Why do so many solutions fail?
Building a framework for ConTech solution adoption
This article is written by Erin Khan. She is an established AEC technology leader who provides technology and innovation services to both contractors and construction technology startups at her consultancy, Erin Khan Consulting. Prior to founding EKC in 2023, Erin served as the National Director of Construction Solutions for Suffolk Construction.
Each year 100s of new AEC solutions go to market representing hard work, sweat and endless stress from the founding team.
Despite this grit, so many fail to gain traction or raise funding. It’s disappointing for founders and the industry alike, and through my years in the industry I have witnessed startups make the same mistakes time and time again.
After spending time coaching a few teams through the common traps, I decided to consolidate these learnings into a framework to follow, a ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’ if you will, for selling to GCs.
This is not a full guide, but should provide a starting point and help sharpen go-to-market approaches for new contech teams. And hopefully, as we used to say, help you to avoid being ‘graveyarded’ - becoming a solution which never makes it past a pilot.
Contents
Why do so many solutions fail?
Industry Integration
Solution Alignment
Project Fit and Adoption
Reading Time: 9 mins
Why do so many solutions fail?
The number one question I am asked is why so many solutions seem to fail in construction.
Each case I have seen is nuanced and varied, however they fall broadly into one of the following three categories:
Industry Integration
This where a solution fails due to a lack of industry knowledge or failing to understand the unique organizational structures.Solution Alignment
This is where a solution fails due to shortcomings with the product itself or not understanding the broader value drivers for the target construction team.Project Fit and Adoption
This is where a solution fails as it doesn't fit the specific needs of the pilot project chosen or the people present on site.
As seen in the graphic, the categories build upon each other and a founding team ideally needs to meet the lower tiers before attaining project fit and adoption within an organization.
Understanding the framework helps founders to diagnose and address potential risks at each stage of the solution’s lifecycle and mitigate them. Let’s dive into each category and the common failure modes within them.
Industry Integration
Construction is commonly referred to as an ‘industry of industries.’ This is because construction has multiple distinct sectors which are varied and unique to each other. For example, building an apartment building is quite different from building a bridge, with different construction methodologies, designs and regulatory needs such as zoning requirements or labor laws.
Due to this, each sector has specialized processes and most contractors and designers tend to specialize in one or two of the sectors.
What is common across the sectors is the general ‘process of construction’ and the project stakeholders. These nuances between the industry sectors can be complex and unfamiliar to those external to the industry which brings us to our first common failure:
(1) No Construction Experience
When we review solutions to use on site, a red flag often is if the team has no construction experience or background.
To build an MVP which addresses a real pain point, industry expertise is a must. It can be overcome through customer discovery or advisors, however the majority of solutions which don’t have this understanding, end up missing the critical perspective which addresses a real problem.
A common trap is attempting to reengineer an existing workflow as it appears, from the outside, inefficient. While this may be true, no one on site is willing to try a new method of working unless:
There is immediate and obvious value.
They trust you and your solution.
The integrity of the workflow is maintained.
Without having industry expertise, it is unlikely that your MVP will meet a critical pain point immediately, and if you don’t speak the language of the project team or have a proven track record, they won’t trust you. On site the most common question is, ‘How do you know what you are talking about?’
To overcome, embed a construction industry advisor, mentor or early hire in your team.
(2) Understand the organizational and enterprise requirements
Every construction company has unique processes and requirements (or ‘hoops’) which startups have to ‘jump’ through. They can appear archaic or unnecessary, but proving that you are prepared to work with the organization to meet their requirements is necessary.
The reason is that as an industry, we are heavily regulated due to the inherent risk associated with building. Construction failure can result in the loss of lives.
Even if your solution alleviates a critical pain point, if you don’t show a willingness to listen to feedback and develop new features, contractors will disengage and are likely to turn down a future pilot.
An example is IT often has specific security factors which must be met before a solution can be adopted.
As the startup team, you can show your flexibility by having a willingness to listen, show effort on your side by including it in your roadmap or placing it as a strategic priority.
(3) Approvers and Users are different
One solution I worked with had incredibly successful pilots and feedback. However, they found that their solution wasn’t being adopted or used at scale.
The reason is that the approver, the person making the purchasing decision, was different to the piloting team and had limited awareness of the success and utility of the solution.
As a startup, it is important to recognize that the person paying can be different than the person using the solution, and the onus may be on you to communicate between these parties.
I advise startups to identify this approver role early, and to make a concerted effort to collect as much data as possible from early pilots. Assuming a positive experience, startups can then provide a concise report of the pilot results to the project team, and ultimately to the approver. This ensures the approver is looped into the process, and that they have all the convincing data ready at their fingertips to support a purchase after a successful pilot.
Solution Alignment
Once a team has embedded construction expertise and understands the broader industry context, the next focus is the solution itself. The founding team must ensure that the product aligns with the needs and workflows of the construction team. The solution has to work and be adopted on site leading to my next learning:
(1) K.I.S.S.: Keep It Simple, Stupid
Some solutions are very effective but from the outside don’t look fancy or seem like ‘boring’ tech.
