How a $150K Construction Mistake Led to Hardline with Karly and Alena

0:00 [SPEAKER_00]: On this week's show, coordination through communication with Carly Evernon and Elena Tuddle from Hardline. [SPEAKER_00]: All right, y'all are going to notice that it's just me sitting here so low and you know I like to run solo sometimes because sometimes you can't break two peas out of the pod and so I have Carly and Elena with me today, how you guys doing?

0:33 [SPEAKER_00]: We're great. [SPEAKER_02]: We can't wait to be here and chat with you. [SPEAKER_02]: We always love getting on a call with you, so thanks for having us. [SPEAKER_00]: It the feeling is mutual. [SPEAKER_00]: Elena, thank you for dropping in. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, of course, my pleasure. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just happy to be included in the combo.

0:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's not a combo without both of you as I've learned over the time, so that's why we switch the seat up. [SPEAKER_00]: Listen, guys, if you are listening in. [SPEAKER_00]: live here. [SPEAKER_00]: The crew is going to be at Trimble Dimensions. [SPEAKER_00]: That's right. [SPEAKER_00]: We're a media sponsor.

1:04 [SPEAKER_00]: We're also going to be live from the stage with Josh Levy and Mark Schwartz from Trimble Now and talking about the industry. [SPEAKER_00]: So don't miss it. [SPEAKER_00]: And follow us on LinkedIn, follow us on the [SPEAKER_00]: We're going to be able to come into you, that event's going to be awesome.

1:26 [SPEAKER_00]: All right. [SPEAKER_00]: We're back. [SPEAKER_00]: So we teach them. [SPEAKER_00]: We got you on the show. [SPEAKER_00]: Not too early. [SPEAKER_00]: We met a while back and it was awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm really excited that you guys got to the point where it's time to talk about you guys.

1:40 [SPEAKER_00]: So, Carly, I'm going to start with you. [SPEAKER_00]: Just give the world an introduction to you. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I am one of the co-founders here. [SPEAKER_02]: I grew up in Canada. [SPEAKER_02]: So my, like, default, you know, life goal was to play ice hockey forever. [SPEAKER_02]: And then when that kind of came to a halt, I kind of rethought where I wanted to be.

2:02 [SPEAKER_02]: And I decided to go into the direction of my family, which is construction. [SPEAKER_02]: They own a GC up in Canada. [SPEAKER_02]: So [SPEAKER_02]: joined that after college and then shortly after was introduced to Alana, my co-founder who sparked this thing inside me to want to build hard line.

2:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, we have a long history with Canadians working in the industry, jumping into tech. [SPEAKER_00]: So you have a long line ahead of you folks that have paved the way. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's pretty cool. [SPEAKER_00]: I love that Canadian connection. [SPEAKER_00]: Like it's such a cool [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, look, you build it in Canada.

2:40 [SPEAKER_00]: It might be a little different, but it's not that different. [SPEAKER_00]: It's still building, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I definitely, I mean, there's so many amazing founders from Canada in the construction tech world. [SPEAKER_02]: So definitely people I lean on when I need a little bit of advice.

2:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: So Elena, how did you get here? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I guess before I jump into that, I shouldn't mention Carly casually mentioned hockey. [SPEAKER_01]: She was the top, well, arguably, the top female player in the country at one point. [SPEAKER_01]: I happened to know that she scored the winning goal for worlds, multiple times, [SPEAKER_01]: Let's just let that aside and I'll jump into my background, which is way less cool.

3:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, that's awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: And now you just gave an Easter egg. [SPEAKER_00]: So now I'm gonna have to go down the route at some point and see some of this and embarrass you and that's awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: Just like now y'all know, now everybody listening knows why I wanted to have both of you on the call.

3:35 [SPEAKER_00]: This is gonna be a lot of fun. [SPEAKER_00]: Buckle up and make sure you're not driving too fast because this is gonna be fun. [SPEAKER_00]: So connect your background. [SPEAKER_01]: I come from a tech background. [SPEAKER_01]: I studied finance in my undergrad spent a little bit of time at a big bank hated that job hated, you know, I don't know, no shade against it, but just was not for me.

3:54 [SPEAKER_01]: So I went into early stage tech and then I was on the go to market side and sales side of a couple really fast growing early stage companies. [SPEAKER_01]: My last company was acquired and while I was there kind of doing the whole big bank thing again. [SPEAKER_01]: Carly and I connected and we decided that we wanted to do something fun.

4:12 [SPEAKER_01]: So we decided we were going to start buying laundromats for a side hustle and trying to digitize them. [SPEAKER_01]: And one day Carly was working as we are working on our business plan. [SPEAKER_01]: She took some calls from a subcontractor. [SPEAKER_01]: I watched some craziness unfold and I said, the laundromats can wait.

