00:00:00:03 - 00:00:06:01 Speaker 1 Me, my project managers. We refer to those images on the floor plan on a weekly basis. 00:00:06:02 - 00:00:06:16 Speaker 2 Impressive. 00:00:06:17 - 00:00:19:16 Speaker 1 So before we did that though, I said, okay, let's open Multi Vista and let's see what's around that, where the pipes are, where the wires are. Exactly. How is that framed so that we don't just go whack it into a wall and damage something? 00:00:19:16 - 00:00:37:23 Speaker 2 I like to refer to it as a roadmap of discovery. Is it going to solve every single issue? Maybe. Maybe not. But at the same time it is going to allow that X-ray vision to come up with a game plan of exactly how to make your assessment and how to fix, improve, etc., etc. we. 00:00:37:23 - 00:00:39:07 Speaker 1 Can even take measurements off the. 00:00:39:07 - 00:00:39:21 Speaker 2 Photos. 00:00:39:21 - 00:00:43:02 Speaker 1 Yes, which is something that, you know, five years ago we couldn't do. 00:00:43:02 - 00:00:43:13 Speaker 2 Yes. 00:00:43:18 - 00:00:46:06 Speaker 1 So that technology is constantly evolving and improving. 00:00:46:07 - 00:00:54:01 Speaker 2 Absolutely. 00:00:54:03 - 00:01:15:20 Speaker 1 Hey everybody, welcome back to a new episode of the Your Project Shepherd podcast. I am your host, Curtis Lawson. And today we're going to talk about a company that we work with that crafted, my homebuilding business that we've been working with for a number of years as a is a great service that that has saved our about a number of times that we tell our clients that we need to include in our project. 00:01:16:00 - 00:01:30:07 Speaker 1 We do have it as an optional service for our clients in our contract, but we encourage all of our clients to use the service and that is Multi Vista. And joining me today to talk about Multi Vista is the I guess you're the owner of the Houston. 00:01:30:07 - 00:01:32:21 Speaker 2 Yes sir is a franchise. It is a franchise. 00:01:32:21 - 00:01:35:19 Speaker 1 Yes sir Houston franchise Bryan Altice yes. 00:01:35:19 - 00:01:39:05 Speaker 2 Thanks for the introduction. Happy to be here. This morning. 00:01:39:07 - 00:01:45:20 Speaker 1 So tell us about you know what Multiversity is kind of how you got into it. And just tell us about the company. 00:01:45:22 - 00:02:10:02 Speaker 2 Okay. Been with multiverse in some capacity for 15, plus years. Been in the Houston market franchise, if you will, for the past ten years. I run it, with my brother. In fact, John, he handles more the operational day to day bookkeeping, etcetera, etcetera. If he can't tell, focus on sales, new business, but small business. 00:02:10:02 - 00:02:33:24 Speaker 2 So we obviously where, a lot of hats. How did I get into multi vista? Well, I've always been keen on construction. One of my first, jobs out of college was working with a company called construct, where they were your largest before Prologis, project management database. I was basically an inside sales. Was my was my role about 20 years ago. 00:02:33:24 - 00:03:01:09 Speaker 2 And I had a good mentor, a sales person that really brought me up to speed on the ins and outs of construction, went off and did some various other sales opportunities. But, came back to most of this, about 2008, and I worked for another franchise as a as their lead sales. A person and, decided after about 6 or 7 years to, you know, if I was making X, I could probably make Y as a franchise owner. 00:03:01:09 - 00:03:26:13 Speaker 2 So, native Texan, I was in Atlanta, Georgia at the time, called my brother. He was on board with it, and we purchased the franchise in to late 2013. And it's been quite the success. When I came down here, we often talk about my sales and prowess in that direction of knowing Multi Vista. We were hardly keeping up with the work coming in as we were hiring up, because we had so many projects coming along. 00:03:26:13 - 00:03:49:23 Speaker 2 A good problem that you like to have, but it's a stressful one nonetheless. And learning the ins and outs of what it truly takes to run a business that I'm sure you're very familiar with. We now, you know, as we've grown through the years, I focused on the public sector. At first, I figured it's a relationship building, but once you get on school districts, they never stop building. 00:03:49:23 - 00:04:09:19 Speaker 2 They never stop having bonds. People are still moving here, as we all know. So I've got the Katies, the cornrows, the four bins. All your local school districts are using Multi Vista, pretty much full throttle. After about 3 or 4 years in the commercial sector, I figured it was time to branch and grow my business in different, arms, so to speak. 00:04:09:21 - 00:04:33:02 Speaker 2 And so, I had a sales person that focus specifically on custom homes. That's how we were introduced to you, and it really took off. After about a year or so, I'd say we'd have about 25, 30 builders that were consistently using it. And it's a credit to builders, as I mentioned. It took like Curtis here where, you know, it could, open yourself up to a little bit of risk. 00:04:33:02 - 00:05:03:09 Speaker 2 But at the end of the day, it's all about transparency. It's all about building better product for your end user, your customer, your homeowner. And so primary focus and what multi Vista does in general is exposes x ray vision inside of walls floors and ceilings. I've got a team of photographers. They constantly visit job sites from start to finish or at as I mentioned before, maybe before a slab or before a wall or ceiling is covered up and we take overlapping comprehends images. 00:05:03:11 - 00:05:25:24 Speaker 2 Every single square inch is quote unquote documented. And we take all those images and we link and plot them to the exact location on your floor plans. So it's a who did what when can answer the why sometimes. But it's, who did what, when and how of everything. And from underneath your slab inside your wall. Love your ceiling and then exterior skin. 00:05:26:01 - 00:05:53:11 Speaker 2 Branching off, we've added laser scanning as part of our services. So if you're remodeling any type of structure and you don't have a current set of drawings that you can, exacerbate how to plan going forward, we have the ability with our new technology to go in, scan the area and create DWG Revit models of the existing space to make it easier for the architect to make their assessments or their new design, their new drawings. 00:05:53:13 - 00:06:15:24 Speaker 2 We've also implemented drones. Drones has been a real key factor of exterior. We can do things in half the time, obviously flying as opposed to walking around a jobsite and take really straight on images of exterior scan. Let's say we're documenting an apartment. You know, your flash call can we we can fly and hover that drone straight on to make sure that that is all exposed. 