28. Why Your Contractor Workflow Is Costing You Hours — And How to Fix It

If you are running jobs through texts, emails, and handwritten notes, you probably already

know how easy it is to miss something.

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Today I'm speaking to Nola Solomon, founder of Renoverse AI.

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Today we're speaking about how contractors can save time, communicate better, and use AI

without completely changing the way that they work.

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Let's get into this.

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Hey, I'm Shay Toya.

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I've spent more than 10 years in construction.

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Working behind the scenes in marketing, hiring, and I've seen how overwhelming it can be

to grow a business.

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That's how we've learned to build a sustainable business using clear systems, strong

communication, and intentional recruiting.

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If you're ready for better hiring, smarter remarketing, and a business that doesn't fall

apart when you step away, welcome to building better contractor businesses.

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Yeah, it's a great question.

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So I'll preface it by saying my background has been in building full stack technology

platforms for the advertising ecosystem.

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I didn't really realize the importance of that for the home construction space until I

went through my own addition as a homeowner after my husband and I bought our first home.

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And it just kind of threw me in to the world of, you know, finding the right professional.

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So an architect and a general contractor.

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And builders that we needed to work with interior designers and you know, understanding

all the different roles and responsibilities and then going through that whole process,

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not just of the selection, but then what did we want to do?

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All the different versions of the floor plans, all the way through to then fitting out for

quotes and then selecting your your general contractor in in our case, and then going

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through the whole construction process.

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It was a lot of scattered emails back and forth,

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Threads, not not threads, text messages, phone calls, in person.

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I got handed pieces of paper with like lists of stuff that had been done and budgets and

also random stuff and I didn't know how to read it or like what I supposed to do with

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this?

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And so ~ what I also realized is as much as all of that scattered communication is

happening, there's also a ton that isn't getting written down anywhere.

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And that was also a problem.

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It could lead to ~ some challenges which we we experienced ourselves.

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So that's kind of what got me into the world and and I thought, well.

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Why not bring this concept of building full tech tech platforms like what I've done in

advertising to the home construction space and partnered with some residential pros to

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make it happen?

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Yeah.

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No, there's a big need being in the contractor world for a very long time.

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So I do agree with you on that.

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~ so you were doing something similar before.

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Was there a a type of people that you used to serve or a type of business that you used to

serve?

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Or could you just kind of go full full on

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Onto contractors.

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Well, so we initially started developing Reniverse with the concept of let's start in the

planning stages, pre-construction.

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So we really focused initially on building the first iteration of the platform, working

with residential architects.

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So that's how we got it started.

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But as we evolved the platform, what we realized quickly was that one of the beauties of

it is the workflow collaboration.

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So the ability to invite others into the project.

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Which naturally allowed us to start getting a lot of feedback from builders and general

contractors and tier designers about, you know, their workflows.

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And so we've been developing a mobile application.

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~ so basically your admin is just in your pocket that is allowing any residential pro to

really benefit from the administrative automations that we can bring to bear in creating

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that audit trail across email and text and phone calls and in person at the project level.

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So ~ nothing is getting lost in translation, but

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it's integrating into the workflows and the tools that they already use versus being like,

here's another platform that you need to go now sign into and learn how to use, or

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replacing something else.

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We're really kind of threading between that scattered front end of like Excel and email

and scatter and maybe a construction management platform like Pro Core Builder Trend or

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something else that may be used in terms of managing subs and kind of some of the

findings.

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Got it.

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And so when it comes to streamlining

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Since you guys kind of can it sounds like you guys can customize it towards the

contractor, is that kind of what I'm hearing?

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Yeah.

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So basically the application works for the ownership of the project at the pro level.

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So if it's a builder or contractor running the project, or it's an architect running the

project, or anyone who wants to plug in and be collaborative within a project that's being

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operated, a home project, whether that's a new build, an addition, remodel, renovation,

are we have the the tool for you.

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I love that.

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And so when it comes to, you know, home construction, where do you see, you know, most

contractors where they're losing their time when that information is scattered between

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emails, text messages, and phone calls?

