May 15, 2025 • 62 mins
What happens when a talented estimator decides to break free from the confines of office life and build a business that serves multiple contractors while traveling the world? Jake Jones, co-founder of Archer Estimation and Consulting, shares his remarkable journey from geology student to nomadic entrepreneur in this thought-provoking conversation.
Jake's natural talent for estimation was discovered almost by accident when his mentor reviewed a project budget he'd prepared and declared, "You're in the wrong job." What followed was a career transformation that led him through various companies where he consistently found ways to optimize estimation processes, turning handwritten takeoffs into sophisticated spreadsheet systems. One simple macro he developed saved his company approximately 40 man-hours annually – exemplifying his philosophy that small improvements can yield significant results.
The pandemic proved to be a turning point for Jake when he discovered he could be even more productive working remotely. When faced with ultimatums to return to the office, he made the bold decision to launch his own fractional estimating business. Now, he helps contractors who need estimation expertise but can't afford full-time specialists while enjoying the freedom to work from anywhere. Currently based in Santiago, Chile, with previous stops in Argentina and Uruguay, Jake and his wife have embraced minimalism, paring down their possessions to just a few suitcases.
For those considering a similar path, Jake offers practical advice about the realities of entrepreneurship, emphasizing the importance of understanding business fundamentals and building strong support networks. His story demonstrates how specialized expertise combined with process optimization can create opportunities for both professional fulfillment and personal freedom.
Whether you're a contractor seeking to improve your bidding processes or someone dreaming of location independence, Jake's experiences provide valuable insights into building a business that serves others while supporting the lifestyle you desire. What small improvements could transform your workflow and open new possibilities in your career?
Jakes Jones:
http://www.archerestimation.com/
mailto:info@archerestimation.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-j-73ba2516
Make yourself a priority and get more done: https://www.depthbuilder.com/do-the-damn-thing
Download a PDF copy of Becoming the Promise You are Intended to Be
https://www.depthbuilder.com/books
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You got to learn fast because it's go, go, go go go.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
That's it, the old axiom drinking from a fire hose
man, Because it's going to comeat you and it's going to come at
you fast.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
What is going on?
L&m family Back again withanother super awesome human
being.
He is a nomadic estimator,helps contractors go after more
pursuits and not only helps themgo get more work, helps them
refine and optimize theirestimating processes.
(00:36):
Y'all already know it's kind ofcrazy.
Like man I get to talk to somany smart people, and it's not
because I'm smart, it's justbecause I have a podcast, so I'm
leveraging that thing for asmuch as I can.
He has been living life on therun.
He is the co-founder of ArcherEstimation and Consulting.
His name is Mr Jake Jones.
(00:57):
He's been at it for a while.
We will find out what part ofthe world he is in today,
because he gets around quite abit.
Find out what part of the worldhe is in today because he gets
around quite a bit.
But before that, if this isyour first time here, this is
the Learnings and Misstepspodcast, where you get to see
real super awesome human beingsjust like you sharing their
(01:20):
gifts and talents to leave thisworld better than they found it.
I'm Jesse, your selfish servant, and we're about to get to know
Mr Jake.
Jake, how are you?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
my friend.
Oh man, I am fantastic, jesse.
Thank you so much for having meon today.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, man, I'm excited.
I was looking at my schedule.
I was like, oh, I get to hangout with Jake.
This is going to be good.
So where are you in the worldtoday?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
So, right now we are in Santiago, chile, and so we
started a digital nomad kind oftrip trek with our business, and
so we are working our waythrough South America right now.
We've been to Buenos Aires,argentina, been to Montevideo,
uruguay.
Now here we are in Santiago deChile.
Been to Montevideo, uruguay Nowhere we are in Santiago de
(02:05):
Chile.
Next week we pack everything upand we're headed off to Peru
for about eight weeks Dang, soalready next week you're heading
on to the next stop.
We spent about 60 days in eachplace.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Oh, okay, so I got like a real softball question
for you, are you ready?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
All right, pay it on me.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
What have you learned about yourself while on this
nomadic journey?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I have learned.
One of the coolest things thatI have learned about myself is
that all of the stuff that Iused to carry around with me,
that I used to fill the spaceand the places we lived, and all
of that that I really needalmost none of it.
That's been.
The biggest thing is being ableto simplify myself down to the
(02:48):
absolute, almost bare bones, andwhen we're still carrying too
much, I mean right now we're.
We've got two 30 inch rollingduffels, two international sized
rollerboard suitcases and twothe day packs and we're going,
man, we really still need toshed some stuff, and so we're
shedding stuff.
(03:08):
Every stop we make Somethingdoesn't make it back in a bag.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Okay, man.
So I'm down with the minimalistidea.
But paring it down that much,what was that like?
Was it simple, we're just goingto take this stuff, or was it?
Was there some kind ofemotional turmoil in deciding
what's going to stay, what's?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
got to go.
Honestly, it's a journey thathas been going on for years.
We started off we moved in 2017from middle Georgia up to
Nashville, tennessee, and whenwe moved, it was me, heather and
her mom.
Her mom lived with us.
(03:50):
We were taking care of her andour two small dogs, and it took
us a 53 foot van trailer and a26 foot U-Haul to move all of
our stuff to Tennessee.
And we had that much stuff, man, and we paid for storage units
and all this other stuff, justlike everybody else does.
(04:12):
And so we kind of went allright, we got to start paring
down and when we moved in 2022from Tennessee to Pennsylvania
for another job move, we movedin an 18 foot box truck and it
was just.
It was Heather and I at thatpoint, but we went from all that
much stuff down to that, and soever since then, we've been
(04:34):
kind of.
We've been you slip and slide alittle bit, and the longer you
stay somewhere, the more stuff.
You kind of.
You get one thing, two things,three things, and so you wind up
accumulating again.
But when we decided we weregoing to do this nomadic trek,
we said we're just going to layeverything out and go through it
(04:55):
and I it's.
I probably shouldn't say this,but we did.
You're, you're familiar withthe marie kondo thing, that you
hold something and does thisspark oh yeah, I love about this
one on Reddit a few years agoand it's the exact opposite of
that.
It's the poop test.
Okay, if you hold it in yourhand and you go if this had poop
(05:18):
on it, would I clean it off orthrow it away.
Okay, yeah, or throw it away,okay.
Yeah, so that was it, that's it,and so now we have very small
wardrobes.
You can wear all the same stuffseveral days a week.
It's fine.
It all washes, and as thingswear out, you buy a thing to
(05:40):
replace it.
So when this shirt wears out,I'll buy a shirt, and so it was
definitely not easy, thoughthere was a lot of stuff that we
were hanging on to because itfelt sentimental, and this was
owned by my grandfather, thiswas owned by her grandfather,
and on and on.
And then we realized one day wewere sitting there going the
(06:00):
thing, the thing isn't thememory.
The thing, the thing isn't thememory.
The memory is the memory.
So sit and look at the thing,think of the memory.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
You don't need the thing.
Fair fair, okay, so it soundslike it was a buildup and with
some momentum then it's like,okay, it makes sense, let's trim
this out, let's trim this out,let's trim that out.
And then you built some likefilters or models to look at
things, to change yourperspective on the material
thing versus the memory, becauseall of my exes will attest to
(06:35):
this I can't stand stopping totake pictures.
I like taking pictures of stuff, like when I'm on a job site
because I'm going to use themfor marketing or something.
I do not understand the purpose.
Let's take a picture all thetime and then do nothing with
the pictures.
I get it.
Of course, now they're digitaland you can just store them on
your phone or whatever, but forme it kind of ruins the memory.
(06:58):
Right, right it's, I just wantto take this thing in, but now I
gotta pose and I gotta hold mychin up and I got like all of
this nonsense if you're doing itand the the thought is, well,
we want to get the memory.
I'm like, yeah, I'm gonnaremember getting pissed off
because we had to stop and takea stupid picture and before we
had to do that my memory wasgreat.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
It was awesome you see these people that go to
concerts now and they spendalmost the whole time holding
their patented phrase, theirdistraction rectangle, with a
camera on in front of their face.
You're going to watch.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Dave.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Matthews play a concert, you're not going to
take a glitchy, grainy video ofit with the sound quality is
going to be like crap.
Go and enjoy the thing.
Hike up to the and enjoy thething.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Hike the mat, hike up to the top of the mountain.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, if you want to take a picture when you get to
the top of the mountain, of theview, yes, I get that, but don't
spend the whole time you're upthere taking pictures.
Put the, put your phone away,put your camera away.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Enjoy the moment.
That time mastery workshop andthey said there were so many
amazing takeaways that I'mlooking to incorporate into my
daily habits.
But one thing stood out to methe most, which was blending my
personal and business scheduletogether, which is something I
totally, totally recommend.
(08:39):
Some people freak out and ifyou're curious and saying, well,
you got to do is sign up forthe next workshop and you'll see
what the fuss is about.
And also all the L&M familymembers out there.
You know, if you leave me acomment, send me a message, dm
text, it doesn't matter, I lovegetting them and it gives me a
good excuse to shout you out inthe future future.
(09:09):
So paring down do you feel likethat's helped you?
The less stuff you have, themore present you can be in
appreciating the moment a littlebit.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, you could also say to like go through and
digitally detox your phone, gothrough and all the apps and
stuff that you have that you'renot really using, ditch them.
They're there to suck your timeaway too, and so not having
stuff, not having granted.
I do miss spending some timeplaying video games, but I don't
have that to suck me in anymore, and there's a lot of
(09:38):
technology now that's gottensmall enough that it does travel
with you, and with the glory ofthe cloud, there's that too.
We still have all of our movies.
They live on a plex server intennessee that I can access
remotely from wherever in theworld we are, so if I want to
watch a movie, I can you know,and we just digitized all our
dvds before we got rid of themyeah, the binder with all that's
(10:01):
awesome.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Okay, so did you and miss heather back.
Let's see, we'll say middleschool.
Did you say, okay, look, I wantto.
I'm going to be an estimatorbecause I can do that work
digitally, which means I can doit from anywhere in the world.
Because, eventually, I want tobe a nomadic entrepreneur, was
(10:23):
that?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
always not at all, not at all, not at all.
The plan no, gosh, I wanted to.
Honestly, I really wanted tojoin the military from a very
young age.
About the time I was turning 18was the time after Desert Storm
, when the military was reallytrying to draw it down.
(10:43):
Rifs were a big thing.
Lots of people were being Lego.
They weren't really being pickyabout who they could take and I
had a medical history thatprecluded me.
I did ROTC in high school.
I applied to Virginia Institute.
Oh wow, yeah.
I did ROTC all four years inhigh school, applied to VMI, got
(11:18):
a four-year Army scholarship,oh wow, and they were like well
sorry, you can still go to VMIand maybe try and get in on a
waiver.
I couldn't afford it.
Vmi was outrageously expensive,and so I wound up, and it was
fortuitous as hell, because ifI'd gone that route.
I never would have met Heather,and so I picked the only school
(11:41):
that I had applied to, and theonly reason I applied to this
school was, I'm sad to say nowwas because they were giving
away cool t-shirts.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
But it was the only non-military school that I'd
applied to.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
So I went to Georgia Southern and I had a backup plan
I was going to get a criminaljustice degree and a psychology
minor and I was going to go workfor federal law enforcement.
Well, I got into my firstcouple of classes and, man, I
was so bored.
It was misery.
I hated it, I just and mygrades the first semester were
(12:12):
terrible because of it.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I couldn't even so was it the course material?
Was it the teachers?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
It was a little bit of both.
It just wasn't interesting.
