Homing in on homebuilding

A new SaaS platform — from an experienced hand — takes aim at the homebuilding and renovation industries

Photo (from left): Graditi’s Taras Zubyak, Tony Boyle, Neil Poutney and Ken Bell

TONY BOYLE HAS antiquated spreadsheets in his sights.

If you recognize Boyle’s name, it’s almost certainly as the co-founder of human resources software support firm HRdownloads, a darling of the London tech scene over the past decade or so (it was acquired by The Citation Group in 2023 and subsequently rebranded to Citation Canada).

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He’s now re-emerged with a new startup, Graditi Inc., which somewhat echoes HRdownloads — it’s a SaaS platform aimed at streamlining communication and administrative processes, consolidating information spread across various email or text threads and ultimately reducing the paperwork burden that can stand in the way of getting things done.

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This time, however, instead of HR departments, Graditi is targeted at a different demographic altogether: ­residential homebuilders and renovation contractors.

Boyle has been dabbling in residential real estate through his rental company, 10NT Properties, since 2010. But the spark for Graditi came through working on his own homebuilding project with Ken Bell of Crown Homes.

“The more I talked to Ken about what I did in software, the more he seemed intrigued,” recalls Boyle. “When I showed him some of the platforms I had built for other companies, he was like, ‘You know, this would be really cool in the building industry.’ So, napkin style, we sketched out what we thought would be a utopian build experience for both the builder and the client.”

That vision was, in essence, an end-to-end project ­management platform for homebuilding. Priced at $99 to $389 a month (depending on the number of users), Graditi is inclusive of an activity log that lists everything done on a project; scheduling and site check-in functions for various tradespeople on a project; individual chat logs for builder and client to hash out details and sign off on any changes; progress trackers and a finishing date estimate; client relationship management functions; different dashboard views for builder, client and subcontractor; and plenty more.

“As soon as [the builder] digs a hole, you have a picture. As soon as they do your framing, you have a picture,” explains Boyle. “For the client, they feel engaged. They feel like they know what’s going on in the build. It’s really a way to take a complicated process, make it simple and get everybody engaged in what’s going on with less of the high-touch, multi-device chaos that goes on today.”

All of this might sound somewhat conventional to an office worker, where productivity software like this has become commonplace. But as Boyle points out, it’s not reinventing the wheel so much as it is designing a wheel that works for residential contractors.

“Most builders are using something for invoicing, little to nothing for project management and spreadsheets,” Boyle explains. “There really isn’t a communication vessel that covers the whole build. Generally, you’re getting a lot of emails with attachments, some text messages and some phone calls.”

Essentially, says Boyle, Graditi is a commerce tool for homebuilders — a means to grow their business, work more efficiently and improve the client experience.

In its early days, one of the ­initial hurdles is a common one in the blue-collar environment: getting folks engaged. “Homebuilders aren’t used to a ton of sales calls,” says Boyle. “So, one of our biggest challenge is just getting people to have a look. Once they do, the feedback has been incredible.”

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Graditi offers a 30-day free trial, “longer than almost everybody in the industry,” Boyle adds.

And if there’s another advantage Boyle is leaning on, it’s that he — a self-described serial entrepreneur — has been here before. And so has his team. All seven of the staff at Graditi are people Boyle has worked with previously at HRdownloads.

“I let people come in, do the job that they’re excited about, and then tell me what’s working or not working,” he says. “That malleable nature allows everybody to thrive.” Kieran Delamont