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BuiltForward: The Future of Construction
BuiltForward: The Future of Construction episodes
- The Real Challenge of AI Transformation - Professor Jerry Kane
Professor Jerry Kane has spent more than a decade studying digital transformation and how organizations adapt to new technology. In this episode, we explore what AI transformation actually looks like inside an organization - and why Jerry believes the technology itself may be the easy part.
We discuss:
• Why AI transformation is fundamentally a people, workflow, and organizational challenge
• Why waiting for AI technology to stabilize could leave companies too far behind
• What Jerry is learning from teaching students to build and work with AI
• Why widespread AI adoption doesn't necessarily translate into meaningful business impact
• The difference between automating existing work and actually transforming how work gets done
• Why AI workflows are “grown,” not simply built
• Why the people who understand a company's workflows may be better positioned to drive AI transformation than outside technologists
• Jerry's concept of the “backward-deployed engineer”
• Why he is skeptical of the traditional forward-deployed engineering model for many companies
• What becomes valuable when the cost of building software continues to fall
• Why experimentation and organizational adaptability may become durable competitive advantages
• How AI is changing education and the skills students need to develop
• Why the organizations that win may not be the ones that pick the right AI tools, but the ones that become best at continuously adapting as the technology changes
BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and what it takes to build great construction businesses.Hosted by Jason Jacobs.
More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/
1 hr 5 min - Inside a 35-Person Elevator Contractor - Matt Pincus, Pincus Elevator
Matt Pincus is Owner of Pincus Elevator, a family-owned elevator contractor founded by his father in 1953.
In this episode, Matt takes us inside the day-to-day realities of running a specialty contracting business. His biggest constraint is skilled labor: elevator mechanics take years to develop, experienced people are difficult to hire, and simply adding headcount isn't an easy answer.
That makes productivity increasingly important. Matt describes the goal in concrete terms: if a job takes 200 labor hours today, how do you get it done in 150 with the same people, without sacrificing quality or safety?
We also discuss what happens when customers who once paid in 30–60 days start stretching toward 90–120, why Pincus brought in a fractional CFO, and how quickly that changed decisions around collections, forecasting, and hiring.
And we get into technology and AI: where Matt sees opportunities to improve the business, why contractors can know exactly where their inefficiencies are and still struggle to fix them, and what it would take for new technology to actually change how the work gets done.
Topics include:
The skilled labor constraint in the elevator industry
Why developing an elevator mechanic takes years
Productivity when you can't simply hire more people
The 200-hours-to-150-hours challenge
Cash flow and lengthening payment cycles
Bringing in a fractional CFO
Knowing your operational problems vs. actually fixing them
Technology adoption inside a specialty contractor
Where AI and automation could realistically help
Running a multi-generational family business
BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and what it takes to build great construction businesses.Hosted by Jason Jacobs.
More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/
1 hr 25 min - WorkHero: The AI Back Office for HVAC w/ Furman Haynes
BuiltForward host Jason Jacobs interviews Furman Haynes, co-founder and CEO of WorkHero, an “AI back office” for the smallest HVAC contractors - often one- to three-truck shops.
WorkHero takes 10–20 hours per week of admin like invoicing, permits, heat pump rebates, and other paperwork off contractors’ plates, using software plus expert office managers working inside the tools they already use, including ServiceTitan, Jobber, Housecall Pro, QuickBooks, and email.
Haynes shares his path from apprenticeship programs and trade immersion to identifying “admin inflation” as a key bottleneck to quality work and heat pump deployment, and explains why WorkHero started with people before automating workflows.
They discuss fragmented contractor data, trust and privacy, why WorkHero goes wide rather than solving a single workflow, job costing and price books, human-in-the-loop AI, the limits of automating broken processes, and what comes next—including better AI “computer use,” diagnostics innovation, and potential expansion into plumbing and electrical.
00:00 Show Intro and Guest
03:04 WorkHero in 60 Seconds05:18 Origin Story in the Trades08:22 People First, Not Software11:39 Remote Work and Data Reality15:09 AI vs. Incumbent Software18:51 Subscription Model: Going Wide21:22 Who WorkHero Serves22:28 Workflow Bottlenecks Explained28:07 Tool Stack Integrations29:29 Expert Judgment Layer33:44 Privacy and Data Sharing36:19 Teach-to-Fish Debate39:41 Fixing Broken Workflows44:41 Automation and Jobs48:30 Mission and Market Choice52:00 Five-Year Vision53:30 Industry Ten-Year Outlook55:37 Expansion Beyond HVAC57:03 AI Computer-Use Frontier58:39 Closing ThoughtsBuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and what it takes to build great construction businesses.Hosted by Jason Jacobs.
More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/
1 hr 1 min - The innovation team has no budget - Kevin Halter on how construction software actually gets bought
The innovation team is not the buyer.
The project is.
Kevin Halter has spent about 15 years figuring out how technology actually gets bought and adopted in construction. He led sales at PlanGrid as the company grew from roughly $5 million to $120 million in revenue before Autodesk acquired it for about $875 million, then spent six years helping combine those acquisitions into what became Autodesk Construction Cloud.
