Bricks And Bytes

Bricks And Bytes
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Biweekly

A show about construction technology, business, and entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Bricks and Bytes Podcast, where we bring together the worlds of construction, technology, and entrepreneurship. We explore the innovative ideas and groundbreaking advancements that are shaping the future of the industry.

  1. 1d ago

    $75m To Rebuild MEP Engineering with AI - Endra's Huge Funding in Just 13 months

    "$75M in 13 months. a16z just led their Series A." We sat down with Niklas Lindgren, Co-Founder & CEO of Endra, fresh off their $50M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, taking total funding to $75M in 13 months. Endra is building the purpose-built workspace for MEP engineering, already partnering with AtkinsRéalis, Buro Happold, WSP, Hoare Lea, Ramboll and AFRY. Tune in to find out about: ✅ Why a16z led at Series A instead of waiting for later traction ✅ The Stripe vs PayPal analogy behind Endra's category play (and why they're not replacing Revit) ✅ The honest answer to the billable-hours paradox ✅ What this means for the next generation of MEP graduates Watch now on Spotify and YouTube 🎧 #bricksandbytes #bricksbytes #bricksbucksandbytes #aec #construction #constructiontech #ai #vc

    20 min

  2. 2d ago

    "I Built Honest Buildings, Sold It to Procore - Here's What No One Tells You About the Exit"

    "You could get 60 reviews of a pizza in six seconds, but finding a new contractor takes 12 months and spreadsheets." That's how Riggs Kubiak described the construction industry in 2011 when he started Honest Buildings as a marketplace to connect owners with contractors. It didn't work. The pivot? A project management platform that became so valuable, Procore acquired it. We sat down with Riggs to talk about what killed the original idea, what saved the company, and why the phase of entrepreneurship nobody prepares for is what comes after the acquisition. His new book "Earned" launches June 2nd. Buy it here. The real conversation: ✓ Why dominating a small category beats chasing everyone's problems ✓ The execution hell of building two-sided marketplaces ✓ What nobody tells you about life post-exit ✓ The founder moments that don't make it into LinkedIn posts Watch the full episode now on YouTube and Spotify. #bricksandbytes #constructiontech #entrepreneurship #founders #aec Our Sponsors: BreadCrumb- 50,000+ projects globally. All running safer, faster, with Breadcrumb. - breadcrumb.co Aphex is the multiplayer planning platform where construction teams plan together, stay aligned, and deliver projects faster – check out aphex.co Archdesk - “The #1 Construction Management Software for Growing Companies - Manage your projects from Tender to Handover” check archdesk.com Chapters 00:00 Intro 01:28 Introduction and Journey to Honest Buildings 04:49 The Evolution of Honest Buildings 11:10 Navigating the Pivot: Lessons Learned 13:41 Sales Cycle Challenges in Construction Tech 13:42 Sponsors 16:44 Sales Cycle Challenges in Construction Tech 28:45 Reflections on Key Mistakes and Difficult Times 30:57 Acquisition by Procore: The Journey Ahead 34:02 Closing the Gap in Construction Management 35:38 The Importance of Negotiation in Acquisitions 39:34 Navigating Post-Acquisition Roles 42:00 The Entrepreneurial Residence Experience 46:39 Founders Forum: Building Community 48:45 Understanding Acquisition Motivations 53:20 Reflections on the Integration Process 56:13 The Journey of Entrepreneurship 1:02:33 Life After Acquisition: The Next Chapter

    1h 4m
  3. Four Stories That Changed Construction Last Month

    5d ago

    Four Stories That Changed Construction Last Month

    Missed an episode of the Executive Briefing last month? This is your ten-minute catch-up. Four stories from the last four weeks, what each one means for your business, and which are worth going back to in full. Inside: The new kind of buyer circling construction, and why they want your firm, not your techThe market split the banks have started to price inThe contractor who killed his ERP, his dispatch system and his time cards, and rebuilt on one platformWhy AI got 280 times cheaper while everyone's bills went upNo longer form this week (I have been busy in France!! - more on that soon). Just the month that mattered, in plain English, for people who run construction businesses. Which of the four hit hardest? Tell us in the comments on the LinkedIn post.

    7 min

  4. May 26

    From Techstars To Construction Tech: Why 80% Of Her Startup Decks Started With AI

