Simplifying Construction Contracts and Reducing Risk with Josh Levy, Co-Founder & CEO of Document Crunch | EP84

In this episode, James and Christian are joined by Josh Levy, Co-Founder & CEO of Document Crunch. Josh shares his background, including his experience working for a prominent construction firm in the Greater Atlanta Area as Senior Counsel of their Eastern business unit. The discussion revolves around the importance of leveraging technology to increase efficiency in the construction industry, particularly in the areas of reviewing and drafting contracts and ensuring contract compliance. Document Crunch is introduced as a solution that empowers everyone in the construction industry to understand their contracts, reducing risk and making construction more accessible. The episode concludes with insights on the slow adoption of tech, the entrance of AI in construction, and its potential to transform the industry are discussed, emphasizing the importance of understanding its capabilities and avoiding misconceptions.

Josh Levy is the Co-Founder & CEO of Document Crunch and has spent much of his career building upon extensive leadership and expertise in counselling the construction industry. He has worked for ENR's Top 50 firms and has led departments earning $1 billion annually. Josh graduated with honours from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Construction Management and earned his Juris Doctorate from the University of Miami, graduating magna cum laude. Document Crunch is the culmination of all of these experiences. His vision is to raise the bar of the entire construction industry.

Document Crunch is a company that simplifies construction contracts for professionals in the industry. Founded in 2019 by two experienced construction attorneys with over 30 years of combined experience, the company was born out of its frustration with the time-consuming and expensive process of reviewing lengthy contract documents. Despite offering these services, they realized that many professionals in the industry lacked a clear understanding of their construction contracts. Document Crunch's mission is to simplify construction contracts by quickly identifying critical risk provisions and providing teams with guidance to make informed decisions throughout the entire project lifecycle. The company achieves this through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology that identifies critical provisions in construction contracts, insurance policies, plans/specifications, and many other documents.


EPISODE LINKS:
Josh Levy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-levy-a7766711/
Document Crunch Website: https://www.documentcrunch.com/
Document Crunch  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/document-crunch/
Document Crunch Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/docume

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the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
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Transcript

James Faulkner: 0:02

first podcast in the studio, right?

Christian Hamm: 0:04

Is this the one first podcast it is in the in the new studio. This is this part will be video but we just have a temporary background behind this but we are in the new space. It

James Faulkner: 0:15

feels good. I can't wait for the non temporary right now it's gonna be pretty cool. So yeah, we are in the it's not very big but 600 square feet. We've got producer over there, not today. But he's gonna go shout out to Dave. Yeah, shout out to Dave and then yeah, we've it's pretty, pretty exciting. Like, I'm pretty stoked about this.

Christian Hamm: 0:36

I know we do. We've we've got some awesome people coming in to studio joining us in the month of May, which is going to be a lot of fun. And we also have like, we've got a couple really cool events with turning into a bit of a thing, that it is

James Faulkner: 0:51

a thing. And the weird thing is, is I didn't really expect this to happen. But people are reaching out to us now and asking if we can bring the site visit to their event. And and so I think for anybody listening, you know, we're always open to, to doing something if it's appropriate. Yeah. And if we can get there, etcetera. And it's the weird thing for us is that we sort of, we've been sort of, you know, reaching out to people, Hey, would you be on the podcast, these are the early days. Yep. Now we now we get all these requests to come in because people want to come on it. And then now it's turned into this really cool they want. They want a bit of the show itself, which is Ume, which is

Christian Hamm: 1:31

just wait till you see the video, the production values go up significantly. So

James Faulkner: 1:36

it's kind of it's kind of like, it's kind of like, the way a band is like, somebody wants a band to come they want to come and do this thing, their songs or whatever it is. It's kind of like that. So you know, the band is like, Okay, well, you know, there's usually a stage plot. There's a there's a it's called a rider. Yeah. And a rider says, you know, you know, Mariah Carey is like, Oh, I only want like, whatever colored m&ms. That's the kind of stuff she doesn't mean, we we don't we don't we don't have that kind of pull yet. But but you know, you do have to say, you know, requirements. Yeah, you know, space and layout and all that kind of stuff. And, and whether as a PA whether people hear it or not. Right. So yeah, lots lots of cool stuff happening. No, absolutely. And also cool. We just had an incredible conversation with Josh Levy, from Document crunch. Yeah,

Christian Hamm: 2:23

this is a really, really cool one. He's a great guy. He's got a great team co founders and a world class team. They're working on a really great product that's out there right now already bringing incredible value to contractors across North America. But this is a good one. Yeah,

James Faulkner: 2:41

I mean AI has is is just pouring ethanol on this thing.

Christian Hamm: 2:45

Oh, man, what he's talking about releasing listen to this entire episode. It's great if you like, or you're interested in or you deal with construction contracts. This product this podcast, it's for you listen to the whole thing. This is Josh levy from Document crunch

James Faulkner: 3:07

Welcome to the site visit podcast leadership and perspective from construction with your hosts James Faulkner and Christian Hamm

Jesse Unke: 3:19

business as usual as it has been for so long now that it goes back to what we were talking about before and hitting the reset button and

Justin Bontkes: 3:25

you read all the books you read the e-myth and read scaling up your read good to great you know I could go off the

Sebastian Jacob: 3:31

place where we found the secret serum we found secret potion we can get the workers in we know where to get

Cam Roy: 3:37

one time I was on a jobsite for quite a while and we added some extra concrete and I've ordered like broom finished patio outside the site trailer

John Reid: 3:45

guy hit me up on LinkedIn out of the blue and said he was driving from Oklahoma to Dallas to meet with me because he heard a favorite Connect platform on your guys's Podcast.

Zack Staples: 3:55

Own it, crush it and love it, we celebrate these values every single day.

