Finding Projects in the Digital Age
Life of a Construction Project Series
All construction projects start somewhere, and this one for me started on the internet.
After leaving my construction business in Boulder, CO I landed in SF with no customers, no professional network, and no job leads. I knew that I would meet people over time in the industry; architects, tradespeople, friends of friends that had projects coming up, etc. I also knew that are a whole slew of lead generation services out there on the World Wide Web these days devoted to connecting customers with the right contractor. Angie’s List, Home Advisor, and Thumbtack are just a few of the companies looking to help connect homeowners with the right professional for their project. I had never used a third party to find jobs. In fact, I really never advertised or actively looked for projects, the work just always seemed to be there.
In Boulder, my business partner handled the early stages of projects for the most part, what I guess you’d call ‘sales’. I would come in and take over when the projects got off the ground, so finding work was new territory for me. Also, it’s a lot of work looking for work, and as a contractor you don’t get paid for that effort unless the project comes through. The promise of having qualified work served up on a silver platter was pretty attractive, so I figured what the hell, I’ll sign up for a couple of these services and see what happens. I was in San Francisco after all, ground zero for the technology revolution.
The two I chose to try first were Thumbtack and Homepolish because they seemed more relevant and less meat grinderish than some of the others. Also, I had used Thumbtack to find subs for a couple of projects and was curious what it was like on the Pro side.
Thumbtack is an online matching service that connects customers to service providers for a wide range of things, everything from personal chefs to birthday party entertainers to construction workers. The process for signing up as a Pro with Thumbtack was super simple, basically just filling in basic contact information and answering a series of questions about the kind of projects I’m interested in. It took maybe an hour or so and my profile was live.
Then the way it works is like this: I would get a constant stream of incoming requests from people looking to do construction projects, some of whom had viewed my profile and picked me, others who I think were auto matches Thumbtack did if the customer needs help picking someone. The nature of the projects were all over the board, from chimney cleaning jobs to replacing termite damage to the occasional small renovation project. All in all not super exciting, and not really the kind of work I was looking for. In addition to this, Thumbtack’s business model requires that I as the contractor pay Thumbtack a fee ($75 in my case), when I start communicating with the potential customer. This is before I really know anything about the job, how serious the people are, if their budget is realistic, etc. Over the course of a few months I reached out to a couple of potential jobs, but they all turned out to be tire kickers, or they weren’t really serious about doing the project. At $75 a pop this got old pretty quick, and I stopped reaching out. In the end I think it’s probably better for more focused trades, like painters or handyman, but for general contractors the type of work that comes through isn’t really a good fit.
Next was Homepolish, which is a totally different animal than Thumbtack. Homepolish started as a design service to help customers create their vision for a renovation project. In the last couple of years they’ve branched out and are now trying to be part of the whole project lifecycle by partnering with contractors who can execute the projects they design. They do a lot more work on the front end vetting contractors and building a relationship. After I initially reached out to them I got a call from the contractor liaison and we spoke a number of times, it was very personalized and hands-on. I sent references, which they called, and my portfolio of work, and the whole process lasted about a month before I became one of their ‘preferred’ contractors in San Francisco.
From there I started getting job opportunities in the Bay Area. It wasn’t a ton of projects, maybe one a month, but they were better projects, and more in line with what I wanted to be doing. Unlike Thumbtack, Homepolish doesn’t charge anything until I actually get the job. Their fee is significantly higher than Thumbtack’s, but it is passed on to the customer in a transparent way, so it’s a good deal all around. None of the projects ended up panning out, but I didn’t have to spend any time on them, so it was a good deal for me. Basically Homepolish was doing all the legwork that I would normally have to do for projects that didn’t work out, so I wasn’t wasting my time.
Then one day I got an email from Homepolish for a new project in San Francisco. The customer had purchased a loft and wanted to update the bathrooms and kitchen, rebuild the stairs, and generally style it out in a cool modern aesthetic. Sounded right up my alley. I met with the owner within a week, we hit it off, and soon afterward I’d signed the contract.
I’m generally a bit of a technology skeptic, to put it mildly. I think there’s a strong case to be made that all the latest technological conveniences are leading to more stress and anxiety, and somehow to less free time even though they should be saving us time. In this case I have to say that technology came through for me, saved me a bunch of time and, knock on wood, got me a great project.
This is the first post in a series on the life of construction projects. Check out Part 2: That Precarious Gait Some Call Experience.
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