Intro: The Procore Supercut 0:00 Heading to Procore groundbreak or just trying to get more out of Procore. We 0:06 pulled every Procore conversation from construction hot takes into one video. 0:13 These are clips from past episodes, so if one grabs you, the full episode is 0:19 linked in the description. Let's get [music] into it. Is Procore Right for Your Company? (Ep. 3) 0:26 Hit that play blueprint brains talk shop all day from rebar roll to fight we 0:33 break it down to the hot takes podcast. Today we're going to talk about what's so great 0:38 about Procore. Procore is a big player in the industry. We know that and we get calls all the time about how can I be 0:44 better leveraging Procore or should I get Procore? Do I need it? Are there other alternatives etc. So today we get 0:51 into that and of course we have a couple differing opinions and couple of different takes on it. What's so great about Procore? Um, I take a lot of calls 0:58 from Wall Street uh over the last six months from investment groups that are looking at this as an investment 1:04 opportunity. Um, of course, I'm not allowed to disclose any of the questions they asked me, but what I usually tell 1:10 them is Procore is the best Swiss Army knife with the most tools on the market 1:16 right now for construction. It is it is probably the premier choice. It's the 1:21 most expensive construction management software out there, but it's also the most versatile and the most functional. 1:26 Now, it's not for everybody. It doesn't It's absolutely not right for everybody. It is not right for everybody. It does not work for certain types of 1:33 contractors. It doesn't work for certain types of projects. It doesn't work for companies that do service as opposed to 1:39 construction projects. It is a project management software. Um, it has some parts that work 1:45 phenomenally well. It has some parts that maybe aren't as strong as other softwares and they've also got this 1:51 great ecosystem of third party apps that integrate with it that can virtually infinite. 1:57 I I have likened it to the Apple store. When iOS came out, that's Procore. And 2:02 now they've let all these people write apps that will talk to Procore and 2:08 augment its versatility and its functionality. Some better than others. Yeah. And some better than others. 2:14 Yeah. And and Procore is not, from what I can tell, they're not curating the marketplace. They are letting anybody 2:20 write an app and sell it. And I think Procore probably gets a percentage of sales of those. So they've created an 2:27 ecosystem that's similar to the app store in my mind. And I've I've told people this. I've shared this kind of 2:32 theory. Now, I don't have any of this validated with Procore. I'm speaking from my own experience, my own 2:38 knowledge, my own insights, and my own kind of what I've extrapolated, right? But what do we get calls about? 2:46 What are the topics we get calls about for Procore? It's I've had it for a couple of years or six months and we're 2:52 we're just not using as well as we thought we would or we just got the financials module but we 2:58 haven't connected it yet. We don't know how to turn it on or or we connected it but it's not really working. We don't understand it all. Um which is really 3:05 interesting to me because they're already doing change orders somehow. Now they got 3:12 Procore and they just don't understand how to do a change order in Procore. But something seems to be seems like there's 3:18 some foundational knowledge in the background they don't have and they thought Procore would solve that knowledge gap and it doesn't. It just 3:24 makes it worse. I I agree with that. That's completely right. I I'm going to make a broad exact 3:31 or a broad generalization here. But it it comes down to understanding 3:36 forecasting. If they weren't doing that before, it is a new thing. 3:41 I'm even going pre-foring. I'm saying I don't think they understand budgeting because you have to build a budget and 3:48 then you can do a change order which the change order to the client impacts the contract value, but it also has a bud 3:55 underlying cost budget impact as well. There's a cost for that change order and revenue associated with it. And I feel 4:02 like they don't understand budgeting and how change orders work with budgeting. And some that just makes me think they 4:07 don't even understand how budgets work. They just work off of an estimate, but they don't do what we would call project 4:13 accounting, which is tying it back to the ERP. But Procore can give you that functionality whether 4:20 it's tied to your accounting system or not. It has the ability to do it. I just think there's underlying knowledge gap. 4:27 They they weren't already they already weren't doing budgeting properly and they got Procore and that just amplified 4:33 the problem. Now they have another system they're trying to use to do it that's automated and forces them to do 4:38 it the correct way for it to work and they get stuck. They're like I don't 4:44 we don't understand how this works. It's I think it's a really good point. Procore you guys said it. Procore is a 4:50 Swiss Army knife. And this is what I always say. I finished that thought. I always say if Procore is a Swiss Army 4:58 knife, that's great. But sometimes you don't need a flint to start. 