This Woman-Owned General Contractor Is Dominating the Texas Market

This episode of American Builders features Janie Maldonado, the founder and CEO of GCS, a Texas-based commercial construction firm specializing in general contracting, construction management, facilities maintenance, and Job Order Contracting (JOC).

We discuss:
• The leap from employee to entrepreneur and the realities of betting on yourself
• Leading and building credibility as a woman in the construction industry
• What is really happening in the Texas construction market today
• The sales and marketing strategies that actually drive growth for contractors
• Operational bottlenecks, technology adoption, and the future of construction
• Scaling intentionally without sacrificing culture, quality, or execution
• Lessons learned on risk, leadership, and entrepreneurship

American Builders is presented by TradeGuard, the risk management platform built for contractors and trades businesses. TradeGuard helps contractors streamline subcontractor compliance, insurance verification, onboarding, and risk management in one place.

Learn more at https://tradeguardins.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

American building. One brick, one dream. Building the American Woo!

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Alrighty, I am here with Janie Maldonado. Um Janie, thank you for coming on. You are the CEO and founder of General Commercial Solutions. Let's just start with a little bit of an overview on uh kind of how you got started in general contracting. Um you have an interesting story and kind of started with the subs. So give us a little overview of what got you into construction and kind of where you're at today.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Sure. Um, so needless to say, I had zero experience in construction or the industry as a whole. Um my background was in marketing and business development. And I do think that that did help uh quite a bit in my customer acquisition uh part of the business. Um, however, um, you know, if you fast forward now uh to almost 10 years in this in this journey, um, the things that I've learned, the people that I've met, the resources that have been introduced to me, um would have been nothing but a dream, but I couldn't even imagine that. So um it's been, you know, five and a half years of subcontracting to learn the business. And then here we are today taking on projects up to five million. So it's been quite a quite a journey, um, but it's been a good one.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

So walk me back to kind of that first moment. Why did you pick sort of subcontracting the trades in general? Um, and what when was was there a specific moment where you said, okay, I'm going all in on this, or was it a slow transition? Kind of let's go back in time and zoom in on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Yeah, so if we're if we're getting down to the to the raw elements of it, that um starting a company was not my idea at all. It was actually my husband's idea. And it was um really funny to me when he said we're starting a business. I was excited. I said, absolutely. What are you what are you thinking? Um he said, I don't know, but you're you'd be the perfect person to run it. So you would be running this company. Of course, I laughed and um didn't take it seriously at all. Um, and then fast forward to about eight months later, we started the company. Uh, we chose construction. Um, and my sister actually helped me run. She has a degree in construction management. She helped me run the company for about a year and a half, which allowed me to keep my um nine to five. And so I was very happy and very comfortable. Um, she brought me a job offer uh from a company that she's still with, um, and and they've treated her very well. And of course, you know, I said, Well, you have to take this, but that was the moment for me to say, am I am I all in or am I gonna continue to half ass this? And I took the leap of faith. That was the moment for me where I said, I'm gonna go all in and I'm gonna learn this and I'm gonna make it my own. And that was that was the breakthrough moment for sure, and it it changed everything from that moment.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah, I love that talking about that point of the the all in moment. I'm curious if there was any sort of fear or what were your emotions about going all in. Um, and then kind of how quickly did that subside? Was it pretty much automatic, like yes, I made the right decision, I'm doing the right thing, or did it kind of take a little bit to build up to that?

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Gosh, it's extremely scary. I mean, scary is not, I don't think it does it justice, it's frightening. Um, you will doubt there's so much self-doubt um when it comes to because it's something new, it's a it's a territory that you've you haven't discovered. You're you're you're barely making these these brand new discoveries, and uh a thousand percent it is so scary, so frightening. Um, but when you look back, you you see that everyone starts there in that moment. A business owner, an entrepreneur, it's you're made through experiences, not through, of course, you have to have a lot of grit and you have to have a lot of passion and you have to be able to work hard. Those are just natural traits that you're gonna have to have. Um, but everything that that that you're scared of, you're scared of it because, like I said, it's new territory and you will learn along the way, but you're not gonna figure that out until five, six, seven years down the down the line. And I think the most important thing is to be able to share that, share that, be a resource to other up-and-coming um entrepreneurs and dreamers. And um I think it'll make a big impact in in your life as an entrepreneur, but also in someone else's that you know I feel like sometimes I didn't have that help and I kind of had to search for that information on my own. So um I'm always happy to share that and be a resource to new entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

