In this episode, Jason and Brendan discuss how technology could transform HVAC from a reactive service business into a predictive one — and what that could mean for technician productivity, contractor margins, equipment manufacturers, and the future structure of the industry.

Episode highlights:

02:00 — What Thalo Labs does and why HVAC is ripe for change
06:00 — Why Brendan chose HVAC and the role of electrification
12:00 — Hundreds of millions of HVAC units vs. hundreds of thousands of technicians
14:00 — Why Thalo started with commercial HVAC maintenance
17:00 — How installation quality can make or break heat pump performance
19:00 — Why selling energy savings isn't necessarily the best way to sell new technology
24:00 — Moving from individual projects to fleet-wide HVAC monitoring
27:00 — Escaping "pilot hell" and getting contractors to adopt new technology
31:00 — Why a sensor needs to become a "robot technician," not just another source of data
32:00 — How an air conditioner actually works
37:00 — Predictive maintenance, first-time fix rates, and the future of HVAC service calls
39:00 — Could HVAC ultimately be sold as a service?
41:00 — The fragmented HVAC equipment landscape
44:00 — Why third-party technology can have an advantage over individual OEMs
47:00 — Vertical integration: could contractors start making their own equipment?
50:00 — How Thalo sells into a fragmented, relationship-driven industry
53:00 — The emergence of higher-margin, technology-enabled service businesses
55:00 — Private equity, innovation teams, and who actually adopts new technology
58:00 — What separates forward-thinking HVAC contractors from the rest
1:01:00 — Regulation, refrigerants, electrification, and what could accelerate adoption
1:04:00 — Why HVAC infrastructure is hiding in plain sight

BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and how AI will and won't transform it.

Hosted by Jason Jacobs.

More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/

In this conversation, we dig into how contractors should think about build vs. buy, why app fatigue is becoming a problem, where bespoke AI fits alongside established software platforms, and what it takes to turn employee experimentation with AI into dependable company-wide workflows.

We also get into data foundations, human-in-the-loop systems, shadow AI, technology budgets, and why Rob believes mid-sized contractors will increasingly need outside help to build and maintain custom AI tools.

Episode Notes

00:00 — Introduction
02:25 — Rob’s path from warehouse laborer to construction CIO
05:25 — What’s consistent across contractors — and what differs
08:25 — The acceleration of construction technology and growing app fatigue
10:35 — When contractors should buy software vs. build it themselves
14:30 — Getting the field involved in process and technology decisions
17:40 — Connecting technology investment to the top line and bottom line
20:25 — Leading edge vs. bleeding edge
23:25 — How Rob evaluates and pilots new construction technology
27:15 — What construction could look like 10 years from now
31:55 — How much contractors should spend on technology
33:30 — IT, innovation teams and frontline employees
37:40 — Where humans need to stay in the loop with AI
38:30 — Why the data foundation matters
43:00 — Shadow AI and the importance of governance
47:15 — Building an AI strategy around business objectives
50:45 — Giving employees freedom to experiment — with boundaries
53:45 — Turning an employee-built AI tool into a company-wide workflow
55:20 — Why construction may be heading toward fewer software vendors
57:15 — Where bespoke AI fits alongside the major platforms
59:15 — How AI changes the build-vs.-buy equation
1:00:40 — Who will build bespoke AI for mid-sized contractors?
1:01:50 — What does “AI-native contractor” actually mean?
1:03:45 — Rob’s new firm, BuiltTech Strategy Group
1:07:25 — How Rob assesses a contractor’s technology operation
1:09:30 — Repair, integrate or replace existing software?
1:11:00 — Using outside AI firms to build custom solutions
1:14:00 — Rob’s wish list for construction technology
1:16:00 — How contractors can get their data ready for AI
1:18:00 — Why owners should treat technology as part of delivering the project

Learn more about Rob Spencer

BuiltTech Strategy Group: builttechsg.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/spencer-robert/

BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and how AI will and won't transform it.

Hosted by Jason Jacobs.

More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/

Ben breaks down how DPR evaluates new tools, balances internally developed technology with off-the-shelf solutions, and moves successful pilots toward broader adoption. They discuss WND’s strategic-first investment model, its work with Dusty Robotics, and the growing roles of AI, robotics, prefabrication, and automation in construction.

