Build Perspectives Podcast

Tim Seims and Carolina Baffigo
  • 5.0 (27)
  • Investing
  • Updated Biweekly

We bridge Wall Street and Job Sites. Real stories, real numbers, real consequences. Hosted by Carolina Baffigo and Tim Seims. https://tinyurl.com/Build-Perspectives

  1. 4d ago

    KP Reddy: Your Price Is Why the C-Suite Doesn't Know You Exist

    In this episode of Build Perspectives, we sit down with KP Reddy. Investor, civil engineer, author, and one of the clearest thinkers in construction tech. We get into the real questions founders should be asking: What makes a problem venture-fundable? Why does pricing determine your visibility? And why do so many startups build for the wrong customer? KP started coding at 13 on an IBM PC his father handed him, funded his first startup on a Discover card, and pivoted a 1996 web-based project management tool into telecom - two people to 1,200 and an IPO in three years. Three decades later he's writing checks into material science, robotics, and the hard problems some VCs won't touch. We explore: Why most construction tech could be bootstrapped, not VC-backed Pricing psychology: why $5,000 keeps you invisible and $50,000 gets you a meeting with the CFO The fragmentation problem KP's son is solving with OneBuild: turning offsite methods into vetted SKUs for regional builders Why affordable housing is the wrong place to test innovation Material science, AI, and the frontier problems worth solving, including robots carving stone Why real estate investors make terrible VCs (and why KP hates the word "proptech") What KP actually looks for before writing a check Leadership gaps in AEC, and why they create opportunities ALSO, you can hear more about one of his companies, ZeroRFI on a prior BP Pod! If you're a founder, VC, builder, or building products leader, this is a masterclass in thinking clearly about innovation, adoption, and creating businesses that survive market cycles. Links: KP Reddy KP Reddy Co: https://kpreddy.co Email: kp@kpreddy.co LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpreddy/ Substack (personal): https://kpreddy.substack.com Substack (KP Reddy Co / Insights by KP): https://insightsbykp.substack.com KP Unpacked podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/1okdc2zZdBJTXALxnadBSw | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kp-unpacked/id1495750961 Shadow Ventures: https://shadow.vc Books Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B079HR189J Creating the Intangible Enterprise: The Critical Skills Required to Thrive in an AI-Driven World (2024) — https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Intangible-Enterprise-Critical-AI-Driven/dp/B0D2VJZTCJ What You Know About Startups Is Wrong (2018) — https://www.amazon.com/What-Know-About-Startups-Wrong/dp/1619618796 BIM for Building Owners and Developers: Making a Business Case for Using BIM on Projects (Wiley, 2012) — https://www.amazon.com/BIM-Building-Owners-Developers-Business/dp/0470905980 The AEC Summit https://aecsummit.co — annual full-day gathering of innovation officers, CEOs, and owners, timed for strategic planning season Speaker archive: https://www.aecsummit.co/speakers Also mentioned ICON: https://www.iconbuild.com Monumental Labs: https://monumentallabs.co Branch Technology: https://www.branch.technology MiTek: https://www.mitek.com Housing Innovation Alliance: https://housinginnovationalliance.com Builders FirstSource: https://www.bldr.com Schneider Electric: https://www.se.com Slate Auto: https://www.slate.auto The Goal, Eliyahu M. Goldratt: https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884271951 Build Perspectives https://buildperspectives.com Presented by Project Fluent Timestamps: 01:00 — Second-generation civil engineer, an IBM PC at 13, and being told he'd replace his dad's whole team 03:30 — The first startup: 1996, web-based project management, and a general contractor telling him the internet was a fad 04:30 — "My first investor was Discover" — credit card limits and the WorldCom pivot that took him from 2 to 1,200 people 06:15 — Pricing as a visibility strategy: why $29/month goes nowhere and $50,000 gets you the CFO 08:00 — Targeting the wrong customer: ICON, $300K starter homes, and why the second move-up buyer was the real market 09:45 — Why anything new can't launch into the affordable segment — the iPhone analogy and the 50-acres-with-a-creek pattern 13:20 — OneBuild: cataloging panels, 3D printing, and offsite methods into SKUs, then handing builders the integration layer they don't have R&D teams to build 16:45 — Why 25-year-olds think in brand: "Powered by OneBuild" 17:45 — Why real estate investors make terrible VCs — and why he never asks early-stage companies about revenue 20:00 — Monumental Labs, robots chiseling stone, and why our buildings got so boring 21:00 — The lost trades: masonry, constrained labor, and why every building looks the same 22:20 — The sushi-in-Kansas-City theory of building materials distribution 23:45 — Material science as the industry's real unlock — and why AI-driven drug discovery is the model 25:00 — Greenbuild, adoption curves, and how green went from specialty catalog to core catalog 26:30 — Three reasons KP isn't sold on EVs 28:40 — Highway 1, the daily drive as meditation, and the ranch he almost bought 32:45 — The Summit, year nine — and Vibethon: 18 teams who'd never written code, 14 working prototypes in six hours 34:45 — Why every non-technical SaaS CEO should clear two days and try to build their own product 36:00 — What he looks for before writing a check: pattern of thinking, not domain credentials 37:00 — "I worked at Turner for 15 years, so this is the answer" — the trap of experiential product design 38:15 — "You're not venture fundable" is not an insult, it's permission to own more of your company 39:45 — Why he stays in this industry: investors who write $20K checks because they want you to succeed 43:30 — The incubator model: 20 companies, no exit pressure, and the CEO role he's hiring for 46:00 — Three books, a fourth in progress — and why he's writing fiction 47:50 — The Carolina Question: most AEC leadership is C+, and it's because tenure is the promotion criteria

