Intro:

Welcome to the construction disruption podcast, where we

Intro:

uncover the future of design, building, and remodeling.

Ryan Bell:

I'm Ryan bell of Isaiah industries, manufacturer

Ryan Bell:

of specialty metal roofing and other building materials.

Ryan Bell:

And today my co host is Ethan Young.

Ryan Bell:

How are you doing today, Ethan?

Ethan Young:

I'm doing good, Ryan.

Ethan Young:

How about you?

Ryan Bell:

I'm doing great.

Ryan Bell:

Uh, kind of getting back into the flow here with recording season two.

Ryan Bell:

I do have a dad joke for you to kick things off.

Ryan Bell:

What do you call?

Ryan Bell:

A pig that does karate.

Ethan Young:

Something with pork chop.

Ethan Young:

It's gotta be something with pork chop.

Ryan Bell:

Okay, you got it.

Ryan Bell:

You got it a pork chop.

Ryan Bell:

You got it.

Ryan Bell:

Good.

Ryan Bell:

I was gonna say, I'd be a little disappointed if you can't get that one.

Ryan Bell:

Yeah, that's a good one.

Ryan Bell:

All right, well, let's dive in and get started.

Ryan Bell:

Um, today our guest is John Sibley, CEO of Tru.

Ryan Bell:

Built a venture-backed startup, leveraging the latest in AI and NLP

Ryan Bell:

technology to deliver pre-construction and takeoff software solutions to

Ryan Bell:

residential and commercial builders.

Ryan Bell:

Faced with high inflation, pricing, volatility, and supply chain issues.

Ryan Bell:

Builders now more than ever need robust software solutions to drive profitability

Ryan Bell:

and true built increases the speed and accuracy of the pre construction process.

Ryan Bell:

John, it's great to have you on the show today.

Ryan Bell:

Thank you for joining us.

Jon Sibley:

Thanks for having me.

Jon Sibley:

And thanks for the great intro.

Ryan Bell:

Well, let's dive right in.

Ryan Bell:

And, uh, can you start by giving us a.

Ryan Bell:

a kind of overview of what your mission is at Truebuilt.

Ryan Bell:

And could you tell our listeners a bit about what Truebuilt does

Ryan Bell:

exactly and the problems you aim to solve in the construction industry?

Jon Sibley:

Yeah.

Jon Sibley:

So Truebuilt's mission is to minimize risk and win more

Jon Sibley:

business for American builders.

Jon Sibley:

We do this by providing an end to end pre construction platform.

Jon Sibley:

Um, in those last two, call it three years, pre construction itself, that

Jon Sibley:

active Understanding, you know, what goes into that construction project really has

Jon Sibley:

never been tougher or, or more crucial.

Jon Sibley:

And there's a lot of market forces at play, right?

Jon Sibley:

The supply chain issues of COVID pricing, volatility, the rising

Jon Sibley:

cost of building the labor shortage.

Jon Sibley:

Um, I'm sure you've talked about all of those on, on this podcast.

Jon Sibley:

Um, but the other problem, problem with pre construction is that

Jon Sibley:

estimators and pre con managers are forced to use a patchwork

Jon Sibley:

approach to the software that they.

Jon Sibley:

Um, leverage and so they end up using, you know, 4 to 6 different

Jon Sibley:

platforms to complete the entire pre construction phase.

Jon Sibley:

And what ends up happening is you lose data.

Jon Sibley:

You have to do double manual entry.

Jon Sibley:

A lot of these softwares were literally created in 1999, 2005, and, you know,

Jon Sibley:

they haven't been updated as much sense.

Jon Sibley:

So the very 1st thing we do is bring pre construction managers and estimators.

Jon Sibley:

To modern software, cloud based software, you can collaborate much better.

Jon Sibley:

You can leverage that data much better.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and then we've developed some innovative AI and NLP features

Jon Sibley:

that you mentioned before.

Jon Sibley:

That really automate and speed up the pre construction process.

Jon Sibley:

Um, in particular, we reduce take the time spent on takeoff by about 200%.

Jon Sibley:

And so that frees estimators up to be a bit more thoughtful about how they're

Jon Sibley:

going to present that bid, um, or even go after more bids and ultimately

Jon Sibley:

win more business, which obviously boosts revenue and profitability.

Ryan Bell:

That's awesome.

Ryan Bell:

Um, Can you talk about the AI and NLP a little bit more?

Ryan Bell:

Uh, like what exactly, what, what other things does that do

Ryan Bell:

to help speed up that process?

Ryan Bell:

And also I'm assuming there's probably some accuracy that is, that

Ryan Bell:

comes along with using that as well.

Jon Sibley:

Yeah, there definitely is.

Jon Sibley:

And, um, yeah, I'll start with the accuracy piece.

Jon Sibley:

Cause that's, that's really interesting to me as someone who

Jon Sibley:

came from the AI and NLP world.

Jon Sibley:

Um, AI models are only going to be as good as the data that it's trained

Jon Sibley:

on one and two that's provided.

Jon Sibley:

And so when it comes to takeoff, for example, our AI AI models really

Jon Sibley:

depends on the quality of plans that are presented to the general contractor or

Jon Sibley:

subcontractor that that's using TrueBuild.