In this episode, Kevin explains why construction software companies so often sell to the wrong people. The innovation team may run the pilot, but it usually has “no budget, no authority to buy.” The real money sits closer to the project — with the people whose P&L, schedule, and bonus depend on getting the job done.
Kevin also tells the story of diligencing the drone market for Emergence Capital before its Series A investment in DroneDeploy. At the time, heavily funded Airware looked formidable. Years later, Airware was gone and DroneDeploy had taken over its office lease. We recorded this conversation the day after Procore announced its acquisition of DroneDeploy.
We get into:
• Why PlanGrid sent people into the field in hard hats and steel-toed boots instead of trying to understand construction over Zoom
• Why its product team kept removing buttons instead of adding features• How to run structured pilots that can actually expand across a construction enterprise• Why one successful project rarely translates automatically into an enterprise-wide rollout• “Tier zero” contractors, their innovation teams and venture arms, and why they aren't representative of most of the industry• Why the innovation team often has no budget — and how to find the money on the project P&L• Why construction software companies need to integrate with competitors rather than trying to own the entire stack• Why Kevin thinks too many startups are still building for the commercial GC• Where he sees opportunity instead: the trades, civil, industrial, residential, and owners of capital projects• Whether the big construction platforms should become more “headless” and let AI-native products sit on top of them• Who should actually be worried about AI and automation — and why Kevin thinks it isn't the skilled trades• Why owners ultimately buy certainty of cost and certainty of schedule• The labor shortage, retirement wave, and data-center boom reshaping the industry• How construction can become a career people actively choose• What Kevin makes of private equity rolling up MEP contractors - and why he says, “I don't love it. I don't love it. And I don't know how that ends.”We also go back to Kevin's path into construction: from engineering at Tufts and healthcare sales at Pfizer to founding an equipment-rental marketplace in 2012, joining PlanGrid, and ultimately spending his career helping construction technology companies figure out how to reach the people doing the work.
00:00 Show kickoff
02:05 Welcome04:55 Engineer, Pfizer, and starting Getable09:40 Kevin Spain and the drone diligence11:35 Airware's $100 million and the drone wars12:45 DroneDeploy takes over the competitor's lease15:30 Joining PlanGrid18:15 Venture money, boards, and how much to raise22:15 Labor shortage, retirements, and data centers25:10 Get off Zoom29:00 COVID, customer tours, and in-person selling32:25 Team composition and solution engineers35:15 Structured pilots and land-and-expand39:10 In-house innovation teams40:35 Tier zero41:40 The innovation team has no budget43:05 Point tools, services, and integration47:55 Stop building for the commercial GC49:50 Sustaining versus disruptive innovation52:45 Start where the market is underserved55:30 Consolidation, M&A, and going headless1:00:45 Who should be afraid of automation1:01:55 Permitting, zoning, and the cost of building1:04:15 Owners buy certainty1:09:20 Making construction a career people choose1:14:05 PE money and the MEP roll-ups1:19:35 Ten years out1:26:10 What Kevin advises on nowBuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and what it takes to build great construction businesses.Hosted by Jason Jacobs.
More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/
1 hr 31 min - "Construction Supply Chains Are Starving" - Guy Saxelby of Earlytrade on Cash Flow, Risk, and Getting Subcontractors Paid
Construction has more bankruptcies than any other sector. Almost none of them are about bad building.
Guy Saxelby is the co-founder and CEO of Earlytrade, a marketplace that lets subcontractors get paid early on invoices that have already been approved. The sub names a discount, the general contractor pays out of its own idle cash and earns a return on money that was sitting in a money market fund, and no lender sits in the middle. He started the company in Sydney in 2018 after late payments in one of his own businesses cost him employees, went all in on construction in 2023, and moved his family to Denver to build the US business.
The arithmetic underneath it is the part that stayed with me. A subcontractor pays their crew every seven to fourteen days. They buy materials sixty days before the project starts. They do the work. Then they wait sixty to ninety days for the invoice. Who's funding that?
We get into:
- Why construction has more bankruptcies than any other sector, and why they're almost all cash flow
- Pay-when-paid, and why "risk falls down the hill" from owner to GC to sub
- How the marketplace actually works, and why it isn't factoring
- Why the subs using it most are the ones growing, not the ones failing
- Why a good general contractor says no to more work than it takes on
- What's different about the US market: no regulated payment terms, and a private sector that dominates
- Why the big ERPs haven't simply built this themselves
- Breaking in as an outsider: "Who are you? You're a foreigner, and you're not from construction"
- Fifty-one sets of state rules, and why changing construction's legal plumbing is a fool's errand
- Designing something non-invasive: a financial benefit without being a financial product
- Where private equity actually makes its money in construction, and why it's rarer than people assume
- AI agents as a growth play rather than an efficiency play
- Ten years out: robotics, and the data-portability problem that matters more
Links: Earlytrade - https://earlytrade.com | Guy Saxelby on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/guy-saxelby/
00:00 Show kickoff
00:24 Meet Guy Saxelby
03:19 What Earlytrade is, and how it started in Sydney
04:53 How COVID pulled the company into construction
06:02 Why Denver
08:01 Australia versus the US on payment terms
10:43 Construction supply chains are starving
11:16 Risk falls down the hill
12:15 Pay when paid
13:36 How the marketplace actually works
14:56 Dynamic discounting versus a fixed rate
16:42 Selling to the GC, serving the sub
17:13 The pitch to a general contractor
18:21 Is it only for desperate subs?
