Alex Kraft w/ Heave – DT 384

Summary

Podcast Summary: Dirt Talk by BuildWitt

Episode: Alex Kraft w/ Heave – DT 384
Date: October 23, 2025
Host: Aaron Witt
Guest: Alex Kraft, Founder/CEO of Heave

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Aaron Witt interviews Alex Kraft, founder and CEO of Heave, a platform that connects construction equipment owners with independent service technicians. The conversation dives deep into Alex's journey from working at an equipment dealership to starting Heave, exploring the challenges of the heavy equipment service industry, innovation's role in solving longstanding problems, and the unique business model that Heave brings to the table.

The discussion also highlights the realities of the technician workforce, issues with traditional equipment service models, lessons in entrepreneurship, and the future potential of data and technology in field services.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Heave’s Evolution: From Sales to Tech-Enabled Service Marketplace

• Automated Service Requests & Data Utilization

  • Heave’s engineering team developed a system where error codes from machines instantly generate service requests, sent directly to technicians.
  • This feature gives customers real-time support and builds valuable data sets for accurate job estimates and timelines.
  • [00:00] Alex Kraft: “One of the things that our engineering team built this year…is the second an error code goes off in the machine, it creates the service request…as a customer, I haven’t even done anything.”

• Learning from Failure and Pivoting

  • Alex details starting Heave as a transactional equipment sales marketplace (think Expedia for machines), but found dealers uninterested in third-party sales platforms.
  • The real need was in service—not just an inconvenience, but a genuine pain point for equipment owners.
  • [26:23] Alex Kraft: “Our original product…we were solving an inconvenience. We weren’t solving a problem…if you guys could help me on service, that would be interesting and that I would pay you for tomorrow.”

• The Power of Product-Market Fit

  • After shifting to focus on service, demand and enthusiasm skyrocketed.
  • [29:02] Alex Kraft: “Once we went to service, there was no doubt because customers were so enthusiastic…It was just apparent.”

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2. Inside the Heavy Equipment Sales World

• Early Career Struggles and Lessons

  • Alex began his career in outside sales at a small-market dealership, working his way up and learning through adversity.
  • Sales were tough, largely cold outreach, and competing as a smaller brand (Volvo) meant extra hurdles.
  • [03:38] Alex Kraft: “You’re going door to door trying to sell 300, $400,000 machines. It’s very difficult.”

• Self-Awareness and ‘Figure-It-Outness’ as Values

  • Discusses the importance of self-awareness and a culture of “figure-it-outness” at Heave.
  • [08:03] Alex Kraft: “It’s one of ours…when you have a brand new company…you have to figure stuff out.”

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3. The Realities of Equipment Service Today

• Fragmentation and Frustration

  • Equipment owners have multiple brands and must navigate distinct dealer networks for service, leading to inefficiency and long downtimes.
  • Independent technicians exist but are hard to find and coordinate at scale.
  • Breakdowns are guaranteed in construction—service is a constant need.

• Innovation vs. Status Quo

  • The traditional industry is slow to change, with entrenched interests and little incentive to adopt disruptive ideas.
  • [26:54] Alex Kraft: “If that customer wants to buy this brand, they have to find their way to me…And so that was like a hard reality.”

• Heave’s Marketplace Model

  • Heave connects independent technicians (many of whom are ex-dealer employees) with owners in need, offering transparency, speed, and choice.
  • Technicians set their rates; customers select from available options; work is tracked, reviewed, and paid swiftly.
  • [53:12] Alex Kraft: “We say Uber for heavy equipment mechanics…It is the most effective way…they can get themselves 80% of the way there.”

• Technician Burnout and Economics

  • Low wage growth, difficult conditions, lack of recognition, and dealership politics push skilled techs to become independents.
  • [44:26] Alex Kraft: “More respect for these guys…it’s unbelievable what they can do.”
  • [45:50] Alex Kraft: “…to do it for $28 an hour…maybe next year you’ll get a bump to like 29, 50. Like. So that’s the number one thing, I think.”

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4. Win-Win: Technicians, Customers, Dealers, and the Industry

• A New Economic Model

  • Heave brings price transparency, choice, and gig-economy flexibility to technicians, with some earning upwards of $500,000/year on the platform.
  • [59:20] Alex Kraft: “This year in 2025…two technicians…will make over $500,000 this year. It’s just, it’s unbelievable.”

• Transparency and Optionality

  • Different price points for different job complexities; technicians can choose jobs that suit their expertise and schedule.
  • Customers are no longer hostage to flat dealer rates regardless of experience or job type.
  • [54:11] Alex Kraft: “We let technicians set their price and then we add a markup on top. So there’s different pricing…I love being able to show customers price optionality.”

• Symbiosis with Dealers

  • Despite initial resistance, some dealer sales reps recommend Heave when dealer capacity is maxed out, recognizing the mutual benefit for customer satisfaction.
  • [67:06] Alex Kraft: “We’re getting quite a few dealer sales reps, like, hey, why don’t you…try this app? Because, you know, at the end of the day, if their customer, if we can fix the customer’s machine for them, they’re off the hook.”

• Comparison to Richie Brothers

  • Witt and Kraft compare Heave’s disruptive model to Richie Brothers, which revolutionized used equipment sales through transparency and market reach.
  • [70:13] Alex Kraft: “I feel like we are building the Richie Brothers but in the service side of the business…”

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5. Challenges & Opportunities with Scaling

• Trust is the Moat

  • Gaining technician and customer trust is slow and relationship-based, forming a durable moat against competitors.
  • [75:48] Alex Kraft: “You have to build trust with each one of these individuals on a consistent basis. And that it just takes time…then you’re entrenched.”

• Future of Data & Technology

  • Heave is beginning to use collected service data to estimate repairs, predict costs, and improve technician efficiency with AI-driven tools.
  • [77:13] Alex Kraft: “We’re accumulating all of this information on all the error codes and then we’ll be able to track through like, okay, this error code based on these thousands of jobs that we’ve completed…”

• Platform Expansion

  • Growing methodically into new regions only when technician density and service quality are high; reviewing technicians after jobs is unique to Heave versus dealers.
  • [84:48] Alex Kraft: “Consistency is huge. What we’re executing on our mission, our goal is to be a nationwide field service provider for all brands of equipment.”

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Technicians as the True Face of a Dealer:
  Industry Expert (Witt), [47:31]: “The technician is the face of the business of any equipment dealer…It’s not leadership. It’s not anybody in the office.”

• On Economic Incentives:
  Alex Kraft, [63:39]: “The economic model to me is broken…you can’t just pull someone off the street and make them a great technician…and so that’s where the economics have been broken is like the money flows through the wrong side.”

• On the Need for Change:
  Industry Expert (Witt), [90:33]: “I think those improvements have to be made. Like I, I think that’s…the point that’s being missed right now is like there’s urgency here because as every year goes by we’re just more and more is what’s happening right now. And we can’t not do this. We can’t not build stuff.”

• On Human Connection and Pride in Skilled Trades:
  Alex Kraft, [94:42]: “I have a ton of respect for people that I encounter in my day to day who just love what they do…it can be a server, it can be…good teacher…I admire it and I’m kind of motivated by it.”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00-02:00: Heave’s automated error code-triggered service requests
• 13:00-16:00: Recession impact and cultural differences in dealership sales
• 26:20-29:39: Market rejection, learning to pivot, and customer-driven product fit
• 34:40-36:30: Explaining the dealership, customer, independent technician ecosystem
• 41:08-44:26: Technician onboarding, marketplace challenges, and skill requirements
• 53:11-56:35: How the Heave app works, price optionality, and customer value
• 59:20-62:00: Technicians’ income transformation and industry wage shortcomings
• 66:56-68:18: Dealers referring customers to Heave, symbiosis with existing business models
• 70:13-73:35: Comparing Heave to Richie Brothers, transparency, and market expansion
• 77:13-78:20: Data utilization for predictive service and future features
• 84:48-86:13: Plans for scaled, regional expansion and technician reviews

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The Episode’s Tone and Style

The conversation is frank, occasionally humorous, and deeply industry-insider. Both Aaron and Alex share a mutual respect for the craft of equipment service technicians and are candid about the realities—good, bad, and ugly—of the construction equipment business. They avoid sugarcoating, using sharp language and real anecdotes (“figure it outness,” “I just couldn’t fathom dealing with it again…”).

Alex is open about his failures, pivots, and the psychological journey of entrepreneurship. Aaron brings skepticism and empathy from his own experience talking to hundreds of industry practitioners. Together, they paint a picture of an industry ready for disruption—and do so with energy, humility, and a genuine care for the people who do the work.

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Conclusion

This episode of Dirt Talk is a masterclass in both the challenges facing heavy equipment service and in what it takes to build a disruptive, technology-enabled business in a traditional industry. The story of Heave is not just about innovation, but about relationships, respecting skilled trades, solving real problems, and pushing the industry forward. Seasoned pros and newcomers alike will leave with a deeper appreciation for the people who keep the dirt world’s machines moving—and for the startups quietly rewriting the rules.