James Faulkner: 4:03

Let's get down to it

Christian Hamm: 4:10

all right. Well, we are back. It's a it's a beautiful Friday morning. It is. I'm assuming it's as beautiful down in in Atlanta or Georgia. With Josh Leedy. Is it as nice down there this morning.

Josh Levy: 4:23

I don't know what it is where you are up in up in the Vancouver area right now. But it's it is 67 and sunny right now. It's beautiful, beautiful spring morning where I am so

Christian Hamm: 4:33

wonderful. Well, that's fantastic. We've got Josh levy from Document crunch. Joining us this morning, Josh. It's great to have you. We've we've gotten we had a chat earlier in the week. Got to hear a little bit about what you've been working on. And we're pretty excited.

Josh Levy: 4:50

Awesome. I'm excited to be with you all. Thanks for having me.

Christian Hamm: 4:55

Absolutely. Our pleasure. Why don't you give us and our audience and those that will be tuning in a little bit of a quick Coles notes on who Josh is. And then we'll get into some document crunch conversation. Awesome. Yeah, I

Josh Levy: 5:09

mean, you know, so I'm Josh Levy, I'm the founder and co founder, I should say and CEO of document crunch. I wish I could say that I had some like, really cool tech background. But I don't I'm coming to this situation that I found myself in not from like a technologist perspective, but from someone who's just been in our industry for a long time. So I grew up in the South Florida area. You see some of the Miami Heat stuff maybe behind me here, but I grew up in the South Florida area, I went to the University of Florida, a big a big school, you know, in the state of Florida. Go Gators was a construction management was a construction management major there just decided I didn't end up wanting to go into project management. I have done a bunch of internships with the general contractors and decided I just didn't want to be a PM. So I ended up going to law school actually did a couple years at a startup company and sales. That's a whole other story. But after that went to law school at the University of Miami and my hometown, ended up working for a big construction law firm. I actually once upon a time was the law clerk or legal intern one summer for a young partner at this farm in Miami. His name was Adam hand finger. I'm telling you that besides having a funky last name that everyone can always remember hand finger. 15 years later, Adam is now the managing partner of the Miami office of that firm and sits on the National Executive Committee of that firm. So he's a very senior partner at that law firm. But he's also my co founder of document crunch. So we can come back to come back to that in a second. But Adam and I worked together for several years, we had a great time working together, I learned so much from him, you know, exclusively doing construction related law. So you know, litigation at first, but then also just helping day to day issues for general contractors on their projects. And eight years ago, now, I left the South Florida area, because I was brought in house by a large contractor. So I moved here to Atlanta, where I am today, I joined an ENR Top 50 contractors, you know, legal department here in the Atlanta area, where, you know, my business unit was the southeast United States. So when I was there, I think we had five offices throughout the southeast United States, I had Nashville, Atlanta, Tampa, Charlotte, Savannah, you know, Raleigh, so kind of that footprint. Um, I ended up joining that that company, we were probably, I guess, coming out of the last recession, maybe around five 600 million in revenue. By the time I left, I ended up being the leader of that legal department. And we were over a billion dollars in revenue. And so you know, it was kind of there during a really significant period of growth, I ended up ended up assuming a leadership role, which, you know, also kind of changed my perspectives in a few different ways. But anyway, in those roles in that role, in particular, I ended up having to hire Adam and my old firm to help me with some overflow work that I needed help with, because, you know, we were ramping up growth. And, and, you know, anyway, Adam, and I just started collaborating. And you know, at first, I was challenging him, I was saying, Hey, man, like, you can't build the hourly for like doing contract reviews. For me, we're looking for the same issues every time. It's all the stuff he taught me about, you know, I just want flat flat fee billing, right? I want a lump sum price to use a construction term. And animals like oh, man, millennials, like you are now running legal departments. Like, I'm now running a team of attorneys here. And I've got demands for folks like you like the hourly model, how do I make myself more efficient? How can you be more efficient. So then you start seeing, I started collaborating around leveraging technology to make me more efficient in my role on him more efficient in Israel. And that's kind of where we started. And we quickly realized that all these legal tech solutions that were out there, none of them addressed construction in particular. And so that was like, one very interesting data point, construction contracts are unique. It's its own subject matter. You know, things come up in construction contracts and workflows that just don't exist in general commercial applications. So that was kind of like data point number one that I was at. There's just nothing for construction. That's weird. Data Point two. And what was really interesting to me as well, we quickly came to that insight because we were just worried about ourselves, like how can I be more like, we didn't seek to start a business. We were just looking to make ourselves better and our careers but data point to was I just can't help but think about while I was worried about my own Joshy is problem as a lawyer, the construction industry, I don't lie to project managers out of my, you know, outside my door every single day, hardhats in one hand piece of paper and the other hand, knocking on my door saying, Hey, can we talk for a second something I've been on the job site, what is our contract say? Yeah, and what I quickly realized was yes, reviewing things drafting contracts is a big problem for the industry. They're risky, you know, you should know what to them before you sign them. Some of the industry has folks like me and house or they'll pay folks like Adam, a gazillion dollars an hour to review their contracts. But a lot of folks don't have that. Right. You know, and that's a problem. And I saw that I've represented all these big contractors, I've been up against smaller treat contractors or design professionals, where they're just signing up for things not knowing, and then they're just getting the contract slammed in their face. And sometimes, you know, they're, they're going out of business, it's that bad. And so that pre signature workflow was kind of like what we started, like, how do we make ourselves more efficient in that, and I recognize that there was a really big problem, a lot of the industry just didn't have access to resources like us. But and then I just couldn't help with this empathy. Again, whether it's a big company, a small company, whether someone like me negotiate the contract or not, whether it's a fair contract, or a bad contract, you still have those folks wearing hard hats out there every day that has to comply with the contract, I see you guys nodding because you guys know this, especially in the world that you're in, like contract compliance is so important to ensure that you keep feeding your job. So like, even more than the whole, like Big Sexy, like, if you sign this, you may go out of business, it's so risky. It's no just like, are you managing your changes in the right way? Are you managing the material cost escalation the right way? You know, what do you do when it's raining outside? How do you give person people the right like, notice, are you tweeting out pictures of your job site, in other words, a confidentiality provision, all these little death by 1000 cuts that end up with what's known as fee erosion. When that when those two insights, you know, kicked in, like one, there was nothing for construction to there was nothing for the non lawyers, and in particular, the construction professionals, you know, that really inspired us to found document calm. So that's what led to document crunch. And what we're really doing is we're empowering ever everyone. And I mean, everyone, and I mean everyone in the construction industry to understand what's in their contracts, we are not a tool for just the suits. The lawyers are my friends, I am one of them, we can help them. But I'm really much more concerned and empathetic about the non legal community executives out there, the VPs of operations out there, the project managers out there, the superintendent's out there, all of those stakeholders need to understand what's in their contracts, to make good decisions every day, whether it's pre signature, or during the course of construction. And that's what we're really empowered. So when we say everyone, what is implied in that is everyone, every participant, every project every day, and that's what we're doing a document crunch, we're making people's lives much easier around the contracts. It's my fundamental, I'm an optimist. But it's my fundamental belief that if people are empowered to make better decisions and understand what's in their contracts, we will have an industry that is a less risky, be more profitable, so much waste, is priced in contracts based on contingencies and unknown risks, and not truly understanding this, I want more aggressive schedules, I want better price for construction. I want a more delightful and collaborative, collaborative and transparent experience. And it's my fundamental belief that if we can empower people rather than contracts, we can have a brighter future as an industry. And that's what I get up. So excited about every single day, here at document crunch. The cool thing is, and happy to talk more about it, this vision that we had now, almost five years ago. You know, it took us a few years to get it to market. But we've been in business now for a few years. And this vision is being validated and realized every single day now across the industry, all the way up into Canada, where you all are. But big and small contractors are using us every single day to be better around their contracts. And it's just a really amazing feeling to see this vision becoming our industry's reality, you know, one day at a time, of course, but certainly I'm very inspired and energized by that.

