← Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
#166 - “AI won’t replace people” Gabe Pinchev from FieldPulse Shares How Software Will Transform The Trades
00:47:58
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- [00:00]
Gabe Pinchev
I like to describe it as definitely a punch in the mouth when you're getting started. It's not only creating a better product, it's creating a better experience from start to finish. Everything is fed by our customers. We get a ton of feedback from them. I think you'll always need that combination of the human element assisted by AI.
- [00:29]
John
Recently I checked out FieldPulse as a field management software for our restoration business and honestly I was pretty impressed. The big wins that we saw was it's got two way sync with QuickBooks online and desktop. It's got some really good dashboards and reporting, it's got custom workflows and this is probably one of their most unique features. It does have CRM and it has a lot of the other things that you'd expect out of the field service management software. You're going to have financing and payments, you're going to have customer booking portals, project management tools, price book, work order management estimates and invoices. But where they really shine is the scheduling dispatch, custom workflows and the dashboards and reporting. It automated and streamlined our operation and it gave us a bunch of easy tools for scheduling and dispatching our team. And we loved the workflows feature. Make sure you mention owned and operated for a special offer. 15% off the annual plan.
- [01:19]
Host
Welcome back to owned and operated. We have Gabe Pinchev here of Field Pulse. How are you doing, Gabe?
- [01:26]
Gabe Pinchev
Great. How are you doing?
- [01:27]
Host
Really good. Sorry John couldn't make it today. We've been out running in the field. He's negative 24. We hit 3 degrees here in Tennessee. Where are you out of?
- [01:37]
Gabe Pinchev
We're based here in Dallas, Texas and it's a little chilly here too.
- [01:41]
Host
You guys got a bit of snow, didn't you, recently?
- [01:43]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, yeah, a couple weeks ago we get, we get one storm a year. If you remember, a couple years ago we had that ice storm that took everything out that was pretty bad because a lot of pipes burst. A lot of plumbing work to be done around the city, but one a year and we just had ours, so now it's just chilly.
- [01:59]
Host
I think whenever I think of Dallas, I don't, I don't think of snow and ice usually, but, but I mean, we've seen some crazy weather recently. I'm not complaining. We are in this, the trades, we benefit from that kind of stuff. So Gabe, fieldpulse awesome CRM system. Tell us a little bit about your background prior to Field Pulse and becoming the founder of that.
- [02:25]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, so this is about 10 years back when I Started Field Pulse. Prior to that I was doing IT consulting and specifically mobile application stuff. So back then 2015, mobile was still relatively newer. Right. IPhone came out in like 2009 or something like that. So I was doing a lot of mobility work, different small business applications, but really heavy emphasis there and dealing with different service contractors that I was working with were creating different mistakes and none of them were really using any technology. And so first and foremost it was to create an app on the iPhone as a prototype because I was really thinking for the owner operators out in the field to really run their business. And so that's kind of where it started and then obviously expanded across and here we are today.
- [03:17]
Host
So. But specifically. Right, you kind of fell into a booming market that since 2016 to today has seen in an enormous amount of growth, specifically surrounding kind of the CRMs and, and home services and how that ties together. Where did, where did the idea come from for home services? Because you could have chose a CRM system for, you know, healthcare or, you know, just about anything. But. But you landed on the boring businesses. Plumbing, H vac, roofing. Where. Where did that idea come from?
- [03:53]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, so I would say first and foremost, I'm not from the industry. Right. For me it's much more of a technology and software background. So your question is why this versus anything else? And I think it's just such a large market that did not have the tools and technology that maybe enterprise software has been making for a long time and really focus on a small end of the market. I think the unique thing about field service was the very mobile need that other companies don't have to the same degree. So some of it was a timing thing. Right. When with mobile applications becoming more sophisticated during that time period and being able to do more advanced things and still seeing just the underserved nature of the space. And there are just so many field service companies out there. We think there are millions of them in North America. And so it's just a combination of the underserved market that I saw and wanting to really build a great mobile solution for these field service companies.
- [04:53]
Host
Very cool. I'm always interested because, you know, people from the outside looking in, they don't have that experience, including myself. My background is not in home services. I wandered my way in here, you know, blind in the dark and it's always interesting to see other people who've done the same. And so with that, like there's a series of challenges that you face coming into this industry as, as an outsider. Can you talk a Little bit about the early days of Field Pulse and what were the initial issues and, and challenges you faced to get a field service management solution up and running.
