6 ms·

Plangrid (YC W12) Builds A New Market For The iPad: The Construction Industry

60 points by rsuttongee 15y ago

mirsadm 15y ago
Nice! That looks quite interesting. Is there any particular reason why the iPad was targeted first? I wonder if Android would have been a better choice because some manufacturers offer rugged tablets these days which seem like a better fit for this industry.
- kennystone 15y ago
  iPad is the dominant tablet platform (phones might have been different). We may do Android eventually - our backend is written to support web and iOS already.
  - mirsadm 15y ago
    It is the leader in sales but I'm not sure that will matter in this case. This is domain specific so the choice of tablet is determined by the availability of the software. Just my thoughts, great idea though :)
    - kennystone 15y ago
      Thanks - among our first 20+ companies, all our users have iPads. We haven't seen any Android tablets in the field, actually.
    - ralphleon 15y ago
      Thanks as well! We're waiting for a customer to actually request an android tablet version. We're probably going to port our software in a "lite" version to android focusing on the phone first then the tablet. Thankfully android tablets work well with android phone apps (especially with ICS). By the time we get around to this, we have our fingers crossed that google's acquisition of Motorola begets a sweet android tablet from google directly.
      - mirsadm 15y ago
        Sounds like you guys have it sorted out. I bring up Android mostly because we found lots of customers asking for specialized hardware (for military, police and fire department contracts). They were really picky about that because the guys using it were not very gentle. It is a different domain so the requirements are not exactly the same.
- jonknee 15y ago
  For an initial launch it makes sense to go with the far and away leader in the industry. There are ruggedized cases available, so durability shouldn't be an issue. A lot of their potential customers already have iPads, which is another boost.
  - ralphleon 15y ago
    Totally. We planned on having a case review section on our website but never got around to it. The obvious choice of otter box came in first: http://www.amazon.com/OtterBox-APL2-IPAD1-20-C4ATT-Defender-iPad-Black/dp/B003TVWNAM http://www.amazon.com/OtterBox-APL2-IPAD1-20-C4ATT-Defender-... Second best ipad case was the gumdrop: http://www.amazon.com/Gumdrop-Cases-Drop-Red-Black-DS-IPAD2-RED-BLK/dp/B004TA79MO http://www.amazon.com/Gumdrop-Cases-Drop-Red-Black-DS-IPAD2-... The otterbox had a stand that people liked (even though it made a clunky cover) and the gumdrop one was great for full coverage (and much better made than the griffin competitors). Our users weren't as big of a fan but speck: http://www.amazon.com/Speck-Products-HandyShell-Case-SPK-A0259/dp/B004SGSHDY/ref=sr_1_16?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1330750948&sr=1-16 http://www.amazon.com/Speck-Products-HandyShell-Case-SPK-A02... made our personal favorite. Not as much protection but the stand / carabineer functionality is great!
iRobot 15y ago
At first glance I thought it was referring to a rival for the itunes marketplace for jailbroken ipads... ..but who would want to do that! Silly me!
samstave 15y ago
This is interesting. As someone who works in this space (building hospitals) we see a lot of trending movement to the iPad, though I question the longevity of PDFs. We have a software suite for the construction industry, which has modules for inspection requests, punch-lists, occupancy planning (healthcare), room completion (healthcare), room readiness (healthcare) etc. We also have a service around providing custom reports... however, we find that the need for dynamic data trumps the ability to simply view the latest plan digitally, i.e. we provide the ability to run a dynamic report on all inspections scheduled, performed, outstanding, etc... As well as the need to run a report that would "Show me all the rooms that have a Medication Dispensation Unit, on level two and assigned to unit Med Surge" - which outputs a colorized visio (or ZUI iPad floorplan). The future is in granularity of reporting, rather than just blanket display, and I think this is a great step. Especially if you have many trades begining to use it. There is no reason the trades can't run multiple apps for specific purposes. Although, I am not sure I agree with one number in the article; "For $1MM in construction, you can have as much as $3,500 in printing" -- I am only skeptical as I work on projects in the hundreds of millions (1.5B, 850MM, 800MM 100MM are the budgets for my (personally) active projects) I dont see them spending 3MM on printing for the 850MM project... but I might just not be privy to the numbers from every trade. Here is an example of a dynamic room category report for an active project here in SF. We colorize the rooms based on type/use to familiarize the org with the spaces http://i.imgur.com/2DRah.jpg http://i.imgur.com/2DRah.jpg - We do a great deal more with the data and reports, this is just an example of many that the orgs use. Hospital transition planning is very complex, and costly. The vitals of the facility change a lot through the life of the project. The issue with educating THOUSANDS of people in prep for opening day such that they can SAFELY receive their first patient is critical. Being able to very quickly synthesize and summarize vast amounts of information makes for a better, more successful project and a better, more educated and prepared staff. Remember that while there are hundreds of people on a project team, there are thousands of people on the facility staff who are expected to move into the facility day-one and not cause fatal mistakes. A project I am doing in Texas is 1.5MM square feet and dynamic, item-level granularity reporting is going to be key in the smooth success of the project. I would love to see what PlanGrid can offer such large projects - and while I am a full proponent of the iPad in the field, in an industry where cost is king, I'd like to better understand how they convince construction companies of the ROI - esp. when tools and materials walk of the job all the time. I think that Plangrid should talk to the designers (not just architects) as well; RTKL, Mazzetti, TEECOM, RLS, SMWM, SFM, etc... If PlanGrid (love the name) wants to talk to me - my email is in my profile.
reneherse 15y ago
