The Average Construction Worker Is 60 — So He Built LEGO-Style Blocks From 100% Recycled Waste | Dustin Bowers, PLAEX

0:00We'd like to thank our formal partner Payzant Building Products. Payzant has a 60,000 sq ft facilitation center currently underway as well as acquired a new location in Windsor — lots of change and big news with Payzant, and we look forward to having them back on the podcast in the near future. We'd like to thank our co-branded partner Procore Technologies. Procore Technologies is the global leader in construction management software. We look forward to having many guests from across the country, from all different capacities, under the Procore partnership umbrella. Luminous Labs is

0:29the leading provider of architectural visualizations for developers, homeowners, architects, and more. Luminous Labs has a team of experienced designers and visualizers using cutting-edge technology to bring your 3D renderings to life. Using these architectural visualizations will give you a sense of scale, space, and design, allowing you to make informed decisions about your projects before construction even begins. These high-end architectural visualizations are a perfect tool for presentations, marketing materials, and design reviews, allowing you to communicate your vision to stakeholders, clients, and more. Okay, welcome back to

1:04the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Pleased to have our guest today, Dustin Bowers, from New Brunswick with PLAEX Building Systems — founder and CEO. And I think we were just talking and you just got back from Switzerland? Yeah, so I just — earlier this summer I went and spent three weeks there for MassChallenge in Lausanne. Were you invited to that? Yeah, we were — we were invited actually last year but we just didn't have the bandwidth or time to do it. And then this year we

1:33were invited again, we're like, well, they're pretty persistent, we should go check it out. Through a lot of the advisor and mentor groups that I've been part of, they advise you — if you ever get a chance to go to Europe to one of the accelerators, do it. The connections you're going to make are absolutely invaluable. And they were right. So I went, spent three weeks there, back in June and July. What was it like in Switzerland, just on the side? Phenomenal. Hard to describe. Switzerland is

2:00rated as the best country in the world, and I would agree. I mean, they know what they're doing — they're doing it right. Yeah, the taxes might be — economically it's not like the taxes aren't high here. So yeah, quality of life. Like, what is it about? What is it about? It's clean, the roads are good, the buildings look well-kept, the people are friendly. There seems to be more objective freedom, you know. There's direct democracy — they have referendums there every year, people actually vote on

2:31the issues that matter. They don't just vote for the people who represent them — they actually vote on issues. There's a lot more community involvement, there's more network, it's more business friendly. Switzerland is very, very, very business friendly. It's amazing how many expats I met there — people who were in Canada doing business and went, business is a little better over here. So really, it was amazing. It's more welcoming for an entrepreneur, yeah, for startup companies. And it's kind of at the heart of Europe, like they're

3:02very central in Europe, so it's a really good place to be able to spread out from and connect from. The dollar there is probably one of the highest in the world as far as value — it kind of sucks coming from Canada and going there because the exchange rate sucks. But yeah, they have people there paid good living wages for the most part. The standard of living is much higher from what I saw in Switzerland than it is here.

3:33And I mean, it's subjective I guess, but it seems like much smarter policies that they put through there because they have that direct democracy. So it was cool — it was a really cool experience. I got to meet some amazing people doing amazing things. Switzerland has really done well at attracting skilled talent to the country. You know, Canada, we're bringing in lots of people. Switzerland really focused in on: how do we get high-value immigration, how do we get people with the most brilliant minds to come

4:04here — and it shows, it's paying off for the country. So it was an amazing experience, absolutely enjoyed it, highly recommend going and checking out Switzerland and the rest of Europe. How's the food? So good. For the most part there was one restaurant I went to that I was very disappointed, but all in all, for the most part, phenomenal food. Nine out of ten then? Yeah, yeah. So this is a pitch competition and you were seeking investors — private investors, angel investors? Yeah.

4:29Yeah, so MassChallenge Switzerland is put on with sponsorship from several corporate parties, one of them being Buhler, who according to their pitch touched about two billion people daily with their equipment. They manufacture dies for money — they manufacture the machinery that makes your cereal, that processes your rice, that roasts your coffee, that processes your chocolate. They make all the machines for all that stuff, right? So it's — we got to meet

5:04with executives from Buhler and talk about opportunities there. Nestlé's based there — we got to meet with Nestlé's sustainability group and discussed various things there. There's a big focus through the Switzerland MassChallenge around food tech, so there's quite a few food-tech oriented funding partners. But then there was also a good bit on the manufacturing side as well. There's another one — they're like a mineral supplier. They started out as a mining company but they've really kind

5:36of focused in on specific mineral supply for large-scale industry. So they have additives for the concrete industry, or they have additives for gypsum, or they have additives for — right. And so they supply these various mineralogical additives. Yeah, more sustainable than the typical aggregates? That's the idea. And not so much just aggregates — specific chemistries, right. They've dialed more into the specific chemistries of things. Yeah, it was an amazing time, got to learn a whole bunch,

6:09connected with some of the corporate sponsors, and it's really helping to move us forward as well. So that's really cool. Yeah, I mean, PLAEX Building Systems — you can tell us the backstory. Kind of inception in 2017, or that's when you started investing some time into it, and then 2020 devoting all your time to this new business. And you're recycling materials across different facets — from marine, from all kinds of different waste — to build with these blocks. Completely interlocking, close together like LEGO, no cutting. So you're avoiding a lot of waste. And you're producing the technology to manufacture this — this is a tech company. So just let you kind of give us the yeah — so I mean I guess I'll start back at the exception. Yeah, the inception of it was back in

6:40— the exception — yeah, the inception of it was back in 2017. Shortly after the birth of my first kid, I was working for a construction and renovation company, managing the majority of the company for my boss. And at the peak of it I think we had 18 projects, about $12 million in capital moving through. And it just struck me — the amount of waste. Bin after bin, like I'd say a quarter of my day was around managing cleanup crews, going to the various job sites, making sure we had permits for the

7:09bins to be on the street, making sure the filled-up bins got picked up — all of the logistics and coordination around waste. And it blew my mind how much waste we were generating. And this is specifically a retrofit renovation — a lot of renovations? Yeah, residential only, or no? Residential and commercial. We did like retail-to-commercial kitchen renovations, various retail renovations. We did quite a few retail renovations and then a lot of

7:38high-end residential renovations. And you started to think, like, where is all this waste going from all these jobs? And it's just being dumped in a landfill. And then there's the lack of skilled labor — that's the other side of it. And the lack of skilled labor was creating more waste, because — oh, they miscut that, or they bumped it into something and damaged it. There was so much waste that was added just through unskilled

8:07labor in the industry. And you know, a lot of people like, "Oh yeah, I can do that." All right, let's see what you do — and they definitely couldn't do it. So going through the frustrations of trying to find skilled labor, trying to reduce waste, trying to increase our profitability for the company — waste costs ended up being about 30% of budget, between wasted materials, the cost to manage the waste, and the time we had for our cleanup crews to clean up between every sub trade. You

8:34know, the electricians come in, then the cleaners go in, then the plumbers come in, the cleaners go in — after every sub trade we had to put our cleaners through, because no matter how hard we tried, none of the sub trades would clean up after themselves. We put penalties, we put all kinds of things into the contracts, but they didn't care — they just pay the penalties and have us clean up the job site. They really didn't care. And so when you're working on high-end renovation stuff,

9:05there was one job where we lapsed on that — we didn't realize we had to be in between two contractors. Somebody busted one of the glass railings, didn't say anything about it, and then they walked all over it on top of this $80,000 floor. Yeah, my boss wasn't too happy about that one. And it's that kind of stuff where the low-skilled labor starts creating all these extra costs and creates all kinds of unnecessary waste. And so it really, really started to get in my head — how do we

