First, a question for Reprographers. If you offer a web-based planroom service,
does your planroom connect to, is it compatible with, a web-based
takeoff/estimating software technology?
In a previous post on the Repro 101 Blog this
morning, I posted information about SmartBidNet. On SmartBidNet’s web-site, they mention
“STACK”, one of their partners. I
decided to check out STACK, and, so, this post is about STACK. For those of you who heard about iSqFt years
ago, the founder of STACK Technologies was one of the co-founders of iSqFt.
Here’s what STACK is (and it sounds to me
like STACK (pun intended) well stacks-up against PlanSwift (PlanSwift was
purchased by Textura Corp, and, later on, Textura was purchased by Oracle.)
“STACK Construction Technologies has developed
a collection of on screen takeoff and estimating tools for professional
contractors. Our software is web based so it’s usable on MAC or PC on any
browser with nothing to download or install. We give you the latest technology
available to bid more work in less time from anywhere. All of our software
solutions provide the same fast, easy to use interface that will help you
increase bid accuracy and reduce errors.”
STACK Technologies
offers:
STACK Estimating
STACK Takeoff
STACK Plan Viewer
STACK Catalogs
You can read more detailed information about
these products at this link:
From STACK’s “history” page (which I found
especially interesting because I had no idea that the people behind STACK were
co-founders of iSqFt):
Thanks for
visiting and welcome to our site. We are dedicated to helping you learn more
about our exciting new Cloud based technology for working with blueprints on
screen!
A little history
and the story of Buildware, iSqFt.com and STACK Construction Technologies:
In the mid-1990s
while working in the construction industry, my son Justin (then only 15) and I
put together an estimating software program that we called Buildware Pro.
Originally targeting the commercial roofing industry, Buildware Pro allowed you
to measure paper plans using a digitizer, or even on your computer screen if
you had a digital PDF or TIF file. We enjoyed success from the very beginning
and by the time Justin was 17 we had sold 1/2 a million dollars' worth of our
construction software!
Measuring on
screen led me to a new idea… one where GCs could distribute plans in digital
form to their subs and suppliers, via the Internet. During the same time frame
my friends Al and Tracy Battle had started the first ever "Internet Plan
Room" and partnered with the AGC in Atlanta to distribute plans for public
projects to subs and suppliers in that market. Al, Tracy and I put our
companies together and iSqFt.com was born.
Justin, Jane
Baysore and I left iSqFt.com a few years back with the idea of making plans
easier than ever to work with on screen and Cloud Takeoff was born.
We're very proud
to announce the next evolution of our company STACK Construction Technologies,
which includes STACK Takeoff, STACK Estimating, and STACK Plan Viewer.
STACK brings
together the very latest in web technologies to deliver a powerful yet
surprisingly easy to use, web based software as a service solution. We believe
that STACK will transform the way the construction industry works, estimates
and collaborates using digital plans. It is our mission to continue to improve,
integrate with more and more plan rooms and to infuse STACK with additional
sources of real time data for the benefit of all industry participants.
Here’s a bit more history – from
an article that was published in the Cincinnati Business Courier back in July 2015:
“Here's how a
Cincinnati contractor became CEO of a fast-growing tech startup”
As the old
saying goes, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again and eventually
you’ll be the CEO of a fast-growing tech company that doubles its revenue and
employees from year to year.
Okay, maybe that’s not exactly how the saying goes, but it worked for Phil Ogilby.
Ogilby pioneered
software that allows contractors to use digital blueprints to estimate the cost
of a project and the amount of materials they’ll need. This enables users to
save time and provide better pricing quotes.
As in any
industry, however, Ogilby’s technology moved faster than investors and clients,
and it took hundreds of “no's” for him to get to where he is today at the plush
Mason office where his current company, STACK Construction Technology, is
based.
“It’s not for
the meek,” he told me. “There was one point where I made 20 different visits to
major cities to pitch to venture capitalists, and each one told me no.”
Ogilby’s
entrepreneurial journey began in 1995 when he brought home his first personal
computer. At the time, he was in the commercial roofing business, and he began
using a spreadsheet program to estimate the cost of projects.
One day, Ogilby
came home to find his 14-year-old son, Justin, playing a simple computer game
he had created using code. That gave Ogilby an idea: What if he and his son
could write a program that made estimating easier? So they went to the library
and checked out all of the computer programming books they could find.
Three years
later, they succeeded in creating a program they called Buildware Pro, which
allowed contractors to measure blueprints electronically. They made more than
$500,000 on the program during the next few years.
In 1999, Ogilby
decided to partner with Al and Tracy Battle, the creators of the first
Internet plan room, to start iSqFt, an industry information provider
that sells project bidding news. Ogilby traveled around the country pitching
the idea for the new company but was rejected at every turn.
“Everybody loved
it, but nobody invested,” Ogilby said.
Finally, a Blue
Ash real estate investor gave the team $500,000 in 2000 to get the business up
and running. The next year, Ogilby brought on local business development expert
Dave Conway, and the two raised the
company’s first round of venture capital from Chrysalis Ventures and River
Cities Capital Funds. Soon, they had large contractors like Messer Construction
using their product across the country.
Ogilby and his
son left iSqFt in 2008, but the company has
continued its success. It merged with Chicago-based BidClerk in 2014
and was sold last December to Genstar Capital. iSqFt currently employs 550 at
its office in Blue Ash and was approved in June for a 65 percent, six-year job
creation tax credit. The company is considering moving its headquarters out of
Cincinnati.
It took Ogilby
and his son two years to develop the platform for their new business, but in
2010, they launched Cloud Takeoff, which offers a suite of
measuring and estimating tools that allow contractors to bid and collaborate
using digital blueprints. This design is a “return to roots” for him and his
son, Ogilby said, since the first program they ever created performed similar
tasks. They changed the product’s name in December from Cloud Takeoff to STACK.
Ogilby, his wife
Jane Baysore and his son were the sole
employees at STACK until 2013, when an expanding customer base called for
hiring and another round of fundraising. CincyTech, a seed-stage tech company
investor, helped the team raise $1 million. STACK raised another $1 million in
private investment last year and received a $1 million loan from the state of
Ohio.
STACK is
currently in talks with several major manufacturers about integrating their
products into the company’s software. This would enable contractors not only to
view the amount of materials needed for a project but to order those materials
with the click of a button.
It would also
solve a lot of issues for manufacturers, who struggle to reach their ultimate
customers. Currently, the best manufacturers can do is buy a lead, which tells
them which subcontractors are working on a given project, and then attempt to
contact those subcontractors.
STACK also is
launching a new service called STACK To-Go for clients who are crunched for
time and need their estimating performed by a third party.
Even after
founding three successful construction technology companies and forging a
career in software development, Ogilby still considers himself a construction man
first and foremost.
“I really see myself still as a contractor,” he said.
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