Episode Transcript
Kyle James (00:00.782)
Hey, welcome to the AI Chronicles podcast. I'm your host, Kyle James. Today we're going to be diving in head first on how a SaaS home renovation company called Formus is using AI inside of their own business. And we'll share the exact steps that you can take in order to implement AI for yourself. Now, before I dive into that, listen closely. Are you looking to implement AI inside of your own company or just struggling to get your AI to stop hallucinating? Speak to GPT Trainer.
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It's a thousand times faster and safer to hire professionals. Scheduled consultation today. Once again, that's gpt-trainer.com. Today I have with me Melissa Wood, who is the founder and CEO of Formus, a platform redefining the pre-construction process by leveraging their proprietary product called SATI, an advanced AI engine that guides stakeholders, manages critical data, and streamlines project planning.
Super excited for our conversation today. Welcome to the show, Melissa. How are you?
Melissa Wood (01:30.592)
Thank you, Carol. Appreciate you having me on. I'm doing great.
Kyle James (01:35.072)
Awesome. Super excited this conversation today. tell me, give me some background here. How did Formis come to be and like, exactly is Formis?
Melissa Wood (01:45.61)
Yeah, so personally, I went through renovation hell myself as a homeowner. So nine years ago, I moved to Austin with my family and we bought a house that needed to be fully renovated. We were excited to jump right into the process, but were quickly blindsided by the unexpected costs, the delays and even unsafe conditions for the family.
And several years later, I started consulting with design build firm primarily in sales and marketing. And just through that experience, I had transparency in the pains from the professional side. And I recognized the common barriers between the professionals and the homeowners and realized that there really isn't a solution out there addressing those barriers. So I set out to create one and Formis evolved.
Kyle James (02:41.55)
Wow. So it was really almost like, because you had the pain of like when you were moving to Austin initially, and it was such a, I guess, like a time consuming process. And I imagine just very frustrating. That's what kind of birth form this was, is where it came from. Wow. And, so as far as like who you're reaching, is it, is it mostly like homeowners or is it, you know, contractors, you know, people were in the commercial space, like what's kind of like your.
Melissa Wood (02:57.728)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kyle James (03:11.202)
I guess niche that you've helped people helping with.
Melissa Wood (03:13.068)
So our platform is designed for project owners. so that, you right now there's not really one entry into home renovations for homeowners. And oftentimes they'll go straight to a GC and that GC will pull in a designer or architect. Sometimes the homeowners go straight to an architect. Sometimes they go straight to an interior design. So right now we're calling our target market project owners of home renovation.
really renovation professionals. So it could be the architect, the interior designer, or the GC, but the homeowners are the users of the platform as well. But who we actually build this technology to serve is the renovation professional to really be an assistant to them in guiding homeowners through the process.
Kyle James (04:05.678)
Yeah. Yeah. I literally show, I'm thinking of is like with chip and Joanna gains when like it shows like the layout of like, this is what she sees. And that's kind of like my vision. Like I'm seeing this is like here just helps like give the, guess the project owners or the project managers are a layout of like, guess what it could look like. Right. Is that like, it's like a VR type. Um, like what exactly is, is that
Melissa Wood (04:28.716)
So we don't necessarily focus on any of I guess the work that goes into the renovation. So there's architectural drawings, the interior design, the visuals, all that is still pretty much managed and owned by that renovation professional. What our platform does is create a central kind of a hub for
housing all that information and providing it in a way or provide to the homeowners in a way that gives them that transparency they need to be able to. because right now a lot of the tools that are being used by architects and interior designer are already providing those visuals. The problem is they don't, a lot of times these professionals don't have really no, one have the resources or the time to understand how these tech,
Kyle James (05:15.886)
Hmm
Melissa Wood (05:27.584)
technology works and to implement into their process. So, Formus has created this platform to make that accessible and easy for them to implement in the process and to provide to the homeowners. it's not, it's our platform is really focused on that process and tying into other technology in a way that provides a seamless, all the tools in one place that provides that seamless experience from end to end.
Kyle James (05:57.134)
Gotcha. Gotcha. Awesome. Thanks for explaining that. That's amazing. So I love what you're doing over at Formos. I think it's fantastic. All the things that you're innovating, right? Especially in the Austin area. Tell me, like, talking a little bit on the AI side, like, why did you decide to start implementing or using AI in the first place in Formos? And what challenges were you trying to solve with it?
