046 | The Female Founder Redefining an Industry: April Moss on Innovation

Ever wonder how to leap from a corporate gig to becoming an industry-changing entrepreneur?

In this episode,  you’ll learn how one trailblazing woman transitioned from corporate to startups, pivoting across industries and creating transformative change in construction tech.

April Moss, a co-founder of DigiBuild and Executive Director of the Construction Technology Institute will share how her personal story shaped her drive for change, and discover actionable strategies for breaking into new industries.  

April’s knack for innovative solutions and her work with the Construction Technology Institute will make you rethink how you tackle your own business challenges. Plus, she spills her secrets on leveraging emotional intelligence and community building to create unstoppable teams. 

 Don’t miss it—this episode is packed with insights to skyrocket your business growth!

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The essential tools every female founder needs to conquer the corporate-to-startup transition and drive sustainable business practices. 
• How emotional intelligence and building community can transform your leadership skills and overcome startup challenges 
• Three powerful business growth strategies from April Moss's transition from Proctor & Gamble to a successful startup in the construction industry.

This episode at a glance:

[02:30] It's not really about the industry you're in, but it's about the skills and understanding yourself and what you bring to the table.

[17:22] Understanding the pain points of your customer is where your new business idea can really start to take off.

[19:27] A lot of people are suffering in this industry. Being able to come alongside people and share with them and help them in a very meaningful way, however that looks, I think that's organic growth.

[29:28] Being honest with yourself about what you're good at, what you're not, but still not making excuses for trying to improve yourself holistically, I think is important.

[32:06] When it comes to building your team, you're looking at what their individual strengths are, and then how you guys can all work together.

Resources and Links mentioned in this episode:

• Free Range Thinking
• April Moss
• Digibuild
• Construction Technology Institute
• The Boost AI Strategy Framework

You might also like:

• The AI Blueprint Strategy for Female Entrepreneurs
• Cultivating Culture: The Unique Impact of Female Founders
• 5 REAL Steps to Start Your Business

Want to increase revenue and impact? Listen to “My Good Woman” for insights on business strategy and female leadership to scale your business. Each episode offers advice on effective communication, team building, and management. Learn to master routines and systems to boost productivity and prevent burnout. Our delegation tips and business consulting will advance your executive leadership skills and presence.

Transcript

My Good Woman
Ep. 46 |  The Female Founder Redefining an Industry: April Moss on Innovation


April Moss: I haven't told my personal story about my father, but there's a lot of people suffering in this industry. And so being able to come alongside people and share with them and help them in a very meaningful way, however, that looks, I think that's organic growth, that's how you build trust is building community around that trust. 

Dawn Andrews: Welcome to the My Good Woman podcast where we help female founders break past plateaus and get to the next level of business growth by refining their strategy building systems and streamlining operations. 

 I'm Dawn Andrews, the founder and CEO of free range thinking business strategy consulting. Join me each week for candid conversations, with culture shifting, glass ceiling busting trailblazing women who are leading impactful enterprises and grab their strategies to help your business reach extraordinary levels of growth. 

In this episode, you'll learn the essential tools every female founder needs to conquer the corporate to startup transition and drive sustainable business practices. How emotional intelligence and building community can transform your leadership skills and overcome startup challenges. And three powerful business growth strategies from April Moss's transition from Proctor and Gamble to a successful startup in the construction industry.

Dawn Andrews: April Moss, welcome to My Good Woman. I'm so glad that you're here today. Welcome. 

April Moss: Thanks for inviting me. Appreciate it. 

Dawn Andrews: I am so looking forward to this conversation. We had a good pre game chit chat. We both, I think, are very enthusiastic human beings and also really interested in helping other women move things forward. So we were popping off a ping pong match. It was pretty fun.

April Moss: Yeah, very fun.

Dawn Andrews: As you know, my listeners are women who are running businesses, starting businesses. Tell them a little bit about you.

April Moss: My journey is probably a little bit different from most as most women or men get into a career and they stay there and they just move around into different jobs and positions. I've, actually hopped entire industries.

So I started off my career with Procter and Gamble was the there for about 21 years, various roles, product, supply, logistics, analyst, all these other jobs for CPG companies, every two and a half years, you're changing and learning and growing.

And my last position was running North America operations for their second largest customer team. After that, I, jumped and went and worked for one of the largest retailer, Starbucks, and build out their sales team, first ever, across the U S And that was a lot of fun. 

Managed that for a few years, went into a CPG brokerage firm and learned a lot. I was on their, senior executive team. And, really it took about for every year of my life. I think it took five of it, but I learned a ton from that. 

