The Intelligent Builder

Nitin Khanna has been selling construction and trade businesses in Canada and the U.S. for 16 years. Before that, he managed over $700M in private equity assets and spent years inside billion-dollar construction firms. He's seen the inside of hundreds of contractor businesses, and his read is consistent: most of them couldn't sell today even if they wanted to. In this episode, Nitin breaks down th...

David Dorfman co-owns a rodent control company that has run the same three-step, poison-free treatment on every job for over 20 years, whether it's a 500 square foot garage or a 300,000 square foot commercial building, and backs every job with a lifetime warranty. We get into the biology behind why infestations keep coming back when you only set traps, why dogs are the single biggest predictor of...

Chris Husek co-founded Husek Brothers Fencing in 2022 with his brothers in Eastern North Carolina and grew it to mid-seven figures in under four years without outside funding or a playbook. The revenue was real from early on. The systems were not, and Chris is honest about what that actually cost them: pricing built for a one-man operation, cash flow crises that ran alongside every growth mileston...

Elle Yerushalmi is a high school senior who grew up watching her mom run one of LA's top interior design firms and her dad run one of Southern California's leading luxury home building operations. Instead of going to college, she's co-founding Dimensions, an AI-powered estimating tool built to close the gap between a contractor's site visit and the quote that follows. We talk about how she identif...

Robert Platt has spent nearly five decades in residential design and construction, first as a designer, then as a licensed contractor in Florida, and now running his Atlanta-based design firm Habitations. That double-sided experience gives him a view of the industry most people never get. This conversation covers a lot of ground. Robert explains the architect-builder-inspector model he calls the t...

Craig Williams has run a home services business for years, built a 15-team operator network, and personally dragged a legacy pest control company off handwritten carbon paper tickets. In this episode, he and Owen get into why most owner-operators won't buy back their time, the mindset Craig teaches across his network, and how he thinks about the automation decision: what to hand off, what to keep,...

Brad Strawbridge started at Lowe's as a delivery driver, worked his way up to district manager over in-home services, and then made the leap into roofing. He scaled Capital City Roofing to eight figures in two years, built 64 AI agents on top of documented SOPs, and runs the company on strict EOS with a visionary-integrator split tight enough that he can travel every week while the business keeps...

Harvey Hine has been running HMH Architecture and Interiors in Boulder since 1989. Ten people. Over 400 projects. Zero desire to grow past his comfort zone. In this episode, Harvey walks through what 37 years in residential design actually teaches you: why firms die during booms more than busts, how he watched the best firm in Colorado go from 35 people to three, and why he made a deliberate decis...

Ben Lagrange co-founded AirGuard out of a problem he kept stepping into running his own HVAC companies in North and South Carolina: mold shows up in crawl spaces and duct systems constantly, but by the time it's visible, the damage is already serious. He and his co-founder Chris, both career engineers, spent a couple of years building and training a sensor that detects the chemical off-gassing sig...

Aimee Zhang is a founding member and broker at Real Residential in the Seattle and East Side market, and she's spent a decade watching builders leave money on the table at the exact moment they should be winning. In this episode, Aimee breaks down what a real builder-brokerage partnership looks like, why pricing new construction is a psychology problem before it's a math problem, and the single mo...

Chad Harrison runs franchise development for DoodyCalls, a pet waste management company under Authority Brands that has scaled from roughly 30 locations to over 100 by installing systems, a 24/7 call center, and an AI booking agent that handles off-hours calls without dropping to voicemail. Chad works with operators coming out of demanding W2 careers, walks them through a 30-day ramp, and then ste...

Alek Ivanov (Synergy3) is a change-driven home services operator with high standards and a simple belief: if you’re not growing, you’re dying. We get into how Synergy3 started, the mindset shift that unlocked growth, and the practical operating moves he’s making now: CTO-first thinking, getting out of scattered tools, building systems that fit the business, and using AI to remove time-wasting admi...

