concern is currently in doubt.

4) I know of a couple of guys who do projects of all scales up to 15 story post tensioned towers. They'll handle two or three of the towers a year. They're doing this successfully and sustainably as far as I can tell. From a stress management level, however, they're no better off than they would have been working for someone else. They work pretty hard to keep up.

5) You might find suitable opportunities working as a subconsultant for other EOR's. The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to restrict yourself to higher end analyses that your clients aren't yet comfortable doing themselves. This is a better business model than simply handling overflow production work I feel. In the past, dynamics and performance based design were good candidates for specialist work. I sense those opportunities dropping off, however, as workaday firm's have acquired those skills. One of the frustrating things about structural engineering is that it takes us 40 yrs to develop innovations which then take 5 min to work through the system. The specialist opportunities can be quite short lived as a result.