Interesting shift I’ve noticed over the years: the larger the projects get, the less the challenge is actually construction.
The harder part becomes communication, scheduling, selections, revisions, permits, subcontractor coordination, client expectations, and keeping momentum across months-long projects.
A bathroom renovation and a full-home remodel are almost two different businesses operationally.
Curious if other businesses found the same thing as they scaled up?
I’m noticing the same thing. Larger projects seem to reward planning and process, while smaller jobs often require more day-to-day communication.
On some bigger projects we're literally months into the planning process before we ever stepped foot on site or break ground. But doing a three-piece bathroom gut somehow ends up with more emails lol
I have the same experience - but also the bigger the project the more risk you take on and the more paranoid you need to be about other people working on it. That's why I like the 1-2 week jobs. You can make a good profit but it's not so many moving parts. I also feel like the challenge becomes finishing strong. Everyone gets too comfortable and starts to overlook things unless you have the right processes in place.
Couldn't agree more. The risk on the bigger jobs is huge. We used to do paint jobs, in and out in a week or two and you've got you're paid. Even if something went terribly wrong, it's a few gallons and hours to fix it. Sometimes I miss those days, but wouldn't trade it
I’ve noticed something similar in our business, although in a different way. For us, commercial accounts are usually much easier to manage operationally than residential customers.
Not necessarily easier physically. Easier administratively.
A lot of our commercial properties:
Once expectations are established, the relationship tends to become very process-driven.
Residential clients are different. Even though the individual jobs are smaller, they usually require much more communication and handholding:
You can have 50 small residential customers create more administrative work than a single larger commercial account. One thing scaling taught me is that larger jobs often expose operational weaknesses faster. At a smaller level, you can sometimes compensate with hustle and responsiveness.
Because once multiple people, properties, timelines, and moving parts are involved, memory and improvisation stop working very well. I also think bigger clients usually expect more professionalism and structure, but less constant interaction.
Smaller clients often expect more accessibility and personalization.
Yeah, I’ve found the same thing.
Some of our smaller residential jobs have honestly taken more daily communication than much larger projects, just because it’s someone’s actual home and they’re living with every decision.
A commercial client might ask for a schedule, a clear scope, and proper updates.
A residential client might ask about the schedule, the dust, the dog, the parking, the neighbour, the sink they saw online last night, and whether we can “just take a quick look” at something else while we’re there.
I don’t even mean that negatively. It makes sense. Renovating your home is stressful.
But from the business side, it definitely taught us that job size and admin load do not always match.
Obviously it depends on the type of customer too, but if you're working with a residential client and you are charging them something that's stretching their wallet passed what they're comfortable with, you're literally making them spend a large % of their income and their expectations will be so high that it's difficult to make them truly happy.
Compared to a commercial account where the dollar amount may be larger than a residential client, but it's a small fraction of their revenue. It's more palpable for them to manage.
