Three years ago, DuckWorks began as a way to help millwork companies get more shop drawings done, faster. I thought we were building a drafting company.
But three years in, I’ve realized something much bigger—we’re not just in the drafting business.
We’re in the people business.
We’ve learned a lot since those early days. We’ve made mistakes, hit walls, grown faster than expected, and gotten better because of it. As we celebrate three years, I want to share three of the most important lessons I’ve learned so far:
1. We’re Not a Drafting Company—We’re a People Company
It’s easy to think our job is to deliver shop drawings. And technically, that’s what we do. But the reason our clients come to us isn’t because they don’t know how to draft. It’s because they need more horsepower. More bandwidth. More people.
And the truth is, our product isn’t just lines and notes on paper—it’s the team behind them.
That mindset shift is what led us to our purpose statement:
“We grow people who grow businesses.”
It’s not just a slogan. It’s how we operate. We invest in training, mentorship, and leadership development. We help our team level up, because when we do that well, our clients thrive too. Every good drawing starts with a great person—and we never lose sight of that.
2. You Can’t Scale Without Documented Processes
In the early days, we onboarded new team members with basic training and dropped them into live projects with oversight from a few experienced pros. That worked—for a while. But soon we hit a ceiling.
When everything has to go through one or two people who “get it right,” your growth is capped, no matter how many new hires you bring on.
To scale, we had to document our processes. That meant breaking down how work flows through the company, outlining who is responsible for what at every level of experience, and building clear guide rails that reduce mistakes and allow newer team members to grow into more complex tasks.
It’s not glamorous work—but it’s transformational. It allows us to:
- Onboard faster
- Deliver more consistent results
- Free up senior leaders for higher-level work
- Build a team that can divide, conquer, and improve together
Documentation isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about enabling growth.
3. Communication Is Everything
If I had to pick the most important lesson, it’s this:
What, when, and how you communicate makes or breaks the client relationship.
In our early days, we’d get messages from clients asking for updates—“Are we on track? Do you need anything from us?”—and even when everything was fine, the fact that they had to ask meant we’d already dropped the ball.
Now we know: if the client is reaching out first, we’re behind.
Consistent, proactive communication builds trust. Even if the update is “still on track, nothing new yet,” it matters. It shows we’re engaged. That we care. That we’re thinking about their project just as much as they are.
Strong relationships aren’t built on perfect drawings—they’re built on clear, steady communication.
Wrapping Up
Three years in, we’re still learning. Still growing. Still figuring things out as we go. But I’m incredibly proud of the team we’ve built and the partnerships we’ve formed.
To our clients: thank you for trusting us to be part of your process.
To our team: thank you for showing up every day, learning fast, and doing hard things together.
Here’s to the next three.
CEO