Scaling a Construction Business: From College Dropout to $100M+ Builder
Release Date: 09/16/2025
How a French Developer Rebuilt Miami’s Luxury Market - One Spec Home at a Time with Pascal Nicolai
Builder Straight Talk Podcast
How a French Developer Rebuilt Miami’s Luxury Market - One Spec Home at a Time with Pascal Nicolai Pascal shows up in Miami in 2008 with some cash from selling assets in France, right when everything's melting down. Most people would think that's terrible timing, but he saw it differently. "I said to my wife at the time, look, I think there is one opportunity to go there, it is now. I don't think we're going to see this kind of opportunity in our lives. The market was crashed, very accessible if you have some money." He didn't even know he'd end up in construction. His specialty...
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Are You Leaving Money on the Table? CRM for Builders with Shari Morton
Builder Straight Talk Podcast
CRMs aren't sexy. Understatement of the year! They're not the kind of thing you get excited to talk about at the jobsite. But here's the thing: if you're building homes and not using one, you're probably leaving serious money on the table. And we're not talking pocket change here. In this episode, Michael invited Shari Morton, founder and Chief Growth Officer of Shared Drive, to talk about something most builders would rather avoid: customer relationship management systems. We call it the "broccoli" of the building industry. Everyone knows it's good for you, but most people stay away from it...
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Build For Speed: America Needs Housing Now! with Scott Menard
Builder Straight Talk Podcast
Scott Menard has been in construction since he was 17 years old, starting as a laborer for KB Homes during summer breaks. Over nearly four decades, he's worked his way through purchasing, project management, land acquisition, and operations at some of the nation's most respected builders, including Ryland, Taylor Woodrow, and Shea Homes. Now he's the president of Homes Built for America, a company that didn't exist four years ago and is already the 14th largest builder in the San Francisco Bay Area. They're doing something many builders won't touch: focusing exclusively on first-time...
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How Two Brothers Survived the Housing Crisis and Scaled to 1,000+ Homes | Chris & Clif Poston
Builder Straight Talk Podcast
There's something rare about sitting down with two brothers who genuinely like working together. Chris and Clif Poston make running a homebuilding company that closes over 1,000 homes a year look almost easy, but their story is anything but. Clif: "Doing what we say we're going to do is really, really important. A foundation of our business. And we try to get that out to people in every aspect of the business, from our employees, to the marketing side, to the sales side, to dealing with our vendors, to dealing with the public when it comes to buying land and rezoning." The Poston brothers...
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Housing, Policy, and the Fight for Affordability with Jim Tobin
Builder Straight Talk Podcast
Jim Tobin never set out to spend 27 years at the National Association of Home Builders. He wanted to fly helicopters like his dad photographed at Sikorsky Aircraft. Then politics caught his attention, and he found himself on Capitol Hill in 1995, thinking he'd become a defense lobbyist selling guns and things that go boom. Instead, he landed at NAHB and discovered something better: an industry that builds shelter, creates wealth, and gives families a shot at the American dream. Now as President and CEO of NAHB, Jim spends his time doing something most association heads don't: actually visiting...
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Debunking the Modular Myth with Ken Semler
Builder Straight Talk Podcast
If you've ever driven past a construction site and wondered why we're still building houses the same way we did 50 years ago, this conversation is for you. Michael sits down with Ken Semler, President and CEO of Impresa Modular, who's spent the last 25 years trying to get people to understand what modular construction actually is. And no, it's not a double-wide trailer. That's the first misconception Ken tackles, and honestly, it's the one that's been holding the industry back for decades. Ken's journey into modular started almost by accident. He was flipping houses back in 2003 when his day...
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The $4 Million Bottleneck: Working ON Your Business, Not IN It with Glen Harris III
Builder Straight Talk Podcast
Glen Harris III was living the contractor's dream in 2016. His custom home building company was doing $4 million in revenue, clients were happy, and he was making good money. There was just one problem: he WAS the business. Every estimate, every decision, every five-minute phone call ran through him. He'd hit a ceiling and couldn't see how to break through it. This episode is about what happened next and why it matters if you're stuck in the same trap. What You'll Learn Why systems beat hustle when you want to scale. Glen breaks down the moment he realized working harder wasn't going to get...
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Start Small, Build Big: Lance Williams on 30 Years of Homebuilding, Risk, and 100% Completion Rate
Builder Straight Talk Podcast
In this conversation, Lance walks through what it actually takes to build a homebuilding business that lasts. He talks about why his first hire made the first project successful (because he knew what he didn't know), how to structure your first deal so you have enough margin to survive your mistakes, and why contingency planning isn't optional when unexpected costs show up. When Lance Williams started his homebuilding company in 1996, his equity partners were his wife, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law. Talk about pressure! He'd just been laid off during a market downturn, took a short...
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Builder Mindset to Business Mindset with Duane Johns of Alair Homes
Builder Straight Talk Podcast
Most builders hit a wall. They work 80-hour weeks, carry tools, manage crews, chase payments, and somehow still struggle to make ends meet. Sound familiar? That was Duane Johns twenty years ago, grinding it out in Charlotte, North Carolina after moving from the Hamptons. Then 2008 hit. While other builders went under, Duane used the crisis as a mirror. "I think that that too, one thing that happened in that 2008 environment, especially the few years after, was everyone got reduced to a commodity, you know, I mean, the builders or modelers, they had the lower hand, no doubt." The...
