BUILDING THE FRAMEWORK: With John Chabluk, Founder of QuoteToMe

0:00 From Personal Insight to Building QuoteToMe's MVP Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Building the Framework series. Today we have John Chuck, the CEO and cofounder of Quote to Me, a construction procurement platform streamlining material sourcing and ordering. Welcome, John, and thanks for joining us today. 0:15 Speaker 2 Thanks for Young Pump to be here. Always great to spend time together and set it to share more about quote to me. 0:22 Speaker 1 Awesome. Well, to maybe kick things off, could you share a little bit about yourself and your background? 0:27 Speaker 2 Of course, so passionate entrepreneur, of course, solving for a massive industry challenge. The industry being in construction, one of the largest industries globally and still unfortunately one of the least technology advanced. 0:43 So definitely an exciting opportunity to solve for also the industry that is building the world around us, pun intended. So houses, schools, hospitals, so much of the infrastructure that we almost take for granted every day. But very passionately myself and our team are are building software to support support that industry. 1:03 So my background when finishing university, I was fortunate to have landed an opportunity to work at United Rentals. So United Rentals being the largest equipment rental company in the world and I fell in love with the industry fast because my passion is people and very much construction. 1:21 And my role at United Rentals was connecting with people. And that's where, you know, it was quick that I saw the opportunity to better connect the people of this industry. And that was really where, you know, I immediately saw this opportunity to build quote to me based on how fragmented and disconnected the people were. 1:39 Speaker 1 That's awesome. And then maybe switching gears to today and quote to me, maybe can you get a little background about the the back story of quote to me? What was he original insight or problem that you experienced? I'd like you to start and and how did the idea kind of take shape in the early days? 1:56 Speaker 2 So with my background at United Rentals, the original opportunity that I saw again with the, I'll say just disconnected nature of the people was immediately solving for that really disjointed and disconnected and inherent challenge of the construction industry is you have office team members on the contractor facing side like project managers or accounting team members or directors of construction and then you have field team members. 2:22 So these are the people wearing the hard hats during the high visibility vests physically building these buildings. And they have two very different roles in that the folks at the job site level need to build the project safely and on time, while the teams in the office are more focused on the financial aspects of of running this project and ensuring that it's on budget. 2:43 So that was really a core challenge that I saw while working at United Rentals was, you know, what's happening at the field level. It's just taking too long for that information to get communicated back to teams in the office. So folks in the field like a job site Superintendent needing to order something, you know, they need to move quickly, but also moving quickly shouldn't mean that you have to sacrifice, you know, strong business practices like the measuring we're on budget and ensuring we're getting good value for things like equipment rentals. 3:11 And that was really where the original concept for quote to me took shape was connecting the people, not just the office and field team members, but all of their equipment rental vendors inside of one platform. And we had originally built kind of an Expedia for equipment rentals platform connecting field team members with this kind of Rolodex as their equipment rental partners. 3:32 You know it easily get quotes, hence our name quote to me. So if you needed to get competitive quotes and a pretty typical term is 3 bids in a buy. So if we needed a forklift or a generator, getting those three quotes in one place easily from your partner vendors and then bringing that information, if it was something that was requisitioned from someone at the field level, our hard hat wearing, high visibility, vest wearing team member, bringing that visibility into your teams in the office. 3:59 So there is this live visibility and that opportunity for review and approval of that fend. And again, by connecting all of these stakeholders between the office, the field and all of the equipment rental vendors, that was really where the minimum viable product or our MVP, that's where we got things started. 4:15 Speaker 1 Got it, got it. 4:16 From Equipment to All Materials: QuoteToMe's Growth And and just go and bid deeper there. I think you kind of mentioned a little bit about the, the learnings from from the early days, but I'm curious if it was there any kind of payless or specific moment that was like an aha moment, Like maybe something that you, you know, certain feedback you got from certain customer or, or certain iteration on the product that really made you think, wow, now, now I have product market fit like this is I I finally landed on the right thesis or solution set for for quoting. 4:45 Speaker 2 Me. Well, one of the things that we recognized was an early on was that the internal quote to me team, you know, myself and others, we alone weren't going to build this solution what the industry needed. And that what that means is that our customers would be able to tell us and, and by being thoughtful and being understanding and taking a very empathetic approach on understanding, you know what, what our contractor customers are dealing with on a day-to-day basis. 