Transcript

[Heave Founder/CEO]

This is one of the things that's really exciting is just the different areas that we can, we can. We throw stuff against the wall all the time. And so one of the things that we built out this year that I think you'll appreciate is, you know, you described the basic experience, right. Like, hey, I've got this wheel loader, it's got this issue. I put in a service request. One of the things that our engineering team built this year that we have out in the market now that our customers love is the second an error code goes off in the machine, it creates the service request and based on the error code and it goes out to all the technicians. So now as a customer, I haven't even done anything. And so we are accumulating all of this information on all the error codes and then we'll be able to track through like, okay, this error code based on these thousands of jobs that we've completed. Completed. You know, it typically takes this amount of time to do the job.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Sure.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And so like one of the cool things I think we're gonna be able to do with large sample sizes of data is like, hey, Mr. Customer, you have this issue. It's going to be between 700 and $950. It's going to take three and a half hours of labor to do it. But like, those are the kind of things that like, I didn't think about that a year ago, but just like seeing everything work and seeing the data that comes through and then we have really, really smart people. That's where one of the biggest areas that investors helped me and helped our company was they gave me access to world class software engineers. Like, we have an ex Facebook engineer who runs our engineering department. He's brilliant. Like, some of the stuff he talks to me about is way over my head and I just have to.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

All the software stuff goes way over my head. So to go to some background here, you was your first foray into this world with a dealer.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Okay.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes. Started at a dealership, kind of out of school back in 2004. No exposure to the industry.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

No exposure to construction. Didn't know what a wheel loader was. Didn't know what an excavator was. It's really funny when I look back because once I started working in the industry, when I, when, when I would go home back to Philly, I started noticing equipment a lot more.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yes.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And then it was like, oh, Eagle Power, the case dealers right across from the mall that I spent every weekend at the Komatsu dealer. Mid Atlantic machinery is literally right next door to the gym that I go to every day to work out. It's just I wasn't familiar with the world. And so that was my first job, really, like real professional job out of school was in equipment sales, just outside sales, learning the industry out, beating the pavement in front of customers.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

So when you start outside sales at a dealer, they're not giving you a book of business or anything like that. You just have a base.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

You have somewhat like your book of business is basically the way most of them work is it's county based. So I started in Miami, of all places, and I don't speak Spanish.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, that's a wild county.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

So I learned quickly that I really couldn't talk to anyone on a job site, which makes it even more difficult. So most of them are like county based. But, you know, there were, there was some existing business with the dealership of customers who had bought, you know, historically from our dealership. So I had some, you know, warm leads or, you know, repetitive business with like the waste management of the world, like, you know, some large national accounts. But you are, when you're in equipment sales, it is. You're going door to door trying to sell 300, $400,000 Mach. It's very difficult.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, it's very much. You eat what you kill. And it's probably, probably pretty isolating sometimes too, because it's just you and you.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Right. I mean, the, the day to day for an equipment salesperson or a rental salesperson, like anybody works for United or Sunbelt, your car is your office.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

You don't want to be in the office. Yeah. Everyone dreads it. There's, you know, and if you're in the office, it means you're not in front of a customer. And so it's just the grind of how many customers can I pop in and see a day. There really aren't many appointments at all.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Sure.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And so what you hope to do over time is to build enough relationships to where customers will call you so you don't have to rely on popping in, you know, because customers don't love that.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

You know, just like, hey, all right, I structure my day. I gotta go to see these eight customers in this order. And I just, you know, knock on the door and hope that they have 10 minutes, you know, and that's day after day after day.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Were you good at talking to people out of college or.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

No?

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Okay.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I especially wasn't good at talking to people about products that I didn't really Know.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. So you're learning the industry, the products, everything.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Correct.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Talking to people.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes. And what made it even harder was I worked for a Volvo dealer. So, you know, you're fourth in the market or fifth in the market. So you know, if you walk in with a cat business card, you walk in with a United business card, a Sunbelt business card. Okay. Yeah. In many areas you walk in with like a Volvo dealer business card, it's like, you know, just, hey, why don't you just throw it in the trash?

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

So it was. When I look back though, you know, you don't realize it at the time, but so much of those experiences are good for you because you just have to put your head down at work and you have to figure it out. You know, I would imagine that people who work for the market leader, like a cat, how much of it is really like if you were trying to assess your own performance, like how much of it is me? Am I getting better? Or is it those three letters and maybe the groundwork that the prior salesperson had laid for me?

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. And those organizations are still very much a meritocracy, however. And it's not, it's not even equipment manufacturers. It's just big companies in general. I've noticed a lot of people for big companies that work at big companies have a sometimes slightly, sometimes very inflated sense of self importance. That. Because of the big brand.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Sure.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Because of the big company, because of the, the, the, the resources they have available to them. They, they somewhat conflate that it's them doing that.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

But it's human nature. I mean, you are performing. It's a hard thing. Self awareness is very difficult. We talk about it a lot with our team. It's one of our values. Because it is very, very difficult to be able to remove yourself and try to assess like, you know, where can I improve? What am I not doing great? How can I get better? It is, it's. Think it's a really important trait.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. And so self awareness is the value.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes. Yeah, we have a few values. Self awareness is one.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

I don't know if I've heard that one before as a value.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It's one of ours. It's always been really, really important to me. We have another one that I would think that no one has heard of because people look at me cross eyed. But it's figure it outness. When you have a early company, a brand new company is doing something different. You have to figure stuff out.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

You do. Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And so that is one of our Values. And our team lives it every day. They, they've seen me try to set the example of, you know, when someone brings me a situation, you know, a problem, typically something happened with a customer, something happened on a job. It's, you know, you, you fight the urge to always try to have the answer right then and there, right? And it's like it's okay to be, to just say, you know what? All right, we'll figure it out. And that's something that I've learned over time. So that's one of our values too.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, when somebody asks me about how to navigate things early on in business, it's like, that's usually the answer. You just figure it out. And that's not me being an ass. It's just like that's the only way. There's not really a shortcut. Like, you can go read the books, you can go learn from others, you can, you can hire experienced people, you can do all those things, but you still have to, no matter what you do, no matter even how much money you have, you still have to figure it out. There's no way around it.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

You do. I've had the good fortune of being around some really successful people during my career. And one of the huge aha moments for me personally was when you look at someone who's super successful, I think naturally you assume like, oh, they're the smartest in the room or they've never made a mistake, they've achieved this level of success, they have extreme confidence. And then the closer that I got to some people and I was able to work side by side with them, the aha moment for me was they encounter plenty of situations where they don't have an answer. And, but their, their confidence comes from. There's no situation that I can encounter that, you know, I can't work through and find a solution. And therefore I figure it out and, and that gave me a tremendous amount of confidence of like, oh, okay, they don't, they haven't been through everything. They don't know everything. So then why can't I, with my knowledge, start a company and apply the same thing well there.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And it's a shame most people don't have a lot of interaction to those high, high achieving people. Although now the accessibility you have is incredible. Like the, I mean the quality of even like sports documentary right now on Netflix is nuts.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Incredible.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Unbelievable how close you can get to these people now at the, at the highest level. And I love watching them for that reason. But podcasting, I mean, books, there's all kinds of resources that allow you to get close to these people. And it's like that. They're just really good at figuring stuff out. Mostly because they're stubborn.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And. And then two, they're really consistent. They. They're so good at just doing the same stuff over and over and over.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Again and breaking things down into smaller pieces. Like, that's something that I wasn't good at for a long time either. You can't focus on the end result. You can't focus on, you know, look, I know you run long distances, right? I do not. I hate long distance.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

You can lift more than I can.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I can, but. But, you know, even, like in the gym with stuff, it's like if you got to do 15 repetitions, like, if you think about, like, you're too in, you're like, oh, I got 13 more. No, you just got to think of, like, the next one. Right. Like, if you're going to run, you know, these mega Ult marathons, I'm sure you can't think about the totality of running 100 miles. You got to think of, like, literally the next mile or the next half mile, and that's how you just stack those things, and that's how you end up getting to where you need to go.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, I have a race on Sunday, actually, and you get to the triathlon. So you're doing swim, bike, then run. And by the run, you know, you're feeling the day. And it's. But they have a marker at every mile, and that's in an aid station, actually every mile, which is. It's really pretty. Pretty legit.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Pretty cush. And so that's like, whenever I get to the runs in these races, it's just aid station to aid station to aid station. And then, you know, at a certain point, there won't be anymore.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Exactly.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And I'm done. But I don't think about the. I don't think about the end.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah, totally.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

So you're selling. You're selling machines. You figure it out at some point, I assume, get a little better. Yeah, you. You did pick a wild market because Florida. How was 2008, 2009?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

So it started in 2007, where it went down. So 2004, 2005, 2006 were unbelievable.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Just gangbusters.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah, gangbusters. I mean, it felt like at some point, like customers might have been irresponsible. Where it's like, every new project, let's buy $5 million worth of equ. Equipment. I mean, it was crazy. And Florida was an incredible market to be in. And then 2007 hit the recession and then it was crickets like 0708 really I think till about halfway through 2011 is where you started to see like life pick back up when you were with a Volvo dealer. Volvo's flagship product is their off road truck. Our articulated hauler is a really good product. Unbelievable. Like our Fort Myers location used to sell like 100 and, and this is just one location. You know, Fort Myers used to sell like 100, 125 like 40 ton trucks. You know in that, in that peak when you got to like 07, 08, the entire market was like 10 a year.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And so it just fell off a cliff. And those were really, really lean and hard times.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Like that's, that's the downside to heavy equipment is it is pretty durable. So you don't have to get the newest stuff often. I mean you can run rentals. Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Or rental.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, sure.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah. It's those, those cycles hit hard, but.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

You just tough it out through the whole time then. Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I eventually moved on from sales and then went to the corporate, you know, kind of LED sales management and marketing for a while.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