Very very exciting! Assuming a thoroughly brilliant execution, I'm certain that this app will find its fans amongst all groups within the design-build chain. Architects, construction managers, general contractors and trades. Even building owners and maintenance managers, perhaps. I haven't tried the app, but having worked in both architecture and construction and now as a UX designer, I'm quite familiar with the problems it addresses. One of the biggest challenges on a construction project (even a small one) is document control and management. Though most work in architectural offices is done on computers, paper plans remain the final method of output of construction information, and this causes numerous problems. Of course there is the cost of printing that the article mentions, but that's only one of several inefficiencies. A little background for those unfamiliar with construction: First, traditional prints are cumbersome, so they're difficult to pull out and reference in any kind of adverse field conditions. Large sheets of paper do not mix well with wind or rain. Even in good weather or indoors they're a pain to carry around and handle, so they tend to spend most of their time in the truck or trailer, often away from where they're really needed. To make them easier to carry, construction managers often make their own smaller photocopies of portions of the plans, which compounds the second big problem: keeping the documents up to date. On a large project, keeping everyone's documents up to date is a nightmare. The more subcontractors you have, the bigger the nightmare becomes. And if you have a fast-track or rapidly evolving design-build situation, the problem is further compounded by compressed schedules. When plans or specifications are out of date, estimations are off and things get built incorrectly. You get waste, increased project costs, and the occasional lost shirt. One of my mentors used to destroy on sight any out of date documents he found people carrying. This app should be a much more elegant solution. Essentially, paper plans are so difficult to manage that they waste a huge amount of time and sometimes result in errors. They're a centuries old, paper-based data bank and info graphic. So it's easy to see how this app could not only save time and money, but also increase quality and accuracy of what gets built: The people doing the work will have convenient access to the right information at the right time, through plans and other forms of location-based information on a device that's easy to carry. Further, the ability to notate and communicate right from the UI has the potential to fix one of the frequently broken feedback loops in the design-build process: communication between builder and architect about unexpected field conditions or difficulties with the current design. I have no idea about the road map for the app, but there's a lot of potential here. Imagine you're able to share screens and stream video or still images back to the architect about something needing clarification, and have her be able to sketch on the plans in real time. Then the changes can be saved as a draft copy, ported back to the drafting software, modifications made and reissued as an official document (and even change orders) in a matter of minutes. The potential for this to speed construction and increase quality is not to be under-estimated. As a designer, I'm very curious about the UI of the app and how well the UX is adapted to the needs of folks in the field. Because there are just so many variations on the use case, so many different ways that building plans are used by different people in the process. And, there is one advantage to the size of traditional printed plans. Their bigness, at times, can be a virtue when you're trying to get an understanding of the overall layout of building, and extract key dimensions from it. Of course zooming in and out is how this is handled on monitors when drafting, but I suspect the problem is a little different on an iPad size screen, the solution needing to be a little more creative to convey the needed information. Phew, thinking about the possibilities of this app is exhilarating, and my apologies if my post is overly long. Congrats to the founding team for identifying and working to solve such a significant missing piece in the chain of the construction process! :)
tyoung 15y ago
There are tons of very obvious problems in many industries that are solvable by software. The only problem is that great domain experts and great hackers rarely overlap enough to do a startup together. It was a miracle that the four of us found each other.
- reneherse 15y ago
  Just read the "About" page on the PlanGrid site, and indeed your team does seem to be a great combination of experts & hackers. My background sort of puts me with one foot in either camp for this particular problem set; it would be really cool to chat with you folks some time when I make it out to the Bay Area. BTW, how did you all come to find each other?
  - tyoung 15y ago
    3 of us went to school together, 2 of us worked together, 2 of us went to a cello concert, not together. Its one of those tricky GRE math questions.
zmmz 15y ago
I see that on your about page you mention only supporting PDFs. As somebody frustrated by the lack of alternatives to Autodesk products, seemingly due to the lock in by .DWG files[1] not being an open standard, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts? Did you think about/try implementing the file format? Do you have plans for others? Last week, I told myself I'd give the OSS CAD programs a try, downloaded LibreCAD and tried to open some architecture plans from my inbox. Could not open. Then I read came across an excellent explanation of the problem of DWGs in OSS[2], this is the most frustrated I've been for a while. The industry standard is a proprietary file format with no published specifications. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwg [2]: http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/whats-up-with-dwg-adoption-in-free-software http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/whats-up-with-dwg-a...
- kennystone 15y ago
  Our approach is as practical as it can be - the actual builders need drawings and the drawings are usually delivered in PDF. We've found very few of our customers get the DWG files themselves, and even if they do, they are easily exported to PDF.
  - zmmz 15y ago
    Makes sense. I guess I just wanted a place to vent out my frustration with DWG :D. The other comments in this thread make it very clear, you have a great product. More industries need teams like yours.
    - ralphleon 15y ago
      I'm so thankful that our customers don't want to deal with DWG files. I had investigated it a bit for our original prototype... it was not pleasant.
sopooneo 15y ago
I have to believe something like this already existed for pen based tablets. And I believe that for real work, a tablet must have higher fidelity input that can be achieve with fingertips.

