AI-First Growth for the Trades: Builder Market with Louis Vierra and Brett Taylor

Most contractors know the feeling: you pay for leads that five other companies get, you chase calls late, and your software stack keeps growing—but not your margins.

Builder Market’s Founder Brett Taylor and Co-Founder Louis Vierra come from the trades. They built an AI-first platform that keeps things simple: a free listing that customers can trust, pro-to-pro networking, a built-in CRM and pricebook, financing, and access to exclusive leads. You choose your zip codes and categories. You pay only for the real leads delivered. You get support when you set it up.

Pair that with speed-to-lead automation and AI-first websites and content and you’ve got a system that responds in seconds, shows proof the customer can see, and builds visibility in both search and AI assistants. Less noise. More booked jobs.

Timestamps

00:00 – Why the old model hurts contractors  

01:16 – Brett and Louis: from jobsite to software  

06:07 – What’s broken with Angie/Yelp and fragmented tech  

10:24 – What Builder Market actually does (in plain English)  

14:19 – Pricebooks, templates, and financing that don’t slow you down  

15:23 – Find subs and GCs fast; work together in channels  

17:16 – Claim your listing; setup in minutes; live help  

20:21 – Consumer tools: AI planning, renderings, DIY guidance, product recs  

22:04 – Becoming a trusted data source for AI assistants  

25:50 – How exclusive vs. shared leads work; real-time auctions  

28:36 – Speed-to-lead: reply in under 5 minutes (or in seconds with AI)  

32:30 – Training and the Hydra ecosystem: content, agents, automation  

36:09 – Third‑party validation + AI content = more visibility  

40:04 – Why AI‑first beats legacy SaaS  

42:00 – Using AI instead of adding office headcount  

43:21 – Value-first approach and open feedback  

44:44 – Costs: free to join; category-based lead pricing  

47:19 – Disputes and refunds that respect pros  

48:27 – 641,000+ pages indexed; tight geo coverage  

50:07 – Brand mentions and content built with partners  

53:29 – Final steps: claim, configure, connect

Guest Details

- Louis Vierra, Co‑Founder, Builder Market — Veteran GC; patents in construction project management; built Struxure, the engine behind Builder Market.  

- Brett Taylor, Founder, Builder Market — Entrepreneur focused on fair, open pro-homeowner communication and smarter lead distribution.

Relevant Links 

- The Builder Market  

- Just Start AI  

- Catalyst for the Trades Podcast  

- OnePath AI  

- Hydra (CI Web Group)  

- Pulse (CI Web Group)  

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to "The Catalyst for Trades" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred platform. Share this episode with aspiring and established leaders, and stay tuned for more insights on driving business success and personal leadership growth.

Transcript

Jennifer Bagley [00:00:02]:
Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us on the Catalyst for the Trades podcast today. You guys, today I'm very excited. I have two amazing special guests who I've gotten to become very good friends with over the last few months, and I am so excited to be able to take time with them to talk to you about what these guys have built. Um, as you guys know, if you've been listening to the podcast, you know I'm really particular about the A, people we bring on. B, technology. I'm a little on the rough side as far as what technology I choose to endorse or not endorse. And you guys, we have a really killer show for you.

Jennifer Bagley [00:00:41]:
These guys have done an amazing job at building one of the most, if not the most advanced platforms, fully AI integrated, designed and built for the trades and the pros to grow their business. But I think most importantly, really designed for consumers, and that I think is missing in a lot of different platforms and systems. So without further ado, I have Brett, the founder of the Builder Market, and Luis, co-founder of the Builder Market. You guys, thank you for joining the show today. I appreciate it.

Louis Vierra [00:01:12]:
Yeah, you're welcome. Good morning.

Brett Taylor [00:01:14]:
I'm excited to be here.

Jennifer Bagley [00:01:16]:
Good morning. Okay, so before we dive into actually the Builder Market, I'm curious about both your backgrounds. Um, one, kind of how do you get into the trades and technology, the two together? Uh, and then two, we'll dive into what— where did all of the concept and idea— what were the problems that arose that caused you to build the Builder Market and to think about it so differently than what's available on the market today?

Brett Taylor [00:01:43]:
Yeah, yeah. Paper, scissors.

Louis Vierra [00:01:50]:
I can start off with that. So, you know, 28-year general contractor, grew up in the trades. My dad was a builder, been around it my entire life. I have bought and sold real estate in multiple states across the country, as well as built hundreds of millions of dollars worth of luxury homes in the state of California, as well as got into technology in about 2014 when I realized that there just wasn't the right solution for construction project management. I needed a solution that was an all-in-one place where I can run the business, um, as well as, you know, communicate with the team and get all the right documentation to the right people at the right time. And so I started writing patents around construction project management and the use of AR and VR in the uh, use, in, in a project management space back in 2014 and started building a platform called Struxure, which is now the engine behind the Builder Market today. So that's, that's my 30,000-foot— that's where.

Jennifer Bagley [00:03:00]:
The best ideas come from, is the fact that something's broke. Yeah, we need it for ourselves. I love that. Brett, how'd you get involved? How'd you guys meet?

Brett Taylor [00:03:09]:
Yeah, so I'm a serial entrepreneur, and I was offered two different positions in like the same week, and it was like a turning point in my life. Um, I was offered to become fast-tracked to become a talent manager for some celebrities here in Los Angeles where I live, and then the other job was to become a sales manager for a leading contracting company, and I went with, uh, becoming the sales manager for a contractor. And I was just using these different platforms that we all know very well, and I just could not believe how terrible they were. Coming of age with Facebook and LinkedIn and having just easy access for communication, and I could not understand why that model was not applied to these industries. And so I said, hey, I'm going to build a better platform. And I was in business school, and, uh, my professor, he said, do you have a tech background? And I said no. And he discouraged me from, uh, building the builder market. And I said, no, no, the industry really needs this.