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Yeah, well what I've noticed and in speaking to boatloads of contractors, ~ including our

current customers, has been it's really tons of hours weekly.

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loss to manual admin from ~ the follow-ups that you need to do after walking through the

job sites, from keeping your client updated or responding to their queries for information

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to making sure that everything that you need to do or that the folks that you are managing

need to do for the project have been tracked and are getting done and that you have that

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record in some way, shape or form of it in terms of that audit trail.

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And right now there's just so much manual admin that's going into all of that that it

sucks up a bunch of time and time is money, right?

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It's not billable time.

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Overall, it was kind of shocking to me, but on average we were seeing that pros were

losing fourteen hours a week of unbillable admin time, which is, you know, on an hourly

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average of two hundred and fifty dollars an hour, a hundred and eighty two thousand

dollars a year revenue loss per person, which is crazy, right?

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That's

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That's a lot of time that you can go grow your business, do another project, spend more

time with your family, whatever it is you want to do with it, right?

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And there is four billion dollars a year in annual litigation that's impacting the

industry and that's eating into everyone's margins.

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And that's happening today.

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So, you know, with this audit trail, A, you're mitigating that risk, but B, you're making

it really easy to quickly get the information if there is a claim and prove prove it out

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or or at least end the claim faster.

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Got it.

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And so besides the which is huge, the time consuming side of things.

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Was there anything else that you could see from, you know, from poor communication and

untracked decision, how that affects the contractors, which you did mention, the

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contractor's budget, the schedule, and then relationship with the client as well?

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Yeah, totally.

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Yeah.

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Well, I mean, I think like with most things i in life, fundamentally when there's a

communication problem, which is

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Fundamentally, what a lot of this boils down to because of the scatter, because of all the

different tools, and then also just the way the industry is operated, it leads to

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miscommunication.

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And miscommunication is expensive in a lot of ways.

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It's expensive financially for everyone involved, but it's also expensive from a

relationship and trust standpoint.

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So a kind of example of something that I went through personally here was in our edition,

we my husband and I had needed two offices, small offices set up.

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Because we were working remotely.

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And we needed the wall between our offices to be soundproofed because we actually worked

for competitive companies at the time.

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So we're like, okay, we need to make sure we can't hear each other because I talk loud.

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And ~ and so I, you know, I remember bringing this up with the architect.

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I remember bringing this up with the general contractor, like ad nauseum, probably

annoying the hell out of everybody because I was just, you know, always talking about how

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this wall needed to be soundproof.

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It never got written down some.

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somehow, or where it did get written down in the emails that I was sending, it that wasn't

getting tracked anywhere.

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So it was kind of getting lost in the shuffle of all the other thousands of decisions that

need to be made.

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And obviously all the other kind of things that are top of mind.

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And this was my product, just one for me.

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For them, it was one of many, right?

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So that's another exacerbating element for for the pros and and the contractors in

particular.

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And so the like and and net net end is the wall's not soundproofed.

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I'm sorry, husband, but

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You know, and and and it wasn't look the massive deal for us at the end of the day, it's

not the worst thing to have happened.

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And there's certainly worse stories for all parties involved that I'm sure you've heard of

and and the listeners will will identify with.

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But it it did highlight to me that even when you think you're communicating a lot about

something, if you don't have the audit trail, if it's not written down, if there's not a

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process where things are getting tagged and you don't have a way of in an automated

fashion reminding

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the stakeholders about certain important elements that need to be done by when, right?

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for example, then you're relying on humans to just be able to remember a ton of

information.

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And that's that's nigh impossible, really, at the end of the day, right?

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As the most well intentioned organized person is still going to have a lot of things slip

through the cracks.

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And so I think that miscommunication is is a giant problem today and costs a lot in terms

of both time, money and and sanity and and relationships.

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No, I agree with you.

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And then when it comes to, you know, making sure that your team, because you said a lot of

automation, Satan reminds you.