They gain strong adoption, however, as they significantly improve the life of the user.
A simple and relatable example is when Bluebeam Revu added a feature which allowed users to apply the same markup to all pages at the click of a button. When you need to copy and paste the same call out on a 200 page drawing set, it saves hours and makes people enthusiastic adopters.
As a startup, constantly ask the question to the project team, does my solution significantly improve their day to day?
In the early stage your solution needs that ‘golden button’ or killer feature which significantly improves their lives. It doesn’t have to be flashy. It just needs to work.
(2) Solution is too difficult to use
On the same trend, I often find that startups have a killer feature but it is simply too hard to use or access. It might have just one too many clicks or taps to get to the true value of the solution.
This is quite the dilemma for an innovation team, because while a solution may be fantastic at solving a problem, it will not drive any value if the project team just isn’t willing to learn how to use it, or give up because using the solution is too difficult.
In construction, solutions have to be fast, easy and reliable. First impressions matter and no one will talk about your solution if it is just ‘ok.’ Conducting site walks where your support team observes the project team using the solution can help optimize user experience and ensure integration into daily workflows.
(3) Measure Your Promoters
Net Promoter Score is a tool used to measure a customer’s loyalty by understanding their likelihood of recommending a given business, with the general question format, ‘on a scale of 1 - 10 how likely are you to tell someone else about this product or solution.’
While there is some debate around the NPS metric, it generally is a solid indicator of pilot growth potential. In my experience, solutions needed to have an NPS of around 80 (lots and lots of promoters saying great things!) or more to gain adoption on site and be rolled out organically throughout the organization. Keep this in mind when reading the innovation champion part in the next section.
(4) Don’t forget about support
The sale of your solution doesn’t end at the confirmation of the pilot. It is inevitable that something goes wrong during the process of rollout to the project team.
How you handle issues which arise and how you support the project team in understanding and learning your solution is critical for success.
The reason is you might have an error, but if the project team thinks you provide fantastic support and are willing to call you up to overcome it, you have developed a level of trust and reputation which will scale throughout the organization.
Unfortunately, oftentimes a team tries a solution, runs into an issue and can’t get a hold of the support. They end up throwing out the solution and never trying it again. Reputation matters.
Project Fit and Adoption
After aligning the solution to the needs of the target users, success ultimately depends on pilots. For startups it’s critical that they are selling to the right customer and the right projects which leads to our next failure:
(1) Identify your target project early
When you are selling your solution, you should know what your target project is. For example, you may know that your solution works great on warehouse or data center construction projects. Developing this specificity early can help build a proven track record in a segment, making it easier to sell to future customers.
I have observed solution mismatch, where the solution is applied on multiple different projects such as an indoor fit out as well as an infrastructure project. The feedback on the solution is then likely to come back with mixed results, and dilute any positive momentum achieved on good project fits.
While a general approach can work if the solution is broad enough, focusing on a best-fit project segment and scaling within it can help optimize growth for products and services that have targeted value drivers. This also has potential to maximize powerful word of mouth referrals within a segment, and cement a foothold in the industry.
(2) Find your innovation champions
Sometimes you will sell your solution to a project and then realize that no one is actually interested in trying out your solution.
Once you have sold to your target project, find an innovation champion (or two!). These are the people on the project team who are highly engaged in your solution and are your ‘hype’ person.
They are valuable as they will push your solution along the project and distribute it as appropriate.
If you don’t have one, you may have to be on site more with extra hand holding, or find that no one is using the tool and/or responsive to your feedback requests.
Find someone who is really excited to use the solution and can be a catalyst.
(3) How do you get on more job sites?
Once you are on a pilot, recognize that your solution could be providing value across the entire project team. If you have sold initially to the GC, the other stakeholders such as the consultant, architect and asset owner may have other projects that your solution might be well suited for.
Understand their pain points, how they could find value from your solution and how it could be rolled out through their project portfolios.
This helps increase the virality coefficient (the number of new users an existing user generates) of your solution.
Selling to the construction industry requires a holistic approach for adoption. It spans from deep industry integration and understanding to thoughtful solution design and support and, finally, to strategic project level adoption.
Each tier of the framework plays a role in determining if a solution will thrive or fail. By addressing these with care and precision, startups can increase their chances of not just success, but becoming indispensable to the project teams they serve, ultimately helping them avoid becoming 'graveyarded.'
Erin Khan is an established AEC technology leader, with over a decade of combined experience in construction operations, data and process analysis, and software implementation. Founding Erin Khan Consulting in 2023, she currently provides technology and innovation services to both contractors and construction technology startups.
Prior to founding EKC, Erin served as the National Director of Construction Solutions for Suffolk Construction, overseeing national technology and innovation operations. Erin holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from USC, a certificate in Business Analytics from The Wharton School, and is EIT, LEED AP BD+C, and OSHA-10 certified.