5:13 That's in a, we'll say a business strategy, but very much a product thesis of ours from day one. And that's really where these aha moments have happened throughout the life cycle of the company now where we just continue to listen to our customers. So one of those first early learnings we had was that's great you've done this for equipment apples to make it easy for us to get quotes. 5:32 But we don't always need to get quotes. We have a partner vendor that we work with, maybe that's United Rentals. I don't need 3 quotes. I just wanna order from my, my guy or my, my girl at United Rentals. I want to order something directly make that easy for me. I don't always need to get quotes. 5:48 So maybe that was only 10% of the time it made sense to get those three quotes. So we quickly recognized that, you know, while the competitive quoting tool that we had developed through our get quotes module have value and have great opportunity for savings where it made sense to use that. 6:04 Sometimes it just makes sense to to work with your partner vendor based on the relationship, based on pre negotiated pricing. So that was a very quick early learning for us was you don't always need to create this competitive environment for each equipment rental. There are times where it makes sense to just work with your partner vendor and then the next definitely aha moments coupled together with this, you know, it doesn't always make sense to get quotes was that's great. 6:28 You've made it easy for us to get quotes and order from our equipment rental vendors. But what about everything else? We need to buy materials, We need to buy lumber, We need concrete accessories. Everything else really opened up for us. And of course, with my background being, you know, equipment rentals, you know, the scope of our opportunity really, really widened and widened fast. 6:48 And you know, an order of magnitude as soon as we really saw, you know, this opportunity to provide support in how a contractor is spending on all of their material and equipment needs for their projects. 6:59 Meeting Contractors Where They Are: Empathy in Tech I see. I, I mean, the, the question I, I would have next would be you saw the pain point pretty quickly from your past experience and, and you really wanted to tackle it. But I would say, you know, the common understanding about the construction industry is that typically people don't adopt technology too quickly. 7:16 It's still a bit of a, you know, slower moving industry one. Would you agree with that? And two, if you do, how are you, how are you winning? Like how are you able to convince you know this kind of old guard to to adopt new new solutions? 7:31 Speaker 2 Well, and that was, you know, coming back to why the industry hasn't adopted technology, you know, at the same pace that other industries have. I would say that, you know, it's a challenge in that, that the builders of software need to really empathize with who their end user is. 7:49 And that's where, you know, I was fortunate with my background and a lot of our early team and you know, current teams background, having this building and construction background to really build a lot of empathy for our, our end user and recognizing that. I, I feel like where there's still resistance to change in construction is, and I don't know if this is just novel to construction, but contractors don't like to be told that they have to change or do something differently. 8:15 And that's always been our approach as well as we're actually not here to tell contractors to do something inherently different. We just want to bring them into a platform where you can realize all of the benefits of having this digital and automated workflows that can, can bring a ton of value to your teams. 8:31 And the term we love to use is we meet you where you're at. So we're not saying, hey, you can't call out to your buddy at United Rentals or your buddy Home Depot or whatever it is. We just want to offer you workflows and tools to make your life easier while doing still the same things you're doing today, but removing some of the friction that comes with manual data entry or the siloed communication, Excel spreadsheets, emails back and forth, text messages, phone calls. 8:56 So our strategy and, and really a lot of the way we've designed our product is we're not inherently telling you to change your current business processes or things that you're doing today. We just want to make things easier for you. So for example, you know the ordering of lumber, let's use this as an example. 9:11 You know, a Superintendent needs to call their lumber lumber vendor while using quote to me, you can do that. But as soon as you've called your lumber vendor directly, we create this digital ticket in our system, which then lets people in the office know that, hey, Superintendent John has created this order requisition and has called out to a lumber vendor. 9:28 So there's this real time visibility already. And again, we're not changing the way that this process is happening, but by bringing everyone together that's happening in our platform. The next step of this process is, you know, the quote was in that centralized in our system so that's not siloed in an inbox sitting for the Superintendent or from a phone call scribbled in their notepad. 