Jon Sibley:

We're trying and really putting a lot of R& D resources into training our

Jon Sibley:

AI models on plans that, you know, might not be as developed, um, as

Jon Sibley:

others, ones that are more in that, you know, early phase of construction,

Jon Sibley:

you're still in that design phase.

Jon Sibley:

And so we're trying to improve that as well.

Jon Sibley:

Um, but even with that said, our AI models are highly accurate when it comes

Jon Sibley:

to takeoff, you know, You can take off all the walls, um, in just a few seconds,

Jon Sibley:

um, you can do area just by one click.

Jon Sibley:

So instead of having to do that, you know, manual, um, drag and point that

Jon Sibley:

you have to do with other software, you can just do one click into the room.

Jon Sibley:

It'll pick up the area perimeter, you can add height to that.

Jon Sibley:

Um, so it's pretty, pretty powerful stuff for, for 2d takeoff.

Jon Sibley:

And then on the NLP side, and that's natural language processing.

Jon Sibley:

We have a variety of use cases.

Jon Sibley:

One is our AI spec assistant.

Jon Sibley:

Probably the most important feature that's leveraged there right

Jon Sibley:

now is our auto renaming tool.

Jon Sibley:

So when you upload a plan, you know, huge massive file.

Jon Sibley:

Oftentimes it takes estimators and pre con managers.

Jon Sibley:

Hours, sometimes even days to go through, rename every single page, split out the

Jon Sibley:

different page pages, figure out where those pages need to be hyperlinked.

Jon Sibley:

And our software can do that renaming and hyperlinking with

Jon Sibley:

about 100 percent accuracy.

Jon Sibley:

And processing a 1000 pages in 5 seconds.

Jon Sibley:

So it's literally saving hours just up front on the upload.

Jon Sibley:

And then from there, we're going to take off, which I already discussed estimation.

Jon Sibley:

Pre construction is the 1st time that there's been all this

Jon Sibley:

great data about the project.

Jon Sibley:

It's really important that estimators and pre con managers can leverage that data.

Jon Sibley:

And with a cloud based solution like TrueBuild, you're able

Jon Sibley:

to do that much easier.

Jon Sibley:

We have some cool machine learning features that really

Jon Sibley:

can pull in that historical data.

Jon Sibley:

And you can also engage with our AI spec assistant and ask, you know, compared to

Jon Sibley:

a previous project I had, let's say it's another, you know, K through 12 school.

Jon Sibley:

Um, how does this compare?

Jon Sibley:

You know, in terms of the cost of gypsum, you that answer right away.

Jon Sibley:

So it's very, very much focused on reducing time spent on

Jon Sibley:

the pre construction process.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and boosting, boosting accuracy as well.

Ryan Bell:

So I struggle with this a little bit, and I've been kind of diving

Ryan Bell:

into the AI world and even like through this podcast, uh, trying to utilize AI

Ryan Bell:

to speed up the editing process, writing the, the questions, all that stuff.

Ryan Bell:

And I'm, I struggle with kind of putting my trust in it.

Ryan Bell:

Do you have any, you know, I kind of feel like it's a nice

Ryan Bell:

chandelier hanging from a wire.

Ryan Bell:

Um, and I just don't trust it yet.

Ryan Bell:

Do you have any tips or advice for that about, you know, what sort of human

Ryan Bell:

involvement is still required there and overseeing things, or, or just, is

Ryan Bell:

it something you should put your trust in and know it's going to do its job?

Jon Sibley:

Yeah.

Jon Sibley:

So we actually talk about AI as augmented intelligence at Truebill.

Jon Sibley:

Okay.

Jon Sibley:

And that's because we think, you know, our estimators and pre con

Jon Sibley:

managers who are using our platform, oftentimes have, you know, 20 years

Jon Sibley:

of real world job site experience.

Jon Sibley:

Like that.

Jon Sibley:

That expertise is is completely invaluable.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and so what we've done is trained our AI models on the more annoying parts

Jon Sibley:

of the workflow, like understanding door schedules and assigning those accordingly,

Jon Sibley:

or picking out the texture types and reflected ceiling plans automatically

Jon Sibley:

instead of having to do the manual job.

Jon Sibley:

So we focus on the more annoying, cumbersome, um, Unnecessarily

Jon Sibley:

manual parts of the workflow.

Jon Sibley:

But you as an estimator and pre con manager still need to come in with

Jon Sibley:

your own expertise, your experience, your opinions on the project.

Jon Sibley:

You know, something that might not be in the plans, but you heard from the

Jon Sibley:

architect or the general contractor, you know, that, that information might

Jon Sibley:

not be captured, uh, on the plans for the AI to do something about it.

Jon Sibley:

And so we encourage our estimators and pre con managers.

Jon Sibley:

So yes, Trust it, test it out, but you still need to look over it because,

Jon Sibley:

you know, no machine right now is going to be as powerful as an estimator

Jon Sibley:

with 20 years experience on the job.

Jon Sibley:

We all still have to do our job, right?

Jon Sibley:

Yeah.

Jon Sibley:

Yeah.

Jon Sibley:

So for us, it's about improving that productivity of the estimator and freeing

Jon Sibley:

up their time to go after more bids or, you know, make that bid better.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and less about fully automating the process.

Ethan Young:

Yeah.

Ethan Young:

I think that's the strongest argument I've heard for AI in my time.