60 points by rsuttongee 15y ago

Nice! That looks quite interesting. Is there any particular reason why the iPad was targeted first? I wonder if Android would have been a better choice because some manufacturers offer rugged tablets these days which seem like a better fit for this industry.

kennystone 15y ago
iPad is the dominant tablet platform (phones might have been different). We may do Android eventually - our backend is written to support web and iOS already.
- mirsadm 15y ago
  It is the leader in sales but I'm not sure that will matter in this case. This is domain specific so the choice of tablet is determined by the availability of the software. Just my thoughts, great idea though :)
  - kennystone 15y ago
    Thanks - among our first 20+ companies, all our users have iPads. We haven't seen any Android tablets in the field, actually.
  - ralphleon 15y ago
    Thanks as well! We're waiting for a customer to actually request an android tablet version. We're probably going to port our software in a "lite" version to android focusing on the phone first then the tablet. Thankfully android tablets work well with android phone apps (especially with ICS). By the time we get around to this, we have our fingers crossed that google's acquisition of Motorola begets a sweet android tablet from google directly.
    - mirsadm 15y ago
      Sounds like you guys have it sorted out. I bring up Android mostly because we found lots of customers asking for specialized hardware (for military, police and fire department contracts). They were really picky about that because the guys using it were not very gentle. It is a different domain so the requirements are not exactly the same.
jonknee 15y ago
For an initial launch it makes sense to go with the far and away leader in the industry. There are ruggedized cases available, so durability shouldn't be an issue. A lot of their potential customers already have iPads, which is another boost.
- ralphleon 15y ago
  Totally. We planned on having a case review section on our website but never got around to it. The obvious choice of otter box came in first: http://www.amazon.com/OtterBox-APL2-IPAD1-20-C4ATT-Defender-iPad-Black/dp/B003TVWNAM http://www.amazon.com/OtterBox-APL2-IPAD1-20-C4ATT-Defender-... Second best ipad case was the gumdrop: http://www.amazon.com/Gumdrop-Cases-Drop-Red-Black-DS-IPAD2-RED-BLK/dp/B004TA79MO http://www.amazon.com/Gumdrop-Cases-Drop-Red-Black-DS-IPAD2-... The otterbox had a stand that people liked (even though it made a clunky cover) and the gumdrop one was great for full coverage (and much better made than the griffin competitors). Our users weren't as big of a fan but speck: http://www.amazon.com/Speck-Products-HandyShell-Case-SPK-A0259/dp/B004SGSHDY/ref=sr_1_16?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1330750948&sr=1-16 http://www.amazon.com/Speck-Products-HandyShell-Case-SPK-A02... made our personal favorite. Not as much protection but the stand / carabineer functionality is great!