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But how do you make sure your team is following those automations when they do pop up?

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Yeah, I mean, that's a good question.

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Like my perspective about building technology, especially automated AI based assistant

tech technology that's integrating, for example, right, we integrate into email, so Gmail

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and Outlook.

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So that we can keep track of all of the back and forth scatter that's happening because

people are going to keep emailing each other, right?

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Regardless of whether they're trying not to or not.

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That's still gonna always be a a big medium.

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And so what we can make sure of as technologists and as a platform is that everything is

tracked and time-stamped, and you have the data provenance and source of all of that,

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whether that's a voice note, brain dump after a walkthrough, an email, a text message,

right?

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A piece of paper that can get pictured and like

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snapped with a photo and then logged into the files.

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That is that is the first step, right?

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And then it's how do you build into that the ability for a team to decide, well, we need

to follow certain protocols or how do you do it today, right?

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Where there's a project manager maybe that's making sure that everything is happening at

the right cadence, everyone's been informed and you can actually prove that they've been

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informed, right?

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And then they if they don't still don't follow it.

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There that's you're getting out of technology now, you're getting into the relationships

and the business value, right?

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We can't solve everything.

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But what we can do is make it really easy to see whether what needs to be done by whom and

everyone has that transparency and then whether it was done or not, right?

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I don't know.

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Yep.

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And why do you believe like when it comes to, you know, contractors, a lot of them are

kind of set in their ways.

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Why do you believe that is when they are so resistant to new technology?

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Well, I mean, I think there's

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like at least two things come to mind.

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One is just human nature, right?

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Agnostic of what your job role, you know, is industry is people are always nervous about

change.

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It's like a natural thing to be.

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We are in in a period of time where technology is advancing at a pace that is

unprecedented.

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This it AI, I mean, it's a whole universe of possibility that could be really beneficial,

but also it's

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Changing every day and it's, you know, even bigger than the invention of the internet.

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So it's natural to have some apprehension about that and to think about, well, it's safer

to just think about doing things the way I've always done them.

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Right.

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But what I will say is that I've seen, I think now, a a bit of a shift in the winds where

early on there was a lot of, well, well, like we're good with the way we work.

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And again, like I could understand that.

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But now what I'm seeing is, well, AI is here.

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We know we need to figure out how to use it because our competitors are gonna be figuring

out how to use it and then we're gonna be left behind.

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And actually there's a lot of value to like, if you can help me learn how to use it in a

way that's beneficial for my business and for me to grow and for me to protect myself,

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that's great.

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And even better if you do it in a way that I'm comfortable, which is a core tenet for us,

right?

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Simplicity, intuitiveness, and integrating into the tools you already work with.

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Because otherwise it's it's

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It's a big chasm to jump across and ask anyone to jump across quite frankly.

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Right.

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And so with the tools that they're currently using, how do you guys do that with their

current tools and work those contractors are using?

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Yeah, great question.

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So first first of all, we kind of are tackling them based on priority order.

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So email has been the first one that we have launched, as I mentioned, Gmail and Outlook.

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So we have basically built to simplify it.

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A suite of agents that are permissioned by the individual contractor's firm to keep track

of all the back and forth scatter that's happening for the communications over email for a

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specific project.

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So we're looking at what is a decision, what is an action item or a task, what is a

contextual piece of information that's relevant for this project, and making sure all that

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is logged into the Reniverse audit trail and files and note systems.

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for them.

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And then there's a human in loop element, of course.

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So there's certain levels of fidelity that you might have as a contractor with what you

are happy for the AI or Ella Ella is our AI assistant for Ella to automatically log for

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you or where you want to validate something, right?

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Maybe you want to skip it, maybe you want to provide maybe you approve it.

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Secondarily, it's our app.

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So our mobile app is critical because it's our on your phone.

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We have it for Android and iOS.

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when you're on the go doing a walkthrough of a site or at the end of it.

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You have a lot of thoughts, right, as a contractor going through your head in terms of

what's been done well, what needs to be done next, like who you need to email.

