Foreign. You ever notice the people doing the most aren't asking for advice? This is Built Without Permission. I'm Matthew Mac. Before I ever drew a blueprint or signed a business deal, I was folding suits, hauling snow and washing glasses until 2am Then came architecture, tow trucks, and a built business from the ground up with my partner. No blueprint, no safety net, no approval. Just real stories, hard pivots, and what it actually takes to build something from nothing. Let's get to work. So, Mauricio, thank you for joining me on Built Without Permission. Like to hear your take on your 60 second version of who you are and how you came to be and what you're doing right now. Thanks for having me, Matt. Yeah. My name is Mauricio, owner at Northside Contracting. I started, I mean, ever since high school I was working, I mean my summers in construction. I went to school for policing. Then like pursuit. Oh, nice. I wanted to pursue the, the law aspect of things. And then, yeah, I don't know, I grew a passion for construction and then I started working with a family member and after that ventured on, did my own thing and yeah, that's. That's where north side was created essentially. Damn. So police officer, eh? I'm still calling you Officer Mauricio. No, that was a, that was a phase. That was like a high school phase. Yeah, I just didn't really know what to do and that was like the only thing. And then I never thought I'd end up in construction. That was really like. Yeah, life throwing a curveball at me. But, but I love it now. Like, I enjoy what I do. And you never, you would never look back. Hey, you just never, bro. Right? That's awesome, man. That's wicked, bro. That's wicked. And then now. So like, tell us, like, I know with a lot of things that we're going through in our journeys, in our lives and on what we do day to day, like what are the sacrifices that, you know, that most people never see or talk about? I mean, I feel like there's a lot of sacrifices with personal relationships, finances, other people in the industry. There's a lot of like so called friends early on that kind of, you know, it's tough trying to compete with others especially that are closer to you. So. Yeah, I feel like, yeah, as a, as a business owner, you never stop sacrificing or, you know, I think it just, it's. It's just how it goes always. Yeah. And I think like, in like relating to like, you know, and I know we've gotten to know each other quite well in, in a way and building a good relationship and seeing like the family life too. Right. Like, you find it that that's one of the biggest challenges too, because you got your, you got your little ones, they're growing up f. And yet you got your business to run and you got to keep the roof on the family's head and also for the families of the people that work with you. Right, exactly. Yeah. It's a lot of pressure. Yeah. That pressure is just on your shoulders every day. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I find that like, the more people that we're able to network with that are in the same mindset, the same level, that it's easier to relate to and talk about it, because these conversations, you can't just talk with anyone about it. Right. Because they may not be at that level yet and they will not really quite understand because they haven't experienced it. Of course. And I feel like that's something that's helped me and made me better the last two years, ever since I started these, like going to these networking events. Some of the guys that, you know, not only we follow on social media, but get to know, I got to know you, I got to know a lot of the other big guys in the industry. And it's just like on a personal level and a business level, having that mentorship helps a lot. Right. Like, like, especially me. I'm very young. So, like, I have a lot to learn and you know, like, yeah, I learned everything from my father, but you know, like, in terms of business wise and everything and people in the industry as well, like, you know, I, like, I'm always open to learning and it's made me better. It's. I've met so many people that have actually taken the time and mentored me through, through a lot of things, telling me about their life, their personal life, the work life, balance. Yeah. And it's gotten easier. Yeah. Which is, which is great. Right. And it's just only to keep getting better. Right, Right. Hopefully we say there's no choice. The choice is to have no choice. Never a choice. But yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that, yeah, that's awesome. And yeah, Defin, I'm super, you know, blessed also to be able to meet you as well, like finally in person after all those events and stuff. And yeah, that just builds lots of guys like us closer and closer. Right. Which is, which is sick. And so now, like, you know, in what you do in your day to day stuff, like, you know, what is it that you see the actual Successes when it's, you know, in the trenches versus what is really shown online. Because everyone always sees the wins, right? We always post the wins, but no one really shows what's really happened behind the scene. But what's that success for you behind the scenes? I mean, I think success in general comes behind the scenes always. It's not what people see. Right. That's something. Early