They also explore why the industry remains in the early innings of its technological transformation, how contractors can avoid chasing shiny objects, and what founders should understand before approaching a major construction company.

In this epiosode:

• How WND Ventures connects DPR with construction technology startups
• Why WND often pilots a product before making an investment
• What strategic success looks like beyond financial returns
• DPR’s approach to internal innovation and project-level technology choices
• How successful tools spread across a large construction organization
• Where AI, robotics, automation, and prefabrication could have the greatest impact
• How DPR evaluates pilots using qualitative feedback and measurable results
• What founders need before approaching WND Ventures or another major contractor

Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction
02:20 – Ben’s path into venture capital and construction
07:20 – DPR Construction and the evolution of WND Ventures
12:00 – Piloting technology before investing
13:20 – How WND works with DPR’s internal innovation team
15:10 – Defining strategic success beyond financial returns
16:20 – Dusty Robotics as a model for adoption at scale
17:40 – Thesis-driven investing versus opportunistic deal flow
20:20 – Strategic fit for DPR versus broader market potential
31:20 – Building technology internally and spinning out new companies
34:00 – Closing the gap between off-the-shelf tools and individual AI workflows
35:20 – How new technology spreads across DPR projects
37:30 – Is construction technology saturated or still nascent?
39:50 – How AI could transform construction
41:20 – Robotics, automation, and the future construction workforce
43:30 – Avoiding shiny objects and scaling technology thoughtfully
45:20 – Building a more rigorous pilot and evaluation process
47:20 – WND’s areas of interest, from robotics to prefabrication
49:40 – Advice for founders who want to work with DPR and WND
51:30 – Closing thoughts

Show notes:

• Ben Price on LinkedIn
• WND Ventures
• WND Ventures on LinkedIn
• DPR Construction
• Dusty Robotics

BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and how AI will and won't transform it.

Hosted by Jason Jacobs.

More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/

In this episode, we dig into how contractors actually improve their businesses, why process change is so difficult, how knowledge and judgment get transferred across organizations, and where technology and AI fit.

In this episode:

00:00 — Introduction
03:42 — Gregg’s path to FMI
05:18 — What FMI’s operations practice does
08:16 — Why contractors call FMI
10:38 — The problem you see vs. the real problem
13:42 — How Gregg diagnoses operational problems
15:34 — Why technology doesn’t fix broken processes
17:24 — Best practices vs. a contractor’s unique DNA
21:29 — Getting buy-in from the field
26:06 — Learning by observing how the work actually gets done
30:15 — Fix the symptom or look at the whole business?
34:14 — Why AI is coming up more with contractors
36:52 — How mid-sized contractors should approach AI
40:32 — Will AI fundamentally change construction?
43:09 — How AI is changing FMI
45:32 — What construction could look like in 10 years

BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and how AI will and won't transform it.

Hosted by Jason Jacobs.

More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/

We discuss:

• Why AI transformation is fundamentally a people, workflow, and organizational challenge

• Why waiting for AI technology to stabilize could leave companies too far behind

• What Jerry is learning from teaching students to build and work with AI

• Why widespread AI adoption doesn't necessarily translate into meaningful business impact

• The difference between automating existing work and actually transforming how work gets done

• Why AI workflows are “grown,” not simply built

• Why the people who understand a company's workflows may be better positioned to drive AI transformation than outside technologists

• Jerry's concept of the “backward-deployed engineer”

• Why he is skeptical of the traditional forward-deployed engineering model for many companies

• What becomes valuable when the cost of building software continues to fall

• Why experimentation and organizational adaptability may become durable competitive advantages

• How AI is changing education and the skills students need to develop

• Why the organizations that win may not be the ones that pick the right AI tools, but the ones that become best at continuously adapting as the technology changes

BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and how AI will and won't transform it.

Hosted by Jason Jacobs.

More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/

In this episode, Matt takes us inside the day-to-day realities of running a specialty contracting business. His biggest constraint is skilled labor: elevator mechanics take years to develop, experienced people are difficult to hire, and simply adding headcount isn't an easy answer.