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So basically, instead of having to kind of write that all down or drive back to your

office, get at your desk, send an email, you can brain dump all of that voice to text

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straight into the app.

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And Ella basically will turn that brain dump into a note.

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That gets timestamped and logged.

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So you can always reference it.

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And she can action as your admin assistant on some of those items.

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So for example, she'll log any decisions that were made while you were in person or that

you mentioned into the app.

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She'll log ~ any tasks to do items and and tag folks.

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She can draft and send your emails for you.

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~ obviously you would hit send as the user and you can work with her to to adjust, you

know, the email, but she can get that done for you all while you're walking back to your

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car, right?

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For example.

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If you're someone who prefers very tactile ways of working and writing down something on a

notepad, do that.

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And then afterwards you can snap a picture of it with Ella.

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She'll log that as a digital note that you can reference and query later.

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And then again, she'll be able to pull and extract the information from that handwritten

note or sketch and be able to take those action items for you.

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So she's doing that manual admin for you before you even need to get back to your car,

back to the office.

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And another really cool thing I think that's been very useful is

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Any file that's uploaded into the platform.

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So for example, an HOA document or a town document or a budget sheet, right?

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That is instantly searchable at your fingertips through Ella.

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So if you are on the job site and the client's asking about a budget topic, you don't need

to go back to your office and open your Excel document and check it out and then email the

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client.

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You can just ask Ella really quickly for that information and she'll pull it up for you

with the data provenance of that file.

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So you can quickly check it if you want.

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So it's really just helping you be more efficient, keeping track of everything for you,

but also helping you move faster during your day-to-day because you don't have to wait to

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get back to your office to do it or go through a multiple different sets of apps to, you

know, update whatever you need to update.

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And that's perfect because so many contractors are on the go.

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Yes.

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And they have a hundred excuses why they can't document something.

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So something like that is actually very perfect.

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And so a contractor who's possibly

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As an example of the contractor that you dealt with and you are getting your home

completed.

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What is that contractor?

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Where should they start?

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In terms of using the the product.

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Yes.

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Well, in terms of if they're currently managing things through text, emails, and

handwritten notes, where is it that they should start this week?

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Yeah.

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Well, I would say start with ~ with reaching out.

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I'd be happy to onboard you to to Renovers to create the project.

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And then we can work on bringing in everything that you've already got in terms of files,

notes, email straight into it.

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So once that email integration is done, we can back, we can look through the backlog of

emails and and track everything in there.

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We're working on text message integrations too.

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So all that will be forthcoming as well.

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And then kind of moving forward from there, you can start to leverage both the app as well

as kind of the existing workflows that you do over email and text and knowing that

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everything is being tracked and that you have access to the.

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instantly queryable at your fingertips information, project all the project information,

whatever you need it.

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Understood.

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And then could you just tell us a little bit more about the special pilot opportunity

available to listeners and who's a good fit?

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Yes, absolutely.

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So I'm really excited to offer a a pilot opportunity.

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So we currently are bringing this to market for a early cohort of pilots at a fifty five

discount to the standard price.

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And so I welcome anyone who's interested to leverage this opportunity, be a big voice in

our product roadmap and and help us continue to develop the key things that are gonna make

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your life easier, your team's life easier, your clients' life easier, and lead to those

better referrals and and more business overall to to reach out.

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right now the pricing is at a hundred dollars per user per month.

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so again at a firm level, and we can also discuss custom pricing for mid to larger size ~

organizations.

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Perfect.

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Yes, very exciting and thank you so much, Mola.

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Thank you very much.

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If you believe that this episode brought you real clarity, be sure to share it with

another contractor who also needs it.

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And if you want to keep this conversation going, be sure to join our community of

contractors inside Building Better Contractor Businesses.

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Facebook group.

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This is a community where we talk through the real problems.

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That you are having in your business.

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The link will be found in our show notes.

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And remember, we are not just completing projects, we are building better contractor

businesses.

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I will see you next time.