October 23, 2025 • 67 mins
In this episode of the Learnings and Missteps podcast, host Jesse welcomes Shane Patterson, founder and CEO of Jenga. With a background in finance and software engineering, Shane has focused on solving complex problems in the construction sector. The conversation highlights Shane's journey into the construction industry, his focus on building solutions for subcontractors, and the complexities involved in estimating and bidding processes. Shane discusses the importance of delivering undeniable value, understanding customer needs, and how technology is catching up to meet the deep requirements of subcontracting. The episode explores Shane's vision for a more efficient and risk-averse future for subcontractors, the concept of 'super subs,' and the potential impact of robotics on the industry.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Overview
01:06 Meet Shane Patterson: Founder and CEO of Jenga
02:50 The Complexity of Construction
03:39 Shane's Journey into Construction
05:57 Challenges and Lessons Learned
12:38 The Importance of Listening and Problem-Solving
26:29 Managing Feature Requests and Business Strategy
32:16 The Early Days of Construction Software
32:41 Challenges in Software Functionality
34:28 Deep Needs of Construction Technology
36:41 The Cost of Building Software
39:44 Subcontractors vs General Contractors
42:02 The Complexity of Subcontracting
48:53 Vision for the Future of Subcontracting
55:39 Overcoming Adoption Barriers
58:03 Delivering Maximum Value
01:02:29 Grand Slam Closing Question
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
When I think about my career, the things that I've
enjoyed the most have alwaysbeen solving hard problems with
technology.
SPEAKER_00 (00:12):
What is going on, LM family?
Back again.
And this time, if you want tomeet super awesome people, like
even accidentally, that are wayout of your league, start a
podcast.
Because my guest today isexactly that caliber of
individual who we've had alittle bit of conversation, and
(00:33):
it's clear that he's a caringindividual, totally different,
comes from a differentbackground, different country,
even.
I think, I don't know, I may beassuming there, but he's got a
sweet spot for the tradecontractors, which of course,
you know me, I'm super biasedabout subcontractors out there.
And he's come up with maybe Ishould say it this way he's
(00:54):
helping subcontractors,specialty contractors double the
number of bids that they cansubmit, reduce errors, and
increase profitability.
His name is Mr.
Shane Patterson.
He is the founder and CEO ofJenga.
I keep saying Jeng AI, Jenga AI,Jengang, Jenga.
(01:17):
It's just Jenga.
All right, folks.
Y'all heard it straight from theboss.
He said it's just Jenga, whichis estimating and pricing suite
built for the commercialspecialty contractors and helps
them again double the bids, getmore work out there.
Does a lot of fancy stuff, whichwe're going to ask about because
y'all already know I don't know,I'm like not that smart in the
(01:38):
tech space, but I do understandvaluing people and making lives
better for subcontractors.
So I'm super excited to talkwith Mr.
Shane.
But before that, if you're newhere, this is the Learnings and
Missteps podcast, where you getto meet amazing human beings
just like you that are sharingtheir gifts and talents to leave
(02:01):
this world better than theyfound it.
I'm Jesse, yourself yourservant, and we're about to get
to know Mr.
Shane Patterson.
Mr.
Shane, how are you, sir?
SPEAKER_02 (02:11):
I am fantastic, Jesse.
SPEAKER_00 (02:12):
How are you?
If you can't tell, I got alittle bit of energy.
I made some coffee this morning,went for a swim, and then I got
to working, and then realized Ididn't finish my coffee.
So I started drinking my coffeeagain about 30 minutes ago.
So I'm like bouncing all overthe place.
SPEAKER_02 (02:31):
It's very dangerous to drink a coffee this late in
the day, Jesse.
SPEAKER_00 (02:36):
I agree.
I agree.
And you're in Florida right now,so it's like 6:45 your time over
there.
Yep.
Um, all right.
So I got a super simple softballquestion for you, Shane.
Sure.
How simple is construction?
SPEAKER_02 (02:54):
Do you know what?
I wish you had asked me thatquestion six years ago when I
first got into construction,because as far as I knew, there
were general contractors, theywere architects, and that was
about it.
Six years later, after immersingmyself in construction, I feel
(03:17):
like I know even less now than Idid then.
It's very interesting becausefor the uninitiated, it feels
like a business that is thatshouldn't be that hard.
But the more you get to know it,the more you realize, wow,
there's if I'm honest, Jesse, Idon't think I'm not aware of.
(03:39):
Well, let me tell you a littlebit about my background.
Sorry, I'm giving you a answer,but I I am a software engineer.
I've been writing software forlonger than I care to admit,
even though I'm so young, I'm avery old man.
I started out in finance, Iworked for the British Treasury,
I wrote the software that theyuse to auction out British
(04:01):
Treasury bonds.
Then I worked for an investmentbank.
I did a tech startup with mybrother in 2013.
It was a cloud-based financialanalysis when cloud was still
sexy.
Or at the cloud's not that sexynow.
And then when we sold thatcompany, I was looking for
(04:21):
something challenging to getinto, something interesting.
Friend of mine had a stone andtile subcontracting business
based out of Manhattan.
And he told me there was a bigopportunity around preparing
takeoffs and proposals.
And my first question was,What's a takeoff?
(04:42):
I literally had no idea.
I walked into his office, heshowed me how his company, which
at the time was probably around10 million in revenue, so not
tiny, but not huge.
And when he showed me what theydid, I thought, oh my god, this
guy has no idea what he's doing.
It can't be like this.
(05:04):
So did a bit of research anddiscovered that yes, when you're
bidding construction projects,you genuinely do trace the
outlines of the walls so thatyou can figure out the material
quantities.
Like there genuinely is a humanwho is clicking on all of the
boundaries to start, yeah, tostart preparing a takeoff.
(05:27):
And at the time, I'm not sure ifyou remember those AI videos
with the robotic arms picking upthe squishy balls.
Did you ever see that?
Oh, yeah.
So this was 2018.
Man, not too long ago, yeah.
I know.
And I thought, you know what?
If a robotic arm can pick up asquishy ball, I can write a
piece of software that's gonnaautomate this takeoff problem,
(05:50):
and I can build a company thathas a material impact on this
particular problem space.
And here I am, six years later,still very angry with my friend
for getting me involved in thisvery difficult business.
But the short answer is I havedeveloped a love for
(06:11):
construction companies becausethe people are incredible,
Jesse.
Like just such genuine,hardworking, honest people.
And the work itself is tough.
Not just the actual buildingwork, that's obviously difficult
because it's manual, like you'repushing your body, but the
(06:33):
information technology side ofconstruction is very difficult
because it's the interceptionpoint between standards where
you think that there's aspecific way to communicate
something very complex and thenjust the human aspect,
creativity.
So it's super, superinteresting.
(06:54):
So, how much do I know aboutconstruction?
What do I think of it?
I think it's hard, I think it'sa tough business, very exciting,
and I'm excited to learn moreabout it.
It's probably gonna take a longtime because it's tough.
SPEAKER_00 (07:06):
Yeah, no, uh a hundred percent.
I remember being in the field asa as an installer, right?
Plumbing apprentice, journeyman.
And I had my we'll say opinionsabout how we did business,
right?
The type of clients we got thatwe worked for, the type of
projects that we were on, whereit was just like it was not,
(07:28):
it's it was horrible.
Like they treated us likegarbage.
It was just it was a horribleenvironment.
Like, why are we picking peoplelike this?
Thinking, well, you just getbetter clients.
Well, it's not that easy.
So over the years, it's like younailed it.
There's so many levels ofcomplexity.
I mean, a simple one, whichseems simple, right?
(07:49):
Like you've got the front end ofthe business where you're out
there doing businessdevelopment, doing an estimate,
doing a material takeoff, so youcan produce an estimate, and
then you have the executioninstallation of it, and the just
the communication between thatinternally fails in a lot of in
the majority of places.
That's kind of how why I have ajob.
(08:12):
But you decided I could writesome code for this, and so I'm
curious about the softwareengineer thing for two reasons,
Mr.
Shake, because you and I've hadsome conversations, and you I
feel like you and I could justfucking hang out and tell
stories and get on forever.
Which I've talked with, which israre, meaning uh other folks
(08:36):
that I know that are likeprogrammers that have that kind
of brain power, I can't have aconversation with them, and so
there's that element, and then,like you said, the people in our
industry, they're they'redifferent, it's a notably
different personality type ofcommunication, style of
communication.
(08:57):
And so, for you specifically,um, getting into software
engineering code, I'm assumingthat's coding.
What was it that got you there?
What was interesting about itthat pulled your attention for
you to dedicate so much of yourtime to it?
SPEAKER_02 (09:15):
When I think about my career, the things that I've
enjoyed the most have alwaysbeen solving hard problems with
technology.
Okay.
Always been drawn to those sortsof problems.
And when you're at the start ofyour career, you spend a lot of
time, and it's probably the samein plumbing.
(09:36):
When you're a journey, whenyou're at the beginning, you're
doing all of the actualinstallation and you're doing
all the stuff that the moresenior guy doesn't want to do,
but you also need to learn, andthen as you become more senior,
you discover that wow, the easypart was actually writing the
code, the hard part is actuallyunderstanding what the problem
(10:03):
is that you're trying to solve.
SPEAKER_01 (10:05):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (10:06):
So I spent a lot of my career writing code, managing
teams, but understanding whensomeone says when people
describe a technology solutionto you, they don't generally
people are interesting, Jesse,because they always they can't
(10:26):
always tell you what they dowant, but they immediately know
what they don't want.
SPEAKER_01 (10:30):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (10:31):
Oh yeah.
And they know that after youhave spent, let's say, a month
putting something together, andthen immediately they know, no.
When people describe what theywant to you, they generally they
try to simplify it and they'lldescribe it to you in the terms
that they understand, like makethe Excel spreadsheet do this
(10:51):
one thing or put a button herethat does that.
And the interesting part is uhreally unpacking what do they
when they say I want you to putthis piece of information into
this site and this spreadsheet,what do they actually mean?
Why are they asking it in thoseterms?
And that's what I spend my timedoing.
(11:12):
And essentially, I don't know ifyou've ever heard the phrase
asking.
There's a book called The Wise,or there's a technique called
The Wise, which is basicallyjust ask why.
And I say the same things to myteams.
Like when someone says to you, Ineed you to do this, you ask the
question why you can, and youcan sound like a three-year-old.
(11:34):
Yes, experience the what it'slike when you speak to a
three-year-old who continuouslyasks you why.
At some point you realize, wow,I I know nothing.
You know, because oh, totally,because asking those questions,
asking the whys really gets downto the root of the problem, you
(11:55):
know.
SPEAKER_00 (11:55):
Yeah, yes, yes, yeah.
The the five whys, that's theway I understand, yes, is a part
of the lean constructionproblem-solving framework
because it helps us get to theroot cause.
And I love the way you said it,right?
Like, we're not, I'll say it.
Here's a confession from me.
I suck at articulating what Iwant.
(12:17):
But man, I could tell you what Idon't want, quick, right?
Like, that's easy.
Yeah, and so like the five wiveshelps us get layer after layer
to really understand the root ofthe thing.
Yep, because if we just takeaction on the presenting
problem, we're not gonna solvethe underlying issue, and we got
to dig to get to the underlyingissue.
(12:38):
So you seem to have anappreciation, or maybe not
appreciation, but patience tolisten to people to really
understand their problem.
Where does that come from?
Is that like an innate thingthat came up through your
family, or is it really afunction of well, that's the
(13:00):
best way to solve problems anddeliver a solution that's gonna
knock their socks off?
We're gonna do the LM familymember shout-out.
And this one goes to Mr.
Steve Wood.
He sent me this message.
He says, You have a way ofmaking things concise and you
hit the nail squarely on thehead.
(13:20):
I'm truly glad that thealgorithm led me to you.
And I connected him with him onthe Instagram.
I'm starting to get sometraction on the Instagram.
So, Mr.
Wood, I appreciate you, man,taking the time to repost and
engage with the content.
I appreciate most of all thatyou're signaling back to me that
the content is landing with youand bringing you some kind of
(13:41):
value.
And to the rest of you, LMfamily members out there, you
already know I love attention.
So if you leave a review, dropsome stars, leave me a comment,
even a stinky comment, I canhandle it.
That gives me an opportunity toshout you out in a future
episode.
SPEAKER_02 (13:59):
It's something that I had to learn.
Sometimes I tell my wife, I missmy 20s because I knew everything
then.
Yes.
When I was younger, I had a badhabit of interrupting people and
thinking, I know what you'regonna say, you don't have to
finish, let me tell you.
And I'm a big fan of learning.
(14:22):
Stand on the shoulders ofgiants, and I think a common
theme from people that areaccomplished is they will listen
to what other people say.