4:30 [SPEAKER_01]: We should solve this problem and that's kind of why we're here today. [SPEAKER_00]: that is so cool. [SPEAKER_00]: So wait, what was the problem? [SPEAKER_00]: It was just like a sub that was working on one of your laundromats or helping you guys out. [SPEAKER_02]: No, I can answer that one because it honestly Elana will say this in many pitches, like in front of multiple people, which [SPEAKER_02]: It's definitely a long enough time as past, but it still stinks a bit, but we were working on a commercial project, and I was managing it and asked the sub to change it to six inch insulation on the roof and set a four, six months later, court tests came back.

5:05 [SPEAKER_02]: They didn't do the six inches, and it cost us 150k in rework. [SPEAKER_02]: So, that was the origin story of why I was like, okay, sorry, family I'm gonna leave the company now and then start something to solve what, what this is causing. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's an interesting number because that number comes up quite consistently.

5:29 [SPEAKER_00]: In, I think it's just enough to sting long enough to create, to show that there's a problem that needs to be solved. [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like, [SPEAKER_00]: anything before a hundred and it's a rounding error, the one hundred to one fifty's like, oh, that went, God us, I don't want to do that again, but that one fifty and then up, it's like, I'm not going to forget that one.

5:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it is, you're just like, that's going to kill me forever. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So again, rooted in a problem, right, rooted in a request for a change on saying, hey, I need six inches instead of four inch. [SPEAKER_00]: You had a perfect reason for it. [SPEAKER_00]: And that person probably didn't mean to not do it, right?

6:14 [SPEAKER_00]: It probably wasn't documented, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_02]: Yep, and we worked with them for a while, so we had that trust too, so and that's the world of construction, you know, it's relationship driven and some things just aren't always needing that extra, you know, email, but it actually is.

6:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, I mean, that's the key, right? [SPEAKER_00]: There it was documenting that, not because they don't want to do it for you, but so that they remember to do it because that trade, subcontractor probably at a ton of other stuff going on. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just an oversight, right?

6:48 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a, and it is a relationship business. [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm interested. [SPEAKER_00]: You see this happen, Elena, and you're trying to do some laundry mat side hustles, and you're like, so tell me how you're playing clicked and went. [SPEAKER_01]: So I had had my own kind of backstory during COVID when I was quarantined in my apartment, my roommate was an interior designer and she had the exact same situation happened coordinating with the subcontractor.

7:16 [SPEAKER_01]: And so something in my brain, I'd kind of like in the background been thinking about how do you solve problems like that? [SPEAKER_01]: I actually went to the office with her kind of help to them build documentation processes when working with subs. [SPEAKER_01]: And they wouldn't do it because they had a million things flying around everywhere.

7:33 [SPEAKER_01]: They would never stop to just, [SPEAKER_01]: put this in a spreadsheet, send this to the person, you know, confirm. [SPEAKER_01]: And so I watched that happen in a light bulb. [SPEAKER_01]: Just went off like, why don't we just use AI to transcribe phone calls? [SPEAKER_01]: And give them the ability to sort of a one-click experience to share that that confirmation back to the person for your own documentation.

7:54 [SPEAKER_01]: And for theirs too, because I believe like the subs not being malicious in that way [SPEAKER_01]: way shape or form, but when you got hundreds of people, lots of jobs, a million calls a day, like just a little thing like that could help. [SPEAKER_00]: So that was kind of how it happened.

8:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, see that's the critical component too, because too much of what we build is built off negativity. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's good, right? [SPEAKER_00]: It's a good thing in some respects, because look, there were parts of this industry and still are that are combative and [SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, more and more, like it's less of a, I want to screw you and more of a oops I screwed you and I and and I have so many things going on to keep it all together and like you said so much happens from design and design intent to engineering to GCCM to trade to building material.

8:55 [SPEAKER_00]: schedule compression, material availability, you know, all of this stuff's everywhere. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I kind of like this. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to forward to math because I know where I want to go, but I'm not going to say it. [SPEAKER_00]: How do you see this fitting in?

9:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Where do you see it fitting in? [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a whole new workflow? [SPEAKER_00]: Elena, I'll kind of go to you here on on that one. [SPEAKER_01]: The answer is no, you don't have a workflow. [SPEAKER_01]: Something that I think Carly learned from watching her dad I learned from sitting in the office with my friend.

9:28 [SPEAKER_01]: It's really hard to change a rhythm that's worked a certain way forever. [SPEAKER_01]: Like the pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, everything that has been built has been built through verbal communication and coordination. [SPEAKER_01]: And the way that we kind of approach the problem is you can continue to do that, and we will augment your process with technology.

9:50 [SPEAKER_01]: You shouldn't actually have to change how you work because that works for you. [SPEAKER_01]: And software is good enough that we can work around it. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and that's the interesting part, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And Carly, this is what's cool is somebody proposes, and I don't even know what your acumen on the building inside and the technology side was, [SPEAKER_00]: It you have the real world experience with the family business doing this.

