0:00

Welcome to the Site . Visit podcast . Leadership

0:03

and perspective from construction

0:05

With your host , James

0:08

Faulkner .

0:10

Live from BuildX Vancouver 2024

0:12

.

0:24

Mike , hello , welcome to the Site Visit

0:26

.

0:27

Thank you for having me .

0:28

It's been a long time , yeah , since you've been

0:30

customers of SiteMax and now we

0:32

get to meet you .

0:33

That's fantastic .

0:34

So Spire Development , just

0:36

take us through your

0:39

interaction , what you're

0:41

doing with the company , just the entire

0:43

intro of everything with Spire and

0:46

what you're out there to achieve and conquer .

0:48

Yeah , we're doing a lot of exciting things . It's

0:51

Spire Construction , Spire Development

0:53

, Spire Capital . Wow

0:55

, so it's three arms yeah we recently launched

0:58

a Capital Okay Company , so

1:00

if you have any you

1:02

want to invest your money , then come over here .

1:04

Oh , interesting yeah , Okay , so just

1:06

tell us about that for a second .

1:08

Yeah , no , basically it's what I said . You

1:12

know , if you need some help , you got

1:14

some equity you want to use

1:16

and invest . Yeah , I'm

1:19

probably not the best to speak about it because I'm the construction

1:21

guy I got you . I got you , I can invite Chris

1:23

Hens over here one day . Chris Hens

1:26

, yeah , he's one of the partners there .

1:27

Okay , great .

1:30

Lawrence Green and Pete Rackow are also partners

1:32

through partying . Yeah , so those three

1:34

have really done

1:37

an awesome job launching that and it's

1:39

thriving .

1:42

Everybody's super excited about it , yeah , so

1:44

basically I don't want to get into too much .

1:46

It's a larger scale investment , right , I see , oh , that's

1:48

cool . So into projects and stuff like that , yeah

1:51

, generally into construction projects , that's our main

1:53

focus , right , so is it kind of a reed or not .

1:55

We're not doing mutual funds . No , I know it's

1:58

like a real estate investment trust kind of thing . The reeds

2:00

Correct . Okay , cool , correct , that's cool .

2:01

Yeah , that's awesome . Yeah , yeah , we're all

2:03

excited about it .

2:04

I mean , I think what's really cool about that is

2:07

as a name and a brand , it really

2:09

adds credibility , understanding , especially

2:11

if you're doing , depending on the work that you're doing , especially

2:14

get the financial side . It really adds that kind

2:16

of like yeah , we get all of it . Especially

2:19

managing money I

2:22

mean as a developer , even a contractor

2:24

doing all that kind of stuff , like you guys are

2:26

managing money is the hardest part .

2:28

Yeah , and the nice thing is they got free consulting

2:30

. Oh no , it's not free , no

2:34

, but we do have like a very

2:36

deep depth of understanding construction

2:38

. You

2:41

know , being in that capital investment , you

2:43

always need to draw on that sort of experience . All

2:47

they have to do is walk down to the other side of the office and

2:49

tap us on the shoulder and

2:52

we give them everything they need . So there's

2:54

a lot of perks in having

2:56

that all in one house .

2:58

I would imagine , yeah , the communication is probably very

3:00

key .

3:00

Yeah , development's been since day one . Development

3:03

arm Pete Lawrence again

3:05

partners on that . They've

3:08

been extremely successful on that . Construction

3:14

is an assist there . We

3:16

do all the budgeting and estimating or

3:18

estimating department and

3:21

, yeah , it's been nothing but a success . You

3:24

know countless buildings

3:26

and we're just super excited

3:28

about our upcoming project . It's

3:31

been in the cooker for a

3:33

few years now .

3:35

Let's talk about that .

3:35

It's Fire Landing 2 . So where is this

3:37

? The location was Fraser

3:40

56 . It's a 112

3:42

units rental building

3:44

.

3:44

Okay .

3:45

So we're happy to be providing

3:48

more inventory for the Vancouver market

3:50

.

3:50

Yeah , totally .

