We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tony Busnardo. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tony below.

Tony , appreciate you joining us today. Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?

My parents were great at trusting me with my successes and my failures. They pretty much never stepped in. They were supportive and encouraging, but seemed to innately know that my journey would be defined by my ability to own whatever my present situation was. So they never fixed things. Challenges were mine to face. Triumphs were mine to share. Heartbreaks were mine to feel. They reflected back the realities of all of these types of things to me, but they never did anything to minimize or maximize either. They were mine fully. In the end, this helped engender a real ownership of myself and the scenarios at hand throughout life. It’s only recently that I’ve realized how essential this is to being a healthy and realized adult in the world, let alone in business.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I first painted houses with my dad when I was twelve years old. It was a family business, painting with my three brothers. I never saw it as something that would last beyond the years of my youth, and then the summers during college and graduate school.

However, a few things changed that assumption.

First, I studied my passions after high school. This led to two majors, one in classical piano performance, and one in literature. I added a master’s in education directly after graduating. In both college and graduate school, I discovered that knowledge and the disciplines of learning are inexhaustible. Curiosity became the driving center in my observation of the world. This led to a lot of extra off-major courses, as well as plenty of reading and exploring outside of school.

All of this led to a much wider world, that stretched way beyond the societal boxes of career, etc. It became paramount for me to be ever exploring that wider world. So, I put that before things like security, money, and most other cultural assumptions about what leads to a good experience in the world.

Second, I experienced very connected and deep connections with friends in a small college setting. The experience was so profound for me that it became a major pillar in my view of the world. So, when I saw good friends graduating from college and moving to places merely because a job in their given major was there, I was completely perplexed. I wanted people and a wider world to lead me to where I lived, not a job. I was young and green, but I figured it’s best to put your passions first, and let them lead you. If I put the job first, well… I’d have to fit the passions in the margins. That seemed backwards.

It was an easy decision for me, but not one I saw being made much by others. And it didn’t come without sacrifices. Especially financial. Ten years after graduate school I was still living mostly off of beans and rice and oatmeal. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I started a business with my best friend from college a couple years out of school. We didn’t start it to make money. It sounds funny, but we wanted to continue the kind of community experience we had in college, so we started the business to be together. The aim was to work in order to get by. The main thing was to be together doing the kind of things we loved. That meant climbing mountains, traveling, and living life adventurously. Turns out, there were other people ready to be a part of that kind of life. Money and security took a back seat.

It wasn’t till almost twenty years later that the money and security came along. This was a result of years of doing things when we say, as we say in with our painting business. The bottom line was not the bottom line, but rather relationships and honesty were. This is inclusive of clients.

What I’m proud of with the business is that it is still just an excuse to be together. That’s to say, we’ve stuck to our core. Anything that has come since has grown from that. So, now we’re a multi-million dollar company that supports lots of families and the hopes of those we employ. It feels like a tree with good, deep roots.

When you tack on being curious about how to do our line of work, painting, the best it can be done with the core of business being about a friendship, you end up with a different kind of company. I feel like most companies are trying to convince clients about how great they are, or of why they are the best choice. But behind that is the endeavor to grow and make money. We didn’t start with the goal of growing and making money, but rather with the hope of fostering our good relationship, and the trust that doing so would foster more good around us.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

There have been a number of times the business was on the edge. One particular example is when a lacquer product failed on the interior of a 10,000 square foot home. We were on the front end of discovering first-hand a major flaw in this product. Eventually the flaw led to a nationwide settlement with the manufacturer (we didn’t take part in that).

The immediate impact of that was a $30,000 dollar withholding from the client. At the time, my business partner and I didn’t earn much more than that amount in a given year.

We took the time necessary to find the right solution to the problem, and then remedied it ourselves by working after-hours, typically from 7pm or so until midnight, over the course of a month. Because of the complications the scenario caused, the whole thing got very complicated. We were never paid the final $30,000 on the project. We still had employees to pay for their efforts on other projects. So, we paid them first, as only seemed right. My business partner and I went about six months without being paid. When our first paycheck finally came, it was maybe $1000 dollars each. We felt like millionaires.

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

In contracting, the original sin is over-promising. We never do this. If we think a project will take a week, we communicate two weeks. Being a liar to the client breaks every level of trust and leads to a complete breakdown of all processes involved.

So, we do what we say when we say we are going to do it, and we do it the best it can be done.

I think there are a decent amount of companies that do (or at least can do) quality work. However, it’s a rare company that doesn’t over-promise, and therefore cause a lot of headache and complication.

Contact Info:

• Website: oldworldpaintingcolorado.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oldworldpainting
• Yelp: https://biz.yelp.com/home/FHyWLoc2qWCHalRAxX-S_A/