Brett Taylor [00:04:29]:
And so I worked on, uh, building out the directory for about 2 years. And then, uh, we received one of my emails, and I like to joke around that it was love at first Zoom, and we just clicked from the very get-go.

Jennifer Bagley [00:04:45]:
Oh my goodness. I— my experience in the trades was similar. I came from the supply chain industry, and so I had been, um, responsible for implementing the largest ERP system in the world to multiple retailers. I implemented it at Tommy Bahama, at Nordstrom, um, and then again at Fossil. And then when I started this business, uh, I remember like the first 3 weeks in the trades of going, well, what's your operating system? What ERP system are you using? What CRM system are you using? How is it connected? Give me an example of your tech stack. And Soon as I got my hands on all the technology in this industry, I was actually just pissed. This is just I hate trash. it.

Jennifer Bagley [00:05:36]:
Pissed. Every single piece, the tech stack was enormous. They wound up with 10, 15, 20 different pieces of technology. Everybody had this moat around it like it was a child's movie. Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. Nothing connected. Nothing talked, right? And I was blown away at how these contractors were hodgepoding their businesses together with all these tech. And then I got to know Yelp and Angie.

Jennifer Bagley [00:06:07]:
Now I'm real pissed. So the first website that I built— this is— I had to be in my early 20s, mid-20s, mid or late 20s, and I built a website called FAndy.com. .com, and then I did F Yelp right after that. Trouble for both of them. So not saying you should do that, but when you're in your 20s and you're, you know, yeah, you get a little tech background behind you. Uh, yeah. Anyway, so I love that. Now, what were the problems that you guys felt like you were solving? So we know the traditional aggregator sites, the Angie.com, the Yelp.com, the HomeAdvisor, and so forth.

Jennifer Bagley [00:06:46]:
What do you feel like the biggest, um, drivers were that were saying, I'm not going to do X, Y, and Z? It's not about building a directory, but what did you really want to solve?

Brett Taylor [00:06:57]:
Open communication. So I was actually on my sales appointments and I'm thinking everyone wants at least typically 3 estimates before they're going to make a choice. And we have all these modern tools and technologies. We should be making it a lot easier to be able to connect and, uh, quickly get you an estimate. Like, I don't necessarily need to drive an hour or so to your house to be there for 2 minutes. And so that was kind of the genesis behind it. But, uh, it's really just open communication between, um, providers and homeowners. That's the reason why I thought the builder market was needed.

Brett Taylor [00:07:37]:
And it's actually been the biggest challenge. My idea of creating open communication, I am asked over and over again, I've literally been asked thousands of times by these professionals, what's the catch? Like they cannot believe that somebody has created a communications platform that values them.

Jennifer Bagley [00:08:02]:
Yeah.

Brett Taylor [00:08:03]:
So yeah, there's just a lot of PTSD going on in the industry because of Angie.

Jennifer Bagley [00:08:09]:
Yeah, yeah, great.

Louis Vierra [00:08:11]:
Yeah, I feel like, you know, uh, just, just being in this business for as long as I have, it was— I was pretty sick of the gouging. I feel like, you know, there's, there's all this, you know, pricing leads, you know, by zip codes and making people double and triple pay. And, you know, and then, you know, just the nature of the lead business Angie and those guys are reselling leads, you know, 8+ times. And, you know, you make a call to somebody and they've already chosen somebody else. And so it just felt like it's just complete waste of money for me. The other thing that Brett and I have really focused on is we believe that every one of these businesses should you have, know, the opportunity to get world-class solutions the same solutions that the top 1% of all the businesses have, but for an affordable price. And so, you know, we're, we're really after trying to help that 99% of those companies out there that never had the opportunity before at the Builder Market to be able to access these solutions.

Jennifer Bagley [00:09:19]:
So give me the brass tacks. So for those that don't know what the Builder Market is, they're a pro. We've got HVAC, plumbing, electrical. We have a ton of different kind of pros and home service as well as trades professionals that follow this show. So for them, what is it? How do they use it? What's the value proposition?

Louis Vierra [00:09:41]:
Yeah, Brett, you want to take that?

Brett Taylor [00:09:43]:
Yeah, so the Builder Market is an all-in-one, uh, tech marketplace for professionals. So we have several different services that we offer, and so it's really kind of just an à la carte service. So the core is being a communications platform. So I would say that is the number one thing we're wanting to be. We want to be the 21st century version of the yellow pages. So every single professional has access to a 100% free and customizable business listing. Anyone can contact you directly, but we're taking it one step further. So, uh, professionals, you can create profiles for you and your team that are attached to your profile.

Brett Taylor [00:10:25]:
And then if you're logged in as a professional, you can create connections with other professionals. So if you are working together on a project, you can easily use our tools to be sharing blueprints, estimates, selections, anything that you need to complete the project. So in addition to that, we also have 30+ different SaaS tools. Everything from estimates, invoicing, scheduling, selections. We've partnered with Pinterest to offer world-class mood board software.

Louis Vierra [00:11:06]:
Well, yeah, it's, it's that. And what we've done on the lead generation side of things is we went and hand-picked the best lead generation providers in the country to partner with. We have exclusive agreements with them, and what we offer is exclusive leads. So what that means for our professionals is that they're the only one that's going to get that, that call or that lead. And we do also offer some shared lead services for some of those industries that prefer that style, but we really focus on exclusive leads. We feel like that is the, the best version of the relationship that we can provide. And then from a business management standpoint, we've tried to really build in every feature that you need to run your business, from sales, marketing, all the way through AI-optimized project management tools. We're working on a really awesome fleet management system right now, which will be— which will take it you even, know, to the top to compete with ServiceTitan.

Louis Vierra [00:12:08]:
And just You know, really just focused on providing every single tool we can to empower our professionals to be the best in the business and the best in their area.

