The Business of Architecture: Risks, Rewards, and Real Talk with Hakan Agca at Cross Works
233 - The Business of Architecture: Risks, Rewards, and Real Talk with Hakan Agca at Cross Works
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Stephen Drew: [00:00:00] So, okay. Cool. Hello. Hello, everyone. This is not my new studio. This is another studio by an architect that's carefully designed it. Look at these white microphones. Look at the beautiful sound coming out of my mouth. And that's because I'm in CrossWorks studio and today we are with the owner, Entrepreneur Architects.
So I'm going to learn a few things as well. Hakanaga of CrossWorks. How are you? I'm good. Thank you, Stephen. How are you? I'm all right. So we're here. Thanks
Hakan Agka: for coming all the way to East London. I like it. But you're going to be moving to beautiful Camden soon. We've been here now for about two years, since we, came out of the whole COVID lockdown thing.
And then, recently we just felt that, let's get a space of our own. Yeah. And we found somewhere in Camden. Yeah. Yeah. So we're moving there in January.
Stephen Drew: It will be cool. I love it. How long has this been going for, first [00:01:00] of all?
Hakan Agka: By the end of this year, it will be five years, by the end of this financial year.
I set up basically off the back of about 15 years of working for big firms, medium firms, small firms. Did my rounds. Yeah. And then decided it was now or never. Now or never. I was in my mid to late 30s. Nice. And just went for it.
Stephen Drew: I love it. We were deciding what we would talk about today because we've got these beautiful projects you're creating places and maybe we'll touch up on that later.
However, one of the things when we bump into each other. We keep honing back to business, the business of architecture. Now this can go one way or another. If you're an entrepreneur or you're thinking of setting up or you're doing the business, then I think this is really interesting. So for those who are not interested in business, maybe you turn off, maybe not.
But for those who are, I think this would be really interesting. So we're going to wind back. Okay. We're going to Camden. Yeah. But first of all, let's go to the start. Was it this romantic notion of the fountain pen [00:02:00] you design in buildings, you get your big break, or was it like the real life smacked you in the face?
You mean the sort of Howard Rourke? Yeah, of course. Fountainhead. Yeah, no. Was it
Hakan Agka: like that? No, I always wanted to set up to be honest. Yeah. It was, it was something that I always had, in my mind. And I think throughout my career, yeah. I always felt that you had to gain the knowledge, you need that, you can't really do anything without the knowledge.
You had to gain some experience, go through a dozen, 50, 100 projects, feel the ropes, and then also really get a network. I think that's quite, it's crucial in business. And I just felt at that moment in time that. I had a decent amount of each of those things and it might be the time to go for
Stephen Drew: it.
Just before the pandemic, my gosh. Yeah. Just at the beginning, actually. Yeah. And we'll touch upon that, but we also were talking about, you've got different podcasts out there. Yeah. And some of the podcasts I listen to, confession, are not always in architecture. So I think we can learn a lot from the other industries.
There's many architects that kind of think about one day I'm going to set up a practice. One day I'm going to do this and [00:03:00] that. Okay. Do you, first of all, think that. Every architect should set up a business.
Hakan Agka: No, definitely not. No, I think there's, in addition to things like network, experience, knowledge, I think there's a couple of other.
Ingredients. Firstly, you've got to be a bit of a risk taker. I think if you can't take risks, probably don't jump on the bandwagon. It's, cause it is a lot about taking calculated risks a lot of the time. Do you go for that project? Do you not go for that project? Yeah. Where do you land on a fee?
How much time do you put? To something, that there's a lot involved, one, one move left, one move, right at the wrong time. And it's all over. So you've got to be willing to wake up in the morning and have that pressure on your shoulders and be able to deal with it without completely losing it.
So that's one thing. I think the second thing you've got to be pretty good with people, it's all about. the people that you've got, it's all about the human resource. And I think dealing with people on a day to day basis, being the happy face, [00:04:00] even when things aren't going so well, that's quite important.
And you've got to be a little bit of a chameleon and that there's certain ways that you deal with clients. There's other ways you might deal with staff. And, and I think that sort of people, skill is quite important, to, to being able to run a business. There's other things as well.
You need some financial acumen all the way from setting up a business on company's house through to getting your account sorted, understanding VAT returns, understanding how end of year accounts work to just generally running projects, and making them profitable. These are things that should be part of the DNA of an architect.
And unfortunately, they're not.
Stephen Drew: No, but let's go back to one thing again, you mentioned at the start, you said network. And I think that's so true. So telling. And I am sympathetic as well, because architecture, there's so much stuff. Neither did I learn about business now, because you're training in uni to be the best architect.
Conceptual, then you've got the technical stuff, oof, I want that, that, I wasn't interested in that so much, but then business architecture, you've [00:05:00] got to run a business in this economy, in this everything now, new government, maybe we come on to that a bit later, how things will mix up, but the people skills as well.
That's an interesting thing. So there's so many facets as an architect. Were you always more of a client facing person that when you were in practice, was that something that you lent into then? Cause that's a trend I see sometimes with business owners.
Hakan Agka: That's a really good question. So I think that's something that you have to put your foot forward.
And I think once that happens and you start dealing with clients, then I think you tend to stay there if you're good at it. And that's when you really start to. Kind of nurture relationships and start to build that network. I do think that if you, do sit more back of house, which every firm needs people, there needs to be technical staff that aren't particularly client focused.
That's important. That's how business is run as well. Yeah. You need both. But I do think then you're probably less likely to make that network and therefore less likely in the future. To potentially set up a [00:06:00] business based on a network. You do have people who set up businesses who are really technically strong, but I think that's generally the, from my experience, just looking at the market, that's generally the tendency that those who are more commercially focused in practice tend to be the ones who go off and set up businesses.
Stephen Drew: Yeah.
And you get different. I think it's important to talk about you get different kinds of businesses as well. Yeah. And a lot are okay. You can have a business on your own, can't you? Where you're turning over, I don't know, maybe it's a hundred K and then you're working for yourself and you get money after you pay your taxes and stuff.
