Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Maryana Grinshpun. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Maryana, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?
I once read some paper looking at the construction landscape in the US and two figures jumped out. One, that 90% of construction companies in the US had fewer than ten employees. And the other is that they, on average, have lost 1% of productivity, year over year.
At the time, I was running a design business and felt I was constantly stuck chasing clients for projects, and contractors to execute them. This traditional siloed model felt broken for everyone — designers, contractors, clients. I didn’t have enough insight into costs, and labor. Everyone I worked with in construction was frustrated with the other side of the same coin. Clients were struggling with finding, communicating, coordinating with a myriad of vendors and service professionals. They just wanted someone to make it easier for them.
Speaking with a friend from architecture school — who went into the construction industry, we decided to build a business that streamlined both the design, construction and decor processes into a single company. A one-stop shop as it were. We provide clients with great design, seamless construction schedules, processes, costs, but more importantly — we give them clarity into their renovation projects.
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?
I was trained as an architect, and graduated into the housing crisis of ’08. At the time, architecture studios were barren — just principals and (unpaid) interns. I waffled around various think tanks and overly cerebral design studios focusing on, what it the industry is referred to as “paper architecture”. Everything I made between 2008-2010 was for made for a museum, or in a museum. All of that work was sort of fun, but it was also just for those inside the profession. We never had clients who themselves weren’t also architects. It felt self-referential, and perhaps leaning more into art than into design — which I felt should be more practical, useful, used.
I knew I wanted my own firm, so felt I quickly needed to become an expert in all sorts of things design. I took jobs at studios who specialized in very specific types of architecture — retail, hospitality, etc. I would stay one to two years at each, build exactly one building, and leave to find a different type experience, and expertise elsewhere. I did this for about five years — 2010 through 2015.
I also started my own business in 2013 — Mammoth Projects. I was moonlighting as a small-business owner, with a solo design practice — doing one project at a time until I went out on my own, fully in 2015/2016. My office focused initially on office projects — we did a lot of tech companies as everyone was raising money in NYC at the time. The companies kept growing, and their founders/owners kept asking I also design their homes. The business became pretty diversified between residential and commercial very quickly and we did purely design until the end of the pandemic.
In 2022, I enlisted an old architecture school friend to become my founder in a new-model design-build practice. She had spent 12 years working in construction, and was frustrated with the model she was working in. I was too. It was too siloed, discombobulated, and opaque. We wanted to build something that would make it simpler.
We built a company — Mammoth — that is one stop shop for the mid to high-end, urban renovation market. We do design, furnishing, and construction. To our clients, we provide thoughtful, fully bespoke design and build services. But we also bring transparency and clarity around the process. Ultimately, we take the legendary stress out of the renovation process.
We make people’s homes and offices beautiful. And the process to get there, simple.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I’m an immigrant, and probably as a result, overly (financially) conservative in my business. I never over-expend, spend more than I have. I (traditionally) needed to triple and quadruple check before committing to real expenses.
But the truth is, growing a business, in part, just takes cash. And what was even harder to get my head around is that some of that cash ends up being wasted. And that has to be ok; it’s a thing one needs to just make peace with.
A lot of these initial ledges I walked off were difficult. I had to learn to do in my professional life what I would never do in my personal life. But the truth is, the game is different, the rules are different.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
We initially put $40K into the business. That’s all. We needed office space, had some regulatory and compliance costs, maybe some minor marketing stuff, but that’s about it.
I don’t think every business needs a lot of seed money. We started generating revenue very quickly we had a thing people wanted to buy. And we knew this industry well. We knew how to find our initial clients, and also made sure that our next batch of clients could find us.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mammothnewyork.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mammoth_projects/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryana-grinshpun-47490119/