That makes productivity increasingly important. Matt describes the goal in concrete terms: if a job takes 200 labor hours today, how do you get it done in 150 with the same people, without sacrificing quality or safety?

We also discuss what happens when customers who once paid in 30–60 days start stretching toward 90–120, why Pincus brought in a fractional CFO, and how quickly that changed decisions around collections, forecasting, and hiring.

And we get into technology and AI: where Matt sees opportunities to improve the business, why contractors can know exactly where their inefficiencies are and still struggle to fix them, and what it would take for new technology to actually change how the work gets done.

Topics include:

The skilled labor constraint in the elevator industry

Why developing an elevator mechanic takes years

Productivity when you can't simply hire more people

The 200-hours-to-150-hours challenge

Cash flow and lengthening payment cycles

Bringing in a fractional CFO

Knowing your operational problems vs. actually fixing them

Technology adoption inside a specialty contractor

Where AI and automation could realistically help

Running a multi-generational family business

BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and how AI will and won't transform it.

Hosted by Jason Jacobs.

More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/

WorkHero takes 10–20 hours per week of admin like invoicing, permits, heat pump rebates, and other paperwork off contractors’ plates, using software plus expert office managers working inside the tools they already use, including ServiceTitan, Jobber, Housecall Pro, QuickBooks, and email.

Haynes shares his path from apprenticeship programs and trade immersion to identifying “admin inflation” as a key bottleneck to quality work and heat pump deployment, and explains why WorkHero started with people before automating workflows.

They discuss fragmented contractor data, trust and privacy, why WorkHero goes wide rather than solving a single workflow, job costing and price books, human-in-the-loop AI, the limits of automating broken processes, and what comes next—including better AI “computer use,” diagnostics innovation, and potential expansion into plumbing and electrical.

00:00 Show Intro and Guest
03:04 WorkHero in 60 Seconds
05:18 Origin Story in the Trades
08:22 People First, Not Software
11:39 Remote Work and Data Reality
15:09 AI vs. Incumbent Software
18:51 Subscription Model: Going Wide
21:22 Who WorkHero Serves
22:28 Workflow Bottlenecks Explained
28:07 Tool Stack Integrations
29:29 Expert Judgment Layer
33:44 Privacy and Data Sharing
36:19 Teach-to-Fish Debate
39:41 Fixing Broken Workflows
44:41 Automation and Jobs
48:30 Mission and Market Choice
52:00 Five-Year Vision
53:30 Industry Ten-Year Outlook
55:37 Expansion Beyond HVAC
57:03 AI Computer-Use Frontier
58:39 Closing Thoughts

BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and how AI will and won't transform it.

Hosted by Jason Jacobs.

More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/

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

BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and how AI will and won't transform it.

Hosted by Jason Jacobs.

More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/

Guy Saxelby is the co-founder and CEO of Earlytrade, a marketplace that lets subcontractors get paid early on invoices that have already been approved. The sub names a discount, the general contractor pays out of its own idle cash and earns a return on money that was sitting in a money market fund, and no lender sits in the middle. He started the company in Sydney in 2018 after late payments in one of his own businesses cost him employees, went all in on construction in 2023, and moved his family to Denver to build the US business.

The arithmetic underneath it is the part that stayed with me. A subcontractor pays their crew every seven to fourteen days. They buy materials sixty days before the project starts. They do the work. Then they wait sixty to ninety days for the invoice. Who's funding that?

We get into:

• Why construction has more bankruptcies than any other sector, and why they're almost all cash flow
• Pay-when-paid, and why "risk falls down the hill" from owner to GC to sub
• How the marketplace actually works, and why it isn't factoring
• Why the subs using it most are the ones growing, not the ones failing
• Why a good general contractor says no to more work than it takes on
• What's different about the US market: no regulated payment terms, and a private sector that dominates
• Why the big ERPs haven't simply built this themselves
• Breaking in as an outsider: "Who are you? You're a foreigner, and you're not from construction"
• Fifty-one sets of state rules, and why changing construction's legal plumbing is a fool's errand
• Designing something non-invasive: a financial benefit without being a financial product
• Where private equity actually makes its money in construction, and why it's rarer than people assume
• AI agents as a growth play rather than an efficiency play
• Ten years out: robotics, and the data-portability problem that matters more