And that's fine. However. To scale up an architectural practice, which is what you're doing, because now you have how many people with
Hakan Agka: you? So our biggest we had about 17, 18. Now we're down to about 12, 13. Yeah. So we tend to swing up and down depending on the work and depending on some people come, some people go.
Yeah. But yeah, we try at the moment staying around that 15 mark. Okay. I think that's a nice sweet spot. Yeah. Hopefully by the end of this year, we'll be looking to get bigger, but let's see.
Stephen Drew: It is up and down, [00:07:00] so I'm five. So I'm learning in this as well. And so to get to five is one thing and then get to five to 10 is another thing, but it's a very different, this touched upon earlier, it's very different than running your own business.
Cause maybe someone that has a few relationships, but they're an all rounder, they want a nice life. They want to be at home and stuff.
Hakan Agka: Yeah.
Stephen Drew: You can do that. You can be the king or queen in the village back home, have a good life, do the extensions and stuff. Of course. But we're not doing that here, are we?
Hakan Agka: Not so much. No. I think it's partly as well to do with, what I did in my career. Yeah. Become an expert at what you do every day and, For me, it was larger architectural projects, urban design projects, and I was very fortunate actually to have designed a few cities as well.
Yeah, so actual kind of full blown cities as opposed to large urban design projects. So that's become an expertise of mine. Certainly a specialist city planner in that sense, and that requires a lot of cross disciplinary working. Hence the name of the business, Crosswork. But, that's really where [00:08:00] it came from.
It was the idea of building a business that had that in its DNA where working, in a multi-disciplinary or cross-disciplinary nature Yeah. I feel is crucial. Yeah. And that's why I called it that. And it abbreviates really nicely to XW as well, which is just a bit of branding. Yeah. That kind of helps people.
To, to remember the firm effectively. So a lot of my, as I say, formative experience was large scale projects with multiple consultants, big consultant teams, and managing those teams was something that I found that I enjoyed a lot, respecting people's specialisms and bringing them all to the table, cutting through those arguments that tend to happen and just bringing people together and bringing their best, the best of people.
to a project. A lot of our work at CrossWorks, here you can see a few of our larger scale projects. They're big master plans, big mixed use buildings as well, million square foot, something like that. And other kinds of buildings as well. We just recently finished the architectural guidelines for New Tashkent, which is one of our large, one of our large projects in [00:09:00] Uzbekistan.
So yeah, I'd say, we're architects and master planners, but where I felt there was a gap in the market that I could fill or capitalize on, was the crossover between, Design and technology. Coming up, I felt that there was a significant gap in where technology was just generally and where design was and it's getting closer and there's a lot of people in the market.
It's not like we're the only ones. There's a lot of people in the market at bigger firms and also startups and tech firms that have seen that gap and it's beginning to get closer for sure. And how you can utilize technology to really inform and help design, catalyze design, make it better, make it faster, make it more efficient.
And I'm not just talking about the use of AI. I think that's one small, maybe a major component soon, but it's a component. I think there's just the whole general process and procedure of using different softwares, creating new softwares, that can speed up our process and make our process of [00:10:00] design better.
And that's something that we're focusing on quite a lot.
Stephen Drew: Nice. I suppose you have to be innovative in some way because, architecture, it is a competitive business. There are, we have, there are a lot of architecture practices out there, bidding on projects. So again, it's like you've got those relationships, but then also you've been innovative with the software.
But there's two fronts. So there's the outwards facing, as another cool client of mine always used to say, keep everything shiny on the outside. But you, okay, we touched upon this business as many people. So at the start, there was one point where you're like, I can't do this now. I've won a big project or whatever.
I need to find people. Oh, yeah. That how, that, that was tough.
That's a
Hakan Agka: really interesting
Stephen Drew: question. Get people in the journey and all this stuff. How was it?
Hakan Agka: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a really important point because some people might. See the firm that has a dozen staff and think, no one ever talks about how you get there.
Yeah, it's hard. For me, it was tough that first year or two. Yeah. And you can't just suddenly [00:11:00] go to PAYE staff, you can't just suddenly start hiring salaried staff. It just doesn't work.
Stephen Drew: Oh, I did and it was a bloody nightmare. I almost didn't make it. Look, it was too fast. Too soon. Yeah. Too fast.
Oh my gosh.
Hakan Agka: You've got to, you've got to actually do a hell of a lot of the work yourself. Most of the work yourself in the first couple of years. There's no way of getting around that. You can't just win a project and start giving it off to other people. That's a different business model. That's where you're a.
BD type person, like an agent. If you want to set up a business, you're going to have to be doing the work. You need a project. You're the main resource at the end of the day. So you're paying for yourself. So you better do the work. So that was the first, the first year or two, it was myself and I would bring on a couple of contractors now and then.
Yeah. So having worked in the industry for a long time, I knew a couple of really good people. Oh, you
Stephen Drew: knew that? Cause that, sometimes you get good contractors and then you get, sometimes people who contract. For a reason, because they can't hold down the job.
Hakan Agka: Potentially, yeah. Potentially.
Stephen Drew: But the ones I had
Hakan Agka: were people that I knew.
Yeah.
Stephen Drew: You had, a few people, maybe they're in between things. You say, Hey, I've got a gig right now. Yeah. Pay you, good [00:12:00] work. They're good, clean and easy.
Hakan Agka: Exactly. I had a couple of really good guys. What a blessing. Yeah. Yeah. Oz and Marit, name drop them. And others like Alex, again, it's like relationships, isn't it?
Network in a different way. It's important. There's the clients. And then the people, of course. And I think bringing those guys on board and saying, look, I can pay for a week of your time. Hey, I'll cover you for two weeks, mate. Have you got time? It was like that. It really was, shoot from the hip.
Yeah. And just counting those pennies was like, I've got five grand in the account. How far does that go? And cashflow,
Stephen Drew: you
Hakan Agka: don't
Stephen Drew: have to get paid until you see, you have to pay that contractor a week after, but me and you with the projects, 30 days in the rear as the client goes, Oh, yes, come in.
