Without going into too much detail, his business was severely hampered in development for several years because they couldn't find good (extra) personnel. i.e.

Without going into too much detail, his business was severely hampered in development for several years because they couldn't find good (extra) personnel. i.e. kids that graduated only wanted to work for bigger firms, had wage demands he didn't consider sustainable, or simply didn't seem good enough. During that period they tended to focus on bringing in as much big projects as they could by being friendly with architects and project developers. It's easier to do more with a tiny team if you can batch work on a single site. Getting a good reputation in terms of quality and delivery was obviously very important there - you do not want to race to the bottom on prices. Around 2008, shortly after the financial crisis, many business got into problems, often also because customers were insolvent. Suddenly it became easier to hire more people, and he did expand the number of workers, and consequently the business, at that point, but never more than what they could reasonably check up on himself. (I reminds me a bit of the story where just after the .com crash, Amazon suddenly announced that for the first time in their history they'd made a profit) It was basically a slow, very careful growth, taking opportunities when they presented themselves. Customer satisfaction was very important. If you leave people in the cold, literally, they will remember and tell others. This means leaving the house to fix stuff at 10pm Sunday evening in the middle of the winter.