Crazy for ConTech with Janna Colucci, Bundle

Welcome to ‘Crazy for ConTech’ with Bradley Austen, a Q&A focused on the Construction Technology Industry. 

This Q&A series is an opportunity for one of our ConTech Senior Recruitment Consultants, Bradley Austen, to discuss all things construction technology with key players who are championing innovation and digitalisation in the construction space. 

This week we have been in touch with Janna Colucci, CEO & Co-Founder of Bundle.

Bundle is a digital procurement platform used by developers, builders and construction teams to run their procurement processes at 10x speed while uncovering 10-20% cost savings on every project.

What was the mission behind Bundle? Plans for the future 6 months, 1 year, 3 years?

I had personally felt the pain of managing tens to hundreds of vendors and tracking thousands of building materials while managing construction projects. Bundle’s mission is to streamline, simplify and bring data to building materials procurement. We primarily sell to small and medium residential builders who, with Bundle, are not only able to run their purchasing process at 10x speed, but also use Bundle’s buying power to save 10-20% in cost on projects.

Over the past few years we have been building out workflow tooling to really support all angles of the materials purchasing process which provided us with the infrastructure to now really focus on bringing what we call our Bundle intelligence layer to the entire procurement workflow. This includes anything from a “smart buy” feature, to our Bundle AI co-pilot to our product recommendation engine. To power those features, a lot of our value becomes about data. We have a large and growing data set of both supplier and builder data that continues to expand all the time. That is currently being used by some of our customers through our API, and there is more to come on that front!

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received in your career?

When I was becoming a senior project manager and beginning to manage a bigger team, my boss told me to make sure that I was no longer just busy, but also available (or at least to make it look that way). Working really hard only gets you so far. Having an amazing team around you is the secret to growth.

Which area of the AECO industry is most untapped by technology/has most opportunity for growth?

It constantly surprises me how much the construction industry undervalues labor. By 2030, it is estimated that 40% of the construction workforce will retire. I would say we are largely unprepared for that. However, I’m optimistic that with data, tools and all the innovation around AI, we can automate a lot of the workflows that are necessary today, but don’t need to be done by as many people.

What best practices can you advise to ConTech startups to stay abreast of emerging trends in both construction and technology?

There is more momentum than ever in the contech space. Following a few great contech newsletters or podcasts helps track emerging trends. Beyond that, however, I would say, “never get too far from a jobsite” as industry context is the most important thing in an industry like this.

Technology Vs construction? Resistant industry or lack of education/support from technology vendors offered to the traditional space?

I see a lot of point solutions that don’t necessarily drive outcomes in the field right away. By that I mean there is more support or industry context required to bring a solution to life. On the flip side, I do think the industry is resistant, but not necessarily to technology. The resistance comes from the fact that even if a system is inefficient, it is predictable and there are relationships in place that get a job done. The challenge for tech companies is how to bring efficiency while making sure you aren’t introducing new problems. That often means onboarding and a lot of handholding to get a new process moving.

Imagine you have the ability to predict the future of construction technology. What breakthrough innovation do you think will completely change the industry in the next 10 years?

There is very little being done with data right now (all kinds – supplier data, past project data, environmental data, etc.) and I have seen a big push to organize the data that does exist and start collecting the data that doesn’t. I’m excited to see where use of this data can go.

What’s the quote you live by? What’s your guilty pleasure?

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” Lao Tzu. I’m a huge extravert. I love people, and I love being a part of a team, so I spend a lot of time thinking about how to empower the rest of the team to accomplish big things. Maybe not exactly a guilty pleasure, but I spend just about any moment I can hanging out with the greatest little guy – my 13 month old son Bennett!