19:26 The sub's cash cycle
21:01 Why good GCs say no to work
21:53 The ideal customer profile
26:00 Sitting on top of the ERP
27:41 Objections and misconceptions
30:26 Why the ERPs haven't copied it
34:50 "Who are you? You're a foreigner"
38:18 Change the system or design around it
39:44 Fifty-one sets of rules and a fool's errand
44:33 Private equity in construction 4
6:59 The $10M wall and venture in contech
50:54 AI at EarlyTrade
55:04 Ten years out
58:11 The ten-year vision for Earlytrade
59:57 Who Guy wants to hear from
1:00:47 Scared money don't make money
BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and what it takes to build great construction businesses.Hosted by Jason Jacobs.
More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/
1 hr 2 min - The Equipment Is Not the System - Ed Smith of Amply Energy on Building Better HVAC Businesses
Ed Smith ran Wayfair's Canada business to nearly a billion dollars in revenue. Then he spent a year installing heat pumps - and learned firsthand why there's no such thing as a nationwide home-retrofit contractor: the equipment is not the system. The system is what a good contractor custom-manufactures on site, home by home.
Ed is co-founder and co-CEO of Amply Energy, a software company helping residential HVAC contractors size, design, and sell heat pump systems - built on "Goldilocks" sizing and LiDAR-based home scanning and digital twins, replacing the outdated design tools (and finger-in-the-air rules of thumb) the incumbents left behind. He and co-founder Erik Fitz started Amply as a whole-home electrification contractor before pivoting to the software they'd built for themselves.
We get into:
- Why heat pumps perform best when they're "Goldilocks" sized — and why square-footage sizing fails
- The pivot from installs to software, and why residential retrofits resist scale
- Amply's ideal customer: family-owned, heat-pump-forward, quality-focused, tech-forward shops
- Growing nationwide, fully remote, with no outside capital and zero ad spend — word of mouth, partners, and The Heat Pump Podcast
- Ed's skepticism of private-equity roll-ups and "box swapping"
- The long-term vision: whole-home electrification design and contractor "mixed groups" for peer learning
- AI at Amply: heavy internal use, ROI-focused, cautious on core product logic
Links: Amply Energy - https://amply.energy | The Heat Pump Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-heat-pump-podcast/id1747806243 | National Comfort Institute - https://www.nationalcomfortinstitute.com/
BuiltForward explores where construction is heading over the next decade — and how AI and other emerging technologies will and won't transform the industry. If this was useful, share it with someone building in the industry and follow the show so you don't miss what's next.
00:00 Show kickoff
00:24 Meet Ed Smith02:15 What Amply does03:08 Do heat pumps work05:13 From installs to software09:06 Why contracting won't scale12:10 Private equity rollups14:55 Ideal customer and channels17:49 Moat and AI reality check19:51 What Amply replaces21:59 Nationwide go to market23:47 Acquisition philosophy26:40 Residential vs commercial HVAC28:02 Defining the ideal customer28:39 Electrification contractor vision30:34 Software gaps in the stack31:47 Bootstrapping vs competition32:49 Pigs and chickens parable33:48 Dr. Seuss and constraints35:57 Customer community mixed groups40:53 Remote team and culture44:18 AI use and ROI reality47:41 AI future in construction49:50 Closing plugs and farewellBuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and what it takes to build great construction businesses.Hosted by Jason Jacobs.
More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/
52 min - BuiltForward Trailer
BuiltForward explores how AI, technology, and leadership are reshaping construction—and the broader physical economy. Host Jason Jacobs, an entrepreneur and investor, learns in public through conversations with the operators, founders, and leaders driving that transformation. Together they dig into how these organizations continuously adapt as technology evolves, what is actually working on the ground, and where the biggest opportunities are emerging.
New episodes weekly. Subscribe and come along for the journey!
BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and what it takes to build great construction businesses.Hosted by Jason Jacobs.
More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/
3 min
About BuiltForward: The Future of Construction
From the publisher's feed
BuiltForward explores the future of construction and what it takes to build great construction businesses.
Hosted by longtime entrepreneur and investor Jason Jacobs, the show features conversations with contractors, operators, founders, investors, and industry experts about the challenges and opportunities shaping the industry.
From leadership, operations, and productivity to technology, AI, workforce development, succession planning, and new ownership models, BuiltForward explores how construction businesses are built, managed, and transformed.
Jason is learning about the industry in public, one conversation at a time, with the people who know it best.