Jennifer Bagley [00:12:19]:
So are you saying that a small contractor who maybe is debating, do they need a ServiceTitan account or a Housecall Pro or a jobber or whatnot, that they could operate their business in the back office of the system, everything?

Louis Vierra [00:12:33]:
That's right. Yep, that's right. We, we offer a full integrated CRM. For all of your lead management systems. We can also bring in HubSpot, and we're integrated with several other CRMs as well. You can manage everything from leads all the way through the end of the project and continue to manage the relationship with the client afterwards as well.

Jennifer Bagley [00:12:59]:
How do they get their price books in? So what about pricing for invoicing and whatnot? Pricebook's part of it.

Louis Vierra [00:13:06]:
Yeah, Pricebook's part of it. We have a really great Pricebook feature that allows you to bulk upload, you know, pricing catalogs from Excel, and you can also do it manually. It's got access to, you know, all of the different categories in construction. We, we like to divide it by CSI Division 1 through 16, which is what almost all professionals use, so For our HVAC pros that are doing any contracting work with general contractors, they'll understand that they need to be in that Division 15 workload. And so, you know, put in all of your services, your hourly, your materials can all be separated in the price book and then automatically populated to an estimate. The greatest thing about that feature is, and I think that's one feature that saves a ton of time in our estimating feature, is that you can create templates.. And so you know that if you're doing a water heater changeout or if you're doing a furnace changeout, you know what that you specific, know, set of costs are that are associated to that package. So you can create that package, you can hit one button, it's on the estimate, you hit go, the customer can then pay for it out in the field and you're good to go.

Jennifer Bagley [00:14:16]:
What about financing?

Louis Vierra [00:14:19]:
Yeah, we do have financing options. We are currently partnered with Acorn Financing. They offer financing up to $100,000 per project and that's direct to homeowner. But the greatest thing about it is the homeowner doesn't actually get paid, so they can't just take your money. And that's, that's a big deal out there. They will approve, you know, 98.5% of all customers out there. And we know that's a big deal because a lot of the people that we work for may or may not have the right credit terms to apply for premium financing. So all those solutions are available.

Jennifer Bagley [00:14:58]:
Is there a soft pull option for pre-approval?

Louis Vierra [00:15:00]:
Uh, there is. It's all soft pull. There's no hard credit checks. Um, the way that it works is professionals will need to fill out a really quick— it's like less than 5 minutes— application to be able to be added to the Acorn platform. And then once that's set, Acorn does everything in the background for us.

Jennifer Bagley [00:15:23]:
Nice, nice, nice. So, um, for a contractor utilizing the platform, let's say it's an HVAC provider, they get a project, maybe it's a server room, it's a light commercial or whatnot, and they need another pro, they need somebody to come out and do the electrical work, or they don't have some of the plumbing that's necessary and so forth. How easy is it for them to be able to find a pro online in the same environment and be able to create that kind kind of connected relationship to be able to collaborate on projects together.

Louis Vierra [00:15:54]:
Yeah, Brett, you want to take that one?

Brett Taylor [00:15:55]:
5 minutes. All you need to do is you just log into your account and you reach out to the other pros in your area. So we are, uh, working on, um, really optimizing the AI for search. So the AI still has some way to go with, uh, just being able to successfully connect you, uh, just because it has some issues. But, uh, you're going to be able to use our tools, connect with pros. You're going to be able to use, um, our Slack-like channels and send blueprints, estimates. So we're really just trying to make it as easy as possible. And what's great is these features are free.

Jennifer Bagley [00:16:37]:
That's crazy.

Louis Vierra [00:16:38]:
Yeah, inside inside our, um, our, our platform, there's a network feature and inside the network feature, you can search for other professionals in your area or even in other areas, and then you can connect with them. So that, that's a great thing. It's a really great tool for, let's just say you're an HVAC pro and you're looking for more general contractors to work with. You can go through our platform and chances are we have just about every general contractor in the United States listed in our platform. So you would be able to reach out to them, and then create new relationships. And that's, that's really powerful.

Jennifer Bagley [00:17:16]:
I love it. Um, the setup process— so what's the setup process for somebody to get fully set up on the system? Or, or give me both. Give me the light version. I'm just looking— I have an existing field management system. I'm looking to be able to get leads from my business. Uh, I'm focused on exclusive or shared, whichever they're interested in. How long does it take them to get set up? What's the process feel like for them? Is it— do they have help? Do they have to figure it out on their own? What's it look like?

Brett Taylor [00:17:47]:
Yeah, it typically takes 10 to 20 minutes. So what you'll do is you'll just create an account as a professional on the Builder Market, and we will walk you through the steps of claiming your listing. So, uh, for most professionals, we already have you listed in our directory, and so at the right time and place, we will have you input your company's name and location, and we'll find your listing. And if we don't have that, then you'll quickly be able to create a listing. And so really, with your listing, it's just about, um, taking up to 20 minutes to add photos of your work, your logo. You can also add reviews from anywhere online. We know you've worked really hard for your reviews and you want to be able to continue promoting them, and so you can add reviews from Yelp Angie, the BBB, pretty much anywhere online, and we aggregate that on your listing. And then to get started with the leads, so, um, we offer both shared and exclusive leads.

Brett Taylor [00:18:48]:
And for the shared leads, you really don't need to do anything else. You're just going to be selecting the different kind of categories of services that your company provides. But if you want exclusive leads, then you need to go through a step-by-step process that would take an additional 20 minutes to an hour. The hardest part is just everything in the lead industry is based on, uh, zip codes, and so you have to provide all the different zip codes that you'll accept the leads in, and that's the most tedious part. But I'm there, so if you need help signing up, um, I'm happy to hop on a video call with you. I prefer doing video calls just because I can share my screen and visually answer your questions. It's really hard answering techie questions over the phone.

