From Disconnect to Deal Flow: How Catha Construction is Redefining Builder-Contractor Partnerships

Quinton Comino: Hello, everyone. Today, I’m sitting down with Dave with Catha Construction. He is connecting the dots between the builders and contractors. Builders don’t necessarily know contractors to use in a new area. Say they wanna start building in the North when they’re typically building in the South—they go up north and they’re not sure who to use. Well, Dave with Catha Construction is filling in that blank space where he says, “Hey, here’s the drywall guy to use. Here’s the siding guy to use.” And then on the flip side he’s helping those contractors get in touch with those builders: “I really always wanted to build for that builder because they do a lot of business in this area or they do really the type of homes that I’m good at—I can’t get my foot in the door. Dave, can you help me?” Dave’s got those connections. And if you’re the right contractor and you can do the right work, he’s sometimes able to help make those connections. So tune in and hear how Dave is providing a new way to connect builders with contractors and contractors with builders.

Quinton Comino: So just to start here, Dave—you’re with Catha Construction, right? Can you just give us an idea of what it is that Catha Construction does and how you fit in the picture? It looks like you’re helping subcontractors get in touch with builders, but I’d like to hear it from you.

Dave: Sure. Yeah. Catha Construction Services is basically what was widely known in high-tech as manufacturers’ representatives. So what we do is we represent good trades that meet our criteria as a good trade to our builder network that we have here in Southwest Florida. So that it takes the guesswork out of shopping for and trial-and-error on subcontractors when they’re doing repeatable builds.

Dave: What we go after for our builders is national builders and the GCs that are building repeatedly—multiple houses a week, multiple houses a month, and large volumes of homes per year. So we go in with a relationship manager. Right now we have trades that do site work, septic, culverts—so if you have a job, a piece of land you own, you wanna build a house on it, we can take care of getting everything ready for your shell contractor or your block-and-mason guys. We also represent the shell contractor so we can bring you right through to framing.

Dave: After that we’re looking to hire mechanicals—plumbers. We’re looking to bring on plumbers, electricians, and HVAC guys as well as insulation guys. Then we can take it back over because we have a full fleet of crews for drywall and stucco, siding—all your exterior requirements for the home. And we represent a couple of general contractors that do a variety of higher-end builds and medium-end builds.

Dave: So in Southwest Florida the housing market ranges anywhere from $260,000 new home up to the multimillions depending on how close you are to the water and that type of thing on your home design. But we have a lot of national builders down here—like Lennar, we have Adams, we have Pulte, we have Toll Brothers—a ton of national builders. They’re all doing anywhere from three to eight a week. So there’s some serious volume there.

Dave: So what we do is we have relationships with all of them. I have over 200 national builders and regional builders in my portfolio that when I call they answer the phone. So I leverage that to represent decent trades.

Quinton Comino: Mhmm.

Dave: Because I was in the building industry—I was project manager, area manager for some of the national builders. That’s my past in the construction industry. Prior to that I was very heavy into high-tech manufacturing. And I’m 60 years old now so I was in high-tech manufacturing when personal computers started and everybody was using DOS. So I worked my way all up to international supply-chain manager for the largest headset manufacturer on the planet. And I managed the supply chain negotiation and all of the logistics to get custom product—our design product—into four different factories in four different parts of the world to support a global manufacturing operation. So I knew supply chain—I knew relationship management. And typically your construction industry is lockstep twenty years behind high-tech in everything. It’s been that way since the turn of the century.

Dave: So it’s time for the manufacturer’s-rep model that was allowing manufacturers of like components and IC chips and boards and stuff to get their products spec’d into manufacturers. So what I do is I represent the trades and get their services put in front of the builders and I take the guesswork out of the builders’ minds of trial-and-error hunting and pecking and whatnot.

Quinton Comino: Yep.

Dave: So I go in and I see a builder—I’m representing multiple trades. My goal is you take that—

Quinton Comino: Sorry—go ahead.

Dave: You’re fine. My goal is to have a full suite of trades enough to take a house from clearing to CO.

Quinton Comino: So how do you take the guesswork out? How do you make sure you’re sending a good contractor to these builders?

