About ADU Made Simple
Built by someone who’s done this before
I’m a licensed civil engineer, an MBA graduate, and a Marine Corps veteran. But none of that mattered as much as this: in 2021, I built an ADU for my mother in Anaheim, California, so she could retire close to family.
I figured my background would make it straightforward. It wasn’t. Between permitting delays, contractor miscommunications, financing questions nobody explained clearly, and decisions I had to make with information scattered across a dozen sources, I learned this process mostly through trial and error — the same way anyone does, degree or no degree.
That experience stuck with me. If it was this hard for someone with an engineering license and a finance background, what does it look like for a homeowner without either? That question is why this site exists.
What we’re here to do
Built around you, with your architect and contractor woven in
ADU Made Simple is built with a homeowner-first focus for people who have the equity, the motivation, and a real reason to build — rental income, space for aging parents, room for family — but not the time or technical background to wade through planning tools built for contractors and architects instead of for you. It stays your journey from Dream It through Build It, but it’s designed so the architect and contractors you bring on can step directly into that same process — bids, scheduling, and progress in one place — instead of you coordinating everyone yourself across emails and spreadsheets.
We designed it around three things I wish I’d had in 2021:
- Plain-language guidance, not legal or construction jargon
- Honest cost and timeline estimates, so you can plan with real numbers instead of guesswork
- A guided process, so you're never staring at a blank page wondering what to do next
A word on the numbers
As an MBA grad, I care as much about whether an ADU makes financial sense as whether it gets built. This isn’t just a design tool — it’s meant to help you think through the investment itself: what it might cost, what it might return if you rent it out, and whether the numbers actually work for your situation before you commit real money.
Where we’re headed
This is early — and we want your feedback
We’re testing, learning, and improving based on real feedback from real homeowners, the same way I learned by doing it myself in 2021. If something here doesn’t feel clear, we want to hear about it — that feedback is exactly how this gets better.