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Women in ConTech with Mallorie Brodie and Lauren Lake

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Jan 26, 2022

Summary: In the
third episode of season 8 of The Propcast, Louisa is chatting to
Mallorie Brodie CEO & Co-Founder and Lauren Lake COO & Co-Founder
of Canadian-based construction technology company, Bridgit about
Women in ConTech. They talk about the growth of the ConTech market,
how Bridgit have secured investment from some of the leading VC’s
and won over some major contractors. You’ll hear about how a huge
part of their software focuses on people and how they have scaled
their team during the war on talent which is a problem that many
founders are facing.

Companies Mentioned: 

Resources: 

Shout Outs:

Key Insights From This Episode: 

  • The war on talent and is a problem most
    founders are facing, and I’m sure that many entrepreneurs are
    experiencing the same pain. – Louisa 
  • We found the problem before creating the
    solution, which we found was different to how a lot of tech
    companies start. – Lauren 
  • You don’t solve the pain point and then stop
    developing the software and just continue marketing into the
    industry. We are making improvements and learning from our
    customers every single week. There is no end to continuing to
    innovate at Bridgit. – Mallorie
  • ConTech market investment has doubled in the
    last decade and it’s accelerated, far beyond the pace of growth of
    just the venture capital. – Mallorie
  • The other thing we’ve seen is just a ton of
    consolidation in the markets. Not all of that capital is going into
    seeding new companies. Some of the larger companies out there are
    seeing all of the innovation within the small and midsize companies
    and there has been a ton of acquisitions. – Mallorie
  • At the beginning, we certainly found it
    challenging to raise capital early on in the business… Over time
    what we were able to do is start to prove our efforts more in the
    actual metrics and numbers of the business. And that makes the
    conversation much easier. – Lauren 
  • You have two female founders… I think looking
    into DEI is extremely important for the growth of a tech business.
    – Lousia
  • We were females in construction technology
    really didn’t make a selection of two male dominated industries. –
    Mallorie
  • Companies felt heard. They get to actually give
    their input into how the product is being developed. And so,
    through that process, we’re also figuring out, which of these
    companies would actually want to use the product once it’s
    developed. – Lauren 
  • People make the assumption that if they don’t
    have a technical background, they can’t work in tech. –
    Lauren

Keywords: Construction, Technology,
Women
, ConTech

About Our Guests:

Mallorie Brodie


https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallorie-brodie-b3885827/
 

Mallorie
Brodie
, CEO and Co-Founder
of Canadian-based construction technology company

Bridgit. She has almost 10 years of
entrepreneurial experience and holds various entrepreneurial
awards, including receiving the top prize at Google Demo Day, being
named Techvibes Entrepreneur of the Year, being named to the Forbes
Manufacturing & Industry 30 Under 30, being named to the Best Of
Canada Forbes Under 30 Innovators list, and being named to the Top
40 Under 40 in Canadian Construction list. Since opening Bridgit,
herself and Lauren have established Bridgit Bench, our flagship
product, as the leading workforce intelligence solution in
construction today. Bridgit Bench is now used by over 100 leading
general contractors across North America like Rogers-O’Brien,
DeAngelis Diamond, Ryan Companies, Alberici, and more.

Lauren Lake

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-lake/ 

Lauren Lake is the COO and
co-founder of Canadian-based construction technology company
Bridgit. With a degree in Civil Structural Engineering from Western
University, With her guidance and expertise in the AEC industry,
Lauren has helped establish Bridgit Bench, the company’s flagship
product, as the leading workforce intelligence solution in
construction today. Lauren has been named in the TechWeek 100,
Forbes Manufacturing & Industry 30 Under 30, and Best Of Canada
Forbes Under 30 Innovators lists. Her true source of pride comes
from helping over 100 contractors across North America get the most
out of their workforce.

About Our Host

Louisa Dickins


https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisa-dickins-ab065392/?originalSubdomain=uk

Louisa started her career in
property working at a well-known estate agency in London. Realising
her people skills, she moved over to Lloyd May to pursue a career
in recruitment. She now is a Director at
LMRE, who are a specialist recruitment firm driven
by PropTech and recruitment professionals, and Louisa oversees
their 5 core areas. Louisa co-founded LMRE and provides a
constructive recruitment platform to the new disruptors in real
estate. Louisa is also on the board of Directors at UK PropTech
Association (UKPA).

About LMRE

www.lmre.tech

LMRE believe there is a better
way to recruit.
LMRE focus on a more comprehensive, client led focus
delivering exceptional talent to the place at the time. They are
passionate about the industry and passionate about people’s
careers. LMRE spend time with each client to become and an
extension of the business, and their transparency and core values
help them grow with the sector. LMRE simplify recruitment and
innovate with our clients and evolve the people driven, PropTech
community.

Timestamps:

[02:30] Talk us through founding
Bridgit and the product. You founded it back it in 2014 in the Tech
Hub, Waterloo, Canada. 

  • We met through an entrepreneurship program.
    Lauren was studying civil engineering and Mallorie had been
    studying business. We also both had family in the
    industry. 
  • Lauren had some of that first-hand experience
    from her time on site, how little technology there was, everything
    was pen and paper back then.
  • We found was people really liked having the
    opportunity to open up and share their challenges. We found the
    problem before creating the solution which we found was different
    to how a lot of tech companies start
  • Through our research and talking with the
    largest general contractors in the U.S, we learned about the
    strategic challenges they were having around the labour shortage in
    general, and just managing their people and really trying to put
    the best project teams forward. And we set out to create our second
    product, Bridgit Bench.