10:13 [SPEAKER_00]: How did that line up? [SPEAKER_00]: How did that all come together where you're like, wait a minute, maybe this does work. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think the first day we had this idea, it was, you know, probably like 9 a.m. and then 3 a.m. that night we had a pitch deck and the next day we were creating like designs of what the app would look like a land and I and the the core principle of our app has been simple like anyone can log in and automatically know what to do because.

10:45 [SPEAKER_02]: anyone in my family's company learning a new technology was it was months and so we've always anchored our our solution to being simple and pretty much invisible for users um day-to-day and that was kind of what made it click like we need to do this because if it's simple and easy there's no reason for people not to adopt it.

11:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that's the key right you just guys just combine two really important things, you know that that clear easy and that really painful problem. [SPEAKER_00]: And then an understanding of how the workflow works, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's a critical component. [SPEAKER_00]: And you've said it a couple times, there is a rhythm to the way we build things.

11:33 [SPEAKER_00]: And so many of our current products disrupt that rhythm. [SPEAKER_00]: And we wonder why we're an industry that quote unquote has lagged in productivity? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, if you keep interrupting me, I can't build things. [SPEAKER_00]: But there's somebody else out there going, but Jeff, if I don't capture what the Foreman and the general super just agreed upon somehow, like there's a risk that it doesn't get done or doesn't get done right, cause at the time that they're doing it, they've nine things to remember and now you get four inches and set of six inches of insulation [SPEAKER_00]: that's a bad thing, right?

12:17 [SPEAKER_00]: That caused money. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, so let's dig in a little bit, Carly, you guys. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm not surprised that the pitch that came out that quickly, because in both of you, what I'm hearing was like this festering problem, and we hear it in innovation all the time, like nobody has their best idea at work.

12:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Right. [SPEAKER_00]: They have it in the shower. [SPEAKER_00]: They have it on a run. [SPEAKER_00]: They have it when the back of their brain is churning on this thing like, oh, I'm getting into that unconscious mind and I'm going to just noodle it and then one day I'm going to go. [SPEAKER_00]: And when you see it, it's like, it's been noodling for a long time.

12:58 [SPEAKER_00]: It's been sitting there for a long time. [SPEAKER_00]: But then the minute you hit it is like, oh, we're doing it. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's a dipping. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's like in a adrenaline shot. [SPEAKER_01]: I, it's funny, because I've always wanted to be a founder and when I was a kid, the way that I, I would like to tell my mom, I wanted to be an inventor, because that was like the child like version of that.

13:18 [SPEAKER_01]: And so when the idea kind of struck and we felt like we had the same sort of, [SPEAKER_01]: compassion for the problem and drive to solve it. [SPEAKER_01]: It was really addicting and like, yeah, like a shot of adrenaline that we're still, you know, getting hits from every week. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, and that means you're moving in the right direction because when it starts, it will start to feel like work.

13:43 [SPEAKER_00]: everything does. [SPEAKER_00]: That's why I call work. [SPEAKER_00]: But the invention and the solution and the continued momentum that you've gained and, and, you know, transparency to the, to the, to the folks listening at home, like we met a couple of months ago, almost six months ago, and I was like, [SPEAKER_00]: you're almost ready but you're not ready and I'm going to be excited when you're ready and so it's cool to see that adrenaline still going and the problem gaining momentum and the solution gaining momentum right so you got to be got to move around you got to figure it out so what did you so there there's all this communication and we've kind of talked that you have hard line like

14:29 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so really what clicked was documenting the conversations that are already happening. [SPEAKER_02]: And Hardline is a solution to capture calls and site conversations that teams are already having, turning it into project documentation tasks without enforcing the field to enter a new data workflow, [SPEAKER_02]: So right now, we're live on job sites, we're really building for the fields, which inevitably is a tough place to get to adopt tech.

15:10 [SPEAKER_02]: But when you crack it, it feels so good. [SPEAKER_02]: And we're just really [SPEAKER_00]: In the end, people forget that we are not in the business of drawing things we are in the business of building and all of us in this space have to understand that and I used to say that from the safety side, but more and more now from this idea of coordination through communication like Elena what does that mean to you as an outcome of what you're doing.

15:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so when you put yourself in the seat of a superintendent, which I had to do intentionally having not been in the construction industry before, it is chaos. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's not a slide against the super that's that's just the industry there's there's also part of it that I think people are put in that position because they're really good at handling that so you put a guy on the job site he's managing multiple trades across each of those forming and trades multiple people laboring [SPEAKER_01]: On top of that, that guy's getting a hundred phone calls, 97 text messages, and 14 emails, and then he has to distill all of that information, go back to the trailer, write it out,

16:36 [SPEAKER_01]: fill out a bunch of fields and then hopefully the office will get what they need. [SPEAKER_01]: So that just fundamentally doesn't make sense to me. [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't make sense as a, you know, the superintendent shouldn't be spending two hours of his day in the trailer typing [SPEAKER_01]: The outcome that we're trying to provide is really just taking that superintendent off the screen, off your computer.