- [05:29]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, I like to describe it as definitely a punch in the mouth when you're getting started and especially when for me, it was a first time doing this kind of thing. And it's very difficult having never really fully started a company before. It's definitely new territory especially I think one of the interesting things about doing a software application is it's. And something that while there were a few other players existing, it's not a business model that's been done specifically a million times over. So there's a lot of things you have to figure out and you have to figure out the economics of everything to make it work as a business. And that's the part that I feel like I didn't necessarily understand to the level I needed to going in. And you learn over time because every business model in different industries is very different and some work better than others, some don't work at all. And that's something you have to learn is you have to find a business model that really works and it takes time and something that's relatively newer of a concept to get into in a new industry. Right. Because you have different deal sizes coming from different customers, different sales cycles, different costs to acquire customers, different retention of customers. And these are all things you just learn over time doing it.
- [06:48]
Host
So we're. So you're talking a lot about the initial model and, and those kind of things. I find that extremely interesting. So it was your first startup going on solo. It was back in 2016. So there wasn't a ton out there. I mean, I think Service Titan was around, but there really wasn't the kind of slew of options that you have today. So you were really early in on this and then there wasn't really anybody to copy. Right. There's a lot of people who just go in and try to, to copy kind of current platforms. So that, that's absolutely incredible. I mean, in just. And then going into a new industry that you don't have, you know, the, the ethos or the, the foothold in it. I'm. I'm just flabbergasted. That's awesome.
- [07:34]
Gabe Pinchev
No, no, it's an interesting dynamic too because, and this is me talking kind of overly transparent probably about kind of the business model of a SaaS company, but there are different customer segments for us naturally that work better than others. And that's part of what you have to figure out but going into it, like you were saying, there weren't a ton of players. There were a few. I remember a couple notably that I saw were like Jobber and Breezeworks was another, but I'm not sure how active they still are today service paintings as well. And even back then I remember one of the platforms only had for iOS but not for Android for example. And because people were early back then and there were other also desktop solutions, right, Like Desco that had been around for a while and. But they had to rebuild essentially into a cloud solution because people really wanted field service management out in the field, right? Not just on their computer, not just on their desktop. And so a SaaS based model for small service contractors was, was newer and something that we all had to figure out. And people attacked it in different ways. For example, Java I believe still looks at it mostly as like a self service transactional high volume for smaller businesses. While service titan really went the other end to much larger companies. Long contracts, larger deals and just a different business model entirely. And that's something I had to figure out over time. And you just learn through trying different things, seeing how the economics work out and evolving from there.
- [09:12]
Host
So as we talk about kind of the model, I'm sure that you had to also build, right? You figure you're figuring out the model, you're lining it up, but now you have to figure out the features to work for that model. Can you talk about a little bit about the features of Field Pulse and how they tie into that model specifically?
- [09:30]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, and I think, I think that's where maybe we're a little bit different than, than other players. And for better, for worse, it depends on who you ask. But the way I designed it was a little bit off my background in some previous work designing some systems, but I will admit that some of them were more enterprise level. And so I naturally built a lot of flexibility into how the application is designed. While we, we do see some of the other players created workflows that were very specific and catered to an industry and how they operate, we naturally designed it much more flexibly and open so that people can really do the business how they want to run it. And that kind of came from also then dealing with many different field service industries. So I would say we didn't decide on one industry and hone in on that. We wanted to make it flexible for different field service companies. They did have to be field service so we didn't want other random businesses. So it was cater to field service which does have a A consistent need in different areas that we cover. And then it's about having the flexibility and customization in the software to adapt to them. But you're asking a little bit about kind of where it came from too. Sorry, go ahead.
- [10:43]
Host
Yeah, but so out of curiosity, right, A lot of our customer or a lot of our listeners, excuse me, are, you know, they're, they're under $5 million, they're starting to think about their first CRM. They're, they're graduating from, you know, Excel and Word and a whiteboard, you know. Can you talk about this customization specifically? Can you give us an example of something that we're able to customize on your platform on Field Pulse that, that maybe we wouldn't be able to customize somewhere else?
- [11:11]
Gabe Pinchev
For example, I, I'd say our biggest industry is H Vac and you might have more consistent flows of how they operate, whether it's install, service agreements, repair. Um, but we also service other industries that have a very different flow. Sometimes maybe they're doing a lot of purchase orders or doing multiple different site visits for different things with different team members. And so we built the flexibility so that you can really create the workflow how you want it and you're not pigeonholed into a very specific flow where if that isn't how you do business, you're, you're kind of stuck in it. And so whether it's the sequence of events between estimating, invoicing, the job taking payments, site visit, purchase orders, how you deal with your maintenance agreements, everything around that, you can customize the order to just the elements that you want to use in the application.
