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How Can Technology Revolutionise The Construction Industry? With Timothy Cocaro And Simon Curtis

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May 18, 2022

Summary: On the 4th episode of season 9, Louisa is
joined by

Timothy Cocaro
, CEO and
Founder of
canibuild and
Simon Curtis
, Chief Operating Officer at G.J. Gardner Homes. They discuss the story behind canibuild and
how its product is revolutionising compliance, design and sales in
the construction world. Simon shares how G.J. Gardner Homes is
using canibuild’s product. They chat about what major trends can be
seen in the ConTech industry and what is upcoming for canibuild.
The key insight in this episode is that in ConTech, the one thing
you don’t want to do is to lose the human touch by detaching from
your customer. Instead, you need to bring the customer along on the
journey. 


Resources:


Companies Mentioned:


Shout Outs:


Key Insights From This Episode: 

  • With ConTech, the one thing you don’t want to
    do is detach from your customer. – Simon
  • Clients are reaching a point where they’re
    seeing construction similar to buying something on Amazon. They
    want answers quickly and they want transparency. –
    Timothy
  • Customers have a huge thirst for knowledge. –
    Simon


Keywords:

Construction, ConTech,
technology, built environment


About Our Guests:

Timothy Cocaro, CEO/Founder of canibuild


Timothy Cocaro
possesses
the unlikely mix of being both a builder by trade and a holder of a
computer science degree. 

Timothy’s tenure as Founder and
CEO of Australia’s leading Granny Flat company, provided the
necessary insight to see and, more importantly, understand the pain
points of the construction industry.  

This led Timothy to put his
degree in computer science to use by creating a modern solution,
that genuinely aligns with the needs of the construction
industry. 

In 2019, Timothy hung up his
hard hat when he became Founder and CEO of canibuild, a
world-first, hypergrowth Prop Tech that is transforming the
construction landscape.  

canibuild was developed to be
the solution to the many root problems in the construction industry
with its AI engine allowing home, pool, granny flat & other
builders to instantly check site feasibility, site costs, generate
site plans & produce quotes with just a click. 

canibuild has gained
unprecedented traction across the construction industry since its
inception, with thousands of searches on the platform every day.
canibuild has re-energised the industry by providing its
subscribers the ability to be hyper-efficient at a time when the
market is booming. 

canibuild 

canibuild allows builders to replace the need for
physical site visits, drafting, surveying, estimating and instead
optimising this complex series of high friction steps into an
instant point of transaction. canibuild clients can now go from
seeing a project site virtually with a client to contract
instantly. This not only allows builders to be more efficient but
also covers a much wider area geographically which is a
game-changer in an industry that is so fragmented.

Simon Curtis, Chief Operating Officer at G.J. Gardner
Homes


Simon Curtis

is the Chief Operating Officer of
G.J. Gardner Homes NSW/ACT and WA and is responsible for the
brand’s operation in these states. Leading a Head Office team,
Simon’s primary responsibilities are:

  • To advise and support franchise partners within
    all areas of their business 
  • To work with the State Marketing Manager on
    State and Local Area marketing activities
  • To drive franchise growth of GJ Gardner Homes
    in NSW/ACT and WA 
  • To provide training to the group in all areas
    of their business 
  • To ensure the group continues to have the
    support, tools and resources necessary for growth

With more than 20 years of
experience at some of Australia’s largest property companies under
his belt, Simon has proven that he is a strong leader and clear
communicator who possesses the ability to motivate, mentor and
inspire others.

Simon holds a Bachelor of
Business from the University of Queensland and a Master of Project
Management from the University of Southern Queensland.


G.J Gardner Homes  

G.J. Gardner Homes is a custom home building company. They have
built over 36,000 quality, customised homes over the past 37 years
and continue to grow on the back of a single premise – ensuring
every customer would refer them to their closest friend. Throughout
the building of a new home, they are dedicated to the highest
standard of workmanship. Each of their qualified builders and
preferred subcontractors have been selected for their individual
standards of expertise and their commitment to
excellence.

From humble beginnings in 1983
in Queensland as an independent building firm owned by Greg
Gardner, G.J. Gardner Homes quickly grew to 8 regional offices,
building as many as 1,000 custom homes a year. G.J. Gardner Homes
quickly established a reputation for building great value, quality
homes. Due to popular demand, Greg decided to franchise the
business and almost immediately became one of Queensland’s largest
privately owned building companies. Fast forward to today, G.J.
Gardner Homes has become a household name throughout Australia, New
Zealand and the USA. With over 120 franchisees operating throughout
the world, supported by multiple global offices, G.J. Gardner Homes
continues to build a reputation for reliability and for being a
company our customers can trust.