00:06:15:24 - 00:06:33:10 Speaker 2 So if you have water penetration issues down the road, I mean, we live in a very rainfall heavy, wet, damp area. And water is always a concern. And to be able to have that documentation so really branched out, I know that's probably a little bit longer than everybody would like, but and those. 00:06:33:12 - 00:06:40:00 Speaker 1 Those drone angles, those are things that you either just can't get from the ground or even on a ladder. There's certain right. 00:06:40:01 - 00:06:40:11 Speaker 2 Certain. 00:06:40:11 - 00:06:50:10 Speaker 1 Places that you can't reach, can't see without a very specific ladder placement, but also just the speed of not having to move ladders around, set up scaffolding, all that kind of stuff. 00:06:50:10 - 00:07:15:04 Speaker 2 It makes it tremendous. We were almost surprised at how much time and again, it's all about obviously aiding the value to what you're delivering to your customer and ability to hover that drone. See, we pull see down into balconies and whatnot to make sure that, they're sealed correctly has been invaluable, but I'm not sure I mentioned it, but I say we're up to about 200 plus or minus projects. 00:07:15:06 - 00:07:24:01 Speaker 2 And then obviously I think it's a hard number to watch porn, but about 150,000 to 200,000 various images per month. 00:07:24:03 - 00:07:46:06 Speaker 1 That's a lot of pictures. And I know that that technology, I mean, since 2013, when you started, your local franchise, the technology has just come a long way in the last 11 years, too. I mean, when we first started working with you, there was somebody that was, you know, he would stand in a spot and take, you know, several images from standing in one spot. 00:07:46:06 - 00:07:53:09 Speaker 1 And now they're using a 360 camera. So it's, and now we can even take measurements off the photos. 00:07:53:09 - 00:07:53:21 Speaker 2 Yes. 00:07:53:21 - 00:07:56:15 Speaker 1 Which is something that, you know, five years ago we couldn't do. 00:07:56:15 - 00:07:57:01 Speaker 2 Yes. 00:07:57:06 - 00:07:59:20 Speaker 1 So that technology is constantly evolving and improving. 00:07:59:20 - 00:08:34:21 Speaker 2 Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. The 360 images to be able to connect obviously the the walls with the ceiling and instead of having to click on 2 or 3 different images, you have that full exposure of the entire area, in multi vista. And again, I'll freely admit anybody can go out and buy a GoPro camera and get a 360, but the redundancy of us coming out to the specific location over and over throughout the various course of different phases of construction is really what separates it from the quote unquote, do it yourself. 00:08:34:23 - 00:08:57:19 Speaker 2 And then obviously, we're on the forefront of the latest and greatest technology. We spend the time, the resources, the money, whatever it takes to get the proper lighting, to get the proper camera, the proper tripod to make sure that you have the clear, the clearest of images to be able to zoom in. However, I slightly want to, you know, focus on the fact of our Nikon D 500 camera. 00:08:57:21 - 00:09:20:07 Speaker 2 That's a 20 megapixel for our maps. We still use those today because you can zoom in and see hangars. As far as the ILC, you know, your water espresso lines, everything, and it really hasn't been replaced since 2013. We're adding to our repertoire. It's like, we make sure that you have all the proper ingredients, if you will, to cook the best dinner. 00:09:20:11 - 00:09:35:07 Speaker 2 Okay. So we use all the technology the drone, the Nikon, the 360 camera. We use all those ingredients to make sure that our final output of documentation is, you know, a perfectly well entertained meal, if you will. 00:09:35:12 - 00:09:53:12 Speaker 1 And the one big thing that, you know, again, like you said, you can go out and buy any of this equipment yourself online and learn how to use it. But the ability to link that to the floor plan is not something. Well, I mean, I guess you could figure out how to do it, right, but it could. But it's not like an off the shelf thing that's it's easy just to figure out on your own. 00:09:53:12 - 00:10:17:06 Speaker 1 So for me as a user, that's been one of the most valuable things. And we use it, I would say we refer back to these images during the projects on a weekly basis. I mean, I mean, I looked at impressive. I looked at it yesterday. House we're doing here in Bel Air and we we needed to move. We like a recessed shower niche in the wall that was supposed to be, you know, centered on some tile or something. 00:10:17:08 - 00:10:34:02 Speaker 1 And we had to move that niche a little bit because somebody measured something. So before we did that, though, I said, okay, let's open Multi Vista and let's see what's around that, where the pipes are, where the wires are. Exactly. How was that framed. So that we don't just go whack it into a wall and damage something. 00:10:34:02 - 00:10:34:23 Speaker 2 Absolutely. 00:10:34:23 - 00:10:42:05 Speaker 1 And so I mean, you know, me, my project managers, we refer to those images on the floor plan on a weekly basis. 00:10:42:05 - 00:10:42:18 Speaker 2 Impressive. 00:10:42:18 - 00:10:54:00 Speaker 1 And just, you know, you know, we have our, you know, all the PMS have their iPad in their hand on the site. So they pull it up, click on that little arrow on that spot on the floor plan and boom, there it is. We can take a measurement. That's where we cut. 00:10:54:03 - 00:11:12:24 Speaker 2 Yeah, I like to refer to it as a roadmap of discovery. Is it going to solve every single issue? Maybe. Maybe not. But at the same time it is going to allow that X-ray vision to come up with a game plan of exactly how to make your assessment and how to fix, improve, etc., etc.. 00:11:13:04 - 00:11:30:20 Speaker 1 I mean, because what's on, what's on the plans, the way something, the way the engineers design something, we've got our our PDFs of the floor plans, we know how it's supposed to have been laid out, but as you and I both know, what actually happens in the field, not always exactly like it is in the plans. 00:11:30:22 - 00:11:57:10 Speaker 2 It's incredible that you mention that one of my first customers in rural South Carolina school district, he he he saw probably a month in as a green new sales gentleman. And he goes, my plans are more like Azure remembered plans. You provide true exact built perfect. Exactly what is happening inside the wall. So that's I always think of that as remembered verse, exactly how it was constructed. 