- [12:03]
Host
Yeah, no, that makes a ton of sense because I know that's a pain point for on a lot of different softwares as you're starting is you're stuck with whatever they have and you have to use it in their workflow. Even if it doesn't match how we are doing our business, how we set it up and then it create. I mean, I remember early days where we had to jump around and send data, written reports over to this place and then export them and import them back in because it was just an absolute nightmare because the software wasn't good. It didn't allow us to really get in there and customize our workflow. That's really neat.
- [12:39]
Gabe Pinchev
And I will all say there can be advantages to having that very specific flow because it creates natural guardrails and puts you in a more streamlined process. But the problem is when you want to deviate it for your own reasons and your own advantages, you can't do that. And so having the flexibility I think is important and what people specifically do like about us.
- [13:01]
Host
And so with that, where do you see, right, so we in the field, John and I, we view you guys, these providers, whether it be, you know, voca, who's doing stuff on, you know, AI on phone systems or these other companies, you guys get to see all this amazing background data on the industry. What are some big common industry pain points that you're seeing from your side, like hey, the companies are trying to do this, this and then they can't, can't do it. So we're building X, Y and Z for them. Where are you seeing these, these pain points in the CRM systems of today?
- [13:38]
Gabe Pinchev
So specifically if they're against other CRMs versus kind of moving from pen and paper. I think moving from pen and paper there's naturally a ton of, a ton of ways that we bring value. But if you're moving from like another system, it does depend on the system you're coming from. If you're coming from some that we would consider kind of like maybe from a smaller end, it might be because you've outgrown it, right? You need more sophisticated tools. Because the other thing, the way these applications are designed is that not all of them are meant to be a good fit for everyone. Right? So one might be more easy to use and self service oriented, but that does come at a cost of features and complexity that you might want, right? And so you might get the simple nature of it, but you might not get all the bells and whistles because that can take a lot of training and onboarding that can take away from the ease of use. On the flip side, you might get something that has all the functionality like a service titan, but, but it comes with a lot of training required to be able to get up to that speed. So some of it is just a balance of that nature and also the support model you get with it. So for us we're not the cheapest and we're kind of in the middle between like let's say a service titan and a house call pro. But you get a slightly different experience and some people love that, want to pay for it and others don't want to and they want something maybe that's more basic, that won't necessarily scale to the same level or have that in depth training, support and implementation that we offer. So some of it comes down to fit and what you're looking for at the same time.
- [15:20]
Host
Yeah, that's awesome. So where do you view yourself then? Right, so you said you have like this, these. If one is somewhere like a house called Pro and 10 is somewhere like a service titan and you're putting yourself somewhere in the middle in terms of price. I know one of the big pain points that we had when we onboarded with Service Titan initially was that the actual onboarding process is so rough and so difficult. What's the onboarding process look for you guys? Where do you put yourself on that 1 to 10 scale and how do you guys overcome that with, with contractors coming from pen and paper or from a different service?
- [15:57]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, and that's a, it's a good question and a good nuance. So I would say that we, because of the nature of our platform being more sophisticated, that we do take you through an implementation and an onboard and that's something we do very well and we do it very efficiently and we've done it so many times with different industries that we know how to do it very well. And ultimately where we're somewhere in the middle. Right. Where it won't be a simple self service on your own necessarily, unless maybe you're on the smaller end and you're not using all the features. But we want to get you in all the features because that's where you unlock the value. And so for us, so it's really aligning your goals with ours and us spending the time training you deeper into it unlocks more value in the product. And for us it makes you a stickier customer because we're all about retaining customers for the long term. And so that's why we put the effort into it versus like a self service model. But there has to be a balance, right? Because people don't want to be implementing for six months. And so whenever we build features and functionality, we're always also looking at okay, how do we make the onboarding of this easier? Whether it's templates that they can put data in to upload or pre filling stuff or making it intuitive and easy for us to assist. However, we don't typically leave you on an island to figure it out yourself. We are there along the way to guide you there.
- [17:20]
Host
That's good. I mean it's such a nightmare doing that onboarding on any platform. But to know that there's those templates and, and that you guys are actually helping them walk through. Because, because I mean it makes sense. You want a long term customer who utilizes the entire of, of the software and so just wanting to, to talk up field, field pulse a Little bit, you guys. I mean, I know there has to be a scheduling feature, there has to be an invoicing feature, a customer management feature. Talk about some of these other features that, that FieldPulse provides.
