Kevin Halter has spent about 15 years figuring out how technology actually gets bought in construction. He led sales at PlanGrid as the company grew from roughly $5 million to $120 million in revenue before its $875 million acquisition by Autodesk, then spent six years helping build 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 buyer is often much closer to the project — the superintendent or project executive whose P&L and bonus depend on delivering the job. We get into why PlanGrid won by obsessing over the field, how to structure pilots that can actually expand across an enterprise, why integrations matter more than founders think, and where Kevin believes the biggest opportunities remain outside the commercial GC. He also tells the inside story of diligencing DroneDeploy’s Series A, why he thinks skilled tradespeople have little to fear from AI, and what he makes of the wave of private equity rolling up MEP contractors.
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 Welcome
04:55 Engineer, Pfizer, and starting Getable
09:40 Kevin Spain and the drone diligence
11:35 Airware's $100 million and the drone wars
12:45 DroneDeploy takes over the competitor's lease
15:30 Joining PlanGrid
18:15 Venture money, boards, and how much to raise
22:15 Labor shortage, retirements, and data centers
25:10 Get off Zoom
29:00 COVID, customer tours, and in-person selling
32:25 Team composition and solution engineers
35:15 Structured pilots and land-and-expand
39:10 In-house innovation teams
40:35 Tier zero
41:40 The innovation team has no budget
43:05 Point tools, services, and integration
47:55 Stop building for the commercial GC
49:50 Sustaining versus disruptive innovation
52:45 Start where the market is underserved
55:30 Consolidation, M&A, and going headless
1:00:45 Who should be afraid of automation
1:01:55 Permitting, zoning, and the cost of building
1:04:15 Owners buy certainty
1:09:20 Making construction a career people choose
1:14:05 PE money and the MEP roll-ups
1:19:35 Ten years out
1:26:10 What Kevin advises on now
Jason Jacobs: [00:00:00] Welcome to BuiltForward, the podcast exploring where construction is heading over the next decade, and how AI and other emerging technologies will and won't transform the industry. I'm Jason Jacobs, a longtime startup founder, investor, and the host. Let's get into it
As I've spent more time in construction technology, one thing has become clear: this industry has a long memory. Every new wave of startups arrives convinced that it's different. Some are. Many aren't. Today's guest has had a front row seat to several of those waves. Kevin Halter spent about 15 years selling technology into construction.
He led sales at PlanGrid during its run from roughly 5 million to more than 100 million in revenue before Autodesk acquired the company for about 875 million. He then spent six years inside Autodesk helping bring those acquisitions together into what [00:01:00] became Autodesk Construction Cloud. Before construction, Kevin trained as an engineer, sold pharmaceuticals to hospitals at Pfizer, and co-founded an equipment rental marketplace for contractors back in 2012, probably about a decade too early.
Today, he advises and invests in construction technology companies and serves on a number of boards. In our conversation, we talk about why so many construction software companies stall before reaching scale, how selling to contractors has changed over the past decade, what AI is likely to change and what it probably won't, and what Kevin has learned from seeing the industry from both the startup and incumbent perspectives.
We also talk about DroneDeploy. Kevin was involved in the diligence on the company's Series A f- financing before Emergence Capital led the round, and he shares a story from those early days that, as far as I know, has never been told publicly. We happened to record the day after Procore announced its acquisition of DroneDeploy, which made the timing especially fun.[00:02:00]
Kevin Halter, welcome to Built Forward.
Kevin Halter: Hey, thank you for having me, Jason
Jason Jacobs: Uh, thanks for coming. Um, I'm a little scared. Um, so I, I recorded with, um, with Guy Saxelby from EarlyTrade, um, actually earlier today. I try not to do two in a day. Two is a lot, but here we are. Um, it's through your introduction, um, but, um, yeah, when I finished that one, I was pretty high energy, and Guy told me that, um, uh, that you were like, you know, like me times 10.
So, um, so I'm a little scared coming into this one, but, uh, we'll see how it goes
Kevin Halter: Yes, I'm, I'm known for my, my energy and passion, so, uh, yeah, happy to bring it to your show
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. Well, um, yeah, I'm, I'm definitely excited for this one. Um, you know, as you know, 'cause we, we spoke, uh, a few weeks ago, I'm, uh, new to construction and, I'm eager to learn and spending all my time here professionally, but definitely, um, coming in cautiously and humbly because I realize how much I don't know.
Um, [00:03:00] you, uh, ha- uh, uh, have not only worked in, um, you know, some of the biggest success stories in construction tech, but now you seem to be advising a lot of the most notable ones. Um, so your perspective is one that's just so hugely helpful to me as I'm trying to figure things out, so I'm grateful for you, um, making the time to do this.
Kevin Halter: I have, I have a ton of respect for you as a, as an entrepreneur, you know, in technology. You've built many successful companies, and I think you represent, um, a great trend that I'm seeing in the space, where you're having proven entrepreneurs, company builders, technologists, right, that may be built in other spaces coming into construction to build great things, right?
We need, we need, we need more people building, you know, great things to solve the challenges and opportunities in this space. And so that's an awesome thing to see, but it's important to come with that humility, right? That ability [00:04:00] to listen, seek to understand, get in the trenches with end users on project sites, you know.
And that is how I entered the space, right? If you come in saying, you know, you're an expert, you have people that have built the biggest hospitals, the biggest schools, the biggest, most complex data centers, biotech facilities, roads, bridges, and they've been-- they've done this for 20, 30, 40 plus years, right?
And they probably did it with little to no technology, especially in the early stage of their career. So you have to really earn the trust of the people building the buildings of tomorrow, and you do that with humility. You do that by being in the, in, in person with them and listening and seeking to understand and asking questions and learning.
And, and you have that attitude, so I know you'll, you'll find a way to be successful in this space.
Jason Jacobs: Oh, well, thanks for saying that. Um, I'm-- I, I, I hope so. Uh, I guess my, my first question to kick [00:05:00] things off is, um, I mean, it looks like you started your career in more on the pharma side and, and so how did you find your way into construction? And, and also, um, you know, are you, uh, a technology revenue leader that happens to work with a bunch of construction companies, or do you identify as being, um, you know, a, uh, in, in construction specifically when you think about, um, yeah, how you define yourself professionally?
Kevin Halter: Yeah, no, I think, um... Yeah, I started my career as a engineer and went to school at Tufts University, so, um, in Boston. And I actually got into biotech via studying in entrepreneurial business studies and actually having my dad sick growing up. So kidney failure, kidney transplant, immunocompromised for my whole childhood and, and I wanted the opportunity to kinda build a business, and field sales is a great way to do that, you know?
So out of college, I ran a portion of a portfolio in [00:06:00] Connecticut, and that allowed me to sell to healthcare systems and, you know, physician practices, but it was life-saving therapeutics. And it was a great way to learn because you're the face of the company in those markets. You're doing your own outbound sales.
You're doing your own marketing. You're building the brand. You're building the trust. You're driving references and referrals. It's very entrepreneurial. You make up your day in the week. I think field sales is one of the greatest ways to accelerate growth but learn entrepreneurial skills. I was successful doing that.
I, you know, fortunate to be, uh, top in , you know, back-to-back years, and that brought me a couple options and brought me out west because to really work with some of the leading healthcare systems that influence the rest of the healthcare market. And that was, you know, sunny San Francisco or cloudy San Francisco, where you have some of the leading physicians and systems, especially with highly immunocompromised patients, um, cancer and so forth.
Um, so I, I was in that career [00:07:00] for about seven, eight years. Um, but I was an engineer by trade, and I, I loved, you know, I loved biotech, that it was high-skilled labor, labor shortages, very smart, successful people. I didn't love, um, the reimbursement dynamics, right? You could, you could save a healthcare system money, have better outcomes for a patient.
It didn't always Uh, result in, in more sales, right? Y- it had-- You know, how's the healthcare system making money, right? So it was, it was a great learning experience. I learned a ton, strategic account sales, you know, adding value, but also how do you pay for things? How do you get reimbursed? But I loved construction, um, that you had hardworking men and women that were underserved by technology, and if you save them time and money, there's a business there, right?
It's a little bit more direct ROI versus, you know, you know, third-party insurance companies. And, and frankly, at the time, [00:08:00] San Francisco, you were building new hospitals, new corporate campuses. There was just construction everywhere. And one of my close friends worked at DPR Construction. I had other friends working at NextEra Energy, so a variety of, you know, companies and leading firms in the built world.
And it was early days of mobile. And having my entrepreneurial background, I was like, "Hey, I could go get my MBA," nothing, nothing against that, or I could build s- build a company myself. And started a company. It was early days of sharing economy, building an equipment rental marketplace. You know, how to effectively use assets.
And it started out more horizontal, but then we got picked up, um, strongly by the professional trades in construction. So then we really narrowed our scope to a construction equipment rental marketplace k- and took off from there. So it was self-performed, civil construction. You're in the field. And to kinda answer your second question, you know, after [00:09:00] that company, I, I did have opportunities.
We had investors from PayPal. We had investors, um, you know, from a, a lot of marketplace investors, and one of my mentors and angels was Max Levchin. Um, tremendous respect for him. Uh, if you ever get a chance to meet him, work with him, I, I can only say great things about him and David Sacks and everyone. I had opportunities to go work for, um, Max's company or firm, but it was completely out of construction, right?
