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1build is Changing the Game with Salesforce

Like many innovators before him, Dmitry Alexin found inspiration in a book. But it wasn’t a great work of fiction or a landmark scientific text. Rather, Alexin was inspired to start his company, 1build, by a massive tome — about the size of the Yellow Pages — that served as a commonplace resource for estimating construction costs. Dmitry’s data science background and passion for architecture had him wondering why such a huge industry was still relying on an outdated way of doing things.

Inspired to disrupt — and streamline — how the construction industry does estimates, Alexin founded 1build. The company helps builders win more bids by automating construction cost estimates. It does it with a combination of human and machine intelligence. 1build’s story is still being written, but already has all the earmarks of a classic: disruption, setbacks, growth, and sleepless weekends that bring order to chaos and result in supercharged sales.
 
After implementing Sales Cloud, 1build saw a 24% increase in sales.

After implementing Sales Cloud, 1build saw a 24% increase in sales.

What inspiration can your small business take from 1build’s success? Let’s take a closer look.
Contents:
  1. Expect the unexpected and keep moving forward.
  2. Find the right tools for each stage of your funnel.
  3. Leverage the right tech to drive new processes.

1. Expect the unexpected, and keep moving forward.

1build launched in September 2019, a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold globally. The timing created unforeseen challenges, including the cancellation of the company’s Y Combinator demo day fundraising event the following spring. Soon after, many construction sites shut down or significantly slowed due to the coronavirus, which throttled 1build’s growth even more. The company suffered a 50% reduction in usage in the first 30 days after graduating from Y Combinator.

Despite the setbacks, 1build kept forging ahead, and, as it did so, the construction industry came back and took flight — people and businesses alike were seeking out new dwellings and renovating their current digs to accommodate remote work. 1build raised a successful seed round of financing, and company leaders hunkered down to focus on building their platform, an all-in-one cost estimation tool for contractors.

They also pivoted, shifting focus from commercial real estate to residential, to meet the newly surging demand head-on. Suddenly, 1build had more incoming leads than their marketing software could keep pace with; they needed a new platform for their fast-growing business.
 

“With Salesforce, I have true visibility into our business. When we are winning, I know why. More importantly, I can identify any problem areas to redirect the team when we are losing.”

Hannah Middleton | Head of Sales, 1build

2. Find the right tools for each stage of your funnel.

1build needed a way to manage the chaos of leads being funneled through campaigns on their legacy marketing platform. Account executives didn’t know which leads were theirs to follow-up on, or where different customers were in their buyers’ journeys.

So Dmitry rolled up his sleeves, grabbed a few energy drinks, and spent a weekend migrating 1build to Sales Cloud. It may not be a typical Salesforce implementation story, but when the budget’s tight and your founder has a data science background, anything’s possible.
 
A team collaborates with sticky notes on a whiteboard.

Team 1build mapped out the stages of its customer funnel and paired the right technology to each phase. Sales Cloud would handle opportunity management and reporting, and become the single source of truth for pipeline tracking projections.

Within two weeks of implementation, Sales Cloud had “a massive impact” on 1build’s operations:

  • Close rates were up by 9%
  • Sales reps were speaking to more prospects
  • Data tracking was more intentional
  • Handoffs to account executives went from near-impossible to seamless
“We had a better sense of structure, dashboarding, data analytics, and the ability to integrate with other tools,” Alexin said.
 

“The most impactful thing we’ve done is to transition to Salesforce. It was chaos before that.”

Dmitry Alexin | CEO & Founder, 1build

3. Leverage technology to drive new and better processes.

Implementing Salesforce didn’t just help 1build bring order to their existing book of business, it inspired the company’s leaders to define new business goals.
WATCH: Hannah Middleton, Head of Sales for 1build, talks about the importance of small businesses investing in CRM. She explains how Salesforce helps 1build collect and track leads, stay organized, and customize its processes and workflows as the company grows.
Hannah Middleton, Head of Sales, led the efforts to develop new processes straight away. The first goal she set was to shorten the time from lead creation to demo — booking more “day-of-demo” calls, as they’re called. Within two weeks, her team went from 28% day-of demo sales to 52% day-of demo sales — a 24% increase. They also saw an improved close rate of 9%.

Hannah said she and her team are eager to deepen their understanding and use of Sales Cloud, to extract the most value out of the tool as they can. The goal makes sense, given that the 1build platform is being built to help contractors get the most out of technology.

“We are going to occupy the white space niche of preconstruction — your planning, your estimating, up until you break ground on your building,” Dmitry said. As the only company providing real-time construction cost pricing to contractors in the middle of a construction boom, 1build is well-positioned to transform the way one of the world’s biggest industries gets the job done.
 
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