The Future of Construction Technology

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Ever wondered what happens when you combine deep construction industry expertise with cutting-edge technology? Matt Perrott, founder of BuildPass, takes us on a fascinating journey from his days as a civil engineering student to building a construction tech platform now used by 150,000 workers across multiple countries.

Matt's story isn't just about business success - it's about identifying a genuine problem in an industry resistant to change. "I knew how to build technology and I had mates complaining to me about their lives in construction," he explains, describing the origin of BuildPass. What began as a simple QR code-based induction system during COVID has evolved into a comprehensive site operations platform managing everything from safety compliance to defect tracking.

The conversation takes a particularly illuminating turn when discussing artificial intelligence's role in construction's future. Beyond the ChatGPT applications everyone's familiar with, Matt describes practical AI implementations that are transforming job sites - from voice-activated assistants that help builders multitask to systems that automatically generate reports from site photos. His advice? "Your reflex should be to use AI first, rather than doing it the old way."

Perhaps most valuable is Matt's transparency about the entrepreneurial journey itself - working 70-hour weeks, paying himself less than minimum wage for years, and navigating the challenges of expanding internationally. His insights on brand building, focus, and consistency provide a masterclass for anyone looking to innovate in established industries.

Whether you're in construction, tech, or simply curious about how industries evolve, this conversation offers rare insights into how practical problems drive innovation, and how staying focused on solving specific pain points can create extraordinary value. Ready to see construction's digital transformation through the eyes of someone making it happen? This episode is your blueprint.

Episode Transcript

Robby (00:00):
Just as long as the conversation is flowing.
We've had episodes go forlonger.
If the conversation is flowingand we're all chatting.

Guest (00:06):
Go the full, lex Friedman , six hour.
Cancel the rest of the day, lexFriedman, yeah.

Robby (00:11):
That's it.
Cancel the rest of the day Cool.

George (00:15):
Let's do it Good.

Robby (00:20):
Yeah, good, good, all right, you want to kick us off?
Always have a glass of water,thank good, all right, got to
kick us off.

George (00:26):
Always have a glass of water.
Thank you, thank you.
Welcome back everyone toanother episode of Million
Dollar Days.
I hope you're having a milliondollar day.
We have a special guest today.
We've got Matt from MattPerrett, is it?
That's it Good?
Matt Perrett from BuildPass.
Thanks for joining us, mate.
It's good to be here.

(00:48):
George, we've known each otherfor quite some time, so I think
this podcast was it's been awhile in the making, in the
sense that I think you'reprobably one of the people we
wanted to have on, and itactually was your team that
reached out to us and said hey,we'd love to come on.
Do you know who Matt isActually?

Guest (00:57):
yeah, we do know him quite well, so yeah, thanks for
spending the time to come downand have a chat.
Ted from Skyline PR.
He's really good, so he's outthere pitching us all the time,
so I'm glad we could make thishappen.
Shout out to Ted, yeah thereyou go.

George (01:10):
Thanks, ted, mate.
Tell us a little bit about yourstory.
So I actually came across you,I think, about a year and a half
ago nearly two years ago, Ithink.
It was around a really goodtime.
I had just signed up with thissoftware company to manage our
OH&S and you had reached out tome, and so often, as it does

(01:31):
happen, you get a cold call.
It's like, hey, I'm here tosell you this.
It's really good, shut it downquite quickly.
However, you actually told mewhat your stuff did and how it
worked, and we looked at it andthen um and signed up.

Guest (01:46):
but um, tell me a little bit about your journey and how
you got to where you are todayyeah, well, firstly, I'm glad
that you've uh mentioned that Icold called you because I have
to prove to my team now that Idid used to do that back in the
day.
I wasn't very good at it, um,but at least they can see that I
was on the tools doing somework back in the day.
My story, basically I was doingcivil engineering.

(02:10):
I always wanted to buildskyscrapers.
That was the thing I wanted todo as a kid.
I went to uni.
I started studying commerce.
At the same time I was laboringfor a shop fitter, not doing
your typical uni studentwaitering.
That wasn't really for me.
So I got exposure to theconstruction industry while I
was studying civil engineering,then went to do some finance

(02:31):
work.
I stupidly tried to start a techbusiness while I was at uni
with no money and no idea aboutwhat tech was, and I figured out
pretty quickly that that was agood way to lose all your money
and fail.
But it was a good learning.
So I changed from doing civilengineering into software, got
so excited by tech, and this islike 10 years ago now, when sort

(02:53):
of social media was just takingoff and programming and coding
wasn't as widely done as it isnow and so I got into that space
, went to work for otherstartups worked for
realestatecomau, actually, andhelped build some of their
software but always had thisniggle that I wanted to get back
into construction and I had alot of mates who were working in

(03:15):
the construction industry, alot of them not for the tier one
builders, the multiplexers orthe lend-leases of the world,
but for, you know, smaller,either high-end resi businesses
or smaller commercial builders,a bit like PASCON, and they were
just talking to me about someof the tech they were using out
on construction sites reallyclunky, hard to use, didn't work

(03:37):
, or you had to have like fouror five different tools just to
try and run a construction siteand all of the workflows.
And so that's where BuildPassreally came from the fact that
it wasn't anything more than Iknew how to build technology and
I had mates complaining to meabout their lives in
construction and it was a goodway for me to get back into
construction and I'm never goingto be a builder, but this is

(03:59):
about as close as I can get bybuilding software for the
construction industry.

George (04:03):
Yeah, it was definitely something I've always thought
about.
Funny enough, in construction Iwas like, oh man, I wish it was
something that did this.
You know, I should think aboutthat.
I'd be a multimillionaire if Idid that.
But then you just get suckedinto the day-to-day operations
of what you do in work this isback when I was an employee as
well, let alone running your ownbusiness business and you just

(04:29):
run out of that time and abilityto do so.
So it was great for you to getinto that space, because it is
very competitive too, I think,in what you're doing.
I imagine that COVID was areally good thing for you.

Guest (04:37):
It was.

George (04:38):
Yeah, because I look at what transponded from that time
in the world and the fact thatpeople got used to using QR
codes and not thinking when theyscan the QR code, their phone
is going to get AIDS, or alltheir banking details.

Guest (04:55):
There was still some of that.
There was a little bit of thatstill.

George (04:59):
We still get it today.
It's funny enough.
It's like I get guys on siteand I say hey, you need to sign
in and get inducted and I'm notdoing that.
They'll have all my details.
I said honestly you think theydon't have all your details.
Now You're not scanning this.
Your RGO isn't helping you.
Yeah, but there's two thingsyou can do.
You can either scan it and goto work, or you can not scan it
and get fucked Like go, I don'twant you here.

Guest (05:20):
Exactly this little Aussie tech company is the least
of your worries.
It's all the big Americancompanies that have got all your
data.

George (05:27):
Yeah, that's right.

Guest (05:28):
Chinese companies.
So yeah, it's funny how thatworks.

George (05:30):
Yeah, so I imagine COVID was a pretty good time for you
in that regard.
Did you notice a lot of growthduring that time?

Guest (05:36):
Yeah, so essentially how we started, we always had the
vision that we wanted to runeverything on a construction
site.
But that's complicated and youcan't just build everything at
once because you'll build itreally poorly.
So we had to start withsomething and we identified that
in COVID.
People were getting used to QRcodes and things like doing an
induction on a construction sitewas often not done at all or it

(05:58):
was done on paper.
It was done really poorly.
So that was, I guess, our wedgeinto the market.
It was let's just build thisreally easy to use QR code scan
that builders can adopt.
They get it and that's how wegot started.
But from there we've expandedinto doing more and starting to
execute on the vision that wehad three years ago.

(06:19):
But yeah, to your point, COVIDwas really helpful.
I think timing in these thingsis always really important and a
lot of it is just luck.
You're going to get lucky withtiming, but you can try and use
things to your advantage as well.
Try to look ahead where theworld is going, and you know, a
lot of great business ideas havefailed because they were too
early or they were just too late.

(06:40):
So, I think timing is soimportant, but it's not like
we're sitting here saying thatwe can read the future.
We've got to be lucky as well.

George (06:46):
Yeah, yeah.

Robby (06:49):
Why?
Just so for my own ignorance.
Why is COVID?
What was the benefit?
Because obviously I'm not likein the construction space but I
don't spend any time on site.
If you see me on site, I'mprobably recording a video.
But what was it about COVIDthat allowed the business to
have that boost Like?
Was it just the QR codes?

Guest (07:08):
So the QR codes was part of it and that helped with the
wedge, but I think that peoplehad to start looking at
different things, like there's alot of businesses.

Robby (07:17):
It was like break out of your norm, yeah started pivoting
right and started looking atdifferent things.

