The ConTechCrew Podcast with Yves Frinault
Tara Callinan • Starring in The ConTechCrew’s 189th episode was Yves Frinault of Fieldwire! In this episode, Yves spoke about his professional experience in the military and tech and expressed his strong opinions on amateur scooter riding.
Until just recently, there had been 3 years and 160 episodes between Yves Frinault’s appearances on The ConTechCrew podcast...
And boy have things changed in that time!
Since Yves last spoke with host James Benham, he’s raised a record amount of funding and become a U.S. citizen; news James thought was well worth opening with:
“We’re thrilled to have you as part of the American team and we’re excited to have you back on the show.”
Throughout the latest ConTechCrew episode, Yves spoke about his career in tech, military experience, approach to developing Fieldwire’s app, and more! You can hear all about it online.
Don’t have time? Here is a list of key takeaways, quotes, and insights from the podcast:
- It wasn’t until Yves served a year in the French military that he learned the importance of efficient communication.
- While working in tech at Ubisoft, Yves realized there was a high bar set for products in Silicon Valley. He said: “I realized a product must be enjoyable to use. So when Javed and I started Fieldwire we told ourselves we were going to make a product that's truly enjoyable for craftsmen on-site.”
- Yves is a strong believer in ‘the Freemium model,’ confirming that there will always be a place for small teams to use Fieldwire for free.
- Fieldwire’s task dashboard is used to track any piece of work that needs to be dispatched and inspected. When talking about Fieldwire’s task dashboard, co-host Rob McKinney told Yves: “It sounds like you've taken the two-week lookahead, the project plan, and even some lean methodology and baked it into this new online experience for the office and field to convey productivity and profitability.”
- Yves and his staff use Fieldwire internally to manage and view all of their tasks by priority each day.
- Fieldwire is used on a variety of projects to track and manage the construction of airports, hospitals, highways, and even prefab structures.
- Originally, Yves pitched Fieldwire as ‘the Jira for Construction’ due to its open API which allows one piece of software to integrate with another. Yves said this capabilty is being more utilized as construction companies start to hire in-house developers to build integrations.
- Yves predicts that the convergence of construction hardware and construction software is coming and that it has the potential to take a lot of burden off field-workers.
- By 2025, Yves predicts that 80 percent of Fieldwire's revenue will come from subcontractors.
- Yves believes there are better long-term financial benefits for skilled craftspeople than Uber drivers, who tend to focus on the immediate deposits in their bank accounts rather than the depreciation of their car.
- Fun fact: Yves is not a fan of electric scooters. He said his co-founder, Javed Singha, once rented a scooter and face-planted in the streets of Oakland, CA.
Want more? Listen to episode 189 to hear more from Yves about founding Fieldwire, plus his fresh-takes embedded apps, scooters, and more!