17:03 [SPEAKER_01]: You coordinate everything already verbally. [SPEAKER_01]: Every time a problem happens, the super uses their judgment. [SPEAKER_01]: They reason through something. [SPEAKER_01]: They talk to the the format or the supplier, they figure out a way forward, and that there you go, workflow done.

17:19 [SPEAKER_01]: The hard part then is letting everyone else know in the right place at the right time. [SPEAKER_01]: That's where hard line can jump in. [SPEAKER_01]: We're not replacing the need for a super. [SPEAKER_01]: We're just letting them do what they do best and having the software connect to the office for them.

17:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're doing what we've always wanted, right? [SPEAKER_00]: What's so important about them is not their eyes in the job, it's their eyes on the job. [SPEAKER_00]: Right, it's that's what and you're you're dead right because I remember when I first got into the industry we were really trying to make this industry much more accessible to other people and to grow right we need to grow ourselves into the environment of bringing more people in a more diverse background of people working inside our environment.

18:14 [SPEAKER_00]: groups of people that shouldn't do this work, it's that it's he calls it vuka right it's volatile it's uncertain it's complex and in many cases it's ambiguous and you need somebody who loves that and you love love's getting dirty and and being in the thick of it right because it's going to be that way so and I was like oh Chad you're absolutely right like we just have to make [SPEAKER_00]: that vuku world a bit easier a bit better and then bring those people in right like not everybody can do it but you're not going to know who those are if you don't open yourself up to it and you're absolutely right I was trying to find who the guest was but he'll remember but years and years ago we cut on to do this show with the guy who is running an airport job.

19:02 [SPEAKER_00]: And right before the call I were on the screens where there is way back in the day we had individual feeds to Skype boxes and and he's on the call is in his office and we're getting all the stuff tweaked. [SPEAKER_00]: And he's answering a question over here. [SPEAKER_00]: He's yelling at somebody this way.

19:20 [SPEAKER_00]: He's doing that. [SPEAKER_00]: James is trying to get him to start, and he's like, one second, this, this, this, shut that down, do this there. [SPEAKER_00]: I need 45 minutes, go. [SPEAKER_00]: And I've never felt more like, yes, sir. [SPEAKER_00]: I do what you say, sir. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, how do you know what's in your head?

19:42 [SPEAKER_00]: And he's like, oh, Jeff, I have hangers shutting down. [SPEAKER_00]: I have, I'm changing the roadways and the diverting the traffic. [SPEAKER_00]: And so my traffic guy's got to do this. [SPEAKER_00]: And this guy's got to do this. [SPEAKER_00]: And I got to pour this coming and that's got to do this.

19:59 [SPEAKER_00]: And I got 45 minutes for you guys. [SPEAKER_00]: So I can either explain this to you, or I can talk to you, which one you want me to do. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, let's just talk, maybe. [SPEAKER_00]: And I can't imagine like so what you're doing is you're capturing that and then translating that so do I need to pick something upstream like how how how how does that work like what what's the function here where do you sit in this layer and how does this happen.

20:23 [SPEAKER_01]: We enter at the phone call. [SPEAKER_01]: So kind of the first and foremost, like a kind of our, I think differentiator from other note takers or recording devices or whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: Is that we start with the phone call. [SPEAKER_01]: We know that a super intense in doing 50 to 100 phone calls a day.

20:38 [SPEAKER_01]: So when you turn on hard line, we work in the background. [SPEAKER_01]: And so every time that you have a phone call that mentions a decision, a detail, something that's relevant to a project we write it down. [SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, we support the same capabilities for a job site. [SPEAKER_01]: However, there is a requirement to push a button only because, you know, superintendent might not want everything documented all day long.

21:05 [SPEAKER_01]: But when you're in those relevant conversations, you turn it on. [SPEAKER_01]: Take a couple pictures, videos. [SPEAKER_01]: We use AI to analyze all of that and basically serve up on a silver platter. [SPEAKER_01]: Here's the things you decided today. [SPEAKER_01]: Here's what you're waiting on.

21:19 [SPEAKER_01]: Here's what you need to do to move this forward and kind of in a one click experience. [SPEAKER_01]: The admin burden of their day is taken care of. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I get where they're at with that. [SPEAKER_00]: I like the ability I was going to ask you that because sometimes I don't want everything documented.

21:35 [SPEAKER_00]: So they have some decisions too, like even though I have it on my phone and I've enabled it and I'm going, I can say like this isn't going into that record, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like again, there's things that need to be documented and things that don't necessarily, [SPEAKER_00]: So what are they doing with it, Carly what do I do with this now I've had my day and I've got my recap what am I doing yeah right now we're seeing.

