Happy birthday to... us. 15 years since BuildIT incorporated, and the idea of BuildIT was incubating many months prior to this.
A lot can happen in 15 years. I've certainly earned the increasing number of grey hairs on my head. My little girl was learning how to ride a bike when we started, now she's rocking 3rd year college courses. And my son who was in diapers during the early days of BuildIT is now a lethal weapon, a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
As one of the major investors who clearly saw the potential in this idea, I want to personally thank the founders - Craig, Denis, and Michael - for their foresight and tireless efforts to get this thing off the ground. And to all those past and present who have been a part of building BuildIT, we are truly grateful.
With age comes credibility. Over the past 15 years, we've seen software companies come, and go. And the question we are asked often is "so, how long have you been in business?". It's a fair question... if you are entrusting your data and desired operational efficiencies to a company, you want to know they are going to be around for a while to support you. You can rest assured... we've been around much longer than most software we're compared to in our space.
Well, 15 years in the software world is a lifetime. And while new apps pop up every day, many of them are abandoned or discontinued. Even well funded ones. Google and Microsoft have discontinued over 70 applications each since they started... all they touch is not gold after all. We see it in the construction software space regularly. We'll get a call from a software searcher, "Hey, have you heard of construction software ABC?". No, and after a bit of research, it is clear they are just starting out. And to be fair, we started out too many years ago. But... we rolled out BuildIT a bit differently.
Before we went "to market" with a retail product, we already had a proven system. We struck a special arrangement with some key product testers (contractors, home builders, specialty trades) that gave our team valuable feedback and allowed us to establish a reliable, stable application before we welcomed our first retail customer. And I was present when we received our first cheque... it was at that point that I knew this was going to work. And it has.
Imagine, you entrench yourself/your team with a software program, get used to it, get results... fall in love with the thing even. And poof. It's gone. And you're left scrambling, trying to retool while ensuring your business doesn't miss a beat. It's no fun. It's one of the reasons we have customers return to BuildIT all the time. Just got a call the other day from a customer that was using BuildIT back in 2009, and now, 7 years later with a new company, he's wanting to propose it to his team. Why? Because, in his words, BuildIT works.
Being around for as long as we have does give us a leg up on the competition for sure. Add to that our background in construction, the ease of use of the application and how we have nailed simple online construction scheduling and collaboration features, and you have a recipe here for success. Your future success.
Come join the party !
Scott Hutchinson
scott@builditsystems.com
1 866 585 5050 ext 1