Christian Hamm: 13:48

Oh, totally. And we love hearing that. And there's a ton to unpack here. You We talk often, James and I about you know, taking a piece of software, and humanizing it, especially for construction professionals. It's a really unique thing in construction that you're expected to be experts at a few different things. One, be a great builder and worry about your project and its schedules, but also be an expert in negotiation. And, you know, knowing things about contracts, hopefully not too much litigation. But you got to know about a lot of these things, you're still building something on a project that's got all these unknowns, to be able to take away the risk, like you said, to make construction less risky by providing a solution that's straightforward for somebody to use. Just seems so beneficial and so valuable right now.

Josh Levy: 14:39

Yeah, I mean that, you know, it's funny when we were in practice, I mean, people always used to say, you know, to me and to Adam, you all just are not typical lawyers, right? We used to have a lot of fun with our clients that even when I was in house, if you're just not a tip of a lawyer, like you're just someone who's kind of pragmatic and kind of gets it Frank frankly, I probably not the very best lawyer in the world but you know, I don't know that you want me to go into the Supreme Court of the United States, but you know, I was a good construction attorney. And I think that I help teams, you know, get stuff done and protect themselves and do the right thing, you know, and, and not be overwhelmed or, you know, be empowered. And frankly, like, to your point, our whole product ethos is around that, like, we just want to make it easy and more comfortable and less of a black box less of an enigma for our industry, because to your point, they are asked to do a lot of things. I mean, I thought you were going some other places, they also have to be chief financial officers, you know, they also have to be amazing people, managers, I mean, these are like, there's a lot of human resource like, you can see, there is a tremendous amount of complexity that goes into delivering these unbelievable construction projects. And, yes, our ability to help make one component of that, easier is a big deal. And frankly, at the end of the day, we're called contractors, for crying out loud, like the contract like construction, it's not that we're going to make construction less risky. Like, you know, I don't know what rating we have on this podcast, but there's a bumper sticker, you know, stuff happens, like, you know, stuff being a euphemism, or something else in construction stuff is going to happen. Like it's a dynamic industry, where external circumstances will cause the price, and the cost for performance to fluctuate on an almost daily basis. And who bears the cost, the cost, or the risk of that is completely tied up in the contract. So this concept that this is, like completely intertwined, and interwoven with the very delivery of a project is absolutely the case. And if we can make that easier, that's a big deal for the industry. And again, that's what I'm so inspired by. But yes, going back to your point, humanizing it, making it easy, not all stuff needs to be hard, like, there are some things that you can do, let us just give you that little nudge of confidence. So the exact same dynamic that I used to have when these PMS would be in my office, hey, look, you're super smart, I get that you're coming to me, but like, some of these issues, good job coming to me, some of these issues, you're really just coming to get that little nudge of like, you got it. And we just want to give people that nudge that they've got it, you know, there's a lot of issues that they could solve a lot more effectively if they just have that confidence.

James Faulkner: 17:14

Absolutely. So you know, when, when we've done negotiations with, you know, doing financing, rounds, etc. And you're dealing with your, your, your corporate lawyers, when you're, you know, you're doing around, you're looking at all the paperwork from the other investor group. And, you know, our lawyer, just as an example, is a really good interpreter. I will say that, you know, like, when I'm looking at legal documents, it's like Latin, you know, because it's, I can read the main parts, but it's the reference to other documents. It's if this does that reference that. And so with your software, does it basically pull out all of these points that are these like little elements that the risk elements or the caveats in the gotcha, yeah. So for an example, what I what I get our Lord to do, when I get a bunch of paperwork I go, I need you to give me bullet points of what I need to be paying attention to with more focus than the rest of it. So yeah, he's he'll do that. So it's essentially what the software is doing on an individual contract basis. So it says, Is it creating endpoints for those as objects? And then those are the things that people can see on a Coles notes basis?