22:08 [SPEAKER_02]: All ton of supers take, you know, 30 to 40 calls sometimes that has 30 to 40 decisions made and they do a site walk take their photos at the end of the day they ask the assistant hey do up my daily log based on all my conversations in site walk drafts it for them one click it sends to the system that they use.

22:32 [SPEAKER_02]: That's like one of the one main use cases that supers are getting benefit from another one is, you know, two weeks ago you decided on a color change or a scope change, you can ask what was that conversation, what was the outcome. [SPEAKER_02]: and pops it up immediately. [SPEAKER_02]: So, there's many ways we're seeing people use hard line, which is exciting, because PM supers, you know, project executives can use it and get value out of it.

23:03 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a cool piece there that you're doing all that. [SPEAKER_00]: And what you said, the key component, are you can send it up to where you want? [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm wondering, Elena, where did that trigger for you? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, I think there's a general consensus among people in construction that they're worried AI is going to take their job.

23:23 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think also, more robotics on job sites and stuff, and I have truly don't think AI is going to be taking anyone on a job sites job anytime soon, hopefully never. [SPEAKER_01]: But the way that we've built hard line is that human judgment and involvement is still a core part of how we work.

23:42 [SPEAKER_01]: That that's super intended, you know, there's always a human in the loop before anything is shared, but it kind of just does the legwork for them and allows them to kind of utilize their brain in a more efficient way. [SPEAKER_01]: And U.S. Carly, you know, what happens to that super when he's on hard line, he gets to go home earlier.

24:00 [SPEAKER_01]: I was on a phone with the, I was on the phone yesterday, actually, a super intended that we have been working with pretty closely called me last night, because he had a minor issue with the app and he, he said to me, you know, I just want you to know, I love this. [SPEAKER_01]: It's given me easily an hour back every single day.

24:19 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm on my way home. [SPEAKER_01]: It's 430. [SPEAKER_01]: That never happens. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm putting everyone I know on this. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm giving it to all my friends like this is this is massive this this has my back essentially I'm adding the has my back part but the rest he did say and it it was good to hear because we we want to be that for people.

24:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I'll highlight this because I want to, I want to drill into it, you've said this naturally without realizing it, mostly, I think. [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's on purpose, but augmented, augmented. [SPEAKER_00]: We want to augment. [SPEAKER_00]: We want to augment. [SPEAKER_00]: And you're absolutely right.

24:55 [SPEAKER_00]: The one place I would tell everybody, this really not coming for your jobs is construction. [SPEAKER_00]: And the only thing I will say [SPEAKER_00]: and Shimo Siddiqui was on and that's where I want robots, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Sparky is the one that's going to turn on the power so you don't have to hook them and pull a human off.

25:21 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to augment that because I want the robot to fry and us to laugh at the fried robot and have some become fix it. [SPEAKER_00]: Right, and that's, but it's augmentation, right? [SPEAKER_00]: That robot's not going to just know to go up and put the power on, right? [SPEAKER_00]: No, it's like, hey, do that thing.

25:37 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to do like write this daily log and spend a couple of hours. [SPEAKER_00]: And you want to go back, like we used to back in the day. [SPEAKER_00]: So if you say that about that person, we should say back in the day five minutes per person per day is a whole percentage point back on your bottom line.

25:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Think about hours and in a low margin business, think about the cushion you're creating. [SPEAKER_00]: But then also, I'm really focused on this at this moment like think about the experience. [SPEAKER_00]: I just had a discussion with a person in the electrical business about something that Bluebeam does with, you know, clicking over and I'm like, look at the ROI and he was like, it's not about ROI Jeff, you can't put an ROI on my happiness.

26:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, okay, we could put a percentage point back on the bottom line, but really that that super going home happier and come back to work in a better mood. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think there's a labor or a foreman or a PM who wouldn't like their super just to touch happy you're at the end of every day and hopefully starting the next day that way.

26:57 [SPEAKER_00]: But also, it's a critical component, you said, the paint color, right, paints important, like that's design intent, they pick that color for a reason, and they have to live in it and they will, it, it will earth them, just like your problem, Carly, earth you, it will earth you and, [SPEAKER_00]: You didn't have a reminder of that every time you walked into the building or walked through the place.

27:24 [SPEAKER_00]: So now you got this reminder that this wasn't done right. [SPEAKER_00]: Those are tough. [SPEAKER_00]: But when you talk about the world we're in right now with hyper scalers and data centers and advance manufacturing, well, we don't have time. [SPEAKER_00]: for that, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like a paint's cool, but we're talking about really complicated mechanical electrical plumbing systems and they're changing on a daily basis, right?

27:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm talking, I'm out there talking to data center builders and hyper scalers and they're like, [SPEAKER_00]: Jeff, somebody's inventing something at such a pace that then I'm redesigning while I'm building it. [SPEAKER_00]: Because either one, it's in a more environmentally friendly, it's better for power consumption, or two, it's a material problem.