So having seen that from otherpeople, I want to emulate that.
I I want to stand on theshoulders of giants, so it's a
(14:44):
learned behavior, and I'm veryhappy that I've spent the time
to learn it because it's changeda lot of things about my life.
SPEAKER_00 (14:54):
Oh, well, I don't know about your life, but I know
it sure changed a lot in mylife.
I remember a friend of minecalled a co-worker friend.
This is way back when I was likein my 20s, where I was
performance, and he's like,Jesse, you ask a lot of
questions.
I'm like, Yeah, because I reallywant to know.
He's like, No, he's like, butyou answer your own questions,
(15:16):
you ask questions like you careabout what we're gonna say, and
really you're just settingyourself up to go on one of your
rants, like you always do.
I'm like, No, I don't.
He said that to you.
Wow, I went home to my ex-wifenow, and I said, Can you believe
what so-and-so said?
And she just kind of looked atme, she's like, Yep.
(15:37):
Oh like, oh, I got a problem.
I asked my team, what was thenumber one thing I needed to
work on?
And like, we all came up withthis list.
We're on a project here in SanAntonio, and and the deal was we
were all gonna share our listfor each other and help each
(15:58):
other, like call each other outon it actively so we can make it
better faster.
The three guys all had the samecomplaint, they all said that I
didn't listen, and I believedfor real that I was the best
damn listener in the company.
Wow, and so I again right herethat now I'm in my mid-30s when
(16:20):
this happens, anyhow.
What they pointed out, what wefigured out was when they
brought me a problem that I hadbeen experienced before, I
wouldn't, I would cut them offand tell them what to do.
The rest of the time, I would Iwas listening, I was a little
more patient.
But if it was a thing like, hey,we got this issue with the
(16:40):
supplier, um, okay, and I'm onthe phone calling them, and
they're like, Do you let mefinish?
Like, that's all right, I knowwhat needs to happen.
Don't worry about it.
Oh, you should do this.
And so it was, it took a lot ofpractice for me to break that
habit.
And I actually timed myselfbecause I told the guys, for
real, I said, guys, I said, I'mnot, I don't want to defend
(17:02):
myself.
You are right, but I need you tosignal to me when I'm doing it
wrong, and that's how wediscovered it was in that
specific circumstance when itwas a problem that I was very
familiar with, I would just givethem the answer.
And so they keep, they wouldgive me a signal.
One guy will pull his ear, theother guy will kind of do this,
(17:22):
and so I would like, oh okay,shut your mouth, Jess.
And so, in order for me to keepmy mouth shut, I had to focus on
something.
So I would focus on my why, Iwould tap I would time it.
Wow, the longest it ever tookfor me to let them finish
talking was two minutes.
It was almost always less than60 seconds for me to keep my
(17:45):
mouth quiet and let them finishtelling me the thing.
And I thought I was beingefficient, except that sure I
was being efficient in terms oftime, but in terms of social
capital and relationship,entirely wasteful because I was
offending them or disrespectingthem every time I did that.
(18:05):
So I say that to people ifyou're in that situation, time
yourself, man.
It's really not that much moretime to just let people finish
talking.
SPEAKER_02 (18:14):
So I don't know if you know a guy like Jordan
Peterson.
I know that he some of hispolitics is a little uh is a
little controversial, but I'veread his book.
But also, I have tremendousrespect for the way that he
handles discussions because whathe always does is no matter what
(18:37):
people are saying to him, healways listens.
And I think nine times out often, you do know what people are
gonna say, and you probablycould cut them off, but one out
of ten, ten percent of the time,people are gonna surprise you,
and I also think that uh yousurprise yourself when you
(18:57):
actually listen to peoplebecause sometimes your response
is in some cases the opposite ofwhat you thought you were gonna
say at the start of theconversation, and to bring it
back to construction.
Honestly, we were talking aboutbig mistakes, and when I started
the company, my big mistake wastrying to deliver more than
(19:24):
anyone had ever done before, notunderstanding how risky doing
what I was doing was gonna be.
So let me unpack that for you.
So yeah, please, I'm curious.
So so my friend brought me intohis office, and it was 1 p.m.
(19:46):
in the afternoon, and he had abottle of whiskey on his desk,
which he opened up and we had asip of whiskey, which which was
shocking for me, honestly.
I was like, wow, okay.
And then he showed me what itlooks like for him to go through
the bid process, and of course,it's your oxygen in a
(20:09):
construction, everything comesthrough, almost every i mean, it
depends on your business, but inmost cases it comes through a
bid process.
And at the end of the sessionwith him, I thought, you know
what?
Wouldn't it be cool if Yunuscould be his name?
My friends called Yunus.
If Yunus is sitting in the barand Jenga delivers his proposal
(20:34):
for him.
I said to you, what do you thinkof that?
He was like, I would love that.
Absolutely grow my business.
So if you think about what'sinvolved in doing that, so
basically, you've got to you'vegot to do the takeoff
accurately.
And some trades are more riskythan others, some scopes are
(20:56):
more risky than others.
He was in stone and tile.
I knew nothing.
Honestly, before I started, Ididn't even know what a
subcontractor was.
He had to explain to me.
I didn't even understand thefunction of a general contract,
if I'm honest.
I I'd done re-throughs on myhouse.
I know it's crazy.
(21:16):
I was so ignorant.
But I I knew that I needed tostart somewhere.
I needed to under, I needed towork with someone who was an
expert, and that was what hisexpertise was in.
He actually said to me, Youshouldn't start in stone and
tile because it's too easy.
In the finish trades, I'm notsure, Jesse, how familiar you
(21:40):
are with the finished trades,but one of the riskiest is stone
because stone slabs are soexpensive.
SPEAKER_00 (21:48):
Ah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (21:49):
One of the most difficult is ironically, not I
know nothing about the actualinstallation of it, but I'm sure
that it's very challenging andtough and requires expertise.
The toughness I'm talking aboutis getting the number right,
like actually making money onposing.
Getting that right is hardbecause you've got waste factors
(22:12):
which impact you, you know, themargins are always tight.
And you if you get the wastefactors wrong, then you don't
make money.
So you do all this work, itfeels like you're making money,
but at the end, you're payingthe you're paying your clients
to install their stuff for them.
Yeah, oh yeah.
So my big idea was what how do Iget to a place where I can do
(22:36):
this for Unis?
So I thought, let's start with II don't have a machine that can
do the takeoffs yet, but let'sI'll build out an estimation
team, they'll do the takeoffs,I'll build out a pricing engine
so that I can I can materialprice for the scope of works
(22:57):
that that I'm focused on.
And my team will receive the bidinvitation and they'll turn it
into a fully priced bid.
And I'll give that to mycustomer, and my customer will
change the number, and thenthey'll they'll make it theirs
and they'll submit that.
I'll tell them, guys, pleasedon't bid with this number
(23:19):
because this is just yourstarting point.
Right.
Started to bring on customers,and then one of my customers
called me up and said, Shane, wejust lost$25,000.
So they paid me$300 for thepiece of work that we did.
We just lost$25,000 on thisproject because of your price.
(23:42):
And I said, Huh?
What you submitted your proposalusing our price?
Are you guys insane?
Did they really just do that?
I promise you they did that,Jesse.
And it was at that point that Irealized, oh my god, the amount
of risk that I am exposingmyself to, because you can
(24:06):
literally have a single, you canhave like a reception desk, like
a circular stone reception desk,that because it's circular, will
be like 10 times the cost ofjust the square footage.
So I realized, oh my god,because I didn't know enough, I
was literally giving people anumber.
(24:27):
I was telling them, guys, pleasecheck everything.
And they were saying, Yes, we'regonna check everything, Shane.
But you know how it gets, youget busy, 90% of the time, my
number's good.
They're checking it and it'sgood.
Actually, 90 98% of the timeit's good, 2% of the time, it's
(24:48):
gonna put you out of business.
Do you know?
SPEAKER_00 (24:51):
Right.
Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02 (24:52):
And the second I realized that I literally
changed the direction of thebusiness because I just I didn't
want to put myself at that levelof risk, right?
I didn't want to put mycustomers at that level of risk,
so yeah, it was pretty scary.
I feel like we we dodged abullet on spotting that
relatively early.
When I say early, two years intothe journey was but that was a
(25:18):
very scary lesson for me.
SPEAKER_00 (25:20):
Yeah, so so it's like okay, you're hanging out
with Eunice, drinking whiskey,and you say, you know what?
I need to make this so we couldbe drinking whiskey at the bar,
not the office.
Right.
Came up with this idea, yep, andyou put it into play.
You hired a team and you startedproducing a product and selling
(25:41):
the product, and then some bugsstarted popping out in terms of
the way the end user was usingit, even though you advised them
not to do that because I you're100% right.
Like you get an invite, an RFP,and you get like due to day by 3
p.m.
It's like, what do you mean?
Like, come on, man.
(26:01):
I need time to like do a solidbid or estimate takeoff and
check all the things.
Now, here's see if I can makethe connection.
You're good, you've developedthe skill of listening and
really seeking to understand theroot of the problem for the
client or the people that you'reserving.
You also have a business, youwant to manage risk, not just
(26:22):
for yourself, but also for theend user.
How do you draw the line?
Because I'm sure now, like whatyou were describing was probably
way less automation or AI thanthere is today in Jenga.
How where do you draw the linewith regard to feature requests
(26:44):
from end users?
How do you manage that?
If they want new features, wasthat something that's like you
just expect that at thebeginning when you're like in
development?
What does that look like interms of feature requests and
discerning whether it should bedone or if I don't do it, I
(27:05):
might lose the contract.
That sort of stuff.
Is that a challenge you have towrestle with?
SPEAKER_02 (27:10):
100%.
It's very hard, Jesse, becausepeople always want stuff,
especially if they're not payingfor it, if you know what I mean.
It literally costs you nothingto ask a software vendor to add
a feature.
So it's a challenge, but I thinkthat the well, I'll tell you how
I how we manage it.
(27:30):
So I told you that we delivereda piece of uh service, if you
will.
I still want to do that.
I still want Younus to sit atthe bar and get his fully priced
bid and decide it's good andsend it.
I still want that, but I don'twant him to lose money.
(27:52):
Take him a couple more years tounderstand a little more about
construction and about what therisks are and how to mitigate
those risks.
And part of how we're solving itis some things you can fully
automate and some things youcan't.
So coming back to your questionabout how do I manage
(28:15):
requirements?
My North Star is achieving.
I'll tell you what we want.
Here's what I want for mycustomers.
Let me describe a customer thathas seen success with Jengai.
This customer has doubled theirrevenue in three years and
they've tripled their profits.
So that to me is what successlooks like.
SPEAKER_01 (28:38):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (28:39):
So that's my North Star.
My North Star is thefunctionality that we're gonna
put in the system.
No arguments.
I'm gonna prioritize it.
Anything you tell me you wantthat aligns with that goal, I'm
gonna put in.
I'm not even gonna argue withyou, I'm gonna figure out how to
do it and I'm gonna do it.
(29:00):
If I have to raise more money todo that, I'll do it.
If if I have to knock off apiece of functionality that's
less useful than that anddeliver that later, I'll do it.
So if it's if it aligns stronglywith the North Star, it's a
no-brainer.
If I discover something new,then that's easy.
Well, what's a little harder isfunctionality that sort of helps
(29:25):
but doesn't really.
And the way we deal with that iswe try to figure out if it if is
there some peripheral benefit topeople apart from you.
And if there is, then we'llfigure out okay, we'll still do
it, but you know, we'll do itwhen I'm sure you're familiar
(29:46):
with the concept of ROCS.
Have you heard of EOS,entrepreneurial operating
system?
Oh, yes, yep.
So a concept that I think worksreally well when you have
limited resources and you alwayshave.
Limited resource is youdifferentiate between a rock,
which is a big thing thatrequires an investment by your
(30:09):
team from a stone, which is asmaller thing that requires less
from sand.
And the idea is you can the sandrepresents all of the small
little things that you do, butat the end, you haven't really
moved the needle forward.
So we're very particular aboutmoving the needle forwards with
(30:30):
the strategic things, which arethe rocks.
And then the stones are uh thesmaller, easier to deliver
things, and the sand is justfills in the gap.
You know what I mean?
You can put rocks in, you canput some stones in, and you can
throw in some sand.
But if it's all sand, there's nospace for anything else.
So that's how we think about it.
And then a software company, inthe same way as a construction
(30:54):
company, is a services companydelivering service.
So sometimes you just have tobite the bullet.
If you've got a big cup companythat wants something and feels
like it's urgent, and there arestrategic accounts, yeah, we'll
just do it.