9:29address these issues? How do we address the labor shortage and how do we address the waste issues? And it's a big question. I mean, the North American market right now — something a lot of people don't realize — we have a catastrophic labor issue in front of us. The average age of a construction worker in North America is 60. Let that sink in for a second. The average age of a construction worker in North America is 60. Sixty. Yeah, I mean, a lot of these guys

10:01might work until they're 70, but their productivity starts dropping off too. What are we going to do in five years when half of our labor force is ready to retire and we don't have young people who want to come in to replace that labor force? You think the housing crisis is bad right now — we've just seen the tip of the iceberg. So we've got a massive problem. And I saw this back in 2017. This is where my solution is now: all this waste, half

10:30of all resources extracted globally, half of everything goes into construction. So if we want to create a change — we see there's environmental issues, waste is unsustainable the way we're doing it — well, let's take some of that waste, let's make a building product. And for me the obvious answer was: let's make a no-cut system. How can we design a building system that requires no cutting, eliminate the human error, then we eliminate waste? Now if we can take the principles of industry that we've known for the last 100 years —

10:58manufacturing principles, being able to get production lines set up, economies of scale — now we can mass-produce products that don't require cutting, made completely from waste materials, that can speed up the construction industry. And the end goal is being automation friendly. So with our products, that's been something that we've kept in mind as we design and bring our products to market: how do we make products that are easy for people to put together, eliminate human error, made of recycled materials, and then we can integrate automation as we

11:28start to grow and move forward into the future? Because I think the only way that we're going to address this labor shortage within the construction industry is by having automation-friendly technologies. And you look at things like 3D printing — it's starting to grow in the construction industry, the 3D-printing houses and all of this. Unfortunately in the 3D printing world there's a lot of misdirection in the advertising, where they're like, "Oh, we 3D-printed this house for $2,000," and then they spent six months having skilled trades people framing all

12:02the windows and doors and trim and all this other finishing stuff. Exactly. And then when they look at the actual cost — there's a village, a community down in the States, and the initial news piece, they were like, "Oh, $4,000 each house" — that was the cost for the 3D printing of the concrete walls. Total finished houses were still like $220,000, which was cheaper than the $300,000 the neighborhood next door needed that was all stick-frame. But it's not like it was a $4,000 house.

12:33That was misleading — that's just what the walls cost. And so you see a lot of this. The other side of 3D printing — I think there's space for it in the market, absolutely. But how do you renovate that? Do you know anybody that owns a house that's never renovated it? I think that's a pretty big thing to think about when we're thinking about how we design structures going forward. People keep wanting to change it, and hey, you've expanded your family, you want to add another room because you've got

13:01another kid, or your parents are getting older so you want to have a granny suite, or you want to change the layout, you want a more open-concept design now. Well, same thing goes for ICI buildings too, right? A lot of companies have seven-year renovation terms, and you know, might not be as rapid on a lot of public buildings, but they're still renovating them every

13:2830 — maybe every 20, 30 years. Yep. And the thing with the 3D printing is you typically have an interior and an exterior wall, right? You have your interior and your exterior, and then you've got a 3D geometry printed inside of that to give it structural stability. So you have a skin on one side and a skin on the other with like some sort of zigzag in between them. Now if you want to renovate that, that zigzag has been computer-generated to be the structural support. Now if you want to

13:53cut through that — now what are you doing to the structural integrity of the building? So that's where we explored 3D printing initially for a while. Some people still get confused — we got some 3D prints to demonstrate our products, we are not 3D printing. We're using more known production models, things that work at scale, things that we can get economies of scale with, set up facilities that can just pump out products. But we're doing that in a way that is then

14:22modular — something that we can all put together. And I really think the future of construction is in modular construction. We see this already — prefab concrete is happening more and more these days. Even things like tilt-frame — tilt-frame is a form of modular construction. You pour these giant slabs and you stand them up and you stack them all together. Maybe you don't think of it that way, but yeah, it kind of is, isn't it? Yeah. And I think

14:50modularity is the key going forward because it makes it more accessible, it reduces the amount of labor, it reduces the amount of error, and it's more conducive to automation. I think automation is going to play a big role in the next 10 years, especially as we start to see this shift in social dynamics and demography, right? There's a changing age variance — people are getting older and we're having fewer kids, and all these things are

15:17kind of converging over the next 10, 20 years. It's important to look forward toward that future. And if we can use waste to build our structures, it seems like a much better use for it than throwing it in some landfill or burning it for energy and adding to the carbon issues. So you see the labor shortage even across North America, and here specifically I suppose. But it's more of a skilled labor problem, right? Absolutely. With the construction trades you can't just throw more bodies on a project and expect it's going to go quicker — it doesn't work. You need people who know how to use a tape measure, who know how to use a hammer, who know how to use a saw, understand how to make money in the process. And if they haven't used a saw, I mean, they're liable to cut off fingers or other things. You

15:48know, I've seen some pretty horrific accidents happen, people with crazy scars from stuff that happens. Working in the construction industry is a dangerous job — it's dangerous, dirty, you get bloody knuckles, busted knees. There's a lot of injuries. And that's where a lot of the younger generation is like, I don't want to do that dirty work. You know, like, who wants to be a plumber and unplug somebody's clogged drains?

16:19You know, it's gross. It is. But it needs to be done. So there's a bit of a dynamic there. I don't know — there's no money? It's money that lures, I think, a lot of people into the trades too. It's good money. It is, it's getting better now because of the lack of people who are getting into it. But it's good — I mean, it's good money, and it's sidestep a journey of becoming a chartered accountant or a lawyer.

16:42You know, a five-to-eight-year journey where you can make that same kind of money. Yep. And I guess you still — if you're going to be a good plumber you still have to put in eight years before you are one, right? Your apprenticeship journey. And apprenticeship is important. Without it you're just not going to have the level of experience. We do the similar thing with doctors too — you go through school, you don't just jump in

17:07and you're a fully-fledged doctor. You spend a bunch of time shadowing somebody else. And I think a lot of these skilled industries require that. But it creates more time needed to actually fill in that skill gap, which is where I think we're looking at automation as an answer — we can bring in automation, and it actually attracts a lot of the younger generation too, because working on robots is way cooler than just swinging a hammer,

17:38right. So we're really hoping and leveraging on that future of enticing the young generation not just by telling them, hey, you can make a bunch of money doing this old thing, but hey, here's a new way of doing this, it's better for the environment, feel good about it, and you get to work on new, high-tech, forward-thinking things. And that creates more excitement, it creates more passion, it's moving things forward. It's like — does somebody want to work

18:05at the traditional factory line putting together a Ford, or do they want to work at Tesla working on robots and automation? I mean, Tesla is the one that has no problem — they've got thousands of résumés, meanwhile a lot of the legacy companies are struggling to hire people. So we take that approach: we're bringing new technology to this market that is ripe for disruption. And I find we're actually able to get a lot of people who are eager and excited to work on what

18:31we're doing. And do you find people in industry are — maybe don't quite understand this forward-thinking? Not saying everyone, but you run into that too, whereas you know, within 10 years maybe this is going to be more the norm. But there's a long transition period, right? Change takes — well, I think I see some of it, but the majority of it is honestly pretty age-dependent, and you can tell within the first 30 seconds of talking to somebody.