28:14 [SPEAKER_00]: I got a lag time of 52 weeks, and I need this sucker turned on in 48. [SPEAKER_00]: Those three weeks of liquidated damages could kill everybody in the job. [SPEAKER_00]: So the stakes are really high for this now. [SPEAKER_01]: They are and I think it's going to continue to be that way outside of even that market.

28:36 [SPEAKER_01]: Like when we were part of suffix boost program last year and we got the opportunity to participate in an event where the CEO was there, John Fish presenting, giving like a keynote. [SPEAKER_01]: And he mentioned kind of his perspective about how important it is [SPEAKER_01]: Essentially, we, as a society need to be better at building, we need to build cheaper and faster.

29:00 [SPEAKER_01]: So people like me and our children can afford to live in buildings. [SPEAKER_01]: And so that, that kind of high stakes mentality, I think it's obviously very prevalent in the hyperscaler data center world. [SPEAKER_01]: But I also think it's really important for just regular consumers, you know, multi use [SPEAKER_01]: It needs to be more efficient so that we can afford to live in buildings.

29:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Look at that. [SPEAKER_00]: She's grounding me. [SPEAKER_00]: I like that because we said this, well, we've said this on the construction dorks. [SPEAKER_00]: I even said it and that's where we get to be a little bit more farther out there and if you guys haven't listened, listen into the dorks.

29:40 [SPEAKER_00]: I said, when are we going to, when are we going to learn? [SPEAKER_00]: And that's when John on the show, Jonathan Marsh was like, look Jeff, we are learning. [SPEAKER_00]: because if we do this right and we're building all this fabrication facilities and all this capacity and all this coordination and all these new techniques for data centers, hyperscalers, advanced manufacturers, that market as every market, EBS and flows.

30:04 [SPEAKER_00]: When it EBS, we're going to be back and we're going to go, you know what, we can do this with your hospitals too. [SPEAKER_00]: We can do this with your commercial real estate. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, wait till somebody wakes up and goes, [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, wait, I could do this for a housing crisis.

30:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Who's heard of one of those? [SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is where as a society, I agree with you, we have to be better at building. [SPEAKER_00]: We are on both sides, the most important industry to our economy and our world and one of the largest polluters and largest stresses and strains on that as well.

30:45 [SPEAKER_00]: So talk about a conundrum and a balance, that's where we live. [SPEAKER_00]: And we live in that balance. [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, everybody listens to tired of hearing it, but, you know, you don't wake up and worry about if your bed was going to fall through the floor or not. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you construction, you know, you don't drive over very many bridges and worry about if the car is going to fall through.

31:07 [SPEAKER_00]: and step for right now when we're in this world of, you know, of these crazy weather in the middle and washed out, um, bridges and roads. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, by the way, somebody's going to have to come back and rebuild that, and build it better and faster. [SPEAKER_00]: And we need that.

31:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Carly, you were going to jump in. [SPEAKER_00]: What's up? [SPEAKER_02]: Oh no, I wasn't. [SPEAKER_02]: I was just agreeing with you. [SPEAKER_02]: It is like crazy how the the I think really what hit me the hardest was being in Miami. [SPEAKER_02]: We were touring. [SPEAKER_02]: I think it was an 80 story building right Elena and we were at the top and we were seeing people just working literally with a hammer and like I'm like how.

31:54 [SPEAKER_02]: do people know what they're doing and how or how is this building staying like a above ground and it kind of was like a reality hit of there's so much deep knowledge in these people that we have to find a way to protect it in a way and protect the learning in this industry because otherwise [SPEAKER_02]: AI will allow people to cut corners and that super-intended or PM will have that lack of knowledge that the older senior ones did because they had to actually face the problems.

32:32 [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that's a moment that hit me so hard with the big picture of this all. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's the critical component, right? [SPEAKER_00]: That's why you guys are the founders of the future that we're looking for. [SPEAKER_00]: Because so many founders that came ahead of you beat this industry up.

32:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And I've spent seven years now, 10 years now doing this, saying stop beating them up. [SPEAKER_00]: Because I have a reference, I can't build anything. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm amazed, I'm amazed at a house, let alone an 80 story building, let alone these new like stadiums and data the art hospitals and I turned to any founder that talks down and go, yeah, okay, you can say that and all, but things get built and we do keep building are we.

33:28 [SPEAKER_00]: We're safer than we ever were. [SPEAKER_00]: We are more efficient because the complexity has gone up. [SPEAKER_00]: So we haven't rooted out the productivity problem, versus the complexity issue. [SPEAKER_00]: And this is data for people to play around with. [SPEAKER_00]: but you hit it, capturing and this is critical because we are losing our skilled labor and we don't want to bring in a new group without the skills.

33:55 [SPEAKER_00]: But if we can coderize and codify what that experience and what they know in the senior people, [SPEAKER_00]: We can figure out a way to bring that to them, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So people are like, Jeff, how does that come to play? [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, here's what it is.

