130. Starting Something New With Lane O'Brien

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Why would we build a house that is inefficient when we have all the technology, all the pieces to the puzzle to build a house that can make you money?

Welcome to Professional Builder Secrets, the podcast for building company owners wanting to grow safely and securely.

I'm your host, Will Blunt, and today.

I'm joined by Lane o' Brien from.

O' Brien Contracting in British Columbia, Canada. Lane, welcome to the show.

Hey Will, thanks for having me here today. Really excited to be here and get to have this chat with you.

Yeah, I'm really excited to have the chat as well. Unfortunately, Kylie couldn't make it today, who's a part of your business as well. But I'm sure you're, you'll give a great retelling of your story and everything you're doing.

I should be able to.

She's in the background though, on one of those photos, I believe.

Absolutely.

She's with us in spirit. But o' Brien Contracting. Tell me a bit about your background and, and what inspired you to focus on Net zero homes.

Well, my, my background is a red seal journeyman carpenter to begin with. And it, I did that back in Alberta and then moved out here about 13 years ago. And the biggest thing that made me focus on sustainable building and net zero homes was to me, it's always made sense. Right. Why would we build a house that is inefficient when we have all the technology, all the pieces to the puzzle to build a house that can make you money kind of thing? It's it for me. It's the biggest investment that you're ever going to have in your life. Why don't you want it making you money kind of thing? And that's, that's kind of why I've always gravitated toward the net zero homes, not to mention the environmentally friendly. We don't like to use weight, have much waste on any of our projects. We have very tight margins for our material takeoffs. Obviously we, we allow for more, but whenever we order our materials or anything like that, we make sure that we're utilizing everything that we can so that we do not have large amounts of waste. And then net zero to us is just the environmentally friendly standard kind of thing. It, it ensures that everything that is in your home is a quality product and limits off gassing. And I, I think that's probably the biggest reason that that one's always hit true to me. My mom says she had a big part of it because of me always liking the movie Fern Gully back in the day.

And okay, I haven't seen that one.

That was it because it was all about deforestation and, and fighting back against it. Right. But that was like for me it's just, I've always found it fascinating to be able to build a home that is completely self sufficient and sustainable and it just, I just don't understand why we're not doing more of it right now. Because.

Yeah, well, that's what I was going to ask you. Do you, do you feel like this will be the norm at some stage in the future?

100% it's going to be the norm in the very near future. Because it again for me, for me it makes sense now. People look at it and say well, it's way too expensive. Well, it's not that much more expensive. Like you're spending a little bit more on your actual building envelope and your like mechanical systems and, and the big ticket items that go into the home. But where do people spend the most amount of money on their home? It's the luxuries, it's the finer detail, finishes and stuff like that. Your home's going to be what it's going to be. If we can build a system that costs a marginally more than a traditional house and meets all these steps and all these criteria, why not do it that way versus doing it the old way? And the biggest mindset right now is well, I don't have to. Right, It's. But who doesn't want a home that will last is meeting the standard. Like for example here in bc, you build a net zero home now you've met the standard of building, of building excellence for the next 10 years. What in life can you have that you buy it today and it meets a standard for 10 years. It's ahead of the curve for 10 years. Like you buy your I a new iPhone today, it's outdated tomorrow.

Yeah.

It'S the world we live in. Right. So we're always looking at ways to innovate and build better homes and find different ways to do things. Because the current industry in our, in our Mind doesn't actually really work. It, it's doing, doing its job. It's achieving basic building code and it's, it's getting, getting the job done. But these aren't generational homes and net zero home should be a generational home. It should be built to last test of time.

So is that the pitch for people building homes for. To go net zero over? Not the sustainable, sorry the, the, the let long. Longevity. Yeah, that's the word. Longevity of the home. But also, I mean what, what other benefits are there for consumers?

