The Construction Industry Told Me Success Was About Skill. Here's What It Left Out.

I have been in construction long enough to know that the story we tell about it isn't the whole story.

The story goes like this: work hard, do quality work, build a reputation, grow. Meritocracy. The best rise. The rest figure out why they didn't.

I believed that story when Marcus and I started Lotus Home Improvement. I believed it when I was cold-calling vendors, showing up to meetings, doing the work that nobody asked me to do because I knew it would speak for itself eventually. I believed it through years of watching companies with half our quality and twice our connections get opportunities that never came our way.

I don't disbelieve in hard work. I've never stopped working hard. But I've learned — the expensive way — that hard work operates inside a system. And that system was not designed with me in mind.

Emerald Fern Finishes exists because of that education. And I think homeowners deserve to understand it too — because it affects you more than you know.

What They Don't Tell You About Who Gets to Build

Bonding and capital access are not equal.

To take on larger projects, construction companies need bonding — essentially a financial guarantee that the work will be completed. Getting bonded requires established banking relationships, credit history, and often a track record that takes years to build. Many minority-owned firms are denied bonding even with strong financials, strong portfolios, and zero red flags. We were one of them.

When you can't get bonded, you can't bid on certain projects. When you can't bid, you can't build the volume. When you can't build the volume, the bank points to that as evidence that you're a risk. It's a loop designed to keep the door closed while appearing to be about numbers.

Vendor relationships take generations.

This one is personal for me because it is directly why EFF was born.

Many of the best product lines in construction — cabinets, flooring, tile, hardware — have strict distributor requirements built around purchase volume and tenure. Legacy companies with decades of relationships get priority access. Newer companies, especially minority-owned ones, are told to come back when they've proven themselves. But proving yourself requires access to the very lines you're being denied.

I spent years navigating that wall. Being told no. Being told "not yet." Being told to prove volume I couldn't prove without the account I was trying to open. I am now one of the only distributors of my background carrying some of the national product lines we carry — not because the system changed, but because I refused to accept it as the final answer.

Procurement favors the rooms you were never invited into.

Large commercial bids, municipal contracts, developer relationships — these often flow to companies already known by the decision-makers. Known meaning: went to the same schools, belong to the same associations, have been in the same rooms for decades. When you've never been in the room, it doesn't matter how qualified you are. You're not on the list because you were never on the list.

Our MBE certifications — through the City of Chicago, the State of Illinois, and NMSDC — exist partly to create a pathway around this. And they've opened doors. But I want to be honest: the doors are heavier than the certifications make them appear.

Why This Matters to You as a Homeowner

Lower competition in any industry affects pricing. It affects quality. It affects innovation. When entire categories of companies — minority-owned, women-owned, newer entrants who haven't yet "earned" their way into the network — are systematically kept out, the market narrows. And a narrower market serves the homeowner less.

You pay more. You have fewer real choices. And the contractors and suppliers who do reach you have often been pre-selected by a system that values tenure and connection over transparency and quality.

This is not an abstract critique. This is what I watched happen for a decade before I decided to build something different.

What We're Building Instead

Emerald Fern Finishes is not just a building supply distributor. It is a deliberate alternative to the way this industry has always operated.

We work directly with our vendors so that you — the homeowner, the small contractor, the person managing your own renovation — can access what the legacy networks have always had access to. Good product. Fair pricing. Real information about what you're buying and why it matters.

And when you choose to source through EFF, you're not just buying tile or cabinets or flooring. You're participating in something bigger. You're putting your dollars into a supply chain that was built to include people the old one was built to exclude.

We're doing this together. That's always been the point.

Explore our collections and source smarter with Emerald Fern Finishes.

— Camille Johnson Founder, Emerald Fern Finishes | Lotus Home Improvement | Rose Hill Cabinets | MBE Certified — City of Chicago | State of Illinois | NMSDC