3:53

It's a big topic these

3:55

days housing .

3:56

So , as a developer , how much stress

3:58

do you guys have ? I mean , that's obviously

4:01

Metro Vancouver . That's a huge problem . Obviously

4:03

. It's landlocked , you've got water everywhere , you've

4:05

got the boundary , you've got basically Fraser River

4:08

and people want

4:10

to live in Vancouver proper or Burnaby

4:12

, etc . What is that pressure for you guys as

4:14

a developer to

4:16

be providing that kind of stuff and

4:19

, from a capital point of view , obviously a rental building ? So

4:21

are you guys managing the rental after that , or is

4:23

it just I mean this is your property . This

4:26

is your property , Todd .

4:28

It was our property .

4:29

Right , okay .

4:29

Well partnership agreement . Okay , I'm not

4:31

going to get into the partnership .

4:33

For you . Yeah , absolutely , yeah .

4:35

But yeah , no , we managed the last one . It

4:38

was part of landing one . It's right

4:40

across the street . Okay , super excited to do

4:42

the next phase .

4:43

The next one . Okay , yeah , it was that one

4:45

.

4:45

a rental one as well , yeah , yeah yeah

4:47

, okay , the last one was Passive House . Okay , the

4:50

second one . Unfortunately we did have to drop the Passive House

4:52

Okay , which , you know we would have been in the ground

4:54

a little sooner than now , but it's

4:57

just . You know , everybody's aware of the

4:59

cost of construction and what it's done

5:01

the last seven years .

5:02

Yeah .

5:03

Ten years or , but most of the activity

5:05

in the last several years unbelievable

5:10

. The inflation yeah .

5:12

I mean , how has that impacted you guys ? You know a couple years

5:14

ago , I think nobody

5:16

.

5:16

There wasn't too many . Unless you had

5:18

tenured a project within the last six

5:21

months , you wouldn't have an idea

5:23

what that final number would

5:25

be .

5:26

Yeah , that's got to be like you

5:29

can't plan anything based on that . Well , I

5:31

mean , you don't know that until

5:34

you ended up tendering it and you're like oh oh

5:37

oh , it's

5:40

almost like you know flying to a trip and then

5:42

happening to figure out what your expenses and your hotel

5:44

are Like . Usually you want to do that prior

5:46

to you're basically landing in

5:48

a place that you've got a course correct and

5:50

figure out how your money's going to get to a stretch

5:52

. And you know supply

5:55

chains are weird .

5:56

Yeah , and the ability to pivot quickly , and you

5:58

know we had to make quick decision . We dropped passive

6:01

. On the second one , right , I

6:03

mean Metro Vancouver , or say Metro

6:05

Vancouver , the city of Vancouver is

6:07

very particular on their building requirements

6:10

. I'm not going to get into the technical nature of that , but

6:12

a lot of those

6:14

requirements that were passive didn't get

6:16

dropped . We were able to reduce , like

6:18

insulation requirements

6:20

, energy

6:23

model requirements . Like you know

6:25

, passive house you're not allowed to , you're

6:28

allowed minimal penetrations into the building . Now

6:30

that's a little , you know , lessened

6:32

and you know . So that is

6:35

a big relief and I think you know at

6:37

this point we're very confident

6:40

on marching forward into the spring

6:42

and putting some shovels in the ground .

6:43

That's awesome . That's going to be good . We're really excited about it . So

6:47

I mean , maybe we'll talk about , like you know

6:49

, you've adopted technology , you've done some stuff

6:51

. You know we worked together . We've been working together for a while

6:53

with SiteMax and you know how's that been going with you

6:55

guys .

6:56

Yeah , you know , I don't even remember how long we've

6:58

been using SiteMax , for I've used it in the past

7:00

, before , and

7:03

you know we adopted SiteMax quite

7:06

honestly because you guys have

7:09

it looks like a fantastic product at the

7:11

time . But

7:14

you know , let's

7:16

be honest here , your pricing

7:19

is good , like in terms of what's

7:21

out there , because price is

7:23

a big thing . I mean , you know , everybody's

7:26

got bottom lines and we got

7:28

to make the numbers work .