Well, it's just comfort. So if you ask anybody who's ever lived in a net zero home, what is the number one benefit of a net zero home? And hands down everyone will say it is the most comfortable home they've ever lived in. The temperature doesn't change, it modulates itself. The, their, their electrical bills are non existent depending on how you do it. If you don't use fossil fuels, well you don't have, you're not utilizing any gas. You're producing all of your energy in your home. It is clean air. Like it's just, it's the best home. I've talked to several people who have actually built them, lived in them and every single one of them, that is the number one takeaway. It is the most comfortable home and they would spend the money hands down every time to build a net zero home.

So what's the typical cost differential between a net zero home?

Well, it depends on how you do it, right? Because if you want, I know that's a tough one for me because everybody says like well what's the cost difference? And you can build a net zero home for very close to the same price as a traditional home, right? It's just all about your air tightness, your insulation values, everything. Like we have to have insulation on our buildings now in, in B.C anyways, right. That's the step code that we're getting to like. It's just part of the building code now building a net zero home, it's just making sure that that envelope is extremely tight and that you're putting solar on it and producing. And then your appliances meet an energuide standard, right. So it's just a few little differences. And when you look, especially when you look at appliances, the appliances that meet the energuide standard, they're not your wolf, they're not your sub zero, right. Some of them you can still get them that they meet the rating. But like if you're buying a wolf or sub zero fridge kind of thing, I Don't think you're too concerned about the extra cost of a net zero house because the net zero house is your mechanical system and your building envelope. Right. So that's where it gets tricky. And any, like, if you go for a full LG package, which is decent standard package, it meets all the criteria for, for the inner guide ratings for a net zero house. So there's all these little things that can make it so that a net zero house doesn't actually cost you hardly any more than your traditional house. Or you can do it where you take it all the way to the moon. You build the biggest house you can. You have to implement larger steps to make sure that you, you have this and it works. But yeah, that's, that's kind of a loaded question. It's kind of like going through a car dealer. Well, it is. It's like going to the car dealer and being like, tell me what's the price of a four door sedan?

Yeah.

What one are you talking about? Right.

Yeah, right. I think a big challenge for you is probably educating people about all of these nuances, right?

It is. People don't understand it. People think net zero and their, their mind automatically goes cha ching. Like, it's got to be more money. It's not necessarily more money. It's necessary. It is attention to detail, right. Which is what we should be looking at when we're building our homes anyways. We shouldn't be building our homes as fast as we do. Right. If you look at any good custom home builder, they take their time, right. They make sure that every, every box is checked off when they're going through it and they take their time. And when you look at the quality luxury home builders like, like Felipe, who you had on here before, like he takes his time and goes through all of those boxes. Everything's ticked off, everything's perfect when he's finished. Right. The only difference is, is he's just not, he's not going for the net zero. He's fully capable of doing it. It's just, it's not what, that's not what he's going for, but it's that attention to detail. That's all it is. That's the only difference.

Episode 94 Felipe was on I was just actually googling that. There you go.

Yeah, but I mean that's, that's the only difference is attention to detail, making sure everything is buttoned up perfectly. I mean, our midpoint blower door test on our house that we were doing, we got 0.97 so our house was extremely tight and that was not trying too hard, that was just doing the steps properly, making sure everything was buttoned up, see how it goes. Because I just wanted to benchmark, see, see where I was sitting at 0.97? Well, that's step code five. Right. At that point, once we closed everything up, it's pushing passive house. Well, that's above and beyond net zero. So it's, it shows that like as long as you're looking at what you're doing, it's achievable for anyone kind of thing. It's just you need the education to know what you're looking for.

Yeah, yeah, I guess you need, you do need a bit of an appetite from the person you're building the house for as well. But I guess like as you educate them more about it, it seems like a no brainer.

But also as builders, like we have to warrant the home right at the end of the day. So why wouldn't you want to warrant a home that you know is not going to fail versus a home that is built to basic, your very basic building code? Well, basic building code is the minimum, the absolute bare minimum to pass. Right. Why do you want to live in a home that is built to the absolute bare minimum? It has nice shiny things inside, but the structure, the main components of it is the absolute minimum that you need to pass. Like, do you want to drive in a car? That was the, it just, it just made it, it just made it through the testing.