34:15 [SPEAKER_00]: If that supers head is not in the computer, and it's on the job, and they see that form and with that crew, and they're like, wait, remember, you got to do this, you got to do this, and you check that. [SPEAKER_00]: did you reference the change? [SPEAKER_00]: Remember we talked last week about this.

34:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, I didn't think about that. [SPEAKER_00]: And then can ask them for a question. [SPEAKER_00]: We had this on the off camera like, how's AI gonna hurt us? [SPEAKER_00]: And how's it gonna help us? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it hurts us if I give you an answer, I spit out something at you, Carly.

34:55 [SPEAKER_00]: And you shut off everything and go Jeff explained that to me. [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, do stuff, do things, uh, versus what do you do? [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, well, this is how we're going to do it. [SPEAKER_00]: And, and I might not be completely right. [SPEAKER_00]: Right. [SPEAKER_00]: That's where the, the communication and coordination collaboration happens.

35:21 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's more importantly, where knowledge transfer happens. [SPEAKER_00]: Bam, I've got it in the back of my head. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I just took that general form in general super. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm a form in, I'm going out to do a thing. [SPEAKER_00]: Wow, and by the way, I'm also going to come back to you when I come back and be like, boss man, this is what happened.

35:44 [SPEAKER_00]: What, what, oh yeah, okay, you know, that happens, you know, all right, let's, let's, and now they have more time to communicate collaborate to pass that knowledge down and know it's getting where it goes. [SPEAKER_00]: So Elaine is like dying to jump in here. [SPEAKER_00]: She got something in her head.

36:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's up. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I could just say a million things about this topic, but I feel I feel so passionately about this. [SPEAKER_01]: There's so many like macro factors that kind of underwrite why this is important right now. [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously 40% of the labor force retiring in the next few years that's that's big and scary and really important knowledge transfer obviously super important.

36:27 [SPEAKER_01]: But the one thing that I wanted to speak about was the mention of time back, a lot of tools like to promise, we give your field teams time back. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what does that mean? [SPEAKER_01]: Why is that important? [SPEAKER_01]: The scenario that you just mentioned, I think, is really important because, in the example I share, like, a guy got to go home early.

36:48 [SPEAKER_01]: He's realistically, he's probably not leaving the job an hour early, but he gets a little bit of time back in his day, and where this begins to become really valuable is putting those people that are in leadership roles on the job to mentor the other folks because they now have time they're not bogged down with with reviewing everyone's reports and you know all the kind of admin requirements that come with being leadership on a job site.

37:13 [SPEAKER_01]: And so like in as much as time back for a super is important and it's important for them to be happy the business should care. [SPEAKER_01]: that that super is freed up. [SPEAKER_01]: And there's kind of two, I think, big value props that Hardline is poised to deliver to the office. [SPEAKER_01]: Number one, better focus on jobs, better mentoring and knowledge transfer.

37:33 [SPEAKER_01]: But number two, in a future world where agents are more prevalent on a job site and everyone's trying their hand at putting agents on a job site, agents are really good at doing a predictable workflow. [SPEAKER_01]: Name one thing on a job site that's predictable, [SPEAKER_01]: Nothing.

37:52 [SPEAKER_01]: So having that sort of digitized context around decisions become really, really valuable for an organization trying to deploy agents from the field. [SPEAKER_01]: So that's my two cents I was dying to say. [SPEAKER_00]: I love it because I mean we've talked about this forever like if you're thinking about the estimating like remember I come from the precom world for a while and nobody oh we're going to give you all these hours back no estimator went home at 35 hours in the week.

38:23 [SPEAKER_00]: at the end of it. [SPEAKER_00]: No. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we're like, hey, let's get from 80 to 60, maybe you're 50. [SPEAKER_00]: But let's do that. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's understand our decisions. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's focus on knowledge transfer. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's focus on not getting the bid out.

38:38 [SPEAKER_00]: But let's, is it quality? [SPEAKER_00]: Is it something I should bid? [SPEAKER_00]: Is it a job? [SPEAKER_00]: I should chase. [SPEAKER_00]: And then here it's a, hey, great. [SPEAKER_00]: They're in a better mood, so better conversations, for sure. [SPEAKER_00]: But ultimately, to the way you learn is thinking about the way you think, which is really hard.

39:03 [SPEAKER_00]: We cannot speed that up, and because, you know, here's a rover, it's experienced experience. [SPEAKER_00]: But what hard line is proposing is, I'm gonna give you an hour of focused time. [SPEAKER_00]: out of the mundane and into the decisions. [SPEAKER_00]: And then we can talk about the decision-making process.

39:26 [SPEAKER_00]: So just like I said, that Foreman was headed out and the supers talking to them and probably correcting them as be honest, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like they're in that moment, right? [SPEAKER_00]: They got nine crews going out and they got trades stacking everywhere and they're like, no, Junior, do it the way I said, don't forget about this, go.