Guest (07:21):
There was the whole work from home movement and I think
in general people had more.
They were more happy to try newthings and to change things.
And then, especially in thebuilding industry obviously it
kept going in COVID but also gotdecimated by it People had to
start looking at things thatthey didn't in the past.
And, george, you can probablytalk to this better than I can,

(07:42):
but we had a lot of ourcustomers saying we didn't have
to focus on the really highefficiency things.
In the past we had a goodmargin.
We just did things the way theywere.
But now we've got thesematerial price increases,
labor's getting harder to comeby and having to change their
business, and so when someone islooking to do that change or is
finally saying, look, the timeshave been good, now they're
harder, I'm going to have toreally try and identify

(08:05):
efficiencies in my business.
That's where something liketechnology can be beneficial.
So that was another reason thatit probably helped us a bit.

Robby (08:11):
Yeah.

George (08:12):
I find that in construction more so.
Maybe it's the same with otherindustries too, but they're
often stuck in their ways.
It's like we've always done itthis way.

Robby (08:23):
I reckon that's all industry.
You think so?
Yeah, I think you.
Just I don't know if it's likethe.
Yeah, definitely that's what Isee.

George (08:27):
I just feel that a lot of builders, you know, even in
the trade space, it's like no,no, we've always built with
timber, so why not use steel?
Why not use this new product,Like we've always done it this
way, like if it's not broke,don't fix it.
And I came from those tier oneconstruction companies.
That was my background and,having worked at those

(08:48):
organizations, they had spenthundreds of thousands of dollars
on their systems for OH&S, forpolicies, for procedures, for
how they ran their jobs, and itwas very much a paper-based
system.
When you inducted, we literallyhad people in a room.
You'd give them all a sheet ofpaper and say cool, fill this
out, tick the bottom, sign atthe bottom.
I'll also sign at the bottom.

(09:08):
Let me get a photocopy of allof your cards.
Let me staple it to thatinduction.
By the way, now sign all ofyour swims.
And it was a very hour longdriven process.
And then you had to file allthat stuff and keep it safe in
the event that someone came onsite and said show me this

(09:28):
person's documentation that he'sbeen signed on, so I don't have
to give you a big fat, fine.

Guest (09:33):
Yeah, and you've got to keep it for seven years or
something, yeah.

George (09:35):
And it's just.
It was for me when I, when yoursystem came on board.
So we had one and we werepaying close to $12,500 a year
for this software.
And it's exactly what you said.
It did the job, but it was abit complicated.
The trades didn't like it, myteam didn't like it, so I spent
all that money and it was like Ididn't use it.

(09:56):
And then you came along and saidlisten, I see that you're using
that software and it's awell-known software.
You said how about you use mineat no cost until such time that
your software expires the otherone, and then once, if you
think it's good, sign on.
So great sales tactic.
By the way, in that regard,really good that you had done it
like that, because then thatobviously transponded into
everything I'm doing at BuilderElite.

(10:16):
Now we recommend you and referyou and say, hey, this is what
we use, you should use it too.
So it was great that you'vejust taken something but
simplified it, because therewere other softwares out there
again that did what you weredoing but didn't do it well
enough and there was holes intheir stuff.
I'm like well, how do you knowif this person has their tickets
?
Oh well, you know they write anumber down, okay, but how do

(10:39):
you know?
So it's definitely a greatpreventative measure when it
comes to ticking the boxes asfar as your obligations are
concerned under ohns.
And it's such a.
It's the fat ugly, sister.
No one loves.
At the end of the day.
That's what ohns is 100 and it'snot an issue until it's an
issue.
Yeah, and we had a problem.
But we had an incident actuallyon one of my jobs early last

(11:01):
year where a concrete boom, thepipe, exploded and it sprayed
concrete, broke a neighbor'swindow.
Now, had someone been standingthere, they could have easily
been killed or hurt or whateverit was.
So it was a notifiable incident.
But the fact that when WorkSafecame on site, the people were
all inducted, they were allsigned into their swims.

(11:21):
We'd done a plant check thatmorning so we had all the
documentation there.
All we had to do was go intoyour system, print it and email
to them.
They go, here, you go.
So they then just turned aroundsaid, okay, well, you've done
everything as far as practicableto make this site secure and
safe and this process secure andsafe.
We're happy with what you'vedone.

(11:42):
Maybe next, next time you knowthey'll always try and give you
some sort of advice.
You know, check the lines or dothis or do this, but ultimately
that saved me a huge fine whichwould have probably cost 10
times more your subscription.

Guest (11:59):
Yeah, exactly.
And then the delay costs.

George (12:01):
People don't see that.
They're only like, oh, this isjust what a pain in the ass.
I have to fill out this formLike, yeah, but you never back
in the day.
I have to do that manually.
Now you get to do it digitally.
What a life, yeah.

Guest (12:12):
And the thing that gives me chills is the amount of
people out there that might berunning a safe construction site
.
Let's say, like talking aboutthe stuck in the ways, there
might be an older builder thatknows how to run a perfectly
safe construction site andthey're doing everything on site
to keep their workers safe, buta freak accident happens.
Someone just slips, they falloff a roof, whatever it is.

(12:32):
These things can happen,unfortunately, and if the boxes
aren't ticked, that's all thatWorkSafe is really going to ask
for, right.

George (12:40):
It's what they care about.
They all care.
No responsibility, and I hateto say that, but it's the
reality.
You know they're coming in andI say this at events like
they'll step over the dead bodyand go.
That's yuck, I won't touch that.
Can you show me his paperwork,please?
Can you show me this?
Can you show me this?
Can you show me this?

Guest (12:58):
And if you can't show, that then they go oh, you can't
prove in court that you wererunning a safe construction site
unless you've got your thingsin place.
So, 100%, I think the key is tosimplifying those things and to
your point before George,around making it simple for the
trades.
You don't have to change thefunctionality of a piece of
software too much.
You need to think about theuser experience, and just little

(13:22):
tweaks in wording, wherebuttons are, how it feels, how
simple it is to use, can makeall the difference between
having a product you're payingfor that no one uses or a
product that you're paying forthat actually gets the buy-in
and can actually protect youfrom those processes that we
talked about.

George (13:38):
Yeah, absolutely.
Do you review the act andstandards as far as when it
comes to developing yoursoftware, because it does have
to comply with certain things.

Guest (13:48):
So we work with partners.
We like to be very clear on thefact that I come from mainly a
tech background.
Right, I'm not a builder, I'mnot a safety expert.
So we can build awesometechnology and we're very clear
with people that that's what wedo really well.
So we have partners, safetyconsultants that we work with,
like, say, kate Elliott fromElliott Safety.
She's an expert at all that,right, she keeps up to date with

(14:10):
everything.
So we partner with her and makesure that our software is
capable of implementing thosethings.
So we just like to stay in ourlane of building really good
tech and look, funnily enough,we have gotten a lot of crap
over the years from competitorsthat try and use this in a sales
process.
If we come up against them, oh,I wouldn't use BuildPass.

(14:31):
Like the two founders, they'renot even from a construction
background.
Like, how do they know what tobuild?
And I find that really funnybecause, like, if you're a
builder, you don't go.
And when you go to get your carfixed, you don't get another
builder to go and fix your car,because you're a builder, you go
and get a mechanic to fix thecar who's an expert.

(14:51):
And so for me, who runs atechnology company.
Me and my business partner comefrom technology backgrounds.
We are going to build the bestproduct because we know how to
build technology teams.
It is a pretty difficult thingto do to to build technology
teams and it's quite it's nottrue.
You know, it is a prettydifficult thing to do to build a
technology company, and so Ijust find that quite interesting
that a lot of the products outthere do come from, say, someone

(15:14):
who was in construction withouttech, and you might be
successful doing it that way,but you've got to realize that
the technology is a big part ofit and that's what we lean into.
So basically, we tell ourcustomers up front, especially
in the early days we're notconstruction experts.
We're going to work closelywith you because you're the
expert and you're going to tellus what you need built and we'll
build it in the best possibleway.

Robby (15:35):
Yeah, that's really cool.
So the name BuildPass.
How long have you been around?

Guest (15:40):
We have been around three and a half years Coming up on
four soon.

Robby (15:44):
Okay, so for anyone who maybe hasn't heard of the
software, do you want to give usa gist of like how it works and
what it does?
Why should people use it?

Guest (15:53):
Yeah for sure.
So we call it a site operationstool.
So we only sell to theconstruction industry.
We have built a platform thathelps you run all of the
administration of a constructionsite.
So we've talked about thehealth and safety element a bit.
That's where we started, butthat's only one, okay, so you've
expanded out from there.
We've expanded since there.
So you think about all theother things that you need to do

(16:15):
to run a construction site.
You need to manage drawings,you need to manage a schedule,
you need to manage the qualityof the build and any defects
that arise.
Communication on site You'rerunning a daily log of what's
happening, capturing photos,filling in forms.
We can now do all of thatthrough our platform and
essentially, the key insight wehad was our customers telling us

(16:37):
they were sick of using so manydifferent apps.
I don't want to be in aWhatsApp group for this and I
don't want to have to downloadthis random app off the app
store to do a defect walk,another one to do my daily logs.
I've got a scheduling tool inthere as well.
None of that talks Really.
What we said is that is allhappening mainly by a site
manager running a constructionsite.