So let's dive in a little bit more specifically about the business. You mentioned that there's kind of three areas that you guys focus on GC, job order, and facilities maintenance. Kind of just walk me through that model. What have you seen working in sort of each of those areas? What pulled you into that? Um, and just kind of talk about in general your uh sort of type of work and what you've seen to be the most successful.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Okay. Um, so in the we landed the the relationship with Houston Community College, which was so funny, um, out of a residential job that I did. Um and that was kind of like my push to just stay in the commercial world because residential and HOAs, they it can be a different type of monster. But I needed an architect at that point um for that project. And I met an architect, kind of like a freelance architect, um, who helped me out with that project and then said, you know what, I work with Houston Community College, you should come to my campus. And that was kind of like our way-in, very, very small projects that we were doing uh for Deanni. Um, and uh, but that was kind of like our avenue, our gateway to um facilities maintenance work. We then acquired um rooms to go furniture, uh, public and private entities, so they work very differently. Um in the uh public space, we have the job order contracting, which makes your opportunities for projects um and and and being a preferred vendor, um, it just it skyrockets that, right? So you have the opportunity to work with those existing relationships and a pool of other education type clients, um, which can be a complete game changer, and it has been uh for us being able to have those cooperative agreements um is huge. So our work probably three or four X in the uh job border contracting world in 2025, and then in uh the general contracting where you're talking about bigger projects, right? So you're talking million, two million, three million, and and and so on and so forth. Um there those are more capital projects, right? Those are more time consuming, um, and time means money. Um, but the profits are are are great if you run them correctly. Um, if you're focused on quality and communication and safety and making sure that you don't have those hiccups, um, it's it's pretty lucrative. So um different types of projects, different types of animals that you're dealing with, smaller versus larger projects. But again, I think that the key is to make sure that you have all your bases covered so that you're not letting things slip through the cracks and you know, staff your projects correctly so that um you don't have any any issues that you have to deal with with your clients.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah, I think one thing I'm realizing with this model is like you said, you're covering your bases in terms of having some of those bigger projects that come in, but maybe they're less recurring in order to sort of get that recurring revenue aspect. That's where you go to the facility maintenance and the job order. Is that kind of been the model you've seen? Is it a little more consistent deal flow with those other two types of jobs?

SPEAKER_01 8:44

That is correct. That is correct. They're faster projects, um, you know, that require supervision, but not, you know, they're not super complex, you know, to where, yeah, you don't have to spend a lot of time and resources on those smaller projects, but they're quick and um they're easy to manage. And at the end of the day, you bill quickly and you get paid quickly, right? So they're quick turnarounds. Um, with our rooms to go clients, for example, we have recurring work, whether it's soft washes or pressure washing or striping, and that helps cash flow, right? So um, yes, to your point that that the model has has worked for us, especially with, like I said, the growth that we had last year, maybe some people wouldn't have been able to keep up with them. But because we're staffed uh correctly on our you know leadership and and administrative staff side, as well as you know, deal with a good network of trusted subcontractors, we've been able to cover all the bases.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

So if you're gonna give advice, let's say there's somebody who's just starting out in the GC world and they're not even on the bigger projects, maybe they're on smaller projects and they're kind of always chasing that next bid. How would you advise them to start to get into the job order, the co-ops? Just what does that process even look like? How do you get going in that model?