39:46 [SPEAKER_00]: But then they get back and they're like, and juniors like, well, and you're like, okay, let's talk about why I said those things to you. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about, let's get above the decision and talk about the process. [SPEAKER_00]: And now all of a sudden, because no two days are alike, no two job sites are alike, we've seen people try to build two buildings next to each other, and it's still never the same.

40:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Right. [SPEAKER_00]: So we can't focus on, oh, an agent can repeatedly do this, uh, a person has to think a person has to make decisions and that has to be based on information under context is an knowledge to do the right thing. [SPEAKER_00]: And now you guys what you're doing is you're just adding to the layer of that to give us time and that's really where the critical knowledge transfer happens in our industry.

40:40 [SPEAKER_00]: So I think you guys are on to something. [SPEAKER_00]: I knew you were on to it before, but it's really exciting to see both come back and still have the server. [SPEAKER_00]: It's still be running. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just excited. [SPEAKER_00]: What? [SPEAKER_00]: All right. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to each of you here predict the future in three years.

40:58 [SPEAKER_00]: If you're looking back at your journey in hard line, what's changed in the industry? [SPEAKER_02]: I think 90% of people aren't scared of AI like they were. [SPEAKER_02]: That's a big one. [SPEAKER_02]: I think people aren't kind of scared a little bit skeptical. [SPEAKER_02]: So the acceptance of it is higher and they're safer.

41:20 [SPEAKER_02]: job sites are a lot safer in my opinion. [SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome. [SPEAKER_01]: In my three year vision people spend less times on screens just across the board the kind of interface that people. [SPEAKER_01]: sort of communicate with technology is natural. [SPEAKER_01]: I also think, hopefully, the kind of younger generation is entering the industry more, because there's now really creative and cool ways to learn, get up to speed and kind of participate in the industry.

41:46 [SPEAKER_01]: It's better culturally for a young talent. [SPEAKER_01]: And hopefully, just more building, like better GDP, more houses, more multi-family buildings, people can afford to live, and that's because buildings getting more efficient. [SPEAKER_00]: say it's grounded in a solution and you heard them, they say AI a couple times, but they're not the hype machine and that is so critical because I think you're right, we're in this really scary phase and we're in the hype cycle, depending on which technology it is, depending on where you are and what you're building, you're in a different version of it, but [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it is, teams like you that are reverent of the industry ground it in a problem, but focused on, we're not going to solve it for you, right?

42:37 [SPEAKER_00]: We're just going to help you. [SPEAKER_00]: And like that helping hand to get to that next generation. [SPEAKER_00]: And we've said this over and over, [SPEAKER_00]: If we can get to our decision-making process, better, we can impact the future. [SPEAKER_00]: And so if we can bring in these newer, younger talent, that's what they care about, too.

42:58 [SPEAKER_00]: By the way, if you guys are listening in on the show and you're running a company and you're thinking about the 18-year-olds right now, [SPEAKER_00]: They care more about the environment than any previous one because they're watching it be destroyed in front of them. [SPEAKER_00]: The things I joked about with bridges washing away and the amount of natural disaster happening.

43:20 [SPEAKER_00]: They are living and growing up through it and it is leaving an impression. [SPEAKER_00]: And I've heard them wanna leave our business and not use AI because of its impacts. [SPEAKER_00]: we have to show them that its impacts when used correctly can have a positive impact on the environment and then we can move forward.

43:39 [SPEAKER_00]: So, and I think, again, founders like you too are [SPEAKER_00]: headed us in the right direction. [SPEAKER_00]: It makes me feel good. [SPEAKER_00]: This next gen is headed down this and it's having that experience. [SPEAKER_00]: So I would love to keep this going and we're going to bring you back, you know, you'll be back.

43:54 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure. [SPEAKER_00]: But Carly, thank you for coming on and taking the time. [SPEAKER_00]: Let everybody know where to find a little bit more about hard line. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_02]: We're always happy to hop back on. [SPEAKER_02]: We love chatting with you. [SPEAKER_02]: And you've given so many good book reps.

44:09 [SPEAKER_02]: So we'll always take a new book rack every time as well. [SPEAKER_00]: You can find us at hardlineapp.com. [SPEAKER_02]: That's probably the easiest Elena and I are both very active on LinkedIn because that's the world we're in now. [SPEAKER_02]: So you can find us on LinkedIn as well. [SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome.

44:24 [SPEAKER_00]: Elena, thank you so much for sitting out with me and it's been really fun to have you too on the show and have this competing industry technology. [SPEAKER_00]: So thank you so much for coming on and sharing the wisdom. [SPEAKER_00]: Pleasure is mine. [SPEAKER_00]: This was so fun. [SPEAKER_00]: And thank you for tuning in today to geek out for our interview with Carly and Elena.

44:44 [SPEAKER_00]: To read all our new stories learn more about our guests [SPEAKER_00]: This is the content crew signing out until next time enjoy the ride and geek out