5:04 You don't need a spoon and a fork. Sometimes you just need a knife to cut a piece of rope and and that's all 5:09 sometimes it's for and whether you use it for that or not, or whether you know how to use it for the one thing you need it for, which is budgeting or, you know, 5:17 keeping track of costs. Now, if you're if you're if 5:22 you're on the PM side and you're just using it for daily logs or you're just putting photos into it, there's there's 5:28 a lot of different levels of Procore usage that we see. And I think I think the I think the number one call that I get on Procore is we just got this new 5:36 module. We got talked into this new module. I have no idea how it works. 5:42 Yeah. Why did you get it? Exactly. Why'd you buy it? Well, they said I needed it. Yeah. 5:48 Okay. Let's talk about Well, there's also kind of that easy button concept of 5:53 I if I get this this module, then it's going to make me have to get I can get to get out of the projects or our 6:00 financials are suddenly going to work. Like it's just like this there it's done. Yeah. Which is 6:05 as we all know, we should just keep putting it all in the same system. If we just put it all in one system, that'll make everything better. 6:10 Then it'll at least be all in one system. Then we won't have five softwares. I think I mean to be fair to be fair you know the the the the 6:18 the configuration and setup procore is what we're talking about this could be true for any software literally any 6:24 software if you don't have some base understanding of kind of how that they all have a different logic or a 6:29 different way they think about things if you don't have a base understanding of that we do um you can make decisions during that 6:36 that that implementation that configuration phase that you will come to regret not because you use a bad 6:43 decision, you just didn't know the second, third order knockout effects. Um, it's really spending time thinking 6:49 about permissions. For example, I was just going to say I think a good example is permissions. You can set up basic permissions or maybe they walk you 6:56 through basic permissions and then you need a different level and you don't ever change it and now you have someone 7:01 in your system who shouldn't be. you have someone who needs access who doesn't have it because we all know 7:07 Procore is a robust it's a robust robust is a great word and if you look at that permissions page 7:13 and you go three levels down it is long and deep and you need to know those things 7:19 because you don't know what you don't know until well you have to know it the other thing is 7:25 procore five 10 years ago was a much more simple easy interface 7:31 as they've added more functionality It's gotten more and more complex. And now if you're a brand new user, just 7:38 got Procore, you've you've not got an easy system that you can eventually expand into. 7:43 You've now got a very complex system that you have to figure out. Yeah. And you're paying a lot for like you 7:49 said, you're paying a lot. You want to get a return right now. You want an ROI on Procore. And I think it's fair to say that Procore's model, 7:56 I think it's fair to say, um, if you guys disagree, I Procor's model is not 8:03 holding your hand after the fact. Correct. Procor's model is we have an amazing 8:09 software that we've built over time. We have great partners. We have integrations. We give you what you need 8:15 and then we say go do it and you and there's a lot to learn. There's a lot to learn and there's a lot of knowledge you 8:21 need to make Procore be exactly what you want it to be. Right. And Procore is not in the business of helping all their clients 8:28 maximize their system. That's why they built out the certified consultants network over the last four or five 8:34 years. Why we joined up because we could provide that level of expertise. That's that's what we do. We bridge the gap 8:40 between they sold you the software and they got the basic setup and you're using it fully. It's integrated into 8:46 your daily operations and your whole team's using it and you're really getting maximum benefit. 