00:11:57:10 - 00:12:31:18 Speaker 1 Yeah. And you know, for things like framing, you know, in drywall or whatever, if you make a mistake, if you damage a, a water line during construction, you can fix it or whatever. But thinking about like you use cases where you've got to know exactly where something is, I'm thinking about like a foundation with post tension cables in it, and if those post tension cables aren't exactly in the spot, they are in the plans, and you go cutting into that concrete because you have to move a pipe or something like that, you better know where that cable really is. 00:12:31:20 - 00:12:44:14 Speaker 1 Because if you don't, you can really cost yourself a lot of money and having to go back and fix that. So again, having that documentation of where these expensive and kind of structurally critical elements are is key. 00:12:44:19 - 00:13:10:20 Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. And and we have it I mean, you know, touched on the fact a credit to you, Curtis, other builders that provide this access not not all, but most will provide a long term, you know, as built record that we've been talking about to the homeowner when we're not here anymore, 25, 30 years down the road, the house has been sold three to you always have that transparency of what's inside the wall. 00:13:10:20 - 00:13:33:08 Speaker 2 What's up with the ceiling? And let's say you were hired to remodel a house that you primarily focus on. And I mean, it would be pure gold for someone to give you a jump drive with all the images attached to the plan of a 1960s house for you to come up and have a formulate a game plan. How much time and money would that save you to have that and hopefully that. 00:13:33:13 - 00:13:42:10 Speaker 2 My point is that technology carries with all of the 40, 50, 60 years down the road of having these images of what's inside the walls and ceilings. 00:13:42:10 - 00:14:01:10 Speaker 1 Right. And and that's something we didn't mention earlier, was so, you know, during construction, you know, we have a portal through your website where we can log in and do this through the app, through your app. But then I thinking if the conclusion of the project, you guys give us a USB thumb drive, jump drive, whatever you want to call it, you give us that drive as our that's kind of our permanent record. 00:14:01:12 - 00:14:17:08 Speaker 1 And, you know, some builders may not want to share that with the client. Honestly, I kind of think it depends on the client and what the relationship is. But even if you don't give it to the client, if we just have it internally as a long term record, it's a great tool. 00:14:17:08 - 00:14:24:16 Speaker 2 Warranty, you know, 12 month. It's period that, you know, a lot of things are investigating for it. Quick assessment. 00:14:24:16 - 00:14:59:07 Speaker 1 So so if you if you decide not to give it to the client and God forbid there's some legal issue five years down the road, at least you've got that protection for yourself. Like I can pull that up and say, hey, this is how I did it. There's no speculation. This is how it was done. I think that's the one of the hesitancy that some builders have for doing this is especially if the client paid for that, like if you put that as a line item on your budget or like I like I said, we do we give the clients an option of spending the money on that for their build. 00:14:59:09 - 00:15:16:02 Speaker 1 The client has some ownership in that. Right. So they want that, that, that, that thumb drive, you know, that could be used against you if you didn't do something right. So there's some liability issues there. But, you know, we believe if you're doing things right, you know, you kind of take care of yourself. 00:15:16:08 - 00:15:36:11 Speaker 2 And if I could expand upon that, you know, it's kind of a for lack of better term, early bird gets the worm. You like to know. And I apologize to any lawyers that are listening. I have lawyers in my family. What do lawyers like? They like billable hours. They don't like a lot of evidence because then they can litigate more and more. 00:15:36:13 - 00:16:03:20 Speaker 2 Well, a picture tells a thousand words. If you have a photo that you can pull up that's attached to the plan of those as bail conditions, what's the point of hiring a lawyer? Let's get to a table. Just like you and I are sitting here and figure out what best to fix it. And then we can all move forward instead of going through this rigmarole of litigation, because the photos tell the story, we don't need to take it to I, you know, I often, if I could do one more second on this. 00:16:03:20 - 00:16:04:12 Speaker 1 Yeah. 00:16:04:14 - 00:16:26:12 Speaker 2 You know, I often get to ask how often are you do these photos are taken to court litigation? I don't get that far. It's usually the most I've seen is either in discovery or a simple conversation of this is exactly how it was installed. We have a record of it. It's either the way that I'm, you know, that it needs to be, or we're going to fix it in today's world. 00:16:26:18 - 00:16:41:05 Speaker 2 Again, credit to you. Credit to other builders. What are we doing here? Let's get things built the way they should be built, and we can move on it with a happy customer that's going to refer us. And then also the homeowner is obviously, has that record as well. 00:16:41:07 - 00:17:00:03 Speaker 1 They're also you're also potentially saving the money on, hiring experts in a court case to, you know, as a consultant, you know, if I get hired along with toner and some other people that I work with to come in and, you know, if if you can't, if you don't know what's inside the wall, if you can't see if there's no record of it, how do you find out? 00:17:00:06 - 00:17:01:21 Speaker 1 You tear it apart to see what's going on. 00:17:01:22 - 00:17:03:07 Speaker 2 Destructive verification. 00:17:03:07 - 00:17:29:10 Speaker 1 And so this saves potentially having to tear something open to see what happens. It saves the potential cost of hiring expert witnesses to take it apart. Look at it, verify it. I'm not saying that you're always going to eliminate that because some of that's always going to take place in certain cases, but you're you're greatly reducing the chances of having to do destructive discovery and limiting the number of experts that have to be brought in, because, you know, there's a record of it. 00:17:29:13 - 00:17:50:04 Speaker 1 So unless, you know, there's always somebody on scooped unscrupulous that's going to they're going to if there is a problem, they're going to put a Band-Aid on it. They're just going to cover it up and go on down the road. There's always a chance of that. But the likelihood of somebody who's actually spending the money to do this, you know, being the kind of builder that's just going to cover stuff up and hide it. 00:17:50:04 - 00:17:53:08 Speaker 1 I mean, I would say that the chances are lower in that instance. 