JFK Custom Homes went from running 5–7 residential builds a year to 10–15, with a team of about four people, after putting scheduling, purchase orders and variations into one platform: Buildern.
“Buildern brings all of the construction tools that you need in one place. And it’s very easy to learn,” says Ali Sina Ali Zada, Director at JFK Custom Homes
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Company | JFK Custom Homes |
| Focus | Custom residential builds, $1M–$1.5M per project |
| Team | ~4 people across office and site |
| Previous tool | Beams build software |
| Buildern features used most | Scheduling, purchase orders, variations |
| Key result | From 5–7 jobs a year to 10–15 jobs a year |
About JFK Custom Homes
JFK Custom Homes builds high-end residential projects, typically valued between $1 million and $1.5 million. The business runs lean: around four people cover both the office and the job sites.
Ali bought into JFK about four months before this interview. He leads supervision, moving between sites to check progress and quality, and then heads back to the office to solve the day’s problems and help with estimating, scheduling and admin.
The challenge: software nobody could learn
Before Buildern, Ali used Beams build software in his previous roles. Its biggest cost wasn’t the license; it was the learning curve.
For a four-person team splitting time between site and office, every hour spent training someone on software is an hour not spent building. JFK needed a system the whole team could pick up immediately.
Why Buildern: easy to learn, everything in one place
Ali knows most of the construction software on the market. Two things set Buildern apart for him:
- Ease of use. “As soon as you start using it, it’s like you already know how to run it.”
- All-in-one. Scheduling, estimating and budgets live in a single platform instead of being spread across separate tools.
Asked about onboarding, he was blunt: “There’s no learning curve. You know how to run Buildern from day one.”
How JFK uses Buildern day to day
The team leans on three tools most:
- Scheduling. Every job is scheduled up front with all its tasks, and progress is tracked against that schedule.
- Purchase orders. POs and subcontracts go out to trades directly from Buildern.
- Variations. When a change comes up mid-build, the variation is written in Buildern and sent to the client for signing.
The variations tool is Ali’s favorite, because clients get it.
“The way Buildern sets up the template is very, very easy to understand for our clients.”
Clients and subcontractors: a smooth switch
For trades, the change was barely noticeable. Early on, POs went out without a PDF copy attached; Buildern added that, and purchase orders now arrive with the PDF included.
From there, subcontractors received POs much as they always had by email, just generated and tracked from one system. Clients, meanwhile, got cleaner, easier-to-read variations to sign.
The results: twice the jobs, same small team
The headline number: JFK now runs 10–15 jobs a year, up from 5–7 (roughly double) without growing beyond its four-person team.
“Buildern has definitely helped us take on more projects. We can track all of the jobs and budgets, and we have all of the variations in one place on each project.”
With every schedule, budget and variation visible per project, the team can take on more work without losing control of any single build.
Ali’s advice for builders still on spreadsheets
Spreadsheets and pen and paper work, until you try to grow. Ali puts the breaking point at about three jobs.
“An Excel sheet works for maybe one or two projects. But as soon as you grow over three jobs, trying to track budgets and invoices, there’s lots of paperwork involved. It’ll be very hard to track.”
His advice: move to a platform like Buildern before that point, so you have the capacity to take on more jobs and track them all in one place.
Full customer story video:
Ready to run more jobs with the team you already have? Book a Buildern demo and see how estimating, takeoff, scheduling, purchase orders, and variations work together in one platform.