I was not interested at all.
And so the very next semestersemester I was on academic
probation.
I was about to get kicked outof Georgia Southern and yeah,
and so I had to.
I had to do something.
And my roommate, bless hisheart, says, hey, here's my
books and notes and exams andeverything for this, the intro
(12:43):
to geology course.
That's part of the corecurriculum.
You just take that and itshould be an easy.
You won't have to focus as muchtime on it.
And I said, okay, I can do that.
I never touched any of hiscoursework.
Day one I went man, I am home, Ilove this stuff.
Earth science is where I wantto be, and so right then I
(13:06):
thought, well, I don't want tomove too fast, but this is what
I want to do, took a coupleother classes throughout my core
curriculum, went back, had totake an environmental science,
took environmental geology.
Halfway through that course Iwas ready.
I changed my major.
I got a Bachelor of Sciencedegree and loved it.
But I got a Bachelor of Sciencedegree in geology and I was
(13:28):
going to be a hard rock quarrygeologist.
That was what I really wantedto do and the universe once
again had other plans.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Okay, so hard rock quarry is that like granite?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, things like Stone Mountain Granite, Piedmont
, granite rock in thesoutheastern United States,
North Georgia, granites,diabases, diorites, that kind of
stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Got it, got it, got it, okay, and so the universe
had other plans.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yet again, I love that there's this new website
that had just come out, and somepeople may not even remember it
now, but it was calledmonstercom.
Okay, you remember monster I doremember monster, monster have
been all over the campus radiofor weeks and one of the things
that I did during I tutoredintro level geology courses as I
(14:22):
as a way to make some money asI got higher up in my thing.
So one night I was sittingthere during my tutoring hours.
No one had showed up.
I had a whole room to myselfand there was a computer
listening to campus radio.
The monster commercial comes onagain a month or two away from
graduation.
So I say, well, why not, I'llthrow my resume on monster,
We'll see what happens.
I'll throw my resume on monster, We'll see what happens.
(14:47):
Lo and behold, Tuesday morning Iget a phone call from a company
that and it was weird becausethe guy was like hey, here's our
website, this is what we do.
If you're interested, call meback.
And that was basically it.
That was a phone call, not likea message.
That was his phone call to me.
I went and looked at it and itwas a company that specialized
in high-hazard compressed gascylinder and piping remediation.
(15:08):
These guys, if you have one ofthe big oxygen acetylene bottles
or various other things ethyl,methyl, chicken death.
And these guys were the guysthat would come in.
They'd put on chemical suits,respirators and they would treat
the stuff in those cylindersand make it safe and I thought I
looked at this for all aboutfive minutes and it tickled my
(15:29):
scientist brain and I said Ithink I'm going to apply for
this job.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
A little bit of adventure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Applied for that job, got it, worked it for a year
and a half and it was one of thecoolest things I ever did.
It was pure cutting edgechemistry and physics every day.
That was what the job was waspractical chemistry and physics.
I ate it up and wound up gettinga job after that with an
(16:00):
environmental consulting firm.
It's its own long story.
I won't go into it.
But I wound up going to workfor a consulting firm and it's
its own long story.
I won't go into it.
But I wound up going to workfor a consulting firm.
And so that was when I learnedabout billable hours and lived
and died by them.
And I had a mentor who was achemical engineer brilliant guy
still my mentor today he and Istill talk and totally changed
(16:23):
my life.
Because there was one Wednesday, I think it was and I wandered
down the hall to Andy's officeand I said hey, man, do you have
anything else I can work on?
He said I thought I'd given youenough to keep you busy through
the middle of next week and Isaid, yeah, but I've done.
And he went, go check it again.
I was like I've already done,that I can't polish that turd,
no more no-transcript for thisproject.
(17:14):
I want it by next Friday, Idon't want to see it sooner.
I don't want to see you sooner,unless you have questions.
And I want it complete.
And I said okay and I went backto my desk and I sat down
trying to figure out how to puta big budget together for this
huge environmental site inPennsylvania and having no clue
what I was doing, I just took itstepwise.
(17:37):
What's the first thing?
Who do I need, what kind ofpeople?
And I started making phonecalls and finding vendors.
And the next Friday I took itin, I hand it to him.
And finding vendors.
And the next Friday I took itin, I hand it to him.
And it was about this thick andhe looks at it and he opens it.
He flips through a couple ofpages and he stops and he closes
the folder and he kind ofcloses his eyes for a second.
(17:59):
He opens it up and he flipsthrough it much more slowly and
he's just kind of shaking hishead a little bit and he flips
to it much more slowly.
He's just kind of shaking hishead a little bit and I'm
thinking, oh my God, I screwedthis up, I've missed this, I've
wasted all this billable timeNow I'm going to have to fix
this on my own nickel.
And he closes it and he closeshis eyes, he takes a deep breath
(18:20):
and just sits there for about15 seconds and if you've ever
been on the receiving end ofsomething like that, that's the
longest 15 seconds.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Oh yeah, you're like, you hit me, you just hit me
already.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And he opens his eyes and looks at me and he says
Jake, I'm afraid I have to tellyou something, you're in the
wrong job.
And I'm like, oh my God, howbad did I mess this up.
And he said this is phenomenalwork.
You are an estimator, you havea skill.
You should be doing this withyour life.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And I said oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Well, what does that mean?
And he said yeah, and he justkind of shooed me away and told
me to go find something else todo, no-transcript, to generate
(19:30):
some revenue while we waited onspills to come in between.
And so I hooked up with thelocal safety clean branch and
the local PSC branch and severalother folks and ran around
looking at industrial cleaningprojects tank cleans, pressure
washing and parking lots thatwere had oil and stuff on there
and started just churning outlittle estimates for this kind
(19:52):
of work and from from thererealized okay, I really do have
a bent for this after ER.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
But you enjoy it.
Oh, I love it.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I love it.
There's nothing for me gettinga set of plans and taking it
apart, figuring out how to puteverything together, figuring
out what all it's going to take,finding all the parts and
pieces I need, and then takingall of that and putting it into
a, into a box and makingsomething of it and then turning
it into to find out whether Iwon the job, to find out whether
(20:27):
and not only did I win the job,did I win the job with a good
margin.
Am I close to second?
There's a weird thing aboutestimators.
We have this thing.
We don't ever want a gap.
We're the low bidder.
The ultimate thing to do is tobe the low bidder and be pennies
away from second place.
You're always kind of trying torefine that and figure out a
(20:49):
way to make sure that yourpricing compares to the good, to
the market pricing, to thepoint where you're not leaving
money on the table.
You're not winning jobs by avast margin, because if you're
closer to second, that tells youthat, a your bid is tight and,
b you've maximized your profitopportunities.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Okay.
So the time with the consultant, it sounded like he wanted to
make sure that you were beingthorough.
He gave you an assignment thattriggered all the thoroughness
within you because I'm sure thatlevel of getting that detailed
or enthralled, that doesn'thappen to everything you do.
It's specifically in thisestimating environment, yeah.
(21:31):
And so the science, the threadof the the scientist, still kind
of plays all the way.
I mean, you're at this point inthe story.
You were doing this for ahazmat company that does
cleanups and stuff.
So you're still connected tothe thing.
But even just estimating in andof itself, like there's a
theory, you've got to prove thetheory, submit the theory for
(21:53):
peer review, which would besubmitting the proposal, and
then, if they accept it orthey'll let you know where you
are.
Yes, I proved it.
Scientific method yeah, that'sit.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
And then after that, I got into public work and into
utilities and that was where Ireally that's where the drug
comes in, because there's a drugcalled a public bid opening,
and anyone out there that's everbeen to one knows.
You go into a room, your bid isin a sealed envelope, and they
(22:25):
open the envelope and they readall the bids out to for
everybody to hear, and it'sinstant feedback and that's
addicting, because then youreally get to a chance to you,
you build up to it and you'resitting there and your, your
hands are shaking and you'resweating and you're thinking
about all this parts and piecesthat you've put together in this
bid.
(22:45):
And that was where I reallydiscovered I love, love what I
do, and I've worked for acompany that did everything the
old fashioned way I mean theseguys, literally.
When I started with them in2013, they hand wrote their
takeoffs, faxed them to theirmaterial suppliers and did the
(23:08):
math longhand.
So I came in with my experienceand having to turn these things
out very quickly and I said,hey, let me optimize this.
Hey, let me make this better,let me take your handwritten
thing and let me turn it into anexcel spreadsheet.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So now, yeah, you that like were they like yeah,
please do no.
No, they were like this iswitchcraft, stop.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
And and they were like we don't trust it if we, if
we can't put it into thecalculator ourselves, and so
let's try it, let's just try itright.
And so, right, that's the way Idid it.
And so I started doing all ofmy bids that way in Excel, and
it came down to if I kludged aformula, then yeah, then that
was the end, and I was writingmy proposal while they were
(24:17):
still figuring the job, and sothat was what birthed my.
I got to make things better.
I got to I can, I can, I cantweak stuff.
And so it went from there to,as they started bidding more
municipal work well, they bid alot of.
We started bidding biggermunicipal work and huge DOT
projects, and then it was we had30, 40 pay items at the end of
(24:41):
the day that we had to split ourcosts down into, and their old
fashioned way of doing it wasadding up the material, adding
up what they thought the laborwould be and then dividing it by
.
And so you were flipping pagesand trying to find some of this
stuff, and it was.
It was a bear.
So I made, I created aspreadsheet, that spreadsheet
(25:05):
that you could copy and paste,it would go out and actually
find stuff, and so it reallysped that process up.
And I went I'm on to somethinghere.
By the time I left they hadgone from handwriting stuff and
doing takeoff with coloredpencils and scale rules to doing
electronic takeoff on a screenusing something like PlanSwift
(25:29):
or Bluebeam, and they were doingExcel bids and it was fantastic
and I realized that I couldchange things.
And then I went and started anestimating department for a
startup company in Nashville andI was like employee number?
I want to say 18.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
So did they get you?
Did they say, hey, jake, weneed an estimating department.
We don't know what that is,come do it for us.
Or like, how did thatmaterialize?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
It was.
I got headhunted into it.
There was a recruiter thatcalled and they were looking
like we had decided it was timefor us to move out of the middle
Georgia area that we were.
I could stay there and we'vealways been a bit nomadic and
you kind of get that picture aswe go.
I've never lived anywhere longerthan five years, and so it was
(26:22):
time for us to move on.
I realized I could stay inmiddle Georgia.
I could stay there for 20 yearsthrough retirement.
I would still never quite fitin.
I and I would be doing the samething I was doing and I was
like it's rewarding, I like it,but there's more out there.
And so I put my resume out, gotheadhunted for this position,
(26:48):
looked around to see if therewere any others and found
another position up there.
So we went up to Nashville, dida couple of job interviews.
I picked the one that was thestartup, and it was.
They'd gotten to the pointwhere the president and owner
couldn't handle all of ithimself.
He knew he needed an estimator,he needed help, yep.
(27:08):
So he wanted someone that knewwhat was going on and knew how
to set things up.
And I, I kind of knew how toset things up.
I'd seen how things could bedone.
I'd never set anything up myown, on my own.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Oh, so this was like your own petri dish, to go do
experimentation and see whatsticks.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Oh, I love it.
We moved to Nashville.
I wound up in a job in anoffice about the size of a broom
closet at a startup and builtsomething.
They went from $3 million inrevenue to $30 million in two
years.
In two years, baby in two yearsthat's painful.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
That must have been just get it, baby.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Get it, let's go for the first year and a half,
almost two years that I was theestimator and it was I mean, you
talk about wild and woolly man,it.
