Two towers before 30, and everything I learned since.
I could write the usual page about craftsmanship and attention to detail. I would rather tell you what actually happened, without romancing it. Everything below is true, and I am skipping a lot of details.
I grew up in this trade
I was 11 when my father started manufacturing shutters and wood blinds from scratch. I had not turned 18 and I was already installing for some of his customers. I went to school, I started university, and I did not feel it was for me. So at 24 I started my first window treatment company, from nothing. At the beginning I was installing for dealers and designers more than managing my own projects. Then my own projects grew.
Central Parc Laval: 21 floors, one installer
At 27 I got my first real challenge. An architect who worked for one of the largest general contractors, and whose house I had done, referred me to the owner of a rental tower of 21 floors and about 200 units: Central Parc Laval, high-end rentals. Even today, few companies reach a project that large, because it is too hard.
My cash flow was tight and I had one full-time installer with me. On a project like that you have to deliver one floor per week, so it takes five months. It took me ten or twelve meetings with the owner, the general contractor and the designer, and more that I stopped counting. I do not even remember when the handshake that gave me the contract happened, because I never took this project for granted and I always showed up.
The project in detail: 21 floors, every living area on a bent, curved ripplefold track, so I had to template every one of them, with sheer curtains everywhere and blackout shades in the bedrooms, wall-mounted on 9-foot ceilings. Everything needed to be level, and you always need a bigger ladder to reach the top of the window.
I was subcontracting two seamstresses at the time and it was not enough to sew one floor a week. I searched hard, called people, and found a seamstress two hours away who had never sewn a curtain, only stitched and repaired pants. I met her, told her I had that much steady work over the next four or five months, explained how it needed to be done, and that was it: one plain single-needle sewing machine, one blindstitch, one overlock for the bottom hem, and we were ready to go. I started two seamstresses that way, before starting the industrial workroom that now has our five in-house seamstresses.
When you are the youngest in the room and you are telling older people how to build your project, you have to know what you are talking about.
Then the real story began. I worked days and nights, every day, to make it happen. In the first quarter of the project I had financed five floors and been paid for one, billed and paid sixty days later. In the middle I had ten floors done and had been paid for four, and the following week you still have to deliver another floor. My private customers and my small jobs are what kept me alive and financed the whole thing. I had no partner, so it was all on my shoulders, and yes, it happens that you try to sleep and you ask yourself: what if they do not pay me?
I hired more people with money I barely had, then found myself checking behind them and finishing the work myself. To make it short: I installed the whole building myself.
The last five floors
At the end I had a deadline. The last five floors had to be finished on a specific day, because about 30 units were being delivered and there were legal obligations behind it. I was behind, and I think the chance of not finishing was 99 percent. That would have meant more problems getting paid and a contract not fulfilled.
I went back to my seamstress two hours away, and after traffic I started installing at 3 pm on the Friday. I told myself I would not finish, but if only two or three units were left, it would be what it is. I was alone, so no talking. One unit done, it was 7 pm. Fast food in 20 minutes, back to work. Past 8 pm they shut the lights off, and I swear on my mother's life I kept installing in the dark, with the light coming from the other buildings and the outdoor lighting. 10 pm, keep going. I do not know if it was adrenaline, but I installed until 8 am. I saw the sun come up. Every unit was finished.
My best friend's birthday party was at noon that Saturday. I got there just in time to wish him happy birthday, ran to my bed for three or four hours, and came back for him. That same Saturday the manager called me: you forgot your trash and some boxes on this floor and that floor. I said yes, true, I will clean it tomorrow. By the way, every unit is finished. He said OK. His job was to report what was done and what was not, so I did not get the credit at that moment.
It was my biggest achievement at the time. Nobody will understand all the challenges, and I am skipping many details, but it pushed me to another level. I got new contracts. I was not the small jobber anymore; I had the most luxurious project in my portfolio behind me. Money-wise the numbers were correct, but if I count the hours, and the stress that eats you month after month, I made less than if I had simply taken care of my regular customers.