Yeah, that's a fair point. Right, But I guess there's, yeah, that's, that's a life or death situation, right. If you're driving in a car that's only just met the specifications.

Yeah, but that, but it can be said the same for a house, right? Your firewall separations, your, your mechanical systems, your electrical systems, your, your piping. Was it, was it installed properly? How is your, how is your foundation sitting? Did it get packed? Are you going to have differential settlement? Are you going to have cracking? Are you going to have leaking?

Yeah, that's a good point.

So like everything compounds and as a society I think we need to be more inclined on looking at high performance building and giving it its due time. Because we have the technology, we have the ability to do it very easily. Why don't we just do it? Right.

It's legislated as you said, like the, and maybe it will be at some point.

Well, and that's the thing, like in our area, a lot of municipalities are fighting back because they look at it and say, well, no, it costs way too much to do it. It's like, well, no, it doesn't. If you talk to some of the top high performance builders in our area, they can do it for almost the same as a traditional house. So now what's your argument? Yes. Right. How about we learn about it so that we can do it properly and then it's, it's all super easy as long as we keep educating. But that's the thing. Like we're, people are just educating themselves to just get by at this point. And it's got, there's got to be a transition made where we're educating ourselves to actually be better in the industry. Like our, our industry in general has a bad rep. Right. Contractors in general get bad reps for. Well, he just, he's making so much money and it's like, no, I'm not actually. I, I spending a lot of money on your project and I have a lot of money going out to keep my company running so that I can build your project to walk away with 10% at the end of the day. Right. And it took me over, took me well over a year to build some of these homes. Like some of these homes that people commission us to do. They're like two, three year projects. Well, yes, I should be making a, a nice little paycheck at the end of that. Like I was at it for two and a half, three years.

Yeah, right, yeah, definitely. So there's certainly some work to be done and that's a lot about what we do, positioning builders as, you know, the professionals that they are in the market. And unfortunately, to your point, in, in most of the locations we work, there is a bit of a, a poor reputation for builders in general.

Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't really matter where you go. It's just, oh, he, like, you can talk to anybody in any city and they will say, that's a good builder, that's a good builder. Stay away from these ones kind of thing. Or they, they build affordable housing. Like, that's, that's what we're at nowadays is. Oh, it's, it's, it's affordable housing. No, it's housing. That's what it is. You skipped every corner that you could.

That's the translation.

Right. And like for us in, in bc, when we, when you get a lot of developments that build on reservation land, like some of the builders are like, hands down, very good. I will not. And then there's some that they bring in because it's on reserve land. A municipality has no jurisdiction, right. So on the first nations lands, there's nobody checking anything, right. So it's up to the builder to bring in like third party consultants or engineers. Lots of times it's somebody that's actually hired on staff that goes in, walks through, don't always know what they're looking at and they're like, yep, yep, it's good enough. That was it on the plans. Okay, good, we're good to go kind of thing. And there's no actual checking being done, right. So steps get missed and people get lazy and like, and I, I don't know, that's just kind of where. That's why we've started our home, our home building company. That's why we have our interior design company with us. That's why we have another company that we want to transition to just being the net zero and custom luxury home building company. It's just to make sure that people are getting that quality. And, and when you're investing a million dollars in a home, how would you invest a million dollars in a home? That's worth it.

Yeah, definitely. So you've already got some recognition in this space. I believe you had an eight page magazine slot recently. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

Oh, that one's more, more Kylie. But it was a magazine reached out to us and I don't think, I don't think it's come out yet. But yeah, they just, it was, it was kind of like one thing after another. We, we had our one marketing company reach out to us and they want to do a, a feature of our family for their magazine on one of the local mountains kind of thing. So we got front page, whole article photos done. And then right after that another company reached out to us and they said they wanted to do an eight page write up, give some sponsors and stuff like that and then it goes from there. I think we're supposed to be hearing back about that one in the, in the next couple weeks for how things are going and what's, what's been written and, and going from there. So it's just, we're trying to get our name out there as much as we can and, and show that like, you know, we're here and we, we want to build your home and we want to make sure it's built right. We don't want to cut corners, we want to make sure you're taken care of. And I think that's the, that's the biggest thing right now.