- [17:51]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, so we're, we're very comprehensive. So when I look at kind of the basic core that's around CRM, scheduling, dispatching and estimates and invoices, but typically you'll find that once you start there, you want to keep going and getting deeper and running your business, especially as you grow. And so it evolves and so naturally it allows us to scale with the companies much better. And so you start getting into things like customer booking, portals, inventory management, asset and equipment management, timesheet tracking, location tracking. There's just a ton of different modules and we're continuing to build more and evolving and sometimes we're also using partners to build out our ecosystem with it. So partnering with like a company cam, for example, if you want to get very powerful on your photography and capturing of images of all your work and so really extending it with partners is another way to really add that feature. But ultimately we want to be that all in one platform so that you're not trying to cobble together too much. And we, we cover a lot of those, those main elements to run your field service business, especially as you grow. Because the one thing you'll find is that you might start in a, in a simpler system and that's great, but you might want to start doing maintenance agreements for your customers and tracking their equipment and logging updates against it and recording their warranty information so that you know when to reach out before it ends, stuff like that. And these are all nuances that you grow into and having it all built into your core platform and operating system can make a big difference.
- [19:25]
Host
Yeah, definitely. You said something extremely interesting to me. You talked about a customer portal. So FieldPulse offers a customer portal. Can you talk a little bit about that? I don't have much experience with customer portals. I'm interested.
- [19:37]
Gabe Pinchev
No. So we have two different type of kind of portals. So one is a customer portal where if you're doing recurring work with your customer, and again, it depends on the industry. Right. If you're doing kind of one off service work as an H Vac company and maybe not as much main scream and stuff or just recurring nature in general, you might not use our customer portal, but we have different industries where they're consistently doing work for the same customers. Like commercial, that's very, very common. And essentially it's a portal where the customer can see all their work history. And so you're viewing previous jobs, quotes, invoices, your own assets. And so people use it also to report back on their work over time or be able to look back on it. And then our other portal is really our booking portal. And so that's where you can set up your services and have your customers schedule jobs directly to your calendar based off availability. You can set the prices of the items and either require them to pay a deposit, you can require them to pay the full amount or not at all and really have a service offering. Because a lot of people these days, they don't want to have to call and schedule and talk to someone and come out. They just want to book the service on their computer and know that you're coming and doing the work. And so people like to leverage that to really, to really grow and scale without, without having the, the man input to take every, every job.
- [21:01]
Host
That's awesome. Yeah, no, I definitely can see that. I mean everything that you said there makes a lot of sense. We, we're actually looking for a solution for kind of a customer portal at the time because I think that's the idea. Right. I know you were saying that the customer portal is helpful for commercial jobs or kind of reoccurring services. Yeah, but I mean that's the end all, be all goal of every H vac company is to be that reoccurring service where we are getting out every, you know, twice a year to these houses and then we're doing plumbing. So then we're getting out for plumbing once a year to these houses and then we're doing electrical and then you get out for electrical as well. And so it eventually stacks so that you create these customers that their average value of their home and the work over the next 10 years is going to be, you know, six figures. So I mean that's the ultimate goal. So I find that extremely interesting.
- [21:48]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, you want them tied to you. Right. You want that anytime they have any kind of, of MEP issue, they're going to you. In that case, if you, if you do all three and, and that starts with being their one stop shop for everything, but then also where they go to see any history, any work that you've done. Think about it, let's say, let's say it's been a year or so or, and you have some work done, who are you going to go to? You're going to go first probably to someone you have your maintenance agreement with. But if you don't have one, you might look for who. Who did it last time, and then finding the historical information can be powerful for that.
- [22:23]
Host
Yeah, definitely. And I mean, it's another tool in my mind that keeps you at top of mind. Right. If they're going back to this specific portal to get old information or to get, you know, old invoices for tax purposes, whatever, that they're utilizing that. And it's helping from a marketing perspective to keep you at the top of the mind. That's another point going back and forth versus an email in their inbox or versus a, you know, even worse, a paper slip that they left in some drawer six months ago that they now have to dig through and find.
- [22:54]
Gabe Pinchev
Definitely the information they have can be very powerful. So not everyone does this, but some people really cater their outreach to their customers based off the information they have from them. I gave the example of, like, the warranty information they store. We have some customers who look at upcoming expiring warranties and reach out. If, you know, they did this type of work, they might need xyz. But having that information and then being able to use your data to create your outreach to keep your customer close is important.
- [23:24]
Host
You have this, this great product does it sounds like it does an amazing job for. For contractors, home service contractors. You guys just closed on a Series B funding. Are you allowed to talk about that? I'm always so interested. Yeah, that's. That's such a neat thing.
- [23:43]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, it was a big moment and it was a lot of validity and for us in the future. And you also see service Titan going public, that was another one that kind of shows the market size. And I think for us, it was really to continue growing. Expanding. We've been growing very quickly, and that requires resources to be able to do that. Right. So, like, we have an option to be profitable, but we're reinvesting to grow bigger because we see. We see the market opportunity. If you look at service time, they're still much larger than us because it's such a large market and. And we want to continue serving it.