Josh Levy: 18:40

Yeah, let me let me start with before I answer your question, I just have to unpack something you just said. So, you know, my inspiration for document crunch has only been further reinforced, as I've now moved into this almost startup SaaS guy, and I'm a venture backed company. And now I have financing documents, like, yeah, here i Here I am, you know, I graduated law school in 2010. Some, you know, over a decade removed, I've negotiated billions upon billions of dollars in construction projects as the lead negotiator. I've been involved in hundreds of millions of dollars in claims like I have had, I've been a part of a sophisticated, you know, construction contracts career. Yeah. And I look at these financing documents, and I'm like, oh, em, gee, I have no idea what they're saying. Yeah. And I'm like, if I don't know what they're saying, How did like how does the tip like, my empathy has never been like higher for like those around me. And I have to pay a lawyer a ton of money to unpack what these documents are saying. So I just share your your, you know, I share your pain on that one. And so you know, going back to talking to content, your question, it's a product and the technology continues to evolve rapidly. But at its core functionality, we do two things, two things. exceptionally well, we direct you to the critical issues in your contracts. So that you can understand where you need to be looking. And we provide some insights and guidance around the why we won't necessarily interpret the issue. We won't say this is good or bad. But we will, you know, whether it's your own companies playbook, or just some off the shelf, insights or rationale that we provide, we educate you on that concept. So here, you are pointing you to a provision in your contract. And I'm giving you some context around those provisions. And that really automates the first two questions, I would always get asked by those folks pacing outside my door, what am I looking forward? And why do I care. And by answering those two questions in an automated and very fast way, we leave a human in the loop, which is our users to make educated and informed decisions, you know, any good lawyer would say, We are not here to be the decision makers, we are here to simply help you get to a great decision by providing you the context for what the you know, what it is that you're looking at, ultimately, it's your decision, right? You're the founder, you need to make a decision on the financing documents, your lawyers won't be making the decision for you. But to your point, you know, understanding what you need to make decisions around is really important. And that's what we're really focused on document crunch. You know, it's such a fast space in terms of like the technology that are the value that we're able to deliver is like 100 axing overnight. But but but imagine that that's what I'm really committed to, I don't ever think that this will fully automate a human out of the loop, I believe humans need to be in the loop. I want to humanize the experience and empower. If we can argue with that critical information in a much more efficient way. That's what we're looking to do.

James Faulkner: 21:41

Yeah, I'm not sure whether or not lawyers are gonna love you or hate you, I think it's gonna be one of the two things it's going to be they're going to love you because your software is going to identify things that have problems, and they're gonna have to go back to the Lord and charge more fees. They're gonna like you for that. Because, like, this is what this is what we're, I'm wondering where this will go is, will the software at some point identify poor legal structure?

Josh Levy: 22:10

So let me say a couple of things. One, we, by and large, been really accepted by lawyers. We're working with a ton of legal departments of really big contractors right now. Yeah, the biggest bounce that they're getting from our software is not going back to our founding story, not Oh, I use this every day. And it makes me faster, plenty are saying that. But the biggest bounce that we're getting is, I now have a way to collaborate with the stakeholders around me more efficiently. So they're not bringing me as many low level questions and we're able to dig into the more sophisticated issues. It's all just like, I mean, he said it publicly sellers, the chief legal officer of Balfour Beatty in Texas in Arizona, he's he's saying that he's spending at least two hours less with each project team before they submit bids now. Because the because the project executive is coming to him with a more baked position before we have another contractor and Boston chief legal officer saying they're spending 90% Less time because they've given our tool to a contract manager and the executives, every executive of the company now has access to our software. And they're coming to him saying, hey, like we have a couple issues to talk about. We otherwise here's our position on the rest of the contract, like take a quick look, but like, this is what we want to talk about. So I think, you know, number one, I think we've had some pretty warm acceptance from the legal community so far. And now frankly, we are so also are seeing a lot of interest from outside law firms that are starting to say, hey, like if I could give this to my junior resources, does that make us a more efficient law practice? Could we keep our rates down? Or can we do more work? Or can we push some of this work to a lower level, folks? So that's one second thing I would say is whether lawyers hate or love us. Like, this is like a bigger discussion about just tech adoption in general. And frankly, you know, our industry, the world's changing man, I mean, to quote the, quote, Bob Dylan, right, the times they are changing. You know, we're a small piece and another wise tidal wave, you know, amazing technology that's now coming into this space. And I don't know that people's sentiments toward us would be appropriately placed one way or the other, when there's a much bigger, you know, volcano erupting right now, around construction in general, but then also construction tech in general, but also in particular, MySpace, you know, artificial intelligence, machine learning and its ability to do just some unbelievable things, if appropriately harnessed, which I definitely would love to talk about as well. So, absolutely, um, you know, I do think that that is worth really noting, I think that enterprising lawyers who have a good head on their shoulders probably accept the realities and macro reality that's going on and are probably doing everything they can to figure out how they can leverage that yet to continue having, you know, to continue providing maximum value to those that they're working with?