9:46 Real time someone in the office is seeing this, that, you know, John, the Superintendent wants to buy $10,000 worth of lumber. Again, with the nature of the way we've designed our platform teams in the office have that visibility. Well, now we've confirmed this Fend and now we have, you know, $10,000 worth of lumber coming to site. 10:02 Instead of just taking the delivery slip, when the lumber driver shows up and stuffs the piece of paper in their pocket, this packing slip to confirm what was actually delivered. Well, we have this live capture of the delivery slip that helps to reconcile what we ordered is actually what was received. So a lot of these processes are in place today. 10:20 They're just manual, very old, very archaic processes that aren't streamlined, that don't bring efficiencies and really do kind of just jam up this entire procurement to payment workflow, which, you know, creates, you know, long tail effects of really slow cash flow cycles, which results in invoices not getting paid because delivery slips that confirm that the $10,000 worth of lumber actually showed up on the job site. 10:43 No one in the office knows. It's just crumpled up in that site trailer or it's jammed up where there's all the paperwork in the office trailer desk. And again, that's where this, this thesis of meeting the contractor teams, where they're at, whether you're an office team worker or a field team member or even a vendor, frankly, we've really, we haven't changed the way they're doing things necessarily. 11:03 We've just put everyone into a centralized platform which can allow for automated workflows, AI tools to be able to help augment some of these very manual, archaic processes that they're living inside us still. 11:14 Speaker 1 Today. So it really sounds like that domain expertise is just invaluable in construction as an industry specifically. Got it. 11:23 Augmenting Workers: AI's Impact on Construction Um, maybe you know, looking forwards, right. The conversation nowadays is, is all about AI, AI in everyday life and, and kind of impacting everyone's kind of every single activity from personal to business. 11:39 Where, where do you think AI delivers are most immediate value in, in construction procurement today? And is is quoting me using it right now in in its products. 11:48 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And every conference, like you say, any construction conference or any, any application like you say, I mean, if your parents are talking about AI, then it's it's it's relevant, right? It's kind of like when did Facebook stop get it being cool when everyone's parents were on there. 12:05 But anyways, yeah, definitely the the application of AI and specific to construction, I would say where the industry is today, it's very ready for practical application use of AI. And that's really where talk to me is shining is so much of what I'll call administrative workloads absolutely can be well, utilizing AI tools like what quote to me is developed from, you know, auto extracting data from vendor quotations from invoices, from delivery slips, receipts at Home Depot, reconciling these line items from original purchase orders to delivery slips to invoices, flagging these mismatches between what's on the invoice versus what's been ordered. 12:48 Really making, I'll say, taking some of the guesswork, some of the I'll say the basic thinking, which is maybe the scary part of AI, but very much where industries are ready for today is this augmenting of of the worker or augmenting of the human with AI tools. 13:05 And that's really where quote to me has come in today. Again, not to, you know, entirely disrupt or fake the industry out of its completely out of its comfort zone. But meeting the industry today and its and its stakeholders, including these field team members and arming them with tools that can help to reduce so much of this manual administrative work that's really bogging them down today and allowing them to stay focused on higher value tasks. 13:32 So really where we've developed quote to me today again is, is removing what I'll call it can even be up to, you know, 20 to 30% of their work week, especially as a field team member, but just as applicable for office team members like project managers. 13:47 Taking away what can be again 20 to 30% of this administrative very manual workload, very tedious work away from them and leveraging the AI tools that we've developed. 13:58 Speaker 1 That makes a lot of sense. And yeah, very aligned to what you're saying before where you kind of have to to meet your customers in the middle, right. You can't have them be the ones that have to do all the work to to learn the new tool. You really have to meet them where they're at currently. 14:13 Purpose, Commitment, and Trailblazing as a Founder Maybe switching gears to to some bit more of a general question for the founders that are listening. What advice do you have for other founders when when starting a tech company? 14:22 Speaker 2 Yeah, if you're ready for it and it's something that you are deeply committed to doing it, it can be the most exciting and the most purposeful application of your abilities and your ability to shape the world around you and build a team around you around something that can be incredibly purposeful. 14:42 I would say that the the founder journey is not going to necessarily be an easy journey, but nothing worthwhile in this world is easy. And that's really where you know this, you know, as you think of kind of the pathways of life, you know, you see everybody going down 1 pathway. 