SPEAKER_01 10:11

So that that's a really good question. Um, so our avenue was we got the client first and then we learned about the job order contracting. Um, but that's not always the case, which was good for us because as soon as we got those uh cooperative contracts approved, then the work just started flowing in. Um these are public, right? So anyone can go to choicepartners.com, tips.com, 791cooperative.com, PCA.com, and follow them so that you get notified when these cooperative contracts are coming out so that you can prepare for them. And then you prepare your proposal and your estimates and you bid, right? Like here, this is why I am a good fit for for this for this type of work and for your clients. But that's kind of just let's just say you do all that and then you win the contract. Then you have to make the relationships. You have to think that these entities, um, you know, they're huge, right? And they have through the years developed relationships with general contractors or contractors um that they trust, right? So they like to stick with who they know. So it takes a little bit of grind, you know, to get in there and get in front of them and help them realize that they should take good chance on you and for what. So you need to be prepared with your pitches and and your material that you're gonna present to your clients. And they just want someone that they can trust, honestly. Uh, because we all offer similar services, right? But what are how are we different than our competitors at the end of the day, right? So um it's exciting and challenging, you know, especially me with my sales side, my business development side, it's it's a big challenge, but you can acquire new clients. Um, and I think that should be something that you're planning. If if you're planning to bid for these types of contracts, your sales pitch, you should already start developing that because you're gonna have to get in front of these clients and let them know why you're different and why they should work with you.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Mm-hmm. You so that's a that's a great point. I'm I'm reading a book right now called How to Get Your Competition Fired. Um it talks about how and it, you know, a lot of sales advice talks about building the one-on-one relationship with you and the prospect, but in reality, there's a third party involved, and that is the incumbent. And in those scenarios, it's even more true because there's not just one incumbent, there might be, you know, 10, 20 incumbents that you're competing with. Um so building that sales pitch in a way where you are explaining your value and your differentiation without sort of bad mouthing the the competition is is is a critical uh sort of value lesson there. So just a great book if anybody's looking to read into that. Let's talk a little bit about um What was the name of the book again? How to get your competition fired.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

How to get your competition fired. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Great great title, by the way. Yeah, and I can send you that as well. Oh, okay, perfect. Yeah, and then let's talk a little bit about the Texas market. There's it's obviously a very large state, a lot of development going on. How have you seen some of the trends um in the market evolve since you've gotten started in construction?

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Gosh, the market is ever evolving. Anything can happen at any given time and it affects your material costs, it'll affect your labor costs. I mean, we all know what happened after COVID. Um, you know, a lot of stuff just skyrocketed. And, you know, it it always goes up a little, right? But whenever um you're seeing these crazy, crazy waves, um, it's scary, especially if you have a contract in place that you bid a couple of months ago, you know, at a certain rate, and now this tragedy happened, and now, gosh, what are you gonna do? You know, it's time to now negotiate with your client and say, hey, you know, but a lot of the stuff is set in stone, you know, so it puts you in kind of a difficult uh position. Um, I believe right now uh prices are a little bit high. The market, um, uh, like I said, is is is is ever changing. Um, but I think you just get used to rolling with the punches and having your negotiations and and that type of thing ready um to go to battle if you need to, you know, whether that's um, you know, with your with your client or with your subcontractors or or with whoever it is, um, making sure that you have that um that ammunition to be able to negotiate um with whatever party is involved because stuff is ever changing in in this industry.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

I would have to imagine that doing some of these public sector jobs would I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you compare that to sort of residential work, and when times are tough and prices are high, residential is gonna be less likely to renovate a house or whatnot. Is do you see that same impact on the public sector? Or are they kind of prone to some of these economic changes? Or what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