No, I love that because I can hear you're passionate about it and focusing in on that niche makes a lot of sense and you can really stamp your, your, your whole credibility and everything around that niche. And it's, it's like a, you know, it's a purposeful reason to be building houses as well. But what are the challenges that you face by, by carving out a space in the luxury sustainable home market?

Well, I took like a dinner plate and then when I went to a salad plate and then I went to my kids plate and then I went to a toy one. So I, I took a very large group of people to build for and now we're down to like the 2 to 1% of society right now. I mean we want to make it more mainstream. We want to do like, our goal is to actually do developments and do fully sustainable communities. But one of the challenges that we ran into was that for one, people don't understand the building process. People aren't willing to take the risk. Everybody that you talk to, they like the idea of a net zero home, but again they don't understand it and they, everybody's always shopping for the cheapest price. Yeah, well, net zero home is never going to be the cheapest price. It's going to be a competitive price kind of thing. But you're never going to get that cheap, cheap home out of a net zero home. Right? Because it's not fast. It's not. I mean our, our building processes are actually pretty quick. I mean we had, we use ICF for our foundations, right. And then we do a ledger on the inside and then floor sits in and then our walls sit right on the floor on top. So we don't, we actually don't have any box joists that we have to worry about. So our house doesn't leak out box joists, we don't have to worry about insulating box joists, which is, which is great. But our wall panel systems, we had a 3,000 square foot footprint for a house and we had our roof going on in a week and a half because the wall panels show up. They're 4 foot by 10 foot and 1 person can lift them and put them in place. I don't need cranes, I don't need anything. It's just disassemble. Put them together, play Lego for, for a few days and then put your, put either put your next floor on or put your roof on kind of thing. So those processes there, once you, once you take a look at the cost of the materials and then the cost of the time for Three or four people to install them. Like it all balances out because it just, like the labor is not there. It's the same with icf. I mean, we were talking with a gentleman who, who used to strictly form concrete foundations the old, old school way. No ICF or anything like that. He had a crew of eight guys. It would take X amount of weeks for, for a certain size home. And then he converted to icf and now he has, for each home, he has a crew of three. And they, they form it up faster than they ever did doing a traditional framed foundation. Not to mention they don't have to strip anything. They strip their bracing and that's it. Right. And you already have your insulation. No thermal breaks, no nothing. Like, that's. That is the best foundation you can put in. And like you look at. Well, it costs X amount. Well, it costs X amount of dollars less too, because I'm paying for labor so.

Well, it sounds like the opportunity for you guys is, is not even that 1 to 2% of the market that are already interested in Net zero homes. It's. It's that next cohort that are wanting to build and you can get them at an early enough stage where you can educate them about all this stuff.

And that's the biggest thing like that, I would say that is 100. Our biggest challenge is getting that education out there. Because everybody knows everything, right? Because the Internet's right there. Well, on the Internet, it says a net zero house costs X amount of dollars more. Well, why. Yeah, who, who wrote that? Who did that? Did he build one? How many has he built? Or how much education has. Does he have behind it to be able to build it kind of thing. So that, that's, again, that's our biggest challenge is making sure that people are properly educated on how to design and build the home.

That sounds like it should be probably the number one thing you talk about in your marketing. And this is going a bit off road here, but how to build a net zero home for the same as a traditional home or, you know, within the ballpark, like that educational piece there would be huge.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's, it's actually a conversation topic we want to have with one of our colleagues in the industry. Because I don't, I don't want it to just be me that's giving all this information. I want it to come with from other credible builders as well. In, in my industry that are doing it as well. Just saying, like, I'm not fluffing you here. Like, yeah, this is what it is. We can talk to this guy. We can talk to this guy. We can talk to this guy. It doesn't have to be that much more. It's just. You're not living in an extravagant house. Right. It's the same price. Maybe you missed out on a couple things. Right. Everybody, like most families within 10 years, they're doing renovations to their house.

