As soon as he graduated from college, Danny Wang followed his own vision. He was a construction manager for his father’s company while studying real estate finance in school.

But instead of joining his dad’s business, he had a dream of his own. Fresh out of college, with the experience and advice from his father in hand, he started his own design-build firm. Now 17 years later, DW Design in Southern California is a multimillion dollar company serving high end clients in multiple countries.

“My dad also had a construction company, so it just literally and naturally made sense. I was a project manager for him in college, and then right when I got out of college, I started my own business,” he says. 

Here, he shares his journey in scaling his business, advice for those just starting out, and how he created a repeatable pattern for success.

How it Started; How it’s Going

Controlling construction costs was a major part of the lessons Wang learned in college. “If you do real estate development, one of the numbers that you could change is by lowering the construction cost. I figured if I could understand what the construction costs will be, that's something that could obviously change how I view an investment,” he says.  “That got me really excited because… if you know how to do this, compared to other people that don't, you might be at a better advantage.”

Whether it's building an all-in outdoor kitchen or transforming an empty backyard into a luxurious vanishing edge pool, controlling costs while designing beautiful houses and remodels remains one of his advantages today. 

To get his first client, Wang did it the old-fashioned way. “I used to go door-knocking,” he says. “I used to just pitch myself everywhere, and then a client decided to give me a chance,” he says. “That's how we landed one of the biggest jobs.”

Being out there, and pitching yourself and the work you do is still key to success even if you are not literally knocking on doors. DW Design has grown to two offices, one in LA and one in Orange County. It has a total of 4 million social media followers combined across all its social media platforms used, and projects that go beyond California, in the Caribbean, Canada, and more.

Organization, Organization, Organization

“What took my business to the next level is organization, and having a tool like Houzz Pro makes running a $10 million company as simple as running a $1 million company because you can repeat the process,” he says. 

Communication and documentation is more efficient for the entire team, he says because everything is organized in one place: Houzz Pro. “Now, it's all in one place. It's just more organized,” he says. “Being more organized saves a lot of time because now, it's like, instead of me asking this question, ‘Where can I find this? Where can I find that?’ It's all in there.”

Pace your Growth

But to get to this high level, Wang had to learn from his mistakes. “I failed a couple of times. You learn from each failure not to grow too fast.” In some cases that fast track almost bankrupted his company and he had to pick up the pieces, step back, slow down, and build a more solid foundation to grow. 

“Before I would just run, run, run, run, run, not keeping my team up to pace. Now it's more like, okay, let me get them to pace, and then I could run further. That's how I've been working the last couple years. In this business, it's very, very difficult to grow too fast.

Manage Beyond Old-School Methods

“I think having proper management is key,” he says. “Construction is a very old-school business stilI. I still have people that come and give me handwritten invoices,” he says. 

To run his business more efficiently, Wang integrates technology to stay way ahead of these traditional methods. “I love it (technology) because it changes lives. 

“That's why Houzz Pro is so useful,” he says. He uses it in almost every aspect of his business. “By increasing productivity that's how we could be more efficient and potentially make more money.”

“Houzz Pro allows the designer, the contractor, the subcontractor, the vendors, and everybody to be on the same page and creates a more seamless customer experience for our client,” he says. He uses it from the sales stage throughout the entire project. The designer scans the room, generates a 3D Floor Plan, complete with fixtures  and appliances to help the client visualize their dream. They can then sign off on the estimate digitally. Then, the information is seamlessly transferred to the construction team, making project collaboration easy.

Plus, you can use the tech tools anywhere. “What's really beneficial about the mobile app is you can create a jobsite report so the construction project manager could be on site, taking pictures, and making notes,” he says. The integration between the mobile app and the desktop is seamless so that the people in the office will get notifications if there are some issues or specifications are wrong. “It makes the process very transparent. And that's something that in our industry is not very common.”

Train for Quality 

One of the biggest risks of growing too fast is customer service can suffer because you are running too fast to take care of everything properly and training others how to do the same. 