I see.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And that was like, you know, different exposure to different aspects of the dealership, you know, more strategy type. We also owned another dealership at that time that was up in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey region. So I was involved with that operation as well. So you know, I had a very, you know, throughout my, I spent 17 years there throughout my entire career. I was exposed to every area of the business. So you know, the rental side, the parts and service side, eventually later on. So it was a really well rounded education.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

That's quite a while.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I mean 17 years, that's a long time.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

That's a good sample size.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah, yeah. Saw the, the hottest market, the recession. Saw it from multiple markets too with like the Pennsylvania and New Jersey market.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Which is a way different world completely, like in every, in almost every regard. Yes.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

The advantage that I had was that I'm from there. So you know, it's like when I would talk to our people there, it's like talking to people I grew up with because it is a different world. Like it was funny like some of my co workers in Florida would travel up there over time and it was just, they weren't used to the culture. You know, like you go meet a customer and every other word is the F word.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And all of the, the grit of the Philadelphia area.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

So.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

But I was, well I was used to that.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

You almost have to be from there in a way to be accepted.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Sure.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

It's just, it's, it's. That's how kind of the whole back east is. But Pennsylvania is very different from New York, which is very different from Massachusetts.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Exactly.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

They're all their own world.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Philadelphia kind of, I think, feels like a little brother to a New York.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yes.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

You know, there's definitely a chip on your shoulder.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

They're big time. Yeah. So at what point. At what point do you start to think about hanging up the equipment hat?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Well, it wasn't my decision.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

So that makes it a little easier then, right?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah. Was it a conscious decision? I was in a good organization at the end. We were doing well. We were sold. So there was an acquisition. That was one of the things that started the next decision. I learned. It'll sound naive, but I'm sure plenty of people have thought the same and have been through the same that, oh, things aren't going to change once the acquisition happens.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Oh, no.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

They said.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And that's what they'll tell you. Yes. They're going to say nothing's going to change.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Hey, we love this organization you guys are doing.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

We're buying it because you guys are great.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah, we want to keep everything the same. And then literally day two, completely 180 degree different. And I was just like.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

That. Yeah, sure.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And so, you know, I stuck it out for a couple more months, and then it just. It wasn't. It wasn't going to be. So then at that point, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. My options were, do I work for another dealer? There were some dealers that I really respect that I, you know, I looked at. And then I started to think about the opportunity of starting my own company. And it was a really difficult decision, but I just. I kept coming back to a few different things. If I went to work for another dealer, I would be dealing with the same problems that I had spent 17 years with. And I kind of fought internally a little bit with like, the. The entrepreneur thing. Like, I always told myself that I wasn't destined to be one. But I think over time I've realized when I look back, like I had all the right qualities. I just never really confronted it and.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Realized it well, and outside sales like that, too. It's. It's pretty entrepreneurial.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It is, yeah. I realize that.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, you build those basic skills in that role.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I just couldn't. The year after year of the same problems existing and no one doing anything about it. Like, I I could not fathom, and maybe some would call it a midlife crisis too at that point because I was what, 38 or so at that time? Yeah, I just couldn't fathom dealing with it again. Like I wanted a fresh start. I wanted the opportunity to just do something my own and because it just becomes debilitating and exhausting when you show up every day and, and it's like people act like the things you've been dealing with for six years just are brand new or they'll just never change. I couldn't do it anymore. And so that's when I met my, my first partner who was like a software guy and kind of pitched the idea of a company in this space. And that's when I, and right in like July of 2020 decided to start my own thing.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

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[Heave Founder/CEO]

You know, it's funny, maybe not funny, but I thought that Covid in 2020 would, would give us like wind at our sails with what we were doing because we were a tech company. It did not help one bit. So my original idea for Heave was let's build an online layer that would allow customers to buy and Rent equipment online. Think of it like Expedia. So hey, if I want to buy like a two year old cat 938 between 1000 and 2000 hours, you know, submit and then we would bring you not only just a cat quote, but like a deer quote, a Volvo quote and then you could just, you know, pick you. I can buy online. We had it, the technology mapped out to where like we could pull in like a dealer sales contract. Just pre, populate, you know. I thought of it like not just Expedia but like there's a company called OLO Online Ordering. So like when you like think of any chain restaurant, you know, when, if you want to go order online food, it's not that restaurants experience that you're, you're going through, it's this company, OLO primarily. And so I thought my original idea was like can we build like the online transactional layer for this industry and make it super easy for customers to acquire equipment? Because you know, starting as a sales rep, you know, it's not that consultative of a sale. You know, you've got these customers, they move dirt, they lay pipe, they have estimating teams, they get a project, hey, we got to move a million yards of dirt this year. They're not sitting down with their fill in the blank salesman and say hey, we've got to move a million yards of dirt. What would you recommend? Oh, I'd recommend six 45 ton trucks and, and 400,000 pound excavators. No, they have an estimating team. The customer will come to the dealer of choice or whoever and say hey, I need a quote on I want to buy six trucks and I want to buy 400,000 pound excavators. And for that reason I thought there could be value in building what we had built. Like just make it super easy to transact. I thought, you know, my, my, my thesis or assumption was like hey, I worked for a Volvo dealer where you're fourth in market. Like anyone who's not cat would jump at this because hey, we're making it easier for customers to buy from us. What's wrong with that?

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, because right, like as it stands right now, it's, you have to go to each one of those companies independently. And then there's like a machinery trader that's kind of, kind of like that kind of.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah, it's like online classifieds.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, online classifieds. And then there's Richie Brothers which is a different animal which sells everything but obviously auction, right?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Scheduled, basically.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, scheduled. But between those, between the Gaps. There's really not anything else?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

No. So that was the idea. And then I got a hard dose of reality from the potential customers of the dealers that just told me to pound sand.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, the dealers are pretty good at that.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And it's so, you know, so I would have people tell me, you just. Just don't understand the industry. And I'm like, I've spent 17 years. Like, I know the industry, what it comes down to. I think one of the things that you have to learn to do is you have to kind of. You have to separate what people are telling you the words they use and try to understand really what they're. They're saying. Because there can be two different things. I think what basically what dealers are saying is we don't want anyone between us and the customer in terms of the transaction. And that was a hard thing for me because obviously I'd put a lot of time into this. We built out a product. I spent a lot of my personal money into it, and it just wasn't working. But it should have worked.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And so.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And like, the gap is still there.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Correct.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

But I think it's also partially. They're just. They're making so much money. Yeah. I mean, especially post 2020, the dealers are typically private companies. Some of them are public, so you can search to get some insight, but they're typically owned by private or public parent companies. So you can see how much money these companies are making. It is wild what has happened over the past five years. And that's like, when everything's as good as ever, why am I going to consider doing anything differently?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Exactly. And so that's where we got to was just when you understand the lay of the land. And I had a couple dealers just say this to me where it's like, hey, we're the only such and such dealer for thousand square miles. We didn't sell one machine online last year. We don't have to. If that customer wants to buy this brand, they have to find their way to me. And so that was like a hard reality. Now I was also calling on customers, too. And, you know, so I was getting it from the customers as well. Like, customers would tell me, man, this is really cool. I like this. But at the end of the day, if, like, these three dealers who I like to buy and rent from are not using it, I can't use this. It has no value to me. And so that was like the way I frame it into what I say to people is I feel like, so our original product, we were solving an inconvenience. We weren't solving a problem. And so part of those conversations that I had with those customers was they would tell me, they would say, if you guys could help me on service, that would be interesting and that I would pay you for tomorrow. And so when I started hearing that enough, I was, you know, that's when I was having some of those hard conversations with our team around. You know what? I think we're going to kill this. And what I want you to do, you know the guy who led our software side, I want you to change our app to where we can facilitate service calls. And then what I'll do in the next 90 days is that I will go beat the pavement and find technicians to answer those service calls. And so that's when I started building the network. We changed our software and then like once we switched the service, it was like product market fit. You know, all these terms that you hear, it was, it was unbelievable.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And it was. So we had spent two years like asking ourselves, like, hey, do we have product market fit? Because we would get some people to use our technology. It's not like we had no paying customers. But we were always asking ourselves, like, hey, you know, is this working? Once we went to service, there was no doubt because customers were just, they were so enthusiastic about what we were doing. And I still remember our first job. It was January 10th of 2023, you know, and it was, it was just crazy, the difference. We didn't have to ask, it was just apparent.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

But up until that point, like you have a family and you quit like a very well paying job.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

To then not have an income.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Correct.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And go try something that ultimately didn't work out as planned.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Correct.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And so there had to be a period of like, all right, what am I doing here?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

So for 2020 to August of 2023, my wife did not like me.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

I'm sure. Yeah, I believe it.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

She really did not like me.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. So that was a, it was a period of a few years that, that, I mean, you just, you just recapped it very quickly. But that was years of building a product, trying to make it work. It wasn't working.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Getting like little, little like slivers of, oh, this could be something.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And I think the trap that a lot of people fall into with early stage companies is they, they see a little something and they're like, all right, so just imagine this with a thousand customers. But you know, you have to ask yourself, is that possible? Can you get a thousand customers and yeah, and I just, I came. It was all. These were really hard moments and I just had to kind of face reality. You told me last night you've had to face reality a couple times. Yes, that is a hard thing because it wasn't just me either. You know, at that time. You know, those first three years we had, I think four or five people that I was paying. I wasn't taking any salary. I have three kids, but I just, I don't know, I felt so committed and I felt I have a very strong will and I felt like we could eventually do something. The cornerstone of everything was that gave me the confidence to start any kind of company in this space was from my experience, there was very little. I felt there was a huge disconnect between the distribution and the customer. And like when I first started in the industry in 2004, people would tell me, hey, our business is just like the auto business. We're always 10 to 15 years behind. Which I do think there's truth to that. And I look at the auto business and so much of the customer journey has changed over time. For the better with technology. You know, people used to hate going into a dealership because it would. You probably waste your entire Saturday. They hate the game of like negotiating and haggling and oh, let me get my manager over here. And then, you know, the last, I don't know, five, 10 years, you know, it's completely different. You don't ever have to step foot in the dealership. You can price check easily. There's transparency. You know, when you take.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Your transparency thing is big because that is, that's non existent in the heavy equipment space.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Correct.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Which is crazy.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah. And so there's a little bit of transparency now. I would say that's, that's one of the reasons why Richie Brothers is.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Because of Richie Brothers.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah. And so in the service side of auto, like you take, you take your car in, you get text message updates constantly. There's good communication.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And so that was always in the back of my mind in the heart moments of those couple years was if, if someone was to really build something in the construction machinery business that truly focused on the customer, I think you could build a big winner.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