They're pretty consistent. So I I the way that we've seen um the the trends go in in the public space, I think they usually make that decision, you know, pretty pretty on target, on spot, you know, when their budgets are due, and all of them are are a little bit different. Uh, but once they have that budget established, they they usually have different buckets that they allocate this money to. And unless something crazy, again, like COVID happens, they're usually pretty set on those budgets. Uh so it's it's a pretty consistent workflow for us, especially in the deferred maintenance or the jock work. Um, and then they kind of sprinkle the rest of that budget over the capital projects is is kind of the trends that that we've seen. Um, with the private customers, it's um it's not necessarily consistent. Um, it depends on you know how they're doing and how their how their sales have been. Um but I guess all in all the the market itself. It's it's pretty consistent in the commercial world. Like I I I I can't say I'm trying to think if there's been because even through COVID, we we we were working, and I'm trying to think, has it has there been a complete like just stop in commercial and and I can't say that that's the case. Yeah, it was not even the case in in COVID. We were doing some storage facilities, and the the work kept coming because we were an essential an essential job. Right. So um in the residential space, I know for sure that shifts, you know, depending on on on the homeowner and and uh how things are going financially in our economy. So um I would say that uh commercial is definitely the way to go, at least for us. I know a lot of people are very, very successful in the residential space. Um for us it's been pretty consistent and growth year after year.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

I think, I mean, you mentioned how there's not there hasn't been really sort of a designated or a very obvious slowdown. Um and I'm I just recorded a video about kind of how this AI boom and construction are related. Um so you can speak to that if you'd like. I'm I'm sure there's a lot going on in Texas, but just the amount of manual labor that is required for this infrastructure build out is going to be very beneficial to people in the trade. So feel free to touch on that if you'd like. But I also want to ask about what it's been like leading as a woman in a very male-dominated industry and just kind of what your personal experience has been with that.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

It's been uh comical sometimes. It's uh been um, I've been in situations where I think that men believe I'm gonna be scared of what they have to say, or or I'm not ready for I guess the rudeness and the harshness that comes with construction, but my feelings aren't hurt easily. And when they understand that, it's just like we can just be professional about it. We don't have to necessarily be rude or mean, or I'm sure I have my opinions about the person that's speaking to me, right? But we wanna we want to remain professional. It's been um it's been great to to learn um how to challenge these people, um and men and women. It it hasn't just been men, um, but being that it is um male domin male dominated, um, it's been interesting to see how people quickly uh change their mind about me and what I can bring to the table. And I think a lot of it was due to actually being on the project sites and learning, you know, the ins and the outs and the languages uh or the the communication that's used um in a project site. Um it helped me a lot to feel prepared for those tough conversations that were gonna come, those tough questions that were gonna come, you know, once we started working on the bigger and more complex projects. So um it really did help me to do that. And I'm glad that I was very strategic about how I was gonna grow the company and grow myself and my knowledge in construction. A lot of people probably would have gone directly into general contracting, but I wanted to be strategic about it. So um yeah, making that shift, uh having those years to learn and making that shift when I did, I think really did prepare me to feel confident in my decisions whenever I was talking to decision makers um, you know, later later in my construction career.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

That's a great lesson for I think other, if there's you know any young women out there looking to get into this industry, but maybe they're a little hesitant with this idea that, oh, it's very male dominated. Just the understanding that the value you create and sort of your confidence, um, it quickly replaces any sort of pre-conceived notions about what you might bring to the table, right? So maybe somebody has a bias at the start of the conversation, but if you're confident and you really are valuable, you're going to overcome those biases pretty quickly. So it's a great testament to that. I'm curious if you have any other advice that you might give to a young woman looking to get into the industry. What would you tell them?

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Um, I would tell them a thousand percent take a chance on yourself, even if this is something, you know, we have a lot of people that are underprivileged and underserved and don't have the opportunity to go to college or maybe even trade school, right? They just have to go quickly and and to get a job or for whatever circumstance or situation they came in, this is the position that they're in. Take that chance. Take that chance on yourself, take the job and work yourself up through that ladder and you can do it. And then once you learn enough, you can also start a business. A lot of people were made to be an entrepreneur and not necessarily, you know, have a four year college degree or have both, right? So the options are in this. Take the chance on yourself is my biggest advice because you have no idea what you're capable of unless you put yourself in that difficult situation. Easy, anyone can do easy, right? But put yourself in that difficult situation, take that chance on yourself and test yourself. If someone else can do it, so can you.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Amen to that. You posted something on LinkedIn recently about kind of how I think it was like 2025 taught you that how you build is just as important as what you build. I'm curious kind of what that means in practice. How do you guys try to exemplify that in your business? And kind of what was the message behind that statement?