8:53 So you bought Procore now. Now what? Oh great. Holy [ __ ] I have he that's 8:59 the orange easy button right just press that procore easy button y everything be fixed 9:05 I mean the f there's a lot of questions to to ask you know for that I think the first thing is what modules did you buy 9:12 at procore outside of project management we just had a core so and then if you bought financials are 9:19 you going to connect it to your ERP and then what other technology do you have other softwares do you have do you want 9:24 to integrate and av But I think the first thing you would want to do is go through a standup 9:30 implementation to start assigning rules and permissions, giving people access to the system and make sure they have the 9:36 right access. I'm going to back you up a step. The the bigger question is what are you using it for? Which is which is to imply which is 9:43 to go toward which modules did you buy? Are you going to connect it to your ERP? 9:48 Sure. But the question is really why did you buy? What did you think this was going to fix for you? What was the 9:54 thing? You know what? What pure [ __ ] magic was going to happen when you bought this? That is going to suddenly 9:59 happen when you turn it on. Hopefully before you spent five or six or gosh 10, seven figures. Have you So You Bought Procore. Now What? (Ep. 11) 10:07 spent, you know, 10,000 h 100,000 or a million dollars on crook what size you are, you 10:12 already kind of figured out how you're going to use it at a at a at a 30,000 foot view. Now you have to actually 10:17 start using it. Agreed. So typically what you want to do is start identifying who are going to be your champions, your administrators of 10:24 the system, and then start defining roles and permissions and giving people access. And then you're going to pick a 10:30 couple of projects to load in there. And you're going to start with the core stuff, drawings, specifications, 10:37 daily reports, photos, uh, and then you're going to kind of start setting 10:42 the job up and letting people start using the system. Okay, hey, we got the drawings in there. Let's start walking around. I'll start taking some pictures. 10:49 I'll start doing daily reports. Let's get the basics now. The blogging and tagging of protocore, the basics of project management, the documentation 10:56 side RFIs could go in there and you start using it for that. Now, if 11:01 you're going to connect it to system, that's a whole that's a whole side project because you got to get cost code 11:07 systems in. You got to figure out how you're going to use prime contracts and what tier change orders are you going to 11:12 use and who's going to have what permissions in that and how are the budgets working. Do you need custom budget views? Do you have reports you 11:18 need? So that's a whole rabbit trail rabbit hole we could go down. But I think you know so you bought Procore. 11:25 Now what I mean you got to get basic. You got it's just like any other system. You got 11:30 to get the basics up and your team trained on how to use it by the basics. We talked about this maybe once before. 11:36 I can't remember if we talked about it here or if it was maybe a blog we did. But so you mentioned the easy button 11:42 bank think. So many people I'm going to approach this from that. So you got it now. So what? Okay. Well, here's how not 11:49 to do it. It's you buy it and just kind of hand it off to somebody from an 11:56 executive level. Just hand it off and then never talk about it again and expect them to understand why you why 12:02 you have it in the first place. Shameless plug. Bought Procore. Now what? Hollison Consulting. Stood up. 12:08 Well, that I was just going to say both of you guys are I think you're kind of saying the same thing. So you bought 12:15 Procore. how what the blocking and tackling, but you have to are your people trained in using the system and 12:22 not just the blocking and tackling. Are they trained in do they know how to turn it on? Do they know how to log in? Do 12:28 they know how to enter data? Do they know how to set up a new project? It's not necessarily It doesn't come with the 12:34 easy button. We know that. We're joking about it. But you have to be able to say, "Well, my people can even use it, 12:40 much less use it well, use it, right?" Well, we we hear those training programs that have to be built. 12:45 My point on that was that we hear all the time, we get calls all the time that says, "I got Procore 3 months, 6 months, 12:52 year ago, whatever, and it doesn't work is the first thing you hear." Or, "My 12:58 people aren't using it. I'm thinking about getting rid of it. Can we can we turn this boat around? What you know, we 13:04 can you fix it?" Number one, we're not getting We're only using a Yeah, we're only using a small drop box. 13:10 We got I guess my my point on that is it doesn't work. I disagree. It's probably working the way it was designed. You 13:16 just didn't understand how it was designed to work and you're trying to make it do something it doesn't want to 13:21 do. Not saying we can't help you, but there's a misalignment of expectations or my people aren't using it, which 13:28 probably means there was absolutely no thought of rolling it out, training like you mentioned. Yeah, you have to roll it 13:33 out and explaining the why did we do this in the first place? What's the goal? Yeah. The other thing so answer the 13:40 question now what I I would also say so now what invest in some continuing education for yourselves 13:47 you know go online there is the study training certification courses that you 13:52 can do as self-guided thing they're they're pretty basic and they're very general they don't teach you how to customize or how to adapt it into the 13:59 organization they do teach you what the buttons do how the buttons are what it's supposed to work 14:04 how it's supposed to work and I give you some examples And they do keep that stuff pretty fresh and updated as they update the program. 