I love Max. I'd work for him in a heartbeat. But I had this interesting dynamic, hey, do I, do I stay in construction or not? Um, and when I left my company, I actually took about six months to think about what's next. And one of those people I met with was, uh, Kevin Spain. He's a partner at Emergence Capital.
Um, and I bring him up because it's very timely with a recent acquisition yesterday. And Kevin did not-- was not an investor in my first startup. Um, there was, you
Jason Jacobs: Was that Ron Dupuy?
Kevin Halter: Yeah, uh, Ke- my first startup was a [00:10:00] company called
Getable, so it was a
Jason Jacobs: no, the acquisition yesterday
Kevin Halter: acquisition was DroneDeploy by Procore, and Kevin Spain was getting ready to lead their Series A.
Um, he said, "Hey, Kevin, I think this construction tech market, you know, software market's small today, but I think it's gonna be big, right? And I'm probably gonna lead this Series A in DroneDeploy. I'd love for you to meet the entrepreneur. I'd love for you to get your-- I would love to get your thoughts on the drone market."
And, and he goes, "Kevin, I think you're one of less than five people who knows how to build and scale revenue in this space." And that was a big compliment coming from a person, Kevin Spain, a f- and a firm, Emergence Capital, early day. Veeva, by the way, was big in biotech, right? They were the early investors in Veeva, one of the OGs of vertical software.
So I was a customer of Veeva's, right? And so I knew of Emergence Capital being very early into B2B software trends. And [00:11:00] Kevin, to this day, is a great mentor to me and a trusted advisor for my career. And so that stuck with me. It's like, hey, I could build a brand. I could have an impact in, in an industry that's still early days that could be a lot bigger.
You know, fast-forward over a decade, there's been more investment in construction the past quarter than, you know, over a year-- than, than last year combined, right? And it's, this quarter's gonna be even more, right? And so it-- there's just tons of capital, and the market is growing for, for many reasons we can discuss.
But yeah, I, I did. I sat down, I spent a couple months doing due diligence in the reality capture space, looking specifically at drone. This is when there was many well-funded drone companies, Airware from Andreessen, $100 million plus investment, which at the time, that was a lot of money. Hundred million's a lot.
And I recommended to-
Jason Jacobs: now it's like a seed round.
Kevin Halter: Yeah, and I, I, I-- It's [00:12:00] wild right now. I recommended to Kevin, um, and agreed with his thesis around a software-first approach, hardware-agnostic robotics company. Kevin's thesis was right. Um, I had spent time with Mike Wynne and his founding team. I thought Mike was an incredible entrepreneur, extremely passionate, visionary, had great technology for autonomous drones, and frankly, I just knew he would find a way to win.
And I remember going to his, his office and flying drones off the rooftop, right? He was one of the few offices in Soma that you could fly drones off the roof And, and I-- Kevin Mu Ford led that Series A. Fast-forward a year later, uh, or in the subsequent years, those other drone companies went under. Um, and DroneDeploy eventually moved into Airware's fancy office in Soma, took over the lease of their competitor.
Amazing. [00:13:00] So I went to visit Mike a few years later, where he, he had upgraded his office, uh, to Airware's, where you could also fly drones inside and outside. And, but a lot fancier office because that was a $100 million raised company, right? So what a cool experience. This story has never been told, to go from a very small, humble office flying drones to not just beating your competitor, but taking over their lease.
I mean, that sends a statement. He won. Mike Wynn w-won the drone wars. And I have no horse in this race. I'm not... You know, at that time, I, I was not angel investing. I did, I did-- I'm not an angel investor in, in DroneDeploy. I am not an advisor at DroneDeploy, but I am a Mike Wynn fan. And, and I am obviously a Kevin Spain fan as well.
So, um, it's been awesome to watch Mike's journey. Um, this story, you know, his story needs to be told. You know, there, there are ups and downs in building his company, but his perseverance, grit, [00:14:00] and finding a way to win and being true to his mission resulted in one of the largest outcomes in several years in the construction tech market, you know, joining Procore, a dominant platform i-in the space, uh, to combine forces with another company that I was an advisor and investor in, Data Grid, that was acquired not that long ago.
So this emerging business at Procore combining Data Grid's AI agents and DroneDeploy's reality capture in the sky a-and across many robotics on a job site is a compelling value proposition for Procore. But they bought a great entrepreneur, um, in Mike, and yeah, I, I elected to stay in construction tech. I, uh, I, I did not end up joining DroneDeploy, but I, I r-rooted for him.
I ended up meeting also Hunter Walk was another person I called, and a tremendous, uh, mentor, advisor to me as well, [00:15:00] who's not an
investor In,
Jason Jacobs: in me. In me, actually. Yeah. I know
Kevin Halter: I love Hunter. Um, and he connected me at the time to Dustin Devon, and it was very early days of Building Connected, a little too early, uh, to join pre-revenue, but same thing, built a long-term trusted relationship, and years later, we both got a chance to, to work together at, at, at, at, you know, between Building Connected and PlanGrid at Autodesk.
But yeah, I elected to stay in the industry. I had known Tracy Young for almost 18 months. We... And Ryan Sutton Gee and, and Ralph Goody, the whole founding team, because PlanGrid and my company Gettable were being used on many of the same job sites. Um, pr- specifically, Granite Construction was an early design partner, phenomenal partner in civil construction for, for Gettable, and the same site superintendents were using both of our mobile platforms.
And as much as we were saving a lot of time and money on the supply chain around, you know, heavy [00:16:00] equipment and just rental assets, PlanGrid was changing how they delivered work and executed work. And a senior site superintendent said, "Hey, Kevin, I love what your company's doing, but this thing is really changing how we're delivering work across our portfolio."
So when, you know, shortly after raising our next round of financing, um, you know, ended up joining, um, moving on and joining PlanGrid, and the rest is kind of history, and, and that's another great story to tell. But you're right, I, I elected to stay, joined PlanGrid, worked with many of the same people at PlanGrid and Autodesk for about a decade, and now I've been in this space 15 plus years, and you just fall-- Once you work in this space, you fall in love with it.
There's people that used to work for me and, and we built great things together who have left the space, they came back. You know, you, you, you fall in love with this space. You can make money many ways, and yes, you could pr- probably make more money, um, serving You know, [00:17:00] um, CTOs and engineers and making them more productive or, or lawyers like Harvey and others.
But you're talking about physical real world, the buildings, the assets around us, the schools, the hospitals, everything you see around you, you can impact those hardworking men and women and, and that is something that you will never forget. And I think that impact, that purpose, that's what keeps me here.
So yes, I am a revenue leader. I'm an entrepreneur. I've seen everything from fa- from founder, zero to-- from, from pre-product to, to revenue, all the way to scaling within a publicly traded company, a five hundred million dollar plus new business. So I've seen the multiple stages of, of growth and company building, and now I'm using that experience, that network, those skills to help other entrepreneurs succeed in this space.
And my passion really is around that built world ecosystem, um, and anything that kinda serves that. [00:18:00] There's a lot of similarities to manufacturing, right? Construction especially. So I do also love the manufacturing side, energy feeds into construction. So everything kinda surrounding that built world, um, where my passion lies.
Hard tech
Jason Jacobs: And you, you mentioned that, um, you know, that the, the venture money that's going into the space has been, uh, increasing a lot. It, it seems like the space, and correct me if I'm wrong, but, um, has mixed feelings about that. And I'm just curious from your perspective, um, w- uh, what are the right uses of venture, and when is venture a good thing, an additive to the space, and, and when can it be misguided or detrimental?
Kevin Halter: Yeah. Yeah, no, 100%. It, it's a great question. I do wanna first just once again congratulate Mike Wynn and the team there, Kevin Spain, who's now Emergence is an investor in Bedrock Robotics, another great company in the space, physical [00:19:00] intelligence, and, you know, just being early to the game, taking a bet on contact when it wasn't, uh, you know, really a software-defined category like biotech or, you know, or HR tech, you name it.
So yeah, this space is unique where... And I advise my portfolio on fundraising. You mentioned Guy helped raise the most recent round. Honored to join his board. He's a, he's a winner. He's g- he's gonna find a way to win in his space. But as I advise all my entrepreneurs, you wanna optimize for the right, uh, partner on your board.
Um, a partner can help your company, uh, build or can destroy a company. Um, and you wanna, uh, you wanna optimize for that, not a valuation, right? Raise enough money so you don't have to raise for another two to three years, but unless you need to accelerate things, but raise what you need, not some unrealistic amount, 'cause that gives you optionality.
As much as people don't wanna [00:20:00] say, "Oh, you know, you're not building for M&A." Yeah, y- you build a company, you don't build it to sell it. But the reality is going IPO is harder than even 10 years ago, and now it's the, the, the bar just keeps getting raised. So, but in construction, there's a lot of natural acquirers.
It's not just the Procores and, and the Autodesk in terms of the technology platforms. It's the entire supply chain, right? It i- it's Home Depot, you know, Ventures, United Rentals. There's a lot of major publicly traded and private firms that are investing in the space, acquiring in the space, and have been for years.
So you have this huge actually network of potential strategic investors and acquirers, and the space is only getting bigger. So don't raise too much that you limit your options. If you raise so much at a such high valuation, you are kinda going [00:21:00] public or, or bust. That's okay, right? Just know you're on that journey, you know, and, and, and know that that's where you're going for.
