We were lucky to catch up with Bryce Thompson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Bryce , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

First, I think we must define what successful means. In general, I think we can all agree that success means different things to different people. But what I do believe is consistent to everyone with all types of ideal success is the fact that it is going to be harder than you think, it will not go how you think, and it will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. No matter how you define it, to be successful means you must at a minimum face the potential of failure, but most likely you will experience it. To overcome failure, true failure that results in major setbacks in life, you must grow as a person, you must grow as a professional and you must become a better version of yourself. If your definition of success doesn’t require you to grow, then where is the success? So, what does it take to be successful? I guess you could say it takes a willingness to be stretched, challenged, and pushed to a point where your back is in a corner so that becoming successful is your only option.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I got my start in the construction industry by working a summer job for a small subcontractor in my hometown. My first day on the job I was handed a broom and was told “a clean jobsite is a happy jobsite”. Since that day, I’ve had just about every job title you can, some for small companies, some for big companies. Now I am the owner of my own commercial general construction company. We provide construction services for clients wanting to build anything from apartments to office space to restaurants and just about anything in between.

I never had the goal of owning my own company. Along the way I had people asking me when I was going to go out on my own, but I was more focused on just building an awesome team with the companies I was with and growing it. Being a part of a team was something I was drawn to and the idea of doing my own thing always felt like I would have to give that up. However, after years of trying to find a company that operated like I thought was best and failing to find it, I decided I needed to just go build that company myself. That’s not to say those companies were doing anything wrong, if anything I was doing things wrong. I was trying to force a round peg through square holes.

When I started CORD, I made a promise to myself that I would always put people first. That I wouldn’t see employees as some asset I have to manage, that customers wouldn’t be transactional relationships and that trade partners we work with wouldn’t be commodities we buy/sell for our benefit. So that’s why our motto from day one has been “People Over Projects” and that’s the lens I look through to make all decisions. After being in business for over 3 years now, I can say that this has been a lot harder than I thought. I have been humbled and I have so much more grace for the previous companies I used to work for. Walking this walk is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Construction can be very cut throat and there are daily opportunities to do something for the benefit of the company but would require money to be the driving factor. The hardest ones are when we have 100% of the contractual upper hand and no fault in the situation but still honor what is fair and for the benefit of someone else at our expense. That’s not to say we are perfect by any means and always walk this perfectly, but we work really hard to. At the end of the day, I would rather lose my company because I put people first than to keep it by putting money first. I am not sure if there is anyone that believes me when I say that, but all I know is that I’ve broken promises to myself before and I’ve seen how that turned out. I won’t do it again.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

When I decided to go out on my own and start CORD Construction, I sought out advice from several people. One of the questions I always asked was “how much money do you think I need to have”? Like most people starting their business, starting capital is on the forefront of their mind. The answers I got from people ranged from $300K – $500K usually and I agreed with them. That’s what I was originally thinking too. But I didn’t have anything close to that amount of money. I also didn’t want to raise it because I wanted to be 100% owner. Not out of greed, but out of control because I knew I was going to do things differently and didn’t want anyone pushing back on that. So what I did is one of the things I am most proud of, but it is also easily the hardest thing I’ve had to do. I took what I had and committed to living off of it until it was all gone, (which wasn’t gonna last very long) and I got a $40,000 loan to have some working capital. After I paid about $1,100 in loan fees, I had $38,900 in my brand new company checking account and I had a construction contract for $700,000 that had 4% profit in it and would take us about 4 months to finish. That’s all I had to start with and the first year was a constant cash flow game. I was extremely blessed to have some relationships I had built over the years with trade partners that helped me with some payment terms and we made it work. Three years later, our financials look a lot different, we will do close to $20M in revenue this year and we are on pace to do $40M in revenue next year. Starting a company this way is not something I would recommend to anyone, but I’m glad I did it. It’s part of our story and I’ve grown from the experience.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I had someone tell me once “you are the same person whether you are at work or at home, whether you are mad or happy”. I hadn’t ever thought about that before and was not doing it on purpose. The more I thought about it, I realized that is probably the best compliment anyone has given me. I don’t believe in work/life balance. There is just life and different seasons of life require different things. As long as your priorities are in order, everything in this life blends together. I think this mindset and simplistic approach is what built my personal reputation and in turn, built the reputation CORD has in our market. I don’t care what industry you are in or what part of the world you work in, we all work with people. So don’t overthink things. People just want to know you are being genuine and to trust that you will be consistent. Sounds easy but very few people do it. I truly believe if people would just be genuine and consistent they would be shocked with how far it takes them.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: brycethompson42
• Linkedin: Bryce Thompson