Because what the brokerage showed me is that these skill sets that I've learned forever, about emotional intelligence, strength finders, all those contributed to being able to say, you know what? It's not really about the industry you're in, but it's about the skills and understanding yourself and what you bring to the table to be able to make that switch.

 And sometimes it's more difficult. Some days are more difficult than others. Just because you've got a large learning curve, but I've always had that desire to learn. And so for me, lifelong learner, a desire to understand and data and curiosity really drove that decision. 

So a lot of people think, Oh my gosh, why would you ever leave these big companies that are so stable over there? And I guess it's just that curiosity and being able to prove that I'm just not a one stop, shop one pony show. 

Dawn Andrews: Tell me a little bit about that because I was in corporate and left and started my business 20 years ago. And, at the time, in a corporate environment, you're very task oriented, and you're very, I don't want to say siloed, but it's very specific.
 
You're doing specific tasks related to a role, and you're part of a much larger system. And you have potentially, lots of support around you as well. What was that like for you, jumping ship from that supported corporate environment where you have a discrete set of tasks to going into a startup environment where you're wearing a lot of hats potentially? 

And it may be even only you, there's no backup. There's no, if you leave on a vacation, there's nobody to follow up with behind you. 

What was that adjustment like for you?

April Moss: It was a shock because Procter Gamble, I was known as a bulldog anytime there was a new team that needed to be developed or something new that they wanted someone to go own, they'd always turn to me because I always wanted something new. I was always trying to figure out how that happens.

That's why I love the brokerage. The brokerage was constantly moving, constantly having to create, constantly getting on calls last minute and saving the day it was just go. And that's like startup, right? I'm thinking, oh yeah, startups like that. I can go do it.

But that whole infrastructure, even when you're working at Procter and Gamble and you're starting something new, or you're working for Starbucks or a brokerage, you always have support around you, right? 

You have the HR, you have the CFO, finance managers are my favorite friend in any company because it's my weakest spot and I'm dyslexic a little bit. 

Dawn Andrews: it's your business, bestie. 

April Moss: Yeah. Yes, my business bestie. I love that. Yeah, my business bestie. And so I've learned a lot from a lot of people around the way. I like that connectiveness but it was overwhelming to begin with.

You're looking at this getting sucked into the black hole, right? Oh my gosh, I'm going to go off the cliff here because I've got to do this, that. So it was really difficult to begin with, but you just, you pull yourself up within and you start looking at, okay, what is it that I'm really good at and go find those resources.

 Like I loved your one of your podcasts that talked about AI and how to use an AI. So I had to get creative and what those resources looked like? Maybe it was a family member who was really good at something that wanted to donate some time and help me out along the way. 

Or it was bringing in a colleague that was willing to do things for, on an equity standpoint and then build on that. So I, I feel like, you figure it out, but it is overwhelming when you do make the jump at first. 

But it's so rewarding when you figure it out so I've just decided not to let fear consume me in that area and just find the resources and do what I needed to do every day.  Every day was you just thought about what was in front of you for that particular day to hit that goal. 

Dawn Andrews: In the same way that you would have in corporate. It sounds like you use the same tools. Once you, you weren't a deer in the headlights any longer. It looks like you use the same idea of, okay, what are the resources available to me? It's just that you realize that the resources didn't have to be inside the company. 

So how you were being as an executive. As somebody in a startup situation was not that different than how you had been before. You just had to look outside instead of inside for the resources. And I think the reason why I'm driving that point home is because it is a huge shift when you leave corporate to start your own thing.

 And what you just illustrated is that you already got what you need. You just have to remember that you have to maybe look in a different place for it and not expect it where it is. And if you can be that flexible and be that curious, which it sounds like you are, then you move past whatever those roadblocks are that you're feeling are so overwhelming when you first get started. 

April Moss: Yeah. And I think one of the reasons why I like your podcast is you just talk about community. And it is very lonely when you start your own company up. So you have to start building community around yourself, right?

Dawn Andrews: What was the hardest part for you, April? Like with, when it comes to community.

April Moss: I just didn't have that friend to call up and talk about, Hey, I had this issue today with this department or, Hey, do you have some suggestions here? You worked with that person before. So I didn't have that startup community right away. 

Now, we became a Y Combinator backed company. There's a lot of people within Y Combinator. You start to find your way to startup companies, but not all start up companies are the same, right? 

It's different industries, different stuff. All the people, all my connections were from consumer products goods companies, and I'm starting up in construction and software, which I know nothing about, right?
 