But the short answer, Jesse,it's hard.
(31:15):
It's very hard.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:17):
Well, yeah, I appreciate that.
And I love the big rock stonesand sand.
My uh reason I'm familiar withit, I remember seeing a video, I
think it was Stephen Covey, whoshowed, right?
He's trying to fill a jar.
He's like, if everybody spendsall their time with the sand, if
you take care of the sand first,you can't fit the big rocks and
the stones.
That's right.
(31:37):
You take care of the big rocksfirst, then the stones, then the
sand, you can take care of allof it.
But so it's a matter of right,and I'm like, man, that was
magic.
Oh, but he's not showing me howto fill a jar, he's teaching me
how to think.
Got it.
SPEAKER_02 (31:51):
Cov is cover's incredible.
He's got a couple of reallygreat like begin with the end in
mind.
So it sounds like a simpleconcept, but so powerful.
SPEAKER_00 (32:03):
Yes, totally, totally.
And so on the feature request,I've this was about five years,
five, five to seven years ago,when I had like a real job,
there was a lot all of a sudden,it was kind of when there
started being a big focus ofsoftware in construction, right?
(32:26):
Coming into I mean, now it'slike anything, there's all kinds
of options or ideas coming intothe space.
Back then there wasn't a wholelot, but they started.
And what I picked, I wasn'taware, it took me a couple, a
few conversations to figure outbecause I was always in these
conversations.
I don't know why.
Anyways, and we I remembersitting and I'm like talking to
(32:46):
these one people, this onegroup, and I'm like, okay, does
it do this?
And they were like, they wouldsay it can, right?
And I thought they were beingjust formal in their answer,
like, yes, it can.
What I discovered is they'resaying they will make it do it,
like it wasn't the currentfunctionality.
(33:08):
And so what happened was okay,well, and we got a test run
because we were gonna becontributing to the whatever,
and then we got it, and itdidn't do anything that we
wanted it to do.
And they're like, No, we said itcan, meaning we can program it
to do that, and I'm like, that'snot what I was asking.
Like, can it do it now, man?
(33:30):
And so I kind of learned like,okay, I gotta talk to these guys
differently, and then I wouldsee several people like they had
a really great idea that waslike one singular vertical,
right?
Right, super deep, like justgreat, and then they started
Frankensteining putting allkinds of other features because
(33:51):
people wanted them, but and youalready nailed it.
One person wanted it, nobodyelse cared about that feature,
and then the other feature wasone person, then one.
So I credit it to a matter ofdiscipline, or more clearly,
like you said, they didn't havea true north, and so they were
just saying yes, which ended upthey ended up underperforming
(34:14):
because they couldn't say no toanything, and so I've always
been I've never been on thatside, like in that type of
business, but I would imagineit'd be difficult to say like
no, like that's not we're notgonna do that.
SPEAKER_02 (34:27):
It's very hard, but I do want to say something about
about construction.
I when I first started inconstruction, I I observed
something similar to what youjust said, which is why is it
that the software goes so deepand solves this one little
problem and does nothing aroundthat problem?
(34:49):
And I I really didn't have ananswer to it, but I now
understand why.
The why is because thetechnology needs of construction
are deep, very deep.
And if you're not in it, youdon't realize.
And the funny part isconstruction companies to a
certain extent have beenbuilding their own systems for
(35:11):
many years, and they'll put ittogether with all of the tools
that are at their disposal.
So a couple of Excelspreadsheets, maybe databases.
The information managementproblem is real, and you've
solved it by putting togetherthe capabilities that are at
(35:31):
your disposal, and sometimesit's taken years, and you built
a system that works.
You're making money, yourcompany's making money, and then
a software guy will come alongand they'll look at the solution
that you've put together andthey'll turn up their nose at
it, and they'll go, I can solvethis problem much easier, much
easier, mostly because theydon't understand the complexity
(35:54):
of the problem.
So they'll start working on asolution and they'll realize, oh
my god, this is way harder thanI thought.
And what ends up happening, andit's hard because I've seen so
many talks where people say thatconstruction companies or people
in construction are anti-tech,and that is not my belief at
(36:16):
all.
I think they're very pro-tech.
I think that tech has never beengood enough in the past to
actually service the needs ofconstruction, both in the
information technology side,just moving bits around, and
also the physical side, like thetooling that allows you to
(36:37):
actually do the build quicker.
So I think that's what'shappened in the past.
So, what will happen to a techcompany is they'll start working
on a problem and they'll realizewow, we've got to go really deep
to solve this problem, and itcosts a lot of money to build
software, like a crazy amount ofmoney to build.
People don't realize because wehave so many very cool free
(37:00):
platforms that we get to use,and those companies that are
giving it to us have spentbillions on those platforms.
We don't realize because we justuse it and it's fantastic,
right?
We're the product, so they endup getting stuck because they've
invested all of their the moneythat they had to build their
product on the one problem, liketakeoff softwares, for instance.
(37:22):
They're great at being a takeoffproduct, but they don't, they're
not great at building aproposal, they're not great at
really anything apart from beinga take-off software.
Doing the takeoffs, not becausethe technologists that built it
aren't great technologists, justbecause that problem itself is a
(37:45):
hard problem to solve, andmaking it better really uses up
all of your spend that you'veallocated to technology.
So that is very I've never seenit in another sector.
Like really, I promise you, Ihaven't seen it in government
finance, I haven't seen it ininvestment banking.
(38:06):
I mean, I haven't worked inevery like I haven't worked in
rocket science, you know what Imean?
Yeah, but you've been in somepretty darn serious businesses,
so yeah.
Thank you.
But uh the construction sectorhas a very deep need for
technology, and that's what Ifind so exciting about being in
(38:28):
having moaned about Younispulling me into construction
technology almost years ago.
He's my best friend, andsometimes I hate him and
sometimes I love him becausehe's given me the opportunity to
work in this vibrant, incredibleindustry.
And what's super exciting aboutit is the fact that finally
(38:50):
technology is catching up to beable to do provide that
meaningful service, 100% to beable to actually do something
that really makes a bigdifference.
Like like I mentioned oursuccess for a platform to
position someone in a placewhere in three years they can
(39:13):
triple their profit is prettyhuge.
And it's not because it's notbecause I'm an Einstein, it's
just that I've met the rightpeople and with their help,
we've been able to build aplatform that's really supported
the needs that they have, butthe technology is just getting
(39:35):
very exciting, like itscapabilities are catching up to
the needs of construction, soyeah, it's an exciting time.
SPEAKER_00 (39:43):
Yeah, well, you know, the what so one thing that
I really appreciate about you,Shane and Jenga, is that it is
subcontractor or trade focused.
100%.
And it's like my belief becausehere's what really irritates the
hell out of me uh of all thedifferent things that are out
there.
(40:03):
They say we're doing this thing,this new app, or whatever it is,
doesn't matter.
This digital solution is gonnamake the workers' day better.
It's not true, nobody has gottento that point yet.
That's not bad.
But what's underlying that iswho what the providers think
(40:24):
that their system, whatever itis they're producing or
offering, can serve a generalcontractor and a subcontractor
and an architect and anengineer.
And I don't believe that to betrue because they are very
different worlds.
I my and maybe it's just my grayhairs and hard-headed thinking.
(40:45):
I believe there needs to be asolution for subcontractors and
a solution for generalcontractors, and they're
separate, they can becomplementary, but they are not
the same.
And so I'm gonna cry a littlebit more.
What I see is most of the stuffthat is created is very GC
(41:06):
centric.
Why?
Because they got bigger dollars,right?
Right, like they got biggerdollars, they got more access,
they got more influence, and allof I get all of that, right?
Branding and marketing and reachand all of saturating the
market, like I get it.
But what ends up happening, andI think it's a good thing,
depending on where you are inthe business.
(41:26):
What ends up happening is thesubcontractors are underserved,
and underserved, I think, isputting it lightly.
They're straight up neglected,so it's like a blue ocean.
I agree.
It's like doing something forsubcontractors, serving
subcontractors in some form iswide open for people like you
(41:48):
who give a damn and are willingto put in the time to come and
make a something not justimpactful, but also a viable
business.
Am I what do you think aboutthat?
SPEAKER_02 (41:59):
You hit the nail on the head.
So every single software companythat I'm aware of right now, if
you think about the pro cores ofthe world, you think about the
autodesks of the world, theystarted with a GC and then they
try to retrofit thesubcontractors' world into their
software.
SPEAKER_01 (42:19):
Yep.
SPEAKER_02 (42:20):
And when I talk about the complexity of
construction companies, I'mliterally talking about the
complexity of being asubcontractor.
Because if you're asubcontractor, one, you've got
to you've got to manage cash,two, you've got to manage your
bidding, three, you've got tomanage people, four, there are
parts of you're actually doingthe construction.
(42:42):
And there are other teams thatare in your way that sometimes
ruin your work, that don't careabout your timeline or your
schedule, or they care abouttheir own stuff.
When I say um construction iscomplex, I should have qualified
better.
Being a subcontractor isprobably one of the hardest
businesses ever.
(43:02):
And what's interesting aboutthat, that I'm aware of that
I've ever seen, what'sinteresting about it is to start
up a subcontracting business isnot hard.
To get to, it has itschallenges.
You're gonna get gray hairs andhave sleepless nights.
Absolutely.
But if you're like you're amaster plumber, I think you're a
master plumber, yeah.
(43:31):
That would be relatively itwould be hard work and it would
be 24-7, but you could do itquite easily.
But once you get there, it'slike it starts out and it seems
like I'm gonna start this up andyou start making money straight
away, and you buy the Bentleyand you buy the big house, and
everything's great.
You've got lots of money, yourbusiness is growing.
(43:51):
But level two opens up whenyou're going from a million to
say two and a half, and then yourealize, wow, okay, I am growing
year on year, I'm doubling myrevenues, but I'm running low on
cash.
Like I have to sell the Bentley,I've got to move into a smaller
house.
My my kids can't go to privateschool anymore.
But my company's growing, andthen as you so what's my point?
(44:15):
My point is it's it seems like ait's a sector that is it has a
low barrier to entry, which isgreat when you're starting, but
it sucks when you're a maturebusiness because you've got all
of these people starting up whodon't know how to bid who are
undercutting you and losingmoney on so that part's hard.
And then as you start to growand get and as you start to
(44:38):
become an enterprise, it opensup the next level of complexity.
Like it doesn't get easier, itjust gets harder.
Yes, you get to two and a half,you get to five, you get to ten,
and you feel like wow, eventhough the business is getting
bigger, even though my revenueis huge, the bank manager comes
(44:59):
out to see me when I go to thebank, I always feel like I've
got no money.
I always feel like I'm on theverge of bankruptcy.
So that's something I've notseen in any other sector.
And the other thing about who'sgot the money.
I think that part of the reasonwhy subcontracting, and this was
(45:21):
I haven't done any beyondspeaking to people, some very
knowledgeable people.
Um I didn't discover thismyself.
I've spoken to some great, verysmart people who've been
thinking about this for a longtime.
The undercutting hurts thebottom line of other like the
bird process, the fact that it'sthere have been savings, there
have been productivity boosts inconstruction, but it doesn't get
(45:45):
passed on to the sub becausethere's always someone who wants
to bid the job a little lowerthan you.
Do you know what I mean?
So I know that I'm taking a verycircuitous route to arriving at
why subs.
So because it's such a hardbusiness, it means that it's
hard to sell software tosubcontractors.
(46:05):
It's very hard because itproduces, if you're still around
after 10 years, if you haven'tgone bankrupt, it's because
you've been very careful.
Like you've been very carefulabout disrupting your process,
you've been very careful aboutwhere you spend your money, and
it's very difficult to sell yousoftware because in your mind,
(46:27):
you've got a solution.
Yes, it's made out of bubblegumand seller tape, and it works,
it works, and you've got a65-year-old woman who's on the
verge of retiring, who's holdingit all together for you, but
it's working, and it's my$15million business is working.
So from that perspective, thesubcontractor is a tough
(46:50):
customer to have, and mostsoftware vendors start with the
GC and then cobble onfunctionality for the sub.
But the way I think about it iswhat you said.
It's and honestly, Jesse, I toldyou when I started this journey,
I didn't even know what asubcontractor was.
But the more I learned about thebusiness and the complexity of
(47:15):
the business, and the morepeople that I met who were
subcontractors, the more excitedand the more I want to, I really
want to change, like I I want tomake being a subcontractor
great.
Do you know what I mean?
And I think technology isgetting to a place where it can
be great.
Because I'll tell you my vision.
(47:36):
I I mentioned that I I wantunits to sit in the bar and bird
projects, but my other vision isin the subcontracting space,
it's super interesting that youhave hundreds of you, you'll
hear people say it's veryfragmented.