18:59Yeah. And we're in a transition period right now where a lot of the, you know, my parents' or a slightly older generation are getting to retirement age, they're starting to pass off the reins of the business to the younger generation. I'm 35, and I see a lot of people in my age group starting to take over the family business, or buying some other business — they're now becoming the business owners. And I think a lot of

19:26our generation also sees that there is a huge need for change. They're struggling finding the skilled labor, struggling dealing with the costs, struggling dealing with the time it takes to put stuff together. And from demos on our product, we have had a 70% conversion rate from contractors that we've met for demos who signed an LOI for product. So lots of people are very eager — the number one question is when, right? Yeah, yeah. We will be — like, we're just at

19:56the cusp of it. Yeah, we've spent the last year and a half being four months away, but we are so — and just for our listeners, maybe just to kind of put it in context, simply — you're producing the technology and selling this technology to wholesale companies to manufacture these blocks, which are a new method of construction, right? No cutting, they go together like LEGO,

20:25you can use them for retaining walls, foundation walls, maybe even like a full building envelope for something under three stories. Yeah. So I mean, our — I got into this initially — the idea, my background is in construction, building buildings. So I developed this Brick and Panel System. It's the first-in-the-world brick and panel system. The two work together: you've got a structural core block system, they all interlock similar to, you know, the building blocks you played with as a kid. And then

20:58unique to that is we have an entire paneling system. And the panel system cross-locks everything. So people who know anything about cabinetry or joinery understand what goes on with this from a physical connection standpoint. We've got cross-lock on all of our joints. We've designed it all to be watertight, so there's a rain-screen idea built directly into our products to help keep water on one side of it. You've got it filtering in between the assembly and the exterior finish. Exactly.

21:30Exactly, like any rainscreen. And so what we've done is not just a new product, but a new physical construction platform that's laying the foundations for this plug-and-play future — a mix-and-match, being able to construct things that are modifiable, keeping circular principles. And we're not looking to dominate the whole market, produce everything ourselves. There's too much capital-intensive

21:56intensity to it. So similar to Tesla just licensing their battery technology, exactly. So we're licensing it out — we've developed proprietary technology around our equipment, around the products, around our mix, and then we're going to be licensing this out internationally. Because there are so many places around the world that need this technology. And here in the North American market, because certification and all that stuff is very expensive, we're going to probably be a million dollars or more in to get fully certified for the construction industry.

22:28Our beachhead market in the North American industry is in landscaping — so doing retaining walls, flower beds, sheds, and other non-occupied structures. What about sidewalks? And these aren't pavers, right? No, we're not doing pavers. We've had a lot of people ask about that because there is another company in Africa that does like a sand-and-polymer mix that — right, you know, that's similar to what's in these blocks, and polymer and different

22:55— well, we're not using any virgin material. So we're not using virgin sand in our product, which is very different. It's all recycled content. The only non-recycled content we may have in this are some stabilizers, some flame retardants, and some dyes that we use. Right. So give us an idea of what waste materials have been recycled to make this block. What waste materials have been recycled? Is it 100 different things, or is it primarily — so it's a

23:21blend of different polymers from a couple of industries, primarily from the agricultural and marine industries. We take a lot of marine plastic, we take a lot of agricultural plastic — things like feed bags, silage wrap, rope from the marine industry, feed bags again from aquaculture, some types of buoys and stuff. A lot of polyolefins. And then we combine that with mineralogical construction waste. So we're able to produce — like the samples I have here are 100% recycled material. But then

23:48depending on the application we may use certain additives to change or modify their physical parameters a bit. Right. And so will a contractor — obviously the last few years have been around the technology, you've got a 4,000 sq ft facility there in New Brunswick — will a contractor, once this stuff is able to be sold, need to be a licensed installer? Or is it a simplified method of construction but still going to have some know-

24:16yeah. Similar to how ICF — you can go get your certification and training to do ICF. I'd say this is like the next evolutionary step from ICF: we eliminate the cutting and we eliminate the pouring, but you still just lock it all together in a similar idea. We take a lot of the steps out of it because it's a very unique product — it's innovative as far as form, function, and material. But the idea is we have these blocks and we

24:49lock them all together, and now it's so much quicker. With ICF you've got to cut all your blocks, make sure they line up, make sure all your seams close up, you still got to do all your rebar and everything tied in there, then you've got to pour it at certain levels — you get cold-seaming, and there's a lot of issues around ICF to actually make it work properly. Something like our system is so much simpler to put together. It eliminates

25:20a lot of these other things. And you know, the long-term vision is automation with this. So will, let's say, a residential building specifying this product in the foundation — for the full foundation, would it be a matter of taking the Revit model or BIM and then all the blocks are going to be manufactured to fit together, and certain jogs are the exact shape, and there's no cutting? So it's going to take that —

25:45that's part of the integration. Yep, exactly. And we're actually going to be developing a plugin that'll go into a Revit or AutoCAD ecosystem as well. Actually connecting with a couple of people there — not sure how much I can say right now. But yeah, we're making progress and making inroads with that. We're actually part of the Autodesk Foundation, which is really exciting — we're in amazing cleantech and they're super excited about what we're doing. So you're kind of on the verge of

26:09a breakthrough. Sounds like. Yes, absolutely. We've been making some really big connections over the last little while and bringing some real powerhouses into our circle of influence. So when do you see, or when do you hope to see, the first PLAEX block being used in a retaining wall even? Hopefully next week, maybe by the end of this week. And that might be somewhere in North America, or will it — it's going to be

26:38it'll be in the Dieppe–Moncton area. We've got a couple of projects right now. You're manufacturing there right now and selling direct to some contractors? We're doing a couple of direct-to-customer projects to showcase the product, the capacity of it. We've kind of got a three-phase business approach — right now we're in demonstration, then there's going to be scale-up, and then there's full licensing. So right now we're doing our own

27:06production. It's slow, it's tedious, we're working on prototype equipment that's not quite up to industrial snuff per se — we're working through the kinks of production at the moment. Getting a lot of data — tons and tons of data. Then we're doing our first demonstration projects this fall. We've got now pushing close to 250 units produced. We're going to be installing those over the next couple of weeks, created a bunch of content around that. And then over the

27:34course of the winter we've got some more capital coming in. Raising capital has been like pulling teeth over the last few years. I mean, I founded the company — actually incorporated in 2020. The idea started in 2017 but I incorporated in 2020. 2020 was just a — it was a massive year for everyone. I had $200,000 in investment lined up that vaporized in March. So January I started, in February I got incorporated, March my

28:01investment vaporized, and then I spent the rest of the year trying to figure out how am I going to do this without money. I got some government funding, a couple of little grants and some subsidies, and was able to survive through it. It's a heavy capital endeavor, though. Whenever you're putting in time and effort and payroll into something where you know you're not really — no revenue stream for three years. I didn't get paid at all in 2020.