Jennifer Bagley [00:19:37]:
Yeah, yeah, you guys, so go to juststartai.io, go to your membership platform, click on the marketplace, and you can find the Builder Market, uh, the link to be able to get registered. You can find it right on the front of the website. These guys are one of our biggest sponsors, so you can find it right on the front of the website under the sponsors area. You can also go into the marketplace, and you guys can grab a link to that directly from the marketplace. You can get your account, claim your listing. Why not? How many pros do you guys have out there that have unclaimed listings right now? I'd hate to see that because this is a free backlink from a very powerful domain.

Louis Vierra [00:20:19]:
Yep.

Jennifer Bagley [00:20:21]:
Okay, so yeah, this is like step one out of the gate. Every single contractor who's listening to this, like, do step one, which is go to, go to Just Start AI, Go to the Builder Market, grab your listing, claim it, fill out your profile. Like, take the time. If it's 5 to 10 minutes, it's worth it, hands down. You guys are going to get a powerful backlink to your website. You guys are coming out with some badges, right? Consumers are starting to use the platform a lot more because, um, you guys have made some really dynamic functionality that makes it really easy for a consumer, which that's, I think, the part I love. I love that this is another lead source for all of our contractors and pros. That's important.

Jennifer Bagley [00:21:02]:
But I think that the value is like right now, my husband and I, for our Seattle home, we're in the process of putting together kind of an entirely new backyard. And we've been planning. And originally we were going through, I'm going to say, a very arduous process of trying to find local contractors because we have a lot of different pieces. I want a little putting green and I want covered areas and I want some of the remodel and I'm going to need some plumbing work. I'm going to need some electrical work. I've got a whole big kind of laundry list of things that we're doing. And we just stopped the other night and we're like, what are we doing? We have all these different contractors and emails out. We filled out 100 forms everywhere trying to get somebody to freaking respond.

Jennifer Bagley [00:21:43]:
And we were like, go to the Builder Market, let's actually plan the project. And what a unique experience. It's incredible for the consumer. So yeah, about the consumer's experience on the platform and why it's so important that these pros are available for them when they're trying to plan something for their home or their yard or into their office.

Brett Taylor [00:22:04]:
Yeah, well, what we're trying to do with the builder market is become the preferred data source for AI. And so that's one of the main reasons why it's so important to come claim your listing and fill out the details, because we want to be pushing your information to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, so they are pushing your company as a recommendation when a homeowner comes to their site. So people are going to be using AI more and more in the future for pro recommendations. So that's just, uh, the reality that we are all facing. Um, what we're also doing with the builder market on the consumer side is we're working with several, uh, engineers with our AI features. So one is just connecting with the professionals. I have finding out which pros are best suited for their particular project. But we're taking it, um, we're doing some other really cool stuff.

Brett Taylor [00:23:00]:
So you could be actually taking photos of your backyard and say, hey, um, uh, we're— you can take the photo and we can provide renderings with the AI of different options for you and like redesigns. We're also doing DIY projects. So let's say you're working on like kitchen or in your backyard and you are unsure whether or not you need to hire a pro for a particular project, you can take photos, you can be explaining your project to our tool, and it will provide you with DIY instructions on what you need to do in order to complete a project. We've also partnered with The Home Depot and Amazon where we're going to be offering product recommendations for things that you need. So for glue or any DIY tools.

Jennifer Bagley [00:23:54]:
Oh, that's exciting. What about permitting?

Brett Taylor [00:23:56]:
Uh, permits. Yeah, um, that's really interesting. So I live in Los Angeles, and with the wildfires, uh, I know that LA— this is all really local and regional with Um, permitting. uh, and so it's only as good as the data that's been provided by your particular city. So when it's something like this, I probably would contact your local permitting office and say whether or not they have added the details for the requirements to AI and which tool that they are using.

Jennifer Bagley [00:24:32]:
Yeah, I, you know what, I have a connection for you. I've got one of the most badass permitting companies that works national— well, uh, North America and Canada. America and Canada, all of North America. I'm going to connect you with them because I think that would be a really killer function. And she's figured that part out. That would be an easy plug and play into the system. I love these. This is turning into a boardroom conversation where we solve big problems.

Brett Taylor [00:25:00]:
That's great.

Jennifer Bagley [00:25:02]:
Oh yeah, you just— Stephanie Gordon, do not let me forget to make that connection. Stephanie, I know you watch this. I'm going to get you guys connected.

Brett Taylor [00:25:16]:
And that would help you.

Louis Vierra [00:25:16]:
I think one of the things too, you know, from, from a homeowner standpoint, is being able to get— you know, the, the thing about all of the other lead generation sites out there is that they, they really, they really only push the professionals that are paying them the most. And I think it's important that homeowners have access to everybody that's in their area, in their neighborhood, so that they can get quick fast, reliable service. And that's, that's definitely a differentiator between the builder market and other platforms.

Jennifer Bagley [00:25:48]:
So yeah, I agree.

Brett Taylor [00:25:50]:
Back to the leads. Um, uh, I found this really interesting. So, um, Angie, they have literally lost nearly 50% of their paying professionals in the past 3 to 4 years. It is a bloodbath. And, uh, I thought it was really interesting just to really dive into the mechanics of lead gen. And just for all the pros out there, understand the lead industry changes every 1 to 2 years. And so what is, um, acceptable today, you are going to have to constantly just be updating how you're generating leads. And so just be aware of that.