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Host
So, Gabe, I have to ask you, how did it feel to close on that?
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Gabe Pinchev
No, it feels good. And it takes a while to get. Get to that point. And it's several months of different investors due diligence and everything to get through. And so when you finally get through it, it is definitely a relief that, okay, now I'm done with this because, well, when you get into fundraising, it is a process. It is time consuming. As a CEO, it's actually something you Almost do all the time. I had a call this morning, I have a late lunch later today with another one. And so you're almost always doing it. I think I have 10 meetings in the next two weeks just on investors for the future because it's just a key to how we grow and how we continue scaling because that's kind of the plan we're on.
- [25:10]
Host
So with that though, now what, what does this, this new money that's being injected into the business, what does that mean for the team and how you are planning on growing in the next, you know, few months, few years?
- [25:21]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, definitely. So it, it goes in a different area. So developing our product further and, and enhancing our suite, but I'll also say that's not the only place it goes. So whenever you ask a CEO or founder after they do a raise, they always say it goes all into the product. I'm not going to say that that's entirely true. Right. We're also, we're also beefing up our go to market. Right. We're trying to get bigger reach, we're trying to grow and that comes through being able to grow our marketing, our partnerships doubling down, they're really growing that. And so it's not only creating a better product product, it's creating a better experience from start to finish. We're investing a lot in our, in our cs, our implementation, our onboarding, because we are firm believers that a really great implementation and onboarding sets the foundation for the rest of their time on the platform. And so we do value that very heavily. And so that's where some of the investment went. And then of course, to help grow the business as well.
- [26:24]
John
One of the benefits of working with Wilson is that we are basically a same day, next day company company. So what that means is if I sell a job today, I'm going to aim to get it in today, tomorrow or the next day. Like, we aim for a really fast turnaround and because of that we have pretty high expectations of our suppliers. Getting parts in time has been a real challenge and supplyhouse.com has been a really awesome partner for us because of that. They've got like a quarter of million SKUs. They've got it across plumbing, H vac and electrical. So they cover all our different lines and they can get stuff to you fast and they have a ton, a ton of it. Plus on top of that, they have best in class pricing and their new TradeMaster program gives you free shipping, free returns and a bunch of discounts over retail on top of it. And the TradeMaster program is free to join, so check out supplyhouse.com make sure to check out their TradeMaster program.
- [27:09]
Host
Can we dig into that a little more? I'm really interested. So it sounds like it goes into a few different buckets. Some of them are go to market, some of them are actually incre, you know, making the product better, making the onboarding better. When you say that, what, what does that mean from, from a more nuanced specific level like where do you think that you guys are going to focus in the next three to five years, maybe even a shorter time from one to three years that you can, you know, change that is really going to drive the value in field pulls.
- [27:41]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah. And each different area that you kind of mentioned is a little different. Right. So of course there's the product growth where we're continuously enhancing the product and that's something we'll do forever. But that also comes in a few different ways. Right. And you're deciding how you want to grow the product. Do we go deeper in very specific verticals like H Vac, which we will and are, but we're also expanding generally across field service and we're also picking a few industries that we're starting to go deeper into based off of our own fit. And that's something you're constantly evaluating is where do you want to continue building into? Where does the value come from? Who are the right customers that we want to target and then also what are the add on products that they might want that we also want to offer them as there's different AI tools popping up everywhere and everything like that. And so it's a decision, but naturally we have to invest there. And on the other side you mentioned like the implementation and training element that is important to us. So what does that look like to invest there? So at our stage as a company, we're also just maturing all of our operations. Right. Because we're still not enormous. We're over 100 people. But you're maturing our operations so that we can make it faster, repetitive, consistent when we go from customer to customer. And so we're improving the quality. Right. Because when you're a small company, let's say you have, I don't know, two people, three people doing implementation for new customers. People are winging it. You're relying off the talent of the individuals. They're kind of maybe making up as they go. Maybe that's an extreme case. But one of the differences now at our level is that we can really mature our processes so that we Deliver more and more consistently. A very excellent experience. And that just comes with adding management layers, adding all the safeguards and everything that we do to build that. So that, that's kind of what I talk about when we get better in those areas.
