2024 Roadmap: Revisited

Want to make your plans sound 12x cooler than they are?

Don’t say you have a plan. Say you have a roadmap. Instantly twice as likely to happen.

Last year I publicly shared my roadmap for our most recent lap around the sun.

Three goals centred around helping fellow backyard architects build more cool stuff on the weekends.

So did it work? Can you now spawn tiny homes on command? Let’s see:

1. Release the complete guide on how to build a garden room

This goal, since completed, is why 96% of you are here!

Creating The Full Guide to Building a Backyard Studio ended up being a massive project. At nearly 80 mins long, I basically made a movie.

The accompanying plan set has helped over 700 of you understand the dimensions, material list, and steps required to build the Common Cave - or a custom design of your making.

I’m quite proud of this!

Incase you’ve misplaced the links, here they are again:

• The plans

• The material list

If you went ahead and built something using this, send pics! Would make my day.

2. Craft and launch an AI builder assistant

The goal here was to build a construction sidekick of sorts.

Someone to turn to when you’re stumped with installing a shelf or framing a closet. Kind of like a robo-grandpa.

I didn’t get around to this, but we’re still planning on crafting this for Tinybox. It’d be an AI chatbot that you can ask questions like:

• what’s the permitting process for an ADU?

• what’s the best foundation for my climate?

• what should by solar setup be for my region?

I wouldn’t say it’s our top priority, but it’s on the list.

3. Create and ship the first garden room build kit

After building 8 tiny homes & offices like the Common Cave by hand, I knew creating “build kits” was the next step for my career.

On my own, I was spending 2 months in someone’s backyard swinging a hammer and nail.

I could make a meaningful impact on one family’s life at a time; it was fulfilling, but not scalable.

Meeting my co-founders Oliver and Pooya was the missing piece to the puzzle I needed. In February of last year, I joined full time to help realize the vision we all shared: create affordable housing by reducing labour requirements, automating production, and shrinking energy consumption.

In just 10 days, as 3 guys, we built V2 of the Tinybox!

We toured it around, went to conferences like the Innovative Housing Showcase infront of the US Capitol, and garnered enough attention to secure our first batch of 8 customers.

We call them our Pioneers.

This January, we completed production of our Pioneer’s build kits, which are currently stacked in two 40ft shipping containers in Vancouver.

Pretty soon they’ll make their way to Toronto, where we’ll then unload all kits, separate them, and ship them to their respective sites. We’ll then show up and rapidly assemble them.

Here’s where the kits are going:

• 4 in Ontario (Toronto & cottage country)

• 1 in Montreal, Quebec

• 1 in the mountains outside of Seattle, Washington

• 1 in Pebble Beach, California

• 1 in Kuujjuaq, Quebec

Kuujjuaq? Yeah, me too. Let me help you out with that one.

That Pioneer, is actually the Canadian government.

Turns out it’s really challenging to build in the Arctic (go figure) and the fact that we can ship entire homes on a barge that have vacuum insulation, transforming furniture and off-grid utilities is a big win.

What’s next for Backyard Architect

As much as having a roadmap last year helped me realize 2/3 of my goals, I won’t be creating one for this year.

Reason being, it’s currently pointless for me to plan more than 6 months ahead. Too many unknowns.

I will however keep you updated on our journey. I just started posting a video everyday and aim to write more regular newsletters.

As my mind is now often in startup-land, I’ll likely be shifting my content towards the business side of residential construction, as opposed to just the DIY side of it.

I’d love to hear what you want to learn about property development. Drop your suggestions here:

Catch you on the road,

Charlie Frise
Backyard Architect