15:01 If you choose to be one of those people that decides the trail blaze down the other, that is what you're doing is you're trailblazing. And, and that means, you know, building the right team around you that can help to to support you as part of this trail raising. And while maintaining this, this lens on the opportunity that you're working inside of and ensuring that before you start this founder journey, which requires a lot of trailblazing and reflecting and arming yourself with, you know, wonderful people around you who can support you, ensure that that opportunity is, is one that's worth really battling for. 15:34 And once you've made that full commitment in your heart, in your mind and your spirit, and you put all of your energy towards it, because you believe that this can be truly a game changing opportunity, industry shaping opportunity, you have to give all of yourself to it. And and that's where you know, spend the time to validate the industry, validate that opportunity inside of where you're working within. 15:56 And that comes from a lot of discovery that's, you know, before, you know, taking on capital or putting your job, invest time with good people that you can trust that can help you to validate the opportunity. And once you feel like the industry or that opportunity has has merits for disruption and has merits for founding a company inside of it will require you to give everything you have and do your best to then draw out everything you have from people around you who are also as committed and see the opportunity to drive their purpose inside of this this opportunity as well. 16:30 Again, it's not going to be easy, but it will become and and quickly will become where you can derive so much purpose and and develop so much passion for this opportunity. And you can truly become an industry leader in your space once you've dedicated yourself fully. 16:45 Speaker 1 Yeah, sounds like, I think it's too big. Key ways that I heard are, um, requires a lot of self reflection before you start this journey. Make sure you understand yourself properly and really why you're doing what you're doing. And then two ones you've kind of committed down the path, make sure you understand the purpose, making sure it's purposeful, making sure that people around your purpose driven. 17:09 And that's very much how we think we're investing here. Our framework as well finding founders who are very purpose driven, you know, beyond just financial returns or or anything like that. O awesome John, really appreciate the time 11 last question for you before I let you go. 17:24 Vision for Fintech, Growth, and Partner Appreciation Let the future vision for for quoting me. What does that look like? What's exciting you right now? 17:31 Speaker 2 Amazing. Well, the procurement to payment automation solution that we've developed today has been really focused on the purchase order workflow. So ultimately that's building materials, equipment, I'll say general site services. And today we've helped to facilitate over half a billion dollars in transactional volume with our clients and we see an opportunity to 10 to 100 X that in the next handful of years. 17:55 And that really is by being able to expand the current product that we've been able to offer, which is recognizing that this siloed communication around these financial transactions and these financial documents like supplier quotations for lumber, this delivery tickets actually confirmed that that was delivered. 18:11 And then this invoice approval and reconciliation process, that application of the workflow can also be applied to the subcontract values in the construction industry, which really can be that force multiplier in our strategy of being able to expand that transactional volume from half a billion dollars to 10 to $50 billion through our platform. 18:32 And that really is an opportunity that we see again bringing this visibility and the connecting of the stakeholders that application is there with the very, very much the core product that we've developed today. And with all of that transactional volume swell that we're developing and having that opportunity to help to support and manage those transactions, seeing the opportunity to embed a financial product on top of this transactional volume. 18:57 Now being that we're hosting and helping to manage all of this financial data, taking invoices right through the approval state, being able to embed a Fintech layer where we can offer direct payments, quick pay discounts to vendors and really bring this really illuminate what is right now a very opaque workflow, which is staff flow inside of the construction industry. 19:18 And that's really where we see the the larger opportunity with quote to me is working as as this financial suite that can help to bring visibility to all contractors and all of their related stakeholders, including sub trades and their vendors by bringing everyone together in one connected platform. 19:33 Speaker 1 That's awesome. Sounds like a lot of exciting things to come. Well, that wraps up our podcast. So, John, really appreciate you joining us today and then taking the time. 19:42 Speaker 2 Thanks Liang, appreciate it. And couldn't be couldn't be possible to continue to build quote to me if we didn't have the right partners around us. And that's where we continue to work to align with the right strategic partners And that you know includes our investor partners and all of our strategic partners that have helped to and, and customers that have helped to bring us to where we are. 20:02 Speaker 1 Totally awesome. Thanks, John. 20:03 Speaker 2 Thanks, Wang.