There were times when my daystarted at 4am and went till six
or seven o'clock at night, fivedays a week, and then I'd
usually go six, seven hours inon Saturday.
It was, but it was a great.
(28:15):
I still felt rewarded.
I was killing myself but Istill felt rewarded in what I
was doing.
And so the with any companythat grows that fast, you wind
up seeing that there areproblems that come up with it.
And we went from Excelspreadsheets to massive
multi-page, multi-tab tieredspreadsheets, to estimating
(28:40):
software, to heavy bid sheets,to estimating software, to heavy
bid, and I just I had help.
They'd hired a couple otherestimators.
I was still just kind of atthat point, I was burned out and
I just wanted out and so it wastime to go and so off.
(29:07):
I went to another company inmiddle Tennessee and these guys
somebody once referred to themas the top five or in the top 5%
of heavy bid users.
I mean they, they literallythis company had a team of five
or six estimators and threejuniors, three seniors and an
admin, and they estimated on theorder of a billion dollars
(29:30):
worth of work a year with thatteam and heavy bid, and so it
wasn't uncommon for us to do twomultimillion dollar site work
bids a week.
And in order to be able tochurn that amount of work they
had to have really goodprocesses in place, and they did
(29:52):
.
They used electronic takeoffand they had a database for
their electronic takeoffsoftware that was the same as
their pay items for heavy bid.
So you took off the job withthe same heavy bid Heavy bid is
an estimating software.
It's put out by a company calledheavy construction services
(30:14):
software, I think HCSS.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Okay, and so it's a software.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Got it, and it's widely renowned as the Cadillac
of heavy civil estimate software.
It's really what it's here for,and there's several others out
there there's Bid2Win, there'sOmenSystemsProEstimatenet.
There's probably a dozen ofthem.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
And they're geared for like civil work, some of
them are.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Bid2win is more of just a pure estimating software.
You can do anything with bid towin.
(31:05):
I've got one of my clients thatuses it for environmental.
Yeah, it's all about how you doyour setup and so right.
But the way these guys workedwas everything was regimented,
everything was the same.
So when you finish your takeoffyou've had a.
We had a spreadsheet that I waslike 1600 rows long and you that
was all literally extensively,almost all of the pay items, all
of the individual line items inan estimate.
So dirt cut to fill 18 inch RCP, eight inch PVC sewer, it was
all in that spreadsheet and soyou went through and you put
(31:25):
your takeoff in that spreadsheetand then you would delete all
the lines that were empty, thatyou didn't need, and then you'd
import that into heavy bid.
You'd press a button.
Well, they had the wholelibrary of tasks, of all the
material and the labor and theequipment, all that pre-built.
So when you hit that button,all that pre-populated, yeah,
(31:47):
and so that's 90% of yourestimate done right there.
The rest is material entry andadjusting things.
So they invested a whole lot oftime in getting that set up but
it paid off in the amount oftime that they spent on an
estimate with one of theirestimators.
(32:07):
But there's always still roomfor improvement.
And one of the things was when Igot there you went through and
using control minus, was how youdeleted all the empty rows.
So you would select a batch ofthem and then delete, and so on
and so forth.
Well, it still takes a longtime.
Your average civil estimate's50 pay items, so you're calling
(32:30):
50 out of 1600.
It still takes you a good 10minutes to delete all those rows
.
Don't miss one, because thenyou leave it out of your
estimate.
So optimization Jake comes inand he goes.
Man, there's got to be a betterway to do this.
There's got to be a better wayto do this.
And this was the days beforechat GPT.
So I pulled out the Google andfound a couple of old visual
(32:52):
basic textbooks and put togethera little short five line macro
in visual basic that I bound toa button on that spreadsheet and
when you click that button,column D was all of the
quantities, so that that kind oflook.
And if there was not a value incolumn D it deleted that row.
(33:14):
So you had a one click roll upbutton that deletes all the
empty rows for you and iserror-proof.
They do it manually yeah yeah.
Okay, so I did that and wetested it a few times and
finally I rolled it out, showedthe whole company and everybody
was just ecstatic because wewound up saving.
We timed it about eight to tenminutes per estimate.
(33:38):
These guys do Per yeah, eightminutes per estimate, and it was
.
You add that up up, you do 300estimates a year.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
you're suddenly saving 40 man, hours worth of
time deleting.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yes, and so that's deleting rows mindless deleting
rows, and so that was the sortof thing that I live for.
Are those little tweaks, thoseways to make things better?
And yeah, and I did a couple ofother things while I was there
and wrote a couple of otherscripts, came up with a couple
of other spreadsheets, that yeah, and so how long were you there
(34:18):
before you're like OK, time forthe next move, so.
I started there right before thepandemic lockdown, and the
pandemic was yet another one ofthose.
Universe had other plansmoments, because I had always
had this belief that I had to bein an office.
I had to be regionally locatedwhere I was working, because I
(34:41):
needed to be able to get myhands on stuff, I needed to be
able to talk to stuff.
Well, the pandemic I started.
On a Wednesday, Friday morning,management calls us all into
one little room in the middle ofpandemic and says hey, it's,
it's 11 o'clock on Friday whenwe leave here, go to your office
, get all your stuff, take yourmonitors down, take your
(35:03):
computer, take your keyboard, gohome, spend the rest of the
afternoon, set yourself up inoffice at your house a place to
work.
Don't like set up on thekitchen table, Find yourself
somewhere, move furniture,whatever you got to do.
So you've got a workspace andplan to be there for six weeks,
maybe longer.
That was my introduction to thiscompany.
(35:25):
I learned how to do all thestuff that they did and I wasn't
even there.
We met through teams and phonecalls.
I did pre-cons job kickoffmeetings via Zoom and it was
okay.
All right, I can do this fromwherever.
And I said, guys, I don'treally want to come back to the
office.
There's no reason.
(35:46):
I'm more productive at home.
I don't lose, you get yourtravel time back.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
I work my travel time , guys, like, instead of leaving
my house at 7 o'clock andsitting in traffic for 45
minutes, I'm in front of mycomputer at 7 and I'm working
until 530.
You're getting more out of meand I'm not sitting there doom
scrolling on my feet.
When I need a break, I go emptythe dishwasher, I go cook lunch
, I go do something.
(36:14):
I empty the clothes dryer,something.
I do something that gives me afeeling of accomplishment in my
personal life and it means thatI'm saving some time on the
stuff I have to do in my notwork hours.
And this is fantastic for me,for my personality, which is
somewhat introverted anyway.
And they went.
(36:36):
No, you need to come back tothe office.
We don't trust that you'reworking.
I said you don't trust that I'mworking.
How do you not trust that I'mworking?
I've yet to miss a deadline.
Most of the time I'm early.
I haven't had any big misses onprojects.
I'm working remotely witheverybody in the team.
I've done all this, but why doI need to come back to the
(36:56):
office?
Well, we need to be able towatch you work.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
So oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a.
That's a common thing with alot of people.
They gotta see, okay, I couldbe present and not do a damn,
because I'm present where youfeel better.
I I think on two ends, rightlike when the whole thing
happened, I was conflictedbecause all my brethren, all the
trade workers they didn't havea choice, right Like they had to
keep going.
We were deemed, finally,essential and they can't do
(37:26):
their work remote.
There were some jobs that youcan't do them remotely, which I
understand that, but there's alot of.
I remember thinking, man, if Iwas a, if I had this, the skill
set to do things remotely,because I didn't until the
lockdown, because I didn't untilthe lockdown, but when I was a
(37:46):
superintendent, there wasabsolutely at least a day, if
not half, that I could like thetasks and duties that I had to
do.
I didn't have to do them onsite and it took me 10 times
longer to do it at the office oron site than it would for me to
do at home.
And I think nowadays, barringthe job, like the jobs that
require you to physically bepresent, there is a lot of work
(38:08):
that can be done anywhere andtrying to do it specifically in
construction, on the job site.
It's just a bad idea and and Ithink leaders out there in
construction, it's not thatpeople need to show up to the
job site, it's that managers,leaders, need to learn how to
lead and support remote workers.
(38:29):
I think, I think a mix isabsolutely the right answer.
What that looks like for peopleis and some people really need
to have.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Some people need there.
There are personality typesthat need to go to an office,
that need to interact, but atthe same time there are plenty
of personalities that don't needthat.
That don't want to be watchedthat don't want all the
distractions of the water coolertalk or people.
My coworkers I like mycoworkers.
(39:01):
My coworkers were fantasticthat I worked with over the
years, but one of them would hita point where they needed a
break so they would come talk tome.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
I'm not a break point .
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I'm up to my eyeballs in trying to get this estimate
out by the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Now is not a good time.
I don't want to play, I'mworking.
Go away, I'm with you, man.
I feel that 100%.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
When those guys said, hey, jake, we're putting our
foot down.
You can either come back to theoffice or you can go find
another job.
And I said, okay, I'll seey'all in the office on Monday.
And I hung up the phone and Ipulled up LinkedIn, and I pulled
up Indeed and I started jobhunting in a hurry.
(39:48):
And the nice thing about beinga skilled estimator is that
there's always opportunities,always no-transcript, yeah.
(40:29):
So I turned in my notice.
I got the surprise Pikachu face.
What do you mean?
What do you mean?
You're resigning.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
They're going to let me do whatever.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, I said well, you told me to come back to the
office or find another job.
I wasn't going to quit rightthen, but I did find another job
.
And so that kind of catapultedme into now I'm estimating
remotely and doing really wellat it and hitting margins and
not missing things.
And I had people that if therewas a site visit necessary,
(41:02):
there were people that could godo that site walk for me.
And we wound up moving toPennsylvania, not necessarily to
be where their office was,because I wasn't I was two hours
away but just to be more in thearea where they did work, so
that if I needed to go dosomething I could.
And it worked out beautifully.
And then Heather had beenbugging me for years that I was
(41:27):
working too hard, I was lettingcompanies take advantage of me,
that I was working too manyhours and that I was shortening
my lifespan.
And so she said we really needto think about us starting our
own business.
And I said yeah, yeah, no one'sgoing to freelance out an
estimator.
And and I thought well, and Ikept thinking about well, maybe,
(41:49):
maybe.
And so finally I had a coupleof just two really really bad
days in a row and I took somePTO.
We went off and then ticked offa bucket list item that was a
couple of states away, that acouple of days, that next week,
and on the way back we weredriving and talking and Heather
(42:11):
said you really should thinkabout setting up our own
business again.
And I said you know, I'm readyto talk about it.
And we hashed it out and laidout the business plan and the
details on the way back home andwhen we got home I called a
friend of mine that I had beentrying to hire me as his
estimator for a number of yearsand I said, hey, I'm thinking
(42:32):
about doing this thing where Iwork as a fractional estimator
and a fractional chief estimatorestimator and a fractional
chief estimator.
And so you know the whole goalwould be I want to.
I've got a lot of experience,I've got almost 20 years in this
.
Now I want to be able to giveback to some of the smaller
(42:57):
contractors, not if people thatneed an estimator but don't
necessarily have the budget tohire one full time, they're not
bidding enough work or theydon't have the budget to pay
someone that has the level ofexperience they're stuck on like
entry level and they don't havetime to train.
And I said do you think that'sanything you might be willing to
try?
(43:17):
Anything you might be willingto try?
And his response, after abouthalf a heartbeat was.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
I have four jobs that you could estimate starting
tomorrow and I said I'll sendthem to you right now.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Oh, okay, I said well let me sleep on it, let me talk
it over one more time withHeather, let me make sure this
really is what we want and we'llgive it a shot.
