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Practical knowledge for specialty contractors
Compliance, change management, project controls, and the data discipline that compounds across bids. Written for California specialty subs — owners, PMs, estimators, and the field.
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Closing the loop — warranty callbacks become next year's contingency
Most subs lose the warranty data trail because the callback lives in a different inbox than the estimate. The loop is short, the payoff is high, and the discipline is mostly about where the data lives.
How estimate pricing is calculated
Every estimate line runs the same four-step recipe — pad the quantity, extend by unit cost (tax on material only), add overhead then profit margin, round. Profit is a margin; overhead is a markup or a margin, set per estimate.
Log an opportunity and work the pipeline
From "heard about a job" to a pursuit moving through Qualify, Budget, Bidding, and Bid Submitted — where work enters STrOp and how the board tracks it to award.
Price your first estimate — cost types, assemblies, and the bid
Build an estimate line by line — cost types, assemblies priced per square foot, labor from your agreement's loaded rate — and read the raw cost, overhead, margin, and bid price it rolls up to.
Productivity rate capture — today's timecard becomes tomorrow's bid
The estimator's productivity assumption is the single biggest source of bid variance. The fix is a feedback loop, and the loop only works if timecard data lives in the same system as the assemblies.
Send your first proposal
The proposal builds itself from your estimate — address it, shape what the GC sees, print the PDF, and mark it Submitted so your pipeline knows the bid is out.
The STrOp glossary — what we call things, and why
Construction has never agreed on its words — the same term means three different things depending on who's talking. Here's the one name STrOp uses for each thing, and the words we deliberately split.
Why the record is a database, not a folder of spreadsheets
Spreadsheets are where a sharp operator thinks. They're a bad place to keep the shop's record. What a relational database does that a folder of .xlsx files can't — one fact in one place, links that can't be mistyped, locks that hold for everyone, a history of who changed what — and why every list in STrOp still exports to CSV.
Your estimate is your earliest budget — not the contract value
The contract value tells you what the GC owes you. The estimate tells you what the job is supposed to cost. Confusing them is how subs miss a 30% margin compression.
See STrOp in action
Single-pipeline operations for California specialty contractors — bid through warranty.
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