Tower 2, and Alexander
Two years later, my main competitor approached the developer to bid on tower 2. It was slightly bigger. I did the whole story again, to put my legacy on those buildings. I told myself: now I have the experience, I do not see how it can be worse, and there is no way I let my main competitor take this from me. It was another nightmare, and I finished it.
That is where I met my installer, Alexander. We had ups and downs during the whole project; we had just started working together and everything was fresh. He supported me when I needed it, and I have always done the same for the people around me. But after four months on a construction site, nobody is gentle with you. Someone takes the elevator that day, you carry your material up the stairs. There is nothing fancy about it, and we had a hard time at the end. I told him: look, last month was not good, now I am late, and I cannot pay you more for what I have coming. He understood, and he helped me finish the project for free. I never asked. Ten years later, in a different country, after ten years of crazy stories, I still feel lucky, because I found someone who watches over me.
I have more of a spotlight now, professionally. I am not famous and I do not want to be. But there are people behind you who help you become someone better, and as a boss I recognize what people bring to my dream. That goes far above numbers.
Two major towers behind me, and I was not even 30.
Word of mouth, and my father's factory
I have started many ventures and tried partners many times. For over eight years I never did any advertising; I ran on word of mouth. I kept my team small to control the quality of my projects, always working with Alexander.
My father is a manufacturer, so I source from him, and since my early twenties I have handled the bulk orders and the supplier relationships, because he was not good with technology. Back then you did not find a supplier on a website: you met them at trade shows, and I built those connections in my spare time, over years. At the beginning it was three or four containers a year. In the last few years it is more like 12 to 16.
Three years back in the factory, and the trade shows
Three years before expanding to Florida, I left the retail company I had built over ten years to rejoin my father on the manufacturing side. His partner in the business, who was also his girlfriend, had passed away, and he had a very big chair to fill. In those three years I attended the trade shows around the world and opened new supplier relationships: shows in Frankfurt and Stuttgart, including R+T, a fabric suppliers' show in Turkey, and R+T Shanghai on my own. In the last few years I have attended every IWCE. I have been to China four times to visit factories and deal with suppliers. Not all of my sourcing comes from there, but I have seen both sides of it: real quality manufacturers, and the cheapest version of the same item.
A five- or six-figure order with a supplier is not something I take lightly: visit the factory, share a meal, build the trust and confidence first. A trade relationship is something you build over years, and the only advice I can give is: never lie and never over-promise. They have more experience than you think.
In those same years I built our seamstress workroom. I visited the manufacturers of industrial sewing machines and conveyor lines myself.
We built a successful workshop, and on that one I do not deserve the credit. It goes to my sister, who joined us a year after I started and takes care of the daily adjustments that I do not have the time to do. I have the knowledge, but I do not have the time, and I needed someone smart. I was lucky again.
South Florida
After that came my current challenge: South Florida, with too many new challenges. Six villas in Turks and Caicos. An apartment on Fifth Avenue facing Central Park in New York. Oceanfront mansions and condos. This is where I am today.
I know everything that needs to be known on the technical side. There is always new technology, and I always have to do my homework, but it comes easy to me.
How I run a consultation
Someone once told me something I will never forget: you have two ears and one mouth. At the beginning of a consultation I do not talk much. I listen and I ask questions. My job is to understand my customer's idea, to picture what they have in mind, and to set the expectations right there. Only then do I run the technical analysis of what can be done and what cannot, the pros and the cons, and after that I give my recommendations.
Sometimes I will do something I would not have recommended, because I know the customer's end goal and their taste in colors, because it is possible without causing a problem, and because it is what they want in the end.
I like to think that I am the best, but I do not do it for the money. Otherwise I would have had so many opportunities to put my own interest first with a customer. That does not build references, trust, or a future. I think that when you are the best, you get the rewards you deserve.
David Martineau
Founder, Exotic Shades & Draperies