Construction is fragmented.
I don't know if you've heardthose words before.
SPEAKER_00 (47:57):
Oh, yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_02 (47:58):
And when if you look at there are a lot, there are a
number of very big generalcontractors, but there are very
few big subcontractors.
SPEAKER_01 (48:08):
Yep.
SPEAKER_02 (48:09):
And my interpretation of that is it's a
function of the complexity ofrunning a subcontracting
business.
So what happens is you startedat a mill, then you got to five,
then you got to 10, then you gotto 15, then you got to 25, then
you got to 45, and then three ofyour estimators made a mistake,
(48:29):
and one of your one of yourinstallation teams made a
mistake, and suddenly you'rebankrupt.
Not because you don't have$30million worth of future
projects, but because you're outof cash.
Yeah, you're a$40 millionbusiness that is that is that
can run out of cash.
(48:51):
That's what happens.
So, what I would like to do,like my vision for Jen, where I
would like to get to withJengai, is one, I want to take
the risk out of bidding.
Because if you think about it,every proposal that you submit,
especially as a so if you're aresidential subcontractor, it's
(49:13):
less risky because yourrelationship is single serving
generally.
Like you do work for one GC andthen, but if you're a commercial
GC, sorry, a commercial sub,that relationship is worth
millions and millions over afive to ten year period or
longer, if you're good.
It means that if you make amistake, you got to eat it.
(49:34):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (49:36):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (49:37):
Which means that the that you're servicing their bid
request, but you're puttingyourself at risk every time you
do.
Because if you make a mistake,you eat that mistake.
And if you make uh, let's say a$30,000 mistake, that's bottom
line money.
That's not top line money.
If you make it, let's say a 20%margin, okay.
(49:58):
Normally it's like five to tenpercent.
So if you make a five percentmargin, think about the size of
the bid to get to thirtythousand dollars to spend.
That's the risk that you takeevery single time you sit.
So take the risk out ofproposals.
How?
With a platform that maximizesthe value you get out of your
(50:19):
people and AI-based tooling thatgets everything out of the very
inefficient method of sharingthe ask, which is the
architectural plans.
So simplify that part.
Okay, that's part one.
Part two is imagine if I canbecause we've made the, and this
(50:41):
might sound a little scary forsome.
What I see happening is thesuper sub starting to emerge.
And what do I mean by a supersub?
We have some of them already.
It's essentially asubcontracting company that is
bidding on more than one scopein a project.
That's the path to a bigconstruction company.
SPEAKER_01 (51:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (51:02):
Because you can get access to, if you think about
it, if you're a maturesubcontractor, you're already
one of the top five in yourarea, let's say.
Like you're bidding all the bigprojects, and sometimes you win,
sometimes you lose.
But you're already good at yourjob, you're already an expert,
basically.
The only way to make more moneyis to start to get access to
(51:24):
more of the money in theproject, and the only way to do
that is to bid more scopes.
So I think that what we'll seeis the super sub, and I think
we'll see more and moreinstallation companies that are
sub-subs to these super subsdoing the actual installation
work.
And I think we're going to startto see some robotics having an
(51:47):
impact on the installers, whichis very exciting to me, but just
not an area that I'm focused onright now.
SPEAKER_00 (51:53):
So yeah, I'm sorry, I'll give you a very long answer
to because I agree.
I mean, my background, I workedwith TD Industries and they're
mechanical contractors.
So was we did mechanical withsheet metal, plumbing, and
hydronic systems, right?
Piping.
Yep.
So we did all of that for alittle like a blink of an eye.
(52:16):
We started doing electrical alsohere in San Antonio, anyway.
So we did, we were all MEP.
The problem was we had acquiredthe workforce of this was during
when remember, I don't know ifyou're when Enron blew up.
Yeah.
So when that happened, there wassome big giant electrical
conglomerate that was part ofthat, and it dissolved.
(52:38):
So all of those people wereavailable in the market.
And we said as an organization,let's start an electrical arm.
Wow.
And we did.
But all of those that thatworkforce that we acquired came
in totally different culture,right?
We were a servant leadershipkind of employee-owned company.
(53:01):
They were uh screw everybody,we're gonna make as much as we
can, type of uh culture,basically, yes, and so we're all
on the sand.
And I was fortunate enough to beone of those early projects
where mechanical, electrical, itwas all us, and I was like
fighting with my co-worker, likewow, like really fine over dumb
(53:24):
stuff that was gonna cost me alot of money, which was gonna
cost the company money.
It was better for their littlebudget, their electrical,
anyways.
It was a disaster that lastedabout two years, and then we
stopped it.
But to your point, I see, Imean, there are some like
Southland industries, there's alot of organizations that are,
(53:45):
and I'm starting to see thistrend too.
General contractors are startingto go back to having
self-perform operations, meaningthey're having some of the
subcontract work that they usedto subcontract out.
They're starting to take it inas part of their scope and
operate it under their umbrella.
All that to say, like, I agree100%.
(54:07):
And then the idea of likerobotics coming into the
industry, there's it's happeningright now.
I mean, well, I got introducedto the Tremble, which wasn't
it's not necessarily a robot,but it was like a step, which is
uh what do you call that?
GPS locating, so we could dolayouts, we could put all our
(54:29):
piping and our all the all ofour stuff, which used to, and I
did the math and I timed it.
I sat there with my timer.
A scope that would take us sixdays with nine guys, we were
able to do in four days withthree guys, amazing, and the
accuracy.
There was there, we just didn'teven, it's embarrassing how much
(54:52):
more accurate it was with thetremble.
So that was um not necessarily arobot, but I've been seeing
these these layout, these robotsthat do layout, they just hold
around.
Cool, I wish I had one of thosebecause you know what I had to
do, Shane?
I had to get me a six-inchwelded flange, which weighs
(55:13):
about 15 pounds, tie a string inmy chalk length to it, put it at
the end of the corridor, walkall the way down, pop my line,
go back and get my weldingflange.
Like that's how I automated theand now they got these super
crawl like, man, you'recheaters.
But I think it's just around thecorner, it's happening slowly.
Now, I gotta ask you thisquestion because I'm curious,
(55:38):
and you already touched on it,right?
You're talking about like a lotof the subcontractors are
apprehensive.
I'll say that is that word aboutbringing something in that is
foreign to their current method,even though their method is
bubblegum and duct tape, right?
It works right.
So, what's the most commonobjection you get around Jenga
(56:00):
and adoption or maybe evenconsideration to use it and look
at the thing?
SPEAKER_02 (56:06):
I'll tell you what makes it tough.
What makes it tough is at thispoint in time, the person that
gets the most value out of Jengais the salesperson.
Ah if you think about you as asalesperson, my typical so the
even the age demographic is justso interesting in construction
(56:27):
too.
Yeah, you've got this group ofold god that are honestly, I was
gonna say 60, but let's say 65onwards, who are amazing at
their job, like wonderful, supertalented expert in their field.
Then there's like this gap,there's no one, and then the
(56:48):
next age is like 35.
It's so interesting.
So you have these people whohave been very good at their job
using the system systems thatthey have, and part of their
thinking is I like the way I dothings, and I'm making money.
(57:08):
Why should I change?
And part of it is I'm only gonnabe doing this for another two
and a half to five years.
Why should I learn somethingnew?
So, what that means is in anyindustry, selling to salespeople
is hard because a salespersonthinks if I'm not selling, I'm
not making money.
(57:28):
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna.
And one guy said, start choppingas quickly as possible.
And Washington said, I'm gonnasharpen my axe.
Yeah, yeah, it's quite rare fortakes a lot for a salesperson to
(57:50):
say, I'm gonna sharpen my axe.
They'll generally go, let mestart chopping, baby.
So that makes it a little tough.
But basically, it means that wehave to deliver more value.
So product, it has to be soobvious that it's better.
So, and that's part of why wehave to spend so much time
(58:13):
making it better, because wehave to get to this point where
I can go into a big company andI can look at how they're doing
things, and I can literally say,okay, right now it takes you
four and a half hours to getthis bit out the door.
With my software, it's gonnatake you half an hour.
(58:36):
What are you gonna do with thatother four hours?
Like, what are you gonna do?
Talk to customers, you're gonnasell more.
So that's basically, and pleasedon't think that I'm saying that
it's easy because it's tough,it's tough to sell, and the
product, despite the fact thatit's so good and it does so
much, we sell to the entireteam.
(58:58):
So we're literally saying, okay,you have a team of five
estimators and 15 salespeople,they're all gonna have to
change.
And when they change, you'regonna have 15 salespeople, but
they're gonna have the sellingcapacity of 25.
Do you know what I mean?
(59:19):
So that's basically how we'vethat's how we think about it.
It's basically a deliver maximumvalue, deliver more value, and
then the objection is learning.
I don't want to learn, I don'twant to take the time to learn.
So we've trained, we've got afantastic team of people that
literally hold your hand.
(59:41):
Oh, okay, go from zero to ahundred in a couple of hours.
That's that's essentially howwe've done it.
SPEAKER_00 (59:48):
I love that answer because you know how many times
that I you probably could tellwhen we got some new thing that
again, this is a long time ago.
They're like, Oh, just I'd liketrying new, you know, if it
improved production, I was opento it, or if it helped me
(01:00:09):
analyze, make decisions thatwould impact production, I was
open to it.
And so I ended up being thein-house SME on whatever stupid
new thing they got.
And I normally I'm like, okay,like how do we use the thing?
I'm like, well, we sent you thePowerPoint.
Right.
I'm like, oh, and that was thenorm.
(01:00:29):
Now this was 10-15 years ago,but that was an I was like, man,
this sucks.
Like, they got it, they got it,they they were selling software
the way I dated.
It wasn't great on the firstone, and after that, forget
about it.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:45):
So, Jesse, we started like that.
Honestly, my idea was let's makethe software as easy as possible
to use so that it's easy.
The problem is when the problemyou're solving is complex, like
the number of the different waysyou can present doing a piece of
(01:01:07):
construction.
It's like limitless.
There's a limitless number of,and the flow of information is
very complex.
So even with a focus on makingit simple, it's still not
simple.
So it took me a while tointernalize it.
I've got to I've got to help mycustomers be successful on my
(01:01:28):
platform, and that's where weare right now.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01:30):
That's amazing.
Good for you.
Good for you.
I folks, LM family, if youdidn't hear it, Mr.
Shane said we just need todeliver more value.
We have to make it likeundeniably valuable for the
user, which I think is powerful.
I mean, in terms of you beingthe leader of the organization,
(01:01:51):
you've shared your vision withus.
But being a I don't know what Iwould classify myself a wannabe
entrepreneur, pretender, tryingto learn how to start run a
business.
It's easy for me to blame theclient or blame the customer.
But if I just delivered morevalue, there would be no
(01:02:12):
problem.
And I think that's true for allof us in any situation, but I'm
gonna keep it in the businessvein.
Like, if you strive, likedeliver more value and you win.
You got to be committed to that.
And it's not easy, it's a longroad.
Oh my goodness.
Okay, Mr.
Shane, are you ready for thegrand slam closing question?
(01:02:34):
I think so.
If now I'm really worried.
Well, it's a good, but I don't,you shouldn't have anything to
worry about.
I think the path that you'vetraveled in terms of your career
coming up in finance, softwareengineering, you have uh an
appreciation and a skill set oflistening to people and
designing things to solveproblems for human beings, uh,
(01:02:57):
which I which comes acrossamazingly.
Because of all of that, Isuspect your answer to this
question is going to bephenomenal.
So here it is.
What is the promise you areintended to be?
SPEAKER_02 (01:03:11):
What is the promise I'm intended to?
My promise to my customers or mepersonally?
You to the universe.
I promise that the businessproblems that I focus on will
have a material impact on thepeople that are paying me for my
(01:03:32):
services.
I promise that I will be thebest possible husband that I can
be to my wife, and the bestpossible father that I can be to
my children, so that my wife'slife is better because of me,
and my children are the types ofpeople that have a very positive
impact on the world.
SPEAKER_00 (01:03:55):
Mic drop.
Wow.
No, not surprised, but I amthoroughly.
I got chills.
That was serious, serious all,you know.
From the heart.
Yeah, yeah, that's it.
It was from the heart.
SPEAKER_02 (01:04:08):
So I appreciate it.
Did you have fun?
I loved it, Jesse.
I knew we were gonna have agreat conversation, and I you
exceeded my expectations.
This was fantastic, and I feellike we need to chat more, my
friend.
SPEAKER_00 (01:04:21):
I do too.
I do too.
Thank you for sticking it outall the way to the end.
I know you got a whole lot ofstuff going on.
