Henry Harrison:
I want to welcome to the show today Alexandre Teplitxky—Alex Teplitxky. It took me a couple tries to get that right. Alex is the marketing leader of Smart PM Technologies, Inc. In construction, “PM” stands for project management. Alex also has an extensive background in marketing and entrepreneurship. Alex, welcome to the show.
Alexandre Teplitxky:
Hello, Henry. Thanks for having me.
Henry Harrison:
Tell me about Smart PM. It’s dynamic business software. I have a background in construction—I used to own a custom home building company—so I’m familiar with delays, which I know is a major focus for your organization. There’s also so much new technology coming along with AI. I’ve looked at your website and can see the benefits, but you can explain it better than I can.
Alexandre Teplitxky:
Let me describe the ecosystem first. I’ve been in construction tech for over 10 years now, which is almost a dinosaur era given how young the category really is.
I worked at Procore, which put construction tech on the map. I worked at Autodesk. I worked for another AI startup in construction scheduling. Now I’m at Smart PM.
When I started, there were a few dozen companies solving construction workflows. Now there are thousands—literally more than 5,000 companies, from large players to startups—looking at delays, cost overruns, and related problems from different angles.
About a year ago, I joined Smart PM because I believed their approach was unique.
Smart PM’s mission is to fight delay in construction. Delay is the root cause behind many issues: cost overruns, strained relationships between owners and contractors and subcontractors—you’ve seen this.
If you browse websites in the industry—Procore, Autodesk, or thousands of others—most are saying the same thing: “We’ll help you fight delays and cost overruns.” But many do it indirectly.
Smart PM approaches it differently. Our founder, Michael Pink, was a consultant for 20 years. He manually analyzed projects—during and after completion—to understand the story of delays and identify responsible parties.
After doing this year after year, he realized much of it could be automated. It’s data, calculations, algorithms—and also interpretation. He had that “secret recipe.”
We take schedule data—which we believe is one of the most important and comprehensive datasets in construction—and run analytics and calculations on it. We use AI to surface insights and tell the story of how the project is performing.
The point is to give visibility to all stakeholders—executives, project controls, scheduling experts, superintendents, project managers—whether they’re scheduling experts or not. The goal is to help teams act before it’s too late and fight delay.
Henry Harrison:
So, because your founder did such in-depth analysis, you believe Smart PM has one of the best solutions out there?
Alexandre Teplitxky:
Absolutely.
Construction tech is still relatively new, even though construction is one of the largest industries in the world and employs millions. For a long time, venture capital avoided it—too fragmented, workflows too complex.
Then Procore and a few others put it on the map, capital flowed in, and many tech entrepreneurs sensed opportunity. That’s not inherently bad, but there’s been a disconnect: many teams can write code, but they don’t understand construction.
Some think construction is only people pouring concrete. They don’t understand how diverse the roles and workflows are.
A lot of startups come in trying to “disrupt,” but construction doesn’t want disruption. It wants to be understood. There are reasons technology adoption has lagged compared to other industries.
Finance is easy to digitize. Construction is complicated. You need people who have lived the pain—office and job site—and can build solutions appropriately.
Smart PM is built by people who understand the work. That founder experience is invaluable. When he speaks, people listen because they know he understands what’s happening.
Henry Harrison:
Give an example—something a construction guy and a layman can understand—of what the software does to save time and make the project more efficient.
Alexandre Teplitxky:
We tend to work on larger projects—typically $5–10 million and up, sometimes into the billions. Those schedules can have thousands of activities. It becomes difficult to know what’s really happening.
Many teams do monthly updates. By the time you update, a month is gone. You’re looking backward instead of addressing issues early.
Some basic things we analyze: activities that should have started but didn’t, activities that should have finished but didn’t, and how the schedule is being compressed.
For example, if a project is delayed, teams might “recover” by planning to do double the work later. You can put that in a schedule, but our system flags whether it’s realistic based on historical productivity.
We also evaluate schedule quality itself. We’ve processed hundreds of thousands of schedules and run checks to see if the baseline schedule is reliable.
We recently found that about 88% of baseline schedules are not high enough quality to make strong decisions from. If the schedule is flawed from day one, you’re not set up for success.
A key value is that teams don’t have to spend hours building reports. You upload the schedule and get dashboards, trends, and insights quickly—so teams can interpret and act.
And we serve as a neutral, data-driven reference point. Instead of owners and contractors arguing based on opinions or intuition, they can align around the data and have a better conversation.
Henry Harrison:
Companies always consider adoption: how quickly and smoothly can teams get plugged into it without taking away from other priorities?
Alexandre Teplitxky:
Adoption and implementation are critical.
Thousands of construction tech startups are reaching out to the same large contractors. Every startup claims they’ll fight delays, reduce risk, and be easy to adopt. Leaders have to be careful about what they pilot.
If implementation fails, it doesn’t just waste money—it hurts internal credibility. Project managers won’t trust the next tool you bring in.
That’s why implementation has to be structured: timeline, agenda, clear expectations, training, and support. If customers can’t deploy successfully in the first three to six months, churn risk rises—and that’s what we want to avoid.
Henry Harrison:
You have two specialties: construction tech and marketing. When you were a kid, were you interested in marketing or construction? What led you here?
Alexandre Teplitxky:
Neither, actually.
I love building things, but I’m not an engineer. I’m more of a product-minded person. I had a startup after college and loved building, but I’m not a developer.
So marketing became the way to be part of building something I wasn’t coding myself.
As for construction, growing up in a world becoming more digitized made me want to work on something tangible. Construction has real-world impact: houses, schools, power plants, data centers.
And I’m wired to notice inefficiency. Construction has enormous room for optimization. Inefficiencies across permitting, admin work, and double entry all have real costs—paid by owners, contractors, and ultimately the public.
If you can save days or weeks on major projects, that’s real impact: less disruption, lower costs, better outcomes for communities.
Henry Harrison:
You’ve also been an angel investor in a prefab-related software company. How did that go?
Alexandre Teplitxky:
Yes—Offsite. They focus on software for prefabrication workflows.
Prefabrication can solve parts of housing shortage and cost issues by moving work into factory-controlled environments. That reduces waste and improves consistency.
A lot of larger contractors are increasing prefab efforts. I heard about Offsite through the broader Procore network—people sharing ideas about where the industry is going—and I supported it because I believe in the trend.
I’m always interested in supporting entrepreneurs with strong ideas, whether in construction tech or beyond.
Henry Harrison:
To wrap up, you have interesting hobbies—traveling to 60 countries, and paragliding. Tell me about that.
Alexandre Teplitxky:
Paragliding is actually connected to construction tech for me. Procore’s offices are on bluffs above the Pacific Ocean. You’d be in a meeting room overlooking the ocean and see paragliders outside. It was hard not to notice.
Santa Barbara is one of the best places to paraglide because of its geography and thermal conditions. I discovered the sport there.
Transcript Disclaimer:
This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability. Filler words and minor repetitions were removed, and formatting was adjusted while preserving the original tone and intent of the conversation.
It’s a unique kind of freedom—quiet, peaceful, and it forces you to focus. I’m also a pilot, but paragliding is different. It’s simpler and more immersive.
Travel is another passion. For me, it builds empathy. You see different cultures and realize people everywhere are trying to figure out what’s best for their lives, just in different ways.
Henry Harrison:
That’s a great conclusion. Thank you for coming on. It’s been a pleasure having Alexandre Teplitxky, marketing leader at Smart PM Technologies, Inc.
Alexandre Teplitxky:
Thank you so much, Henry, for having me.