And so I called him the nextmorning.
I said, hey, guess what it'stomorrow, I'm ready.
And he sent me the first fourjobs, sent me a login into his
estimating software and westarted the paperwork to create
(43:56):
Archer Estimation.
Right then I mean that was onMonday we were off and running
to the creating the LLC andeverything else.
So I worked for this guy nightsand weekends.
For I said we didn't startpaperwork quite that quick
because we gave it about sixweeks of me working nights and
weekends In addition to my otherjob to to make sure that it was
(44:17):
yeah, To make.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Is it going to stick?
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Is it going to stick?
Yeah, is it going to stick.
Is it going to work?
Speaker 1 (44:22):
A lot of people.
I think I've confused people,because I'm a huge advocate for
like self-care and thinking timeand like all of that, because
it's new to me and I know whenI'm starting something new.
It's nights, weekends, all day.
There's a season.
(44:42):
There are seasons and will bemore in my future where I'm just
straight.
I mean, the past two weeks forme have been I've been
inconsistent and less availablethan usual, but it's that time,
right, it's time to go, and onceI get past it, I'm about a week
or two away.
(45:03):
On the other end, it'll be niceand smooth and I'll be more
available and do my pampering ofmyself and all that.
But there are times you got totest it out.
You don't know for sure you gotto do double duty.
That's part of buildingsomething.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
We were really I don't lucky is not the word,
fortunate, I guess.
So we started Archer with oneclient in the bucket, ready to
go within two days afterstarting.
When I turned in my resignationwith my then employer, I said
guys, I'm going to go do thisthing, but I want y'all to be a
client too.
I want y'all to be my firstfractional chief estimating
(45:40):
client.
And so they knew me, they knewwhat they got out of me, they
knew my skills, and so that wasa no brainer for them.
They were in a bit of a cashcrunch anyway, and so it was
perfect.
I gave them more runway bygetting off of their books as a
salaried employee and on as asubcontractor, and they've been
fantastic.
(46:00):
We're still working togethernow.
They've made it through theircrash crunch.
They're growing.
They're going to hit theirrevenue targets for this year.
They're one of my best clients.
The other one is a guy inMiddle Tennessee.
He's going gangbusters.
He's winning work left andright.
We're upgrading him.
His old way of doing things waskind of go find an estimate
(46:21):
that he'd done before and copythat and try and go through and
change everything Close enoughNow.
I've got him on the spreadsheetmodel and we've got all his pay
items lined out.
We are we're about to upgradehim to version 2.0 of that and I
have this opportunity now towork for several people and our
(46:45):
goal is really to kind of likewe know we're probably not going
to be there forever for all ofour clients, because the goal is
to get their processes tuned up, get them straightened out, get
them winning work, get themcashflow and get them to hire an
estimator and then, oncethey're ready to go, then I can
(47:06):
step back, their estimator takesover.
I'm still there.
I still remember all the stuffthat I did, how their system
works.
As long as they kind of keep mein the loop, I'm there in case
they get a busy period and theyneed to turn me back on.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Of course.
Now these services arespecifically in the civil world.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Not necessarily no.
So I work in both the civil andthe environmental remediation
world in the day-to-day.
That said, estimating kind ofboils down to four main things,
and those four main things arewhat do I have to buy?
What materials do I need toaccomplish the task?
What people do I need to send?
Speaker 1 (47:48):
And how long are they going to be there?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
What equipment do they need?
And then the fourth is whatsubcontractors do?
I need to round out my bidpackage and so that can be done.
I can do that for anybody.
There'll be a learning curve,obviously, and some folks the
learning curve is just too steep.
We had one contractor thatcalled us that did mostly
(48:12):
residential renovation work.
That was done really withoutplans or very rudimentary plans,
and we finally said I know I'mcapable of doing it, but I don't
.
Necessarily.
It's not the best fit for rightnow.
With the workload that I've got, with the workload that you've
got, I don't have time to learn,you don't have time to teach.
It's not a good fit.
(48:33):
But at the same time, if you'vegot a process or you're out
there trying to figure out howcan I make this a process, come
to me with.
These are the four things andthis is what we do.
These are our most common payitems.
That's the bones of it.
We take and build from there.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
So you went from the pressures long hours, high
volume of workload of onecompany and said you know what?
I want to do it for multiplecompanies at the same time.
Yeah, how has that played outin terms of the amount of time
and energy that you commit tothe work?
(49:16):
Is it the same?
Speaker 2 (49:23):
commit to the work.
Is it the same?
It is a lot the same, andthat's because I'm and this is
one of my growth edges.
We've talked about this beforeI could work myself to death
easily, and so now I constantlybump up against my ceiling of
the amount of work I can take on.
But I work really hard to onlybump up against my ceiling and
(49:44):
not exceed it like I used to Atleast not, for there are times
when the bids do the bid Right.
But at the same time we'reworking to manage our time
effectively, to not take on morework than we can get to.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
So for somebody out there that has the inkling of
being a fractional whateverright, because there's
estimating, there's marketing,there's all kinds of different
support roles for a businesswhat would you recommend?
What do they need to look outfor and be aware of that kind of
bit you in the ankle becauseyou didn't see it coming when
(50:21):
you started?
Speaker 2 (50:22):
I think the big thing is make sure that you
understand the ins and outs ofrunning a business, doing
something.
If you have been working in abusiness for years but haven't
run your own, you need to makesure that you've got your own
(50:45):
support network in place for you.
You need to make sure that youhave a good attorney.
You need to make sure that youhave a good tax person that you
can trust that can give you goodinformation.
I think those were the twothings I think that chewed on us
a little bit in this process.
You know your work.
(51:05):
You know what you do, what yourdeliverables are.
You know that all day long.
Think about all of the stuffthat goes into running a
business and make sure, beforeyou launch, think about that and
think about how you're going tohandle the back end of your
business.
How are you going to do your?
(51:26):
How are you going to get paid?
How are you going to follow up?
That's the and I got reallylucky in Heather because because
she founded the business and soshe runs.
She's active in it as she canbe, and so she runs the business
(51:46):
side of Archer.
We make all our decisionstogether, but she does all the
invoicing, she follows up andgets paid, she handles the taxes
for the most part and so all ofthe dirty icky stuff that you
have to do to make a businessrun.
I got really lucky because shedoes almost all of that and I
(52:08):
just get to do what I love.
I just get to estimate and somake sure, too, that you're
leaving yourself time for that.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
don't book yourself up with 50 hours of billable
work, of work, of client work,and and get yeah, you still have
30, 30, 40 percent of multiplythat hour booked time times 1.4,
that's how many hours you'regoing to be spending doing
follow-up, check-in, all theother stuff.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
It's a lot, yes, and it is a lot.
And it's a drain on you too,because if you overbook yourself
when you're getting started, oreven once you're starting, once
you've been in business for acouple of years, even that
tendency is to I can go a littlebetter.
Oh, I can raise my revenue alittle bit more, but if you're
(53:05):
not really paying attention toall the back end stuff, you'll
wind up crashing.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
That'll get you 100%.
Oh yeah, well, I mean, Istarted my business three years
ago.
It's amazing, right?
Like the first time I had a gigoffered to me, they said hey
man, send me an invoice andwe'll have a check for you the
day of the thing.
And I said, oh shit, how do youdo an invoice?
So I went home and YouTube didokay.
(53:32):
And there's just, there's amultitude, multitude of things
that I had no idea, no conceptof what it was going to take to
operate the business Likedelivering the service.
You said it very wellDelivering the service, that's
the fun part, that's the easything.
You got reps, you've been doingthat for years.
(53:53):
It's all the other littlethings.
And also I want to be clearit's not impossible things.
And also I want to be clearit's not impossible.
You just better best be readyto learn.
Neil was learning on the matrixwhen we plugged them in.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
you got to learn fast because it's it's go, go, go go
that's it, the the old axiomdrinking from a fire hose man,
because it's gonna come at youand it's gonna come at you fast
yes, yes, and you and here's thething you don't want it to come
at you slow, because that meansyou don't have business.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
I want to get business.
Oh crap, I got to learn allthese things all of a sudden
because now I have business.
But it's amazing, it'sexhilarating.
I know, for me it's.
I was a gamer for a long timeand I swear it's.
It's like playing a video gamefor you.
You get different levels, youfight the boss, you get new
skills, you get new power-ups,you're ready for the next level
(54:47):
now.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
It's a really expensive video game, but it's
fun absolutely yeah, and youhave your, your one thing, your
one person.
That is fine for when you're astartup, yeah, but then, all of
a sudden, you're going to startdoing business in another state.
Well, suddenly my one stateaccountant isn't in.
What we need anymore.
(55:08):
Now we need someone that knowshow to handle two states,
multiple states.
It's licensed in differentplaces.
Oh wait, can my lawyer defendme in another state?
And it's unfortunate that youhave to think about that
sometimes too, because gone arethe days of the spit on your
hand handshake deals, andthey're still out there, but
(55:29):
they're very, very few and farbetween.
And now there's contracts andeverything else that fly back
and forth.
You need to make sure and that'sthe other thing I would say is,
if you are contracting withsomebody and you're not really
doing your due diligence onreading and understanding that
(55:50):
contract and the clauses thatare in it, then you're setting
yourself up for some kind ofadvice here.
I hear so many times about smallcivil contractors that are so
excited to get that one big job.
It's the biggest job they evergot.
They just sign the contract andgo and then come to realize
that, oh wait, we're not goingto get paid for 120 days.
(56:13):
It's in the contract language.
I didn't really read the scope,but they slipped the asphalt
paving in on me.
Yeah, Wow.
Speaker 1 (56:23):
That's what they do, man.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
So if somebody out there says, man, I want to
connect with Mr Jake, whereshould we send?
Speaker 2 (56:30):
So probably the best place to start is our website,
wwwarcherestimationcom.
You can also hit me up.
Heather and I are both onLinkedIn.
We post things out there.
I'm sure you've.
If you don't mind, pop up theour LinkedIn profiles then you
can also send us an email.
We've got an email address.
(56:50):
Info at archer estimationcom.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
Nice, nice.
Yeah, we'll make sure we haveall that in the show notes so
people can access if they needsome estimating help, or if they
want some like pointers on onlaunching their own fractional
thing, or if they want somepointers on where to go, where
to stay when they're travelingthe gallivanting all over south
(57:16):
america, which is awesome yeah,yeah, reach out to us, talk to
us.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
We can.
We're glad to help it.
Also, one of the best placesthat we found when we were
trying to figure out the nutsand bolts of starting our
business was the and they're allover the country is a small
business development center, anSBDC, and usually these are run
(57:44):
through one of the statecolleges near you.
So I know I've got a friendthat works for the SBDC for
University of Georgia.
Ours was the closest branch tous in Pennsylvania was the
Shippensburg University branch,and so these are like small
business incubators that haveadvisors.
(58:06):
It's totally free, costsnothing, and but they've got
advisors who, if you don'treally need I want to start a
business, but I don't know howto start a business these places
are a wealth of information.
They can come, they can pointout things, they can help you
through the process of findingthe paperwork, finding the forms
(58:28):
to fill out.
They'll help you fill the formsout if you have questions.
So those are a great andtremendous resource.
That is.
Speaker 1 (58:36):
Yeah, no, that's out there.
Good point, I should probablygo visit one of those, because I
just kind of yeah, let me seewhat I want.
Hey, what are you doing?
Okay, I'll do that.
Hey, I need some help.
Okay, I'll do that.
I'm not.