It's coming. Yeah, we're just, payroll for this month could be difficult. Absolutely.
Hakan Agka: Yeah, no. So that first little period was tough. But then you get to a point where you find that there's enough in the account. Where you can trigger that full time employee, and you put out the ad, you bring in the first full timer and that's a commitment.
And then you bring on a second one and a [00:13:00] third one as your projects start coming in, because obviously as you grow the capacity of the business. Your capacity to do work increases, so you can start saying yes to more projects, your exposure gets a bit bigger, you start saying yes to more projects, winning more work, and you need a lot of luck.
So I bid for a lot of stuff in those first, couple of years, and I was fortunate, I won quite a lot of them. Well done.
Stephen Drew: I was going to say about that, because there's mixed, because bids, especially in the UK, they get more and more. Certain competitions are more geared towards big, you got to do reports.
You got to do this. You got to do that. Yeah.
Hakan Agka: You got to pick your battles. I think you've got to go for the stuff that's quite quick turnaround.
Stephen Drew: Yeah.
Hakan Agka: Design competitions, bids that aren't particularly heavy on the requirements at the RFP stage. So if someone gives you an RFP and it requires a 50 page report with three weeks work, you're not going to go for that as a startup.
Too hardcore. Yeah. If someone sends you a, basically an RFP or, an information request. That just requires a CV, a couple of pages of text on what you're going to do, go for it. And that's what happened. That happened on a couple of quite big contracts where, we put forward [00:14:00] a really good idea.
Took a week of my time and we won it and then paid for, three new staff. So you do need a bit of luck. You really do. I think I don't think luck is spoken about enough in what we do as startups. You can have someone who's equally hardworking, does exactly the right things, but just keeps, Just not edging it to talk to those wins.
And we were quite fortunate that we won a couple out of, let's say, 20 bids. We sent out, we won a few, and that managed to pay for a few more salary stuff. And then the business kind of grew from there and it was always just growing sustainably. And I was fortunate enough to have done that gradually.
And just made things work and interlocked projects a little bit so that you're not overexposed. And that's when you can get to a point where suddenly you wake up one day and you're like, Oh, we've got 10 staff.
Stephen Drew: Yeah.
Hakan Agka: And you've done it in a responsible way where you can still pay for their salaries for another six months if you don't have any more work.
Yeah. Which is the runway, so you've got a six month runway. Yeah. Because I think that's what you want to get to as a three to six month [00:15:00] runway where you Comfortable and sleep at night.
Stephen Drew: It's, it's interesting. So at the start, when you're building a business, you're doing everything.
And that's the hardest thing when you first, because you've got to do the marketing, you've got to have the relationships and you've got to. Get the work, you've got to deliver on everything. So you're doing this truly 360 role. You have to be an all rounder and you hire people, things start shifting. Why does that look like from your point of view?
Did you, cause you still, let's imagine you got a hundred percent capacity before you were doing marketing, 20 percent this, that, that. As you go, as you scale, what does it look like? Where does your time get pulled into?
Hakan Agka: I'm still doing everything. You've got to be aware that for the first five years, maybe even 10 years, unless you take off like big or, Morrison company or one of these companies that are doing really well.
And then you can suddenly start hiring loads of people in. But in our case, we've grown sustainably, but not quite to the level where I can start bringing in. Directors now on [00:16:00] big salaries to cover major components of the business. I still have to have five caps on. So I'm still, a director with five director roles.
Yeah. Yeah. But I have fun. Listen, I think in the end you've got to do it yourself so that later on when I do hopefully deputize it's others. I know what to tell them to do or what to ask them to do, I should say, and have the approach. I think when
Stephen Drew: people hear this though, because for me, I think the more again, talking about how difficult a business can be, I love it, but I always say to people down the pub, I think you've got to be crazy to run a business.
That's the first thing I say. I try to convince people out of it because I think then if they still do it, then Maybe they'll be alright. Then
Hakan Agka: it's your fault.
Stephen Drew: Yeah, but you can't just decide, getting the dog for Christmas, it's Absolutely not. It's a huge commitment.
Yeah, it would just fail otherwise. And just to labour on that point, maybe it's not for everyone, because you've got to be, if something's popped up and you're looking at it, my phone was beeping and the thing, this never ends, and in my head, I'm like, it's not something that picked up the phone, but it was just muting.
By the way, I think it's important because it's full of interference. It's [00:17:00] all this stuff. And actually, I think you have to really deeply think in yourself as a person. Go, what do I really want? Do I want a business? Cause someone's telling me, or is that me? So for like last night, quick mini, I had an idea at eight o'clock, nine o'clock, and I couldn't stop thinking about the idea.
And my partners are used to it now. It's oh, gosh, Steve's got an idea. Watching TV and I'm buzzing, right? But it's a curse that I can't just switch off. One of my close friends is you need to hobby something else. And I'm like, Now it's all in the business is the hobby. The business is the challenge.
The business is the strides. I agree. If you're not okay with that, then I think you maybe shouldn't do
Hakan Agka: it. I think in a way it's also the other way around in that you set up a business because you're someone like that. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Here we are. Yeah.
Stephen Drew: And if you're still here, you're one of us.
Hakan Agka: Yeah. I'm not sure that it's a, yeah, I think it's because you're, you you can't really turn off that you decide. Oh, by the way, working in, working in practice isn't enough. I actually need all of my time to be consumed. And so you end up [00:18:00] setting up a firm, but look, I'm really glad I did it.
It's, there's ups, there's downs. Very volatile. Anyway,
Stephen Drew: there's lots of positives though as well. And I think there's a business, you have to surround yourself with people also doing it. And there's, and actually one of the things that I've initially thought is even competitors, you think, Oh.
You're going to be out for each other, but I've actually get along with some of my competitors and go for a beer or, you can share this information. Do you find that over time that architects should just, share a bit of information, collaborate or is that?