So you. So the problem then became current state. All these construction companies have machines. If my cat bulldozer breaks, I call my cat dealer. If my John Deere excavator breaks, I call my John Deere dealer. If my rental machine breaks, I call the rental company. We have, we might have internal mechanics as well, but they're really busy.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And then sometimes I call the cat dealer and they don't allow me to work on my machines because, you know. Or so. And so, you know, there's some of that. And not, not to beat up on any brand. They've all done it. Or there could just be a wait time, like we can't get to you for a week. And so you're sitting there, your machines just like broken down in the fill, sometimes like in the way, and you need somebody to fix it. So then there's. So that's like the traditional technicians. And I'm just explaining this for anybody that's not aware. You have the dealers that have probably the biggest army of technicians by far. By far. And then you have customers with which have technicians, which is, you know, a fair size contingent. And then you have these independents, all these guys with trucks and tools that fix any machine anywhere at any time, Correct? Pretty much, yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

So when, when we went to service, yeah, I looked, I knew service was a big problem being at a dealership. Anyone who's ever worked for a dealership knows the problems. Sales reps know the problems really well because you're the second phone call.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

From the customer. Customer has a. In your example, bulldozer breaks. They call the service department. It's crazy. In 2025, you call a landline, maybe you have the mobile number of the dispatcher. You know, great, that's one person when they tell you that, hey, man, all of our texts are out. It's probably going to be a week to two weeks. Your next call goes to the sales rep and you yell at that sales rep and you say something like, I just bought this machine. I spent $700,000 for a package. I will not do this again. If every time I call, they tell me it's two weeks, can't do it, won't do it. And so customers have just basically been trained that you have to escalate and you have to, you have to scream. And whoever screams the loudest might get priority. So I always knew service was a huge issue. My. I thought we could get there eventually. We didn't start there, but I was kind of forced there because the other thing wasn't working. And so that's. And, and so at the dealership, then when I thought back, I'm like, I saw firsthand, I saw existing technicians quitting and going independent. So I knew there were a good amount of independents out there who are former dealer trained. I just didn't know how many there were. I still don't know how many there are. I know there are thousands, which is pretty awesome. So I was aware of how we could, you know, start solving the problem.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. And machines breaking. It's a, it's guaranteed.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

It's just. And it's a constant. It's a, it's a constant. If you're running equipment, it will break. And it's, it's, it's interesting watching the difference between mining and construction. Mining is so much better at preventative maintenance because they're the. Like sometimes what the truck is hauling over a 24 hour period is worth more than the truck itself. And so they can't have downtime, which like I understand the business model forces them to plan it.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Sure.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And they have very well defined maintenance intervals and they're constantly doing PMs. Stuff still breaks, but it's way more preventative. Whereas in the construction world everybody says it's that way, it's definitely not that way. And the conditions are just more variable. Sure. So you're just gonna, you're just gonna break stuff. And then two. Now that the fancier stuff gets fancier, quote unquote. With the emissions, the technology, all the. I mean if you just look at up an engine like a repower is crazy because they're pulling out an original engine and they're putting in a new one. And the new one's not any different than the old one. It's not like it's serving the same function, but just all the additional stuff on it. All the wiring, harnesses and sensors and all the stuff that can go wrong at any time. And it does go for any reason and it does go wrong. So stuff's going wrong all the time.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Customers have become really frustrated with that. Where they used to. Not that they would repair their equipment themselves, but they used to be able to like troubleshoot and have an idea. The ones that are very like mechanically inclined with the move to electronics, like everything, you get shut out of your machine. And it can be. And dealers all see this and it gets really frustrating for the dealer because you don't want to always have to roll a $200,000 service truck to a customer.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

That's not the best thing for them. And it's not the best thing for you when you have a long line of people who need service. But I saw it time and time again where we'd have to roll a truck over like a $15 sensor that went out.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

You know, and then you got a crew that's standing around waiting for you. To get there on that machine. And no one. And then. Then you send the customer an invoice for, like, eleven hundred dollars for a $15 sensor. And like, these are all of the things that, you know, have been going on to drive customers mad and to create an opportunity.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, and in fairness, it drives the good dealers mad too.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It does it. Sure.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

The good dealers are very aware of this. True. And I mean, it's just like any. Any business, there's great dealers, there's not so great dealers. And I think the great dealers are trying to get ahead of this as well.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah. And the great dealers, I think, kind of run that framework of like, hey, it's not the best thing. Like, what can we troubleshoot over the phone?

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yes.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Right. Because especially, like, I think really good service is when you work with the customer. And so, like, working with the customer could be troubleshooting over the phone if they have a technician like, hey, it's this sensor. Why don't you send your guy to our shop, pick up the sensor, or we'll bring you the sensor. And therefore, you're not rolling that truck and you're hitting them with four hours minimum labor and travel time and all that stuff. Like, that's really good service. But it's just like everything else. You have to be operationally excellent. And if you're not, that's when things really don't go well, either for the customer or for you.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And the void then he has in some ways fallen into. In some ways discovered, is that you have the customers needing their machines to be fixed as quickly as possible. The more traditional means of doing so sometimes don't meet the standard.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Many times inefficient.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. And then you have all of these independents that are not organized in any fashion.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Correct.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

At a macro level. So you're just, to put it very simply, connecting these independent technicians with problems.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Correct.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

To solve the problems, to get the technicians paid, and to make everybody happy.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Using technology where it works much faster, a lot more visible. Yeah.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

How did you get technicians on board in the first place?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It was sales motion. You know, I started with the network of technicians that I knew.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

I guess you knew a bunch of guys.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I did. I also talk to a lot of customers. Like, when you talk to customers, many of them have had used independence before. Like, so we weren't necessarily introducing a whole new concept. Like, I really didn't have to fight a negative perception in the market. Like, I didn't have to sit across from a customer and try to convince them that, hey, this independent is of the same quality as a dealer tech. So many of these customers had used independence before, but when you talk to them, they would say the same thing. They would say, well, I only knew one guy and I haven't been able to get a hold of him for three months. You know, and so there is, there was a business just in building an actual network and providing that structure to facilitate the call, to get the responses from the technicians, and to be able to present them back to the customer. Customer. And so I just, I called on as many technicians as possible. And look, this is why. So at our core, we're a labor marketplace. Marketplace businesses are brutally difficult to build because you have two sides. And you know, just like customers in this industry are not exactly trusting of new things. Well, neither are technicians, you know, and so you have both sides. You know, customers are like, well, how many technicians do you have? And then the technicians like, well, how many customers do you have? And they all, they both want like, this amount before they start. But I was able, just like we found our early customers who were just desperate and starved for a solution. I found a few early technicians who were like, yeah, what do I have to lose? I'll give it a chance.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Sure.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And once they, they downloaded the app and started using it and they saw there was steady work work, and then once they got paid like clockwork, when I said we were going to pay them, we built trust on that side and then they started telling their friends and then we got started getting more business and then it just builds, you know, both sides from there.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Were they younger guys at first, would you say?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

No, older. Really?

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

So, yeah, very few young guys because the, the career path to becoming an independent seems to be work at a dealer for a while and then kind of get burned out.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Sure.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It's not, I don't think many, like, trade school graduates graduate trade school with the intent, like day one of like, hey, I can be my own business owner.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, it's, it's, it's kind of like doctors, like, you've gotta, you get out of med school, you still don't know anything. You need to go work at these big organizations and experience all this stuff. And then you might have a practice when you're 40. It's a, I mean, it's a skilled, it's a very, a highly skilled position. It's, it's, I think, no different than doctor, dentist, et cetera. Yeah, these guys are engineers just in, in the, at the highest degree. I, I, I, I could not have.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

More respect for These guys, it's unbelievable.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

What they can do. Based on your experience, why do they usually get burnt out?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It's a variety of factors. Economic is one.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

They're just not paid enough.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

They're not paid enough. There's been very little wage growth in that field. This is where I think dealers have really made a huge mistake, that it's going to be hard to recover. So it's wage growth to remind everyone these guys are doing hard physical labor out in the field on job sites. You know, where I'm in Florida, you got Texas, even Nashville here, it's not exactly that cool this time of year. It's hard. And then, you know, you get into Philly in the wintertime and you're out there and it's 25 degrees, so you're in hard conditions.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And machines don't just break down on a nice tidy concrete pad that has everything you need go.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Like, when I first started my career, I had to call on waste management. I had to call in trademark metals. You go in a scrapyard, you know, in Miami in July, there are stray dogs and stray cats. It. Because it rains every day, the whole site is flooded and it's scrap metal and just garbage everywhere. You walk into a landfill, it doesn't smell good.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