on I got stuck on seeing social media, seeing other things. And, and I've said it before, it blinded me from like my journey because you want to be like this guy, you want to do that. But not everything's exactly how it seems. Right. Like, yeah, I get people all the time thinking I'm doing better than what I'm doing or, or like as if I'm not struggling, whether it's financially or through the business or whatever it is. Right. And I feel like that's, that's most people and the misconception of social media. But for us, like, yeah, like the winds are always, you know, behind closed doors. Like just, just certain things. Like we've, we've started north side as basically started to move in a direction where we want to, we want to really limit our sub trades in terms of like, obviously plumbers, H vac, millwork, all that stuff. But a lot of the finishing like that, that's kind of how we ensure the quality is. We started moving everything in house. So a lot of our wins were that just trying to like, get over a period of training guys, having guys just like learn the aspect of things like whatever it is. Right. And, and just crushing those timelines because yeah, it gets to a point where you're, you're going sub trade versus your own guys. And if your own guys are taking farther, like a lot longer time trying to, to master that craft and, you know, get better at it and beat that quality. Yeah. Then it's just like, you know, those are things that, like, those are wins for us. Those are, you know, just like the expansions going outside of Ontario. Those are all things that for us, like, you know, behind closed doors is huge. You know, we may not show the excitement as much on the social media, but for us it's like we've. We've come a long way. Right. For sure, man. And it's always well deserved. Right. Like, you know, there, there's a thing where I strongly believe more and more now is that the more that any of us, we push for whatever our successes are, like, the good just gravitates towards you. Right, of course. And you know, the the, the word coincidence. I don't believe it anymore. I believe that there's no such thing as coincidence. There's a reason for it for everything that happens at the time that 100. It's like we, we believe in God. I know you believe in God. I believe in God. It's like you say, it's all written, our stories are written but we don't know what it is. But it's there. Right? Whatever's meant to happen is going to happen always. You know. A hundred percent man. 100. No, but that's cool like because as you're mentioning about the you know the bringing everything to like that one stop shop right in house. Which is, which is, which is part of the growing pains now what you're saying between you know the subcontract versus your in house guys and. Yeah. Everything's time crunch. Right? Everything is time crunch. Time sensitive. It's that. Yeah. Yeah. So but good on you especially with seeing the recent stuff with Edmonton. Ray. Edmonton and back and. Yeah. And whatnot. Flying your crew out and dude that's, that's, that's definitely a win there because you know not everyone gets that experience. Not even the crews always get that experience. Right. So for, for us personally it was already like the first time I started taking farther jobs like let's say an hour to outside of the gta. That was a learning curve in itself because obviously traveling accounting for a lot of stuff. Yeah. It's not as easy if we, we have all our suppliers here within the gta. Yeah. Being in Bellevo almost three hours away trying to find people local trying to finish like you know it's just like. So with Edmonton similar thing happened and it's happening and actually we just filmed about it because one of the things we want to start filming is like you're saying you know like not every business owner like I don't want to just post a good. It's also like people relating with like the bad challenges. The challenges and yeah like just like anyone else we're in the trenches too a lot of the times but we 100 it's just our job to get back on our feet and keep going. Yeah. But with Edmonton has been a huge learning curve too because it's my first out of province job. So it's also been an eye opener but I'm confident just like any other job after Edmonton. So we have like this is a blessing in disguise and you know we have Calgary coming this month. Then we have Manitoba. We have a lot of out of Province stuff. There's a big expansion out west happening. So with that, I feel like, yeah, like, the. The Edmonton project was the sacrificial lamb in a way where, like, yes, our. Our margins are going to be lower just because it's trial and error with a lot of things 100% with the traveling, with a lot of expenses, with suppliers, with trades. You know, even though we had a lot of time to prepare for that job, even the. The unforeseen is never, you know, it's always in the unknown and you just got to deal with it. So it's been some expensive lessons there. But honestly, I'm just like, the light at the end of the tunnel is completing this project, learning what I learned, and hopefully this is what's going to absolutely make us into expanding outside of Ontario, which is. Which is awesome. And that's where, you know, the. The. It said that, you know, those that are more successful