Lori Dennis is a veteran interior designer, builder, and founder who spent 30 years vertically integrating design, construction, and a high-end windows & doors business, all under one roof. We cover the sustainability niche she planted a flag in 30 years ago, how that compounded into a media career (TV, books, speaking), and the exact playbook a builder can use to stand out today. Then we get...

Brian Chatfield helped scale a commercial mechanical business from near zero to $36M in four years. In this episode, he breaks down what actually makes that possible, and what breaks first when it doesn't go right. We cover his path from the Army into field work, sales, and leadership. Then we get into the 80/20 sales lesson that changed how he thinks, why so many contractors stay stuck in owner-o...

Robert Schissler is Senior Director of Operations at K&H Home Solutions, a company that's been modernizing faster than most in the residential space. In this episode, he breaks down his path from commercial windows and doors into residential, what running his own business taught him about leadership, and why customer experience matters just as much as product quality in people's homes. We get...

Alisha Taylor, founder of Alisha Taylor Interiors in Scottsdale, breaks down what it takes to build a profitable, recession-resistant luxury design firm. She covers her path from civil engineering to interior design, surviving the 2007-2009 housing crash, and the operating principles that make boutique firms durable. We also discuss the builder-designer relationship, white-glove client experience,...

Kara Roche, Operations Manager at Castle Haven Construction in Atlanta, explains what it takes to run high-end renovations before construction starts. She covers client onboarding, selections management, moving away from allowances, and the systems that keep projects on track. Kara also discusses post-COVID pricing realities and how they educate homeowners upfront.

Carl Nelson, Co-Founder of Visual PNW, spent over a decade running national rollout programs for brands like Starbucks and McDonald's. Now he's applying those build-at-scale lessons to custom homes and remodels in the Seattle area. Carl explains why residential construction remains painfully inefficient, why the real bottleneck isn't design talent but materials and purchasing, and how he's buildin...

Cate Bloom, Vice President at AAA Appliance Service Center, explains how her family's multi-generation appliance service company modernized from paper systems to scalable digital operations. She covers her transition from architecture into the business after 2008, training cross-functional technicians, and rolling out system changes through phased implementations with hands-on support. Cate also d...

Rob Dalrymple, Executive Vice President at Ryan Contractors, shares how he went from Boston carpenter to helping build a multi-state general contractor operating in 35 states. Rob breaks down the transition from residential to commercial work, how Ryan found success in the cemetery niche, and what contractors really need to know about scaling beyond their home market. He covers margins, change ord...

Todd Torbert, President of Level 1 General Construction in Dallas, shares his journey from finance and insurance to building a roofing and storm-restoration company that evolved into a boutique general contractor. He discusses surviving feast-or-famine hail seasons, intentionally shrinking his company to focus on better projects, and his blunt advice on money management and work ethic for younger...

Dave Wageman is the new CEO of Hometown Restyling, a nearly 40-year remodeler in Eastern Iowa that just became 100% employee-owned. We unpack why they chose employee ownership over private equity, what changes when every employee becomes an owner, and how they're setting up for growth as leadership transitions through 2026-2027. We also get tactical on their operating system: doubling down on EOS,...

Charnell Griffin, founder of Clean Corp in Atlanta, shares how she built her cleaning business from college startup to systematic operation since 2007. She breaks down the early marketing that actually worked, pricing discipline lessons, and the follow-up automation system that drives 60% of new bookings. Charnell also discusses her ambitious 2026 goals including acquiring another cleaning company...

Alicia Powers, President & Owner of Price Builders in San Diego, shares her journey from managing Air Force runway reconstruction to acquiring a 30+ year residential design-build firm. She talks about inheriting outdated systems like paper timecards and Microsoft Access CRM, and the modernization she's implementing with new web platforms, HubSpot, and design tools. We also discuss macro pressu...

Austin Kent, CEO of Kent Development, is a second-generation builder making the shift from general contractor to developer in Dallas. He breaks down how he built a family-run GC, why he's tired of living on other people's timelines, and the moves he's making to own more of the projects he builds. Austin covers his infill spec homes, custom work, and townhome deals, plus the systems he's putting in...