Brett Taylor [00:26:31]:
But, uh, Angie's in free fall. And so with Angie, they generate leads through their own Angie network, but they also buy a lot of leads from companies that you have never even heard of. And these companies are tired of working with Angie, and they are wanting an alternative, um, platform to be able to, uh, sell their leads. And so what we're doing with the builder market that is different is offering exclusive leads. These are the same leads that would have been sold through Angie or Thumbtack. So to just explain the mechanics of how it works, let's say you focus on bathrooms in Philadelphia. We have a website that's like Best Bathroom Pros Philadelphia. A homeowner comes to that site, they fill in the information or they call the number, and the moment that happens, it goes to an auction.

Brett Taylor [00:27:26]:
And this all happens within seconds. So, uh, the information, and that information can then be sold to Angie, Thumbtack, or the Builder Market. And with the Builder Market, we offer that lead exclusive to you. And what's great about exclusive leads is your conversion rate should now jump to 25 to 50% for all the leads that you get through the Builder Market.

Jennifer Bagley [00:27:52]:
And you're not going to have 3 trucks in the driveway when you pull up to give them an estimate.

Brett Taylor [00:27:57]:
Yeah, exactly, because it's only going to you for that lead. We are also offering shared leads as well, um, because people have different strategies and we want to be able to offer different strategies, uh, and different price points. But through our network, we generate over 200,000 leads a month. That's exactly— and we can generate even more. So leads are generated based off of pros that want the leads. And so if you are interested in kitchen leads in Arkansas, we can generate those leads for you.

Jennifer Bagley [00:28:36]:
That's golden. How do you guys prioritize? Is there any, is there any impact on the frequency that these guys are logging in, their participation rates, the how quickly they respond to the leads? Is there any logic on you know, those contractors that participate more often or more likely, uh, to be able to respond to the customer? I'm sure you want to make sure that your clients, all your consumers, are getting the fastest response rates, best experience through the Builder Market. How do you determine that?

Brett Taylor [00:29:08]:
For sure. So you want to be reaching out to a lead within 5 minutes. You want to be really quick while it's still fresh in the homeowner's mind. And then we're actually wanting to partner with you on, Jennifer, on optimizing the different tools. So, um, if you're unavailable, you can at least be sending out an instant email to the homeowner or an instant text message about your company and ask for additional details.

Louis Vierra [00:29:35]:
Yeah, this is— we talked about Hydra.

Jennifer Bagley [00:29:38]:
Yeah, we should. On to finish on Brett's statement, so you guys, um, for all of our regular followers, you know that we're, um, very connected to OnePath AI, which is the AI lead respondent and booking system. So this has been a really good kind of sequence of connections as the Builder Market Brett and Lou are getting connected with Dave and Lynn over at OnePath AI. And the concept would be that if you're already using OnePath AI, you can easily turn on that functionality so your AI is answering all your texts, all your forms, all your leads, everything that comes through the system. So now you're looking at 18-second response times to any leads that are coming through the builder market. Obviously that's going to increase your booking and conversion rate for those as well.

Brett Taylor [00:30:32]:
Correct. And sometimes you need to use multiple approaches when you have these leads. So, uh, they're going to be receptive immediately, but you might need to call them every week for a few weeks for you to really book that appointment.

Jennifer Bagley [00:30:49]:
Yeah, yeah, that's the benefit of them. If they've got one, they— I— then, uh, we have a really simple, simple way to make sure that 100% of the leads are being responded to, followed up with, and we have human in the loop to continue to book those. I know Lynn and her team have done a tremendous job at increasing everyone's booking conversion rates from being able to be just like hungry, pick up the phone, give them a call, outbound, right? Yep, this is the perfect blend of AI, right? And bring in human in the loop, and, uh, yeah, it's golden. Okay, so Hydra, this is, um, this is going to be really interesting. So notoriously, these have all been very separate business models, technology infrastructure, and processes. And I think that's the power of this connection is the Builder Market is going to be offering both Just Start AI on the training side so that our pros are learning how to leverage AI in their business, the power of AI in their business, whether it's through CSR or operationally or marketing-wise or data intelligence aggregation prediction, everything that you can do with AI, which I'm very excited about that. We've noticed our pros that are participating in regular training and really understanding kind of the levels of AI, not ChatGPT, conversational AI, but moving up to agentic workflows, agentic engineering, and so forth. Like, these guys are, are making waves in the industry, which is really exciting.

Jennifer Bagley [00:32:30]:
But in addition to that, offering Hydra. So I want you to imagine this. So Hydra is the first AI-first operating platform, i.e., website, marketing, agent workflows, automations, autonomous agents, all built into a single framework. Now, this is where the connectivity between the way you guys think and the way we think is so freaking powerful. In our world, Hydra has a pricing engine that allows you to take the same data that you're putting into the builder market to be able to produce the estimates, produce your invoices, um, that same data is used in our AI intelligence model in the back of your website, and that is used to be able to generate content specific to the target audience, i.e., buyer persona, at the specific stage of the journey, right? If they're in the discovery process or the advocate process or decision-making and so forth. What stage of the funnel, and it is capable of understanding the geo-target, i.e., the city and the cost of living index of the city, and being able to alter its communication, its content based on your margin spread. Where do you want to be on the lower end of your margin, the higher end of your margin, knowing the cost of living so that it can start to generate content that is helping educate AI and search engines and generative engines and consumers. Ultimately, we've got to get in front of the robot before we get to get in front of the people, um, on what the true costs are of, um, a change-out or a replacement or implementing a high-efficiency system.

Jennifer Bagley [00:34:27]:
So now you have two major, major players your own website and your own content that is assisting in producing information that is crawled by AI agents, generative search, traditional search, Google, and you have a third-party validation system with the builder market that is then giving you third-party credibility on your business, your reviews, um, your trades lines, your services, and everything else. These two systems working in tandem, very, very powerful because right now your competition is an old platform like Angie that is hardly, hardly— I think I've seen Angie pop up in our AI search results, meaning we track the source of the data that gets presented as a mention inside 5 of the AI platforms.. And I think I've seen Angie like a dozen times show up and it's not even your relative information for our clients. It's just Angie. It's generalized information, but you guys actually have built the infrastructure and a platform that is crawlable by AI search engines, crawlable by generative search engines. This is new tech and likelihood of Angie being able to take this old technology. It's like changing the trajectory of the Titanic and turning it around. Yeah, it's slim to none, but this is very, very powerful, combining education for the pros, a web platform that is highly intelligent, that is distributing content at scale, and then third-party validation with the builder market.