In construction, I know some, I did real estate and my dad was in construction, so I had a little bit of a foundation there, but women in construction is like zero. It's like less than 3%. 

Dawn Andrews: It's like landing on an alien planet, probably? 

April Moss: Oh, it absolutely was. Yeah, absolutely it was. It was rough going for a while, but then you find your pace, you find those connections. But it does take a little bit longer to do that, especially in this type of an industry. But once you do, you feel right at home, like you did everywhere else. In fact, you feel almost more empowered because you helped create that, you weren't dependent on someone else creating that. 

Dawn Andrews: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. What was the call that you answered that pulled you out of CPG into this startup? Was it friends that connected you? Was there a, a job listing or recruiter or how did you?

 April Moss: Yeah. A very good question. So Robert Salvador, who worked for me at Procter and Gamble, he's one of my analysts. He worked for me for years, really good at what he did. And then fast forward, he'd seen what I had done on the CPG side, I've created probably 15, 20 different teams.

 I've had a couple of very high performance work teams. So he got to see that and he asked if I wanted to come over. It was a really nice letter he wrote me about how I changed his life, helped his trajectory, drove accountability with him and helping him grow as a person and in business.

And he asked if I wanted to come start a business with him. So that's how it started and I thought, you know what? Let's do it. I know this guy, I think that was very important. Looking back, I'm glad that I at least knew who I was getting in business with. Really different switching the roles, though he worked for me, now I'm working for him. So a little, it was a little weird, to begin with, but, yeah. So that's how it all started. 

 Dawn Andrews: So fascinating. So where are you now? Like, where are you with DigiBuild? 

April Moss: Five years into it, we're still working on, we've pivoted a couple of times, just because the, this -

Dawn Andrews: Oh, actually, it's,  I didn't mean to interrupt, but let's back it up. Give me the scoop on what is DigiBuild and then tell me where, cause I know but they don't know, so..

April Moss: That's right. So digiBuild is a construction software and we've pivoted to where we have a product that does all the order bidding and tracking of materials to a job site. 

So for example, if you're looking for say drywall, typically a construction company can go look at two or three suppliers or manufacturers, that's all they're actually able to do because they've got thousands and thousands of other things they need to procure.

And so they can go out and price check everything. At Digi procure, you can go on our system and you can go out and get 15 bids if you want and do some price comparisons. And it's not only locally to where you're at, but you can go global. 

We're building out the largest supplier database and the largest sustainable supplier database in the globe. And then within that, we also have where if you're looking for a minority owned supplier manufacturer, women owned, veteran owned, if you're in government work and you need to find minority owned companies or you need sustainable products. We're creating that ecosystem for people to go after. 

Dawn Andrews: How cool is that? Okay, just that alone is fascinating. That's a really specific little white space, but I think when you and I were talking, I was telling you that I grew up in a construction family. My family was in plumbing, heating, cooling, and contracting. They did large residential builds, they did cogeneration plants, they did a variety of construction projects.

And so the idea that there would be one place where all of this could come together, because I think my dad started out as an estimator and he went on to be the CEO of the company, but, of the family company and his job would be exactly what you're describing and to be able to basically log into something that had already sourced all of these resources for him putting a bid together would have been, first of all, I'm sure more cost effective when all was said and done because you had a little more competition, but also to be able to reach as far as you could reach the way you're describing it, how did the founders and or for you, how did that come to be? Like, I think it's genius. 

April Moss: Yeah. So my background product supply logistics is what a lot of things I did at P& G. So that's a little bit more natural to me, although I was a little bit shocked. So by the time I left Procter and Gamble, the customer I was working with, we were doing blind receiving. So they didn't even check as stuff came into the retailer because they were so accurate, the misses were so small that it wasn't worth tracking all that.

Dawn Andrews: It wasn't worth a human to watch it all. 

April Moss: It wasn't. Yeah. So then go to the construction where they don't even, they don't have anything you scan. There's no barcodes. It's just a, the wild west. So that was very fascinating to me. When I started with, DigiBuild, Rob had this idea of creating a software platform built on blockchain, to drive trust and transparency within this industry.

 Cause this industry does not have trust and transparency, it's lacking. And it's just lots of factors that go into that. And so he had watched his dad struggle, lots of things that happened in his life that he said, it'd be really great if we had really some type of software where people knew exactly what was happening, that this is what, this is really what happened, this is where the product is at.