Wang puts a priority on training so that he is not the only team member who can do a job. “Essentially it's duplicating myself,” he says. “What I try to do is have my staff duplicate one task that I could do,” he says. “We do design-build. Let's say I design, let's duplicate that so then they could design from A to Z and then try to duplicate another one that could build from A to Z,” he says. “It's just a lot of training, and a lot of field experience. That's what we  focus on.”

Translate Your Vision 

At first, Wang found it difficult to help his clients see what he was seeing. “Initially when I started my business, I was guilty of just doing pictures,and hand drawings,” he says. It wasn’t working. “I could visualize it in my head but what I realized is my client couldn't see my vision,” he says.  

Wang’s favorite Houzz Pro features are the visualization tools such as the 3D Floor Planner  and AR Life-Sized Walkthroughs which help him bring his vision alive for his clients.  

“By having some simple design tools, it helps the client see the space,” he says. “What I really like about it is, it's an immersive experience,” he says. You can use your phone and walk around the space to show the new kitchen and newly designed rooms. 

“I think that's really, really helpful because I'm very visual. What we do, it's very visual. When the client sees it, they can also immerse themselves,” he says. Ultimately, visualization tools reduce any misunderstandings because clients can actually see the future instead of being told about the new tile, fixtures and more. 

With the Augmented Reality Walk-Through Tool,clients see the design applied to their actual space. “What I like about the AR features, it is exactly their house. They can walk around, it's like, ‘Okay, here this is where this is going to be, where that's going to be.’" 

Then, they can make changes based on what they see. “It is a game changer,” he says.

Keep Clients Informed

When he first started, Wang relied on his team for more of the technical expertise of construction design and sales while he focused on keeping  clients happy.  “Really my job was customer management,” Wang says.

Through the years, he’s gained more knowledge and skills, but one thing that is unchanged, is the focus on client satisfaction. “I think one thing that's very important is updating the client whether it's good news or bad news,” he says. “Keeping the clients always updated and communicating has really helped our business.” Even when bad things happen, how you communicate them to your clients makes a huge difference in how they are received. 

“Always keeping the clients in the loop, making sure they're aware of what's going on, that's really been a success for my business,” he says. 

With the Houzz Pro Client Dashboard, clients can get immediate updates and see the status of the work 24/7. "It is helping everybody to be on the same page without them asking question ‘Hey, what's going on?’” he says. “I think it eliminates a lot of the repetitive questions,” he says. “If you need this information, it's here."

Scaling Your Business

Using Houzz Pro is part of the way Wang is growing his business as his company increased its reach globally and grew its team. 

“When I first started my business, I was never a big believer of systems or repetitive processes, but as you get bigger and bigger, you have to have systems,” he says. “By having Houzz Pro, you set it up once, you set up the same process, and the next person could come in and my staff could teach them the process,” he says. Every aspect of a project is integrated into one system, he says. 

The system creates a common language of success that helps him attract better talent. 

“I think by having systems in place, that will allow better people to come in,” he says.  “Before I would have to train each person on a whole new set of ways to do things,” he says. “Now, if we have the system, we just say, ‘Hey, this is our system, come in, plug into it.’" 

Be Accurate

As every contractor knows, your bottom line is impacted if you get the square footage and calculations wrong while estimating a job, says Wang who has modernized his approach to takeoffs over the years. 

“I came from a time in my life where I had to use the ruler to do the takeoff,” he says. “It's important to have an accurate takeoff because even when you do it with rulers, and manually sometimes there's just mistakes, right?” 

Today, he prefers using technology to minimize those errors. “By having a computer do it, nowadays, I trust computers to do these things more than I trust myself mentally,” he says. 

Embrace the Unknown

Wang knows that some of his peers may fear the unknown when it comes to adopting technology to run their business. “I think for a lot of people, it's just a fear of the unknown, but once you see someone successful at doing it, then you're like, "Okay, hey, if that person is doing it, I'm going to do it."

He knows from experience that it is hard to give up control. “If you grow, you lose control. I think that's why a lot of people are hesitant; they're afraid to lose control, but they don't realize that once you set up a good system where it checks itself, you no longer need that control,” he says. For Wang, running his business is 10 times better since he started using Houzz Pro, he says.

“I look at it as, okay, you invest this much time now, you save this much time later, versus you take this much time now, and then you invest this much.”