I'm sure if somebody were totake a look at it they'd be like
what in the world are you doing?
Ding dong man, I'm having fun,it's awesome having fun, so, all
(59:06):
right.
So you're ready for the finalcloseout question.
Lay it on me.
All right, so obviously,immense growth.
You've done a lot of learning,tinkering and improving things
is is a common theme with you,and you can't you've always got
to just can we tweak it a littlebit better, and for the benefit
of others, of course.
So I'm interested in what youranswer is going to be.
So, what is the promise you areintended to be?
Speaker 2 (59:31):
What is the promise I'm intended to be.
Yes, I would say, the promisethat I am intended to be is a
(01:00:06):
promise that it that you'vealready got and the knowledge
that you've already got, toleverage that into a better, a
brighter and a more efficientworkflow and tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Nice.
Yes, I agree, I'm lazy, Iwon't't do it, but I know that
it's possible.
Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
I had a blast.
I absolutely had a blast.
Thank you so much you'rewelcome, brother.
You got to learn fast because it's go, go, go go go.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
That's it, the old axiom drinking from a fire hose
man, Because it's going to comeat you and it's going to come at
you fast.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
What is going on?
L&m family Back again withanother super awesome human
being.
He is a nomadic estimator,helps contractors go after more
pursuits and not only helps themgo get more work, helps them
refine and optimize theirestimating processes.
(00:36):
Y'all already know it's kind ofcrazy.
Like man I get to talk to somany smart people, and it's not
because I'm smart, it's justbecause I have a podcast, so I'm
leveraging that thing for asmuch as I can.
He has been living life on therun.
He is the co-founder of ArcherEstimation and Consulting.
His name is Mr Jake Jones.
(00:57):
He's been at it for a while.
We will find out what part ofthe world he is in today,
because he gets around quite abit.
Find out what part of the worldhe is in today because he gets
around quite a bit.
But before that, if this isyour first time here, this is
the Learnings and Misstepspodcast, where you get to see
real super awesome human beingsjust like you sharing their
(01:20):
gifts and talents to leave thisworld better than they found it.
I'm Jesse, your selfish servant, and we're about to get to know
Mr Jake.
Jake, how are you?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
my friend.
Oh man, I am fantastic, jesse.
Thank you so much for having meon today.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, man, I'm excited.
I was looking at my schedule.
I was like, oh, I get to hangout with Jake.
This is going to be good.
So where are you in the worldtoday?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
So, right now we are in Santiago, chile, and so we
started a digital nomad kind oftrip trek with our business, and
so we are working our waythrough South America right now.
We've been to Buenos Aires,argentina, been to Montevideo,
uruguay.
Now here we are in Santiago deChile.
Been to Montevideo, uruguay Nowhere we are in Santiago de
(02:05):
Chile.
Next week we pack everything upand we're headed off to Peru
for about eight weeks Dang, soalready next week you're heading
on to the next stop.
We spent about 60 days in eachplace.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Oh, okay, so I got like a real softball question
for you, are you ready?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
All right, pay it on me.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
What have you learned about yourself while on this
nomadic journey?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I have learned.
One of the coolest things thatI have learned about myself is
that all of the stuff that Iused to carry around with me,
that I used to fill the spaceand the places we lived, and all
of that that I really needalmost none of it.
That's been.
The biggest thing is being ableto simplify myself down to the
(02:48):
absolute, almost bare bones, andwhen we're still carrying too
much, I mean right now we're.
We've got two 30 inch rollingduffels, two international sized
rollerboard suitcases and twothe day packs and we're going,
man, we really still need toshed some stuff, and so we're
shedding stuff.
(03:08):
Every stop we make Somethingdoesn't make it back in a bag.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Okay, man.
So I'm down with the minimalistidea.
But paring it down that much,what was that like?
Was it simple, we're just goingto take this stuff, or was it?
Was there some kind ofemotional turmoil in deciding
what's going to stay, what's?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
got to go.
Honestly, it's a journey thathas been going on for years.
We started off we moved in 2017from middle Georgia up to
Nashville, tennessee, and whenwe moved, it was me, heather and
her mom.
Her mom lived with us.
(03:50):
We were taking care of her andour two small dogs, and it took
us a 53 foot van trailer and a26 foot U-Haul to move all of
our stuff to Tennessee.
And we had that much stuff, man, and we paid for storage units
and all this other stuff, justlike everybody else does.
(04:12):
And so we kind of went allright, we got to start paring
down and when we moved in 2022from Tennessee to Pennsylvania
for another job move, we movedin an 18 foot box truck and it
was just.
It was Heather and I at thatpoint, but we went from all that
much stuff down to that, and soever since then, we've been
(04:34):
kind of.
We've been you slip and slide alittle bit, and the longer you
stay somewhere, the more stuff.
You kind of.
You get one thing, two things,three things, and so you wind up
accumulating again.
But when we decided we weregoing to do this nomadic trek,
we said we're just going to layeverything out and go through it
(04:55):
and I it's.
I probably shouldn't say this,but we did.
You're, you're familiar withthe marie kondo thing, that you
hold something and does thisspark oh yeah, I love about this
one on Reddit a few years agoand it's the exact opposite of
that.
It's the poop test.
Okay, if you hold it in yourhand and you go if this had poop
(05:18):
on it, would I clean it off orthrow it away.
Okay, yeah, or throw it away,okay.
Yeah, so that was it, that's it,and so now we have very small
wardrobes.
You can wear all the same stuffseveral days a week.
It's fine.
It all washes, and as thingswear out, you buy a thing to
(05:40):
replace it.
So when this shirt wears out,I'll buy a shirt, and so it was
definitely not easy, thoughthere was a lot of stuff that we
were hanging on to because itfelt sentimental, and this was
owned by my grandfather, thiswas owned by her grandfather,
and on and on.
And then we realized one day wewere sitting there going the
(06:00):
thing, the thing isn't thememory.
The thing, the thing isn't thememory.
The memory is the memory.
So sit and look at the thing,think of the memory.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
You don't need the thing.
Fair fair, okay, so it soundslike it was a buildup and with
some momentum then it's like,okay, it makes sense, let's trim
this out, let's trim this out,let's trim that out.
And then you built some likefilters or models to look at
things, to change yourperspective on the material
thing versus the memory, becauseall of my exes will attest to
(06:35):
this I can't stand stopping totake pictures.
I like taking pictures of stuff, like when I'm on a job site
because I'm going to use themfor marketing or something.
I do not understand the purpose.
Let's take a picture all thetime and then do nothing with
the pictures.
I get it.
Of course, now they're digitaland you can just store them on
your phone or whatever, but forme it kind of ruins the memory.
(06:58):
Right, right it's, I just wantto take this thing in, but now I
gotta pose and I gotta hold mychin up and I got like all of
this nonsense if you're doing itand the the thought is, well,
we want to get the memory.
I'm like, yeah, I'm gonnaremember getting pissed off
because we had to stop and takea stupid picture and before we
had to do that my memory wasgreat.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
It was awesome you see these people that go to
concerts now and they spendalmost the whole time holding
their patented phrase, theirdistraction rectangle, with a
camera on in front of their face.
You're going to watch.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Dave.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Matthews play a concert, you're not going to
take a glitchy, grainy video ofit with the sound quality is
going to be like crap.
Go and enjoy the thing.
Hike up to the and enjoy thething.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Hike the mat, hike up to the top of the mountain.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, if you want to take a picture when you get to
the top of the mountain, of theview, yes, I get that, but don't
spend the whole time you're upthere taking pictures.
Put the, put your phone away,put your camera away.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Enjoy the moment.
That time mastery workshop andthey said there were so many
amazing takeaways that I'mlooking to incorporate into my
daily habits.
But one thing stood out to methe most, which was blending my
personal and business scheduletogether, which is something I
totally, totally recommend.
(08:39):
Some people freak out and ifyou're curious and saying, well,
you got to do is sign up forthe next workshop and you'll see
what the fuss is about.
And also all the L&M familymembers out there.
You know, if you leave me acomment, send me a message, dm
text, it doesn't matter, I lovegetting them and it gives me a
good excuse to shout you out inthe future future.
(09:09):
So paring down do you feel likethat's helped you?
The less stuff you have, themore present you can be in
appreciating the moment a littlebit.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, you could also say to like go through and
digitally detox your phone, gothrough and all the apps and
stuff that you have that you'renot really using, ditch them.
They're there to suck your timeaway too, and so not having
stuff, not having granted.
I do miss spending some timeplaying video games, but I don't
have that to suck me in anymore, and there's a lot of
(09:38):
technology now that's gottensmall enough that it does travel
with you, and with the glory ofthe cloud, there's that too.
We still have all of our movies.
They live on a plex server intennessee that I can access
remotely from wherever in theworld we are, so if I want to
watch a movie, I can you know,and we just digitized all our
dvds before we got rid of themyeah, the binder with all that's
(10:01):
awesome.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Okay, so did you and miss heather back.
Let's see, we'll say middleschool.
Did you say, okay, look, I wantto.
I'm going to be an estimatorbecause I can do that work
digitally, which means I can doit from anywhere in the world.
Because, eventually, I want tobe a nomadic entrepreneur, was
(10:23):
that?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
always not at all, not at all, not at all.
The plan no, gosh, I wanted to.
Honestly, I really wanted tojoin the military from a very
young age.
About the time I was turning 18was the time after Desert Storm
, when the military was reallytrying to draw it down.
(10:43):
Rifs were a big thing.
Lots of people were being Lego.
They weren't really being pickyabout who they could take and I
had a medical history thatprecluded me.
I did ROTC in high school.
I applied to Virginia Institute.
Oh wow, yeah.
I did ROTC all four years inhigh school, applied to VMI, got
(11:18):
a four-year Army scholarship,oh wow, and they were like well
sorry, you can still go to VMIand maybe try and get in on a
waiver.
I couldn't afford it.
Vmi was outrageously expensive,and so I wound up, and it was
fortuitous as hell, because ifI'd gone that route.
I never would have met Heather,and so I picked the only school
(11:41):
that I had applied to, and theonly reason I applied to this
school was, I'm sad to say nowwas because they were giving
away cool t-shirts.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
But it was the only non-military school that I'd
applied to.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
So I went to Georgia Southern and I had a backup plan
I was going to get a criminaljustice degree and a psychology
minor and I was going to go workfor federal law enforcement.
Well, I got into my firstcouple of classes and, man, I
was so bored.
It was misery.
I hated it, I just and mygrades the first semester were
(12:12):
terrible because of it.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
I couldn't even so was it the course material?
Was it the teachers?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
It was a little bit of both.
It just wasn't interesting.
I was not interested at all.
And so the very next semestersemester I was on academic
probation.
I was about to get kicked outof Georgia Southern and yeah,
and so I had to.
I had to do something.
And my roommate, bless hisheart, says, hey, here's my
books and notes and exams andeverything for this, the intro
(12:43):
to geology course.
That's part of the corecurriculum.
You just take that and itshould be an easy.
You won't have to focus as muchtime on it.
And I said, okay, I can do that.
I never touched any of hiscoursework.
Day one I went man, I am home, Ilove this stuff.
Earth science is where I wantto be, and so right then I
(13:06):
thought, well, I don't want tomove too fast, but this is what
I want to do, took a coupleother classes throughout my core
curriculum, went back, had totake an environmental science,
took environmental geology.
Halfway through that course Iwas ready.
I changed my major.
I got a Bachelor of Sciencedegree and loved it.
But I got a Bachelor of Sciencedegree in geology and I was
(13:28):
going to be a hard rock quarrygeologist.
