Construction Clock gaining traction

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This article was published 26/01/2023 (998 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Joe Froese has helped run Access Framing with his father for 12 years and they have been jumping from tool to tool to try to make it easier to keep track of the hours staff work.

With different job sites and up to 20 employees it can be a challenge.

Froese has gone from pen and paper — too messy and not very efficient — to brand name accounting apps like Quick Books — which kept changing so that it was no longer satisfactory — to other tools all of which either worked for a while then didn’t or proved problematic for some employees to log on.

Then Froese met up with David Peters, a serial entrepreneur in the construction industry who encouraged him to try Peters’ latest offering Construction Clock.

“Dave presented me with this tool,” said Froese. “From my point of view, it took the best of everything we have ever used and put it all onto one app.”

After 20 years in the construction industry, Peters believes the fact that Construction Clock is exclusively targeted at that industry may help to make inroads in an industry that is notoriously set in its ways.

“The major differentiator our app has over every other time-tracking app out there is that we are dedicated to the construction industry,” said Peters. “It is the only industry we are serving.”

He also believes that his is the first and only one to track time hands-free using geo-locating technology.

“Employees/users no longer physically have to clock in on their phones or device to start the timer,” he said. “As soon as they go onto the site the geo-location technology automatically clocks them in. When they leave it automatically clocks then out.”

Construction Clock is targeting small- and medium-sized construction companies and sub-trade between five and 45 employees, of which Peters said there are 892,000 in North America.

The prospect of an employer tracking your personal movement sounds like it could be invasion of privacy, but Peters and contractors don’t seem to think it’s a problem.

“Every one of us has about a dozen apps on their phone that basically do that,” he said.

Froese said none of his employees has ever expressed any concern about it.

Jacod Osborne, the owner of Osborne Construction, a renovation and high-end deck specialist, uses Construction Clock for his small team of just two workers in the field (as well as himself and his wife.)

“One of my employees used to spend 45 minutes on Sunday logging in his hours. It was a pain,” Osborne said. “I don’t think employees mind (the geo-locating tracking). I would imagine it’s a mutual respect thing between me and my employees. I don’t spend time hawk-eyeing them. I hire guys I can trust. It is reciprocated by them not feeling like they are being watched.”

Peters said the app — which was only launched last summer — has gained good traction locally first and then across the country by the end of the year.

Users pay a monthly fee based on the number of employees with a 30-day free trial.

Without any meaningful attempt to do so, it has also attracted users in the U.S.

With version 3.0 of the app having just launched, Peters is also about to head to Texas to try to break Construction Clock into the U.S. market.

In addition to attending trade shows such as the International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas at the end of this month, the company’s marketing consists of high-quality testimonial videos on Instagram, and Peters promises that if you’re on Instagram you’ll start to see some Construction Clock ads that have just been released.

“There is a booming construction industry in the southern U.S. and we figure it is a great place for us to make inroads at this time,” he said.

Peters is fresh off taking last fall’s session of World Trade Centre Winnipeg’s Trade Accelerator Program where businesses who are thinking about the export market can prepare everything they need to do including an export plan.

Andre Brin, the CEO of WTC Winnipeg, said the TAP has been very useful for companies who are able to commit the time.

“Construction Clock was the perfect candidate,” said Brin. “It was the right time on their journey as a company and it sounds like they have really activated on it and taken advantage of all the resources available.”

This is not Peters’ first foray into the development of mobile apps for the construction industry. He just came off launching another that targeted roofing contractors, called Roof Bundle, that automated quotes for roofing jobs.

When he was developing that one he was a neophyte when it came to digital technology.

Now he has a team of 10 employees, mostly IT developers, as well as contract developers in Ukraine.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca