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Vertically integrating so nobody could point fingers but me

I started Tellus as a green builder and brought architecture, design and labor in house so the accountability sat with one person.

I started Tellus as a green construction company in 2004. When it grew, the choice came up: stay a pure builder who subcontracted design and labor, or take the whole vertical in house. I integrated: architecture, design and labor all under one roof, rather than acting as a general contractor coordinating outside designers and subs.

When something goes wrong, owning the vertical takes away the finger-pointing among a GC, a designer and a manufacturer. Control every seam and there is nowhere for someone else's incentives to hurt your client, and nowhere for you to hide.

The firm grew to roughly forty-five concurrent projects, with top Google search rankings held for about a decade. I reused the same model, owning the whole vertical so incentives stay aligned, as the template for later modular construction work and acquisition deals.

Vertical integration is about removing the seams where someone else's incentives can hurt the client. Every seam I removed was a place where a client would otherwise have had to trust three separate parties, and not one person who was actually accountable.

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