Ethan Young:

He's, you know, just a tool that we can use to enable us to spend more time on

Ethan Young:

the meaningful stuff, you know, I think that's a great, a great way to put it.

Ryan Bell:

Yeah, I agree.

Ryan Bell:

So, uh, with inflation, you know, there's a lot of pricing volatility

Ryan Bell:

and supply chain issues that have been impacting, you know, the

Ryan Bell:

construction industry for a while now.

Ryan Bell:

Um, is there anything that your software does to kind of

Ryan Bell:

help builders navigate this?

Jon Sibley:

Yeah.

Jon Sibley:

So pre construction being the phase, um, that it is where all the stakeholders

Jon Sibley:

and all the data are coming together for the first time, we need one single

Jon Sibley:

tool for those stakeholders to interact.

Jon Sibley:

And for that data to live in and be leveraged.

Jon Sibley:

And that doesn't really exist on the market today, because, like I said before,

Jon Sibley:

they use this patchwork approach to software where, you know, they're using

Jon Sibley:

something for takeoff, something for estimation, something for bid management,

Jon Sibley:

something for bid leveling, they're stitching it back together in Excel,

Jon Sibley:

which the colleague, you know, might have trouble accessing or that might be.

Jon Sibley:

Disparity in terms of what they, they did a takeoff on.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and so having that end to end solution, we think gives a better

Jon Sibley:

view into that, that pre con workflow.

Jon Sibley:

Um, you know, obviously we can't directly, um, Directly impact

Jon Sibley:

the supply chain issues that the industry is facing, but we can make

Jon Sibley:

our estimators and pre con managers more informed and more productive.

Ryan Bell:

This always kind of frustrates me.

Ryan Bell:

The con you know, the construction industry as a whole, um, home, whether

Ryan Bell:

it's home improvement or, or building or commercial has been traditionally

Ryan Bell:

been pretty slow to adopt new technologies and stuff, especially in.

Ryan Bell:

In the world of online stuff and all that jazz, but is there anything that

Ryan Bell:

you guys have done with Truebuilt to kind of encourage and maybe remove that

Ryan Bell:

hurdle or some of that hesitancy that, uh, contractors or builders can have?

Jon Sibley:

Yeah.

Jon Sibley:

So I think, I think there's two things.

Jon Sibley:

Um, number one, our design approach has been let's balance

Jon Sibley:

the familiar with these innovative features that we want to develop.

Jon Sibley:

It is a very hard task to ask someone who's been on the same software for

Jon Sibley:

15, 20 years to switch over because that's what they're used to, that's

Jon Sibley:

what other colleagues are used to.

Jon Sibley:

And when we first started TrueBuild, we made the mistake of, I think,

Jon Sibley:

redesigning and rethinking estimation and takeoff as a whole.

Jon Sibley:

What we learned is that, in reality, everyone was very used to tables.

Jon Sibley:

They were very used to Excel spreadsheets.

Jon Sibley:

And so we had to take what they were familiar with, put that into our

Jon Sibley:

platform, and then pick and choose these spots that I talked about earlier

Jon Sibley:

where we can impact the more cumbersome, annoying, painful parts of the workflow.

Jon Sibley:

Through AI and through some more of these innovative features, so that balance

Jon Sibley:

of, you know, what, what's familiar to our users versus where can we push the

Jon Sibley:

envelope, um, is very, very important.

Jon Sibley:

1 of our customers told me this Henry Ford quote, and it goes

Jon Sibley:

something like, you know, if they had asked me what they wanted, they

Jon Sibley:

would have said, uh, faster horses.

Jon Sibley:

And there is an element of that of, you know, we need to design something

Jon Sibley:

that is different from what's existed, but we can't totally forget what

Jon Sibley:

people are used to in the construction world, because that adoption is, like

Jon Sibley:

you said before, quite quite slow.

Jon Sibley:

And then the 2nd thing that we've done is we've really tried to start with

Jon Sibley:

the top of the construction industry.

Jon Sibley:

We're focused on commercial construction.

Jon Sibley:

We work with a variety of 400.

Jon Sibley:

Cut customers right now, and I think it was my theory is that the

Jon Sibley:

technology queues throughout the industry are taken from the top.

Jon Sibley:

And so us focusing on enterprise, you know, top tier customers kind

Jon Sibley:

of goes against the grain for what someone in the software world would

Jon Sibley:

advise a young startup like us to focus on, but impactful because these

Jon Sibley:

larger companies are more innovative.

Jon Sibley:

They're more willing to try new technology.

Jon Sibley:

Yes, they are set in their current software, but they're also willing

Jon Sibley:

to invest in the next great thing.

Jon Sibley:

And what we've seen is that as more and more of these enterprise customers have

Jon Sibley:

used Truebilt for say bid management, they send out bids to different

Jon Sibley:

subcontractors, um, via Truebilt.

Jon Sibley:

And so all these subs will, you know, find out about Truebuild,

Jon Sibley:

uh, just via that organic process.

Jon Sibley:

Um, so it's been this great network effect as well.

Jon Sibley:

Uh, and then we've started to get a lot of referrals because, you know,

Jon Sibley:

some of these larger customers, you know, are happy and impressed with

Jon Sibley:

the innovation that we are doing.

Ryan Bell:

So you're, you're focused mostly on commercial then

Ryan Bell:

not necessarily residential or, or.