So that was how we started, but we decided to partner with IBM on that with the, they do hyper ledger fabric, which is a blockchain platform and partner with them. And we had a, innovation summit saying, Are we on the right track? Are we missing anything here? With the construction industry.

So we had this huge innovation summit out San Francisco. We brought in, 10 15 of, big companies, small middle sized companies across all the different facets of what could go into a project, companies within and said, Hey, what's next in construction?

And coming out of that three day event, it was very clear the number one issue in October of 2019 was supply chain management and in particular procurement. So we started pivoting immediately in January 2020. We all know what happened in January 2020, which was COVID.

Dawn Andrews: Squeezing my face right now. Because I'm like, to be in supply chain management and launching a new business 20 minutes before the pandemic is really, that's a nail biter moment. 

April Moss: Like, crazy, or we had a niche here. What happened was Rob was still running his construction company. We're trying to do this together and we're trying to get money and funding and all these things behind there. And so his entire business literally just stopped overnight, construction stopped.

And so it really, that was the, catalyst that got us to start. Hey, we really need to think, seriously about this. And so we've, tried and believe it or not, construction just is not as much as we save 30 to 40 percent for people on their projects, just by us managing through our system, the software, and then the savings that they get anywhere from 5 percent that we've seen up to 20, 30 percent in supplies and materials. They're still so against any type of software. It's just not an industry that has adopted software.

Dawn Andrews: If you think about it, like most people go into construction because they're kinesthetic people. They want to move, they want to touch things, they want to build. It's not a conceptual, like type in the ones and zeros, the ABCs into something and have the computer do the work.

They want to, I'm trying to touch things on my desk right now. Like they want to be in contact with something. It's kind of the way people feel about AI right now, probably like the idea that this machine could generate all of this stuff and that I don't actually know the guy that I called and we're talking about the two by fours and it's really unsettling, I'm sure. 

April Moss: It is. And it's also the base of people that you're working with, right? You get 150 people coming together on any type of project, 5 million or above. It's all the same workflows, but then you have different people from different reasons, different stakeholders. They all have different, agendas, right?

What they're trying to accomplish. And so to say, hey, let's all use this software and get subcontractors to do it and get everybody to use it. They don't want to do it even when we've given subcontractors free access, because the general contractors are paying based on percent of procurement, they still are so adverse to it so we've had to get really creative on how we do that and we're, continuing to build it.

 And we are seeing some changes in the industry where the younger generation is coming up. They're used to using more tools and stuff. In fact, most of them aren't getting in construction because they don't, they're like, it's so old school. You mean what? You don't, you're still using Dropbox and Excel spreadsheets.

They're just like, ah, I don't want it take it, So that's why I created the Construction Technology Institute is to create tools and opportunities and marketing and branding for all these small companies out there on a smaller scale that can be customized so that they can succeed.

 So it's like you reaching out to women and helping them grow their businesses and their small stuff. That's what we're doing for the Construction Technology Institute is building what we actually build software for construction companies. We have applications and software that we use so that they can easily go in the field and just really simplified stuff that they can utilize and build capacity.

It's, just to go back to my CPG days, it reminds me of when Procter and Gamble bought I think they bought, it was a Max Factor that was the makeup. I forgot the big, huge, Nioxin and some other big, hair companies. And they were trying to help these small businesses know how to actually run a business. So you've got these creative people that do stylists that do amazing things, 

Dawn Andrews: Great ideas but no business skills. 

April Moss: No. No soft skills for business whatsoever. And that's in this industry, they're incredibly good at what they do, but they don't know how to run a business.
They don't know how to market themselves. So we're creating all those tools through the construction technology institute to do that.

It's a nonprofit and then what's really cool about that is, one of our main sponsors that we're sponsoring is emancipate, which is a, company that, takes trafficked women, children and puts them through school. We utilize their resources, most of them have their bachelor's or master's, and then they help us. So we're helping two different communities, out in the same process. 

Dawn Andrews: I'm so into all of this. Okay. So like April and I are nerding out. We both know what we're talking about, but you may not. So I'm going to slow it down for a second and just go back. 

So what I heard that I think is really helpful on a broad basis for women that are going into business is that both you and the founder of DigiBuild really knew the customer well, and their pain points, which is where this little white space to build this company came from.
 
I'm just overlaying the excitement that April and I are talking about in a very simple, like core business concept. So understanding the pain points of your customer is where your new business idea can really start to take off. Then at that retreat that you were talking about your three day, you used power partners, you connected with and use power partners to innovate and iterate on that idea to help bring it into its next, next formulation. 

