Nick Young · October 2026
Designed to Sell.
Design is about to get fast. Demand is what's left to own.
If AI compresses design, drawings and permitting to days, the drawings stop being the value. What's left is knowing what buyers want, where they want it, and having the land and the build system to deliver it. SideBySide is setting up to own that.
A design development studio that kept owning more of the deal
Lauren and I started SideBySide alongside MOD, the design-build firm I've run since 2012. We originate, design and package residential projects for developers, paid with an upfront fee and a royalty on every close. Three projects show where it's gone.
Proof of concept
A single-family subdivision where we own the full design and selections stack, from dirt to finish choices and the buyer process.
Our own development
Homes built around a 44' deep, 20' wide garage with a 14' door, about $775K average. Marketing goes live this fall; vertical starts early 2027.
One package
A high-end home testing the full package sold as one, set up so construction starts once a buyer commits.
Buyers told us what they wanted. It wasn't golf.
Two years of buyer conversations at The Grove, which sits on a golf course:
Many of them already rent storage for an RV or toys, about $700 to $800 a month for an enclosed 40-foot space in a good mountain location. That money can go into a mortgage and build equity instead. Here's the math.
Same monthly spend. One builds equity in a garage at home; the other is rent paid somewhere else.
Principal and interest only, before taxes and insurance. Illustrative.
Each step up trades capital for leverage
Sugarpine is proof one. The garage is the first product line; the method behind it is the asset. Find a cost people carry outside their home, design a home that absorbs it, and sell the math.
- 1Where we are
Own project
Sugarpine. We own the land, design and build, and earn developer margin.
- 2Cash-flow floor
Product package
Plans, pro forma, zoning playbook, configurator and sales system, licensed for a fee plus royalty.
- 3
Market partnerships
A local landowner or builder brings dirt and crews. We bring product, brand and sales, for a fee, royalty and equity.
- 4
Consumer brand
Buyers look for the brand, not a project. Each new market opens with a waitlist.
- 5The big bet
Demand-first development
Capture buyers nationally first, then buy land where their deposits cluster. Prove demand, then buy dirt.
We're leading with high-end buyers: $800K and up in Denver, the local luxury tier elsewhere. First-time buyers come later.
A small deposit buys a design, not a place in line
No founder pays and waits. Their deposit starts the design of their home right away. To them, we're designing their house. To us, that design is the richest demand data there is. Do it across enough founders in a region and we're designing a whole community before we own the land.
It starts with your question: what do you want your garage to do? Then the design goes further, and tells us what a click never could:
15 markets, scored. Move the weights and watch them re-rank.
Each market is scored 1 to 5 on four factors, where 5 is best for us. The total is a weighted average. Tap a market for its numbers.
How these were scored, and sources
Recreation covers ski, water, rivers, trails and public land. Storage scarcity weighs how few 35 to 45 ft units are listed, enclosed rents, and RV parking bans on streets or under HOA covenants. Land cost is lot asking prices against local home values. High-end fit is the median price and the count of $1M+ listings. Medians are Redfin 3-month figures for Aug or Sep 2026; storage and lot prices are small samples of listings pulled Oct 12, 2026. Scores are our judgment on that evidence.
This is a research business wearing a hard hat.
You build research systems people trust and act on. Here are the questions I'd most like your brain on:
- How should founder and configurator data be structured so it holds up in front of land sellers, lenders and partners?
- Which early signals best predict a deposit turning into a close?
- How do we present demand by region so it reads as proof, not a pitch?
- What are we not measuring that we should be?
You said AI feels like jazz. This is the next chorus. Where would you take it?