than us right now, the reason where they are right now is because they failed more than us at that point. Right. And that's where we also grow is from every failure. But we don't take it as a true failure. We take it as a learning lesson, the way you're saying it. And better from it from the last one. Right? That's exactly it. I live by that all the time. Yeah. Which is. Which is awesome, right? Like, that's cool, right? Because now, you know, again, going back about the social and the content and all that stuff, right? No one really sees the true story behind what's really going on. Right. The sleepless nights, the guy sleeping in the sleeping bags, you know, maybe at the. On the. On the job site, you know what I mean? Just to make sure that things are getting done regardless what it is. Right? And even the motivation of, like, the motivation, like keeping your team up, keeping their spirits up, keeping them like, you know, on good level with you, good moods, good everything, you know, good vibes. Right. It's not easy. It's not easy. Days. There's definitely days that like, same thing. We have media guys coming and we're like, I mean, personally myself, like, I don't want to film today. Yeah. And you know, Tyler, our media guy. Yeah, he could vouch for that. It'll be like, he'll come get everything ready, get the guys ready. And I'm like, just get the rest of the guys. Because I was like, I don't feel like filming. And he gets so frustrated. But, like, he knows, like, you know, those are the things you don't show. There's been a lot of times I've. I have not wanted to film and it has been something that like it could be a 10, 15 minute thing and it's taking me two to three hours to do because I'm just going over and over and over and over, not remembering anything. I'm not in the mood to film. I'm not outgoing and it's just like those are just the things that you don't see on social media. And again, even the videos, right. Like, I'm not that good speaking camera. I'm getting better. But like, dude, you're amazing. By me, you're amazing. Don't worry, bro, you're good. Shout out to Hard Hat Media. Those guys, those guys kill it all the time. But when they edit and they cut stuff off, they make you look like a professional. So that's, that's great. That's it though, bro. You're pro with me all day long. Even the raw stuff I love. Yeah, absolutely, man. I love. Me personally, I love like, I do love the, the edited stuff. It's great because it's like movie stuff. Yeah. Also when you throw in like some raw. Yeah. See the, the true person for who they are, you know, kind of thing. Right? Yeah. That's what we try to do a lot too. Just to change it up, you know, we don't want to be like theatrics, all that stuff. Like, it's just like, you know. Yeah. Oh, absolutely, man. Absolutely. And then so now like kind of still connected to that, you know, what is it that you think like things that you've learned now, it's not even just about this current project, but just in general that the growing pains that you've learned now that you wish you learned earlier on. Are there some things that you can share on that? Yeah. I mean like again, going back to what we were talking about in the trenches and all that, I feel like all of my lessons, I mean the reasons I've gotten to where I've gotten today and still very. I said in a humble way because we, we have not gotten, we're still a very small business. We've just gotten more exposure. But we've had a lot of expensive mistakes. Especially me being young, hard headed. Just a lot of things, you know, I wasn't financially responsible. So those are things that like you really as a business owner, it's not as easy. A lot of people have that misconception. It's always I, we hear it all the time where it's just like, I'm gonna Start this. I'm. Start this business. I'm gonna start this business. I mean, I was one of those guys, but I went through the wave and I was like 100 all in, where it was just like, when I was in the negatives and couldn't do it. Like, I just sit at home type thing. Right. Like, thankfully, I was living with my parents at the time. So, yeah, in that sense, like, it wasn't. Like, it wasn't hurting me as much as if I have a family now. So, yeah, obviously now it'd be like I have to get up and try to do something. But, yeah, for us, it was just like that at work. Right. Whether it was financial, just hiring the right guys, even myself, trying to take on too much, you know, at once, trying to do things that I wasn't. I wasn't. I didn't have, like, the right knowledge about. Right. Just to take on work. And I feel like a lot of those things hurt us. Yeah, we learned from it and obviously we improved a lot. A lot of the things. But again, just so many things in terms of. Of like, hopping into business. And like, one of the biggest things that I've learned is, is your word, your. Your quality, like, the respect. All of that stuff is. Is really just everything in this business, right? Like 100. It's like, it could be one. It could be like, one mistake. No one will ever forget that. Not a client, no one. Like, it's just like, you know, so, like, your reputation goes down the drain. So that's one of the biggest things where, like, being young when I started being, like, 22 years old, so many mistakes, and it