14:11 I think that's a mindset though, you know. I But if who wants to spend 20 hours going through certification programs? You want 14:16 to just start playing with it. We're in construction. Just give me the tool. I'll figure out, you know, I'll try to give me the 14:22 instructions anyway. Give me the new saw. I'll figure it out. I'll cut my way off. I promise. 14:29 six months to a year later, they're calling us going, "Can you help me figure out why none of this stuff is 14:34 talking to each other and where are all the data breaking down?" And I've got three of these projects right now. 14:40 Uh yeah, we're we're in the midst of trying to work through one right now. Yeah. So, uh I saw thought it'd be fun for us 14:47 to talk from the trenches, real life, like what's one of the projects you're dealing with right now? like what did 14:53 without telling you know too much about them what kind of contractor are they the size and then what did they buy and 14:59 what snags are they hitting? So I got one right off the top. Uh we actually talked about this yesterday. Uh 15:04 we have a general contractor and uh they were struggling with Procore in a couple 15:09 of different ways but this specific example was a third-party um you know electronic signature. 15:18 Yeah. You said they were using Doc Sign or Adobe Sign. One of the two. Yeah. Right. And so the challenges were uh 15:25 they were they were led they were led to believe they should set it up one way. Uh the connection was working but they 15:32 were it wasn't working the way they expected it to. They they wanted uh you know their prime contract and and a 15:38 bunch of attachments like you I need I need you as the subcontractor to initial the scope exhibit. I need you to initial New Software Gone Wrong: An E-Signature Integration Story (Ep. 46) 15:44 the insurance exhibit so forth and so on. And um that wasn't doing that. it wasn't 15:49 working. Uh because they were given a little bit of bad advice and 15:56 also didn't understand the integration, didn't understand the capabilities of both pieces of software and really the 16:01 best way to set it up. So, uh the complaint was we're doing more work now than we were before we got 16:08 these two pieces of software and this was supposed to eliminate like dang near a whole job. 16:14 And instead this person that was doing it is doing more than they ever were, right? So, that's a excellent example of 16:21 integration worked but didn't work the way I expected it to, right? Based on some expectations and a little 16:27 bit of bad advice. Got it. I've got two clients with almost 16:32 the exact same problem right now. So, the ecosystem is 16:37 either Sage 300 or Sage Intact as the accounting system. Yeah. Procore as the project management 16:45 system and Cojo as their procurement software. Okay. So the first challenge is Cojo is where 16:53 they're issuing purchase orders and subcontracts. That's got to go somewhere. If it goes into Sage, you 16:59 can't push that back into Procore and create commitments in Procore. But if I route Cojo into Procore, I can then 17:06 create the commitment in Procore and then I can push that into Sage. So it can work in that direction. Right. Okay. 17:13 The challenge comes when they have to process invoices. So if you try and process the invoice in 17:20 Procore, you can take it and push it to Sage, but then Cojo shows an open commitment that never got 17:25 Yes. an invoice, right? You create you start the commitment in Cojo in the first place, right? Yeah. Right. But it's a oneto one. So you can 17:32 you can pull in a batch of invoices, but then you process them one by one in Cojo. Each time you process an invoice 17:37 in Cojo against a commitment, you can route that into Procore and then that can push into Sage. 17:43 However, both of them want to use Sage Paperless to process their invoices. Procore, Sage & Kojo: When the Data Won't Flow (Ep. 46) 17:48 And if you do that, then Cojo and Procore both show open commitments that never draw down. And the cost from Sage 17:58 shows back up in Procore as direct costs and not costs against commitment. So the 18:03 commitment never goes away. And now you start doubling up on expenses. So now you have to create calculated columns in 18:08 the budget to start artificially drawing down the commitment. Does Cojo have an AP? 18:14 It does functionality. It does. And it does a three-way match with a field ticket. Okay. Yeah, I knew. So So why why Sage 18:21 Paperless? What makes that? So Sage Paperless is a way to do them in batches and load them in in both. And 18:28 you can you can it has more coding uh fields. 