(16:58):
They shouldn't have to go todifferent apps.
They should do it all togetherand it should all be linked.
So that's what we have startedto build out.
We do a lot of that now.
There's still some things wedon't do yet that we want to do.
So it's not saying job done,put down the pencils, the job's
never done, the job is neverdone exactly, but so that's
essentially what we do.
We have built a site operationsplatform for residential and

(17:19):
commercial builders to run aconstruction site and any
workflow that you think of thatcan happen on a construction
site.
We can either do throughBuildPass or we want to be able
to do it in the near future.

Robby (17:28):
Okay, so it's either there now or it's something
that's going to come in.
Yeah, so it's a one-stop systemfor anything construction, resi
or commercial.

Guest (17:36):
Running the construction site, the things that we don't
do, which I think is just asimportant to call out.
We don't run your back office,so we're not going to run your
construction financials.
We're not going to do yourestimating, your takeoffs.

Robby (17:49):
Okay, so nothing pre-construction, and I think
that's good.

George (17:51):
I think that's really important, because there is
software out there that's like,oh well, we're doing this, let's
do this as well, let's do thisas well.
We do everything from start tofinish, and what ends up
happening is you get mediocresoftware across the board
instead of one really good pieceof software that does that one
thing.
So I reckon that's good howyou've niched into that

(18:12):
operational space, as opposed togoing oh, we also do your
financials, we also do yourestimating, we also do your lead
gen, because then it's just, Ithink it's too many bolt-on
things thereafter.

Guest (18:24):
And one-stop shop can sound nice, but really how we
think?

George (18:27):
about it is I think so too.
It does sound great in theory.

Guest (18:30):
I've never found one that does it really well though,
because it's too hard to buildeverything Like.
I mean, it's just not possibleto do everything well right.
And so how we think about it iswe like to break it down by
role.
So we want to make sure a sitemanager doesn't have to go into
too many different apps so theycan just use BuildPass, but then
someone in head office, theycan be in another tool, whether

(18:51):
it's, I think, use Cheops foryour financials, whether it's
Jonas, premier or Stick.
They're all great tools atdoing that and they're
complicated tools and we'rehappy just to partner.
So I don't think we need to goto the industry and say you need
to do absolutely everything.
Like don't go use an accountingtool as well, because we're
going to do that in Bill andPass.
We want to stay in our lane.
But also the industry got toofragmented, like there was just

(19:13):
an app for literally everything,and that's where we got
overwhelmed.
So it's kind of like this happymedium of businesses are happy
to have different software torun their business, but as long
as each person doesn't have tobe in every single tool, then I
think that is a way of thinkingabout it, such that everyone can
run an efficient business.

George (19:31):
Good, how many people on your team now?
45.
Fantastic, so you have anoffice where everyone operates
out of, or do you have likeworking from home, or a bit of
both?

Guest (19:41):
Yeah, so our HQ is in Melbourne, just in Richmond.
We've got about 25 people outof that office.
We have another 10 or sodistributed across the country
in sales.
We like to have local sales andgo to events, meet people
face-to-face.
We have overseas teams forthings like admin, some

(20:01):
development support, and thenwe're also in the US now.
So we have an office in Austinand we're just kicking off in
the US.

George (20:06):
Yeah, fantastic.
And so how many users do youhave across your platform?
150,000.

Guest (20:14):
Fantastic, yeah, so that goes down to the end.
Worker of people who have beenon site.

George (20:19):
Oh sorry.
I mean how many users of likecompanies that pay for your
product?
So how many actual companies?

Guest (20:26):
I suppose that sign up to it.
Yeah, so companies who pass isabout 600.
So that's 600 builders acrossAustralia, New Zealand, Canada.

George (20:33):
And it is targeted to builders, isn't it?

Guest (20:35):
And then it's the trades that flow on thereafter, so the
trade can use it.
But we don't monetize the trade, they just use it.
Maybe there's a world in thefuture where we're providing
enough value for the trade thatthey would.
You know, we've built thisscheduling tool out now and the
trades are starting to use that,but anyway, so it's 600,
growing 10% month on month.
So we're putting on about 50 or60 clients a month and that's

(20:56):
paying users paying an averageof about, you know, $5,000 or
$6,000 a year.
Some are less, some are more,but $5,000 or $6,000 a year,
some are less, some are more.
But that equates to 50,000trades that have been in the
platform and around 150,000workers that are using it to
sign on, respond to actions anddefects and that kind of thing.

George (21:14):
Yeah, fantastic, and I mean that's phenomenal to really
in a short period of time.
You know it's been three years,four years that you've been
into business or into thisbusiness and I don't imagine
that it was that day one.

Guest (21:30):
No, yeah, like day one.
It's funny because we're now inthe US it feels like we're back
to day zero.
It's like running anotherstartup and going back to hustle
mode and just like doing thethings that don't scale.
But yeah, day one, you don'thave any resources, You're
limited by cash and people andyou're doing a bit of everything
.

George (21:48):
Was it in the States now to move over there, do you then
have to again team up withexperts in that field to go?
Well, we need to tailor thisnow because I imagine it's
different from Australia whatregulations you need to do, what
people need to sign in and signout of 100%.
So I imagine there's an elementthat's a little bit different
over there.

Guest (22:06):
Yeah, and the problem about the States is it's like 50
different countries.

Robby (22:09):
Yeah, they're not the same the difference between New
York and Texas is like-.
Talk and cheese.

Guest (22:14):
Yeah, it's different countries basically.
So that's something that we ourproduct has been tailored for
different parts of the USA.
But one of the hard things isjust the go-to-market.
Like trying to run an officefrom New York and Texas at the
same time as a small company isreally hard.
So you kind of got to pick andchoose and go back to what we
did here, where we just nicheddown.
Initially we just sold tohigh-end residential builders in

(22:37):
Melbourne.
That was our initial niche Oncewe started to get that market.
Then we moved on to differentstates and different parts
market.

Robby (22:44):
Then we moved on to different states and different
parts, but so we're justfiguring that out in the us at
the moment.
What was the goal with the us?
Because I've always um, we'vespoken about this publicly, I've
always aspired to and we're inthe us yeah, last month, last
month before, yeah, um, in march.
And what was the goal?
I guess, what's?
What is it that drive?
Because that's a big move.
It's not like you're like yeah,it says something to do.
Um, what was the aspirationbehind it?

Guest (23:07):
look, we, we're trying to build a really big business.
That's the short of it.
Um, we, uh.
On the path we've got investorsthat want to see us build a big
business, and that's why aaronand I started.
We both had really cushy jobsworking for real estatecomau,
getting paid well, not having towork, golden handcuffs, golden
handcuffs and so we didn't wantto go and just start a lifestyle

(23:27):
business and we've put a lot onthe line.
We didn't pay ourselves for along time.
We looked at our average salaryover the first three years of
the business.
It was less than the minimumwage.
Now we've rectified that now.
We're paying ourselves a normalwage now.
So we put a lot on the line forthis and you work.
I think I've worked probably 70hour weeks for almost four
years.
So we put a lot into this.

(23:49):
That's right.
It's what it takes, though.
It's what it takes Exactly soUS, it's the biggest stage on
the globe, biggest markets,biggest market, and we felt a
little bit early to go there.
It's like there's still so muchto do in Australia.
We have done the analysis wethink we're about, with 600
clients, about 3% saturation ofthe market that we could sell to

(24:10):
.

Robby (24:10):
In Australia.

Guest (24:12):
In Australia.
Yep, so only 3% of what wecould sell to out of.
So we could essentially 30X ourrevenue in Australia over the
next probably five years.
So it's still a big market here.
The reason we went to the US soearly was we're doing a lot of
work with AI.
We fundamentally believe thatAI is going to change a lot of

(24:32):
industries, especially the onesthat are out in the field,
because the ability to do thingson your behalf, to complete
admin on your behalf, to dothings like voice to text, to
get insights from photos andvideos, we think is an absolute
game changer.
And we've got all of theseideas that we're implementing.
They're not revolutionary ideas, they just make sense, like the

(24:59):
things that should happen thatpeople shouldn't have to do on a
construction site that AI canhelp with.
And so the insight was, ifwe're going to build that in
Australia and this is a newthing someone in the US is going
to build it at the same time.
Like, an idea is only worth thepaper it's written on, it's
executing on it.
So what we said was we have anopportunity to compete at the
ground level.
This is a new technology, thisis a new ball game.