James Faulkner: 25:06

Well, Christian, you and I talked about it about that there's always going to be these, the top echelon of lawyers to look at the macro perspective, it's, it's all the paralegal stuff that they're gonna have a lot more efficiencies in that,

Josh Levy: 25:21

that's that that is playing out that analogy is playing out in construction operations every day, we're now project managers or project executives that otherwise we're only like this involved in the contract process now have a broader role in it, because they can do more with our tool. And that's really important. When you think about like an overall business, you know, the second thing you asked about is our ability to to identify poor legal language. We are currently doing a lot in the data analytics and benchmarking space, we're an early days of it, I don't want to identify poor legal language based on the letter of the law, I want to tell our users how they're faring against the market at large, I want to tell our users how this language stacks up to their personal preferences or their personal, you know, like ideas. So again, it's it's our ability to make this product our users own that I think becomes really important, like at the micro level, but at the macro level, you all are industry, guys. Everyone has heard, you know, I go and I give these these, these speeches. And I ask this question, and everyone's hands up, but like it's almost entrepreneur, who's ever been like top raters who's ever been in a situation where someone has said to him across the table, if you don't accept this term, I'm gonna go to the next bit like, everyone, everyone raise your hand? What if just what if we could provide you data? That, you know, there is no next bit, meaning that only 12% of your peers have accepted this term and a contract of this, you know, size and scope in the last five years? What if we could break down silos, and it cuts

Christian Hamm: 26:51

the suggestions? And it cuts the other way as well?

Josh Levy: 26:56

Oh, our company never accepts this term. Like, you know, that's what that's what a lawyer or an executive says, We can never accept that term. But what if the business developer or operator can say, Well hold on a second, I see here that we've actually accepted this term and, you know, 40 times in the last six years across the country. And like, when I look at these projects, they all went well. Oh, and by the way, there's a trend that like, the industry is moving toward accepting this term outside of our company, like, look, it's up to 60 70% are accepting this term. So the point being, I believe, this goes back to my experience, our industry has a total totally siloed and myopic approach to contracts. Everything is subjective, and based on opinions, like people like me, people like me that get paid a lot of money to render an opinion. What if we can take data and analytics today? What if you could start pricing contracts, because you know that your insurance carrier has said like, well look like in 60, or 80% of our claims, like this clause is an issue and like we would enter the average cost of the claim is $500,000. So like, we would recommend pricing this contract for that contingency? What if we can take data and analytics to all of us and break down all the silos, this goes back to that bigger vision of a more fair and balanced industry, where data is driving decisions? And not just opinion and conjecture, of which myself has been involved with plenty? If I'm being intellectually honest with you all? The

James Faulkner: 28:27

how much of the construction population do you think from the past to today, as you say, this tidal wave is changing? Has the value proposition of the individual been the stick handling and managing of contract problems over time, and those people are paid well, and companies because their hand they handle it? Well, you know what I mean? Like, there's just people who can handle that stuff poorly. And there's people who make magic happen. They fix problems. They're magicians of fixing problems. Now those with there's less problems, yes, it's great for the planet, we got less waste, we got less of all this stuff. And, you know, all of the benefits that you have talked about in terms of catching these gotchas, but I wonder if there is going to be this? Oh, yeah. You know, I was I was always brought in as the as the person that would fix all these problems. And now no one needs me.

Josh Levy: 29:28

I was actually thinking about this. That's an interesting point. I was thinking about this the other day, unrelated to document crunch, but I actually said to my wife the other day, I don't know if you all remember this. I don't know how old you all are. But do you remember the days when you used to go? I'm 40 years old. Do you remember the days used to go into the pharmacy and hand them your camera? And then they would take the film and they would develop the film and then you would get the envelope back with your pictures? Y'all remember that?

Christian Hamm: 29:55

Obviously? Yes, yes. Walmart.

Josh Levy: 29:59

I don't think that that species of human has gone extinct. Yeah, no, I think that, like, the world has evolved. And you need to figure out where you fit in to the new world. So you're right, I do think that some technology document punch or otherwise, you know, it, the strong current of that technology will reshape scopes, and how people function. But that's called progress. Yeah. And, and you're right, you know, it superficially changes threatening, and we're humans, and that can cause a little bit of that response. But I don't think any of us need would want to go back to what I just described, go get your film, and a week later, you get your prints back, or you could pay more money to get an expedited to 48 hours, right?

James Faulkner: 30:52

I don't think any of us want to go back to that worked out like an enlargement,

Josh Levy: 30:55

knowing knowing how easy photography has come based on the digital age. And yeah, and I just think that the same thing has to be applied to any tech, but it doesn't mean that there's not downfalls. That doesn't mean that there's not the potential like I want to remain, you know, like, fully, again, intellectually honest here. Yeah, technology has the chance to to humanize things to you know, you know, undermine connectivity, like we see all of that playing out all the time, right. But also, there's a lot of upside, as well. And so I think that it's incumbent upon founders like us on this podcast, to try and instill as much humanity and value into the products that we roll out, we can, we want to enhance the human experience, we don't want to undermine it. But I also think it's okay to say but sure, scopes of work may shift or change, assuming that we bring enough value into our products. And that's a good thing. I can't tell you there are people that are paid to the magician's. Go ask any project manager out there how much he or she likes reviewing their contract, and they have to make decisions. They hate it makes their eyes bleed. I've had people literally get emotional, and looking at our product. And then I've gotten watching them get a motion. Say I'll tell you a VP of operations of a, an electrical contractor, and are they located somewhere in the states looked at our product, I was in person with him and started choking up. Like, I don't know what's happening here like was did his grandfather draft this document or something. And he just said, Look, I handle all the contract review for my company, I cannot tell you how many times I've had to miss my kids practice, how many times I've had to work over the weekends, how many things I've missed from my family, because I own this at my company. And if this tool can help me do that a little bit better and save some of that time. That's the most valuable time that I have. And this is the hardest thing that I do. And that's the upside.

Christian Hamm: 33:08

You know, and not to carry this this particular point on too terribly long. But coming from project management, this one, I know all too well. And you make a great point, James in that people do get to that place in any business, especially in construction, when you have we talked about on our podcast before upwards of like four generations working together, you have some very young people coming in entry level positions in the field or in the office. And you've got these experts that have been around for a long time who have seen many different generational changes, and have done something the same way for a very long time. And when they see something like this, and to your point about the VP of Operations, who this is what they've been doing for so long, but when they can understand that this isn't necessarily going to take away any of that value, but really give them part of their life back. That's where an incredible amount of again, value can be added to a company's life to people's lives, their employees lives, regardless of what they thought their perceived value was coming in being that magician of sorts, in contract review, or negotiation or whatever it happened to be in their contribution to the company.

