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Case Study - Chins Construction
In conversation with Karl Chin
I’m Karl Chin. Before Chins Construction, I was a gas engineer and a plumber, and I was working for various other builders and plumbing firms. Along the way I started to learn about the construction side of building and plumbing, and I thought I would give it a go and try my own construction company.
Inspiration
Chin Construction is a construction company which does home improvements and developments around London and the areas surrounding it. The idea came about when my apprentice and I were in our van one day, and I wanted to upscale the business and try something new. He asked – “why not just go for starting a building and construction team and try to give it a go?”
The main motivation to go into business was to have a new challenge and to try something new. I’ve always enjoyed doing property and a lot of my clients have always said that they’ve always found it difficult finding different tradesman, and they wanted one person to take care of the whole project, so I felt like that was a good niche in the market to try and do something new.
The journey
Chins Construction has been operating for 3 years. It was hard at the beginning, finding clients and getting the jobs in. We’ve now progressed very well, and we’re growing year by year and we’re doing different projects every year.
The growth curve
As we started out, it was just my apprentice and I. I started off on one job, and as I started to grow, I started bringing in contractors. I then started taking on the contractors as full-time employees, and as they came on as full-time employees, I could put them onto a job, I could take on more jobs and hand out more responsibility to more people to free up my time to look for new people to join the team.
Challenges
The biggest challenge has been trying to run the business itself. There’s no manual on how to run a business, there’s no right or wrong, you just learn along the way.
Highlights
I’m proud of my business. From where we started, it was just two of us, and we’ve expanded into a much bigger team. Our reputation is really good at the moment, and it keeps growing with the projects we are getting and the new clients as well.
The best thing about my job is the growth of the business, as it is growing much bigger. We’re also doing a variety of projects, and clients making their vision a reality is the best thing we can do.
The future
I see us growing a lot more and taking on a lot of bigger projects, and hopefully start to do some development internationally.
Advice
You just have to go head first and take every chance and risk possible, because the only way you will learn is by making mistakes.
Using 1st Formations
I started my company with 1st Formations. It was my accountant who recommended setting it up through their website. There was an easy step guide it helped me go through as well, and I definitely recommend it.
Our company formation process
When I was first using 1st Formations, I was unsure of a few things. I had somebody beside me who was helping me with it. I realised 1st Formations had a Support Team and if I had any issues, they would go through it with me.
1st Formations today
1st Formations helps my business today, as I use a mail forwarding service with them. I get notifications by email all the time, and if anything is not up to date, I can get a phone call from one of the team to let me know that it’s going to be sorted. I will definitely be using their services again.