Jon Sibley:

We, we do a little bit of both, um, but primarily

Jon Sibley:

has been commercial so far.

Jon Sibley:

Um, we do work with a few home builders, uh, again, or a bit larger, but our

Jon Sibley:

focus has primarily been commercial.

Ryan Bell:

Well, my next question was kind of going to be about scalability

Ryan Bell:

then and how adaptable TrueBuild is.

Ryan Bell:

To different projects and sizes.

Ryan Bell:

But I guess that kind of answer, it sounds like it's more geared

Ryan Bell:

towards the larger products.

Ryan Bell:

Projects.

Jon Sibley:

That's where it's just today, but we do have plans

Jon Sibley:

to expand that in the future.

Jon Sibley:

Um, we get a lot of requests from, from civil companies as well.

Jon Sibley:

So going, you know, even to the more complexity.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and then recently we've gotten more and more inbounds

Jon Sibley:

from that residential side.

Jon Sibley:

Um, so, you know, the, the platform is very, very flexible.

Jon Sibley:

It can work with, you know, both anyone that's doing takeoff estimation and

Jon Sibley:

bid management can use the platform.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and so I'd say it's less about that, you know, specific type of

Jon Sibley:

project and more about what is their current workflow and does that match

Jon Sibley:

to a workflow they can achieve and

Ryan Bell:

So collaboration is obviously an essential piece to, uh,

Ryan Bell:

you know, any construction project that involves multiple people, companies,

Ryan Bell:

um, contractors, subcontractors.

Ryan Bell:

How does Truebill facilitate that collaboration and communication?

Ryan Bell:

Throughout a project.

Jon Sibley:

So first of all, our general contractors can send out bid requests

Jon Sibley:

to sub contractors, VR platform, subcontractors can reply, um, general

Jon Sibley:

contractors will level off those bids.

Jon Sibley:

They can communicate directly in the platform.

Jon Sibley:

Um, what's different from us and other bid solicitation platforms

Jon Sibley:

out there is that it's not coming from, you know, true built.

Jon Sibley:

com.

Jon Sibley:

Um, because when that happens, oftentimes the subcontractor will miss it.

Jon Sibley:

It'll get a spam.

Jon Sibley:

It's easier for them to ignore with our platform.

Jon Sibley:

We built an integration to outlook so that it can come from your personal email

Jon Sibley:

from, from John at true built software.

Jon Sibley:

com.

Jon Sibley:

And we see a much higher response rate from subcontractors because of that.

Jon Sibley:

And that response rate can be either via email and I'll be integrated,

Jon Sibley:

pushed back into the software.

Jon Sibley:

Um, or it can be through the true built app and the true built

Jon Sibley:

subcontractor side of the portal.

Jon Sibley:

That's like the very first area where they can start to, um, collaborate and engage.

Jon Sibley:

Um, the other thing that we have, that's pretty unique in the industry too,

Jon Sibley:

is something called multiplayer mode.

Jon Sibley:

And that's where multiple estimators can be on the same plan at the same time.

Jon Sibley:

And literally if they turn multiplayer mode on literally see each other's

Jon Sibley:

mouse like performing takeoff.

Jon Sibley:

Um, you can also invite a subcontractor to see that.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and so being cloud based gives us that advantage to have multiple people

Jon Sibley:

in the same project at the time and literally be able to see your colleague

Jon Sibley:

if they, let's say your colleagues on the job site, you're in the office and they

Jon Sibley:

want to show you something on the plans.

Jon Sibley:

You can literally click a button and follow their mouse around and go

Jon Sibley:

through the entire spec book together.

Ryan Bell:

That's cool.

Ryan Bell:

That's I use, uh, I don't know if you're familiar with Figma.

Jon Sibley:

Figma was a big inspiration for us.

Jon Sibley:

That, that follow button is, is very, very similar in how it works.

Ryan Bell:

So if somebody is, uh, going to send out a bid request for

Ryan Bell:

a bid to some contractors, are they choosing who the, who they're sending

Ryan Bell:

that out to through their connections?

Ryan Bell:

Or is that part of your platform that those subcontractors are

Ryan Bell:

there like with the profile?

Jon Sibley:

Yeah, again, different from.

Jon Sibley:

What's out there today is that we have this dual directory approach where

Jon Sibley:

there is this true built directory of subcontractors that we've curated.

Jon Sibley:

Um, I would say the difference in that part of the platform as well is that we've

Jon Sibley:

gone out and verified and literally called these subs to verify their information.

Jon Sibley:

Um, some of the other software platforms for bid solicitation have

Jon Sibley:

really become a mess of data because.

Jon Sibley:

They allowed the subs to, you know, update your, your, their information themselves.

Jon Sibley:

And all of a sudden you have a, you know, glass guy, glazier guy

Jon Sibley:

in Washington, DC saying you can do jobs in Southern California.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and that creates like all a whole host of problems.

Jon Sibley:

Yeah.

Jon Sibley:

So that's the, the true built directory.

Jon Sibley:

And then we have this other directory that we allow.

Jon Sibley:

Our customers to manage directly, um, some of our customers leverage,

Jon Sibley:

both some of them, you know, roughly bid out to the same subs every time.

Jon Sibley:

So they just kind of keep it separate.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and then you can pass information and data back and

Jon Sibley:

forth between those 2 directories.

