Vertical: Owners & Developers

Real estate developers and owners put capital at risk on physical projects. They borrow from lenders, deploy capital, hire GCs, and either sell, lease, or hold the asset. Their job is to deliver projects on time, on budget, and to spec — increasingly with audit-grade documentation lenders and investors require. The business runs on two clocks: construction (months/years) and capital (quarterly draws, monthly board reports, annual audits). Software has to serve both.

• Capital stack — layers of financing on a project (senior debt, mezz, preferred equity, common equity). Each has different reporting requirements.
• Draws — scheduled disbursements of construction loan funds tied to completed work.
• Pro forma — the financial model showing expected costs and returns. Updated continuously.
• TI (Tenant Improvements) — buildout work to customize leased space.
• Hard cost / soft cost — hard = physical construction, soft = professional fees, permits, financing costs.
• Stabilization — when a property reaches full income / occupancy.

• CEO / Principal — final decision on tools. Cares about portfolio-level performance.
• VP of Development / Construction — day-to-day project owner. Most likely champion.
• CFO / Controller — finance and audit owner. Cares about lender reporting accuracy.
• Asset Manager — lifecycle owner post-construction. Cares about handoff documentation.

Owner/developer firms tend to be flat. Decisions move fast when the principal is sold. Cycle: 4–8 weeks from intro to signed contract. Watch for finance team gating on contract review and security questionnaires.

1. Lender reporting fire drills. Monthly draws require detailed documentation compiled from spreadsheets the week before each draw.
2. No real-time portfolio health. They learn about overruns after the fact.
3. GC reporting can't be trusted. GCs bias to optimism. Owners need their own independent view.
4. Closeout and warranty handoff. Documentation transfer to property or asset management is usually a mess.
5. Audit prep. Lender, investor, and annual audits all pull from fragments across email, drives, and Procore.

• "Lender reporting in two clicks instead of two days."
• "Real-time portfolio dashboard. Every project on one screen."
• "Independent owner-side view of GC performance."
• "Audit-grade documentation already organized before the auditor arrives."

Procore or ACC for GC workflows. Excel / Google Sheets for pro formas. Yardi or similar for property management. DocuSign for contracts. QuickBooks / NetSuite / Sage for accounting. Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace for documents.

See the Select Projects deck in the Resources Hub for current reference customers.

• Don't talk about field-first UX with a CEO. They don't care.
• Don't lead with closeout. Lead with portfolio reporting.
• Don't pitch integration architecture early. They care about outputs, not architecture.
• Don't go deep on construction terminology unless they bring it up. Many owners are finance-first.