And in appreciation for the giftof time that you have given this
episode, I want to offer you afree PDF of my book, Becoming
the Promise You're Intended toBe.
The link for that bad boy isdown in the show notes.
(01:04:42):
Hit it.
You don't even have to give meyour email address.
There's a link in there.
You just click that button, youcan download the PDF.
And if you share it withsomebody that you know who might
feel stuck or be caught up inself-destructive behaviors, that
would be the ultimate.
You sharing that increases thelikelihood that it's going to
(01:05:03):
help one more person.
And if it does help one moreperson, then you're contributing
to me becoming the promise I amintended to be.
Be kind to yourself, be cool,and we'll talk at you next time.
When I think about my career, the things that I've
enjoyed the most have alwaysbeen solving hard problems with
technology.
SPEAKER_00 (00:12):
What is going on, LM family?
Back again.
And this time, if you want tomeet super awesome people, like
even accidentally, that are wayout of your league, start a
podcast.
Because my guest today isexactly that caliber of
individual who we've had alittle bit of conversation, and
(00:33):
it's clear that he's a caringindividual, totally different,
comes from a differentbackground, different country,
even.
I think, I don't know, I may beassuming there, but he's got a
sweet spot for the tradecontractors, which of course,
you know me, I'm super biasedabout subcontractors out there.
And he's come up with maybe Ishould say it this way he's
(00:54):
helping subcontractors,specialty contractors double the
number of bids that they cansubmit, reduce errors, and
increase profitability.
His name is Mr.
Shane Patterson.
He is the founder and CEO ofJenga.
I keep saying Jeng AI, Jenga AI,Jengang, Jenga.
(01:17):
It's just Jenga.
All right, folks.
Y'all heard it straight from theboss.
He said it's just Jenga, whichis estimating and pricing suite
built for the commercialspecialty contractors and helps
them again double the bids, getmore work out there.
Does a lot of fancy stuff, whichwe're going to ask about because
y'all already know I don't know,I'm like not that smart in the
(01:38):
tech space, but I do understandvaluing people and making lives
better for subcontractors.
So I'm super excited to talkwith Mr.
Shane.
But before that, if you're newhere, this is the Learnings and
Missteps podcast, where you getto meet amazing human beings
just like you that are sharingtheir gifts and talents to leave
(02:01):
this world better than theyfound it.
I'm Jesse, yourself yourservant, and we're about to get
to know Mr.
Shane Patterson.
Mr.
Shane, how are you, sir?
SPEAKER_02 (02:11):
I am fantastic, Jesse.
SPEAKER_00 (02:12):
How are you?
If you can't tell, I got alittle bit of energy.
I made some coffee this morning,went for a swim, and then I got
to working, and then realized Ididn't finish my coffee.
So I started drinking my coffeeagain about 30 minutes ago.
So I'm like bouncing all overthe place.
SPEAKER_02 (02:31):
It's very dangerous to drink a coffee this late in
the day, Jesse.
SPEAKER_00 (02:36):
I agree.
I agree.
And you're in Florida right now,so it's like 6:45 your time over
there.
Yep.
Um, all right.
So I got a super simple softballquestion for you, Shane.
Sure.
How simple is construction?
SPEAKER_02 (02:54):
Do you know what?
I wish you had asked me thatquestion six years ago when I
first got into construction,because as far as I knew, there
were general contractors, theywere architects, and that was
about it.
Six years later, after immersingmyself in construction, I feel
(03:17):
like I know even less now than Idid then.
It's very interesting becausefor the uninitiated, it feels
like a business that is thatshouldn't be that hard.
But the more you get to know it,the more you realize, wow,
there's if I'm honest, Jesse, Idon't think I'm not aware of.
(03:39):
Well, let me tell you a littlebit about my background.
Sorry, I'm giving you a answer,but I I am a software engineer.
I've been writing software forlonger than I care to admit,
even though I'm so young, I'm avery old man.
I started out in finance, Iworked for the British Treasury,
I wrote the software that theyuse to auction out British
(04:01):
Treasury bonds.
Then I worked for an investmentbank.
I did a tech startup with mybrother in 2013.
It was a cloud-based financialanalysis when cloud was still
sexy.
Or at the cloud's not that sexynow.
And then when we sold thatcompany, I was looking for
(04:21):
something challenging to getinto, something interesting.
Friend of mine had a stone andtile subcontracting business
based out of Manhattan.
And he told me there was a bigopportunity around preparing
takeoffs and proposals.
And my first question was,What's a takeoff?
(04:42):
I literally had no idea.
I walked into his office, heshowed me how his company, which
at the time was probably around10 million in revenue, so not
tiny, but not huge.
And when he showed me what theydid, I thought, oh my god, this
guy has no idea what he's doing.
It can't be like this.
(05:04):
So did a bit of research anddiscovered that yes, when you're
bidding construction projects,you genuinely do trace the
outlines of the walls so thatyou can figure out the material
quantities.
Like there genuinely is a humanwho is clicking on all of the
boundaries to start, yeah, tostart preparing a takeoff.
(05:27):
And at the time, I'm not sure ifyou remember those AI videos
with the robotic arms picking upthe squishy balls.
Did you ever see that?
Oh, yeah.
So this was 2018.
Man, not too long ago, yeah.
I know.
And I thought, you know what?
If a robotic arm can pick up asquishy ball, I can write a
piece of software that's gonnaautomate this takeoff problem,
(05:50):
and I can build a company thathas a material impact on this
particular problem space.
And here I am, six years later,still very angry with my friend
for getting me involved in thisvery difficult business.
But the short answer is I havedeveloped a love for
(06:11):
construction companies becausethe people are incredible,
Jesse.
Like just such genuine,hardworking, honest people.
And the work itself is tough.
Not just the actual buildingwork, that's obviously difficult
because it's manual, like you'repushing your body, but the
(06:33):
information technology side ofconstruction is very difficult
because it's the interceptionpoint between standards where
you think that there's aspecific way to communicate
something very complex and thenjust the human aspect,
creativity.
So it's super, superinteresting.
(06:54):
So, how much do I know aboutconstruction?
What do I think of it?
I think it's hard, I think it'sa tough business, very exciting,
and I'm excited to learn moreabout it.
It's probably gonna take a longtime because it's tough.
SPEAKER_00 (07:06):
Yeah, no, uh a hundred percent.
I remember being in the field asa as an installer, right?
Plumbing apprentice, journeyman.
And I had my we'll say opinionsabout how we did business,
right?
The type of clients we got thatwe worked for, the type of
projects that we were on, whereit was just like it was not,
(07:28):
it's it was horrible.
Like they treated us likegarbage.
It was just it was a horribleenvironment.
Like, why are we picking peoplelike this?
Thinking, well, you just getbetter clients.
Well, it's not that easy.
So over the years, it's like younailed it.
There's so many levels ofcomplexity.
I mean, a simple one, whichseems simple, right?
(07:49):
Like you've got the front end ofthe business where you're out
there doing businessdevelopment, doing an estimate,
doing a material takeoff, so youcan produce an estimate, and
then you have the executioninstallation of it, and the just
the communication between thatinternally fails in a lot of in
the majority of places.
That's kind of how why I have ajob.
(08:12):
But you decided I could writesome code for this, and so I'm
curious about the softwareengineer thing for two reasons,
Mr.
Shake, because you and I've hadsome conversations, and you I
feel like you and I could justfucking hang out and tell
stories and get on forever.
Which I've talked with, which israre, meaning uh other folks
(08:36):
that I know that are likeprogrammers that have that kind
of brain power, I can't have aconversation with them, and so
there's that element, and then,like you said, the people in our
industry, they're they'redifferent, it's a notably
different personality type ofcommunication, style of
communication.
(08:57):
And so, for you specifically,um, getting into software
engineering code, I'm assumingthat's coding.
What was it that got you there?
What was interesting about itthat pulled your attention for
you to dedicate so much of yourtime to it?
SPEAKER_02 (09:15):
When I think about my career, the things that I've
enjoyed the most have alwaysbeen solving hard problems with
technology.
Okay.
Always been drawn to those sortsof problems.
And when you're at the start ofyour career, you spend a lot of
time, and it's probably the samein plumbing.
(09:36):
When you're a journey, whenyou're at the beginning, you're
doing all of the actualinstallation and you're doing
all the stuff that the moresenior guy doesn't want to do,
but you also need to learn, andthen as you become more senior,
you discover that wow, the easypart was actually writing the
code, the hard part is actuallyunderstanding what the problem
(10:03):
is that you're trying to solve.
SPEAKER_01 (10:05):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (10:06):
So I spent a lot of my career writing code, managing
teams, but understanding whensomeone says when people
describe a technology solutionto you, they don't generally
people are interesting, Jesse,because they always they can't
(10:26):
always tell you what they dowant, but they immediately know
what they don't want.
SPEAKER_01 (10:30):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (10:31):
Oh yeah.
And they know that after youhave spent, let's say, a month
putting something together, andthen immediately they know, no.
When people describe what theywant to you, they generally they
try to simplify it and they'lldescribe it to you in the terms
that they understand, like makethe Excel spreadsheet do this
(10:51):
one thing or put a button herethat does that.
And the interesting part is uhreally unpacking what do they
when they say I want you to putthis piece of information into
this site and this spreadsheet,what do they actually mean?
Why are they asking it in thoseterms?
And that's what I spend my timedoing.
(11:12):
And essentially, I don't know ifyou've ever heard the phrase
asking.
There's a book called The Wise,or there's a technique called
The Wise, which is basicallyjust ask why.
And I say the same things to myteams.
Like when someone says to you, Ineed you to do this, you ask the
question why you can, and youcan sound like a three-year-old.
(11:34):
Yes, experience the what it'slike when you speak to a
three-year-old who continuouslyasks you why.
At some point you realize, wow,I I know nothing.
You know, because oh, totally,because asking those questions,
asking the whys really gets downto the root of the problem, you
(11:55):
know.
SPEAKER_00 (11:55):
Yeah, yes, yes, yeah.
The the five whys, that's theway I understand, yes, is a part
of the lean constructionproblem-solving framework
because it helps us get to theroot cause.
And I love the way you said it,right?
Like, we're not, I'll say it.
Here's a confession from me.
I suck at articulating what Iwant.
(12:17):
But man, I could tell you what Idon't want, quick, right?
Like, that's easy.
Yeah, and so like the five wiveshelps us get layer after layer
to really understand the root ofthe thing.
Yep, because if we just takeaction on the presenting
problem, we're not gonna solvethe underlying issue, and we got
to dig to get to the underlyingissue.
(12:38):
So you seem to have anappreciation, or maybe not
appreciation, but patience tolisten to people to really
understand their problem.
Where does that come from?
Is that like an innate thingthat came up through your
family, or is it really afunction of well, that's the
(13:00):
best way to solve problems anddeliver a solution that's gonna
knock their socks off?
We're gonna do the LM familymember shout-out.
And this one goes to Mr.
Steve Wood.
He sent me this message.
He says, You have a way ofmaking things concise and you
hit the nail squarely on thehead.
(13:20):
I'm truly glad that thealgorithm led me to you.
And I connected him with him onthe Instagram.
I'm starting to get sometraction on the Instagram.
So, Mr.
Wood, I appreciate you, man,taking the time to repost and
engage with the content.
I appreciate most of all thatyou're signaling back to me that
the content is landing with youand bringing you some kind of
(13:41):
value.
And to the rest of you, LMfamily members out there, you
already know I love attention.
So if you leave a review, dropsome stars, leave me a comment,
even a stinky comment, I canhandle it.
That gives me an opportunity toshout you out in a future
episode.
SPEAKER_02 (13:59):
It's something that I had to learn.
Sometimes I tell my wife, I missmy 20s because I knew everything
then.
Yes.
When I was younger, I had a badhabit of interrupting people and
thinking, I know what you'regonna say, you don't have to
finish, let me tell you.
And I'm a big fan of learning.
(14:22):
Stand on the shoulders ofgiants, and I think a common
theme from people that areaccomplished is they will listen
to what other people say.
So having seen that from otherpeople, I want to emulate that.
I I want to stand on theshoulders of giants, so it's a
(14:44):
learned behavior, and I'm veryhappy that I've spent the time
to learn it because it's changeda lot of things about my life.
SPEAKER_00 (14:54):
Oh, well, I don't know about your life, but I know
it sure changed a lot in mylife.
I remember a friend of minecalled a co-worker friend.
This is way back when I was likein my 20s, where I was
performance, and he's like,Jesse, you ask a lot of
questions.
I'm like, Yeah, because I reallywant to know.
He's like, No, he's like, butyou answer your own questions,
(15:16):
you ask questions like you careabout what we're gonna say, and
really you're just settingyourself up to go on one of your
rants, like you always do.