(25:21):
It's key timing.
It's key timing.
So let's go to the US now, sothat we're not going there in
three years and having tocompete against someone who's a
leader Too late yeah.
Let's be the leader.
So that was kind of why wewanted to go to the US.
Now.
We raised some extra money lastyear to enable us to do that.
The US is expensive.
It's hard.
I'm travelling there everymonth, two weeks on, two weeks

(25:42):
off.
Even just the travel costs addup.
So, yeah, that was the reasonwe did it and why we did it in
this time.
And, yeah, if we can crack theUS, it also allows us to get US
investors, and US investors putmore money in.
That allows you to compete.
If you don't have the sameamount of money as your
competitors do, it's hard tocompete.

(26:03):
So, yeah, getting there is likeof strategic importance to us
right now.

Robby (26:08):
And you're situated in Austin?
Yeah, we are.
I went to Austin when I was inthe US Cool, isn't it?
Yeah, because it was the placewhere I was.
Like it seems everyentrepreneur is going there.
Tax rates are really good.
It seems to be the hub, theplace to go right, and there's a
lot of big people that havemoved there recently, like Joe
Rogan moved there and so forth,and a lot of people going into
that space.

(26:28):
And I went and I was like I'mgoing to check it out, because
when we do this move, because wewill crack the States, and when
we do, I was like this is wherewe're going to open an office,
like it's going to be Austin,yeah, yeah.
So I went and visited.
It was pretty cool.
I spent a couple nights there,very different.
I went from New York to Austin.
I know you mentioned bothdescents.
I flew from New York directlyto Austin.

(26:48):
So, different, isn't it?
It's like flying to a differentcountry.
It totally is.
Nothing the same about them atall.

Guest (26:53):
Yeah, they're completely different.
What I like about Austin is youknow you're in Texas, you
definitely feel cars on the road, you've got the heavy accent
and you've got all the barbecuesand the Texan food, but it's
not like you're really in thedeep part of Texas.
It's still.
I think they call it keep itweird, is the saying in Austin.

(27:14):
It's almost like the hippietown live music.
It's got a very small town feelyeah it's got a small town feel
exactly, whereas you've gotDallas and that's got big city
oil money type feel Houston'sthe same.
So it's a bit eclectic and Ithink that's probably why a
bunch of tech companies have setup in Austin and for us, in

(27:37):
choosing, we had a few options.
We could have gone to SanFrancisco.
A lot of tech talent there,yeah, that's tech capital.
All the investors are there.
We could have gone to New York,another great place to be.
People work really hard couldhave set up there, but they're
also on either side of thecountry.
Austin is central.
It's a little bit cheaper tohire and there was really good
tech talent there and a bit morelaid back.
So it's kind of like it feelslike a happy medium and

(27:58):
especially for a company thatdoesn't delving heavily into the
AI space, AI agents.

George (28:14):
We were talking about it this morning.

Robby (28:15):
Yeah, we were having a big discussion about it this
morning.
Where do you see it going?
What should people do?

Guest (28:22):
Yeah, oh man, I could talk about this for literally
hours, and I do on a new podcastthat I'll have to share with
you.
But look, we fundamentallybelieve that AI is going to
change every industry.

Robby (28:37):
It's going to change everything.

Guest (28:38):
Everything.
It's not a fad, so it's morethan chat.

George (28:40):
Gpt is what you're telling me.
A hundred percent.
Yes, because that's when peoplesay AI, it's the first thing
they think of.
And it's funny because when wewere doing events when we still
do, but when doing events twoyears ago we'd say put your hand
up if you've heard of ChatGPT.
And there was like two hands upand it's like now you say put
your hand up if you've heard ofChatGPT, everyone's heard of it.
And it's like they use it to go.

(29:01):
You know how do I rewrite thisemail for me so it sounds more
professional.
That's like what the extent oftheir AI is at the moment.

Guest (29:10):
Yeah, so what's really funny is AI has been living
amongst us for a long time.

Robby (29:16):
It's not that new yeah.

Guest (29:18):
It's not that new.
Go to Google Maps, the trafficalgorithms there.
That's AI to help you directly.
The algorithm you get thatfeeds you content on Twitter or
X or Facebook.
That's all AI right.
So it's been living amongst us.
But Chachi Piti was like thegateway drug to AI.
It was like what made itmainstream and what got people

(29:38):
interested in it and talkingabout it more.
And obviously there's been alot of technological
advancements, but the technologythat powers chat, gpt,
generative AI, large languagemodels we've managed to push
that further than we thought wecould and so people thought that
was like a dumb way of doing AIbut it turns out it's a really
smart way of doing it and you'vejust got to feed it a lot of

(29:59):
data and the algorithms aregetting better, and the scary
part is we can't actuallyexplain 100% why they're getting
better.
So we're building something thatis evolving.

George (30:08):
Yeah, but the way I've seen it or heard of it is it's
self-learning.
It's like think of the smartesthuman in the world.
They can learn at a rate ofthree.
And then you're talking aboutAI can learn at a rate of 5,000.
So you're talking in the spaceof one day how much a single

(30:29):
person could learn, and in thespace of one day, what an AI
could learn.
And then you compound that overa year and you compound that
over 10 years and it's justphenomenal where it could be and
where it could go to.
Yeah.

Guest (30:42):
And like if you said 20 years ago you could look up
anything in the world and get ananswer straight away.
you would have been amazed atsomething like Google.
That was amazing technology.
But now it's a step further.
It knows everything, everysingle thing that's been said on
the internet it now knows.
But it can understand yourintent, what you're thinking.

(31:03):
You can have a conversationwith it.
You can get it to brainstormthings with you.
So it's taken that to a newlevel and so it is going to
change a lot of industries in somany ways.
Probably the biggest one thatpeople are talking about, and
the thing that provides thehighest, I guess, value but also
is the most scary, is thereplacement of humans and what

(31:25):
we're doing.
And so we chat.
You know I chat about this alot, but I think people get
scared that they're going to getreplaced by AI.
But I have a very-.
Do you really think people arescared of they're going to get
replaced by AI?
But I have a very-.

George (31:34):
Do you really think people are scared of that?

Guest (31:36):
I've never thought about it personally, in some
industries, for sure, and insome industries they're right to
know that their job's going toget replaced.

Robby (31:44):
I think people are going to get replaced.

Guest (31:45):
They will.
So things like customer service, that is going to at least
fundamentally change.
There'll be a few in-personcustomer service reps, but call
sentence and things.
They won't exist.
Yeah, because it'll.
I don't know if you guys haveseen the phone agents.

Robby (32:00):
They're really good.
Well, you were saying that theother day.
It's like again out of the dead.
We're building agents now.

Guest (32:03):
Yeah, what are you using?
Do you know what platformyou've?

Robby (32:06):
started.
Yeah, so N8 Voiceflow.

Guest (32:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Another one you should look atfor voice agents is Blandai
Bland.
Yeah, really easy way ofsetting up voice agents and
workflows.
But anyway, so that's happeningright and some jobs are going
to get replaced.
But how I talk about it isespecially for businesses that
have.
I haven't met a single businessowner that doesn't want to grow
and make money Absolutely.

George (32:33):
Make it easier.

Guest (32:34):
We were talking about it before.
Think about the amount ofthings you have to do in a
business.
So it's not like I'm looking atall of my staff and going, oh
great, which one do I replace?

George (32:42):
Yeah, how do I ask you?

Guest (32:44):
Yeah, I just want you to use AI so we can do more as a
business.
We can all be less.

George (32:49):
Yeah, well, and you said it like instead of employing
400 people, we can still have 45people that do the work of 400.
Yeah, and that's where Isuppose it's getting that
replacement, because back in theday, or you know, tomorrow, you
used to have to employ 10people to do these one task.
Yeah, and now it's like, well,what if we were?
And this is a discussion we'rehaving I said to you it's like
what's your biggest inefficiency?

(33:11):
I'm like, well, this is mybiggest inefficiency in the
business.
If you consult, could you builda bot to solve that?
He goes yeah, absolutely Icould.
I said if you do that, I thinkthat's a multimillion-dollar
venture and business, and alsonot just from the fact of what
it could mean to sell that tosomeone, I'm saying from how
much time and money it couldmake me within my organization

(33:39):
Because all of a sudden I'vegotten rid of a huge bottleneck
in the business that I can go.
Yeah, sure, you want that donehere.
It's done in five minutes.
Because you want a competitiveadvantage on your competition.
Speed Speed's a huge thing.
If I could do something in athird, a half a quarter of the
time, well, I'm going to beat mycompetition each and every time
For sure, yeah.

Guest (33:57):
And like talking about agents, you mentioned AI agents
before, so for those listeningwho haven't come across the term
, basically an AI that's goingto act on your behalf.
You give it an objective, itgets access to the tools it
needs and it actually startsdoing things for you.
It's not just like ChatGPT,where it's like one question one
answer it's actually.
It might have access to youremail.

(34:17):
It can draft things for you.