28:372020 was just costly. Then 2021, I got into our first accelerator, actually through UNB in New Brunswick — UNB Fredericton. Does — Energia? Oh I was going to say, is that part of the off-site construction program or something? It's connected — we're actually working with them doing the testing on our products. They actually did a publication recently on our product. So we're moving through the ASTM standard testing with them. But through Energia we were actually

29:07able to get our initial larger chunk of capital. There was a substantial grant through ACOA, and there was an investment through NBIF, so they actually have equity in the company. Nice. That allowed me to hire my first three employees. Then September 2021 — we got involved with IRAP, which was able to give me a subsidy and I actually started to be able to get paid, which was nice. Two years in, I finally started getting a paycheck. But

29:36heavily subsidized and still most of it goes straight back into the company. But things have started moving forward. And really since then — by the end of 2021, it was December 31st, 2021 — we come back from Christmas holidays and we're cramming, working on machinery, trying to get everything done. And finally everything was together on the 31st. We're like, all right, we're not leaving until we get our first brick. And then yeah, we made our first

30:04two or three bricks that day. And I've got some photos of that day — it was like a kid seeing his first kid. It was this amazing moment of like, hey, we actually have a brick. And you know, if you look back, they look like crap compared to what we're producing now, but that was that milestone. And since then things have really taken off, and we've made huge advances in our ability to process

30:36material, huge advances in our data that we've been able to generate, and all the metrics — knowing exactly what needs to go into it to make it the best that it can be, and being able to modify it so that it can actually be manufactured easier. There are so many variables in it. Getting into manufacturing — I built houses, there's complexity in building, managing and construction, but those seem small now compared to manufacturing. So I mean, just

31:06what it takes to get a product onto site in ICI construction once you have a data sheet that's approved with the building code, and architects get it spec'd in — you start to understand things like Elon Musk's comments about scale-up hell, you know, trying to get manufacturing going when he was trying to produce a Tesla and stuff. Going from proof of concept to scale production is probably one of

31:32the hardest feats any human can try to make it through. The number of hours, the number of tasks — we joke that we raised over a million dollars, we just created a million jobs for ourselves. But you have to put in that work to get there. If you're not willing to put in the work, you're never going to reap the results. And that's where other people say, "Oh, I'm

32:01surprised nobody's done that." It's like, yeah, because it's actually really hard to do. That's why no one's done it yet. Yeah. So what made you — and I want to go back to what you said about having your first child. Your son? He'd be three or four years old? Six years old — your daughter. Okay. So I feel like a lot of people — that sometimes is maybe what stops them. You know, having a dependent — well, call it

32:31extra pressure or whatever. Or what was it about having your first child that made you want to make the leap? Because you obviously had been thinking about it before, you'd seen these problems and you wanted to solve a problem — that's mostly what entrepreneurship is when you come down and simplify it, right? Well, I mean, I just didn't feel comfortable doing what I was doing anymore. I enjoyed building, I enjoyed creating — the sense of accomplishment

32:57that comes from working on a project and having this finished build that looks beautiful is unmatched. That's where I very much encourage anybody listening right now: if you want a sense of satisfaction, get into the trades, because when you finish that job nothing beats that sense of satisfaction. Yeah. But seeing the waste, seeing the difficulty in the labor, realizing if I kept on the trajectory I was on I was going to be stuck in a repetitive cycle — and I

33:23realized I had more to contribute. You didn't want to do the same thing for the next 30 years. I realized I had more to contribute — my mind is — that's more what it was. A unique mind. I'm able to process problems very quickly. I can see a situation and I'm one of these few people — I didn't realize how rare it was — but the ability to actually visualize. I can — sometimes it feels like I'm

33:48wearing an AR headset. I can actually visualize things in 3D and see patterns and blocks and move it — I have full control over a visual imagination that's very visceral and visual. I probably found that out more about myself once I took the leap over the past six years doing this. And I also tried making a living as an artist before I got into all this too, but there's a reality to the starving-artist thing. So yeah, definitely. This is my

34:19art now. Yeah, yeah. So that's interesting that you had the courage to take the leap after having your first child. Not to say there's ever a good time — I'm not saying that, I'm just saying maybe that's a wrong assumption that a lot of people stay doing what they're doing just because they don't want to take the risk because they've got more — it's easier if you're single, or you know, have a spouse and no children to make a change, right? It would

34:43be easier. But it's also easier to be distracted. So when I was single and I didn't have that, I was enjoying life — I spent years traveling and working. I traveled all across Canada, worked in different companies around the country, learning all kinds of different skills. But I was working to support my time enjoying and exploring nature. I wasn't working necessarily to improve the work that I was doing. Having a child born into the world —

35:11that's something where, you know, you're taking responsibility for sustainability, and that's part of it too, right? Do your little part to make things a little better for your kids. Yeah, it was more than just me — it's like now I've got to think about what am I leaving behind. Not just what can I have so that I can go on this next hiking trip or go on this next vacation. You know, that was kind of the mentality before —

35:38earn enough so I can do the things that I want to do. And I'd set this goal of like, I want to do this. It was very kind of self-centered, a bit of a hedonistic lifestyle. I think we all err maybe until those things happen, right? And then I have kids and it's like, yeah, I wish that I had been smarter when I was younger, when I didn't have kids and I had more time — I could

36:11have hustled way harder. But the reality is that hustle wasn't going to come without some reason to make me hustle. And once I had kids it was like, okay, I've got to think about what I'm leaving behind. Do I feel comfortable working these jobs where I'm creating endless amounts of waste on every project? That just isn't sustainable. It's like — my kids say — you had to do something about it, right? Because everybody sees the same problems, just not everyone — only maybe 1% of people actually step out and take it upon themselves to do something.

36:33This is true. And this is also where we see — this is the element of success. If you want to be successful, you've got to be that 1% that's actually going to put in the work to do something different. Has it been easy? No, it's been very hard. Yeah. And you'll have a breakthrough in a couple of years and

36:55people say, "How did you do that? I could have done that." They don't see the last 10 years of hell — well, not hell, but many, you know, really tough moments. There's been lots of 30-hour shifts. You got to just work through the night to get it done so that we can hit that next milestone by a specific date that people are expecting it to be hit by. And frankly, a lot of people are just not

37:27willing to put in that kind of work, and they wonder why they don't get anywhere. It's understandable. At the same time, it's like there's not really any easy way, is there? No shortcuts — if it was easy, everybody'd be doing it. Yeah. And it's just not. Like, building it up, getting things scaled up is a challenge. And for me, having the kids made it worth that challenge. It's like, no, I've got something — I want to make their life better, I want to make

37:52sure that they have a future. And if I'm looking at scalable options to make the world a better place, when I look at the construction industry and I started looking at the data around it — what is actually going on? When I saw the bigger picture outside my bubble, I realized there were problems, there's waste and labor issues. But when I started looking at the broader picture, getting into this and defining what the problem is that we're solving here — and that's

38:20something, through business accelerators, there's been a lot of that — clearly define the problem. And the size of the problem struck me so much more that I'm like, okay yeah, no, this is absolutely what I'm doing. There's not even a question anymore. Because everyone — I mean, it's talked about on our podcast all the time, the labor — no matter what, whether it's a engineering firm owner or a PM, could be an architect, could be a supplier, it's all

38:46labor shortage. Yep, everywhere, yep — and everything. And the waste, I mean. Half of all resources extracted globally going to construction — half of everything. 40% of global CO2 emissions come from the construction industry and building. That's massive. If we need a certain percentage reduction, that entire reduction could come from the construction industry if we were smart about it, without ever having to worry about any of the other things we're doing. We could solve these climate

39:10things if we were just smarter with how we build. And that's something a lot of people seem to overlook. There's a lot of focus on, you know, the evils of oil. Yeah, it's probably not good to be burning a bunch of oil and burning coal — that does seem like a bad, stinky — yes, bad. But aside from that, fossil fuels have gotten us to where we are and we can't just switch off of them tomorrow. Unfortunately it'd be nice. I mean, the podcast — Net Zero

39:41construction — yeah, I am on board with reducing all of those things, but we have to be smart. I mean, it's not like we can just switch it off tomorrow. I still have a truck — can I afford to go out and buy an electric truck? No. And I know a guy who owns one and he can't even tow all the stuff he needs to with it — he's still got to have his fossil-fuel vehicle to be able to work. He

40:13has his electric truck for his personal life, but for industry there's still huge challenges there. So I think if we're looking at ways of how can we create impact, how can we make the world better, how can we solve some of these issues we're creating — it's my, maybe I'm a little biased, but my personal belief is: half of everything goes into construction, well maybe we should look at the thing that's consuming half of all resources and see if we can do that better. Like, on

40:40your website, there's a stat — 2.2 billion tons of waste, and like you just said, only half is recycled. So it's like there's this plethora of — yeah, if that — yeah. So it's like, there's this whole thing you're tapping into, just in your little niche way. If we can use 10% of the waste that we could use in our mix, we could annually produce about 10 billion bricks. The scale of it just hurts my

41:05head. If you think about the amount of plastic — so just plastic, for example — we produce pushing close to about 400 million tons of plastic produced annually around the world. You want to visualize that? One ton of plastic has about three 4×4×4-foot pallets. Your standard pallet, about 4 ft × 4 ft, 4 ft high — one of those big tote bags full of plastic, one ton of plastic is three of those pallets. And we're producing about 400 million tons.