You can have those outcomes. Equipment Share just went public, right? Has built a, a phenomenal business. There is-- I'm working with a company now that I believe has a public, you know, trajectory. It... You're gonna see more and more of that 'cause the space is growing. So, but know when to raise that growth capital, when you've proven that and when not to.
So yes, there's a lot of money coming to the space I think there's a lot of money. Um, the space needs it. I love that the space is getting funded, but there's also a lot of people coming to the space that may not have-- understand the space. They're investing in the space because physical AI is now a, you know, a term.
There's fear of missing out on this trend, people of waking up to the opportunity in construction. [00:22:00] As I was telling another entrepreneur this morning, this opportunity has always been there. This is nothing new. It actually has nothing to do with AI. AI sure is an accelerant, but this opportunity has been there for years.
People have just been sleeping on it. The reality is there's been a skilled labor shortage that we've been talking about for decades. There's not enough electricians, plumbers, you name it. You know, people were not going into the trades. The other thing we were talking about 10, 15 years ago, though, was the retirement of experienced labor, and that is hitting right now.
So you've always had the skilled labor shortage. The data center boom has put an extra squeeze on it, you know, so that, that is a, a real tailwind. But on top of that, that experienced labor who've been building things for decades, we were talking about it. Well, now's the time. They're all retiring. So it's a double whammy of a skilled labor shortage that's always been in existence, the retirement of experienced [00:23:00] labor, and then third, you have all the data center, which is a once in a lifetime type of, you know, building.
And those three factors are compelling people to invest in technology, whether it's robotics, whether it's AI, whether it's just software platforms in general to do more with the same workforce
Jason Jacobs: Uh, is it-- it seems like one frustration of the, um, uh, of, of the, um, c- contractors, uh, f-for example, although certainly, um, I would imag-- you know, contractors where I've been, um, spending some time, uh, learning, but I'm, I'm sure this applies in other areas of construction tech as well. But a frustration is that, um, that the software being built looks, um, pretty in a demo, but when you actually get in, uh, you either you can't trust it or it doesn't fit with the workflows i-in terms of how work actually gets done.[00:24:00]
Um, and it, and it seems like there's kind of a, a chicken and egg, because if you know how to build great software but you haven't spent time in the trades, on the one hand, like you said in the beginning of the discussion, it, it's great that more attention is being spent here because then better software will get built.
But if it doesn't meet how work is actually getting done, then it won't be adopted. And because of the labor shortage, shops don't necessarily have the time to spend educating the software people coming in. And they've been burned because the cost of building is getting so much lower that there's just more slop that has pretty demos and doesn't have the goods, um, underneath.
So what, what are you seeing and w- and what counsel do you have for people like me that are interested in the space for the reasons that you mentioned, you know, the importance of it, the fact that it's ripe for change, the, you know, the, the purpose of like, you know, helping, you know, helping the people that are powering the world that we live in, right?
Um, [00:25:00] with, um, uh, um, you know, h-h- like how should they come in in a way that, um, will actually meet the shops where they are and break that chicken and egg?
Kevin Halter: Yeah. My, my kinda tagline is get off Zoom. You know, um, I-- Companies that spend too much time on Zoom, you know, they, they miss the opportunity. You know, PlanGrid went from five to 120 million in four years, which at the time was one of the fastest growing B2B SaaS companies. And It's because we were not sit- behind Zoom in an office.
We were out there in the field. You know, our sales teams, our implementation teams, our R&D teams, we had hard hats. Every new employee had a hard hat. You know, we, we had steel-toed boots. We were walking projects. We were walking job sites. We were earning that trust, but we were also understanding how to build to fit into their existing workflows.
We had a [00:26:00] tremendous, like, R&D team that really focused on ease of use. Ease of use, less buttons, less clicks, all, like, how can we streamline this to make it like Amazon one-click? How can we have speed, work everywhere, no internet? That's a real reason on job sites, no internet or very slow internet, and these are huge, you know, documents and files and constant, you know, refreshes.
And then work on every platform and, and never fail, never go down, right? And that, you know, the backend infrastructure team, the design team, all that work went into how it could be seamless the way they worked, how could you use technology to delight the end user that they couldn't do manually or efficiently.
We, we had AI in our technology, early days, and around version control. But so much time and effort... Even I remember questioning our team once and saying, "Hey, you know, should you build another [00:27:00] feature that people have been asking for versus removing another button, another step, automating this?" No, no. That extra 20 seconds saved, let's say, is a difference between maybe someone using the platform, telling their, their peers at the job site, telling other people at the company, but just driving this adoption curve through the roof and building that customer love.
And our R&D team was right. We built tremendous customer love by being some software that fit in with how they operated, but delight-- allowed them to do things faster and more efficiently and communicate in new ways. And, you know, KISS, keep it simple, right? And we would say you don't teach someone how to use Amazon, right?
There's nothing wrong about setting standards or rolling out, but, like, it's gotta be simple, and you gotta earn the trust of the people in the field. And our R&D teams, our go-to-market, you know, customer-facing teams were in the [00:28:00] field with the end users. That needs to be in your DNA. Um, if I see a company in the space that's not spending their time in the field, I'm like, "I don't know if they're...
I don't think they're gonna succeed." Whether it's building the product or selling it, um- In, in construction, they're not sitting in an office, they're on site, right? There are different people remotely collaborating. I'm, I'm not saying, and they're leveraging a ton of technology, but you need to be by the side of the users, whether it's in their office, right?
Understanding their workflow and how they communicate, whether it's in their warehouse, you know, and how they deliver to a job site, whether it's with one of their suppliers, whether it's on the construction project itself. You just have to be in person understanding these workflows. I, I can't double tap on that enough
Jason Jacobs: Uh, well, to double tap on that, um, what are some, some examples of the right way to do that, and what are some examples of some wrong ways to do that that might be, you know, too presumptuous, off-putting, too salesy, et cetera?
Kevin Halter: [00:29:00] Um, I think COVID was really bad for, um, salespeople in general. I think a lot of people got paid a lot because people were kind of pulled forward spend, "Oh, I need, you know, kind of technology tools to collaborate and communicate." Um, in construction specifically, projects became more remote and hybrid. Um, that trend has not-- has only continued because data centers and other projects are-- tend to be not in the middle of nowhere, but not near the city core.
So projects are larger, more complex, more even spread out, um, but also in remote locations. So the need for technology colla-- and, and the stakeholders who are collaborating on a project tend to be everywhere. And whether you're in Boston or the Bay Area, tra- even if it's in the city, traffic is crazy. So the need for remote collaboration and different types of technology tools have only accelerated and will always be a need.
But There's a reason why contractors hold meetings in person. It, it is to cut through that noise. It is to [00:30:00] build that collaboration and that trust, and I am always surprised when I-- if a startup is not doing that. So some of the things, you know, some of my playbooks that always work, always worked 10, 15 years ago, but work and are required these days, is doing things like customer tours, doing regular tours where you're going out, meeting with executives, projects, you know, in the office, on the site, and you're, you know, in a local region meeting with people, understanding their needs, sharing what you're doing, just doing a regular cadence around customer tours, industry events, hosting your own events, in person, in person, in person.
Now, with AI slop, all the, all the investment, all the noise, how are you gonna break through that noise? Well, you know, there are definitely, you know, you know, pod-- be-- you know, sharing your story on podcasts is one, but breaking through your noise to shake hands, [00:31:00] um, are more important than ever. And so that investment in getting out there in the field is, is super important.
Even at Autodesk, people are like, "Oh, Autodesk, you got this brand machine. You got AU." No, Autodesk, when we were there, we're a design company. You know, they were moving from a design to a design and make or design and build. That's why we were a incubated separate business unit, an emerging business unit, because most of the company and how they made money was all design.
So even us, we had to build a new brand at Autodesk. We had to compete and take market share from Procore, which we did. We didn't do that by sitting at home. We did that by having our own customer events, going to visit people at their office, building those long-term trusted relationships. How can we be the best trusted partner?
Now, with AI, it's even more important. You have to become their trusted partner as they innovate and take their company next level. They can't, as you said, work with every startup. They can't pilot every startup. They [00:32:00] can't implement everything. So I tell my startups, "You're not competing against your competition.
You're competing against every single context solution in the space. Everyone. How are you gonna break through the noise? How are you gonna attach to one of their top three strategic business initiatives? How are you gonna deliver results? How are you gonna be their trusted partner of choice?"
Jason Jacobs: Uh, so given that, um, h-how do you think about team composition when you're evaluating what teams to get involved with, or even just what teams you, uh, are, are most bullish on d-directionally? Are there themes across the teams that you seek or have seen most successful, or is it all over the map?
Kevin Halter: Um, you know, if you, if you look at If you look at across the board, th-they're, you know, coming from the industry and solving your own problem, there's definitely advantages. You, [00:33:00] you know you're solving your own problem. But also coming from outside the industry, you may know technology and you have, like, no biases, right?
So the-- both can be, I believe, successful. It's not just built by builders. I know there's an organization that does that, and they are su-very successful entrepreneurs like Dustin Devon, who I talked about. You know, but there's also other entrepreneurs that, you know, come in with humility and seek to understand, right?
Um, Bedrock Robotics did not come from construction. They're doing some pretty fantastic things, right? So seek to understand the space. But I do think you do need, you know, world-class technologists. Obviously, you're building a technology company, right? If you're doing robotics, you need some people that know robotics.