- [29:49]
Host
Yeah, that makes actually a ton of sense. You did mention a buzzword that I, I did want to hit on. I've been itching to ask you about it. So AI, right? You guys are in technology AI. John and I talked at the beginning of the, of last year of 2024. Like how do you use this? We, we, you know, kind of use it to help out with making sure our team is, you know, saying emails faster and boilerplate documents like very basic. And by the end of this year we have now call coaching and you have field listening that then this coaching text and there's just so much implementation across the board. So, so quickly how are you guys investing in that to stay ahead of, of the curve here?
- [30:36]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, I really view AI. I don't think it's going to in the next year at least kind of like turn software upside down by any means, but it's definitely something to augment the software in different areas. Right. So you mentioned like the field recording one where it's listening to the recordings and then coaching on it. So there's, there's spots here and there to kind of put it in to just improve the workflow. But if for it to just kind of like replace or kind of just do everything automatically, I don't think it's there yet. And I think the question I also have generally is what is the appetite for a full AI experience from customers? I don't know. I'm not sure people want that fully. I think it's, I think you'll always need that combination of the human element assisted by AI. And that's really what we're focusing on. I don't think we're naturally trying to like replace every human in what we do. I don't know if that's a good thing for society in itself anyway. But, but I think it's, it's picking and choose the right areas to really make people better and more. And that's where the biggest value is today. It could, it could change and could evolve over the years, but I think that's how it's most most valuable is really just augmenting the experience of what you do today.
- [31:50]
Host
Yeah, fully agree. I, I'm. We, we're, I mean me personally, I'm hoping we don't want it to replace people what we do wanted though is to make our systems and our processes much, much easier through our, whatever CRM system we're using or field software we're using. Because at the end of the day like there's so many low hanging, low value tasks that can be easily snapped up. I'm just itching and waiting for it to happen. But I, like you said, I do think it's, it's a while out but just the incredible growth we've seen. It's always something that we have to ask because it's that top of mind.
- [32:28]
Gabe Pinchev
I think, I think where I look at it a little bit as a somewhat of a risk in some areas too is that I do feel it has to be almost 100% accurate in what it does. Because if you're trying to fully automate something where a human is viewing it and confirming that it's good, but you're skipping that step and it sends something crazy because it makes a mistake, that's not, it's not a good thing. Right. So I think the risk of where you're using is important and I don't think it's quite up to the level to really replace a lot of very key elements where you do need that human oversight to make sure it's right. But, and so that's kind of how we're, we're tackling too. We're trying to focus on the areas where maybe the risk is lower if the, if it doesn't do exactly accurate what you want until it really develops to that accuracy level.
- [33:17]
Host
You know, it very eloquently put because you know, we all, we all just want it to work. But the fact if it doesn't work and spits out incorrect information, you'd be sitting in, in a world of hurt. Because my, my first thought is, you know, have IT handle all these background. How do we, you know, how do we know job costing and gross margin and all these things? You know, these softwares have all that data in it right. Field Pulse has a, a slew of so much data from POS to, to tech time to, you know, how long were they on the job? So you could theoretically calculate all these things, but if you think your gross margins at 60% but they' you know, the software's messed up and sending you out, you know something else then, then you're going to be in a world of trouble. So.
- [34:04]
Gabe Pinchev
I definitely do. Yeah. And what you alluded to is like some of the stuff where we're working on as well is around the data sources but it the thing is you can't just turn on AI and say figure it out. You do have to kind of point it in the right direction too. And so naturally if you look at different industries, they also operate differently. Right. So the way, the way that has to look at the data kind of changes depending on the industry as well. So there's some training involved and guidance on it. And then there's just the, like I said, the validity of the data. Right. We to just be very careful on it because, because people rely on that and you just need to make sure it's accurate if you're going to use AI to share it. But there's a lot there, there's a lot in kind of the generative text and voice elements, some of it. We're also kind of of using partners for AI where they're doing the R D and they're developing and we're partnering with them because there are a lot of them popping up too. And so we're also keeping an eye on the landscape generally. And that might be one way we acquire companies too is that we look for great new AI technology and that's how we maybe buy a company and add it to our stack that way. So we're doing it, we're working on it, but we're also cautious about it and trying to put it in the right spots and put it to good use.
- [35:25]
Host
Yeah, no, that, that definitely is, is something that, that makes sense. And so with that, I mean there the field has, excuse me, the home service industry has had a kind of a boom year in terms of backing from, from investors and private equity and there's a lot of money coming into the industry on the support side. And how can you talk about how the this is changing and the emerging trends that we're seeing from this and how Field Pulse plans to stay ahead of its competition in the future. Is there any big, you know, 32,000 foot focuses that you guys are looking at to make sure that you continue to gain market share and continue to grow?
