Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Harvest Leasure. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Harvest, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I grew up working summers with my dad who was a custom, alternitave homebuilder specializing in straw bale, passive solar, and cord wood houses. This out of the box construction experience was something that intrigued and excited me. so when 22 years ago, working on a home in Kauai, Hawaii, the homeowner asked if I wanted to help him cast concrete counters in his kitchen it was a hell yes! My experience in concrete to that point was floors and walls. A detailed artistic counter out of concrete was a new and exciting idea. The learning curve was steep and messy on that first job. I was not convinced placing dripping wet concrete on top of finished high end cabinets was a smart idea. Following this experience I did not give up and continued to experiment and refine concrete counters and sinks on further jobs and in my own home. After 12 years doing so in my remodeling company I grew to love the artistic and custom personalized beauty of creating with concrete and started my company, Fluid Form Concrete Design.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

After mixing the dry and wet ingredients concrete takes on a fluid texture. Placing this into a custom detailed form, as it hardens, it will take on the shape of anything I place it in. There are endless colors and textures and shapes that can be created. This convinced me that concrete could satisfy my creative nature as well as offer durable function and beauty that would last a lifetime. It was different and new and challenging. All things I learned to appreciate growing up working on my dads construction sites. As I have molded my business, ha ha, pun intended, I have moved from custom concrete counters and sinks, into fireplace surrounds, wall art and high end furniture. With a background working with wood I appreciate incorporating the two materials and sometimes steel into my designs. I find wood can offer a perfect warm and soft balance to hard and cold concrete and steel. I absulatly love working with clients looking for something unique. As I learn about my clients, together we find a detail of their lives that excites them. I strive to find ways to place a piece of my clients life into my design. It may be a custom color that speaks to them, or a guitar sink for the musician, or perhaps a mountain contour that brought them to these North Carolina mountains. Taking time to listen and communicate have driven my business to the success I now sustain. My clients are a part of the process, sometimes hand placing wet concrete themselves. Construction is normally quite wasteful. As I started my company I have built my passion for the environment into all aspects. We filter and recalculate water, build forms that are reusable, and use methods that cut our waste to a minimum. Every time we cast a job there is some small amount left over. We use this to make custom planters and stepping stones. Taking these steps and to many more to mention here, build my passion in my work even further since I can morally get behind what I do.

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

I started Fluid Form Concrete Design with my carpentry tools and a 10K small business loan. In my life I have always paid as I go. For me, 10K of debt was an uncomfortable stretch. After putting in 3 years of hard work in a very small shop I had paid off my 10K loan and needed more space. I moved to a location twice the size and took out another 10K loan to outfit this new shop. This method took more time to build the business however with persistence and lots of hard work I has paid off and I am 7 years in and debt free. This has taught me that it is possible to start with almost nothing and build success with the right amount of determination and grit. It was near impossible for me to go bankrupt if it did not work out through continued slow investments in my company.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

The number one thing I have learned being a small business owner for 20+ years is it is super hard to do alone and when moving 800lb pieces of concrete it is near impossible. My employees are an essential part of my company and I do everything possible to support them. Jumping right into the messy work with my team and showing them that I am willing to work real hard right along side them gives us mutual a respect. Asking them what would they do when problem solving and really listening has built a team environment. Talking time to develop Mission and Vision together has given me the opportunity to build their passions into the very fabric of the company. This is something we are building together and it shows every day in the way they show up in their work. We have had our share of project failures as we continue to try new things and challenge ourselves. It can be demoralizing to start over and make a piece 3 times before we get it right. On the wall of the shop and one of our shared values and reminders is that mistakes are a path to mastery. This has helped put those failures into perspective. All masters of their trade learn from mistakes. It is an opportunity, not a failure.

Contact Info:

• Website: fluidformdesign.com
• Instagram: fluid_form_concrete
• Facebook: fluid form concrete design