Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Zia Marinzel And Dave Short. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Zia Marinzel and Dave Short, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
Prior to opening Black Boot Builders, we both had experience in the construction and design world and as husband and wife, we had worked on individual properties together for rent or resale. Dave had worked for two contractors prior to opening the business and Zia had worked for an interior designer. Dave’s exposure to the world of building plus a lifelong admiration for the trades inspired him to first open the business in 2018, before becoming partners with Zia in 2020. From the beginning, the name of Black Boot Builders was intentionally chosen because of a team-forward mindset. Many contractors use a family last name in their business name and while that works for many businesses, we knew that the end goal for our company required something different.
The construction world is filled with contractors of various specialties and sizes and while it’s not a unique concept to want to be one of them, we saw an opportunity to differentiate ourselves in the industry. In the Pittsburgh market specifically, we felt that we could carve out a niche for ourselves that would separate us from the competition. Construction is an industry with few barriers to entry. As a result, there is a wide array of companies offering very different services that provide varying levels of quality. Construction can also be a generational business. Many people choose to get into the industry because they had a relative who was in the trades, or they take over a family business from someone else.
Before starting Black Boot Builders, neither of us had any familial ties to the industry. Still, we had a passion for creating tangible spaces that pushed the design envelope and we wanted to bring a modern business mindset to a line of work that is often rooted in tradition. We realized that the impression of contractors isn’t always the greatest. Many people view contractors as untrustworthy and difficult to manage or get along with. You don’t have to look far to find a news story about a contractor taking advantage of someone or never returning to the job site after taking a deposit from a client. Instead of being a ‘necessary evil’ to complete a renovation or new build, we wanted to be a company that was built on trust, communication, and attention to detail. And, it was refreshing to have the chance to start something completely new from scratch. We had the opportunity to create a vision and reputation from the ground up and attempt to distance ourselves from some of the traditional methods and schools of thought of older generations doing the same thing.
Construction, at least in Pittsburgh, is a traditional and oftentimes old-school industry. We wanted to intentionally have a young team of highly motivated individuals that wanted to shake up the industry and offer a fresh approach to tackling projects. We saw a need for a small team that was able to deliver high-quality work that would stand the test of time. We found that many construction companies were either very large or very small, with few firms operating successfully in between. We wanted to remain small enough that the owners were still involved in every project from a global sense, but large enough that we could take on several large-scale projects at one time and had a company where people could grow and be challenged on a daily basis.
Prior to starting Black Boot Builders, we also found that quality levels varied widely from company to company. The idea for a high-end boutique construction company was born from the realization that there was a hole in the Pittsburgh building scene – we could be a young, fresh company that was providing reputable building, excellent communication, and new excitement for cutting edge projects from a small team that could be trusted and depended on. We had faith that this idea would work because of the complaints that many people have about contractors in general and the lack of contractors existing in the high-end, mid-sized space. We genuinely believed we could change the perception of what it means to be a contractor and could raise the bar of client expectations, while also providing an opportunity for our generation to get into the construction industry and challenge the blue-collar mindset.
Besides shaping a youthful team dedicated to quality, we also wanted to run it more like a professional business and less like a family-run shop. Whereas some of our competition lacked an online presence, we have invested in a branding strategy, custom logo creation, paid advertising, blog creation, and social media profiles. We have given careful attention to our process, billing structure, and strategic relationships with design professionals and vendors. And, we continue to rely on evolving technology and building strategies, knowing that the status quo sometimes needs to be challenged. Everything we do aligns with our vision of being a highly professional group of young, motivated individuals looking to transform homes in a meaningful and lasting way. We’ve had a lot of success in carving out this identity for ourselves and continuing to grow in a mindful way that honors the original intentions set years ago.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Black Boot Builders is a boutique-style construction company out of Pittsburgh, PA. Started in 2018, the company’s vision was to offer a personalized approach to home building that was lacking in the Pittsburgh building scene. Run by a husband and wife team, our projects are usually new construction homes, home additions, or large-scale renovations touching the majority of our client’s homes. Everything we do is architect or designer-driven. Partnering with design professionals who push the design envelope is one of the best parts of our business. We are not driven by the fastest or most profitable project all of the time. Instead, we are hyper-focused on building a portfolio of one-of-a-kind spaces and celebrating the incredible skill that goes into every project.
