5YF Episode #8: Briq CEO Bassem Hamdy

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Construction is the world’s most complex supply chain and commands almost $15T of spend. Digital transformation is taking a physical and retroactive industry to a real-time data-driven workflow. Tracking how money is spent, where time is allocated, how to use historical projects to optimize current ones, while seeking out efficiency savings with countless opportunities for automation. The next generation managers are eagerly adopting software, transforming their industry one brick at a time.

Cradle to grave tracking of every dollar spent…the entire cycle in one place

What you’ll hear:‍

👁️ Real-time project monitoring of job sites

🔮 Predictive forecasting of profitability

🤖 Automation opportunities in the $15T construction industry

🥷 The software-enabled general contractor

🚫 Why horizontal products fail at construction

♾️ And plenty more!

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It’s not that construction is slow to figure out technology, it’s technology that is slow to figure out construction

Our guest:

Bassem Hamdy, founder and CEO of Briq, a next generation financial platform to make construction projects more profitable. Briq, a 150 person tech company out of Santa Barbara, commands a significant share of US construction firms as its customers and now has expanded internationally. The industry uses Briq to gain visibility over the flow of money on a project in order to make better planning decisions and predict profits more confidently.

Bassem is a rare breed, he’s been in construction software for over two decades, before it was cool and before there was even an industry around it. First seeing the introduction of resource planning software at CMIC (which now handles over $100B in construction revenue each year) to then being EVP of Enterprise Strategy at Procore (a now public company) helping construction transition to the cloud. Today we get to talk about what the next evolution is. He’s also one of the very few that can speak construction as authentically as he speaks technology.

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It’s not about accounting, it’s not about project management, it’s about the flow of money

My takeaway:

Construction is an immense industry, up to 15% of the global economy, yet it struggles to manage cash flow. Horizontal solutions fall short and homegrown products are vying to win the day. Tomorrow’s general contractor is software enabled, highly productive, and taking full advantage of digital transformation and automation to bring transparency and predictability to a project. The quest is to run manual slow projects leaner and have the waste automated away. Those who don’t get fit fast will be left behind.

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- Daniel Darling