Links: Earlytrade - https://earlytrade.com | Guy Saxelby on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/guy-saxelby/

00:00 Show kickoff 

00:24 Meet Guy Saxelby 

03:19 What Earlytrade is, and how it started in Sydney 

04:53 How COVID pulled the company into construction 

06:02 Why Denver 

08:01 Australia versus the US on payment terms 

10:43 Construction supply chains are starving 

11:16 Risk falls down the hill 

12:15 Pay when paid 

13:36 How the marketplace actually works 

14:56 Dynamic discounting versus a fixed rate 

16:42 Selling to the GC, serving the sub 

17:13 The pitch to a general contractor 

18:21 Is it only for desperate subs? 

19:26 The sub's cash cycle 

21:01 Why good GCs say no to work 

21:53 The ideal customer profile 

26:00 Sitting on top of the ERP 

27:41 Objections and misconceptions 

30:26 Why the ERPs haven't copied it 

34:50 "Who are you? You're a foreigner" 

38:18 Change the system or design around it 

39:44 Fifty-one sets of rules and a fool's errand 

44:33 Private equity in construction 4

6:59 The $10M wall and venture in contech 

50:54 AI at EarlyTrade 

55:04 Ten years out 

58:11 The ten-year vision for Earlytrade 

59:57 Who Guy wants to hear from 

1:00:47 Scared money don't make money

BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and how AI will and won't transform it.

Hosted by Jason Jacobs.

More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/

Ed is co-founder and co-CEO of Amply Energy, a software company helping residential HVAC contractors size, design, and sell heat pump systems - built on "Goldilocks" sizing and LiDAR-based home scanning and digital twins, replacing the outdated design tools (and finger-in-the-air rules of thumb) the incumbents left behind. He and co-founder Erik Fitz started Amply as a whole-home electrification contractor before pivoting to the software they'd built for themselves.

We get into:

• Why heat pumps perform best when they're "Goldilocks" sized — and why square-footage sizing fails
• The pivot from installs to software, and why residential retrofits resist scale
• Amply's ideal customer: family-owned, heat-pump-forward, quality-focused, tech-forward shops
• Growing nationwide, fully remote, with no outside capital and zero ad spend — word of mouth, partners, and The Heat Pump Podcast
• Ed's skepticism of private-equity roll-ups and "box swapping"
• The long-term vision: whole-home electrification design and contractor "mixed groups" for peer learning
• AI at Amply: heavy internal use, ROI-focused, cautious on core product logic

Links: Amply Energy - https://amply.energy | The Heat Pump Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-heat-pump-podcast/id1747806243 | National Comfort Institute - https://www.nationalcomfortinstitute.com/

BuiltForward explores where construction is heading over the next decade — and how AI and other emerging technologies will and won't transform the industry. If this was useful, share it with someone building in the industry and follow the show so you don't miss what's next.

00:00 Show kickoff
00:24 Meet Ed Smith
02:15 What Amply does
03:08 Do heat pumps work
05:13 From installs to software
09:06 Why contracting won't scale
12:10 Private equity rollups
14:55 Ideal customer and channels
17:49 Moat and AI reality check
19:51 What Amply replaces
21:59 Nationwide go to market
23:47 Acquisition philosophy
26:40 Residential vs commercial HVAC
28:02 Defining the ideal customer
28:39 Electrification contractor vision
30:34 Software gaps in the stack
31:47 Bootstrapping vs competition
32:49 Pigs and chickens parable
33:48 Dr. Seuss and constraints
35:57 Customer community mixed groups
40:53 Remote team and culture
44:18 AI use and ROI reality
47:41 AI future in construction
49:50 Closing plugs and farewell

BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and how AI will and won't transform it.

Hosted by Jason Jacobs.

More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/

New episodes weekly. Subscribe and come along for the journey!

BuiltForward
Exploring the future of construction and how AI will and won't transform it.

Hosted by Jason Jacobs.

More at https://builtforward.ai — or follow the weekly newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/builtforward-7299979495069929472/