Hakan Agka: Yeah. Yeah. No, I think so for sure.
I think, every firm to some extent has some kind of a specialism or has something that they're uniquely Yeah. Interested in or uniquely good at. Yeah. I think it would be better for the industry if there was a bit more collaboration for sure. We're really open to it. We actually have performed as a sub consultant for a number of firms and we're happy to,~ um, ~being a lead consultant is one thing.
It's great where you've got subs underneath you and you've got a [00:19:00] direct interface with the client. But we're quite happy to be a sub as well. I guess my last.
Stephen Drew: One, to get your pearls of wisdom on. You're a bit further along in the journey than me. Just a bit,
Hakan Agka: not much.
Stephen Drew: What, a
Hakan Agka: couple of years?
Stephen Drew: Eh, it's good, I'm learning as we go. Culture. And the big mistake I made at the start, We're going to get experienced people. There is something in them. We're going to be fully remote. It's going to be fun, fully flexible. And so we're actually returning to work at the moment.
And, it's been okay, actually. It's been worse because I'll be honest. I was a bit, Oh gosh. I think everyone's been quite reasonable. If you're quite reasonable with them. And basically I've explained maybe there are some genuine business cases for working hybrids because I've gone the extreme of going fully remote to hybrids.
But then also there are, we are going, we are returning them to the office in the industry. So what's your thoughts on that as a subject, first of all? [00:20:00]
Hakan Agka: We're five days in the office. So in the beginning, when I first set up, it was obviously pretty hardcore. I was doing at least 100 hour weeks, and some of my, contractors and staff at the beginning, bless them, they put in the extra hours here and there to, because it was, it was right at the start, but in the past few years, since we've scaled up and gone to, a dozen staff or so, where we've got, bit more of an infrastructure in place and everyone's full time PAYE, I've managed to maintain very good working hours for people.
Now, That's the give. The take is you come to the office because part of that agreement is that you're efficient. If you're working 60 hours a week, you can allow for inefficiencies. Of course you can. So you can be at home. Half watching YouTube, taking huge breaks, all that stuff. Doing the washing machine.
Yeah, finishing at 11 o'clock at night, not having a social life. If that's, to you, a healthy lifestyle, go for it, have at it. And most of my staff agree, look, we come in five days a week, we work collaboratively, we're all in one room, we [00:21:00] get things done fast. We don't waste time, half an hour on zoom calls, but we just have a five minute meeting and
Stephen Drew: get straight back to work.
It's quite strange as well. Cause I think if you're up front with people at the start, then I think it is a very fair trade. And so we
Hakan Agka: are by the way. So interview again, cause I can, because this is such a waste of
Stephen Drew: your time actually as well, isn't it? Someone joins, you haven't been forthright. You've got to just.
Say it as it is at interview stage,
Hakan Agka: Hey, interview two, usually we'll have interview one with the team and interview two will be with me. And then I'll say, by the way, if you're interested enough to come to an interview to, it's five day a week in the office, in fact, the guys mention it, interview one as well.
So if someone is, has gone all the way through, realizing that, and then joins the firm and complains, then look, That's on you, that's silly and that's a
Stephen Drew: waste of
Hakan Agka: everyone's
Stephen Drew: time. It's interesting. So for me, hiring experienced people, initially remote, worked. Yeah, sure.
Business is growing. Where I'm going with this is, you have some students at the moment that have just gone through the pandemic, now [00:22:00] they get back in, my business, I'm looking at getting more junior people in the medium to long term. How can you do that remote? It's crazy. How can you introduce someone new to architecture who's come from uni?
Without being in the office, at least hybrid, so for argument's sake, hybrid full time compared to remote. People will ask for a full time remote role. How do you do it without an office?
Hakan Agka: Look, I think this is, look, it's a tough one. I think in the beginning I was, let's say, not fortunate, but I was in the predicament where everyone was locked down anyway.
We started work from home in the first place. So for us, it's been very clean. It's been work from home when it was a law to work from home. And as soon as it wasn't, we were full time back at the office. I never messed around with hybrid. Part of the reason for that is because, I think it's because I'm a bit closer to my staff age wise.
I'm, I was a [00:23:00] technician. I still am a technician. I'm a technician running a business, in the, I was doing 3D models until, just yesterday. So it's, I knew that you need two screens, two 27 inches with your laptop, all set up with your creature comforters, with a proper ergo chair.
If you look at our systems, we don't mess around. We, we make sure that everyone has hot technology, and so you're not waiting around for processing time and you're comfortable when you have big screens. Yeah. So a junior needs to be in the office cause they need to be in an environment where they're learning from their intermediate seniors and associates.
And if they're not really learning. They're just basically, doing what we've referred to in the past. Rudely, but it's a word that everyone uses as being a CAD monkey, right?
Stephen Drew: Yeah.
Hakan Agka: So if you want to be a CAD monkey, fine, but you're not really learning much. You're in, when you're in the office with your senior and you're saying, what do I do with this?
Can you help me with this? And they come over and they answer questions on the snap every five, 10 minutes, then you're learning. Yeah. So I'm not sure how that works, unless you [00:24:00] really just want to be a production guy and that's all you're doing. Yeah. When you get intermediate and senior level, you're the one who's supposed to be mentoring the juniors.
So again, how are you doing that unless you're sat next to them? And when you're an associate, you need to be running multiple projects at the same time. How are you doing that remotely? You're doing it just super inefficiently, and no one can argue with me that it's not inefficient. Of course it is.
Of course it's inefficient. The point is how inefficient is it? Is it 90 percent or is it 60%? But why argue all this? Why debate it? Why not just get back to the office and all of us as an industry work hard? To stick to a nine to five 30 job. I feel like we're all avoiding the elephant in the room, which is, it's not really about work from home, work from office.
It's how hard you, how long are you working? That's the point, how hard, how efficient. I think that's the key. I think it's just smoke and mirrors to allow people to keep getting abused doing long hours. And then I think actually what we're doing is addressing the real issue, which is make a business profitable without overworking your staff.
