We recently connected with Joseph Kupstas and have shared our conversation below.
Joseph, appreciate you joining us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?
Starting and growing a business is extremely hard. I learned everything over the years from failing. I learned that having the right people and processes in place for expansion are the most important pieces. Over the last 12 years I have built an amazing team. But even with the great team there where challenges we needed to work on with the growth of the company. Each year that goes by as we add new team members and a plan for growth we have to work on the processes of the company. We created a process book and go through it at least once a year to discuss as a team what works best and what changes need to be made to improve. Without a plan in place and a process to follow the growing pains of a company are extremely challenging and stressful
Joseph, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am Joseph Kupstas and started in the carpentry field at age 15. While going to vocational school I learned the carpentry trade. Working summers and nights to build on this trade. Once graduating from high school, I continued working for a home builder full time and eventually started working in the office. Coming out of the field and into the office was a big step they started the training I would need to someday start my own business. While working full time I started attending night college classes and eventually finished with a business degree. In my late 20s I started my first company and without the needed experience and structure my first company failed. In 2011 I needed to make a major decision to either go to work for someone else or start again with everything I learned. With very little money I started again. The first 3 years where extremely painful with almost going out a business multiple times until finally I got the company moving on solid ground. Today I have two different construction companies, 16 employees, 3 real estate holding companies, a consulting company, and non-profit company. The main part of my business today is in mid to high-end remodeling & design. RemodelWerks is the building company and have won every award in the remodeling industry both locally and nationally to date. Emilys Interiors is our design and materials company. Specializing in 3D design and selling the materials to complete the design like cabinetry, flooring, hardware, etc The consulting firm is where I help other business get better and learn from my mistakes.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Reviews and repeat client work. We have over 60 reviews online and the leads for new projects come in just about every day About 80% of our work per year is from repeat or referral business. Also our team is second to none and clients know the level of service they will receive when dealing with the companies.
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
In the first year in business, I just about ran out of money. With the repo man days away from taking my pickup truck I closed a project and set the stage for the company to continue… In the early years the business just about went out of business 3 different times… I just kept trying to stay positive and moving a little bit forward after each set back. Being resilient and never giving up and the only way to become successful in anything you do.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.RemodelWerksLLC.com, www.emilysinteriorsinc.com
- Instagram: @remodelwerks – @emilysinteriors – @ice8inc_ – @therealjoey_k
- Linkedin: Joseph Kupstas
