Construction operations · Front Range, Colorado
The job went fine.
The margin didn't.
So where does it go? Almost never one big hit. It's a T&M ticket that rode around in a truck for two weeks, extra work that went in on a verbal, and a pay app that sat a full billing cycle because one signed ticket was missing.
We find where that's happening in your company, and we fix it with the people already doing the work.
Where it gets stuck
Margin fade starts early and shows up late.
The problem
Margin fade doesn't show up as one big hit.
A turnover that lives in one guy's head doesn't show up on any report. Neither does a T&M ticket that never got signed, or a pay app that sat a full cycle because one piece of backup was missing.
Each one is small. Run that across every crew and every job, month after month, and it's the difference between a good year and an average one.
The bigger cost is your week. When the same thing keeps surfacing, you spend it inside the operation instead of on the next stage of the company.
Sound familiar?
- Estimating turns the job over and half of it lives in somebody’s head
- Extra work goes in on a verbal and the signed ticket catches up later, or doesn’t
- Field photos and approvals live in a text thread and somebody’s inbox
- Job cost tells you what happened three weeks too late to act on it
- The WIP and the field don’t agree on percent complete
- Every decision that matters still routes through you
Somebody has to follow the problem across the whole company and then still be around to help fix it. That's the job.
Who we work with
Contractors who outgrew how they run.
Commercial specialty trades and owner-led general contractors on the Front Range, usually somewhere between fifteen and two hundred people.
You've got the work and the reputation and the crews. What's missing is a way to move a job from bid to field to billing to closeout that doesn't depend on you personally carrying a piece of it.
We look at the work before the software.
We want to watch a real job move before recommending anything. A lot of the time you already own the right tool and the process around it is what broke.
Something built by Friday.
A findings document at the end of a discovery phase changes nothing. By the end of the week your team should be using something.
We don't sell software.
No reseller agreements and no referral fees from software companies. If Sage, Vista, Foundation, Procore, or whatever you already run can do the job, we'll set it up to do the job.
Where we start
Contractor Operations Sprint
Five days on the problem you're tired of having. We find where it actually breaks, and we fix something before we leave.
Five working days describes the effort rather than the calendar. Most sprints run across seven to ten days so we can be there when the work is actually happening.
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Day 1
Walk one job
I pick one live job, or a recent one that went sideways, and I follow it end to end. Estimating, the PM, the super, accounting, you.
More on this day
By the end of the day I know how the work actually moves, which is usually not what the process document says.
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Day 2
Find where it breaks
A late pay app is a symptom. The cause is usually sitting three weeks upstream in a missing approval or a turnover nobody owns.
More on this day
I put a dollar number on it where your own numbers support one, and we pick what can actually get fixed in the days left.
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Day 3
Build the fix
This is the day something gets made. A rebuilt turnover, a field capture flow, a billing-readiness gate, a cost-to-complete your PMs will actually finish, or a configuration change in software you already pay for.
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Day 4
Run it on real work
We put it against a live job and sit with the people using it. They’ll tell us what’s annoying, what’s missing, and what they’re going to quietly stop doing in three weeks.
More on this day
Then we cut the extra steps, put a name next to who owns it, and decide what happens when the exception shows up. Because it will.
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Day 5
Hand you the keys
We finish it, write down how it runs in the shortest form anybody will actually read, and agree on what you should be looking at every week going forward.
More on this day
Then we sit down. What we found, what’s fixed, what isn’t, and a 90-day list in priority order.
What you have when we leave
- A map of how the work actually moves today
- The real reason it keeps coming back, in writing
- One or two things built and running on a live job
- Names next to who owns what
- A 90-day list in priority order
Access. That's the whole ask.
You have to be in it, we have to be able to watch a real job, and somebody has to be able to make a decision during the week.
By far the thing that will stall a sprint is not being able to get to the people or the job in time. Everything else we can work around.
What a sprint goes after
- Estimate-to-PM turnovers ·
- Change orders and T&M ·
- Field documentation ·
- Pay app readiness ·
- Job cost and WIP ·
- Schedule look-aheads ·
- Closeout and retention ·
- Owner decisions ·
- Software you already pay for
Who you get
One point of contact. A bench behind it.
The person you talked to on the first call is the person in your conference room on Monday morning, and that doesn't change partway through. Everything routes through Dmitri.
Behind that is a group of specialists we bring in when the work calls for one, usually in construction accounting systems or integration work. You'll know who's coming and why before they show up, and they work to the same documented process we do.
Who's leading it
Dmitri Sunshine, founder
I started a software company in 2007 and ran it for fourteen years, bootstrapped, no investors and no board. About eighty companies ran their daily operation on it, and every dollar that came in had to pay for itself.
Construction is a newer focus for me, and you should hear that from me rather than find it out later. What I've done for twenty years is walk into owner-led companies where the information kept showing up too late to use, trace it back to where it broke, and fix it alongside the people doing the work.
Different industry, same shape of problem. That's the part that transfers, and it's the part you're hiring.
I'm in Boulder with my two kids, and I'll come to your office and your jobs anywhere on the Front Range.
Scope and terms
What's in the sprint, what's outside it, and what it runs.
Not in a five-day sprint
- A full ERP or project-management implementation
- Enterprise data migration or large-scale cleanup
- Custom software beyond a narrow prototype
- Ongoing managed IT
- Bookkeeping or your month-end close
- Legal, tax, safety, HR, or transaction advice
- Reorganizing your company
- Any guarantee about margin, revenue, or cash
Any of that can be scoped on its own. We'd rather tell you it's outside the sprint than stretch five days across work that needs five weeks.
What we'll promise, and what we won't.
The method and the deliverables are ours to guarantee. What it does to your numbers depends on whether your team adopts it, whether we get access, how clean your data is, and what we choose to go after.
So a sprint may give you cleaner turnovers, faster pay apps, better backup on extra work, a WIP you trust, or fewer decisions landing on your desk. We're not going to put a percentage on your margin before we've seen your job cost.
What it runs
$6,000 to $12,000
For most first engagements. Where it lands depends on the company, the problem, and how much building the fix takes.
- Half to hold the start date, half at the Day 5 sit-down
- We start after the first payment and a signed agreement
- Front Range travel is included
Take it with you
Two things you can forward.
Bring me the one that keeps coming back.
Give me 25 minutes and the problem you're tired of having. I'm not going to put a percentage on your margin before I've seen your job cost, and if a sprint won't help I'll say so.