Jennifer Bagley [00:36:09]:
Yeah, really freaking excited about the.

Brett Taylor [00:36:15]:
Ecosystem. Yeah, with your Hydra, like when you showed it to us on, uh, Friday, I was just blown away. It's really hard to even communicate what you've done through words. It requires a demo. Like, this is taking Agentik AI to the umpteenth level. Like, it's really spectacular. So, um, I would just add that really Hydra is just website creation and content management for your company using AI. And how— like, explain how many different Agentik AIs are supporting Hydra.

Jennifer Bagley [00:36:53]:
Oh my God, all of them. It's so crazy. So, oh gosh, I don't even know if I want to go there. Like, our team now, the next move they're making is— the next move they're making is building autonomous agents that are pre-programmed with the goal. Imagine you create— oh, this is like very iRobot-ish— like if you give it a directive, yeah, and that is to accomplish XYZ, and then you give it access to the data that's necessary to be able to accomplish the directive, and then you create a threshold, i.e., a budget, and say This is so different, but you give it a budget and you say that you are allowed to perform whatever necessary actions you need to make to accomplish goal within this budget. And your budget's tokens now, right? It's AI credits. Totally different as human beings. This is an autonomous agent that is given a directive to accomplish this specific goal, right? To identify potential prospects in these potential markets who are interested in buying these potential services.

Jennifer Bagley [00:38:12]:
And to position this business in front of them. And you have free rein to do what's necessary in order to accomplish that. Like, I can't make that happen with Joe or Mary. Yeah.

Brett Taylor [00:38:26]:
One step further than that. So with Hydra, like, you're using all these different agentic models simultaneously. This isn't just going to ChatGPT and asking a question. Yeah, this is now using several different AIs collaboratively working almost at like a human level comprehensiveness of the nuances of a situation. And so that's what's so impressive about Hydra. It understands nuance.

Jennifer Bagley [00:38:57]:
Gosh, yeah, this is really crazy. Between both of our platforms, you take— we're going to have a dataset I'm curious, have you guys thought about allowing somebody to make their pricing public or to actually show kind of an e-commerce version of their solutions?

Brett Taylor [00:39:23]:
I think what would be really great for Builder Market 2.0 is I want people to be able to be booking directly with the professional through the site. They can be paying for their services. So like if you're an interior designer, You're going to be able to, um, provide your hours and people are going to be able to book directly through the builder market for you. Um, also what you're talking about for plumbing projects, I think that would be terrific as well, where we can provide, um, the plumbing pricing and be able to provide that to the homeowner.

Jennifer Bagley [00:40:00]:
That's huge.

Louis Vierra [00:40:02]:
Yeah.

Brett Taylor [00:40:04]:
And you know what's so interesting about AI? It's really going to make Angie and Thumbtack completely obsolete within the next 5 years. Like, it's literally the end of, um, Angie. We, we met with the top brass management of Angie in the past 6 months, and it was a really interesting experience because they are scrambling and they are watching what we're doing very closely. And so for each sign-up, um, it's a huge huge red flag for Angie of what we're accomplishing.

Jennifer Bagley [00:40:41]:
I think that's gonna be all— all SaaS is built on this. I mean, and I hate to say it, but like the service titan days of having these enormous price points for old technology that requires not only humans to run it, but humans and then planners and then consultants and then other architects and other experts, and you have to hire your own customer staff to get it to run. The days of those kind of SaaS technologies are over. No different than in the web environment. Anybody who— I mean, I'm— our V2 of us is that our clients get to subscribe to our AI and they get to use our AI as much as they want. And you're talking about pennies on the dollar compared to paying a human being who you have to manage, is slow, uh, has bad days, whatever, all of these things. I mean, even the agency model is over. Yeah, model is over.

Jennifer Bagley [00:41:49]:
Agency over. SaaS in its traditional environment is over for any platform that has not built an AI-first infrastructure.

Louis Vierra [00:41:59]:
Yeah, I agree. I think AI reception as well. When we look at trades businesses across the United States, you know, the vast majority of these guys have less than 10 employees, and the owner is still in the field quite a bit. So think about, you know, office staff constraints and costs around staffing, you know, somebody to be taking calls. Incoming calls can be fielded by AI very, very well. It's been being used for 30, 40 you years, know, and the new agentic models around this are incredible. So we have access to those solutions as well that we can combine.

Jennifer Bagley [00:42:42]:
I love the fact that you guys, um, you have the mindset of the future. Getting on a call with you guys, how rapidly you move, how fast you move. We get on a call and we discuss whether it's AI optimization or infrastructure or technology or new tools or integrations or what companies you need to connect to, you guys are freaking on it. You're on it instantaneously. This isn't this long arduous process, overthinking it, politics committee. You guys are moving at the rate that any company should be able to move with AI right now, which is why you're in my little, my little roost house of favorites.

Brett Taylor [00:43:21]:
Well, it's really just the philosophy and mindset that we have behind the Builder Market. You know, this is only about whatever's the best idea wins. It's not about our personalities. It's not about wanting to be right. Like, this is a huge industry and it requires a lot of collaboration because we've seen what happens when people don't collaborate with each other. We have all these different options and it's not been beneficial for the industry.

Louis Vierra [00:43:51]:
Yeah. And we believe value first, transaction second, you know, and that's the very basis for every decision that we make.

