Episode Description
Paul Zeckser didn’t follow the traditional path into construction. He’s not an architect, engineer, or contractor - but as the Co-Founder and CEO of LightTable, he is solving one of construction’s most expensive problems: helping project teams catch drawing and coordination issues before they become RFIs, change orders, and delays.
LightTable was built around an issue Paul believes is bigger than effort or attention to detail. Project teams are managing hundreds of drawing sheets, thousands of pages of specifications, and countless decisions across disciplines. Even strong, experienced teams can miss technicalities or miscoordinate details. LightTable uses AI to review drawings and specs during pre-construction, identify errors and omissions, and rank the issues most likely to create costly problems once construction commences.
Before LightTable, Paul spent years building products by getting close to the end user. At HomeAdvisor, that meant learning from contractors directly and understanding where software helped, where it failed, and where real customer pain lived. LightTable carries that same approach into construction: listen to your customer closely, understand their workflow, and develop accordingly.
Inside this week’s episode:
- Why LightTable is solving pre-construction risk, not just speeding up document review
- How AI helps project teams find the issues most likely to become RFIs, change orders, and delays
- What a missed coordination detail on a multifamily project reveals about the true cost of drawing errors
- Why the founding team had to combine AEC knowledge, AI expertise, and company-building experience
- LightTable’s $22M Series A and the next stage of AI in construction
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