And what I think was really interesting is that you guys were problem aware. You saw what was going on in the industry and then you faced an audience that was solution resistant. And so you innovated even past that and created a next company to be able to address the solution so that you were basically stepping one step back from DigiBuild so that you could educate your consumers and provide value to them that was beneficial to their businesses and meet them where they are so that then they'd be open to either contributing, being a part of DigiBuild, using DigiBuild.

 So you didn't get mad essentially that your consumer base wasn't interested in using your tool. You figured out, again, what's the problem? Let's step back and find a solution for it. And did the whole, like, basically repeated the whole process over again to address that entry level problem. And I just think that is, it's one of those things where it's so simple, it's genius. I just really want to acknowledge what you guys are up to and the way you that you put up the business together. It's really inspiring. 

April Moss: And our journey is not over. We're still learning. We're still trying to build tools, trying to help people. Our latest is that we have, a tech and it's called Digi Construction under Digi Build where we're actually bidding construction projects and, helping subcontractors, use our tools and use Digi Procure, it's almost coming alongside and training as you go, right?

 Because it's just another way to get people engaged to really see that you're trying to solve problems because trust is a big factor within this industry. Everybody thinks everybody wants a piece of me, everybody wants another percent of my margin. 

But when I think if you can come at it from that collaborative; we're really trying to help you, we understand this, we personally have suffered greatly from this. 

I haven't told my personal story about my father, but there's a lot of people suffering in this industry. And so being able to come alongside people and share with them and help them in a very meaningful way, however, that looks, I think that's organic growth, that's how you build trust is building community around that trust.

Dawn Andrews: Tell me about your father. Obviously your, what your why is very big to have left, the tried and true I know I'm good at it CPG world with incredibly huge, notable companies in very visible roles, like to leave that behind and move into something like this.

I don't want to blow past the comment that you made earlier that you're like, Oh, my father was in construction. I have a little, I had a little background there. Like you have your, why your, why is parked there? Like why you're doing this park there? 

April Moss: Yeah, my why is pretty significant. In fact, Rob didn't even know really into the last two years because it wasn't something I really talked about. I made sure my siblings were okay with me talking about it. 

But my father was a contractor subcontractor and he loved what he was doing. He was one of those people that love the hands on was very good at it but he wasn't a good businessman. 

And in many cases, sometimes he wouldn't get paid, he'd get paid. Then the seasonality of construction. And then what happens is during that time, people get into the drink culture, now it's drink and drug culture. And the suicide rates among construction workers is, I think it's the third largest industry of suicides and nobody talks about it.

 And my father committed suicide when I was nine. So when I talk about, sorry, I don't start tearing up. But when I talk about the passion for the people, I know what my siblings and I went through and what my mom went through having to struggle to, to make it and, and what that caused, there's a lot of other families out there that are suffering from that.

And nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to address it. but the more I talk to people and the more I understand their stories, it just drives me even further to want to really change this industry in a way that's never been changed before. So that's my heart as you can tell. 

Dawn Andrews: Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it shows, we're just scratching the surface in our conversation about the innovation that you guys are leading in this industry with the different aspects of these companies, but it's clear that this is coming from a personal connection, not only your personal story and the story of your family. 

It's a lovely little infinity loop. Like you keep taking into consideration what's going on for the people. And that gives you back the next iteration of the business. And it keeps going back and forth, folding over on each other. And it's just, I think again, simple and genius. 

April Moss: Yeah. Yeah. And it's fun and everybody should be able to benefit from it, right? There's not anything that we're doing that's, it's special. It's just making those connections and teaching people. One day we want to have all these different courses we can have for people in business and, there's just so many opportunities. And then where do we go first though, right? 

Dawn Andrews: Yeah. Let's talk about that for a second. So how, with such a big desire and a big mandate and a lot of territory that you can cover inside this industry, how do you narrow and focus and stay on a path till you get some traction with it? 

April Moss: So there's, two areas that we're focused on, the procurement piece still is a huge idea. We've actually expanded and, opening an office in the Middle East, just because they're more receptive to software and using software, over in the UK and stuff, the US is actually behind on using software in construction.

So there's other countries that are more open to it. So that helps us, build and grow and take care of the needs of our, investors as well, right? So those are the needs that we have with that. But, continuing to focus on procurement and finding any way to get people to adopt, Digi Procure.

So that's why we started Digi Construction, where we're actually now bidding for contracts. We have an entire team of people who came from construction. I'm probably the only one that has like the least amount of construction experience on my team. So it's really fun to have all these guys there that are willing to support this.

