Ask HN: How do I differentiate myself in the construction industry? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do I differentiate myself in the construction industry?

3 pointsdhruvkar6 comments

I recently joined my dad's business, going from software to construction. I'm in charge of supply stone products for commercial projects, which typically long sales cycles. I have no real sales experience before this. I ask HN community this because of our focus on building products to solve specific problems. In construction, competition revolves purely on price and somewhat on service, leaving very little room to compete on the product. How do bring the mentality of iteration, improvement and building products based on customer feedback to my new role in this industry?

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As much as I would like to have high quality when it comes to contractors, I cannot really afford it. Consequently I do no projects at all. The kinds of things I would be interested in a contractor for are more of a luxury than a necessity.

So, is there a creative way that you could address the price issue that none of your competitors can match? What drives the price - materials or labor? One of the things that can lower construction costs is pre-fab in your workshop. What could you do to pre-fab things that are currently impossible to pre-fab? What if you came to the customers's site and made 3-D scans with millimeter level precision. Could you then take that back to the workshop and accurately fab things?

So if you did all of these things you wouldn't position yourself as a "contractor" per se, you would be a service-oriented high-speed precision engineering firm, that just happens to be price competitive.

Good luck!

Sorry I thought of one more thing that would be huge. Let me log into a site and track the status of my project. Basically, use a CRM tool that a software company would use, like Zendesk or JIRA. Perhaps let me query the status of my project with an SMS. As someone also coming from a software background, you would zoom to the top of the list if you offered this.

I should have mentioned I'm a material supplier, rather than working as a subcontractor. We supply stone products to the sub, and work with them to do the install.

>>let me query the status of my project with an SMS Do you mean you as the owner?

You need new materials for a new product. If your a distributor find more suppliers and find niche products and go after niche customers.

That's what I see happening in the industry, and that's the way we're going as well. It seems contrived though - change for change's sake rather than offering new value. Perhaps I've yet to fully buy into our value offering.

Find the pain point for your contractors/customers. Is it getting accurate measurements, is it selection difficulties etc. and find a way to automate it.

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