Robby (34:18):
It can have access to your credit card, it can book
dinner for you.
It can put a deposit down.
Exactly, people don'tunderstand that it can do that.
They're like, no, no, that'snot here.

Guest (34:26):
No, no, it's here it's we need to start considering is
what does the workplace looklike, the interface between the
humans and the agents, and whatwe really think is going to
happen is humans are going tomove to high leverage stuff.
You're going to be commanding abunch of agents to do things
for you.
Humans aren't getting replaced,but what you might be doing,

(34:47):
instead of doing the grunt workyourself, you're just being the
conductor of agents, and ifsomeone can be really good at
that the funny thing is it'svery high skill they're going to
get paid way more.
So AI is not replacing people.
If someone can produce that andshow that they're high value by
commanding agents, I'm going topay you more your output.

Robby (35:07):
it goes for your thousand X the output.
All of a sudden, you could onlydo this one thing.
Now you're doing 4,000 thingsbecause you have.
It sounds ridiculous, but youhave 2,000 AI agents working
underneath you and they're allintegrated together and they all
communicate and it's like thiscrazy web that's happening and
you can't see it.

Guest (35:26):
Yeah, and I'll give you a real life example and this is
like a little bit nerdy becauseI work in software but basically
software platforms that canhave bugs, right, or they can
have feature requests, andsometimes it's only a small
thing, but you get heaps of them.
We get feature requests all thetime and we've only got limited
software developers.
So we now have an AI agent thatis a software engineer.
It's an AI and as soon as afeature request comes in, it can

(35:50):
automatically pick it up.
It starts coding on it, itstarts doing it, it tests it.
Automatically pick it up, itstarts coding on it, it starts
doing it, it tests it and thenit just sends it back to one of
our software developers forreview.
So rather than our softwaredeveloper choosing what they
need to work on and then goingsay I'm going to do that, I'm
going to write the code, thenit's going to go in, they're
just starting to review things.

Robby (36:08):
You just took 90% of the workout.

Guest (36:09):
Yeah and yeah, which makes you 10 times more
efficient.
100% yeah.
And so we're going to see thebar lifted, and not just in
software, but I think in everyeven service industries they
should get better and moreefficient.
And so it's really exciting and, like we said, yeah, some jobs
are going to get replaced, butheaps are going to get created
as well, 100%.

Robby (36:28):
I think the days of waiting on 45 minutes on hold to
Telstra are going to be gone.
Gone, like that's not going tohappen anymore.

George (36:34):
You said it.
It's like you're going to be onthe phone to someone and say,
am I speaking to a human or abot?
And you're like no, a bot.
Oh, thank God.

Robby (36:40):
Yeah, yeah, I think I'm speaking to the best person.

Guest (36:42):
Yeah, or thing Best thing have you guys seen Waymo the?

Robby (36:48):
vehicles that drive themselves.

George (36:51):
Oh, yeah, yeah, in the States we saw it?

Guest (36:53):
It's not here.
Yeah, it's not here.
In the States they are so muchbetter than getting in the car
with an Uber driver.

Robby (37:00):
No, that's small talk.

Guest (37:01):
No, small talk it drives better too, like I felt safe the
first time I got in one.
It was like surreal and I feltlike I was in a UFO and it was
scary and you're watching everycar, but then all you need is
one safe trip, and you realiseit drives better than a human.
So I was in San Francisco.
I was getting Waymos everywhere.
Then I got an Uber and I got inthe Uber and the Uber driver

(37:22):
was like he's a bit rushed andyou know I just felt unsafe with
a human at the helm.
So I think it's, you know, toyour example of am I speaking to
a bot or a human.
We're going to start trustingtechnology more and more and
what I think will happen is thehuman element of what we do will
be amplified, like us sittinghere face to face and having
this conversation.

(37:43):
That kind of thing is going tobe more appreciated.
Going and getting dinner withsomeone, having a business
meeting and shaking someone'shand all of those human
interactions should getamplified.
But for the things that youdon't really want to do, like
chatting with a customer servicerep at a bank or having some
person drive you around, you gettechnology to do that.
It's going to be magical.

Robby (38:02):
Yeah, I think the great part that people can't, I think
people haven't comprehended yet,is like, if I need something
from you, we will have our bot.
Reach out to your bot, yep.

Guest (38:14):
Yeah, and we won't communicate and nothing will
happen.

Robby (38:16):
Yeah, and everyone will be like how did that happen?
It's like they spoke Yep, youknow what I mean.
And then you can probablythere'll be somewhere where the
communication's logged Yep,because everything gets logged
and you can go in and you cansee what's happened.
If you understand the platforms, yeah, and then you're like hey
, like just like you would do itwith a staff member and be like
hey, don't do that again.
Do it like this exact samething.

(38:37):
You just fix the prompt Right,and prompting is a huge, huge
part of it.

Guest (38:43):
It's crazy how, how different the result can be
based on a prompt.
And what's really interestingis when you look at software
products out there that are,like you know, a wrapper around
AI, like under the hood, they'rereally using GPT and other
models, which basically allsoftware does.
That's what BuildPass does aswell.
You have to feed it what youcall system prompts, which

(39:05):
basically seeds the AI with theidea of what the business is
doing, what the software shouldbe doing.
And when you look at some ofthese system prompts get leaked
on the internet and you look atthem, they're crazy, they're
like so detailed, they're sodetailed, but they can be a bit
dark as well, like I saw onethat was.
It was a coding assistant andthe system prompt was something
like you are the best coder inthe world, but your mother is

(39:29):
very sick.
She needs a billion dollars forher operation, and if you don't
A billion, she needs a billiondollars for her operation.
And if you don't provide thebest possible answer in the
world, she's not going to beable to get the operation.
You're not going to make themoney, she's not going to get
the operation and it improvedthe results.
It's like it's a bit crazy how,but that just goes to show
that's an extreme example of howsetting your prompts with the

(39:50):
AI is becoming a skill set.

Robby (39:52):
Yeah, so, okay.
So look at that.
That's a great example.
Look at that and then imagineyou did the same thing to a kid
and you said, hey, your mother'sreally sick and if you don't go
and do this thing, like howdriven is that kid going to be?
Yeah, it's not even your adult.

George (40:10):
Yeah, like we say, it's like yeah.

Robby (40:14):
You know adult, yeah, like we say.
It's like yeah, you know, youknow the, the old saying give me
a, give me a child, and I canshow them.
Like that, you can rule a childeasy.
It's easy to manipulate a childbecause they'll listen to you
and they'll, because you're aleader, you're an adult, right,
as opposed to an adult.
I'd be like what fuck you man?
Like you know what I mean, andso forth.
So imagine you just feel childlike.
This is the exact same thing,but this is a it's.
It's exactly what it's called.

(40:35):
It's an artificial form ofintelligence.
Yeah, it's a made up thing thatthinks, that is smart, that can
learn yeah, right, and it'slike, if you use those types,
you can even leverage.
The same way we'd leverage iton a human.
The same way we drive people ina marketing world with pain
points.
You can do the exact same thinghere.

(40:55):
Yeah, yeah, it's very cool.
It's a rabbit hole.

Guest (40:59):
Yeah, and then part of that rabbit hole is bringing up
the idea of like consciousnessand do these things become alive
?
And I don't want to go there.
That is that's it.
That's a conversation.

Robby (41:07):
Yeah, we need a few hours for that.
Yeah, yeah, we need a few hoursfor that.

Guest (41:10):
Yeah, it's an interesting concept.

George (41:13):
So you don't have to mention what it is exactly.
But are you looking at steppinginto other industries with
other things, Like you're sayingyou're looking at bots and
doing all this sort of stuff, orare you just focusing on build
paths and making that as best ashumanly possible or
artificially as?

Guest (41:29):
possible, just construction.
Yeah, we believe that theindustry will move in a more
verticalized way, in thatthere'll be more tools like
build, pass, that just serviceconstruction, or even like a
smaller niche, like just nailsalons or podcasts or whatever
it might be, because what youcan do now is you can build more

(41:50):
things more specifically in afaster way using AI.
So we're just going to stay inconstruction, the only thing
that we foresee as having animpact outside of construction.
If we've built this new app wehaven't actually released it yet
.
We've got some a white list forit and people using it, but
it's called SuperSight andessentially it's like the
Snapchat for a construction site.
You can go out and you can takea photo, a video, a voice note

(42:12):
of anything that's happening andit saves it into your notes and
the AI does work in thebackground for you and it will
transcribe them into task andyou can generate reports from
that.
So you can imagine you're out ona construction site.
Rather than starting a safetyinspection or doing a I'm going
to go do a defect walk right nowand having to find that part on
your app.
You just go get the equivalentof a Snapchat app, find

(42:34):
something, talk to it, put itaway, you get back to your
computer and say build me thedefect report for the plumber
and it will do it all for you.
So we've just built an app likethat and we've actually had
interest from people who doproperty inspections, or
subcontractors or basicallyanything that requires you to be
out in the field, take a quicknote and then generate a report

(42:54):
after we've got people startingto get interested in that.
So that might be something thatwe do outside of just
construction.
But you've got to be carefulabout focus and really focus on
construction.