18:33 Okay. Um, and Sage doesn't play great with the with the integrations. So, what 18:40 we're finding is if we create a commitment in Cojo, 18:47 um, we can push that into Sage, but then you have to go into or sorry, if you create the commitment in Cojo, you can 18:54 push it into Procore, but then you have to go into Procore and hit the send to ERP button manually. Okay? So, not only do you have to do a 19:01 step of creating the purchase order in Cojo, you've now got to go into Procore and click another button. 19:06 It creates the commitment, but then you have to do the you have to flush the valve in Procore. Correct. You have to send it to the ERP 19:12 and you can automate the Procore holding uh cell the purgatory. You can make it 19:17 bypass that with commitments and invoices. So, that's nice, but you still have to hit that button. So, for a company that 19:22 creates five purchase orders a day, not a big problem. when you create 100 purchase orders a day because you're 150 19:28 million that's a lot of times having to go into Procore and just click the little send to ERP button. So now it's 19:34 like an extra and how would you know it's like you just have to go in there once an hour or some regularity right 19:39 now the either the project manager is buying everything in Cojo and then having to go into Procore to push them 19:46 all or you have a procurement department that's creating them in Cojo and then 19:51 has to go into Procore to push the button as well. And now I'm starting to talk to Procore about is there a way that we can automate that send ERP 19:58 button like if the thing is approved just send it and customization maybe a workflow or a 20:05 some kind some type of customization or workflow we're going to try and design. Um 20:10 but there's all these they don't think about well what's the way the data needs to flow to at least streamline as much 20:17 as possible. Another problem I've got is um their sales tax. So in Kojo, you can 20:24 set it up to calculate sales tax and then I can feed that into Procore. Procore does not have a way to push 20:30 sales tax over into Sage. The integrations don't support sales tax. So now you've got to get the ERP to 20:38 calculate sales tax on its own and hope it matches up with Cojo. And if the 20:43 sales tax varies because you're in a county or a city or a state, whatever tax level you're dealing with, how do we 20:49 make sure that the sales tax is calculated at the project level, right, or on the purchase order level? 20:54 Uh, and so we're dealing with all these little technology, these little minutia things, but they jam up the works and 21:00 they stop these integrations from working seamlessly. You know, we're we're we've got a project where we're we're in the 21:06 selection stage where we're looking for an ERP uh for across a platform. and 21:12 similar, but it's it's a little different, but similar. We're we're attempting to do that data flow 21:19 work. Now, we've identified where our needs [clears throat] and like what what do we want this for? How do we think this is 21:25 going to work? How do we want it to flow? Uh you don't always get what you want, but let's at least start there. 21:32 And so, we're researching the integrations between Procore and different ERPs. Yeah, different ERPs and 21:39 maybe some third party integrations in there and etc etc to draw out the data mapping at least at a maybe not a super 21:46 high level but not at like all the way in the weeds uh to help us make that decision. At least the idea is let's get 21:54 like I don't know hopefully 80% of those problems solved before we even choose right we know what we're getting into and we 22:00 can at least identify like okay there's like these this much we have no idea how to solve that 22:06 maybe it's more like 9010 but like well but we get all this other stuff let's go 22:11 we'll solve these things later is the is the idea yep now one of my clients has introduced Mapping Your Data Flow Before You Pick an ERP (Ep. 46) 22:17 another software which has AI and what it's doing is it's trying to 22:22 simplify the AP process. What it's doing [clears throat] is it's 22:27 querying Sage every night and pulling up all open commitments into the data 22:33 table. And then as they process invoices, it's trying to match the invoices with the open commitments that 22:39 it pulled out of Sage. And if it can match them, then it's going to push them back into the ecosystem as approved 22:46 invoices or flag them with any anomalies. kind of like a uh an AI match. 22:51 Yeah. But it's doing this in this other platform. And the problem is the AI is almost smart enough to figure 22:57 this out most of the time, but it can't it's not quite smart enough yet. And it can't push the data to 23:04 everything. It can't push the data like into Sage and into Cojo and into Procore. 