That was what I really wantedto do and the universe once
again had other plans.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Okay, so hard rock quarry is that like granite?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, things like Stone Mountain Granite, Piedmont
, granite rock in thesoutheastern United States,
North Georgia, granites,diabases, diorites, that kind of
stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Got it, got it, got it, okay, and so the universe
had other plans.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Yet again, I love that there's this new website
that had just come out, and somepeople may not even remember it
now, but it was calledmonstercom.
Okay, you remember monster I doremember monster, monster have
been all over the campus radiofor weeks and one of the things
that I did during I tutoredintro level geology courses as I
(14:22):
as a way to make some money asI got higher up in my thing.
So one night I was sittingthere during my tutoring hours.
No one had showed up.
I had a whole room to myselfand there was a computer
listening to campus radio.
The monster commercial comes onagain a month or two away from
graduation.
So I say, well, why not, I'llthrow my resume on monster,
We'll see what happens.
I'll throw my resume on monster, We'll see what happens.
(14:47):
Lo and behold, Tuesday morning Iget a phone call from a company
that and it was weird becausethe guy was like hey, here's our
website, this is what we do.
If you're interested, call meback.
And that was basically it.
That was a phone call, not likea message.
That was his phone call to me.
I went and looked at it and itwas a company that specialized
in high-hazard compressed gascylinder and piping remediation.
(15:08):
These guys, if you have one ofthe big oxygen acetylene bottles
or various other things ethyl,methyl, chicken death.
And these guys were the guysthat would come in.
They'd put on chemical suits,respirators and they would treat
the stuff in those cylindersand make it safe and I thought I
looked at this for all aboutfive minutes and it tickled my
(15:29):
scientist brain and I said Ithink I'm going to apply for
this job.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
A little bit of adventure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Applied for that job, got it, worked it for a year
and a half and it was one of thecoolest things I ever did.
It was pure cutting edgechemistry and physics every day.
That was what the job was waspractical chemistry and physics.
I ate it up and wound up gettinga job after that with an
(16:00):
environmental consulting firm.
It's its own long story.
I won't go into it.
But I wound up going to workfor a consulting firm and it's
its own long story.
I won't go into it.
But I wound up going to workfor a consulting firm.
And so that was when I learnedabout billable hours and lived
and died by them.
And I had a mentor who was achemical engineer brilliant guy
still my mentor today he and Istill talk and totally changed
(16:23):
my life.
Because there was one Wednesday, I think it was and I wandered
down the hall to Andy's officeand I said hey, man, do you have
anything else I can work on?
He said I thought I'd given youenough to keep you busy through
the middle of next week and Isaid, yeah, but I've done.
And he went, go check it again.
I was like I've already done,that I can't polish that turd,
no more no-transcript for thisproject.
(17:14):
I want it by next Friday, Idon't want to see it sooner.
I don't want to see you sooner,unless you have questions.
And I want it complete.
And I said okay and I went backto my desk and I sat down
trying to figure out how to puta big budget together for this
huge environmental site inPennsylvania and having no clue
what I was doing, I just took itstepwise.
(17:37):
What's the first thing?
Who do I need, what kind ofpeople?
And I started making phonecalls and finding vendors.
And the next Friday I took itin, I hand it to him.
And finding vendors.
And the next Friday I took itin, I hand it to him.
And it was about this thick andhe looks at it and he opens it.
He flips through a couple ofpages and he stops and he closes
the folder and he kind ofcloses his eyes for a second.
(17:59):
He opens it up and he flipsthrough it much more slowly and
he's just kind of shaking hishead a little bit and he flips
to it much more slowly.
He's just kind of shaking hishead a little bit and I'm
thinking, oh my God, I screwedthis up, I've missed this, I've
wasted all this billable timeNow I'm going to have to fix
this on my own nickel.
And he closes it and he closeshis eyes, he takes a deep breath
(18:20):
and just sits there for about15 seconds and if you've ever
been on the receiving end ofsomething like that, that's the
longest 15 seconds.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Oh yeah, you're like, you hit me, you just hit me
already.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And he opens his eyes and looks at me and he says
Jake, I'm afraid I have to tellyou something, you're in the
wrong job.
And I'm like, oh my God, howbad did I mess this up.
And he said this is phenomenalwork.
You are an estimator, you havea skill.
You should be doing this withyour life.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
And I said oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Well, what does that mean?
And he said yeah, and he justkind of shooed me away and told
me to go find something else todo, no-transcript, to generate
(19:30):
some revenue while we waited onspills to come in between.
And so I hooked up with thelocal safety clean branch and
the local PSC branch and severalother folks and ran around
looking at industrial cleaningprojects tank cleans, pressure
washing and parking lots thatwere had oil and stuff on there
and started just churning outlittle estimates for this kind
(19:52):
of work and from from thererealized okay, I really do have
a bent for this after ER.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
But you enjoy it.
Oh, I love it.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I love it.
There's nothing for me gettinga set of plans and taking it
apart, figuring out how to puteverything together, figuring
out what all it's going to take,finding all the parts and
pieces I need, and then takingall of that and putting it into
a, into a box and makingsomething of it and then turning
it into to find out whether Iwon the job, to find out whether
(20:27):
and not only did I win the job,did I win the job with a good
margin.
Am I close to second?
There's a weird thing aboutestimators.
We have this thing.
We don't ever want a gap.
We're the low bidder.
The ultimate thing to do is tobe the low bidder and be pennies
away from second place.
You're always kind of trying torefine that and figure out a
(20:49):
way to make sure that yourpricing compares to the good, to
the market pricing, to thepoint where you're not leaving
money on the table.
You're not winning jobs by avast margin, because if you're
closer to second, that tells youthat, a your bid is tight and,
b you've maximized your profitopportunities.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Okay.
So the time with the consultant, it sounded like he wanted to
make sure that you were beingthorough.
He gave you an assignment thattriggered all the thoroughness
within you because I'm sure thatlevel of getting that detailed
or enthralled, that doesn'thappen to everything you do.
It's specifically in thisestimating environment, yeah.
(21:31):
And so the science, the threadof the the scientist, still kind
of plays all the way.
I mean, you're at this point inthe story.
You were doing this for ahazmat company that does
cleanups and stuff.
So you're still connected tothe thing.
But even just estimating in andof itself, like there's a
theory, you've got to prove thetheory, submit the theory for
(21:53):
peer review, which would besubmitting the proposal, and
then, if they accept it orthey'll let you know where you
are.
Yes, I proved it.
Scientific method yeah, that'sit.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
And then after that, I got into public work and into
utilities and that was where Ireally that's where the drug
comes in, because there's a drugcalled a public bid opening,
and anyone out there that's everbeen to one knows.
You go into a room, your bid isin a sealed envelope, and they
(22:25):
open the envelope and they readall the bids out to for
everybody to hear, and it'sinstant feedback and that's
addicting, because then youreally get to a chance to you,
you build up to it and you'resitting there and your, your
hands are shaking and you'resweating and you're thinking
about all this parts and piecesthat you've put together in this
bid.
(22:45):
And that was where I reallydiscovered I love, love what I
do, and I've worked for acompany that did everything the
old fashioned way I mean theseguys, literally.
When I started with them in2013, they hand wrote their
takeoffs, faxed them to theirmaterial suppliers and did the
(23:08):
math longhand.
So I came in with my experienceand having to turn these things
out very quickly and I said,hey, let me optimize this.
Hey, let me make this better,let me take your handwritten
thing and let me turn it into anexcel spreadsheet.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
So now, yeah, you that like were they like yeah,
please do no.
No, they were like this iswitchcraft, stop.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
And and they were like we don't trust it if we, if
we can't put it into thecalculator ourselves, and so
let's try it, let's just try itright.
And so, right, that's the way Idid it.
And so I started doing all ofmy bids that way in Excel, and
it came down to if I kludged aformula, then yeah, then that
was the end, and I was writingmy proposal while they were
(24:17):
still figuring the job, and sothat was what birthed my.
I got to make things better.
I got to I can, I can, I cantweak stuff.
And so it went from there to,as they started bidding more
municipal work well, they bid alot of.
We started bidding biggermunicipal work and huge DOT
projects, and then it was we had30, 40 pay items at the end of
(24:41):
the day that we had to split ourcosts down into, and their old
fashioned way of doing it wasadding up the material, adding
up what they thought the laborwould be and then dividing it by
.
And so you were flipping pagesand trying to find some of this
stuff, and it was.
It was a bear.
So I made, I created aspreadsheet, that spreadsheet
(25:05):
that you could copy and paste,it would go out and actually
find stuff, and so it reallysped that process up.
And I went I'm on to somethinghere.
By the time I left they hadgone from handwriting stuff and
doing takeoff with coloredpencils and scale rules to doing
electronic takeoff on a screenusing something like PlanSwift
(25:29):
or Bluebeam, and they were doingExcel bids and it was fantastic
and I realized that I couldchange things.
And then I went and started anestimating department for a
startup company in Nashville andI was like employee number?
I want to say 18.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
So did they get you?
Did they say, hey, jake, weneed an estimating department.
We don't know what that is,come do it for us.
Or like, how did thatmaterialize?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
It was.
I got headhunted into it.
There was a recruiter thatcalled and they were looking
like we had decided it was timefor us to move out of the middle
Georgia area that we were.
I could stay there and we'vealways been a bit nomadic and
you kind of get that picture aswe go.
I've never lived anywhere longerthan five years, and so it was
(26:22):
time for us to move on.
I realized I could stay inmiddle Georgia.
I could stay there for 20 yearsthrough retirement.
I would still never quite fitin.
I and I would be doing the samething I was doing and I was
like it's rewarding, I like it,but there's more out there.
And so I put my resume out, gotheadhunted for this position,
(26:48):
looked around to see if therewere any others and found
another position up there.
So we went up to Nashville, dida couple of job interviews.
I picked the one that was thestartup, and it was.
They'd gotten to the pointwhere the president and owner
couldn't handle all of ithimself.
He knew he needed an estimator,he needed help, yep.
(27:08):
So he wanted someone that knewwhat was going on and knew how
to set things up.
And I, I kind of knew how toset things up.
I'd seen how things could bedone.
I'd never set anything up myown, on my own.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Oh, so this was like your own petri dish, to go do
experimentation and see whatsticks.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Oh, I love it.
We moved to Nashville.
I wound up in a job in anoffice about the size of a broom
closet at a startup and builtsomething.
They went from $3 million inrevenue to $30 million in two
years.
In two years, baby in two yearsthat's painful.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
That must have been just get it, baby.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Get it, let's go for the first year and a half,
almost two years that I was theestimator and it was I mean, you
talk about wild and woolly man,it.
There were times when my daystarted at 4am and went till six
or seven o'clock at night, fivedays a week, and then I'd
usually go six, seven hours inon Saturday.
It was, but it was a great.
(28:15):
I still felt rewarded.
I was killing myself but Istill felt rewarded in what I
was doing.
And so the with any companythat grows that fast, you wind
up seeing that there areproblems that come up with it.
And we went from Excelspreadsheets to massive
multi-page, multi-tab tieredspreadsheets, to estimating
(28:40):
software, to heavy bid sheets,to estimating software, to heavy
bid, and I just I had help.
They'd hired a couple otherestimators.
I was still just kind of atthat point, I was burned out and
I just wanted out and so it wastime to go and so off.
(29:07):
I went to another company inmiddle Tennessee and these guys
somebody once referred to themas the top five or in the top 5%
of heavy bid users.
