The diverse industry backgrounds of five construction tech founders – Business Insider

Khalid David, CEO and cofounder of TracFlo TracFlo

For Khalid David, construction is a family business. His grandfather immigrated to the US from St. Kitts in the late 1960s and became a carpenter. His dad and uncle followed in their father's footsteps.

David's said he was 12 years old when he first stepped onto a job site, sweeping up while his dad worked side jobs.

"One hundred bucks in a weekend at twelve, that was crazy," David said.

David knew he wanted to work in construction, but he graduated during the recession when construction companies weren't hiring. He ended up working with his father and uncle's subcontracting business, and remembers "hacking together" Google Sheets to keep track of expenses.

He got the initial spark for TracFlo during his time working for Turner Construction. The company was rennovating Madison Square Garden during the summer offseason, and because of the tight timeline, they had to work three shifts a day, working around the clock.

"In a week, you did three weeks of normal paperwork," David said. "It was such a huge problem that the paper process didn't work."

David worked on a digital tool to track and approve change expenses, or the additional costs that come up during a project. Eventually, Turner shut the program down, but after David went to MiT for an MBA, he realized that the idea would have legs as its own company.

David's previous experience was invaluable to him, as he realized that he had spent most of his own life doing market research for TracFlo. His contacts in the industry have been another important advantage. He said that construction is often a business where "you have to know a guy who knows a guy" to get someone's attention and that attempting to use other kinds of marketing is "naive."

"You might need to go to a bar or need to have a cigar with a VP before you get an introduction," David said.

While his history in construction has been largely helpful, his lack of experience in the VC world has sometimes held him back.

"Certain things about startup and venture capital that are industry standards, haven't cracked the construction market yet," David said.

He gave the example of a referral program that someone on his team suggested, where customers who referred another customer could win tickets to a hockey match or a similar event. David instantly thought of kickback laws in construction, which have made people in construction "touchy" about any program that gives something back to them.

Knowing these norms have been helpful for David, but he thinks that they also may have hindered him from trying new ways to market the product.

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The diverse industry backgrounds of five construction tech founders - Business Insider