23:09 And so we're you only get one. We're bumping up against API limitations. And so now we're we're 23:15 talking about custom middleware to solve some of these issues. Like AI is not quite there yet. I know it's 23:21 coming up in every conversation. We used to be able to do this just with like writing scripts. Yes. Like hey if then Can AI Fix AP Invoice Matching? (Ep. 46) 23:27 when this happens if this then that and if this isn't this then do this other thing. 23:32 Right. The AI is helping that's just straight up automation. Right. So now we're trying to use AI to 23:37 kind of in infer, hey, it's this vendor and this was the delivery address. That 23:45 delivery address matches a job. The vendor didn't put the job number or the PO number on it, but we can kind of let 23:51 the AI kind of do the do the figuring out like, okay, that was where it was delivered. That address 23:57 matches up with this corresponding project. It's probably for that project. Let me see if that project has any open 24:03 commitments. That's what the AI is starting to figure out. But, uh, they got sold this AI solution that 24:09 again was not ready, is not fully capable of solving their issues. And 24:14 you know, I I think there's something there's something, you know, so there's that there's those you hope it's only 24:20 the 10% things of didn't even didn't even that was like so 24:26 low on the list of what we wanted, but now we're dealing with it and it's like the most important thing. Uh, but there 24:32 is a way to avoid this. I mean, or at least at least get it to that 10%. I find so many of our clients, and this 24:38 is a plug for us, of course, you should ask us to help you before you make a decision. Uh, but it, you're right, so often we 24:45 get this call. Here's what we've done, and it doesn't work. Yeah. And we've been dealing with it for 24:50 a year, right? And it's and and and we've spent lots of times hundreds of thousands of dollars on 24:56 payroll to get these things. Lots of times the individual pieces are working exactly as they're supposed to. 25:02 their expectations of how they're supposed to work don't align, right? Like they bought it for whatever reason, 25:09 you know, they just maybe they didn't do the research or maybe they just didn't listen and like no, no, no, it's going to work. I'm going to make it work. I'm 25:15 going to jam that [ __ ] in there. I'm going to make it, right? I don't know. But so often it's it starts with that expectation thing of 25:20 what do I want it? What I think it should do. Well, I think this goes also back to 25:26 these software companies and the the sales side of it. like they are promising they do make promises 25:31 that this software can do what they claim it does and given the following 1,200 conditions 25:37 that they don't talk about and a lot of times it can do exactly what you want it to do and what they said it could do but getting that to 25:44 push into another system the integration that's where all this stuff breaks down there's not it's not USB it's not the same 25:51 plug-andplay port on every software they all have their own APIs their own ways 25:57 to talk to their data tables read and right permissions and and that's where 26:02 this all is breaking down. Currently, there's nothing I've not seen anything that's a completely wide open API. 26:09 Well, that's a challenge, too, because let's say you found a system. Let's say you talk about ERP here and and you've 26:14 got 15 things you need. Mhm. Not want you need, right? You need inventory. You need all of it. 26:21 It has to do with service. It has to do project level accounting. It has to do discreet invoices. However, when you do 26:26 your demonstration, you look at it and you go, I don't love how that handles inventory. 26:32 I think there's a better solution. Or maybe it's AP automation. Or maybe it's service. Maybe some whatever. It doesn't 26:38 matter. It's one of the kind of tertiary things. It's not core APR stuff. It's 26:43 it's something you know you need for your business. And you're like, I don't love how that the native solution really works. It's got it and I don't have to 26:49 deal if I use it. I don't have to deal with that integration, but I it I don't 26:54 like it. It doesn't do enough. I have a third party over here that will work. It does exactly how I want it to 27:00 work. And that's where you get to the integration problem. It is I've I've heard companies toss 27:06 around the terms best-in-class and best in breed. Oh, okay. Haven't heard the best in breed part. 27:11 Yeah. So, it's like best-in-class might be like this is the best-in-class against other ERPs, like this ERP versus 27:18 other ERPs. Okay. But best in breed is like a service solution. It's not a full 27:24 Oh, okay. It's not a full system. It's just a specific solution for a specific problem or a a fraction of your 27:31 business. So, it's the best service software out there, but it's not the full ERP because the ERP doesn't have a great 27:38 service solution. You go, well, I'll buy the ERP that's bestin-class, but then I'll go buy this service that's best in 27:43 breed uh as a subset. And then you try and integrate those. And um we're in the throws of it, right? 