Yeah, [00:25:00] deal with that. And then after you've done that, let's talk about this hybrid and issue because by the way, I don't want to sound too militant. A lot of my team, if they need to work from home for some reason, they're allowed to work from home. Yeah, just ask. Because they've got a doctor's appointment because they need to pick up their kids from school one day.
There's a whole bunch of stuff, delivery, so whenever someone asks, it's a yes, work from home. But as long as, it's not more than a certain amount a month, then it's okay. So we do have that flexibility, but it's built in. For reasons not just as a standard, and also we have a policy of work from abroad.
So in our team, we're like the United Nations. Everyone is from somewhere else. We don't actually have any, I'm the only Brit I think. I might be wrong, but I think, I think Matt has a residency, but, yeah, I'm the minority is, is that if, because they're all international, they can go and work from home for a week or two.
Yeah. Cause they'll have a holiday for a couple of weeks in the summer back in Spain or wherever. Yeah. And they attach to that [00:26:00] one week work from, they're back home for a bit longer. So that's a nice
Stephen Drew: benefit. I guess that's workation. That's workation. That's what the, the cool kids call it.
I think it makes sense. I think it's about structure in there. And so it's really interesting. But with
Hakan Agka: yours, your question, you asked about how you make it work. What are your thoughts about it? Are
Stephen Drew: you
Hakan Agka: going to take an office space soon?
Stephen Drew: Yeah, that's the goal. Right now we go into e work.
Two to three days a week, but without no structure. Is it one? Is it two? Is it three? So what I've said now is there's key days where we're all in. To collaborate. There's only five of us. We shouldn't be booking each. We work across London. So there's a few things that I've had to do there.
Collaboration and stuff, but I've got very different personalities and architects. Some big different personalities, but what I was going to say with the tech. It's very different because my business is just Outlook. So everyone's got a laptop, everyone's got a nice phone, and a 13 inch MacBook, is fine for Chrome, [00:27:00] Outlook, and CRM system, which is Customer Relations Management System.
I'm not generating. 3D Max models anymore, gone to those days. Yeah. But when I did, I was a microstation there. You need every inch of real estate. Of course. And at home, I got a 34 inch monitor, because yeah. But in this job, how do you do that? Like you, you've got to have all the processing power somewhere, right?
Hakan Agka: It'd be like having A tiny little drawing board that big in the old days, like it wouldn't make sense. Yeah, the bigger the drawing board, the bigger the drawing, because it's a visual industry. I think, some of the bigger firms are making that statement now. But it's always been our thing. It's not like it's something that I've just started recently.
It's, we've said that since lockdown ended. Yeah. We're always going to be in the office because I've always had that. I've always had that opinion and it's partly because I learned everything I ever learned in the office. Yeah,
Stephen Drew: that's why I wanted to go around because I had an interesting quote that, you should treat your career and your professional careers as a [00:28:00] business.
And I always think that actually going into the office, especially early in your career, you're accelerating your career to get more time. So it's less about even sometimes what me and you think it's like, what's the best person, what's the best thing for an architect in the making. And I think it's like them throwing themselves in really, it's actually architecture.
It's not something, we talk about business actually, half, you can't half ass it, you've got to do it, but it is the same for architecture. That's the reason I didn't get my part free, because I was like, I just didn't feel the thing. Yeah, what happened
Hakan Agka: with that? How come? Yeah, I don't know,
Stephen Drew: I, but I didn't get the buzz, but the technical drawing, I just didn't have the buzz that people had.
And so I was like, I have to do it. So I was clock watching. So I would be, I'd be very happy with you going home with 538, but I just didn't have the thing. And I think you've really got to have the thing. You've got to The same way I'll talk to you about, I don't know, how to work out corporation tax, how to do this, how to do that.
You've got the thing for this, for whatever reason, but you've got to have that [00:29:00] for architecture. And I think there's so much things going on, talking about fire regulations, you've got all this stuff going on. But you get the passion. It gives you light at the end of the tunnel because what other career can you design a building, a hospital that people use all the time or new places or new cities.
This is amazing, but we know it's not the highest paid job in the world. We know it's all this stuff. So you've got to really want to enjoy it. And then I think in that sense, going into the office, being there, doing it for yourself, being selfish for you. To me, if you can get that mindset, I think you'll go further ahead.
It's also healthier
Hakan Agka: for you. Yeah. Again, maybe one of these unspoken truths, which is that everyone just ignoring the fact that being stuck at home is just not good for you.
Stephen Drew: That's why I put loads of weight on the pandemic, and it's slowly dropping off, but it's just being at home.
It's just, it's it and you go a bit crazy in your little world, team meetings and all this stuff. I think
Hakan Agka: the more you're around people, the better you become with people. I think it's, it is important to be out there, out and about. [00:30:00] But
Stephen Drew: you still have flexibility. And I think that's the important thing.
Cause what I would say is pre pandemic, I would meet some amazing female architects. They have a child, they've got the life, they're doing the school runs. They couldn't get a job, it was crazy. So I do think flexibility is important.
Hakan Agka: Yeah, we have it. You can ask anyone in the business at no point have I ever said no to someone.
Someone's doing a school run. Yeah. I used to find that crazy. I think it's coming late sometimes. It's fine. So it can be. Nine 30 to six, it can be a bit later than that, even 10 to half six, and you can make up hours on other days. So I trust my staff implicitly to cover the work. You can see what's the output.
Is that a week's work? And if it's not, we have a conversation. So I think everyone's fully aware that they need to be efficient and they need to be knocking out work. And if that equation isn't stacking up. That in the financials, your financials, when they start dipping, there's a number of reasons why that can be.
It can be because invoices aren't getting paid. You're not getting the right level of fees in, but it can also as a [00:31:00] component be because you're just not being efficient enough in your workflows. So you always have to have your finger on those dials and understand which one's dropping and which one's going up and maintain that level, if that makes sense.