  2. Jul 21

    Erase the Green Premium: Joe Rozza on Decarb, Insurance, and Building to the Underwriting

    Joe Rozza, Chief Sustainability Officer at Ryan Companies, doesn't run a sustainability strategy. He runs a sustainability business strategy, and the difference is the whole episode. Joe spent almost half his career at Coca-Cola managing water risk across 1,000 plants in 200 countries before bringing that methodology into commercial real estate. Now he's applying it at a $5B developer-builder-owner: sustainability in the BD pipeline, decarbonization roadmaps for 23 classes of construction materials, and buildings designed to the same secondary modifiers insurers use to price flood, hail, and wind. In this episode: Why Joe wants to erase "green premium" from the industry's vocabulary The Project Sustainability Planning process: total cost of ownership, NOI, cap rate, terminal value How building product manufacturers get into Ryan's supplier program, starting with a two-hour strategy gap assessment "Tell me when you're interested in my problem set" — the question suppliers should be asking their biggest customers Insurance costs up 88% in five years and what that means for materials and design Joe's prediction, on the record: sustainability becomes the primary selection criteria within one to three years The free Aqueduct water stress tool Joe helped create, and why water risk isn't just a Southern California problem Carbon footprint accountability: whose carbon is it, and why financial control should decide Resources: From Vulnerability to Value playbook (Resiliency Company website) WRI Aqueduct platform: https://www.wri.org/aqueduct Joe Rozza on LinkedIn Build Perspectives is made possible by Spec to Scale and the Advancing Construction Event series. Join us at Advancing Construction Decarbonization in Denver, July 28–30. 10% discount code: BUILDPERSPECTIVES10

  3. Jul 14

    LEED V5, Embodied Carbon, and Why 2026 Is Prep Year with Kristin Brubaker, Green Badger

    LEED V5 got pushed to June 30, 2027 — and if your team hears "delay" and relaxes, you're going to be underwater. In this episode we sit down with Kristin Brubaker, Head of Sustainable Construction Solutions at Green Badger, to walk the industry through what actually changes and what a smart GC, sustainability director, or building product manufacturer should be doing with the runway.   Kristin brings her environmental science background, four years at Whiting-Turner, and a front-row seat to thousands of LEED projects into a conversation that is equal parts masterclass and gut check. We cover:   Why sustainability submittals are still one of the most manual, RFI-heavy pain points in construction — and how Green Badger's 125,000+ product database (now integrated with EC3 and the HPD Collaborative) removes the busywork The mandatory embodied carbon assessment coming in V5 for structure, enclosure, and hardscape — and the carbon literacy your GC team needs to build now The commingled waste shake-up: new third-party facility rules, the East Coast / West Coast infrastructure gap, and what it means for anyone building data centers or campuses in the middle of the country The product selection credit that just tripled in scope — from documenting a few products to tracking every product in a category Buy Clean: the nine-state policy putting embodied carbon thresholds on public projects with real teeth The single most important document a building product manufacturer can invest in right now (hint: it's a product-specific Type 3 EPD) Green Badger Academy — the free sustainability curriculum designed for the project engineer, APM, or rep who just got handed a LEED project   Whether you're on the GC side wondering how to prepare your teams, on the manufacturer side trying to stay on the shortlist, or on the ownership side making the business case — this is the episode. Episode Sponsor Brought to you by Hanson Wade's Advancing Construction Decarbonization. Denver, July 28–30, 2026. Kristin is speaking on day one and Green Badger has a table throughout. Use the 10% discount code below to register.   Discount code: BUILDPERSPECTIVES10 Register: HERE  Connect Kristin Brubaker on LinkedIn Green Badger: https://getgreenbadger.com Green Badger Academy