27:51 Like the technology is moving so fast. There's all these new software is coming online. I got I learned about two new 27:58 project management softwares in the past seven days. Yeah. In the past seven days, 28:03 right? Like my cousin who works on uh in the financial industry is asking me 28:09 about this investment opportunity with a new construction software, right? So I I hadn't even heard of it. I had to Best in Class vs. Best in Breed (Ep. 46) 28:15 go research them. They've only been around for a couple of years, but right now I'm doing my own homework on it to 28:21 try and learn about it to see if it's, you know, should we set up a demo? Should we talk to the owner? Should we 28:26 introduce this to any of our clients yet? Right. That's a tough one because 28:31 you've got these great solutions. Traditionally, our rule has been like you you have to have been out there a while. You've had to, you know, be one 28:38 of those best-in-class or best in breed recognized for years in the industry of 28:44 of being a Yeah. have a track record. Have a track record, stable user base. I'm not going anywhere. This is not 28:49 something, you know, somebody is probably inventing something in their garage right as we speak. 28:54 Uh, but they need to go through several rounds of fundraising before they get to, 29:00 you know, right? And a couple years of proving concept. That was the call I got from my cousin New Construction Tech and Procore's Place in the Market (Ep. 46) 29:05 was, "Hey, they're going out for a round of funding. Is this something I should make like our our company should invest 29:10 in, right? Because, you know, Procore is down the road on the investments." The IPO was years ago. It's 29:16 got a 10 billion market cap right now. So, they're like, "Well, what else is out there? What else could potentially 29:24 play in that same field?" So, uh, I and I think we need to start being 29:30 open to looking at newer evolving technology as consultants and saying just because they've only been around 29:36 for two years doesn't mean they're not a great solution. Let's let's start evaluating some of these newer ones for fit, for purpose, for 29:43 integration capability. Um, I think there's an opportunity there. I think the market's going to 29:49 continue to expand out with solutions providers before it contracts. Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. 29:55 There's a contraction coming, but I don't see that coming soon. 30:00 I think I think, you know, I mean, Procore is eating up what it can eat up, and your Autodesks are going to eat up 30:06 what they're going to eat up. Um, but yeah, I it seems like it's still expanding faster than it's contracting 30:13 still. We're still on the front side of that curve which is just going to lead to unfortunately a lot more integration 30:20 woes or uh need to take a little slower more measured approach to think about okay 30:28 it's not just the commitment I have to deal with I have to deal with all the things that go around a commitment or it's not just the progress billing in a 30:35 G7273 that I have to create how do I get that into my accounting system or how do I get that back into my project 30:41 management system when the check comes How do I make sure that I've got something to receive it against? And how does that payment data flow back through 30:48 so I can see days outstanding? All that all those the the subsets of 30:55 data. That's the stuff that I think a lot of companies they skip over or they glance over. They 31:02 they're focused on the core of it and not the little peripheral stuff. And that's what winds up eating up all the 31:08 time in these failed in integrations. You know, you you can you can hardly blame them. They're busy running their 31:13 business. They're trying to grow the business. They got to win work. That's a, you know, that's a that's an everyday thing. 31:18 Uh, or win the work and also build the work, manage the work they're doing. It's an everyday thing. So, you can 31:24 hardly blame them for every now and then. It's a big it's a big investment, but you can hardly blame them for going, 31:31 "This looks good. I 10% effort, let's go that we'll figure it out later." kind of 31:37 a approach, right? They don't recommend. They don't realize the kind kind of downstream 31:42 impacts it can have on their staff. Right. Right. So, all right. That was what I wanted to 31:47 talk about today. Good one. It was a good one. You didn't need that much. It wasn't so bad. It was not so bad. [laughter] 31:53 All right. Well, thanks for joining us on Construction Hot Takes. We'll see you on the next next episode. Find us on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and well, 32:00 wherever else you get 32:05 from Rebar Rose to RF [music] fights, We