- [36:10]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, and so I think we're alluding to is a lot of private equity kind of coming and buying companies and in H Vac and other field service and rolling them up. And that is, it is a thing we're seeing. I think the interesting impact of that is that you're seeing a lot more business demand from it in terms of the needs from the system because they are heavy into the data and reporting and the business model and all the, the economics that go around that. And so that element in General is something that has to keep getting better to serve that demand there. The other element that us, that we're focusing on is more and more functionality that allows them to see multiple companies at the same time that they own and really operate them together. Because ultimately the more they can centralize their operations of it, the more effectively they, they can run those businesses. So we have functionality that lets you kind of roll up multiple accounts into one and you can jump into different accounts, you can see roll up reporting, you can standardize processes and data across them. Like let's say you want all the same kind of job and estimate invoice data and information across all your companies. You can manage it centrally to deploy it across. But at the same time, I would say that isn't the focus or bread and butter of our customers. It's still the independent owner operators that are running their business and that's still who we mostly think about and focus on. But there's definitely, we're definitely hearing a lot more noise of, of people coming into the industry, buying companies, buying multiple companies, trying to grow it and then ultimately sell it.
- [37:53]
Host
So, and, and so for your owner operator, your independence, how, how are you watching those emerging, same question, those emerging trends to make sure that field pulse is staying, you know, is continuing to resonate with them and continuing to, to keep current customers. What, what are the right. Because the future, as everything kind of changes and ebbs and flows, I would imagine that your company is changing and ebbing and flowing to try and to meet the, the changes in the market, the changes in the home service industries. I mean there's just so much movement. Is there any big items that you guys are focusing on to really make sure that you guys are staying ahead of, you know, the other.
- [38:34]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, I would say first and foremost. And this has been something that we've really done from the get go. And I think that's also why we can serve many different field service companies generally is that everything is fed by our customers. We get a ton of feedback from them all the time. And that's what shapes our product roadmap. It shapes what we want to do and ultimately they are who we're trying to serve. So there's no one better to listen to than that. And so a lot of it just comes from what we hear from them, what they're looking for. And, and, but the interesting thing, it's typically not huge, fundamental new elements. It's going deeper in certain areas that they want just to streamline how they operate. Right. To cut down on Steps to be able to track such and such information better. And so we do a ton of little increments and keep improving the product based off our customer feedback, because that's ultimately what's fueling it. At the same time, we do have to keep a pulse on the broader market. And we are always looking at, is there new technology out there? Kind of like what you're saying, like the rideshare stuff. Do we want to get into that? And we're evaluating it because we don't always want to get into everything. Sometimes we only rely on partners. Sometimes we might want a white label where we're taking their product and branding it under field pulse and then integrating it. Sometimes we might want to build it ourselves. We're very proficient at building. That was a decision we actually had to go through less than a year ago on our custom forms. For example, we were deciding, do we buy maybe a small company, do we white label someone's product who does it, or do we build it ourselves? And ultimately we decided to build it ourselves. The team did an amazing job building it very quickly, very powerfully, but it lets us really customize it to how we need and integrate it fully into our system. But it's something that we have to look at constantly when you're making these decisions is how is it playing out in the rest of the market and what do we want to do on our end? I don't know if that answered your question.
- [40:38]
Host
No, it does. That really does. And then, you know, I have a left field question more. Like I said, you get to see behind the scenes of home service businesses, a lot of them. Are there any specific industries that are starting to boom that you. That, that's a surprise to you. So, for example, the one, you know, the, the influencer one that I saw the other day that somebody, some guru talked about was barbecue cleaning, right? I'm not saying that your service would do barbecue clean, would be good for barbecue cleaning, but are there any that are, you know, I guess 10 years ago, 20 years ago, it would have been solar, right? You would have seen this boom of solar companies door to door, solar sales and service pop up. Or is there anything like that that you can tell us that? It's just kind of.
- [41:24]
Gabe Pinchev
I'm trying to think of what specific ones. I think the ones that interest me the most in that regard are kind of these miscellaneous service businesses. So I'd say they're definitely more service oriented than project based and often doing commercial work. I think that's where you start seeing a Lot of the interesting industries where maybe there aren't even many players and you wouldn't have even thought about it, that people get in and they don't have as much competition. And I think the name of the game for them is to be very efficient, be able to do a lot of small work and be able to charge enough. And typically if you're charging commercial, it is higher than residential. Those are the ones I typically see, but I'm trying to think of a specific one. Okay. I have a few in mind. I don't know how our customers. Customers would feel sharing them. Yeah, you don't have to.
- [42:13]
Host
Like I said, if it oversteps the line, feel free not to say anything. But.