iRobot 15y ago

At first glance I thought it was referring to a rival for the itunes marketplace for jailbroken ipads... ..but who would want to do that! Silly me!

samstave 15y ago

This is interesting. As someone who works in this space (building hospitals) we see a lot of trending movement to the iPad, though I question the longevity of PDFs. We have a software suite for the construction industry, which has modules for inspection requests, punch-lists, occupancy planning (healthcare), room completion (healthcare), room readiness (healthcare) etc. We also have a service around providing custom reports... however, we find that the need for dynamic data trumps the ability to simply view the latest plan digitally, i.e. we provide the ability to run a dynamic report on all inspections scheduled, performed, outstanding, etc... As well as the need to run a report that would "Show me all the rooms that have a Medication Dispensation Unit, on level two and assigned to unit Med Surge" - which outputs a colorized visio (or ZUI iPad floorplan). The future is in granularity of reporting, rather than just blanket display, and I think this is a great step. Especially if you have many trades begining to use it. There is no reason the trades can't run multiple apps for specific purposes. Although, I am not sure I agree with one number in the article; "For $1MM in construction, you can have as much as $3,500 in printing" -- I am only skeptical as I work on projects in the hundreds of millions (1.5B, 850MM, 800MM 100MM are the budgets for my (personally) active projects) I dont see them spending 3MM on printing for the 850MM project... but I might just not be privy to the numbers from every trade. Here is an example of a dynamic room category report for an active project here in SF. We colorize the rooms based on type/use to familiarize the org with the spaces http://i.imgur.com/2DRah.jpg http://i.imgur.com/2DRah.jpg - We do a great deal more with the data and reports, this is just an example of many that the orgs use. Hospital transition planning is very complex, and costly. The vitals of the facility change a lot through the life of the project. The issue with educating THOUSANDS of people in prep for opening day such that they can SAFELY receive their first patient is critical. Being able to very quickly synthesize and summarize vast amounts of information makes for a better, more successful project and a better, more educated and prepared staff. Remember that while there are hundreds of people on a project team, there are thousands of people on the facility staff who are expected to move into the facility day-one and not cause fatal mistakes. A project I am doing in Texas is 1.5MM square feet and dynamic, item-level granularity reporting is going to be key in the smooth success of the project. I would love to see what PlanGrid can offer such large projects - and while I am a full proponent of the iPad in the field, in an industry where cost is king, I'd like to better understand how they convince construction companies of the ROI - esp. when tools and materials walk of the job all the time. I think that Plangrid should talk to the designers (not just architects) as well; RTKL, Mazzetti, TEECOM, RLS, SMWM, SFM, etc... If PlanGrid (love the name) wants to talk to me - my email is in my profile.