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Scaling a Construction Business: From College Dropout to $100M+ Builder
Builder Straight Talk Podcast
Starting a construction company during the 2008 recession sounds insane, but sometimes desperation breeds the best business decisions. Matt Millsap's story starts like a lot of ours do - working weekends with dad, thinking he was going to hang out with friends but ending up tearing out bathrooms instead. What makes his story different is where it goes from there. After flunking out of college, Matt found himself cutting grass for a builder who saw something in the kid. That builder, Mark, became the mentor who taught him everything. It was old-school apprenticeship at its finest, and Matt...
info_outlineStarting a construction company during the 2008 recession sounds insane, but sometimes desperation breeds the best business decisions.
Matt Millsap's story starts like a lot of ours do - working weekends with dad, thinking he was going to hang out with friends but ending up tearing out bathrooms instead. What makes his story different is where it goes from there.
After flunking out of college, Matt found himself cutting grass for a builder who saw something in the kid. That builder, Mark, became the mentor who taught him everything. It was old-school apprenticeship at its finest, and Matt soaked it up like a sponge.
Then 2008 hit. Mark couldn't pay Matt anymore. So what did Matt do? He started his own construction company right in the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Sometimes you don't get to pick your timing.
Those early years were about survival. Matt was doing punch lists for foreclosed houses, fire and water restoration, anything that was recession-proof. He kept his overhead low, lived off savings, and slowly built BuildCo7 from the ground up. By 2011, when banks started lending again, he was ready to move into spec homes and high-end renovations in Nashville.
The conversation digs deep into what it really takes to scale past the point where you're doing everything yourself. Matt learned early that knowing your numbers isn't optional. While most contractors are flying by the seat of their pants with whatever's in their checking account, Matt was going to accounting conferences in Colorado, learning P&Ls and balance sheets because he had to.
"My goal was to bring the structure of commercial contracting to residential contracting. Residential contracting is a wild west - you're shooting from the hip, the subs are unreliable. I was trying to make it professional."
His approach to hiring reveals something most builders struggle with: the choice between raw talent and cultural fit. After getting burned by a few construction hotshots who knew their stuff but poisoned the team dynamics, Matt shifted to hiring for character and teaching the skills. His philosophy is simple - if someone can problem-solve and fits with the team, you can teach them construction.
"I knew what I was good at. I was really good at processes and systemization and project management. I was really bad at accounting... Every time I would get to a bottleneck, I'd identify it and then we'd hire appropriately."
The project manager challenge runs throughout the conversation. Matt figured out that each PM can handle about $3-4 million in work, but finding qualified ones has become nearly impossible. The old-timers are retiring and not being replaced. It got so frustrating that Matt started an entire separate company, Construction Coach, just to train project managers and create an aptitude test for owners to screen candidates.
"We can teach just about everything. So if we have a problem solver, a quick thinker, problem solving is honestly the biggest skill set. If you can problem solve, you're hired."
Technology plays a bigger role than you might expect. While most of the industry was still using fax machines in 2005, Matt embraced AI three years ago.
"AI and technology for me has always been about making our lives better. What that means is giving my employees more time to themselves - using AI to finish something that would have taken them three hours, they can now do in one."
He built a custom GPT that can write project scopes from blueprints and got his team using AI for everything from email management to daily logs. His prediction: the contractors who don't embrace this stuff now will get left behind by those with lower overhead.
"If you don't embrace AI now, you're going to get passed up. The guy whose overhead is significantly lower because he's using AI for scheduling and takeoffs is just going to succeed."
The financing discussion gets real about today's market. With traditional banks clamping down, Matt's moved to investor partnerships and hard money for his luxury spec projects in Nashville's $2M+ market. It means giving up 50% of the profit, but it also means sharing the risk when things go sideways.
Matt's built something that could run without him, which was always the goal. He calls it "operational irrelevance" - pulling himself out of the equation so the business has value beyond just Matt Millsap. Whether that leads to an ESOP for his employees or an outright sale, he's built a company that doesn't depend on the founder showing up every day.
The whole conversation feels like talking shop with a builder who's figured out how to work on his business instead of just in it. No fancy MBA theories, just practical lessons from someone who's been there and has the battle scars to prove it.
About Matt Millsap
Matt Millsap is the founder and CEO of BuildCo7, an award-winning Nashville contracting and consulting firm known for high-end renovations, custom builds, and historic home restorations. With over 25 years in the industry and more than $100 million in completed projects, Matt has built a reputation for delivering craftsmanship with clarity and confidence.
He’s also the creator of Construction Coach Instruction, a real-world training program designed to give aspiring and new project managers the systems and mindset they need to succeed without the trial-by-fire approach. Through his no-fluff teaching style, Matt equips PMs to move from chaos to control and thrive in their careers.
Links:
- BuildCo7 website: https://buildco7.com
- BuildCo7 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buildco7/
- Construction Coach: https://construction-coach.thinkific.com/
- Construction Coach on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/constructioncoaching
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction and Early Beginnings
01:54 - Learning the Trade from a Mentor
06:35 - Starting a Construction Company During a Recession
10:39 - Building a Business with Systems and Processes
17:07 - Performance-Based Bonus Structure
18:54 - Challenges with Project Managers and Training Initiatives
25:42 - Hiring Strategies and Growth Planning
31:57 - Financial Roadmap and Business Vision
32:59 - Project Managers and Revenue Impact
34:02 - Challenging Projects and Lessons Learned
35:34 - Evaluating Client Relationships
36:39 - Corporate Culture and Hiring Practices
46:02 - Embracing Technology and AI
50:19 - Future of Construction and Industry Predictions
52:43 - Financing and Investment Strategies
55:27 - Final Thoughts