It does help to have-- If you don't have that domain expertise, hire some people that do, right? You know, we used to call them solution engineers, but really they were people from the field coming in to help our pilots, help adoption and implementation, but also help enable our entire sales team maybe that didn't come [00:34:00] from construction, but they knew how to sell software, or as well as our R&D team.
You know, they... Great software technologists, especially at PlanGrid, amazing mobile, you know, coming from Apple and all these fantastic places, but th-they're, they didn't come from the field, right? So having, hiring some, you know, domain experts from whatever market you're serving join the company to help, you know, honestly enable everyone as well as help y-you know, win these pilots, win these competitive deals are huge.
I am best friends with my solution engineers to this day. It's amazing to see how they've grown their careers. Some of them have eventually moved into sales. Some of them moved to cus-customer success. Others have, you know, are managing, uh, large teams of solution engineers. And, you know, but they, they spent 5, 10, 15 years, you know, in the field, and they brought that knowledge, also that domain knowledge, but also how you talk about things, and that builds a lot of trust.
So great [00:35:00] technologist, hire or have someone in the founding team with domain expertise, and you gotta figure out go-to-market, right? You know, i-if y-you could have a great product, you'd be solving a real problem, but the real challenge in this space is go-to-market and distribution.
Jason Jacobs: Uh, and then how, how does that come back around to zero to one when you think about, um, successful pilots, design partners versus not? Um, do you have any biases there or, um, have you seen multiple approaches be successful?
Kevin Halter: Yeah. You know, I think, and, and, and to kind of finish the thing on entrepreneurs, I, I look for people that have, like, something to prove. Like fire in the belly, grit, determination, um, that com- competitive drive to win with that humility to always be learning and, and wanna understand. It, it's not their way or the highway, but they have a point of view, and they have this fire inside to do something.
And, and that is a hiring profile, [00:36:00] whether it's an entrepreneur or a team that I look for. That's the culture, like that will to win. Um, so there, there's multiple ways to go to market in this space. At PlanGrid it was a very, uh, you know- You know, trial process, you know, land i- and at, uh, Autodesk was very paid pilot, right?
Structured pilot. And unfortunately, Autodesk, we did such a good job with the structured pilot that we've trained the industry that that's how they like to buy, right? Guess what? A structured pilot is a great way to buy because you are tracking the success metric. You're tra-- You're, you're putting-- You're building that case study as you're trialing it, and then you have something to hand the higher-ups in terms of real, you know, dollars saved and so forth.
So structured pilots, I think, are the way to go, but you can't lose that ease of use and land expand nature that we did at PlanGrid. I-if you want... Customers are not gonna do an enterprise deal without many projects screaming your name, [00:37:00] advocating for you, saying they w-- this is-- they don't wanna go back to the old ways.
At PlanGrid, people would say, "If you take away PlanGrid, uh, I'm gonna go work for another company." Wow, that's customer love. They-- If they did move to another company, they'd bring PlanGrid with them, right? And so you have to... The higher-ups are as most worried about field adoption. Great, I'm gonna spend money.
Will my field team like it? As you said, they don't have, they don't have people on staff to implement this, right? They, they, they're just trying to build the projects. So i-is there little b- little effort required to implement, deploy, and drive? It should grow on its own, or the company, for a small fee, should help drive on-site training and implementation, right?
But it should not be a huge lift, right? They do that obviously within the financial world, CMIC, y-you know, Oracle, obviously, but that's their whole financial systems. There's an understanding that there's a lot of big money at stake. You're [00:38:00] gonna kinda, you know, walk slow to go fast. But in general, the field, they're out there in the field.
If you're building for that end user, it better be easy to adopt and expand because they don't have all these people on staff to help implement it, right? And, and frankly, it's not gonna grow as fast if, if there's not that love. So I personally love the land and expand approach, you know, coupled with a structured pilot, because even if you have a successful pilot, they're not gonna give you the whole business.
You still gotta be growing to different regions, different, you know, divisions to put that... You know, give the, give the executives more data points. It isn't just one project, right? It isn't just this one data center project or type of projects. Th-they have a variety of projects in a variety of regions.
You gotta prove yourself out more than once.
Jason Jacobs: Uh, it, it, it seems, and I caveat everything with I'm [00:39:00] coming in from the outside and spending too much time on the internet and Zoom and not enough time on project sites or doing ride-alongs or, you know, things that I hope to do as I build more relationships and trust. Um, but, um, but it seems like some of the larger shops, uh, you know, the Suffolks of the world, et cetera, are building bigger in-house innovation teams, and that those teams are increasingly building bespoke custom software themselves in-house.
If I'm an outside vendor selling into these shops, um, h-how should I think about those innovation teams? Are they, you know, a way to grease the skids and a warm way in? Are they competition? Does it depend shop to shop? What are you seeing in the field?
Kevin Halter: You know, um, I was on with Suffolk Ventures earlier today. Great, great, great respect for them, DPR, all these great innovative teams have now spun out venture arms. They have-- They look at technology as a way to not just drive profits, grow their business, delight their customers, owners, delight their trades, right?
You know, [00:40:00] those are their customers. They serve their supply chain, they serve their clients, and they've used it as more of a way to grow their business. And there's some interesting study. Those who have invested in motion technology have grown the fastest, the DPRs, the Whiting-Turners, the Turners, the Suffolk.
So they have all grown at a faster rate than the market's been growing. And it is, it is, they use it as a way to serve their customers. Win repeat business, you know, produce better results to grow with those companies, and their owners have taken them to new places, and you see that consistently. Clayco, the, the, these are the gr- phenomenal people to partner with.
I do view these customers as like tier zero, I'm calling them. There tend to be, you know, national if not multinational and global, doing, you know, $10 billion plus or over $5 billion of construction volume. It's just another tier. So they have the resources to spin up a VC arm, have a im- innovation implementation team.
The majority of market is not tier zero. It's tier one, tier two. You know, [00:41:00] it's a, it's a, en- mid-market to enterprise, but it's, you know, it could be $100 million to a billion dollars. It's a very large business. It's not necessarily at the scale of a Suffolk or a DPR, right? And so you kinda gotta put them in a different category.
Um, but you are seeing people invest in the technology teams. But the innovation team is... And, and I'm not, you know, I'm saying DPR, Suffolk, since you mentioned them, their innovation teams are very-- They're hiring people from the field, and they have them listening to the field. So they do great, great work.
But let's, let's take everyone out of it. In general, the innovation team, love you all, has no budget, has no authority to buy They can help with a pilot, but in my, in, in, in my experience, it tends to slow the t- the company down. The best way to do it is to meet with the end user, uh, that has the problem, is looking for [00:42:00] solutions.
You're their painkiller, and they will find a way to pay for it for their project. There is money on a project, right? That's the profit and loss. So you can deliver stuff better, faster, cheaper, on schedule. There is money. For example, data center projects have such aggressive schedules, and every day, weeks, you know, saved is huge big bucks for the owner, so in terms of bonuses, right?
So if you can deliver stuff earlier because your technology is a contributing factor, there is money, you know, for you, right? So that project manager, that site superintendent who's gonna get a bigger bonus check, right? Or, you know, that project executive, they can find money if they see the value in your platform, right?
So go to the people that have the budget, have the authority to buy, but they also have the problems and really need a solution like yours. Then as you start to have those case studies, yeah, you can involve the innovation team as, "Hey, this is something that could be a core offering. How can we [00:43:00] standardize it?
How can we have standards and scale across your organization?"
Jason Jacobs: Uh, something I've been wrestling with is that, um, I mean, it seems like there's all these point tools f-focused on, you know, there's like, uh, estimating, there's project management, there's ERP, there's whatever, right? And, um, and you have a, a, a very fragmented landscape, and it also seems like, um, if you upgrade each of these things but they're not done in a way where they are working cohesively together, then you're not actually unlocking the flywheel of value that comes from more continuity and kind of closing the loop from project to project and week to week, month to month, quarter to quarter, um, e-et cetera.
Now you're seeing, you know, whether it's like if Suffolk, they're putting four deployed engineers on site, but you're seeing the Palantirs, you know, for example, starting to come in with outsourced versions of that, and you're seeing a lot of these kind of consulting firms coming in more [00:44:00] holistically. Um, do you have a similar view of them as you do to the innovation teams or, um, uh, you know, or, or should the software providers keep firms like that close?
Kevin Halter: Um I, I think as a-- I used to always build a services team, so you should own your own implementation and adoption. Once you perfect it at scale, you can, you can partner with, like, a channel partner, right? And there's d- there's definitely world-class channel partners in the space. But in the beginning, you gotta build a repeatable process how you drive implementation, adoption, and integrations.
The good thing with AI to do integrations is a lot easier. It's a lot easier to move data from a, a legacy solution to a new solution or to build connections. So there are tools that exist today that did not exist five years ago, for example. You also have people building those tools like Agave, you know, is one of those examples.
They've recently raised capital. Um, so you're, you're-- people are building companies just to [00:45:00] kinda build, you know, connections across the industry. The industry itself does not wanna have 40, 60... I'll never forget being on a, a Webcore SFO project, and they, all the tools, 'cause not just them, it's their trades, it's their designers, it's their architects, it's their owners.
