What 2008 actually taught me
The downturn showed me that a firm's real asset is the relationships that outlast its backlog.
Tellus had become a genuine design-build firm in Southern California when 2008 hit. Residential construction collapsed across the country, and companies my size were made for growth, not for a drop like that one. I kept the firm alive and stayed with clients who were mid-project.
We came through the worst residential downturn in modern memory, kept our promises to people already in a build, and came out the other side with the firm intact. Some clients from before 2008 were still working with me ten years on, through a second downturn when COVID struck. That is real evidence the first survival was not luck.
Getting through 2008 taught me that the firm's lasting asset was never its backlog. It was the relationships that held in the year the backlog was empty. Every business I build now treats that as the true balance sheet.
Story details
| Type | Redemption |
|---|---|
| Firm telling | on the Common Ground wiki |