Brett Taylor [00:43:59]:
Because I'm assuming 50% of pros might never pay for any of our services, and I'm fine with that so long as we can become the preferred, uh, data resource, because that— there's a lot of value in that.

Jennifer Bagley [00:44:12]:
Yeah, being able to connect 100% with.

Brett Taylor [00:44:16]:
Homeowners and other professionals and create a LinkedIn but that is specific to the trades, right? The closest thing to it, um, uh, BuilderTrend, um, they still charge like $7,000, $8,000 a year for basic connectivity tools that we offer for free, right?

Louis Vierra [00:44:39]:
And we have offered them free for years.

Jennifer Bagley [00:44:44]:
So when contractors are saying that this is too good to be true, or what's the catch, like, what are the out-of-pocket cost for a contractor to participate in the network? What can they budget?

Brett Taylor [00:44:56]:
Zero. You don't need to budget anything to join the network. Okay, sign up, fill out your business listing details, and that's it.

Jennifer Bagley [00:45:08]:
Okay, and if they want leads, it's their exclusive leads, they're raising their hand, they've got capacity, they've got availability on their boards, and they want to be able to fill the board what are we looking at range-wise for the cost of acquisition or the cost of the lead?

Brett Taylor [00:45:24]:
So it depends based off of the category. So like the top-end categories would be like bathroom and kitchen, where they're around $154 per lead. But that is still significantly less than Angie.

Jennifer Bagley [00:45:38]:
That's nothing.

Brett Taylor [00:45:39]:
Yes.

Louis Vierra [00:45:42]:
Um, so one of the things I'd like to say that differentiates us as well is that You know, I think Angie, Thumbtack, all these other, even Houzz, all these other platforms, they're going to say, look, you're going to pay $500 to $2,500 a month and we're going to generate, we're going to, we're going to kill that budget no matter what. We don't take that approach. What we do is we allow somebody to join for as little as $250 to get configured so that they have a budget there to be able to take that lead as soon as it's ready. Because remember, it is an auction. And it's live. You're literally buying that lead the second somebody submits it. It's yours. That's how fast it works.

Louis Vierra [00:46:22]:
$250 is a very minimal, you know, amount of money to be able to set aside, um, you know, for, for getting new business. We like to make it attainable for everyone. Um, the thing that we will not do is we will not generate any leads for you that aren't real leads. That are intended to grow your business. So because of the nature of the way that leads work, it is search-based. We're not, you know, you're only going to be paying for the leads that come to you. We're not just going to be taking your budget every single month whether the leads, you know, came in or not. And that's huge.

Brett Taylor [00:47:02]:
Yeah. So let's say you have a $5,000 a month budget for leads. And that month we're only generating $3,500 worth of leads for you, you're only being charged for $3,500, right?

Jennifer Bagley [00:47:14]:
Yeah, that's golden.

Louis Vierra [00:47:17]:
Yeah, it is cool.

Jennifer Bagley [00:47:19]:
Yeah, that's golden. What if— is there any instance where you've had something that's out of area or not an actual legit lead where someone's had it disputed or something? Has that ever happened?

Brett Taylor [00:47:30]:
Oh yeah, yeah, all the time. So one thing with the leads, like, um, uh, The lead leads are interesting. Um, a homeowner uh, sometimes, put in the wrong phone number on purpose. Like, I know I put it in my wrong phone number all the time if there's a lead form. Um, and what we do is if the contact information is incorrect, we refund you your money. All you need to do is just send us a quick email, you're refunded. If we don't even get to an issue, like, um, with the lead, the lead wasn't really your category of services, send us an email. It's a case-by-case basis, but more often than not, we're crediting you back.

Louis Vierra [00:48:12]:
Yeah, we want, we want our pros to win.

Jennifer Bagley [00:48:17]:
Nice, nice, nice, nice. I love that. Um, you guys just hit a huge milestone on the number of index pages.

Brett Taylor [00:48:24]:
Uh.

Jennifer Bagley [00:48:27]:
You guys, these— when we're building websites, and this will resonate with our clients because we teach them how to build infrastructure, which is the total number of pages you have visible for the variations of services and locations that you want to get found for. And, you know, I think on our high end we've got clients with 3,000 to 6,000. On our low end, kind of the average is like 250 to 500. And most of the clients that are coming to us from any other marketing agency, their websites at max have like 250 pages, which we already know is not going to give you a tremendous foot hold across all your service lines, across a large breadth of locations. But you guys are putting a tremendous emphasis into building out the matrix of pros, service lines, repair, installation, replacement, and so forth, times geo-targets. What kind of groundwork are you guys covering right now? What kind of visibility?

Brett Taylor [00:49:25]:
Yeah, so we just crossed the threshold of 641,000 pages indexed. And so what we're doing with our indexing is it's just based off of either the professionals— so all the professionals listed, we're indexing the page for you for Google, which also creates a backlink to your website. We're also doing it based off of location and categories. So plumbers in Los Angeles, and we create a page for that.

Louis Vierra [00:49:55]:
Or even within Los Angeles, we go into, you know, micro targets. So it could be Pasadena, it could be You know, we try to take it as granular as we can.

Brett Taylor [00:50:07]:
But I think we're going to take it to the next level of granularity with you, Jennifer, because you already have the tools for it to show up in AI. And so I think you are the missing piece to really get these professionals landing for recommendations when they're on ChatGPT.

Jennifer Bagley [00:50:28]:
Yes. So this is, this is what we're going to be launching here over the next 30 days. You guys know how Pulse works. So this will be a huge differentiator that the Builder Market will have over any of the aggregator sites that are there. We're going to be launching Pulse on the Builder Market. So essentially what we're doing is we're crawling and evaluating all prompts, questions, and queries on all AI search engines. Related to all of their trade lines, services, pros, and so forth. And we're going to start with the categories that are most active.