Our intention has always been to have a small group of dedicated people who value the highest quality of building above all else. We’ve carved out a niche for ourselves as being a go-to choice for clients looking to invest in their forever homes. Our young team and thirst for experimentation sets us apart. Our favorite projects are ones with details we’ve never attempted before and where the client is looking for a unique space that is completely tailored to their lifestyle and individual taste.
We’re most proud of the brand that our team has built over the last six years. We’re proud to be considered a professional group of motivated people that is sought after for our communication and reliability, commitment to building excellence, and inclination for the unexpected and bold project. Our favorite compliment is when a potential client reaches out saying that they admire our style and want to partner with us because of our portfolio and the type of work that drives us. We are consistently inspired by the projects we get to work on, and it’s such a great feeling when a client recognizes and is drawn to that same inspiration.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Communication has easily been one of the single biggest contributors to building and maintaining our reputation. Responsiveness, while obvious to some, is one of the biggest complaints we hear from our clients who can be hard-pressed to get a response at all from another company. We have a rule at Black Boot Builders that every single lead, regardless of what it is, gets a response with a personal touch. Even if the potential project is completely outside of our usual project scope and it wouldn’t be a good fit, that client deserves not only a response, but a thoughtful reply thanking them for reaching out and attempting to point them in the right direction.
It constantly surprises us how many people thank us for responding quickly. It seems like such a small thing, but responsiveness builds trust. It lets people know that you care about your business and that you care about them. Consumers will always remember a bad experience they had. It’s why some will reflexively write 1-star reviews of a restaurant, but would never think to write a 5-star review. Customers like to share and hold onto bad experiences and by prioritizing communication, we’ve helped to ensure that our first impression is a good one.
It has also helped to bolster our referral network because even if we weren’t the right fit for a client’s project, they will recommend us to their neighbor and will remember us as the helpful company who took the extra time to be considerate and accommodating.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
2020 was a particularly hard year for many people, but it was certainly a challenging year in the construction industry. From having a state-mandated shutdown of all residential construction in Pennsylvania to the highly unpredictable cost of lumber materials, it was a chaotic time that was difficult to get through.
We remember this time well because the mandated construction ban was lifted on Dave’s birthday and it was another reason to celebrate! During the shutdown, we had to cease operation on all of our projects, but we wanted to keep making payroll to take care of our employees as best as we could. Before we were able to apply for federal funding due to COVID (PPP/EIDL, etc.), we had to use our cash reserves to pay our employees and our subcontractors/material suppliers for work completed or materials delivered prior to the shutdown. At this same time, we also had a contract dispute with a client that led to payment delays on work that we had completed. The result was a cash flow dilemma that put us in a really difficult position. With all of these things happening at the same time, we had to pay our subcontractors more slowly than we would have liked and had to plan out our payments very carefully. It was a terrible feeling wanting to pay everyone, but knowing that you couldn’t right away. After that happened, we knew we had to ensure we were never in that position again. The pandemic was so unexpected and affected the construction industry in so many ways that were entirely out of our control, but we made a vow to focus on the things that we could control moving forward.
Fast forward to now, we have completely turned around our cash flow and are happy to say that we’ve never been in that situation again. Although it was a stressful and scary experience to go through, we’re grateful for the push we needed to solidify our cash flow. Since then, we’ve taken many steps to build up our cash reserves and cement our billing process so that we’re in the driver’s seat of our finances.
If we had to give advice to other entrepreneurs in the same situation, we’d remind them that they have more power than they think to control their cash flow. One of the first things we did was split up billing dates for our clients on a rolling basis so that regardless of the week, someone always owed us money. We stopped billing everyone on the same day and instead focused on a calendar that ensured consistent incoming payments throughout the month. We also applied for more credit terms with our suppliers so that we had 30 days from the date of delivery to pay a lot of our vendors. We applied for and secured a line of credit as an emergency cash injection if we ever needed it. It was also important to make it easy for our clients to pay us, so we started accepting ACH payments from our clients, and while we pay a small fee for every incoming transaction, we now have the ability to track incoming payments in a portal instead of hoping for a paper check in the mail. Lastly, we also created an interest-earning money market account for the business so that we could earn money on the cash we didn’t need right away, while also having another backup account if we needed liquid capital in addition to the line of credit. And, as a permanent reminder of the instability from the pandemic, we now have a material escalation clause in our contract that will reimburse us if the cost of materials drastically increases from when we first quoted a project.
As the saying goes, whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. While 2020 was gut-wrenching at times, it absolutely made us a leaner and tougher company.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://blackbootbuilds.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackbootbuilders/
Image Credits
J.W. Ramp Photography