 And so we're actually bidding contracts and actually taking on contracts for construction and implementing and showing the field and the subcontractors and people that we're working with, you want to utilize this tool and there's some very big companies that we're working with.

And they're like, Oh yeah so then, let us bid and do the work. And then we show them, Hey, we just saved 10 percent this product. You need to use this for procuring for all your supplies and materials, and that's working.

It's really exciting and we just started this. Literally, we pivoted a couple months ago and just started saying, Hey, what does this look like? We've got our first 3 to 4 or 5 projects and I think it's going to take off really well. And that's how we'll get that adaption. 

Dawn Andrews: By being what you're talking about, you're being and doing it. 

April Moss: Yes. Showing them away, teaching them how to fish in a different way. And then I think from a CTI standpoint, we're focused on one of the challenges we had at DigiBuild and they have it, at Procore and any of these larger companies that have software for big contractors is it's very difficult to find actual software developers who know construction.

 And so our goal is teaching and training an entire industry of software developers about construction. And so we're going to be launching some just basic courses on construction and workflows and training developers; some of the developers, they grew up in construction, they just weren't interested in it, or they like the other side of it.

 So it's bringing those worlds together, is that going to change the industry is having software developers that actually understand construction workflows and how it all comes together. 

Dawn Andrews: We've talked about changing the industry. You guys certainly are with what you're doing and especially when I multiply that over time. You're on track to do incredible things. What is the vision? If you could wake up tomorrow, snap your fingers and the industry is like you'd like it to be, what would that be? 

April Moss: That would it be having tools at all levels of construction, software that anybody through the entire, workflows has something they can use to build their capacity. Whether you're a small company or a very large company that there's tools there for you to access to save you money and time and to, help you grow individually as well as your company to grow. That's our goal. 

Dawn Andrews: So even if I started my small three person, I don't know, roofing company, for instance, there would be something for me here that would enrich my growth, help me to grow my business. 

April Moss: Yeah. In fact, that's where we're starting is that those individuals who have these, they're smaller companies so that they have the tools. And once they have some simple tools, and it's not so scary, we can build tools over top of their Excel worksheets, applications where they don't have to worry about, Oh, I'm just putting the same information in and it's just guiding me through, right? 

Very simple, almost like gamifying stuff, things that they might be familiar with, like going and buying something on Google or, something that's very simple. Because the larger companies have already thought about this, they're using Procore, they're doing that.

The challenge they have is all their subcontractors and everybody working for them is you want me to do what, where, and I've got to click here and I've got to get in and out of this software and what does that mean? And there's no help desk and, so that's, there's this aversion to- 

Dawn Andrews: So it's almost like you're almost starting like a Y combinator for construction companies. 

April Moss: Very much. Love it, stealing it. 

Dawn Andrews: Take it and run girl, because yeah, I like, I feel like there's a, now you got me, now you got my like strategic brain going, although the wheels are turning. I don't know where those smaller level construction companies, crossover with government, but like connecting with SBAs so that when they're looking for funding, maybe a condition of funding or business loans is that they connect with you guys for the education piece of it. And that's a condition of getting some sort of small business loan. 

April Moss: Yeah, I think that's great. We're working with a gal, just brilliant gal. We got to have her on your show. She's just absolutely amazing, Kate Dallow and she's out of Orlando and she wants to reform HUD and she's worked with HUD programs and she's as a country, we say, oh, that's wonderful we got all these people into a home.

And then 10 years later, the HVAC goes out where the homeowner now has to decide, okay, am I going to pay for my air conditioning? or am I going to pay my mortgage?  The government has all these rules where they want you sustainable, quality stuff, and they force it on anyone else, but they're not using it themselves.

A lot of construction companies don't even want to deal with it. They don't want to help people because the government makes it really hard for them to win in those industries and you'll lose money.

So this gal has figured out the secret sauce to do that and how to pull people up and reform some of the government things to pull those together. We're creating some things for her tools and stuff that will be useful long term for anybody in the industry to be able to tap into some of those government opportunities, no matter how big or small you are.

Dawn Andrews: That's so cool. Okay. I'm going to shift gears. Tell me about you, April, like to go from the corporate life into startup. What tools did you port over with you to help build a team that was interested in in this space, working in an unproven, untested area and what do you do to help keep people enthused on track, connected to the vision, driving forward when sometimes, like you said, you're a startup and you had to, deal with the pandemic happening. What do you do to build and keep your team inspired and moving forward?