No.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And you gotta, you gotta be sitting there with your service truck for eight hours today, you know, crawling under a machine. And to do it for $28 an hour, you know, maybe next year you'll get a bump to like 29, 50. Like. So that's the number one thing, I think the. When you, when you talk to these techs, they all love the customer. They love being able to solve the problem. I think they get burned out by a lot of the other stuff that they have to deal with within the dealership. Poor management, paperwork, feeling like they have 35 bosses.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Politics.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah. And, you know, I think one thing that a lot of people don't recognize, I didn't recognize it early, but I started to understand it towards the end at the dealership was these are your salespeople too. They are customer facing. And so when what I found out, and it made sense to me later, was when customers are unhappy with the dealership, they can take it out on whoever's in front of them. And so that can be a technician. So if you're a customer and you call for service and like, and it's now two weeks later and you're just getting out to them, the customer's pissed. If you're the technician and you're showing up and maybe, maybe somebody in your office said you would be there three days ago, and you. It's not your responsibility, but now you just show up and that customer is, like, unloading on you.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Like this. Like, I didn't do anything to deserve this.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, and I was, I was reading recently a book on Caterpillar, and they said the, the sales reps at the dealers are really the face of the business. I was like, no, that's not true. The technician is the face of the business of any equipment dealer. Yes, the technician is the face of the. And the same with the construction company. Those out in the field that do the work, they're the representatives of the business. It's not leadership. It's not anybody in the office. It's just not how it works.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

No. You have services frequent. Right. And so you have a large spread of equipment. Like, you could have a technician on your site every day.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Mm.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

You know, so that's. That technician sees that customer and their people every day. Whereas a sales rep, you might go by. Excuse me. Once every two weeks. Once a month.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Sure.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

So to your point. Yeah. These are the, These guys are the face of your company.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. So they get frustrated, and at a certain point, and I always forget this. They have, they have their own tools, which to me, doesn't make sense. I know there's reasoning for it. I don't, I don't understand that blew.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

My mind when, when young guys would start.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Like payroll deduction for their tools.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, I, I, Yeah, I don't, I don't. I don't get that. But, but, but, yes. So they, they. They own their tools, and so then they can just quite literally take their tools from the bay they're working in at the, at the dealer or the service truck they've been in and transfer them to a service truck that you said they could get on Facebook Marketplace or from a buddy or they might finance.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

They go to Richie Brothers. Richie Brothers used one that has 300,000 miles on it. And then they just do maintenance themselves because they're mechanical. But they get started. They get started in business. And, and that's. And they just, they start doing jobs for customers that they know, and they just rely on word of mouth.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

I would say to it. I think this happens a lot as well, because the, I think the traits of these, especially a field service technician, you're. You're a lone wolf in a lot of ways. Yes. You're working by yourself, typically all the time out, just you in a machine like, and you're managing yourself, you're managing your time, you're managing your tools. You really are in some ways your own boss, quote unquote, as much as I hate that phrase. And so going out on their own, not like you, it's not that dramatically different from what they've already been doing because it's still like they get where they're going from dispatch. And here's the issue. And then it's on them from there.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

They might not even go into the dealership for two weeks.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yes.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

You know, they're getting dispatched from their home. Right. And. And some, some techs are. Are what referred to as residents. So like a really large, like mine or a quarry will just be like, hey, just we want one guy here every day.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Or just giant job. Like I was.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Exactly.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Giant job in Louisiana. I mean, there's. The amount of technicians they had out there was wild.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah. And so you might not ever go back to the dealer for a month at a time. Sure. Total lone wolf personality.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

But it's. It's what's really exciting about. So before that, the mechanics of how this works is the customer initiates the transaction. I say, I have a 938 loader. It just broke. It's making a weird noise.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yep.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Don't totally know what it is. I go onto the Heave app. I say, 9:38 loader. So many hours, location, et cetera. Here's. I can maybe type up, you know, here's issues. I can put maybe some pictures on it. And then that goes out to. Then your pool of technicians. Independents.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yep.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

The customer can then select from the pool that's available.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And then the technician has to say, yep, I want this job. So they're both agreeing to the transaction themselves.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Technician goes and does the work. If they need parts, they probably get them from the customer. But you can also supply the parts once they're done. 9:38 is back on the move. You pay them quickly.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And then you bill the customer.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yep.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And assuming it's a positive transaction for both parties. Rinse and repeat.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Rinse and repeat. Yep.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

It's quite good.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Pretty simple.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

It's pretty simple, but it's like, like as soon as you laid it out for me, I was like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It's pretty simple.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

You know, it's not that simple, but.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

There'S a lot of stuff, intricacies behind the scene. Like when people ask you, hey, what do you do? Heave. What? Yeah. The worst question is. Or when you're sitting in front of somebody, the worst thing to hear is, I've never heard of you. What do you guys do? It's very hard.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

I don't have that problem.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

What I've learned over time is you have to be able to articulate it in as few words as possible. And so you know, and I know some people roll their eyes, but we say Uber for heavy equipment mechanics. Now, it depends on who I'm talking to. If I'm talking to potential investors, I don't say Uber for mechanics because they hear, they've heard a million companies describe themselves as Uber for X.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

It's a little tired.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah, completely. But it is the most effective way. If I'm sitting across from a customer who's never heard of us or maybe heard of us a little bit. But they have. When you say Uber for heavy equipment mechanics, they can picture it. They're like, oh, so they can, they can get themselves 80% of the way there. Now there's like little intricacies like picking the technician that you have to like educate them on. But they have, they have the concept.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Sure.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And then, you know, you get through, you show them a demo of how it works. You answer questions like they're all the same questions. What happens when a job goes wrong? You know, like. Yeah, they don't.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

It's.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It's because it's so different than what they're used to. Like, they have, they can't believe that. Like most people think that we set the pricing for the marketplace. We don't. We let technicians set their price and then we add a markup on top. So there's different pricing. Like, I love being able to show customers price optionality.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Oh. So I, when I'm choosing. Oh, and I'm choosing, the different technicians might be different prices.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Correct. I have always hated, because I lived it every day with the dealership. The dealer price is the dealer price. And so, you know, you would see it with customers being really unhappy. So hey, if, if we're, if we're 195 an hour as a dealer, we're 195. Whether you get a guy we just hired two weeks ago or you get our best guy who's been here for 45 years. So I love, I love being different. I love a customer. Customer seeing the available technician options, the different price points. Because look, if it's a hydraulic leak, I don't need the guy who's been 25 years technician who's 195 an hour.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Here's a guy who maybe has eight years experience, but he's 135 an hour.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

It's hydraulically changing out a window or.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Correct?

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And you know, you, you touch changing out a window. One of our early customers, when he started using us and he got this experience, he came to me and he's like, everyone has a horror story. And it's like, and it's regardless of brand. So I'm not pointing out any particular brand, but it was, I had to get a windshield wiper changed and it was eleven hundred dollars. So that's why we love. And we've set it up purposeful from the beginning. Like hey, if it's something, a basic leak, you know, safety related items happen all the time. Seat belt, backup alarm, you know, when a backup alarm is out, the customer can't run that machine or else there's a tremendous amount of liability. And so, you know, they'll go on our app, they'll find somebody who can get out there same day, 130 bucks an hour, one hour of labor and the alarm's fixed, they get an invoice from us for 300 hundred bucks, you know, and they're super happy. And so I love that not every job has to be a big time, you know, big transmission job. We do tons of like little safety.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Related stuff or like cutting edges.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And cutting edge is a good example. Pms, you know, stuff that, you know, doesn't, doesn't need like the cream of the crop, like experience guy.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Makes perfect sense.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

So price optionality.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, price optionality. How do you, how do you explain this though to investors, to people on the outside? Because it's very different. I've talked with plenty of these folks and it's, you have to start with like the ABCs. And when you talk construction, they immediately go to like home building, like remodeling kitchens or maybe high rises like in New York City. But it's just like the normal world doesn't really understand what's going on here.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

No, they don't. And, and I, so I've pitched our company hundreds of times talking to investors. Fundraising is a brutal process. Crazy enough, the construction focused ventures, capital firms didn't really look at as seriously. Where I found success and we just closed the series A round was with investors who are very interested in marketplace businesses. So they're familiar with supply, demand and just like, are you solving a fundamental problem? And then how big is that problem? And then okay, why hasn't that problem been tackled before? Who is the competition? And so we checked all of those Boxes. Now, when I say we checked all those boxes, we have a few investors. I got 500 no's, but the ones that were at least interested and the ones that backed us, who I love, they've been un. Unbelievably helpful for us. They all connected with that is a huge problem. Like, is simple, you know, it is like they. You didn't have to have a construction background to like picture that. Oh, okay. There's a job site. This equipment is really expensive. It breaks a lot. And the current solution can take a lot of time. And so here's something that's completely different. We had a track record. We have results. We have a really nice graph at this point. And we've been able to get out to job sites within 24 hours, like 80% of the time. And we're showing cost savings. Like they all. It was an easy story to follow along.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. On the technician side, I think what was really cool that you were saying last night was how much money some of these guys have made, which I think is, is spectacular.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It's unbelievable to me. And I didn't, I didn't. Early on, you're just trying to like match and you're trying to get jobs done. What was awesome for me to see and then our team to see over time is as we built trust with technicians, the ones that would devote more of their time to just doing heave jobs that came through the app, you started to see things accumulate to where they're doing so much work, getting paid for it. Like, so. So this year in 2025, we have two technicians. One is in Florida, one is in the. In Texas. They will make over $500,000 this year. It's just, it's unbelievable.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Wild.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