Jon Sibley:

Um, let's say, you know, someone.

Jon Sibley:

One of your contacts moves companies, uh, you have to update the email address.

Jon Sibley:

You can do that in, in either place.

Ryan Bell:

Is there a particular success story that you could share

Ryan Bell:

with us or like a case study of kind of, you know, where your, your

Ryan Bell:

software has significantly benefited, whether it's a particular client that

Ryan Bell:

you work with or a certain project, does anyone come to top of mind that.

Jon Sibley:

Yeah.

Jon Sibley:

Uh, we, we worked with a lot of, uh, a very large builder in, in Dallas.

Jon Sibley:

Um, they're focused on municipal projects and K through 12 schools.

Jon Sibley:

Um, so because they're, you know, typically bidding on a government

Jon Sibley:

projects or they're bidding and their bids have to be very, very tight.

Jon Sibley:

They have to be very informed, maybe more so than, uh, say

Jon Sibley:

design build general contractor.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and so they started using true built last year and have seen a

Jon Sibley:

significant uptick in the accuracy.

Jon Sibley:

Of their projects as compared to what the project ends up at.

Jon Sibley:

Um, so every project they do, they have to do it with the city or county, whoever

Jon Sibley:

they're working with, um, and do an audit of, all right, what did this cost?

Jon Sibley:

And what did we estimate it to be at?

Jon Sibley:

Um, and that accuracy has improved a lot.

Jon Sibley:

It's improved so much of their main competitor also in Dallas.

Jon Sibley:

Ended up coming to true vote because they heard from these guys that, Hey,

Jon Sibley:

we're, we're using this new platform.

Jon Sibley:

Um, so that was pretty cool to see, you know, sign up a new customer

Jon Sibley:

just through, through word of mouth.

Jon Sibley:

Um, the second story I like to tell too, is, you know, I think most of

Jon Sibley:

the commercial construction world knows that pre con needs a shakeup.

Jon Sibley:

Um, you know, it's, it's very, very rare that we can't get someone on the

Jon Sibley:

phone or can't schedule a new meeting.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and people are very excited about innovation in this space.

Jon Sibley:

Um, we work with the largest drywall company there in, in

Jon Sibley:

Texas, um, Merrick brothers.

Jon Sibley:

Um, they were so excited about our vision that they asked to

Jon Sibley:

also invest in the company.

Jon Sibley:

And, you know, these guys aren't necessarily tech investors,

Jon Sibley:

not necessarily looking to get into the venture capital world.

Jon Sibley:

So they, they actually came in, uh, towards Stephen Brown last summer,

Jon Sibley:

alongside our prop tech and VC investors.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and they've been great, great partners as well.

Jon Sibley:

And just seeing that excitement from folks who are excited about what's

Jon Sibley:

possible in pre construction, uh, has been great validation for our own vision.

Ryan Bell:

Very good.

Ryan Bell:

Um, imagine let's imagine you have a crystal ball and looking into it.

Ryan Bell:

What, what sort of advancements do you see on the horizon in terms of AI and

Ryan Bell:

NLP technology that could further enhance and grow what you guys are offering?

Jon Sibley:

Yeah, so I think there's been a ton of focus on NLP, uh, in

Jon Sibley:

the tech world over the last year, and it's definitely improving.

Jon Sibley:

I think an area that we haven't touched yet is being able to generate text,

Jon Sibley:

um, out of an output of estimation.

Jon Sibley:

So say let's complete, you know, take off estimation, run a job summary report.

Jon Sibley:

You know, can we use leverage some NLP technology to create a proposal out of

Jon Sibley:

that that is customized to that company and, um, is very intelligent and, you

Jon Sibley:

know, how it presents that report.

Jon Sibley:

Um, so I, I think there's a little bit in NLP.

Jon Sibley:

What we're most excited about is that computer vision.

Jon Sibley:

Um, technology that we're using on our, on our blueprints, I think with

Jon Sibley:

computer vision and not saying true Bill's going to get into this, but off

Jon Sibley:

the job side on the job site, like, that is a productivity game changer, like,

Jon Sibley:

yes, generating texts and writing texts can, you know, save you some time, but

Jon Sibley:

having a computer, you know, computer vision model monitor job site 24 seven,

Jon Sibley:

there's a few companies out there doing that, I think is really, really huge.

Jon Sibley:

The second part of this is how can AI and NLP produce our

Jon Sibley:

own productivity at Truebuilt?

Jon Sibley:

Um, there's a lot of software engineering co pilots out there that

Jon Sibley:

are growing in popularity, uh, but also improving performance of, you

Jon Sibley:

know, software engineering teams.

Jon Sibley:

And we're starting to leverage that a bit more and that will ultimately

Jon Sibley:

speed up our own pace of development and make us more productive too.

Ryan Bell:

Does it scare you at all how fast AI is?

Ryan Bell:

Progressing.

Jon Sibley:

It definitely does.

Jon Sibley:

And I, I know that's weird to say as someone who's trying to bring that

Jon Sibley:

to, uh, the, the construction world.

Jon Sibley:

Um, but it, but it is shocking.

Jon Sibley:

So I mentioned before that I started my career in natural language processing

Jon Sibley:

and, uh, this was like 2015 and we were, you know, on this wave of AI being

Jon Sibley:

the next big thing and that kind of dipped and now we're in another wave.