I mean they, they literallythis company had a team of five
or six estimators and threejuniors, three seniors and an
admin, and they estimated on theorder of a billion dollars
(29:30):
worth of work a year with thatteam and heavy bid, and so it
wasn't uncommon for us to do twomultimillion dollar site work
bids a week.
And in order to be able tochurn that amount of work they
had to have really goodprocesses in place, and they did
(29:52):
.
They used electronic takeoffand they had a database for
their electronic takeoffsoftware that was the same as
their pay items for heavy bid.
So you took off the job withthe same heavy bid Heavy bid is
an estimating software.
It's put out by a company calledheavy construction services
(30:14):
software, I think HCSS.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Okay, and so it's a software.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Got it, and it's widely renowned as the Cadillac
of heavy civil estimate software.
It's really what it's here for,and there's several others out
there there's Bid2Win, there'sOmenSystemsProEstimatenet.
There's probably a dozen ofthem.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
And they're geared for like civil work, some of
them are.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Bid2win is more of just a pure estimating software.
You can do anything with bid towin.
(31:05):
I've got one of my clients thatuses it for environmental.
Yeah, it's all about how you doyour setup and so right.
But the way these guys workedwas everything was regimented,
everything was the same.
So when you finish your takeoffyou've had a.
We had a spreadsheet that I waslike 1600 rows long and you that
was all literally extensively,almost all of the pay items, all
of the individual line items inan estimate.
So dirt cut to fill 18 inch RCP, eight inch PVC sewer, it was
all in that spreadsheet and soyou went through and you put
(31:25):
your takeoff in that spreadsheetand then you would delete all
the lines that were empty, thatyou didn't need, and then you'd
import that into heavy bid.
You'd press a button.
Well, they had the wholelibrary of tasks, of all the
material and the labor and theequipment, all that pre-built.
So when you hit that button,all that pre-populated, yeah,
(31:47):
and so that's 90% of yourestimate done right there.
The rest is material entry andadjusting things.
So they invested a whole lot oftime in getting that set up but
it paid off in the amount oftime that they spent on an
estimate with one of theirestimators.
(32:07):
But there's always still roomfor improvement.
And one of the things was when Igot there you went through and
using control minus, was how youdeleted all the empty rows.
So you would select a batch ofthem and then delete, and so on
and so forth.
Well, it still takes a longtime.
Your average civil estimate's50 pay items, so you're calling
(32:30):
50 out of 1600.
It still takes you a good 10minutes to delete all those rows
.
Don't miss one, because thenyou leave it out of your
estimate.
So optimization Jake comes inand he goes.
Man, there's got to be a betterway to do this.
There's got to be a better wayto do this.
And this was the days beforechat GPT.
So I pulled out the Google andfound a couple of old visual
(32:52):
basic textbooks and put togethera little short five line macro
in visual basic that I bound toa button on that spreadsheet and
when you click that button,column D was all of the
quantities, so that that kind oflook.
And if there was not a value incolumn D it deleted that row.
(33:14):
So you had a one click roll upbutton that deletes all the
empty rows for you and iserror-proof.
They do it manually yeah yeah.
Okay, so I did that and wetested it a few times and
finally I rolled it out, showedthe whole company and everybody
was just ecstatic because wewound up saving.
We timed it about eight to tenminutes per estimate.
(33:38):
These guys do Per yeah, eightminutes per estimate, and it was
.
You add that up up, you do 300estimates a year.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
you're suddenly saving 40 man, hours worth of
time deleting.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yes, and so that's deleting rows mindless deleting
rows, and so that was the sortof thing that I live for.
Are those little tweaks, thoseways to make things better?
And yeah, and I did a couple ofother things while I was there
and wrote a couple of otherscripts, came up with a couple
of other spreadsheets, that yeah, and so how long were you there
(34:18):
before you're like OK, time forthe next move, so.
I started there right before thepandemic lockdown, and the
pandemic was yet another one ofthose.
Universe had other plansmoments, because I had always
had this belief that I had to bein an office.
I had to be regionally locatedwhere I was working, because I
(34:41):
needed to be able to get myhands on stuff, I needed to be
able to talk to stuff.
Well, the pandemic I started.
On a Wednesday, Friday morning,management calls us all into
one little room in the middle ofpandemic and says hey, it's,
it's 11 o'clock on Friday whenwe leave here, go to your office
, get all your stuff, take yourmonitors down, take your
(35:03):
computer, take your keyboard, gohome, spend the rest of the
afternoon, set yourself up inoffice at your house a place to
work.
Don't like set up on thekitchen table, Find yourself
somewhere, move furniture,whatever you got to do.
So you've got a workspace andplan to be there for six weeks,
maybe longer.
That was my introduction to thiscompany.
(35:25):
I learned how to do all thestuff that they did and I wasn't
even there.
We met through teams and phonecalls.
I did pre-cons job kickoffmeetings via Zoom and it was
okay.
All right, I can do this fromwherever.
And I said, guys, I don'treally want to come back to the
office.
There's no reason.
(35:46):
I'm more productive at home.
I don't lose, you get yourtravel time back.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
I work my travel time , guys, like, instead of leaving
my house at 7 o'clock andsitting in traffic for 45
minutes, I'm in front of mycomputer at 7 and I'm working
until 530.
You're getting more out of meand I'm not sitting there doom
scrolling on my feet.
When I need a break, I go emptythe dishwasher, I go cook lunch
, I go do something.
(36:14):
I empty the clothes dryer,something.
I do something that gives me afeeling of accomplishment in my
personal life and it means thatI'm saving some time on the
stuff I have to do in my notwork hours.
And this is fantastic for me,for my personality, which is
somewhat introverted anyway.
And they went.
(36:36):
No, you need to come back tothe office.
We don't trust that you'reworking.
I said you don't trust that I'mworking.
How do you not trust that I'mworking?
I've yet to miss a deadline.
Most of the time I'm early.
I haven't had any big misses onprojects.
I'm working remotely witheverybody in the team.
I've done all this, but why doI need to come back to the
(36:56):
office?
Well, we need to be able towatch you work.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
So oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a.
That's a common thing with alot of people.
They gotta see, okay, I couldbe present and not do a damn,
because I'm present where youfeel better.
I I think on two ends, rightlike when the whole thing
happened, I was conflictedbecause all my brethren, all the
trade workers they didn't havea choice, right Like they had to
keep going.
We were deemed, finally,essential and they can't do
(37:26):
their work remote.
There were some jobs that youcan't do them remotely, which I
understand that, but there's alot of.
I remember thinking, man, if Iwas a, if I had this, the skill
set to do things remotely,because I didn't until the
lockdown, because I didn't untilthe lockdown, but when I was a
(37:46):
superintendent, there wasabsolutely at least a day, if
not half, that I could like thetasks and duties that I had to
do.
I didn't have to do them onsite and it took me 10 times
longer to do it at the office oron site than it would for me to
do at home.
And I think nowadays, barringthe job, like the jobs that
require you to physically bepresent, there is a lot of work
(38:08):
that can be done anywhere andtrying to do it specifically in
construction, on the job site.
It's just a bad idea and and Ithink leaders out there in
construction, it's not thatpeople need to show up to the
job site, it's that managers,leaders, need to learn how to
lead and support remote workers.
(38:29):
I think, I think a mix isabsolutely the right answer.
What that looks like for peopleis and some people really need
to have.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Some people need there.
There are personality typesthat need to go to an office,
that need to interact, but atthe same time there are plenty
of personalities that don't needthat.
That don't want to be watchedthat don't want all the
distractions of the water coolertalk or people.
My coworkers I like mycoworkers.
(39:01):
My coworkers were fantasticthat I worked with over the
years, but one of them would hita point where they needed a
break so they would come talk tome.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
I'm not a break point .
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I'm up to my eyeballs in trying to get this estimate
out by the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Now is not a good time.
I don't want to play, I'mworking.
Go away, I'm with you, man.
I feel that 100%.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
When those guys said, hey, jake, we're putting our
foot down.
You can either come back to theoffice or you can go find
another job.
And I said, okay, I'll seey'all in the office on Monday.
And I hung up the phone and Ipulled up LinkedIn, and I pulled
up Indeed and I started jobhunting in a hurry.
(39:48):
And the nice thing about beinga skilled estimator is that
there's always opportunities,always no-transcript, yeah.
(40:29):
So I turned in my notice.
I got the surprise Pikachu face.
What do you mean?
What do you mean?
You're resigning.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
They're going to let me do whatever.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, I said well, you told me to come back to the
office or find another job.
I wasn't going to quit rightthen, but I did find another job
.
And so that kind of catapultedme into now I'm estimating
remotely and doing really wellat it and hitting margins and
not missing things.
And I had people that if therewas a site visit necessary,
(41:02):
there were people that could godo that site walk for me.
And we wound up moving toPennsylvania, not necessarily to
be where their office was,because I wasn't I was two hours
away but just to be more in thearea where they did work, so
that if I needed to go dosomething I could.
And it worked out beautifully.
And then Heather had beenbugging me for years that I was
(41:27):
working too hard, I was lettingcompanies take advantage of me,
that I was working too manyhours and that I was shortening
my lifespan.
And so she said we really needto think about us starting our
own business.
And I said yeah, yeah, no one'sgoing to freelance out an
estimator.
And and I thought well, and Ikept thinking about well, maybe,
(41:49):
maybe.
And so finally I had a coupleof just two really really bad
days in a row and I took somePTO.
We went off and then ticked offa bucket list item that was a
couple of states away, that acouple of days, that next week,
and on the way back we weredriving and talking and Heather
(42:11):
said you really should thinkabout setting up our own
business again.
And I said you know, I'm readyto talk about it.
And we hashed it out and laidout the business plan and the
details on the way back home andwhen we got home I called a
friend of mine that I had beentrying to hire me as his
estimator for a number of yearsand I said, hey, I'm thinking
(42:32):
about doing this thing where Iwork as a fractional estimator
and a fractional chief estimatorestimator and a fractional
chief estimator.
And so you know the whole goalwould be I want to.
I've got a lot of experience,I've got almost 20 years in this
.
Now I want to be able to giveback to some of the smaller
(42:57):
contractors, not if people thatneed an estimator but don't
necessarily have the budget tohire one full time, they're not
bidding enough work or theydon't have the budget to pay
someone that has the level ofexperience they're stuck on like
entry level and they don't havetime to train.
And I said do you think that'sanything you might be willing to
try?
(43:17):
Anything you might be willingto try?
And his response, after abouthalf a heartbeat was.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
I have four jobs that you could estimate starting
tomorrow and I said I'll sendthem to you right now.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Oh, okay, I said well let me sleep on it, let me talk
it over one more time withHeather, let me make sure this
really is what we want and we'llgive it a shot.
And so I called him the nextmorning.
I said, hey, guess what it'stomorrow, I'm ready.
And he sent me the first fourjobs, sent me a login into his
estimating software and westarted the paperwork to create
(43:56):
Archer Estimation.
Right then I mean that was onMonday we were off and running
to the creating the LLC andeverything else.
So I worked for this guy nightsand weekends.
For I said we didn't startpaperwork quite that quick
because we gave it about sixweeks of me working nights and
weekends In addition to my otherjob to to make sure that it was
(44:17):
yeah, To make.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Is it going to stick?
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Is it going to stick?
Yeah, is it going to stick.
Is it going to work?
Speaker 1 (44:22):
A lot of people.
I think I've confused people,because I'm a huge advocate for
like self-care and thinking timeand like all of that, because
it's new to me and I know whenI'm starting something new.
It's nights, weekends, all day.
There's a season.
(44:42):
There are seasons and will bemore in my future where I'm just
straight.