The amount of tools that everyone uses to collaborate or transfer data is way more than anyone would guess. I will never forget this whiteboard. So there is a need to consolidate tools, but the reality is everyone's doing different work. The, you know, the plumber's doing different work than a drywaller, right?
So, you know, there, there are some tools like around project management that you can standardize, but there's gonna be bespoke tools or p- or call it ICP specific tools, trade specific tools, but that data needs to go somewhere. So b- building first with AI, uh, you know, APIs or just building open and integration, integration first, right?
Play well with others. I think something that DataGrid acquired by Procore that did extremely [00:46:00] well was integrate with everyone and, and take this agnostic approach that we're gonna m- integrate with everyone because then we will be more of a value add to, to our customer, right? And so phenomenal job by Tiago and team.
Building up infrastructure is not easy. It was a lot of work, right? But you have to document crunch the fr- you know, former team members there. They, you know, Josh Levy did a great job with partnering with every platform, right? And integrating and have an integrated workflow, and Trimble scooped up that team.
So you need to have that mindset. There are other players in the space that did not go with that approach in terms of like an integration first and partnering with others well approach and, you know, they really impacted their brand negatively, and they're gonna struggle in this space. And, and, and, you know, the people don't forget that, you know.
And so focus on this is one big ecosystem, you know, raising the bar for the entire ecosystem. There's gonna be no contractor [00:47:00] is gonna use one solution provider. They're gonna use many th- to get a job done, to get all of their jobs done. Some may build some solutions their own or configure some of their own solutions, buy off the shelf, but ideally, they're not software companies companies, they'd prefer to buy off the shelf and focus on hiring and training labor, executing work.
There's so much to manage on a job site. Oh, by the way, you're not in an office, so there's weather, there's tariffs, there's, you know, supply chain delivery delays. There's enough to think about, right? Not to mention these c- these projects are complex with, you know, permitting, MEP, underground utilities.
Like, my, my friend at, who runs Civil Grid w- you know, with PG&E and underground utilities. You think there's complexity above ground? Most people don't look below ground. You know, so this industry needs more software, not less, but it needs to serve problems. Stop building everything for the commercial GC.[00:48:00]
That's what I'd like to tell people. Civil Grid's doing amazing stuff building for un, you know, not an investor, not an advisor, blah, blah, blah. I've just known the CEO for a while and like what he's doing. He's building for, you know, making it easier to, you know, find underground utilities, which can involve in like big safety issues, by the way, because, you know, things can explode underground or definitely affect a project's schedule and cost.
So, uh, that's phenomenal. He's solving a very specific problem that's underserved, right? I, you know, I was talking about earlier, you know, you know, working with how to build like the trade shortage. Like, build for the trades. They're underserved with technology solutions. There's more trades on a job site than a GC, right?
And GCs, by the way, are self-performing because it helps to control their schedule, improve their margins, and they, they can't hire trades fast enough. So there's a lot of people that are underserved with technology and the- the- the there's no solution for that problem. [00:49:00] Start there, right? You know, don't build the fifth solution, you know, in a market, right?
Have a unique... Go serve the underserved, right? Construction tech has many underserved ICPs. Go there.
Jason Jacobs: Uh, it, it, it, it seems like in order to, um-- I mean, it's, it's been a long time since I read Clayton Christensen, so maybe I'll be a little fuzzy, but, but, um, but it, it seems like if you wanna get stuff done in construction, you need to kind of meet the industry where it is today. But if you were, you know, to look at the workflows, for example, if you were to start from first principles today, it might look a lot different than, you know, what you're inheriting with all the legacy that was built for a time, you know, that, that kind of hasn't kept pace with the technology that's been changing, um, under its feet.
Um, are sustaining innovations the only way to be successful in construction tech, or is there room for disruptive innovation as well? [00:50:00] And if so, um, you know, what form should that take so that it is, you know, so that the body doesn't reject the organ?
Kevin Halter: Oh, I mean, I look for tailwinds and disruption. Like, I'll use PlanGrid. It was ear- it was early days of mobile, right? Tab- the type, tablet. Well, the field's not sitting in front of a desktop. The tablet was their primary computing device, and then obviously the larger iPhones and Androids were even better as they came out.
PlanGrid rode the wave and just completely disrupted the project management. There's a reason why Autodesk bought PlanGrid. There were many reasons, you know, and happy to share those. But one of the reasons is we were very disruptive to their core business. We were a small piece of a project management solution in terms of field operations, but we delivered more value and ROI, and customers were paying more for PlanGrid than a project management solution.
So it became, mobile became, and Procore, by the way, at the time, was predominantly in the office. Mobile became like, "We need to have a bang-up mobile solution to compete in [00:51:00] this market." Hence, Autodesk bought us. Procore continued to build and different, acquire different mobile solutions in the space as well.
Um, with DroneDeploy, reality capture is becoming like a must part of the platform, right? So I expect more acquisitions in that space. And that can be done because autonomous robotics, you know, and drones and just honestly, the 360 cameras get progressively cheaper, right? So it becomes more obtainable.
Just like the iPad was like several thousand dollars, end of PlanGrid it was a couple hundred bucks. It just makes it more and more accessible for everyone to have one on a job site, no matter if the project is large or small. Um, early days of PlanGrid, you had to justify the, the purchase of the software and the iPad.
So it's, it's, it's amazing how hardware costs can deflate over time and ride that wave. So right now you have the autonomous robotics trend, right? You know, your, you know, and AI, right? And so, yeah, you better be delivering AI native workflows or if, [00:52:00] you know, if you're in robotics, how can you do autonomy or semi-autonomy or assisted?
Those are big, big trends, but So I do think you can rework applications, but I do think you start at the edge, right? Um, I think there-- You can start at the edge, right? And slowly displace part of a platform and then earn the trust and continue to grow, grow, grow. Right? You know, that's one, um, you know, that's one way to do it, operate at the edges.
And that was kind of like, you know, playing grid. We kind of operate the edges and kind of grew, grew, grew. You can also build a hu- you know, as you said, a whole AI native platform from scratch type disrupt project management or disrupt XYZ. And, and now with AI, it does allow you to build a very disruptive solution faster and easier.
My recommendation is start where is underserved today, right? Most project management solutions, let's just start there, are built for a commercial general contractor. Just so we're on the same, commercial construction is like thirty to forty percent of the market. Civil [00:53:00] is like forty percent, and then another forty percent is industrial, oil, gas, all this.
So guess what? Civil, you know, Nanite check bought HCSS, which is like a 20-year-old software technology, but tremendous brand, tremendous traction. Um, no one was building for civil contractors. You know, they built a huge business and, and even commercial construction, most people are building for the GCs.
Look at all those trade contractors. Look at all those suppliers. Look at-- So what I'm saying is, if you're gonna build an AI native solution, start focusing on where, where the biggest problems are. That's why I love the trades, labor shortage, but also where very few people have built purpose-built solution.
Most trade contractors are using GC tools and kind of reconfiguring for them, right? Build something with that ICP in mind, for example. No one, Procore just came out with their portfolio solution for owners. Love that. I've been talking about it for years. No one has really built solutions for the owners of capital projects that [00:54:00] represent a tremendous opportunity, uh, of increased visibility.
You can go on to residential contractors, huge housing shortage. What are you building for them? So I think these AI native solutions, I'd be going after the markets where there is no dominant project management. You wanna penetrate project management, at least in the US, but you know, it's globally too.
Autodesk Construction Cloud and Procore are the dominant, dominant forces in this space. I'm not saying you can't have upstarts in the market, but definitely at the mid-market to enterprise, you have two very do- uh, dominating platforms. So either you gotta op- chip away them at the edges, um, or get share elsewhere.
When we launched PlanGrid, we didn't necessarily go head-to-head against Procore in mid-market GCs or Autodesk and kind of the enterprise GCs. We went after the trades, and then we got so much trade adoption, then we got the self-performed business units of GCs. And then guess what? If GC says, "Hey, my whole supply chain is on PlanGrid, maybe I should use it."
And we did, like, one tenth the functionality [00:55:00] of Procore, but it's because everyone else on the job site was using it to collaborate. So I, I, you know, let's focus on people that are using Excel, pad, paper or some, you know, very legacy tool and disrupt that, right? Um, you're... It's gonna take a little bit longer to disrupt a Procore, Autodesk that has tremendous, uh, brand and, and traction and, and, and now integrated with their financials and so forth.
That's pretty sticky once you're integrated financials
Jason Jacobs: So with your futurist hat on, if you look 10 years out, do you think there'll be more fragmentation in the construction software market or less? And do you think more of the solutions will come from, you know, a higher percentage of those solutions will come from software vendors, um, or from, uh, you know, bespoke custom tools built in-house?
Kevin Halter: Yeah, it's very interesting. Um, things are moving so fast right now. I think what you're gonna [00:56:00] see, because you've predominantly seen like more recently Trimble's active acquiring, Nemetschek's active. They s- you know, so you're seeing the platforms that maybe weren't that actively acquiring the past couple years are now super active, right?
But they've always been, you know, Nemetschek is a very well-known brand and platform in this space. It's not like they've been sleeping on it. But I'm, I believe you're gonna see other players in the space that have not been buyers of technology or investors in technology play a bigger role, right? I mentioned the supply chain, right?
