Want to get your message in front of 1,779 highly engaged innovation leaders? Check out our sponsorship offers.

BEFORE WE START…
Breaking The $10m ARR Wall - A Path To $100m+ Revenue

Before we dive into this week’s deep dive insight!!

We’ve just finished a lengthy mini-series on Go To Market within AEC tech, interviewing the top GTM leaders who have built and scaled sales teams to the hundreds of millions.

The episodes will be released from 22nd April 2025 and will be accompanied by a GTM guide to help you:

• Master the "land and expand" strategy that scaled PlanGrid from $5M to $100M in 4 years

• Implement the GTM approach specifically designed for construction's unique buying cycle

• Access battle-tested frameworks for identifying champions and building winning business cases

• Avoid costly hiring mistakes that drain capital and waste critical market timing

• Learn directly from executives who've built billion-dollar construction tech companies

Over the next few weeks on this newsletter, we will be releasing some eye opening stories, frameworks and lessons taken from the insights contained within the guide.

»» If you’re interested in receiving a copy of this guide once released. Let us know below ««

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

TLDR - The $10M Revenue Wall

Most construction tech startups flatline at ~$10M ARR.

We spoke with Kevin Halter (ex-PlanGrid, now at OpenSpace) — the guy who helped scale it from $5M to $100M — to understand why.

Here’s what we learned:

• 🚫 Project based deals won’t get you to $100M — enterprise sales will

• ⏳ Start expansion plans 9–18 months before renewal, not 90 days before

• 📊 The only metrics that matter: labor productivity, risk reduction, and payment acceleration

• 🔥 Don’t hire for pedigree — hire hungry reps who own the full customer journey

If you want your startup to break through the $10M wall, here’s some handy advice:

The $10M Revenue Wall: Why Construction Tech Companies Get Stuck (and How to Break Through)

Most construction tech startups hit a ceiling at $10 million in annual recurring revenue and never break through. We recently interviewed Kevin Halter (not yet released), who scaled PlanGrid from $5 million to over $100 million ARR in just three years, leading to the company's acquisition by Autodesk.

"There's a graveyard in this industry of companies with great technology that didn't prove out enough revenue to get the next round of funding. Then they no longer exist," Kevin told us.

Having guided multiple construction technology companies through explosive growth phases, Halter has a battle-tested playbook for breaking through the revenue wall that kills most construction tech startups.

1. Master the Project-to-Executive Translation

The fundamental challenge for construction tech companies is connecting project-level value to executive-level priorities. Most startups focus on landing many small project deals but fail to translate that success into language that resonates at the enterprise level.

The secret is in asking the right discovery questions to uncover what truly keeps executives up at night:

• Ask project teams: "What are your biggest challenges on site? What keeps you up at night? How often does this problem occur?" This builds your understanding of ground-level pain points.
  

• Ask operations leadership: "How do you measure success across projects? What's the impact when projects fall behind? How do you track performance?"
  

• Ask executives: "What are your top three business objectives this year? What would it mean to improve [specific metric] by X%? How does this connect to your competitive position?"

Halter shared a powerful example:

This is a subscriber only post. Become a paying subscriber of our annual or monthly paid subscriptions to get inside takes on growth in construction tech.

Already a paying subscriber? Sign In.