7:30

Especially with the uncertainties out there in terms of what

7:33

everything's going to cost .

7:36

So running lean and mean , you know SiteMax fits

7:38

into that equation but

7:40

it , you know , incredibly does everything we

7:43

need . You

7:45

know there's since the last couple of years it's

7:47

grown a lot and super excited

7:49

and impressed what it's done in

7:52

the last year . I

7:56

mean I think you guys are grounded

7:58

a lot in safety management before and

8:00

Site kind of activity

8:02

. You've

8:05

moved , pivoted your product , I would

8:07

say expanded your product into project

8:09

management , which is a challenging environment

8:12

.

8:12

It's very challenging .

8:13

It's a challenging because there's

8:15

a lot of , I think , what you guys done

8:17

. There is found a sweet spot of

8:19

what you need to provide and

8:22

I've seen . I spent countless hours

8:24

and I'm not going to get into which

8:27

other software as I looked into because

8:29

I don't want to , I don't want

8:31

to go there . However

8:33

, I spent countless hours and

8:36

there are some phenomenal softwares out there

8:38

, you

8:40

know , but like what ? Like I

8:42

don't . You know you

8:44

don't need to like . Sometimes , if

8:46

you use all the features , you'd

8:49

have to hire somebody to

8:51

run the features .

8:51

Yeah , that makes sense . That makes sense Exactly

8:54

. So out of the box , yeah , so out of the out of the box

8:56

.

8:56

Yeah , it's a lot , you know . When

8:59

something works out of the box , yeah , then

9:01

it . You know it's a great thing . Okay

9:03

, that makes sense .

9:05

So one of the compliments we

9:07

got is that , um , sitemax

9:10

still allows your company to be agile , and

9:14

that was something I was like oh yeah , it's

9:17

something that we've always tried to be able to bend

9:19

the product a little bit for our customers . And

9:21

the agility is something I think people

9:23

are really wanting , because I think that

9:25

when something's too rigid , you

9:27

can't really . A lot of people do things

9:29

a lot of different ways . Absolutely , and

9:32

we see that on the sub-trade side , a lot is

9:34

that people

9:37

can hear this . We have 14 of these podcasts and

9:39

I'm going to say something for like the fifth time but

9:42

often what happens is many

9:44

sub-trades have invented their processes

9:46

. They didn't

9:48

necessarily come from project

9:50

management school or whatever it is

9:52

, or accounting school or whatever it is , for

9:55

construction specifically , so they've actually invented

9:57

all of the things that they've done . They

9:59

used to do it on paper . Now they're

10:02

like , yeah , but we've been doing this and we've been a successful

10:04

sub-trade for since 1990

10:07

, whatever , and we've been going

10:09

for 30 , 40 years and

10:12

we don't really want to change , but we just want

10:14

it to be digital and that's that agility

10:17

that SiteMax has been able to provide for people

10:19

is to be able to have what their beloved

10:21

invention was , and now it's here .

10:25

Yeah , it's funny you mentioned that . I think you guys you've

10:29

got that small company , like attention

10:32

to your client , which I like . When

10:34

you say that you are willing to adapt , because

10:38

that's a perfect example of a

10:40

bigger corporation , they

10:44

don't hear your voice . And

10:47

when I , you guys actually

10:49

take my feedback and you've

10:51

been implemented into some of the features in

10:53

project management and I'm impressed that you actually

10:55

listen and I'm impressed by the developers

10:58

that you guys have . They've done a great job .

11:00

Yeah , they're going to love to hear that . Yeah

11:03

, pump their tires . Yeah , pump their tires . Their

11:05

tires need to be pumped often , because

11:09

often it's not a thankless job but

11:12

to have a customer say something like

11:14

that . So , thank you very much . Yeah , nikolai Gallum

11:16

, Sam Steven

11:19

.

11:20

I think all of them . I think I've made

11:22

contact with most of them , not all of them , and

11:24

they all they

11:26

kind of own the product right . They're not just punching

11:29

the clock .