was already like I was fighting tooth and nail to compete with guys that were 40, 50 plus, and. And, you know, there's like, a lot of people that wouldn't trust a younger guy with. With, yeah, their investment, their project. So I feel like those are the things that kind of like having to constantly prove myself and. And, you know, just. Just get out of that hole and just do things properly. Just properly in terms of finances, the back end of the business, making sure I do all my paperwork, you know, like, I was so organized with all of that. And, you know, I think once I started leaning into taking the time out of my day and. And just doing that stuff, I was dreading doing and, like, sacrificing my personal life at the time when I didn't have a family, you know, like, whether it was doing things with friends or family or missing out on stuff and, like, the long hours, I always wanted like, once I started making money when I was younger, I just wanted to leave work, go spend the money. Yeah. So I think once, once, like reality hit, I think that's what I really, you know, everything kind of settled down and just doing things properly, that's. That's what's gotten me, you know, on the right path. So now kind of backtracking a bit and it's still on this topic. Now, what was it that the, the. The point that hit you? So let's say before, before you started Northside Contracting, what were you doing before that? Where were you, let's say, working prior to. When you're working for someone else, if you were. And what was that point where you reached that you said, I got to do something for myself? I mean, my dad always grew up with my, my, my dad, you know, my biggest role model, my biggest influence. And he was always self employed since before I was born. So he had always kind of like gave that mentality to us from young, of like, work hard, whatever it is. But still influenced by that. Yeah, by his aura. By his aura. But my mom was very much like, I don't care if you're self employed or not, but I need to see you. You know, we sacrificed a lot to come to Canada, all this stuff. We need you to graduate. We need you to do these things. I don't care what you do, but we need you to do something. Yeah. So, yeah, high school, I was working, like pretty much every summer. Well, no, like after, like, I'd say grade 11. Grade 12. You know, my partner. More at the other company. Yeah, yeah. So like with his family. That's, that's who kind of introduced me to like the, the whole construction thing. So I started working summers with them. And then after grade 12, I started working for an exterior company. I became a foreman over there. I was there for years. Then I started working with a family member in the interior sector. Yeah, at the time, my dad was. My dad was running a restaurant in Mississauga. And kind of how everything happened was like my dad being a hustler and off the whim was like his friend was opening a restaurant. He needed help. He wanted to pay like a cheaper price to get a built. He needed help. My dad basically threw my. His friend and myself. Yeah, they could build it. We could do it. We were building it. In the middle of building it, someone came in. Usually, like, if you're doing a job anywhere, whether it's residential or a commercial space, someone's walking by like, oh, you guys do this Whatever. Yeah. So as soon as. Yeah. A potential client walked by and said, oh, do you guys build restaurants? My dad was, yeah, that's all we do. We build restaurants. That's all we do. I had no idea. Just working. Like a delivery sent you with his friend and all that. And they're like, okay, can you come check out our spot? My dad went and checked out a spot. We went there. We were kind of like. It took us like two weeks to come up with a quote. We were kind of like going back and forth, whatever. Long story short, it was a major food franchise. Okay. It's all over Canada right now, all over Ontario. A restaurant. And they gave us the job. Okay. The next day, we incorporated a company. Amazing. Got insurance, all that stuff. Long story short, that job, biggest loss ever, because it was between like three of us essentially. But as soon as we finished that job, even though we took like the loss and all that, they gave us like 15 locations across Ontario. Wow. So right after that multiplied. Exactly. So that, right after that, mind you, at that time, I had my father, like guiding me with like the business aspect of things. I had another essentially like a. A family friend, so call it. That was kind of like I was leaning and. And relying on for construction. Yeah. And I kind of knew my bits and pieces, but a lot of the times I was just like. For like the longest time in the beginning, all I do was I'd always hire guys that were like, yeah, they wanted side work there in the union, whatever it was. Yeah, yeah. I'd be their labor. I'd be their labor all the time. I'd always, like, they knew I own the company, but I'd be their labor every time. So you're learning from them. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that's kind of how it happened. And then like, long story short, a year after, it was just a bit of a. Bit of a financial thing between partners and all of that. And then that's when north side was born. I started north side and I was like, I don't need any help. I could prove it to myself. And I told my dad, my dad wanted to help me and I said no. And I paid for the consequences because I didn't know anything. You know, I was a financially responsible business wise and have no idea. I knew about doing construction and like some of the trades and I had the knowledge and experience, but obviously not enough. Yeah. So those were the things that were like, I was like just fighting tooth and nail, having right guys learning behind them. Business wise. I was like, just Making money. Like they'd give me a deposit, I'd pay this guy, this guy, this guy. And I'd be like, I was lost, right? So, yeah, it took years and years of like, just to get yourself organized. Trial and error. Yeah. And getting myself organized. But you know, dude, that's an awesome like origin story. It's. It's fantastic, dude, and I love it. It's because it's like, you know, you're not telling that story to everyone every day. You know what I mean? And it's so cool because that, that, that is whatever you experience, whatever you went through made you who you are today, right? And it's. And if, if it didn't happen that way, you don't know who, who you react really be today, right? So that's what's really cool. I. I love the story, man. And you know, it's. It's kind of like, it makes me throw back. When. So when Dave and I started what we're doing for J and J, right, We did not know how to even operate a bobcat. We just bought one, right? And the day we picked it up, bro, day we picked it up, Dave is wearing sandals at the dealer and they're looking, they're like, okay, is this guy for real? And then Dave, he asked the guy that, the yard guy, hey, can you just give us a quick tutorial how to operate this thing? Like from that to where we are now? Like, you know, there's so many, yeah, there's so many cool things that we didn't know how to operate a bobcat, an excavator, it would take him and I maybe one hour to load a skid steer on a trailer. Now we can do with our eyes closed, like five minutes or less, you know. Was it, was it always your intention when you and Dave. Dave went like, Was it always like with that babka Was always your intention to rent it out or. Yeah, it was our intention. It was always our intention. So like we, we both came from different, like, like we're family, we're brother in laws. We came from different backgrounds of experiences where I was, I was an architect for 10 years. Oh, wow. And there was a. About seven years in. It was Covid time. And I thought there's something more to life than what I'm doing right now. That's what I feel like. I. I hit my roadblock when what I was doing and I love what I was doing, but like drafting, designing houses, that's all what I wanted to do. And Dave and I were Talking. He has. He's an entrepreneur for himself. He. Towing company, body shop for cars, things like that. Those are all still operating, but now he's backed out from there. It's just his brother, his family running it. And we started this. J and J together. We talked about different ideas, bins and then machines. I said, no, no, let's do. Let's do machines. And then here we are today. Nice, man. Yeah, right? I love these. I love these stories all the time. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's. It's cool because it's like, you know, there's always that story behind each and every one of us, you know, that It's. It's somewhat relatable, but different, but gives the true story of the origin of how things started, whether it was by accident or by chance or by whatever, you know, and, yeah, it was. It's. It's. It's been a quite a journey, man, and I love it because my favorite part is getting to meet people. My favorite part is networking, making friends. You know, it's not about the money at the end of the day, because we all can make money one way or another, but it's just the journey. We're, you know, we're all growing together. Right. And we're connecting with one another and knowing who's real and, you know, what not. Right. That's. That's what I love. Right. Yeah. No, I love it, too. That's. That's been like. That's why usually every networking event where we're. We're heavily involved with everything all the time, just because, like, we've had such great experiences the first two times that we tried it, and we're like, wow, like, the experience is great. Right? Of course. Yeah. And then, like, now I'm also on this belief that, you know, God gives us, or he gave all of us each a gift. Right. Yeah. So now it is selfish of us if we don't share our gift to the world. Yeah. So whatever each person's special gift is, and you find what that gift is and, you know, you can do good for this world, do it right. And that's one of the biggest things what got me wanting to do this, this podcast. And I said, I want to share myself to my knowledge, but also get to know people around me more and more through this. Right. Because we're all busy. Right. But when we make that time for one another, it can have that real talk. That's. That's what I love. It's. It's fantastic. Right? This is right yeah. Like it. It's fun. No, no, no. It's so fun. Yeah, it's. It's fun, right? Every day has its challenges, but it's. It's been good so far. You're going to the one, the cars and coffee. Hells yeah, man. I