Blog
Notes from the Tailgate
Jobsites, crews, estimating, and the software we build for them — written by the contractor who builds it.
September 24, 2026
Not everyone has an iPhone
It's the question I get from every contractor who hears my apps are Apple-only. The honest answer is a little more involved than 'buy them one' — and it starts with why CrewKeeper lives on a phone in the first place.
Read it →September 17, 2026
Laziness and lack of planning
Thirty-some years of watching safety rules get broken, and I've never found a third reason. The fix isn't a better policy. It's making the shortcut the harder path.
Read it →September 7, 2026
Don't ask me for a ballpark
People ask for a verbal number all the time. I rarely give one — not even a range — and it isn't because I'm being difficult. It's because I don't think about price that way.
Read it →August 31, 2026
I'm a lousy salesman
I can't tell a lie, I won't promise what I can't deliver, and I've watched customers put their checkbooks away while I talked. Here's why I wouldn't change any of it.
Read it →August 25, 2026
I looked up my hit rate and I didn't love it
For years I closed nearly every job I estimated. The number is different now — and what it took me a while to accept is that it should be.
Read it →August 19, 2026
I dreaded every estimate
I was better with Excel than any estimator I ever met, and I still hated starting every single estimate. It took me years to see what that dread was costing me.
Read it →August 13, 2026
The software wasn't built for us
The big construction platforms assume everybody needs everything, at a price nobody my size would consider. Here's where the rest of us actually live.
Read it →August 5, 2026
My price was my price
I was the busiest erector around and nearly broke. One decision changed my company, my family, and my life — overnight.
Read it →August 1, 2026
Who's paying for my diesel?
The highest fill-up of my life, what a hurricane taught the crane companies twenty years ago, and an honest question for every subcontractor watching the pump.
Read it →July 25, 2026
I once sent a proposal by fax from the roof of a sugar mill
Thirty years of trying to get jobsite paperwork to work — flip-phone faxes, foremen with fax machines, homemade servers — and what finally stuck.
Read it →July 20, 2026
Why a metal building contractor built his own apps
The paperwork never worked the way the work did. So after decades of running crews, I built the tools myself.
Read it →