11:31

No , I mean , as you said , like the product's

11:33

actually become quite robust now and it's , I

11:36

mean , there's a lot of data , there's a lot of data , there's

11:38

a lot of calls every day on the API

11:40

.

11:41

There's like I mean it's when

11:43

you are a critical tool for a company at

11:50

this day and age , you have to adopt technology

11:53

or else I don't know how

11:56

successful you're going to be . You can be somewhat

11:58

successful , but you're not going to be fully successful

12:00

if you don't adopt some sort of platforms

12:02

for project management and

12:05

data management , accounting management . I

12:09

mean you guys do a great job of filling in the

12:11

project , project management

12:13

and site management

12:15

. Yeah , exactly Us

12:18

. Personally , we weren't

12:20

super keen on trying

12:23

to get one software

12:26

platform to manage our finances and project

12:28

management , because you already have an

12:30

accounting software and the accounting software is , these days

12:33

, do a decent job of they do I mean

12:35

the one behind us , right here . I mean Sage is yeah

12:37

, and they're A fantastic company , yeah

12:39

they're getting .

12:40

I mean , we're a Sage partner with them and

12:42

we've got a lot of things that we're doing coming

12:45

up .

12:45

Oh really Okay that's very interesting

12:47

yeah .

12:52

No , she's good . No , it's all good

12:54

.

12:54

So we Are

12:57

you going to create a ? Is

13:00

it like some , like the

13:02

API , change orders management .

13:06

Well we're dealing with . We're

13:09

looking at what you basically call end points

13:11

, what end points we're sending backwards

13:13

and forwards . So it's evolving and evolving

13:15

and evolving . So

13:17

we're going to look up

13:19

where we can really focus our attention

13:21

on those project management pieces . And also there's

13:24

other things that are . Time

13:27

is another one , how time goes into

13:29

the system as well . There's that for a lot of our

13:31

customers Time cards

13:33

and then the POs as well .

13:35

Yeah , the time cards function is great . We're

13:38

using it . Yeah , you

13:41

know we're with Spectrum . They're

13:43

great and we've had a lot of success

13:45

with integrating time card function and

13:47

it's been a big relief . We used to do paper

13:50

time cards . Yeah , I

13:52

mean everybody's happier it's

13:54

interesting .

13:55

So there's a shout out to Anderson . There's a guy from Power

13:57

Shockrate , a

14:00

customer of ours . I went to the

14:03

VRCA's Christmas luncheon . I

14:06

was there and basically

14:08

whoever we see and we come across it

14:10

are customers of ours . I always go to take

14:12

them to the bar and get some drinks and

14:14

we're there .

14:15

No , I didn't make it . No , I've been for a

14:17

while . He would have had a drink if you had a . Oh

14:20

yeah , you would have seen me there . Yeah , I would

14:22

have .

14:26

But I came up and he's not in the leadership

14:28

team , he's in the technology team and a younger

14:31

guy and he came up to me and he goes . He goes Sightmax

14:33

oh my God , he goes . It's so good to meet you

14:35

. He goes . I got to tell you , harold

14:37

used to take me an hour and a half and now it takes

14:39

me 15 minutes for Sightmax . Yeah , and

14:42

he's like I can't tell you I love this , like I've just

14:44

dialed this thing in , so like to hear

14:46

things like that that you are . Yeah

14:48

, of course there's efficiencies

14:50

everyone's trying to get . Sometimes it's just the

14:52

same thing , but digital and it still takes a long time

14:54

. Safety is that way because you can't really

14:56

get around it . You want actually everyone to read sentences

14:59

and check boxes that are they're

15:06

actually taking responsibility . Yeah , it's not just

15:08

like going down the list . I've seen this list

15:10

every day for the past 300

15:12

days and I'm just it's

15:15

like they're zoning it out . They're like I've

15:17

never checked . No to that one , so I just let go

15:19

. No every time . This

15:22

kind of stuff , the

15:24

efficiencies , you're

15:27

never going to . The minute that safety

15:29

becomes too efficient

15:31

is the time that an accident

15:34

happens . So there's some things

15:36

that are designed

15:39

and should be arduous

15:41

, because it means that

15:44

you're being careful , whereas when

15:46

it comes to time cards , when it comes to other stuff like that , you

15:48

can rip and replace and get through

15:50

things like that and create wicked

15:53

automations , because the outcome is

15:55

really not someone dying , it's

15:58

just the speed of someone adopting

16:00

stuff quickly on site . So

16:03

there's a lot of opportunities on our side , on

16:05

anything but safety , to really

16:07

really dial in speed .