Josh Levy: 34:22

I couldn't agree with you more.

Christian Hamm: 34:25

Now, let's, let's meet let's I know we want to get into the conversation of AI in this whole thing. And I know that you guys have brought in some incredible new things and you have some stuff on the horizon that you want to jump into. Now, where do we want to start this conversation? Josh, do you want to just jump in and lead us off? Because I think there's some really exciting stuff, obviously, with your product and just across industries. What's happening right now?

Josh Levy: 34:50

Yeah, I mean, without getting into too many details, like this whole generative AI movement, I mean, you know, in some ways, it almost feels like Like, like, like the cloud I also just like parted, and the sun is shining so brightly on what it is that we're involved in, you know, aside from having, you know, been able to bring in a world class machine learning team over the last few years, who's just on the cutting edge of All Things, machine learning, and AI, including generative AI, a lot of the core fundamental value of our products relate to, you know, empowering folks to understand what's in their contracts, and the things that I used to dream about. And it's like, oh, maybe in like 10 years, we'll be able to do X, Y, and Z, have just like, like, like, you know, you listen, you can probably listen to this podcast on different apps, and you could put it on, you know, 2x, or 3x, or whatever, like, when you're listening to the playback, that's, that's what this is done, to document conscious journey. So, you know, on the, on the plus side, and going back to this discussion about bigger tech, like this is just a transformative time for, you know, the whole world, frankly, because of what I believe generative AI's powers are. And, you know, the cool thing with us is, there's no pivot, there's no new product, it just has the ability to greatly enhance the value to our end users. The Warning caveat that I have been so optimistic, is, I think there is the opportunity for folks to think that this is just a panacea, and it can just be rolled out in a very shallow or non contextual way. And I will tell you firsthand, as somebody who has been tinkering, and who has a team of engineers, and frankly, you know, Industry Solutions, folks, construction attorneys tinkering with this right now. It has to be tethered to subject matter expertise, and contexts and data and workflows that matter to our industry, or else. You know, it reminds me a lot of where natural language processing was five years ago, and part of the reason why we found a document crunch, like without giving it that construction context, it just didn't really work. We're in the exact same place with generative AI, the difference is that generative AI is so powerful that like, it's there's a there's a there's a you know, a collective gold rush going on. So, you know, kind of what we learned about natural language processing, you know, five years ago was maybe a little bit more of a quiet undertaking. So, you know, I do think that there is, you know, people need to manage their expectations, and frankly, you know, be a little bit discerning that if folks are just rolling things out and promising you like just gold, it may be fool's gold. But, but when folks are able to actually knit this amazing technology to subject matter of workflows and products that actually data that actually resonates with our industry, I'm here to tell you that like, you know, we were talking about the other day, I was up till about four in the morning the other day saying this prototype that my team is about to roll out, I was up till four in the morning, because I literally could not believe what it was that I was witnessing, and the amount of value that I believe it's bringing to the industry, I couldn't sleep I was, I was all inspired by the magic that is about to come into our products. So I'm very excited about that. But I do think it does, it's going to take time and discipline for folks understand how to harness this the right way. But we roll out, it's not going to be the end, you know, the end result will continue to learn too. But, you know, we have certain standards here. And I would implore everyone to expect standards from their software providers don't just, you know, go for the big shiny thing go for the big shiny thing that's been appropriately vetted, tested and tied to meaningful outcomes and values for you.

James Faulkner: 38:36

Yeah, the as you're talking, I'm just sort of thinking of all of these different situations that can happen over time with the evolution of of these of different companies like yours and like ours, like SiteMax. I mean, obviously, it takes on a very fundamental level, just for all the listeners, what's amazing about AI is not the is not the fact that we can, you know, come up with something creative or you know, solve a math problem. Those are those are the basic things chat GTP. Can can do specifically on the consumer side. What we like is, is that we have a data company, essentially, we've taken an immense amount of information. And now we can use AI API tools that make us not have to write logic. It's doing the logic for us. So those are the things that superpower SAS companies.

Josh Levy: 39:37

I couldn't agree more. I read something. I was sorry. Go ahead.

James Faulkner: 39:41

Yeah. So but when I see that I've been seeing in the news, you know, other construction startups, all they need to do is put like the word AI in into their pitch, and suddenly they're, I think what you probably know, Josh, is that Have you it's very difficult to just try stuff that matters in construction. You can't just kind of try it, because it's rolling. And you can't do things twice. Once you've laid that concrete once you've, it's baked, it's costly. It's costly. Exactly. So, you know, the, regardless of how amazing the new shiny thing is, even if it is doing exactly what AI is, is intended to do, or what the products intended to do. It's still the adoption time for getting it into the workflow with constructions who still rely on human beings on site, you have that you have that bottleneck. So I think all the tools will be there. I just think the adoption is going to be slow.

Josh Levy: 40:56

Well, yeah, I mean, it's construction and adoption typically does trail everything else. You know, I think that the other concern that I have for our industry is, and we saw this, and you all have been around a little longer than we have. But you know, we everyone talks about this being the golden era of like, construction, tech adoption, which I'd love as other founders for us to all talk about that right? Because this is if this is fast adoption. Well, yeah, wow. Like to see in the good old days, and it was, it is a bit of a grind it out.