I'm like, No, I don't.
He said that to you.
Wow, I went home to my ex-wifenow, and I said, Can you believe
what so-and-so said?
And she just kind of looked atme, she's like, Yep.
(15:37):
Oh like, oh, I got a problem.
I asked my team, what was thenumber one thing I needed to
work on?
And like, we all came up withthis list.
We're on a project here in SanAntonio, and and the deal was we
were all gonna share our listfor each other and help each
(15:58):
other, like call each other outon it actively so we can make it
better faster.
The three guys all had the samecomplaint, they all said that I
didn't listen, and I believedfor real that I was the best
damn listener in the company.
Wow, and so I again right herethat now I'm in my mid-30s when
(16:20):
this happens, anyhow.
What they pointed out, what wefigured out was when they
brought me a problem that I hadbeen experienced before, I
wouldn't, I would cut them offand tell them what to do.
The rest of the time, I would Iwas listening, I was a little
more patient.
But if it was a thing like, hey,we got this issue with the
(16:40):
supplier, um, okay, and I'm onthe phone calling them, and
they're like, Do you let mefinish?
Like, that's all right, I knowwhat needs to happen.
Don't worry about it.
Oh, you should do this.
And so it was, it took a lot ofpractice for me to break that
habit.
And I actually timed myselfbecause I told the guys, for
real, I said, guys, I said, I'mnot, I don't want to defend
(17:02):
myself.
You are right, but I need you tosignal to me when I'm doing it
wrong, and that's how wediscovered it was in that
specific circumstance when itwas a problem that I was very
familiar with, I would just givethem the answer.
And so they keep, they wouldgive me a signal.
One guy will pull his ear, theother guy will kind of do this,
(17:22):
and so I would like, oh okay,shut your mouth, Jess.
And so, in order for me to keepmy mouth shut, I had to focus on
something.
So I would focus on my why, Iwould tap I would time it.
Wow, the longest it ever tookfor me to let them finish
talking was two minutes.
It was almost always less than60 seconds for me to keep my
(17:45):
mouth quiet and let them finishtelling me the thing.
And I thought I was beingefficient, except that sure I
was being efficient in terms oftime, but in terms of social
capital and relationship,entirely wasteful because I was
offending them or disrespectingthem every time I did that.
(18:05):
So I say that to people ifyou're in that situation, time
yourself, man.
It's really not that much moretime to just let people finish
talking.
SPEAKER_02 (18:14):
So I don't know if you know a guy like Jordan
Peterson.
I know that he some of hispolitics is a little uh is a
little controversial, but I'veread his book.
But also, I have tremendousrespect for the way that he
handles discussions because whathe always does is no matter what
(18:37):
people are saying to him, healways listens.
And I think nine times out often, you do know what people are
gonna say, and you probablycould cut them off, but one out
of ten, ten percent of the time,people are gonna surprise you,
and I also think that uh yousurprise yourself when you
(18:57):
actually listen to peoplebecause sometimes your response
is in some cases the opposite ofwhat you thought you were gonna
say at the start of theconversation, and to bring it
back to construction.
Honestly, we were talking aboutbig mistakes, and when I started
the company, my big mistake wastrying to deliver more than
(19:24):
anyone had ever done before, notunderstanding how risky doing
what I was doing was gonna be.
So let me unpack that for you.
So yeah, please, I'm curious.
So so my friend brought me intohis office, and it was 1 p.m.
(19:46):
in the afternoon, and he had abottle of whiskey on his desk,
which he opened up and we had asip of whiskey, which which was
shocking for me, honestly.
I was like, wow, okay.
And then he showed me what itlooks like for him to go through
the bid process, and of course,it's your oxygen in a
(20:09):
construction, everything comesthrough, almost every i mean, it
depends on your business, but inmost cases it comes through a
bid process.
And at the end of the sessionwith him, I thought, you know
what?
Wouldn't it be cool if Yunuscould be his name?
My friends called Yunus.
If Yunus is sitting in the barand Jenga delivers his proposal
(20:34):
for him.
I said to you, what do you thinkof that?
He was like, I would love that.
Absolutely grow my business.
So if you think about what'sinvolved in doing that, so
basically, you've got to you'vegot to do the takeoff
accurately.
And some trades are more riskythan others, some scopes are
(20:56):
more risky than others.
He was in stone and tile.
I knew nothing.
Honestly, before I started, Ididn't even know what a
subcontractor was.
He had to explain to me.
I didn't even understand thefunction of a general contract,
if I'm honest.
I I'd done re-throughs on myhouse.
I know it's crazy.
(21:16):
I was so ignorant.
But I I knew that I needed tostart somewhere.
I needed to under, I needed towork with someone who was an
expert, and that was what hisexpertise was in.
He actually said to me, Youshouldn't start in stone and
tile because it's too easy.
In the finish trades, I'm notsure, Jesse, how familiar you
(21:40):
are with the finished trades,but one of the riskiest is stone
because stone slabs are soexpensive.
SPEAKER_00 (21:48):
Ah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (21:49):
One of the most difficult is ironically, not I
know nothing about the actualinstallation of it, but I'm sure
that it's very challenging andtough and requires expertise.
The toughness I'm talking aboutis getting the number right,
like actually making money onposing.
Getting that right is hardbecause you've got waste factors
(22:12):
which impact you, you know, themargins are always tight.
And you if you get the wastefactors wrong, then you don't
make money.
So you do all this work, itfeels like you're making money,
but at the end, you're payingthe you're paying your clients
to install their stuff for them.
Yeah, oh yeah.
So my big idea was what how do Iget to a place where I can do
(22:36):
this for Unis?
So I thought, let's start with II don't have a machine that can
do the takeoffs yet, but let'sI'll build out an estimation
team, they'll do the takeoffs,I'll build out a pricing engine
so that I can I can materialprice for the scope of works
(22:57):
that that I'm focused on.
And my team will receive the bidinvitation and they'll turn it
into a fully priced bid.
And I'll give that to mycustomer, and my customer will
change the number, and thenthey'll they'll make it theirs
and they'll submit that.
I'll tell them, guys, pleasedon't bid with this number
(23:19):
because this is just yourstarting point.
Right.
Started to bring on customers,and then one of my customers
called me up and said, Shane, wejust lost$25,000.
So they paid me$300 for thepiece of work that we did.
We just lost$25,000 on thisproject because of your price.
(23:42):
And I said, Huh?
What you submitted your proposalusing our price?
Are you guys insane?
Did they really just do that?
I promise you they did that,Jesse.
And it was at that point that Irealized, oh my god, the amount
of risk that I am exposingmyself to, because you can
(24:06):
literally have a single, you canhave like a reception desk, like
a circular stone reception desk,that because it's circular, will
be like 10 times the cost ofjust the square footage.
So I realized, oh my god,because I didn't know enough, I
was literally giving people anumber.
(24:27):
I was telling them, guys, pleasecheck everything.
And they were saying, Yes, we'regonna check everything, Shane.
But you know how it gets, youget busy, 90% of the time, my
number's good.
They're checking it and it'sgood.
Actually, 90 98% of the timeit's good, 2% of the time, it's
(24:48):
gonna put you out of business.
Do you know?
SPEAKER_00 (24:51):
Right.
Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02 (24:52):
And the second I realized that I literally
changed the direction of thebusiness because I just I didn't
want to put myself at that levelof risk, right?
I didn't want to put mycustomers at that level of risk,
so yeah, it was pretty scary.
I feel like we we dodged abullet on spotting that
relatively early.
When I say early, two years intothe journey was but that was a
(25:18):
very scary lesson for me.
SPEAKER_00 (25:20):
Yeah, so so it's like okay, you're hanging out
with Eunice, drinking whiskey,and you say, you know what?
I need to make this so we couldbe drinking whiskey at the bar,
not the office.
Right.
Came up with this idea, yep, andyou put it into play.
You hired a team and you startedproducing a product and selling
(25:41):
the product, and then some bugsstarted popping out in terms of
the way the end user was usingit, even though you advised them
not to do that because I you're100% right.
Like you get an invite, an RFP,and you get like due to day by 3
p.m.
It's like, what do you mean?
Like, come on, man.
(26:01):
I need time to like do a solidbid or estimate takeoff and
check all the things.
Now, here's see if I can makethe connection.
You're good, you've developedthe skill of listening and
really seeking to understand theroot of the problem for the
client or the people that you'reserving.
You also have a business, youwant to manage risk, not just
(26:22):
for yourself, but also for theend user.
How do you draw the line?
Because I'm sure now, like whatyou were describing was probably
way less automation or AI thanthere is today in Jenga.
How where do you draw the linewith regard to feature requests
(26:44):
from end users?
How do you manage that?
If they want new features, wasthat something that's like you
just expect that at thebeginning when you're like in
development?
What does that look like interms of feature requests and
discerning whether it should bedone or if I don't do it, I
(27:05):
might lose the contract.
That sort of stuff.
Is that a challenge you have towrestle with?
SPEAKER_02 (27:10):
100%.
It's very hard, Jesse, becausepeople always want stuff,
especially if they're not payingfor it, if you know what I mean.
It literally costs you nothingto ask a software vendor to add
a feature.
So it's a challenge, but I thinkthat the well, I'll tell you how
I how we manage it.
(27:30):
So I told you that we delivereda piece of uh service, if you
will.
I still want to do that.
I still want Younus to sit atthe bar and get his fully priced
bid and decide it's good andsend it.
I still want that, but I don'twant him to lose money.
(27:52):
Take him a couple more years tounderstand a little more about
construction and about what therisks are and how to mitigate
those risks.
And part of how we're solving itis some things you can fully
automate and some things youcan't.
So coming back to your questionabout how do I manage
(28:15):
requirements?
My North Star is achieving.
I'll tell you what we want.
Here's what I want for mycustomers.
Let me describe a customer thathas seen success with Jengai.
This customer has doubled theirrevenue in three years and
they've tripled their profits.
So that to me is what successlooks like.
SPEAKER_01 (28:38):
Yes.
SPEAKER_02 (28:39):
So that's my North Star.
My North Star is thefunctionality that we're gonna
put in the system.
No arguments.
I'm gonna prioritize it.
Anything you tell me you wantthat aligns with that goal, I'm
gonna put in.
I'm not even gonna argue withyou, I'm gonna figure out how to
do it and I'm gonna do it.
(29:00):
If I have to raise more money todo that, I'll do it.
If if I have to knock off apiece of functionality that's
less useful than that anddeliver that later, I'll do it.
So if it's if it aligns stronglywith the North Star, it's a
no-brainer.
If I discover something new,then that's easy.
Well, what's a little harder isfunctionality that sort of helps
(29:25):
but doesn't really.
And the way we deal with that iswe try to figure out if it if is
there some peripheral benefit topeople apart from you.
And if there is, then we'llfigure out okay, we'll still do
it, but you know, we'll do itwhen I'm sure you're familiar
(29:46):
with the concept of ROCS.
Have you heard of EOS,entrepreneurial operating
system?
Oh, yes, yep.
So a concept that I think worksreally well when you have
limited resources and you alwayshave.
Limited resource is youdifferentiate between a rock,
which is a big thing thatrequires an investment by your
(30:09):
team from a stone, which is asmaller thing that requires less
from sand.
And the idea is you can the sandrepresents all of the small
little things that you do, butat the end, you haven't really
moved the needle forward.
So we're very particular aboutmoving the needle forwards with
(30:30):
the strategic things, which arethe rocks.
And then the stones are uh thesmaller, easier to deliver
things, and the sand is justfills in the gap.
You know what I mean?
You can put rocks in, you canput some stones in, and you can
throw in some sand.
But if it's all sand, there's nospace for anything else.
So that's how we think about it.
And then a software company, inthe same way as a construction
(30:54):
company, is a services companydelivering service.
So sometimes you just have tobite the bullet.
If you've got a big cup companythat wants something and feels
like it's urgent, and there arestrategic accounts, yeah, we'll
just do it.
But the short answer, Jesse,it's hard.
(31:15):
It's very hard.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (31:17):
Well, yeah, I appreciate that.
And I love the big rock stonesand sand.
My uh reason I'm familiar withit, I remember seeing a video, I
think it was Stephen Covey, whoshowed, right?
He's trying to fill a jar.
He's like, if everybody spendsall their time with the sand, if
you take care of the sand first,you can't fit the big rocks and
the stones.
That's right.
(31:37):
You take care of the big rocksfirst, then the stones, then the
sand, you can take care of allof it.
But so it's a matter of right,and I'm like, man, that was
magic.
Oh, but he's not showing me howto fill a jar, he's teaching me
how to think.
Got it.