16:09

Yeah , and the user base that you guys have . You

16:12

have the non-paid user base , which is great

16:14

because everybody

16:17

has access to that information

16:19

safety manual .

16:21

Yeah well , the other thing . I mean

16:23

, you don't know that

16:25

this is coming yet , but SiteFlow , we're

16:27

just launching that right now . So , SiteFlow

16:29

and then SMX Connect , which

16:31

allows everybody to go and log in and

16:34

they don't have to use a , they could just log

16:36

in with their phone number , that's it . Don't

16:38

have to download the app , don't have to do anything . So all subs

16:40

can basically go in there and you can give them

16:42

, you can scan a QR code at site

16:44

and you can go through an entire process that you guys

16:47

set up . Siteflow says do this , do this watch this

16:49

video , read this , do this . And it tells

16:51

you where they are on that stage and that

16:53

step . Oh , cool , yeah . And they sign

16:55

it at the end and say they've done it so and

16:57

that's unbelievable . So you can build those workflows

17:00

in SiteFlow .

17:00

Oh , that'd be great . Yeah , I'm super

17:03

excited about that , and

17:06

maybe you guys just send an email to your clients

17:08

.

17:08

We do when it does come out yeah

17:10

, so actually the Karina

17:13

and Marge that right now they've

17:15

shown me their , they've got a video of how it all

17:17

works and I've got a little release

17:20

on it that SiteFlow is coming

17:22

out and SMX Connect , so yeah

17:24

, pretty exciting stuff for us . I mean , the main thing

17:26

that we want to always do is we

17:28

do understand that you know , as a developer

17:30

or the general contractor , you know as

17:32

someone responsible for the project , you

17:35

can't not every sub is going to want

17:37

to use your system . They just they've

17:39

got their own stuff , but you have

17:41

to need to make it as quick

17:43

and easy as possible for them so

17:46

that they don't have to like remember

17:49

what their password was from some app . That you

17:51

because they go to lots of sites right , and

17:54

that you want it to be the

17:57

grease in the wheels and grease in the gears

17:59

, to make it easy for you guys at your site .

18:01

Yeah .

18:01

That's our main thing is getting rid of the

18:03

barriers .

18:03

Well , you mentioned that . It's funny . One of

18:05

the reasons I did like SiteMax when we initially switched

18:08

is the less found

18:12

that some of the other softwares were a

18:14

bit spammy in terms of follow ups

18:16

and it was hard to disable

18:18

those options . Your

18:21

guys' product I find

18:23

a little less .

18:27

Like less garbage coming in the air .

18:28

Yeah , there's less garbage , less reminders

18:31

like forced reminders , which

18:33

is nice because you know guys

18:35

don't need to remind it every second day

18:38

that they haven't done it efficiently .

18:40

I see .

18:41

So that customizability was great

18:43

.

18:44

So , in terms of you know some of the things

18:47

that you're using , some of the successes you found , like

18:49

, what are some of the parts in SiteMax that

18:51

you're like oh , that's just awesome

18:53

the way that works .

18:57

I'd say , you

18:59

know , the punch list is definitely heavily used

19:02

. It's probably the main

19:04

. You know the

19:06

features that we like Time cards has been

19:08

the best I know and I'm going to and

19:10

it's going to be and you're working on that

19:12

as well , right .