April Moss: One of the things that I learned early on that I loved what Procter and Gamble did and learned a lot from them. Amazing company, they're known for their training and we went through this process, and there's lots of these kind of tests out there, we did the Briggs and Meyer, but I think the one that impacted me the most was Strength Finders, and it was really focused on just your strengths, right?

 We're our worst known enemy. We're always like, I'm not good enough at this. I don't, I can't do that, finance is my bad thing. We'll go find your bestie in finance. Right?

Dawn Andrews: Hey, yeah. Make a friend. 

April Moss: Make a friend. right? Yeah, call a friend. That really was a game changer for me because it really showed me the skills that I had. And, of course, you always want to try to improve in areas where, you know, you need to right? And so being honest with yourself about what you're good at, what you're not, but still not making excuses for trying to improve yourself holistically, I think is important. 

So for me, yeah,I think it was that. And then the other piece that I've been a big believer in since the 80s, when it first came out, and I was pretty young in business was emotional intelligence. It just made sense to me that it doesn't matter, corporations, the people that are at the top of these corporations, the ones that are doing the best jobs leading these mega companies. It didn't matter what their education was. It didn't matter what their background was, where they came from. 

It really was about emotional intelligence. And the first thing is to know yourself, And so Strength finders was that self awareness and then, self management, how do you manage yourself? And I think the soft skill of understanding yourself, managing yourself, being honest with yourself, I think that, those are soft skills that have been lost. I've talked to a lot of generation and they're not honest about what they're good at or what they're not good at, or not looking, it's not good or bad. 

It's about, what do you bring to the table? What are your skills, but also being aware of how you not just manage yourself, but how you work with other people and how do you bring that together? And so I think there's such uh, caustic kind of environment now because of politics and so many other things that it's really hard to help people bring all those emotional intelligent pieces together. 

Those were game changers for me and that's what I do. My entire team, took strength finders. We recognize what each other's strengths are. If there's some issue that needs to be solved or problem, we go look for that person that has that strength and seek them out because some people, they're not going to just volunteer.

 They need to be sought out and their opinions need to be brought to the table. That's very important. And so making sure that we have that nice combination of different strengths within the team is so critical to success. 

It takes a while to figure out those moving pieces. Everybody has their own agenda, what they want, why they're there. And I think the interviewing process is so critical, to understanding, who you're hiring and why, and there are times where I'll, I'll pay to have people take the strength finders in advance. 

Dawn Andrews: It's so, interesting to me that all of this, the through line, through everything that you've shared with me is that it all starts with people to begin with. So you and the founder have a personal connection and personal stories that go into the enter, or, excuse me, the entertainment industry. That's my industry into the cons, into the construction industry. 

Those are your reasons why you're looking at the challenges that individual builders and their companies are facing to solve their problems. And you're thinking about them as people. And then when it comes to building your team, you're looking at what their individual strengths are, and then how you guys can all work together using that emotional intelligence approach to build great, strong teams.

The humanity and everything that you're describing related to the construction industry is also a unique moment. 

April Moss: Yes, I would say so. Absolutely. Especially in this industry. And I think by targeting and doing that way, pulling people together and finding out their strengths, empowering them once you understand what they're capable of. Just letting them go do it, in, in a startup, you don't have time, you can't sit and like, well, you made that mistake, you made that mistake, you got to go. It's okay, learn from it. Let's go. What's next, empower people.

Dawn Andrews: And the same thing is true on a job site. If you think, not that construction is all like freestyle willy nilly. I don't want people to be worried, worried about the house that they're living in. But in any given moment, you've got the plans that you're working off of, and then there's some sort of unique situation that it needs to be addressed.

 And people have to have the empowerment to be able to collaborate with the people that are on the site with them and to come up with the solution that suits that set of circumstances that you couldn't have known in advance. There's only so much you can plan. So if you have set it up well, then people can make those changes thoughtfully and respectfully and, to code on the fly. 

April Moss: Yeah and none of that is going to be solved by a software, I think everyone kept thinking, software is going to replace a lot of things. the virtual project manager can only go so far. 

Dawn Andrews: Yeah. Okay. Well, tell me about you because you've got two different companies that you're involved in. You have, a philanthropic initiative that you're involved in. You're in an emerging startup business trying to break new ground in a very old industry. How do you keep it all going? How do you take care of you? 

April Moss: Taking care of me, that has been a priority last six months. I had spent too much time traveling, going to trade shows and on the road that, I actually caused some injury to one of my legs from doing all that work.