About Our Host

Louisa Dickins

Louisa is the co-founder of LMRE, which has rapidly
become the market leading global PropTech recruitment platform and
search consultancy with operations across North America, United
Kingdom, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

To promote the industry she is
so passionate about, Louisa set up the Global podcast


‘The Propcast’
where she
hosts and invites guests from the built environment space to join
her in conversation about innovation.


About LMRE

LMRE is globally recognised for leading the way in
Real Estate Tech & Innovation talent management.

From the outset our vision was
to become a global provider of the very best strategic talent to
the most innovative organisations in PropTech, ConTech, Smart
Buildings, ESG, Sustainability and Strategic Consulting.

At LMRE we are fully committed
at all times to exceed the expectations of our candidates and
clients by providing the very best advice and by unlocking
exclusive opportunities across our global network in the UK,
Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.


Timestamps:

[02:45] Timothy: Can you talk us
through your journey to founding canibuild?

  • I have a background in computer science and in
    the .com crash, I moved over to construction where I spent a few
    years developing a construction company that focused in the granny
    flat industry. 
  • During my boots on the ground experience, I
    tried to see how technology can better improve construction and one
    aspect is how construction is sold. 
  • We have been developing our application for 6
    years and we went to market 2 years ago. 

 [05:45] Timothy: Can you
elaborate a bit more about your product?

  • Client facing sales application tool for
    construction companies that condenses all the steps involved in
    construction into a single transaction. 
  • It does all the compliance and visually shows
    how that build looks on that block of land, it also takes into
    account factors such as contours so all parties can visually see
    what’s happening.

[08:25] Simon: Can you talk us
through your role when it comes down to innovation technology and
how you came across Tim’s business, canibuild? 

  • We’re a residential builder, building mainly
    for mum and dads, but more importantly, we’re a franchised
    business.
  • canibuild technology came to us from one of our
    salespeople – a client walked into the office and had a print out
    of an outcome of what this tech does and in a short space of time,
    we adopted the technology.

[11:15] Timothy: How much time
does this save? 

  • You have to imagine that a sales consultant
    needs to answer quite a few questions that might presumably look
    easy. 
  • The back and forth process might take weeks but
    canibuild collapses all of those down to potentially the same
    day.

[13:45] Simon: This product must
allow you to retain buyers and not let them go to competitors, can
you elaborate? 

  • The one thing you don’t want to do is detach
    from your customer but rather demonstrate
    knowledge. 
  • This allows us to show the customer in real
    time and keep the conversation going without detaching.

[16:15] Simon: How have you gone
about upskilling your 80-90 consultants? 

  • We brought this technology in early in 2020,
    nicely coinciding with the lockdowns so we trained all of our team
    remotely and in one session.
  • Our house designs are preloaded onto the
    software.
  • We had a sales conference at some point, which
    Tim presented.  

[17:35] Simon: Have you seen an
increase in sales or customers? 

  • The market over the last 18 months has been
    incredibly buoyant so it is difficult to judge. 
  • We can have a look at how the performance is
    and we can have a look at the uptake. We can also see if it is
    utilising the software or not.
  • The feedback from the new hands consultants has
    been overwhelmingly positive.

 [18:50] Simon: When did
you start looking at your innovation strategy? Was it pre- or
post-COVID?

  • The brand has always operated off its own
    software and in 2019 there was a redesign of the software to move
    to a cloud based system and that encompasses all aspects that we
    need to run these businesses.
  • We use 2 external pieces of technology,
    canibuild and HazardCo.

 [20:25] Timothy: What is
next for the growth and development of your product?

  • Continue expanding on the features of the
    system to be able to better help our clients.
  • We are releasing a 3D component as well as
    doing  site costs automatically.
  • There are marketplace opportunities like
    bushfire reports and engineer reports and even architectural
    reports, particularly in the pool industry. 
  • We are expanding our footprint in the United
    States.

[22:00] Both: Are there any
major trends which you can pick out across construction and what
are you forecasting for the next couple of years?

  • Timothy: Builders have started to adopt
    technology in ways that they haven’t, prior to COVID.
  • Simon: Customers have a thirst for knowledge,
    so when they are walking through a display home for the first time,
    they know a lot about us. 
  • Simon: We need to bring customers along for the
    journey, especially in construction. 

[27:00] The ‘LMRE’ part, Louisa asks the guests to talk
about; 

L – Touch on
the main 
lessons you have learnt throughout your
career.

Timothy: Start early, get your
hands dirty and build a business that doesn’t scale, you can worry
about the scaling later.

Simon: Self-belief and never
stop learning. 

M – Please give
a
 mention to anyone / product / service.

Timothy: All our current
clients. 

Simon: Tim and his
team. 

R – What has
been the most 
rewarding aspect of working in PropTech?

Timothy: Nothing more rewarding
than seeing a mum, dad and their family move into their
home.

E – What are
you 
excited about in the future of PropTech?

Timothy: Stay positive and keep
pushing forward.

Simon: All the things I don’t
know about tech. 


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