41:31So that's about 1.2 billion pallets of plastic — that's a number so big you can't even visualize it. The scale of the problem is so massive. And it just makes absolute sense to me — we've got these massive problems, we've also got the biggest market for materials, which is construction. Let's try to offset some of that resource extraction and use things we already extracted, use things we already put energy into. You know, the big issues with construction are — well, a lot of it

42:01rots. Concrete leaches away, it gets weak over time because it absorbs water, and the water demineralizes the concrete — it actually absorbs and pulls all of the minerals that give it structural stability out of it. That's why concrete starts to crumble over time. Wood gets wet, it rots. It's happening right over here in the parkade, actually — down here, yeah, concrete's falling off the ceiling and the parkade's closed. Yep. And so these things are problems. And then

42:35we look at things like plastics. What's the problem with plastics? Well, the problem with plastic in the environment is it lasts almost forever — 500-to-700-year lifespan to break down in the environment. Let's see: a problem with something lasting too long, a problem of something not lasting long enough — take the problem and all of a sudden it becomes a solution when you use it in the right way. That's where our composite takes advantage of the strengths of the polymer, wherein

43:08it can last for infinitely long periods of time, it's not damaged by water, nothing's going to eat or rot at it, it's not going to mold or mildew. And then we use also the structural strength and integrity that you would get from a concrete. So we get similar compression values to a traditional concrete. High-engineered concrete can get more compression than we can with our mix, but we're not doing skyscrapers with this — this isn't something that's going to go

43:36beyond like two or three stories. Yeah, potentially. And we're still doing engineering, we're still doing testing. Probably would max out at around four stories maybe, depending on what we can get with certification and testing. But we're upwards of 20 megapascal compressive strength, which is significant. Canadian building standards minimum is 15 megapascal. So with mix variations we're really honing in on creating that consistency within it. And right now our landscape mix

44:03we're targeting about 17 megapascal consistent strength, but we can get more with certain mix additives. Wow. And it's designed so you can have your electrical, your different rough-ins routed through? Yeah, so our initial design concept has channeling in it. But as we're progressing further, I think a lot of the integration is going to go into the panels. You have these monolithic structural blocks, you build up your wall, and then into the

44:32panel system we'll end up having a fully plug-and-play panel system that'll contain outlets preset into the panels, or have solar integrated into the panels, and have no-wire systems done up — so just click, click, click, and it'll have connection points on it that are just integrating a plug-and-play system. Similar to — actually we're eliminating labor for a lot of trades there. That's what we're trying to do, because the labor just isn't there. The labor that exists is going to have to focus on

45:04renovating existing buildings. And if we can eliminate the need to bring in new labor for all the new buildings — in Canada especially, we have such a massive opportunity in the market. Canada's been bringing in a lot of people, and there's nothing implicitly wrong with that, I think it's great. We have tons of immigrants, we work with a lot of them — great people. But we need the infrastructure to house people. And when we're bringing in a million people a

45:36year and we're producing less than 200,000 dwellings a year, you get a problem. And so I think going forward, the skilled trades are going to be really focused on renovation, and the future of new construction is where automation stands the biggest opportunity. And if we can subsidize and offset that new construction using automation, we're going to reduce the stress on the labor market that we have, and then we'll also reduce the stress on the housing market as well. You know, the

46:03issues with housing — try to get a new permit approved to build a house, try to find somebody to build it for you. These things are driving the housing crisis we see, which are driving the cost of housing and all of this other stuff. So the solution is finding better ways to build — can we do it more cost-effectively? Can we lower labor requirements? Can we build longer-lasting buildings? And this is where I think we're at this

46:32perfect nexus point now. That combined with the fact that a lot of the younger generation is taking over a lot of these trade companies — we see most people from our age group, the 30-to-40 age group, are very eager to start implementing new technology, because they realize we have to. We have to work to help manage our environment, we've got to do better as stewards of our planet, and we also need to find ways to get past the labor shortages. I think

47:00we're at a perfect nexus point with what we're doing. We'd like to welcome our newest partner here at AC Media — the Freeman Group. Freeman Group Financial works closely with business owners, professionals, and retirees as their primary custodial wealth manager. The Freeman Group is targeting contractors and people in the construction industry as they move forward. The Freeman Group is a great choice for all your financial wealth management with a local touch. We look forward to having the Freeman Group on our podcast several times throughout the next 12 months with specific

47:24financial educational episodes. Subler Trinity is Atlantic Canada's newest drywall and interiors contractor. Subler Trinity is a joint effort between Trinity Energy Group — local Division 7 experts for over 17 years in Atlantic Canada — and Subler Constructors, a highly reputable commercial interiors company based in Ottawa since 1986. Subler Trinity has been performing work on commercial projects throughout Atlantic Canada this year while planning for more growth in the years to come. We'd like to thank our partner Pivot Accounting. If you're a contractor or small to medium-sized business owner in the

47:53construction industry and are looking to outsource your payroll, accounting services, and financial needs, Pivot Accounting is a great option. Do you think there's a — when you talked earlier about different demographics and generations and how you could tell right away — do you think some people in the older generation who still have 10 years left, let's say they're 50 or 60 and they're still going to work for another 10 or 20 years, and they didn't grow up in the same era, you know, as you

48:21and I — mid-30s as well — they still played with something similar as a kid? Yeah, and they do. So a lot of them still see our product and they're just like, "This is cool." Yeah, they like it. Yeah. It's not like — change takes a long time, new things sometimes can be a threat. I think even sometimes the construction industry itself is kind of interesting in the way

48:51that — you've got all these different trades and craftsmen, men and women, working really hard, but there's also this huge wave of innovation and technology mixed in the same space. And I guess the point I was trying to make earlier is: do you think sometimes the generation — even though they're so valuable in the way they can train and share hands-on experience

49:17and they've got lots of jobs under their belt — the technology side is a little bit threatening? Just because of the era — it's so fast-moving. Even people that are 10 years younger than us, and obviously you're a lot more techy than I would be, but they're at a whole different level even than we are. And then somebody who's 60 — sometimes I think, as skilled as a lot of the

49:46skilled workers and leaders that are older, that we need just as much as we need new technology, sometimes they've got to use it, right? And they're a little hesitant — it just doesn't come as naturally to them. Do you ever think about that? Does that ever kind of cross your mind? In the space that you're in, does that ever — yeah. So I think there is — before I got

50:24into this, when I first found out I was having a kid, I actually started a consultant group that was helping construction companies integrate construction management software — you know, that allows clock-in, clock-out right on the job site with GPS tags, have your drawings there and you can annotate right on your phone on the drawings, and the engineer gets those annotations right away. Makes things so streamlined, budgets integrated into it, you can do purchase orders through it, change orders through it,