reneherse 15y ago

Very very exciting! Assuming a thoroughly brilliant execution, I'm certain that this app will find its fans amongst all groups within the design-build chain. Architects, construction managers, general contractors and trades. Even building owners and maintenance managers, perhaps. I haven't tried the app, but having worked in both architecture and construction and now as a UX designer, I'm quite familiar with the problems it addresses. One of the biggest challenges on a construction project (even a small one) is document control and management. Though most work in architectural offices is done on computers, paper plans remain the final method of output of construction information, and this causes numerous problems. Of course there is the cost of printing that the article mentions, but that's only one of several inefficiencies. A little background for those unfamiliar with construction: First, traditional prints are cumbersome, so they're difficult to pull out and reference in any kind of adverse field conditions. Large sheets of paper do not mix well with wind or rain. Even in good weather or indoors they're a pain to carry around and handle, so they tend to spend most of their time in the truck or trailer, often away from where they're really needed. To make them easier to carry, construction managers often make their own smaller photocopies of portions of the plans, which compounds the second big problem: keeping the documents up to date. On a large project, keeping everyone's documents up to date is a nightmare. The more subcontractors you have, the bigger the nightmare becomes. And if you have a fast-track or rapidly evolving design-build situation, the problem is further compounded by compressed schedules. When plans or specifications are out of date, estimations are off and things get built incorrectly. You get waste, increased project costs, and the occasional lost shirt. One of my mentors used to destroy on sight any out of date documents he found people carrying. This app should be a much more elegant solution. Essentially, paper plans are so difficult to manage that they waste a huge amount of time and sometimes result in errors. They're a centuries old, paper-based data bank and info graphic. So it's easy to see how this app could not only save time and money, but also increase quality and accuracy of what gets built: The people doing the work will have convenient access to the right information at the right time, through plans and other forms of location-based information on a device that's easy to carry. Further, the ability to notate and communicate right from the UI has the potential to fix one of the frequently broken feedback loops in the design-build process: communication between builder and architect about unexpected field conditions or difficulties with the current design. I have no idea about the road map for the app, but there's a lot of potential here. Imagine you're able to share screens and stream video or still images back to the architect about something needing clarification, and have her be able to sketch on the plans in real time. Then the changes can be saved as a draft copy, ported back to the drafting software, modifications made and reissued as an official document (and even change orders) in a matter of minutes. The potential for this to speed construction and increase quality is not to be under-estimated. As a designer, I'm very curious about the UI of the app and how well the UX is adapted to the needs of folks in the field. Because there are just so many variations on the use case, so many different ways that building plans are used by different people in the process. And, there is one advantage to the size of traditional printed plans. Their bigness, at times, can be a virtue when you're trying to get an understanding of the overall layout of building, and extract key dimensions from it. Of course zooming in and out is how this is handled on monitors when drafting, but I suspect the problem is a little different on an iPad size screen, the solution needing to be a little more creative to convey the needed information. Phew, thinking about the possibilities of this app is exhilarating, and my apologies if my post is overly long. Congrats to the founding team for identifying and working to solve such a significant missing piece in the chain of the construction process! :)

tyoung 15y ago

There are tons of very obvious problems in many industries that are solvable by software. The only problem is that great domain experts and great hackers rarely overlap enough to do a startup together. It was a miracle that the four of us found each other.

reneherse 15y ago
Just read the "About" page on the PlanGrid site, and indeed your team does seem to be a great combination of experts & hackers. My background sort of puts me with one foot in either camp for this particular problem set; it would be really cool to chat with you folks some time when I make it out to the Bay Area. BTW, how did you all come to find each other?
- tyoung 15y ago
  3 of us went to school together, 2 of us worked together, 2 of us went to a cello concert, not together. Its one of those tricky GRE math questions.

zmmz 15y ago

I see that on your about page you mention only supporting PDFs. As somebody frustrated by the lack of alternatives to Autodesk products, seemingly due to the lock in by .DWG files[1] not being an open standard, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts? Did you think about/try implementing the file format? Do you have plans for others? Last week, I told myself I'd give the OSS CAD programs a try, downloaded LibreCAD and tried to open some architecture plans from my inbox. Could not open. Then I read came across an excellent explanation of the problem of DWGs in OSS[2], this is the most frustrated I've been for a while. The industry standard is a proprietary file format with no published specifications. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwg [2]: http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/whats-up-with-dwg-adoption-in-free-software http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/whats-up-with-dwg-a...

kennystone 15y ago
Our approach is as practical as it can be - the actual builders need drawings and the drawings are usually delivered in PDF. We've found very few of our customers get the DWG files themselves, and even if they do, they are easily exported to PDF.
- zmmz 15y ago
  Makes sense. I guess I just wanted a place to vent out my frustration with DWG :D. The other comments in this thread make it very clear, you have a great product. More industries need teams like yours.
  - ralphleon 15y ago
    I'm so thankful that our customers don't want to deal with DWG files. I had investigated it a bit for our original prototype... it was not pleasant.

sopooneo 15y ago

I have to believe something like this already existed for pen based tablets. And I believe that for real work, a tablet must have higher fidelity input that can be achieve with fingertips.