Christian Hamm: 41:31

Totally. Yeah,

Josh Levy: 41:32

you got you have to you have to play the long game, right. There's no overnight success stories and what we're doing, but But yeah, I have heard like that, you know, one of the differentiators that I know has always been good about us a document conscious people upset like, Hey, you're an industry guy, like you get it like when you're talking about this problem, like you're talking about it from my shared experience with it not, not, because which we've heard that you are some technologists, who's looking for some big total, total addressable market, and you've created this really shiny app, so that you can disrupt the least digitized industry that there is, which is construction. And so we know that and the industry kind of like deformed a lot of that, which also hurt adoption in a way because some folks that feel like they've been burned by other applications that were designed by people that don't have that empathy for our industry, and whatever. And so the concern that I have, is that this generative AI discussion is going to accelerate a lot of new solutions coming to market that have the exact same problem that these older solutions had, which is today really do anything that matters for our industry, and then do we waste people's bandwidth and cycles on crap. Which then will also serve as a drag on overall adoption? Because I've already been burned by one. So why am I gonna look at the next one, this is all this is all fool's gold. And that's the concern that I have today. And that's sort of where I could see us, you know, getting a little crosswind from this. Yeah. On the other hand, I can't control it. We can't control that, what I can tell you and what I feel very confident saying and I will get up on my soapbox and I will scream as loud as I can, is the self that I am seeing that we can now do it. This is literally mind blowing to me. And I was in my board meeting yesterday and I said this to the whole board, I cannot overstate how incredible. The products that we roll out are now going to be. Which is not to say that we don't have great products, but it is that big of an accelerator to our core value proposition. And then there's all the other stuff, right, all the engineering practices that are now being based on TPT technology or general AI, you know, the ability to do like marketing or writing content, there's all this stuff that like support, suddenly, we can do more with less all great, but the core value proposition to empowering folks understand what's in their contracts, this technology has accelerated that I buy some insane multiple. And that is why I literally was up till four o'clock in the morning the other day, just yelling woke up my kid upstairs, because I was just like, I just cannot believe how quickly this has accelerated our value. And so I'm really excited for us to be rolling out. What we know is crunch GPT it will happen in in the next probably, you know hopefully by the time you all posted this, this you know we'll have some big announcements but

James Faulkner: 44:38

tomorrow Nice. That's awesome. Next Tuesday.

Josh Levy: 44:43

They won't be tomorrow unless my Slack has changed. You know, since I've been recording with you all but anyway, it is coming. It's gonna be powerful. I'm excited about it. And you know, hopefully it helps make our industry better. That's just the bottom line.

Christian Hamm: 44:57

For sure. And I love there's a few things Hear. I mean, right off, you know, we obviously see people slap the AI sticker on something and try and hit it huge, without having really that much intention or thought behind it. I like how you started off by initially even saying, hey, you've already got a solid product, you share the story about that contractor that was getting emotional over the value it was bringing to them. If you release anything after this, that that erodes that experience, for whatever reason, it's just going to have a net negative, right? This, this goes for anybody, right? When you have when you communicate so much value in a product that makes somebody feel that way. But you said, taking the time to be super intentional about how you guys are going to roll this out. Because you want to keep delivering that emotional resonance with your users so that they can go and tell people and we know, from an adoption standpoint here, yes, I think people are adopting construction tech a little bit more than they ever have been. And when we see things like a chat GPT, and you see how much and how quickly, I think it's like the fastest growth of any consumer product in history, right? In terms of adoption, so when you think about that, you go, Okay, this actually is going to hit like the really non technical people in a more practical and usable way. But again, if you match that with the intention of the data, you're already collecting through a very meaningful product, you're gonna hit a way more, you're gonna hit a homerun, you're not just gonna hit like a base hit or something. Well, that's the

Josh Levy: 46:29

thing. I mean, if someone just like puts a label now on Chet GPT, and rolls it out and says, like, you can do excellent. People are gonna get bamboozled, like I'm here to tell you like it's not, it is really cool. And it's as imperfect as natural language processing, like it's people are going to get bamboozled. If that is the plan. To your point, yeah, if you're thoughtful, you put it on top of a really good data, that validated data, you give it the appropriate context, you infuse it with subject matter expertise, and you deliver it in a product and a UI that resonates to solve real problems for real people, then it's super freakin powerful. And that is why Yeah, we haven't just rolled it out, we are being intentional about rolling it out. It's something we've been working on for a long time already. I mean, again, I've got my geeks in the lab, or like, like, literally, you know, world class on machine learning. And they've been, you know, they've been on this for a while, but we're careful, we want to, we want to roll it out the right way, we want to provide value for our industry.

Christian Hamm: 47:28

Totally. And that makes a lot of sense. Josh, coming full circle back to the beginning, obviously, of the reason for creating document crunch and the success that you had, getting back to just the very raw construction benefit here. What makes successful construction contracts and construction projects?

Josh Levy: 47:45

What makes a successful construction contract? One, one that is fair, one that you know where the risk is shared, and in my opinion, should be borne by the party most able to manage to that risk. And, frankly, I think, you know, what makes the most successful construction contracts? Or what makes the most successful construction projects. And frankly, what makes the most successful relationships? You know, relationships are transactions, which is collaboration, transparency, Trump's, you know, integrity, communication. And that's what makes a successful contract.

Christian Hamm: 48:21

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Is there? Is there anything else that you would want to, we want to jump into some rapid fire questions with you if that's cool? But is there anything that you'd want to leave with our audience, with those that would be listening to this potentially, from your team, or even future customers of yours, anything you'd want to leave them with?

Josh Levy: 48:41

Yeah, I think on it for a bigger picture, you know, lean in to technology, like, there are some great products out there and just lean in and stay open minded. If you're listening to this, you obviously have a growth mindset, which is one of our core values, lean in to the new embrace the change, embrace the progress, we can get to a brighter future. And to that end, like as it pertains to document crunch. The contract does not have to be a black box, like you can do it. Like we want you to be empowered. It's not to say that we're a total panacea, it's not to say that we're some just magical mythical solution is to say that like with you, being open minded and growth minded, with the benefit of leveraging technology and tools, and in our case, document crunch, you have the ability to tackle things that may appear a little bit daunting. And so feel empowered, embrace that, you know, come into it with that mindset, and know that you can do it. So hopefully, you can leave this feeling a bit more empowered about this, you know, small part of maybe what is painful for you on a day to day basis.