We have probably 15 to 20 techs, you know, all throughout, you know, our markets. One is in the Atlanta market, one's in Charlotte. They'll make over 200. And I'm talking like, not just like 200, 2000. Like, I'm talking about like 250, 270. And then we have an army of guys who will make over a hundred. And so it's really, really rewarding and satisfying for, for me to just see that materialize. Because when you have something and it's early, you can kind of, you can picture it, right? Like, oh man, what would this be like a couple years down the road for. To see, for to see it happening and materializing and like for your vision to come into. It's really, really cool.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, and to make that level of difference in individual people's lives too. It's like it's one thing to help a business, but it is a little bit more abstract, you know. Yeah, we got the 938 running and it's building a neighborhood totally. It's like, it's still impactful, but you can't visualize it like, like that. And, and I think that's, I've, I've, I told you, I've reflected upon this a lot. Like the most more, the more I look at the whole workforce thing within the construction industry right now and just the trades in general, the more I'm convinced it's because the environment is oftentimes pretty terrible. And I think it's largely down to wages. I think over the past five years I looked up, wages have grown 20%, but buying power is down by 1%. So you're actually worse off. Your wage has grown, which makes you think you're better off, but you're actually worse off while you have all these companies and all these people making shitloads of money. But then the people doing the work are not seeing any of the benefit. And you have all these people online talking about the trades and how much money people can make in the trades. But again, I'm looking around, I'm like, where are these people? Because yes, you can, you can hand pick some of these examples, sure. But looking at the whole picture, it's just not there. And then you start to go down further. Like, productivity's down substantially over the past 50 years. People are killing themselves at a greater rate than ever before. Drug overdose is like by a mile. From a, from an industry standpoint within this industry, like, it's just, it's hurting, like in the, in the whole middle class within America is hurting. And so it's hard then to go youo know, you can go using we're down the technician path. I don't mean to like beat up on the technician world, but we'll use that as an example. It's representative of everything, though. Like, a recruiting ad is gonna have a technician that's nice and happy. I've taken a lot of those pictures that's nice and happy. Everything's great. You know, we're going to pay you a bunch of money, so on and so forth. But then the reality, especially for younger people, they get into the reality of the situation and they're like, wait a minute, this isn't, this isn't what I signed up for. And as a result, I mean, I've seen dealers with like 50 plus percent turnover rates. So you're turning over half of your workforce, half of your technicians every year. I don't know how a business is even viable at that rate.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

The economic model to me is broken. These are individuals who are highly skilled, highly, highly skilled. And look, I started as a salesperson. I've come across many who are great that I've worked alongside. There are. You could put different. I could grab a couple people off the street and put them in a sales, you know, and they can function well, right?

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

You know, they might not be the best of the best like some of the guys that I've known, but the point is, is that you can't just pull someone off the street and make them a great technician. And so that's where the economics have been broken is like the money flows through the wrong side. These are the individuals like you said, are doing the hard work. They should in theory have a lot more leverage because they are the great technicians are needed a lot more than sales. But this stuff, it's really hard to change the economic model of businesses who have run it a certain way for decades.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, and the crazy thing is the technicians are the backbone of each brand. And that's not me saying that, that's every brand saying that. That's every dealer saying, well, the big brand won't say it. They'll say it's because our equipment and our technology is best in class. It's better than everybody else. But it's like, I don't know, I go to all the trade shows, everybody has good machines now looks the same. It all looks the same. Your excavator like might be a little bit better than the other one, but it's, it's marginal. Like you're competing within these, these small margins at this point. Innovation is, is quite rare nowadays actually they're just running. An excavator is an excavator. I mean I have these books over there. You can even see what Caterpillar used to. Used to mess with. And just the crazy they used to put together.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Right.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Just because they could just to figure out is this a better way to do it? I don't know. And then you get into like the R.G. letourneau's of the world that were just every day coming up with some wacky shit which then most of it didn't work. But every once in a while it's like that's actually a pretty good idea. Like the whole scraper thing, that's not so bad. Or he was making Dozer blades for Caterpillar back in the day. Like, the Dozer things worked out okay.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

But it's in the margins. So I think really, like, a brand is based on how each of those machines can be supported. And some machines are better than others. But again, big picture, it's about a technician, it's about parts availability, and it's about, my machine's broken. How fast can you get it fixed? And if you can do that for me consistently, I'm happy.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

You can't do that for me consistently.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I'm sad, and I can't buy your brand.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And I can't do this because my business, like, I can't run a business like this because the contractors, too. To defend contractors and equipment dealers to every business, but contractors have a hundred different variables they're dealing with. And so if a machine breaks and they've got even, like a certain work window to do some work, they're just shit out of luck. Like, just. It is what it is.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It is. What's been really cool is we'll get referrals from dealer salespeople. People today. Because what I mentioned earlier. Yes, they're the second call because they.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yes.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And because, you know, most really good dealer salespeople care about their customer relationship and they want to have a solution for their customer. They don't. They don't take that phone call and want to tell the customer, oh, well, I'm sorry, what he tell. What they told you is what you got to live with. Like. And so as we've kind of, you know, grown our brand recognition and proven what we can do, we're getting quite a few dealer sales reps, like, hey, why don't you. Have you tried this app? Because, you know, at the end of the day, if their customer, if we can fix the customer's machine for them, they're off the hook. They'll continue to buy. Like, the customer's not grading them on, you know, who fixes the machine as long as that machine's fixed and back up and running well.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And, and this is where it's like, it should be symbiotic with, with the dealers. Like, you're not there to take. Take from them. You're there to actually support them and make their case even stronger.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

So you asked me about investors, and so one thing that, and it's apropos because you mentioned how, like, it can be hard because they don't know the construction world. So something that I, you know, just in studying and trying to prepare for for this most Recent fundraise that I found was, I thought a lot of similarity was Richie brothers. I feel like we are building the Richie brothers but in the service side of the business. And the reason why I say that is so if you think about Richie brothers because they are symbiotic with dealers on the surface, there's really no reason that Richie brothers needs to exist. And I say that they're like a 17 billion dollar a year company. People are like, what do you mean by that? Well, this is what I mean. Every dealer has used equipment. Every dealer loves selling used equipment. It's higher margin. You know, you have like the whole point. The channel for a dealer is, hey, rental is a huge channel. We got to rent equipment. So I have. My assets are accumulating hours. I got to find a way to sell them. So you're creating your own used equipment that way. But why is Richie brothers able to build this massive, massive company when all it is is just selling used equipment when all the dealers have it? Well, there's two reasons in my opinion. One, they brought transparency to the equation, right? So if you're a customer in Tampa and you want to buy a used deere, used Komatsu, do you really only subject to whatever your local dealer has on the yard? Right. And you also have no idea what a good price is, right? You don't know what other people are paying for it. So one thing that Richie brothers solved was transparency. You can see everything online of what everything transacts for our range year model. Boom. All right? And then the other thing that Richie brothers built a huge business for is they, there are no geographic lines, right? And so now you can buy equipment, there's supply coming from all over the place. You can buy any brand and it's just those two things. And they're a marketplace, right? And so now dealers utilize Richie Brothers. You know, hey, we've got these trade ins out back that haven't moved in six months. Let's throw them through Richie. It's a huge value because you now can liquidate, you get cash for stuff that's not really moving. And so you see a lot of dealers utilize Richie Brothers as a partner. I think we can do the same thing in service. So one, no geography for heave. We can work on equipment all over. No brand. You know, we can work on everything. We've fixed over 100 different brands of equipment this year in 30 different states. And then the transparency side. And so I think that we can improve the overall ecosystem of available mechanics. We're already working we have really large national rental companies that use us to fix their fleet. And what they do is, you know, they have X amount of mechanics, but it's a math problem. You know, if I'm a large rental house, I have 20,000 machines, I have 20 mechanics. Yeah. Because service, if you're a rental company, service is not a profit center because customers don't pay you to fix the machine. And so therefore you can't run it like a dealership because it's not a profit center. And so those rental companies will hire mechanics from us for a day, for a week, for a month and say, hey, there's 200 machines out back that are in our hard down line. Can you get them back out on rent for us? You know, fix them so we can put them on the ready line so we can run them. So it is symbiotic there. I think we can do the same. It's going to be, I'm not naive, it's going to be a few years probably for dealers to kind of.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, it'll take you a while.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

We do, we do help some independent dealers, dealers today, I'm sure. And so that's, I think there's a big similarity to what Richie brothers accomplished and what we can do. And that, that was, I think me sharing that with investors also helped because Richie's public. They can also get, you know, validation on size of market and the opportunity and they, it makes sense. And so that's kind of something I've been thinking through and have landed on the last six months.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, and all the manufacturers are getting part sales. Like you're still buying parts from them.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

We have no desire to stock parts.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

No. Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

We don't want to be a real estate company. We don't want to tie capital up in parts. I know, look, so much of this is really hard. That's where my experience helps. It's really hard to manage parts inventory. Knowing what to buy, what to stock truck. It's just brutally difficult.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, like some of the, some of the cat dealers I've spent time with, their ability to distribute parts across an enormous geographic region in a 24 hour period is unbelievable.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It's a logistics business. Logistics are unbelievably hard.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yes. Yeah. I mean just. And I've just talked to them about some of these systems like even in you go to Australia and they have the robot part pickers which is, that's pretty wild to see one. Just how many parts are in this giant cube that's like 25 bins high and all the robots are just feeding them down below and people are putting them in bags and to see how much is going out. And then They've got trucks 24 hours a day, just non stop driving the territory, dropping stuff off, dropping stuff off, dropping stuff off. And it's just like this is the belly of the beast just to support all this yellow stuff out back. It's crazy.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It is wild.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