50:55all of that stuff integrated into this management software. But yeah, that was challenging with the older generation — half of them didn't even have a smartphone, they still had the old flip phone. So as far as integrating the apps and the digital side of the technology, there's massive challenges there with the older generation. With what we're doing, beyond the initial "is it going to hold up?" question, we kind of have a

51:18foot in the door. It's familiar — it looks like something they used to enjoy. It's fun because of that. It's not like we're coming at it with something from outer space, something futuristic. They can understand it — they look at it and if you have any experience in joinery, any experience building, or you played with blocks as a kid, or your kids or your grandkids — people see this and they know how

51:47it works, generally speaking. There's nuances of how you may put it together that are very specific to this, but generally speaking, people understand when they look at it what they need to do with it. The other aspect is it looks familiar. There are other products on the market like ByFusion — they have these compressed polymer blocks, they're a pure polymer. Their compression, they get like 800 PSI versus our like 3,000 PSI. So it's a totally

52:19different class. Yeah, exactly. But does that mean it can be used for maybe a retaining wall but not a foundation? Kind of exactly, exactly. But you look at products like that and it just looks like squished-together garbage, you know. So they have a harder — they're still gaining traction, but their product creates more resistance because it doesn't look familiar. Our product has this unique advantage where it looks like concrete. You look at that and you're like, "Oh yeah,

52:44that looks like a concrete block," but it's way tougher. And now we have all these value-adds: the starting foundation of it looks like concrete and it looks like something you played with as a kid, so it's fun and it's familiar. Now we layer on all of the value-adds to this product — it's designed to be watertight, it's designed to last longer, it's more impact resistant. You can go through a whole list of benefits on it. But the foundation of it, when people get their first impression, it's

53:11familiar — that's key, right. And so I think that's one of our big advantages. This is essentially like a step towards replacing concrete. I mean, there's still always going to be a place for concrete. I think it's just offsetting part of its production, right? Let's be more choosy about where we use concrete. I don't think there's any chance of fully replacing concrete in our world. Back to your comment about fossil fuels — you know, you're not going to replace it. But I guess a better way to

53:39term it would be like a step away from concrete for certain structure types, certain smaller building types. Or there wouldn't be a concrete element if you're using this? Well, even our current specifications for installation we still use concrete. You do a traditional footing — you dig your trench, you put your concrete footing in, and now our products bolt down to that footing. We may develop a product as we expand that'll replace that footing as well using our composite. But to get a nice smooth,

54:10leveled finished surface to start building up from, concrete's very useful for that — it's liquid, we pour it in, it levels everything out, you just float it off and now you've got a nice flat level surface. As long as you did a good job building your forms. That's something our material isn't — it's not something you're going to be pouring on site. They're pre-formed industrial production blocks. So concrete still has a role to play, but it's just reducing its use and using it more wisely for the applications that its

54:39physical properties are best suited for. And I think that's for me in doing this — it's really looking at materials and what is the best use case for this material that takes advantage of its physical and chemical characteristics. Like I said earlier, landscaping is kind of your — yeah, it's the big one right now, it's our beachhead market. Just gets us to market a lot easier, regulatory hurdles. Yeah. But do you see the same technology being used for — I mean,

55:09you've got the block innovation for foundation and that kind of stuff, but do you see it being used for other elements too? We talked about pavers there for a minute, but even maybe there's all kinds of other things. The technology is helping extract from that — like you said, you can't even visualize the amount of stuff that isn't being recycled. So maybe no telling where the technology goes? Yeah, we are exploring other product

55:41applications as well. We will expand our ecosystem. If you look at LEGO, they started with three basic bricks — now they have thousands of product SKUs. In a similar fashion, we're starting out with a very basic product line, and as we grow we will expand that product line. And yes, there are several use-case examples that we are in some

56:11study, development, and conversations with other industries about using our composite for. But we have steered — the paver thing — we've steered away. We've made an ethical business decision to not make pavers. We will not produce pavers out of our product. The reason being: it is a polymer base that is going into this, it uses polymers in its constitution. A pathway or walkway — you're going to inevitably have a higher level of wear. There's constant friction going on from a

56:39foot traffic or driving traffic on it. And roads already produce 40% of global — so if you consider that, you're putting as big of a problem there. Exactly, exactly. Now when we're making walls, we can encase that material — it's locked away for generations. It's there if we need to take it apart. Due to the nature of our thing, we can still take it apart, it's circular in design. But we're not exposing our material to high wear because that's not its material strength. Yes, it's

57:10durable — it is more durable than a lot of things. But I would rather you did your paving, your pavers, out of real stone or concrete or clay, which when that breaks down to smaller pieces doesn't have an environmental effect the same way. When we encase this — we make walls out of it, we've got paneling, we've got other things — now it's not being subjected to the same mechanical stresses. Now we're actually able to use the strength of that material property. And it's not to say — yeah, there are

57:48companies making pavers out of plastic stuff, but we just didn't feel that it was the most ethical use case for our material. The market in wall systems is massive, so yeah. It's important to keep your focus, right? Exactly — it's very important to focus in on niche. And as we expand our product line we may look at other applications as well, but pavers is one that we've specifically said, that doesn't seem like the best use case for our product.

58:19So what are your goals for the next couple of years? You mentioned maybe as early as next week you start turning revenue and making sales, and then it might take off pretty quickly. Yeah, it's definitely looking that way. How do you feel about that? I mean, it's exciting — yeah obviously it's exciting, but also thinking like, have I prepared on all other

58:48fronts? If there is an opportunity to capture — maybe I've undershot what it's going to be like if it does that. I yeah — definitely. Our biggest issue, or my biggest concern, is being able to meet the demand that we've found. The demand for what we're doing is hard to conceive. The products almost sell themselves. The technology we have — we don't spend any money on advertising, it's all organic growth. It's like you're

59:18backward integrating, or focusing on your one piece of this autonomously. Yeah. And we have people from around the world reaching out to us on a weekly basis: "Hey, how can I get involved?" So when I was in Switzerland, one of the big things we were doing was looking for mentorship around international licensing and potentials around OEM production — so getting a manufacturer that can help produce our proprietary equipment that then produces our products. And that's why we're really

59:47adopting the licensing model, because we do see such huge demand. If we were to try to manage it all ourselves, it would be next to impossible. And the other thing is we are on a path towards B Corp certification — we want to be an ethical business. We're addressing nine out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. And one of those is addressing poverty, and we're looking to commodify waste — taking things that are considered of no value and

60:22creating value out of them and allowing people to generate income off of that. For us, local ownership is important. By licensing our technology we can have local owners actually generating revenue in their local economies off of things that would otherwise be completely valueless garbage, as they say. And we're able to take that garbage and turn it into essentially gold — we're turning it into a value-added product. So you see your tech being used in other countries in the near future? Absolutely,

60:53very quickly, and helping with poverty. I'm thinking about some Habitat for Humanity locations where they're helping build homes — all these different methods, right, they're using old brick and mortar and that's how they're building a lot of these homes in some of these countries. So as it stands right now, we've got seven MOUs signed to license our technology internationally. It's looking like Nigeria may be one of the first ones — hoping all the geopolitics cool down there because there's massive

61:20opportunities. We've got several partners in Nigeria that we've been in discussions with for quite a while now — very eager to deploy our technology there. But we're not just looking there. Being in Switzerland we got a lot of leads on European potentials. We've got one signed in England, in Jamaica and Brazil and Indonesia and the Philippines and Singapore and India, and just recently another one in Sri Lanka. And there are people from around the world, all kinds of different

61:52— we have a pipeline of a lot right now. We have seven that are signed and we're really moving forward on those. Scaling up quickly enough is going to be the biggest challenge. That's where we're in discussions now with OEM partners, because we have proprietary machinery — it's a very unique composite. We had to develop unique machinery to be able to produce it at scale. So these are the things we're working through right now —