Jon Sibley:

Uh, but back then we could organize data and we could contextualize written data.

Jon Sibley:

Uh, but we couldn't.

Jon Sibley:

Right.

Jon Sibley:

And generate new, new, uh, text data.

Jon Sibley:

And that's where, you know, something like chat GPT comes in.

Jon Sibley:

And, um, I don't know if you've all seen some of like the AI

Jon Sibley:

videos and, and deepfake stuff.

Jon Sibley:

Like it's that, that, that's the part that scares me, especially when

Jon Sibley:

it's applied to, you know, politics, uh, macroeconomic conditions, like

Jon Sibley:

that, that's pretty scary to me.

Ryan Bell:

Adobe just announced that they have a new version, beta version

Ryan Bell:

of premiere that is doing some.

Ryan Bell:

You know, kind of bringing their generative fill and stuff from Photoshop

Ryan Bell:

into video, which is, yeah, I mean, I, I agree that that can be scary.

Ryan Bell:

And the voices that you can fake someone's voice.

Ryan Bell:

I mean, you know, a lot, a lot of bad, I think is going to come from all that.

Jon Sibley:

I think so too.

Jon Sibley:

I think there'll be a painful period.

Jon Sibley:

Um, If you look at, you know, any new technology, often the regulation

Jon Sibley:

comes like 10 to 15 years after.

Jon Sibley:

And I think we're probably going to be in this unregulated or relatively

Jon Sibley:

unregulated period for a while.

Jon Sibley:

Um, but to give the other side of this, I mean, obviously the U S is

Jon Sibley:

facing a massive deficit right now.

Jon Sibley:

And, um, you know, there, there's been a lot of talk of like, how do you fix that?

Jon Sibley:

Is it raising revenues, um, through, through taxation?

Jon Sibley:

Uh, is it cutting spending?

Jon Sibley:

And you know, my, my theory on it, it's improving productivity of the American

Jon Sibley:

workforce through better technology.

Jon Sibley:

And AI should be the technology that does ultimately solve that.

Ethan Young:

Yeah.

Ethan Young:

I wanted to go back to that point.

Ethan Young:

You're saying earlier about it being kind of a wild West unregulated.

Ethan Young:

I think it's funny right now.

Ethan Young:

We kind of look at it.

Ethan Young:

Not everyone, but I think, you know, AI can be kind of like a jokey thing, you

Ethan Young:

know, like use it for pranks, use it for whatever, but it is a little scary.

Ethan Young:

Like you said, that regulation isn't going to catch up for a while.

Ethan Young:

I think it's, we, we haven't really run into any huge, huge consequences

Ethan Young:

or, you know, things like that popping up, but I think that's going

Ethan Young:

to definitely come up in the future.

Ethan Young:

So.

Ethan Young:

Interesting to see where it goes.

Jon Sibley:

I saw this old YouTube video the other day, uh, when they

Jon Sibley:

started enforcing people wearing seatbelts and how, uh, frustrated

Jon Sibley:

people, uh, were with that.

Jon Sibley:

And, you know, we, we do need a seatbelt or bodyguard, if you will, for AI.

Ryan Bell:

Yeah, definitely.

Ryan Bell:

It's a good way to put it.

Ryan Bell:

Is there any advice you would give to an aspiring young entrepreneur that may be

Ryan Bell:

looking to disrupt disrupt traditional industries, whether it's construction or,

Ryan Bell:

or something else with technology based on the experience you've had with Truebill?

Jon Sibley:

Yeah.

Jon Sibley:

So the first thing I said, I'll say is construction and other

Jon Sibley:

kind of verticals that are.

Jon Sibley:

Call them industrials, oil and gas, agriculture are definitely

Jon Sibley:

right for disruption as well.

Jon Sibley:

Um, that tech adoption is slower, but that also presents a huge opportunity.

Jon Sibley:

Um, I tell our sales team all the time, you know, our, our customers

Jon Sibley:

don't really make software decisions that often, maybe once every 20 years.

Jon Sibley:

So yes, it could be painful to get them on for the very first time.

Jon Sibley:

But after that, we're going to have them for a long time.

Jon Sibley:

Um, especially with the estimation data that we have.

Jon Sibley:

I think my biggest learning, it goes back to what I said about balancing

Jon Sibley:

that, you know, what's familiar with, with what's innovative.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and that really comes down to following what the

Jon Sibley:

customer is telling you.

Jon Sibley:

Um, as we approach these, you know, other verticals that are more

Jon Sibley:

industrialized, maybe a little.

Jon Sibley:

slower moving on the tech side, it's very important that you reduce any

Jon Sibley:

friction to them adopting that tech.

Jon Sibley:

And that's making sure that you're taking what they like about their

Jon Sibley:

existing product, integrating that into yours, and then picking and

Jon Sibley:

choosing the spots where you can be innovative and can push the envelope.

Jon Sibley:

A

Ryan Bell:

good point.

Ryan Bell:

Yeah, it's a good way to put it.

Ryan Bell:

Thanks so much, John.

Ryan Bell:

Uh, this has been great, really insightful and we're thankful, you

Ryan Bell:

know, you're sharing your knowledge and experience here with us.