[08:00] Last year you raised $23
million and you are backed by some big names like Autodesk, BDCs
Capital Women and Technology Venture Fund, what are the plans? Is
it further growth across the states? 

  • We brought on Camber Creek and Storm Ventures
    to co-lead the round. Camber brings the deep contraction and
    property tech expertise and Storm has the B2B enterprise SaaS
    experience so them joining the board and coming on as investors has
    been very helpful in the last 6 months. 
  • The key to our overall product development
    process is that it’s very repeatable because we know how to go and
    do the research, find the pain points and actually launch a product
    or a module or a feature to solve for those pain
    points.
  • Selling to mean general contractors right now,
    our primary user, and really excited to just get more and more
    contractors onboard the platform over the next year.
  • We’re definitely looking at adding new product
    nodules and also looking at international markets like the UK and
    Australia. 

[10:10] Tell us a bit more about
the ConTech market in terms of investment. It’s the era that’s
received the most amount of investment in 2021 and set to be bigger
in 2022. What have you seen since founding Bridgit back in
2014? 

  • ConTech market investment has doubled in the
    last decade and its accelerated, far beyond the pace of growth of
    just the venture capital. 
  • The other thing we’ve seen is just a ton of
    consolidation in the markets. Not all of that capital is going into
    seeding new companies. Some of the larger companies out there are
    seeing all of the innovation within the small and midsize
    companies, and there has been a ton of acquisitions.
  • We’ve just seen a dramatic shift since when we
    started the company. The appetite and need for technology now, it
    feels like we’re just at the beginning. 
  • We’ve started to see solutions where the data
    is being collected. And now over the next number of years, I think
    we’re going to see some really interesting opportunities around how
    that data can be put to use. 

[13:00] The statistics say it’s
harder to raise as a female founder. How did you find it? Are there
any tips? 

  • At the beginning, we certainly found it
    challenging to raise capital early on in the business. At that
    point, you’re really just pitching your vision and you’re pitching
    yourselves as founders. And at that point that was much more
    difficult of a sell. 
  • Over time what we were able to do is start to
    prove our efforts more in the actual metrics and numbers of the
    business. And that makes the conversation much easier. And that was
    just because of the momentum and the product market fit that we
    were able to show. And just proving that through all of the growth
    that we have.

[15:30] You’re fast-growing tech
business. How have you gone about recruiting from a diverse talent
pool? What would you say are the most attractive parts of working
in this space? And why did you both go into it? 

  • We both have family backgrounds in
    construction. After our studies and hearing all of the different
    pain points and challenges, we realised we can play a role in
    helping to solve the problems in the industry.
  • At Bridgit we’ve been diverse from day one.
    Mallorie and I did not come from software engineering backgrounds.
    We were females in construction technology in two male dominated
    industries.
  • We had little capital to put to work and hired
    people within our network. If diversity happens early on, it
    becomes really attractive for a lot of people to come and work at a
    company that has people with so many different perspectives and so
    many different backgrounds.
  • We do very specific things in terms of how
    we’re attracting and recruiting talent. We cast a very wide net by
    how we post our job descriptions and job postings. We eliminate a
    lot of the criteria that a lot of tech companies would include
    things like “you need to have X number of years in this type of
    role at another B2B SaaS company”. For more entry level roles,
    we’ve found that you don’t need to have that experience to work at
    Bridgit. 

[21:00] You’ve got some huge
clients. How did you go about securing some of your clients? Any
tips for people looking to break into this industry you’d like to
share?

  • We built our product hand in hand with
    different customers.
  • The construction industry is a very tight nit
    group, a very competitive industry. It was a very deliberate choice
    to start with the enterprise segment, because those companies hold
    a lot of credibility.
  • To have customers speak to how they’ve used the
    product at trade shows doing different podcasts or webinars and
    having the customers speak to the product, that is what we have
    found is the most engaging. 
  • We’ve been very careful to say no when it comes
    to our strategy and the type of client that we’re selling to. So,
    we could really focus on who we could add the most value to given
    where the product is at today and deliver a great
    experience. 
  • We are also very genuine and very honest in how
    we speak to the product.

[26:00] Have you used any sort
of external support, associations or groups to help your
growth? 

  • There are associations that we are part of. We
    have integration partners, companies that our product integrates
    with and we’re able to actually show that business use case for how
    the two products can work together. There’re other partners that we
    work with that are more industry specific. There are marketing
    partners that we work with to do joint webinars and collaborate
    together as different teams.
  • Our base of investors who provide a ton of
    different supports. And we’ve been quite deliberate in building
    that group of investors to have those construction backgrounds and
    people with tech backgrounds.
  • There’s been so many people in the industry
    that have given us so much time. And I think it speaks to
    everyone’s motivation and interest.

[30:00] The ‘LMRE’ part, Louisa
asks the guests to talk about:

  • Lessons
    learned in your career
    • Importance of corporate values. It’s really
      helped to align everyone and the decisions that we’re making and
      how we’re hiring and just the brand that we’re putting out to the
      team and to potential employees. 
    • Deliver results fast. We have win or lose
      together, which is all about teamwork. We have never stopped
      learning.
  • Mention a
    person, product or service
  • Rewarding
    parts of working in the space:
     
    • The industry was open to giving us feedback so
      that we were able to figure out how to build a product, launch it
      and build a 90-person diverse team. 
    • The partnership that Lauren and I have
      together
  • What are you
    most Excited about for the future of the
    space?:
      
    • Expanding on our product, workforce
      planning. 
    • The growth and seeing some of the early team
      members that have been able to just take on challenge after
      challenge.

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