SPEAKER_02 (31:51):
Cov is cover's incredible.
He's got a couple of reallygreat like begin with the end in
mind.
So it sounds like a simpleconcept, but so powerful.
SPEAKER_00 (32:03):
Yes, totally, totally.
And so on the feature request,I've this was about five years,
five, five to seven years ago,when I had like a real job,
there was a lot all of a sudden,it was kind of when there
started being a big focus ofsoftware in construction, right?
(32:26):
Coming into I mean, now it'slike anything, there's all kinds
of options or ideas coming intothe space.
Back then there wasn't a wholelot, but they started.
And what I picked, I wasn'taware, it took me a couple, a
few conversations to figure outbecause I was always in these
conversations.
I don't know why.
Anyways, and we I remembersitting and I'm like talking to
(32:46):
these one people, this onegroup, and I'm like, okay, does
it do this?
And they were like, they wouldsay it can, right?
And I thought they were beingjust formal in their answer,
like, yes, it can.
What I discovered is they'resaying they will make it do it,
like it wasn't the currentfunctionality.
(33:08):
And so what happened was okay,well, and we got a test run
because we were gonna becontributing to the whatever,
and then we got it, and itdidn't do anything that we
wanted it to do.
And they're like, No, we said itcan, meaning we can program it
to do that, and I'm like, that'snot what I was asking.
Like, can it do it now, man?
(33:30):
And so I kind of learned like,okay, I gotta talk to these guys
differently, and then I wouldsee several people like they had
a really great idea that waslike one singular vertical,
right?
Right, super deep, like justgreat, and then they started
Frankensteining putting allkinds of other features because
(33:51):
people wanted them, but and youalready nailed it.
One person wanted it, nobodyelse cared about that feature,
and then the other feature wasone person, then one.
So I credit it to a matter ofdiscipline, or more clearly,
like you said, they didn't havea true north, and so they were
just saying yes, which ended upthey ended up underperforming
(34:14):
because they couldn't say no toanything, and so I've always
been I've never been on thatside, like in that type of
business, but I would imagineit'd be difficult to say like
no, like that's not we're notgonna do that.
SPEAKER_02 (34:27):
It's very hard, but I do want to say something about
about construction.
I when I first started inconstruction, I I observed
something similar to what youjust said, which is why is it
that the software goes so deepand solves this one little
problem and does nothing aroundthat problem?
(34:49):
And I I really didn't have ananswer to it, but I now
understand why.
The why is because thetechnology needs of construction
are deep, very deep.
And if you're not in it, youdon't realize.
And the funny part isconstruction companies to a
certain extent have beenbuilding their own systems for
(35:11):
many years, and they'll put ittogether with all of the tools
that are at their disposal.
So a couple of Excelspreadsheets, maybe databases.
The information managementproblem is real, and you've
solved it by putting togetherthe capabilities that are at
(35:31):
your disposal, and sometimesit's taken years, and you built
a system that works.
You're making money, yourcompany's making money, and then
a software guy will come alongand they'll look at the solution
that you've put together andthey'll turn up their nose at
it, and they'll go, I can solvethis problem much easier, much
easier, mostly because theydon't understand the complexity
(35:54):
of the problem.
So they'll start working on asolution and they'll realize, oh
my god, this is way harder thanI thought.
And what ends up happening, andit's hard because I've seen so
many talks where people say thatconstruction companies or people
in construction are anti-tech,and that is not my belief at
(36:16):
all.
I think they're very pro-tech.
I think that tech has never beengood enough in the past to
actually service the needs ofconstruction, both in the
information technology side,just moving bits around, and
also the physical side, like thetooling that allows you to
(36:37):
actually do the build quicker.
So I think that's what'shappened in the past.
So, what will happen to a techcompany is they'll start working
on a problem and they'll realizewow, we've got to go really deep
to solve this problem, and itcosts a lot of money to build
software, like a crazy amount ofmoney to build.
People don't realize because wehave so many very cool free
(37:00):
platforms that we get to use,and those companies that are
giving it to us have spentbillions on those platforms.
We don't realize because we justuse it and it's fantastic,
right?
We're the product, so they endup getting stuck because they've
invested all of their the moneythat they had to build their
product on the one problem, liketakeoff softwares, for instance.
(37:22):
They're great at being a takeoffproduct, but they don't, they're
not great at building aproposal, they're not great at
really anything apart from beinga take-off software.
Doing the takeoffs, not becausethe technologists that built it
aren't great technologists, justbecause that problem itself is a
(37:45):
hard problem to solve, andmaking it better really uses up
all of your spend that you'veallocated to technology.
So that is very I've never seenit in another sector.
Like really, I promise you, Ihaven't seen it in government
finance, I haven't seen it ininvestment banking.
(38:06):
I mean, I haven't worked inevery like I haven't worked in
rocket science, you know what Imean?
Yeah, but you've been in somepretty darn serious businesses,
so yeah.
Thank you.
But uh the construction sectorhas a very deep need for
technology, and that's what Ifind so exciting about being in
(38:28):
having moaned about Younispulling me into construction
technology almost years ago.
He's my best friend, andsometimes I hate him and
sometimes I love him becausehe's given me the opportunity to
work in this vibrant, incredibleindustry.
And what's super exciting aboutit is the fact that finally
(38:50):
technology is catching up to beable to do provide that
meaningful service, 100% to beable to actually do something
that really makes a bigdifference.
Like like I mentioned oursuccess for a platform to
position someone in a placewhere in three years they can
(39:13):
triple their profit is prettyhuge.
And it's not because it's notbecause I'm an Einstein, it's
just that I've met the rightpeople and with their help,
we've been able to build aplatform that's really supported
the needs that they have, butthe technology is just getting
(39:35):
very exciting, like itscapabilities are catching up to
the needs of construction, soyeah, it's an exciting time.
SPEAKER_00 (39:43):
Yeah, well, you know, the what so one thing that
I really appreciate about you,Shane and Jenga, is that it is
subcontractor or trade focused.
100%.
And it's like my belief becausehere's what really irritates the
hell out of me uh of all thedifferent things that are out
there.
(40:03):
They say we're doing this thing,this new app, or whatever it is,
doesn't matter.
This digital solution is gonnamake the workers' day better.
It's not true, nobody has gottento that point yet.
That's not bad.
But what's underlying that iswho what the providers think
(40:24):
that their system, whatever itis they're producing or
offering, can serve a generalcontractor and a subcontractor
and an architect and anengineer.
And I don't believe that to betrue because they are very
different worlds.
I my and maybe it's just my grayhairs and hard-headed thinking.
(40:45):
I believe there needs to be asolution for subcontractors and
a solution for generalcontractors, and they're
separate, they can becomplementary, but they are not
the same.
And so I'm gonna cry a littlebit more.
What I see is most of the stuffthat is created is very GC
(41:06):
centric.
Why?
Because they got bigger dollars,right?
Right, like they got biggerdollars, they got more access,
they got more influence, and allof I get all of that, right?
Branding and marketing and reachand all of saturating the
market, like I get it.
But what ends up happening, andI think it's a good thing,
depending on where you are inthe business.
(41:26):
What ends up happening is thesubcontractors are underserved,
and underserved, I think, isputting it lightly.
They're straight up neglected,so it's like a blue ocean.
I agree.
It's like doing something forsubcontractors, serving
subcontractors in some form iswide open for people like you
(41:48):
who give a damn and are willingto put in the time to come and
make a something not justimpactful, but also a viable
business.
Am I what do you think aboutthat?
SPEAKER_02 (41:59):
You hit the nail on the head.
So every single software companythat I'm aware of right now, if
you think about the pro cores ofthe world, you think about the
autodesks of the world, theystarted with a GC and then they
try to retrofit thesubcontractors' world into their
software.
SPEAKER_01 (42:19):
Yep.
SPEAKER_02 (42:20):
And when I talk about the complexity of
construction companies, I'mliterally talking about the
complexity of being asubcontractor.
Because if you're asubcontractor, one, you've got
to you've got to manage cash,two, you've got to manage your
bidding, three, you've got tomanage people, four, there are
parts of you're actually doingthe construction.
(42:42):
And there are other teams thatare in your way that sometimes
ruin your work, that don't careabout your timeline or your
schedule, or they care abouttheir own stuff.
When I say um construction iscomplex, I should have qualified
better.
Being a subcontractor isprobably one of the hardest
businesses ever.
(43:02):
And what's interesting aboutthat, that I'm aware of that
I've ever seen, what'sinteresting about it is to start
up a subcontracting business isnot hard.
To get to, it has itschallenges.
You're gonna get gray hairs andhave sleepless nights.
Absolutely.
But if you're like you're amaster plumber, I think you're a
master plumber, yeah.
(43:31):
That would be relatively itwould be hard work and it would
be 24-7, but you could do itquite easily.
But once you get there, it'slike it starts out and it seems
like I'm gonna start this up andyou start making money straight
away, and you buy the Bentleyand you buy the big house, and
everything's great.
You've got lots of money, yourbusiness is growing.
(43:51):
But level two opens up whenyou're going from a million to
say two and a half, and then yourealize, wow, okay, I am growing
year on year, I'm doubling myrevenues, but I'm running low on
cash.
Like I have to sell the Bentley,I've got to move into a smaller
house.
My my kids can't go to privateschool anymore.
But my company's growing, andthen as you so what's my point?
(44:15):
My point is it's it seems like ait's a sector that is it has a
low barrier to entry, which isgreat when you're starting, but
it sucks when you're a maturebusiness because you've got all
of these people starting up whodon't know how to bid who are
undercutting you and losingmoney on so that part's hard.
And then as you start to growand get and as you start to
(44:38):
become an enterprise, it opensup the next level of complexity.
Like it doesn't get easier, itjust gets harder.
Yes, you get to two and a half,you get to five, you get to ten,
and you feel like wow, eventhough the business is getting
bigger, even though my revenueis huge, the bank manager comes
(44:59):
out to see me when I go to thebank, I always feel like I've
got no money.
I always feel like I'm on theverge of bankruptcy.
So that's something I've notseen in any other sector.
And the other thing about who'sgot the money.
I think that part of the reasonwhy subcontracting, and this was
(45:21):
I haven't done any beyondspeaking to people, some very
knowledgeable people.
Um I didn't discover thismyself.
I've spoken to some great, verysmart people who've been
thinking about this for a longtime.
The undercutting hurts thebottom line of other like the
bird process, the fact that it'sthere have been savings, there
have been productivity boosts inconstruction, but it doesn't get
(45:45):
passed on to the sub becausethere's always someone who wants
to bid the job a little lowerthan you.
Do you know what I mean?
So I know that I'm taking a verycircuitous route to arriving at
why subs.
So because it's such a hardbusiness, it means that it's
hard to sell software tosubcontractors.
(46:05):
It's very hard because itproduces, if you're still around
after 10 years, if you haven'tgone bankrupt, it's because
you've been very careful.
Like you've been very carefulabout disrupting your process,
you've been very careful aboutwhere you spend your money, and
it's very difficult to sell yousoftware because in your mind,
(46:27):
you've got a solution.
Yes, it's made out of bubblegumand seller tape, and it works,
it works, and you've got a65-year-old woman who's on the
verge of retiring, who's holdingit all together for you, but
it's working, and it's my$15million business is working.
So from that perspective, thesubcontractor is a tough
(46:50):
customer to have, and mostsoftware vendors start with the
GC and then cobble onfunctionality for the sub.
But the way I think about it iswhat you said.
It's and honestly, Jesse, I toldyou when I started this journey,
I didn't even know what asubcontractor was.
But the more I learned about thebusiness and the complexity of
(47:15):
the business, and the morepeople that I met who were
subcontractors, the more excitedand the more I want to, I really
want to change, like I I want tomake being a subcontractor
great.
Do you know what I mean?
And I think technology isgetting to a place where it can
be great.
Because I'll tell you my vision.
(47:36):
I I mentioned that I I wantunits to sit in the bar and bird
projects, but my other vision isin the subcontracting space,
it's super interesting that youhave hundreds of you, you'll
hear people say it's veryfragmented.
Construction is fragmented.
I don't know if you've heardthose words before.
SPEAKER_00 (47:57):
Oh, yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_02 (47:58):
And when if you look at there are a lot, there are a
number of very big generalcontractors, but there are very
few big subcontractors.
SPEAKER_01 (48:08):
Yep.
SPEAKER_02 (48:09):
And my interpretation of that is it's a
function of the complexity ofrunning a subcontracting
business.
So what happens is you startedat a mill, then you got to five,
then you got to 10, then you gotto 15, then you got to 25, then
you got to 45, and then three ofyour estimators made a mistake,
(48:29):
and one of your one of yourinstallation teams made a
mistake, and suddenly you'rebankrupt.