Yeah.

Right. Interior. If you don't have to touch your exterior, make sure it's bulletproof. That's all there is to it. Just make sure it's bulletproof. And then you're. You're good.

Very good. Very good. So how did you come across apb and what motivated you to kind of get involved with us?

Well, let's give Flip another fleet credit there, because I was just chatting with him about us. I. I gave him a call one day, and he told me he just finished reading the APB book, and he had just signed up with it, and he'd been doing it for, I think, at that time, maybe month or two months. And he's like, this is like, if there's. If there's a gift I can give you, he's like, this is it. This is the best thing you can do. So went. Bought the book, got the audible. I think I listened to it within a day, the book kind of thing. And I was on the phone call. On a phone call with Michelle shortly after figuring out what do we need to do kind of thing.

Yeah, that's the great thing about this book. Right. I just found a copy here. It's. It's nice and. And short and easy to digest. So.

But just the information that you got from the book, I was just like, this makes sense. This is everything that we've been missing, that we've been looking for, that we've been trying to get. Get out of multiple books kind of thing. And, I mean, we're a little bit slower at taking our steps with it because of certain things that we're dealing with in our company right now. But we're. We're just consistently progressing forward, Progressing forward, taking our time, making sure we're understanding it, making sure that everything's good. And, I mean, it's changed everything on how we do. Like, the first. The first one I did was Profit first for Contractors. Right? That or. Yeah, that Profit Profit model.

Pricing for profit.

Yeah, pricing for profit. Profit First Contractors is another book by Shawn Van Dyke.

Okay.

I was reading that one. That one's a little bit more accounting, a little bit more accounting jargon in it. And it Kind of went over my head. So I gave that one to my accountant to look at.

Okay, yeah, good.

But it was understanding your margins in your markup. Right where I was always looking at it. I'm like, yeah, I should, I should be good and wondering at the end of the year, like, man, I like, I made money like, why, why don't I have anything to show for it kind of thing. And then did that one. I'm like, well, no wonder I had nothing to show for it because I was only ever pricing my margins. I never actually had a markup in there. Like, the only thing I had allocated was enough to barely cover my margins. And sometimes it never did. So I actually went in the hole doing it. So that was the first thing we did was changed it. And there was no kind of working our way into it gradually increasing. It was like, no, this has got to stop. It was a dead stop. Change everything. This is, this is our margin. This is our markup. Now we'll grow from here kind of thing.

Yeah.

So overnight our, our price just kind of went. Definitely not the cheapest guy in the room anymore.

But I mean.

Yeah, what's.

You're running a business at the end of the day, so if it's not profitable, what's the point?

Yeah, exactly. And that's kind of, that's kind of where we went with it. It was like, well, what's the point in having the company if. If we aren't building a profitable company kind of thing? So since then, like, every project that we've had has, has shown profit. I mean, at the end of the day, we didn't, we haven't really gotten to that space where we're actually seeing that profit there because we had, we did what it talks about and how contractors, they work so long and it looks like they're doing okay, but they're not actually doing okay kind of thing. And we, I think we were lucky we got to the point where we figured that out to put a stop to that. But we had some time to pay back all that stuff and get ourselves caught back up. So now we're at a point where we're, we're pretty much caught up now. It's point of like, let's blow this out of the water kind of thing.

Well, that's exciting that you're at that.

It's never going to be one of those things where you price one job and. Yeah. I mean, I'm in the clear kind of.

Yeah, exactly.

You have five years behind you that.

Yeah.

You didn't actually do anything like there, there's a lot of crap that you got to deal with. There's a lot of accounting that we had to deal with. There's like, you name it kind of thing. But that was finally, finally all cleared up. And it's, it's teaching you how to get the right team as well, which is, is very key.