00:17:53:08 - 00:17:54:02 Speaker 2 Absolutely. 00:17:54:02 - 00:18:01:00 Speaker 1 Because if you already believe in the documentation, you probably believe in giving your customers a good product and not hiding a problem. 00:18:01:00 - 00:18:28:03 Speaker 2 Right? And we didn't even expand upon the fact of, you know, how, you know, especially on a commercial, but even, single family residential, how many different, not only companies or employees, you know, you're electrician, you're all the different sub trades that are touching that house. We talked about the fact of, you know, someone out there constantly with a camera, hardhat, vest, looks like an inspector taking photos. 00:18:28:05 - 00:18:39:17 Speaker 2 How many? I mean, we probably don't even really sometimes even need to take the pictures. Just hold the camera behind them. How many problems are we solving by just being out on the job site? Oh, crap. 00:18:39:22 - 00:18:41:12 Speaker 1 You better do this the right way. They're watching. 00:18:41:12 - 00:18:58:08 Speaker 2 I mean, let's be real. If there's a camera like this on me all the time, I'd probably step up my game a little bit further as well. So there is that human element of how someone's taking pictures are probably need to make sure I install this correctly or I just increase my game. Take that little time and there is no band aids. 00:18:58:08 - 00:19:02:06 Speaker 2 There is no simple cover ups because it will be exposed at the end of the day. 00:19:02:08 - 00:19:26:07 Speaker 1 So I wanted to kind of go back just thinking back to the the dark ages before Multi Vista existed, before smartphones even existed. You know, how how were people documenting this stuff back then? I mean, I think, you know, digital cameras were obviously the first big revolution, right? You know, that that gave companies the ability to go around, take their own pictures on their job sites. 00:19:26:07 - 00:19:49:18 Speaker 1 That was a huge step forward over having film cameras and having to do that. Right. So digital cameras are the first big revolution. Smartphones were the next big thing that allowed you to. Can I quickly take a bunch of pictures them to your computer easily refer back to them? But the problem with that was people are busy. I know my my superintendents have a million other things to do than sit there and take pictures. 00:19:49:20 - 00:20:07:16 Speaker 1 And so like we used to have that as a checklist on our construction schedule pre multi vista. You know we had you know take, take take pre-covered photos. Right. Well I can't tell you how many times that that line item just got missed or skipped over on our construction schedules. Because because the guys are I can screw this. 00:20:07:16 - 00:20:18:03 Speaker 1 I don't wanna do this today, you know? So, yeah, back in the day, there was just not there wasn't a good way to kind of manage and organize all this stuff. 00:20:18:03 - 00:20:36:04 Speaker 2 Absolutely. It's there is probably not one particular project that I've sold most of us on that didn't take their own photos and still do today. I mean, I welcome that if you're out there and you see something, take a take an image. Sure. Heck, you can load it to send it to us and we'll load it on your project portal. 00:20:36:06 - 00:21:03:00 Speaker 2 So it's all centrally documented. I would say that the differentiation of what you're saying, anybody can take an image or smartphones has made it easier and easier. I mean, the clarity we all know gets better and better, but it's the arrangement. And who captured it. Couple of items. Well, for third party, we have no bias. Yes, we may be contracted, but we're we're going to take an image and we forfeit the copyrights of that image to our customer. 00:21:03:00 - 00:21:27:01 Speaker 2 We're not really consulted. So we like to play it that way because let the experts decide what's inside that wall. And by having the ability of I go back to it many times, the redundancy and the ability to take overlapping every square inch image that Murphy law of you doing it yourself or your project manager going out there and taking your photos inevitably. 00:21:27:03 - 00:21:50:01 Speaker 2 And this is why we're founded, to be perfectly honest, we are an electrician. Electrical contractor founded us because as he was flipping through his images, he had a picture of that wall and that wall. But your problems up in that little bitty corner where the water is coming through again, do you do you have the capability, the manpower, or are they going to know to take, you know, 10% overlapping photos of every square inch and link it to the plans? 00:21:50:03 - 00:22:01:04 Speaker 2 No, that's just not reality. And to have that one little area that you know is going to be captured is invaluable. To make sure that that the that it is in fact captured. 00:22:01:04 - 00:22:10:03 Speaker 1 So yeah. And and again just the kind of the organization because if you've got 2 or 3 different people taking photos at different times, different. 00:22:10:05 - 00:22:11:20 Speaker 2 Different eye, the beholder, different. 00:22:11:20 - 00:22:15:21 Speaker 1 Vantage points, different lighting conditions, you know, it's different every time. 00:22:15:21 - 00:22:17:04 Speaker 2 Where is it stored? Yeah. 00:22:17:04 - 00:22:17:22 Speaker 1 Where's it stored? 00:22:17:22 - 00:22:19:18 Speaker 2 Well, how do you email it fast? 00:22:19:18 - 00:22:27:11 Speaker 1 Well, Todd's got 40 pictures on his phone and Daniel's got 20 pictures on his phone. I've got a few pictures of my phone. And where are we all saving him? Do we remember to save them? 00:22:27:14 - 00:22:46:12 Speaker 2 And if we get in, you know, again, it rarely happens. But a litigious circumstance. Well, you took those photos at a particular time, so it has your bias. Again, we don't I can't stress enough. There's no bias in what we capture. It's information to help better build a project, so to speak. 00:22:46:12 - 00:23:08:19 Speaker 1 Your your previous salesperson who first contacted me a few years ago. One of the things that the he mentioned to me that I always liked was, capturing existing conditions before we start the project. And this, this actually, it benefited us one time because you guys came out before the project documented the street conditions, right? Oh, yeah. 00:23:08:19 - 00:23:28:15 Speaker 1 So, like like, here's a here's a picture each direction of the neighbor's houses in the street and the driveway and everything. I had a neighbor that said, one of your guys broke my mailbox, right. And and I had the ability to go back and say, hey, look, here's a picture taken the day before we started and your mailbox was already damaged. 