Jennifer Bagley [00:51:02]:
So if you want your category highly represented, then jump in. Imagine, well, this is thousands of pages of content being able to be generated that are, you know, anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000+ words that is specifically targeting, providing answers to consumers. Which is— this is, you know what, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm wondering if we could feed the AI the list of pros where it would build the mentions of the pros directly into the content.

Louis Vierra [00:51:39]:
That's exactly what we need to do.

Brett Taylor [00:51:42]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Bagley [00:51:45]:
Oh, that's, that's new. So we haven't built that because we only— most of our clients won't Yeah, because we're only targeting one single client at a time now. But if we train the AI to reference a CAG, a cached augmentation layer, and then retrieve the most active professionals and reference them in the content, their brand mentions are going to go through the roof.

Brett Taylor [00:52:12]:
Yeah.

Jennifer Bagley [00:52:12]:
Oh, it's exciting. Yeah, this is why we have these conversations. Yes, this is why we're never done either, nor why we can't sleep.

Brett Taylor [00:52:21]:
Yeah, this is why I like you so much, Jennifer, just because like I have dealt with so many entrepreneurs. I've met hundreds, if not thousands, and you are just a hustler. You get done immediately, and that is such a rare trait and characteristic. And that's why like I'm like, I want to work with you Yeah, because you are so hands-on. You, you take the idea and like instantly the next day you're working on it.

Jennifer Bagley [00:52:54]:
Oh, speaking of which, I did finish half of the things that I told you I would finish on Friday. I have ready including the HydroLite. Yes.

Brett Taylor [00:53:02]:
Um.

Jennifer Bagley [00:53:05]:
And I got you the Rebate Manager AI. That's it. You guys down there. Now I'm actually having a meeting during the middle of our podcast because we.

Brett Taylor [00:53:14]:
Had a that we were meeting gonna.

Jennifer Bagley [00:53:17]:
I said I'm gonna have a lot of this done by Monday, and we do have a lot of it. And then I forgot it was the Super Bowl, so you only got Saturday. You didn't get Sunday work from me.

Louis Vierra [00:53:25]:
Otherwise, good, good.

Jennifer Bagley [00:53:29]:
Well, I appreciate you guys, Kyle. So before we get out of here, any, um, kind of last minute thoughts you want to tell all of our listeners other than get signed up, get your profile created, go do it, do it today, don't put it on a checklist? We like hustlers. That means you don't like We're wanting.

Brett Taylor [00:53:48]:
To create a platform that you love. And so in order to do that, you need to properly communicate with us. You need to say, hey, you know what, we want this feature. Because if you want a particular feature, I guarantee you that other pros have the same need. And if you don't like something, let us know. Like, we want to create a tool that is built for the next 10, 20 years. And so in order to make that happen, we need your help, and we are happy to do whatever you want us to do.

Jennifer Bagley [00:54:21]:
Yeah, you can't just call the CEO Angie. You guys, if you're a member in juststartai.io, these guys are in there. You can private message them straight through the Just Start AI platform and have a conversation with the founders of the builder market. These guys have made themselves readily available. They're joining our podcast, we're doing a webinar, uh, I think we have that booked that we're actually going to show you the platform, show you how it works, show you how to use it. Plus they're in Just Start AI. So these guys have really committed to working with the Just Start AI community on being able to build this. And when he says they want to hear your feedback, that's legit.

Jennifer Bagley [00:55:01]:
So get your hands dirty, get in there, set up your profile, ask questions, and participate. Like, reach out to these guys.

Brett Taylor [00:55:09]:
Yeah, love it.

Louis Vierra [00:55:10]:
And it's the, the last thing I'd like to say is just keep your eyes out. What we're about to do with OnePath and with Hydra will be game-changing, and it will revolutionize the way that we do business in our trades. And we're very happy to be a part of it.

Jennifer Bagley [00:55:28]:
I'm so excited. This is the definition of— for those that don't know what Hydra means, I actually put it on my Page, Chris is gonna get me, uh, for going over. Um, if you look at the way blockchain works, crypto and the blockchain, that is based on Hydra, multi-headed platform working autonomously at the same time, completely integrated. If you look at Meta and Facebook and Insta, that is a Hydra model, multi-head platform, completely integrated, working together, right? That is the way of the future, not these isolated SaaS platforms anymore. That is gone. That is going to be history. And that's— that I appreciate you guys understanding that and being willing to build at that level. That's a really big deal.

Louis Vierra [00:56:16]:
Yeah, we're super excited about it. Happy to have you as a partner and looking forward to seeing all the things we create together.

Jennifer Bagley [00:56:23]:
Yes, I love it. Thank you guys so much for sponsoring and participating on the Catalyst for the Trades. Thank you for showing up on Just Start AI. I know you guys are launching the rebate manager. IO platform Hydra. And I'm really excited about seeing what you guys in the OnePath team put together. That's exciting. For all of you that are listening today, pause.

Jennifer Bagley [00:56:48]:
You have another like 4 minutes left. Stop what you're doing. Go over to Just Start. Click on the Builder Market. Go claim your profile. Do it today. Don't put it off till next week. That's not how we play around here.

Jennifer Bagley [00:57:02]:
Go get it done, get it done today. And then you guys set up your meeting to be able to get your exclusive leads off the ground. If you've got availability and you need to plug holes, you now have a solution to be able to do that. Get that off the ground, connect with these guys on Just Start AI. That's your task list if you're a pro listening to this. Other than that, we look forward to having you back on the show and continuing to watch the progress and evolution. Of the first fully AI-first aggregator platform online, which is really exciting.

Brett Taylor [00:57:36]:
Awesome. Love it. Thank you.

Jennifer Bagley [00:57:38]:
Love you guys. Thank you so much.

Louis Vierra [00:57:39]:
All right, thanks all. Cheers.