Not because you don't have$30million worth of future
projects, but because you're outof cash.
Yeah, you're a$40 millionbusiness that is that is that
can run out of cash.
(48:51):
That's what happens.
So, what I would like to do,like my vision for Jen, where I
would like to get to withJengai, is one, I want to take
the risk out of bidding.
Because if you think about it,every proposal that you submit,
especially as a so if you're aresidential subcontractor, it's
(49:13):
less risky because yourrelationship is single serving
generally.
Like you do work for one GC andthen, but if you're a commercial
GC, sorry, a commercial sub,that relationship is worth
millions and millions over afive to ten year period or
longer, if you're good.
It means that if you make amistake, you got to eat it.
(49:34):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (49:36):
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (49:37):
Which means that the that you're servicing their bid
request, but you're puttingyourself at risk every time you
do.
Because if you make a mistake,you eat that mistake.
And if you make uh, let's say a$30,000 mistake, that's bottom
line money.
That's not top line money.
If you make it, let's say a 20%margin, okay.
(49:58):
Normally it's like five to tenpercent.
So if you make a five percentmargin, think about the size of
the bid to get to thirtythousand dollars to spend.
That's the risk that you takeevery single time you sit.
So take the risk out ofproposals.
How?
With a platform that maximizesthe value you get out of your
(50:19):
people and AI-based tooling thatgets everything out of the very
inefficient method of sharingthe ask, which is the
architectural plans.
So simplify that part.
Okay, that's part one.
Part two is imagine if I canbecause we've made the, and this
(50:41):
might sound a little scary forsome.
What I see happening is thesuper sub starting to emerge.
And what do I mean by a supersub?
We have some of them already.
It's essentially asubcontracting company that is
bidding on more than one scopein a project.
That's the path to a bigconstruction company.
SPEAKER_01 (51:02):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (51:02):
Because you can get access to, if you think about
it, if you're a maturesubcontractor, you're already
one of the top five in yourarea, let's say.
Like you're bidding all the bigprojects, and sometimes you win,
sometimes you lose.
But you're already good at yourjob, you're already an expert,
basically.
The only way to make more moneyis to start to get access to
(51:24):
more of the money in theproject, and the only way to do
that is to bid more scopes.
So I think that what we'll seeis the super sub, and I think
we'll see more and moreinstallation companies that are
sub-subs to these super subsdoing the actual installation
work.
And I think we're going to startto see some robotics having an
(51:47):
impact on the installers, whichis very exciting to me, but just
not an area that I'm focused onright now.
SPEAKER_00 (51:53):
So yeah, I'm sorry, I'll give you a very long answer
to because I agree.
I mean, my background, I workedwith TD Industries and they're
mechanical contractors.
So was we did mechanical withsheet metal, plumbing, and
hydronic systems, right?
Piping.
Yep.
So we did all of that for alittle like a blink of an eye.
(52:16):
We started doing electrical alsohere in San Antonio, anyway.
So we did, we were all MEP.
The problem was we had acquiredthe workforce of this was during
when remember, I don't know ifyou're when Enron blew up.
Yeah.
So when that happened, there wassome big giant electrical
conglomerate that was part ofthat, and it dissolved.
(52:38):
So all of those people wereavailable in the market.
And we said as an organization,let's start an electrical arm.
Wow.
And we did.
But all of those that thatworkforce that we acquired came
in totally different culture,right?
We were a servant leadershipkind of employee-owned company.
(53:01):
They were uh screw everybody,we're gonna make as much as we
can, type of uh culture,basically, yes, and so we're all
on the sand.
And I was fortunate enough to beone of those early projects
where mechanical, electrical, itwas all us, and I was like
fighting with my co-worker, likewow, like really fine over dumb
(53:24):
stuff that was gonna cost me alot of money, which was gonna
cost the company money.
It was better for their littlebudget, their electrical,
anyways.
It was a disaster that lastedabout two years, and then we
stopped it.
But to your point, I see, Imean, there are some like
Southland industries, there's alot of organizations that are,
(53:45):
and I'm starting to see thistrend too.
General contractors are startingto go back to having
self-perform operations, meaningthey're having some of the
subcontract work that they usedto subcontract out.
They're starting to take it inas part of their scope and
operate it under their umbrella.
All that to say, like, I agree100%.
(54:07):
And then the idea of likerobotics coming into the
industry, there's it's happeningright now.
I mean, well, I got introducedto the Tremble, which wasn't
it's not necessarily a robot,but it was like a step, which is
uh what do you call that?
GPS locating, so we could dolayouts, we could put all our
(54:29):
piping and our all the all ofour stuff, which used to, and I
did the math and I timed it.
I sat there with my timer.
A scope that would take us sixdays with nine guys, we were
able to do in four days withthree guys, amazing, and the
accuracy.
There was there, we just didn'teven, it's embarrassing how much
(54:52):
more accurate it was with thetremble.
So that was um not necessarily arobot, but I've been seeing
these these layout, these robotsthat do layout, they just hold
around.
Cool, I wish I had one of thosebecause you know what I had to
do, Shane?
I had to get me a six-inchwelded flange, which weighs
(55:13):
about 15 pounds, tie a string inmy chalk length to it, put it at
the end of the corridor, walkall the way down, pop my line,
go back and get my weldingflange.
Like that's how I automated theand now they got these super
crawl like, man, you'recheaters.
But I think it's just around thecorner, it's happening slowly.
Now, I gotta ask you thisquestion because I'm curious,
(55:38):
and you already touched on it,right?
You're talking about like a lotof the subcontractors are
apprehensive.
I'll say that is that word aboutbringing something in that is
foreign to their current method,even though their method is
bubblegum and duct tape, right?
It works right.
So, what's the most commonobjection you get around Jenga
(56:00):
and adoption or maybe evenconsideration to use it and look
at the thing?
SPEAKER_02 (56:06):
I'll tell you what makes it tough.
What makes it tough is at thispoint in time, the person that
gets the most value out of Jengais the salesperson.
Ah if you think about you as asalesperson, my typical so the
even the age demographic is justso interesting in construction
(56:27):
too.
Yeah, you've got this group ofold god that are honestly, I was
gonna say 60, but let's say 65onwards, who are amazing at
their job, like wonderful, supertalented expert in their field.
Then there's like this gap,there's no one, and then the
(56:48):
next age is like 35.
It's so interesting.
So you have these people whohave been very good at their job
using the system systems thatthey have, and part of their
thinking is I like the way I dothings, and I'm making money.
(57:08):
Why should I change?
And part of it is I'm only gonnabe doing this for another two
and a half to five years.
Why should I learn somethingnew?
So, what that means is in anyindustry, selling to salespeople
is hard because a salespersonthinks if I'm not selling, I'm
not making money.
(57:28):
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna.
And one guy said, start choppingas quickly as possible.
And Washington said, I'm gonnasharpen my axe.
Yeah, yeah, it's quite rare fortakes a lot for a salesperson to
(57:50):
say, I'm gonna sharpen my axe.
They'll generally go, let mestart chopping, baby.
So that makes it a little tough.
But basically, it means that wehave to deliver more value.
So product, it has to be soobvious that it's better.
So, and that's part of why wehave to spend so much time
(58:13):
making it better, because wehave to get to this point where
I can go into a big company andI can look at how they're doing
things, and I can literally say,okay, right now it takes you
four and a half hours to getthis bit out the door.
With my software, it's gonnatake you half an hour.
(58:36):
What are you gonna do with thatother four hours?
Like, what are you gonna do?
Talk to customers, you're gonnasell more.
So that's basically, and pleasedon't think that I'm saying that
it's easy because it's tough,it's tough to sell, and the
product, despite the fact thatit's so good and it does so
much, we sell to the entireteam.
(58:58):
So we're literally saying, okay,you have a team of five
estimators and 15 salespeople,they're all gonna have to
change.
And when they change, you'regonna have 15 salespeople, but
they're gonna have the sellingcapacity of 25.
Do you know what I mean?
(59:19):
So that's basically how we'vethat's how we think about it.
It's basically a deliver maximumvalue, deliver more value, and
then the objection is learning.
I don't want to learn, I don'twant to take the time to learn.
So we've trained, we've got afantastic team of people that
literally hold your hand.
(59:41):
Oh, okay, go from zero to ahundred in a couple of hours.
That's that's essentially howwe've done it.
SPEAKER_00 (59:48):
I love that answer because you know how many times
that I you probably could tellwhen we got some new thing that
again, this is a long time ago.
They're like, Oh, just I'd liketrying new, you know, if it
improved production, I was opento it, or if it helped me
(01:00:09):
analyze, make decisions thatwould impact production, I was
open to it.
And so I ended up being thein-house SME on whatever stupid
new thing they got.
And I normally I'm like, okay,like how do we use the thing?
I'm like, well, we sent you thePowerPoint.
Right.
I'm like, oh, and that was thenorm.
(01:00:29):
Now this was 10-15 years ago,but that was an I was like, man,
this sucks.
Like, they got it, they got it,they they were selling software
the way I dated.
It wasn't great on the firstone, and after that, forget
about it.
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:45):
So, Jesse, we started like that.
Honestly, my idea was let's makethe software as easy as possible
to use so that it's easy.
The problem is when the problemyou're solving is complex, like
the number of the different waysyou can present doing a piece of
(01:01:07):
construction.
It's like limitless.
There's a limitless number of,and the flow of information is
very complex.
So even with a focus on makingit simple, it's still not
simple.
So it took me a while tointernalize it.
I've got to I've got to help mycustomers be successful on my
(01:01:28):
platform, and that's where weare right now.
SPEAKER_00 (01:01:30):
That's amazing.
Good for you.
Good for you.
I folks, LM family, if youdidn't hear it, Mr.
Shane said we just need todeliver more value.
We have to make it likeundeniably valuable for the
user, which I think is powerful.
I mean, in terms of you beingthe leader of the organization,
(01:01:51):
you've shared your vision withus.
But being a I don't know what Iwould classify myself a wannabe
entrepreneur, pretender, tryingto learn how to start run a
business.
It's easy for me to blame theclient or blame the customer.
But if I just delivered morevalue, there would be no
(01:02:12):
problem.
And I think that's true for allof us in any situation, but I'm
gonna keep it in the businessvein.
Like, if you strive, likedeliver more value and you win.
You got to be committed to that.
And it's not easy, it's a longroad.
Oh my goodness.
Okay, Mr.
Shane, are you ready for thegrand slam closing question?
(01:02:34):
I think so.
If now I'm really worried.
Well, it's a good, but I don't,you shouldn't have anything to
worry about.
I think the path that you'vetraveled in terms of your career
coming up in finance, softwareengineering, you have uh an
appreciation and a skill set oflistening to people and
designing things to solveproblems for human beings, uh,
(01:02:57):
which I which comes acrossamazingly.
Because of all of that, Isuspect your answer to this
question is going to bephenomenal.
So here it is.
What is the promise you areintended to be?
SPEAKER_02 (01:03:11):
What is the promise I'm intended to?
My promise to my customers or mepersonally?
You to the universe.
I promise that the businessproblems that I focus on will
have a material impact on thepeople that are paying me for my
(01:03:32):
services.
I promise that I will be thebest possible husband that I can
be to my wife, and the bestpossible father that I can be to
my children, so that my wife'slife is better because of me,
and my children are the types ofpeople that have a very positive
impact on the world.
SPEAKER_00 (01:03:55):
Mic drop.
Wow.
No, not surprised, but I amthoroughly.
I got chills.
That was serious, serious all,you know.
From the heart.
Yeah, yeah, that's it.
It was from the heart.
SPEAKER_02 (01:04:08):
So I appreciate it.
Did you have fun?
I loved it, Jesse.
I knew we were gonna have agreat conversation, and I you
exceeded my expectations.
This was fantastic, and I feellike we need to chat more, my
friend.
SPEAKER_00 (01:04:21):
I do too.
I do too.
Thank you for sticking it outall the way to the end.
I know you got a whole lot ofstuff going on.
And in appreciation for the giftof time that you have given this
episode, I want to offer you afree PDF of my book, Becoming
the Promise You're Intended toBe.
The link for that bad boy isdown in the show notes.
(01:04:42):
Hit it.
You don't even have to give meyour email address.
There's a link in there.
You just click that button, youcan download the PDF.
And if you share it withsomebody that you know who might
feel stuck or be caught up inself-destructive behaviors, that
would be the ultimate.
You sharing that increases thelikelihood that it's going to
(01:05:03):
help one more person.
And if it does help one moreperson, then you're contributing
to me becoming the promise I amintended to be.
Be kind to yourself, be cool,and we'll talk at you next time.
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