  4. Jul 7

    Decarbonizing Construction w/ Denyse Von Opbergen (EllisDon)

    We're joined by Denyse Von Opbergen, Director of Climate and Sustainability at EllisDon — one of Canada's largest general contractors — to work through what decarbonizing construction actually looks like inside a project, not on a slide. Denyse walks us through the influence-versus-control frame she uses to move the needle on scope 3 emissions a contractor can't dictate, the "no silver bullet" filter that weighs Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) against lead time, cost, and constructability, and why the transition to a decarbonized industry doesn't run brown-to-green — it runs through the murky green middle, including the roads and infrastructure that make sustainability possible in the first place. What we cover: How EllisDon sets its own sustainability targets and tracks scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions What contractors actually ask manufacturers for beyond EPDs and why the right people in the room matters more than the perfect document Why pre-construction is where decarbonization is won or value-engineered out The "pilot small, then scale" playbook for de-risking new low-carbon materials (starting in landscape work before foundations) Recent projects: the PNE Amphitheater (mass timber, British Columbia) and the new Surrey Hospital (embodied carbon reduction through concrete mix optimization) Where the industry is still getting decarbonization wrong — and why the biggest barrier isn't technology, it's process The Canadian Construction Sustainability Alliance and what nine GCs collaborating unlocks that individual companies can't What Denyse hopes to bring back from Advancing Construction Decarbonization in Denver Chapters: (0:00) Meet Denyse Von Opbergen from EllisDon (2:00) Translator — the identity of a climate lead (5:00) How EllisDon sets its sustainability targets (6:00) The Canadian Construction Sustainability Alliance (8:00) Scope 1, 2, 3 — influence versus control (10:00) No silver bullet — the "on this project" filter (13:00) Why early conversations kill the trade-off (17:00) Pilot low-risk before you scale (20:00) PNE Amphitheater and Surrey Hospital (22:00) Where the industry keeps getting decarb wrong (28:00) Where the biggest emissions spikes actually live (33:00) Build the infrastructure that enables sustainability (34:00) Murky green — what the transition actually looks like About the guest: Denyse Von Opbergen is Director of Climate and Sustainability at EllisDon, one of the largest general contractors in Canada. She started in public policy in the Netherlands, moved through consulting in Toronto, and now runs EllisDon's climate strategy across a decentralized global construction business. Denyse will be a headliner at Advancing Construction Decarbonization in Denver, July 28-30. About Build Perspectives: Build Perspectives is a podcast for building products sales leaders, construction executives, and the investors and innovators shaping where the industry goes next. Hosted by Carolina Baffigo (Spec to Scale, Project Fluent) and Tim Seims (Profit Arc). New episodes weekly. Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by Advancing Construction Decarbonization in Denver, July 28-30.  Homepage: https://ter.li/flqg1e1v Full Event Guide: https://ter.li/u995rat5 Registration: https://ter.li/7ioh2p6w Use Discount code BUILDPERSPECTIVES10 for 10% off admission.  Connect: Denyse Von Opbergen — LinkedIn EllisDon — ellisdon.com Carolina Baffigo — LinkedIn / carolinabaffigo.com Build Perspectives — LinkedIn

  5. Jul 3

    "We've More Than Cracked the Code": 90% Complete Facades Before Moduled Leaves the Factory

    Recorded live at Advancing Prefabrication 2026 in Dallas, Tim walks the expo floor with James Haas, who leads modular and prefab efforts at Nichiha. (At the time of recording, Tim was also wearing a Nichiha hat. He's since moved on to a new adventure.)  The conversation everyone's having at Advancing Prefab this year? Data centers. But not the windowless boxes of yesteryear, municipalities are now mandating warmer, more inviting exteriors, and grid entropy is forcing data centers closer to urban cores where looks actually matter. That's a facade opportunity hiding in plain sight. James pulls back the curtain on Nichiha's new AIA-certified CEU course tackling the industry's oldest bugaboo: mate line and plate line transitions. The unlock is a deceptively simple two-piece trim - base plate installed in the factory, face plate popped on after modules are stacked and stitched - letting manufacturers ship facades 85–90% complete instead of leaving whole panel runs off for field weaving. Proof points range from 7 Brew coffee shops delivered with 100% of the facade installed to major healthcare expansions hitting 80–90% factory completion. CATCH THE LATEST IN MEP PREFAB Advancing Electrical Prefabrication: Dallas, July 22–24, 2026 Listeners get 10% off with code BPMP63295 https://advancing-electrical-prefabrication.com/ Also in this episode: Why the winning value prop isn't cost savings. It's certainty: material certainty, speed to occupancy, and getting out of the construction loan faster James's two-to-three degrees of separation theory: your next contact is probably already in your phone A challenge to event organizers: map how the industry actually connects, and get every trade it takes to deliver a building into one room A teaser for a future episode breaking down how developers actually underwrite deals: pro formas, cap rates, and where prefab moves the valuation needle Thanks to our sponsors ProjectFluent and Advancing Prefabrication (Hanson Wade) for making this episode free for listeners. Connect with James Haas on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-haas-0a4832b0/ to learn more about Nichiha's prefab facade solutions.

