Founded in 2008, Quattro Development is a one-stop real estate developer for businesses that need to occupy a new space anywhere in the United States. Although it's a small business, Quattro Development is a national company, not a regional one. Its small team of nine employees includes the two co-founders, Rob Walters and Mike Liyeos.
A national footprint is a true feat for a business of this size, and its success comes down to Walters and Liyeos' unique approach to scaling Quattro Development. The duo shares how they manage their big mission and a national presence with a small, scrappy team.
How Quattro Development Manages Its National Footprint as a Small Business
Quattro Development has headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois, but the business knows no borders. It aims to be the premier small-shop developer across America. "We are a national build-to-suit development company that works with national retailers and operators to help them expand across the country," Liyeos says.
Initially, Walters and Liyeos did 10 projects a year across the U.S. However, Quattro Development has snowballed over the past few years, taking on over 150 projects across 31 states to date.
How does the pair serve clients across the United States? Walters and Liyeos claim they can handily manage a national footprint thanks to their unique approach.
Cookie-Cutter Processes
Quattro Development is able to work on a national scale thanks to its standardized approach to real estate development. "We're comfortable going anywhere and everywhere. But we try to keep the tenants the same and the building types the same," Liyeos explains. "We're a cookie-cutter developer from that perspective, but we'll go anywhere."
Other development companies try to learn too much about the local market when it usually isn't necessary. "We're able to take and cut and paste that knowledge across the country without really having to know that much about the local market," Walters adds.
The reason? Clients don't usually care to know much about localized context. "Different markets have their own little micro-economies. Those don't really matter to us, because for the most part, our tenants already decided they want to be in that market," Walters says.
Careful Localization
Of course, that doesn't mean Quattro Development overlooks the nuances of local real estate, either. Walters and Liyeos first met at a different development company where they frequently drove across the United States together. They quickly became familiar with real estate across the U.S. and today, they put that expertise into practice for Quattro Development.
"Mike and I have been to every state in the country multiple times," Walters says. "If we have a meeting with the head of real estate for Chipotle, we can talk to him intelligently about pretty much any trade area in the country. I think being able to talk about it with somebody who has that direct knowledge really goes a long way."
Instead of agonizing over localization, they take their general approach and add local-specific context to ensure it's a good fit for their client. "Every real estate development project has variables in it. For us, the variable typically is the market in which we're doing the project," Liyeos adds.
Most of these differences boil down to permitting fees and the length of time required to do certain feasibility studies. "One of our employees pretty much full-time is pulling up zoning maps and zoning ordinances and doing site plans that show this is what that city allows," Walters says.
Quattro Development relies on local land-use attorneys, engineers, and contractors to customize to the local area, too. "But for the most part, it's not crazy different across the country," Rob Walters shares.
Thoughtful Delegation
Quattro Development is a small business and its co-founders rely on a growing team of employees to do the heavy lifting. It's able to manage a national footprint with a small team thanks to the power of delegation.
Walters and Liyeos try to employ people they know personally, such as friends and family, to get the best hires possible. "A lot of the people that we've hired have come from relationships, either family or friends that have been referred to us. That definitely helps," Liyeos says.
Walters and Liyeos empower employees to do a good job, which allows the co-founders to focus on high-level projects and client needs instead of minutiae. "Everybody knows what their job is and they know how to manage their schedule to take as much time off as they need to enjoy their lives. We don't make people come into the office. We just don't have rules. It's just like everybody knows what they're supposed to do," Liyeos explains.
Quattro Development Aims for a Profitable Future
The road hasn't been easy for Quattro Development, but when it comes down to managing a coast-to-coast presence, Walters and Liyeos have perfected their system. "A lot of people think it's really hard. They can't believe that we do it all over the place," Rob Walters shares.
The duo doesn't plan on growing Quattro Development into a mega-corporation, either. They want Quattro Development to operate independently of its two founders eventually. In the future, they envision "growing the company and developing our employees to take more of a leadership role and just have the company evolve into something bigger than ourselves," Liyeos explains.
This vision doesn't necessarily mean industry domination. "At the end of the day, what we're trying to accomplish is, 'How do we leave this world better because of our involvement?' I think Quattro helps a lot of people in that respect," Mike Liyeos concludes.