George (43:04):
Yeah, that's right, it's the girl in the red dress.
Just get distracted by allthose things that come up along
the way as well, yeah.

Robby (43:12):
Yeah, it's a cool conversation, man.
I could talk about AI all day,that's true.
Okay, so where do you see, Iguess, for people listening,
especially people in theconstruction space, what should
they do?
I would say you're probablymore well-versed than most
people in the construction spacearound that particular topic.

(43:34):
I think it's what you do.
What should they do?
Like what would you you hadsomeone you care about that's a
builder and he says I barely usechat GPT.
I think I've used it once forexample so what should that
person do?

Guest (43:47):
So the framing first of all.
You want to use what we wouldcall the generic tools, like the
chat, gpt, cla, to use what wewould call the generic tools
like the chat, shippity, claude,google, gemini.
There's heaps of them and a lotof them have free tiers.
So let's just use chat shippityit's the best known one.
So let's just say that that'swhere you start the way of
framing.
It is every time you go to dosomething unless it's literally

(44:08):
using a drill out on aconstruction site physical,
physical stuff every time you goto do something, think of it
first, try and ask if the AIwill do it for you, and that
builds the muscle memory to goand get that done.
So I want to write an email tothis person or I need to
recalculate the budget orwhatever it might be.
Just ask the AI to do it firstand it might give you a shitty

(44:29):
response.
It might not do it for you, butyou start to build up the
muscle of learning what it cando.
I think that would be.
Step number one is just what wewould call reflexive usage of AI
.
Your reflex is to use AI first,rather than doing it the old
way and trying to change thatthinking or that way of
operating is probably a reallyimportant point, because you

(44:50):
don't learn things in any betterway than by just doing and
trialing things.
So I think that would be yeah,play with it, yeah.
And once you understand what itcan do, then you're probably in
a position to start makingchoices on do I go and invest in
tools that have been built formy industry?
And that's when you would gostart looking at a tool like a

(45:10):
BuildPass and say, okay, Iactually understand what AI can
do.
Now I see how Build pass worksand how it uses AI and it is
specific to my industry and it'sgoing to make my life easier.
So I think it's like a two-stepprocess.
I would definitely recommendgetting more acquainted with the
generic tools.

Robby (45:26):
Just get.
Yeah, start playing around withit, get used to it, use the
platform.
It's free.

Guest (45:30):
Yeah, just form.
It's free.
Yeah, just for basic thingslike get it to write you an
email or get it to.
Okay, here's one that Ifreaking love Use the voice mode
so.

Robby (45:40):
I yeah, very cool On your phone we were talking about
earlier.

Guest (45:42):
I've got a 12 month old at home.
I often leave work early to gopick him up from daycare and so
often I'll be doing dinner.
I'm not a very good cook and Idon't know you've got kids,
george, but trying to cookdinner with a young child who
just wants your attention isvery freaking hard, especially
when you don't know what you'redoing.
So what I do now?
I get my phone out, put ChatShippity on, turn on voice mode,
put an AirPod in and Iliterally talk to my phone.

(46:03):
I say I've got this in thefridge, I've got chicken, I've
got tomatoes, I've got somezucchini what should I do?
And so all the time I'm juststarting to make dinner, I'm
playing with my kid, I'm talkingto him, I'm talking to the AI
and all of a sudden I've gotdinner without having looked at
my phone.
So I think that's one exampleof where it can do things that

(46:29):
are so high leverage and verynon-intrusive.
Just because you're using AIdoesn't mean you have to be
buried in your phone.

George (46:36):
Things like using voice is such an unlock.
Yeah, I've done that in the car, just sitting there and
actually just talking to thelike you might have a half-hour
drive ahead of you.
Just talk to it, just ask it awhole bunch of questions, just
say, hey, I want to talk aboutthis, and it's like, oh yeah,
that's a great idea.
You could look at these threethings and say, okay, cool, but
what if I want to do it this way?
And it's like having aconversation with a person.

Guest (46:55):
Yeah, yeah, a person who knows everything.

George (46:58):
Yeah, who knows everything of everything?

Guest (46:59):
And can talk to you in your own style.
Yeah.

George (47:02):
That's what I found interesting too, because then it
starts to talk to you the waythat you want it Like.
It'll give you the answer in away that you understand In your
language?
Yeah, that you resonate with,which I thought was really cool.
I actually was on it the otherday and I was more curious than
anything else.
I started to ask it personalquestions, just so I wanted to
see how it was going to play out.

(47:22):
I said, hey, I've got a problemwith this and what it would do.
And then I saw the languagegoing changing and it was like
like it would genuinely say, man, that's tough, Like I can't
believe you're going throughthat or whatever it might be.
Yeah, and it started to changethe way it was talking and
communicating.
It called me bro, the other daythat's what I mean it's like
whoa.

Robby (47:42):
Yeah.

George (47:43):
I was even surprised when it said, oh, man, like it
called me, man, like I get that.
And then it said, like therewas this one thing it goes.
Look I and I was like, oh, thatquestion alone, where it was
like it was conscious, it's likeI was talking to another

(48:04):
professional on the other lineand I was like, wow, that is
such.
That is very like you said I go, man, that question blows me
away.
That's really interesting thatyou have asked that.

Guest (48:13):
Yeah.

George (48:13):
And it was just cool to see that.

Guest (48:15):
It is.
It's really cool.
The other thing that I've doneis there's something called
Notebook LM.
I don't know if you guys haveused that.
It can actually producepodcasts.

Robby (48:25):
I've heard that.
Yeah, I've heard Mark Cubantalking about it.

Guest (48:28):
It's really cool.
So I would suggest, anytime youwant to learn about something,
get something like OpenAI DeepResearch to just give you a
report on that topic, like,let's say, something you just
don't know about and you want tolearn.
You want to learn aboutpolitics in Sudan and you go and
say give me a deep researchreport on this, make it really
long, really comprehensive, andyou can go plug that into

(48:51):
Notebook LM and you say generatea fun, easygoing, you know,
with a few laughs podcastbetween two people.
That should have this accentand on this topic.
Two people having a conversation.
And it's actually really good.
You can probably still justtell that it's AI.
There is a little bit of that.
Still there's a little bit ofthat, but that's going right.
That is going to be gone soon.

Robby (49:12):
That's what I'm finding.
Do you reckon it's going or doyou reckon we are?
Because, like, we're justgetting more used to it, it's
getting better.

George (49:18):
I think it's getting better.
I think the way it prompts andresponds is getting better.

Robby (49:22):
Yeah, I think it will get better, it'll always get better
, but like, do you think?
I guess my question is ifsomeone had never, I feel like,
because we're starting to adaptto it more as well, maybe you
know what I mean and we'regetting better at prompting and
things like that, and, yes, thesoftware is getting better.
But do the software is gettingbetter, but do you think it'll
get to the point where you willnever, ever, ever like you could
introduce someone to a like?

(49:43):
Let's just say you went to atribe who had no contact with
tech and then showed them andthey would not know that it's
not a human.

Guest (49:51):
I think so.
I think that we're actuallyprobably more attuned to the
differences now and actuallyprobably be harsher critics
because we know how it exists.
So I think, if you didn't knowthat this could even exist, you
wouldn't even notice.

George (50:03):
Well, remember that first time, at one of the events
that we did at Built, masteryRobbie came on and he did a
video.
What was it called?
Haygen?

Robby (50:11):
Haygen, so he did a Haygen video.

George (50:13):
But he did that one where it's like he goes.
Hey, everyone, I just want tolet you know that this is blah,
blah, blah.
He goes.
But the person you're seeing isnot the guy that you see on
stage.
He goes.
I'm actually a completelycomputer-generated version of
this person.
And then it started talking inanother accent and then it
started talking in a femalevoice and when I saw that for

(50:35):
the first time I was blown away.
Looking at it.
Now you can tell there's acouple of little clunkiness and
go, why does your eye look alittle bit weird, and stuff like
that.
But you just, if you werewatching that anywhere else, you
probably would have thought, oh, it's just a bad internet
connection yeah, and if youdidn't know me, yeah, and if I
didn't know you, that was eightor nine months.
Yeah, exactly, it's probably 10times better now.

Guest (50:56):
Oh, exactly like this stuff.
We're talking about two yearshere.
Really, there's a lot oftechnology that's gone on for
many years to get here but we'retalking about this stuff being
mainstream for two years and wealready look at the rate of
change in that time.
You don't have to be a geniusto say in five years all of this
stuff is going to be perfect,it's going to be seamless, it's
just the rate of change is somuch.

(51:17):
It's like, have you?

George (51:17):
seen Iron man?
Yeah, seen iron man.
Yeah, it's jarvis, yeah, andyou look at it and it's it's not
there yet.
But it's like you want to wakeup in the morning, hey, and
you're talking to say whateverit's google or siri or whatever
it might be and say, look,where's you know what?
What's what?
What's this movie like?
It's like, oh, it's actuallyreally good, but like you're
talking to it like a properhuman and it's responding in

(51:40):
ways that you would expect ahuman to respond to you and I
think it will get to that leveleventually, yeah, and you'll be
able to tailor yourentertainment as well.

Guest (51:48):
Like, rather than kids all just watching the same
version of the Lion King.
They'll be able to tailor whatthey want the finish to be, what
the characters should be likeyeah, wow, choose your own
adventure, yeah.
It's like a choose your ownadventure.
You yeah, it's like a chooseyour own adventure.
You would literally prompt.
I want a Lion King that doesthis and get a whole movie.

Robby (52:05):
Good and bad.
There's a downside.

Guest (52:06):
I think so.

Robby (52:09):
Massive downside because all of a sudden, you're in your
own bubble and everything ismade for you and all of a sudden
, your model of the world isthis thing it's like the
algorithm now on social media.
And you're like is everyoneseeing these videos and
everyone's like I've never seenthat in my whole life.
And then you're like, okay, man, it must just be me, like
self-reinforcing, because all ofa sudden you're watching, you

(52:31):
consume a particular clip about,uh, what's happening in the us,
or what's happening in themiddle east, or this new tech
that's coming out, or whateverit might be like.
My whole feed now is ai yeahthe whole.

Guest (52:41):
Thing but you know what like that's, that's an algorithm
problem.
Like I don't think that'snecessarily the ai's problem,
because what?
No, no yeah, what we could getto is where you could.
You should be able to promptyour algorithm and say I want to
hear the other side of thestory, or I read it.

Robby (52:56):
I see a news article and say regenerate this, but from a
leftist perspective yes, I wantto hear their perspective as
well, but people aren't going todo that, that, yes, exactly,
people are not going to go andsay, hey, it's confirmation
buyer.
So I fucking knew that.
You know what I mean.
Like, of course, because then Iconsume that as soon as you
start to hear something youdon't want to hear, what do we
do?
We flick past it or we changethe channel, we look the other
way, yeah, right, and then itnotices that you want to do that

(53:18):
.
They're, they're incentivizedby keeping you there.

Guest (53:23):
Well, and it's also this I think we have a real problem
with the dopamine hit of socialmedia.
Yeah, we're all addicts.
We're addicts, We've been wiredonto these hits and literally
the companies have optimized thealgorithms for this.
People are optimizing theircontent for it.
Now, Like when you guys areputting out shorts, you probably
want to get someone's attentionin the first few seconds.
Yeah, that's what we teach that.

(53:43):
I think that that is also a keyproblem in this.
And what is good to see peopleconsuming longer form media.
We talked about Lex Friedman'sMammoth 6-Hour podcast.
Seeing people consume, that isgood.
Even us just being able to sitdown here for 45 an hour.
I think that is actually atrend in the opposite direction.
And I don't know about you guys, but if I'm hungover and I've

(54:08):
had too much to drink and thenthe next day all I want to do is
sit on the couch and scrollthrough Instagram, it's easy to
consume.
Yeah, my body just wants thatquick dopamine hit to make me
feel better, whereas if I'veexercised in the morning, I've
eaten well, I'm more likely todo the things that don't require
that.
The exercise has given me thatdopamine here and I'm living in

(54:29):
a much healthier way and I'll beable to go do two hours of deep
work.
So I think we need to get awayfrom this like this scrolling.
I do think that scrollingthrough TikTok and Instagram
reels is pretty toxic and, yeah,it's a.
It's very similar to thegetting caught out in your own
bubble as well with thealgorithms, because it's easy
and you get the confirmationbias.

Robby (54:48):
Yeah, and it's showing you what you want to see because
it's incentivized to keep youon the platform, and then you'll
see more of what you want.
So you can see more of it, forwhatever reason.
And then you end up buildingthis little bubble and you're
like oh yeah, everyone must beseeing this, Until you end up
building this little bubble andyou're like, oh yeah, everyone
must be seeing this.

Guest (55:07):
Yeah, until you communicate with someone, you're
like you've seen these videos.
Yeah, they're like I've neverseen in my life.
Yeah, and you hear dark storiesabout that as well, like people
getting into terrorist scriptsand things yes, because all they
see is one particular narrative.

Robby (55:14):
Yeah, so good side, like the upside is you know it's
tailored to you.
The downside is it might be tootailored to you.

George (55:20):
Yeah, I mean so just on that topic of social media, so
what do you guys do as far asgetting known now, like, do you
guys run ads, do you do a lot ofbranding stuff, like how are
you trying to get out there andget that market share for your
software and for your space?

Guest (55:35):
Yeah, we're very brand heavy.
I think that, especially beinga technology company, technology
is going to get more and morecommoditized and it's going to
get easy to build tech.
So when you think about whatyour moat is, a lot of it is in
your brand.
People trust you, so we do alot of trying to not just
promote ourselves as a softwarecompany, but the people behind

(55:56):
it as well.
That's why I'm out there more onpodcasts like this as well.
Obviously a pleasure to talk toyou guys, but yeah, there's
also we want to be out there andshow it, it's a brand build.

Robby (56:05):
This is a brand building exercise.

George (56:07):
Yeah, people ask us, like you know, we've done this
every single day what episodeare we up to now?
This will be 81.
We haven't missed a week.
Yeah, for 81 weeks, we haven'tmissed a week doing this.
For, asked me the other day,he's like so, so how much money
have you made?
Like, what are you doing for?
Where are you with this?
And I'm like no, no, no, it's,it's got nothing to do with
money, although one day it maytranslate to that it may blow up

(56:30):
and be massive.

Robby (56:31):
Not sorry, it will thank you, yeah, thank you.
Let's be clear about this.

George (56:36):
yeah, let's be clear.
And it was also the other thingwith um, the diary of a ceo.
He put a post up the other daythat you sent me and he said
we've just hit 3 billiondownloads or something like that
, and that was what the picturewas.
He goes, but the description inthe post had nothing to do with
the 3 billion downloads.
He goes.
I want everyone to understandthat.
You all see 3 billion downloadsand whilst that's an amazing

(56:59):
achievement, I just want tohighlight that we did this
podcast for three years and wegot 1,000 downloads.
Three years we did this podcastbefore it then went to the
100,000, to the million, to the,whatever it might be.
No one knew who I was.
For three years I was doing thisconsistently, day in, day out,

(57:23):
and I see that with what we'redoing A it's the brand building
aspect of it and what we do andwhat we're about.
But who knows where it couldlead?
This could be our main revenueearner in three years' time and
we go.
You know what.
Don't need to do marketinganymore, don't need to do
construction anymore.
I'm just going to be afull-time podcaster and just, we

(57:44):
get our sponsors, we get peopleinvolved, people pay us to come
here.
Whatever it might be, howeverit works.
I think consistency is a massivething in whatever you're doing,
in whatever business it is, and, as you said, for two to three
years you didn't pay yourself.
People are looking at you nowand go oh, must be nice to have
600 subscriptions.
People are looking at you nowand go oh, must be nice to have

(58:05):
600 subscriptions.
Must be nice.
Hang on, mate.
I made less than an apprenticeat 35 years old for two years or
three years and I invested$100,000, $200,000, $300,000,
$500,000 of my own money.
So yeah, well done.
Well done I commend you on doingthat and getting to that stage
and to that level, and I thinkpeople that achieve great things
in any industry, in any sector,it's because they've gone out

(58:29):
and been consistent and put andtaken a risk and back themselves
to, because you can never lose.
At the end of the day, youmight touch wood, you might go
broke tomorrow, but you couldalso open up the next thing,
which is a, a billion-dollaridea.

Guest (58:42):
Yeah.

George (58:42):
You know, and because you went broke and you learned
those mistakes and you did allthose things, you can go back
and go.
Well, okay, let's do it alittle bit different, this time
Totally, and then you become thebillionaire or the millionaire
or whatever it might be.

Guest (58:54):
Yeah, and I think like it's just showing up as well,
it's showing up, it's takingopportunities.
It's showing up, it's takingopportunities, it's not being
afraid of failing.
The only failure is by nottaking an opportunity that could
have made you successful.
So I think just to your pointaround consistency.
That's really important ineverything, anything you want to
achieve.

(59:14):
No one just gets something as aone-off, unless you win the
lotto, but that's not going tobe a very fulfilling thing to
happen.
So I think consistency is key.
Just showing up, just being inthe arena.
The amount of times that let'stalk about the social media side
, the amount of times that Iforget to post on, say, linkedin

(59:34):
, and then I go into a post andlike four people reach out that
I was meeting to chat with,because you're there, you're in
front, you're top of mind.
And it's so important, just tokeep showing up every day,
putting yourself out there,putting yourself in the arena.