Ryan Bell:

Um, we're close to wrapping up what we call the business end of things.

Ryan Bell:

Is there anything that we haven't covered today that you'd like

Ryan Bell:

to share with our audience?

Jon Sibley:

I guess for your audience specifically, What I'd go back to is

Jon Sibley:

that approach of augmented intelligence.

Jon Sibley:

That's how Truebuilt's approaching it.

Jon Sibley:

But that's how, you know, you should approach it in your professional

Jon Sibley:

and personal lives as well.

Jon Sibley:

You know, how can this make me better?

Jon Sibley:

How can this make me productive?

Jon Sibley:

There are scary elements of that, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't, you

Jon Sibley:

know, experiment and try and figure out what does help you, what does improve

Jon Sibley:

lifestyle productivity, et cetera.

Ethan Young:

Good advice.

Ethan Young:

Yeah.

Ethan Young:

You got to figure out how to get a AI to take some strokes off the golf game.

Ethan Young:

You know, maybe they'll get that one day, but

Ryan Bell:

actually I, uh, I just got these, uh, they're called Arcos.

Ryan Bell:

I think, I don't know if you've seen those, John, but they're

Ryan Bell:

little things you put on the end of your golf clubs and they, I

Jon Sibley:

have, I have seen those actually.

Ryan Bell:

Yeah.

Ryan Bell:

But I live, I live in Ohio and it's, the weather's been horrible, so I

Ryan Bell:

haven't been able to use them yet.

Ryan Bell:

Okay.

Ryan Bell:

Well, uh, so before we close out, we like to do something that's

Ryan Bell:

a little fun kind of here at the end called rapid fire questions.

Ryan Bell:

These are seven questions.

Ryan Bell:

Um, some may be serious.

Ryan Bell:

Most of these are kind of silly.

Ryan Bell:

All you gotta do is, uh, give a quick response.

Ryan Bell:

Are you up for rapid fire questions?

Jon Sibley:

Let's do it.

Ryan Bell:

Awesome.

Ryan Bell:

Uh, Ethan and I will alternate turns asking Ethan, you can

Ryan Bell:

kick us off if you'd like.

Ethan Young:

Awesome.

Ethan Young:

Um, all right, this is a fun one.

Ethan Young:

If you could replace, or let's say if you had to replace your hands with any

Ethan Young:

kitchen utensil, which one would you pick?

Jon Sibley:

I think scissors and maybe spatula.

Jon Sibley:

Okay.

Jon Sibley:

Yeah.

Ryan Bell:

That's a good shot.

Ryan Bell:

That's a good shot.

Ryan Bell:

I was going to go with knife and spatula, but maybe scissors

Ryan Bell:

would offer a little more

Jon Sibley:

knife.

Jon Sibley:

Sounds a little dangerous.

Ethan Young:

I was going to do tongs just cause I feel like that'd be

Ethan Young:

nice to pick stuff up, but Oh yeah.

Ethan Young:

That's a great one.

Ethan Young:

Yeah.

Ryan Bell:

Yeah.

Ryan Bell:

I think that's a must have.

Ryan Bell:

Good point.

Ryan Bell:

Ethan.

Ryan Bell:

All right.

Ryan Bell:

Um, if aliens landed tomorrow and offered to take you to their planet,

Ryan Bell:

what earthly possession would you insist on bringing with you?

Jon Sibley:

I actually have no, no idea.

Jon Sibley:

Um, my, my mind is going back and forth between something I need to bring so

Jon Sibley:

that I can show them what, what humans do and something I would just want myself.

Ryan Bell:

Yeah, that's a tough one.

Ryan Bell:

I don't think I'd have an answer for it.

Ethan Young:

What's a valuable lesson that you've learned

Ethan Young:

from a failure in your career?

Jon Sibley:

Yeah, so I think Listening to that voice, the customer that I alluded

Jon Sibley:

to earlier, what was something we missed in the first, um, era of, of true built.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and that's something that we've definitely corrected, but it did, you

Jon Sibley:

know, cause some pain for our customers.

Jon Sibley:

And, um, that's, that was a failure on my part.

Ryan Bell:

Gotcha.

Ryan Bell:

Question number four, this might be one of my new favorite rapid fire questions.

Ryan Bell:

And GPT, by the way.

Ryan Bell:

What?

Ryan Bell:

Would, would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or a

Ryan Bell:

hundred duck sized horses?

Jon Sibley:

I think one horse-sized

Ryan Bell:

duck.

Ryan Bell:

Really?

Ryan Bell:

Yeah.

Ryan Bell:

I, I think I'd go for the horses.

Jon Sibley:

I think I'd be overwhelmed by the, the horses.

Jon Sibley:

There's a lot of horses.

Ryan Bell:

Yeah.

Jon Sibley:

A a hundred is a lot.

Jon Sibley:

Yeah.

Jon Sibley:

Um, and they're, they're really, really dense and, and strong.

Jon Sibley:

I feel like the ducks might be, uh, a bit weaker,

Ethan Young:

a little bit.

Ethan Young:

In the same vein, if you could have any superpower, which

Ethan Young:

one would you choose and why?

Jon Sibley:

Yeah, power of flight is what I always say.

Jon Sibley:

And it's definitely pretty basic and a cliche, but I just think it'd be awesome.

Ryan Bell:

It's a classic, you know, it worked.