It does make sense. After a while, it becomes a bit second nature, but it is, there's definitely a. A number of things you've got to keep your eye on all the time. It's
Stephen Drew: forecasting. I think it does get better. I started doing that as well. You start before it was more, what the heck do we have for this month?
And now it's like pipeline.
Hakan Agka: Oh, but that's amazing. When you get to that point when you're not just thinking month on month and you're actually going, what's ahead for the next six months. That's when you're really in business. I think so. You're there at that point now. Been
Stephen Drew: for a while.
We'll see. The Christmas time, it goes a bit, it goes a bit quiet in my business, forecasting. In a different way. So at the time of recording this, we were just leading up to Christmas, Labour government's coming in, a few changes, forget politics per se, not interested in that, more interested in what's your sentiment at the moment in the future in terms of the built environment or [00:32:00] being a business of architecture in the UK with Labour?
Do you think the changes they're doing are good?
Hakan Agka: I think generally the UK over the past, let's say 30 years, Has become, generally speaking, a little anti development, which is bizarre, and this, again, this might be a little controversial, but it's just my humble opinion. We work internationally, most of our income is international, a vast majority.
So CrossWorks brings money in from abroad, into the UK for, that's usually a good thing. That's considered a good thing. We get all of our fees from outside. a small percentage comes from UK, but very small. And part of the reason for that is that we deal with large scale, big mixed use projects, big master plans, new cities, new technology initiatives.
I won't say that's not happening here because obviously it is, but a lot of it's happening internationally to the point where a relatively small business like us can do quite well. hunting that kind of work down elsewhere. A lot of those large scale master plans are [00:33:00] government led. And one or two of them are actually on site.
Groundworks have already started like the new Tashkent one, this one here, that we've been working on for two years and that's for a new city. And that went from pre concept to detailed master plan within 18 months, which is a super fast timeline. And then now we're going in sort of two years on that project, developing up the architectural guidelines.
And why do I say all that? It's because I think a lot of these large scale projects that are happening elsewhere just get done. . They move through a process whether we like to believe it on the UK or not. We're not the only ones with process. It's just hours
Stephen Drew: is so bloody long.
Hakan Agka: Ah. It's not only long, but a lot of these projects, they go through these a huge process and at the end of it, the project just dies or gets cut off.
And it's for reasons, I was involved in the Heathrow expansion for a few years and that didn't go ahead. As we all know, HS2 got cancelled recently. That didn't go ahead. Look, these projects, they burn millions and millions of pounds of cash. Some of them are private. Something like Heathrow would be a private project, not, not [00:34:00] any taxpayer money there, but there are others that are public funded projects that, just don't come to fruition.
If we want to compete on that international stage, I think personally, again, in my humble opinion, we probably need to start. Putting the foot down on the accelerator a bit and starting to build stuff because other countries are steaming ahead. And if the UK wants to catch up, not only do we need to build homes, we need to build infrastructure fast,
Stephen Drew: earlier, you touched upon using tech to help you in your business. Now we talked about the forecast in the UK. We need to cut through a few of the policies. That would be cool. Is there an opportunity? Maybe. With technology, AI, everything at the moment, it's quite exciting. There's a lot out there. Do you think there's a real positive opportunity at the moment that this can be used to accelerate businesses or is it a fad?
Hakan Agka: No, absolutely. Yeah, there is a huge opportunity. I think any business right now that isn't. Using AI to some extent [00:35:00] and isn't looking at how they can expand into the technology sphere in whatever way, especially in the design sector, is it better be doing something else really well. You know what I mean?
Because I think it's, everyone else is going to start accelerating. It's an example that's used to death in our industry. The idea that. So I was born in 1982, which is the same year that, AutoCAD one came out. Wow. So I'm as old as AutoCAD basically. And actually AutoCAD is the.
Still gets used. It's still used, but it's not, it's been overtaken by other software packages, some of them built by Autodesk themselves, of course, but, I think the simple point being that back then people were drawing with pen and paper on huge drafting boards. Even I had a drafting board when I was in my first year of uni, but, when people transitioned over to CAD, there was obviously a quick.
Increase in pace and efficiency in their work. Yeah. 'cause they weren't having to draw, redraw, draw again. Every time there was a [00:36:00] design change you'd have to redraw it, stick another piece of traits over the top, redraw it. It was just so slow. Whereas now it got to the point drawing digital lines and it was just so much easier to move, delete, redraw, all the things now we take for granted, but back then it was a revolution.
And then what? 10 15? 20 years ago, Revit comes out, and people realized that actually we shouldn't just be drawing in 2D, we should be drawing in 3D, and not only should we be drawing in 3D, but we should actually be using real components, like actual, concrete infill panels and actual window frames that are specified to a manufacturer, and put things together like a giant Meccano set.
And then share them with other architects and work on it at the same time and with M& E and structures. And there you go, you got BIM. Amazing, right? Amazing, speed. And now one BIM user can, I would venture to say, do the same as a room full of probably 50, 60 [00:37:00] draft people from 1981, so the amount that the efficiency has gone up exponentially, right?
I think now what we're going to see is. another jump and we're seeing it right now and it's not just mid journey We all get what Firefly and MidJourney can do fine. Great. It produces images and it helps out some generative image making. I think the big jump is going to be when that actually can be implemented into the 3D experience, into that 3D production, where the BIM model can actually start bringing that AI in, and the AI can actually turn that 2D into 3D, turn 3D into that BIM model.
So I think that's the original question. People that are utilizing this journey or have jumped on that bandwagon on that journey are like the people that did actually jump onto the Revit bandwagon and did jump onto that AutoCAD bandwagon 40 years ago. And I think, is there anyone still drawing by hand today, 40 years later?
But nothing significant can [00:38:00] be done by hand anymore.
Stephen Drew: I think it's an opportunity there. So you agree. So it's an enabler, not a takeaway. If I remember spending like two, three weeks a month collaging when I was a part one, the perfect image, getting the sun, getting everything, getting the sky, Photoshop will do half that in a Bloody half an hour.