00:23:28:17 - 00:23:51:18 Speaker 2 It's such a great example. The two main, I would say scopes of service that we provide for contractors builders is you're exactly what you're you're stating the existing condition site survey, street sidewalks, curbs, adjacent neighbors because everybody sees a construction company move in and they know that they're going to have to deal with it for the next 24, 36 months of home building they're going to. 00:23:51:19 - 00:24:33:08 Speaker 2 And it was my driveway cracked before or after. I think it was cracked after the fact, my mailbox, my win, etc., etc.. So existing conditions probably are number 1 or 1 A to one B, which is your MEP your in wall overhead. Capture right before cover up post inspection. So those two I'm glad you brought that up because that is used by contractors, general contractors and home builders quite extensively because the get the goal is also to eliminate finger pointing, finger pointing between you and your subs, finger pointing between you and your homeowner, finger pointing between you and as you mentioned, your neighbor with having that photo documentation, that transparency. 00:24:33:12 - 00:24:39:22 Speaker 2 We're here to eliminate that distraction so you can focus on what you need to focus, which is building the product, building the home. 00:24:39:23 - 00:24:58:20 Speaker 1 There's one thing that I wish I had, I wish I had thought of before on on a project that we're doing right now, actually, that you guys are doing the photos on. But I was like, man, we should have gone and taken drone photos of the whole site, including the neighbor, like, you know, drone photos or multiple angles because I've got I've, I've got one neighbor, you know, God bless neighbors. 00:24:58:21 - 00:25:16:20 Speaker 1 They're like like you said, there's always something they see construction going on and suddenly everything is your fault. I've, I've got one neighbor who ever since we started. You. You've messed up my drainage and my property. Right? And I've sent guys over there several times, and they're just like a big old pile of leaves and stuff all just kind of, like, crammed up in the corner there a lot against their fans. 00:25:16:20 - 00:25:27:03 Speaker 1 We're like, dude, you're messing up your own drainage. This is not us. And I was like, man, we should we should have like done drone capture of the block or something like that. Before we get started. 00:25:27:03 - 00:26:02:03 Speaker 2 I mean it, again, neighbors, we need to expand too far on it. But one of our, you know, our, other markets, if you will, is we work on, horizontal road work, sewage, drainage lines, etc., etc., etc., and we'll be hired by the contractor to come out and linear document, you know, streets, driveways, mailboxes, you know, windows, because everybody, when they see, you know, contractor Harris County or City of Houston Public Works tearing up a road to build a new road. 00:26:02:05 - 00:26:15:10 Speaker 2 Well, maybe I'll get a new driveway out of it. You know, it's just the the nature of the beast. So I will say I'm glad you brought that up. Existing condition site survey. That's one of our chief, scopes that we do provide for our builders and contractors. 00:26:15:12 - 00:26:32:23 Speaker 1 What other services? And so I will say that before we started officially recording the podcast here, we had a good conversation about about some other services, but which I'm going to I'm going to put the work load on Danielle to go back and good luck hut and pop some of the stuff in. So if there's a little hiccup in the video here, you'll you'll know why I'm. 00:26:32:23 - 00:26:52:12 Speaker 1 So I'm helping her. So there's a hiccup. There's there's a good excuse. So, anyway, so aside from, you know, residential construction, photo documentation, what are some of the other services that that you guys offer that can benefit not just residential, but also, you know, commercial, commercial clients, utility clients, whatever? 00:26:52:14 - 00:27:16:17 Speaker 2 Yes, we I believe we touched on it, a little bit, but obviously primarily the 360 images is help that line of standard photo documentation, in the drone having the ability to do exteriors in a timely, more efficient, more, you know, obviously from the air we can cover a lot more ground, so to speak, than walking around a structure and having straight on photos, video, etc. via the drone. 00:27:16:17 - 00:27:41:16 Speaker 2 I would say we run a fleet of about six different drones each day, and that is really been a game changer for exterior elevation, water penetration, etc. etc. being able to thoroughly document it, especially we have a high rise and apartment makes things a lot easier. Also, we've branched out into the laser scanning. We have a partnership with Laika and, they provide us with our laser scans. 00:27:41:16 - 00:28:05:13 Speaker 2 Top of the line RDC. Anybody familiar with the space knows that that's about within a quarter of an inch. Accuracy. So it's more accurate than you going out there and having a tape measure yourself. And what I mean by that is the scanner obviously sends out laser measuring points of any room, any space, and calculates that to create perfect as built drawings. 00:28:05:13 - 00:28:30:21 Speaker 2 Right. So if you're remodeling, you're doing an addition and you don't have, drawings or it's drawings from 20 years ago and there's been revisions in any type of space, I can take that machine, the scanner, send it to the jobsite, it calculates distance measurements, and then we'll create you either a Revit model or DWG files, or even PDF drawings of any particular space. 00:28:30:24 - 00:28:41:00 Speaker 1 I assume that has to be met, has to be done kind of pre demolition though, because once the walls are open up it's just stud with just open stud cavities either or. 00:28:41:00 - 00:28:41:14 Speaker 2 I mean is it. 00:28:41:14 - 00:28:45:16 Speaker 1 As accurate if there's like a kind of like a backer missing for the laser to stop. 00:28:45:16 - 00:29:07:18 Speaker 2 It? Yes. And a lot of folks have a I mean, you can obviously have you scanned all your mechanical, electrical, plumbing as well if it's exposed. So you can take it that far. I mean, if you're looking for just a floor plan layout, obviously pre demo would be your ticket. However, we do have customers even at MFP. 00:29:07:20 - 00:29:39:09 Speaker 2 Now they want to have accurate drawings, not as remembered as we talked about before. They want to have an exact built record via a DWG drawing of all their mechanical, electrical, plumbing. So even so it MFP it takes more time. Time is money. But however, we can certainly in some of our builders are having us with the laser scan go out there and create those plans for them of accurate to scale measurable of all your pre inspection installations. 