Introducing Mike Bignold, Co-founder and CEO of CostCertified

Sara:

I'm Sara Lindquist from Fuse. We're an early-stage venture firm based right here in the Pacific Northwest. And just like the founders in our portfolio, we are just getting started. We believe that founders deserve more: more urgency, more community, more expertise, more reliability - more of everything. And we aim to deliver. Join me as I introduce each of our portfolio companies in the Fuse family to date.

Today, you'll hear from Mike Bignold, Co-founder and CEO of CostCertified. Join us as we discuss the business, how it's been going and growing, and how CostCertified is making buying residential construction services as easy as buying on Amazon. 

Let's get started!

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Sara:

Mike, it's awesome to have you here! Thanks for taking the time.

Mike:

Yeah, thanks for having me. It's great to be here!

Sara:

Well, I'm excited for you to share a little bit about the CostCertified journey. So, to kick things off here, it'd be great if you could just share a quick overview about the company and how it's serving customers today.

Mike:

Sure. Well, the question we asked ourselves is why couldn't you sell a construction project like a home renovation or a new build on Amazon or Shopify? And the reality is, you can't sell anything like that on those platforms because they don't offer the tools to manage the complexity of a construction project. So, what we did is we built a SaaS tool that's the missing link. And it allows contractors to provide a real-time buying experience for the consumer at the point of sale. And doing that has had a bunch of other happy accidents, like it allows us to de-risk the workflow in construction, which allows us to do some cool things with financing, and payments, and even insurance.

Sara:

And so, when did you first know that you needed to build CostCertified? You've obviously had experience in this space, but tell me a little bit about the light bulb moment you had, where you said, "Oh my gosh, I need to build this."

Mike:

I ran a contracting company myself. And so, I originally built this for myself. I had a team of project managers, and they really struggled with technical things. So, I needed to make a tool for them real quick just to build and send estimates. And that's really how it started. And then, building out the customer experience and making that next level was the next iteration of it.

Sara:

So, you and Dave have assembled an awesome team, and it's growing. But I'd just be curious, how would you articulate - why is your team the team to do it?

Mike:

Well, it starts out with having a lot of overlap with technical knowledge, and sales, and customer success, as well as on the construction side. So, we really understand our customers really well in every department because we have people that have been contractors before or who have been deeply ingrained in that industry in some way. So, I think that's really, really key for us because we have a really unique customer.

Sara:

Yeah. If you had to pick one word to describe your team culture, what would it be?

Mike:

I'd say, "Animals." We're all animals. You gotta work hard.

Sara:

I love that!

Mike:

You got to have grit. You gotta do it. You just got to get the job done. And so, right now, we're animals, and maybe, one day that'll change, but for now, I would say that's the best word.

Sara:

Mike, that's great! I love that. That just speaks to that customer obsession you have in improving an experience that has historically been so painful. And we all know that personally. So, I think that's the right team to assemble right there.

Mike:

That's right. A bunch of animals.

Sara:

Yeah. That's great. Another question I have for you is about the startup journey at large, which is obviously hard work and requires resilience and that animal instinct, as you mentioned. So, in light of any of the roadblocks you faced or challenges you've encountered, what has kept you going, particularly in times when maybe others would've thrown in the towel?

Mike:

That's a really good question. And I have a square answer and a more intuitive answer, I guess. So, the square answer is I really focused on the numbers early on. I ran the numbers. I saw that the numbers didn't lie, and there was a clear value in doing this. And so, that's the first thing. And that got me started, and that kept me going. I just knew that the numbers worked out.

Mike:

And then, the second side of it is as we started to roll it out and we got some key early customers, some of them would offer to pay us double so that their competitors couldn't come on, and things like that. And they were telling us their businesses were blowing up in a good way. And that keeps you going on a daily basis, that good feedback. And we still get it to this day, like out of the blue, a customer will send us a note telling us how much we've changed their business. So, that's the two sides of it, the numbers, and the people, and helping. And it just feels really good when people use a tool you built.

Sara:

I love that. Yeah. Evidence that you're really solving a key pain point and focusing on that customer. That's great. So, in closing here, one final question for you. What, right now, do you need more of? How can listeners or anyone tuning in right now, how can they get involved or help out?

Mike:

We need more people. We're hiring in pretty much every department. So, if you're technical, if you have construction knowledge, if you are a salesperson, if you like customer success, if you've done this before, come find us. We're hiring. So, we're interested in some superstars. You got to be an animal like us. And if that's you, let us know.

Sara:

And what's the best way for people to get in touch?

Mike:

Right now, we're putting together a new website, so I'm not going to give you a careers page, but you can find us on LinkedIn or we have ads out for jobs that we're hiring, so you can find that online too.

Sara:

Well, any interested people can certainly come to us at Fuse too, and we'll get you connected.

Mike:

That's true.

Sara:

Well, Mike, thank you so much. Really appreciate you sharing the story and look forward to seeing you continue to build this world-changing company and product. And I'm certainly excited to use it! I haven't had to do any home renovation projects yet, but I know that I certainly will be an avid user. So, thank you for building what you're building!

Mike:

Thank you so much. Thanks for having us, Sara.

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Sara:

Thanks for listening in. Be sure to check out CostCertified job postings on LinkedIn, or feel free to reach out to us directly. We'll see you on the next one!