NVA Company BuilderHelp to Bring Easy-to-Use Project Management Capabilities to the Small- and Medium-sized Construction Contactor Marketplace

Innovative approach means there’s no need for subcontractors to download an app, while contractors get real-time updates on key task progress on a project-by-project basis

 One of the obstacles to the adoption of digital technologies in the construction industry has been what we used to call in broadband communications “the last mile.”

The analogy goes like this:

The adoption of tremendously valuable digital technology – regardless of the industry – typically starts at the top of an organization, where the initial benefits are clearly defined. The expansion and extension of digital technology to middle management and front-line employees, however, can drive even more impactful operational and cost efficiency benefits across the entire organization.

As the expansion of broadband technology progressed, the challenges of reaching further and further down the network implementation “tree” meant more and more people had to be connected for the true value – and cost-efficiencies – of broadband technology and today’s Internet to be realized.

Bottoms Up – the Independent Contractor-driven Model

The same is true in the small- to medium-sized construction contractor market. While innovative solutions – such as those created by fellow NVA company Flashtract (now owned by Trimble) – have brought great value to some of the largest building and construction conglomerates in the world, these benefits have failed to “trickle down” to small- and medium-sized contractors. 

Enter BuilderHelp, a New Venture Accelerator company that is poised to deliver an AI-powered construction assistant built to not just help track what’s been done but to actually help run the job with you. Whether you’re scheduling subcontractors, sending punch lists, tracking material deliveries, reviewing plans or tracking finances – BuilderHelp automates your workflows.

All without requiring your subcontractors to download, learn and operate a new software application.

How It All Began

“I’ve been around construction since I was little,” says Wesley Stallings, founder of BuilderHelp and a junior in the McWhorter School of Building Science at Auburn’s College of Architecture, Design and Construction. “I have two uncles, one who is a president of a big construction company in Nashville, and another who owns a construction company in Montgomery. So I’ve always been around construction, always wanted to be involved in construction from early on.”

“I love working with my hands, and I was out working on construction sites with these contractors, and I just realized – there’s got to be a better way to do this, to expand and streamline the process. While working with general contractors, I realized there must be a better way to manage communication. So much of the process felt scattered and inefficient – not because people weren’t working hard but because many small and midsize construction companies still rely on manual processes or outdated software. They are just a little behind on the curve of technology adoption.”

“I’m creating BuilderHelp to help independent contractors with enterprise-level tools that are easy to use, that aren’t complicated for project managers, superintendents or admins to follow and that don’t require a learning curve from workers to deliver measurable value.”

Broadening Seamless Technology Adoption

According to Stallings, small- and mid-sized construction companies have a difficult challenge in implementing technology that requires them and their workers to download and learn a completely new software applications – many simply don’t have the digital familiarity to adopt, let alone actually use, today’s full-blown project management applications.

“Unlike customers of all these big, complex project management software solutions, these small- to mid-size companies don’t have the type of people working for their company that would be able to easily learn this kind of complicated software. I knew there had to be a better way.”

 “The key is what contractors, and their subcontractors need to collaborate on – primarily sending out tasks and invoices. Punch lists and invoicing are another big part of communication with subcontractors. Giving them the ability to send back what’s being done on a real-time basis and at the end of a day or project is instrumental to sound construction project management.”

How We Do It

“We accomplish this by using a simple link to a web page – not within an app – that subcontractors can simply download or print out,” says Stallings. “It’s a smart link that sends the architectural drawings, floor plans and all assigned tasks in PDF form to your subcontractors and their individual workers who are able to just click on each project – room-by-room – and see their assigned tasks.

They don’t have to log in or anything – they can just see their tasks and easily input progress.”

“That’s a key differentiator.”

“The NVA is thrilled about Wesley and his startup, BuilderHelp. He’s identified a clear niche in the construction industry and is combining AI technology with a focus on helping small construction companies scale and succeed. The future looks very promising for BuilderHelp.”

NVA Entrepreneur-in-Residence Scott McGlon.

Doing the Research

That’s not to say that Stallings is relying solely on his own experiences and internships at Auburn – far from it.

“I’ve conducted formal research on more than 50 independent construction companies doing up to $150 million in annual revenue to get a data-driven perspective on my target market – some of them gathered from my family connections, but a whole lot more have come from the Building Science program I’m in. You might be surprised that most of them are either using no tools at all, or they’re using Excel spreadsheets to track jobs.

“The insight I heard from these contractors prompted me to really focus on creating a simple-yet-powerful platform that will help increase their profit margins primarily by streamlining the everyday actions of their teams. From creating a workday schedule to subcontractor agreements and communication to budgeting and payment tracking, we bring in everything they need without all the overhead of a poorly focused, overly cumbersome and prohibitively expensive proprietary software implementation.”

The Benefits of an AI-driven Approach

With Stallings’ AI-enhanced BuilderHelp system, contractors always know exactly where they stand in a job. As soon as contractors receive their supplier invoices and subcontractor invoices, BuilderHelp’s AI automatically files the invoices, so they’re going to know exactly how much room is left in their budgets and how much cushion they may or may not have in order to come in on budget. BuilderHelp gives small-to-medium sized contractors the actionable data they need to operate more efficiently and effectively.

“That’s the critical value contractors get from BuilderHelp,” Stallings emphasized. “They are instantly able to access their budgets to see where they stand on each project.” Every time your teams complete a task, it’ll show you’ve finished, say, 50% of a given phase, and let’s say you completed another task, so now you’ve completed 75% of this phase.”

“Artificial intelligence is the brain. It looks at these phases, and, say, it looks like you’re not going to finish painting in time, so you’ll need to move your flooring contractor back a day, and all you got to do is just one click to move your flooring contractor back a day, sending them a notification through email or text saying, ‘Hey, man, it looks like we’re running a little slow. Can you come tomorrow at 8:00 AM?’  And then if they say yes, no, it’ll feed straight into that schedule. So that’s how we’re using artificial intelligence through scheduling.”

“Another way BuilderHelp leverages AI is in estimating, which helps you and your teams stay on track by compare estimates with actual invoices. Let’s say painting went a thousand dollars over your estimate. How would you like to adjust your budget? It’s going to give you a couple quick ideas as to what you could change in your budget, because everything you input into this software is going to go to the AI brain.”

“And that’s going to keep growing the BuilderHelp AI brain – the more you input it, the smarter it gets. You can look at trends, and then you can look back and say, for example, I keep underestimating the time it takes to drywall, perhaps I should adjust the next project accordingly.”

The Mission Moves Forward

As Stallings and his small team move toward the launch of BuilderHelp late this year for testing, they are focused on the mission of bringing the latest technology to the small- and medium-sized contractor marketplace.

“These contractors are working harder than anyone out there in the construction industry – they have smaller teams, tighter margins, and they’re stressed,” reports Stallings. “I really see this growing to become a solution that alleviates that stress, gives them easy-to-use tools that have previously been available only to big general contractors through enterprise software companies.”

“In the end, I really see this being a tool that helps them grow their profit margins with a streamlined process that also makes their lives easier.”

To learn more about BuilderHelp, contact Wesley Stallings at wes0038@auburn.edu.

To learn more about the New Venture Accelerator click HERE and/or contact Lou Bifano, Director, at loubifano@auburn.edu.