    "80% of the decks landing on her desk had AI on slide one." This week on Bricks & Bytes we sat down with Jennifer Davis, who recently joined Suffolk Technologies after five years as Managing Director of Techstars Boston, where she reviewed thousands of applications and ran 65+ companies through the program. She brought the kind of pattern recognition you only get from saying no a few thousand times. Tune in to find out about: ✅ Why the bar has risen across pre-seed, seed, and Series A — and what VCs now want to see before they write a check ✅ The co-founder mistake that kills more startups than bad ideas (and why 50/50 equity splits are a red flag) ✅ Why "not all money is created equally" — and how founder-unfriendly terms signed early can derail an exit years later ✅ What Jennifer is looking for as she takes the reins on Suffolk's Boost accelerator, and the founder profile she'd most want to back in 2027 Listen on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube 🎧 #aec #construction #constructiontech #bricksandbytes #bricksbytes #ai #vc Our Sponsors: BreadCrumb- 50,000+ projects globally. All running safer, faster, with Breadcrumb. - breadcrumb.co Aphex is the multiplayer planning platform where construction teams plan together, stay aligned, and deliver projects faster – check out aphex.co Archdesk - “The #1 Construction Management Software for Growing Companies - Manage your projects from Tender to Handover” check archdesk.com Chapters 00:00 Intro 01:00 Introduction to Jennifer Davis and Transition to Suffolk Tech 04:09 Insights from Techstars Boston 07:01 Key Traits of Successful Founders 10:06 Challenges in the Startup Ecosystem 12:57 The Importance of Problem-Solution Fit 15:57 The Role of AI in Startups 18:51 Generalist vs. Vertical VCs 21:57 Navigating the Built World Space 25:08 The Future of Construction Technology 27:53 Suffolk Tech's Boost Program 31:03 Advice for Founders in the Current Landscape 33:54 Conclusion and Future Outlook

    42 min
  5. £102bn Failure, AI Bills, and the Construction Robots Shipping Now

    May 23

    £102bn Failure, AI Bills, and the Construction Robots Shipping Now

    This week in construction: the official verdict on HS2 landed, and it's worse than most people realise. Cost to complete is now £87.7-102.7bn. First services delayed to 2036. Britain is paying 15-20x the European rate per kilometre for high-speed rail. But the more interesting stories happened underneath it. Owen breaks down what every construction executive needs to know about three things colliding this week. One. The AI cost paradox. Per-token prices have dropped 280x in two years. So why are enterprise AI bills exploding? OpenAI just doubled its flagship rate card. Anthropic raised prices without touching the rate card at all. The pricing page is no longer telling you what your bill will look like. And Jean-Marc Shimizu, who runs open innovation at one of Japan's top five contractors, says the subsidy era is ending. Two. The construction robotics story almost nobody outside venture capital is reading. After sixty years as the last unautomated sector, the robots are finally shipping. Bedrock raised $270m in February. Crewline took $7m as a four-person team with a $26m order book waiting. Rebar tying robots are running at 4-6x human speed. Solar piling, reality capture, and a new category of self-verifying installation robots are all generating real revenue. Plus the corrective on humanoids that most executives haven't heard yet. Three. HS2 and what it actually means. Three reviews, twelve months, same five conclusions. And the uncomfortable question every leader needs to sit with: is your business built like HS2, or like the alternative? If you run a construction business, this is the briefing that will reshape how you read the next twelve months. Plus details on the in-person fireside conversation with Chetan Kotur, the ex-Polestar designer now leading the team rebuilding Laing O'Rourke from the inside. London, 3rd June, evening of Digital Construction Week. Senior exec spaces already filling. Show notes, references, and the link to sign up for the full newsletter and our Physical AI 2026 research are below: ------ 1. Event: Re-Engineering The Main Contractor · Luma2. Physical AI and Robotics Report: https://bricks-bytes.com/downloads/physical-ai-robotics-2026/ 3. Newsletter: https://bricks-bytes.beehiiv.com/

    28 min

  6. May 22

    AI Costs Are Quietly Exploding, HS2 now £102.7bn, Waymo Steals Luggage

    "Mandating how many AI tokens your engineers burn isn't a productivity metric. It has nothing to do with outcomes." That's Dustin Devan, CEO of Ediphi and it's one of the sharpest takes on the AI spend debate we've had on the show This week on Bricks, Bucks and Bytes we're joined by Cameron Page of ClearStory, processing $3.5B in change orders every month, and Sophia Millar of Sonnaball Instruments, catching weld defects in real time before they ever reach inspection. Tune in to find out about: ✅ Why enterprise AI bills keep rising even as token costs fall ✅ How ClearStory is replacing email-and-spreadsheet change order chaos for 7,500 companies ✅ Why 1.3 million categorised change orders might be construction's most underrated dataset ✅ How acoustic weld detection is transforming prefab quality control 🎧 Listen now on Spotify and YouTube #bricksandbytes #bricksbucksandbytes #aec #construction #constructiontech #ai Our Sponsors: BreadCrumb- 50,000+ projects globally. All running safer, faster, with Breadcrumb. - breadcrumb.co Aphex is the multiplayer planning platform where construction teams plan together, stay aligned, and deliver projects faster – check out aphex.co Archdesk - “The #1 Construction Management Software for Growing Companies - Manage your projects from Tender to Handover” check archdesk.com Chapters 00:00 Intro 00:56 Reunion and Introduction 01:57 AI Tokens and Their Costs 07:57 Managing AI Token Usage 11:21 Balancing Speed and Customer Needs 15:13 Efficiency in AI Usage 20:21 Waymo's Customer Service Incident 21:57 Discussion on Expensive Rail Projects 22:01 The Cost of High-Speed Rail in the UK 26:03 Comparing Costs: What Could $100 Billion Buy? 27:44 Debating Income Tax and Jeff Bezos' Proposal 30:18 The Rise of Trillionaires: Elon Musk's Potential 32:07 Data Centers in Space: A Feasible Future? 35:09 ClearStory: Revolutionizing Change Order Management 42:00 Streamlining Change Order Management 45:36 ClearStory's Market Position and Growth 47:09 Leveraging Change Order Data for Insights 50:01 Innovations in Welding Defect Detection 56:32 The Role of AI in Welding Quality Control