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Well, there was it's so funny because I had in uh one of our senior employees uh come in here. I hired him because he um has a lot of knowledge, about 25. He was my first hire into that um transition that we made. Um, and he's like, he's helped build a couple of other companies. So that's kind of his thing, you know. Let's see what we got, let's see how we can grow. And I appreciate his input a lot. And, you know, he was we were talking about some project management-related uh conversations, but he said to me that he was really impressed with, you know, the staff that we've added, the processes that we've added, simple things, right, in technology that we've shifted, as well as uh updates, right? We're doing weekly updates, we have a BD uh meeting, weekly meeting, we have a leadership meeting and all those different little things, the employees that we've hired. And um, he was just expressing to me right now that he in these other companies that were very, very lean, right? He's like, we were handling probably what you're handling, but with three people, the owner doing, you know, the business development and looking for jobs. I was handling, you know, about three to five jobs, you know, we're not talking small jobs, they were bigger jobs, um, as superintendent, PM, and you know, whatever estimating. And then we had one office person handling, you know, HR at, you know, payroll, administrate anything administrative. He's like, and it was a lot. He's like, so I'm really impressed that, you know, you've staffed us, you know, with the adequate amount of staff and processes and procedures, um, which at the end of the day right now may be taking a little bit from you know your working capital and your and your projects, but when we get busy, we're gonna get busy. And so I love that they're recognizing that, right? Because I don't want to be caught in a situation where I get two more projects and now, oh shit, you know, we got we gotta hire some people. And nine times out of ten, that doesn't work. So I'd rather be prepared and we're not letting things slip through the cracks. Um, because growing responsibly, I think is is 1,000% necessary to grow strategically and correctly. Um, I I don't I don't think that being caught in a situation like that is gonna bring it it, maybe it'll work, but why risk that maybe make sure that you have your project staff with people that know your processes, they're familiar with the procedures, know what your what your what your motto is, right? What your culture is, and you're gonna have a much smoother project.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

What if you could kind of boil down all the different processes you've put together? I'm curious what the if you could only do one. What is kind of the one process that you put together, or maybe it's a a a technology, that what's the one thing that has had kind of the biggest impact for you guys?

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Um I would say that it's not a technology and that it's not like a a process in itself. I think it's the culture that we've created in the company and um the the power that we've given our employees to talk to us, not just with ideas and solutions, but also with problems, right? Because sometimes people don't want to talk about problems. Um, but I always say like we're kind of like a little family, you know, and we're we spend so much time together that there's gonna be disagreements and there's gonna be things that obviously we're we're gonna butt heads, but just like any other family, we got to talk about our problems. And it's okay to be upset and to not agree. Um and sometimes we're gonna agree to disagree, but we gotta be okay. We gotta be able to hug it out and and move on because there's bigger fish to fry, right? We have all these other things going on that we're gonna have to collaborate on. And I think that um it's important that we have a great relationship. Um, and also continuing to um live by that culture as well by continuing to empower our Latino um uh family, right? Our our Latino family, our Latino culture, and welcome them into the industry um with leadership roles and prepare them for those leadership roles.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

This has been great, Janie. Where can people find you and who do you want reaching out? Whether it's maybe some employee prospects, clients, where can they find you and who do you want to find you?

SPEAKER_01 27:31

Yeah, so if you're looking for me on TikTok or Instagram, you'll find me under Queen Maldonado. That's another little venture I have going on. So follow me if you haven't already. Um, but we also have um our our website, uh uh gcshtx.com. That's for our construction website. And um any other little ventures that I have going on will probably be posted in in TikTok or or or Instagram, but also on LinkedIn, you can find me under Janie Maldonado and our uh page on LinkedIn is General Commercial Solutions. So give us a follow. And um, I do have a LinkTree on there with my information. So feel free to reach out if you have any questions or um just want to chat.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Awesome. Thanks so much for coming on.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Awesome. Thank you so much, Garrett.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Bye, everybody.