Christian Hamm: 49:44

Well, we love that because construction or not just construction, but contracts in general can seem like a black box, and they can be daunting, and they we can get kind of standoffish. So for tool that's a lot of getting better access to people making them easier to understand and interpret Man, that's awesome. We look forward to learning more about document Grinch to with you so, but we want to jump into some rapid fire questions, which I know you haven't looked at which is perfect. But are you ready for this? Josh?

Josh Levy: 50:11

Let's bring it bring it down. Sing it.

Christian Hamm: 50:13

All right, here we go. James can sing. Not today, not today. Okay. Josh, what is something that you do? that others would think is insane?

Josh Levy: 50:30

Well, you're catching me 10 days removed from a torn meniscus. So, right now, I'm not doing as much of what I'm about to tell you. But yeah, over the last few years, I kind of like coming out of the pandemic, I started getting to boxing a little bit. And, you know, that's, I'm glad that you're not videoing me, because you may catch me depending on what day it is with a bit of a black eye, or, you know, a bruise on the face. So, you know, over the last, I'd say, six or eight months before I just tore my meniscus, you know, I started getting into some sparring, some more contact, like what started is just, you know, going into boxing classes in the boxing gym and then started with, you know, working a little bit more with a trainer and then started with the hey, you know, would you care to get a helmet and a mouthpiece and then has turned into like, some full on sparring sessions. So, I would say that's probably the thing that I do that most people, including my wife, and my family think that I am insane.

James Faulkner: 51:24

Yeah, you got you got a pretty good face and endearing yourself to the document punch. I don't know.

Josh Levy: 51:30

The irony is, is that I'm also historically have been an avid mountain biker, since moving here to Georgia eight years ago. Yeah. And somewhere, somewhere over the last two years, I was like, you know, mountain biking is dangerous. And I'm, you know, running this company, and I just can't afford to be out of it. So I kind of like pulled it on the mountain biking. And so instead, I picked up full contact boxing, I don't really know, it makes tons of sense. I actually have a rationale for it. But yeah, anyway.

Christian Hamm: 52:00

You can explain your rationale if you if you'd like, it's okay. All right. No problem. We'll keep this rapid, then.

James Faulkner: 52:07

That's the insane part.

Christian Hamm: 52:08

That's the insane. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Josh, if you weren't doing what you're doing right now, with you, your co founders and your, your team, what would you be doing?

Josh Levy: 52:19

Well, if I hadn't had the growth mindset and taking the plunge, I'd be you know, in a legal department for a big contractor. And I really, and I really enjoyed doing that, like I really did enjoy being, you know, a lawyer for the construction industry, and then serve as an executive function there as well. All that to be said, Now, knowing what I do what I know, now, if I wasn't doing this, I probably would, you know, I have a creative mind. And I just love connecting people. And so like building the team and document projects, and the most fun part of this experience. And so I can't imagine that I'm not going to want to, you know, continue to do that for the rest of my career.

Christian Hamm: 52:56

That's awesome. Whatever, whatever that means, whatever that means. Totally. Okay, so we're called the site visit, work, construction, podcast, leadership prints perspective, from construction. So we always end with this one. From your experience, working at that large contracting business, what is your favorite or most memorable story from a past project are on the job saying?

Josh Levy: 53:24

I will tell you, I will. So this will be I'm going to use a project and I won't say that it was the last job that we were talking about. But in my career. One of the more interesting stories is I had a general contractor, customer client, who was doing work on a casino and on a on a Native American reservation in Florida. And a site contractor hit an electrical line when they were doing some work. And the casino lost half of its slot machines for like, six hours. Shoot. And so we got a demand letter with the bill and the spreadsheet from the lost revenue machines. And that was just like a wild and then I see you know and all that that was just a wild deal. I was like oh wow, like we should all get into that business by the way, because they have the right protection in their contract then oh that Bill whole other story. But anyway, that was just getting that initial notice was just a while of course. Excuse me just a wild experience. So that was a you know, since you put me on the spot that was one memorable. I'm sure I have some other ones as well. But that was one

James Faulkner: 54:56

that was awesome.

Christian Hamm: 54:57

That's a fantastic example people people share all sorts Different things like a feeling they had when a project was complete. But when you can actually get a specific thing that was like, well, that's totally out of left field. And you're like, yeah, getting your eyes open to that kind of thing. That's pretty awesome. Well, Josh, this has been fantastic having you on. We really appreciate you taking the time sharing your story, your background, and that document crunches. Well, we often do follow ups down the road, and I think yours is going to be a pretty good one with a trajectory that you guys are on.

Josh Levy: 55:28

Hey, I'm all for it. And if I could come out there to the whistler area and deal with you do it, then let's let's I'll come out tomorrow. That's an awesome town. I just love the area. You all are in Vancouver Whistler. So I'm here for me next time in person.

Christian Hamm: 55:44

Come to the studio, the seal is all going to be built out so I think we need to do that a bit of a Whistler trip.

Josh Levy: 55:49

I just got back from Whistler about a month ago. I did not tear my knee there. But right before it Friday, I had an epic ski trip there, the bunch of friends and I've come back into our

Christian Hamm: 55:59

nice, awesome well, we look forward to something like that in the future. Josh all the best.

Josh Levy: 56:05

YouTube thank you so much for having me. Thanks, Josh.

James Faulkner: 56:31

Well, that does it for another episode of the SiteMax. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. You can also sign up for a monthly newsletter at sitemaxsystems.com/thesitevisit where you'll get Industry Insights, pro tips and everything you need to know about the site visit podcast and SiteMax the jobsite and construction management tool of choice for 1000s of contractors in North America and beyond. SiteMax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building