So it's really slowed me down a little bit to say, you know what, it's time, I got to start thinking about how I'm going to do this in a healthier way. My husband will tell me you're all or nothing, like you've got one speed. And so it's recognizing, I want to ignore that cause I just love it, but recognizing that I do need to, not just for myself, but for my team and the company and the people I'm representing, I need to be around for a while and I need to be able to work effectively.

So that has been for me, big aha. So I think taking care of myself probably a number one right now, as far as that goes. From a team perspective, we talk about empowering people. So my construction technology institute, I bring other people in who want to help with that. So it's a nonprofit and I purposely set it up that way. 

It's about, Hey, this person over here is really good at this and they have some really cool things that they can bring at the table and they've always dreamed of creating this educational piece or these platforms for startup companies within construction. And so they're going to run that piece. 

 I've got a, development team that creates tools, that help the industry. So they don't have to spend so much time trying to find the jobs and bid the jobs and market themselves. 

I've got another gentleman who's, really good at developing just really inexpensive websites. It is amazing how many subcontractors do not have a website. And so this is a super more like a landing page, but at least they show up professionally, so some of the basic things. So it is tapping into other people all under the banner of CTI and making sure that, we're focused on particular areas to begin with, and then we'll grow from there.

Dawn Andrews: So what I'm looking at, like I'm holding my phone up here. There are certain apps on this phone that keep it all going. There's Neutrogena face wipes because I can't live without them. If we asked you to open your purse, like I'm not a purse person, so I don't have one, but what's in there that from a female business owner, what keeps it going for you?  

April Moss: From a personal side, health is very important to me now. I've got, some little tools on here about fasting and tracking my fasting, tracking my steps, some of the simple things to make sure that I'm getting up every so often and hitting those goals and those little short things.

 I'd say that Amazon is my best friend, of course, a friend of mine introduced to me the introduction to yoga. I can't do some of the yoga, but is there something simple I can do sitting at my chair? Be in between meetings or stuff that I can do for stretching in a chair or stuff. I feel like an old person, 

Dawn Andrews: We do what we can, a serious, especially like we're now in a zoom nation. So start treating it like you can do it. 

April Moss: Anything you can do while you're sitting there and stretching. It's made a big difference. So those are the things that I have on this tool. And then, obviously I have networks and people that I connect with, I have created nice little groups of people. If I want someone, Hey, I'm having a hard day today, just communicating with close friends, reading those networks and sometimes it's just a group chat.

And what I've also realized is go do something for somebody else. And it really pays back, it's like paying forward, helping somebody like a friend of mine, she's been diagnosed with cancer and I don't have the time to create some soup for her because that's the only thing she can really eat without throwing up because of the chemo, but doing that makes you feel good.

So a lot of time we were so self consumed, everything's I phone, I this, I that. So let's give away, something to somebody else. So I tried to make sure that I'm doing that on a regular basis. 

Dawn Andrews: So that leads me, I want to be thoughtful of our time. The question that I ask everybody and you might've just answered it is imagine you're in Times square and you're surrounded by all of the sparkly billboards. And the biggest one is for you and on it, you get to share a message with women in business, some little nugget of inspiration or special message. What would you want to share with women? 

April Moss: I guess probably what I would say, let me actually just do this real quick because I use this quote on all of my emails. I would say the meaning in life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to give it away. 

Dawn Andrews: Love it. Well, you're definitely doing that. All day and twice on Sundays, April.  Thank you so much for being here. 

April  Moss: Well, thank you so much, what a great podcast. Thanks for helping women. I already started listening to them. So I haven't tagged, so I can go finish listening to them cause they're very good. I'd recommend that, everyone listened to your podcast that you did recently on boost I love that the AI thing. Don't get scared, go do it. Because it, it does save you a lot of time and you're going to, you're going to have too much fun with it once you figure it out. 

Dawn Andrews: No doubt. Thanks for the shout out for boost. I appreciate it. Oh, April, where can people find more information about, DigiBuild the construction technology Institute? Where's the best place to look?

April Moss: They can just connect with me on LinkedIn. You can look up or at April at digibuild. com or April at constructiontechinstitute.org. 

Dawn Andrews: Perfect. Thank you so much. It was a great conversation. Thank you.

April Moss: Thank you. 

Dawn Andrews:Thank you for joining me, my good woman. If you loved today's episode, make sure to subscribe, consider it like getting a front row seat at the premier of the year's biggest blockbuster. Every episode. You wouldn't want to miss the opening scene of a cinema classic. Right? So hit subscribe to ensure you're in the audience, popcorn in hand for our next thrilling episode. Don't let the credits roll without you. See you soon.