  6. Jun 24

    Prefab Isn't the Future of Construction. It's the Gold Standard! (and Gen Z Just Wants to Know "Why?")

    Andrew Layman runs prefab at Enterprise Electrical, and he'll tell you prefab isn't the future of construction - it's already the gold standard. BUT, the line that stuck with us came at the end: this next generation coming into the trades isn't lazy or soft, they just want to know "why". Andrew makes the case that "respect for people" is an actual lean pillar, that the prefab shop is the best classroom we've got, and that the contractors who get both right are the ones who'll actually solve the labor problem. In this one: Why prefab stopped being "the future" and became the baseline, and what that means for ECs still treating it as a nice-to-have The shift from "do it exactly like this" to explaining the "WHY?" And how THAT is a recruiting edge, not a concession How a green apprentice can leave the prefab shop as the most proficient conduit bender on the job in under a year "Money is no object" data center jobs, 60 generators on one site, and why that's a prefab dream The Toyota line about seats and dashboards that reframes trade stacking for good Why "we don't expect you to read a tape measure yet" might be the most respectful thing a shop can say Brought to you free by Spec2Scale and Advancing Electrical Prefabrication. CATCH ANDREW AT THE EVENT HE'S CHAIRING Advancing Electrical Prefabrication — Dallas, July 22–24, 2026 Listeners get 10% off with code BPMP63295 https://advancing-electrical-prefabrication.com/ CONNECT Andrew Layman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewlayman99/ Enterprise Electrical: https://www.linkedin.com/company/enterprise-electrical-commercial-and-industrial-electrical-contractor-for-houston-tx/ https://enterpriseelectricalco.com/ Chapters (help Spotify/Apple/YouTube surface and chapter the episode): 00:00 Meet Tim & Carolina 01:00 Guest intro: Andrew Layman, Enterprise 02:30 Lean meets prefab 05:30 Kaizen, Gemba & the eight wastes 08:00 What Andrew wants suppliers to know 11:30 Vendors & customer experience 13:30 Selling prefab as risk mitigation 16:00 Prefab as boot camp 20:00 Data centers & the labor squeeze 22:30 Trade stacking & coordination 26:30 Conference preview 29:30 The "why" generation 36:00 Wrap-up & discount code

    Prefab Isn't the Future of Construction. It's the Gold Standard! (and Gen Z Just Wants to Know "Why?")

  7. May 14

    Smart Tag It: How Flintco Is Turning the Morning Huddle Into Safety Leadership

    Safety leadership isn't about rules. It's about seeing people who've never been seen. Recorded live at Advancing Safety Leadership in Dallas, we sit down with Shane Harris and Lane Smith of Flintco to talk about how a 115-year-old GC is using recorded morning huddles, AI-powered conversation analytics, and a deep culture-change investment to close the gap between the planning table and the frontline crew. This is what happens when you stop treating the pre-task plan as paperwork and start treating it as the tip of the spear. Key Topics Covered: Planning as the tip of the spear — why the entire investment in a project ultimately lands on the frontline leader's five-minute morning huddle, and why the industry has ignored it for too long The paper PTP problem — how the industry has been saying one thing and doing another every morning, and what it actually costs in safety culture Smart Tag It and the Spanish-speaking workforce — how AI translation is bypassing the language gatekeeper to reach 80% of Texas construction crews previously invisible to safety leadership Question quality as a measurable leadership metric — why "what's our goal for the day?" changes everything Culture before technology — the JMJ investment, the lunch-and-learns, and why Flintco lost a third of its staff on purpose to get where it is today Connect with Shane and Lane: Find them on LinkedIn or visit flintco.com Flintco Safety Music Videos on YouTube: Search: Flintco Lazy Man Load | Flintco Egg Man | Flintco Shortcut https://youtu.be/tbFNXcxg8rU

  8. Apr 21

    Build Perspectives and Dave @BuildingWorks

    Build Perspectives Podcast

    Build Perspectives and Dave @BuildingWorks
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About

We bridge Wall Street and Job Sites. Real stories, real numbers, real consequences. Hosted by Carolina Baffigo and Tim Seims. https://tinyurl.com/Build-Perspectives

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  • Creator
    Tim Seims and Carolina Baffigo
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    102
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright of Buildperspectives.com
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    Build Perspectives Podcast