You're gonna see them acquire, invest in, in more opportunities there. Um, so I see that's a huge opportunity. I-- You're gonna see more strategic VC capital, you know, top trade contractors investing some of their own personal capital into these platforms. Um- You're gonna see more M&A, right? I, I, I don't believe the major platforms can [00:57:00] necessarily are great at building stuff in-house, right?
They have legacy software, politics, all that. It, it's even biotech. You acquire, you integrate, you got the platform, right? You got the distribution, you got the, the branding. Um, so I think it's gonna be very similar. Let's start there. If you start the legacy platforms, I, I encourage people to take Salesforce approach.
You got this legacy platform, you need to really think about going headless, right? You need to really think about, you know, your, you know, your solution could become a dumb database. That's okay. Lean in, right? Acquire AI native solutions to plug into your platform, right? Acquire the best. Autodesk Construction, building emerging business, I believe at the time acquired the best.
So, uh, so kudos to Sid and team. PlanGrid, BuildingConnected, these were winning solutions, fast growth, built a brand, plug them in, right? Um, so I think the larger platforms should become more acquisitive. Things are moving too quickly. You need to [00:58:00] hire innovative teams that know how to build and scale in the space.
I think Trimble got a steal in Document Crunch because that's a great team right there. So, um, Procore, Tiago and team with Data Grid, great team, right? There needs to be more of that. I'm, I'm looking to see what Autodesk buys next, right? Um, you know, I, I, I think, you know, you know, in the construction space.
I, I-- So I think the major platforms are gonna have to become Salesforce and become more acquisitive, number one, because they can't... It's hard to move the legacy solution and those customers that run their business on you off to sue a new platform. That, that is a many multi-year journey. Se-secondarily, I think because of the financing space, there's gonna be many more at-bats, right?
It used to be very hard to raise capital in the space, so it's hard to build companies. You need capital in technology, even if it's just to market and sale and get out there, right? AI doesn't do all that for you. So [00:59:00] you have, you, you're gonna get more at-bats and more solutions in the market. That is a good thing, right?
So I just see a explosion of solutions. They may start as a point solution, but they can grow into a platform. And 100%, I think, uh, contractors are gonna use AI to see what they could build on their own. The challenge is you gotta maintain an application, you gotta scale it. Th- that's all the unsexy part of software, which I used to always highlight our team at PlanGrid, the infrastructure team, the engineering leader to this day will talk about it, because people bought us because we always worked.
We never dr- failed. It was more reliable than anything else on a job site. I love my, my infrastructure team at PlanGrid. We won so many deals. It's why we could command a, a pricing premium. So what happens when this application has a security glitch? What happens, you know, if it doesn't scale? Who's gonna support it?
Who's gonna [01:00:00] continue to innovate? That's where it becomes real problematic. I'm a big believer in focus on what you do best, which is deliver a product, a service, right? Build something super challenge. Partner with the best. Find your trusted partners to innovate with, right? And then, uh, integrate those solutions together.
Spend your time integrating them and configuring them to your best-of-breed workflow, right? And I do think AI's helps with integration, it's gonna help with some of the configuration, could help with some customization, let's say, on top, right? But am I gonna rebuild and build my own project management solution or finance system?
I, I, I, I'd rather partner with someone.
Jason Jacobs: Uh, so I, I wanna talk about the labor, um, from, from two directions. One is, I mean, there seems to be a, a fear from, um, you know, some of the workers in the trenches about, uh, jobs as, as more, um, you know, certainly of the desk work get, gets automated, but also, I mean, now [01:01:00] robotics and, I mean, it's not just the- Yeah
the desk work where there's innovation that's occurring. So I w- I w- I want-- I'd love your perspective on, um, who should be afraid, who shouldn't be afraid, you know, what advice you'd have for the workers in the trenches, and just how you think about that. But then from, um, uh, um- Shoot
Kevin Halter: Anyone that builds with their hands or is like, knows how to build things, right? I was, uh, I love, uh... I'm a very positive person. I think it was David Sacks that was, you know, everybody's talking about AI is gonna decrease software engineers. There's never been a bigger need because, you know... I know, I love positive people.
Aaron Levie at Box, David Sacks at PayPal, right? Like, I'm a world of abundance. Grow the pie. And as technology makes things easier, it, it, it starts solving problems that maybe was too costly to solve. The demand for the service just goes up, right? You know, so in construction, if you can bring down the cost of construction, like streamline...
Ho- honestly, governments need to look in the mirror. You know, they are the cost of a big part of [01:02:00] construction. It's very hard to change labor and material costs, right? But man, that permit, the zoning, like I'm loving what, uh, Greenlight's doing, PermitFlow, not an investor or advisor in the space, but my God, governments need to look themselves in the mirror.
You could, you could clip hundreds of thousands of dollars off of housing per housing unit, but you allow developers to pencil things out. We are a huge housing de- shortage. We're just, you know, edu- schools are 80 plus years old, like falling apart. Like Boston, where you're from, is like prime example of like so hard to build, right?
You know, and it's so funny, these technology towns, Boston, San Francisco, are like ground zero of like the worst pla- the mo- hardest, most challenging places to build, and it's the government. Bu- builders wanna build. So technology, if it can bring down the cost of projects as well as the government getting rid of some of the undue regulations and complex building codes, [01:03:00] you now have more projects pencil out.
You know how many housing projects don't pencil out, right? You, do you know how many things get, you know, whether it's housing, office, it just gets delayed, right? And then it maybe never happens. So if technology can bring down the cost and build more, there's gonna be more building. We, 20-year housing shortage, infrastructure's falling apart.
You look at wastewater treatment plants, like hate to say it, there's things that people don't see. You know, now energy's in the news, like our utilities. Everything's old, old, old. Aging infrastructure. Look at that, the water pipe in LA. Man, you know how much that's gonna cost? Not to mention the disruptions.
Infrastructure. Love SewerAI. Someone who used to work with me, Dave Barton at SewerAI, doing great stuff. You don't see it, so you don't think about it, but it's 80-plus years old, that pipe in LA, you know? So imagine if technology can make it easier to address so that whatever that capital program budget can do more.
There's just more work to be [01:04:00] done. Or then the public is like, "Hey, you know what? We effectively built that, unlike the California High-Speed Rail. I'm willing to pay taxes or approve that to put more money because I know it's gonna be built efficiently and on schedule." Owners look for certainty, certainty of cost, certainty of schedule.
If you can build with certainty versus like projects being six months delayed and huge cost overruns, they're gonna spend more on construction because they have certainty. So I love technology that can positively impact cost certainty, schedule certainty, because it builds trust with owners, builds predictability, and then there's, there's more investment will go into this space.
Let's build more, not less, and technology is a way to enable that. So these workers, if you are, uh, good, you know, with your hands or like building things, you know, you love playing with Legos, right? You're, you're-- [01:05:00] There's-- You're gonna be empl-- All my friends are employed, are employed during any upturn or downturn.
I'll use a friend of mine who's, who runs a big part of NextEra Energy. During the last downturn, he's like, "I think I gotta shut off my LinkedIn. I, I'm getting too much inbound." Right? Uh, that's crazy. But the reality is very few people know how to build hard things, and we have a 20-plus year shortage. We could hire and train thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, we still wouldn't have enough, right?
So anyone working the trade should not be scared about their job. Things that are gonna be automated tend to be the stuff that no one wants to do and are not value added. That's with AI. On the robotics side, things are gonna be automated that are typically are unsafe, you know, not to mention repetitive work, which can result in injuries.
So it should make your job more strategic, more value add, more impactful. Big part of building is also communicating with others, the owner, the different trade partners. [01:06:00] Like, it's not just, you know, working with your hands. So I look forward to robotics, you know, reducing, you know, taking away a lot of those safety hazard or risks, building more predictability into the schedule, having technology get rid of all those crappy daily reports or all this, like, you gotta capture a lot of data.
That's what OpenSpace and DroneDeploy, just automating a lot of that data capture saves, you know, big, big time. It reduces lawsuits, it reduces claims. It has major impacts on efficiency on a job site. Like, if people aren't investing in that space, they should. You know, Suffolk just standardized in OpenSpace across all their projects, right?
It's how they deliver work now. You're gonna see more and more people do that, um, because it's so easily done. Previously, took a lot of labor hours to do that, right? And so That's, you know, kind of reality capture was the early days of like autonomous, you know, photo, video, [01:07:00] drone capture that's now gonna become like industry standard.
Like everyone does it, not just the tier zero or tier one GCs trade partners, right? OpenSpace growing tremendously to trade contractors. Like, yeah, like this is a way for us to document our work so we can get paid on time, get paid for what we did, reduce safety hazards, uh, uh, understand how we build projects and, and do it better.
So how to track progress on a job site. So there's all these benefits once you deploy at scale. So you're gonna see more technology investment that once you have good results, then contractors build trust to be like, "Hey, we had a good outcome to PlanGrid. We had a good outcome with..." Guess what, a lot of PlanGrid customers, they're OpenSpace customers 'cause they saw success with that rollout.
Here's another successful rollout, and so you, you get comfortable investing more and more in technology. And oh, by the way, owners wanna see it. Uh, that is a major trend. Owners saying, "Hey, what, how are you investing in technology to deliver our projects better, safer, on time?" So you have all these tailwinds, [01:08:00] gonna be more software buying it, it's a good thing.
