#18 - Egbert Perry - Chairman and CEO of Integral Group

So, all right, so y'all deliver this project, you become national experts, and-

Yeah

... what, every city across the country is calling you to get your opinion and-

Yeah.

So for a while it was Integral and McCormick Barron were the names, the sort of the household names in this space.

For a little while, you know, you have first-mover advantage for a second.

Yeah.

And then that, [clears throat] that disappears.

But, um, but everybody wanted a Centennial place.

Mm-hmm.

And so we spent a lot of years saying, "No, no, no, not interested," until one day, one of my partners, not any of those two, but some new partners, one of them said, "You know, I know this is a hobby to you, but maybe we need to start relating to it more like a business."

Yeah.

Doing, doing a little bit more.

Yes, exactly.

And so we started saying yes.

Mm-hmm.

And we started diversifying our geography.

Mm-hmm.

And over time went into probably 20 different cities we've done projects.

What about the model, after doing so many of these, would you say led to the, the early success? Like, were, were there other iterations of it that, um, I don't know, may- maybe didn't work out? Or when you look at hindsight, like, you just struck a lot of things right, that's why it succeeded? Or-

Um, no

... like I said, it's not a foolproof model or maybe it is.

No, no. It's not foolproof, not at all.

Um, Centennial is sort of a one of a kind, right? Because it was the first.

Yeah.