Melissa Wood (06:20.946)
Yeah, so back to the point, what you mentioned VR earlier. At first, when we first started Formus three years ago, there was a big hype around VR. And so we were looking at that being the primary tool or I guess, like I said before, that central place that everyone meets up and has all the information they need to go through the process. And we created a proof of concept based on that. And although
It was cool, it was effective, it was more of a nice to have than a need to have in this industry. At the end of the day, we learned that technology's just not there yet for this industry to adopt. But through that, at this time, but through that process, what we did learn is that the way that we...
did the, we prepared the homeowner upfront, which is where we had collected all this information from them and were very thorough in that process. We educated them on what to expect going into the process. That piece of the process of, you know, what we did when we, tested out on our homeowner was what brought the most value to, to the, the renovation professionals. And that was kind of our aha moment of
Kyle James (07:36.418)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Wood (07:44.682)
wow. Well, gosh, AI can do this. And so what we kept hearing from the design bill professionals, like the architects, interior designers, the general contractors, was that they're overwhelmed with all the kind non-productive tasks, like answering repetitive client questions, digging through folders to find the right document, or trying to remember where one piece of information was stored.
Kyle James (07:59.821)
Right.
Melissa Wood (08:09.608)
And that eats up their time and it pulls them away from the real work of the design in the build. in the, the tools that they're using now, just, they're just not, they aren't, they aren't cutting it. They aren't flexible enough to handle the complexity and variety of their workflows. because every, every project is different. Every team has its own way of working. So they need something smarter, something that can adapt, learn and deliver accurate, consistent answers without that risk of.
Kyle James (08:12.567)
Right.
Melissa Wood (08:39.582)
of misinformation. So that's when we turned to AI, specifically rag and fine tune language models to give them a way to them scale their expertise without sacrificing that quality and control.
Kyle James (08:47.054)
Okay.
Kyle James (08:54.604)
Yeah, that's amazing. And I can't imagine too, with a, you know, with how big, because of projects are so different for every single client. Like it's not just like one and done. is the, this is the template they need to work with. It's like, Hey, we've got to customize it based on the person's preferences. Right. And so using AI to help say, okay, let's take away some of these common tasks that really are draining the time of that project manager.
who's overseeing it and saying, okay, let me focus on the things that really matter most. In this case, it's like, hey, what's the vision? What's the renovation? What are the pressing matters? So I think it's really cool how the AI is like able to really capitalize on that. And what types of like results have you been, you know, for those who've been using Formis, like what types of results have you been seeing so far since implementing it?
Melissa Wood (09:45.824)
Well, okay, so just a little bit of information around where we're at in development. We are currently in the process of developing the AI agents to streamline this workflow. And so we've been diving into that product design over the last few months and we are deep in it right now. So while we are developing,
We are currently partnering with design build professionals in manually manually stepping in as AI agents ourselves. This lets us test the value of the solution in real world scenarios before we jump fully into development. But just by the renovations that we are manually walking through again as our AI agent, Sadie is the name, we've had the results have been incredible.
Kyle James (10:22.521)
Nice.
Kyle James (10:41.602)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Wood (10:44.396)
incredibly validating. Last year we tested the process on two bathroom renovations. Both were completed with zero mid-construction changes and stayed on budget, which as I'm sure the listeners here know is almost unheard of. Yeah, and so in even more validating we help the renovation professionals cut down over 50 % of the time they usually spend on those non-productive tasks. And so
Kyle James (10:56.598)
Nice.
Yeah. Yeah.
Kyle James (11:12.813)
Wow.
Melissa Wood (11:14.188)
And yeah, so the feedback has been incredibly, has been incredible. Like the professionals we work with are now bringing us in more projects and homeowners are telling their friends about the experience. And so just from this word of mouth alone, we've already completed the planning and the design of four more projects this year and are currently working on five more projects with more in the pipeline. And one last thing, as far as validation, that's kind of the...
Kyle James (11:35.938)
Yeah, yeah, please.
Melissa Wood (11:39.52)
The ultimate validation, our partner architect has already seen a 5X increase in revenue this year compared to last as a result of our process. So yeah, it's working and the momentum is real.
Kyle James (11:46.498)
Bye.
Kyle James (11:50.606)
Yeah. So, so was, yeah. So it was, so talking about, um, you know, Sadie, right. That's what you call, uh, what it's called was now that those numbers you shared from like last year to this year, like when was Sadie actually live and being used for some of your projects? Um, and then I guess tell me like, kind of differentiate that gap between last year and this year and then Sadie.
Melissa Wood (11:58.924)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Wood (12:14.326)
So last year we had, know, so as we're, let me back up a little bit as far as how we're using AI or how we're thinking about using AI. We've been going through doing some deep customer discovery where we talked to design, build professionals to understand their pain points and how they work day to day.
Kyle James (12:21.88)
Sure.
Kyle James (12:29.71)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Wood (12:40.652)
And then we've mapped out jobs to be done. So basically what tasks they're trying to accomplish and where that friction is. From there, we narrowed it in on which of those jobs are truly must have features in the product and bring most value. So now we're building out AI agents specifically designed to support those jobs. And then we'll begin testing them. Well, we have began testing some of them to see how they perform.
Kyle James (12:46.284)
Mm-hmm.
Kyle James (12:55.927)
Mm-hmm.
Kyle James (13:08.28)
Mm-hmm.