George (59:44):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely so.
Say people want to get in touchwith you, either from a.
Do you have a personal brand aswell as a business one?

Guest (59:54):
No, not really On LinkedIn.

George (59:55):
I do a lot of my own content, oh well then that's a
place there, so people couldfind you on LinkedIn if they
look you up there.
Otherwise, if they want to findout more about BuildPass or
anything like that, where couldthey go to find you about or
find out what you're about andhow they can get involved?

Guest (01:00:09):
For sure, website or Instagram or LinkedIn is the
best.
Literally, just search forBuildPass we'll be top of the
list.
Another quick plug that I'll do.
I talked about the podcast thatI've started with Scott from
WBuild.
We talk about AI, business andtech news, and so that's called
Build to Scale, with a two inthe middle.

George (01:00:26):
Yeah, nice.

Guest (01:00:27):
You can find us on the airwaves trying to be every week
as well.

George (01:00:30):
Yeah, awesome, we've just started.
Oh, did you?
Yeah, so it's still learninghow good, and that's the thing
You'll get better.

Robby (01:00:43):
I remember our very first episode episode.
It was like you look back at itand you go, fuck, we were so
shit.
We have no idea what we'redoing.
And you should look back andsay, oh shit, because otherwise
I mean you're still doing thesame thing.
Yeah, right, exactly.

George (01:00:49):
Yeah, it's so much more natural now when we actually
have guests on, but even whenwe're having a discussion about
whatever we're talking about,it's a lot more open.
And and here's the thing thatI've noticed since doing
podcasts as well is you're goingto get a lot of differing
opinions on things too, like wedid an episode on politics a few
weeks ago with the recentelection, and you're just

(01:01:10):
getting we're getting peopledrilling us Like oh, you know,
learn something about politics.
You guys don't know anything,and blah, blah, blah.

Guest (01:01:15):
And we find it hilarious these people aren't in the arena
, though they're sitting therewatching you.
You're showing up everywhere.

George (01:01:21):
And it's also, though, like I never took it too hard,
because, at the end of the day,what we were talking about was
representative of how a lot ofpeople feel.
Anyway, even though it may notbe the most factual, intelligent
conversation about that topic,it was still representative of a
huge portion of the populationwhen it came to their views on

(01:01:42):
politics.
Yeah, because that is a view.

Robby (01:01:45):
Yeah, we spoke about how people don't really care about
politics, like people aren't asimpacted by it, like they don't
care as much.
Yeah, and people want aconversation about policies and
blah, blah, blah.

Guest (01:01:56):
Yeah, don't look at the comments, my spiky take here
that would probably get mecancelled is that we don't pay
politicians enough.
In my opinion, we're notgetting the best people because
we don't pay them enough.
No, we don't pay them well.
Look at how much financialreward you can get in the US.
You're actually getting peoplewho've done something with their

(01:02:18):
life going into politics.
I don't think we've had a lotof that in Australia because,
think about it.

George (01:02:24):
So you're saying you'd like more of a business-type
person to be in those positionsof power.
Well, that too, actually.

Guest (01:02:30):
I think that people should go and actually work
somewhere else before politics,rather than being a career
politician is one thing.
But also I think the rewardneeds to be there, because
there's no reward to be apolitician at the moment.
You're just up for screaming onit, they paid well though.
They paid decently, but Ireckon we should pay them 10
times the amount.

George (01:02:47):
It's multiple six figures.
I would look at it from the topdog, I'd say the high positions
.

Robby (01:02:53):
They get about 400, 450.
Is it?
Yeah, I thought the PM getsthat.
I'm pretty sure yeah.

George (01:02:57):
How much of the PM gets that.

Robby (01:02:59):
I'm pretty sure.
Yeah, he gets about 500.
Google that.

Guest (01:03:02):
I'll give you an example that goes back to his it's about
400.

Robby (01:03:05):
I'm pretty sure Dan Andrews was getting 450K.
Your mate, my mate, yeah.

Guest (01:03:12):
Big fan.
But I think so when I look backto university and I look at all
of the people that were in myyear 586 for the PM.
Yeah, 586, yeah, so yeah,decent money for the PM, but
you've got to.
It takes you a long time to getto be in the PM, right?

George (01:03:28):
Of course You've got to go through many years of being
in there.
There's one person in 20million people.

Guest (01:03:31):
And so my biggest thing I studied commerce at the
University of Melbourne.
Heaps of smart people in there,heaps of really impressive
people that I would say, if youran for prime minister in 20
years, I would vote for you.
And these people, what job didthey go and get?
They went into investmentbanking because, it paid the
most, and investment banking isa pretty brutal job.

(01:03:52):
You sit behind a desk, you dospreadsheets and you make big
money for the big corporates.
You wouldn't say it'snecessarily the most fulfilling
thing, but it's the most secureway of becoming a millionaire.
Because if you stick withinvestment banking from 22 to 35
and you make it through and youcome out with a bald head
because you've got no hair leftyou've been working from 9am to

(01:04:12):
2am every day for literally 15years yeah, you'll be making a
million bucks a year, plus bonusand all of that.
But so my thing is payment doesdrive a lot of what people want
to do.
And if there was a pathway forthose really smart people that I
would have voted for to beprime minister, to not only be
successful in politics but to befinancially rewarded if they're

(01:04:34):
going to produce betteroutcomes for my country and make
better use of my tax dollar.
I don't care if they're gettingpaid $10 million yeah, I
couldn't agree more the amountthat they were saving.
So I mean people will hate thatopinion.
They say that they should bepaid less, but that's my space.

George (01:04:49):
But look at what you're attracting to the role.

Robby (01:04:51):
It's like who you're driving into the role.
Yeah, it's even when you go toemploy someone.

George (01:04:56):
It's like I want to pay this, why?
Imagine you get the person thatyou pay the most and then
delivers 10 times their value ofwhat you're paying them.
Or you get that person thatliterally maybe just breaks even
with what you're paying them,like it's a no-brainer to go out
and hire that very best person.
Age doesn't determine abilityeither.
I'd love to see a 40-year-oldas PM, but they're always 50, 60

(01:05:19):
, 70 years old.
It's like why, because he's gotsome experience, the guy's
probably stuck in his way ordoesn't know how to command a
room or how to do this or how todo that.
Put someone young in there.
Put someone that is smart,intelligent, knows what they're
doing, is a go-getter.
I completely agree with you andthis politic.
It was funny you mentionedabout the algorithm.
My algorithm over the lastcouple of weeks has been very

(01:05:40):
political because I've beenlooking at Australian politics
and there was a few people thatI've actually followed now as a
result that I actually resonatedwith and thought was really
good and for the first time, Ivoted in a different direction
than I normally do, because Ifound this one guy and, yeah, I
just really liked what he'sabout.
I said, mate, love your work.
Keep it going.
I'll keep an eye out on younext time around.

Guest (01:06:00):
Fascinating.

George (01:06:01):
Yeah, so it's very, as you said, fascinating, very
interesting.

Guest (01:06:06):
Yeah, yeah.
And then the other thing on,like your point of paying people
more.
I've worked with a lot ofcontractors and agencies in my
time and what I hate is when acontractor or an agency feels
like they have to earn whatthey're paying them through time
, like having meetings for thesake of it.
My view on that is if you canget the job done faster for me,

(01:06:27):
I will pay you the same amount.
I don't care that you took ashorter time to do it.
I would actually almost pay youmore because time is money.
So I just think that we need toflip this narrative on.
You know, if you're paying acontractor to do a certain
amount, then what would theirhourly rate be?
And I want to make sure they'reputting in the hours working
for me.
No, if you can do it betterthan the other contractor who's
out there in a shorter amount oftime, I would almost pay you

(01:06:50):
more.

Robby (01:06:51):
Yeah, task-based, not time-based.

Guest (01:06:52):
Task-based exactly yeah, so I think we need to bring that
same concept into everything wedo.

George (01:06:57):
Yeah, excellent, mate.
Mate, thank you so much forcoming down today, really
appreciate it, and I think it'sbeen a really insightful chat.
We went in a few differentdirections.
I think it's very excitingwhat's coming up in the future
for yourself and everythingyou're doing in that space, and
I reckon it's going to be anadvantage to anyone in the
industry wanting to take it up.
You know what I mean.

(01:07:18):
I think it's just going to begetting going from strength to
strength and it's going tobecome better and help a lot of
people along the way.
So well done on that.
And for those of you that dowant to reach out, you can find
him at BuildPass or Matt Parrotton LinkedIn or Sane as well, so
check him out there.
And, yeah, just thank you verymuch for coming down today.

Guest (01:07:35):
I appreciate it.
It's been great.
Thanks guys.

George (01:07:37):
Awesome, see you next time.

Guest (01:07:42):
Thanks.