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EARLY RELEASE
How This CMO Built a 60% Word-of-Mouth Acquisition Engine

In this candid conversation, DroneDeploy's Chief Marketing Officer Matt Daly pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to build and scale a successful construction technology company.

From his journey co-founding StructionSite through the strategic merger with DroneDeploy, Matt shares hard-won insights about navigating the complex world of reality capture, AI automation, and serving the notoriously conservative construction industry.

In this episode, you’ll:

• Discover why 60% of DroneDeploy's new customers come from word-of-mouth and how to build that network effect into your product

• Learn the three critical jobs every CEO must master: capital acquisition, talent acquisition, and resource allocation

• Understand when to pursue venture capital vs. growth equity (and why most construction tech companies should consider the latter)

• Get Matt's battle-tested hiring framework that eliminates bad hires before they happen

• Hear why the "Cambrian explosion" of construction point solutions is ending and what consolidation means for your business

• Learn how AI is finally delivering on the promise of automated insights (and why it's happening now, not two years ago)

Chapters

• 00:00 - Introduction and DroneDeploy's robotics platform

• 03:38 - The StructionSite-DroneDeploy merger: Why consolidation was inevitable

• 07:29 - The reality capture market shakeout: Who survives the point solution explosion

• 13:37 - The future vision: Unified, automated, intelligent reality capture

• 21:33 - Ground robotics cost collapse: From $100K to $15K and what it means

• 26:28 - Customer personas: GCs, trades, and owners - who pays and why

• 34:02 - Lessons from SmartTrack: When specialization goes wrong

• 44:23 - Capital strategies: VC vs. growth equity and why timing matters

• 49:08 - The three keys to executive hiring that most founders get wrong

• 51:01 - Resource allocation: The 80/20 rule for product expansion

• 58:51 - The word-of-mouth acquisition engine that drives 60% of new business

• 01:00:24 - AI revolution in reality capture: What's possible now vs. two years ago

• 01:03:24 - Pricing in the AI era: Why construction software might get cheaper

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