I mean, the past two weeks forme have been I've been
inconsistent and less availablethan usual, but it's that time,
right, it's time to go, and onceI get past it, I'm about a week
or two away.
(45:03):
On the other end, it'll be niceand smooth and I'll be more
available and do my pampering ofmyself and all that.
But there are times you got totest it out.
You don't know for sure you gotto do double duty.
That's part of buildingsomething.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
We were really I don't lucky is not the word,
fortunate, I guess.
So we started Archer with oneclient in the bucket, ready to
go within two days afterstarting.
When I turned in my resignationwith my then employer, I said
guys, I'm going to go do thisthing, but I want y'all to be a
client too.
I want y'all to be my firstfractional chief estimating
(45:40):
client.
And so they knew me, they knewwhat they got out of me, they
knew my skills, and so that wasa no brainer for them.
They were in a bit of a cashcrunch anyway, and so it was
perfect.
I gave them more runway bygetting off of their books as a
salaried employee and on as asubcontractor, and they've been
fantastic.
(46:00):
We're still working togethernow.
They've made it through theircrash crunch.
They're growing.
They're going to hit theirrevenue targets for this year.
They're one of my best clients.
The other one is a guy inMiddle Tennessee.
He's going gangbusters.
He's winning work left andright.
We're upgrading him.
His old way of doing things waskind of go find an estimate
(46:21):
that he'd done before and copythat and try and go through and
change everything Close enoughNow.
I've got him on the spreadsheetmodel and we've got all his pay
items lined out.
We are we're about to upgradehim to version 2.0 of that and I
have this opportunity now towork for several people and our
(46:45):
goal is really to kind of likewe know we're probably not going
to be there forever for all ofour clients, because the goal is
to get their processes tuned up, get them straightened out, get
them winning work, get themcashflow and get them to hire an
estimator and then, oncethey're ready to go, then I can
(47:06):
step back, their estimator takesover.
I'm still there.
I still remember all the stuffthat I did, how their system
works.
As long as they kind of keep mein the loop, I'm there in case
they get a busy period and theyneed to turn me back on.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Of course.
Now these services arespecifically in the civil world.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Not necessarily no.
So I work in both the civil andthe environmental remediation
world in the day-to-day.
That said, estimating kind ofboils down to four main things,
and those four main things arewhat do I have to buy?
What materials do I need toaccomplish the task?
What people do I need to send?
Speaker 1 (47:48):
And how long are they going to be there?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
What equipment do they need?
And then the fourth is whatsubcontractors do?
I need to round out my bidpackage and so that can be done.
I can do that for anybody.
There'll be a learning curve,obviously, and some folks the
learning curve is just too steep.
We had one contractor thatcalled us that did mostly
(48:12):
residential renovation work.
That was done really withoutplans or very rudimentary plans,
and we finally said I know I'mcapable of doing it, but I don't
.
Necessarily.
It's not the best fit for rightnow.
With the workload that I've got, with the workload that you've
got, I don't have time to learn,you don't have time to teach.
It's not a good fit.
(48:33):
But at the same time, if you'vegot a process or you're out
there trying to figure out howcan I make this a process, come
to me with.
These are the four things andthis is what we do.
These are our most common payitems.
That's the bones of it.
We take and build from there.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
So you went from the pressures long hours, high
volume of workload of onecompany and said you know what?
I want to do it for multiplecompanies at the same time.
Yeah, how has that played outin terms of the amount of time
and energy that you commit tothe work?
(49:16):
Is it the same?
Speaker 2 (49:23):
commit to the work.
Is it the same?
It is a lot the same, andthat's because I'm and this is
one of my growth edges.
We've talked about this beforeI could work myself to death
easily, and so now I constantlybump up against my ceiling of
the amount of work I can take on.
But I work really hard to onlybump up against my ceiling and
(49:44):
not exceed it like I used to Atleast not, for there are times
when the bids do the bid Right.
But at the same time we'reworking to manage our time
effectively, to not take on morework than we can get to.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
So for somebody out there that has the inkling of
being a fractional whateverright, because there's
estimating, there's marketing,there's all kinds of different
support roles for a businesswhat would you recommend?
What do they need to look outfor and be aware of that kind of
bit you in the ankle becauseyou didn't see it coming when
(50:21):
you started?
Speaker 2 (50:22):
I think the big thing is make sure that you
understand the ins and outs ofrunning a business, doing
something.
If you have been working in abusiness for years but haven't
run your own, you need to makesure that you've got your own
(50:45):
support network in place for you.
You need to make sure that youhave a good attorney.
You need to make sure that youhave a good tax person that you
can trust that can give you goodinformation.
I think those were the twothings I think that chewed on us
a little bit in this process.
You know your work.
(51:05):
You know what you do, what yourdeliverables are.
You know that all day long.
Think about all of the stuffthat goes into running a
business and make sure, beforeyou launch, think about that and
think about how you're going tohandle the back end of your
business.
How are you going to do your?
(51:26):
How are you going to get paid?
How are you going to follow up?
That's the and I got reallylucky in Heather because because
she founded the business and soshe runs.
She's active in it as she canbe, and so she runs the business
(51:46):
side of Archer.
We make all our decisionstogether, but she does all the
invoicing, she follows up andgets paid, she handles the taxes
for the most part and so all ofthe dirty icky stuff that you
have to do to make a businessrun.
I got really lucky because shedoes almost all of that and I
(52:08):
just get to do what I love.
I just get to estimate and somake sure, too, that you're
leaving yourself time for that.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
don't book yourself up with 50 hours of billable
work, of work, of client work,and and get yeah, you still have
30, 30, 40 percent of multiplythat hour booked time times 1.4,
that's how many hours you'regoing to be spending doing
follow-up, check-in, all theother stuff.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
It's a lot, yes, and it is a lot.
And it's a drain on you too,because if you overbook yourself
when you're getting started, oreven once you're starting, once
you've been in business for acouple of years, even that
tendency is to I can go a littlebetter.
Oh, I can raise my revenue alittle bit more, but if you're
(53:05):
not really paying attention toall the back end stuff, you'll
wind up crashing.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
That'll get you 100%.
Oh yeah, well, I mean, Istarted my business three years
ago.
It's amazing, right?
Like the first time I had a gigoffered to me, they said hey
man, send me an invoice andwe'll have a check for you the
day of the thing.
And I said, oh shit, how do youdo an invoice?
So I went home and YouTube didokay.
(53:32):
And there's just, there's amultitude, multitude of things
that I had no idea, no conceptof what it was going to take to
operate the business Likedelivering the service.
You said it very wellDelivering the service, that's
the fun part, that's the easything.
You got reps, you've been doingthat for years.
(53:53):
It's all the other littlethings.
And also I want to be clearit's not impossible things.
And also I want to be clearit's not impossible.
You just better best be readyto learn.
Neil was learning on the matrixwhen we plugged them in.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
you got to learn fast because it's it's go, go, go go
that's it, the the old axiomdrinking from a fire hose man,
because it's gonna come at youand it's gonna come at you fast
yes, yes, and you and here's thething you don't want it to come
at you slow, because that meansyou don't have business.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
I want to get business.
Oh crap, I got to learn allthese things all of a sudden
because now I have business.
But it's amazing, it'sexhilarating.
I know, for me it's.
I was a gamer for a long timeand I swear it's.
It's like playing a video gamefor you.
You get different levels, youfight the boss, you get new
skills, you get new power-ups,you're ready for the next level
(54:47):
now.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
It's a really expensive video game, but it's
fun absolutely yeah, and youhave your, your one thing, your
one person.
That is fine for when you're astartup, yeah, but then, all of
a sudden, you're going to startdoing business in another state.
Well, suddenly my one stateaccountant isn't in.
What we need anymore.
(55:08):
Now we need someone that knowshow to handle two states,
multiple states.
It's licensed in differentplaces.
Oh wait, can my lawyer defendme in another state?
And it's unfortunate that youhave to think about that
sometimes too, because gone arethe days of the spit on your
hand handshake deals, andthey're still out there, but
(55:29):
they're very, very few and farbetween.
And now there's contracts andeverything else that fly back
and forth.
You need to make sure and that'sthe other thing I would say is,
if you are contracting withsomebody and you're not really
doing your due diligence onreading and understanding that
(55:50):
contract and the clauses thatare in it, then you're setting
yourself up for some kind ofadvice here.
I hear so many times about smallcivil contractors that are so
excited to get that one big job.
It's the biggest job they evergot.
They just sign the contract andgo and then come to realize
that, oh wait, we're not goingto get paid for 120 days.
(56:13):
It's in the contract language.
I didn't really read the scope,but they slipped the asphalt
paving in on me.
Yeah, Wow.
Speaker 1 (56:23):
That's what they do, man.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
So if somebody out there says, man, I want to
connect with Mr Jake, whereshould we send?
Speaker 2 (56:30):
So probably the best place to start is our website,
wwwarcherestimationcom.
You can also hit me up.
Heather and I are both onLinkedIn.
We post things out there.
I'm sure you've.
If you don't mind, pop up theour LinkedIn profiles then you
can also send us an email.
We've got an email address.
(56:50):
Info at archer estimationcom.
Speaker 1 (56:56):
Nice, nice.
Yeah, we'll make sure we haveall that in the show notes so
people can access if they needsome estimating help, or if they
want some like pointers on onlaunching their own fractional
thing, or if they want somepointers on where to go, where
to stay when they're travelingthe gallivanting all over south
(57:16):
america, which is awesome yeah,yeah, reach out to us, talk to
us.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
We can.
We're glad to help it.
Also, one of the best placesthat we found when we were
trying to figure out the nutsand bolts of starting our
business was the and they're allover the country is a small
business development center, anSBDC, and usually these are run
(57:44):
through one of the statecolleges near you.
So I know I've got a friendthat works for the SBDC for
University of Georgia.
Ours was the closest branch tous in Pennsylvania was the
Shippensburg University branch,and so these are like small
business incubators that haveadvisors.
(58:06):
It's totally free, costsnothing, and but they've got
advisors who, if you don'treally need I want to start a
business, but I don't know howto start a business these places
are a wealth of information.
They can come, they can pointout things, they can help you
through the process of findingthe paperwork, finding the forms
(58:28):
to fill out.
They'll help you fill the formsout if you have questions.
So those are a great andtremendous resource.
That is.
Speaker 1 (58:36):
Yeah, no, that's out there.
Good point, I should probablygo visit one of those, because I
just kind of yeah, let me seewhat I want.
Hey, what are you doing?
Okay, I'll do that.
Hey, I need some help.
Okay, I'll do that.
I'm not.
I'm sure if somebody were totake a look at it they'd be like
what in the world are you doing?
Ding dong man, I'm having fun,it's awesome having fun, so, all
(59:06):
right.
So you're ready for the finalcloseout question.
Lay it on me.
All right, so obviously,immense growth.
You've done a lot of learning,tinkering and improving things
is is a common theme with you,and you can't you've always got
to just can we tweak it a littlebit better, and for the benefit
of others, of course.
So I'm interested in what youranswer is going to be.
So, what is the promise you areintended to be?
Speaker 2 (59:31):
What is the promise I'm intended to be.
Yes, I would say, the promisethat I am intended to be is a
(01:00:06):
promise that it that you'vealready got and the knowledge
that you've already got, toleverage that into a better, a
brighter and a more efficientworkflow and tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Nice.
Yes, I agree, I'm lazy, Iwon't't do it, but I know that
it's possible.
Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
I had a blast.
I absolutely had a blast.
Thank you so much you'rewelcome, brother.
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