haven't heard your Corvette since you put the exhaust in it, right? You put an exhaust on it? Yeah, we put an exhaust on the green one, so I just. The green one. So you saw the red one caught fire. GM bought it back. Yeah, I got a green one. So the green one, that's Dave's. And then my order just came in two months ago. It's blue, so you get to see both. So I gotta still get an exhaust in that one. Yeah. I'm excited. That's gonna be nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, the bank accounts, as we know, are usually in the negatives. Yeah. And every day is a freaking bottle. The show, like, you know, that's what I mean, no one really sees. They only see what's up front. They don't see what's behind. I know I'm getting my car next week back, hopefully. So let's see. Let's see. Awesome. Yeah. You have it at Eddie's, right? Is it or. No theory. Oh, booster. Okay. Sorry. Eddie. Eddie Raptor. Yeah, Eddie wrapped it. Okay. And then I was waiting for all the parts from the states. Everything came from Texas because those guys over there know how to do. I've been with the Mustangs, so. Yeah, I stage two supercharged it, New clutch, short shifter, a bunch of stuff. It was fully bolted on before, but now I just really did everything to it. So, yeah, next week it gets Dino and it'll be on the road, hopefully. Awesome, man. Awesome. Yeah, we'll definitely be catching you on the roads, bro. Yeah, we'll go for a nice Cruise. Gone in 60 seconds or 30. What is it? I gotta be safe, man. I have young kids. Of course. I'm just messing and. Of course. Absolutely, man. Safety is number one, man. So now tell me here now with like the whole built without permission. So I find that, you know what got me to this name is that a lot of us can really relate to it. Right. And what. How does that resonate with you? Like that built without permissions. I mean, there's no handbook to do this, right? So, yeah, for me, you know, that resonates a lot. Just because it's like, I did it my own way. And even my company now, like, all the guys that work for me, the project manager that work for me, they could always tell you. A lot of people always gravitate around us, and a lot of people, you see it now, too, that get to know us. They want to come work for us. They want to come work with us. Yeah. I wouldn't say workforce, but work with us. Because of my company and the company culture I've created is unlike many different companies with how we are. You know, a lot of people say, I've learned the hard way. Yes. But to certain points, when a lot of people say, don't get close to employees. This, this and that. But, like, honestly, that paid off. That has paid off immensely for me in terms of, like, the type of guys I have. Yeah. These guys go above and beyond and everything. So, like, that's just one of the things that I feel like that resonates in. In a lot of different ways. Just because it's doing things without a handbook. Right. You. You do it your own way. Absolutely. Again, it's all part of the journey. Right. How you get there so you don't get stuck in that whole belief of the corporate world where that's. That attitude. It's like, you don't be friends with your. With your employees. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That's what's just been branded into our brains for so many years until, you know, you find what works for you. Right. And I totally agree with you on that. Like, the people that we see at work all the time, our employees, our staff or team members, however you want to call them, like, they're pretty much our second family. You see them more than we see our, you know, our partners, our kids and. And whatnot. Right. So it's just working all together, right, as one unit. Yeah, that's right. Like, so, Dave, a couple years back, I really liked it. Or last year, he added to our logo, one team moving forward, just one team. And I really love that. And it just stands out so well. And it's relatable for a lot of us because that's all it is. Right. At the end of the day, we're all working together. Yeah. Awesome. So, Mauricio, where can we find you? IG for the people? Anywhere. My office. My shop is in Mississauga. I always tell a lot of people reach out to me. I say, I'm usually here. If I'm not out in Edmonton, I'm usually in the office. Most days I'm doing site visits. I'm in and out. But, yeah, Mississauga hit me. Hit us up on Instagram, Northside Contracting, Underscore, Facebook. We're all over. Awesome. Yeah. And, and you know, I'm here for, for all the other young guys. They're trying to do the same thing I'm doing or doing the same thing. Yeah. Wicked, man. I'd love to get to. To know a lot of you and, and, you know, just help each other out in some way. Amazing. Well, thanks, Mauricio, for joining me on with Built Without Permission and we'll catch you soon, brother. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me. All right. Cheers, man. Have a blessed day. You too. Take care. If you're waiting for permission, you're already behind. The life you're building starts with the decisions you make today. So stop thinking and start moving. Subscribe, share this with someone still thinking about it. And start building something of your own. No blueprint, no approval, no excuses. I'm Matthew Mack. This is Built Without Permission. Sam.