00:29:39:11 - 00:29:58:07 Speaker 2 And that can be done on any existing space as well. I would say the primary is for we're about to remodel. We need a floor plan layout and a DWG that I can throw right into CAD to start making and manipulating those changes. Is our primary. We use a scanner just about every day. We're about to start up out of all places. 00:29:58:11 - 00:30:17:23 Speaker 2 But IHH, Amex lounge, Centurion Club, they're remodeling it, thank goodness. It's actually pretty small. And it was busy. Quite busy when I when I visited myself a couple of weeks ago. But they're going to be expanding in the drawings. You know, you got a kitchen here that was added over the years and the plans are just not that accurate. 00:30:18:00 - 00:30:36:22 Speaker 2 So they're having us come out and we're going to create DWG that they send off to their architect to be able to. Obviously, it's all about speeding up the process from, hey, we're about we've decided that we need to add or we need to, renovate to actual drawings coming forth. So you as the builder, can do your job. 00:30:36:22 - 00:30:41:13 Speaker 2 We can shorten that down tremendously by having and creating those as built. 00:30:41:14 - 00:30:46:11 Speaker 1 Yeah. Are you guys doing anything with jobsite monitoring? Jobsite security stuff as well? 00:30:46:11 - 00:31:11:24 Speaker 2 Yes. We've, actually partnered, with a company called Ox Blue. They're a webcam. It just was a natural transition. The beauty of of hexagon, our primary owner of Multiversus. Not to get too much in the weeds here, but they they're all about partnerships and buying other companies where I guess the functionality of this technology here, with that technology, there can have seamless transition to partner. 00:31:12:03 - 00:31:32:05 Speaker 2 And they integrate. I mean, that's always a key buzzword in today's world. You don't want to have a password for this and a username for that. You can have the best of on one centralized dashboard, the best of all technologies. And so yes, we have partner with ox Blue and they do provide security cameras. But we've always done your standard webcam. 00:31:32:07 - 00:31:52:02 Speaker 2 I can provide a live stream at all times of the jobsite. And and again, the media multiverse, we don't charge per user. I don't think we've touched upon that. I welcome owner, architect, consultancy and PM all the way down the list of every trade that's involved in the project to have access. Yeah, because we just do a lump sum fee, as you know. 00:31:52:02 - 00:32:11:18 Speaker 2 Yeah. And obviously that helps sell in the next job. If an architect has access and he sees, hey, you know, I've got all this documentation or this live stream webcam, I may invite it on to the next project. But to answer your question, yes, live stream it. It also does a time lapse. It takes images every ten 15 minutes that are saved within the system. 00:32:11:18 - 00:32:33:03 Speaker 2 So if I'm looking at rain days or I need to explain to my owner that we weren't on the job because a direct show or a hurricane blew through the city of Houston a couple weeks ago, a couple months ago. You can go back and identify those images that are taken every 10 to 15 minutes. So webcam is a, I would say part of our standard offering to go along with the photo documentation. 00:32:33:05 - 00:32:55:18 Speaker 1 I just go back and touch on kind of the multiple user thing. We kind of just skipped over that a while ago. But that's been great for us, you know, involving other parties or giving them logins. Right. We're currently building a project for a major corporation, and right now, and we're actually going to do a podcast on with with them on that product that they're developing. 00:32:55:20 - 00:33:19:22 Speaker 1 I think in December. We're going to do that when it comes time for them to announce the release. So right now I can't say who it is. But anyway, they're a big international corporation where we're building a demonstration house for some products they're doing, but I've got I've got a team of engineers in another country who are looking at the photos because they're really interested in how things are wired and how ducks are laid out and, and whatever as related to their products. 00:33:19:24 - 00:33:24:15 Speaker 1 And so I think there's probably some I don't know how many. There's a bunch of people. 00:33:24:15 - 00:33:25:04 Speaker 2 Want to use or. 00:33:25:05 - 00:33:32:03 Speaker 1 Yeah, there's probably 20 users from this company in Asia right now who are looking at these images on a on a weekly basis. 00:33:32:03 - 00:33:58:15 Speaker 2 And just think that's less phone calls to you. That's where does our project say and and maybe yeah, maybe a ticket overseas. You know that I can immediately without having, you know, without having to contact anybody log into the Multi Vista platform and see exactly where things currently stand. So that's a real big value about remote monitoring is probably our number one sales feature right alongside the as built nature of what we provide. 00:33:58:17 - 00:34:15:23 Speaker 1 Yeah it's definitely saved me a lot of meetings and phone calls. And we've we've we've pulled we've pulled the images up on teams meetings right with these people when we're talking about, hey, is this going to fit here. Can we modify it to do this. So I'm like, okay, well, let's open up multiverse and look at it together and talk about, you know. 00:34:15:23 - 00:34:44:01 Speaker 2 Job, job site reviews. Perfect example what you're bringing up there. Let's say, you know, even a house, a large house or even, you know, your commercial, your hospitals, walking, a job site. We have so much going on in our lives right now. I mean, with the social media and everything else, you know, that keeps us busy. And then our day to day family, job, etc. remembering every single aspect of even just walking a job two days ago, you know, and you take your notes, you take a couple of pictures. 00:34:44:03 - 00:35:01:14 Speaker 2 A lot of our customers will go and look at their notes and not remember exactly how it was or how it looked. Or if you're traveling from another state overseas to look at a job site, are you really going to remember every finite detail that your eyes saw with so much going on? No. And no one should really be expected to. 00:35:01:17 - 00:35:17:04 Speaker 2 However, a lot of our customers will take those notes then pull up, as you mentioned, multi Vista platform. And then it all comes back. You know it's it's like a perfect memory of what your eyes saw from when you correlate it with the images as well. 00:35:17:06 - 00:35:40:00 Speaker 1 And I'm sure on a big commercial project I'm thinking like you mentioned, school districts when they're building a school, a hospital or whatever, there's a lot of job site meetings with the architects, the engineers, the project managers, and you think about trying to coordinate all those people to be on site. Do a walkthrough. If you could kind of do that virtually using the last set of photos of images that were taken. 