The one firm that works for the owner

Before Design and Biz, I spent a decade in consulting and corporate strategy in the consumer space — managing complex projects across multiple stakeholders and figuring out which parts of broken processes could be fixed. A few years ago I left to work in energy policy and regulation, focused on what homeowners are facing: rising energy bills, growing exposure to flooding and wildfire, and a tangled stack of incentive programs that are tough to navigate.

Then last year, my family and I moved from NYC to Westchester for the schools, as our son was starting kindergarten. We had actually nearly given up on the house search and started looking at apartments when a modest 100-year-old house at a reasonable price came on the market. It received another offer the day it was listed, so we felt pressured to look past the fact that the house clearly needed work. Our offer was accepted, and we hired an architect to handle what we assumed were a few key updates.

Neither of us had ever owned a house, let alone renovated one. We naively assumed the entire renovation process (design through build completion) would take about a year and cost less than what we paid for the house. To achieve what we wanted, we eventually found out the house would need a full gut renovation that would cost twice what we'd planned and take twice as long — once we started, every decision opened a door to a new one we didn't know existed.

When I described this experience to friends and colleagues, the response I expected — shock and empathy — was instead a jaded, "yeah, sounds right." I thought to myself, "it just doesn't have to be this way", and that's what led to Design and Biz.

Most homeowners' view of a renovation — cost, complexity, timeline — is in fact just the tip of the iceberg. There are tons of independent stakeholders, hundreds of decisions, and a cost and timeline picture that you're not likely to get up front with any kind of accuracy. Whether you're a first-time homeowner or a first-time renovator, you don't know what you don't know.

We created Design and Biz to fix this. We paint the broader picture before you start down the path, so the decisions you make are informed instead of reactive. Once you're on the path, we coordinate across the various stakeholders — architect, general contractor, engineers, town reviewers, lenders, and others — so there's better visibility across every party and the project moves forward more efficiently and at lower cost. Further, we carry the energy-and-resilience lens from my prior work into every project, because it is likely cheaper to address home energy issues at the start of a broader renovation than during or after.

Here's what we don't do: we don't sell construction services, we don't take referral fees from anyone, and we don't represent anyone but you. Our incentives are aligned with yours and nobody else's.

— Brandon