62:22scaling that up so that we've got the right people and companies backing us. Hopefully by the end of next year we'll have a minimum of one international deployment for sure. Ideally we're targeting three international deployments by the end of next year. How important is it for your business, of your nature, with patents? Yeah, especially when it comes to, you know, if you were to get into litigation with someone — that's a great idea. Anyone could

62:54— not anyone, but there's obviously going to be opportunities to kind of copy in a way what you're doing. And that's going to happen to some degree eventually, right? In some — you're in such a big — yeah. I think the chance of some copycat is now extremely difficult. Our material — it's taken us a while to get here because processing this material in the way that makes it — couldn't a large corporation, if an idea is that good with that much of a

63:18market, or an endless amount of resources — couldn't they kind of, couldn't that happen? So what I've found within the industry is people are more keen on the license. It can be cheaper in the long run, it's better to work together. And this is part of why we're going the licensing model as well — we're not trying to cut into other people's share, we want to work

63:48together, we want to collaborate. Goal 17 out of the Sustainable Development Goals is collaboration to meet the goals. And that's a big focus of what we're doing — best business practice involved, right? Exactly. This is where we're getting B Corp certified and we're really moving forward. We want to work with people. If you're involved in something and you want to move this forward, we want to work with you. We're not looking to own the entire thing — we want

64:17to bring this technology and make it accessible. And so I think that helps. We have a lot of people who are involved in the industry who have reached out to us: "I love what you're doing, can we work together?" And we do have a robust IP portfolio — we've got filings in over 200 countries and spend way too much money on IP. But it's important, as we license, we have global coverage on our IP. And so that's a key

64:42strategy that we've taken. But we're looking to share in that, right? We're not looking to be the manufacturer — we're looking to license that technology and work with the local manufacturers. And I think that creates a much more ethical business model. I think it also creates more opportunity for success, because if the business owners are local, we're not just some outsider — I'm not just some white guy coming in trying to make a bunch of money off of them. I'm trying to help bring a technology to

65:07them to help revitalize their local economy. And a large percentage of those profits are staying local, right — taking local waste, turning it into a product, using local labor to install projects locally. It's keeping that in a local setting and generating wealth off of something that would otherwise just literally be landfilled. So we have a massive opportunity to create wealth where there would have been none. And the complexity of

65:32what we do from a mechanical standpoint is also a limiting factor because it's contrary to a lot of the conventions of industry. I came at it from a unique perspective, and sometimes that's very useful. A lot of the industry is like — it's the horses with the blinders on, back in the day: "This is the way we've done it, so this is the way we're going to do it. Yeah, this crazy outside idea — oh no, that's not going to work." Yeah. Are you

66:02sure about that? "Oh yeah, it's not going to work, this is the way we've done it, this is the way we're doing it." And I understand that, because — expensive, well, especially in construction where you know yourself if you're a contractor — you've got to be in it to make money. You can't make money when you're taking on all these different ideas and thinking too much. You have a job to do and a deadline, immovably — it's

66:38hard. Oh yeah, I get it. Yeah, yeah. Pick and choose your spots. And this is where there's a wild mind such as myself — we take on that risk and push through and forge through. And you'll reap the benefits hopefully — deserve it. I mean, for me, the

67:06biggest thing is I want to see this technology deployed around the world. I don't want to see pictures of giant piles of waste anymore. My kid said it's like I'm WALL-E, right? And it's like yeah — I'm trying to make sure the world doesn't end up like it did in WALL-E. We need to solve this problem first. Let's not leave it until there's literally mountains bigger than skyscrapers of garbage — let's start addressing it

67:34and let's make our — well, not quite the sky — make our buildings out of this stuff, right. There's a huge amount of potential. If you start looking into it, I think the recycling industry is probably one of the biggest opportunities that our generation sees right now. Between — I think

68:03automation and recycling, those are the two biggest opportunities — maybe space, I'd say maybe the third-largest sector of growth we're going to see over the next 50 years. Because if we're going to live in a net-zero, sustainable, circular economy — and all these other buzzwords — that means there's no garbage. And when we're producing billions of tons — that 2.2 billion tons of waste, that's only about 30% of global

68:29waste in the construction industry specifically. Just in general, there's like six billion tons of waste generated globally every year — that's a big business opportunity. And so I think the biggest thing is, there are things like another startup I'm friends with, they're doing composite recycling — recycling like boats and windmills and stuff like that. And there's battery recycling, and food recycling — I think all of these industries are going to see massive growth over the

68:51next while, especially with more pressures. Being able to recycle materials that we've already put embodied energy into is the most efficient way to do it. Lithium is very expensive and environmentally costly to extract from the natural environment. But if you take batteries and grind those up, now you've got a concentrate. There's so much more value in the raw material of a battery. And I think this is something that our generation faces now — how do we solve waste issues? And if we're going to be a

69:26circular — if we're going to be moving forward, if we're going to actually reach the dream of being a multiplanetary species, we've got to learn how to manage our resources. If we extract and extract and extract, and then when we're done with it after the first iteration we just throw it away — eventually the whole world ends up like WALL-E's world, just a mountain of garbage. Humanity can do better than that. I have a lot of faith. There are

70:00a lot of amazing people doing a lot of amazing things, and for sure there is. Yeah.

70:05How do you find managing your time? You know, as a founder and CEO — this is your baby, it's your idea. You've got employees locally, you've got all these things happening in different countries, you're doing pitch competitions, and there are people wanting to be part of what you're doing and partner with it and get involved from

70:43all over. Just you personally — where is your time spent? Most valuable, obviously, is front-facing these opportunities, making sure the money is coming in, raising capital. Do you ever battle with knowing what your time needs to be spent on? Or is it because you come from a construction background, so you're not really — presumably you're not doing a lot of task-oriented stuff where you're working hands-on for a

71:13week maybe just to give your mind a rest? Or what — you're navigating a lot of stuff there. I'm just wondering, personally, speak to that a little bit as far as time management. It's a challenge. I think it's a challenge for any founder. Being involved in accelerators, connecting with a lot of entrepreneurs — time management and founder life is challenging. I think you have to give up a lot in order to be successful in

71:43entrepreneurship. There's a lot of personal time, a lot of sacrifices — like, how often do I get to see my friends anymore? It's a lot less. And I think those are the things that you have to be willing to do — do what needs to be done to make it through. I've gotten better at it over the last while. The challenge over the last couple of years is definitely, like you said, how do you get that

72:17stuff out of your head and convey it? Creating policies, structure, building our scripts, making sure that all that information that is in my head gets put down on paper so other people can be conveyed information. Teamwork is so crucial. That said, most founders are going to be doing twice as much as anybody else on your team, and you can't expect people to do more. Nobody — yeah, yeah. And that's

72:51that's where I've learned over the last while — to lower my expectations of others and be kind. And I think that starts with being kind to yourself. Do you find that hard to do? I mean, sometimes you've got to be hard on yourself. I think tough love on yourself is important. I think adversity creates strength. If you go to the gym and you're lifting weights and you start feeling a little

73:21like, "Oh, it's too much," and you just put it down, you're never going to build up muscle. You've got to push through that — "I can't do this, all right, one more, one more" — and you struggle through and you're sweating and you're gritting. But that's how you build strength. I think that analogy applies beyond just working your body — it applies to working your mind, it applies to lots of things. I've gone