- [42:18]
Gabe Pinchev
No, there's one interesting. Yeah, there's one very interesting one, but it's a very, it's. It's all the ones I'm thinking of are very niche, but they also have a. Interesting in. Into it. So one, I'll say it's involving car dealers and servicing the cars in some way, but a little different than what you imagine. But, but they get into that because they're around the car dealerships already, for example. Right. And. But those industries, they. I think that one in particular, I don't know how many other people are doing that same type of work. And so I guess it allows them to command probably a higher dollar because there's not pricing pressure pulling them down. And I think that's a strong thing to look for.
- [42:57]
Host
Yeah. So I mean, I'll share one that I was given the other day that kind of blew my mind. And what I find interesting is you see these little niche ones, you see them, they're. They're usually the same as a bigger company. They just chose this niche of a niche. And so this one was, it was a company out. They did residential H vac service. So standard. Not. Not anything crazy there. But they made most of their money actually on servicing house of a houseboat acs. So they had these giant contracts with the, this houseboating company out. I think it was Lake Powell or Lake Mead on, on the. The west coast. And they went around the acs and they made ridiculous amounts of money doing it because the, the units are so, are so unique and they had all the contracts because that's. They're the only ones to do it.
- [43:47]
Gabe Pinchev
That sounds like a great one. Yeah. And you're, you're selling to customers who have money. Right. And that can be important in, in your profitable.
- [43:54]
Host
Exactly. And then the other one I loved was the, the wind Turbine maintenance crews that just go wow. So I used to. My old job was when I was W2 was I worked in. In Napa, California for as the director of facilities, Director of operations for a bunch of wineries and when it gets too cold they turn on these, these fans that blow air across the grapes so that the grapes don't freeze. Well once a year we have to get them serviced and the price was outrageous because there was one company that just did a giant loop every year and they just serviced everything on. On a schedule and absolutely crazy economics but.
- [44:32]
Gabe Pinchev
Oh no, I digress. Anything where you have have a big barrier to entry and you can protect that can be then that allows you to command a higher price point. Right. Especially if it's specialty equipment or something that you really have to have a deep learning curve or you need specialty equipment to be able to service it. I think those are all things that create that. That interesting barrier like that. So no, that's a great example.
- [44:56]
Host
Yeah. So you know maybe offline we'll chat and you can give me, give me the secrets but for now you know I appreciate you coming on today. So I mean Field Pull sounds like an awesome software. It has all the capabilities and the, the individual modules that you would need to grow your business and to expand your business and to scale your business while being not as expensive as some of the the higher cost services. It sounds like you guys have have a great onboarding process which makes it fairly seamless. You're. You just raised a bunch of money. You're going to reinvest all that back in the team back in future growth. Can you wrap up anything that I've missed here, anything that's big about Field Pulse that really just would drive the needle for our listeners.
- [45:45]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, I think why people pick fieldpulse I think it's a combination of a software platform that's very extensive and has a lot of functionality so that scales with your business and and you get a great experience from start to finish with the people you interact with that get you set up and put you in success. We take a lot of pride in our people. We're Dallas based and I think that's the feedback we get the most from our customers that they love, the support they love, the people they work with and I think that makes a big difference. But it's not for everyone. And some people that want a simpler, easier self service solution, I would say that's probably not us. But I would say that if you're investing in a system not only is it a big deal for your company, whatever operating system and platform they get on, but getting it really set up right and having the support and people to make sure you're getting the most out of it is important. And I think that's. That's why people love fieldpulse.
- [46:45]
Host
Yeah, I would definitely agree there. And so how can, if someone wants to get a demo, someone wants to kind of run through the product. Where should they go to get that information?
- [46:57]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah, I think they can go right on our website to fieldpulse.com you can either schedule a demo right from there, you can submit an inquiry and then someone will reach out to take you through the product, give you a demo, tell you all about our offerings, the value, and then see if it's the right fit for you.
- [47:14]
Host
Very cool, Gabe. And of course, if someone wants to connect with you or follow you on any social media, is there anywhere that they can follow you personally? I always got to ask.
- [47:23]
Gabe Pinchev
No, I'm not actually publicly anywhere like that. Maybe one day when we get really big, I don't know. But no, not yet.
- [47:29]
Host
There you go.
- [47:30]
Gabe Pinchev
You can shoot me an email though, right?
- [47:32]
Host
Okay. So sounds good. So best place is going to be fieldpulse.com going and running demo. Sending an email through there.
- [47:39]
Gabe Pinchev
Yeah.
- [47:39]
Host
Awesome. Well, thank you for your time today. I appreciate it. We love the service. Love to see what the next couple years bring for you.
- [47:46]
Gabe Pinchev
Thank you. Great to be on.