QuickBooks helps Modative strategize for a brighter, more affordable housing future

Christian Návar, owner of Modative, has a vision for the future and his community. 

“When we talk about wanting to solve the housing crisis in Los Angeles and provide people with a place to live, it’s clear that we’re in a very competitive environment, where no one's working together,” he says. “Over the next 15 years, we want to become more cooperative in what we're doing, because if I can get a hundred units done, and align myself with 10 other people that want to achieve the same thing, then collectively we can add a thousand units in the same amount of time. And the impact of a thousand units in the community is much bigger than a hundred. You increase the supply. You're providing housing for people. The prices will start to come down.”

Founded in 2006, Modative is a Los Angeles-based modern architecture firm that specializes in accessory dwelling units (ADUs), apartments and condos, single family homes, and small lot subdivisions. Today, the minds behind Modative’s direction are a husband and wife team, with a bold vision for a new approach to residential housing in the Los Angeles area. The owners’ vision of developing housing for everyday people in L.A. is deeply personal – inspired by their own life experiences as California natives, and a desire to build beautiful, functional houses that families like their own can call home.

“One of the things we did when we started our company was think about the idea that everything good needs to be expensive and unattainable, or only attainable by the super wealthy,” says Návar. “My wife Krystal and I—we wanted to combine this idea of having good design that affects people's lives in a positive way, but not have it cost a gazillion dollars. So that's how we sort of ended up doing what we would call ‘middle-market housing’.”

Helping him along that journey is QuickBooks, Modative’s accounting and financial management platform. “Without QuickBooks, we couldn't make decisions,” Návar says. “Without the core foundation of understanding what we’re spending and how much income we’re making, I couldn't even begin to determine how to grow the company and take it in a direction that we want to.”

With an eye toward the future, here’s how Modative is using QuickBooks to build something better for all.

QuickBooks helps Modative plan for the future

In the beginning, Modative was founded by three people. “I had two business partners,” Návar explains. “They studied architecture with me in the same class, but they were also smart enough to minor in business.”

Návar’s partners had taken some basic college accounting courses. “Luckily for me, they understood the importance of having proper accounting and bookkeeping,” Návar laughs. One of his partners urged the team to use QuickBooks. 

“So when we started, we basically made a list of all the things you have to do to run a business, and we split them up into thirds,” Návar explains. “We each took a third of the stuff that wasn't fun. One of my partners got bookkeeping and accounting — he did the QuickBooks part — and I got, I think, insurance and payroll. That's how it started.”

Over time, the company grew. Thirty-five employees eventually became nearly a hundred. Návar and his partners parted ways, and Krystal Návar stepped in as a co-owner. Despite opening up shop just before the biggest recession since the depression, Modative thrived — informed financial decisions guiding the way. 

“From the beginning, QuickBooks allowed us to have insight into the strength of our business from a financial sense,” Návar says. “Even today, I run projections to determine how many projects we need.”

Návar says that having a tool like QuickBooks running in the background, keeping track of the hard data, frees him up to focus on the more creative side of the business. “It's been huge for us. It allows our heart to be in the company,” he says. 

“For me, the power of QuickBooks isn't just in reconciling the books and invoicing our projects. It’s in those monthly financial reports we use to understand the strength of our business and where our weaknesses are, so we can be strategic. It allows us to plan strategically around what we want our business to become in the future.”

How to think ahead: Návar shares his own experience with business planning 

“Over the last two years, my wife and I have taken a look back at our entire career, and we’ve determined that running this business is sort of like a sporting event, and we're at halftime,” says Návar.

“During the first half, we were very successful with certain things, but we also learned a lot of hard lessons through mistakes. And when you control your own business and your own opportunities, you have the chance to learn from those mistakes and change or pivot and sort of carry on.”

For Návar, getting through the pandemic provided an opportunity to reflect. “After Covid, we took about three or four months, and we jumped into the hypothetical locker room. We literally sat in a room — very similar to walking off of the field, where you’re still competitive in a game but not necessarily winning or losing — and put up a whiteboard. We said, ‘Okay, what did we really do well in the first half? And where did we not do well? And how do we adjust moving forward?’”

Here’s where they landed:

1. Setting the goal post. Rather than carrying blindly forward and through, and repeating the same strategy over and over, they decided to make a conscious decision to define what success meant for Modative — to win the game. 
2. Putting their players in the right places. They made an effort to understand their team members’ roles so they could better encourage them to succeed and avoid forcing them into roles they don’t want or aren’t ready to do.
3. Make work-life balance a priority. They would prioritize mental health and release some control over the business. “When you let people thrive in what they're good at, and trust that they are there to serve a purpose, you end up with better sleep and less anxiety,” says Návar. “You spend less energy worrying about how you're going to get to the conclusion, and you allow it to happen more naturally.”
4. Spread the wealth. They chose to become mentors, teaching others about their own failures in the hopes that individuals just getting started wouldn’t have to waste time learning the same lessons. “I remember growing up and really wanting to do something with my life. Not to waste it — not just for my own sake, but for the sake of the people around me and for my community. I wanted a mentor or a teacher so bad, who would show me the light; help curb my fears. And I never found that growing up.” Návar won’t let that be the case for the next generation. 

Even years into business, Návar is still learning new tricks

Modative has been using QuickBooks from the very beginning, but how it’s used and who signs in most often has evolved over the years. 

In the early days, one of Návar’s co-founders took care of everything in QuickBooks. Eventually, as Modative’s team grew, the job fell to Modative’s office manager, then to the accounting team. But when the company switched gears during the pandemic, Návar decided it was time he took the leap and learned the ins and outs of QuickBooks for himself. 

“I was a little bit nervous about it. I avoided it for years. And then I found myself in a situation where I didn't have a choice,” he says. “One of my old vice presidents, who had since left the company, was kind enough to sit down and walk me through it. I had maybe three or four one-hour sessions, and then some follow up questions, and I was able to get through about half a year's worth of invoicing and bookkeeping, setting up projects and contacts, and making sure people were getting paid. I thought it would take much longer for me to figure out how to do it.”

Návar began running his own reports. He gained confidence in his abilities. “That allowed me to find a bookkeeper who I felt could take over and have the right understanding,” he says. “I felt sure I would be able to ask the right questions, in a way that I wasn’t able to do before.” 

Today, Návar may not be the one working in QuickBooks every day, but he still logs in and checks things out regularly. “It's a really useful tool,” he says. “I don't think we use even half of what we could.”

Perhaps as Modative moves toward that brighter future — of collaborations and building a more affordable community for the next generation — those features might come into play. With so many exciting paths to explore, it’s certainly a possibility. 

QuickBooks customer paid for their time.

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