It's, it's, I think it's interesting. Too slow. Put me onto a, an interview not too long ago, actually a while ago now about a guy that you maybe have listened to it, about a guy that built this design business on material samples. And he explained how you need to have like technology is great because of the scale and scalability of it. It's amazing how fast you can scale using technology. However, if you can do it, someone else can as well. And so you need to have then something that doesn't necessarily scale as well, which then ironically insulates the business. The scalable moat. Yes. Yeah, moat. But, but, but the businesses that tie technology within the physical world, the built world, something that you just can't replicate overnight are really powerful. And that's what he had done. And that's exactly what you're doing is, is you have this scalable side that's the software platform. But then the part that just, just doesn't scale. And you said it, you said it last night like that in some ways just has to happen at the speed it happens, is the relationships on the customer side, but most importantly the technician side.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Absolutely.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

You have to build trust with each one of these individuals on a consistent basis. And that it just takes time.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Correct. And if you can do that, then.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

You'Re entrenched, then you're entrenched. Exactly, yeah. Because if, if they're already working with you and it's working, why, why would I even consider something else?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It's really hard to get people to trust something brand new. But now if they're, if we become synonymous with on demand service, it's going to be really difficult for somebody to start a new company and convince technicians to, to use that.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Sure. Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

So, yeah, that's. Absolutely. And that's why like, so within our walls to our team, I've always told our team we want to treat technicians like they're our customers too. And we live by that every day. You know, we don't just have customers like who have equipment. Yes, they are customers. But treat the technicians like customers.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

You can probably down the road. And I'm sure this is on the roadmap somewhere. But you're, you're also gathering a ton of information and a ton of data and you're starting to then understand like, you know, this problem, you know, if we see this, it typically ends up, you know, xyz. And then now you can offer them additional value beyond just getting them paid quickly and getting them consistent work, but then you can allow them to do the work work better, which then makes them more competitive.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And efficient.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

There's a ton of opportunity. This is one of the things that's really exciting is just the different areas that we can, we can, we throw stuff against the wall all the time. And so one of the things that we built out this year that I think you'll appreciate is, you know, you described the basic experience, right. Like hey, I've got this wheel loader, it's got this issue. I put in a service request. One of the things that our engineering team built this year that we have out in the market now that our customers love is the second an error code goes off in the machine, it creates the service request and based on the error code and it goes out to all the technicians. So now as a customer, I haven't even done anything. And so we're accumulating all of these, this information on all the error codes and then we'll be able to track through like, okay, this error code based on these thousands of jobs that we've completed. You know, it's typically takes this amount of time to do the job.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Sure.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And so like one of the cool things I think we're going to be able to do with large sample sizes of data is like, hey Mr. Customer, you have this issue. It's going to be between 700 and $950. It's going to take three and a half hours of labor to do it. But like those are the kind of things that like I didn't think about that a year ago, but just like seeing everything work and seeing the data that comes through and then we have really, really smart people. That's where one of the biggest areas that investors helped me and helped our company was they gave me access to world class software engineers. Like we have an ex Facebook engineer who runs our engineering department. He's brilliant. Like some of the stuff he talks to me about is way over my head and I just have software stuff.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Way over my head.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

But he, he gets what we're doing and he's always thinking about like, hey, how can we tweak our product to make customers lives better and the technicians. Sure. Point.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah. And I mean you could, you can take it in a lot of directions, which is, it's really exciting because that's, I think that's another thing is the industry just has to be better, it just has to improve. And, and I, I don't think a lot of that innovation is going to come from the entrenched players. I think it's going to come from.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

No, in this industry is not different in that, in that aspect industries, you know, you get a couple incumbents that get to the top and there's no incentive for them to change. You know, like no, everything that you read, you know, the cable. I find dealers are similar to like cable companies. You know, you move into a, you move into Nashville, there's only a couple of companies that provide cable. You know, same thing. There's only, there's one cat dealer, one Deere dealer, one Komatsu dealer, that's it. But yet the, the innovation always comes from, you know, young companies. And you know, some of the really, really smart venture capitalists get this question a lot. And the way I've heard them answer it is, you know, some of like the, the big companies will ask them like hey, why can't we in a innovate? And the answer that I love hearing is innovation always sounds like a bad idea to start. And so when you're in a big, you know, Fortune 500 company or in a big successful company, you have teams of people who are all highly compensated. You're never going to get buy in from all these people to pursue what sounds like a bad idea.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, yeah, and you're, you're just, you're not motivated by that at all to, it's all risk mitigation. And I've learned to the people high up at a Fortune 100 company oftentimes are the ones that are just really good at keeping it on the rails and following directions.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It's a machine.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah. Just deliver the next quarter and then deliver the next quarter and then deliver the next quarter and we'll now you're senior vice president and then go deliver that quarter and just the more you do that, the further up you get. And the original thinkers end up typically else but, but I don't blame them at the same time because innovation is chaotic, is confusing, is, is, is messy, is wasteful. Like there's, there's a lot of downsides to innovation and so I don't actually blame. And as, as I start to get further in and look at the landscape, few companies actually Innovate. And I, I now understand why. Because, well, if it's working, it's working too. Yes.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Right, like, yeah, you can't argue with Cat.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, but, and, and in a lot of ways, like, industry wide, like, good enough is good enough. Like, we don't. Why, why do we need to innovate? We don't, like, good enough is good enough. We're just fine. Yeah, we're fine.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I do think too, the larger you get, the more disconnected you can get from your customers too. I think that is part of it. When you're a young company, you have to hyper focus on what is most important with the customer. And that's how you can build some success by truly focusing on those things. Part of my good fortune is just finding my way into a spot where there was an undeniable problem. Like I wasn't out searching for a problem. Like I meet, you know, I get a chance to go to some cool events where there's a lot of, like, early stage founders. All, most, all are much younger than me. But, you know, they're on their fifth idea. You know, they're on their third idea. They're just trying to find, you know, trying to build a company. But with me, it was like I lived in an industry where, where there was an undeniable problem for a long time.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

But, but I think that's, I think somebody like you is the only person to, to do it. You have to have the credibility. If you're some guy from San Francisco, telling these things about. It would be. It's not impossible, but it's, it is way harder. Yeah, yeah. And you know, like, even just talking to technicians, like, it's just they, they speak a certain language. You have to meet them where they are. If you don't. And, and I appreciate that about them. Big shit, like, they don't take shit.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

They don't.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

There's just not a lot of tolerance for that. And so you either meet them where they are or fuck off. I'm busy.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah, you get hung up on a lot.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, yeah, and some of them just aren't talkers too. Like, again, that's why they're in this world is it's a solitary, you know, occupation.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It is funny though, they don't seem like it, but sometimes some of those people can be way too talkative.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, you can get them. Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Because it is, it's a lonely job. It's like, you know, so our team will end up, you know, somebody on our team will be on the phone, like for 45 minutes with a tech because he's just driving to a job, you know, he just wants to talk to somebody.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

So it's, it's kind of cool to see those relationships kind of grow over time. But yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a tough, tough, tough crew.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And so now the goal is to grow it in different regions across the United States and deliver the same experience consistently.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Consistency is huge. What we're executing on our mission, our goal is to be a nationwide field service provider for all brands of equipment. And so we're going to do that methodically. We're not. It's so tempting to. We're in 50 states. It doesn't work that way. We've got to do it on a certain timeline when we're confident that we have enough technician supply in certain markets to expand. So we're, we have six core markets today. Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio. But naturally we have customers who have used us in those markets and have asks us to help them in other states. And we do it. We just don't market and tell the world like, hey, we're in Colorado. Come we can help you there. It's just because we don't have the technician density yet in some of those other markets. So we just kind of remain small with the idea of once we get to a certain amount and we see a really good work quality. Because one thing that I haven't talked about with you is that we have reviews which is unique. Like you can't review a dealer technician. You can review. And we see a lot of reviews on the technicians in our network. And so once we have a confidence level in having X amount, then we kind of open that market.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Do you worry about supply with a lot of these guys being older?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I don't, because I do think eventually there's going to be a tipping point where we're going to be the place for younger techs to have the confidence to go independent. There will be that tipping point. Because if you're sitting there, the probably the number one thing you're worried about to make that move to go independent is, well, how am I going to get work? And so when you're able to look in our app and see there's X amount of jobs per day in your area, I think that that's what's going to happen.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, and it's a tough, it's a tough business too, because it's predicated on you doing things. But when you're doing things you're not developing business, you're not invoicing, you're not running the company. And so you've got to do, you've got to do things, you got to work all these long hours and then you've got to work another job to catch up. Or like maybe your spouse helps you out on the side, which, which happens quite a bit.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

We get invoices from the wife.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yes. Yeah, that happens. It's pretty frequent. It's in construction too, because, I mean, that's, that's almost needed. Like, you can't, you can't be doing it while you're working.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah, we have, but this is where like the technology piece comes in. Like, I don't, I don't know at what point this is going to turn. We're going to be able to do this. But like, I envision like in our app, like a talk to text and it just creates the invoice. Sure. Like, we use AI today for our invoice and we have a human, like, look over it when it's done before it gets sent. Because what I've learned in my past is like a huge pain point for customers in this space is incorrect invoicing. Sounds simple, gets screwed up all the time. And so that's why we have, you know, humans who check over it. But we utilize AI there. And I think it'd be really cool if I'm a technician on a heave job and I'm just speaking into the app and it's just invoice sent.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

