Construction Profit Platform

Context & market

US real estate developers typically manage multiple residential and commercial projects in parallel. Their toolstack is fragmented:

• Task tracking and responsibility mapping often live in spreadsheets.

• Communication happens in email, messengers, and calls.

• Project history is split across PDFs, contracts, and personal notes.

Problem

1. Out-of-date team structure

   Project teams change frequently: subcontractors rotate, responsibilities shift, people move to other projects. The platform did not reflect these changes quickly, so:

   • tasks remained assigned to the wrong people,

   • notifications went to inactive team members,

   • no one trusted the “team” section as a source of truth.

   
   

2. No standardization for recurring workflows

   Many workflows repeat from project to project (pre-construction checks, weekly site inspections, safety routines, client handover). In reality, they lived in:

   • personal Excel checklists,

   • old project copies,

   • individual PMs’ memory.

   This caused inconsistencies in execution quality between projects and made it hard to scale best practices.

   
   

3. Project context was invisible in the platform

   Decisions from calls, risks, client expectations, and site observations were rarely recorded inside the product. They existed in:

   • notebooks and loose documents,

   • email threads,

   • chat messages.

   New team members had no way to “read the story” of a project; they had to ask colleagues or search across different tools.

Key product challenges

1. Make the platform match the real team

2. Turn recurring workflows into reusable assets

3. Capture and surface project knowledge over time

Research setup

1. User interviews

   User interviews with 6 project managers, 3 site supervisors, and 2 operations managers from mid-size US development companies, focused on how they currently manage teams, repeatable workflows, and project knowledge.

   
   

2. Platform analytics review

   Platform analytics review for existing projects, focused on usage of team settings, task creation patterns, and drop-off points.

   
   

3. Artifact review of external tools

   Artifact review of external tools: anonymized Excel checklists, internal guidelines, and email threads used for recurring processes.

Insights

1. People organize work around workflows, not tools

   PMs think in terms of “pre-construction”, “permits”, “site inspections”, “handover”, not “tasks” versus “notes”. Tools should follow these mental models.

   
   

2. Standard checklists exist, but they are personal

   Almost every PM or operations lead had their own version of checklists. There was a strong desire to “stop reinventing the wheel” and unify them, but no shared place to store and apply them.

   
   

3. Speed beats structure at the moment of capture

   Users were ready to write more notes and keep the platform updated, but only if adding information took seconds and they could do it from the context they were already in (project, task, workflow).

   
   

4. “Official” structures lag behind reality

   HR systems and org charts were always out of date for project realities. PMs needed a lightweight project-level view of the actual working team that they could control.

Hypotesis

1. Make team structure always match reality

2. Standardize recurring workflows with Shadow templates

3. Capture decisions through lightweight, contextual notes

Solutions

Edit team members flow

Single team view with quick edits

All project members are shown in one place with roles and responsibility areas, so PMs can see the real working team at a glance and keep it aligned with what actually happens on the project.

Lightweight updates for dynamic teams

Inline edits and a simple confirmation on removal make it easy to adjust team composition as people join, leave, or change responsibilities, which helps keep the platform in sync with reality instead of the static org chart.

Schedule / Shadow templates list flow

Shared library of standard workflows

A list of templates with clear names and one-line descriptions turns personal checklists into a shared, discoverable library of workflows that can be reused across many projects.

Clear entry point to move from spreadsheets into the platform 

A prominent “Add New Template” action nudges operations and PMs to formalize new recurring workflows in the product instead of keeping them in external documents.

Template editor flow

Lightweight template editor that people will actually use

The editor focuses on essentials (name, description, basic classification), lowering the barrier for ops and senior PMs to codify their standard processes without getting stuck in overcomplicated configuration.

Tasks as a simple, editable workflow inside the template

Tasks are managed as a straightforward list inside the template, so users can quickly review and refine the full workflow before applying it to real projects, turning “ideas of a process” into concrete, repeatable steps.

Create new task flow

Focused form for clear, actionable tasks

The task form includes only key fields (title, assignee, due date, core attributes), helping teams create tasks that are understandable and executable from the first time, instead of vague items that require extra clarification.

Dates aligned with the project schedule

A date picker tied to real project timelines reduces errors with deadlines and helps PMs keep Shadow workflows and ad-hoc tasks realistically scheduled.

Add notes and notes list flow

Structured notes for important project context

The “Add Note” modal (type, title, content, tags, attachments) encourages users to capture decisions, risks, and client feedback in a structured way that can be searched and reused, not lost in random text.

Project log that can be searched and revisited

The notes list with search and basic filters turns scattered notes into a readable project history, so new team members can quickly reconstruct what happened and why certain decisions were made, without digging through emails and chats.

Impact

72% of active PMs updated teams regularly, up from 49% before the new workflow, increasing trust.

41% of new projects used standardized templates, up from 26% with the previous process.

27% faster setup for new project workflows overall, reducing average setup time from 3 days to 2.2 days.

38% more notes per active project, increasing the average from 13 to 18 notes, especially around milestones.

24% fewer tasks without assignee or due date, reducing unassigned tasks from 21% to 16% of all tasks.