Dave: I have many years’ experience in this area of Southwest Florida and I know the good contractors. And I’ve already teamed up with the ones that I have already—they’re very familiar with my work—I’m very familiar with theirs—I got well over six years’ experience using them. And I go after trades that are similar and I go through and audit their process—their business—to make sure they have a robust set of crews that are well-trained and know what they do—they have a good first-pass inspection record—that they have a decent scheduling system—that they have great communications—and they come highly recommended.

Quinton Comino: So you—these contractors—you send them to the builder. Where—like how do you make money on that then? Where does that come in? Why wouldn’t the contractor then just pick up jobs directly from that builder moving forward? How does that work?

Dave: The agreement is I take anywhere from one-and-a-half to 3% depending on my level of involvement in landing the job—and that’s been working out great. It’s a decent moneymaker for us and most of the subs don’t have too much of an issue handing over a small percentage like that for zero cost of customer acquisition.

Quinton Comino: That’s great—that’s their advertising dollars and it’s a high-converting source.

Dave: I take care of all of that—I have a web page, Facebook page, LinkedIn page—and I also offer most of the subs in the construction industry don’t typically handle the social-media presence—so we handle all of that stuff for them as well and we’ve been leveraging AI as much as possible to handle all of this—I can right now deliver an email—an individual email—to over 200 builders that are currently actively building in less than five minutes.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—it’s pretty good. But then what I don’t understand—how you get contractor A—they go with builder—and then the builder likes contractor A—they have another job they’re gonna do—they work directly with that contractor on the next job—how do you make money from that? How do you know that’s not happening?

Dave: I get paid on all the jobs.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—but why would that—

Dave: I set up the relationship—the contract that they have with me—I set up the relationship and I manage the relationship with the builders and the sub—

Quinton Comino: Yeah—you just have—you don’t have a way to audit that beyond their verbal communication.

Dave: No—I have the builders that provide me the reports—that’s the audit trail—the audit trail comes from the customer.

Quinton Comino: Okay—what’s that? When you say report that just means hey yeah we picked up a job on 123 Main Street and we’re using this guy.

Dave: Yeah—that’s basically that’s why—here’s the job—here’s the invoice—here’s the amount—what the job’s worth—this is the value of the job—this is who did the job and they’re in your network.

Quinton Comino: Got it—and they just need to know to do that though.

Dave: Yeah—that’s all part of the agreement—when I go into builders this is who I’m doing—you have an agreement with them too?—I have agreement with builders and I have agreement with the trades—uh-huh okay—and I have—and so they’re—alright—but there’s not a third way to verify it beyond them giving you the information whether it’s the builder or the contractor—correct—alright—so you use—I mean it’s your what your website says there—let me see if I can find it again—where I think it’s on the homepage there—“At Catha we don’t swing hammers—we build relationships”—that’s pretty true—that’s what you’re doing.

Dave: It’s very—and most of the subs don’t like to do what we’re doing—they don’t like to go into the builders and see yeah this one works out here—we’re gonna have a meeting—we’re gonna do this—we’re gonna do this and all that—when I go I’m going into a builder as a whole suite of subcontractors.

Quinton Comino: Yeah.

Dave: Okay—so if one of my builders that I have a deep relationship with they’re not using my siding guy—I’m going in there saying hey how come you’re not using my siding guy?—I got the plans for this—here’s my price on the siding—what do we need to do?—because now they’re used to working with me—there isn’t anybody else doing this in the industry and they’re looking for ways to cut costs—if they can have their purchasing person sit for one hour and discuss 70% of the trades stuff with one guy or one person that’s got some serious cost-savings advantage.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—it really does—why why is industry—

Dave: Their attraction—that’s their attraction to reach out to me and say hey man I need some—you know your shell guy is working great for us—who do you got for drywall?—no problem—I got a job.

Quinton Comino: So would you ever go ahead and decide to become a builder yourself?—because you got all the contacts.

Dave: I can literally execute a build now—okay?—I have two custom builders that can build any house on any lot in Southwest Florida and a few other counties outside of Southwest Florida—they’re doing it now and I’m repping them now—but they’re not production builders—really?—yeah yeah—I got Fusion as one and Sinclair Structural is another one—both of those guys are full-fledged builders that have a portfolio of some really decent houses—the nice part about repping those guys is all the subs get first crack—and when you’re a subcontractor and you sign up with me part of the deal is you hand over your customer list—couple of reasons—one is we work as a team—we are non-competing subcontractors—I don’t have two drywallers two stuccoers two shell contractors—I have two full-fledged builders just because they’re in different markets they serve different customers—but everybody hands over their trades list—two reasons for that—one is we work as a team—we’re trading off stuff—so when we have the next follow-on sub the prior sub calls the next follow-on sub and says hey dude I finished this job—we’re all set—you can come in tomorrow—okay watch out for this and this—that type of thing—we have that communication and we also communicate that back to the builder—okay—so that just helps the builder—it’s an extra set of hands and an extra set of eyes—and what it does for the reach and the attraction for the subs to sign up is I have a very impressive builder list right now—when a sub comes on they get full exposure to that—that builder list was generated over multiple years of business through all of my subs.

Quinton Comino: Mhmm.

Dave: The other kicker that I found out—and I was completely shocked when I heard this—many subs have a lot of builder contacts that they don’t nurture—they’re not in routine—

Quinton Comino: Oh wow.

Dave: Like you—you’re doing your podcast you’re doing a lot of stuff to bring this in front and keep your name out there to your customers—

Quinton Comino: Mhmm—yeah.

Dave: We’re doing something similar with newsletters direct email feeds AI interaction—we just put in our first AI customer-service trainer type avatar—mhmm okay—and we’ll be launching that out and we just started dribbling it out now—so it’s interesting—actually yesterday—so I was hoping to have a lot more under my belt before we had this call but it was like okay time snuck up on me and been busy—no that’s alright—so so I mean yeah there’s a ton of benefits by joining forces as a team—and that’s the way I’m approaching it where I’m not doing competitive subs—so I’m not picking and choosing hey yeah this electrician’s the best one for you and I got five electricians—not two electricians too—any two subs doing the same is not gonna be willing to hand over their customer list—but complementary subs that are in the same quality level robustness of service—yeah yeah first-pass yields—now they get a name and what I’m doing right now is just establishing Catha Construction Services as your go-to for finding really good trades—we got our builders—our builders are experiencing anywhere from seventy-five to ninety-five-day routine break-ground-to-CO construction times—

Quinton Comino: That’s amazing.

Dave: On your repetitive plans for your national builders—now your one-off custom-designed eight-bedroom home on the water that’s still you know a magnitude larger of time frame of build—however yeah there isn’t wasted time because you’re trying to align subs that you’re trying to align inspections that you’re trying to fix failed inspections—with us you don’t get failed inspection—it’s really good—and you don’t get callbacks from customers after you hand them the keys.

Quinton Comino: Well that’s fantastic Dave—we have a lot of contractors that will be listening to this for sure—and just tell them Southwest Florida—yep they’re in the Southwest Florida region—have them reach out—we got our website Facebook page—I’m sure we’ve I gave you all that stuff yeah when we set this one up—but yeah we’re looking for—we’re looking for MEPs mechanical plumbing electric—we’re looking for insulators—mhmm we have we need you know cat tile floor sorry flooring which is essentially tile and carpet—and we need looks like we need trim and paint as well—mhmm okay—we’ve had some issues with one of our companies and where doesn’t look like it’s gonna get resolved favorably—so those are the ones we’re looking for and there’s only spot for one—okay?—so I’m not trying to drive an urgency thing—it’s our policy—we will not—and we will only carry the best of the best—okay?—so you need to have you know capacity to do five six seven eight homes a week—so you need multiple crews and all of that stuff you know—and that’s what we got at my my siding company is running 246 crews and covers the entire state of Florida—literally that’s amazing the entire state of Florida—so you need siding—they’re doing residential siding—they’re doing commercial siding and they’re doing production-build siding and one-offs—they’re extremely busy and a very well-run company—very well-run company.

Quinton Comino: That’s amazing.

Dave: The drywallers and stucco guys they’re almost there—they get about half the state—my shell contractor he’s more—so if we have territories that’s the only way we’d cover yeah multiple trades—okay yeah we’re geographic location but we’ll never have the same competing trade with overlapping territories—that will never happen.