Yeah. I mean, great that you've actually dedicated the time to, you know, fix up whatever needed to be fixed up as well. Right. Because it can be a bit overwhelming, I imagine.

Oh, 100%. It's, it's quite stressful.

Yeah.

But at the end of the day, like, that's why we've taken our time to, to not rush the process and rush through the apb. I know we could be a lot farther along in APB than we are, but all this backend stuff still needed to be done. So the fact that we took the time to get all this backend stuff done now, now we can actually sit down and start enjoying and going through the process properly, making sure that we're getting all the proper education and now we're pushing and expanding to that next, that next stage kind of thing. But all that shit in the back had to be dealt with first.

Yeah, it's a great starting point. It's often where we recommend people get started when they join APB is getting their financials in order first. There's no point in pumping money into marketing or doing all these other things if you don't have a profitable business model in place.

Yeah, yeah. And that was the other thing was looking at the, the marketing side of it and what we were doing and finding out, well, our marketing team that we have for our company, well, it doesn't, it's not actually working. It's not doing what it should be doing. They're the companies that we're working with, they're telling us what they're supposed to be doing, yet we're getting nothing from it. Like before we joined on with Cameron from Contractor Scale, we had a little meeting and we found out that In January of 2023, Brian Contracting kind of just dropped off a cliff. And we're like, well, no wonder we weren't seeing anything coming in. Like we had lots coming in, lots coming in. Not everything was the high ticket item or anything like that, but we had enough coming in to sustain having like 12, 12 jobs a year kind of thing. And then in 2023, like it was, it was pretty, it was pretty scarce. So now that we just found this out in 2024. Now we're trying to play catch up to ramp it back up and get that back up there. Right?

Yeah.

So Cameron from contractor scale is one.

Of our rewards partners. So you're getting, you've started work with him and you're getting a cash rebate from that.

I hope I got that one done properly.

Yeah, well, I don't know. Actually, I can look into it for you though.

Well, I'll have to look into that because I, because I messaged through the, through the, the page that you guys posted for it and then started talking to him that way.

Yeah, that's the way to do it.

Y. But I just, I'm gonna have to make sure that we are getting that because we're super stoked to be working with him and, and what he's building and how he's building it. Because like I said, the one gentleman that we talked to that is working with him, he's got like $250 million in opportunities.

What I loved about how you guys got started with him though is you, you actually did your due diligence. You reached out to us. You like, you know, had the other, other members used him and then we, and then you asked in the Facebook group as well, and then a couple of other people that had used him like, reached out and then you actually had a chat, did you, to one of them.

Yeah, I had a really good chat with Jason Seitz. He's down in. I think it's Georgia. I think he's down in. And that was quite an eye opener seeing the cost of building down there versus oh yeah, here. Right. It's less than half the cost per square foot. Like for them, building a luxury home is lower than our basic cost per square foot. So that was kind of an eye opener there because he said he's, he can do a really nice luxury home for like $300 per square foot. And up here we're starting at about 350 per square foot to be, to be able to do it.

You thinking about moving?

No, I'm not. It's just, it's different. Different clientele, different ways of building. I mean, maybe, maybe one day we'll, we'll go down and build some stuff down in the States. But as of right now, I'll, I'll stick to B.C.

From a cultural perspective. I've always thought of Canada and you know, B.C. in particular as a progressive area. But in terms of like, I imagine in this net zero space, it's a good place to be.