19:13

We are because one

19:16

of our customers' town line . We've

19:18

been working very closely with them on requirements

19:20

for closeout so we

19:22

got some . The locations has

19:24

been way updated so

19:26

you can make your locations ahead in advance

19:28

but more detailed , another level

19:30

as well , because I don't think we only had three levels of locations

19:33

and we have more than that . So that's really

19:35

good . So you can go into

19:38

. You go , for instance , if you

19:40

have a multi-tower project , you can

19:42

be . You know this tower , this

19:44

floor , this

19:46

unit , this room , this area within

19:48

the .

19:49

So that's pretty amazing and it's automated

19:51

based on your location

19:54

.

19:56

It's not automated , but it

19:58

is just the

20:01

areas you can set up with

20:04

way more ease than you were before , with more detail

20:06

.

20:06

Okay , that's great yeah .

20:09

Yeah , so it's going to be really , really cool . So we've

20:12

been working hard on that to make Punchlist really

20:14

dialed in , because I don't want to

20:16

name names of other competitors , but

20:18

there was a company that a lot

20:20

of developers were using that

20:23

has deprecated their product , so

20:25

they're just not doing it anymore . They're now into resource management

20:28

. So

20:31

that was one of the requests

20:33

we had from the customer was like look , we

20:35

were using this before and

20:37

it's just not going to be there for

20:39

us anymore . So there's these things that we kind of need

20:42

within your Punchlist module to work . So it's

20:44

there now .

20:45

Great . Yeah , honestly though it's

20:47

funny I didn't expect this to be the best feature

20:49

, or was it time cards ? Yeah , yeah

20:52

, the time cards were great . The

20:54

accounting loves it . Just as you explained

20:56

the amount of time it takes to do

21:00

your payrolls like down significantly

21:02

.

21:02

It's tough to do . It's tough to do especially with our customers in the States

21:04

. We've got all of these conditions and all the stuff

21:06

of like you know how , you know

21:08

different union rates and like , yeah

21:10

, tagging and all that . It's got a lot of scuffs , got

21:12

to be very , very complex , so

21:14

it's hard to do . Well , yeah , it's a basic

21:17

time card .

21:17

Yeah , and you guys

21:20

fine-tuned the drawing management . That's

21:22

a super important feature . It really is

21:24

because you know , like

21:28

having all your

21:30

drawings updated not only updated but also being

21:32

able to go back and see , like , say

21:34

, you're looking at drawing 825.3

21:37

and you can see revision

21:39

, you know , you can even go back to the tender

21:41

version of that .

21:42

Yeah , exactly .

21:44

And you know when you're debating with

21:46

a subcontractor on site

21:49

, you know whether it was

21:51

part of the IFTs or you

21:53

know . You just scroll back in

21:56

the conversation short rather than like , oh , I got to go back to

21:58

my office .

21:58

Yeah , that's cool . Yeah , well

22:00

it's . This has been awesome . I really appreciate

22:03

you coming on and getting to meet

22:05

you .

22:05

Yeah , pleasure to meet you . Thank you very much .

22:07

And you know always , you know we're not far away . Fridays

22:10

we always have , are you downtown often , yeah

22:13

, the odd time , yeah , okay , well

22:15

, we've got a beer , beer on tap in the office . You

22:17

always come by , you're always welcome at SiteMax . Sure

22:19

, yeah , and everyone else has that open

22:22

invite . But you know it's well , it's like to be

22:24

very , you know , close

22:26

to our customers . Anyway , we can be in deep in relationship

22:28

. So , thank you Great , thank you for having me . Okay , great

22:30

Thanks , mike . Well

22:36

, that does it for another episode of the Site Business

22:39

. Thank you for listening . Be sure to

22:41

stay connected with us by following our social

22:43

accounts on Instagram and YouTube . You

22:46

can also sign up for a monthly newsletter at

22:48

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22:50

, the site visit , where you'll get industry

22:52

insights , pro tips and everything you need to

22:54

know about the Site Visit podcast and

22:57

SiteMax , the job site and construction

22:59

management tool of choice for thousands

23:01

of contractors in North America and

23:03

beyond . Sitemax is also

23:05

the engine that powers this podcast

23:07

. All right , let's get back to

23:10

building .