Welcome!
We are thrilled you came. You might be wondering how we got here. Let me introduce myself. My name is Calvin Benchimol, and I am the CEO and co-founder of Crewscope. For our first blog post, let me tell you about the three things that inspired me to start this Construction Tech business.
First Step: 2006 – 2015
I started my career at Lafarge, where I spent a decade learning about industrial operations. I rotated through the business before settling into Aggregates (sand and stone used for building roads and bridges).
I lead a $100M business delivering aggregates across southern Ontario, Canada. When I started in Aggregate dispatch in 2010, we would take customer orders by phone, double-key them into the system and then fax the instructions to one of 30 pits and quarries.
We needed information to make better decisions. Purchasing technology was out for several reasons. So I built an order fulfillment system on MS Access. I also plugged it into our scales for live shipment updates. It was a game-changer.
Inspiration one: equipping workers with better information lets them plan for success and achieve it more often.
Second step: 2015 – 2020
I moved to Barcelona for two years and got my MBA at IESE Business School. I re-calibrated and took a line from Fred VanVleet of the Toronto Raptors: bet on yourself.
I returned to Toronto and joined the founder of eCompliance, a health and safety software startup. I was employee 40 in 2018, and when we exited two years later to Alcumus, we were around 100. One of my projects was to identify what the safest companies had in common and measure it in our platform. We found that frontline participation leads to safer outcomes.
Inspiration two: empowering workers to think about and mitigate the risks they take at work saves their lives.
Third step: 2021 – Present
Lockdown had a silver lining. I’m thankful I could connect with myself and my family in new and meaningful ways. But it was a long and strange time, and I’m prone to bouts of existential anxiety.
I channelled it into starting Crewscope. I knew I needed to surround myself with good people, and I partnered with FutureSight, a venture studio, in September 2021.
Together with my team, we interviewed 100+ subject matter experts: labourers, operators, site leaders and owners. We heard two things over and over:
i) Construction firms have a tough time retaining skilled workers, and the skills gap is hitting their topline from declined projects.
ii) Workers get paid by the hour. Projects are profitable when they stay on schedule. There is a fundamental misalignment between hourly workers and project outcomes.
We tested a few solutions before we got positive signals that we were on to something. After rigorous validation, we were all in. In Spring 2022, we signed our first customer, Condrain. We spent time with their Earthworks, Sewer and Road crews designing the product. We launched v1 in Q4 2022 with about 50 users and proved a 10x ROI. Condrain has invited us back in 2023 for a full roll-out.
Inspiration three: Ash Maurya is right. Find a problem worth solving. Make sure that you are passionate about it. And then take it as far as you can go.
Our vision is to inspire construction professionals with meaningful work, deeper connections to projects and colleagues, and aligned incentives; so the best teams rise and share in productivity gains.
From all of us at Crewscope, we are pleased to have you join us. We welcome our newest crews scheduled to onboard with us in Q1 2023!
To a safe, successful and prosperous 2023 construction season,
Calvin