    1h 6m

  7. May 19

    Why Zero RFI Is Buying Owner Rep Firms Instead Of Selling Software

    "If you're not tinkering with AI today, it's going to be a problem for you in the future." This week on Bricks & Bytes we sat down with David Niewiadomski from Zero RFI — KP Reddy's new venture backed by General Catalyst that's rolling up owner reps, advisory, and building data firms under one roof. Tune in to find out: ✅ Why standalone construction tech software is dying as a business model ✅ What General Catalyst saw in Zero RFI and why services beat SaaS for industry impact ✅ Why owners should never pay a subscription to access their own building data ✅ Why owner rep firms under 50 people are the sweet spot for acquisition Watch now on Spotify and Youtube. 🎧 #aec #construction #constructiontech #bricksandbytes #bricksbytes #ai #vc Our Sponsors: BreadCrumb- 50,000+ projects globally. All running safer, faster, with Breadcrumb. - breadcrumb.co Aphex is the multiplayer planning platform where construction teams plan together, stay aligned, and deliver projects faster – check out aphex.co Archdesk - “The #1 Construction Management Software for Growing Companies - Manage your projects from Tender to Handover” check archdesk.com Chapters 00:00 Teaser 00:47 Introduction to Zero RFI and Its Founders 03:22 The Role of AI in Construction Tech 06:27 Understanding Zero RFI's Unique Approach 09:21 The Importance of Data Integration 11:10 Sponsors 14:12 Acquisitions and Their Impact on Zero RFI 17:34 General Catalyst's Investment and Vision 20:24 Building Works and Its Evolution 23:26 The Future of Construction Technology 25:33 The Evolution of AI in Software Development 26:30 Leveraging Historical Data for Current Projects 29:15 Acquisition Strategies and Scaling Opportunities 32:27 The Future of Construction Firms in a Tech-Driven World 34:53 The Role of Owners in Project Management 36:41 Targeting the Orchestration Layer in Construction 38:51 Differentiating Zero RFI from Other Tech Players 40:29 Envisioning the Future of Zero RFI 41:18 Call to Action for Industry Professionals

    44 min

  8. May 15

    Why Pre-Con Is So Broken, AI Takeoff Hype, California Wealth Tax, $2.18T Construction Spend & Bentley’s $424M Quarter

    "Pre-construction has become less efficient than construction itself." That is the claim Dustin Devan made on this week's Bricks, Bucks & Bytes after returning from Advancing Pre-Con. Martin, Patric Hellermann and Dustin also dug into the proposed California wealth tax, Bentley's Q1 earnings, and why VCs keep funding the 51st AI takeoff company. Tune in to find out about: ✅ Why 80% of project cost is locked in before design is even 30% done ✅ How the California wealth tax proposal would actually value private companies ✅ Patric's case for indexing into "directionally right" early-stage bets ✅ Why takeoff is a feature, not a company Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. #aec #construction #constructiontech #bricksandbytes #bricksbucksandbytes #ai #vc Our Sponsors: BreadCrumb- 50,000+ projects globally. All running safer, faster, with Breadcrumb. - breadcrumb.co Aphex is the multiplayer planning platform where construction teams plan together, stay aligned, and deliver projects faster – check out aphex.co Archdesk -  “The #1 Construction Management Software for Growing Companies - Manage your projects from Tender to Handover” check archdesk.com Chapters 00:00 Intro 00:35 Introduction and Overview of Topics 02:15 US Construction Spending Trends 09:52 California Wealth Tax Proposal 26:29 Advancing Pre-Construction Insights 34:38 Building Cost Infrastructure and Pricing Engines 40:30 The Role of Design in Construction Projects 45:39 The Importance of Feasibility in Design 50:46 The Impact of AI on Construction Estimation 53:25 Navigating the Takeoff Tool Landscape 57:02 Innovations in Construction Robotics

    1 hr
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About

A show about construction technology, business, and entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Bricks and Bytes Podcast, where we bring together the worlds of construction, technology, and entrepreneurship. We explore the innovative ideas and groundbreaking advancements that are shaping the future of the industry.

Information

  • Creator
    Bricks And Bytes
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    309
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Bricks And Bytes
  • Show Website
    Bricks And Bytes

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