Ryan Bell:

All right.

Ryan Bell:

Question number six.

Ryan Bell:

If you were a professional wrestler, what would your entrance theme song be?

Jon Sibley:

I think Back in Black.

Ethan Young:

Okay.

Ryan Bell:

Good choice.

Jon Sibley:

Another classic.

Ethan Young:

All righty.

Ethan Young:

Last question.

Ethan Young:

Um, what's a book or movie that has profoundly impacted

Ethan Young:

your perspective on life?

Ethan Young:

And how's it, how's it done that?

Jon Sibley:

I love this one movie.

Jon Sibley:

I forgot what year it's made, um, but I grew up watching it with my dad.

Jon Sibley:

It's called A River Runs Through It.

Jon Sibley:

It's like a fly fishing movie about a dad and his two sons and it

Jon Sibley:

kind of follows the sons through.

Jon Sibley:

Different challenges in life.

Jon Sibley:

And, um, it gives an interesting perspective on, you know, dealing

Jon Sibley:

with hardship, getting through it, getting through things together as

Jon Sibley:

a family and being united on, you know, something like fly fishing

Jon Sibley:

that always brings you back together.

Jon Sibley:

And I grew up fishing with my dad, so that's always been a special movie to me.

Jon Sibley:

Do you fly fish?

Jon Sibley:

I'm really, really bad.

Jon Sibley:

It's like my golf game.

Ryan Bell:

Uh, that's, that's so funny.

Ryan Bell:

Like I, so we just had a guest a few weeks ago on, he lives in,

Ryan Bell:

do you remember where he lives?

Ryan Bell:

Nor Norway maybe, or somewhere?

Ryan Bell:

I don't know.

Ryan Bell:

Uh, he, he's an architect, but he, he hikes up into the mountains

Ryan Bell:

there and goes fly fishing.

Ryan Bell:

And I was, I've been wanting to get into fly fishing for like years.

Ryan Bell:

I just never have done it.

Ryan Bell:

But so we had some good conversation about fly

Jon Sibley:

fishing.

Jon Sibley:

So I actually live in Huntington beach, California.

Jon Sibley:

So it's more, uh, more ocean for me,

Ryan Bell:

not much fly fishing around there.

Ryan Bell:

Well, uh, John, thank you again for your time today.

Ryan Bell:

This was great.

Ryan Bell:

Um, for anyone who wants to get in touch with you, what's

Ryan Bell:

the best way they can do that?

Jon Sibley:

Yeah.

Jon Sibley:

Uh, truebuiltsoftware.

Jon Sibley:

com is our website, or you can email me at John J O N at truebuiltsoftware.

Jon Sibley:

com.

Ryan Bell:

Awesome.

Ryan Bell:

And we will make sure to get that in the show notes.

Jon Sibley:

Awesome.

Ryan Bell:

Um, recap of our challenge words.

Ryan Bell:

We were all successful.

Ryan Bell:

Um, John, your challenge word was bodyguard.

Ryan Bell:

Bodyguard.

Ryan Bell:

And Ethan, yours was

Ethan Young:

mine was actually golf ball.

Ethan Young:

So he gave me half credit.

Ethan Young:

I had golf game or golf.

Ethan Young:

So, oh, that's right.

Jon Sibley:

I think we'll count it.

Ryan Bell:

Yeah.

Ryan Bell:

Yeah.

Ryan Bell:

You get credit for that one.

Ryan Bell:

We round up, I guess.

Ryan Bell:

Yeah.

Ryan Bell:

And my word was chandelier snuck it in, in the beginning there.

Ryan Bell:

Usually I wait till the end.

Ryan Bell:

Uh, I find the challenge, uh, the rapid fire questions is the easiest

Ryan Bell:

time to sneak them in sometimes.

Jon Sibley:

That's true.

Jon Sibley:

I meant to put it in the beginning and that I.

Jon Sibley:

Forgot for a while.

Jon Sibley:

It's

Ryan Bell:

hard.

Jon Sibley:

It's hard.

Jon Sibley:

Came back to it.

Ryan Bell:

Well, good.

Ryan Bell:

We were all successful.

Ryan Bell:

So congrats.

Ryan Bell:

Well, thanks again, John.

Ryan Bell:

Appreciate you being here.

Jon Sibley:

Thank you guys.

Jon Sibley:

It was great to be on.

Ryan Bell:

And thanks so much for tuning into this episode of construction

Ryan Bell:

disruption with John Sibley of Truebill.

Ryan Bell:

Please watch for future episodes of our podcast.

Ryan Bell:

We are always blessed with great guests.

Ryan Bell:

Don't forget to leave us review on Apple podcast or give us a thumbs up on YouTube.

Ryan Bell:

Until the next time we're together, keep on disrupting and challenging those in

Ryan Bell:

your world to better ways of doing things.

Ryan Bell:

Don't forget to have a positive impact on everyone you encounter.

Ryan Bell:

Make them smile, encourage them to simple yet powerful things we

Ryan Bell:

can all do to change the world.

Ryan Bell:

God bless and take care.

Ryan Bell:

This is Isaiah Industries signing off until the next episode

Ryan Bell:

of Construction Disruption.

Intro:

This podcast is produced by Isaiah Industries, manufacturer of specialty

Intro:

metal roofing and other building products.