00:35:40:02 - 00:35:54:12 Speaker 1 And again, as we mentioned a while ago, it's the ability to see all those things that you can't see just by walking down the hallway and looking at things. You're you're, hey, let's let's zoom in and talk about why was this done that way. That wasn't to plans. What was the thinking there? 00:35:54:12 - 00:36:17:10 Speaker 2 And it's the eye of the beholder. Your eyes may see something differently than your colleague or partner, but. Absolutely. And one thing to touch on, expand upon, I guess we never go more than two weeks on commercial jobs to take photos. We want to have real time data for exactly what you're mentioning there, for your job site meanings, and also to that everybody that has access to Multi Vista. 00:36:17:12 - 00:36:39:18 Speaker 2 Any time we upload one singular image in that given week, you'll get an email notification that alerts you, hey maps level four area A have just been uploaded. Click on a hyperlink and you can look at it. Because I get this a lot. You take all these. I mentioned it before 200,000 images a month. I'm overwhelmed. What you know, where do I start. 00:36:39:18 - 00:37:06:03 Speaker 2 But just keep in mind that's over at 12, 2436 month period. And with us sending out those notifications, you get them in partials. Maybe you just look at a sampling, maybe have to go back and look at a specific area for quality control, but it just doesn't all come out at once. And again, I can't stress enough, you know, on on the commercial side, we, we make sure that we visit each and every two weeks to have that general progress to go along with our as built, images as well. 00:37:06:03 - 00:37:31:16 Speaker 1 One thing that's that I like a lot is that when you're viewing your your photos at the north wall or the kitchen, I can lock my view by that exact view. Like I'm walking up the north wall. I can lock that and then scroll back and see the progression from this exact vantage point. Or I can lock it by day and I can view all the images in a given area by day. 00:37:31:16 - 00:37:40:12 Speaker 1 So having the ability to kind of like freeze frame either the location or freeze frame the day of the that features has helped a lot to. 00:37:40:14 - 00:38:03:13 Speaker 2 Absolutely. I mean, one of the best features about progressions is being able to backtrack and see electrical pull down here in the bottom, and let's say it's covered up. And, you know, there's supposed to be an electrical, expose in the wall there. Well, you call the drywall gentleman and he says, I cut out the holes and then you call your, you know, let's say you put wood trim on the bottom, you call your trim guy. 00:38:03:15 - 00:38:35:08 Speaker 2 There were no holes there. I didn't my guys would have never covered that up with the progression. And this is a true life example on a custom house we had pictures of the electrician. He installed his electrical outlets. We had pictures of the drywall that had the cutouts and we got pictures. The trim where he put the trim straight over on one phone call from the from the main builder from you that says, hey, I got three photos that I want you to take a look at at various phases of construction. 00:38:35:10 - 00:38:56:13 Speaker 2 I think you'll find very quickly that your trim covered it up. And sure to all get my guy out there tomorrow will fix it. Yeah. Finger pointing elimination. Boom. Yeah. So having that singular vantage point at the various phases of construction, the great example that you brought up because it's a real life example, it's just time and you know, what is time? 00:38:56:15 - 00:38:56:24 Speaker 2 Money. 00:38:57:03 - 00:39:16:03 Speaker 1 Yep. The drywall example I think is the most common example of how we use it. I mean, on every project after a drywall goes up, I have the guys walk around with the photos and say every room or all the recessed cans, there are all the receptacles there, all the switches. Oh no, they missed one. And I don't care. 00:39:16:04 - 00:39:22:05 Speaker 1 I don't care how good your drywall guy is. Probably going to miss one receptacle or something else. 00:39:22:05 - 00:39:40:15 Speaker 2 The screwdriver. Poke holes to figure out where exactly something is inside that wall. And I'm glad you brought this up, because that that is a chief sales of having the progression to go along. Yes, it's important to have the MFP ad inspection, but to have those other layers as well, that's very important. 00:39:40:17 - 00:39:47:04 Speaker 1 So how about those progressions there? Number one I've got a face for radio. I said I've got a face for radio. 00:39:47:10 - 00:40:00:13 Speaker 2 It's so funny. If I could sidebar you or my cousin Allen you. Every time I look across this, I feel like I'm talking to you. Look just like a, like, spitting image of a family member of mine. I'm like. 00:40:00:15 - 00:40:02:20 Speaker 1 I'm sorry for your family. 00:40:02:22 - 00:40:04:03 Speaker 2 I don't see that so. 00:40:04:04 - 00:40:04:16 Speaker 1 Bad for your. 00:40:04:16 - 00:40:14:04 Speaker 2 Family. Every time I look across during this interaction, I'm like, okay, Allen, what are we talking about here? So that's hilarious. You you have striking resemblance. 00:40:14:06 - 00:40:19:24 Speaker 1 So I wanted to touch on cost. I don't want to go into. We have to talk about prices. Yeah, I don't want to go into exact pricing. 00:40:19:24 - 00:40:21:04 Speaker 2 But I was just happy to. 00:40:21:04 - 00:40:35:11 Speaker 1 I just kind of wanted to talk about in general. Well, how do you price your services? Is it like is it by the square foot? Is it a flat fee? Is it based on number of visits, like how do you have structured pricing for for custom builders, specifically. 00:40:35:11 - 00:40:56:03 Speaker 2 For custom builders? I tried to make it as simple as possible menu based because time to make decisions that quickly on the fly. And for your homeowner that may not be familiar. What's this multi vista. And you know you know how it is. You get a do you get a quote that says photos and it's a couple thousand dollars and take your own photos. 00:40:56:03 - 00:41:18:13 Speaker 2 You know. So I try to make it is clear and concise as possible. So we currently have three different layers, of pricing. It starts with the base package of $0.20 a foot, and it is based off square footage $0.20 a foot for your maps. Now, if you're below about a 4000 square foot threshold, we have a minimum price floor of 1050. 