Melissa Wood (13:09.964)
So we had an initial kind what we called the onboarding safety last year, where it collected initial information about homeowner projects, educated them on what are the things that they need to think about before going in to make sure they're truly qualified and their expectations are realistic going into the process. So that's how we started. But then going through, as we're mainly
Kyle James (13:17.696)
Okay.
Melissa Wood (13:37.568)
continuing to go through the process with these home renovations, we then spun up on the second renovation, a rag model to be able to then feed Sadie with all the project details so that when it goes into construction, the GC now has quick access, they can reference Sadie for any details about the project and get those.
Kyle James (13:55.797)
Okay. Okay.
Melissa Wood (14:05.448)
answers in real time without having to ping the architect or designer or the homeowner.
Kyle James (14:11.502)
Okay. So it's not like it gives the power back into the, you know, really the, the flexibility for the project manager to go, instead of like having a ping other team members and get disconnected from what they're focusing on, they can just talk to Sadie, right. And pull that data into the conversations that way. It's just, quick 24 seven, right. As fast as possible. So like, far as like, you know, cause you've, you've had some, some time to test out Sadie and you see some of the, guess, almost like the results that it's performing for some of your project managers and your clients.
Melissa Wood (14:28.364)
Yes, yeah
Kyle James (14:41.55)
What would you say like going into 2025 and obviously in 2026? What are some of those upcoming AI initiatives that you feel like you're going to maybe play the biggest role in your operations next?
Melissa Wood (14:56.448)
So how do we see evolving what we're doing now to using AI to support the professionals on a greater scale? Is that what you're asking?
Kyle James (15:01.709)
Mm-hmm.
Kyle James (15:07.638)
Right, exactly, exactly.
Melissa Wood (15:09.98)
Yeah, so that is, you know, I have to keep it very high level because that's our secret sauce.
Kyle James (15:14.402)
To be determined. yeah. Well, Hey, we'll keep it. We'll keep it confidential. Well, we won't, we won't talk about it here on this, on this, but there is something in the works there, right? Like they're.
Melissa Wood (15:21.868)
Yeah, just to, yeah, we're, I mean, we're currently in development now where we have identified, you know, what we've broken apart the pre-construction process from ideation all the way to delivering a design package ready for construction. And we have put it, you know, we've broken apart that process.
Kyle James (15:39.918)
Mmm.
Melissa Wood (15:48.948)
And we've put it back together in a way that we feel is more effective in what we're testing, which has been going really well. And now we're plugging right now, as I mentioned, we are currently manually going through a lot of that process ourselves and we're being steady. So now we're building the agents to be able to automate that instead of them. Eventually we would want to hand the tool over to these renovation professionals to assist them instead of us.
Kyle James (16:09.198)
Mmm.
Melissa Wood (16:17.27)
haven't, know, to be the ones doing it. And so we are building out the agents, the different agents needed to streamline certain parts of the process. And so we should be by Q1 of next year, we should have a ready product, our first version of the product ready to test with renovation professionals.
Kyle James (16:29.027)
Yeah.
Kyle James (16:42.062)
Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. I'm like, I'm like, it makes me more excited because now it's like, it's a secret. But I like how it's like, you are working towards it. And I think it's like putting those project managers and, uh, you know, those who are managing those, those projects, having them put it like they're, that is the first person you have in mind of like, how can we help like save more time for them? So that way they could do more projects instead doing four, you know, four, we, don't know how many, what's the average like for a year per month or however many.
Melissa Wood (16:50.177)
Mm-hmm.
Kyle James (17:11.864)
But like to be able to expedite that so they can do twice as many projects. I think that's going to be where AI can help the most in. And as we start wrapping this up, Melissa, like for those who are listening in and they're really curious to learn a little bit more about Formus, where should they go to learn more about you and, and, Formus?
Melissa Wood (17:17.836)
Yeah.
Melissa Wood (17:29.322)
Yeah, so at this stage in our startup, really the best way to learn more is to schedule a call with us directly. You can reach out to me at Mwood at formus.ai. You can also check out our website. It's very high level information, but can give you an idea. And if you're on Instagram or Facebook, I recommend following us again, formus.ai.
That's where we share project updates and the results of the projects as they happen, which is exciting. Like I said, we have a lot in the works right now and we just recently posted the two bathroom renovations so you can see kind of that transformation. those are the ones where I said there were no mid construction changes and it stayed on budget, which is pretty spectacular.
Kyle James (18:22.412)
Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Cool. Well, thank you so much, Melissa. It was an absolute pleasure to have you on. Hopefully you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did.
Melissa Wood (18:28.67)
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Cal. I appreciate it.
Kyle James (18:31.886)
Yeah, for sure. And remember, if you're looking to implement AI into your own business, don't try and do it yourself. The time and stress that the AI will cause just isn't worth it. Schedule a call with GPT Trainer and let them build out and manage your AI for you. Again, that's gpt-trainer.com. Signing out for now. Have a wonderful rest of your day and looking forward to seeing you on the next episode of AI Chronicles.