It's gonna be more investment. But I do really encourage people to take investment from people that understand the space and know the timeline of this space, right? There are no overnight successes. There's-- You're probably not gonna grow like Harvey, but you can build a, a very big, successful, impactful business.
But, you know, these tend to be decade journeys. So you're signing up for a decade and to build something big and substantial. And then once you are, you build a brand and you're, you're here. The, the, the churn kind of goes away. You build a very trusted brand in this industry. HCSS, right? They've been around, what, 20 years.
Procore now is like 20 years, right? You, you, it's pretty solid revenue once you break in. You're not, your business is not gonna go to zero. Um, so I think it's very exciting, but you know, you gotta take, you gotta take the long-term view in construction, [01:09:00] right? You know, you have to take the long-term view. So surround yourself with people that, that have a similar long-term view.
Jason Jacobs: Uh, and I, I thought of the, the other piece of that labor question that I had the brain fart on earlier. Uh, and thanks for saving me and jumping right into, um, you know, the, the first part of the question rather than watching me stumble. But, um, but the, uh, it's around, um, the human aspect of the shortage of labor, if you have ideas or a wish list for, um, for how that should be addressed.
I know that's, that's outside of your core swim lane, but given how much time you spent in the space, I figure you, you may have some thoughts
Kevin Halter: no, the, the human thing is super important. Um, when I had my first startup, um, Granite and other civil contractors, um, were our early partners, and they shared how they would start recruiting not in high school, but like junior high and elementary. It's like, wow, that's so early. It's like, hey, the moment they're in high school, they got the college guidance counselor, they're set, right?
They wanna become a doctor, a lawyer, so forth. You know, construction is not even viewed as a career. It's like, wow. So I've been saying this for years, you have to make construction sexy Um, like it or not, Mark [01:10:00] Zuckerberg, uh, made building software sexy when Facebook attracted a lot of young college kids to change careers or change degrees into software engineering.
He made it fun, exciting, impactful. Thanks, Mark. You did a lot of great stuff. Like, people don't give him enough credit. Like, what, what, what was, what was, how many people were going to software engineering pre-Mark? Not as many. Uh, you know, secondary, um, and I was in college during the Facebook years, so I, and I saw it.
Um, but, uh, you know, very similar, like, you gotta make construction sexy. Um, and I wanna-- I don't know him, uh, but if I ever get a chance, I'd love to meet him, uh, is Jensen, right? Um, what he's, you know, doing for construction technology, construction investment, and the skilled trades is driving change. He is a dynamic entrepreneur, speaker, company builder, but he is speaking out there that we have this skilled labor shortage, and people should move to [01:11:00] the trades and learn a trade.
And man, thank you. Thank you. Because he is making it sexy. He is making it in demand, which it's always been in demand. He is talking about the impact of building these marquee data centers and other types of projects and making it fun and exciting and saying, "Hey, I got a ton of people I know that would hire you."
And now you have Googles and Metas saying all their training programs, but you need a speaker. You need, you know, Mike Rowe's famous in the space, getting the trades, um, and he's very dynamic, but man, Jensen's better. Sorry, Mike. Jensen is this dynamic public speaker. He's like the, feel like the, becoming the Mark Zuckerberg for f- you know, physical AI and construction and tech and just solving hard problems and working if you're in a...
Man, thank you, Jensen. But it'd be great to have more people like that, right? It'd be great to have more people, um, you know, the founder of Procore and the founder of Tracy, dynamic speakers, right? You know, they [01:12:00] attracted people to construction tech, right? We need more, yeah, maybe I need to get on that podcast more, but we need more great young people or people changing their careers.
We hired a lot of people. I've hired people not just from the trades, but I've hired ex-military, right? Like, you know, people that are looking to have an impact in society, it is the physical real world. You can imagine building the hos- the new hospitals in Boston where they're delivering, you know, very sick children and delivering care in new ways.
Man, like That is impactful stuff, and you can go tour that that unit for probably 80 years, right? You can bring your family in there, "Hey, Dad built that," or, "Mom built that," or, "Mom was on that project." And we need women in construction. You know? Like, women are half the population. Come on, women. We need more women on job sites.
You bring a different personality, a different edge, a different perspective, just more diversity on, on, on projects in [01:13:00] general. Um, it's... Yeah, it's-- I, I, I just think there's huge opportunities to attract more people into this workforce that is highly impactful work. Um, I know people that are former lawyers that were good with their hands in carpentry that went in and, you know, they have, they have three-year waiting lists for their work.
You're, you are forever employed, and you learn skillsets that you can even, like, do stuff at home or do stuff with friends or family. But these are skillsets that are always gonna be in demand, and, uh, there's very few careers that, that you can say you're forever employed, you know? It's like doctors, probably trade contractors.
Like, you know? It, it, it is, you know, y- this is a field, um, similar to a doctor. You know, start a career in biotech, you're on the front lines, you're interacting, in that case, patients at the bedside. You know, these people are interacting with, um, real-world scenarios. Those careers are the safest out there[01:14:00]
Jason Jacobs: Um, one d- uh, y- as we move towards closing, just what-- one topic I wanna slip in 'cause we hadn't covered is just what do you think about the trend of the PE dollars flowing in? Um, uh, my, my first episode, uh, Ed Smith from Amply Energy, he said that, um, i- in some ways he thinks that the fragmentation is a feature and, and not a bug as it relates to the shops themselves, given how differently each of them run and, you know, how, uh, um, you know, how, how, uh, how challenging it is to try to have a one-size-fits-all.
Um, you know, what do you think about that? How does that end? And, and with your selling hat on from a software standpoint, you know, are those shops good customers or should you stay away?
Kevin Halter: So I'll use PE too. Uh, PE is definitely coming to space, growth equity to, um, acquire companies in the space. Be-- And that's a great exit opportunity. SewerAI just had a big exit to a PE firm because it's sustainable, repeatable, recurring revenue, right? You know, and it is a [01:15:00] good space for, for growth equity, right?
Um, you probably aren't gonna find an Anthropic in construction tech, right? So, um, as VC capital moves to these crazy high growth metrics, you're gonna see seed and Series A VC, but you're gonna see more PE funds in terms of outcomes and, and in terms of like, you know, uh, B, C and other growth rounds. So I'm cool with that.
PE is just like in healthcare, is doing the roll-up of, you know, trade practices. Um- I saw it and I don't love it, man. I, I don't. Like, um, I, you know, I think it's, you know, they're, they're taking approach to standardize back office operations. I understand the PE play. As a consumer, um, the moment you get rid of competition, um, service goes down, you know.
It's just, you know, prices go up. It- it's good for-- It doesn't become a real marketplace. Construction is a marketplace. You-- Competitive bidding, [01:16:00] competition raises the bar. Hate, hate to anyone to know this, but healthcare is not this open marketplace, and you're, you're kidding yourself i- and it isn't. Why is innovation slower in healthcare delivery?
There is no competition. You're talking, if you go to a major city, you got what, two healthcare systems now because they bought all the doctor practices. That is not competition. Also, the doctors have no incentive to deliver better patient care. They're not a business owner, right? Like that's, that's one of the reasons I left the healthcare space, and it, it, it's not really a marketplace.
So why is someone gonna invest? People are running on Epic. I mean, that Epic software is awful. Talk about someone that should disrupt software, Epic is like top of the list. So if you've ever spent time in healthcare and hospitals, everyone knows Epic. But in construction, you know, you need to have competition, you know.
And so the trend with PE buying all these MEP firms, I, I don't love. I don't love. And I don't know how that ends because the ones that [01:17:00] are Power Design, Rosendin, so the top electrical firms in the country, um, they are all about building and investing in their people, their culture, their talent, hiring, developing.
They are-- It's amazing since working with them 10, 15 years ago, where they've grown and their company, their, their revenues and, and the work they're doing. But it's because they are competitive, they invest in their people, they're looking long term, they're not looking for a quick flip, they're building a legacy, and they have built legacy, uh, businesses, tremendous leadership teams.
I, I, I'm just sorry, Jason, that's just me as an entrepreneur. I want more entrepreneurs. I want more business owners. I want to make it easier for people to start companies. That's how you create jobs. That's how you build competition. That's how you build greater service. I don't like when there's regulatory capture, right?
I don't like what Anthropic's talking about, you know, absolutely no way. Like I want many firms competing for business. [01:18:00] I want many opportunities, and that includes on the GC and trade side. We need a competitive marketplace, or you don't have-- you have few options in the market, right? I do think there needs to be a minimum.
I think margins in some asset cases are thin, and owners need to think about, hey, you pay a higher margin, you may have them have more opportunities to invest in innovation, right? You know, so that can be a different conversation. But the The PE roll-ups, you know, eventually I think some of these you have to, um...
There can be good, right? They're gonna invest in technology. They're gonna invest in operations, you know, so there's a lot of good that can come in, uh, through PE, right? Um, but I... And, and sometimes, you know, people are just looking for an exit, right? You're a multifamily generation. What's your exit, right?
If you don't have anyone to pass it down to. So definitely there's a lot of, there's a lot of benefits. Um, I also just think sometimes our regulatory, um, government is asleep at the [01:19:00] wheel when you talk about, um, in, in many industries, uh, consolidation of competition. Healthcare, prime example. There, there is not a competitive market anymore.