So we might be able to help. And there's just so much to do. It's exciting.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

It's, it's super exciting. No, I, I love this stuff that like legitimately improves the lives of people, doing the work improves the industry and it forces others to then level up as well, which I think competition is good. Yeah, it's a really good thing. And I just, again, we've alluded to it a lot. I think this industry has just been a little, a little too passive. And by a little, I mean they've been too passive because they're able to.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I think that. And also I think, do think. And I think this comes back to the. Well, why hasn't this been done before? I think to employ certain solutions, you need a certain level of knowledge of like, institutional knowledge in order to do some of these things. And as you well know, this industry is under the radar. It's kind of, it's out of plain sight. And so to what you said earlier, I think it's Spot on. It would be extremely difficult for somebody from San Francisco who has a found who's founder mindset to come put X Solution in. And I saw it. So the improvements have to come from people with the construction industry experience. And it's, and I don't, I think it's really, really hard because you can find roles that are really well paying and it's like why do I want to sign up for years of pain and an unknown, an unknown outcome? You have to be really committed and driven and probably somewhat of a psycho to do it because you're going against the grain.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

You're going against decades of it is operated this way and it. For, for a good reason.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

For good reason.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

You know. But there are like some pockets where like hey these, this, these are improvements that can be made.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. And I, I think those improvements have to be made. Like I, I think that's what, I think that's where that's the point that's being missed right now is like there's urgency here because as every year goes by we're just more and more is what's happening right now. And we, we can't not do this. We can't not build stuff. And, and I go, I've talked about this. I go travel the world. The world is better than we are. Most cities I go to anywhere in the world which has really honestly surprised me and demoralized me in some ways is better than our cities.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Do you have a thought as to why?

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

I think it's partially because the United States has just been. We've, we've transitioned from an economy that makes things to an economy that thinks about things. It's, it's gone from like I was, like I was saying, I think it's gone from creating to consuming. We've become a consumption based society and you can do that for so long and you can create these crazy returns as a result. But it's just not, it doesn't math at the end of the day and at some point you've got to create and we have not put a premium on creation. We've only valued consumption. You can go look at higher education for example. Most of those are consumption based industries. They're supporting all of. If you go look at the list of billionaires, they're all, almost all out of consumption based industries. A lot of finance, a lot of finance. The top 1% of the earners in the United States. It's probably consumption based. It's, it's, it's. Yeah, it's Finance, it's real estate, it's insurance, it's. It's medical, it's pharmaceutical, it's technology. A lot of times it's legal. Like, you can go down the list. However, we're still human beings. And that's where this whole AI conversation drives me nuts, because it's like, okay, cool, you know what? We can go. We can go do all this predicting about what AI is going to do. Who the fuck knows? And anybody that tells me for sure what's going to happen, I'm like, I'm bullshit. Now, thank goodness I know to not, not listen to anything you have to say ever again. I don't know anything about that world. All I know, or at least the bet I'm making, is, listen, as long as there's human beings here, we're going to have to eat, we're going to have to drink water, we're going to have to live somewhere with shelter, we're going to have to take shits every day. Like, those are constants, and those will remain constants as long as there's humans. And as long as those are constants, then infrastructure is a constant. As long as infrastructure is constant, we need people to build and maintain that. And then I'm not a believer that that's automated anytime soon, like, oh, Boston Dynamics is going to make the little robot dog that's going to do what these guys are doing on these machines, maybe, but I don't think that's going to be anytime soon.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah, I think, you know, I heard somebody really, really smart at an event, a really smart venture capitalist, I thought, described this very well. He said he views the world as like an accordion Vaseline back and forth. I think there's always going to be such power in the opposite. So as they're. All this stuff transitions to like, AI. There's tremendous power in businesses that are the opposite.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yes.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Because all this stuff will be AI, then the businesses that will stand out, or be the ones that have people that are holding your hand through the process that care about the customer. And so it's just going to make it that much more important.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. And you can even see it, like in restaurants right now, all the restaurants, a lot of them have just terrible customer experience. A lot of them use technology and this bullshit that. And then you go to a restaurant that doesn't do any of that and is a really great human experience, and you're like, where there's a server that.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Has passion, that cares, like, it fundamentally changes the experience totally. I have a ton of respect for people that I encounter in my day to day who just love what they do. And it can be a server, it can be, you know, someone that you see just like I see you people at my kids school, you know, just love being there. A good teacher. Like it's, there is I, I've, I admire it and I'm kind of motivated by it.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Who, who love what they do and then again who are highly skilled. Like I, watching a technician work for me is just like, it's intoxicating in a way because it is so it's such an incredible skill set. I'm just, I, it requires over here just brute force and then over here just the, the most delicate of touches and then everything in between.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah. And reading an electrical schematic. Right. And the wiring.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Witchcraft. Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It's really, really impressive. And yeah, I, I share that same admiration for those people.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, yeah. I, and I, I, I, I envy them in some ways. I'm like, like, damn it, I wish I had that skill set.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I don't, I don't at all. I'm the least handy person that you'll probably meet.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Huh. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, for us, thank goodness.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And they're fixing like $500,000 machines, you know, like we've talked about.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

This is stuff that's like very urgent. Like that, that at the end of the day, that's what field service is before anything else. It's urgent, you know, it has to be done right now.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yes. Yeah. For better or for worse.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah. It's one of the reasons why we don't ask customers, hey, when do you need this done? If you start seeing that question Yesterday, everything becomes 91 1. But you know, we have a fundamental understanding of like we're trying to help as fast as possible.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

People then find you just, it's just heave. Right.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Heaveapp.com heaveapp.com a PP we didn't own the dot com so we were a dot co for a while. Talk about confusing people. It's like death in this industry. So heaveapp.com so it's not just an app today. It's also, we have a desktop so we have plenty of customers who prefer, you know, equipment managers largely in an office. So they can go to heaveapp.com and get the full experience. Request service view technicians, book technicians on our website. Just like the app.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Sweet. Yeah. Awesome. Well, appreciate you coming out.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Thank you for, for having me. This is a big deal for, for Heave and it's a big deal for Me. So I appreciate the invite and getting a chance to sit down and talk to you.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, I've been. I was on your podcast, wasn't I? You were. I don't know when that was. Now. I.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

It was shit. When? What? It had to have been maybe like a year and a half ago ago or so.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

It was. It was a while ago.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah, you were. You were early.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Do you do it every week or what's the cadence?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

The cadence is not as consistent as it needs to be, so I'm gonna have to lean on our marketing manager a little bit to get it more consistent.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

It's tough. Well, like we were saying, I think at the beginning, it's. It's hard. It's really tough.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Well, it's. It was really, really hard for us because in the early days, because no one really knew who we were, so it's like, what is that? Who's that? And so now it's becoming easier, but it's, you know, you want it to be high quality. And so, you know, trying to find people with an interesting story that. Because I don't want to sit there and just, you know, talk very, like, generic. And so it's. We're. We're finding a good mix of, like, how to find. Find interesting guests.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

And then, you know, try to get them to come. But we ended up doing a lot of remote. But we need to get on a more consistent schedule.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Fair enough. Well, yeah. Appreciate you coming. Love what you guys are doing.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Thank you.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Very exciting about it.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Means a lot.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. And we'll see you in November, won't we?

[Heave Founder/CEO]

We will be there. We've been there every year since you started the Dirt World. Our team enjoys it.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I love the guests that you have, the speakers that you have. So it's always. It's always something that I circle on my calendar, too.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. I. Well, I like what you're saying. I forgot even Tim Grover was speaking. And then now I'm. Now I'm all excited again. I'm like, oh, shit, I get to meet Tim Grover.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

He's a badass.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. I can't wait to speak.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Do you have any interaction with these people after or not?

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah, sometimes.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Sometimes that's.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. Yeah, sometimes. And some of them I know well enough. Like, Chad was on Joe Rogan the other day.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I listened to it. Yeah.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Pretty fun. Pretty phenomenal.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yes. He's unbelievable.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

I. Yeah, I wasn't expecting. I wasn't surprised. I wasn't expecting him to be, like, almost. I mean, preaching on. On the largest podcast platform in the world. But then I'm like, this is perfect. This is exactly what he would do.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah. Have you run with him?

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

I have. You have? Yeah.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

How far did you go?

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

I. The stuff I've done is not like ultra distance.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

I understand, but just still like a 10 mile jog with him or something.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

I think the last time I ran with him, like, you know, six miles.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Okay.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

And it wasn't like, it was just a run. So, I mean, he's, he's, he's like everybody else, but he's also. He has that extraordinary extreme side.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Everyone says all those guys say that, that I'm just like everyone else and I know that they mean it.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yes.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Right. I know that they, like, hey, there's nothing that special about me. But just what they accomplish and the ability to push through is insane. Like, I've seen that documentary on that race that he runs. Was it Last man Standing or something?

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. He's done a few of those. He's won a few of those.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Yeah. I mean, he looks to be unbeatable, but yeah. It's just unbelievable. It's.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yeah. Just being around those people is a privilege. So.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

But the Grover I'm really excited about just any. Because I was a huge Jordan fan growing up. So any content around, like someone trying to explain Michael Jordan's psyche is.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

He knows it better than most out there.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Absolutely.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Well, very good.

[Heave Founder/CEO]

Thank you.

[Industry Expert/Interviewer]

Yep.