Yeah, but who wants to do that anyway? Exactly. The jobs But it wasn't, it was
Hakan Agka: The jobs that AI is doing is the jobs that none of us really wanted to do. Exactly. It was just labor, right? Yeah. And I feel like what AI and tech enables us to do is to do things that are just more interesting.
Correct. And to use like human experience and human knowledge in a more useful way. Yeah. And just let the machine do the donkey work, and it's always been like I use it.
Stephen Drew: Insane amount every day in the business. I think as a small business owner, I would love a PA, but you can, if you code certain things.
AI with automations. You can have a virtual assistant to an [00:39:00] extent.
Hakan Agka: It already exists. Yeah. There's already huge systems and companies in place that are, I've been approached by a few of them. Do you want us to say all your human resources with AI? You know what? I'm too much of a Luddite, even though I'm so technology focused, I'm too much of a Luddite to be able to hand over accounts and, HR to an AI because I'm like,
Stephen Drew: no, I agree with it.
I agree with you on that bit. I'm not very good when I don't have sleep, and some students, yeah. Some students will do two days and they go like a badge of honor. I'm like, I would basically be in tears at the printer. Like I can't think. And I remember doing these error schedules of like midnight for this submission.
I got them all wrong. And then it was funny the next day, the team leader was quite annoyed, but at the same time couldn't be really that annoyed with me because if you got me up to one o'clock and I say I am not gonna, not feeling the best, you get a shit outcome. So when I go on with this, it's stuff like that.
Hakan Agka: AI to do it. It's brilliant. Absolutely. I think, earlier I called it donkey work and [00:40:00] there's a reason for that. We used to pull plows and then someone was like, why don't we get the donkey to pull the plow? And it's the same thing. It's like technology is that right? Yeah. So the, at
Stephen Drew: the end of the podcast, what I normally do is cause I'm asking the questions.
Oh, I'm asking the questions. That sounds like that. Oh my gosh. But as the host, I'm supposed to have a loose order of questions, but I like to throw it back. We know each other. We talked outside, but what would you like to ask me? I can be anything.
Hakan Agka: Oh, wow. Okay. What have you, so your part of your business is actually human resources.
You actually find. Jobs of people.
Stephen Drew: So a lot of recruitment, all the revenue on the social comes from recruitment.
Hakan Agka: So what have you noticed in terms of culture change? And this is me being a bit provocative, but also I'm just interested in what you think. What have you noticed in terms of culture change, the requirements of people looking for new jobs?
Help me out so that I can, cater my business to hire the best.
Stephen Drew: It's actually quite interesting. You've got, I think you've got two waves of, it really depends where the person is with their career. And what I'm finding is at the moment, they start on the lower [00:41:00] end, the medium end, the upper end, so we can have a bit of fun with it.
Okay. So on the lower end, I think it's a strange time because as a graduate now you pay 9, 000 pounds a year. So you have this weird. pent up like, okay, I've got a bag of 30K debt, 50K if we include in, student accommodation digs or whatever, I need to get this massive high paid job or whatever, or I want all the benefits.
So I'm sympathetic to the situation, but where I'm going with this is the expectations and the costs that people have done go into architecture is a bit of a clash. So there was always this, Could be anticlimactic or could be the best thing in the world. We're actually coming out of uni.
It's Oh shit, I've got to look for a part one job. And back then when I graduated, it was like 18K, 20K. Now the legal requirement was 25, which is punchy for an architecture practice. Minimum is punchy. And so there's a strange thing going on. So I'm not sure that, but you still have more people studying architecture.
[00:42:00] The never keeps going up, which is great. So we'll see what happens there. I think right now it's like working out mid career. I think there's two waves of people. I think there's people that want to push ahead as far as possible and they want their career to accelerate.
They want that juicy project you talked about. You need that nice project. They want to work hard. They want to throw themselves in and there are people depending on where their lives are, which are going, okay, listen, the gig is. I'm three days in, I've got two days at home. And in one way, as long as they forward, then you know, if you want to engage in it.
So I think what I'm learning is you've got these two camps and I think that my advice for anyone that's looking for a job is be really honest with the employer from the start, what you want, because what I think is happening at the moment is people, wondering if they want this, they go for the process, then they don't want it and all this stuff, and it's just a waste of everyone's time.
So I, I think [00:43:00] right now, that's really about what's going on is I think it's about being clear with it and also on the employer as well, because I see some people going, Oh, we're doing this right now. And we might be going to this might be going back. So everyone needs to be a bit clear. And I think.
If, once we get that, then that's fine, because I think if people know it's five days in from the get go, there's no issue. Exactly. But also, everyone needs to be willing to compromise. Because I think also The flexibility thing, yeah. Yeah, or I find that at the moment, at time of recording, salary expectations are a bit It's all a bit have to be realistic.
You might feel undervalued, but likely if you're on 30 grand, it's going to be very hard to ask for 45 to 50, unless you're the rockstar. So you've got all this stuff. So I think where I'm going with this is that you, when you are beginning on your job search, you need to look, I call it the ugly mirror.
You got to go right. What am I really worth in the market? Not what I believe I am. What can people pay me? What's the value you bring to that? Yeah. And what, and what can you compromise on what's important to you? [00:44:00] Because you know what, if you bought a house in the Cotswolds, cause a lot of people sold, they, moved away from the city and you box yourself in a bit, but you got to know what works for you because the reality is if you want more flexibility.
What people are not talking about is then your salary is not going to be as high as coming in. Exactly. Typically. No. No one talks about that. I can guarantee you right now, I know a few companies that go, no, just three days, never more.
Hakan Agka: Yeah.
Stephen Drew: And then it comes to the salary offer and it's That's the same as I'm on now, but it's so now the problem on the upper end of the cream, and this is an old one going from the past, but it's, you have to be willing to change and adapt a little bit.
And it keeps going back to tech. So we joked, I'm also born in the eighties. When I, my first foray after being a part two into recruitment. Was when Revit was just coming in, in the UK, which really was 2014. Companies will say on their websites, it was 2012. It's all bullshit. No one was really using it then.