Quinton Comino: So when you’re in—

Dave: Yep—you gotta be good—you’re in—excellent—so that’s what we’re all about—and we are working to run it as remotely as possible where we do Zoom calls—I have quite a presence in Thailand and I like to spend a lot of my time in Thailand—and I have everything set up where we can do the exact same thing in Thailand from Thailand—we can set up Zoom meetings—we can set up we have all document shares and all of that stuff—we’re actually there shaking your hand—it’s great you know and taking you through the entire thing—2025—yep oh absolutely—and it’s amazing what the capabilities that we have right now and mhmm how little they’re being utilized in this industry.

Quinton Comino: I know—that’s for sure—well thank you thank you Dave—appreciate having you on today—so cathaconstructionservices.com—it’s gonna be where to go to see all that information—it’s got your phone number has your email Facebook LinkedIn all of that is there—so for anyone listening is a contractor or a builder for that matter on either sides of that coin cathaconstructionservices.com—and get in touch with Dave and he’s you either better be the best or if you’re a builder he’s gonna put you in touch with the best—so thank you for your time today man—really appreciate that.

Dave: Yep—we also scrutinize our builders too—yeah—so we will let yeah we the builders have the same scrutiny as the subs—okay we marry a relationship’s not gonna work unless they’re both equal on both sides—absolutely—so that’s the way it goes—that’s what we’re doing.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—appreciate it—I love I love that you’re bringing this innovation so to speak—yep so it’s just a new—

Dave: Yeah—we also have a TikTok channel—I got 54,000 followers when I explored into Thailand—I did a hey look at me I’m in Thailand—so we’ve transitioned that to Catha Construction Services because when I came back in March is when we kinda gave birth to Catha Construction—and we’ve only been doing this since March—we’ve been working we got protected territories for our subs—builders are very happy and things are moving at lightning pace—I have folks from other states calling me saying dude you you operate in this state?—do you wanna operate in this state?—yeah you’re like doing this remotely—can we set up something where I can launch my own in this state?—so we’re exploring those areas as well for expanding yeah that’s there’s a lot of value with that the system—we have a system—we have a business model and it’s working—and it’s working very way beyond what my expectations were—I just put this up to make a reasonable living and it’s just blown up—so now we’re very happy—we’re very happy with it.

Quinton Comino: Yeah—that’s so cool man—well congratulations on that Dave—

Dave: Thank you—that’s awesome—as far as I know we’re the only one that’s got this kind of business model—okay—and it’s just I bring it forth because it’s you know time that it happens and it’s going lockstep with the twenty years from high-quality manufacturing and how they were able to scale and all that stuff because the all the builders of products relinquish that to contract manufacturers—that’s gonna be the next stage five years down the road—your major builders I mean when it tell when you’d look at a national builder and they wanna break into another territory it’s anywhere from two-and-a-half to $5,000,000 out-of-pocket cost for those builders to set up and staff in any area—if they have a Catha Construction Services that’s got a full suite of trades and project-management skills which we have—all you have to do is make a phone call—we build your model—you staff it with your salespeople which are typically commissioned—okay?—you buy land—we don’t buy land—we don’t speculate—we don’t design houses—we execute the build and we execute it better than anybody else—that’s what we can do today—literally it’s really good that today but it’s a hard sell for all the national builders okay to say I can build better than you—but I got a very good track record on building and I know a lot of project managers that would love to build this way—yeah yeah—and I got the trades to support it.

Quinton Comino: Sounds like you’re onto something with that for sure—absolutely.

Dave: It’s it’s it’s gonna happen—it’s just historically it’s there—it’s just I walked the path just in a different industry—so now to me it’s déjà vu.

Quinton Comino: You’ve already done it.

Dave: Yep—yep—yep—did it many times over in high-tech.

Quinton Comino: Well thank you Dave—watch thank you—we’ll get this out there and we’ll make sure to include your URL your website and your phone number for anyone to reach out to Facebook as well on LinkedIn—that way they can just contact you directly and get plugged in with the ecosystem that you’re creating in the Southwest Florida market—and I’m sure that in time you’ll expand throughout Florida—it sounds like some of your crews already do a lot of that—the siding crew in particular is already statewide—so it’s a great trajectory forward from what I can tell—Dave?

Dave: Thank you—I greatly appreciate it sir.

Quinton Comino: We’ll see you.

Dave: Okay—you take care—bye bye.