73:56through a very challenging life. And it's that constant drive, that constant push, that allows for success. Without that, a lot of the people I grew up with when I was younger are in jail or on drugs or never progressed past the housing system. Were they in the construction industry, involved in renovations and stuff? Toward that — I grew up in subsidized housing. My mom was on welfare when I was a kid. You

74:28know, not because she was lazy, but because she ended up in hard situations. It's a messy world. She dealt with some very unsavory partners in her life, and that put her in a hard situation. Growing up, I was exposed to a very rough life. A lot of people get stuck in it — they're like, "Oh, my life was so hard, my life was so hard." Yeah, but it is —

74:54life isn't easy. My life was better than somebody growing up in some developing country for sure — I've had a lot more advantages than they had. But it's what you do with that, too, that pays a lot. Right, and that's part of your drive. Yeah. Some people I've met feel bad about doing better than their parents, or their parents will make them feel bad if they did better — this jealousy thing. And

75:32it's like, no — every generation should do better. Yeah, kind of obligated to. Yeah, yeah, that's my feeling anyway. A good parent would probably want that. But it's sad how many don't, you know. I've seen a lot of it — drugs and these other things really pulling down a lot of our society. But you know — finding out what you mean by "better" too. I mean, success is different for different people as well. In a sense, better

76:01quality of life should increase with — not doing drugs is kind of, yeah, the foundation point. Yeah. And for me, I want my kids to not have to deal with a lot of the stuff that I had to deal with. And that's got to tie into your initiative too, with the business and having your first kid and the way it sparked you. It's interesting to find out some of the personal stories and backgrounds of

76:29people — not everybody does what you're doing. Maybe in some ways it takes a lot of the other side to get you there. It's like maybe you can't do what you're doing unless you've been through the hard stuff. I kind of think — you look at a lot of major innovators and a lot of them had very hard lives growing up. In some way adversity creates that, you know. But I

76:54think that goes back to that — if you have to be in there lifting those weights, you respond to it. Yeah, so important. Yeah, I wasn't just going to sit by and do nothing. My brain's too active — rather than become bitter and just say, "Well, this is all I'm meant to do," — it's a poverty-of-mindset thing, not to say there haven't been those moments. But for me, they're moments — I

77:21don't stay there. And I think that's something that people need to realize too — no matter who you are, I've seen this even with very wealthy people in the construction industry. I specialized in doing high-end work, and I've gotten to work with some very wealthy people. People are people are people — it doesn't matter how much money you have, it doesn't matter what car you

77:47drive, what house you live in. We all deal with the same things. I stress now running a business — my perspective has changed. Ten years ago I'd stress about a $200 bill, now I'm stressing about $2,000 or $10,000 bills. Yeah. But you're still stressing. The feeling of stress is no different whether it's $100 or $10,000 — the feeling is still the same. And that's something I think a lot of people don't really realize. Plus I mean, it's kind of

78:10a proven fact — after $65,000, $70,000 a year, your lifestyle quality of life is not improving because of the amount of money you make. Well, I think that was an old statistic. Yeah, maybe it is. There are people making — I'll take $150,000 a year any day. There are people making a $50,000 living in their parents' basement right now. So yeah, that's definitely true. We're working to fix that because the housing thing is a big problem. Yeah. Housing has

78:34more than doubled in the last three years, so that's a challenge. That is right. I'd say, once you're making more than — probably somewhere around $100,000, at this point in Canada. Once you're making more than that, six figures — the difference from $100,000 to $200,000 is like more problems, because you're more concerned about your money now. You've got investments and the stock market and all these other things,

79:05and for me, I'm glad my life's simple — in my business, everything goes back into the business. My stresses are purely around that. But I see it — it's a More Money More Problems kind of thing. But there is a level of money that only creates happiness when you don't have your basic needs met. Once your basic

79:33needs are met — and I guess that was why I brought up that statistic, which probably is old and maybe outdated, but that's kind of the point I was trying to make. Once your needs are met, yeah. And not every need can be met by money anyway. Absolutely not — the important ones aren't. And like I say, this is something very obvious to me now: it's not your bank account that's your net worth, it's your network

80:00that is your net worth. Who are the people? Social capital. Yeah, yeah. Because I can run into a problem — I might not have that money in my bank account to solve that problem, but when I reach out to my community we can solve that problem. And that's it — it is so much more than the singular. And I think this is part of the failings of our society too: the lie of the self-made person. None of us are self-

80:30— in fact, that's kind of a sad statement to make. I haven't done anything on my own — I may have done more than some people, I've had to deal with a lot of things on my own and work through a lot of things on my own without a ton of support. But I wouldn't be here without the people who've helped me get here — not a chance. I'm riding on the shoulders of giants. I

80:55completely recognize that — as much as I've done myself, I wouldn't be here without the people that helped me. And I think that we need to realize that as we move forward: success is created by collaboration. Hard work is important, but it's the network — what can you build in your network to help move you forward? Wow. And you know, it's putting it together one piece at a time, just like our buildings. Yeah. It's awesome, man.

81:19Oh, thank you so much, lots of wisdom there. And it's great hearing about PLAEX Building Systems and some of your personal story. Seems like you're on the verge of something really, really special. Yep. Anything else you want to mention, being here with the opportunity and the audience — anything we haven't touched on? Well, I mean, I guess leading from what we were saying: if there are people that are interested in getting involved — you see how you could contribute to this — we'll

81:44tag all your links and website and all that kind of stuff too. And we want more people to come and get involved with this. We need more engineers who want to help certify and move this into projects, or architects who want to help push this forward. If you've got a ton of experience in licensing, that's something we're working through right now over the next eight to 12 months — we have to be in a position to

82:13actually start deploying our licenses. We're discussing with a group of people and trying to iron it out, but maybe there's somebody out there that's like, "Hey, I've got some wisdom to bring to this" — we want to hear from you. I constantly bring in more of that wisdom. I think it's important to vet ideas amongst many people because it's easy to get stuck in an echo chamber of "Oh yeah, this is a great idea, yeah, yeah, yeah."

82:41I don't like being surrounded by yes-people. I like people who challenge me in a respectful way — "Hey, but have you thought about this?" or "Hey, have you looked at it this way?" And sometimes they're wrong, but those are the best people to be surrounded by. You want to be challenged, but in a respectful way — tone is very important. And yeah — I hope this podcast helps

83:05reach some people that you haven't yet, and that they'll reach out to you and keep building your network. Best of luck in the future — hopefully we'll touch base and see how things are going. I look forward to it. Hey, thanks for having me on — I really appreciate it. It's a pleasure chatting and sharing. We're doing big things. This has the potential to actually have impact. We need scalable solutions to waste, we need

83:29automation-friendly construction, and we need to find ways to solve the housing crisis. I truly believe that what we're doing has the ability to be this nexus point for a radical shift within the construction industry and waste management. Awesome. Well, Dustin Bowers from PLAEX Building Systems, thanks so much for being here, man. Cheers. Thank you. Cheers, cheers. We'd like to thank our longtime sponsor Cook Insurance. Cook is your trusted insurance broker in Atlantic Canada for 50 years. The Cook team opens up opportunities for

83:55contractors by proactively managing the requirements of their bond facility. They expand levels of support and negotiate preferred rates, all while prioritizing ease of doing business. A Navacord partner since 2020, Cook is one of the largest construction brokers in Canada and offers national strength with a local touch. Whatever your insurance needs are, Cook has you covered. The team at the Atlantic Construction Podcast has been able to build a strong relationship with the folks at FCC. FCC is strongly invested in supporting the Atlantic Canada construction marketplace and

84:22helping contractors to build their business. We highly recommend

84:51— we highly recommend FCC.

85:20helping contractors to build their business. We highly recommend