Everyone's trying to work it out. You get some amazing person from New Zealand who's now the BIM guru [00:45:00] when they were a part one over there, equivalent, right? And we're all working it out. And the resistance to change was crazy and there is still a resistance to change. Yes. When you favor in your career.
Okay, you've got all this skills and you might be entrenched in Orkut and all this stuff, but you have to at least do the basics of a Revit. You still have to, because if you're not willing to even put that in, because it's the old chicken and egg, when I get a job with a thing, then I'll learn it then.
And actually companies want, they want at least an aptitude or something. So you have to be willing to do that. So I gone for it. So at the junior end, I think it's about. Thinking about what it's in it for you and probably going into a company full time, okay, you want to, your friend who's in Canary Wharf might be on shit loads and all this stuff, but it's about actually what am I buying with my time?
I'm having quality experience within a practice. Middle of your career, going, what is important to me? I'm [00:46:00] putting it at the front when you're going into the, to the job search. Do you want responsibility? Do you want to be in? Do you want this? Do you need the free days? Have you boxed yourself in? Do you need the school run?
Just whatever. Just say it at the start. Yeah. Not to waste everyone's time. And at the end of, by the end, that sounds awful, isn't it? But when you're at the, you've done a few projects and stuff, you can't rest on your laurels of just the experience. You have to be willing to adapt. Yeah.
Hakan Agka: Agreed.
So that's my I think that's just amazing advice. I think everyone who's looking for a job, vying for a job, should listen to that and really take heed of that because, not every candidate does that. We get some really good candidates that come in and they'll do all that. Yeah. I'll be honest.
I'll be very clear about what they want. What they can offer the business, what they do know, what they don't know, and then you can make a decision and go, look, that person has these attributes, that person has these attributes, that one fits us best. And then everyone's happy.
Stephen Drew: The only last thing I was going to say is there's nothing wrong with smaller company.
I love it. Large companies. I think, though. Especially at the start of your career, [00:47:00] this is the place to learn all that stuff. Cause they've got the infrastructure. Oh, totally. Someone said that to me. I, my first ever interview was a part one, it was a small company and they were like, you seem like a nice guy, but you don't know any detail and go to a big company.
It's nice and that, but I look back, it was so true. It was the best advice I've ever got. It's reality, right? Yeah. They're only doing, they're doing a favor. They teach new and stuff, but that's how they're geared because if you're also some people join them and then they work all the way in the company.
So
Hakan Agka: It's how I did it, right? Just to go full circle to the beginning, it's how I set up, was off the back of more than a decade of working for the larger firms and honing my skills and knowledge base, and skillset. And then eventually saying I can do this myself. So I think.
I think there's a lot to be said and we should all really respect the big firms because they are the second university they put a lot in what they do as the first university. There's a part one, part two, part three in this country, and obviously, bachelors and masters in other countries, that are equivalent.
And once you come out the other end of that long education. The first place a lot of people go are the large firms, and I think those large [00:48:00] firms provide a really useful infrastructure of teaching graduates how to do their jobs, really well.
Stephen Drew: And it's good fun being in the big practice at the start when you're young.
It's great laugh. It's a lot of fun. It is really good fun. There was three kitchens where I was and then I would hide in one. My old boss, poor, bless him. I give you a nightmare, but I would say, which state, which kitchen is Stephen in this time? Go get him. I think he worked a bit harder on that front.
Before we end, I always forget to say where people can find you. Now, everyone knows where they can find me because I keep blabbing and talking online. However, if someone hasn't been familiar with CrossWorks or they want to get in touch with you.
Hakan Agka: It'll be, look at cross works. co. uk also our Instagram, which is CrossWorks Limited.
So CrossWorks LTD. And our Twitter is the same or X I should say is the same. What else have we got? We've got YouTube channel. What's the YouTube Chris? It's, Cross Works. Cross Works, yeah. Just cross Space Works. That's our YouTube channel. And [00:49:00] also we've just been published on Dine, this past week.
Congrats. So thank you. Yeah. You can just type Crosswork and we'll come up and it's the story about the new master plan that we, that we delivered recently that's just been approved and now being built on site, which is really exciting for us. And we're going to be, we've got published recently on AJ as well, and on CNN.
Interestingly, that was really, that was really left field. I just got, they just reached out and said, do you fancy doing a quick interview with us, Amy Gunia? And, I did, and she was very nice and they published a nice article. And, yeah, so I think at the moment where we're a little bit on social just because we've done a lot of hard work, but we've not done anything aggressive.
This is actually the first interview I've done properly. Since I set up the business,
Stephen Drew: don't judge them all by me, I'm not quite like CNN, we're the new wave, there's a place for the old wave. And there's something new, but
Hakan Agka: listen, this is hopefully this has some kind of audience that will be, through you.
Thanks for inviting me to this. And it's a true pleasure. Hopefully we can do it again. Yeah. Focusing on other subjects and [00:50:00] maybe I can interview you for that.
Stephen Drew: Yeah. I didn't have to do anything. This was all beautifully here. I love it. So this is the best form of collaboration for me.
Hakan Agka: Absolutely. We'll look next one. Let's do it in Canton. So we're moving actually from. The office that we're in right now is in East London in Bow. So we've been here for two years now. Yeah, cool. And we're moving to our Camden office. I like Camden. On Bonnie Street in about
Stephen Drew: 20 days. I was a fresher in Camden.
It's the last thing before I closed down. And, I was there doing my part one at Westminster round about the time that, Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty were on the streets and I actually saw it at the back of Amy's head. Just one day. She was walking down the street. Thank you so much for inviting me here.
I really appreciate it. And to you, the listener, if you've got to this point, then maybe you are geared up to run a business because this is what it takes, but for those who dropped off at the start, you won't even hear me talking about you. Get out of the room. Thank you so much for listening, everyone.
Have a good day, wherever you are.
Take [00:51:00] care.