I Think so over on the island. So Vancouver island, they seem to be more accepting of it than they are over here. Over here. Because. And I think that is due to the fast paced nature of the lower mainland in Fraser Valley. Like it's, it's get in, get it done, let's go, let's go, let's go. Whereas when you go on the island, it just, you step back. Not just one or two beats, you step back like four beats. I think it's just let's, let's take your time, let's get it done. Because I learned from my cousins who moved over there, they're from Calgary, Alberta, which is if you think Fraser Valley is hustle and bustle. Calgary is just like crazy. When I worked in Alberta framing the time it takes people to erect a home here, we would have had three done. Like it was just framers. Get in, get it out, move on to the next one. And the weather, the weather's a whole different monster. But yeah, when my cousins moved to the island to build their house, they said it, it was like pulling teeth to get someone to work an actual eight hour working day. Right. They'd show up for like five hours, do some, do some work and then no, no, it's, it, everything's going swimmingly, like it's all right. And it's just a different, different way of life. But a lot of them really are about sustainability, especially on the island. Everything is about sustainability. They're, they're huge on it. So I think, I think that's probably the best place for us to really start pushing is for us to make that transition over there. Not to say that it's not needed here in the Fraser Valley in the lower mainland, but they're just a little bit more accepting of it sooner than they are here kind of thing.

Vancouver island, beautiful part of the world. I actually got married there.

Did you?

Yeah.

Right. In Victoria or.

No, up. Up the mountain a little bit at a resort called Villa Erie.

Okay.

It's a beautiful place. Like it looked down in between the mountains, like in the water in the middle there.

Yeah.

Stunning part of the world.

Love it. Yeah. That's where we, we got married in Whistler. And then our honeymoon, we just went to, went to souk on the island and just kind of explored the whole, whole side of Vancouver island. And it was some of the places that they have there. Like it feels like a totally different world.

Yeah, we stayed on, my whole family came over to, to Vancouver and we stayed at a place for a week after the Wedding, like down on the. On the lake there and stuff. It's just amazing. It's just so nice there.

Yeah.

Anyway, that's another story. It's a little off topic, but yeah, I mean, I can imagine. The reason I said that is I can.

I'm.

I'm visualizing the homes over there and stuff, and I can just imagine what you're talking about. So.

Yeah, well, and that's the thing. Like we, the homes we want to build. Like, we don't want to build just your regular cookie cutter, basic standard fit on a lot home. Like, we want to build a home that has character, has life and presence to it. Like, we're not huge into the modern architecture. Lots of concrete, lots of stuff like that. Because to us, that's cold. And when, when we talk sustainability and environmentally friendly, like, like our, Our flooring meets the highest stat, one of the highest standards that you can put. But it is a quality, hard, engineered hardwood that we're putting in and the life it has, it just like there's some. Something about it. I mean, if we think of our homes as. As living entities that have to do. Do their job properly, like, I, I like creating. I feel like I like creating life kind of thing. And that's, that's the way we try to design our homes and so that they're welcoming, they're warm, they just, they do what they're meant to do. They have a job and their job's to make you money, Right? Not cost you money.

So.

One question I always like to ask builders when they come on the show lane is what software use in your building company? Because it's always something of interest for other builders out there. So software, do you use software?

I actually use BuildXact and I used BuildXact before that was a partner of APB Builders. I use BuildXact just because I found it. I was. I was using Co construct. I tried Builder Trend. I was looking at. I can't. I can't remember what the other one I was looking at. Oh, con contractor something.

There's a lot of them now.

Yeah, yeah, there was three of them. But I was diligently using Co construct and I signed up for buildertrend and it was just. It was too much. I. I didn't have enough time to dedicate to it, to fully immerse myself and understand it. And then I found buildxact and it was half the price of any other ones. It was Canadian or. Well, it was. It was Canadian dollars because I think it's an Australian Company?

Yes, I think so. Yeah.

But I just liked it because, I mean, it doesn't have the best client portal. It is definitely getting better. But the whole takeoff. Right. Full integration with that was what I really liked. Not having to have two separate softwares so that I could import my plans, do all my takeoffs. It's just you have your one software for CRM. You, you import your plans, you do everything that you need to do. It spits it right out.

Cool. I mean, build exact for wall.

Well, I think I got enough invested into it that it makes sense to stick with it still. Unless I find something else that is like God's gift to man kind of thing. Which I'm hearing, I'm hearing about a couple other ones that kind of intrigue me. But nothing has made me switch from build Exact yet.

Yeah.

Cool.