00:41:18:15 - 00:41:40:00 Speaker 2 So $0.20 a foot, 2050, whichever is greater on your base package. Then if you want to add the progressive type photos, from start to finish, you know, your exteriors, your interiors, plus the MEP you're talking about 50 $0.55 a foot. Now, if you have a huge house, economies of scale. I'll work with you there. I do have a real small one. 00:41:40:00 - 00:42:00:06 Speaker 2 Maybe it kind of works the other direction. A little bit full scope, typically about $0.65. And that includes the existing conditions. We spoke about your under slab, your utilities and then the progress and MEP. So I try to make it pretty easy and keep everybody. Obviously someone would say, oh I want the slab in the MEPs. Okay, I'll come to 30, $0.35. 00:42:00:08 - 00:42:02:03 Speaker 2 A, you know, type square foot. 00:42:02:03 - 00:42:26:18 Speaker 1 I typically put it on my, on my line, on my budget as a line item and review that as a cost with, with our clients. I've had a couple of people say, was this it? You know, is this expense necessary? Can't you just take your own photos, as you mentioned? And but when I get into discussing the benefits, a lot of the stuff that we've covered on on this podcast, when I start talking about the benefits and linking it to the plans and having a long term record, they're like, oh, I get it. 00:42:26:19 - 00:42:28:20 Speaker 1 I'm okay with that expense, you know? 00:42:28:23 - 00:42:49:08 Speaker 2 And that's a credit to you to know, the ins and outs or service. You've articulated what we do very well today. So I really appreciate you having me here. It makes the conversation much easier. Keep in mind, you know, we always have examples that we can come and show the homeowner if they're a little bit hesitant because I as a salesperson, I always put myself in the shoes of the consumer. 00:42:49:10 - 00:43:05:16 Speaker 2 And if I was didn't know anything about Multi Vista and I was handed a quote for that, as I mentioned before, 3 or 4 or $5,000, I'd say take this out. I mean, the cost of materials is expensive enough today with inflation. Take these photos out. It's up to us, you and I, to make sure that they're educated. 00:43:05:16 - 00:43:27:00 Speaker 2 And a lot of times when the homeowner at the end of the project sees what we did for them, they're like, how did you do all that for that little of an expense? And as a sales guy, I have to incorporate that. We're about 0.001% of construction budgets. I mean, especially on the commercial side. But even the home builders, this is a small piece to have something that lives with it forever. 00:43:27:03 - 00:43:50:20 Speaker 1 I mean, if we're talking about a one, two, three, $4 million construction project, putting on another, even for a big house, putting it on another 4 or 5 $6,000 worth of expense for the service. To me, is is an easy decision. And as a builder on a higher end project, even if the customer didn't tell me yes, I want that, I'm probably still going to do it myself. 00:43:50:22 - 00:44:08:08 Speaker 1 At least for the employees. Right. It's just it's again, it's that protection. Is that is that piece of mind. It's the dispute resolution. I mean, I would love to pass the costs on and on to the consumer as much as possible. But even if I can't, it's in strong consideration just to go ahead and do it. 00:44:08:08 - 00:44:27:20 Speaker 2 And any multi vista market, any good salesperson will help the builder do that. I want to make that perfectly clear. The goal is to get the owner to pay for it, the builder, architect, whomever else to benefit from that free access. And that can be done by obviously showing you more examples or having present a lot of builders. 00:44:27:21 - 00:44:39:23 Speaker 2 They'll bring me in if there's some hesitancy with the owner, and I'll show our list of projects and who we did it for, and how the homeowners benefited from it. Usually that cost comes way down real fast, at least in their mind. 00:44:39:24 - 00:44:53:19 Speaker 1 Yeah, I've had people that say, hey, after our meeting, you know, I was kind of hesitant about this. I went to multi Vista's website. I looked on there and saw what they did. They're like, wow, these guys are really cool. Like I'm like, yeah, that's why I put it on the set. 00:44:53:21 - 00:44:54:04 Speaker 2 Right. 00:44:54:08 - 00:45:08:24 Speaker 1 So hey, thank you so much for being on with me today. It's been a great conversation. I love all the ways that the technology is transforming the construction industry. And even, you know, again, this has been around for. 00:45:08:24 - 00:45:09:21 Speaker 2 15, 20 years. 00:45:09:21 - 00:45:34:24 Speaker 1 15, 20 years now. But even even the products and services have been around for 15, 20 years, are continually evolving and improving. And there's just so many technologies like this, like this project management and software. There's so many tools that are helping builders up their game and it really it really differentiates good builders from average builders. 00:45:34:24 - 00:45:54:24 Speaker 2 Absolutely. And I thank you for having me here. Again you articulate multi vista very well. Not sure I even had to be here and interact with you because you obviously use the system as much as you do and you had perfect examples. But at the end of the day, my goal is not to play the gotcha or look at the mistake I found. 00:45:54:24 - 00:46:16:08 Speaker 2 It's to build better structures, better be a part of the build process. So big success. And I will say nine times out of ten builders, homeowners, architects that use our service, the feedback is always, I think you open the call with this. I can't tell you the number of times you saved me on this example, that example. So that's always my goal. 00:46:16:08 - 00:46:27:24 Speaker 2 And we pride ourselves, to make sure that, any scope, any price that we offer, we are going to hit those goals, hit that pricing, hit that scope each and every time. Yeah. 00:46:28:01 - 00:46:45:15 Speaker 1 I mean, so one of the things that we talk about a lot in this podcast is building your team building, you know, the all the, all the, the key team members for your project. And to me, you know, you guys are just one of those team members that needs to be a part of every project. You know, you're not just a vendor, you're part of that project team. 00:46:45:15 - 00:46:46:14 Speaker 1 And I really appreciate that. 00:46:46:18 - 00:46:48:06 Speaker 2 Thank you. Appreciate it. 00:46:48:08 - 00:46:54:21 Speaker 1 Yep. Thanks for joining me today and we hope to see you again soon. Any time we'll definitely be using you on more projects. 00:46:54:21 - 00:46:58:23 Speaker 2 That's what I like to hear. That's the goal moving forward. So all right Curtis and thank. 00:46:58:23 - 00:47:04:08 Speaker 1 You guys for joining us today on this episode of the Shepherd podcast. I will see you next time. Bye bye.