Um, I, I, I don't wanna see the same thing happen to construction. I don't think it will. Um, it's so, so diverse. There's so many different types of projects, but I'm sure, I'm sure Jensen doesn't wanna o- send a bid out to only three contractors, right? You know, he wants a diverse group of people that always raise the bar, and that's what makes construction great.
It's a real marketplace
Jason Jacobs: Uh, last question, just with your futurist hat on, if you look 10 years out, um, you know, what does c- what does the industry look like at that time, and what are the biggest differences from, from how it is today?
Kevin Halter: 10 years from now? Um, I think 10 years from now, many more people are getting into the trades. I think Jensen is, uh, is, uh, changing the game, and more people are gonna be like, "Ah, what happens to the legal profession in 10 years?" Who knows, right? Um, [01:20:00] there's always gonna be jobs, but, you know... And I think people coming out of the Zoomers, right?
The, the younger generation. I mean, it's exhausting being on Zoom all day. Isn't it nice, my friends building are out there in the fresh air, building great things. You know, drive by, "Hey, I built that," showing their kids. Man, pride of building something with your hands. So I love the trend of manufacturing onshoring.
Hey, defense tech is another major trend impacting construction, like build- shipbuilding coming back, building things American-made. What people don't know, I was a mechanical engineer by trade. When I graduated Tufts, so many of my peers went to grad school 'cause there were no jobs. So many people had to change careers 'cause that was when all the manufacturing was offshore to China.
That is a competitive risk to the business because if you stop making things, you're just a service economy. So this trend to make things in the US, manufacturing, right, all this, you know, defense, that is [01:21:00] a overwhelming trend, and that is good 'cause that spins off just like construction. Oh, then you need more suppliers.
It just creates this economy that's just going like this. But people are also realizing it's also, like, a strategic reason, maybe a, you know, potential battlefield reason, but it's just being more self-sufficient, right? Whether it's energy or building things your own. And so this trend to be building things, and manufacturing's part of that trend, I-- the younger generation is getting excited about that.
And I love the work that Andreessen Horowitz is doing with their American Dynamism fund and all the investors, Palantir and Anduril and Founders Fund, like Founders Fund solving hard tech and 8VC. I love it because I love solving hard problems. Now, you know, Travis coming back with Adams, like hard problems.
Like, solving hard problems should be more impactful, and people are realizing solving hard problems, you can have great exits and [01:22:00] value. It's also stickier, right? You're not gonna rip out Anduril, right? You're not gonna rip out like some autonomous mining equipment from Adams. So it's like it's a more durable business, but it's a more impact on society.
So I just see... And Travis is great for this too. You know, he's doing autonomous mining equipment. I'm like, "Let's go, Travis." I was like, "Hey, call me anytime." Like, he's gonna be a great spokesperson for, for coming to this market and solving hard things. So I just see this next generation of high school kids, college kids going into manufacturing, defense tech, construction, construction tech, like that is super good for society and, and the, and the market in the US.
Um, so I'm excited about the next generation wanting to build things and getting off Zoom, hopefully getting off their phone. Software should a lot of times operate in the background, right? You know, with OpenSpace, you're not logging into everything, it's just capturing stuff in the background, right? Um, [01:23:00] you're gonna see more of that.
Autonomous robotics, they're just operating on their own. That's fantastic stuff. So I'm very excited for the future. I mean, you gotta know, Jason, when I started in construction tech, raising capital, even from very savvy investors, they're like, "Construction? Oh yeah, I got like a backhoe in my backyard, you know, building my mega mansion."
And I'm like, "No, I'm talking about building like a huge hospital, a huge, you know, you know, wastewater plant, like heavy equipment, moving dirt." And they're like, "Oh." Like, yeah, people didn't recognize this is a big, big industry. Um, when I was in const- you know, equipment rental, it was a $40, like, billion dollar industry.
Like this ma- that was years ago. It's only bigger. So it's It's amazing that people are waking up, investment dollars are pouring in. We just gotta efficiently use those, uh, investment dollars, efficiently scale around go-to-market and distribution. Um, and, and that's a key component of that, so we can have more great outcomes, more drone deploy [01:24:00] outcomes, and build long-lasting companies too, like have some more publicly trade-- go-- I love EquipmentShare, right?
I love the founder, like p- boom. Well, you know? You know, public markets, we need more of that, you know, and more companies going public, and we've gotta make it easier for companies to go public in general, right? Uh, but I'd love to see more big outcomes in this space, and that's what I'm doing what I'm doing.
Can I help more great entrepreneurs in this space succeed, you know, scale, and have life-changing outcomes for them, their investors, their team? The biggest reward at PlanGrid was having-- changing the lives of, of our team, right? Buying their first house, putting their kids through college, you know, just having financial security.
Um, it's, you know, changing people's lives. And so let's hopefully change our customers' lives, change-- impact the industry, and change-- and have more great successes in this industry. So, you know, love that PEs come into space to invest and acquire. I love that, [01:25:00] you know, VC money's coming in. I love that strategic VC contractors themself are investing.
We need more great builders coming to the space, and it's great, Jason, to have you getting excited about this space. You're part of the most newest trend, great seasoned entrepreneurs, you and Travis and others saying, "Hey, you know, this is a neglected space. I wanna build something of significance here."
That, that's got me-- When you reached out to me, I was so excited. I'm like, "Whoa, Jason's coming to this space. Like, let's go, baby. Let's go." Right? Like, you know, what you've built elsewhere, you can transfer that to this industry, right? And so I am so, so excited, and if I can play a small part in helping more companies reach significance, but really impact in the industry, like have an impact on how projects are delivered safer, more efficiently, and on time, that, that's rewarding.
Jason Jacobs: Well, well I, I think, um, I may be crazy if that wasn't the last official question because [01:26:00] that's a good kind of mic drop ending. But I can't let you go without asking you just for any of the entrepreneurs, investors, or otherwise that are out there, just tell me about the advisory stuff that you're up to and how people should think about you and, and what you're building and, and, and how, uh, how you might work together.
Kevin Halter: Yeah. So, um, you know, for me, if, if, if you're building a company in this space and you have some product market fit and some, and some revenue, and you're looking for someone to help you build a company, scale a company, um, you know, I work with entrepreneurs anywhere from $1 to $20 million in revenue to over $50 million in revenue.
So I'm here to be a trusted partner and advisor to you as you build a company of significant in this space. You know, hopefully I can de-risk your company, help you grow faster, more repeatably, but I just wanna help entrepreneurs succeed in the space. That's what drives me. You know, people, you know, industry impact, and helping more great entrepreneurs succeed.
And, uh, this is a hard space to scale in, [01:27:00] especially past tw- you know, $10, $20 million. It's a hard space to, you know, build trust and break through and get to $100 million in revenue. So if I can help more companies kind of reach those milestones, that's super impactful. So if you are, um, if you're looking for some advice, some consulting, or potential angel investment, feel free to reach out to me.
Um, but if I can ever help any entrepreneur in this space, I always take calls, whether, whether I'm advising or consult-- I was on with people early today. You know, if I can help another entrepreneur avoid a bad decision, you know, or make a, a good decision, or proceed with confidence and, and hope-- you know, and help them be one step closer to success, that, that, that's rewarding for me.
Very rewarding.
Jason Jacobs: We've covered so much, Kevin. Is there anything, uh, we didn't cover that, uh, that we should have or any, uh, any parting words for listeners?
Kevin Halter: No, hey, I would just say my, my portfolio companies are, are always hiring and always growing, so feel [01:28:00] free to check out, uh, my LinkedIn. Uh, if you're looking at, uh, great companies to join or partner with, they're, they're pretty much always hiring and, uh, always growing. And if there's any entrepreneurs listening, if I can help you in the space, don't hesitate to reach out.
And yeah, I love the space. You know, as you said in your first question, you know, I don't think I'm leaving this industry. I'm passionate about it, and, uh, I've kind of over... built a career with this. I don't think I'm leaving it. You know, once you fall in love with construction, I don't think there's any going back.
So thank, thank you, and, and thank you just to everyone who's believed in me in my career. I mentioned people like Hunter Walk and Kevin Spain and, um, Atul at DPR. Um, so many, um, you know, uh, Bob and Sean Clark at Clayco, um, this whole Suffolk Ventures team and Suffolk themselves. There's just a lot of people that have bet on and believed in me.
Uh, Granite Construction, I mentioned Pike Reigert at, uh, you know, he's been at Granite and Zachary and other great firms. [01:29:00] There's a lot of people that bet on me early in my career here, and those mentors, those advisors helped my success and changed my career. Um, and the advisors I had for my own company helped my company succeed and helped me grow as an entrepreneur.
So, um, I do encourage entrepreneurs to surround yourself with board members, advisors, you know, leadership teams that, you know, can supplement you where maybe that's not where you're strong and you can learn from. So, um, just love the space and hopefully I can help more, more great success stories in this space.
So, um, yeah, look out for what's next and, uh, let's build great things together.
Jason Jacobs: Thanks, Kevin. Thanks so much for coming on. Uh, I've learned a ton. Uh, we, we, we talked for, for a long time, but I feel like we could've, you know, kept talking all day. So, um, thanks again and, um, yeah, wishing you every success and looking forward to keeping in touch
Kevin Halter: Bye.
Jason Jacobs: [01:30:00] That's it for this episode of BuiltForward. I hope you enjoyed it. If you found it useful, share it with someone building in the industry and follow the show so you don't miss what's next. Thanks for listening, and see you next week