Well, what would be one piece of.

Advice you wish you'd received before you started o' Brien Contracting?

One piece of advice, Biggest thing would be find a community like app builders. I have two pieces of advice that I would want to give myself. Find a community like APB builders to be come a part of and get yourselves mentors right off the bat. Because in our industry, community is everything we are. We need community to help us with our, our clients to ensure that they are always taken care of because they're ultimately, they're our top priority at the end of the day. And having that community also helps us if you run into any issues when you're starting out having somebody else or having either your mentors that you can talk to or an entire community of like minded people who are doing the same thing day in, day out and have probably dealt with that exact same situation that you're in right now kind of thing. I didn't have any of that. I, I decided, you know what, I'm gonna screw the world. I'm gonna start my own company. I'm gonna do this better kind of thing.

Yeah.

And I had the total wrong attitude going into it in the beginning and I took a lot of bumps along the way thinking I knew everything and knew nothing.

Well, I mean, yeah, that's the journey though, right?

Right. I knew something, but it wasn't. I should have had somebody there to kind of help me because I didn't have anybody in my family because I'm the first one in my family to actually be an entrepreneur and own my own company. So there was nobody there to help on that front. All of my friends at the time were working for companies, so I had nobody. So I Was literally swimming in the deep end with the big fishes, all on my own. And. And I mean, I'm still here, so that. That's gotta say something, but glad I was a strong swimmer.

Well, yeah, I mean, it can be quite lonely. Right. Because to your point, if you don't have, like, if your family's not entrepreneurial and your friends aren't entrepreneurial, then it's almost like you feel like you're just on a different page.

Yeah. 100. And like, I mean, my friends and family, they've always supported me and stuff like that. Like, that's never been an issue. It's just you don't have those people to talk to. On what should I be doing? How should I do this? How should I go about my marketing? How should I go about actually pricing the job? How should I go about buying stuff or paying myself or this and that. Right. Because that's big things because you. And there's several ways to start a company. Right? Sole proprietor or incorporated? Well, I went incorporated and acted as. I was a sole proprietor for a few years. Right. And that can get you in a lot of trouble. Right. It takes you a long time to get to get rid of. So I, Yeah, I really wish I would have had just something like this when I, When I started and had somebody kind of guide me a little bit more.

But I mean, I guess as well, like you, it's part of the journey to figure all that stuff out. So.

But any, I mean, any, any people I talk to now, though, that are. Are looking at starting their own company or want to transition to that, that's one of the biggest things I tell them. Make sure you got the education, make sure that you have a team behind you. Not they don't have to work with you, but you have a team of people of community that you can count on. You can talk to and, and go from there. Right. So I think, I think that would be the biggest advice.

Yes, it's great advice. Great advice. Well, Lane, I've had a great time having a chat with you today. I really appreciate you coming on. I can hear your passion about Net Zero Homes and the building company that you're building out. So really appreciate you coming on. Thanks so much.

I appreciate you having me today. I mean, it's been exciting because I've been looking forward to this call for a couple weeks now and been ready to get on it. I mean, like you said, I am passionate about it. We do everything we can to ensure that we're. We're building the best home and designing the best things for everybody all the time. So. Yeah.

Well, I'm really excited to follow your story now. So I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that will be as well. But it's also just sharing the advice you shared today with, with people that are at an earlier stage than you as well is, is really valuable.

Yeah. Yeah. Always reach out. Never be afraid to reach out to anybody because you never know what somebody can help you with. If there's a, if there's someone who is, who inspires you or you follow on social media and you like what they're doing, reach out. That's honestly how I got connected with Felipe back in the day was followed him on Instagram. I liked what he did and I asked him if he wanted to have a coffee and he's like, sure. Right. So don't be scared to chat with people about vote things because I guarantee they've gone through it.

Yeah. Great advice. Well, yeah, thanks for coming online.

Thank you.

Well, also, sorry you're going.

I was going to say happy. Have a happy Easter.

Oh, yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Also, a big thank you to our.

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